our Natures almost universally rise against as many Bestialities and some horrid Cruelties and all men except Monsters in Humane form are disposed to some Vertues such as Love to Children and Kindness to Friends and Benefactors All this I must confess and say because Experience constrains me and I do not know why Systematick Notions should sway more than that But notwithstanding these last concessions 't is evident enough that our Natures are much vitiated and depraved and this makes our business in the way of Religion difficult For our work is to cleanse our Natures and to destroy those Evil Inclinations to crucifie the Old Man Rom. 6. 6. and to purge out the old Leven 1 Cor. 5. 7. This is Religion and the Way of Happiness which must needs be very difficult and uneasie For the vices of Inclination are very dear and grateful to us They are our Right Hands and our Right Eyes and esteemed as our Selves So that to cut off and pluck out these and to bid defiance to and wage War against our selves to destroy the first-born of our Natures and to lop off our own Limbs This cannot but be very Irksome and Displeasant Imployment and this is one chief business and a considerable thing that makes Religion difficult II. Another Difficulty ariseth from the Influence of the Senses We are Creatures of sense and sensible things do most powerfully move us we are born Children and live at first the life of Beasts That Age receives deep Impressions and those are made by the senses whose Interest grows strong and establisht in us before we come to the use of Reason and after we have arrived to the exercise of that sensible objects still possess our Affections and sway our Wills and fill our Imaginations and influence our Understandings so that we love and hate we desire and choose we fancy and we discourse according to those Impressions and hence it is that we are enamour'd of Trifles and fly from our Happiness and pursue Vexation and embrace Misery and imagine Perversely and reason Childishly for the influence of the Body and its Senses are the chief Fountains of Sin and Folly and Temptation Upon which accounts it was that the Platonical Philosophers declaim'd so earnestly against the Body and ascrib'd all Evils and Mischief to it calling vice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 corporeae Pestes material Evils and bodily Plagues And the Apostle that understood it better calls Sin by the name of Flesh Gal. 5. 17. Works of the Flesh Gal. 5. 19. Law of the Members Rom. 7. 23. and cries out upon the Body of this Death Rom. 7. 24. And now this is our natural Condition a state subject to the prevalent influences of Sense and by this means to Sin and Temptation and 't is our Work in Religion to mortifie the Body Rom. 8. 13. and to cease from making provision for the flesh Rom. 13. 14. and from fulfilling the Lusts thereof Gal. 5. 14. To render our selves dead to the prevalent life of Sense and Sin Rom. 6. 8. and 11. 5. and to arise to a new Life Rom. 6. 4. The Life of Righteousness and Faith Hab. 2. 4. A Life that hath other Principles and other Pleasures other Objects and other Ends and such as neither Eye hath seen nor Ear heard nor any of the Senses perceived Yea this is a Life that is exercised in contradiction to the Judgements of sense It s Joy is Tribulation Jam. 1. 2. It s Glory Reproaches 2 Pet. 4. 14. It s Height is Lowness Luke 14. 11. It s Greatness in being Meanest Matth. 20. 27. And its Riches in having Nothing 2 Cor. 6. 10. To such a Life as this Religion is to raise us and it must needs be difficult to make us who are so much Brutes to be so much Angels us who seem to live by nothing else but sense to live by nothing less This with a witness is an hard and uneasie Work and another difficulty in Religion III. A Third proceeds from the natural Disorder and Rage of our Passions Our Corrupt Natures are like the troubled Sea Isa 57. 20. And our Passions are the Waves of that Ocean that tumble and swell and keep a mighty noise they dash against the Rocks and break one against another and our Peace and Happiness is shipwrackt by them Our Passions make us miserable We are sometime stifled by their Numbers and confounded by their Disorders and torn to pieces by their Violence mounted to the Clouds by Ambition and thrown down to the deep by Despair scorcht by the flames of Lust and overwhelmed by the Waters of unstable Desire Passions fight one against another and all against reason they prevail over the Mind and have usurpt the Government of our Actions and involve us in continual Guilt and Misery This is the natural State of Man and our work in the way of Religion is to restrain this Violence and to rectifie these Disorders and to reduce those Rebellious Powers under the Empire and Government of the Mind their Sovereign And so to regain the Divine Image which consists much in the order of our Faculties and the Subjection of the Brutish to the reasonable Powers This I say Religion aims at to raise us to the perfection of our Natures by mortifying those Members Col. 3. 5. our unruly Passions and Desires and crucifying the Flesh with its Affections and Lusts Gal. 5. 