THE CITIZENS SACRED ENTERTAINMENT: BEING An Essay to Ingratiate the practise of virtue, to Consummate the Happiness of human Nature and to gratify Ingenuous and Religious Spirits. By Thos. Fydge.  {αβγδ}. Pythag. 
LONDON, Printed by E. C. and are to be sold by H. Eversden at the Greyhound in St. Pauls Church-yard, W. Flindel at the White-Hart in Westminster-Hall, and W. Fairfax under St. Edmonds Church in Lombardstreet. M. DC. L. X. VI.   

To the truly virtuous and happily Successful LIONEL LOCKIER Physician and chemist.  
Worthy Sir,  
I Presume the Dedication of this Treatise to your Patronage, will be no less a surprise to you, then to many others, whose censure of disgust I am not only ware of, but armed against. I ought in custom first to beg your pardon, before I can expect your acceptance. But that certain Information suggests to me it were a vain attempt to endeavour by Rhetorical Insinuations and Pedantique Artifices, to persuade you to the exercise of a candid and generous disposition, whose respect to the Church, charity to the necessitous, courtesies to Strangers, civilities to your Acquaintance, favours to your Friends,( and particular kindnesses unto me) have given ample testimonies of a mind not slightly tinctured, but deeply impregnate( that I may speak to you in your chemical language) with those endowments which indicate a virtuous and ingenuous spirit, which Eulogium, though it may seem an Hyperbolical flourish to such which are strangers to your Person and Actions; yet to those which converse more intimately with you it will rather appear a diminution of your worth, 'tis so far from savouring of the Parasite. I am so averse from the common design of Addresses of this nature,( where Authors like Rooks, choose the highest Trees they can to build in) that if an especial Providence had not intervened, which gives you a proper right unto its presentment, it had been destitute of a Patron; but jacta est alea, the Rubicon is passed, and I have here tendered to you an acknowledgement of those endearing Civilities whereby you have obliged me. That this Discourse of Religion which is as {αβγδ}, the Medicine of the Soul, may be as effectual for the purifying and healing of the minds of men, as your Universal Pill hath been successful in the cure of their Bodies, is the hearty desire of him who is  
Yours in all faithful and grateful observance Thomas Fydge.   

The PREFACE TO THE READERS.  
THough the Important Matter of this Treatise might be a sufficient apology for the omission of a Prefatory Epistle, considering that the entire Discourse is dedicated, if not to the Readers honor, yet to their use and advantage: Notwithstanding in compliance with common custom, I shall give you a taste of your entertainment in the Porch. The design of this Treatise is the advancement of true Goodness and virtue, and to engage men to the practise of Religion by endeavouring to reconcile it to their true Interest; I should offer an affront to your Reason, if I should question your acceptation of the substance of what is here propounded; Quis nisi mentis inops— as having a tendency to make you really rich, truly honourable, divinely Epicurean, and rationally religious. I cannot augur with what resentment the style and manner of expression will be received; nor am I solicitous concerning it; yet I suppose, that it is not so anomalous, but it will meet with some corresponding genius, whose agreeable temper may incline them to a favourable aspect even upon the exterior part; yet if the apple of Gold be but massy and ponderous, it is not much material though the Pictures of Silver be tarnished and defaced. But although it be deficient in that elegance and concinnity which so worthy a Subject deserves to be embellished and fortified with, to make the more prevalent impressions upon the minds and affections of men, I shall not fail to make abundant compensation for this defect, by a supplement of Addresses to that God whose strength is made perfect in weakness, that by the perusal of this Discourse,( the fruit of my Juvenile Studies in a vacancy from a throng of secular employments) you may be awakened to serious endeavours after greater degrees of the Spirit of Life and Righteousness, and an inward acquaintance with the energy and power of true Religion, to the joy, peace, and serenity of your souls here, and to the consummation of your felicity hereafter. Here is no grateful entertainment for such who sport themselves with Polemical Divinity( falsely so called, as if the Deity was at odds with itself, and there was a Monomachy in the blessed Trinity) an caress themselves only with such treatments of Religion where Eris gives the Invitation, {αβγδ}, as Philo speaks; Procul oh procul item profani. This Essay only aims at the promotion of peace in the Church, by uniform, devout, and reverend addresses to God; quietness in the State by ready submission to public Authority, at the happiness of civil Commerce by Justice and Truth; the honour of Religion by a suitable demeanour; the Salvation of the Soul in an entire resignation to the Divine Will and the Glory of God in all these. I shall only advertise you, the late severe Dispensation of Providence towards this City occasioned the present Publication, in expectance that the minds of men may by so dreadful a Visitation be the better prepared for the receiving of such impressions which may better their Conversations, and inform their Understandings, which is a design worthy the utmost endeavours of your friend  
T. F.   

CHAP. I.  
1. That the Lord Jesus Christ, and Christian Religion have been traduced. 2. Different Censures concerning it. 3. Too just Occasions thereof given by the enormous Actions of Zealous Pretenders to it. 4. Some remiss in the practise of real Holiness, intensely hot against all that is Relative, and the Contrary. 5. Some Orthodox in their Judgements take leave to Live Ill, because they Believe Well. 6. The Design of the Discourse, a Vindication of Religion from many Prejudices, with an account of the Reason for it. 7. A Representation of it as most acceptable to any man. 8. An Answer to an Objection, against the Authors invading anothers Office in the Publication of the present Treatise.  
1. OUR blessed Lord and Saviour who did no sin, and in whose mouth was no guile found, but fulfilled all righteousness, was notwithstanding his innocence, numbered with transgressors, and sentenced as a malefactor; so impossible is it for the most spotless person to secure himself against the calumnies and detractions of an envious and malicious Enemy. That holy Religion, the propagation of which, was the design of all his public transactions, may justly complain that it is fallen under the same censure with its promoter; the reproaches of them that reproached him are fallen upon it, and it labours under the same contradiction of sinners.  
2. 'tis by some accounted an ingenious contrivance of policy, an artifice and stratagem devised by wiser heads to awe the vulgar and common herd of mankind to subjection: others allow it to be only a starched piece of austerity and sour Stoicism; some again dishonour it as the product of pusillanimity, and the index of a cowardly and degenerous mind; or traduce it as an heresy pernicious to the welfare of the Nation where 'tis entertained; as if its genuine and natural effect were to foment sedition, and aggravate& heighten petty differences into the most violent and barbarous outrages.  
3. How far the exorbitancies of them who have been the most zealous pretenders to advance Religion, have been contributory to the production of those notions, concerning it, which are so derogatory from its excellence, and prejudicial to its progress, a little reflection will be too pregnant an evidence; If we consider, how some have usurped its glorious Name to patronise Rebellion and Innovation, and Sainted themselves in the perpetration of the most flagitious acts both of Injustice and Impiety; as if the genius which attended Religion, instigated those which entertained it to the most hellish enterprizes, when on the contrary, it possesseth the minds of those which give up themselves to the manuduction thereof, with the most pure and peaceable Principles, and excites them to such sacred actions as are agreeable thereunto. And also, take notice, many have no better title to Religion then what they can challenge by virtue of an over eager opposition against a dissenting Party, and have no arguments to evidence their Christianity, except their being Magisterial and Dogmatical in things controverted and adiaphorous, may pass for a demonstration of it, interesting themselves no further in Religion then the stigmatizing those of a different persuasion, if in matter of opinion, with the brand of heresy, if in practise, with the style of Superstition, accounting satirical invectives and passionate reflections to be instances of a religious zeal for God, which are but the demonstrations of their own folly and arrogance, vainly supposing their love to God can be no better way expressed, then in their doting upon their own Images, and execrating all such notions which do not correspond with those models and representations of things their fancies have suggested to the.  
4. 'tis an intense and violent heat wherewith many contend against all relative holiness, who may be justly suspected to be in the mean time destitute of all real inherent and personal. And others are too prove to fix the boundaries of Religion, and circumscribe it with time and place, as if it had taken sanctuary in holy ground, and might not without a kind of sacrilege be employed in secular affairs, and civil intercourse, and were only to be the business of caconical Hours, laid aside with their Sunday svit, and adjourned until the Bells awakened them to a new fit of devotion.  
5. Many who call themselves Sons of the Church, and by a subscription to her Articles honour themselves with the surname of Orthodox, are yet the pest and blemishes of it, and forfeit that worthy appellation, by holding the Truth in unrighteousness, living, as if the Commandements had no relation to the Creed, or by the belief of what is true they could satisfy for what is evil; or as if he would accept( by way of commutation) of their good opinion of him, in lieu of Temperance, Justice, and Obedience to him;  — pudet haec opprobria nobis, &c. 
6. When true Religion labours under so many prejudices, from open and intestine Enemies, and from professed Friends, when the Author and Original of it, the Essente and Nature, the Effects and designs are so generally misconstrued, abused and perverted; the rectifying of mens mistakes concerning it, and the representing of it to them in its native and affecting form, will be a very probably method to prevail effectually upon them to entertain it; for till men are convinced of the excellency and advantages of Religion, and their minds rightly informed of the nature and importance of it, it is impossible to engage them to the exercise of those duties which it requires from them.  
7. The Scope of the ensuing Discourse is to beget such apprehensions and sentiments in the spirits of men concerning true Religion as are agreeable thereunto; and recommend it unto them upon such motives as are sufficient in other cases to procure acceptance. He that will give himself the trouble of perusing these Papers, which have nothing in them worthy but what is reflected from their subject matter and final design, and add thereunto his own meditations, shall not fail to find that Religion comprehendeth in it whatsoever may make it eligible: The verities of it serve to render it acceptable to the studies and contemplations of the severest reason, and of the most ingenious spirits. The advantages which are twisted with it may insinuate a liking of it in an avaricious nature; the peace and joy which accompany it, are sufficient to endear it to such whom pleasures do so easily entangle. That real and solid honour from which 'tis impossible it should be abstracted, makes it a prise worthy the endeavours of the most ambitious person. 
— sic itur ad astra,  
Reptet humi quicunque velit—   
8. If any shall object, that by this Treatise, I put my Sithe into anothers Harvest, and entrench upon their rights, who by their Sacerdotal Function are to administer this Province: I reply, those Harangues, Defences, and Celebrations of Religion which proceed from those which are ordained to such a purpose, lose much of their efficacy only because they are theirs, people generally suspecting they design their own Interest, and put a gloss upon their own wears for the better putting them off, and worship this great Diana with respect to the silver shrines. But when such, the course of whose studies and employments may be managed to a greater temporal advantage with the proscribing of Religion, shall maugre their own secular concernments, seriously endeavour the propagation of it, their attempts upon the Laity( which title we may use, I hope, without offence) proceeding from persons of like passions and educations as themselves, may in probability be more successful, and their Arguments fall upon them in their full weight, as not being obnoxious to that suspicion of imposture and sophistry which their discourses are censured to be attended with, though never so nervous and apodictical, whose honour and advantage seems to be closely riveted into the interest of Religion, which hath given occasion to some atheistical persons to name it the Holy Cheat; as if it were maintained in the world only to subserve to the ends of greatness; but the vanity of this imputation shall be manifested in the succeeding Chapter.   

