CHAP. 8:

 

 The fifth Property or Effect discovering the Excellency of Religion, viz. That it advances the Soul to an holy Boldness and humble Familiarity with God, and to a comfortable Confidence concerning the Love of God toward it, and its own Salvation. The Vanity and Absurdity of that Opinion, That in a perfect Resignation of our Wills to God's Will, a Man should be content with his own Damnation.

 

 THE fifth property or effect whereby true religion discovers its own nobleness and excellency, is this,” That it advances the soul to an holy boldness and humble familiarity witJ1 God, as also to a well-grounded hope and comfortable confidence concerning the love of God toward it, and its own salvation.” The truly religious soul maintains a humble and sweet familiarity with, God; and with great alacrity of spirit, without any consternation, is enabled to look upon the glory and majesty of the most High; but sin and wickedness is pregnant with fearfulness and horror. While men walk in darkness,” and ”are of the night,” (as the apostle speaks,) then it is only that they are next with those ugly and ghastly specters that terrify and torment them. But when once the day breaks, and true religion opens herself, upon the soul, like the eyelids of the morning, all those frightful apparitions flee away. As all light, and love, and joy descend from above from the Father of lights; so all darkness, and fearfulness, and despair are from below; they arise from corrupt and earthly minds, and are like those gross vapors arising from this earthly globe, and not being able to get up towards heaven, spread themselves about the circumference of that body where they were first begotten, infesting it with darkness, and generating into thunder and lightning, clouds and tempests. But the higher a Christian ascends above this dark dungeon of the body; the more religion prevails within him, the more shall he find himself, as it were, in a clear heaven, in a region that is calm and serene; and the more will those black and dark affections of fear and despair vanish away, and those clear and bright affections of love, and joy, and hope break forth in their strength and luster.

 

 The devil, who is the prince of darkness, and the great tyrant, delights to be served with ghastly affections; as having nothing of amiableness or excellency in him to commend himself to his worshippers. Slavery is the badge and livery of the devil's religion: hence those mysteries of the heathens, performed with much trembling and horror. But God, who is the supreme Goodness and Essential, both love and loveliness, takes most pleasure in those sweet and delightful affections of the soul-love, joy, and hope; which are most correspondent to his own nature. The ancient superstition of the heathens was always very nice and curious in honoring every one of their gods with sacrifices and rites most agreeable to their natures: there is no incense, no offering we can present God with, is so sweet, so acceptable to him) as our love and delight, and confidence in him; and when he comes into the souls of men, he makes these his throne) as finding the greatest agreeableness therein to his own essence. A good man that finds himself made partaker of the Divine nature) and transformed into the image of God, infinitely takes pleasure in God, as being altogether lovely, and his meditation of God is sweet unto him. St. John, that lay in the bosom of Christ, who came from the bosom of the Father, and perfectly understood his eternal essence, has given us the fullest description that he could make of him, when he tells us, that” God is love; and he that dwells in God) dwells in love;” ands reposing himself in the bosom of an almighty Goodness where he finds nothing but love and loveliness, he displays all the strength and beauty of those his choicest and most precious affections of love) and joy, and confidence; his soul is now at ease, and rests in peace; neither is there any thing to make afraid. He is got beyond all those powers of darkness which give such continual alarms in this lower world, and are always troubling the earth; he is got above all fears and despairs; he is in a bright clear region, above clouds and tempests. There is no frightful terribleness in the supreme Majesty. That men apprehend God in such a manner, must not be made an argument of his nature, but of our sinfulness and weakness. The sun in the heavens always was and will be a globe of light and brightness, howsoever a purblind eye is rather dazzled than enlightened by it, There is an inward sense in man's soul, which, were it once awakened with an inward relish of the Divinity, could better define God to him than all the world else. It is the sincere Christian that so tastes and sees how good and sweet the Lord is, as none else does: “The God of hope fills him with all joy and peace in believing;” so that he “abounds in hope,” as the apostle speaks: he quietly reposes himself in God;” his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord;” he is more for a solid peace, and settled calm of spirit, than for high raptures or extraordinary manifestations of God to him. He does not passionately desire, nor importunately expect such things; he rather looks after the manifestations of the goodness and power of God within him, in subduing all in his soul that is unlike and contrary to God, and forming him into his image and likeness.

