THE

SHORTNESS AND VANITY

OF A

PHARISAIC RIGHTEOUSNESS,

DISCOVERED

IN A DISCOURSE UPON MATT. xix. 20121.

            The young man -says unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet? Jesus says unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give it to the, poor, and thou shall have treasure in heaven. And come and follow me,”

CHAP. 1:

            As there is no kind of excellency more generally pre­tended to than religion, so there is none less known, or wherein men are more apt to delude themselves. Every one is ready to lay claim, and to plead a right in it; (like the bat in the Jewish fable, that pretended the light was hers, and complained of the unjust detainment thereof from her) but few there are that understand the true worth and preciousness of it. There are some common notions in the minds of men, which are ever and anon roving after religion; and as they casually start up any models of it, they are presently prone to believe them­selves to have found this pearl of price: the religion of most men being nothing else but such a scheme of thoughts and actions, as their natural propensions, swayed by nothing but an inbred belief of a Deity, accidentally run into; nothing else but an image and resemblance of their own fancies which are ever busy in painting out themselves; which is the reason why there are as many shapes of religion in the minds of men, as there are various shapes of faces and fancies. Thus men are wont to fashion their religion to themselves in a strange and uncouth manner, as the imaginations of men in their dreams are wont to represent monstrous shapes that no where appear but there. And though some may seem to themselves to have ascended up above this low region, this vulgar state of religion; yet I doubt they may still_ be wrapped in clouds and darkness, they may still be but in a middle region, like wandering meteors that have not yet shaken off that earthly nature which will at last force them again downwards. There may be some who arrive at that book-learning in Divine mysteries, that with a pharisaic pride looking down upon the vulgar sort of men, may say,” This people that know not the law are cursed;” who themselves converse only with a shadow of religion. Though the light of Divine truth may seem to shine upon them, yet by reason of their dark hearts, it shines not into them. They may, like this dark and dull earth, be superficially gilded, and warmed too with its beams, and yet the impressions thereof do not pierce quite through them. There may be many fair semblances of religion where the substance of it is not. We shall here endeavor to discover some of them which may seem most specious, and with which the weak understandings of men (which are no where more lazy than in matters of religion) are most aptt to be deluded; and then discover the reason of these mistakes.

            For which purpose we have made choice of these Words, wherein we find a young Pharisee beginning to swell with a vain conceit of his good estate towards God, looking upon himself as being already upon the borders of per­fection, having from his youth up kept in the way of God's commandments; he could not now be many miles, from the land of Canaan. If he were not already passed: over Jordan, he thought himself to be already in a state of perfection, or at least within sight of it: and there­fore making account he was as lovely in our Savior's eyes as he was, in his own, asks him,” What lack I yet?”

            As if he had said, Having kept all God's command­ments, sure my good deeds not only overbalance my evil,. no, but they rather fill both the scales of the Divine balance; I have no evil deeds to weigh against them what therefore can I want of the end of the Divine law, which is to make men perfect? To which our Savior replies,” If thou wilt be perfect,. go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shall have- treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.” Which words I cannot think to be only a particular precept; but rather by way of conviction. So that the full sense of our Savior's speech seems to be this;” A mere conformity of the outward man to the law of God is not sufficient to bring a man to eternal life; but the inward man also must deeply receive the impression of the Divine law.” True perfection is not consistent with any worldly affections. The spirit which acts- so strongly in this lower world must be crucified. The soul must be wholly dissolved from this earthy body which it is so deeply immersed in, while it endeavors to enlarge its sorry tabernacle upon this material globe, and by a holy abstraction from all things that pinion it to mortality, withdraw itself and retire into a Divine solitude. If thou therefore wert in a state of perfection, thou wouldst, be able at the first call from God to resign up all interest here below, to quit all claim, and to dispose of thyself and all worldly enjoyments according to his pleasure, without any reluctancy,” and come and follow me.” And this I think was the true scope of our Savior's answer; which proved a real demonstration; as it appears in the sequel of the story, that this confident Pharisee had not yet attained to those mortified affections which are requisite in all the candidates of true blessed­ness; but only cheated his own soul with a bare external appearance of religion, which was not truly seated in his heart: and I doubt not that many are ready upon as slight grounds, to take up his query,” What lack I yet?”

            We shall therefore in the first place inquire into some of those false pretences which men are apt to make to happiness.

CHAP. 2:

            An Account of Mistakes about Religion in four Parti­culars. 1. A partial Obedience to some particular Precepts. Where the true Spirit of Religion is, it in­forms and actuates the whole Man, it will not be con­fined, but will be absolute within us, and not suffer any corrupt Interest to grow by it.

            THE first is,” A partial obedience to some particular precepts of God's law.” That arrogant Pharisee that could lift up a bold face to heaven, and thank God he was no extortioner, nor unjust, nor guilty of any publican sins, found it easy to persuade himself that God justified him as much as he did himself.

            It was a rule given by the Jewish doctors, which I fear too many live by,” That men should single some one commandment out of God's law, and therein especially exercise themselves, that so they might make God their friend by that, lest in others they should too much dis­please him.” Thus men are content to pay God the tenths of their lives too, so that they may without fear of sacrilege, or purloining from him, enjoy all the rest to themselves. For they are not willing to consecrate their whole lives to him, they are afraid lest religion should encroach too much upon them, and. too busily invade their own rights and liberties, as their selfish spirit calls them.

            There are such as think themselves willing God should have his due, so he will let them enjoy their own without any let or molestation; but they are very jealous lest he should encroach too much upon them, and are careful to set bounds to God's prerogative over them, lest it should swell too much, and grow too mighty for them to main twin their own privileges under it. They would fain understand themselves to be free-born under the dominion of God himself, and therefore ought not to be compelled to yield obedience to any such laws of his as their own private lusts and passions will not suffer them to give consent to.

            There are those who persuade themselves they are well ­affected to God, and willing to obey his commandments, but yet think they must not be uncivil to the world; nor so base and cowardly as not to maintain their reputation, with a due revenge upon those that impair it. Such as these can easily find some postern-door to slip out by into this world: and while they either do some constant homage to heaven in the performance of some duties of religion, or abstain from such vices as the common opi­nions of men brand with infamy; or fancy themselves to have some of those characters which they have learned from books or pulpit-discourses to be the notes of God's children and justified persons, grow big with self-conceit, and easily find some handsome piece of sophistry to delude themselves by, in indulging a beloved lust. They can beat down the price of other men's religion, to enhance the value of their own; or it may be by a fiery zeal against others that are not of their sect, they lose the sense of all their own guiltiness. The disciples them­selves had almost forgotten the mild and gentle spirit of religion, in an over-hasty heat calling for fire from heaven upon those whom they deemed their master's enemies.

            Sometimes a partial spirit in religion, that spends itself only in some particulars, mistakes the fair complexions of good-nature for the true face of virtue; and a good bodily temperament will serve, as a flattering glass, to bestow beauty upon a misshapen mind. But it is not a true spirit of religion that is thus particular and confined. No, that is of a subtle and working nature; it will be searching through the whole man, and leave nothing unin­formed by itself: as it is with the soul that runs through every member of the body. Sin and grace cannot lodge together, they cannot divide between them two several dominions in- one soul.

What is commonly said of truth, we may say more especially of goodness,” It is great, and will prevail.” It will lodge in the souls of men, like that mighty, though gentle, heat which is entertained in the heart, that always dispenses warm blood and spirits to all the members in the body. It will not suffer any other interest to grow by it. It will be so absolute as to swallow up all our carnal freedom, and crush our fleshly liberty. As Moses's serpent eat up all the serpents of the magicians, so will it devour all that viperous brood of iniquity, which our magical self-will begets within us. Like a strong and vehement flame, it will not only scorch the skin, but consume this whole body of death. It is compared by our Savior to leaven, that ivill ferment the whole mass in which it is wrapped up. It will enter into us like the refiner's fire and the fuller's soap; like the angel of God's presence that he promised to send along with the Israelites in their journey to Canaan, it will not pardon our ini­quities, nor indulge any darling lust whatsoever. It will narrowly pry into all our actions, and be spying out all those back doors whereby sin and vice may enter.

            That religion that runs out only in particularities, and is overswayed by the prevailing power of any lust, is but a dead carcass,. and not that true living religion which comes from heaven, and which will not suffer itself to be confined; that will not indent with us, or article upon our terms, but, Sampson-like, will break all those bonds which our fleshly and harlot-like wills would tie it with, and become every way absolute within us.

CHAP. III

            The second Mistake about Religion, viz. 4, mere compliance of the outward Man with the Law of God. True Religion seats itself in the Center of Men's Souls, and first brings the inward Man into Obedience. Tie superficial Religion intermeddles chiefly with the Cir­cumference and Outside of Men. Of speculative and spiritual Wickedness. How apt Men are to sink all Religion into Opinions and external Forms.

