3dly, To stay our too eager pursuit after the world, and be content with little, and rather to be taken up about our souls, and how to be carried through in the evil day. Let us regard what Jeremiah said to Baruch, Jer. xiv. 5. "Seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not.”
4thly, To labour to settle matters, and keep them clear between God and you, that there be no standing controversy betwixt the Lord and you.
Fifthly, and lastly, Our days are evil, in respect of the guilt of former times yet unpurged away. Our days are like those of Josiah, 2 Kings xxiii. 26. Notwithstanding, the Lord turned rot from the fierceness of his great wrath, wherewith his great anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the provocations that Manasseth had provoked him withal.” The perfidious treachery and apostasy of the land from the covenanted work of reformation, the blood of the saints shed for the cause of God, with the oppressions, violences, and persecutions on that score, are like the iniquity of Baal-peor, from which the land is not purged to this day. And this generation are serving themselves heirs to it, by the many pieces of defection fast carried on at this day. So that God seems to be about to reckon with the present generation for all together.
This calls to the redeeming of time, to be taking a back-look of the national controversies of old and of late, to be mourning over them, and the dishonour done to God by them; and to be preparing to meet the Lord in the way of his judgments.
I shall conclude all with another use, namely,
USE II. Of reproof to two sorts of persons.
1. To those who go with the stream of the evil days, and are themselves following the profane and backsliding courses of the day, that make the time so evil. Alas! how many are there, who are drawing on wrath on themselves and on the land by their irreligion, profaneness, and apostasy from God? Let such consider,
(1.) How dangerous it is to be found among those who are in a conspiracy against God, to provoke his wrath When the flood of dishonour to God runs so high, those that join themselves in the sinful courses of the day, they not only have a hand in provoking God