 

 Though I think it worthy of a Christian to endeavor to attain the ”assurance of his own salvation;” yet, perhaps, it might be the safest way to moderate his curiosity of prying into God's book of life, and to stay a while until he sees himself within the confines of salvation itself. Should a man hear a voice from heaven, or see a vision from the Almighty, to testify unto him the love of God towards him; yet methinks it were more desirable to find a revelation of all from within, arising from the centre of a man's own soul, in the real and internal impressions of a God-like nature upon his own spirit; and thus to find the foundation and beginning of heaven and happiness within himself it were more desirable to see the crucifying of our own will, the mortifying of the mere animal life, and to see a Divine life rising up in the room of it, as a sure pledge of immortality and happiness, the very essence of which consists in a perfect conformity and cheerful compliance of all the powers of our souls with the will of God..

 

 The best way of securing a well-grounded assurance of the Divine love, is this, for a man to overcome himself and his own will: “To him that overcomes shall be, given that white stone, and in it the new name written, which no man knows but he that receives it.” He that beholds the Sun of Righteousness arising upon his soul with healing in its wings, and chasing away all that misty darkness of his own self-will and passions; such a one desires not now the star-light to know whether it be day or not, nor cares he to pry into heaven's secrets, and to, search into the hidden rolls of eternity, there to see the whole plot of his salvation; for he views it transacted upon the inward stage of his own soul; and, reflecting upon himself, he may behold a heaven opened from within,, and a throne set up in his soul, and an almighty Savior sitting upon it, and reigning within him. He now finds the kingdom of heaven within him, and sees that it is not a thing merely reserved for him without him, being already made partaker of the sweetness and efficacy of it. What the Jews say of the spirit of prophecy, may not unfairly be applied to the Holy Ghost, the true Comforter, dwelling in the minds of good men as a sure earnest of their eternal inheritance; “The Spirit resides not but upon a man of fortitude;” one that gives proof of this fortitude in subduing his own will and affections. The Holy Spirit is too pure and gentle a- thing to dwell in a mind muddied and disturbed by those impure dregs, those thick fogs and mists that arise from our self-will and passions; our prevailing over these is the best way to cherish the Holy Spirit, by which we may be sealed unto the day of redemption. Yet it is a venturous and rugged conceit which some men have, that in a perfect resignation of our wills to the Divine will, a man should be content with his own damnation, and to be the subject of eternal wrath in hell, if it should so please God: which is as impossible as it is for him that infinitely thirsts after a true participation of the Divine nature, and most earnestly seeks a most inward union with God in Spirit, by a denial of himself and his own will, to swell up in self-love, pride, and arrogance against God; the one whereof is the most substantial heaven, the other the most real hell: whereas indeed, by conquering ourselves, the are translated from death to life, and the kingdom of God and heaven is already cone into us.

 

CHAP. VIII.

 

 The sixth Property or Effect discovering the Excellency of Religion, viz. That it spiritualizes material Things, and carries up the Souls of good Men from sensible and earthly Things, to Things intellectual and divine.

 

 THE sixth property or effect wherein religion discovers its own excellency, is this, ”That it spiritualizes material things, and so carries up the souls of good men from earthly things to things divine, from this sensible world to the intellectual.”

 

 God made the universe, and all the creatures contained therein, as so many glasses wherein he might reflect his own glory. He has copied forth himself in the creation; and in this outward world we may read the lovely characters of the Divine goodness, power, and wisdom. In some creatures there are darker representations of God; there are the prints and footsteps of God; but in others there are clearer and fuller representations of the Divinity, the face and image of God. But how to find God here, and feelingly to converse with him; bow to pass out of the sensible world into the intellectual, is not so effectually taught by that philosophy which professed it most, as by true religion. That which unites God and the soul together - can best teach it how to ascend and descend upon those golden links that unite as it were the world to God. That Divine wisdom that contrived and beautified this glorious structure, can best explain her own art, and carry the soul’ back again in these reflected beams to him who is the fountain of them. Though good men, all of them, are not acquainted with those philosophical notions. touching the relation between created find untreated being; yet may they easily find every creature pointing out to that Being whose image and superscription it bears, and climb up from those darker resemblances of the Divine wisdom and goodness shining out in different degrees upon several creatures, till they sweetly repose themselves in the bosom of the Divinity. And while they are thus conversing with this lower world, and viewing” the invisible things of God in the things that are made,” they find God many times secretly flowing into their souls, and leading them silently out of the court of the temple into the holy place. But it is otherwise with wicked men; they dwell perpetually upon the dark side of the creatures, and converse with these things only in a gross, sensual, earthly manner; they are so encompassed with the thick mist of their own corruptions, that they cannot see God there where he is most visible. “The light shines in darkness, but the darkness comprehends it not.” Their souls are so deeply sunk into that house of clay which they carry about them, that were there nothing of matter before them, they could find nothing to exercise themselves about.

