n for you? And are not the most part
of you every one given to covetousness, your heart and eye after it,
seeking gain and advantage more than the kingdom of heaven? Doth not every
one of you, as you have power in your hand, oppress one another, and wrong
one another? Now, our end in speaking thus to you, is not to drive you to
desperation. No, indeed, but as there was a word of the Lord sent to such
by Isaiah, so we bring a word unto you. That which ruins you, is your
carnal confidence. Ye are presumptuous as this people, and cry, "The
temple of the Lord, the work of the Lord," &c. as if these would save you.
Know, therefore, that all these will never cover you in the day of wrath.
Know there is a necessity to make peace with God, and your righteousness
must exceed the righteousness of a profession, and external privileges and
duties, or else ye shall be as far from the kingdom of heaven as Sodom and
Gomorrah. We speak of rulers' sins, that ye may mourn for them, lest ye be
judged with them. If ye do not mourn for them in secret, know that they
are your sins, ye are companions with them. Many fret, grudge, and cry out
against oppression, but who weeps in secret? Who prays and deprecates
God's wrath, lest it come upon them? And while it is so, the oppression of
rulers becomes the sin of the oppressed themselves.

"Hear the word of the Lord." It were a suitable preparation for any word
that is spoken, to make it take impression, if it were looked on "as the
word of the Lord," and "law of our God." And truly no man can hear aright
unless he hear it so. Why doth not this word of the Lord return with more
fruit? Why do not men tremble or rejoice at it? Certainly, because it is
not received as God's word. There is a practical heresy in our hearts,
which rather may be called atheism--we do not believe the Scriptures. I do
not say men call it in question, but I say, ye believe them not. It is one
thing to believe with the heart, another thing not to doubt of it. Ye
doubt not of it, not because ye do indeed believe it, but because ye do
not at all consider it. It is one thing to confess with the mouth, and
another thing to believe with the heart, for ye confess the Scriptures to
be God's word, not because ye believe them, but because ye have received
such a tradition from your fathers, have heard it from the womb
unquestioned. O that this were engraven on your heart--that these commands,
these curses, these promises are divine tr