the belief of an immortal reward; but we also find, that all men that believed the immortality of the soul firmly and unmovably, made no scruple of exchanging their life, for the preservation of virtue, with the interest of their great hope, for honour sometimes, and oftentimes for their country.

35. Thus the holy Jesus perfected and restored the natural law, and drew it into a system of propositions, and made them to become of the family of religion. For God is so zealous to have man attain to the end to which he first designed him, that those things, which he hath put in the natural order to attain that end, he hath bound fast upon us, not only by the order of things, by which it was, that he that prevaricated, did naturally fall short of felicity, but also by bands of religion; he hath now made himself a party and an enemy to those that will not be happy. Of old, religion was but one of the natural laws, and the instances of religion were distinct from the discourses of philosophy. Now, all the law of nature is adopted into religion, and by our love and duty to God we are tied to do all that is reason ; and the parts of our religion are but pursuances of the natural relation between God and us: and beyond all this, our natural condition is, in all senses improved by the consequents and adherences of this religion. For although nature and grace are opposite, that is, nature depraved by evil habits, by ignorance and ungodly customs, is contrary to grace, that is, to nature restored by the gospel, engaged to regular living by new revelations, and assisted by the Spirit; yet it is observable, that the law of nature and the law of grace are never opposed. "There is a law of our members," saith St Paul; that is, an evil necessity introduced into our appetites, by perpetual evil customs, examples, and traditions of vanity; and there is a law of sin, that answers to this: and they differ only as inclination and habit, vicious desires and vicious practices. But then contrary to these are, first, “a law of my mind," which is the law of nature and right reason, and then the law of grace, that is, of Jesus Christ, who perfected and restored the first law, and by assistances reduced it into a law of holy living : and these two differ as the other; the one is in order to the other, as imperfection and growing degrees and capacities are to perfection and consummation. The law of the mind had been so razed and obliterate, and we, by some means or other, so disabled from observing it exactly, that until it was turned into the law of grace, (which is a law of pardoning infirmities, and assisting us in our choices and elections,) we were in a state of deficiency from the perfective state of man, to which God intended us.

36. Now, although God always designed man to the same state, which he hath now revealed by Jesus Christ, yet he told him not of it; and his permissions and licenses were then greater, and the law itself lay closer folded up in the compact body of necessary propositions, in order to so much of his end as was known, or could be supposed. But now, according to the extension of the revelation, the law itself is made wider, that is, more explicit; and natural reason is thrust forward into discourses of charity and benefit, and we tied to do very much good to others, and tied to co-operate to each other's felicity.

37. That the law of charity is a law of nature, needs no other argument but the consideration of the first constitution of man. The first instances of justice or intercourse of man with a second or third person, were to such persons, towards whom he had the greatest endearments of affection in the world, a wife and children; and justice and charity, at first was the

same thing. And it hath obtained in ages far removed from the first, that charity is called righteousness: "He hath dispersed and given to the poor; his righteousness remaineth for ever.' And it is certain, Adam could not in any instance be unjust, but he must in the same also be uncharitable ; the band of his first justice being the ties of love, and all having commenced in love. And our blessed Lord, restoring all to the intention of the first perfection, expresses it to the same sense, as I formerly observed; justice to our neighbour is loving him as ourselves. For, since justice obliges us to do, as we would be done to, as the irascible faculty restrains us from doing evil for fear of receiving evil, so the concupiscible obliges us to charity, that ourselves may receive good.

:

38. I shall say nothing concerning the reasonableness of this precept, but that it concurs rarely with the first reasonable appetite of man, of being like God. "It is more blessed to give than to receive," said our blessed Saviour and therefore the commandment of charity, in all its parts, is a design not only to reconcile the most miserable person to some participations and sense of felicity, but to make the charitable man happy; and whether this be not very agreeable to the desires of an intelligent nature, needs no farther inquiry. And Aristotle, asking the question, Whether a man had most need of friends in prosperity or adversity? makes the case equal : "When they are in want they need assistance; when they are prosperous, they need partners of their felicity, that, by communicating their joy to them, it may reflect and double upon their spirits." And certain it is, there is no greater felicity in the world, than in the content that results from the emanations of charity. And this is that which St John calls "the old commandment," and "the new commandment." It was of old, for it was from the beginning, even in nature, and to the offices of which our very bodies had an organ and a seat; for therefore nature gave to a man bowels and the passion of yearning; but it grew up into religion by parts, and was made perfect, and in that degree, appropriate to the law of Jesus Christ. For so the holy Jesus became our lawgiver, and added many new precepts over and above what were in the law of Moses, but not more than was in the law of nature. The reason of both is, what I have all this while discoursed of: Christ made a more perfect restitution of the law of nature than Moses did, and so it became the second Adam to consummate that, which began to be less perfect, from the prevarication of the first Adam.