 

 But religion, where it is in truth and in power, renews the spirits of our minds, and does spiritualize this outward creation to us, and in a more excellent way perform that which the Peripatetics were wont to affirm of their intellectus agens, in purging bodily and material things from the feculency and dregs of matter, and separating them from those circumstantiating and straitening conditions of time. It teaches the soul to look at those perfections which it finds here below, not so much as the perfections of this or that body, as they adorn this `or that particular being, but as they are so many rays issuing from that first and essential perfection, ili which they all meet and embrace one another in the post close friendship. Every particular good is a blessing of the first goodness; every created excellency is a beam descending from the Father of lights and should we separate all these particularities & God, all affection spent upon them would be unchaste, and their embraces adulterous. We' should love all things in God, and God in all things, because he is all in all, the beginning and original of being, the perfect idea of their goodness, and the end of their motion. It is nothing but a thick mist of pride and self-love that hinders men's eyes from beholding that sun which both enlightens them and all things else. But when true religion begins once to dawn upon men's souls, and with its shining light chases away, their black night of ignorance; then they behold themselves and all things else enlightened by one and the same sun, and all the powers of their souls fall down before God, and ascribe all glory to him. Now it is that a good man is no more solicitous whether this or that good thing be mine, or whether my perfections exceed the measure of this or that particular creature; for whatsoever good be beholds any where, he enjoys and delights in it as much as if it were his own, and whatever he beholds in himself lie looks not upon it as his property, but as a common good; for all these beams come from one and the same fountain and ocean of light, in whom he loves them all with an universal love. When his affections run along the stream of any created excellencies, whether his own or any one's else, yet they stay not here, but run on till they fall into the ocean; they do not settle into a fond love and admiration either of himself or any other excellencies, but he owns them as so many pure emanations from God, and in a particular being loves the universal goodness.

 

 Thus may a good man walk up and down the world as in a garden of spices, and suck a divine sweetness out of every flower. There is a two-fold meaning in every creature, as the Jews speak of their law, a literal and a mystical; and the one is but the ground of the other; and as they say of divers pieces of their law, so a good man says of every thing that offers to him;” it speaks to his lower part, but it points out something above to his mind and spirit.” It is the drowsy and muddy spirit of superstition which, being lulled asleep in the lap of worldly delights, is fain to set some idol at its elbow, something that may jog it, and put it in mind of God. Whereas true religion never finds itself out of the infinite sphere of the Divinity, and wherever it finds beauty, harmony, goodness, love, wisdom, holiness, and justice, it is ready to say, Here and there is God. Wheresoever any such perfections shine out, an holy mind climbs up by these sun-beams to God.

 

 And seeing God has never thrown the world from himself, but runs through all created essence, containing all things in himself, and from thence imparting several prints of beauty and excellency all the world over; a soul that is truly God-like, a mind that is enlightened from the same fountain, and has its inward senses affected with the sweet relishes of Divine goodness, cannot but every where behold itself’in the midst of that glorious unbounded Being, who is indivisibly every where. A good man finds every place he treads upon holy ground; to him the world is God's temple; he is ready to say, with Jacob, Gen. 28: “How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God.”

 

CHAP. 9:

 

 The last Property or Effect discovering the Excellency of Religion, viz. That it raises the Minds of good Men to a due Observance of Divine Providence, and enables them to serve the Mill of God, and to acquiesce in it.

 

 TILE seventh and last property or effect wherein true religion expresses its nobleness and excellency is this, “That it raises the minds of good men to a due observance of and attendance upon Divine Providence, and enables them to serve the will of God, and to acquiesce in it.” Wheresoever God has a tongue to speak, there they have ears to hear; and being attentive to God in the soft and still motions of Providence, they are ready to obey his call, and to say, with Isaiah, a Behold, here am I, send me,” They endeavor to copy forth that lesson which Christ has set Christians, seriously considering that they came into this world by God's appointment, not to do their own wills, but the will of him that sent them.

