But, if youth or health do once make you reckon of living long, and make you put away the day of your departure, as if it were far off; this will do much to deceive and dull the best, and take away the power of every truth, and the life of every good thought and duty, and all will be apt to dwindle into customariness and form. You will hardly keep the faculties of the soul awake, if you do not think still of death and judgment, as near at hand. The greatest certainty of thy greatest change, and the greatest joy or misery for ever, will not keep our stupid hearts awake, unless we look at all as near, as well as certain! This is plain, in the common difference that we find among all men, between their thoughts of death, in health, and when they see indeed that they must presently die. They that in health could think and talk of death with laughter, or lightly, without any awakening of soul, when they come to die are oftentimes as much altered, as if they had never heard before that they are mortal. By which it is plain, that to live in the house of mirth is more dangerous, than to live in the house of mourning; and that the expectation of long life, is a grievous enemy to the operations of grace, and the safety of the soul. :. And it is one of the greatest strengtheners of your temptations to luxury, ambition, worldliness, and almost every sin. When men think that they shall have many years leisure to repent, they are apt the more boldly to transgress: when they think that they have yet many years to live, it tempteth them to pass away time in idleness, and to loiter in their race, and trifle in all their work, and to overvalue all the pleasures, and honours, and shadows of felicity that are here below. He that hath his life in his house or land, or hath it for inheritance, will set more by it, and bestow more upon it, than if he thought he must go out of it the next year. To a man that thinks of living many years, the favour of great ones, the raising of his estate, and name, and family, and the accommodations and pleasings of his flesh, will seem great matters to him, and will do much with him, and will make self-denial a very hard work.

sed mihi ne diuturnum quidem quidquam videtur, in quo est aliquid extremum. Cum enim id advenit; tunc illud quod præteriit, effluxit: tantum remanet, quod virtute, et recte factis consecutus sis. Horæ quidem cedunt, et dies, et menses, et anni: nec præteritum tempus umquam revertitur, nec quid sequatur, sciri potest. Cic. Sen. 69. vol. vii. p. 813.

Therefore, though health be a wonderful great mercy, as enabling him to duty that hath a heart to use it to that end; yet it is by accident a very great danger and snare to the heart itself, to turn it from the way of duty. The best life for the soul is, that which least endangereth it by being overpleasing to the body, and in which the flesh hath the smallest interest to set up and plead against the Spirit. Not but that the largest stock must be accepted, and used for God, when he trusteth us with it; for when he setteth us the hardest work, we may expect his greatest help. But a dwelling as in tents, in a constant unsettledness, in a moveable condition, having little, and needing little, never feeling any thing in the creature to tempt us to say, "Soul take thy rest;" this is, to most, the safest life, which giveth us the freest advantages for heaven.

Take heed, therefore, as you love your souls, of falling into the snare of worldly hopes, and laying designs for rising, and riches, and pleasing yourselves in the thoughts and prosecution of these things, for then you are in the readiest way to perdition; even to idolatrous worldliness, and apostasy of heart from God, and opening a door to every sin, that seems but necessary to your worldly ends; and to odious hypocrisy for a cloak to all this, and to quiet your guilty minds with something that is like religion. When once you are saying with worldly security, as he, Luke xii. 18, 19. "I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry :" you are then befooling yourselves, and near being called away, as fools, by death, verses 20, 21. And when, without a sense of the uncertainty of your lives, you are saying, as those in James iv. 13, 14. To-day, or to-morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy, and sell, and get gain; whereas you know not what shall be on the morrow:" You forget what your lives are, that they are "a vapour, appearing a little while, and then vanishing away," verse 14. "Boast not thyself therefore of to-morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth."

66

Direct. xx. See that your religion be purely divine,

e Prov. xxvii. 1.

and animated all by God, as the beginning, the way, and the end; and that first upon thy soul, and then upon all that thou hast or dost, there be written" HOLINESS TO THE LORD:" and that thou corrupt not all with an inordinate, hypocritical respect to man'.'

To be holy, is to be divine, or devoted to God, and appropriated to him, and his will, and use; and that our hearts and lives be not common and unclean. To be godly, is to live to God; as those that from their hearts believe, that he is God indeed, and that "he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him," that he is "our God all-sufficient, our shield and exceeding great rewards." "And that of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things "," that all may give the glory for ever unto him. As God is infinitely above all creatures, so living upon God and unto God, must needs advance us above the highest sensual life: and therefore religion is transcendently above all sciences or arts. So much of God as is in you and upon you, so much you are more excellent than the highest worldly perfection can advance you to. God should be the first, and last, and all in the mind, and mouth, and life of a believer. God must be the principal matter of your religion. The understanding and. will must be exercised upon him. When you awake you should be still with him. Your meditations of him should be sweet, and you should be glad in the Lord. Yet, creatures under him, may be the frequent, less principal matter of your religion; but still as referred unto him. God must be the author of your religion: God must institute it, if you expect he should accept it and reward it. God must be the rule of your religion, as revealing his will concerning it in his Word. God must be the ultimate end of your religion: it must be intended to please and glorify him. God must be the continual motive and reason of your religion, and of all you do you must be able truly to fetch your reason

