remain for ever, but that you, who do not turn away from the faith and obedience of the Lord Jesus, you, who cannot be shaken nor removed from your duty, you may remain for ever; that when the rocks rend, and the mountains fly in pieces like the drops of a broken cloud, and the heavens shall melt, and the sun shall be a globe of consuming fire, and the moon shall be dark like an extinguished candle, then you poor men, who could be made to tremble with an ague, or shake by the violence of a northern wind, or be removed from your dwellings by the unjust decree of a persecutor, or be thrown from your estates by the violence of an unjust man, yet could not be removed from your duty, and though you went trembling, yet would go to death for the testimony of a holy cause, and you that would die for your faith, would also live according to it; you shall be established by the power of God, and supported by the arm of your Lord, and shall in all this great shaking be unmoveable; as the corner-stone of the gates of the New Jerusalem, you shall remain and abide for ever. This is your case. And, to

sum up the whole force of the argument, the Apostle adds the words of Moses: as it was then, so is it true now, "Our God is a consuming fire :" he was so to them that brake the law, but he will be much more to them that disobey his Son; he made great changes then, but those which remain are far greater, and his terrors are infinitely more intolerable; and therefore, although he came not in the spirit of Elias, but with meekness and gentle insinuations, soft as the breath of heaven, not willing to disturb the softest stalk of a violet, yet his second coming shall be with terrors such as shall amaze all the world, and dissolve it into ruin and a chaos. This truth is of so great efficacy to make us do our duty, that now we are sufficiently enabled with this consideration. This is the grace which we have to enable us, this terror will produce fear, and fear will produce obedience, and 66 we therefore have grace," that is, we have such a motive to make us reverence God and fear to offend him that he that dares continue in sin, and refuses to hear him that speaks to us from heaven, and from thence shall come with terrors, this man despises the grace of God, he is a graceless, fearless, impudent man, and he shall find that true in his own ruin, which the Apostle declares by way of caution, and provisionary terror, "Our God is a consuming fire."

USE AND ABUSE OF THE PRINCIPLE OF FEAR IN RELIGION.

FEAR is the duty we owe to God, as being the God of power and justice, the great Judge of heaven and earth, the avenger of the cause of widows, the patron of the poor, and the advocate of the oppressed, a mighty God and terrible and so essential an enemy to sin, that he spared not his own Son, but gave him over to death, and to become a sacrifice, when he took upon him our nature, and became a person obliged for our guilt. Fear is the great bridle of intemperance, the modesty of the spirit, and the restraint of gayeties and dissolutions; it is the girdle to the soul, and the

*Deut. iv. 24.

handmaid to repentance; the arrest in sin, and the cure or antidote to the spirit of reprobation; it preserves our apprehensions of the Divine Majesty, and hinders our single actions from combining to sinful habits; it is the mother of consideration, and the nurse of sober counsels; and it puts the soul to fermentation and activity, making it to pass from trembling to caution, from caution to carefulness, from carefulness to watchfulness, from thence to prudence; and, by the gates and progresses of repentance, it leads the soul on to love, and to felicity, and to joys in God, that shall never cease again. Fear is the guard of a man in the days of prosperity and it stands upon the watch towers and spies the approaching danger, and gives warning to them that laugh loud, and feast in the chambers of rejoicing, where a man cannot consider by reason of the noises of wine, and jest, and music; and if prudence takes it by the hand, and leads it on to duty, it is a state of grace, and a universal instrument to infant religion, and the only security of less perfect persons; and, in all senses, is that homage we owe to God, who sends often to demand it, even then, when he speaks in thunder or smites by a plague, or awakens us by threatenings, or discomposes our easiness by sad thoughts, and tender eyes, and fearful hearts, and trembling considerations.

