at a little uncertain diftance from thofe, who are lying upon their laft beds..

WHEN therefore you fee men living in the diforders of their paffions, blinded with prejudices, fwelling in pride, full of themfelves, vain in their imaginations, and perverfe in their tempers, you must believe, that you fee as true a reprefentation of your own ftate, as if you faw a man in his last sickness.

You, it may be, are not in the extravagance of his difordered tempers, you are at fome uncertain diftance from his ftate; but if you fancy that you are not corrupted with felf-love, not weakened by prejudices, not blinded with pride, not vain in your imaginations, not ridiculous in your tempers, because you are not in fuch diforders as you find fome people, you think as abfurdly, as if you was to imagine yourfelf to be immortal, because you are not in that extremity of death, in which you fee fome people.

AND as the true way of knowing, and being rightly affected with the weakness and mortality of our state, is frequently to view the condition of dying men, as pictures of curfelves; fo the most likely means to affect us with a juft fenfe of the corruption and diforder of our hears, is to confider the frailties, corruptions, and disorders of other people, as certain reprefentations of the frailty and corruption of our own ftate.

WHEN therefore you fee the violence of other mens paffions, the irregularity of their tempers, the ftrength of their prejudices, the folly of their inclinations, and the vanity of their minds, remember that you fee fo many plain reafons for denying yourfelf, and refifting your own nature, which has in it the feeds of all thofe evil tempers, which you see in the most irregular people.

FROM the foregoing reflections upon human nature, we may learn thus much, that abftinence, as to eating and drinking, is but a finall part of Chriftian Self-denial.

THE

THE Corruption of our nature has its chief feat in the irregularity of our tempers, the violence of our paffions, the blindness of our judgments, and the vanity of our minds; it is as dangerous therefore to indulge these tempers, as to live in gluttony and intemperance.

You think it fhameful to be an epicure; you would not be fufpected to be fond of liquor; you think these tempers would too much spoil all your pretences to religion: You are very right in your judgment; but then proceed a step farther, and think it as fhameful to be fond of dress, or delighted with yourself, as to be fond of dainties; and that it is as great a fin to please any corrupt temper of your heart, as to please your palate: remember, that blood heated with paffon, is like blood heated with liquor, and that the groffnefs of gluttony is no greater a contrariety to religion, than the politeness of pride, and the vanity of our minds.

I HAVE been the longer upon this fubject, trying every way to represent the weakness and corruption of our nature; becaufe fo far as we rightly understand it, fo far we fee into the reasonableness and neceffity of all. religious duties. If we fancy ourselves to be wife and regular in our tempers and judgments, we can fee no reafon for denying ourselves; but if we find that our whole nature is in diforder, that our light is darkness, our wisdom foolishness, that our tempers and judgments are as grofs and blind as our appetites, that our fenfes govern us as they govern children, that our ambition and greatness is taken up with gugaws and triftes, that the ftate of our bodies is a ftate of error and delufion, like that of drunkennefs and paffion

If we see ourselves in this true light, we fhall fee the whole reason of Chriftian felf-denial, of meekness and poverty of spirit, of putting off our old man, of renouncing our whole felves, that we may see all things in God; of watching and prayer, and mortifying all our inclinations, that our hearts may be moved by a motion from God, and our wills and in

clinations be directed by the light and wisdom of religion.

RELIGION has little or no hold of us, till we have these right apprehenfions of ourselves; it may ferve for a little decency of outward behaviour, but it is not the religion of our hearts, till we feel the weakness and disorder of our nature, and embrace piety and devotion, as the means of recovering us to a state of perfection and happiness in God.

A MAN, that thinks himself in health, cannot lament the fickness of his state.

If we are pleased with the pride and vanity of our minds, if we live in pleasure and self-fatisfactions, we fhall feel no meaning in our devotions, when we lament the mifery and corruption of our nature. We may have times and places to mourn for fins; but we fhall feel no more inward grief, than hired mourners do at a funeral.

So that as the corruption of our nature, is the foundation and reason of self-denial; se a right fenfe and feeling of that corruption, is neceffary to make us rightly affected with the offices and devotions of religion.

I SHALL now fhew, that the reasonableness and neceffity of felf-denial, is alfo founded upon another fundamental doctrine of religion, namely, the necef. fity of divine grace, which I fhall leave to be the fubject of the following chapter.

CHAP.

CHA P. IX.

Of the neceffity of divine grace, and the feveral duties to which it calleth all Chrifians.

I

COME now to another article of our religion, namely, the abfolute neceffity of divine grace, which is another univerfal and conftant reafon of felf denial. THE invifible operation and affiftance of God's Holy Spirit, by which we are difpofed towards that which is good, and made able to perform it, is a confeis'd doctrine of Christianity.

OUR natural life is preferved by fome union with God, who is the fountain of life to all the creation, to which union we are altogether ftrangers; we find that we are alive, as we find that we think; but how, or by what influence from God our life is fupported, is a fecret into which we cannot enter. It is the fame thing with relation to our fpiritual life, or life of grace; it arifes from fome invifible union with God, or divine influence, which in this ftate of life we cannot comprehend. Our bleffed Saviour faith, The wind bloweth where it lifteth, and thou hearest the found thereof, but cannot tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth; fo is every one that is born of God. (a) This fhews us how ignorant we are of the manner of the operations of the Holy Spirit; we may feel its effects, as we may perceive the effects of the wind, but are as much flrangers to its manner of coming upon us, as we are ftrangers to that exact point, from whence the wind begins to blow, and where it will cease.

(a) John iii. 8.

THE

THE Spirit of God is like the nature of God, too high for our conceptions, whilft we are in these dark houfes of clay. But our bleffed Saviour has in fome degree helped our conceptions in this matter, by the manner of his giving the Holy Spirit to his difciples; and he breathed on them, and faid unto them, Receive the Holy Ghoft. Now by this ceremony of breathing, we are taught to conceive of the communications of the Holy Spirit, with fome likeness to breath or wind, that its influences come upon us in fome manner most like to a gentle breathing of the air. Reprefentations of this kind are only made in compliance with the weakness of our apprehenfions, which, not being able to conceive things as they are in their own nature, must be inftructed, by comparing them to fuch things as our fenfes are acquainted with. Thus the wisdom and knowledge, that is revealed from God, is compared to light; not becaufe light is a true representation of the wifdom of God; but because it serves beft to reprefent it to our low capacities. In like manner, the influences of the Holy Spirit, are set forth by the ceremony of breathing upon us; not because breath, or air, or wind, are true reprefentations of the gifts of the Spirit; but because they are the properest representations that yet fall within our knowledge.

BUT that which is moft neceffary for us to know, and of which we are fufficiently informed in fcripture, is the abfolute neceffity of this divine affiftance.

WE are used to confider thofe only as infpired perfons, who are called by God to fome extraordinary defigns, and act by immediate revelation from him. Now as infpiration implies an immediate revelation from God, in this fenfe there has been but few infpir'd perfons; but infpiration, as it fignifies an invifible operation, or affiftance and inftruction of God's Holy Spirit, is the common gift and privilege of all Chriftians; in this fenfe of infpiration, they are all infpir'd perfons. Know ye not, faith St. Paul, that your body is the tem ple of the Holy Ghost which is in you. St. John like