24. And thereby to make us humble in Prosperity quiet in Adversity meek under Provocations steady amidst Temptations modest in our Desires temperate in our Injoyments constant to our Resolutions and contented in all Conditions Here is our great Business and our Work is this And certainly 't is no easie thing to bring order out of a Chaos and to speak a Tempest into a Calm to resist a Torrent and to stop and turn the Tyde to subdue a Rebellious Rabble and to change them from Tyrannical Masters to Modest and Obedient Servants These no doubt are works of difficulty enough and these must be our Imployment in the way of Religion and on this score also the Gate is strait IV. Our Work in Religion is yet more difficult upon the account of Custom to which we are subject and by which we are swayed much This is vulgarly said to be another Nature and the Apostle calls it by that name 1 Cor. 11. 14. Doth not Nature it self teach you that if a Man have long Hair it is a shame unto him By the word Nature the best Interpreters say only Custom is meant since long Hair is not declared shameful by the Law and Light of Nature taken in its chief and properest sense For then it had never been permitted to the Nazarites But the contrary custom in the Nations that used it not made it seem shameful and indecent There are other places in Scripture and ancient Authors wherein Nature is put for Custom But I must not insist on this the thing I am about is that Custom is very
love to have others to handle it severely All this bad men may do upon the score of natural fear and self-love and the apprehension of a future judgement And now such convictions will naturally beget some endeavours A convinced understanding will have some influence upon the will and affections The mind in the unregenerate may lust against the Flesh as that doth against it So that 2. such a meer animal man may promise and purpose and endeavour in some considerable measure but then he goes not on with full Resolution but wavers and stops and turns about again and lets the law of the members that of death and sin to prevail over him His endeavour is remiss and consequently ineffectual it makes no conquests and will not signifie He sins on though with some regret and his very unwillingness to sin while he commits it is so far from lessening that it aggravates his fault It argues that he sins against conscience and conviction and that sin is strong and reigns 'T is true indeed St. Paul Rom. 7. makes such a description seemingly of himself as one might think concluded him under this state he saith vers 8. That sin wrought in him all manner of concupiscence vers 9. That sin revived and he died vers 14. That he was carnal and again sold under sin vers 20. That sin dwelt in him and wrought that which he would not vers 23. That the Law of his members led him into captivity to the law of Sin and vers 25. That he obeyed the law of sin If this be so and St. Paul a regenerate man was in this state it will follow that seeking and feeble endeavour that overcometh no difficulty may yet procure an entrance and he that is come hitherto viz. to endeavour is safe enough though he do not conquer This objection presseth not only against this head but against my whole Discourse and the Text it self Therefore to answer it I say That the St. Paul here is not to be understood of himself He describes the state of a convinced but unregenerate man though he speaks in the first person a Figure that was ordinary with this Apostle and frequent enough in common speech Thus we say I am thus and thus and did so and so when we are describing a state or actions in which perhaps we in person are not concerned In this sense the best Expositors understand these expressions and those excellent Divines of our own Bishop Taylor and Dr. Hammond and others have noted to us That this description is directly contrary to all the Characters of a regenerate man given elsewhere by this and the other Apostles As he is said to be dead to sin Rom. 6. 11. Free from sin and the servant of Righteousness Rom. 6. 18. That he walks not after the Flesh but after the Spirit Rom. 8. 1. That the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made him free from the Law of sin and death Rom. 8. 2. That he overcometh the world Joh. 5. 4. He sinneth not 1 Joh. 3. 6. He hath crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts Gal. 5. 24. Which Characters of a truly regenerate person if they be compared with those above-cited out of Rom. 7. it will appear that they are as contrary as 't is possible to speak and by this 't is evident that they describe the two contrary states For can the regenerate be full of all manner of concupiscence and at the same time be crucified to the Flesh and its affections and lusts one in whom sin revives while he dies and yet one that is dead to sin carnal and yet not walking after the flesh but after the Spirit sold under sin and yet free from sin Having sin dwelling in him and a captive to sin and obeying the Law of sin and yet free from the law of sin and death how can these things consist To tell us 'T is so and 't is not so and to twist such contradictions into Orthodox Paradoxes are pretty things to please Fools and Children but wise men care not for riddles that are not sense For my part I think it clear that the Apostle in that mistaken Chapter relates the feeble impotent condition of one that was convinced and strove a little but not to purpose And if we find our selves comprised under that description though we may be never so sensible of the evil and danger of a sinful course and may endeavour some small matter but without success we are yet under that evil and obnoxious to that danger For he that strives in earnest conquers at last and advanceth still though all the work be not done at once So