 

 As this consideration quiets the spirit of a good man, who is no idle spectator of Providence, and keeps him calm in the midst of all storms; so it makes him most freely engage himself in the service of Providence, without any inward reluctance. He cannot be content that Providence should serve itself of him, it does even of those things that understand it not; but it is his holy ambition to serve it. It is nothing else but hellish pride and self-love that makes men serve themselves, and so set up themselves as idols against God. But it is an argument of true nobleness of spirit for a man to view himself (not in the narrow point of his own being, but) in the unbounded essence of the First Cause, so as to live only as an instrument in the hands of God, who works all things after the counsel of his own will,

 

 To a good man to serve the will of God is, in the truest and best sense, to serve himself, who knows himself to be nothing without or in opposition to God. This is the most divine life that can be, for a man to act in the world upon eternal designs, and to be so wholly devoted to the will of God as to serve it most faithfully and entirely. This indeed bestows a kind of immortality upon these transient acts of ours, which in themselves are but the offspring of a moment, A pillar or verse is a poor monument of any exploit, which yet may well become the highest of the world's bravery. But good men, while they work with God, and bring themselves and all their actions to a unity with God, his ends and designs enroll themselves in eternity. This is! The proper character of holy souls; their wills are so fully resolved into the Divine will, that they in all things subscribe to it without any murmuring or debates. They rest well satisfied with and take complacency in, any passages of Divine dispensation, as being ordered and disposed by a mind and wisdom above, according to the highest rules of goodness.

 

 The best way for a man rightly to enjoy himself, is to maintain an universal and cheerful compliance with the Divine will in all things; as knowing that nothing can flow forth from the fountain of goodness but that which is good; and therefore a good man is never offended with any Divine dispensation, nor has he any reluctance against that will that determines all things by an eternal rule of goodness, as knowing that there is an unbounded and almighty love, that, without any disdain or envy, freely communicates itself to every thing he has made that feeds even the young ravens that call upon him; that makes his sun to shine, and his rain to fall, both upon the just and unjust; that always enfolds those in his everlasting arms who are made partakers of his own image, perpetually nourishing and cherishing them with the fresh and vital influences of his grace; as knowing, also, that there is an all-seeing eye, an unbounded mind and understanding, that derives itself through the whole universe, and sitting in all the wheels of motion, guides them all, and powerfully governs the most eccentrical motions of creatures, and carries them all most harmoniously in their several orbs to one last end. Who then shall give law to God “Where is the wise Where is the Scribe Where is the disputer of this world” Where is he that would climb up into the great consistory in heaven, and sitting in consultation with the Almighty, instruct the infinite and incomprehensible Wisdom Shall vain man be wiser than his Maker This is the hellish temper of wicked men, they examine and judge of all things by the measure of their own will, their own opinions and designs; and measuring all things by a crooked rule, they think nothing to be straight; and therefore they fall out with God, and with restless impatience fret and vex themselves; and this fretfulness and impatience argues a breach in the constitution of their minds and spirits.

 

 But a good man, whose soul is restored to that frame and constitution it should be in, has better apprehensions of the ways and works of God, and is better affected

 

under the various disposals of Providence. Indeed, to a superficial observer of Divine Providence, many things there are that seem to be digressions from the main end of all, and to come to pass by a fortuitous concourse of circumstances, that come in so abruptly and without any dependence one upon another, as if they were without any mind or understanding to guide them. But a wise man, that looks from the beginning to the end of things, beholds them all in their due place acting that part which the Supreme Mind and Wisdom, that governs all things, has appointed them, carrying on one and the same eternal design, while they move according to their inclinations and measures, and aim at their own particular ends. To be subservient unto Providence is the holy ambition and great endeavor of a good man, who is so perfectly overpowered with the love of the universal and infinite goodness, that he would not serve any particular good whatsoever; no, not himself, so as to set up in the world and trade for himself, as the men of the world do who are” lovers of their own selves, and lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.”

 

CHAP. 10:

 

 IV. The Excellency of Religion in Regard of its Progress, as it is perpetually carrying on the Soul towards Perfection. Every Nature has its proper Center, which it hastens to. Sin and Wickedness are within the attractive Power of Hell, and hasten thither: Grace and Holiness are within the central Force of Heaven, and move thither is not the Speculation of Heaven, as a Thing to come, that satisfies the Desires of religious Souls, but the real Possession of it, even in this Life.

