reformation in your lives, and yet take his covenant in your mouth, and
call yourselves by his name, "Christians?" And shall not God challenge you
for that, as much as for your swearing, and cursing, and lying, &c.?
Indeed the Lord putteth all in one roll, and you need not please
yourselves in such things, Psal. i. 16; Jer. vii. 9, 10; for it is all one
to you to go to tavern to drink, and come to the sermon,--to blaspheme
God's name, and call on it; because the profanity of the one defileth the
other, and the holiness of the other cannot make you holy.

_Thirdly_, The natural man's performances want the uprightness, reality,
and sincerity that is required. It is but a painted tomb, full of
rottenness within; it is but a shadow without substance, for he wanteth
the spiritual part of worship, which God careth for, who will be
worshipped "in spirit and in truth," John iv. 24. Now, what is it that the
most part of you can speak of, but an outside of some few duties, soon
numbered? You hear the preaching, and your hearts wander about your
business. You hear, and are not so much affected as you would be to hear
some old story or fable told you. A stage play acted before this
generation would move them more than the gospel doth; so that Christ may
take up this lamentation, "We have piped to you, and you have not danced;
lamented to you, and you have not mourned." You use to tell over some
words in your prayers, and are not so serious in any approach to God, as
in twenty other things of the world. Whatever you plead of your heart's
rightness, and have recourse to it, when your conversation cannot defend
you, yet your hearts are the worst of all, and have no uprightness towards
God; for you know that what duties you go about, it is not from an inward
principle, but from education, or custom, or constraint. Are you upright,
when you are forced, for fear of censure, to come here, or to pray at
home? Is that sincerity and spiritual worship? And for the more polished
and refined professors, you have this moth in your performances, and this
fly to make your ointment to stink, that you do much to be seen of men.
Therefore, what little fervour of spirit is in secret duties, there you
may measure your attitude and your life. And O! how wearisome, how
lifeless are secret approaches! You would not have many errands to God, if
you thought no body looked upon you. And for spirituality, it is a mystery
in all men's practice. Who directeth h