that if we endeavour and gain nothing our endeavour is peccant and wants Faith or Prayer for Divine aids or constancy or vigour and so Though we may seek we shall not be able to enter But 3. an imperfect Striver may overcome sin in some Instances and yet in that do no great matter neither if he lies down and goes no further There are some sins we outgrow by age or are indisposed to them by bodily infirmity or diverted by occasions and it may be by other sins and some are contrary to worldly Interests to our credit or health or profit and when we have in any great degree been hurt by them in these we fall out with those sins and cease from them and so by resolution and disuse we master them at last fully which if we went on and attempted upon all the rest were something But when we stop short in these petty victories our general state is not altered He that conquers some evil appetites is yet a slave to others and though he hath prevailed over some difficulties yet the main ones are yet behind Thus the imperfect Striver masters it may be his beastly appetite to intemperate drinking but is yet under the power of Love and Riches and vain Pleasure He ceaseth from open debauchery but entertains spiritual wickedness in his heart He will not Swear but will backbite and rail He will not be Drunk but will damn a man for not being of his opinion He will not prophane the Sabbath but will defraud his Neighbour Now these half conquests when we rest in them are as good as none at all Then shall I not be ashamed when I have regard to all thy Commandments saith the Kingly Prophet Psal 119. 6. 'T is shameful to give off when our work is but half done what we do cast the greater reproach upon us for what we omit To cease to be prophane is something as a passage but nothing for an end We are not Saints as soon as we are civil 'T is not only gross sins that are to be overcome The wages of sin is death not only of the great and capital but of the smallest if they are indulged The Pharisee applauded himself that he was not like the Extortioners Adulterers and Unjust nor like the Publican that came to
place seems to cross all that hath been said about the Difficulties of Religion And 't is true it hath such an appearance but 't is no more For the words look as cross to the expressions of the same Divine Author concerning the straitness of the Gate and narrowness of the Way as to any thing I have delivered from those infallible sayings Therefore to remove the semblance of contrariety which the objected Text seems to have to those others and to my Discourse we may observe That when our Saviour saith that his yoke is easie the word we read is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth very good excellent gracious and the meaning I suppose is That his Precepts had a native beauty and goodness in them That they are congruous and sutable to our reasonable Natures and apt instruments to make us happy In which sense this expression hath no antipathy to the Text or to any thing I have said And whereas 't is added My Burden is light I think by this we are to understand That his Commands are not of that burdensome nature that the Ceremonies of the Jewish Laws were Those were very cumbersome and had nothing in their nature to make them pleasant and agreeable whereas his Religion had no expensive troublesome Rites appendant to it nor did it require any thing but our observation of those Laws which eternal Reason obligeth us to and which of our selves we should choose to live under were we freed from the intanglements of the World and interests of Flesh So that neither doth this Objection signifie any thing against the scope of my Discourse ANd now I come to Apply what I have said and the things I have to add will be comprehended under these two Generals 1. Inferences and 2. plain Advice in order to practice I begin with the Inferences and Corollaries that arise from the whole Discourse And 1. We may collect What is the state of Nature and What the state of Grace We have seen that 't is the great business of Religion to overcome evil Inclinations and the prevailing influence of sense and passion and evil customs and example and worldly affections And therefore the state of Nature consists in the power and prevalency of These This is that the Scripture calls the Old man Eph. 4. 22. The Image of the earthy 1 Cor. 15. Flesh Gal. 5. 17. Death Rom. 7. 24. Darkness Joh. 3. 19. and old leven 1 Cor. 5. 7. On the contrary The state of Grace is a state of sincere striving against them which if it keeps on ends in Victory And this is call'd Conversion Acts 3. 19. and Renovation while 't is in its first motions And the Divine Nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. the Image of the Heavenly 1 Cor. 15. 20. The Spirit Gal. 5. 16. Light Ephes 5. 8. and Life 1 Joh. 3. 14. when 't is arriv'd to more compleatness and perfection For our fuller understanding this we may consider That Grace is taken 1. for Divine favour 2. for Christian Vertue As it signifies Divine favour so it is used 1. For those helps and aids God affords us viz. the Gospel Joh. 1. 17. and the influences of his Spirit 1 Cor. 12. 