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that any man can take; and, however inconfiderate men may complain of the restraints of religion, that it is not one jot more our duty, than it is our privilege and our happiness.

And I cannot think, that, upon fober confideration, any man could fee reafon to thank God to be released from any of his laws, or to have had the contrary to them injoined. Let us fuppofe, that the laws of God had been just the reverfe of what they now are; that he had commanded us, under fevere penalties, to deal falfely and fraudulently with our neighbour; to demean ourfelves ungratefully to our best friends and benefactors; to be drunk every day, and to pursue fenfual pleasures, to the endangering of our health and life: how should we have complained of the unreasonableness of these laws, and have murmured at the flavery of such intole-rable impofitions? And yet now that God hath commanded us the contrary, things every way agreeable to our reafon and intereft, we are not pleafed neither.. What will content us? As our Saviour expoftulates in a like cafe, Whereunto fhall I liken this generation? It is like unto children playing in the market-place, and calling unto their companions, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned, and ye have not lamented. This is perfectly childish, to be pleafed with nothing;, neither to like this, nor the contrary. We are not contented with the laws of God as they are; and yet the contrary to them we fhould have efteemed the greatest grievance in the world.

And if this be true, that the laws of God, how contrary foever to our vitious inclinations, are really calculated for our benefit and advantage, it would almoft be an affront to wife and confiderate men to importune them to their intereft, and with great earneftnefs to perfuade them to that which in all refpects is fo vifibly for their advantage. Chufe you therefore this day whom your will ferve God or your lufts: and take up a speedy rè-folution in a matter of fo great and preffing a concernment: Chufe you this day.

Where there is great hazard in the doing of a thing, it is good to deliberate long before we undertake it: but where the thing is not only fafe, but beneficial, and not

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only

only hugely beneficial, but highly neceffary; when our life and our happinefs depends upon it, and all the danger lies in the delay of it; there we cannot be too fudden in our refolution, nor too fpeedy in the execution of it. That which is evidently fafe, needs no deliberation; and that which is abfolutely neceffary, will admit of none.

Therefore refolve upon it out of hand: To day, whilft it is called to day, left any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of fin: in the days of your youth and health; for that is the acceptable time, that is the day of falvation: before the evil day comes, and you be driven to it by the terrible apprehenfion and approach of death, when men fly to God only for fear of his wrath. For the greatest Atheifts and infidels, when they come to die, if they have any of that reafon left which they have used fo ill, have commonly right opinions about God and religion. For then the confidence, as well as the comfort of Atheifm leaves them, as the devil ufes to do witches when they are in diftrefs. Then, with Nebuchadnezzar, when they are recovered from being beafts, they look up to heaven, and their understanding returns to them: then they believe a God, and cannot help it; they believe, and tremble at the thoughts of him. Thus Lucretius, one of their great authors, obferves, that, when men are in diftrefs,

Acriùs advertunt animos ad religionem :

"The thoughts of religion are then more quick and pungent upon their minds."

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Nam vera voces tum demum pectore ab imo
Eliciuntur, & eripitur perfona, manet res :

"Mens words then come from the bottom of their 66 hearts; the mask is taken off, and things then appear as in truth they are."

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But then perhaps it may be too late to make this choice: nay, then it can hardly be choice, but neceffity. Men do not then chufe to ferve the Lord, but they are urged and forced to it by their fears. They have ferved their lufts all their life long, and now they would fain ferve themfelves of God at the hour of death. They have done what they can, by their infolent con

tempt

tempt and defiance of the Almighty, to make themfelves miferable; and now that they can ftand out no longer against him, they are contented at last to be beholden to him to make them happy. The mercies of God are vaft and boundless; but yet methinks it is too great a prefumption in all reason, for men to defign beforehand to make the mercy of God the fanctuary and retreat of a finful life.

To draw then to a conclufion of this difcourfe: If fafety, or pleasure, or liberty, or wifdom, or virtue, or even happiness itself, have any temptation in them, religion hath all these baits and allurements. What Tully fays of philosophy, is much more true of the Christian religion, the wisdom and philosophy which is from above; Nunquam fatis laudari poterit; cui qui pareat, omne tempus ætatis fine moleftia degere poffit: We 66 can never praise it enough; fince whoever lives ac"cording to the rules of it, may pass the whole age of "his life (I may add, his whole duration, this life and "the other) without trouble."

