is vain and impertinent but when it is intended and directed to the instructing of our selves for our own good Behaviour in those Circumstances when they are such as we are in or are likely to come into Or when our Neighbour whom we censure is such an one as we may be supposed able to advise and direct him and whom it is not a thing above us to pretend to direct him as it is certainly above the Subject to direct and dictate to his Governours in Church or State Further the Thoughts that are unseasonable and do interrupt us in our present Duty whatever it is are in that respect vain Thoughts and these proceed from the Vanity of the Mind these are commonly at that time unconsidered and unchosen and such as the roving of the Mind accidentally falls upon But if they are chosen and designed at such an unseasonable time yet are they vain and fruitless because they divert a Man from that which is his present Duty they either hinder him from doing it at all or from doing it well Such are the Thoughts of wordly Affairs and Businesses which may be lawful enough and fitting at another time when we are or should be engaged in the worship of God and in Exercises of Devotion and doubtless such may also be those that are upon Divine and Religious Matters when Men are in the Affairs of an honest Calling as when they intrude and mingle themselves so with a mans Business as to disturb his mind to beat him off from or hinder the due performance of it We are not bound to be actually thinking of God and Heaven or the Day of Judgment at all times or to have our Discourse when we are in Company always taken up with Speculations in Religion which some unjustly appropriate the name of good Discourse to It is good discourse to direct and advise and assist one another in our Duty of any kind and then it is good Discourse which does direct or encourage a Neighbour in his worldly Business and Calling in its proper Season They have a wrong Notion of Religion and it is just such an one as that of the Papists when they call a Monkish Life by way of Eminence a Religious one who think no Thoughts or Discourse good or religious but when the Mysteries of our Religion or our future hopes and passages of Scripture are the Subject of them A man may be religious in the Actions and so in the Thoughts about the meanest Trade because he may do all that he does to the Glory of God and he does in his worldly Business that which God has commanded and set him to do accordingly the Thoughts about those things so far as they are necessary and in their season are dutiful obedient and religious Ones they are such as Religion does allow and indeed oblige a man to have He that should neglect his Trade tho it was the meanest Handicraft to meditate on Divine things or that should do his work ill by reason of having his mind unseasonably employed and taken up with these things would transgress as truly as he that should neglect the due acknowledgment of God to apply himself to his worldly Business or should perform the worship of God slightly by reason of having his mind wandering from that to his worldly Business In a word those Thoughts which are loose and undirected which do no way concern our Duty or which do impertinently divert us from present Duty they come under the name of Vain Thoughts And these were they which David hated together with by consequence that vain roving inconsiderate Disposition of Mind which produces them Thus much may suffice to shew distinctly what it is the Psalmist speaks of The next part of our Business is to justifie this good Man's Hatred of this unhappy Disposition of Mind and these Exercises of it The reason of which his hatred of them he intimates to be their contrariety to the due observance of the Law of God And that this is the mischievous Nature of them will fully appear in short by these two things 1. They are a mighty hinderance of doing good 2. They greatly expose and commonly betray a Man into the doing of Evil. 1. This Disposition of Mind must needs be a great hinderance of all good and worthy Actions Some are so foolish as even to affect this Disposition to endeavour cherish and indulge a roving unfixed Thought they allow and follow all the wild Freaks of the Imagination and this is the admir'd Wit of our Times But the Imagination is the wildest and most ungovernable and dangerous Faculty in the Mind of Man and it cannot chuse but be very unhappy for any man to indulge it and give himself up to follow it Such as do so are commonly Lawless in their Opinions and Manners they are not capable of any fixed Principles or of a steady Course of Actions and by consequence they cannot set themselves to any useful or creditable way of living Hence we often see the great Wits of the Times good for nothing they can squander away their Time their Health or an Estate but cannot get any good or do any and doubtless to be thus a Wit is to be a Fool. The inconsiderate and wandering Disposition of Mind is a great hinderance of all the Improvement of the Mind and of furnishing it for honourable and good Actions A man under the power of this can never study his Duty carefully cannot learn or understand the Laws and Rules of the several Vertues therefore he knows not how or what it is to do well He can never seriously ponder and deliberately consider the motives and inducements to do well and therefore