            WHEN religion seats itself in the center of men's souls, it acts there most strongly upon the vital powers of it, and first brings the inward man into a true and cheerful obedience, before all the external be quite subdued. But a superficial religion many times intermeddles only with the circumference and outside of men; it only lodges in the suburbs, and storms the outworks, but enters not the main fort of men's souls, which is strongly defended by inward pride, self-will, particular and worldly loves, fretting and self-consuming envy, popularity, and vain glory, and such other mental vices, that -when they are beaten out of the conversations of men by Divine threats or promises, retreat and secure themselves here as in a strong castle. They may be many who dare not pursue. revenge, and yet are not willing to forgive injuries; who - dare not murder their enemy, that yet cannot love him; who dare not seek for preferment by bribery, who yet are not mortified to these and other base affections. They are not willing that the Divine prerogative should extend itself beyond the outward man, and that religion should be too busy with their inward thoughts and passions. If they may not by proud boasting set off their own sorry commodities upon the public stage; yet they will inwardly applaud themselves, and commit wanton dalliance with their own parts and perfections; not feeling the mighty power of any higher good, they will endeavor to preserve an unhallowed sense of themselves; by a sullen stoicism; when religion bereaves them of the glory and pleasures of this outward world, they retire and shrink themselves up into a center of their own. When external loves begin to cool, men may fall in love with themselves by arrogancy, self-confidence and dependence, self-applause and congratulations, admiration of their own perfections; and so feed that dying life of theirs with this speculative wantonness, that it may as strongly express itself within them, as before it did without them. Men may thus sacrilegiously steal God's glory from him, and erect a self-supremacy within, and so become corrivals with God for the crown of blessedness and self-sufficiency.

            But, alas, I doubt we generally arrive not to this pitch of religion, to deny the world, and all the pomp and glory of this largely-extended train of vanity; but we easily content ourselves with some external forms of religion. We are too apt to be enamored rather with some more specious and seemingly-spiritual forms, than with the true spirit and power of godliness. We are more taken commonly with the several new fashions that the luxuriant fancies of men are apt to contrive for it, than with the real power and simplicity thereof; and while we think ourselves to be growing in our knowledge, and moving on towards perfection, we do but turn up and down from one form to another.

            I would not be understood to speak against those duties and ordinances which are means appointed by God to promote piety. But I fear we are too apt to sink all our religion into these, and so to embody it, that we may as it were touch and feel it, because, we are so little acquainted with the high and spiritual nature of it, which is too subtle for gross minds to converse with. I fear too many look upon such models of divinity, and religious performances, as were intended to help our dull minds to a more lively Tense of God and true goodness, as the whole of religion; and therefore are apt to think themselves absolved from it, except at some solemn times of more especial ad­dresses to God; and that this wedding-garment of holy thoughts and Divine affections is not for every day's wearing, but only then to be put on when we come to the, marriage-feast and festivals of heaven. As if religion were locked up in some sacred solemnities, and so incor­porated into some Divine mysteries, as the superstitious heathen of old thought, that it might not stir abroad and wander too far out of these hallowed cloisters, and grow too busy with us in our secular employments. We have learned to distinguish too subtily between our religious approaches to God and our worldly affairs. I know our conversation in this world is not, nor can well be, all of a piece,-and there will be several degrees of sanctity in the lives of good men, as there were once in the land of Canaan: but yet T think a good man should always find himself upon holy ground, and never depart so far into the affairs of this life, as to be without the compass of religion; he should always think, wheresoever he is, that God and the blessed angels are there, with whom he should converse in a way of purity. We must not think that religion serves to paint our faces, to reform our looks, or only to inform our heads, or tune our tongues; no, nor only to tie our hands, and make our outward man more demure, and bring our bodies and bodily actions into a better decorum: but its main business is to purge our hearts, and all the actions and motions thereof.

CHAP. 4:

The third Mistake about Religion, viz. A constrained Obedience to God's Commandments. The Religion of many (some of whom seem most abhorrent from Super­stition) is nothing but Superstition properly so called. The Different Effects of Love and slavish Fear in the truly, and in the falsely religious.

            ANOTHER particular wherein men mistake religion, is a constrained obedience to God's commandments. That which many men (amongst whom some would seem to be most abhorrent from superstition) call their religion is indeed nothing but superstition, that I may use the word in its ancient and proper sense, as it imports a such an apprehension of God as renders him grievous to men, and so destroys all free and cheerful converse with him, and begets, instead thereof, a forced and dry devotion, void of inward life and love.” Those servile spirits which are not acquainted with God and goodness, maybe so haunted by the frightful thoughts of a Deity, as to terrify them into some worship of him. They are apt to look upon him as one clothed with austerity, an hard master; and therefore they think something must be done to please him, and mitigate his severity towards them. And though they cannot truly love him, having no inward sense of his loveliness, yet they cannot but serve him so far as these rigorous apprehensions lie upon them; though notwithstanding such as these are very apt to persuade themselves that they may purchase his favor with some cheap services, as if heaven itself could be­come guilty of bribery, and immutable justice be flattered into partiality and respect of persons. Because they are not acquainted with God, therefore they are ready to paint him to themselves in their own shape: and because they themselves are full of peevishness and self-will, arbitrarily prescribing to others without sufficient reason, and are easily enticed by flatteries; they are apt to repre­sent the Divinity to themselves in the same form; and therefore, that they might please this angry deity of their own making, they are sometimes lavish in such a kind of service of him as does not much pinch their own corrup­tions; nay, and it may be too, will seem to part with them,, and give them a weeping farewell, if God and their own awakened consciences frown upon them; though all their obedience arise from nothing but the compulsion which their own sour and dreadful apprehen­sion of God, lay upon them. And therefore in those things, which more nearly touch their beloved lusts, they will be as scant and sparing as may be, here they will be strict with God, that he may have no more than his due, as they think; like that unprofitable servant in the gospel, that, because his master was an austere man, reaping where he had not sown, and gathering where he had not scattered, was willing he should have his own again, but would not suffer him to have any more.

            This servile spirit in religion is always illiberal and needy in the great and weightier matters of religion, and here weighs out obedience by drachms and scruples; it never finds itself more shriveled and shrunk up, than when it is to converse with God; like those creatures that arc generated of slime and mud, the more the summer­ sun shines upon them, and the nearer it comes to them, the more is their vital strength dried up and spent. Their dreadful thoughts of God, like a cold eastern wind, blasts all their blossoming affections, and nips them in the bud.

            These exhaust their native vigor, and make them weak and sluggish in all their motions towards God. Their religion is rather a prison, or a piece of penance to them, than any voluntary and free compliance with the Divine will. And yet, because they bear the burden and heat of the day, they think, when the evening comes, they ought to be more liberally rewarded; such slavish spirits being over apt to conceit that heaven receives some emolument by their hard labors, and so becomes indebted to them, because they see no true gain and comfort accruing from them to their own souls; and so because they do God's work, and not their own, they think they may reasonably expect a fair compensation. And this, I doubt, was the first foundation of merit; though now the world is ashamed to own it.

            But, alas, such an ungodly religion as this can never be owned by God: the bond-woman and her son must be cast out. The spirit of true religion is of a more free, noble, ingenuous, and generous nature, arising out of the warm beams of the Divine love which first brought it forth, and therefore is it afterwards perpetually has in ­itself in that sweetest love that first begot it, and is always refreshed and nourished by it. This love “castes out fear, fear which has torment,” and which therefore is more apt to chase away souls from God, than to allure them to God. Such fear of God always carries in it a secret antipathy against him, as being one that is so troublesome that there is no peaceable living with him. Whereas love, by a strong sympathy, draws the souls of men, when it has once laid hold upon them, by its powerful insinuation, into the nearest conjunction that may be with the Divinity; it thaws all those frozen affec­tions which a slavish fear had congealed, and makes the soul. most cheerful, free, and nobly resolved in all its motions after God. It was well observed of old by Pytha­goras,” We are never so well as when we approach to God;” when in a way of religion we make our addresses to God, then are our souls most cheerful. An inward acquaintance with God discovers nothing in him but pure. and sincere goodness, nothing that might breed the least distaste or disaffection, or carry in it any semblance of displeasingness; and therefore the souls of good men are never pinching and sparing in their affections: then the torrent is most full and swells highest, when it empties itself into this unbounded ocean of the Divine Being. This makes all the commandments of God light and easy, and far from being grievous. There needs no law to compel a mind acted by the spirit of Divine love to serve God. It is the choice of such a soul to conform itself to him, and draw from him an imitation of that goodness and perfection which it finds in him. Such a Christian does not therefore obey his commands. only because it is God's will he should do so, but because he sees the law of God to be truly perfect, as David speaks: his nature being reconciled to God finds it all holy, just, and good, as St. Paul speaks, and such a thing as his soul loves, as sweeter than the honey or the honey-comb;” and he Snakes it” his meat and drink to do the will of God,” as our Lord and Savior did,

CHAP. 5:

            The fourth Mistake about Religion, When a mere mechanical and artificial Religion is taken for that which is a true Impression of Heaven upon the Soul. The Difference between those that are governed in their Re­ligion by Fancy, and those that are actuated by the Divine Spirit, and in whom Religion is a living Form. Religion discovers itself best in a serene Temper of Mind, in deep Humility, Meekness, Self-denial, uni­versal Love of God and all trite Goodness.

