Porphery tells us that the first Rise of the Sacrifice of Animals was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 certain Occasions requiring that a Soul should be offered up for a Soul that is the Life of a Beast for the Life of a Man for it was the constant Opinion that the more worthy the Sacrifice which they offered the more effectual it was to appease their offended Divinities And hence in many Places the ordinary Sacrifice of Attonement which they offered was the Lives of Men and though this indeed was most used in the most barbarous Countries yet in Cases of great Danger and Extremity the Greeks and Romans themselves did frequently Sacrifice humane Lives to their Gods for so it is recorded of the Romans that when their City was in great Danger of being taken by Hanibal they sacrificed a Man to their Tutelar God And Servius tells us of the Massilians that in Time of Pestilence one of the poorer sort was wont to offer himself to be sacrificed for the whole City who being for a whole Year nourished with the purest Meat was then led about the City adorned with sacred Vestments and Cathartick Herbs the People following him making solemn Execrations that the Plague might be removed from the City and fall upon his Head which done they offered him up in a Sacrifice And in other Places they offered up pure Virgins of the noblest Families to propitiate their angry Gods and elsewhere as Servius tells us they were wont to cast a Man into the Sea with this Imprecation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is be thou our Purgament or Redemption So also it is said of the Athenians that they maintained some of the most unprofitable and ignoble of their People that so when any great Calamity befell the City they might offer them up in Sacrifice to appease their Gods And that Passage of Caesar concerning the Gallic Nation is very observable that in Cases of great Danger and Calamity they either devoted themselves to the Altar or else offered up some Man in their Stead quod pro vita hominis nisi hominis vita reddatur non posse Deorum immortalium Numen placari arbitrantur that is thinking that the immortal God's would never be appeased unless they offered up to them the Life of a Man for the Life of a Man All which is an Evidence that they not only thought Sacrifices necessary to appease God but that they also believed the better the Sacrifice was the more effectually it did appease him Nor did they think it less necessary that there should be some Intercessor between them and the Supream Divinity to Solicite their Cause and render Sin propitious to their Desires And hence it was the general Doctrin of their Divines that 't was great Prophaneness for any thing that was earthly and sinful immediately to approach that Pure and Divine Being but that the Demons were to be the Mediators and Agents between him and mortal Men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Plato in his Sympos expresses it that is God is not approached by Men but all the Commerse and Intercourse between him and us is performed by the Mediation of Demons So that howsoever they came by this Principle it is apparent that they generally believed both Sacrifices and a Mediator to be necessary Means to reconcile them to God and that without these they could not satisfy themselves that God would be propitious to them no not upon their Repentance and Reformation Some good Hopes they might have and it is apparent they had from the Goodness and Benignity of the Divine Nature that if they forsook their Sins God would not be inexorable to them at least they could not tell but they might find Mercy but yet they durst not absolutely trust to this without devoting some other to suffer in their Stead and engaging some other to intercede in their Behalf And therefore we see that when the King of Nineveh upon Jonah's Preaching obliged his People to Fasting and Repentance the utmost Encouragement he could give them was only this Who can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish not Jonah iii. 9 Wherefore to give us the highest Assurance of Pardon if we repent God hath been so infinitely good to us as to choose that very Method of reconciling us to himself which we had chalked out to him and to meet with us in our own Way thereby to give us a fuller Assurance of his most gracious and merciful Intentions to us for how could he have better satisfied the Anxiousness and Jealousy of our guilty Minds than in granting us our Pardon in that very Way wherein we did so universally hope for and expect it Good God! How indulgent hast thou been to thy poor Creatures that wast not only so ready to pardon them upon their Repentance but so careful to give them the most effectual Assurance of it that so thou might'st remove all discouragements out of the Way to our Amendment and Happiness For doubtless the Reason why he took this Way of Pardoning us more than another was not only because it was best in it self and most for the Interest of his own Government but also because of all others it was the most effectual to satisfy our guilty Fears and assure us of his merciful Intentions to receive us into Favour again upon our Repentance and Amendment For when Mankind were so unanimously agreed in this Belief that without a Sacrifice and a Mediator he would not be appeased how could he more effectually have convinced our Mistrust of his Mercy than by sending his own Son to be our Sacrifice and Mediator to die for our Sins upon Earth and intercede