religion, yet will never be at the pains of inward and spiritual duties. § 5. And even the godly themselves are too lazy seekers of their everlasting rest. Alas! what a disproportion is there between our light and heat? our profession and prosecution? Who makes that haste, as if it were for heaven? How still we stand? How idly we work? How we talk, and jest, and trifle away our time? How deceitfully we perform the work of God? How we hear, as if we heard not; and pray, as if we prayed not; and examine, and meditate, and reprove sin, as if we did it not; and enjoy Christ, as if we enjoyed him not; as if we had learned to use the things of heaven, as the apostle teacheth us to _use the things of the world_? What a frozen stupidity hath benumbed us! We are dying, and we know it, and yet we stir not! we are at the door of eternal happiness, or misery, and yet we perceive it not; death knocks, and we hear it not; God and Christ call and cry to us "_To-day, if ye will hear my voice, harden not your hearts; work, while it is day, for the night cometh when none can work_. Now ply your business, labor for your lives, lay out all your strength and time; now or never;" and yet we stir no more than if we were half asleep. What haste doth death and judgment make? How fast do they come on? They are almost at us, and yet what little haste we make? Lord, what a senseless, earthly, hellish thing is a hard heart! Where is the man that is in earnest a Christian? Methinks men every where make but a trifle of their eternal state. They look after it but a little by the bye; they do not make it the business of their lives. If I were not sick myself of the same disease, with what tears should I mix this ink? With what groans should I express these complaints? And with what heart grief should I mourn over this universal deadness? § 6. Do magistrates among us seriously perform their work? Are they zealous for God? Do they build up his house? Are they tender of his honor? Do they second the word? And fly in the face of sin and sinners, as the disturbers of our peace, and the only cause of all our miseries? Do they improve all their power, wealth, and honor, and all their influence, for the greatest advantage to the kingdom of Christ, as men that must shortly give an account of their stewardship?