            THE fourth and last particular wherein men misjudge themselves, is, “When a mere mechanical and artificial religion is taken for that which is a true impression of heaven upon the souls of men, and which moves like an inward nature.” True religion will not stoop to rules of art, nor he confined within the narrow compass thereof no, where it is, we may cry out with the Greek philoso­pher, *, God is within. God has there kindled his own life, which will move only according to the laws of heaven. But there are some mechanical Christians that can fashion religion so cunningly in their own souls by that book-skill they have got of it, that it may many times deceive themselves, as if it were a true living thing. We often hear that mere pretenders to religion may go as far in all the external acts of it as those that are best acquainted with it: I doubt not also that many times there may be artificial imitations drawn. of that which only lives in the souls of good men, by the powerful and wily magic of exalted fancies; as we read of some artificers that have made images of living crea­tures, wherein they have not only drawn forth the out­ward shape, but seem almost to have copied out the life too in them. Men may make an imitation as well of the internals of religion, as of the externals. There may be a semblance of inward joy in God, of love to him and his precepts, of dependence upon him, and a filial reverence of him. Those Christians that fetch all their religion from pious books and discourses, hearing of such and such signs of grace, and being taught to believe they must get those, that so they may go to heaven; may pre­sently set themselves on work, and in an apish imitation cause their animal powers and passions to represent all these; which may serve for a handsome artifice of reli­gion wherein these mechanics may much applaud them­selves.

            I doubt not that there may be such who to gain credit with themselves, and that glorious name of being the children of God, (though they know nothing more of it but that it is a title that sounds well) would use their best skill to appear such to themselves, so qualified and molded as they are told they must be. And as many times credit and reputation among men may make them pare off the ruggedness of their outward man, and polish that; so to gain their own good opinion, and a reputa­tion with their own consciences which look more in­wardly, they may also endeavor to make their inward man look more smooth and comely. And it is no hard matter for such chameleon-like Christians to turn even their insides into whatsoever color shall best please them. Thus may they deceive themselves, and think their reli­gion to be some mighty thing within them, that runs quite through them, and makes all these transformations within them; whereas a wise observer may see whence it comes and whither it goes: it being indeed a thing which is from the earth, earthy, and not like that true spirit of regeneration which comes from heaven, and begets a Divine life in the souls of good men, and is not under the command of any such charms as these are, neither will it move according to those laws, and times, and measures that we please to set to it: but we shall find it manifesting its mighty supremacy over the highest powers of our souls. Whereas we may truly say of all mechanics in religion, and our mimical Christians, they are not so much actuated and informed by their religion, as they inform that;” the power of their own imagination deriving that force to it which bears it up, and guides all its motions and operations. And therefore they themselves having the power over it, can new mould it as themselves please, according to any new pattern which shall please them better than the former: they can furnish this domestic scene of theirs with any kind of matter which the history of other men's religion may afford them; and if need be, act over all the expe­riences of that sect of men to which they most addict themselves so to the life, that they may seem to themselves as well experienced Christians as any others; and so, it may be, soar aloft in self-conceit, as if they had already made their nests among the stars, and had viewed their own mansion in heaven.

            But besides, there are such things in our Christian religion as may seem delicious even to the fleshly appe­tites of men. Some doctrines and notions of free grace and justifications; the magnificent titles of sons of God and heirs of heaven; ever-flowing streams of joy and pleasure that blessed souls shall swim in to all eter­nity; a glorious paradise in the world to come, always springing up with fragrant beauties; a new Jerusalem paved with gold, and bespangled with stars, comprehend­ing in its vast circuit such numberless varieties, that a busy curiosity may spread itself about to all eternity. I doubt not but that sometimes the most earthly men may be so ravished with the conceits of such things as these, that they may seem to be made partakers of” the powers of the world to come:- yea, and to have obtained higher degrees than those noble Christians that are gently moved by the natural force of true goodness. And as the mo­tions of our sense, fancy, and passions, while our souls are in this mortal condition, are many times more vigo­rous than those of the higher powers of the soul, which are more remote from these mixed and animal perceptions; that devotion which is there seated may seem to have more energy and life in it than that which gently, and with a more delicate kind of touch, spreads itself upon the understanding, and from thence mildly derives itself through our wills and affections. But, howsoever the former may be more boisterous for a time, yet this is of a more consistent and thriving nature: for that is but of a flitting and fading nature. But a true celestial warmth will never be extinguished; being once seated vitally in the souls of men, it will regulate all the motions of them in a due manner, as the natural heat in the hearts of living creatures has the dominion of the whole body under it, and sends forth warm blood and spirits, and vital nourishment to every part and member of it. True religion is no piece of artifice; it is no boiling up of our imagination, nor the glowing heat of passion; these are too often mistaken for it, when we cast a mist before our own eyes but it is a new nature informing the souls of men; it is a god-like frame of spirit, discovering itself most in serene and clear minds, in deep humility, meekness, self-denial, universal love of God, and all true goodness, without partiality, and without hypocrisy; whereby we are taught to know God, and knowing him to love him, grid conform ourselves, as much as may be, to all that perfection which shines in him.

            Thus far the first part of this Discourse, which was de­signed to give a particular account of men's mistakes about religion. The other part was intended to dis­cover the reason of the mistakes. But whether the author finished that part, it appears not by any papers of his which have yet come to my hands.

 

THE
EXCELLENCY AND NOBLENESS
OF
TRUE RELIGION,

            In its Rise and Original, in its Nature and Essence, in its Properties and Operations, in its Progress, in its Tern and End.

THE

EXCELLENCY AND NOBLENESS

OF

TRUE RELIGION.

Prov. 15: 24.

The Way of Life is above to the Wise, that he may depart from Hell beneath.

TAP INTRODUCTION.

            IN this whole book of the Proverbs we find Solomon, one of the eldest sons of wisdom, always standing up and calling her blessed. His heart was both enlarged and filled with the pure influences of her beams, and therefore was perpetually adoring that sun which gave him light. “Wisdom is justified of all her children;” though the children of folly see no beauty nor comeliness in her, that they should desire her. That ’mind which is not touched with an inward sense of Divine wisdom, cannot estimate the true worth of it. But when wisdom once displays its excellencies in a purified soul, it is entertained there with the greatest love and delight, and receives its own image reflected back to itself in sweetest returns of love and praise. We have a clear manifestation of this sacred sympathy in Solomon, an instrument which wisdom her­self had tuned to play her Divine lessons upon: his words were every where full of Divine sweetness, matched with strength and beauty, as himself phrases it, “like apples of gold in pictures of silver.” The mind of a proverb is” to utter wisdom in a mystery,” as the apostle sometimes speaks, and to wrap up Divine truth in a kind of enigmatical way, though in vulgar expres­sions. Which method of delivering Divine doctrine, (not to mention the writings of the ancient philosophers,) we find frequently pursued in the Holy Scripture, thereby both opening and hiding at once the truth which is offered to us. A proverb or parable being once unfolded, by reason of its affinity with the fancy, the more sweetly insinuates itself into that, and is from thence with the greater advantage transmitted to the understanding. In this state we are not able to behold truth in its own native beauty and lustre; but while we are veiled with mortality, truth must veil itself too, that it may the more freely converse with us. St. Austin path well assigned the reason why we are so much delighted with metaphors and allegories, because they are so much proportioned to our senses, with which our reason has contracted an inti­macy. And therefore God, to accommodate his truth to our weak capacities, does, as it were, embody it in earthly expressions.

            Thus much by way of preface to these words, being one of Solomon's excellent proverbs, viz. “The way of life is above to the wise.” I shall from them take occa­sion to set forth the nobleness and generous spirit of true religion, which I suppose to be meant here by” the way of life.” *, here rendered above, may signify that which is Divine and heavenly, high and excellent. And in this sense I shall consider it, my purpose being from hence to discourse of the excellent and noble spirit of true religion, (whether it be taken as it is in itself, or as it becomes an inward form and soul to the minds of good men;) and this in opposition to that low and base-born spirit of irreligion, which is per­petually sinking from God, till it couches to. the very center of misery, the lowermost hell.

            In discoursing upon this argument, I shall consider the excellency and nobleness of true religion: 1. In its rise and original. 2. In its nature and essence. 3. In its properties and operations. 4. In its progress. 5. In its term and end.

CHAP. 1:

            I. The Nobleness of Religion in Regard of its Original it comes from Heaven, and moves towards Heaven again. God, the first Excellency and primitive Per­fection. X411 Perfections are to be measured by their Approach to, and Participation of, the first Perfection. Religion, the greatest Participation of God. None capable of this Communication but the highest of created Beings. A two fold Fountain in God, whence Religion flows, viz. 1. His Nature. 2. His Will.