39. A particular of the precept of charity is forgiving injuries; and besides that it hath many superinduced benefits by way of blessing and reward, it relies also upon this natural reason, that a pure and a simple revenge does no way restore man towards the felicity, which the injury did interrupt. For revenge is a doing a simple evil, and does not, in its formality, imply reparation; for the mere repeating of our own right is permitted to them, that will do it by charitable instruments; and to secure myself or the public against the future, by positive inflictions upon the injurious, (if I be not judge myself,) is also within the moderation of an unblamable defence, (unless some accidents or circumstances vary the case;) but forgiving injuries is a separating the malice from the wrong, the transient act from the permanent effect; and it is certain, the act which is passed, cannot be rescinded; the effect may; and if it cannot, it does no way alleviate the evil

*Psalm cxii. 9.

of the accident, that I draw him that caused it, into as great a misery: since every evil happening in the world, is the proper object of pity, which is in some sense afflictive; and therefore, unless we become unnatural and without bowels, it is most unreasonable, that we should increase our own afflictions by introducing a new misery, and making a new object of pity. All the ends of human felicity are secured without revenge, for without it we are permitted to restore ourselves; and therefore it is against natural reason to do any evil that no way co-operates towards the proper and perfective end of human nature. And he is a miserable person, whose good is the evil of his neighbour; and he, that revenges, in many cases, does worse than he that did the injury; in all cases, as bad. For if the first injury was an injustice to serve an end of an advantage and real benefit; then my revenge which is abstracted, and of a consideration separate and distinct from the reparation, is worse; for I do him evil, without deing myself any real good; which he did not, for he received advantage by it. But if the first injury was matter of mere malice without advantage, yet it is no worse than revenge, for that is just so; and there is as much fantastic pleasure in doing a spite, as in doing revenge: they are both but like the pleasures of eating coals, and toads, and vipers. And certain it is, if a man, upon his private stock, could be permitted to revenge, the evil would be immortal. And it is rarely well discoursed by Tyndarus in Euripides: "If the angry wife shall kill her husband, the son shall revenge his father's death, and kill his mother, and then the brother shall kill his mother's murderer, and he also will meet with an avenger for killing his brother."

"What end shall there be to such” inhuman and “sad accidents?" If in this there be injustice, it is against natural reason; and, if it be evil, and disorders the felicity and security of society, it is also against natural reason: but if it be just, it is a strange justice, that is made up of so many inhumanities.

40. And now, if any man pretends specially to reason, to the ordinate desires and perfections of nature,and the sober discourses of philosophy, here is in Christianity, and no where else, enough to satisfy and inform his reason, to perfect his nature, and to reduce to act all the propositions of an intelligent and wise spirit. And the Holy Ghost is promised and given in our religion, to be an eternal band to keep our reason from returning to the darknesses of the old creation, and to promote the ends of our natural and proper felicity. For it is not a vain thing, that St Paul reckons helps, and governments, and healings, to be fruits of the Spirit. For, since the two greatest blessings of the world, personal and political, consist, that in health, this in government; and the ends of human felicity are served in nothing greater for the present interval, than in these two; Christ did not only enjoin rare prescriptions of health, such as are fasting, temperance, chastity, and sobriety, and all the great endearments of government, (and unless they be sacredly observed, man is infinitely miserable;) but also hath given his Spirit, that is, extraordinary aids to the promoting these two, and facilitating the work of nature; that (as St Paul says at the end of a discourse to this very purpose) "the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us."*

41. I shall add nothing but this single consideration: God said to the

*2 Cor. iv. 7.