CHAP. II.  
1. True Religion derives itself from God. 2. Is allied to Heaven more nearly then other beings. 3. Could not have been attained by human Industry or Sagacity. 4. But was discovered by God in pity to the frailty of Man. 5. By his Son Jesus Christ. 6. This lays strong obligations upon Men to embrace it. 7. Christians ought to improve it, from considering the unhappy success of Impostors. 8. Its Original argues its Excellence, and ought to quicken our Obedience. 9. Queries whereby it may be further enforced. 10. 'tis not introduced into the world from the Indigence, but fullness of the Divine Nature; not because God stands in need of us, but we stand in need of him. 11. That we ought to proportion our Gratitude and Obedience to God answerable to these great Engagements which he lays upon us; with motives thereunto.  
1. REligion is of an heavenly descent; its extraction is from the Father of Eternity; it is not the revelation of flesh and blood, the spurious and adulterous issue of human Intellectuals, the forgery and imposture of the Nimrods and Machiavilians of the world, to acquire grandeur and authority by imposing upon the less wary and over credulous natures of vulgar persons; But it is the product of unparalleled leave, consulting infinite Wisdom concerning the Restitution of lapsed and degenerate Man to that Primitive estate of felicity and perfection in which he was created. 'tis a beam descending from the Father of Lights, to enlighten those which sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide their feet into the ways of peace. 'tis the true Elixir prepared by the fire of Divine Love to project upon gross and impure matter, to refine and transmute it into a more noble and excellent nature, and to impregnate earthy mortals with a tincture of Divinity; The rays of the Sun of Righteousness ripening the Soul into a maturity for glory.  
2. 'tis an immediate Emanation from the Eternal Fountain of Truth and Goodness, and so nearly allied unto Heaven, that it can in a peculiar manner call God Abba, Father; notwithstanding all created Beings owe their Existence to a Divine Fiat, and by some more shadowy and obscure Characters give testimony of their sacred Original; yet Religion bears so much of Gods Image and Superscription upon it, that he that runs may red his Name engraven there in capital letters. 'tis the Star that guides man to Bethlehem; the Mercurial Statue that points the way to true happiness; a Treatise written by Gods own finger, teaching the method of recourse to himself. 'tis his communication of his goodness to mankind in its utmost dimensions, aiming at the accomplishment and perfection of human nature in transcendent expressions of grace and bounty.  
3. Though men by the improvement of their natural parts, might have enriched their minds with many excellent notions concerning the Divine Nature and their own; yet the most sagacious and acute could never have sufficiently informed themselves of those means which are proper and effectual to the attaimment of the chiefest good: Nor could unlock the Archines of Heaven, and search the Records of Eternity, and understand the counsels of God concerning Mans Salvation. Here the light which is in Nature's darkness the Universe is still a Chaos; the name of a mediator is not to be found in the whole Volume of the Creation; the Scene must be changed before a Redeemer doth appear.  
4. Had not God commiserated the ruins of Mankind, and provided a Saviour for them, their misery had been unavoidable, as to any means their utmost skill could have contrived or found out to prevent it. He was therefore graciously pleased to make such discoveries of the way of his reconciling and recovering men unto him, as might be available to the attaining so blessed an end. And the whole method of restoring Man depending solely upon the free grace and free will of God, only Divine Revelation could acquaint us with the manner of its dispensation.  
5. The World by wisdom knew not God, but fluctuated in uncertain opinions and conjectures concerning the Providence of God, the Immortality of the Soul, and the Rewards and Punishments of the Life to come; were altogether unacquainted with the expiation of Sin by the blood of a crucified Saviour, with the washing of Regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, with the way to Heaven by Faith, Repentance, and Charity. But he who from Eternity lay in the bosom of his Father, hath manifested the way into the holiest of all, and brought to light life and immortality by the Gospel.  
6. What more can be said to encourage the children of men to entertain Religion, then may be deduced from this single consideration; viz. That the source and original of it is no other then that Eternal Being, all whose Emanations are like himself, replete with abundance of love and goodness? From what topics shall arguments be fetched to prevail upon men, if they are not induced to accept and embrace Religion upon this account of its coming from the hands of God? It needs no other Letters commendatory then what it carries in its Divine Original.  
7. The pretences of Mahomet, Lycurgus, &c. to familiarity and converse with some spiritual and holy beings, have been effectual to ingratiate those Precepts they designed should be embraced by their Proselytes. And shall Truth and Goodness itself, discovering the way to bliss, be rejected and disdained as fabulous or impertinent in its Declarations, Commands, and Prohibitons, when the Narratives and Laws of Enthusiasts and Deceivers have been entertained as certain and necessary? Shall the Revelation of God have no influence upon the Souls of men to improve their Intellectuals, to correct their Morals; when the pretended Inspirations of crafty Impostors have been so unhappily progressive in the deluding their understandings, and debauching their practices?  
8. It speaks the excellency and nobleness of Religion, in that it proceeds from God; it cannot be presented to us at any greater advantage; This demonstrates it to be a faithful saying, and makes it worthy, as the Apostle phraseth it, of all acceptation. Its near alliance to the Deity challengeth our greatest kindness and respect; and a serious reflection upon this one inducement, may supersede the consideration of all those other arguments and motives our reason may suggest unto us to persuade us to welcome and embrace it.  
9. Who would not salute so lovely a beauty with {αβγδ}, welcome thou Light of Life, thou Ray of Heaven, thou Beam of Glory, thou Panacaea of Humanity, thou Transcript of Divinity, thou blessed Emanation of the Deity, thou Directress of our Way, thou Repairer of our decayed Nature, thou perfect Consummation of our Felicity, and sacred Magnetism even of God himself? Let me invert that saying of our Lord, Do men gather Thorns from Vines, or Thistles from Fig trees? Who can believe that the Fountain of Sweetness will sand forth bitter streams; that the Sun of Righteousness will drop down mischievous influences; that the Father of mercies, instead of bread, will give a ston, and in lieu of a Fish, a Serpent; that the Grapes of the true Vine will set the teeth on edge; that the Rose of Sharon, and the lily of the Valleys will sand out an unsavoury smell? Is it no delight to sit under the shadow of the three of Life? Is not the fruit pleasant to thy taste? Why then shouldst thou refuse to drink of Gods Wine, to eat of his Bread, to be happy in his embraces? and this thou dost in rejecting Religion.  
10. Religion is no trade set up by God in the world, to acquire any emolument and advantage to himself, as if he were greedy after a little of the creatures fading breath, and prided himself in their celebrations of his Name. God is infinitely happy in the reflection upon his own beauty, and in the enjoyment of his own perfections; and his essential glory is as incapable of accession as 'tis of diminution: The worship, service, and homage of the creatures can contribute nothing unto him; 'tis at the highest, but the acknowledgement and adoration of that transcending glory which he hath possessed from Eternity, and wherein he is God blessed for ever, Job 22. 2, 3. Can a man be profitable unto God? as he that is wise may be profitable unto himself. Is it any pleasure to the Almighty that thou art righteous? Or is it gain to him that thou makest thy ways perfect? The Apostle in his Sermon to the Athenians, treating of the Worship of God, declares that it is not instituted by God out of indigence and neediness, Act. 17. 25. {αβγδ}, as if any thing were thereby superadded unto his felicity. We may warm ourselves by those fires which we kindle for Sacrifice, and smell the Perfume of our own Incense, with which though God may be well pleased, he cannot be profited: the benefit of our service redounds not to our Master, but to ourselves; the righteousness of man doth not extend to God; the Honey he gathers is for his own hive; the Crown he contends for is to adorn his own head.  
11. The precedent Considerations should excite us to thankfulness and obedience unto him, who remembered us in our low estate, and loved our souls out of the pit of corruption; God without impairing his own happiness, might have suffered us to have continued in that state of sin and misery into which we had plunged ourselves; but when we could by no means deliver our own souls, he found out a ransom for us, and offers Salvation unto us, and that upon such conditions as we cannot disallow. What kindness shall we think too great for so faithful a friend? What gratitude too much to so liberal a Benefactor? What could God have done more for us then he hath done to engage us to himself? he laid all possible obligations on us to win our love and service: yet of the God which formed us are we unmindful, and lightly esteem the Rock of our Salvation. Where shall we find any so sensibly affencted with the favours of Heaven, as to inquire, What shall we render to the Lord for all his mercies, and awaken all within them to bless the Name of God? He hath been pleased to propound unto us effectual means for the obtaining Eternal life, which are styled by the name of Religion; but how few are there which pursue this blessed end by a serious performance of all those intermediate actions which conduce thereunto? He hath showed thee O man what is good; he hath made known unto thee the path of life; Why then doth thy way led thee to Hell, and thy goings to the chambers of death? Light is come into the world; Wherefore lovest thou darkness more then light? Thou art  told thou art redeemed with the precious blood of the Son of God; wherefore then dost thou sell thyself to commit iniquity? The grace of God hath appeared to thee bringing Salvation with it; and wilt not thou be taught by it to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously and godlily in this present world? Ephes. 4. 18. Ephes. 5. 1. The Son of God hath manifested unto thee love beyond all example and expression; and wilt thou not be constrained by the love of Christ; No rhetoric can persuade him to Religion, who is not prevailed upon by considering, that the Son of God the Lord Jesus Christ in human Nature, hath undergone and acted whatsoever is required of us; And in this sense is Religion aptly called by the Apostle, the Life of God, and an imitation of him.   

CHAP. III.  
1. 'tis apparent that Religion is the Mother of Freedom. 2. The Obligation implyed in its Name no way opposite to true Liberty. 3. The Freedom of holy persons exercised in amorous Devotions. 4. Sin restrains the Souls Essays to attain Blessedness. 5. Religion wings the Soul, and awakens it to seek for Glory. 6. Sensual men hurried too and fro by the impetuous motions of divers Lusts. 7. Their vicious Indulgences badges of Bondage. 8. Religion restores us to the Liberty we forfeited by our apostasy. 9. Wicked men confined to converse with their own Jaylours. 10. We ought readily to comply with the Design of God in the Recovery of our Freedom, and accept of Divine Assistance. 11. Men in the heat of their Passions, and hurry of Business, hardly to be persuaded that Licentiousness is not true Liberty.  
1. THat Liberty and Freedom are universally acknowledged to be privileges, and on the contrary, Bondage and Captivity accounted of as matter of Infamy and Misery, is a truth shines so clearly in its own light, that it needs no demonstration. That Religion rescues the children of men out of a state of slavery and vassalage to the power of Darkness, and asserts them into the glorious liberty of the sons of God, is as evident and perspicuous as the precedent concession; And that, in this regard it ought to be acceptable, will be the inference of any that have but the first fruits of reason, or sense enough left to put a difference between what is pleasant and ungrateful to their own natures.  
2. There seems indeed to be something of bondage in the name of Religion, accorcording to their Critism; we derive it à Religando, but it imports no more then such ties and engagements as result from mutual cognation, and can include nothing which is inconsistent with the greatest liberty, except we judge a child to be enslaved in its Parents arms, and a man imprisoned in his Friends embraces. 'tis a Law of Love and Liberty; its silken Bonds are as Girdles and Garters, not to fetter and entangle, but to strengthen and adorn.  
3. The Liberty of Religious minds is scarcely out-vied by the blessed Angels, devout and pious Souls being sometime carried on the wings of ardent desire, as directly toward God as the constraining power of the sense of Divine Love can produce reflection, acting upon Infinite Goodness with the sweetest complacency and delight, and the most unbounded freedom, being above those carnal checks and controllments, which debar all unhallowed and degenerate minds from free converse with the Divinity.  
4. There is a Sensual appetite sits as Queen Regent in the Souls of all wicked persons, which gives outs its Laws to the whole Man, prohibits its intercourse with whatsoever is not found in its own Dominions; though it afford no other then temporal and material objects. Sin lays a restraint upon those active and generous Principles wherewith the Soul of Man through the indulgence of Divine Bounty is possessed; shackles its free and Heaven-born powers, rebates that gallantry and laudable ambition by which it is promped to recover its Primitive Felicity; congeals that innate warmth and vigour which should cherish and promote irs Essays to Happiness; suspends the natural energy, and propensions of the Soul, and charms all its vital and vigorous faculties into a senseless Lethargy.  
5. Religion loosens and unfetters the Soul from its confinement to material objects; impregnates that vital Principle which is wrapped up in the Soul with activity; spirits all the wheels of motion, and makes it swift as the Chariots of Aminadab; Takes off that Embargo by which the Channel to Happiness is obstructed, and proclaims a free Trade between Heaven and Earth. It awakens the Soul to a sense of its own Immortality and Original, and spurs it on to aspire by Purity, Love, and Humility, to the Crown of Eternal life and glory; but time and sense are the tropics beyond which the affections of degenerate minds do never move.  
6. No Character can more exactly express the state of a sensual man then that which the Apostle draws out, Tit. 3. 3. where he describes him to be a servant to divers lusts and pleasures. Every wicked man doth abjure and renounce the sovereignty of Reason, and transfer it upon Sense; deposeth that {αβγδ}, whose coercive power should restrain the impetuous Efferations of the inferior Appetite, and introduceth an anarchy of brutish and insolent Passions, which rack the Mind by imposing commands irregular and contradictory, exacting things at an infinite distance, and of an impossible consistence. Every vanity hath a power over him; one says, Go, and he goes; another, Come, and he comes; a third, Do this, and he doth it; beside that general conflict between Sense and Reason, Appetite, and Conscience: there are many petty Principalities warring one against another; Pride, Covetousness, Malice, Intemperance, every of which press him to their service, upon the approach of the various temptations; he is possessed with a spirit casts him sometime into the fire, sometime into the water; he lackeys at the beck of every inordinate desire, and is not Master of his own motion; he is under the power of the Creature, as the holy Apostle expresseth it, and not at his own dispose, as having quitted the government of Reason, and resigned up himself to have his Ears bored by his Lust.  
7. Sinners, their actions are not squared by any other rules then those their fancies, consulting with their Senses, do suggest unto them; the liberty which they indulge themselves, is an evidence of the greatest slavery and basest servility: they cannot cease from sin, 2. Pet. 2. 14. The service of God, as is expressed in our Liturgy, is perfect freedom: 'tis no badge of an abject and sordid spirit to be employed about the affairs of Heaven, but speaks a man to be of a noble, free, ingenious and ample soul.  
8. Christianity is not designed to debase and effeminate the minds of men, to despoil them of true liberty, and circumvent them into a state of bondage; but to knock off those fetters, and file off those chains by which they were detained in captivity to the power of the Prince of Darkness, and make them free unto Righteousness. All those privileges which we forfeited by being tainted with the Treason of the first Adam, are restored us again by our interest in the second. Religion 'tis the Mother of all real Liberty; the most absolute Potentate may embrace it without any suspicion of its entrenchment upon his royal Prerogative. All the children of its Kingdom are free; no burdens imposed, no taxes exacted of those which live in its Dominions. 'tis both a freedom of state and freedom of will is the happiness of all holy men. Their spirits are too vigorous to be confined to this lower region, to be fettered by any sublunary and sensual objects; but they mount upward, as with Eagles wings, and visit the world above, and take a prospect of the heaveny Jerusalem and the glory of it.  
9. Sensual men are still sinking into themselves, couching toward their center, till they are buried like coals in their own ashes. Self-love and worldly interest confine them to so close an imprisonment, that they live sequestered from all noble society, and have but the liberty of conversing with their Jaylours, such impure and unhallowed delights as issue from a dark Understanding and corrupted Will; and make inquiry after no other Happiness then what the circumference of their own Being doth contain. They make themselves the center of all their designs, and all their actions relish of that Principle of Self, by the attractive power of which they are forcibly detained in the Regions of Death and Darkness.  
10. Hath God designed to enlarge and ampliate the Soul of Man by the power of Religion, and to make it more capacious of Divine Enjoyments; is his aim to break the bonds of our sins asunder, and take the yoke of bondage from our necks, and recover us from the snare of the Devil, and to loose us from that spirit of infirmity wherewith we are bowed down; to deliver us from the power of the dark Kingdom, and translate us into that state where we shall enjoy the privileges of the sons of God? What readiness of mind should this beget in us, to embrace Religion, and together with it a freedom from the drudgery of all unruly Passions, inordinate Affections, sensual Inclinations, and inconsistent commands of self-will and self-love, by surrendering up ourselves to the conduct of the Spirit of God, which will make us free from the law of sin and death! When liberty is proclaimed to the captive, and the opening of the Prison unto them that are bound, will not the captive exile hasten out of the pit wherein there is no water, and the prisoners of hope turn to their strong hold? God in the Gospel offers us a sufficient power, for the overcoming all that strength which detains us in captivity, and tyrannizeth over us: Do not then O Christian idly suffer thyself to be enslaved to an hellish or brutish servitude, by a false belief that thou canst not come out of darkness, as Job speaks; but by faith in an Almighty power assault the Enemies of thy liberty, that triad which St. John speaks of, 1 Joh. 2. 16. and thy conflict shall not fail of being crwoned at the last with victorious success; and thy Soul finding itself disentangled in part from the bondage of corruption, will endeavour more and more a perfect recovery of that Paradisiacal freedom, which upon the total subversion of the Kingdom of darkness will be the blessedness of the Saints in light.  
11. I know the propounding of Liberty to men, by subjection to the Commands of God, is a Paradox to the licentious liver, who for the present thinks no bondage so severe as walking according to the rule of Reason and Religion, and will not believe that to be a Paradise which is enclosed; and how I should explain this Riddle to him, during his eager chase of his beloved game, I am at a loss, because then the use of Reason and voice of Conscience are neither of them attended to: Buf if God by any Providence stop him in his furious career, and alloy the violent ebullitions of his mind, when he consults with his own Soul, he will need no other Tutor to instruct him, that Liberty and virtue are met together, that Freedom and Religion do kiss one another.   