            WE begin with the first, viz. True religion is a noble thing in its rise and original. True religion derives its pedigree from heaven; it comes from heaven, and con­stantly moves towards heaven again. It is a beam from God, as” every good and perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of Lights.” God is the first truth and primitive goodness. True religion is a vigorous efflux and emanation of both upon the spirits of men, and therefore is called a participation of the Divine nature. Indeed God has copied out himself in all created being, having no other pattern to frame any thing by but his own essence; so that all created being is *, a shadowy resem­blance of God; and is, by some stamp or other of God upon it, at least remotely allied to him. But true religion is such a communication of the Divinity, as none but the highest of created beings are capable of. On the other side, sin and wickedness is of the basest and lowest original, as being nothing but a perfect degeneration from God, and those eternal rules of goodness which are derived from him. Religion is an heaven-born thing, the seed of God in the spirits of men, whereby they are formed to a likeness of himself. A true Christian is every way of a most noble extraction, of an heavenly and Divine pedi­gree, being born from above. The line of all earthly nobility, if it were followed to the beginning, would lead to Adam, where all the lines of descent meet in one; and the root of all extractions would be found planted in nothing else but adamaah, red earth. But a Christian derives his line from Christ, who is the only-begotten Son of God,” the shining forth of his glory, and the character of his person. We may truly say of Christ and Christians, as Zebah and Zalmunnah said of Gideon's brethren, “As he is, so are they,." (according to their capacity,)” each one resembling the children of a king.” Titles of worldly honor in heaven's heraldry are only nominal, but titles of Divine dignity signify some real thing, some real and Divine communications to the spirits of men. All perfections and excellencies, in any kind, are to be measured by their approach to that primitive perfection of all, God himself; and therefore the partici­pation of the Divine nature cannot but entitle a Christian to the highest degree of dignity:”Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God,” 1 John 3: 1.

            Thus much for a more general discovery of the noble­ness of religion as to its fountain and original: we may more particularly take notice of this in reference to that “two-fold fountain in God, from whence all true religion flows, viz. 1. His nature. 2. His will.

1. The immutable nature of God. From thence arise all those eternal rules of truth and goodness which are the foundation of all religion, and which God at the first creation folded up in the soul of man. These we may Call the truths of natural inscription; “understanding hereby either those fundamental principles of truth which reason, by a natural intuition, may behold in God, or those necessary corollaries and deductions that may be drawn from thence. I cannot think it so proper to say, that God ought. infinitely to be loved because be com­mands it, as because he is infinite and unchangeable goodness. God has stamped a copy of his own arche­typal loveliness upon the soul, that man by reflecting into himself might behold there the glory of God, see within his soul all those ideas of truth which concern the nature and essence of God, by reason of its own resemblance of God; and so beget within himself the most free and generous motions of love to God. Reason in man being lumen in lumine, a light flowing from the Fountain and Father of Lights, and being, *, it was to enable man to work out of himself all those notions of God which are the true ground-work of love and obedience to God, and conformity to him. And in molding the inward man into the greatest conformity to the nature of God was the perfection and efficacy of the religion of nature. But since marl's fall from God, the inward virtue and vigor of reason is much abated, the soul having suffered a *, as Plato speaks, a *, loss of its wings. Those principles of Divine truth, which were first engravers upon man's heart with the finger of God, are now, as the characters of some ancient monu­ments, less clear and legible. And therefore, besides the truths of natural inscription,­

            2. God has provided the truth of Divine revelation, which issues forth from his own free-will, and clearly discovers the way of our return to God, from whom we are fallen. And this truth, with the effects of it in the minds of men, the Scripture is wont to set forth under the name of grace, as proceeding merely from the free bounty and over flowings of the Divine love. Of this revealed will is that of the apostle to be understood,” None has known the things of God; none, neither angel nor man, could know the mind of God, could unlock the breast of God, or search out the counsels of his will. But God, out of the infinite riches of his compassions toward mankind, is pleaseed to unbosom his secrets, and most clearly to manifest “the way into the holiest of all, and “bring to light life and immortality;” and, in these last ages, to send his Son, who lay in his bosom from all eternity, to teach us his will, and declare his mind to us. When we” look unto the earth, behold darkness and dimness of anguish.” But when we look towards heaven, behold light breaking forth upon us, like the eyelids of the morning, and spreading its wings over the horizon of mankind, sitting in darkness and the shadow of death,” to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

            But, besides this outward revelation of God's will to men, there is also an inward impression of it on their minds, which is in a more especial manner attributed to God. We cannot see Divine things but in a Divine light. God only, who is the true light, and in whom there is no darkness at all, can so shine out of himself upon our glassy understandings, as to beget in them a picture of himself, his own will and pleasure, and turn the soul, (as the phrase is in Job xxxviii. 14,) like wax or clay, to the seal of his own light and love. He that made our souls in his own image and likeness, can easily find a way into then. The word that God speaks, having found a way into the soul, imprints itself there as with the point of a diamond. Men may teach grammar and rhetoric, but God teaches divinity. Thus it. is God alone that acquaints the soul with the truths of revelation. And he also it is that does strengthen and raise the soul to better appre­hensions even of natural truth: God being that in the intellectual world which the sun is in the sensible.

CHAP. 2:

            If. The Nobleness of Religion in respect of its Nature,. briefly discovered in some Particulars. How a Man actuated by Religion, 1. Lives above the World 2. Converses with himself, and knows how to love, value, and reverence himself in the best sense: 3. Lives above himself, not being content to enjoy himself, except he may enjoy God too, and himself in God. 'How he denies himself for God. The happy Privileges of a Soul united to God.

            WE have done with the first head, and come now to discourse with the like brevity on” the excellency and nobleness of religion in regard of its nature.”

            1.”A' good man, that is actuated by religion, lives above the world.” The soul is a more vigorous and puissant thing, when it is once restored to the possession of its own being, than to be bounded within the narrow sphere of mortality, or to be straitened within the narrow prison of sensual and corporeal delights; but it will break forth with the greatest vehemency, and ascend upwards towards immortality. And when it converses more intimately with religion, it can scarce look back upon its own converses (though in a lawful way,) with earthly things, without being touched with an holy shamefacedness and a modest blushing; it seems to be ashamed that it should be in the body. It is only true religion that teaches and enables men to die to this world and to all earthly things, and to rise above that vaporous sphere of sensual and earthly pleasures, which darken the mind and hinder it from enjoying the bright­ness of Divine light: the proper motion of religion is still upwards to its first Original. Whereas, on the con­trary, the souls of wicked men are heavy, and sink down into earthly things, and couch as near as may be to the center. Wicked men bury their souls in their bodies: all their designs are bounded within the compass of this earth which they tread upon. The fleshly mind never minds any thing but flesh, and never rises above the outward matter, but always creeps up and down like shadows upon the surface of the earth. And if it begin at any time to make any faint assays upwards, it pre­sently finds itself laden with a weight of sensuality which draws it down again. It was the opinion of the Aca­demics, that the souls of wicked men, after their death, could not of a long season depart from the graves and sepulchers where their mates were buried; but there wandered up and down in a desolate manner, as not being able to leave those bodies which they were so much wedded to in this life.

            2. A good man, one that is actuated by religion, lives in converse with his own reason; he lives at the height of his own being. He knows how to converse with himself, and truly to love and value himself. He mea­sures not himself, like the epicure, by his inferior and earthly part, but by an immortal essence, and that of him which is from above; and so does climb up to the height of that immortal principle which is within him. A good man knows better how to reverence himself, without any self-flattery, than ever any stoic did. He principally looks upon himself as being what he is rather by his soul than by his body: he values himself by his soul, that being it which has the greatest affinity with God; and so does not seek himself in the fading vanities of this life, nor in the poor and low delights of his senses: when the soul retires into itself, and views its own worth and excellency, it presently finds a chaste and virgin'-love stirred up towards itself, and is from within the more excited and obliged to mind the preserving its own dignity and glory. To conclude this particular, a good man endeavors to walk by unchangeable reason; reason in a good man sits in the throne, and governs all the powers of his soul in a sweet harmony and agreement with itself: whereas wicked men live only a life of 'opinion, being led up and down by the foolish fires of, their own sensual apprehensions. In wicked men there is a democracy of wild lusts and passions, which violently hurry the soul up and down with restless motions. All wickedness is a sedition stirred up in the soul by the ’Sensitive powers against reason. It was one of the great evils that Solomon saw under the sun, “Servants on horseback, and princes going as servants upon the ground.” We may find the moral of it in every wicked man, whose souls are only as servants to wait upon their senses. In all such men the whole course of nature is turned upside down, and the cardinal points of motion in this little world are changed to contrary positions. But the motions of a good man are methodical, regular, and concentrical to reason. It is a fond imagination that religion should extinguish reason; whereas religion makes it more illustrious and vigorous; and they that live most in the exercise of religion, shall find their reason most enlarged. In Tully's account, capableness of religion seemed to be nothing different from rationality, and therefore he doubts not to give this for the most proper character of reason, that it is the tie between God and man.

            3. A good man, one that is informed by true religion, lives above himself, and is raised to an intimate converse with the Divinity. He moves in a larger sphere than his own being, and cannot be content to enjoy himself, except he may enjoy God too, and himself in -God. This we shall consider two ways.

