observe it with my whole heart," Psal. cxix. 34; "If ye know these
things (saith Christ), happy are ye if ye do them," John xiii. 17. The
point is plain, and needeth no proof but application.

Let me therefore, honourable worthies, leave in your bosoms this one point
more: Many of the servants of God who have stood in this place, and could
do it better than I can, have been calling upon you to go on in the work
of reformation: O "be not slothful in business," Rom. xii. 11; and forget
not to do as you have been taught. Had you begun at this work, and gone
about the building of the house of God as your first and chief business, I
dare say you should have prospered better. It was one cause, among others,
why the children of Israel (though the greater number, and having the
better cause too) did twice fall before Benjamin, because, while they made
so great a business for the villainy committed upon the Levites'
concubine, they had taken no course with the graven image of the children
of Dan (Jud. xviii. 30, 31), a thing which did more immediately touch God
in his honour.

But I am confident errors of this kind will be now amended, and that you
will, by double diligence, redeem the time. I know your trouble is great,
and your cares many, in managing the war, and looking to the safety of the
kingdom, yet mark what David did in such a case: "Behold, in my trouble
(saith he) I have prepared for the house of the Lord an hundred thousand
talents of gold, and a thousand thousand talents of silver; and of brass
and iron without weight," 1 Chron. xxii. 14. David did manage great wars
with mighty enemies, (2 Sam. v., viii., x., xi.,) the Philistines,
Moabites, Ammonites, and Syrians; beside the intestine war made first by
Abner (2 Sam. ii. 8), and afterward by Absalom (2 Sam. xv. 10), and after
that by Sheba (2 Sam. xx. 1.) Notwithstanding of all this, in his trouble
and poverty (the word signifieth both), he made this great preparation for
the house of God; and if God had given him leave, he had, in his trouble,
built it too, for you well know he was not hindered from building the
temple by the wars or any other business, but only because God would not
permit him.

Set before you also the example of the Jews, when the prophets of God did
stir them up to the building of the temple, Ezra v. 1, 2. They say not, We
must first build the walls of Jerusalem to hold out the enemy, but the
text saith, "They began to build the house of God.