nature; it truly overcomes the world, and leads a life of purity in the face of its allurements they that bear it are not thus chained up, for fear they fhould bite; nor locked up, left they fhould be ftole away: no, they receive power from Chrift their captain, to refift the evil, and do that which is good in the fight of God; to defpife the world, and love its reproach above its praise; and not only not to offend others, but love those that offend them; though not for offending them. What a world fhould we have, if every body, for fear of tranfgreffing, fhould mew himself up within four walls! No fuch matter; the perfection of the Chriftian life extends to every honeft labour or traffic used among men. This feverity is not the effect of Chri's free fpirit, but a voluntary, fleshly humility: mere trammels of their own making, and putting on, without prefcription or reafon. In all which, it is plain, they are their own law-givers, and fet their own rule, mulet, and ranfom: a conftrained harfhnefs, out of joint to the reft of the creation; for fociety is one great end of it, and not to be deftroyed for fear of evil; but fin, that fpoils it, banished by a steady reproof, and a confpicuous example of tried virtue. True godlinefs does not turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it, and excites their endeavours to mend it; not hide their candle under a bufhel, but fet it upon a table in a candlestick. Befides, it is a felfish invention; and that can never be the way of taking up the crofs, which the true

crofs is therefore taken up to fubject. But again, this humour runs away by itself, and leaves the world behind to be loft; Chriftians fhould keep the helm, and guide the veffel to its port; not meanly fteal out at the ftern of the world, and leave thofe that are in it without a pilot, to be driven by the fury of evil times, upon the rock or fand of ruin. In fine, this fort of life, if taken up by young people, is commonly to cover idleness, or to pay por tions, to fave the lazy from the pain of punishment, or quality from the difgrace of poverty; one will not work, and the other fcorns it; if aged, a long life of guilt fometimes flies to fuperftition for a refuge, and after having had its own will in other things, would finish it in a wilful religion to make God amends.

Does

§. XIII. But taking up the cross of Jefus is a more interior exercife: it is the circumfpection and discipline of the foul in conformity to the divine mind therein revealed. not the body follow the foul, not the foul the body? Do not fuch confider, that no outward cell can fhut up the foul from luft, the mind from an infinity of unrighteous imaginations? The thoughts of man's heart are evil, and that continually. Evil comes from within, and not from without: how then can an external application remove an internal cause; or a restraint upon the body, work a confinement of the mind? lefs much than without doors, for where there is leaft of action, there is moft time to think; and if those thoughts are not guided by an higher

principle, convents are more mifchievous to the world than exchanges. And yet retirement is both an excellent and needful thing; crowds and throngs were not much frequented by the ancient holy pilgrims.

§. XIV. But then examine, O man, thy bottom, what it is, and who placed thee there; left in the end it fhould appear, thou haft put an eternal cheat upon thy own foul. I muft confefs I am jealous of the falvation of my own kind, having found mercy with my heavenly Father. I would have none deceive themselves to perdition, especially about religion, where people are most apt to take all for granted, and lofe infinitely by their own flatteries and neglect. The inward, fteady, righteousness of Jesus is another thing, than all the contrived devotion of poor fuperftitious man; and to ftand approved in the fight of God, excels that bodily exercise in religion, refulting from the invention of men. And the foul that is awakened and preferved by his holy power and fpirit, lives to him in the way of his own inftitution, and worships him in his own fpirit, that is in the holy fenfe, life, and leadings of it: which indeed is the evangelical worship. Not that I would be thought to flight a true retirement: for I do not only acknowledge, but admire folitude. Chrift himfelf was an example of it: he loved and chose to frequent mountains, gardens, fea-fides. It is requifite to the growth of piety, and I reverence the virtue that feeks and ufes it; wifhing there were more of it in the world; but then it

fhould be free, not constrained. What benefit to the mind, to have it for a punishment, and not a pleasure? Nay, I have long thought it an error among all forts, that ufe not monaftic lives, that they have no retreats for the afflicted, the tempted, the folitary, and the devout; where they might undisturbedly wait upon God, pass through their religious exercifes, and, being thereby ftrengthened, may, with more power over their own fpirits, enter into the bufinefs of the world again: though the less the better, to be fure. For divine pleasures are found in a free folitude.

CHAP. VI.

§ 1. But men of more refined belief and practice, are yet concerned in this unlawful felf about religion. §. 2. It is the rife of the performance of worship God regards. §. 3. True worship is only from an heart prepared by God's Spirit. §. 4. The foul of man is dead, without the divine breath of life, and fo not capable of worShipping the living God. §. 5. We are not to Study what to pray for. How Chriftians fhould pray. The aid they have from God. §. 6. The way of obtaining this preparation: it is by waiting, as David and others did of old, in holy filence, that their wants and fupplies are beft feen. §. 7. The whole and the full think they need not this waiting, and fo

ufe it not; but the poor in fpirit are of another mind, wherefore the Lord bears, and fills them with his good things. §. 8. If there were not this preparation, the Jewish times would have been more holy and fpiritual than the gofpel; for even then it was required; much more now. §. 9. As fin, fo formality, cannot worfhip God: thus David, Ifaiah, &c. §. 10. God's own forms and inftitutions hateful to bim, unless his own Spirit use them; much more thofe of man's contriving. §. 11. God's children ever met God in his way, not their own; and in his way they always found help and comfort. In Jeremiah's time it was the fame; his goodness was manifefted to his children that waited truly upon him: it was an inward fenfe and enjoyment of him they thirsted after. Chrift charged his difciples alfo to wait for the fpirit. §. 12. This doctrine of waiting further opened, and ended with an allufion to the pool of Bethesda; a lively figure of inward waiting, and its bleffed effects. §. 13. Four things neceffary to worship; the fanctification · of the worshipper, and the confecration of the offering, and the thing to be prayed for, and laftly, faith to pray in: and all must be right, that is, of God's giving. §. 14. The great power of faith in prayer; witness the importunate woman. The wicked and formal afk, and receive not; the reason why. But Jacob and his true offspring, the followers of his faith, prevail. §. 15. This fhews, why Chrift upbraided his difciples with their little faith. The neceffity of faith. Chrift works no good