            1. In the self-denial of good men; they are ready to deny themselves for God. I mean not that they should deny their own reason, as some would have it; for that were to deny a beam of Divine light, and so to deny God, instead of denying ourselves for him. It is better resolved by some philosophers., that to follow reason is to follow God. But by self-denial I mean the soul's entire resignation of itself to him as to all points of service and duty. And thus the soul loves itself in God, and lives in the possession not so much of its own being as of the Divinity; desiring only to be great in God, to glory in his light, and spread itself in his fullness; to be filled always by him, and to empty itself again into him; to receive all from him, and to expend all for him; and so to live, not as its own, but as God's. The highest ambition of a good man is to serve the will of God. He takes no pleasure in himself, nor in any thing farther than he sees a stamp of God upon it. Whereas wicked men are im­prisoned within the narrow circumference of their own beings, and perpetually frozen into a cold self-love which binds up all the vigor of their souls, that it cannot break forth or express itself in any noble way. The soul in which religion rules, says, as St. Paul did,” I live; and yet not I, but Christ lives in me.” On the contrary, a wicked man swells in his own thoughts, and pleases himself more or less with the imagination of a self-sufficiency. The Stoics, seeing they could not raise themselves up to God, endeavored to bring down God to their own model, imagining the Deity to be nothing else but some greater kind of animal, and a wise man to be almost one of his peers. And this is more or less the genius of wicked men; they will be something in them­selves, they wrap up themselves in their own being, move up and down in a sphere of self-love, live a professed in­dependency upon God. It is the character only of a good man to be able to deny himself, and to make a full surrender of himself to God; forgetting himself, and minding nothing but the will of his Creator; triumphing in nothing more than in his own nothingness, and in the allness of the Divinity. But indeed this his being nothing is the only way to be all things; this his having nothing the truest way of possessing all things.

            2. As a good man lives above himself in a way of self­ denial, so he lives also above himself as he lives in the enjoyment of God. And this is the very soul and essence of true religion, to unite the soul in the nearest intimacy with God. Then indeed the soul lives most nobly, when it feels itself to live, and move, and have its being in God; which though the law of nature makes the common condition of all created being, yet it is only true religion that can give us a feeling and comfortable sense of it. God is not present to wicked men, when his almighty essence supports them and maintains them in being; but he is present to him that can touch him, that has an inward feeling knowledge of God, and is intimately united to him.

            Religion is life and spirit, which flowing out from God who has life in himself, returns to him again as into its own original, carrying the souls of good men up with it. The spirit of religion is always ascending upwards, and spreading itself through the whole essence of the soul, loosens it from a self-confinement and narrowness, and so renders it more capacious of Divine enjoyment. God envies not his people any good; hut, being infinitely bountiful, is pleased to impart himself to them in this life, so ’far as they are capable of his communications they stay not for all their happiness till they come to heaven. Religion always carries its reward along with it, and when it acts most vigorously upon the mind and spirit of man, it then most of all fills it with an inward sense of Divine sweetness. To conclude, to walk with God is in Scripture made the character of a good man, and it is the highest perfection and privilege of created nature to converse with the Divinity. Whereas, on the contrary, wicked men converse with nothing but their lusts and the vanities of this fading life, which flatter them for awhile with unhallowed delights and a mere shadow of contentment; and when these are gone, they find both substance and shadow to be lost eternally. But true goodness brings in a constant revenue of solid and substantial satisfaction to the spirit of a good man, de­lighting always to sit by those eternal springs that feed and maintain it: the spirit of a good man is always drinking in fountain-goodness, and fills itself more and more, till it be filled with all the fullness of God.

            III. The Nobleness of Religion in regard of its Properties, of which this is one. 1. Religion enlarges all the Fa­culties of the Soul, and begets a true Ingenuity, Liberty, and Amplitude, the most free and generous Spirit in the Minds of good Men. How formal Christians make an Art of Religion, set it such Bounds as may not exceed the scant Measure of their Principles. A good Man finds not his Religion without him, but as a living Principle within him.

            HAVING discoursed on the nobleness of religion in its original and nature, we come now to consider the excel­lency of religion in its properties.  The first property and effect of true religion, whereby it expresses its own nobleness, is this, “That it widens and enlarges all the faculties of the soul, and begets a' true ingenuity, liberty, and amplitude, the most free and generous spirit, in the minds of good men.” The Jews have a good maxim to this purpose,” None truly noble, but he that applies himself to religion.” There is a living soul of religion in good men, which, spreading itself through all their faculties, spirits all the wheels of motion, and enables them to dilate and extend themselves more fully upon God and all Divine things, without being pinched or straitened within themselves. Whereas wicked men are of most narrow and confined spirits, they are so contracted by earthly and created things, so imprisoned in a dark dungeon of sensuality and selfish­ness, so straitened through their carnal designs and ends, that they cannot stretch themselves nor look beyond the horizon of time and sense.

            The nearer any being comes to God, who is that in­finite fullness that fills all in all, the more vast, and large, and unbounded it is; as the further it slides from him, the more it is straitened and confined. Plato long since concluded concerning the condition of sensual men, that they live like a shell-fish, and can never move up and down but in their own prison, which they ever carry about with them. Were I to define sin, I would call it ”the sinking of a man's soul from God into a sensual selfishness.” All the freedom that wicked men have, is but (like that of banished men,) to wander up and down in the wilderness of this-world from one den and cave to another.

            The more high and noble any being is, so much the deeper root have all its innate virtues and properties within it, and are by so much the more universal in their issues and actings upon other things: and such an inward living principle of virtue and activity further heightened, united, and informed with light and truth, we may call liberty. Of this truly noble and Divine liberty religion is the mother and nurse, leading the soul to God, and so impregnating that inward vital principle of activity and vigour that is embosomed in it, that it is able without any inward disturbance from controlling lusts t o exercise itself, and act with the greatest complacency in the most full and ample manner upon that first, universal, and unbounded essence. The most generous freedom can never be taken in its full and just dimensions and pro­portion, but when all the powers of the soul exercise and spend themselves in the most ample manner upon the infinite and essential goodness. If we should ask a good man, when he finds himself best at ease, when he finds himself most free; his answer would be, when he is under the most powerful constraints of Divine love. There is a sort of mechanical Christians in the world, that, not finding religion acting like a living form within them, satisfy themselves only to make an art of it, and rather inform and actuate it, than are informed by it; and setting it such bounds and limits as may not exceed the short and scanty measures of their home-born prin­ciples, they endeavor to fit the notions of their own minds as so many examples to it: and it being a circle of their own making, they can either ampliate or con­tract it accordingly as they can force their own minds and dispositions to suit with it. But true religion is no art, but an inward nature that contains all the laws and measures of its motion within itself. A good man finds riot his religion without him, but as a living principle within him; and all his faculties are still endeavoring to unite themselves more and more to the nearest intimacy with it as with their proper perfection. There is that amiableness in religion, that strong sympathy between the soul and it, that it needs carry no testimonials along with it. If it could be supposed that God should plant a religion in the soul that had no affinity or alliance with it, it would grow there but as a strange slip. But God, when he gives his laws to men, does not by virtue of his absolute dominion, dictate any thing at random, as some imagine; but he measures all by his own eternal good­ness. Had God himself been any thing else than the first and greatest good of man, then to have loved him with the full strength of all our faculties, should not have been the first and greatest commandment, as our Savior tells us it is. Some are apt to look upon God as some peevish and self-willed thing, because themselves are such. And seeing their own absolute and naked wills are for the most part the rules of all their actions, and the impositions which they lay upon others; they think that heaven's monarchy is such an arbitrary thing too, as is governed by nothing else but by an almighty abso­lute will. But the soul that is acquainted most intimately with the Divine will, would more certainly resolve us, that God's unchangeable goodness, (which makes the Divinity an uniform thing, and to settle together upon its own center, as I may speak with reverence,) is also the unchangeable rule of his will; neither can he any more swerve from it than he can swerve from himself. Nor does he charge any duty upon man without consulting first with his goodness. Which being the original and adequate object of a good man's will and affections, it must needs be that all the issues and effluxes of it be entertained with an answerable com­placency and cheerfulness. This is the hinge upon which all true religion turns,, the proper center about which it moves; which, taking a fast and sure hold on a corre­spondent principle in the soul of man, raiseth it above the confines of mortality, and, in the day of its mighty power, makes it become a free-will offering unto God.

CHAP. 4:

            The Second Property discovering the Nobleness of Religion, viz. That it restores Man to a just Dominion over him­self, enables him to overcome his Self-will and Passions. Of Self-will, and the many Evils that flow from it. Of Self-denial, and the having Power over our Wills; the Happiness and the Privileges of such a State.

            THE second property or effect of religion, whereby it discovers its own nobleness (and it is somewhat a-kin to the former particular,) is this, “That it restores a good man to a just power and dominion over himself and his own will, enables him to overcome himself, his self-will and passions, and to command himself and all his powers for God.” It is only religion that enthrones man's de­posed reason, and establishes within him a just empire over all those blind powers and passions which so im­petuously rend a marl from the possession and enjoyment of himself. Those turbulent and unruly, uncertain and inconstant motions of passion and self-will that dwell in degenerate minds, divide them perpetually from them­selves, and are always molding several factions and tumultuous combinations within them against the domi­nion of reason. And the only way to unite man firmly to himself, is by uniting him to God, and establishing in him a firm agreement with the first and primitive being.

