Spirit too. So many apologies, and excuses to him when he calls, A little more sleep and slumber, and folding of the hands: Such drowsie∣hearted slovenly usage when he comes, that no wonder if we grieve him out of our houses: Such contentedness in our present servile estate, that if a Jubilee should be proclaimed from Heaven, a general Manumission of all servants from these Gallies of sin, we would be ready with those servants for whom Moses makes a provision, to come and tell him plaingly, We will not go out free,Ex. xxi. 6. be bored through the ear to be slaves for ever, Ex. xxi. 6.3. Rankness, and a kind of spiritual sin of Sodom; Pride and fulness of bread, abusing the Grace of God into wantonness; either to the ostentatious setting themselves out before men, or else the feeding themselves up to that high flood of spiritual pride & confidence, that it will be sure to impostumate in the soul. Some men have been fain to be permitted to sin, for the abating this humour in them by way of phlebotomy; S. Peter, I think, is an example of that. Nebuchadnez∣zar was turned a grazing, to cure his secular Pride; and S. Paul, I am sure, had a Messenger sent to him to that purpose, by way of preven∣tion, that he might not be exalted above measure; and when he thought well of it, he receives it as a present sent him from Heaven, , reckons of it as a gift of Grace, or if you will, a medicinal dose, or recipe, but rather a playster, or outward applica∣tion, which per antiperistasin would drive in his spiritual heat, and so help his weak digestion of grace, make him the more thriving Chri∣stian for ever after.The Issue of this first Inference is this, That 'tis not God's partial or niggardly dispencing of Grace; but either our unpreparedness to re∣ceive, or preposterous giddiness in making use of it, which is the cause either of Consumption, or Aposthume in the Soul, either starving or surfeiting the Christian.The second Inference, how all the Christians diligence is to be placed; what he hath to do in this wayfare to his home: And that is the same that all Travellers have, first, to be alway upon his feet, ad∣vancing minutely something toward his next stage. See that we be employed, or else how can God assist; we must , or else he cannot ; and see that we be employed aright, or else God must not, cannot assist. The Sluggards devotions can never get into Gods pre∣sence; they want heat and spirit to lift them up, and activity to press and enfore them when they are there. It was an impression in the very Heathen, Porcius Cato in the History, That watching, and act∣ing, and advising aright, and not emasoulate womanish supplications alone, were the means, whereby Gods help is obtained, Ubi socordiae atque ignaviae tradideris, frustra Deos implores.Hier. in Aug. car. Pyth. And Jerome to the same purpose, that their sacrifice are but , food for the fire to devour; and their richest offerings to the Temple, but a spoil to the sacrilegious to prey on: And the sinners devotions must not be enter∣tained 0