for our Pardon in Heaven So that if now we will heartily repent of our Sins and forsake them we have all the security of Mercy that we can desire our God being attoned by the noblest Sacrifice that ever was and interceded with on our Behalf by the most powerful and prevailing Mediator Having therefore such an High Priest over the House of God we may safely draw near with a true Heart in full assurance of Faith as the Apostle expresses it Heb. x. 21 22. Thus you see how good and gracious God hath been to us in the Way and Method which he hath prescribed of pardoning our Sins and releasing us from the obligation of Punishment for ever which is so wise and good and every way God-like that I think had I no other Reason to believe the Christian Religion but only this wondrous Contrivance of pardoning Sinners revealed in the Gospel this would have been enough to persuade me that none but a God could be the Author and Contriver of it And now I shall conclude this Argument with a few Inferences 1. From hence I infer what a very great Evil Sin is seeing it is such an Evil as binds us over to perish for ever and such as nothing can make Expiation for but only
of Will that are in them and doubtless in those good Actions that have Love for their Principle there is much more of Will than in those that proceed from Fear and Terror and consequently our Nature being perfected by good Actions and more or less perfected by them the more or less of Goodness they have in them must needs be much more perfected by the good Actions of Love than by those of Fear Whilst therefore we are acted in Religion by the Love of God our Souls are upon the Wing to Perfection and in a swift Tendency to the heavenly State we are already in the Neighbourhood of glorified Saints and Angels and if we continue our Course shall soon be fit for their Society and Converse This therefore is the great End and Reason why God doth so importunately claim our Love because this of all others is the most perfective Principle of our Natures and consequently the most conducive to our Happiness 4 ly And lastly from hence I infer of what vast Importance it is to us in Religion to love God For you plainly see that Love is not only a Principle of Obedience but that of all others it is the most efficacious and operative that it doth not only engage us to keep God's Commandments but that it enables us to keep them most universally and vigorously and chearfully and constantly So that what the Apostle saith of brotherly Love is more universally true of the Love of God that it is the keeping of the whole Law Rom. xiii 10 that is causally and virtually it is For so Love is that universal Cause which within its fruitful Womb contains all the Particulars of our Obedience and is naturally productive of them all So that virtually it is all Religion it is Godliness and Temperance and Charity and Humility and Righteousness and Patience being the common Cause and Parent of them all For Love hath an universal Respect to the Will of the Beloved it doth not chuse what is easie and refuse what is hard but likes what God likes and disapproves of what he hates his Will being the great Reason of all its Choices and Refusals And whatsoever things in particular are distastful and difficult to us by its powerful Oratory it renders pleasant and easie For he that serves God out of Love serves him with Delight and he that serves him with Delight hath no Clog to incumber him none of those Aversations and Antipathies to his Service that do so load and depress unwilling Minds he doth not row against the Current of Nature but acts with the full Inclination of his Mind and so feels little or nothing of Drudgery in his Religion and being carried on with a full Tide of Delight he goes easily and chearfully down with the Stream Of such vast Importance is the Love of God to our Religion that it not only produces it but renders it easie and pleasant so that without some Degree of this our Religion can have neither Being nor Well-being and it is as possible for us to live without a Soul and to be nourished without Food as it is for our Religion to be and to thrive without the Love of God Wherefore if ever we would be Religious indeed if ever we would connaturalize Religion to our Souls so as to render it easie and delightsome to us let us endeavour to kindle this heavenly Fire within us and certainly if we heartily endeavour it we cannot faâ—â— of success For there are so many mighty Reasons to engage us to the Love of God so many invincible Attractions in his Nature and in his Love towards us as cannot but affect us if we seriously ponder and consider them For how can I reflect upon that amiable Nature of his in which there is an harmonious Concurrence of all Beauties and Perfections where Wisdom and Goodness Justice and Mercy and every lovely Thing that can claim or deserve a rational Affection are contempered together in their utmost Degrees of Perfection How I say can I steadily reflect upon such a Nature as this without being charmed and captivated with the Love of it How can I think of that stupendous Love which he hath expressed towards me in giving me my Being and all the Blessings I enjoy in preparing a Heaven of immortal Joys for me and sending his Son from thence to conduct me thither without being all inflamed with Love to him Wherefore let us seriously set our selves to the Contemplation of God of the Loveliness of his Nature and of his infinite Kindness to us and all his Creation Let us