            There is nothing in the world so boisterous as self-will, which is never guided by any fixed or steady. rules, but is perpetually hurried to and fro by blind and furious pride

and passions. This is the true source of all that envy, malice, bitterness of spirit, and impatiency, of all those black and dark passions, those inordinate desires and lusts, that reign in the hearts and lives of wicked men, A man's self-will throws him out of all true enjoyment of his own being. Therefore it was our Savior's counsel to his disciples,” In patience possess your souls.” We may say of that self-will which is lodged in the heart of a wicked man, it is the filthiness and poison of the ser­pent. This is the seed of the evil spirit which is per­petually at enmity with the seed of God and the heaven­ born nature. Its design is, with a giant-like pride, to climb up into the throne of the Almighty, and to establish an unbounded tyranny in contradiction, to the will of God, which is nothing else but the issue and efflux of his eternal and unbounded goodness. This is the very heart of the old Adam that is within men. This is the hellish spirit of self-will. It would solely prescribe laws to all things; it would fain be the fountain of all affairs; it would judge all things at its own tribunal. They, in whose spirits this principle rules, would have their own fancies and opinions to be the measure of all good and evil; these are the plumb-lines they apply to all things to find out their rectitude or obliquity. He that will not submit himself to the eternal and untreated will, but, instead of it, endeavors to set up his own will, makes himself the most real idol in the world, and exalts himself against all that is called God and ought to be worshipped. To worship a graven image, or to make cakes and burn incense to the queen of heaven, is not a worse idolatry than it is for a man to set up self-will, to devote himself to the serving it, and to give up himself to a compliance with his own will. When God made the world, he did not make it merely for the exercise of his almighty power, and then throw it out of his hands, and leave it to subsist by itself as a thing that had no further relation to him. But he derived himself through the whole crea­tion, so gathering and knitting up all the several pieces of it again, that as the first production and continued subsistence of all things is from himself, so the ultimate tendency of all things might be to him. Now that which first endeavored a divorce between God and his creation, and to make a conquest of it, was, that diabolical arro­gance and self-will that crept up and wound itself, serpent ­like, into apostate minds and spirits. This is the true strain of that hellish nature, to live independently of God, and to derive the principles from another beginning, and carry on the line of all motions and operations to, another end, than God himself, by whom, and to whom, and for whom all things subsist.

            From what has been said concerning this powerful and dangerous enemy that wars against our souls, and against the Divine will, may the excellency and noble spirit of true religion appear, in that it tames the im­petuousness and turbulency of self-will. Then indeed does religion perform the highest conquests, then does it display the greatness of its strength and the excellency of its power, when it overcomes this great Arimanius, that has so firmly seated himself in the very center of the soul. “Who is the man of courage and valor? He that subdues his concupiscence, his own will;” is a Jewish maxim attributed to Ben Zoma, and a most undoubted truth. This was the grand lesson that our great Master came to teach us, viz to deny our own wills; neither was there any thing that he endeavored more to pro­mote by his own example, as he tells us of himself,” I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me;” and again,”Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, 0 God, yea, thy law is within my heart:” and, in his greatest agonies, with a clear and cheerful submis­sion to the Divine will, he often repeats it, “Not my will, but thy will be done:” and so he has taught us to pray and so to live. This indeed is the true life and spirit of religion, this is religion in its meridian altitude, its just dimensions. A true Christian that has power over his own will, may live nobly and happily, and enjoy a perpetually-clear heaven within the serenity of his own mind. When the sea of this world is most rough and tempestuous about him, then can he ride safely at anchor within the haven, by a sweet compliance of his will with God's will. He can look about him, and with an even and indifferent mind behold the world either smile or frown upon him; neither will he abate of the least of his contentment for all the unkind usage he meets with in this life. He that has got the mastery over his own will, feels no violence from without, finds no contests within; and like a strong man, keeping his house, he preserves all his goods in safety. And when God calls for him out of this state of mortality, he finds in himself a power to lay down his life; neither is it so much taken from him, as freely surrendered up by him. This is the highest piece of prowess, the noblest achievement, by which a man becomes lord over himself, and the master of his own thoughts, motions, and purposes. This is the royal prerogative, the high dignity conferred upon good men by our Lord and Savior, whereby, overcoming this, both his and their enemy, their self-will and passions, they are enabled to sit down with him in his throne, as he, over­coming in another way, is set down with his Father in his throne.

            Religion begets the most heroic, free, and generous motions in the minds of good men. There is no where so much of a truly magnanimous spirit as in those who are best acquainted with the power of religion. Other men are slaves and captives to one vanity or other; but the truly religious is above them all, and able to command himself and all his powers for God. That bravery and gallantness which seem to be in the great Nimrods of this world is nothing else but the swelling of their own un­bounded pride and vain-glory. It has been observed of the greatest monarchs of the world, that in the midst of their triumphs they themselves have been led captives to vice. All the gallantry and puissance which. the bravest spirits of the world boast of, is but a poor confined thing, and extends itself only to some particular cases and cir­cumstances: but the valor and puissance of a soul im­pregnated by religion has, in a sort, an universal extent; as St. Paul speaks of himself, “I can do all things through Christ which strengthened me;” it is not determined to this or that particular object, or time, or place, but all things, whatsoever belong to a creature, fall under the level thereof. Religion is by St. Paul described to be” the spirit of power,” in opposition to  the spirit of fear, 2 Tim. 1: as all sin is by Simplicius well described to be impotency and weakness. Sin, by its deadly infu­sions into the soul, wastes and eats out the innate vigor of it, and casts it into such a deep lethargy, that it is not able to recover itself. But religion, being once conveyed into the soul, awakens' and enlivens it, and. makes it renew its strength like an eagle, and mount strongly up­wards towards heaven; and so uniting the soul to God, the center of life and strength, renders it undaunted and invincible. Who can tell the inward life and vigor that the soul may be filled with, when once it is in conjunc­tion with an almighty essence? There is a hidden virtue in the soul of man which then begins to discover itself when the Divine Spirit spreads forth its influences upon it., Every thing, the more spiritual it is, the more active and vigorous it is; as the more any thing sinks into matter, the more dull and sluggish and unwieldy. Now nothing does more purify, more exalt the soul, than reli­gion, when the soul suffers God to sit within it” as a refiner and purifier of silver,” and when it” abides the clay of his coming; for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap.” Thus the soul, being purified and spiri­tualized, and changed more and more into the glorious image of God, is 11 able to do all things;”“ out of weak­ness is made strong,” gives proof of its Divine vigor and activity, and shows itself to be a noble and puissant spirit, such as God did at first create it.

CHAP. 5:

            The third Property or Effect discovering the Nobleness of Religion, viz. That it enables a Man to propound to himself the best End, viz. The Glory of God, and his own becoming like God. Low and particular Ends debase and straiten a Man's Spirit: the universal, highest, and last End both ennobles and enlarges it. Men are prone ’to flatter themselves with a pretended aiming at the Glory of God. A more full Explication of what is meant by a Man's directing all his Actions to the Glory of God. That we are not nicely to distin­guish between the Glory of God and our own Salvation. That Salvation is nothing else but a true Participation of the Divine Nature.

            In third property or effect whereby religion discovers its own excellency, is this, “That it directs and enables a man to propound to himself the best end of life, viz. The glory of God, the highest Being, and his own assimi­lation or becoming like unto God.”

            That Christian in whom religion rules powerfully, is not so low in his ambition as to pursue any of the things of this world as his ultimate end. His soul is too big for earthly designs; but understanding himself to come from God, he is continually returning to him. It is not worth the while for the mind to pursue any perfection lower than its own, or to aim at any end more ignoble than itself. There is nothing that more straitens and confines the free-born soul than the particularity, indigency, and penury of that end which it pursues. When it complies most of all with this lower world, the true nobleness and freedom- of it is then most disputable. It never more degenerates from itself,. than when it becomes enthralled to some particular interest. As, on the other side, it never

acts more freely or fully, than when it extends itself upon the most universal end. As low ends debase a man's spirit, supplant and rob it of its birth-right; so the highest and last end raises and ennobles it, and en­larges it into a more universal and comprehensive capacity of enjoying that one unbounded goodness. It makes it spread and dilate itself in the infinite sphere of the Divine Being and blessedness; it makes it live in the fullness of him that fills all in all.

            Every thing is most properly such as the end is which is aimed at. The mind of man is always shaping itself into a conformity to that which is his end; and the nearer it draws to it, the greater likeness it bears to it., There is a secret energy issuing from that which the mind pro­pounds to itself as its end, to mould and fashion it ac­cording to its own model. The soul is always stamped with the same characters that are engraved upon the end it aims at; and while it converses with it, and sets itself before it, it is turned as wax to the seal. Man's soul conceives all its thoughts and imaginations before his end, as Laban's ewes did their young before the rods in the watering-troughs.. He that pursues any worldly in­terest or earthly thing as his end, becomes himself also earthly. And the more the soul directs itself to God, the more it becomes God-like, deriving a print of that glory and beauty upon itself which it converses with, as it is excellently set forth by the apostle,” We all with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory, of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory.” That spirit of ambition and popularity that so violently trans­ports the minds of men into a pursuit of vain-glory, makes them as vain as that popular air they live upon. The spirit of this world that draws forth a man's designs after worldly interests, makes him as unstable, inconstant, tumultuous, and perplexed a thing as the world is. On the contrary, the spirit of true religion steering and di­recting the mind and life to God, makes it an uniform, stable, and quiet thing, as God himself is. It is only true goodness in the soul of man guiding it steadily and uniformly towards God, directing it and all its actions to one last end, that can give it a true consistency and composedness within itself.