f De bonis et malis ita disserebat Plato: Finem esse, Deo similem fieri. Virtutem sufficere quidem ad bene beateque vivendum: cæterum instrumentis indigere, corporis bonis; robore, saninate, integritate sensuum, et cæteris id genus. Exterioribus item, puta opibus, generis claritate, gloria. Ea et si non affuerint, nihilominus tamen beatum fore sapientem. Arbitratur et Deos humana cernere atque curare, et dæmones esse. Porrò in dialogis justitiam divinam legem arbitratus est, ut ad juste agendam potentins persuaderet, nè post mortem pœnas improbi luerent. Laert. in Plat. lib. iii. sect. 78, 79. pp. 213, 214. Heb. xi. 6. Gen. xv. 1. xvii. 1. iPsal. cxxxix. 18.

h Rom. xi. 36.

from heaven, and to say, 'I do it because it is his will; I do it to please, and glorify, and enjoy him.' God must be taken as the sovereign Judge of your religion, and of you, and of all you do and you must wholly look to his justification and approbation, and avoid whatever he condemneth. Can you take God for your Owner, your Sovereign, your Saviour, your sufficient Protector, your Portion, your all? If not, you cannot be godly, nor be saved. If his authority have not more power upon you, than the authority of the greatest upon earth, you are atheistical hypocrites, and not truly religious, whatever you pretend. If" HOLINESS TO THE LORD," be written upon you, and all that is your's, you are devoted to him, as his own peculiar ones. If your names be set upon your sheep, or plate, or clothes, you will say, if another should take them, They are mine; do you not see my mark upon them?' Slavery to the flesh, the world, and the devil, is the mark that is written upon the ungodly (upon the foreheads of the profane, and upon the hearts of hypocrites and all): and satan, the world, and the flesh have their service. If you are consecrated to God, and bear his name and mark upon you, tell every one that would lay claim to you, that you are his, and resolved to live to him, to love him, to trust him, and to stand or fall to him alone. Let God be the very life, and sense, and end of all you do.

When once man hath too much of your regard and observation, that you set too much by his favour and esteem, or eye him too much in your profession and practice; when man's approbation too much comforteth you, and man's displeasure or dispraise doth too much trouble you; when your fear, and love, and care, and obedience are too much taken up for man; you so far withdraw yourselves from God, and are becoming the servants of men, and friends of the world, and turning back to bondage, and forsaking your Rock and Portion, and your excellency: the soul of religion is departing from you, and it is dying and returning to the dust. And if once man get the pre-eminence of God, and be preferred and set above him, in your hearts or lives, and feared, trusted, and obeyed before him, you are then dead to God, and alive to the world; and, as men are taken for your gods, you must take up with such a salvation as they can give you. If your alms and prayers are done to be seen

of men, and to procure their good thoughts and words; if you get them, make your best of them; "for, verily," your Judge hath" said unto you, you have your reward'.'

Not that man is absolutely to be contemned or disregarded. No; under God, your superiors must be obeyed; you must do wrong to none, and do good to all, as far as in you lieth; you must avoid offence, and give good example, and, under God, have so much regard to men, as to " become all things to all men, for their salvation." But if once you set them above their rank, and turn yourselves to an inordinate dependance on them, and make too great a matter of their opinion or words concerning you, you are losing your godliness or divine disposition; and turning it into man-pleasing and hypocrisy". When man stands in competition with God, for your first and chief regard, or in opposition to him, or a sharer in co-ordination with him, and not purely in subordination to him, he is to be numbered with things to be forsaken. Even good men, whom you must love and honour, and whose communion and help you must highly value, yet may be made the object of your sin, and may become your snare. Your honouring of them, or love to them, must not entice you to desire inordinately to be honoured by them, nor cause you to set too much by their approbation. If you do, you will find that, while you are too much eyeing man, you are losing God, and corrupting your religion at the very heart. And you may fall among those, that, how holy soever, may have great mistakes in matters of religion, tending to much sin, and may be somewhat censorious against those that are not of their mind; and so the retaining of their esteem, and the avoiding of their censures, may become one of the greatest temptations of your lives. And you will find, that man-pleasing is a very difficult, and yet unprofitable task. Love Christ, as he appeareth in any of his servants, and be followers of them, as they are followers of Christ, and regard their approbation as it agreeth with Christ's: but O! see that you

1 Matt. vi. 1-S.

» Igitur alte spectare si voles, atque hanc sedem, et æternam domum contueri : neque te sermonibus vulgi dederis, nec in præmiis humanis spem posueris rerum tuarum: suis te oportet illecebris ipsa virtus trahat ad verum decus. Cic. Somn. Scip. 7. op. vol. vii. p. 918. Hæc cœlestia semper spectato: illa humana contemnita. Id. Ibid. p. 917.