repeat the Thoughts of these Things upon our Minds and never give over pressing our selves with those infinite Reasons we have to love him till we feel the heavenly Fire begin to kindle within our Breasts and then let us never give over feeding and blowing it with these divine Considerations till it rise up into a triumphant Flame And then we shall feel our selves animated with a new Soul and inspired with so much Life and Activity in Religion as that from our Experience we shall be able to subscribe to the Truth of the Text This is the Love of God this the most natural Expression and inseparable Effect of it That we keep his Commandments 1 JOHN V. 3 And his Commandments are not grievous I Proceed now to the next Part of the Text viz. the Motive by which this obedient Love of God is enforced and his Commandments are not grievous 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are not heavy or burthensome they have no such Weight or Difficulty in them as ought in reason to discourage us from keeping them For in these Words the Apostle seems to anticipate an Objection alas if this be the Love of God to keep his Commandments what Man is able to love him for if his Commandments are not absolutely impossible yet are they at least so extremely difficult that scarce any Man can have the Courage to undertake the Performance of them This saith our Apostle is a mighty Mistake or a wretched Pretence for Mens Sloth and Idleness for verily and truly the Commands of God have no such Difficulty in them but are in themselves very gentle and easie to be born And with this Assertion our blessed Saviour doth most perfectly accord Mat. xi 30 My yoke is easie and my burthen is light And the Prophet David makes it not only easie but delightful Psal. xix 8 The Statutes of the Lord are right rejoycing the heart the Commandments of the Lord are pure enlightning the eyes And then in the 10 th Verse he tells us that they are more to be desired than gold yea than much fine gold and sweeter than honey or the honey-comb So far they are from being Toils and Burthens that in Reality they are Pleasures and Recreations But farther to demonstrate this Truth to you That God's Commands are not burthensome and difficult I shall do these two things I. Shew you that they are facile
These are all plain and easie Deductions and seem as naturally to follow from one another as the most immediate Consequences do from First Principles This therefore being supposed which you see is very reasonable that God is infinitely Powerful and Wise and Happy and that because he is so he loves himself infinitely I doubt not but from each of these it will naturally follow that he is also infinitely good and benevolent 1. He is infinitely powerful and therefore he is good For Power is nothing but an Ability to act and Action is the End of all Ability for Action So that the greater any Power is the farther it must necessarily be removed from Inactivity and consequently infinite Power must be so infinitely removed from it that it cannot be supposed to exist without Exercise or if it could yet it cannot be imagined that any Being in whom infinite Power exists should determine with it self that the best Use it could make of that Power were to make no Use of it at all because such a Being can with as much Ease to it self act as not act And therefore since every Being doth necessarily delight in the Exercise of its own Perfections it cannot be supposed but a Being infinitely powerful should necessarily delight in the Exercise of its Power when it can as easily exercise it as suffer it to sleep on in eternal Inactivity and consequently when it can exercise its Power more vigorously as easily as less and can do more Things as easily as fewer it must necessarily chuse to do it because as the having of Power inclines the Agent to act so the having of more Power inclines it to act more vigorously Wherefore if the doing of Good to others be a much greater Exercise of Power than the doing of Evil it will hence necessarily follow that God being infinitely powerful must be infinitely prone to do Good because he cannot but be delighted in that whereby this great Perfection of his Nature is most vigorously Exercised But now for God to chuse to imploy his Power in doing Mischief to others rather than Good would be to chuse to do less rather than to do more when both are equally easy to him and consequently to lay a needless Restriction upon the Exercise of his Power and so far to render it useless and in vain For in doing Mischief to others he must be supposed either wholly to annihilate them or to make them miserable and continue them so but by doing Good to others he must be supposed either to uphold them in those Beings he gave them or to perfect those Beings and thereby to render them as happy as their Capacities will bear And certainly to do either of the later is a much more vigorous Exercise of Power than to do either of the former For for God to annihilate Beings or reduce them to Nothing is rather to withdraw his Power from them than to exercise it upon them because that which is not of it self cannot continue to be of it self it being in the Nature of the Thing as possible for a Thing to be of it self in the first Moment of its Existence as to be of it self in any Moment of its Duration So that the Continuance of our Being and the Original of it must necessarily be owing to the same Power and consequently as our Continuance in Not-Being must necessarily have followed upon