 

 WE have considered the excellency of true religion, 1. In regard of its descent and original: In regard of its nature: 3. In regard of its properties and effects. We proceed now to show, That religion is a generous and noble thing, in regard of its progress; it is perpetually carrying on that mind, in which it is once seated, towards perfection. Though the first appearance of it upon the souls of good men may be but as the wings of the morning, spreading themselves upon the mountains, yet it is still rising higher and higher upon them, chafing away all the mists and vapors of sin before it, till it arrives to its meridian altitude. There is the strength and force of the Divinity in it; and though, when it first enters into the minds of men, it may seem to be” sown in weakness,” yet it will raise itself” in power.” As Christ was in his bodily appearance, still increasing in wisdom and knowledge and favor with God and man, until he was perfected in glory; so is he also in his spiritual appearance in the souls of men; and accordingly the New Testament does more than once distinguish of Christ in his several ages and degrees of growth in the souls of all true Christians. Good men are always walking on from strength to strength, till at last they see God in Zion. Religion, though it has its infancy, yet it has no old age: while it is in its minority, it is always in motion; but when it comes to its maturity and full age, it will always be at rest: it is then always the same, and its years fail not, but it shall endure for ever. Holy and religious souls being once touched with an inward sense of Divine beauty and goodness, by a strong impress upon them, are moved swiftly after God, and (as the apostle expresses himself,)”forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, they press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”

 

 Where a spirit of religion is, there is the force of heaven itself enlivening those that are informed by it in their motions toward heaven. As on the other side, all unhallowed and defiled minds are within the attractive power of hell, and are continually hastening their course thither, being strongly pressed down by the weight of their wickedness. Every nature in this world has some proper centre which it is always hastening to. Sin and -wickedness do not hover a little over the bottomless pit of hell, and only flutter about; but they are continually sinking lower and lower into it. Neither does true grace make some feeble assays towards heaven, but by a mighty energy within itself, it is always soaring up higher and higher into heaven. A good Christian does not only court his happiness, and cast now and then a smile upon it, or satisfy himself merely to be contracted to it; but with the greatest ardor of love and desire be pursues the solemnity of the just nuptials, that he maybe wedded to it, and made one with it. It is not an airy speculation of heaven, as a thing (though never so undoubtedly,) to come, that can satisfy his desires, but the real possession of it even in this life. Such an happiness would be less in the esteem of good men, that was only to be enjoyed at the end of this life, when all other enjoyments fail him.

 

 I wish there be not among some such a poor esteem of heaven, as makes them more to seek after assurance of heaven in the idea of it as a thing to come, than after heaven itself; which indeed we can never well be assured of, until we find it rising up within ourselves and glorifying our own souls. When true assurance comes, heaven itself will appear upon our souls, like a morning light, chasing away all our dark and gloomy doubting before it. We shall not need then to light candles to seek for it in corners; no, it will display its own luster so before us, that we may see it in its own light, and ourselves the true possessors’ of it. We may be too nice and vain in seeking for signs and tokens of Christ's spiritual appearance in the souls of men, as the Scribes and Pharisees were in seeking for them at his first appearance in the world,, When he comes into us, let us expect, until the works that he shall do within us, may testify of him; and be not 

 

 Over credulous, ‘Until we find that he does those works there which none other could do. As for a true, well-grounded assurance, say not so much, Who shall ascend up into heaven;” to fetch it down from thence Or, “who shall descend into the deep,” to fetch it up from beneath For in the growth of true internal goodness, and in the progress of true religion, it will freely unfold itself within us. Stay until the grain of mustard-seed breaks forth from among the clods that buried it, until, through the descent of the heavenly dew, it sprouts up and discovers itself openly. This holy assurance is indeed the budding and blossoming of felicity in our own souls. It is the inward sense and feeling of the true life, spirit, sweetness, and beauty of grace, powerfully expressing its own energy within us.

 

 Briefly, true religion, in the progress of it, transforms those minds in which it reigns from glory to glory. It goes on and prospers in bringing all enemies in subjection under their feet, in reconciling the minds of men fully to God; and it instates them in a firm possession of the supreme good. This is the seed of God within holy souls, which is always warring against the seed of the serpent, until it prevail over it through the Divine strength and influence. 

 

 Though hell may open her mouth wide, and without measure, yet a true Christian, in whom the seed of God remains, is in a good and safe condition; he finds himself borne up by an almighty arm, and carried upwards as upon eagles' wings; and the evil one has no power over him, or, as St. John expresses it, “the evil one touches him not,” 1 Epistle 5: 18.