these have no force upon him and then he must needs live a wild and ungovern'd Life he cannot be vertuous and good unless he could be so by chance and indeed an House may be regularly built by chance or an excellent Discourse be composed accidentally by the throwing of the Letters carelesly together as well as Man can live a wise and well-composed and good Life without consideration And herein lies I doubt not one ground of the common differences between man and man especially between those who have equal advantages for Improvement One man steadily fixes and applies his mind to some good Purpose to serve God and Man in some particular way of living and he is of some use in the World Another applies his mind to no one thing and he is good for nothing So when several men enjoy the same means of Grace and Goodness one becomes good and religious and another receives no Benefit at all by them The reason is because the one uses them with design to improve by them and with careful application of his mind to the obtaining this end the other has no care or endeavours about this matter His roving and vain Imaginations leave no room for better Thoughts they do not give him leave to attend to and consider
that is Not he that only believes I am the true Messiah and the Redeemer of the World not every one that pretends to rely upon me for Salvation shall be saved But he that doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven This is required to Salvation as well as the other I come not to save Rebels continuing such but to save them who set themselves to do my Father's Will and to obey his Commands And from hencesorth to the end of his Sermon on the Mount and to the end of this Chapter does our Saviour very evidently set himself to enforce and urge the same thing The following Discourse on this Subject I shall divide into these 3 Parts 1. I shall shew that it is necessary and required even now under the Gospel that we set our selves to obey and keep the Commands of God 2. I shall shew how far we are bound to do this 3. I shall make some Application In the first place I shall make it evident that it is necessary and required of Christians that they set themselves to keep the Commands of God This is required of all those who are grown Persons and are come to the exercise of their Reason they who have opportunity to do this must do it and they cannot be saved without this by any Merits or Mediation of Jesus Christ Indeed Infants baptized and dying in their Infancy may be saved by the Merits of Jesus Christ without the exercise and practice of good Works which they had not capacity or opportunity to perform but grown Persons cannot Good works or the keeping the Commands of God are necessary to our finding Favour and to Salvation as Conditions required to precede and concur tho they do not gain Favour and Salvation for us as efficient or meritorious Causes For proof of this I shall to make the Discourse as short as I can only insist upon two Arguments omitting many other which might be produced to this purpose and they that I shall insist upon are these 1. We shall find the Duties of the Moral Law frequently urg'd and enjoined to Christians by Christ and his Apostles 2. So far is the Gospel from excusing our Obedience to the Laws of God that it makes this the necessary Condition of our having an Interest in Jesus Christ or in the Benefits of the Covenant of Grace 1. We shall find if we look fairly into the New Testament that the Duties of the Moral Law are there very frequently urg'd and enjoin'd to Christians by our Lord and his Apostles Our Lord himself says He came not to destroy the Law and the Prophets but to fulfil them Mat. 5. 17. How can it then be a Doubt but that Christians are obliged to keep the Laws of God when our Saviour says He came not to destroy but to fulfil them That is He came not to take away the Force and Obligation of any but to fulfil and obey them Himself and to enforce the Observance of them by his Followers His whole Sermon in the Mount contained in the 5 6 and 7th Chapters of Matthew is made up of Moral Instructions wherein he rescues these from the corrupt Glosses and Interpretations of the Pharisees and establishes and confirms the pure Precepts themselves Again our Saviour does enjoin at once the Observation of the whole Moral Law as necessary to Salvation under these two general Heads The Love of God and of our Neighbour In Luke 10. it is said Ver. 25. A certain Lawyer stood up and tempted him saying Master what shall I do to inherit Eternal Life Jesus answers in the next Verse What is written in the Law How readest thou He answering said Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy Heart and with all thy Soul and with all thy Strength and with all thy Mind and thy Neighbour as thy Self Jesus replies in Verse 28. This do and thou shalt live Intimating that he knew no other way to Life that he could take than by a diligent Endeavour and Application of himself to the keeping of the Commands of God That this was the way always appointed to the Jews and that he came not to teach or procure a new way of Salvation He therefore intimates that he might learn in what was then written the way of Salvation that is in the Writings of the Old Testament Jesus Christ came not to alter the terms and way to Salvation which had been appointed to all the World since the Fall of Man but only to teach that way more perfectly Further the Apostles also after Christ and by the Direction of the Holy Ghost poured upon them do urge and require the Obedience of Christians to the Precepts of the Moral Law Out of the many Instances which might be produced from every one of them to this purpose I shall content my self to take but one from the Writings of St. Paul and another from the Epistle of St. James to shew how well these two Apostles agree in this Matter and to contract this head The Apostle Paul in Eph. 6. 