children of Israel, "Ye are a royal priesthood,' a kingdom of priests: which was therefore true, because God reigned by the priests, and the priests lips did then preserve knowledge, and the people were to receive the law from their mouths; for God having, by laws of his own, established religion and the republic, did govern by the rule of the law, and the ministry of the priests. The priests said, "Thus saith the Lord;" and the people obeyed. And these very words are spoken to the Christian church: "Ye are a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the praises of Him that hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light." This is, God reigns over all Christendom, just as he did over the Jews. He hath now so given to them and restored respectively all those reasonable laws, which are in order to all good ends, personal, economical, and political, that if men will suffer Christian religion to do its last intention, if men will live according to it, there needs no other coercion of laws or power of the sword. The laws of God, revealed by Christ, are sufficient to make all societies of men happy; and over all good men God reigns by his ministers, by the preaching of the word. And this was most evident in the three first ages of the church, in which all Christian societies were for all their proper intercourses, perfectly guided, not by the authority and compulsion, but by the sermons of their spiritual guides; insomuch that St Paul sharply reprehends the Corinthians, that "brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers ;" as if he had said, "Ye will not suffer Christ to be your Judge, and his law to be your rule:" which indeed was a great fault among them, not only because they had so excellent a law so clearly described, (or, where they might doubt, they had infallible interpreters,) so reasonable and profitable, so evidently concurring to their mutual felicity; but also because God did design Jesus to be their King, to reign over them by spiritual regimen, as himself did over the Jews, till they chose a king. And when the emperors became Christian, the case was no otherwise altered, but that the princes themselves, submitting to Christ's yoke, were (as all other Christians are,) for their proportion, to be governed by the royal priesthood, that is, by the word preached by apostolical persons, the political interest remaining as before, save that, by being submitted to the laws of Christ, it received this advantage, that all justice was turned to be religion, and became necessary, and bound upon the conscience by Divinity. And when it happens, that a kingdom is converted to Christianity, the commonwealth is made a church, and Gentile priests are Christian bishops, and the subjects of the kingdom are servants of Christ, the religion of the nation is turned Christian, and the law of the nation made a part of the religion; there is no change of government, but that Christ is made King, and the temporal power is his substitute, and it is to promote the interest of obedience to him, as before it did to Christ's enemy; Christ having left his ministers as lieger ambassadors, to signify and publish the laws of Jesus, to pray all, in Christ's stead, to be reconciled to God; so that, over the obedient, Christ wholly reigns by his ministers publishing his laws; over the disobedient, by the prince also putting those laws in execution. And in this sense it is, that St Paul says, "To such (who live after the spirit) there is no law :" that is, there needs no coercion. But now, if we reject God from reigning over us, by the ministry of his word, by

* 1 Pet. ii. 9.

the empire of the royal priesthood, then we return to the condition of heathens, and persons sitting in darkness; then God hath armed the temporal power with a sword to cut us off. If we obey not God, speaking by his ministers, that is, if we live not according to the excellent laws of Christianity, that is, holily, soberly, and justly in all our relations, he hath placed three swords against us; the sword of the Spirit, against the unholy and irreligious; the sword of natural and supervening infelicities, upon the intemperate and unsober; and the sword of kings, against the unjust; to demonstrate the excellency of Christianity, and how certainly it leads to all the felicity of man; because every transgression of this law, according to its proportion, makes men unhappy and unfortunate.

42. What effect this discourse may have, I know not; I intended it to do honour to Christianity, and to represent it to be the best religion in the world, and the conjugation of all excellent things, that were in any religion, or in any philosophy, or in any discourses. For "whatsoever was honest, whatsoever was noble, whatsoever was wise, whatsoever was of good report, if there be any praise, if there be any virtue,"* it is in Christianity : for even to follow all these instances of excellency, is a precept of Christianity. And methinks, they that pretend to reason, cannot more reasonably endear themselves to the reputation of reason, than by endearing their reason to Christianity; the conclusions and belief of which is the most reasonable and perfect, the most excellent design, and complying with the noblest and most proper ends of man. And if this gate may suffice to invite such persons into the recesses of the religion, then I shall tell them, that I have dressed it in the ensuing books with some variety; and as the nature of the religion is, some parts whereof are apt to satisfy our discourse, some to move our affections, and yet all of this to relate to practice; so is the design of the following pages. For some men are wholly made up of passion, and their very religion is but passion, put into the family and society of holy purposes; and, for those, I have prepared considerations upon the special parts of the life of the holy Jesus; and yet there also are some things mingled in the least severe and most affectionate parts, which may help to answer a question, and appease a scruple, and may give rule for determination of many cases of conscience. For I have so ordered the considerations, that they spend not themselves in mere affections and ineffective passions, but they are made doctrinal, and little repositories of duty. But because of the variety of men's spirits and of men's necessities, it was necessary I should interpose some practical discourses more severe for it is but a sad thought to consider, that piety and books of devotion are counted but entertainment for little understandings and softer spirits; and although there is much fault in such imperious minds, that they will not distinguish the weakness of the writers from the reasonableness and wisdom of the religion; yet I cannot but think, the books themselves are, in a large degree, the occasion of so great indevotion; because they are (some few excepted) represented naked in the conclusions of spiritual life, without or art or learning, and made apt for persons who can do nothing but believe and love; not for them that can consider and love. And it is not well, that since nothing is more reasonable and excellent in all perfections spiritual than the doctrines of the Spirit, or holy life; yet nothing is offered to us so

*Phil. iv. 8.