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Philofophy hath given us feveral plaufible rules for the attaining of peace and tranquillity of mind; but they fall very much fhort of bringing men to it. The very best of them fail us upon the greatest occafions. But the Chriftian religion hath effectually done all that which philofophy pretended to, and aimed at. The precepts and promifes of the holy fcriptures are every way fufficient for our comfort, and for our inftruction in righteoufnefs; to correct all the errors, and to bear us up under all the evils and adverfities of human life; efpecially that holy and heavenly doctrine which is contained in the admirable fermons of our Saviour; quem cum legimus, quem philofophum non contemnimus?" whofe ex"cellent difcourfes when we read, what philofopher do "we not despise? None of the philofophers could, upon fure grounds, give that encouragement to their fcholars, which our Saviour does to his difciples: Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, and ye shall find reft to your fouls. For my yoke is eafy, and my burthen is light.

This is the advantage of the Chriftian religion fincerely believed and practised, that it gives perfect reft and tranquillity to the mind of man. It frees us from the

guilt of an evil confcience, and from the power of our lufts, and from the flavish fear of death, and of the vengeance of another world. It builds our comfort upon a rock, which will abide all forms, and remain unfhaken in every condition, and will last and hold out for ever: He that heareth thefe fayings of mine, and doth them, (faith our Lord), I will liken him to a wife man, who built his houfe upon a rock.

In fhort, religion makes the life of man a wife defign, regular, and conftant to itself; because it unites all our refolutions and actions in one great end: whereas without religion the life of man is a wild, and fluttering, and inconfiftent thing, without any certain scope and defign. The vitious man lives at random, and acts by chance: for he that walks by no rule, can carry on no fettled and fteady defign. It would pity a man's heart to fee how hard fuch men are put to it for diverfion, and what a burden time is to them; and how folicitous they are to devife ways, not to spend it, but to fquander it away. For their great grievance is confideration, and to be obliged to be intent upon any thing that is ferious. They hurry from one vanity and folly to another; and plunge themselves into drink, not to quench their thirst, but their guilt; and are beholden to every vain man, and to every trifling occafion, that can but help to take time off their hands. Wretched and inconfiderate men! who have so vast a work before them, the happiness of all eternity to take care of and provide for, and yet are at a lofs how to employ their time! So that irreligion and vice makes life an extravagant and unnatural thing, because it perverts and overthrows the natural courfe and order of things. For inftance: According to nature, men labour to get an estate, to free themselves from temptations to rapine and injury; and that they may have wherewithal to fupply their own wants, and to relieve the needs of others. But now the covetous man heaps up riches, not to enjoy them, but to have them; and starves himfelf in the midft of plenty, and most unnaturally cheats and robs himself of that which is his own; and makes a hard fhift to be as poor and miferable with a great estate, as any man can be without it. According to the defign of nature, men should eat and drink that they may live;

but

but the voluptuous man only lives that he may eat and drink. Nature in all fenfual enjoyments defigns pleafure, which may certainly be had within the limits of virtue but vice rafhly purfues pleasure into the enemy's quarters; and never ftops till the finner be furrounded and seized upon by pain and torment.

So that take away God and religion, and men live to no purpose, without propofing any worthy and confiderable end of life to themselves. Whereas the fear of God, and the care of our immortal fouls, fixeth us upon one great defign; to which our whole life, and all the actions of it, are ultimately referred. Ubi unus Deus colitur, (faith Lactantius), ibi vita, & omnis actus, ad unum caput, & ad unam fummam refertur: "When we ac"knowledge God as the author of our being, as our fo66 vereign, and our judge, our end and our happiness is "then fixed;" and we can have but one reasonable defign, and that is, by endeavouring to please God, to gain his favour and protection in this world, and to arrive at the blessful enjoyment of him in the other: In whofe prefence is fulness of joy, and at whofe right hand are pleafures for evermore. To him, Father, Son, and Holy Ghoft, be all honour and glory, dominion and power, now and for ever.

Amen.

SERMON

XXIX.

Of the difficulty of reforming vitious habits.

JEREMIAH xiii. 23.

Can the Ethiopian change his fkin, or the leopard his fpots ? then may ye alfo do good, that are accustomed to do evil.

C

Onfidering the great difficulty of reclaiming thofe who are far gone in an evil courfe, it is no more than needs to ufe all forts of arguments to this purpose; from the confideration of the evil of fin, and

of

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