the Non-exercise of this Power so our Relapse into Not-being must as necessarily follow from the Discontinuance of the Exercise of this Power So that to our Annihilation there needs no more than the bare Suspension of the Exercise of Almighty Power upon us or a ceasing to uphold us in Being for to the upholding us in Being there is required a continued Exertion of that creative Power that first brought us into Being for if we can exist of our selves this one Moment we might as well have done so the Moment before and may as well do so the Moment after and so backward and forward to all Eternity So that unless we had such an exuberant Fulness of Essence in us as to exist of our selves from all Eternity past to all Eternity to come we cannot exist so much as one Moment without new Supplies of Being from that infinite Fountain whence we were originally derived and that we are this Moment is as much the Effect of God's Power as that we were that Moment when we first came into Being So that whereas by annihilating us God would chuse to exercise no Power at all that is to render his own Omnipotence useless by giving it a Quietus from Action by upholding us in Being his Power is still as vigorously exercised about us as it was in the first Moment of our Creation and therefore by how much more suitable it is to infinite Power to act than to be idle by so much more suitable to it it must necessarily be to uphold us in our Beings than to annihilate and destroy us And then for making us miserable and continuing us so it is a much less vigorous Exercise of Power than to perfect our Beings and thereby to render us happy And verily should God turn the whole World into one intire Globe of unquenchable Fire and continue its wretched Inhabitants for ever weltring in its Flames I should not look upon this as so great an Act of Omnipotence as it is to perfect our rational Nature so as to render it immutably and eternally happy For to the making of any Being perfect and happy there is required many more Causes and many more Acts than there is to the making them miserable For the greatest Part of Misery consists in the Privation of Happiness and for God to deprive his Creatures of Happiness is not so much the Exercise as Non-exercise of his Power for then he deprives us of it when he ceases to do any Thing for us and refuses to produce or to contribute to the producing of what tends to our Happiness So that this Part of Misery consisting in a mere Privation is not so properly the Effect of the Exercise of Power as of the Suspension of the Exercise of Power So that unless we can suppose that the Omnipotent Creator of the World chuses rather not to act than to act we must necessarily suppose that he chuses rather to bestow Happiness on his Creatures than to deprive them of it And as for the positive Part of Misery which consists in Pain and Torment I dare appeal to any Man whether it be not much more easie to vex and torment any Being than it is to render it happy For even a Child can put a Man yea an Elephant to Pain but to make a sick Man well a poor Man prosperous a mad Man sober or a Fool wise are such mighty Things as do most commonly transcend all humane Power whatsoever But then to retrieve such imperfect Beings as we from the Bondage of Sense and Sensuality and from being almost
would need no farther Motives to persuade them to chuse what he Wills and Commands against all Persuasions to the contrary If I love God above my self I shall certainly chuse his Will before my own If I love him above all my Pleasures I shall chuse his Pleasures before my own and it will be a needless Thing to propose Motives to persuade me to do that which I like best and chuse that which I love above all the World So that whilst a Man hath Need of Motives to persuade him to chuse God and prefer his Will above all Temptations it is apparent he loves him not above all and consequently according to this Doctrine cannot be a good Man in the Judgment of the Law of Sincerity which if it were true I doubt the List of good Men would be reduced to a very small Number Wherefore since loving God above all is a high strain of Piety much above the low Estate of sincere and true Goodness to make it necessary to a good State must needs be very dangerous since it cannot but dishearten beginners in Religion and perplex their Consciences with needless and inextricable Scruples I confess not to love God above all who doth so infinitely exceed all in Degrees of Loveliness and Amability is an Argument of great Imperfection though not of Insincerity but if my Love to him be such as that together with my Hope and Fear excited by the other Motives of Religion it effectually operates on my Will so as to win it to an universal prevalent Consent to the Will of God I know no Reason I have to judge severely of my main State though I should be conscious to my self that my Love singly and apart from those other Motives had not Force enough in it to produce this happy Effect This therefore I conceive is the utmost Degree of Love to God that the Law of Sincerity exacts that we should so love him as by our Love in Concurrence with the other Arguments of Religion to be effectually prevailed on to obey him 3 ly The Law of Sincerity exacts such a Degree of Love of us as together with those other Motives of Christianity is prevalent to sincere Obedience and in this it differs from the Law of Perfection which requires such a Degree of Love of us as together with those other Motives is