sires of wealth, not any great design, but religion must be made its usher or support. If a new opinion be commenced, and the author would make a sect, and draw disciples after him, at least he must be thought to be religious; which is a demonstration how great an instrument of reputation piety and religion is. And if the pretence will do us good offices amongst men, the reality will do the same, besides the advantages which we shall receive from the divine benediction. The power of godliness will certainly do more than the form alone. And it is most notorious in the affairs of the clergy, whose lot it hath been to fall from great riches to poverty, when their wealth made them less curious of their duty but when humility and chastity and exemplary sanctity have been the enamel of their holy order, the people, like the Galatians, would pull out their own eyes to do them benefit. And indeed God hath singularly blessed such instruments to the being the only remedies to repair the breaches made by sacrilege and irreligion. But certain it is, no man was ever honoured for that which was esteemed vicious.' Vice hath got money and a curse many times; and vice hath adhered to the instruments and purchases of honour: but among all nations whatsoever, those called honourable put on the face and pre

religionis indaginem; cujus si cultum retinere potuerimus, iter prosperitatis humanis aperitur inceptis. Theod. et Valent. in Cod. Theod.-"We consider that the promotion of religion should be the principal care of imperial authority: for if we can secure this, the way is opened for success in all things beside."

Dedit enim providentia hominibus munus, ut honesta magis juvarent. Quint. lib. i. c. 12.-" The providence of God ordained that virtue should best avail us."

tence of virtue. But I choose to instance in the proper cognizance of a Christian, humility, which seems contradictory to the purposes and reception of honour; and yet in the world nothing is a more certain means to purchase it. Do not all the world hate a proud man? And therefore what is contrary to humility is also contradictory to honour and reputation. And when the apostle had given command, that in giving honour we should one go before another, he laid the foundation of praises, and panegyrics, and triumphs. And as humility is secure against affronts and tempests of despite, because it is below them; so when by employment, or any other issue of divine Providence, it is drawn from its sheath and secrecy, it shines clear and bright as the purest and most polished metals. Humility is like a tree, whose root, when it sets deepest in the earth, rises higher, and spreads fairer, and stands surer, and lasts longer: every step of its descent is like a rib of iron, combining its parts in unions indissoluble, and placing it in the chambers of security. No wise man ever lost any thing by cession, but he receives the hostility of violent persons into his embraces, like a stone into a lap of wool; it rests and sits down soft and innocently; but a stone falling upon a stone makes a collision, and extracts fire, and finds no rest. And just so are two proud persons, despised by each other, contemned by all, living in perpetual dissonances, always fighting against affronts, jealous of every person, disturbed by every accident, a perpetual storm within, and daily hissings from without.

13. Fourthly, Holiness and obedience is an excellent preservative of life, and makes it long and healthful. In order to which discourse, because it

is new, material, and argumentative, apt to persuade men who prefer life before all their other interests, I consider many things. First, in the Old Testament, a long and prosperous life were the great promises of the covenant; their hopes were built upon it, and that was made the support of all their duty. If thou wilt diligently hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, I will put none of the diseases upon thee which I brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the Lord that healeth thee.'' And more particularly yet, that we may not think piety to be security only against the plagues of Egypt, God makes his promise more indefinite and unconfined: Ye shall serve the Lord your God, and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee, and will fulfil the number of thy days:' that is, the period of nature shall be the period of thy person; thou shalt live long, and die in a seasonable ripe age. And this promise was so verified by a long experience, that by David's time it grew up to a rule: What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days, that he may see good? Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips that they speak no guile'' And the same argument was pressed by Solomon, who was an excellent philosopher, and well skilled in the natural and accidental means of preservation of our lives: 'Fear the Lord, and depart from evil; and it shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones. Length of days is in the right hand of wisdom;' for she is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her.' Meaning, that the tree of life and immortality which God

1 Exod. xv. 26.

3 Psalm xxxiv. 12, 13.

4

2 Exod. xxiii. 25, 26.

+ Prov. iii. 7, 8, 16, 18.

had planted in paradise, and which, if man had stood, he should have tasted, and have lived for ever, the fruit of that tree is offered upon the same conditions; if we will keep the commandments of God, our obedience, like the tree of life, shall consign us to immortality hereafter, by a long and a healthful life here. And therefore, although in Moses's time the days of man had been shortened, till they came to threescore years and ten, or fourscore years, and then their strength is but labour and sorrow; (for Moses was the author of that Psalm;) yet to show the great privilege of those persons whose piety was great, Moses himself attained to one hundred and twenty years, which was almost double to the ordinary and determined period. But Enoch and Elias never died, and became great examples to us, that a spotless and holy life might possibly have been immortal.

14. I shall add no more examples, but one great conjugation of precedent observed by the Jewish writers, who tell us, that in the second temple there were three hundred high-priests, (I suppose they set down a certain number for an uncertain, and by three hundred they mean very many,) and yet that temple lasted but four hundred and twenty years: the reason of this so rapid and violent abscision of their priests being their great and scandalous impieties. And yet in the first temple, whose abode was within ten years as long as the second, there was a succession of but eighteen high-priests for they being generally very pious, and the preservers of their rites and religion against the schism of Jeroboam, and the defection of Israel,

1 Psalm xc. 10.

and the idolatry and irreligion of many of the kings of Judah, God took delight to reward it with a long and honourable old age. And Balaam knew well enough what he said, when in his ecstasy and prophetic rapture he made his prayer to God, 'Let my soul die the death of the righteous." It was not a prayer that his soul might be saved, or that he might repent at last; for repentance and immortality were revelations of a later date: but he, in his prophetic ecstacy, seeing what God had proposed to the Moabites, and what blessings he had reserved for Israel, prays that he might not die, as the Moabites were like to die, with an untimely death, by the sword of their enemies, dispossessed of their country, spoiled of their goods, in the period and last hour of their nation :-But let my soul die the death of the just, the death designed for the faithful Israelites; such a death which God promised to Abraham, that he should return to his fathers in peaee, and in a good old age. For the death of the righteous is like the descending of ripe and wholesome fruits from a pleasant and florid tree; our senses entire, our limbs unbroken, without horrid tortures, after provision made for our children, with a blessing entailed upon posterity, in the presence of our friends, our dearest relative closing up our eyes, and binding our feet, leaving a good name behind us. O let my soul die such a death! for this, in whole or in part, according as God sees it good, is the manner that the righteous die. And this was Balaam's prayer:

and this was the state and condition in the Old Testatament.

1 Numb. xxiii. 10.