 

CHAP. 11:

 

 V. The Excellency of Religion in regard of its Term and End, viz. perfect Blessedness. How unable we are in this State to comprehend the full State of Happiness and Glory to come. The more God-like a Christian is, the better may he understand that State. 

 

 Exhortation to a diligent minding of Religion. WE come now to the fifth and last particular, viz. the excellency of religion in the end of it, which is blessedness in its full maturity. Which yet I may not here undertake to explain, for it is altogether inexpressible. Accordingly, St. John tells us,” It does not yet appear what we shall be:” and that he may give us some glimpse of it, he points us to God, and tells us, “we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” Indeed the best way to get a discovery of it, is to endeavor as much as may be to be God-like, to live in a feeling converse with God, and in a powerful exercise of all Godlike dispositions. So shall our inner man be best enabled to know the breadth and length, the depth and height of that love and goodness which yet passes knowledge. There is a state of perfection in the life to come so far transcendent to any in this life, that we are not able from hence to take the just proportion of it. We are unable to comprehend the vastness and fullness of that happiness which the most purified souls may be raised to, or to apprehend how far the mighty power of the Divinity, deriving itself into a created being, may communicate life and blessedness to it. We know not what latent powers our souls may here contain within themselves, which then may begin to open and dilate themselves to let in the full streams of the Divine goodness, when they come nearly and intimately to converse with it; or how blessedness may act upon those faculties of our minds which we now have. We know not what elapses and irradiations there may be from God upon souls in glory, that may raise them into a state of perfection surpassing all our imaginations.

 

 The highest pleasure of spirits does not consist in the relieving of them from any antecedent pains or grief, or in a relaxation from some former molesting passion. Neither is their happiness a mere negative thing, rendering it free from all disturbance or molestation, quiet within itself. A spirit is too full of activity and energy, is too quick and potent a thing to enjoy complete happiness in a mere cessation; this were to make happiness an heavy spiritless thing. The philosopher has well observed, that there is infinite power and strength in Divine joy, pleasure and happiness commensurate to that almighty being and goodness which is the eternal source of it.

 

 As created beings, that are capable of conversing with God; stand nearer to God, or further off from him, as they partake more or less of his likeness; so they partake more or less of that happiness which flows from him, and God communicates himself in different degrees to them. There may be as many degrees of perfection, as there are conditions of creatures. True positive sanctity comes to be advanced higher and higher, as any creature comes more to partake of the life of God, and to be brought into a nearer conjunction with God. And so the sanctity and happiness of innocency itself might have been perfected.

 

 Thus we see how true religion carries up the souls of good men above the black regions of hell and death. This indeed is the great restoration of souls, it is religion itself, or a real participation of God and his holiness, which is their true restitution and advancement. All that happiness which good men shall be made partakers of, as it cannot be borne up on any other foundation than true goodness and a God-like nature within them; so neither is it. distinct from it. Sin and hell are so twined together, that if the power of sin be once dissolved, the bonds of death and hell will also fall asunder.

 

 Sin and hell are of the same kind, of the same lineage and descent. As, on the other side, true holiness, or religion and true happiness, are but two several notions of one thing, rather than distinct in themselves.

 

 Religion delivers us from hell by instating us in a possession of true life and bliss. Hell is rather a nature than a place: and heaven cannot be so truly defined by anything without us, as by something that is within us.

 

 The use we shall make of all shall be this, to exhort every one to a serious minding of religion: as Solomon does earnestly exhort every one to seek after true wisdom, which is the same with religion as sin is with folly; Prov. 4: 5,”Get wisdom, get understanding;” and, ver. 7,” Get wisdom, and with all thy getting get understanding. Wisdom is the principal thing.” This is the sum of all, a the conclusion of the whole matter, fear God, and keep his commandments, for this is the whole (duty, business, and concernment) of man. Let us not trifle away our time and opportunities, wherein we may lay hold upon life and immortality, in doing nothing, or else pursuing hell and death. Let us awake out of our vain dreams. Wisdom calls upon us, and offers us the hidden treasures of life and blessedness. Let us not perpetually deliver over ourselves to laziness and slumbering. Say not, “There is a lion in the way;” say not, though religion be good, yet it is unattainable. No, but let us intend all our powers in a serious pursuance of it, and depend upon the assistance of heaven, which never fails those that soberly seek for it. It is the levity of men's spirits, their heedlessness and regardlessness of their own lives, that betrays them to sin and death. It is the general practice of men to live extempore; they deliberate upon every thing more than how it becomes them to live; they so live as if their bodies had swallowed up their souls. Their lives are but a kind of lottery. The principles by which they are guided are nothing else but a confused multitude of fancies rudely jumbled together. Such is the life of most men, it is a mere casual thing acted over-at peradventure, without any fair and calm debates held either with religion, or with reason, which within itself, not disturbed and depraved by corrupt men, is a true friend to religion, and directs men to God and things good and just, pure, lovely, and praise-worthy; and the directions of this inward guide we are not to neglect. Unreasonableness, or the extinguishing the candle of the Lord within us, is no piece of religion, nor advantageous to it. That certainly will not raise men up to God, which sinks them below men. There had never been such an apostasy from religion, nor had such a mystery of iniquity, (full of deceivableness and imposture,) been revealed and wrought so powerfully in the souls of some men, had there not first come an apostasy from sober reason, had there not first been a falling away from natural truth.