productive of perfect unsinning Obedience For as I have shewed you the Law of Perfection requires the utmost of our Possibility and consequently that we should love God as much as we can and consider and apply to our selves the other Motives of Religion as well and as closely as we are able and then proceed upon the whole to serve and obey God to the utmost of our Power and Ability which if we do we are perfectly innocent and inculpable unless you suppose that a Man may be blame-worthy for not doing more than he can But should the Law of Sincerity exact thus much of us I doubt it would exclude the best of Men out of the State of Goodness and Salvation for what Man is there that doth always love and obey God to the utmost of his present Possibility Wherefore all that this Law can be supposed to require of us is only such a Degree of Love as is requisite to render it a concurrent Cause of true sincere Obedience that is to say such a Love as in Concurrence with those great Motives of Reward and Punishment produces such an hearty Consent in us to the Will of God as will not suffer us any longer to persist either in carelss or affected Ignorance of it or in known and wilful Disobedience to it and there are no Infirmities or Miscarriages whatsoever inconsistent with such a Degree of Love to God but what are also inconsistent with such a Consent to his heavenly Will If therefore we thus love God to the Purposes of a sincere Obedience the Law of Sincerity acquits us and as for our Sins of Infirmity Surprize or Inadvertency we are accountable for them only to the Law of Perfection 4 thly And lastly The Law of Sincerity requires such a Degree of Love to God as together with those other Motives makes us not only sincere in our Obedience but also careful to improve it to further Degrees of Perfection And indeed this is necessarily included in the former for if our Love of God joyned with the other Arguments of Religion hath so far prevailed upon us as to win us to a sincere Consent to his heavenly Will we shall not only industriously avoid the known and wilful Violations of it but be very careful to correct those Flaws and Imperfections that are intermixed with our Obedience to it 'T is true when there is nothing but slavish Fear at the Bottom of a Mans Obedience that must necessarily contract and shrink up the Sinews of his Care and Endeavours and render him exceeding narrow and stingy in the Discharge of his Duty for having no farther Aim than his own Security he will do no more than what is necessary to avoid the Danger that he stands in Fear of and if he can but escape those known and wilful Sins that layd waste his Conscience and expos'd him to the Wrath of God that is the utmost he desires or aims at but as for those Miscarriages and sinful Imperfections which do only fall under the Cognizance of the Law of Perfection he is not at all concerned about them But when our Fear is intermingled with such a Degree of Love to God as the Law of Sincerity exacts that will make us careful not only to avoid those known and willful Sins that divorse us from the Favour of God but also to indear our selves more and more to him by correcting even those smaller Defects and Imperfections that do still adhere to our Duties and Natures For this is plain that no Man can heartily love God that doth not more and more desire to be beloved by him and that no Man can sincerely desire to be more and more beloved by God that doth not honestly endeavour to render himself more and more lovely in his Eyes that is to reform all those sinful Defects and Imperfections which stain and blemish the Beauty of his Soul Whosoever therefore contents himself with this not to be hated by God did never sincerely love him and whosoever desires more than this will as well be careful to correct those smaller Imperfections which render him less beloved of God as to avoid those known and wilful Sins which do expose him to God's Hatred If therefore our Religion doth not in some Measure improve our Natures if it doth not render us more patient and humble more charitable and heavenly minded it is a certain Sign that it is not acted by Love For if after having a long while continued in a Round of religious Duties we still return to the same Point and are in no Degree better than we were when we first began it is
Hearts and subdue our stubborn Wills to the Obedience of his most righteous Laws So that the Holy Ghost doth now preside in the Church as the supreme Minister and vicarous Power of our Saviour and is continually imployed even as our Saviour himself was whilst he abode upon Earth in driving on the Interest of Righteousness for hitherto tend all his secret Operations on the Minds of Men this is the Reason why he suggests so many good Thoughts and by repeating them thick upon us keeps our Minds so fix'd upon them that so if possible he may recollect our dispersed Minds that are continually wandring to and fro in this infinite Maze of sensual Vanities and engage them to attend to such Motives of Righteousness as are most apt to excite them to wise and vertuous Resolutions So that as in the Beginnings of Christianity before Christian Motives to Righteousness were believed the Holy Spirit did operate more visibly and miraculously to confirm and demonstrate the Truth of them so now they being believed and thereupon the Necessity of such miraculous Operations superseded his great Work is to object and present them to our Minds and fix our Thoughts upon them till they