But this so excellent grace is soon abused in the best and most tender spirits; in those who are softened by nature and by religion, by infelicities or cares, by sudden accidents or a sad soul; and the devil observing, that fear, like spare diet, starves the fevers of lust, and quenches the flames of hell, endeavours to heighten this abstinence so much as to starve the man, and break the spirit into timorousness and scruple, sadness and unreasonable tremblings, credulity and trifling observation, suspicion and false accusations of God; and then vice, being turned out of the gate, returns in at the postern, and does the work of hell and death by running too inconsiderately in the paths, which seem to lead to heaven. But so have I seen a harmless dove, made dark with an artificial night, and her eyes sealed and locked up with a little quill, soaring upward and flying with amazement, fear, and an undiscerning wing; she made towards heaven, but knew not that she was made a train and an instrument, to teach her enemy to prevail upon her and all her defenceless kindred so is a superstitious man, zealous and blind, forward and mistaken, he runs towards heaven as he thinks, but he chooses foolish paths; and out of fear takes any thing that he is told; or fancies and guesses concerning God by measures taken from his own diseases and imperfections.- But that the evil may be proportionable to the folly, and the punishment to the crime, there is no man more miserable in the world than the man who fears God as his enemy, and religion as a snare, and duty as intolerable, and the commandments as impossible, and his Judge as implacable, and his anger as certain, insufferable, and unavoidable: whither shall this man go? where shall he lay his burden? where shall he take sanctuary? for he fears the altars as the places where his soul bleeds and dies; and God, who is his Saviour, he looks upon as his enemy; and, because he is Lord of all, the miserable man cannot change his service, unless it be apparently for a worse. And therefore, of all the evils of the mind, fear, is certainly the worst and the most intolerable levity and rashness have in them some spritefulness, and greatness of action; anger is valiant; desire is busy and apt to hope; credulity is oftentimes entertained and pleased with images and appearances; but

C

fear is dull, and sluggish, and treacherous, and flattering, and dissembling, and miserable, and foolish. Every false opinion concerning God is pernicious and dangerous; but if it be joined with trouble of spirit, as fear, scruple, and superstition are,—it is like a wound with an inflammation, or a strain of a sinew with a contusion or contrition of the part, painful and unsafe; it puts on two actions when itself is driven; it urges reason and circumscribes it, and makes it pitiable, and ridiculous in its consequent follies; which, if we consider it, will sufficiently reprove the folly, and declare the danger.The sum is this ;-our fears are to be measured by open revelation and certain experience, by the threatenings of God and the sayings of wise men, and their limit is reverence, and godliness is their end ; and then fear shall be a duty, and a rare instrument of many: in all other cases it is superstition or folly, it is sin or punishment, the ivy of religion, and the misery of an honest and a weak heart; and is to be cured only by reason and good company, a wise guide and a plain rule, a cheerful spirit and a contented mind, by joy in God according to the commandments, that is, 66 a rejoicing evermore."

THE PERVERSENESS OF SINNERS.

FROM the beginning of days, man hath been so cross to the Divine commandments, that in many cases there can be no reason given, why a man should choose some ways, or do some actions, but only because they are forbidden. When God bade the Israelites rise and go up against the Canaanites and possess the Land, they would not stir; the men were Anakims, and the cities were impregnable; and there was a lion in the way; but, presently after, when God forbade them to go, they would and did go, though they died for it. I shall not need to instance in particular, when the whole life of man is a perpetual contradiction; and the state of disobedience is called the contradiction of sinners;" even the man in the Gospel, that had two sons, they both crossed him, even he that obeyed him, and he that obeyed him not: for the one said he would, and did not; the other said he would not, and did; and so do we: we promise fair, and do nothing; and they that do best, are such as come out of darkness into light, such as said "they would not," and at last have better bethought themselves. And who can guess at any other reason, why men should refuse to be temperate? For he that refuseth the commandment, first does violence to the commandment, and puts on a preternatural appetite; he spoils his health and he spoils his understanding; he brings to himself a world of diseases and a healthless constitution; smart and sickly nights; a loathing stomach and a staring eye, a giddy brain and a swelled belly, gouts and dropsies; catarrhs and oppilations. If God should enjoin men to suffer all this, heaven and earth should have heard our complaints against unjust laws, and impossible commandments; for we complain already, even when God commands us to drink so long as it is good for us; this is one of the impossible laws: it is impossible for us to know when we are dry, or when we need drink; for if we do know, I am sure it is possible enough,

not to lift up the wine to our heads.

And when our blessed Saviour hath

commanded us to love our enemies, we think we have so much reason against it, that God will easily excuse our disobedience in this case; and yet there are some enemies, whom God hath commanded us not to love, and those we dote on, we cherish and feast them, and as St Paul in another case, "upon our uncomely parts we bestow more abundant comeliness." For whereas our body itself is a servant to our soul, we make it an heir of all things, and treat it here already, as if it were in majority; and make that, which at the best was but a weak friend, to become a strong enemy; and hence proceed the vices of the worst, and the follies and imperfections of the best the spirit is either in slavery or in weakness, and when the flesh is not strong to mischief, it is weak to goodness; and even to the apostles our blessed Lord said, "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."

EFFECTS OF SICKNESS ON THE MIND.