 

 It is to be feared, our nice speculations in theology have tended more to exercise men's wits than to reform their lives; and that they have tended rather to take men off from religion, than to quicken them to a diligent seeking after it. Though the powers of nature may now be weakened, and though we cannot produce living religion in our own souls; yet we are not resolved so into a sluggish passiveness, that we cannot seek after it. Certainly a man may as well read the Scriptures as study a piece of natural philosophy. He that can observe any thing comely and commendable, or unworthy and base, in another man, may also reflect upon himself, and see how “face answers to face.” If men would seriously commune with their hearts, their own consciences would tell them plainly, that they might avoid more evil than they do, and that they might do more good. And that they do not put forth that power God has given them, nor faithfully use those talents, nor improve the advantages and means offered them.

 

 I fear the ground of most of her misery will prove to be a second fall, and a lapse upon a lapse. I doubt God will not allow that proverb, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge,” as not in respect of temporal misery, much less in respect of eternal. It will not be so much because our first parents incurred God's displeasure, as because we have neglected what might have been done by us in order to the seeking of God, his face and favor, while he might be found.

 

 Up then, and be doing; and the Lord will be with us. He will not leave us nor forsake us, if we seriously set ourselves about the work. Let us endeavor to acquaint ourselves with our own lives, and the true rules of life. Let us inform our minds, as much as may be, in the excellency and loveliness of practical religion; that, beholding it in its own beauty and amiableness, we may the more sincerely close with it. As there would need nothing else to deter men from sin, but its own deformity, were it presented to a naked view: so nothing would more effectually commend religion to men, than the excellencies of its nature; neither the evening nor the morning star could so sensibly commend themselves to our bodily eyes, and delight them with their shining beauties, as true religion, which is an undefiled beam of the untreated light, would to a mind capable of conversing with it. “Religion,” which is the true wisdom,.” is a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty, the brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of his goodness: she is more beautiful than the sun, and above all the order of stars; being compared with the light, she is found before it”

 

 Religion is no such austere, sour, and rigid thing, as to affright men away from it. No, but those that are acquainted with the power of it, find it to be altogether sweet and amiable. An holy soul sees so much of the glory of religion, as both woos and wins it. We may truly say concerning religion, to such souls, as St. Paul spake to the Corinthians, “Needs it any epistles of commendation to you” Needs it any thing to court your affections” Ye are indeed its epistle, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God.”

 

 Religion is not like the prophet's roll, sweet when it was in his mouth, but bitter in his belly. Religion is no sullen stoicism, no sour pharisaism; it does not consist in melancholy passions, in dejected looks, or depressions of mind: but it consists in freedom, love, peace, life, and power; the more it comes to be digested into our lives, the more sweet and lovely we find it. Those spots and wrinkles which corrupt minds think they see in the face of religion, are no where else but in their own misshapen apprehensions. It is no wonder when a defiled fancy comes to be the glass, if you have an unlovely reflection. Let us therefore labor to purge our own souls from all worldly pollutions; let us breathe after the assistance of the Divine Spirit, that it may irradiate and enlighten our minds, that we may be able to see Divine things in a Divine light. Let us endeavor to live more in a real practice of those rules of religious and holy diving commended to us by our ever-blessed Lord and Savior: so shall we know religion better, and knowing it love it, and loving it be still more and more ambitiously pursuing after it, till we come to a full attainment of it, and therein of our own perfection and everlasting bliss.