CHAP. IV.  
1. Honour hath ever been prized at an high value. 2. Many need a Bridle to restrain their violent pursuit of it. 3. The stoics accounted the practise of virtue, the Hebrews the observance of the Law the foundation of Honour. 4. Religious men honoured in their alliance unto God. 5. Their Glory evident in their Wisdom and Knowledge. 6. And victorious Prowess. 7. wisdom and Power abstract from Goodness, degenerate into Craft and Cruelty. Goodness is the glory of the Divine Being, and accounted so by men. 8. Wickedness not owned by its Proselytes, till they have given it a new Name or mildred Epithet. 9. Sin and Sinners represented in Scripture under odious and abhorrent forms. 10. Religion advanceth Good Men, and begets a secret esteem of them in those which are vicious. 11. The facetious or scurrilous Imputations fastened upon virtuous men, no ways really derogatory from their honor. 12. Religion an attempt adequate to the highest Ambition. 13. He that detracts from virtue, disparageeh himself, and sleights his Excellency.  
1, HOnour hath the universal suffrage of all ingenious persons for an inestimable Jewel, and worthy of the greatest care and endeavours which can be employed in its acquisition; they are justly censured as base and sordid, which have no respect to their Repuration, and basely applaud themselves like the Miser the Poet speaks of, under the hisses and disregard of the world, Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo. The ancient Heathens have had great esteem and veneration for all true and real Honour; and many have  told us, that he makes no bad bargain that can purchase it, though with the loss of all other Interests; yea, that life itself when it comes in competition with Honour, is to be undervalued and sacrificed thereto; and judged him unworthy the name of Man, which would not subordinate all designs and advertisements, how precious soever, to the procuring of it.  
2. The spirits of men are exceeding prove to boil over in immoderate desires of Honour, and by indirect and sordid means to attempt it, when they are defective in those noble and generous achievements which may give them right to claim a propriety therein: so eager and impetuous is this thirst after famed and glory, that if it be not found in conjunction with virtue, to direct it to such enterprises as truly ennoble the undertakers, and to circumscribe it within its just bounds& limits, it doth frequently provoke the minds of men to such wild and exorbitant actions in the chase and pursuance thereof, which contract the most real infamy and reproach, and speak the narrowness and degeneracy, not the amplitude and excellency of the Actors Souls. What else means the unbounded ambition, the savage cruelty, the perfidious treachery, the unjust usurpations, the violent invasions, the barbarous depopulations, with many other acts of the same hellish complexion, which by History and Experience we are too sadly assured of? What except an insatiate thirst of Glory, which could not be allayed with the draft of one World, could provoke the Youth of Macedon to weep because there was not another? What but an itch of famed could entice an Herostratus to sacrifice the magnificent Structure of Diana's Temple to the bare mention of an execrable Name?  
3. The stoics owned no other Honour for currant, then that which had the image and superscription of virtue stamped upon it, accounting that spurious and illegitimate which was not the issue of a virtuous and heroic Soul, disdaining to lay the foundation of so great an excellency upon the wheel of Fortune, or the uncertain blasts of Vulgar breath, but upon so firm a basis as was sufficient to support it without being beholden to external appendices, and could maintain its lustre and oriency in the want of those splendid additaments, which those that are destitute of all true and real glory pride themselves in, as essentially requisite to the constituting of Honour, affirming virtue not only to be its own Reward, but also its Herald too, proclaiming him that is virtuous most glorious and honourable: whereas the most illustrious Titles, when they are not accompanied with those innobling embellishments which are proportionable unto them, are evidences of vain-glory and arrogance in those which assume them; of misprision and ignorance in those which attribute them, and confer no real worth and value upon such which pass under those illustrious appellations. This Apothegm is registered among the wise sayings of the Jewish Fathers, in Pirke Avoth, {αβγδ} That the study of the Law doth magnify a man and make him honourable.  
4. Desert is the soul of Honour; the true stamp of Nobility is upon the Mind of Man. Religion puts a lustre and glory upon the spirits of men, advanceth them unto the highest dignity that they are capable of: The Righteous is more excellent then his Neighbour, of a more worthy extraction and descent; he participates of a Divine Nature, may claim kindred with God himself: what the Poet saith of Aeneas, is verified of him, Contingit sanguine coelum: he is nearly allied unto Heaven, an high-born Prince, being as St. John tells us, born {αβγδ}, from above: the Blood-royal of Heaven runs in every Christians veins; as is Christ, so are they, each one resembling the Child of a King: with a little variation, but with the same amazement and affection may the words of the beloved Apostle be applied unto his present Theme, 1 John 3. 1. Behold, what manner of honour is this the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: which privilege is not merely titular,& magni nominis umbra, but imports some real and essential dignity communicated unto those upon which this {αβγδ} is conferred, as the same Apostle styles it, Joh. 1. 12.  
5. Whatsoever doth any way contribute to the rendering men famous and honourable, is in holy Writ eminently ascribed unto good and religious persons: Doth Wisdom make the face to shine, and Understanding give pre-eminence? A Good Man is wise as an Angel of God; To fear the Lord, that is Wisdom; and to depart from evil is Understanding: What greater wisdom then to secure an Eternal state of Blessedness? What more excellent knowledge then that of the best of Beings? with this noble Spirit is every holy man endued; he is conversant with the most glorious and ravishing objects, knows the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent, and lays up a good foundation against the time to come, that he may lay hold upon Eternal life.  
6. Doth Power, and Victory, the Throne and triumphant Chariot, challenge the highest attributions of Honour among men? Of him that is religious it may be truly proclaimed, he is a greater then Alexander, a stronger then samson. If Saul hath slain his thousands, David hath slain his ten thousands: Where shall we find such fortitude and magnanimity as predominates in a Christian? A power over all violent transports of the Mind, and impetuous desires of the Sensitive Appetite, is a victory transcending the conquests of the most puissant Monarchs of the World. Fortior est qui se quam qui fortissima vincit maenia. Those whose names have swelled to the utmost, have been straightened by Ambition, and wanted elbow-room in the world; their Victories have been characters of their servitude, and their Trophies badges of captivity. A stuat infoelix angusto limit mundi, is true of the mightiest them of all. The Hebrews have a maxim, that he is a man indeed that masters his own appetite, {αβγδ} Who the Champion? {αβγδ} he which subdues his concupiscence. None but a Christian can writ himself the conqueror of the World, 1 Joh. 5. 4. His {αβγδ}, or triumphant Song is in no danger of a Palinodium, 'tis set for Eternity; he is more then conqueror: and who may triumph, if not he who doth {αβγδ}, over-overcome, Rom. 8. 37.  
7. Wisdom and Power by which men are rendered so conspicuous and glorious, when found in company with Goodness, make them truly Noble and Honourable; but when separate and abstracted from it, give them a name and nature resembling that of the Prince of Darkness, whose wit and power do concur to make him most infamously famous. The light of Nature hath discovered in the most perfect and glorious Being, infinite Wisdom and Power joined with as unlimited Goodness. Hence in the Writings of the Ancients, we frequently find Deus optimus maximus. When Moses desired to have a view of the glory of the Deity, God tells him, he will cause his goodness to pass before him; as if that were the only beauty and lustre of his Nature. The renowned Stagirite acknowledgeth, that to be good, and do good, is the greatest honour. Though the wild Gallants account the name of Good-man a diminutive Title, yet the greatest Potentates have to the rest of their Title superadded {αβγδ}, which is of the same signification and importance.  
8. There is in sin that turpitude which makes its Proselytes ashamed to patronise it; 'tis this that makes the countenance of man to fall: such that shane and ignominy which is annexed to it, that no body will own it but by another name; the proud man scorns any other Epithet but that of magnanimous; and the prodigal then that of free and generous: The Miser will have his sordidness interpnted frugality; contention and revenge shrowded themselves under right and justice; and any worse name then a good companion, is displeasant to the rudest debauch; fraudulent circumvention usurps the title of Wisdom, and the most flagitious sinners baptize their sins with the name of virtue, to make them less odious to themselves and others: the Prince of Darkness acts in disguise, transforming himself into an Angel of Light, and enticeth sinners to the perpetration of the most horrid villainies under the appearance of the greatest good.  
9. The holy Scripture representeteth sin under such averting forms, as may beget in us the highest shane of it and indignation against it. It hath supplanted us and robbed us of our birth-right, and laid our honour in the dust. The state of Innocence was a state of dignity; by the first transgression the right Adam had to honour was forfeit, and he became at once obnoxious to shane and sorrow. Sin hath stained the purity and brightness of our natures, debased and metamorphosed rational creatures into another kind: to express this great degeneracy, the Holy Ghost styles wicked men Vipers, Dogs, Wolves, Swine, and Children of the Devil; chargeth them with the greatest ignorance, folly, ingratitude, and disingenuity, and with whatsoever is unbecoming a reasonable and well-natur'd creature; as to hate God, to love death, to despise a mans own soul; mentions them as being fascinated, distracted, infatuated.  
10. Religion restores the Soul to the dignity of its first Creation, by accomplishing it with those virtuous habits and excellent dispositions which were the glory of man before his lapsed state; this happiness doth, most what, attend virtuous men, that their actions have the approbation of their enemies, there not being many so insensible of the difference between good and evil, as not secretly at least to aclowledge those which are truly religious worthy of honour and esteem, yea, and imitation too; and on the contrary, that those which are vicious and debauched, have a real ignominy and reproach inseparably cleaving to them, from which only Repentance and Reformation can be their Vindicators.  
11. Such indeed is that vain and desultory temper of some persons, that we may justly take up the complaint of the Church, Lam. 4. 2. The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine Gold, how are they esteemed as earthen Pitchers, the work of the hands of the Potter! in lieu of honouring them that fear the Lord, they slight and undervalue them, making them the subject of their scorn and insolent humours, vilifying them with opprobrious and ignominious terms, accounting them the filth and offscouring of the world, the poison, and a pest, {αβγδ}, Act. 24. 5. of humanity, unworthy of all civil society and natural accommodations: But all that contumely and reproach by which such men endeavour to render such men ridiculous or odious, derogates nothing from their true worth and honour, which can be no more disparaged by those calumnies wherewith it is aspersed, then those eminent Constellations in the Heavens which contain so many glorious Stars, are obscured by the fictitious impositions of Bear, Scorpion, Dog, Serpent, &c. Honour is always secured in the company of virtue. And although for a time good men do lye among the Pots, and may be sullied with scandalous imputations, the time is at hand when they shall come forth and appear glorious as a Dove, whose wings are covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold, to borrow the language of the Psalmist, Psal. 68. 13.  
12. Sith true Religion is essential Honour, the prosecution of it is not a design unworthy the most heroic and generous spirits; The King of Heaven is the Fountain of Honour, and 'tis derived from him upon all his favourites in such a measure as may gratify the height of ambition,( 'tis beyond our thoughts to tell you, what his dignity shall be whom this King will honour) when you red in holy Writ of a Crown, a Throne, a Diadem, a sceptre, and all royal habiliments, and triumphant magnificence, secured by the Promise of God unto his Servants, it should quicken you to the performance of such religious and virtuous actions, as may render you worthy of that honourable entertainment with which the bounty of God will bless his people.  
13. I would have none honour himself with the name of Man, that scorns those accomplishments which are the glory of human Nature, yea, and of the Divine also; God having emphatically spoken of Holiness as his greatest glory, Exod. 15. 11. To set goodness at nought is to spit in our own our faces, and to lay our honour in the dust. He that can sport and caress himself either in the public contempt, or sly and secret derision of what is indeed religious virtue, let him pass for as acute a Wit, or worshipful Gallant as he will in his own account, he doth but reproach his Being, speaks evil of his Dignity, is ashamed of his Glory, and proclaims his folly: and thus did not those which pass for Heroes and Worthies in the Annals of Ages, as well human as Divine. At Athens the Temple of virtue was to be passed through to that of Honour.  
Virtue and Honour have such sympathy,  
If virtue whither, Honour too will die.  
I shall conclude this Chapter with a passage out of a person honourable upon all accounts, R. B. famed is a blessing only in relation to the qualities and persons that give it: Since otherwise the tormented Prince of Devils himself were as happy as he is miserable; and famousness unattended with endearing causes, is a quality so undesirable, that even infamy and folly can confer it; As Momus is little less talked of then Homer; the unjust Pilate more famous then Aristides the just; and barrabas his name signally recorded in Scripture, whereas the penitent Thief is left unmentioned.   

CHAP. V.  
1. The censure of the Wise Man of the vanity of Worldly Pleasures. 2. Religion the Mother of solid and unspeakable Joy. 3. 'tis relished by those whose palates are not distempered. 4. A Christians Pleasures crystalline and defecate. 5. The degeneracy of human Nature apparent in their choice of delectable objects. 6. These lower pleasures dispirit the Mind. 7. The opinion of Religions begetting Melancholy censured. 8. The Experience of Good Men to the contrary to be credited.  
1. HE whose experience qualified him with sufficient judgement, to discriminate between the precious and the vile, when he comes to pass a censure upon pleasures and indulgences of the mere animal life, saith of laughter it is mad, and of mirth, what doth it? and when he gives in his judgement of the ways of Wisdom, commends them to the sons of men as pleasantness and peace. Prov. 3. 17. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. Replete with such pleasures as exceed the Senses, and such peace as passeth the Understanding. Here we have one of the first-born of Wisdoms children, rising up, and calling her blessed. If you would know how emphatical and pregnant the expressions here used, are to illustrate and advance the excellency of Religion, you may learn it from any Commentator: I shall only suggest this consideration, that by Peace, which the Hebrews made use of in their Salutations, is to be understood according to their idiom, the confluence of all manner of blessings; the three common salutations of the Greeks, {αβγδ}, {αβγδ}, {αβγδ}, being but equivalent to this one which doth summarily comprise in it, welfare of mind, health of body, and success of affairs.  
2. My meditation is in this Chapter confined in particular to the pleasure and delight which pious Souls are partakers of in their constant exercise of those duties to which Religion doth oblige them. They are a Canaan flowing with Milk and Honey; an emblem and epitome of the State of Heaven, the Presence Chamber of the King of glory; they are filled with fullness of joy, and drink of the River of pleasure that is in the Paradise of God. Religion brings the Soul to converse with objects of so glorious a nature, that it is at once transported with wonder and delight. The thoughts of that exuberant Love, manifold Wisdom, and infinite Power which did contrive and accomplish the Redemption of Mankind, with those blessed consequences, which attend it occupy and possess the Souls of holy men; and that clear apprehension they have of, and interest in these Divine Truths fills their Souls with joy unspeakable and full of glory; under these shadows do they sit with great delight, and the fruit is pleasant to their taste, that I may borrow the expression of the Wise man in his Song of Loves.  
3. There is a vein of pleasure runs through its whole body. To those Souls whose faculties are not distempered, nothing more grateful and savoury then the things of God; 'tis an evidence of a diseased and corrupt mind, to nauseate and disgust this heavenly Manna, and to relish the garlic and Onions of Egypt. When God hath prepared a Table, and furnished it with an Oleo of all high tastes compounded together, to invite the sons of men thereto, it speaks a great measure of degeneracy, to delight to eat husks with the Swine, and in effect bid God keep his good things to himself. But those sacred Viands, which to a wicked mans Palate have no more taste then the white of an egg, are to him which is truly religious, sweeter then the Honey, or the honeycomb.  
4. The Pleasures of holy men are founded upon those objects which make them rival the Angels in felicity; nay more, of the same nature with those wherewith the King of glory entertains himself. That correspondence and harmony which there is between their Minds, and Truth, and Goodness, is the Fountain of all those pure and crystalline pleasures which they do enjoy. A strong sense of Divine Love, and firm persuasion of Eternal Glory, begets and propagates a Christians joy; 'tis of a more sublime and exalted nature, then are those gross and corporeal delights wherewith the Senses are affencted; 'tis depurated and refined from all that earthly foeculency, which is incorporated into the very quintessence of those pleasures which material objects do produce. The most ravishing and taking delights, which the world doth prostitute to them which are her greatest favourites, are foul and fulsome, and resolved into their first principles, will appear fitter objects for disdain then desire, and rather to be loathed then loved. What are all their pleasures, but the product of a greedy and ravenous desire, which suppose their Souls to labour under some violent distempers? they are but the scratching of an Itch, or the pleasure of drinking under the scorchings of a Calenture.  
5. The degeneracy of human Nature appears in nothing more then in mens proselyting themselves to brutish sensuality, wherein the Beasts do indeed out-vie them, as being furnished with greater exquisiteness of Sense, for the entertainment of the objects of Sensitive pleasure. Yet how many are there which sacrifice their Reason to their Appetite, and sink themselves into a lower species; which place the Beast above the Man, and quarry upon no other prey, nor pursue the chase of any other game, then what may gratify their brutish Lusts; which live only in subserviency to their sensual Inclination, and subordinate all their actions to the interest of the Flesh, and never reflect upon the excellency of their Soul, nor regard the adorning of it with those virtuous habits which will qualify it for Everlasting glory? as if all delectable objects were calculated for the meridian of the Body, and engrossed by the Senses; and the Intellectual parts had no objects agreeable to its heavenly nature to take a complacency in: such surely pity the condition of Angels, and envy the felicity of Brutes.  
6. These terrestrial pleasures which voluptuous Epicures indulge themselves, dispirit and enervate their minds,( like the Ivy, eat out the heart of the Oak) soften them by degrees into the most effeminate and degenerous temper, and remove them the greatest distance from all noble and real delights. Divine joy doth invigorate and ennoble the Soul and quicken it to an heroic generousness and activity; the joy of the Lord is its strength.  
7. 'tis an opinion no less false in itself, then pernicious in its effect, to the promotion of all true goodness, which hath so many Patrons in the world, viz. that Religion divorceth its Proselytes, from all pleasant enjoyments, and espouseth them to a melancholic and sullen spirit, when the aera from which all true comfort bears date, is the commencement of a religious life. Instances are numerous, of them which have rioted in the variety of all worldly delights, and afterward devoted themselves to the practise of Christianity, who have upon the experience of both estates, in fine concluded, that the gleanings of divine joy, are infinitely to be preferred to the whole vintage of worldly pleasures.  
8. In other cases this maxim passeth for a truth, That every man is to believed in his own Art; and except all moral certainty be questioned out of the world, and the ultimate reason of all belief terminated in the Senses, and our assent to the most common and certain truths be suspended, until they give us information; I see no ground of exception, against the testimony of those religious and holy Souls, which assert their frequent experience of many ravishing and satisfying pleasures to be enjoyed in the conscientious exercise of those duties to which Religion doth engage them: Or why any should miscall their heavenly Sentiments and Impressions, the chimeras and Enthusiastical Hallucinations of an active and busy Fancy; as if Christians in this resembled the ancient Philosophers, who have written much of the music of the spheres, when they never heard any such harmonious airs; and spoken of the next World but as blind men do concerning this, without any certain assurance of the variety of those things which they do affirm. The invitation of Philip to Nathaniel, Joh. 1. 46. Come and see, when 'tis practically answered, is the most powerful charm, to disenchant those who are prepossessed with such low and unworthy opinions of the ways of wisdom, and in worse esteem the pleasing vanities of this world are of so high value. How jejune and unsatisfactory are all the keck-shaws of the world to him who hath tasted how gracious the Lord is? How dull and unaffecting all its Pageantry to him who hath seen how glorious? All the galliardise and treatments of it, makes no impression upon those seraphic minds whose taste of earthly things is lost by their prelibation of heavenly pleasures.   

