nefs, and Humility, and Purity, and Devotion, and all the other Graces of the Holy Spirit. It is not poffible, but that fuch a Life as this, muft needs be a Fountain of inexpreffible Joy to him that leads it, and fill the Soul with tranfcendantly greater Content than any thing upon Earth can poffibly do: For this is the Life of God, this is the Life of the Bleffed Angels above, this is the Life that is most of all agreeable to our own Natures. While we live thus, things are with us as they fhould be; our Souls are in their natural Pofture, in that State they were framed and defigned to live in: Whereas the Life of Sin, is a State of Disorder and Confufion; a perpetual Violence and Force upon our Natures. While we live thus, we enjoy the Pleafures of Men, whereas before, when we were governed by Senfe, we could pretend to no other Satisfactions, but what the Brutes have as well as we. In this State of Life, we gratify our highest and nobleft Powers, the intellectual Appetites of our Souls; which as they are infinitely capacious, fo have they an infinite Good to fill them: Whereas in the fenfual Life, the meanest, the dulleft, and the most contracted Faculties of our Souls, were only provided for.

But what need I carry you out into these Speculations, when your own Senfe and Experience will ascertain you in this Matter above a Thousand Arguments? Do but seriously fet yourselves to ferve God, if you have yet never done it, do but once try what it is to

live up to the Precepts of Reafon, and Virtue, and Religion; and I dare confidently pronounce, that you will in One Month, find more Foy, more Peace, more Content, to arise in your Spirits, from the Sense that you have resisted the Temptations of Evil, and done what was your Duty to do, than in many Years spent in Vanity and a licentious Courfe of Living. I doubt not in the least, but that after you have once feen, and tafted how gracious the Lord is, how good all his Ways are, but you will proclaim to all the World, that One Day Spent in his Courts, is better than a Thousand: Nay, you will be ready to cry out with the Roman Orator (if it be lawful to quote the Testimony of a Heathen, after that of the Divine Pfalmift) that One Day lived according to the Precepts of Virtue, is to be preferred before an Immortality of Sin.

You will then alter all your Sentiments of Things, and wonder that you should have been fo ftrangely abused by falfe Reprefentations of Virtue and Vice. You will then fee that Religion is quite another Thing, than it appeared to you, before you became acquainted with it. Inftead of that grim, fowre, unpleasant Countenance, in which you heretofore painted her to yourfelf, you will then discover nothing in her but what is infinitely Lovely and Charming. Thofe very Actions of Religion, which you now cannot think upon with Patience, they seem so harfh and unpleasant, you will then find to be accomVOL. I. panied

F

panied with a wonderful Delight. You will not then complain of the Narrowness of the Bounds, or the Scantinefs of the Meafures, that it hath confined your Defires to; for you will then find, that you have hereby gained an Entrance into a far greater and more perfect Liberty. How ungentilely, how much against the Grain of Nature foever it now looks to forgive an Injury, or an Affront, you will then find it to be as far more cafy, fo far more fweet than to revenge one. You will no longer think Works of Charity burthenfome or expenfive; or that to do good Offices to every one is an Employment too mean for

you; for you will then experience, that there

is no Senfuality like that of doing Good; and that it is a greater Pleafure to do a Kindness, than to receive one. How will you chide your felf for having been fo averfe to Prayer, and other devout Exercises, accounting them as tirefome unfavoury Things, when you begin to feel the delicious Relishes they leave upon your Spirit? You will then confefs, that no Converfation is half fo agreeable as that which we enjoy with God Almighty in Prayer; no Cordial fo reviving as heartily to pour out our Souls unto him. And then to be affected with his Mercies, to praife and give Thanks to him for his Benefits, what is it but a very Heaven upon Earth, an Anticipation of the Joys of Eternity? Nay, you will not be without your Pleafures, even in the very Entrance of Religion, then when you ex

ercife Acts of Repentance when you mourn and afflict yourself for your Sins, which feems the frightfulleft Thing in all Religion. For fuch is the Nature of that Holy Sorrow, that you would not for all the World be without it, and you will find far greater Contentment and Satisfaction in grieving for your Offences, than ever you did receive from the committing

them.

But, O the ineffable Pleasures that do continually fpring up in the Heart of a good Man, from the Senfe of God's Love, and the Hope of his Favour, as the fair Prospect he hath of the Joy and Happiness of the other World! How pleafing, how tranfporting will the Thought of thefe Things be to you! To think that you are one of thofe happy Souls, that are, of an Enemy, become the Friend of God, that your Ways pleafe him, and that you are not only pardoned, but accepted and beloved by him? To think that you a poor Creature, who were of yourself nothing, and by your Sins had made yourself far worse than nothing, are yet by the Goodness of your Saviour, become fo confiderable a Being, as to be able to give Delight to the King of the World, and to caufe Joy in Heaven among the bleffed Angels by your Repentance: To think that God charges his Providence with you, takes Care of all your Concerns, hears all your Prayers, provides all Things needful for and that he will, in his good Time, you up unto himself, to live everlasting

take

you,

ly in his Prefence, to be Partaker of his Glories, to be ravished with his Love, to be acquainted with his Counfels, to know and be known by Angels, Arch-Angels, and Seraphims; to enjoy a Converfation with Prophets, Apoftles, and Martyrs, and all the raised and glorified Spirits of brave Men; and with all thefe to fpend a happy and a rapturous Eternity, in adoring, in loving, in praifing God for the Infinitenefs of his Wifdom, and the Miracles of his Mercy and Goodness to all his Creatures. Can there be any Pleasure like this? Can any thing in the World put you into fuch an Ecftafy of Joy, as the very Thought of thefe Things? With what a mighty Scorn and Contempt, will you in the Senfe of them look down upon all the little Gauderies, and fickly Satisfactions, that the Men of this World keep fuch a ftir about? How empty an evanid, how flat and unsavory will the beft Pleasures on Earth appear to you, in comparison of these Divine Contentments? you will perpetually rejoice, you' will fing Praises to your Saviour, you will blefs the Day, that ever you became acquainted with him; you will confefs him to be the only Mafter of Pleasure in the World, and that you never knew what it was to be an Epicure indeed, 'till you became a Christian.

Thus have I gone through all those Heads which I at first proposed to infist on. What now remains, but that I refume the Apostle's Exhorta