We carry about us the body of death, and we bring evils upon ourselves by our follies, and then know not how to bear them; and the flesh forsakes the spirit. And, indeed, in sickness the infirmity is so very great, that God in a manner at that time hath reduced all religion into one virtue; patience with its appendages is the sum total of almost all our duty that is proper to the days of sorrow; and we shall find it enough to entertain all our powers, and to employ all our aids; the counsels of wise men and the comforts of our friends, the advices of Scripture and the results of experience, the graces of God, and the strength of our own resolutions, are all then full of employment, and find it work enough to secure that one grace. For then it is, that a cloud is wrapped about our heads, and our reason stoops under sorrow; the soul is sad, and its instrument is out of tune; the auxiliaries are disordered, and every thought sits heavily; then a comfort cannot make the body feel it, and the soul is not so abstracted to rejoice much without its partner; so that the proper joys of the soul,-such as are hope, and wise discourses, and satisfaction of reason, and the offices of religion,-are felt, just as we now perceive the joys of heaven, with so little relish, that it comes as news of a victory to a man upon the rack, or the birth of an heir to one condemned to die; he hears a story, which was made to delight him, but it came when he was dead to joy, and all its capacities; and, therefore, sickness, though it be a good monitor, yet it is an ill stage to act some virtues in; and a good man cannot then do much; and, therefore, he that is in state of flesh and blood, can do nothing at all.

FAITH.

THE primary instrument of changing our whole nature into the state of grace, flesh into the spirit, is a firm belief, and a perfect assent to, and hearty entertainment of, the promises of the gospel; for Holy Scrip

ture speaks great words concerning faith. "It quenches the fiery darts of the devil," saith St Paul;* "it overcomes the world," saith St John;† it is the fruit of the Spirit, and the parent of love; it is obedience, and it is humility, it is a shield, and it is a breastplate, and a work, and a mystery, it is a fight, and it is a victory, it is pleasing to God, and it is that “whereby the just do live ;" by "faith we are purified," and by "faith we are sanctified," and by "faith we are justified," and by "faith we are saved," by this "we have access to the throne of grace," and by it our prayers shall prevail" for the sick," by it we stand, and by it we walk, and by this "Christ dwells in our hearts, "and by it all the miracles of the church have been done; it gives great patience to suffer, and great confidence to hope, and great strength to do, and infallible certainty to enjoy the end of all our faith, and satisfaction of all our hopes, and the reward of all our labours, even "the most mighty prize of our high calling :" and if faith be such a magazine of spiritual excellences, of such universal efficacy, nothing can be a greater antidote against the venom of a corrupted nature. But then this is not a grace seated finally in the understanding, but the principle that is designed to, and actually productive of, a holy life; it is not only a believing the propositions of Scripture as we believe a proposition in the metaphysics, concerning which a man is never the honester whether it be true or false; but it is a belief of things that concern us infinitely, things so great that if they be so true as great, no man that hath his reason and can discourse, that can think and choose, that can desire and work towards an end, can possibly neglect them. The great object of our faith, to which all other articles do minister, is the resurrection of our bodies and souls to eternal life, and glories infinite. Now is it possible that a man that believes this, and that he may obtain it for himself, and that it was prepared for him, and that God desires to give it him,—that he can neglect and despise it, and not work for it, and perform such easy conditions upon which it may be obtained? Are not most men of the world made miserable at a less price than a thousand pounds a year? Do not all the usurers and merchants, all tradesmen and labourers under the sun toil and care, labour and contrive, venture and plot, for a little money? and no man gets, and scarce any man desires, so much of it as he can lay upon three acres of ground; not so much as will fill a great house. And is this sum, that is such a trifle, such a poor limited heap of dirt, the reward of all the labour and the end of all the care, and the design of all the malice, and the recompense of all the wars, of the world; and can it be imaginable, that life itself, and a long life, an eternal and happy life, a kingdom, a perfect kingdom, and glorious that shall never have ending, nor ever shall be abated with rebellion, or fears, or sorrow, or care; that such a kingdom should not be worth the praying for, and quitting of an idle company, and a foolish humour, or a little drink, or a vicious silly woman, for it? Surely men believe no such thing: they do not rely upon those fine stories that are read in books, and published by preachers, and allowed by the laws of all the world. If they did, why do they choose intemperance and a fever, lust and shame, rebellion and danger, pride and a fall, sacrilege and a curse, gain and passion, before humility, and safety, religion and a constant joy, devotion and peace of conscience, justice and a quiet dwelling, charity and a blessing; and, at the end of all