CHAP. VI.  
1. The weakness of all Sublunary Comforts argued. 2. Their lubricity and slipperiness make them unworthy a Wise mans pursuit. 3. A Good man is satisfied from within, in the defect of outward supports. 4. Christianity gives some earnest of Happiness before it pays the total sum. 5. Comfort hath a necessary dependence on the faithful discharge of Duty. 6. The Impulses of the Spirit consonant to Scripture. 7. There is a present advantage accrues to the Religious. 8. Goodness and Happiness import the same thing. 9. Sin and Misery twisted into one thread. 10. Pleasure in its true notion our chiefest Happiness. 11. The Conclusion.  
1. THere is an intrinsic weakness and insufficiency in these terrene delights, to satisfy the minds of men; they are too short for their vast desires to stretch themselves upon; they thirst in the midst of these waters, and are scorched under its shadow; their desires are real, but enjoyments fictitious; the expectance of satisfaction is equally disappointed in the fruition and frustration of their hopes: when we come to grasp them, they are but wind; and to embrace them, they are but a cloud; they hang out a fair bush to invite men in, but their wine's too much diluted and dispirited to refresh and alloy the violent and thirsty desires of those which turn in thither. They never satisfy, seldom compound for the debts they promise. The largest and fairest volumes of this worlds enjoyments end with a Nonnulla desunt. How many are there which are arrested in the midst of their pleasures an grandeur, and fall like Sacrifices with their Crowns on their heads! Its stately Galleries led to the Chambers of death; its River of Pleasures swallowed up in a mere mortuum; its joy is an Usher to regret and anxiety; its Comical Scenes end in a Tragical Catastrophe.  
2. These sublunary sensual pleasures, like flowers, whither in our hands, are strangled in the birth, and perish in embracing; make a little blaze and vanish, salute our Senses and take an eternal farewell, flow to us with tidings of an ebb; they are {αβγδ}, as the Father very well expressed them, or as the Epigrammatist, {αβγδ}, of a very transient and slippery nature, subject to be eclipsed at the full of so light a colour, that they fade and are sullied in the handling, and apt to be soured by the least clap of Thunder: as soon as ever you put your hands into their sides you shall feel their hollowness. Divine Pleasures are much enhanced in their worth by their permanence and continuance, whilst all mundane delights are justly depretiated by their inconsistence and lubricity. That heavenly Herald that knew well enough how to blazon this Worlds Coat of Arms, tells us its made up of fading Flowers beset with Crosses and Crossets. The anointing of Kings with Oil at their Coronations, intimates the slipperi●ess of their Thrones. Those things which have the most durable nature are reputed caeteris paribus, most excellent; this puts a lustre and value upon divine delights, that they are not obnoxious to that shortness and uncertainty which is the common fate of all mundane pleasures, which justly rank them in that degree of beings which are but a remove from nothing, and consequently unworthy to have the affections of a Soul too strictly engaged to them, which is capable of Eternal Communion with, and fruition of the first and Supreme Being.  
3. The mind of a good man brings him in constant revenue of solid peace and satisfaction; he holds his Serenity by a better tenor then the world can give: he is not indebted to the plenty of external enjoyments, for the eveness and composedness of his mind; nor doth his joy and pleasure depend upon the courtesy of the creature, but he enjoys halcyon days in the greatest tempests; to them the Rod buds and becomes pleasant; he can sing with the Thorn at his breast; he accepts with equal welcome an adverse or prosperous condition, knowing the wisdom and goodness of that Providience, which doth appoint these circumstances of life: His bones are not subject to aches upon change of weather: His joy is so securely treasured up, that it cannot be ravished away by the hands of violence, but will run parallel with Eternity. Though holy men are not by any special Charter, privileged from outward troubles, but are involved in the same common calamities with the worst of men, yet their minds are like the upper Region, calm and serene, and not disturbed with those tempestuous storms which arise in guilty souls, upon the approach of misery. Religion allays all the perturbations and commotions of the Soul, appeaseth all those tumultuous riots and insurrections, which mens boisterous and unruly passions are apt to raise; so that their minds are neither molested by any inward contests or outward violence, but enjoy perpetual serenity. In the bosom of a good man you may find the mere pacificum.  
4. Christian Religion hath not only this peculiar advantage above all other, that its design is to repair the ruins of decayed Nature, and at last to readvance it to that primitive state of perfection it was possessed of, before the delinquency of rebellious Adam had brought him under sequestration; but doth in the interim communicate such blissful enjoyments to its Votaries, as even anticipate their desires of being in Heaven. It takes them up into the Mount of Transfiguration, and gives them a Pisgah-sight of their future Inheritance; brings them clusters of Canaan's Grapes, before their actual entrance upon the purchased Possession. It opens a Casement into the other Life, whereby holy men take a view of the Kingdom of Heaven and all the glory of it; it feasts them with the hidden Manna, refresheth them with the water of life, which Antepast of Eternity makes their joy greater then the joy of Harvest, or the joy of them which divide the Spoil: If their notion of Heaven be agreeable to the nature of it, which suppose it rather a state then a place, it is not incongruous to believe that pious men are in Heaven before their dissolution; they need not in the language of Moses and St. Paul, seek for one to ascend up into Heaven, to bring them comfort from above, nor descend into the deep to fetch it from below. No, it is not at such a vast distance, but it is near them, in their mouth, and in their heart. It is the immediate issue of Conscience, giving in evidence of a sincere hearty compliance with the Divine Will. This fills their mouth with laughter, and their hearts with joy.  
5. I do not take Comfort and Joy to be such arbitary donatives of Heaven, as to be promiscuously scattered with an indifferent hand, without respect to the qualifications of those persons unto whom they are dispensed; but rather suppose them the natural and genuine product of virtuous actions, according to that of the Prophet Isaiah, The work of righteousness is peace, and the effect thereof quiet and assurance for ever. A good Conscience and a merry Heart are inseparable concomitants. A Christian can give himself a rational account of all those comforts he partakes of; he saith not he shall have peace though he walk in the imaginations of his own heart, but expects and enjoys it in the faithful discharge of those duties he is engaged to by his profession.  
6. There are no such Jobacches and Dithyrambs dictated by the holy Spirit, which offer violence to the faculties of the mind, and transport it into an Ecstatical Paroxysm; this Fanatical spirit prevailed much in the Pagan World; and its delusions were embraced with the same veneration an Oracle could exact. All the impressions Christians can expect the Spirit of God shall make upon their minds, are to be agreeable to their natures, accountable to Reason, and consonant to the sacred Scriptures; and this is not to limit the Holy One of Israel, or to chalk out a way for the Holy Ghost to move in his Operations, who is free to work where and when he pleaseth; but may serve for a caution to credulous minds not to be ensnared by the Impostures of those which pretend to high degrees of Inspiration.  
7. All the felicity of Religion lies not in reversion; good men stay not for all their Happiness till they come to Heaven. In the keeping Gods Commandements there is a great reward; Christians gather in much of their harvest while they are sowing their seed; their bliss and comfort is not wholly supported by expectation: there is a present possession of so much of Heaven as may quicken endeavours, satisfy desires, and encourage hope. They are not adventurers merely for a peradventure, but have insurance for advantage. What is that present Revenue of Joy which good men have imparted to them, but Heaven Incarnate? God muzzles not the mouth of the ox which treadeth out his Corn; None serve him for nought: Who ever complained of God as an austere Master, which had experience of his sevice, or can say, they had nothing for their labour but their pains? He that foregoes or undergoes any thing for Gods sake, and the Gospel, shall be compensated in this life an hundred fold, and in the world to come shall have life Everlasting. He may say as St. Paul, Act. 27. 21. We have gained this loss, of all the damage he sustains in his passage Heaven-ward; God gives good measure, heaped up, pressed down, and running over: Though we are to God unprofitable servants, yet is not Gods service unprofitable to us. If any demand, What profit is there by Christianity, and what advantage an holy man hath? I answer, as the Apostle in another case, much every way; much more then any one can imagine who is estranged from the life of God, and knows not that sweet pleasure which is twisted into the very Essence of virtuous and holy actions.  
8. Goodness and Happiness are but distinct notions of the same thing; what is Glory and Heaven but other names given to Grace and virtue? for the Essence is the same; and only a gradual, no specifical difference between them. The Scripture hath baptized the smallest degrees of Grace with the name of Glory, Isaiah 60. 1. and the highest enjoyments of Glory with the name of Grace, 1 Pet. 1. 13. Hope to the end for the Grace that is brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; that Grace is glory inchoate, and grace glory consummate; that grace is glory in the bud, glory grace in the flower, &c. are expressions frequently made use of, to express the similitude and difference there is between Goodness and Happiness. An appeal to the general experience of mankind, who have had no acquaintance with the Doctrine of our Saviour, will make it evident, that the notions they entertained concerning 'vice and virtue, were equivalent unto them which are here suggested. Plato assures us that 'tis a Law enacted from Eternity in the great Consistory of Heaven, and for ever to be kept inviolate; That Sin and Evil shall be attended with misery; that virtue and Goodness shall be always happy. To city what the Sentiments of Seneca, that great Moralist, concerning this subject are, would be to transcribe a great part of his Epistles, wherein he makes virtue to be its own reward, and Vices to be the tormenters of such which act them; for every sin brings into the world a lictor with it.  
9. A difference between Good and Evil, is engraven in such indelible Characters upon the minds of all men, that the most profligate and obdurate sinner cannot totally excuss them, nor sin himself into so deep a lethargy, as to be altogether insensible of the gripings of a guilty Conscience. The holy Tongue calls Sin and Punishment by the same name, as being in effect one and the same thing. Were there no other Nemesis to execute vengeance upon wicked men, then what ariseth from their reflection upon their Impieties, yet could they not escape a severe punishment, having their own Consciences appointed to be their Tormentors. Every sinner is a Megaera to himself; there is a bosom fury that pursues a sinner, with such suggestions of guilt and wrath, as beget in it present horror, amazement and perplexity, and dreadful apprehensions of a future judgement: Sin and misery are twisted into the same thread; the vails of sin is shane and sorrow, the wages death. A sinner is felo de se; not only an accessary, but the principal in his own ruin; many an one persecutes himself to death by Envy, Malice, Revenge, and becomes the Martyr of his Lusts. Whence come those wars and fightings, those violent perturbations and anxious contests which discruciate the minds of wicked men? come they not from their lusts? they are the effect of Pride, Self-love, and Malice; they are the Incendiaries which foment divisions, and dispossess the mind of its calmness and peace: the web that entangles men is spun out of their own bowels; Death and Hell are to be accounted the creature of sin, that is the womb that bears them, and the paps that give the suck; by this the Prince of Darkness supports his Kingdom. This kindles the devouring fire, and prepares fuel for everlasting burnings. To sin, is to anticipate eternal death, and to be damned before one comes to Hell, and act over aforehand the tragedy of their own destruction, and to torment themselves before the time. As God in his gracious Providence doth not leave holy persons to grapple with the difficulties of the Divine Life, without some Prelibations of that Happiness to which it doth conduct them, for their encouragement to a continual progression and advancement in Piety: So neither doth he leave the wicked to an uninterrupted tranquillity in the course of their sins, but embitters their pleasures, by the secret Convulsions of their own Consciences, and by a dreadful presensation of future misery, that by these sad presages they may be excited to flee from the wrath to come, through the abhorrence of that which is its immediate and necessary cause.  
10. The Epicureans did not err in their Philosophical determination of Pleasure, its being the chiefest good, the Alpha and Omega of Happiness; for if we have a right notion of it,( and are not imposed upon by that meretricious, treacherous and serpentine pleasure, which is ever attempting to insinuate itself into the affection of our masculine faculties) we ought to court it and embrace it where ever we can meet it; but because we have misapprehensions of its nature and objects, therefore we hunt upon a wrong sent, are apt to catch at every shadow, and seek the living among the dead, vainly expecting to enjoy a satisfying pleasure separate from that goodness wrich is essential thereunto. Epicurus himself tells us, though a supposed Enemy to a virtuous temperance, {αβγδ}. Wisdom and Goodness are necessary concomitants of Pleasure; which make me prove to believe, that those which exploded his Atomical Hypothesis, and were such bitter Antagonists to his Natural Philosophy, might be a litile over-lavish when they describe his Moral demeanour, which though it might not be so cynical and morose as that of some other Sects of Philosophers, yet was different enough from their deportment, who for their sensual Indulgences, in the vulgarlanguage are name Epicures.  
11. A strong desire after Pleasures is radically fixed in the nature of our being, we need no powerful motive to awaken us to inquire after it; for it is a Principle in our Souls, and our Propensions to it are therefore strong, because they are natural. The government and direction of this connate Appetite, hath been a Theme largely handled not only by Theologists, but Philosophers, and is the ultimate end to which their studies have pretended; all the circumstances of life which are valuable, are therefore so because they are delectable: 'tis the Pleasure men take in their Friends and Relations, in their Wealth, in their Honours, which engageth their affections to them; if that be not the result, they are no way bettered by fruition of them. Was I now disposed to be accurate and exact, in the drawing of particular Inferences from those various branches, which the foregoing notions of Pleasure yield, I should transgress that law of brevity, which I have for the prevention of complaints of being too prolix and tedious, prescribed myself; as also in part hinder what I endeavour to promote, viz. the Readers care to supply what is deficient by his own considerations; to which end, I shall insert out of a deserving Poet, that which may engage him to this practise.  
Who readeth much, and never meditates,  
Is like a greedy eater of sweet Cates,  
And doth his stomach so surcharge with food,  
That commonly they do him little good.  
But that which in general I shall suggest, is this; That whosoever shall be prevailed upon, by any of those arguments this Treatise affords, to abandon any vicious practise, and renounce the Works of Darkness; to live in the exercise of Virtue, and an entire consecration of himself to the Service of God, if he find not the harmony and pleasure of his Soul, when in the state of Righteousness, abundantly surpassing those lower delights administered to the mere animal life, I shall give him leave to curse me for an Impostor upon his first repentance.   