            All self-seeking and self-Jove do but imprison the soul, and confine it to its own home. The mind of a good man is too noble, too big for such a particular life; he has learned to despise his own being, in comparison of that uncreated beauty and goodness which is so infinitely transcendent to himself or any created thing; he reckons his choice and best affections and designs as too choice and precious a treasure to be spent upon such a poor sorry thing as himself, or upon any thing else but Gad.

            This was the life of Christ, and is in some degree the life of every one that partakes of the Spirit of Christ. Such Christians seek not their own glory, but the glory of him that sent them into this world. They know they were brought forth into this world not to set up or drive a trade for themselves, but to serve the will and pleasure of him that made them, and to finish that work he hash appointed them. It were not worth the while to have been born or to live, had it been only for such a penu­rious end as ourselves are. It is most God-like, and best suits with the spirit of religion, for a Christian to live wholly to God, to live the life of God, having his own life hid with Christ in God.; and thus in a sober sense he becomes deified. This indeed is such a deification as is not transacted merely upon the stage of fancy by arrogance and presumption, but in the highest powers of the soul by a living and quickening spirit of true religion there uniting God and the soul together in the unity of affec­tions,, will, and end.

            I should now pass from this to another particular; but because many are apt to misapprehend the notion of God's glory, and flatter themselves with their imaginary aiming at the glory of. God, I think it may be of use a little snore distinctly to unfold the design that a religious mind drives on in directing itself and all its actions to God. We are therefore to consider, that this does not consist in some transient thoughts of God and his glory as the end we propound to ourselves in any undertakings.

            A man does not direct all his actions to the glory of God by forming a conception in his mind, or stirring up a strong imagination upon any action, that it must be for the glory of God. It is not the thinking of God's glory that is glorifying of him. As all other parts of religion may be apishly acted over by imagination, so also may the internal part of religion many times be acted over with much seeming grace by our own fancy and passions; these often love to be drawing the pictures of religion, and use their best arts to render them beautiful and pleasing. But though true practical religion derives its force and beauty through all the lower powers of a man's soul; yet it has not its rise nor throne there. As religion consists not in a form of words which signify nothing, so neither does it consist in a set of fancies. Our Savior has best taught what it is to live to God's glory, or t6 glorify God, viz to be fruitful in all holiness,' and to live so that our lives may shine with his grace` spreading itself through our whole man.

            We rather glorify God by receiving the impressions of Iris glory upon us, than by communicating any kind' of glory to him. Then does a good man become the taber­nacle of God wherein the Divine Shechinah does rest; and which the Divine glory fills, when the frame of his mind, and life is wholly according to that idea and pattern which he receives from the mount. We best glorify him when we grow most like him. And we then act most, for his glory, when a true spirit of sanctity, justice; and meek­ness, runs through all our actions; when we so live in the world as becomes those that converse with the great mind and wisdom of the whole world, with that Almighty Spirit that made, supports, and governs all things, with that Being from whence all good flows, and in which there is no spot, stain, or shadow of evil and so being captivated and overcome by the sense of the Divine loveliness, and goodness, endeavor to be like him, and conform ourselves to him.

            When God seeks his own glory, he does not so much endeavor any thing without himself. He did not bring this stately fabric of the universe into being, that he might for such a monument of his mighty power and beneficence gain some panegyrics or applause from a little of that fading breath which he had made. Neither was that gracious contrivance of restoring lapsed men to him­self, a plot to get himself some eternal hallelujahs, as if he had so ardently thirsted after the lays of glorified spirits, or desired a choir of souls to sing forth his praises. Neither was it to let the world see how magnificent lie was. No, it is his own internal glory that he most loves, and the communication thereof which he seeks: as Plato sometimes speaks of the Divine love, it arises not out of indigency, as created love does, but out of fullness and redundancy; it is an overflowing fountain; and that love which descends upon created being is a free efflux from the Almighty source of love. And it is well pleasing to him that those creatures which he has made should par­take of it. Though God cannot seek his own glory so as if he might acquire any addition to himself; yet he may seek it so as to communicate it out of himself.” God gives to all men liberally and upbraideth not.” And by that glory of his which he loves to impart to his creatures, I understand those impressions of wisdom, justice, pa­tience, mercy, love, peace, joy, and other Divine gifts which he bestows freely upon the minds of men. And, thus God triumphs in his own glory, and takes pleasure in the communication of it.

            As God's seeking his own glory in respect of us, is most properly the flowing forth of his goodness upon us so our seeking the glory of God is most properly our endeavoring a participation of his goodness, and an ear­nest, incessant pursuing after Divine perfection. When God becomes so great, in our eyes, and all created things

so little, that we reckon nothing worthy our aim” or am­bition, but a serious participation of the Divine nature, and the exercise of Divine virtues, love, joy, peace, 19ng­suffering, kindness, goodness. When the soul, beholding the infinite beauty and loveliness of the Divinity, and then looking down and beholding all created perfection mantled over with darkness, is ravished into love and admiration of that never-setting brightness, and endeavors after the greatest resemblance of God in justice, love, and good­ness; when conversing with him by a secret feeling of the virtue, sweetness, and power of his goodness, we endeavor to assimilate ourselves, to him, then we may be said to glorify him indeed. God seeks no glory but his own; and we have none of our own to give him. God in all things seeks himself and his own glory, as finding nothing better than himself; and when we love him above all things, and endeavor to be most like him, we declare plainly that we. count nothing better than he is.

            I doubt we are too nice logicians sometimes in distin­guishing between the glory of God and our own salvation. We cannot, in a true sense, seek our own salvation more than the glory of God, which triumphs most and discovers itself most effectually in the salvation of souls; for indeed this salvation is nothing else but a true participation of,the Divine nature. Heaven is not a thing without us, nor is happiness any thing distinct from a true conjunc­tion of the mind with God in a secret feeling of his good­ness and reciprocation of affection to him, wherein the Divine glory most unfolds itself. And there is nothing that a soul, touched with any serious sense of God, can -more earnestly thirst after or seek with more strength of affection than this. Then shall we be happy, when God comes to be all in all in us. To love God above ourselves is not indeed so properly to love him above the salvation of our souls, as if these were distinct things; but it is to love him above all our own sinful affections, and above particular beings, and to conform ourselves to him. And as that which is good relatively and in order to us, is so much the better, by how much the more it is con­formed to us: so, on the other side, that which is good absolutely and essentially, requires that our minds and affections should, as far as may be, be commensurate and conformed to it:. and herein is God most glorified, and we made happy. As we cannot truly love the first and highest good while we subordinate it to ourselves: so neither is our own salvation consistent with any such sor­did, pinching and particular love. We cannot be con2­pletely blessed, till God exercise its sovereignty over all the faculties of our souls, rendering them as like to itself as may consist with their proper capacity.

CHAP. 6:

            The fourth Property or Effect discovering the Excellency of Religion, viz. That it begets the greatest Serenity and Composedness of lpind, and brings the truest Continent, the purest and most satisfying Pleasure to every holy Soul.

            THE fourth property and effect of true religion, wherein it expresseth its own nobleness, is this,” That it begets the greatest serenity, constancy, and composedness of mind, and brings the truest contentment, the most satis­fying joy and pleasure, the purest and most Divine sweet­ness to the spirits of good men.” Every good man, in whom religion rules, is at peace and unity with himself, is as a city compacted together. Grace does more and more reduce all the faculties of the soul into a perfect subjection and subordination to itself. The union and conjunction of the soul with God, that primitive Unity, is that which is the alone original and fountain of all peace, and the center of rest: as the further any being slides from God, the more it breaks into discords within itself, as not having any center within itself which might collect and unite ali the faculties thereof, and so knit them together in a sweet confederacy amongst themselves. God only is such an almighty goodness as can attract all the powers in man's soul to itself, as being an object ade­quate to the largest capacities of any created being, and so unite man perfectly to himself in the true enjoyment of one uniform and simple good.