9. In this sense we are deliver'd from the state of Nature by Baptism viz. We are intitled to divine helps which is a kind of regeneration for we are born in a condition of impotence and weakness and destitution of spiritual assistances This is the world of meer nature But then in Baptism we are brought into the world of the Spirit that is are put under its influences and are assured of its aids and so are morally born again Not that this Regeneration alone will save us without our endeavours it imports only an external relation and right to priviledges and by these we may be powerfully assisted in our striving if we use them But then 2. Grace as it signifies divine favour implies his special love and kindness such as he vouchsafes to holy and vertuous men so that we may observe that there may be a distinction between a state of Grace and a state of salvation A state of Grace in the former sense is a condition assisted by the influences of Gods Spirit and all baptized persons are in that But if they use not those helps they are not in Gods special favour and so not in a state of Salvation But when those assistances are duly imployed and join'd with our sincere endeavour then the person so using them is in a state of Salvation also and in God's special love and favour Thus of the state of Grace in the first sense as taken for divine favour 2. The word is also used for Christian Vertue 2 Pet. 3. 18. and Vertue is call'd Grace because 't is wrought in us by the assistance of Gods Spirit and the light of the Gospel which are divine favours and to be in a state of grace in this sense is to be a virtuous man which supposeth divine aids and intitles to divine love These things I have taken an occasion thus briefly to state because there is oft-times much confusion in means discourses about Grace and Nature from which much trouble and many controversies have arisen And by what I have said also in these brief hints the doctrine of our Church in the office of Baptism may be understood clearly and will appear to be very sound and true notwithstanding the petty exceptions of confident Dissenters II. I may infer That the great Design of Religion and the Gospel is to perfect humane nature The perfection of our natures consists in the subjection and subordination of the affections and passions to the Mind as it is enlightned and directed by the divine Laws and those of Reason This is the state of integrity in which we were first made and we lost it by the rebellion of our senses and inferiour powers which have usurpt the government of us ever since Here is the imperfection and corruption of our natures Now Religion designs to remove and cure these and to restore us to our first and happy state It s business is not to reform our looks and our language or to model our actions and gestures into a devout appearance not only to restrain the practice of open prophaneness and villany nor to comfort us with the assurance of Gods loving us we know not why But to cure our ill natures to govern our passions to moderate our desires to throw out pride and envy and all uncharitable surmisals with the other spiritual sorts of wickedness and thereby to make us like unto God in whom there is no shadow of sin or imperfection and so to render us fit objects of his delight and love So that whatever doth not tend to the making us some way or other really better better in our selves and better in all Relations as fathers and children and husbands and wives and subjects and governours and neighbours and friends is not Religion It may
the ends of malice and Self-love Which things being so in the present world it is fit that at last Providence should be disintangled and absolv'd that all the world may see the living creatures in the Wheels Ezek. 1. 20. and the eye that is in the Scepter as the Aegyptian Hieroglyphicks represented Providence That we may at length understand that its ways are equal Ezek. 18. 25. and that all the seeming inequalities prove the shortness of our Reasonings not the unevenness of its managements that its strangest and least accountable issues were the Results of Counsel and govern'd by an infinitely wise mind that shoots it self through all things That we may understand the difference between good and prosperous and the reason of the distance between vertue and success Why the fire out of the Bramble is permitted to devour the Cedar and the desert of the wicked is so often the lot of the just These expectations are reasonable and in a manner necessary that mankind may be convinced the events below were not Lotteries but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 full of Providence and that Providence acted by an infinite Wisdom Justice and Goodness That wickedness shall at last reap the misery it hath sown and dwell in the flames it hath kindled And afflicted Vertue lift up its head to receive the Crown and the Glories that are the rewards of its patience and appear to have shot it self up in another world when it was deprest in this And so all shall know that there was a God that judged in the Earth Psal 58. 