have effected in us those good Resolutions for which they were designed and intended And how diligently he pursues this Work our own Experience certifies and informs us For how often do we find good Thoughts and Motions injected to us we know not how nor whence and how many times do these unexpected Thoughts kindle holy Desires in us before we are aware Which Desires being fed by a fresh Supply of holy Motions and Suggestions are many times nourished into good Resolutions and these being still back'd with those repeated Motions which do frequently press with strong Importunity upon us are at last perfected into firm and lasting Principles of Action Thus does the Holy Spirit continually knock at the Door of our Souls and sollicit us with the greatest Earnestness to sober and righteous Resolutions and this is his constant Imployment among Men and will be so to the End of the World till Jesus whose Vicegerent he is and whose Absence he supplies returns in Person from Heaven to keep his last and general Assizes upon Earth And can we imagin that God would have all this while imployed his Holy Spirit in the Service of Righteousness to drive on its Interest and sollicit its Cause if it had not been infinitely dearer to him No certainly he sets a greater Value on the Pains of his Son and Spirit than to busy them about a Trifle to imploy them so industriously as he has done in an Affair which he had little or no Regard for If his Heart had not been extremely set upon it he would have found out some other Imployment for those divine and illustrious Persons and not have engaged them so everlastingly as he hath done in the Service and Ministry of Righteousness Having thus explained and proved the Proposition That the Righteous Lord loveth Righteousness I shall conclude with some few Inferences drawn from the whole Argument 1. From hence I infer that no Religion or Proposition of Religion can be true that either directly or by true Consequence is an Enemy to Righteousness For all true Religion is from God and therefore to be sure that cannot be true which either directly or indirectly opposes that which God so dearly loves This therefore is a plain Conviction of the notorious Falshood and Imposture of Popery that in all those Doctrins it hath superinduced upon the common Principles of Christianity it is an open Enemy to Righteousness As for Instance it is a common Principle of Christianity that God alone is to be worshiped as the supream Author and Fountain of our Beings upon which the Church of Rome hath superstructed the Invocation of Saints and Angels which they perform in the same Words and with the same Address as they do the Invocation of God himself For though they pretend to pray to them only for their Prayers yet in their Publick Offices they do not only beg their Prayers to God for them but also invocate them as sovereign Gods and independent Disposers of the Mercies they pray for Thus in the Hours of Sarum they implore the Angels to direct their Thoughts and Words and Actions in the way of Salvation that so they may be able to fill up the Number of the Angelical Orders which by the Fall of Lucifer was diminished to protect them from the Devils and comfort them when they are dying Particularly St. Michael they beseech to be their Coat of Mail St. Gabriel to be their Helmet St. Raphael to be their Shield St. Vriel to be their Defender St. Cherubim to be their Health St. Seraphim to be their Truth and all the holy Angels and Arch-angels to keep protect and defend them and bring them to eternal Life And as for Raphael to whom they seem to bear a more particular Affection they stile him the best Physitian both of Body and Soul and pray him to inlighten both their spiritual and carnal Eyes And then as for the Saints they do as immediately address to them in their Forms of Prayer for Sanctification Pardon temporal and eternal Blessings as they can possibly do to God himself particularly the Blessed Virgin they adorn with the most glorious Titles of God and in her Psalter address to her in the same Forms of Invocation which David uses in his Psalms to God they stile Her the Lady Almighty the Author of Mercy the Queen of infinite Majesty and the Hope of all the World praying that her Mercy may lighten upon them as they do put their trust in her and a great deal more to this Purpose And as for Joseph her Husband they stile him the Support of their Lives and the Pillar of the World beseeching him with his Carpenters Ax a Tool fit only to work upon such wooden Souls to hew down their Sins that they may be adopted Timber for the Palace of Heaven In a word in their present Breviary they implore St. Peter to loose them by his Word from the Bonds of Sin and supplicate the Apostles who by their Word if the Prayer lies not do lock and unlock the Gates of Heaven to loose them from all Sin by their Command They humbly intreat St. Genovesa to have pity on those that hope in Her to blot out their Sins and send them Relief and Comfort and implore St. Sebastian to preserve their Country from the Plague to preserve their Bodies and heal their Minds and to win him thereunto assure him that all their Hope is in him These and several other such like Instances there are of their Prayers both to Angels and Saints in which they do as immediately invoke them both for temporal spiritual and eternal Blessings as they can do God himself who is the sole Disposer of them And is not this most palpable Unrighteousness towards God to strip him thus of