CHAP. VII.  
1. Christian Religion propounded by our Saviour as an easy yoke. 2. It doth not contain any thing prejudicial to the Body or the Mind of Man. 3. The Difficulties wherewith 'tis charged, are for the most part fictitious. 4. Wisdom is justified of her Children. 5. Ignorance a great promoter of Irreligion. 6. Experience advanceth Piety. 7. The Important matters of Religion are obvious to the meanest of them which inquire after it. 8. The Doctrine of the Gospel abused by false Suppositions. 9. Christian Religion best known by trial. 10. The Duties and virtues of it every way more grateful then the opposite Vices.  
1. AMong those many motives which our blessed Lord did frequently insist upon, to bring men so much in love with themselves, as those were with whom he did converse, to espouse a Doctrine which engaged them to the practise of such Duties which at first sight seemed contradictory to the design and scope whereunto their present Inclinations carried them; he propounds it to them as consistent with their present Interest, and containing in it nothing repugnant to the common Sentiments of human Nature, his yoke being easy, and his burden light. 'tis such a yoke which is lined through with a downie softness, and doth not press, but ease those which take it upon them. 'tis a burden, yet 'tis no fanaticism to say 'tis light; its Onus alarum: Let the ballast rather be accounted the remora of the Ship, which it secures, then the burden which our Master imposes be thought heavy, to the shoulders where it lies in its greatest weight.  
2. Were Christianity attended upon with a numerous retinue of encumbrances, which would disturb and unsettle the peaceable and harmonious temper and constitution of the Mind, the neglecters of it might with some colourable pretence of reason, attempt to justify their refusal, to subject themselves to the rigorous and severe injunctions of that which would so much retrench that liberty and serenity about which they are so highly solicitous. But Religion comes not to prey upon our Peace, to disseise us of our Rights, to invade our privileges, to betray us to servility, or engulf us into a state of trouble and inquietude; or engage us unto so cruel a Discipline as Superstition hath instituted in the Pagan and Christian world for its Proselytes to submit to: There is nothing contained in it which offers any violence to the faculties of the Mind, or can be rightly interpnted to the prejudice of the Body.  
3. There are no such insuperable difficulties and inaccessible Alpes in the way to Heaven, as the supine negligence of some suggests unto them, who have made the most impossible tasks to be emblems of the Gospel Precepts, and cry out the burden of the Lord, the burden of the Lord, though they do not so much as touch it with one of their fingers. The Lion in this way is not so fierce as he is painted; there are no such dreadful Apparitions, no such horrid Spectres and affrighting Mormoes as are conjured up by the power of a deluded Imagination; the difficulties which occur, are not half so great as they are represented to be by them which look at the wrong end of the Perspective. These sons of Anak are not so formidable as Supposition makes them: The story of those great Giants is a Romantick Fiction: These fiery Drrgons that watch the Garden of the Hesperides are nowhere but in a poetic Fable. Those Centaurs, &c. which are so terrible, are the chimaeras of a teeming Fancy, and have no other being then what misapprehension doth confer upon them. Men do first draw the Picture of Religion with a sad and lowering Countenance, and then take occasion to dislike it; disguise it with uncouth notions, and so keep themselves at a distance from it, and are terrified with a vizard of their own putting on. They cast a Mantle of Darkness upon the face of Light, and represent Religion to themselves in the most averting form; and no wonder if they be no otherwise affencted with it; they conclude there are many hardships to be undergone, and great opposition to be overcome, and so give themselves a Writ of Ease from the pursance of it, without any further inquiry into the nature of it, making an excuse of their own slanders and jealousies: doubtless such which criminate Religion as uneasy, and except against it as harsh and rigorous, are such as never give themselves the trouble to justify or condemn their fears, by experiencing whether they were true or false; but pass a severe sentence upon it, without any other evidence then the testimony of its greatest Adversary, and their degenerate Nature suborned by him; never appealing to their own Reason, nor putting it to a trial of Sense, either of which would answer their Objections, silence their clamours, confute their fears, and vindicate Religion from that sourness and moroseness of which it is impeached, and make its unjust Judges become powerful Advocates to pled its easiness, pleasantness and desireableness.  
4. 'tis mens want of acquaintance with Religion deceives them into a misbelief concerning the conversable and acceptable nature of it; to all that know it, it appears very aimable and attractive; 'tis mens Ignorance of it is the Mother of their want of devotion to it. The meaning of the matchless Spencer is apparent, in making Ignaro Porter to the Castle of the Imposturess Duessa. Wisdom is justified of all her Children, they rise up and call her blessed; Let the Brats of Folly and Darkness calumniate never so strongly, when men take no other view of Religion then what they have through the Devils optics, 'tis no news to hear them speak of it as difficult, and decline the pursuit of it as not worth their while; but to him that hath seen it in its native excellency and beauty, and understands the worth and importance of it, the greatest labour employed about it, is a kind of recreative divertisement, and nothing that conduceth to it esteemed a difficulty.  
5. What except Ignorance and Oscitancy could infuse into mens minds, such pernicious prejudices concerning Virtue and Piety, as is too apparent in the fatal consequences? What other causes can be assigned of that Irreligion and Immorality, which is so Epidemical, if these be denied? What else could beget such practical Contradictions in reasonable creatures, and make them Antipodes to themselves? How passionately do men languish and suspire after life, yet how importunately do they court the embraces of death? At how great a value do men pretend they prise the blessings of Eternity, and the Happiness of the World to come, yet sell them at the vilest rate, and exchange their Salvation for a Penny? What kindness do men profess they have to their Souls, and how solicitous will they seem to be to procure their welfare, when in the mean time they will forfeit all their happiness to gratify a sensual desire, and expose them to eternal misery for a moment of pleasure? Speak with most men, they will tell us, the end of their being here is to glorify and enjoy God, and prepare themselves for an Inheritance in the future life, when all their actions proclaim them wholly immersed in this present world: and all their designs levelled at these sublunary vanities; as if their houses should continue for ever, and their dwelling place unto all generations. How unbecoming these contradictions are those active intellectual and generous powers of their Souls, the labour of reflection will inform them.  
6. Did men inquire into, and make experience of the blessings of Religion, and lay aside those prejudices wherewith their ignorance and idleness hath prepossessed them, touching its trouble and difficulty, we should find the foundation which supports the Kingdom of Darkness razed, and the tents of wickedness made desolate in a moment. Religion looks upon us with a serene and pleasant Aspect; engageth us to cope with no power so great, as threatens a despair of Victoiy; puts us upon no task which shall frustrate sedulous endeavours; it gives assistance proportionable to its commands, and allows Straw enough to make the number of Bricks it exacts from us.  
7. The Fundamental Truths of Christian Religion are easy and intelligible, and its most important Duties feasible; acquaintance with Philosophical Distinctions, Scholastical Notions, thin and airy Speculations are not Essential to a Christian; a little Theory is a sufficient Basis to raise a large Structre of Piety upon. Religion, as Erasmus complains, is become now res ingeniosa; as if it were intended more for to exercise our wits then regulate our lives; and were rather to scratch mens Itch of Disputation, then advance true Devotion, and to furnish them with Discourse, and not better their Converse: But the Doctrine of our Saviour is designed to more noble and glorious ends; 'tis to insinuate an heavenly nature into the minds of men, and effectually to ingratiate the Precepts of Virtue, and to propagate Goodness in the World; and those previous dispositions which are indispensably necessary for the minds of men to be qualified with, for the entertainment of this sacred Doctrine, are not a large stock of human learning and natural abilities, but an humble and pacate composure of soul.  
8. The superficies of the Gospel, at first sight presents us with so much Truth as is needful to usher in virtue, though we should never dig into the bowels of this golden Mine, and find out those rich treasures which are hidden there. We do much abuse ourselves and injure the Doctrine of our Salvation, by framing such Idaea's of it, as are no way correspondent to the nature of it, viz. supposing it to be folded up in some inexplicable mysteries, and shadowed over with clouds of thick Darkness, or sublimated into such thin and volatile notions, as are too subtle for the ken of Vulgar Understandings: Whereas the wise Legislator of the Gospel,( pardon the solecism) hath promulgated it in so condescending a manner, that the meanest of those who are concerned in it, may be soon Doctors, of what doth immediately relate to their Obedience. Who is so Idiotical as to ignore the meaning of these and the like most necessary and important truths, Without faith it is impossible to please God; Without holiness no man shall see the Lord: That God hath shewed thee O man what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God,& c? All the Principal and Fundamental Truths of Religion are writ in so fair a character, that he that runs may red them, and he that reads may understand them. God speaks not to us in the language of Eternity, but as the Hebrews frequently express it, {αβγδ} with the tongue of the sons of men; he hath graciously accommodated his speeches to the lowest capacities, fitted truths of Scripture to the lowest understandings: We need not go to a Seer to inquire what is most important expressions signify, they shine so clearly in their own light: The Oracles of God speak not ambiguously as the Pagan Oracles, whose sayings might be interpnted to contrary senses; and those which consulted them left in suspense to which construction they should give credit, till oftentimes the fatal events decided it. As the conspicuous and eminently apparent Stars are sufficient to direct the master which way he is to steer his course, though many of the lesser magnitude cannot be discerned without the advantage of a Telescope; so those blessed Truths which are necessary for the government and regulating of our actions, are clear and visible to a dim eye, though there be some collateral Truths, which are not so nearly allied unto Piety, intimated in the Gospel, which are {αβγδ}, hard to be understood, and fall not under the cognisance of every ordinary Intellect, but, may be, prove too hard for the greatest Linguist, critic, or scholastic, to satisfy himself, or others in, as might be evidenced by many Instances, were it not a digression.  
9. The Truths of Christianity are rather adapted to Sensation then Speculation; our Sentient faculties do acquaint us with more of the nature of true Religion, then our Noetical can arrive to; 'tis better understood by a lively taste and relish, then by any artificial description. The manner of the Gospel dispensation as well as its design, argues all those to whom it is propounded, to be capable of receiving the benefits promised in it, and discharging the duty required in order thereunto. Religious Duties were never yet found so perplexed with difficulties as to defer any Probationer from becoming a Votary; Who ever espoused her sued out a Bill of divorce? Those Exercises to which it doth engage us are to invigorate and to quicken the Soul, and to breath out those noxious fumes, which are so apt to weaken and distemper it; and becomes a sovereign Antidote against those Diseases to which Idleness exposes it.  
10. Let wicked men compare but those real difficulties wherewith the ways of sin are encumbered, with those imaginary ones which they have set in the way of virtue, to affright themselves out of it, and they will upon the audit of the account soon renounce their present opinion; so obvious is it, that every virtue is more facile and easy then its opposite Vices: What torment is their in Love? What trouble in the concomitants of Faith, viz. Joy and Peace? What wrong is their in forgiving an Injury, and forbearing Revenge? What weight in the bearing Evil with Patience? what prejudice is there sustained by Moderation? where doth Humility press, or Truth and Sincerity aggrieve? Doth Contentment disquiet and perplex? Do the gentle Dove-like breathings of the blessed Spirit raise storms and tempests? Doth the hope of Eternal Happiness interrupt pleasure and delight? Doth an entire resignation of a mans self, and all his concernments, to the goodness and wisdom of Gods Providence, and a peaceable acquiescence in his dispensations to him, betray to any inconveniences? what doth God require of us, or do unto us, which can give us any just cause, to complain of any hard usage or cruel dealing? which of his Laws could we desire should be abrogated and repealed, as burdensome and prejudicial?   