            It must be one supreme good that can fix man's mind, which otherwise will be tossed up and down in perpetual uncertainties, and become as many several things as those poor particularities are which it meets with. A wicked man's life is so distracted by a multiplicity of ends and objects, that it never is nor can be consistent to itself, nor continue in any composed, settled frame. It is the most intricate, irregular, and confused thing in the world, no one part of it agreeing with another, because the whole is not firmly knit together by the power of some one last end running through all. Whereas the life of a good man is under the sweet command of one supreme goodness and last end. This alone is that living form and soul, which, running through all the powers of the mind and actions of the life, collects all together into one fair and beautiful system, making all that variety conspire into perfect unity; whereas else all would fall asunder like the members of a dead body when once the soul is gone, every little particle flitting each from other. A divided mind, and a multiform life, speaks the greatest disparage­ment that may be. It is only one last end that can recon­cile a man perfectly to himself and his own happiness. This is the best temper and composedness of the soul, when by a conjunction with one chief good and last end it is drawn up into an unity and consent with itself; when all the faculties of the soul, with their several motions, though never so many in themselves, like so many lines meet together in one and the same center. It is not one and the same goodness that always acts the faculties of a wicked man; but as many several images and pictures of goodness as a quick and working fancy can represent to him.; which so divide his affections, that he is no one thing within himself, but tossed hither and thither by the most independent principles and imaginations that may be. But a good man has singled out the supreme good­ness, which by an omnipotent sweetness draws all his affections after it, and so makes them all with the greatest complacency conspire together in the pursuit and em­braces of it. Were there not some infinite and self-suf­ficient goodness, and that perfectly one, man would be a most, miserably distracted creature. As the restless appe­tite within man after some infinite and sovereign good, (without the enjoyment of which it could never be satis­fied) does commend unto us the notion of a Deity: so the perpetual distractions and divisions that would arise in the soul upon a plurality of deities, may seem no less to evince the unity of that Deity. Were not this chief good' perfectly one, were there any other equal to it; man's soul would hang in cequilibrio, equally poised, equally desiring the enjoyment of both, but moving to neither; like a piece of iron between two loadstones of equal virtue. But when religion enters into the soul, it charms all its restless rage and violent appetite, by discovering to it the universal fountain-fullness of one supreme Al­mighty Goodness; and leading it out of itself into a con­junction therewith, it lulls it into the most undisturbed rest and quietness in the lap of Divine enjoyment; where it meets with full contentment, and rests adequately satisfied in the fruition of the infinite, uniform, and essen­tial goodness and loveliness.

            The peace which a religious soul is possessed of is such a peace as passeth all understanding. The joy that it meets with in the ways of holiness is” unspeakable and full of glory.” The delights and sweetness that accom­pany a religious life are of a purer and more excellent nature than the pleasures of worldly men. The spirit of a good man is a more pure and refined thing than to de­light itself in the thick mire of earthly and sensual plea­sures, which carnal men roll and tumble themselves in with so much greediness. It.-speaks the degeneration of any soul, that it should desire to incorporate itself with any of the gross, dreggy delights here below. But a soul purified by religion from all earthly dregs, delights to mingle itself only with things Divine and spiritual. There is nothing that can beget any pleasure but in some faculty which has some kindred and acquaintance with it. As it is in the senses, so in every other faculty, there is a natural kind of science whereby it can single out its pro­per object from every thing else, and is better able to define it to himself than the exactest artist in the world can; and when once it has found it out, it presently feels itself so fitted by it, that it dissolves into secret joy in the entertainment of it. True delight and joy is be­gotten by the conjunction of some discerning faculty with its proper object. The proper objects for a mind and' spirit are Divine and immaterial things, with which it has the greatest affinity, and therefore triumphs most in its converse with them; when it converses most with these noble objects, it behaves itself most gracefully; and it lives also most deliciously, nor can it any where else be better provided for, or indeed fare so well. A good man disdains to be beholden to the wit, or art, or industry of any creature to find him out and bring him in a constant revenue and maintenance for his joy and plea­sure. The language of his heart is that of the Psalmist, 11 Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon me.” Religion always carries a sufficient provision of joy and sweetness along with it to maintain itself with” The ways of wisdom are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.” Religion is no sullen stoicism or oppressing melancholy, it is no enthralling tyranny exer­cised over those noble affections of love and delight, as those men that were never acquainted with the life of it may imagine; but it is full of a vigorous and masculine delight, and such as advances and ennobles the soul, and does not weaken or dispirit it, as sensual and earthly joys do, when the soul, unacquainted with religion, is enforced to give entertainment to these gross and earthly things, for want of some better good. The truly-religious soul affects nothing primarily but God himself; his content­ment, even in the midst of his worldly employments, is in the sun of the Divine favor that shines upon him. This is as the manna that lies upon the top of all outward blessings which his spirit gathers up and feeds upon with delight. Religion consists not in a toilsome drudgery about some external performances; nor is only the spending of ourselves in such attendances upon God and services to him as are accommodated to this life, (though every employment for God is both amiable and honor­able.) But there is something of our religion which leads us into the porch of heaven, and to the confines of eter­nity. It sometimes carries up the soul into a mount of transfiguration, or to the top of Pisgah, where it may take a prospect of the promised land; and gives it a map of its future inheritance. It gives it some anticipations of blessedness, some foretastes of those joys, those rivers of pleasure which run at God's right hand for evermore.

            I might add the tranquility and composedness of a good man's spirit in reference to all external molestations. Religion having made a thorough pacification of the soul within itself, renders it impregnable to all outward assaults. So that it is a rest, and lives securely in the midst of all those boisterous storms and tempests that make such vio­lent impressions upon the spirits of wicked men. The more the soul is restored to itself, and lives at the height of its own being, the more easily may it despise any de­sign or combination against it by the most blustering giants in the world. A Christian that enjoys himself in God, will not be beholden to the world's fair and gentle usage for the composedness of his mind; no, he enjoys that peace and tranquility within himself which no crea­ture can bestow upon him, or take from him.

            It is the union of the soul with God, that uniform, simple, and unbounded good, which is the sole original of all true inward peace. It were not an happiness worth the having, for a mind, like an hermit sequestered from all things_ else, t y a recession into itself to spend an eternity in self-converse and the enjoyment of such a diminutive superficial nothing as itself is. It is peculiar to God to be happy in himself alone; and God, who has been more liberal in his provisions for man, has created in man such a spring of restless motion, that with the greatest impatience forces him out of himself, and vio­lently tosses him to and fro, till he come to fix himself upon some solid and self-subsistent goodness. Could a man find himself withdrawn from all material things, and perfectly retired into himself; were the whole world so quiet and calm about him as not to make the least attempt upon the composedness of his mind; might he be so well entertained at his own home as to find no frowns from his own conscience; might he have that security from heaven, that God would not disquiet his. fancied tranquility by embittering his thoughts with any dreadful apprehensions; yet he should find something within him that would not let him be at rest, but would rend him from himself, and toss him from his own foun­dation. There is an insatiable appetite in the soul of man, like a greedy lion hunting after his prey, that would render him impatient of his own penury, and could never satisfy itself with such a thin and spare diet as he finds at home. There are two principal faculties in the soul, which, like the two daughters of the horse-leach, are always crying,” Give, give.", These are those hungry vultures, which, if they cannot find their prey abroad, return and gnaw the soul itself. Where the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together. By this we may see how unavailable to the attaining of true rest that conceit of the Stoics was, who supposed the only way hereto was this, to confine the soul to its own home. We read in the gospel of such a question of our Savior's,” What went you out into the wilderness to see?” We may invert it, What do you return within to see? A soul confined within the narrow cell of its own particular being? Such a soul deprives itself of all that almighty glory and goodness which shines round about it, which spreads itself through the whole universe; I say, it deprives itself of all this for the enjoying of such a poor, petty, and diminutive thing as itself is, which yet it can never enjoy truly in such a retiredness.

            We have seen the peaceful and happy state of the truly religious; but it is otherwise with irreligious men. “There is no peace to the wicked; but they are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.” The mind of a wicked man is like the sea when it roars and rages through the striving of contrary winds upon it. Furious lusts and wild passions within, as they war against heaven and the soul, so they war amongst themselves, maintaining perpetual contests, and contend­ing which shall be the greatest. The minds of wicked men are like those disconsolate and desolate spirits which our Savior speaks of, who being cast out of their habi­tation, wander up and down through dry and desert places, seeking rest but finding none. The soul that finds not some solid and self-sufficient good to center itself upon, is a boisterous and restless thing. And being without God, it wanders up and down the world, des­titute, afflicted, tormented with vehement hunger and thirst after some satisfying good. And as any one shall bring it tidings, Lo here, or lo there is good! it presently goes out towards it, and with a swift and speedy flight hastens after it. The sense of an inward indigency does stimulate and enforce it to seek its contentment without itself, and so it wanders up and down from one creature to another; and thus becomes distracted by a multi­plicity of objects. And while it cannot find some one object upon which, as being perfectly adequate to its capacities, it may wholly bestow itself; while it is tossed with restless and vehement motions of desire and love through a world of painted beauties; it is far from true rest and satisfaction, from a fixt, composed temper of spirit; but being distracted by a multiplicity of objects and ends, there can never be any firm and stable peace at home.. Nor can there be a firm amity and friendship abroad betwixt wicked men themselves, as Aristotle in his Ethics does conclude, because all vice is so multiform and inconsistent a thing, and so there can be no true concatenation of affections and ends between them. Whereas in all good men, virtue and goodness is one form and soul to them all, that unites them together; and there is the one simple and uniform good, that guides and governs them all. They are not as a ship tossed in the tumultuous ocean of this world, without any compass to steer by; but they direct their course by the certain guidance of the one last end, as the true pole-star of all their motion.

            By what has been said may appear the vast difference between the ways of sin and holiness. Inward distrac­tions and disturbances,” tribulation and anguish upon every soul that does evil; but to every man that works good, glory, honor, and peace,” inward composedness and tranquility of spirit; pure and divine joys, far ex­celling all sensual pleasures in a word, true content­ment of spirit, and full satisfaction in God, whom the pious soul loves above all things, and longs still after a nearer enjoyment of him. I shall conclude this particular with what Plotinus concludes his book, That the life of holy and divine men is' a life not touched with these vanishing delights of time, but a flight of the soul alone to God alone.