11. And this is another reasonable account of the appointment of a Future Judgement 3. We may suppose it to be ordain'd for this also That secret wickedness may be disclos'd and shamed The Heart of man is as deep waters hath a smooth surface but is full of rocks and quicksands at the bottom The world is a Theatre and the greatest part of men are but Actors For as They cloathe themselves with Gold and Purple and put on great names and are fine things upon the Stage when behind the Curtain and in their retiremenâ—s they are but common men and like their ordinary Spectators Thus we dress our selves for publique converses set our looks and gild our language and put on the Livery of Wisdom and Saintship and appear what we would be thought not what we are But in our privacies and more familiar conversations in the loose and unconstrain'd order of our words and our actions we are quite another thing we are foolish and frivolous froward and impatient sordid and absurd And in the secret Chambers of our souls we are worse The fairest face would affright us if the skin were taken off it and shew us nothing but ghastliness and deformity And it would amaze us to see the In sides of those whose outward appearance is fair and plausible We now seek coverings for our shame and hide our follies and imperfections under handsome names devout shews and fair pretensions or excuse them by Necessity Temptation the Devil or Providence And though we see much sin and vileness assoon as we open our eyes and look out of doors Yet there is another and a worse world of wickedness shut up from our sight and hid in its own darkness in close designs and private actions in the corners of the heart and recesses of thoughts These make up a dark Region cover'd with fear and shame and the shadows of death open only to Him to whom all things are so and midnight is as bright as noon Psal 139. 12. And he will provide that so it shall be to all the world that all sin may be as odious as it is ugly and unobserv'd impiety may not still lie hid in the secrecie and silence it hath sought But that its whispers may be proclaim'd by a voice more loud than Thunder and its conceal'd deformities be brought into the open day That those hidden iniquities which hitherto have escap'd may be whipt with the scorpions of guilt and shame and the divine purity and patience may appear in their Glory and proper lustre And for this Reason also God hath appointed a Day wherein He will Judge the secrets of men That sin may not be the more secure for being close But that it may be feared and shunn'd in Grots as well as in most publique places And I may add That those actions of vertue that no eye sees but that which sees all things and those unknown tendencies and anhelations of divine souls after the adorable object of their Love may be solemnly celebrated and rewarded Again 4. Such a Day is fit and is appointed that all rights and claims may be determined The great Controversies are which and where is the True Church and Religion And if we attend to the Zeal and the confidence the loud talk and bold claims of each of the pretenders All are in the truth and All mistaken Every Sect is in the right if it may be judg'd by the fondness of its own assurance and every one is out by the sentence of all the rest Here 's Religion sayes one Nay but it 's here sayes the next and a third gives the Lie to them both And then they scuffle and contend till they have talk'd themselves out of sense out of charity and out of breath And when they would say on but know not what when their passions are rais'd but their Reasons lost They fall to pelt each other with hard names They squabble and strive and damn one another by turns They gather parties to help up the Cry and fill all places with the noise of their quarrels and triumph and crow after a conquest in Imagination And after all this bustle and all this ado They sit down where they begun Nothing is gain'd on either side but an addition of malice and bitter zeal more rancour and more damning sentences while they are for the most part as far from Truth as from agreement This is the state of the contending world nor can we expect it should be otherwise while Ignorance and Malice Interest and Passion inspire the quarrels Or if Controversies should be ended the Vote would doubtless be cast on the side of Folly and Falshood for their adherents are most numerous and most loud while the friends of Truth and Reason are meek and modest thinly scatter'd among the Herd and still liable to be over-born and out-nois'd by the Tumult But the coming Day will set all right and effectually resolve Pilate's Question What is Truth And then no doubt The meek and the peaceable the charitable and the just who did not dispute but live who were not swoln with rage and notions but big of Charity and universal kindness for mankind Then shall These be declar'd the rightful Heirs of the Kingdom when the presumed Sons of it who hugg'd themselves as the only favourites of Heaven and warm'd their hands by their own fantastick Fires who flew aloft on the wings
would suffer a contradiction and become imperfect And that not only for the future but the present by introducing such passions as must needs debase and allay the highest delights So that by being thus secur'd in the possession of our happiness we receive thereby an unspeakable addition to it II. Proceed we next to shew you the Security and Evidence upon which this happiness is promis'd and asserted and whether it bear any proportion to our duty and the Rewards of it for so we are allow'd to call them though not upon the account of merit yet by reason of their necessary connexion with dependance upon and that kind such a one as 't is of proportion they bear to each other There is a two-fold evidence God Almighty has given us for the strengthning of our hope and confirming of our faith in the belief and expectation of the other World The first moral grounded upon the testimony of the Spirit the other I call natural and is grounded in the things themselves 1. The first evidence of our future bliss is the testimony of the Spirit express in the Text Yea saith the Spirit But then we must have a care of what kind