CHAP. VIII.  
1. The Asperities of Christianity more eligible then Sensual Dissolutions. 2. An Induction of some Vices which are more difficult then the opposite virtues. 3. There is a Moral power in Custom engageth men to sin. 4. The beginning of Religion is not ordinarily very grateful. 5. In its progress it appears easy and rational. 6. The Proleptical Notions of our minds attest its Equity and Necessity. 7. The principal parts of it, Faith and Love, consonant to our Natural Dictates.  
1. THe Devil as great a Liar as he is, did never yet censure the commands of Meekness, Love, Temperance, Contentment, &c. Every virtue hath that inseparable sweetness adhering to it, which renders it not only easy, but also pleasant, and makes it not only light, but a delight to those noble& generous souls which live in the practise of it. The denial of ourselves, the susception of the across, the maceration of the Flesh, the renunciation of the World, which are the most irksome Duties, wherewith Christianity is charged, and carry in them the greatest repugnancy to the Inclinations of soft and tender natures, putting into the account that intimate pleasure which is incorported into them, and that constant serenity which results from them, are rather pleasureable divertisements, then oppressing employments, and arguments of a magnanimous and heroic Soul, which hath subdued itself to the Divine will, and lives above the delights of Sense, pleasing itself more in serving the pleasure of the Almighty, then in the indulging its natural and vicious propensions; so that even these reputed severities, and harsh injunctions, are infinitely more eligible, then the rudenesses and dissolutions of a sensual life.  
2. Every 'vice labours under its own imperfections; there is no sinful habit nor inordinate Passion, which puts not the minds of men, to undergo more labour and travail to gratify it, then is necessary for the acquist and exercise of a virtuous disposition. He that is of a malicious and envious temper, makes himself miserable, because he cannot make others so, and sucks poison out of those Flowers wherewith others are adorned: when on the contrary, he which is possessed with a spirit of universal love, pleaseth himself in the prosperity of others, and in a sense shares of that good which they enjoy, and thus partakes of Happiness in common with the whole world: Intemperance makes men nauseate and disgust those pleasures they are so ravenous after, when Moderation in the use of lawful and natural pleasures, makes them grateful and desirable: Covetousness engageth its Proselytes to be perpetually sacrificing to a lust which cannot be satisfied, though all the Mines of Peru and Gold of Ophir were consecrated to it; but Contentment heals this Bond-man, and charms the Soul into a quiet repose, under those circumstances of affairs which Providence appoints; and he only that is thus satisfied, can boast himself a Son of wisdom, which hath attained that Elixir turns all to Gold. Ambition 'tis a rack on which men greedy of applause torture themselves; their heads lye too high to sleep well, and their very slumbers are disturbed by dreams of Honour; they look for rest in agitation, and Panther like, leap at this poisonous Aconite till they burst. He that studies Revenge, and travels with the accomplishment of a mischievous purpose, if he frame not an engine which doth immediately recoil upon himself, shall certainly be molested by such future regret and anxieties, which will more then preponderate the sweetness of Revenge. How free from all such solicitudes are the spirits of those men which are of a benign and obliging disposition, and ready to gratify and engage all men by an affable and courteous demeanour! To instance in every particular grace and virtue, would be to prevent the Readers thoughts, which may readily furnish him with the same notions of those other virtues and vices which I have not suggested.  
3. Were there not so great a moral power in Custom, and an averseness in men to the relinquishment of that to which they have been habituated, men could not rebel so much against the Laws of Reason, as to give themselves up to the tyrannical Impositions of their brutish lusts, considering the labour which they undergo in their acting of them, and pains they suffer after; to this the Prophet refers, Can the Aethiopian change his skin, or the Leopard his spots? then may you that are accustomend to evil learn to do well.  
4. It must be conceded, that true Religion is not easy to flesh and blood. Lust will be very importunate to be gratified; there will be a renitency against Self-denial and Mortification; the old man will be urging for his accost and fare; the Sensative Appetite will at first especially be soliciting to be indulged. The strong man armed will not presently quit his house, and peaceably surrender unto the summons of Religion; there is need of a great power to beat him out of all his Fortifications. Abraham was unwilling, though the Father of the faithful, that the bond-woman and her son should be cast out. The women will be weeping for Tammuz. The right-hand cannot be cut off and cast away without some reluctancy; yet men to prevent a Gangrene will condescend to Amputation. The method prescribed by the Gospel physician, for the healing the distempers of human Nature, engageth men to such a diet as it not acceptable to an Inordinate Appetite. The New-birth is not accomplished without some throws. The Devil will rage when dispossessed. The peccant humours cannot be evacuated without some gripings; and the corrosives applied to the proud flesh will occasion smart: 'tis some pain to rack and fetch the flesh from of the lees, to ratify and attenuate the spirits incrassate by vicious diet, as the learned Dr. Hammond speaks. The whole body of sin cannot be carried out to its funeral without being condoled by the brutish part. When the old man breaks up house, there are many retainers to the family are loth to part, and will pretend a title from prescriprion. Those that have liked Satans service so well, as to have given him leave to bore their ears, its an argument of their approbation of it, will at first take it ill of them, which shall persuade them to change their Master, whom they so much delight in. And say of Christ as those in the Gospel, We will not have this man to reign over us. The dull Ass, as Luther styles corrupt Nature, cannot endure to be laden. Those seditious Lusts and Passions, which have so long bore sway in the minds of degenerate men, will be moulding Factions and Combinations against the sovereignty and Dominion of Reason and Religion, and 'twill be some difficulty to repeal every law of the members. The first Scene of this New-life appears Tragical, and there is an aptness to draw back upon the entrance into the Harness; before the vitiated palate be restored to its proper temperament, it tastes no sweetness in the hidden Manna; the Onions and garlic of Egypt are as savoury. Depraved Nature calls Darkness Light; and Light Darkness.  
5. That there should be any easiness in the bearing that yoke, which is to bridle the wildness of an unruly Appetite, is a Paradox to all such which have not submitted to it; but a certain and known truth to all who have had experience of both Estates, and 'tis to stand of fall according to the suffrage of so competent Judges. Those who converse with true Religion most familiarly, do not complain of any burdensome tasks and uneasy services, 'tis a weight to them who are weak through sinful infirmities, and painful only to such who labour under their own idleness. 'tis easy to the more noble part of Man; every way correspondent to those powers wherewith our rational Souls are endowed. 'tis not cooked for a vicious palate, or gratify the unbounden licorishness of a depraved Appetite: 'tis not to treat our brutish and inordinate desires, with those varieties which they affect; but 'tis to entertain our angelic faculties, with such delicacies as are agreeable to their spiritual nature. Nothing more easy and genuine to sanctified Nature and undistorted Reason, nor more satisfactory to the minds of men free from the Impositions of Lusts and Passions, then to worship their Creator, and endeavour to please him by an entire devotion of themselves to such actions as are consonant unto his holy Will. To give honour to whom honour is due, fear to whom fear, and to love our Benefactors, and them that love us, is currant coin all the world over; the Publicans the worst of men, did thus; and to be deficient in this, is an argument of greater sottishness and stupidity, then is to be found in Bruits; for, The ox knows his Owner, and the Ass his Masters crib.  
6. By the renunciation of Religion, men recede from the laws of their being, and walk in contradiction to their very natures: There are those anticipations in our minds, which do attest not only the equity, but the necessity of it too, in order to the attaimment of the supreme good; so that if men offer no violence to their faculties, they will naturally conduct them to such apprehensions of the Divine Wisdom, Power and Goodness, as are proper to insinuate that Affiance, Love and Reverence, which if regulated, and improved according to Gospel Revelation, will be effectual through the grace of God, to bring men to everlasting Happiness.  
7. Man as bad as he is, is not so far degenerate, as not to aclowledge the ways of Virtue, in many respects more advantageous, and less burdensome, then those of 'vice; to this the Heathen Moralists, Epictetus, Seneca, Plutarch, &c. give in their testimony, and the Conscience of every man is a witness. Christian Religion, if we view it in the Epitome, viz. Faith, and Love, evinceth it's own excellency. What more rational then to give up our Understandings, to the belief of those Truths which challenge assent upon such unquestionable evidence? What more consonant to human Nature then to love that which is every way amiable and affecting? God because of his absolute Perfection and infinite Beauty, being altogether lovely, and because of his relative Goodness and constant Beneficence to us, he that loves not God for his Excellency, is less then a Man; he that loves him not for his Kindness, is worse then a Beast: If the apprehensions of his transcendent glory work not upon our Reasons; if the sense of his bounty and mercy work not upon our ingenuity, 'tis too infallible an argument that we live Excommunicate from our own Natures, and that our demeanour is inconsistent with those Principles which give us a right to the title of Humanity. Love 'tis part of that homage and quit-rent that we owe to him in whom we live, and move and have our beings; and is it not fit that he which plants a Vineyard should eat of the fruit of it? To love God is not so much a duty as privilege, Salvation and eternal glory consisting chiefly in the consummation of Divine Love; and 'tis difficult to determine, whether he that is destitute of this blessed grace lies under greater sin or punishment.   

CHAP. IX.  
1. An ardent desire after Happiness is intimate to our Natures. 2. The love of our Neighbour very congruous to our reasons and condition in this state of Mortality. 3. The excellency of the Law of our Saviour manifested. 4. The joy of one only conjectural to another. 5. The Gospel Precepts founded upon immutable Reason. 6. Gods indulgence to us in these Laws to be admired.  
1. THe Harmony of the Universe, and the Wisdom of the Creator consists in this, that all kinds of things are endowed with such Natures and Principles as may accommodate them for the work to which they are appointed; and in that they are goverened by such laws as are suitable to the natures at first implanted in them. The most universal Principle is Self-preservation; in man a rational agent, 'tis accompanied with a strong desire after a state of happiness, and this predominates all others, which eager appetite of good is so intimately twisted into him, that he can as soon divest himself of his being, as of his desire of being happy. Self-love proposeth happiness as the last end of Man, and he is under no liberty of suspending his desires thereunto, but doth so necessary, and can do no otherwise, as is evident in all men, who eagerly chase that, in the attaimment of which they apprehended happiness is to be enjoyed; and because they are not firmly convinced, that their chief felicity consisteth in the favour of God, therefore do they fall in love with painted beauties, grow fond of appearances, and court whatsoever hath the shadow and semblance of good, and are tost with the vehement motions of Love and Desire, through all the false glozing excellencies of this world, finding no object which can bear any proportion to their indigence and necessities. Whereas if they were certainly persuaded that this happiness which they are solicitous to procure, did consist in the fruition of God alone, they must as readily love and desire him, as hungry men eat, or the thirsty drink, and prefer him unto all things whatsoever may challenge a place in their affection; and to direct and set aright, not eradicate, this natural inclination, is the design of the Gospel.  
2. As the Love of God contains nothing in it which carries not the greatest congruity to the understandings and minds of men; so neither doth that love of others which the Gospel enjoins, include any thing which is not highly rational, beneficial and agreeable to the ingenuity of mankind, and can be dissatisfactory only to those which have exchanged the nature of Man for that of Panther and tiger, and proclaim open war against their own species. That golden rule of our Saviours, That whatsoever we would that men should do unto us, that we should do to them, is to mind us to act in pursuance of those Principles which are deeply radicated in our Souls. Can it be called burdensome and unreasonable, to bear the same affection to another which I would have him bear to me? to put my soul in his souls stead, as Job speaks; to suppose myself under those circumstances which attend him, and clothing myself with his condition, demean myself towards him, as I should be hearty willing to be dealt withal, were the scene changed, and be in that state wherein I am; exacting no more of him then in such a case I myself would allow? considering that as he is in the world, so am I; that we participate of the same nature, that the same blood runs in both our veins, that we are flesh of one anothers flesh, and bone of one anothers bone, and have the same relative obligations to all acts of courtesy and charity, being of the same original and extraction, obnoxious to the same casualties, subject to the same passions, clothed with the same infirmities, straightened by the same necessities, and capable of the same glorious felicity; What greater inducement can there be to love, then so much likeness and similitude?  
3. Whatsoever circumstances can concur to make any Laws effectual and acceptable, take place in the whole system of the Gospel Precepts; the indispensible necessity of the things commanded, their relative and intrinsical goodness, the indisputable right and sovereign authority of the Legislator to impose them; their commendation as eligible by such which have lived under the power of them; the greatness of that reward which is consequent upon the observance of them, and the moderation of the rigour of all penal Statutes by a Court of Chancery, candidly interpreting, and favourably accepting the sincere endeavours of all those which cordially apply themselves to the performance of them, without any severe administrations against any offenders, except them which by their own obstinacy render themselves uncapable of the grace and mercy which is offered therein.  
4. To give an exact account with what pleasure and ease, alacrity and activity some run the ways of Gods Commandements, is beyond anothers power. Who knows what abundance of joy and strength may be communicated to holy men by the Divine Spirit? or how their Souls may be enlarged in their addresses to God! A stranger intermeddles not with this joy; nor can one acquainted with its nature know its extent, and determine its measure. But to this every Saint subscribes his Probatum est, that it is good for to draw near to God, and that the Introduction to eternal blessedness, is more easy and satisfactory to virtuous and gracious souls, then are those paths of carnal pleasure which vain men so much delight in, that led to the cbambers of death. Though men may hear much of the easiness, and delightfulness of the yoke of Christ, yet the half of it cannot be  told them, when they come to experience what the {αβγδ} means, and find how gracious, benign, good and profitable a yoke it is, then will they cry out concerning it, as the Queen of Sheba did of the wisdom of Solomon, The report that I have heard is true, but the one half of it was not declared to me. Though men hear never so much of the excellency of Religion, their experience will acquaint them with more then relation can make out.  
Three things I shall insist on, which much contribute towards the facilitating the commands of the Gospel. 1. Their Agreeableness to our Reasons. 2. The Assistance of the Spirit. 3. The Assurance of a Reward.  
5. First, The Evangelical Precepts carry a congruity to our natures, are founded upon such immutable reasons as our Understandings can readily assent to; they have in them an intrinsic and essential goodness, and borrow not their obligation merely from their injunction, but are to be reckoned with those things which are commanded because they are good; not them which are good only because they are commanded; under the Mosaical dispensation God made greater use of his sovereignty, the greatest number of those Laws being Symbolical and Ceremonial, having only a Positive goodness depending upon the command; they were not founded upon natural reasons, but were purely arbitrary; and the reason of them could be resolved only into the sovereign will and pleasure of the Almighty, there being no obligation antecedent to the commands, the matter of the Precepts being destitute of any real and internal good, and had only such which was relative, and in order to some higher end. Hence the greatest part of those Precepts are enforced by this reason, I am the Lord; intimating his Legislative Authority to be the ground of their Obedience. Besides those two Positive duties of Divine Institution, which considering the lapse of man, and the goodness of God, are accommodate to our necessities, the holy Sacraments: All the commands of the Gospel concern the difference of good and evil; they have their foundation in the Nature of God, and are imitations of the Divine Perfections, and have an innate tendency to the perfecting of our natures, the equity of them easily discerned, and their accommodation to their end readily apprehended. The matter of the Precepts recommends them to our observance; the Laws there prescribed, being founded upon such considerations as we are naturally affencted withal; that which is thus consonant to the Principles of our nature, will be found more easy to be performed then those positive Laws which seem to be given only pro imperio. The first transgression was of such a command that was merely arbitrary, whose goodness did depend on the will of God; not of a law commended from any natural reason.  
6. Unless we will abjure our humanity, and call ourselves by some other name then that of Man; we cannot complain of the yoke of Christ as burdensome and oppressive; 'tis by interpretation to tax the Almighty of tyranny and cruelty in requiring us to live conformable to our nature; which is no more then this, that we which are reasonable creatures should act according to the dictates of our reasons, and live up to the height of our beings, which is the universal notion and agreement of mankind. Whosoever will consult with his own soul, and attend to the deliberate debates thereof, concerning those terms upon which he stands in this life in relation to a future state, will admire and adore the indulgence and benignity of so gracious a Law-giver, in imposing no other Laws then those which have so much agreeableness to our natures, as to carry in themselves such weighty and forcible motives as are effectual to engage us to the observance of them, not only without complaint and reluctancy, but also with an high measure of easiness and complacency. Upon this account the Apostle styles wicked men, 2 Thes. 3. 2. {αβγδ}, absurd and unreasonable, such whom no topics can prevail upon, and Ephes. 2. 2. {αβγδ}, sons of unperswasibleness, whom no reason can satisfy and convince.   