of Testimony of the Spirit we understand it for understand it as 't is vulgarly taken for some act or operation wrought in and upon us besides the Enthusiasm of it fain would I be satisfy'd what validity can there be in such a testimony as it self needs something else to confirm it for so this testimony of the Spirit is to be tryed by its concordance and agreement to the word of God nor do I know any other way to distinguish it from a motion or suggestion of the Devil 's besides And though to err thus in this single instance may not be very pernicious for I am not mighty solicitous how it was wrought so there be a firm perswasion in us of this truth yet in other cases I know how dangerous it is nor is it safe in this for it leaves a passage open and unguarded to down-right Atheism By the testimony of the Spirit therefore I understand the word of God or the Scriptures as made known and prov'd to us to be deriv'd from this Divine Spirit which we may call the outward testimony thereof for though St. John knew this by the other way as most certainly all others did who received any Revelation yet never was any other than the person himself assur'd that way Nor do I make degrees of more or less certainty in the way or manner of the Spirit 's revealing a thing for the Apostles were as well assur'd of the infallibility of their doctrine before they wrought any miracles as we are by them but we were not nor could be so But this notwithstanding in respect of us we must admit of such degrees for no body I hope will be so blasphemous to equal such private dictates they have in their own breast to the divine authority of the Holy Scriptures So then I make this to be the moral evidence of future happiness God hath said it in his word And this I call a moral certainty not in opposition to divine and infallible as they are sometimes contradistinguish'd but only to natural for we can desire no greater evidence we cannot have a higher confirmation of any truth than the veracity of Heaven to attest it I do not know any proposition that carries greater self-evidence than this That God ought to be believ'd in what he says and therefore though we may question the truth of the Revelation 't is impossible to do so of any thing we acknowledge to be so revealed So that the stress of this point lyes upon that great and necessary praecognition in our Religion namely the Divine authority of the Holy Scriptures Upon which postulate if we proceed there is as great certainty of the truth of this proposition That good men shall enjoy eternal happiness after this life as if we should again hear that Daughter of voice and God himself should sensibly attest it 2. But there is another ground or evidence of our future happiness which I call natural because it depends upon that Intrinsick Relation and consent there is between goodness and it the difference between them being only in degree like the dawning of the Morning to the lustre of the Noon For what is it to be happy but to be united to God and what does unite us to God but Love and what is the love of God but Religion And if you remove but all inward imperfections and all outward impediments there remains no difference at all So that Virtue and Piety do not only dispose and prepare us for Heaven and Salvation but we thereby receive and experience the very beginnings and anticipations of it And though in respect of the mutability of our will and affections toward God and goodness in this world we cannot be infallibly assur'd of it as to our own particulars because every alteration in the one produceth a like answerable effect as to the other Yet in the general we may even from hence be very well assur'd hereof because there is nothing more requir'd to the compleating of our essential happiness than an advance and progression in the same vertuous tract And however it looks in a Divine if we will speak rationally to the thing we must allow the love and hatred of God to be the true natural causes of our salvation and damnation even of their very eternity it being naturally impossible to be other than happy while we love God and contrariwise if we hate him and this is the only instant cause of its continuation through all the durations of Eternity And to remove your astonishment see how in this lower world many stupendous and admirable works are daily produc'd which were mean and unnoted while they lay hid and contain'd in the seminal beginnings after the same wonderful manner by divers minute gradations does this divine Creature grow up from its first formation in our trembling and unstable desires to the stature and perfection of Everlasting Glory And yet there remains less doubt if we take in the Consideration of the Divine nature How else will you vindicate the Justice of God in all the odd and confused occurrences of this World Where 's your infinite goodness and bounty that suffers its servants always to be neglected what will become of an almighty and omniscient Justice if sinners are never call'd to an accompt Or one or t'other cannot be III. 'T is true indeed the compleating of this bliss which brings us to our next head is neither promis'd nor to be had in this life 'T is at Death these rewards become due and payable Dicique beatus Ante obitum nemo supremáque funera possit It has been the constant method of Divine providence to cause the most excellent things to follow and arise from the most uncouth and unlikely Thus in the Creation order springs from confusion and