CHAP. X.  
1. God nigh at hand in the assistance of his Spirit to all such which desire it. 2. He hath provided relief suitable to that infirmity our degenerate state hath brought upon us. 3. The difficulty supposed to be in Religion ariseth from our own deficiency. 4. Assurance of future Happiness animates the Soul to encounter any hazards. 5. Rational Agents increases their strength proportionable to the consideration of their end. 6. Temptation to Sin not so strong, but encouragement to virtue greater. 7. An happy end reconciles men to the love of the means which conduce to it, though otherwise abhorred. 8. Religion abstract from present and future pleasure would have few Proselytes. 9. 'tis the nature of Hope to encourage men to desert little for the present in hope of a great reversion. 10. Our designing our own Happiness consistent with our making Gods Glory our chiefest end. 11. God useth all rational methods to bring Man to Heaven. 12. Fear in its own nature apt to be effectual thereunto. 13. The Promises of the Gospel appropriated to the various dispositions of men.  
1. SEcondly, The assistance of the Spirit makes the commands, if a burden, easy to be born; God leaves nothing of himself forlorn and destitute, but cherisheth and aids it with the continual influences of his grace; He doth not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax, not despise the day of small things: His Power is always employing itself in the promotion of Piety among the children of men. God is at hand to second any that set themselves in opposition to the Power of Darkness; and where he is the reserve, there is no forlorn. It was no haughty strain of arrogance in the Apostle St. Paul, speaking of himself, {αβγδ}, Phil. 4. 13. I am able for all things through Christ which strengtheneth me; and the same Apostle Petitions for the same almightiness to be vouchsafed to the Colossians, Colos. 1. 12. Strengthened with all might according to his glorious power. The Spirit of the Gospel is styled the Spirit of Power, and is always ready and able to help our infirmities; and when we are foiled by temptations, 'tis not for want of power to oppose them with; 'tis not because the weapons of our warfare are not mighty through God to prevail against them; but because we betray ourselves, cast away our armor, and deliver our glory into captivity, and our strength into the enemies hands. Wherefore should Man pled weakness, and charge all his sin upon the impotence of his nature? when God attends upon him with sufficient grace, and is never wanting to him which seriously seeks his assistance, but makes his Power perfect in mans greatest weakness. Men lye not under any Physical infirmity whereby they are disabled for the discharge of their duties; their hands are not bound, nor are their feet put into fetters; the perverseness and contumacy of their wills is the only impediment by which they are hindered from the performance of them; and how absurd and unreasonable is it for men to complain that Christs burden's heavy, only because they have no mind to bear it?  
2. This should awaken us to the most uncessant industry, to consider that our labours shall not be frustrated, nor our designs disappointed, through the concurrent assistance of the Deity: God hath mercifully provided for the children of men in their degenerate condition, against all those disadvantages which their present state exposeth them unto; and because we are liable to many miscarriages, by reason of the darkness of our understandings, which are apt to be deluded with false apprehensions, and absurd and inconsequent deductions, through the propensity of our wills to harken to the suggestions of the flesh, and comply with the solicitations of the inferior appetite; God hath not left us in the hands of our own counsel, nor set us to grapple with the enemies of our Salvation in the strength of an arm of flesh, but graciously co-opperates by the assistances of his Spirit, that in his might we may prevail over all those spiritual fleshly and worldly lusts that war against our souls, yea, be more then conquerors through his Almighty power, who never suspendeth the auxiliary concurrence of it from any which endeavour the propagation of virtue and Religion, but is ever working in them both to will and to do of his good pleasure.  
3. Difficult and easy are relative terms, are nothing in themselves, but as they have respect to us, the difficulty and hardness of a thing being the disproportion between the faculty and the object; thus a little weight becomes a burden to an infirm person, and an easy question hard to him which is illiterate, when the one may be as easily carried by one which is strong, as the other be resolved by the one that is learned. Religion might pass not only for an impossible task, if the duties which it enjoins us to perform were to be wrought by the strength of man, who cannot do any thing of himself, but as he is enabled by the grace of God; qui jubet juvat. The Leopard may as soon change his spots, and the Aethiopian his hue, as men of themselves change their natures, and root out those vicious habits which custom hath so deeply riveted into them. Therefore God chargeth nothing upon us as our duty for which he hath not afforded unto us a proportionable measure of ability, and unto the accomplishment whereof he hath not engaged himself by promise, if we do not offer violence to the grace of God, reject his counsel against ourselves, and resist the holy Spirit which we are to Petition and attend for; so that notwithstanding many duties of Religion be accounted difficult by those which are spectators only, or be so in themselves, yet those which employ themselves in the severest and irksomest part of it, have that assistance from an unseen hand which facilitates and sweetens their labours; They walk and are not weary, they run and are not faint; as their work, so their strength is increased; the more they do, the more they may; the greater the burden is which is laid upon them, the better they can bear it; and 'tis no wonder if neither a Christians Active or Passive Obedience subject him to faintness or lassitude when the {αβγδ}, Phil. 1. 19. the supply of the Spirit is so cordial and corroborative.  
4. Thirdly, The assurance of reward tends to the facilitating the work of Religion; That exceeding and eternal weight of glory, which is in the Gospel propounded to those which are truly religious, is an inducement so connatural, and of so easy an access unto the minds of men, and withal of so weighty an importance, that whosoever shall diligently poise it, will undoubtedly give in his suffrage to this truth, that the well grounded expectation of felicity, so incomparably great, so eternally durable, so shortly to be enjoyed, must more then counterbalance all the asperities and difficulties which incommodate men in the way unto it. 'tis sufficient to make the roughest places smooth, and level the highest Mountains into a Plain, and make the torrid Zone temperate; in the view of this glory all difficulties are swallowed up, and the edge of all dangers turned, and opposition is so far from being a bridle to restrain, that 'tis a spur to quicken endeavour; it animates Resolution, inflames the Appetite, and improves the Soul to an higher degree of vigour and generousness, whilst it looks not so much at the things which are seen which are temporal, as at the things which are not seen which are eternal.  
5. All Rational Agents are carried on by their ends, as Watches move according to the strength of the Spring, and Clocks proportionable to the weight which is hung upon them; by how much the more glorious and excellent the reward propounded and expected is, with so much the more energy and virtue is the mind of the agent possessed, and an answerable weight put upon the Soul for the accelerating of its motion. Whatsoever an man proposeth as his end, he gives that an Empire and Dominion over him, to regulate and dispose his actions to the attaimment of it; he who makes the eternal fruition of God his ultimate end, and liveth in expectance of it, is governed and swayed thereby, to be constant in the pursuance of it, notwithstanding the means which only can instate him in that felicity be very irksome and laborious.  
6. There is no temptation to sin so strong, but the motives to Obedience are of far greater force and efficacy; the encouragement to Duty doth infinitely preponderate the difficulty of it; 'tis worth the while to dive for this Pearl, to dig for this Treasure, though they lye deep; this Gold cannot be bought too dear. What though thou shouldst prick thy fingers to gather the Rose of Sharon, and go over a craggy Mountain to find the lily of the Valleys? What if thou in the sweat of thy brows eatest of the three of life? What if thou dost toil all the night, when thou art certain of so rich a draft in the morning? Who will not press with an holy violence to enter in at the strait gate, when as soon as he is in he beholds the beatifical Vision, and is befriended with a view of all the glory of the new Jerusalem? Let him that begins to be weary of well doing, or to faint in his mind in the prosecution of this happiness, lift up his eyes unto Heaven, and every glance of that glory will renew his strength, and refresh his spirits more then the touching of the earth did Antaeus in his fatal conflict with Alcides.  
7. God indeed valves not the glory of his Kingdom at so cheap a rate, as to prostitute it to the enjoyment of every supine and idle wish, yet sets it not beyond the reach of diligent endeavours. Nothing can be justly esteemed difficult which conduceth to such an end; though there be an averseness and reluctancy in men to make use of those means which are effectual to the procuring so great felicity; yet doth the strength of their desires and expectations reconcile them to affect the means, which without consideration of the end they so much abhor. In the most religious and refined Souls there is so much human Nature left, as would recoil and start back at the appearance of some Duties which sometimes Religion may exact, if they had not respect unto the recompense of reward, and fled for refuge unto the hope which is set before them. In all secular affairs men are encouraged by the expectation of achieving their end, to encounter with the greatest oppositions which contradict their designs. The Merchant adventures himself upon the mercy of a boisterous and unruly Element, in hope of advancing his Estate. The Scholar with indefatigable industry pursues his studies, in expectance of having access unto those mysteries which are locked up from vulgar understandings. The soldier is not terrified by danger, but courts an Enemy to a battle in hope of being crowned with spoil and triumph. By a Romanist even the scorching flames of Purgatory are cheerfully expected, as being introductory to the Paradise of Gods immediate presence, That far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, which is prepared for the reward of holy men, cannot to them that eye it, but make the heaviest burdens light, and longest pressures momentary.  
8. 'tis very probable that the practise of virtue abstracted from all present pleasure, and future felicity, would be a burden wherewith few or none would charge themselves; therefore God hath graciously deigned to recommend unto us the duties of Christianity, under such inducements and motives that are most apt effectually to prevail upon us; his ways are so amiable and pleasant in themselves, that they may invite us to walk in them, if there were no other happiness in the conclusion; and withal the reward which at last shall be conferred, is of such transcendent worth, that the hope of it is a sufficient incentive to engage us cheerfully to conflict with the sharpest difficulties can possibly occur in our pursuance of it, and as the blessed Apostle with the greatest earnestness and intention of soul press toward the mark for the price of the high calling of God in Jesus Christ, being steadfast and immovable, always abounding more and more in the work of the Lord, knowing that our labour shall not be in vain in the Lord; but that having our fruit unto holiness, we shall have the end, eternal life.  
9. 'tis the nature of Hope to strengthen the weak hands and confirm the feeble knees; to keep up the Soul amid all storms, and make it impregnable against all assaults; to sweeten the bitterest potions, and lighten the heaviest burdens; the holy Scripture abounds in pregnant instances of the powerful influences of it; it provoked Abraham to relinquish his own Country, and sojourned in a strange land, he looking for a City whose builder and maker was God. It prevailed upon Moses to refuse the pleasures, honours and advantages of a Favourite at Court, and to accept of the servitude and misery which was undergone by the Israelites at the Kilne, for he had respect to the recompense of reward, and saw him that was invisible. The Primitive Christians welcomed the Plunders, and did not weep when they beholded the ruin and pillage of their temporal means, but took joyfully the spoiling of their goods, knowing in themselves, that they had in Heaven a better and more enduring substance, and under torture would not accept of deliverance. Our blessed Lord and Saviour, unto whom we are to look as the most eminent instance and example, Heb. 12. 2. for the joy which was set before him, endured the across, and despised the shane, and suffered the contradiction of sinners.  
10. 'tis no indulgence to the infirmities of weak Believers, but necessary for the strongest Saints to encourage themselves against all difficulties by the consideration of future glory. Nor is it any disparagement to the ingenuity and generousness of those Souls, whose obedience floweth from such a Principle as hath relation to themselves in the attaimment of everlasting bliss, for that the desire of happiness is our nature, and the right expression of self-love our great duty; and such which censure that love of God mercenary and meretricious, which is in conjunction with the love of ourselves, do not understand that we then make the glory of God our principal end, when we place our chiefest happiness in the enjoyment of him; it being a vain thing to imagine we can glorify God any better way then in the eternal fruition of him and communion with him; the glory of God being nothing contrary to, or abstracted from the salvation of man, but that in which it doth consist, and whereby it doth most effectually display itself. Nor can we be said to love ourselves more then God, or subordinate his glory to our designs, in chiefly intending and endeavouring our own happiness, when this can only be accomplished by the denial of our sinful affections, and entire resignation of ourselves to his Will, and the entertainment of those Divine Impressions upon our Souls by which we are made conformable unto him; and by a participation of a Divine Nature, in the communication of which, the honour of God doth become most illustrious and triumphant, and the Souls of men are made meet to be partakers of the Inheritance of the Saints in light.  
11. God in Scripture hath been pleased to use all rational methods, and pathetical insinuations to engage us to look after our own happiness; by vehement persuasions, passionate Expostulations, convictive Reasonings, melting Lamentations, and serious Protestations, accommodating himself unto every faculty, and touching every string of the human Soul that may move it toward himself; and because fear of Punishment, and hope of Reward, are the most suitable arguments to work upon reasonable creatures, God hath not been wanting in his addressing himself to us in such a manner that may deter us from evil, and 'allure us to good.  
12. If we have any pity for ourselves, what can be more effectual to prevail upon us to desist from all impiety, then the apprehension of that just severity and displeasure of God, which we expose ourselves unto by our disobedience? The Apostle was well acquainted with the force of this motive, 2. Cor. 5. 11. Knowing the terrors of the Lord, we persuade men. Let us think if we can bear the indignation of the Lord, and stand before the power of his anger; as is his fear, so is his wrath, Psal. 90. 11. Can we dwell with devouring fire, and lye down in everlasting burnings? Isa. 33. 14. This consideration was matter of fear to the sinners, and surprised the Hypocrites with terror; 'tis a probable way to awaken men to flee from the wrath to come. No arguments take a faster hold of the nature of man in this degenerate state, then the apprehension of danger and fear of misery: for when all ingenuity is lost, and desire of enjoyment of Heaven is extinguished, there will remain a strong propension, which we cannot quit ourselves from, to flee from misery, and escape punishment.  
13. If we love our own souls, and can be affencted with what is best for us, behold, God hath courted our love with the promises of Eternal Happiness, and endeavoured to charm us to Obedience by the most desirable end, and given unto us as certain an assurance of it as we can rationally expect, or as the nature of the thing is capable of, it being both spiritual and future. And because men of different tempers and constitutions, do not propound one and the same thing as the scope and design of their actions, but are variously affencted, one with Honour, a second with Wealth, a third with Pleasure, &c. God hath represented the state of future bliss in such variety of expressions, as will recommend it unto all sorts and conditions of men. Let him that aspires unto Honour, take a view of the Crown of Glory, which shall be set on the head of him whom God will honour, and it will provoke him to this laudable ambition. Let him that thirsts after worldly Wealth, survey the Riches and Treasures of the heavenly Kingdom, which is the Inheritance of holy men, and it will quicken him in his endeavours to be rich toward God, that he may for ever inherit the portion of the just in the land of life. Let him who pursues the Delights of Sense, and seeks for satisfaction in these low entertainments, lift up his eyes to the Joy of Gods Salvation, In whose presence is fullness of joy, and at whose right hand are pleasures for evermore; and it will possess him with the importunity of David, When, O when shall I appear before the Lord, that I may be satisfied with the fatness of his House, and drink abundantly of the River of his pleasure!   

CHAP. XI.  
1. The belief of a future Reward admitted by all pretenders to Religion. 2. Rationally inferred by the wiser Heathens. 3. Probably the Virtuosi among them may be happy in the future state. 4. The Heathens had some slight intimations of the nature of it. 5. The Nature of that Happiness not possible to be fully conceived by us here below. 6. The Conclusion of the whole Chapter.  
1. SUch persons which have admitted into the Articles of their Creed these two Fundamental Principles of all Religion, the Existence of God, and the Immortality of the Soul, can never scruple the faith of a state of future felicity, or once doubt whether such as are really good and virtuous, shall be blessed with the participation of it. 'tis to me as easy to believe all the fabulous Narrations of the Popish Legend, all the monstrous absurdities of the Turkish Alcoran, and ridiculous stories of the Jewish Talmud, as 'tis to believe that such which have made the principal employment of their lives to be serviceable to their Creator, constantly adhering to him in faithful obedience, and breathing after him with vigorous affections, shall be then defeated of the fruition of God, when they are most capable to enjoy him, viz. when freed from those impediments which their conjunction with a terrestrial vehicle doth necessary carry with it.  
2. That there is a condition of bliss reserved for the reward of such whose virtuous actions qualify them for admission thereunto; or as the Apostle speaks, That there remains a rest for the people of God, hath been rationally inferred by the more prudent Heathens from their observation of the unequal distribution of good and evil in this world; for surveying the present economy of affairs, and finding such which were most notoriously vicious, highly gratified with all those pleasures to which their sensual Appetite inclined them; and that the most exactly and severely virtuous, for the most part laboured under those infirmities and necessities which were inconsistent with the happiness of human Nature, seeing these obliqne transactions, that they might reconcile this administration of Providence with the Wisdom, Justice, and Goodness of God, did genuinely conclude that this world was a place of trial and probation, and that there was a future state for reward and remuneration; intimating withal, that the state to which men were appointed upon the quitting this earthly stage, is not to be primarily assigned to an absolute and fatal decree, or the manifestation of any sovereign and Arbitrary Power, but to the righteous progress of that Divine Nemesis which insinuates itself through the whole Contexture of the Universe, and will not fail to dispose of persons to such an habitation and such society, for which by their previous Actions and Passions they have prepared themselves, consonant to the Divinity of the Apostle, who tells us, Rom. 9. 2. of vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, and Col. 1. 12. Of a being meet to partake of the Inheritance of the Saints in light.  
3. I do not find it repugnant to Christian Divinity, to embrace a favourable opinion of the entertainment of Socrates, Seneca, Plato, Plotinus, Epictetus, and such worthy Pagans, in the other World, whose invincible ignorance of many Articles of Religion( whose neglect doth certainly conclude them under damnation, which live under the Gospel Meridian) might fairly consist with their moral innocency and integrity, and possibly not hazard their future happiness, sith even they might have that faith which the Apostle allows to be sufficient to make a man acceptable to God, viz. a belief that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them which seek him, Heb. 11. 6. which if it produce those fruits, and accomplish those ends for the effecting of which faith is requisite, in the want of necessary means for the arriving to any particular and explicit notions of Redemption, 'tis probable that the root of the matter, the very essence of Religion being found in them, God,( according to the dictates of our faculties concerning his clemency and bounty, and the revelation of his Philanthropy) will not condemn them for what was never in their power to act or acquire; and for ought he hath made known to the contrary, may by some special indulgence favour them with that revelation of himself which is necessary to eternal blessedness: but this looks so like a controversy, I shall decline it, referring the Reader to the 12, 13, 14. verses of the 2. of the Romans, as being the tropic of the question, beyond which it cannot go, nor I neither.  
4. Sith not only the light of Reason, and natural Religion, but also divine Revelation doth sufficiently demonstrate that virtuous and pious persons shall after their departure from this world be translated into a state of bliss and glory: It may be worth our enquiry, to understand, if we can, what this blessedness is; where if we follow the guidance of the ethnic Poets, they will led us 
— ad amaena vireta  
Fortunatorum nemorum, sedesque beatas.  To the elysium Fields, the Fortunate Islands, &c. and treat us with Nectar and Ambrosia, and celestial Viands, and admit us into the rank of the Aerial Genii, and feast us with the Gods. If the diviner sort of Philosophers, they will advance us to a further degree of blessedness and knowledge of it; but we shall leave their worthy Essays, and Philosophical conjectures about the happiness of the life to come, and wishing them an interest in it, shall attempt the knowing of this Riddle by ploughing with Gods Heifer.  
5. God hath, as it were, ransacked the whole Treasury of the Creation for the imbellishment of that condition into which he will instate his People, and omitted nothing whereby it may be rendered excellent and eligible: 'tis called life, and what is more, eternal life; that it is life, makes it desirable; but that this life is eternal, that makes it infinitely so. Sin when finished, brings forth death; but Religion when consummate, brings forth life; its end is life without end. The knowledge of the happiness of Heaven is reserved, not revealed; we speak of it, as of God, not what we ought, but what we can: No man can declare to you what it is, and if he could, you were not able to bear it; 'tis more then an exceeding and eternal weight of glory, 2 Cor. 4. 17. {αβγδ}. There is both an emphasis and elegancy in the Original, lost in the Translation; 'tis glory from one Hyperbole to another Hyperbole; 'tis {αβγδ}, somewhat which is not capable of being expressed by words; raise up your souls to the highest {αβγδ}, yet then they will disparaged the happiness of Heaven by too low and unworthy apprehensions of it; 'tis to be limned like Agamemnens grief, only by a veil; our faculties are too weak and impotent to frame an exact idea of it. The objects we converse with are too scanty and indigent to furnish us with a notion commensurate with its perfection. Our conceptions are too narrow to let in a full and determine Map of that State. There is a great part of the Holy Land not yet discovered. We have but little more acquaintance with the particulars of our entertainment in the state of separation, then of that of Pre-existence( if the Hypothesis may pass for truth. Didst thou ever look within the veil, and see that perfection of beauty and glory which is in the holiest of all? Dost thou know the worth of that Crown, the magnificence of that Throne, the stateliness of that Mansion, the richness of that prise, the sweetness of that Manna, the brightness of that Glory, the generousness that fruit, the purity of that joy, and happiness of that society, wherewith God will entertain his Children? Canst thou tell me what it is to know as thou art known? to be like him, to be one with him, to enter into joy, to appear in glory, to have God thy portion and exceeding great reward? prithee tell me, if thou canst, what estate thou shalt be possessed of, who art a coheir with Christ, and shalt inherit all things, what dignities thou shalt be preferred to, whom the King of Heaven delights to honour; what transporting pleasures thou shalt enjoy, who art always ravished with divine love, and in his embraces whose favour is better then life? Who can tell how great that goodness is, which God hath laid up for his? or what is that largesse they shall receive from his bounty? who knows how far the helix of happiness may enlarge, or can say, Hitherto shall it come and no further? Canst thou give me a bill of that fare wherewith those shall be feasted which are invited to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb? Hath God  told thee what portion he will give his children? or what Estate he will settle upon his Spouse? or what that Charter is he hath granted to the Citizens of the New Jerusalem? Glorious things are spoken of this City of God; but no descriptions, Metaphors, or resemblances which an active fancy may suggest can insinuate into our minds an express character thereof; for the Apostle tells us, It doth not yet appear what we shall be; till Experience be our Tutor, we must make a virtue of Necessity, and let our Ignorance increase our Devotion; whilst we are without, all these things are in Parables; but after death, he, who now looks forth at the window, and shows himself through the Lattess, Cant. 2. 9. will take the veil from his face, and the scales from our eyes, and enable us to behold the brightness of his glory; till then the summum bonum will not be unridled. No mathematics can make a Jacobs staff to take the dimensions of this State; 'tis not to be measured, though by the cubit of the Sanctuary; it hath an height and length, and depth, and breadth, which we cannot stand upon the Earth and find out. We know not here the sweetness of being inebriated at the Fountain: For ought we can tell, there may be some powers in our souls, that in his contracted state are wrapped up in silence and inactivity, which upon our release from this present confinement to inert and sluggish matter may awaken, unfold and dilate themselves for the entertaining of Happiness, now, altogether unconceivable. But by how much the more men live in conformity to the Divine Will, and in familiar converse with the Deity, so much the more near approaches do they make towards an acquaintance with the blessedness in which the spirits of just men made perfect are instated. Such which are in the Apostles expression, alienated from the life of God, must likewise be estranged, as from the sense, so also from the understanding of its concomitant felicity.  
6. Let our busy faculties run into never so great a variety of opinions concerning the appendices and circumstances of the happiness of Heaven, yet will this abide as an undoubted verity, that the essence of that bliss is such, that wicked men cannot, considering the nature of it, be partakers thereof; the beauty of holiness is not visible to an evil eye; the fruit of the three of Life cannot be relished by a voluptuous Palate; the paths of pleasure in the Paradise of God, will be but as obscure and melancholic shades, to him which hath walked contrary to God; he will be Tantalized in the waters and under the three of life; he can neither enjoy this happiness nor( if possibly he could) rejoice in it; the reason is, because he is destitute of faculties proportionate and analogous to such kind of objects, whereby the pleasure of them should be conveyed to the Soul; in this sense the Apostle may be understood, when he tells us, That the natural man cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God, because they are spiritually discerned. The happiness of Man being the fruition of God as the chiefest good, the foundation of this enjoyment is in that communion which there is between God and Man, which consists in the assimilation and conformity of our actions, affections and dispositions unto the nature and goodness of God, which work, if it be not accomplished in some measure in us, it is impossible we should be happy; for God being eternally the same, cannot recede from the holiness of his own nature to have communion with us in a sinful state; therefore we ought to endeavour a reconciliation of ourselves to the purity and perfection of the Divine Being, that thereby we may be made capable of the enjoyment thereof. What fellowship can light have with darkness, or what concord can there be between Christ and Belial? till we lay aside the weapons of our hostility against Heaven, and hearty comply with the will of God, and entirely devote ourselves by self-denial unto him, that he may be all in all, we have no ground of expectance for that happiness which knows no end.   

CHAP. XII.  
An Appendix containing certain Propositions for the Explicating the Nature of Religion.  
HAving frequently asserted that true Religion completes the happiness of human Nature, and that it is impossible such whose minds are wholly destitute of the Principles thereof, and whose lives are irreconcilable with its practise, should arrive here to any considerable degree of that peaceable and sedate temper of soul, which indicates present happiness; or upon their departure out of this scene of life, be admitted to a participation of the blessedness of the World to come; It is not improbable but some one or other which may red this Discourse, will be desirous to have an account of the Nature of Religion, in such particulars at least which may conduce to their direction in the management of so important an affair as I have affirmed it is, as interesting them in the happiness of this life, and entitling them to that to come: That I may satisfy such a reasonable request, and improve to the best advantage I can that end which I aim at in this present Treatise, viz. to endear Religion to the world, by rendering it most rational in itself, and advantageous to its Votaries; I shall attempt the Explication of it in these ensuing Propositions.  

1. Proposition.  
There is one Supreme, Eternal, necessary, Independent Being, infinite in Wisdom, Power, and Goodness, viz God. The belief of this is the first step to Religion, and so propounded by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, He that comes to God, must believe that he is; where by coming to God, according to the ordinary way of speech with the Hebrews, is meant worshipping him, to which none will or can address themselves, without believing that he is. So that a firm assent to the Existence of a Deity necessary precedes all Adoration of and Obedience to him: Now if to this Proleptical Principle of the Being of God which is implanted in the Nature of Man, be added a diduction of such Truths which do immediately flow therefrom, as that he hath sovereign Jurisdiction and Authority over us; that he hath an especial care and providence for us, and respect to us, and such other Truths which are obvious, to infer from the precedent Supposition; we have a true account of the Original of Natural Religion, and the Foundation of all that virtue and Veneration which we meet with in the Pagan World; for unto this Idea engraven in their Souls, and the rational consequences thereof, were they indebted for the seminal Principles of Honesty and Piety, as might, were it appropriate to the present design, be easily manifested.   

Proposition 2.  
The Soul of Man is of an Immortal Nature, viz. It subsists and acts after its dissolution from the body. This hath been generally conceded by all Pretenders to any religion, and runs parallel with the belief of the precedent Proposition, which abstracted from this, would have had a weaker influence upon the Nature of Man, to have encountered with the difficulties of virtue and Piety: And from these two prime notions dictated by the common reason of mankind, hath naturally succeeded the belief of Reward and Punishment, and an enquiry after the means of attaining the one, and avoiding the other, which the dim light of Nature could not sufficiently manifest; therefore God hath communicated himself unto mankind, through his Son, the Narrative of whose Transactions we have recorded in the Gospel; and we ought to consult those sacred Oracles, that we may be assured what Articles of Faith we are to assent to, and what Duties to perform, which neither the Light of Reason, nor the Mosaical Dispensation hath dictated unto us: And that we may have as brief and perspicuous account as the nature of the Subject is capable of, I shall proceed to lay down such further Propositions, as may conduce to the ease of the weakest Understanding, in the apprehension of the sum and epitome of that Gospel which recommends to us the Doctrine and practise of Christian Religion.   

3. Proposition.  
God was pleased to sand his Son into the world, to take our Nature upon him, to redeem the lapsed Posterity of the first Adam, by a perfect accomplishment, through his Active and Passive Obedience, of whatsoever was required of him, as the Sponsor and Mediator of the New Covenant, wherein is promised remission of sin and eternal life.   

4. Proposition.  
Such only partake of the blessings of this Covenant, confirmed by the Death and Resurrection of our blessed Saviour, which faithfully perform those conditions which are on their part required in order to the attaimment thereof. This Proposition is evident by its own light to all those which understand the nature of a Covenant, which is a mutual agreement between different Parties, that upon the performance or failure of the conditions therein expressed, such and such shall be the consequences; so that if one of the Covenanters neglect to perform the condition to which he hath obliged himself, he cannot justly challenge the other, to give unto him any thing covenanted for, to which he was engaged, upon no other consideration; they by virtue of that Obligation from which he is legally discharged, by the others evacuating the force of the Covenant, in a contradicting of the Conditions of it. The Application of this to Gods Covenant with the Sons of Men, through Jesus Christ, is so plain and obvious, I shall not insist thereon.   

5. Proposition.  
The principal and fundamental Condition, whereby we are Entitled to a Right to all the B●nefits of the Gospel Covenant, is Faith: The exercise of this divine grace in the various circumstances of our lives is indeed Christian Religion, and an effectual means, through Gods appointment for the obtaining eternal happiness. As under the economy of Moses, the whole duty of man was comprehended in this expression, the fear of God: So under the Gospel administration the substance of a Christians duty is included in this word Faith. That no man may be defrauded of his happiness, by being imposed on in his apprehensions of Faith, by swallowing down such imperfect definitions of it as too many systems of Divinity, and confessions of Faith do offer him: I shall tender to his consideration such a description of the nature thereof as may justify itself by Scripture, and correspond with the main design of God in the Gospel, viz. the advancement of the Divine life in the world, which hath been not a little checked in its progress, by the reception of some supposititious notions concerning it, as if the whole of Faith were a recumbency and affiance on God for, or a particular persuasion of our own Salvation, making that which is but a part or product of Faith, comprehensive of its entire nature, that they may relax themselves from the strictness of that obedience which the Faith of the Gospel doth exact; the object of which is then only full, complete, and adequate, when there is a firm assent to its Truth, a secure reliance upon its Promises, an aweful dread of its threatenings, and an universal obedience to its Precepts; He that thus believes on the Name of the Son of God, shall not perish, but have eternal life.  
Had not self-love, vain-glory, worldly interest, and carnal indulgence given so signal evidences of their prevalency in other affairs, it would have been strange how that perspicuous and practical description of Christian Faith, which so frequently occurs in sacred Writ, should be so ordinarily rejected; and cloudy, and knotty, and speculative notions substituted in lieu thereof.  
The Scripture makes an hearty belief of Jesus his being the Christ, viz. the anointed of God, to be that Faith which is absolutely necessary to Eternal Happiness, as being that to which Justification and acceptance with God is promised; the full understanding of which would silence most of these disputes wherewith the world is disturbed concerning the Nature of Faith, and the influence it hath into the pardon of sin, and settling a man firm in the favour of God, which those will never be willing to understand, whose sturdy and peremptory persuasion that they are the Elect of God, is the greatest reason which they have to believe they are so, and who would fain prescind all acts of virtue and Piety from being essential thereunto. To believe, to confess, to know, and such words of knowledge, and acknowledgement, in the Dialect of Scripture, suppose such apprehensions and affections as are agreeable to the nature of such actions; Confession of sin includes in it a regret and repentance; and the belief that Jesus is the Christ, the anointed of God, the Prophet, the Priest, and the King, comprehends demeanour becoming such faith. To attend to his voice, to believe his Revelations, to follow his guidance and direction, is to believe him a Prophet. A persuasion that he hath done whatsoever God required for the satisfaction of his justice, for the expiation of guilt, and for procuring divine acceptance, and that there is Salvation in no other name but his; this is to believe him Christ a Priest. A perfect subjection of ourselves to his Laws, and willingness that he should reign in us by the power of his Spirit; this is to believe him Christ a King. The consideration of this tends to the relief of the minds of men, apt to be perplexed with unnecessary scruples concerning the nature of Faith, and their own assurance of the happiness thereon dependent, and is pregnant with powerful arguments to persuade to the exercise of all Christian graces and Moral virtues, which is the scope of all true Religion, and the end of this Discourse.    

ERRATA.  
page. 12. line 13. for nature's red nature is. p. 19. l. 24. l. 14. deal. Ephes. 4. 18. Ephes. 5 1. p. 22. l. 16. for criticism, we r. critism who. p. 25. l. 21. for the r. their. p. 44. l. 11. left out former. p. 53. l. 18. for variety r. verity. p. 83. l. 24. for defer r. deter. p. 88. l. 16. for bondman r. boulemia. p. 91. l. 20. for its r. as. p. 92. l. 9. insert at, or to gratify. p. 111. l. 18. deal. the. l. 19. deal. not only.