1. 23. says Chidren obey your Parents in the Lord for this is right Honour thy Father and Mother which is the First Commandment with Promise that it may be well with thee and that thou mayest live long on the Earth We may see he presses there the same Duty which is enjoined in the 5th Commandment And we may observe moreover that he presses it as enjoin'd there He quotes the 5th Commandment as an obliging Law and a Rule still in force And herein he plainly allows and establishes the Force of all the Law that is Moral St. James also in the 2d Chap. to his Epist does enforce and urge the Obedience of Christians to the Moral Law Nothing less can be the meaning of the 8th Ver. If ye fulfil the Royal Law according to the Scripture Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self Thou shalt do well And in the following Ver. he further urges the Obedience to this general Precept and says He that offends in one Point is guilty of all and brings his Discourse to this Point That he who despises his poor Neighbour and neglects works of Mercy transgresses the Law as well as he that should kill or commit Adultery which things are also forbidden still as he there intimates Thus we see that Jesus Christ and his Apostles have unanimously urg'd the Christian Church to observe the Precepts of the Moral Law 2. Another thing that proves the Necessity of Obedience and a good Life under the Times of the Gospel is this That even the Gospel its self makes this the necessary Condition of an Interest in Jesus Christ Good works indeed do not constitute a justified State but they are necessary to the attaining it as they are the necessary Conditions of our being justified by Christ We are certainly not admitted into the Covenant of Grace without a sincere Engagement to be the Lord's Or without a solemn Vow and Promise to keep
thy Mercies our Friends Relations and even our Enemies and all that are in Adversity We render thee Thanks O Lord for all the Mercies of this Day in particular but especially for the Liberty of thy House and for the Means of Grace we have there enjoyed Hear O Lord the Prayers we have offered to thee Bless thy Word and Sacraments to us whenever we enjoy them let them be thy power to our Salvation We humbly beg thy Protection for this Night and evermore even unto thy Heavenly Kingdom for the sake of Jesus Christ to whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all Honour and Glory world without End OVR Father which art in Heaven Hallowed be thy Name Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven Give us this day our daily bread And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us And lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil For thine is the Kingdom the Power and the Glory for ever and ever Amen THE Pleasantness of Religion Demonstrated and Improved Let us Pray PRevent us O Lord in all our doings with thy most gracious favour and further us with thy continual help that in all our works begun continued and ended in thee we may glorify thy Holy Name and finally by thy Mercy obtain Everlasting Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Prov. 3. 17. Her Ways are Ways of Pleasantness THese words are spoken of Wisdom as you may see by Verse 13. of this Chapter where Solomon begins the Commendation of that Saying Happy is the Man that findeth Wisdom and the Man that getteth Vnderstanding The Merchandize of it is better than the Merchandize of Silver and the gain thereof than fine Gold She is more precious than Rubies and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared to her Length of Days is in her right Hand and in her left Hand Riches and Honour then he adds Her ways are ways of Pleasantness And by Wisdom of which he says these great things he means Religion or the Wisdom of good and vertuous living to which the Scripture it self does elsewhere plainly give that Name Job 28. 28. The Fear of the Lord that is Wisdom and to depart from Evil is Vnderstanding The Ways of Wisdom then means the Practice of Religion and Vertue This he says is very pleasant He has Joy and Pleasure in abundance who steadily lives in a religious and good course of Life This is the import and sense of these Words And if this be true here is a very sensible and important inducement to a good Life contained in them There is nothing usually more powerful and attractive with Mankind than Pleasure nothing which they more earnestly or more universally covet If then it can be made appear that there is a great deal of this even in well-doing this may be a means to allure Men to the trial of it and to divert them from those courses of Wickedness which draw many into Everlasting Perdition by the allurement of Pleasure To make this good and to prove what Solomon here says will be the chief business of this Discourse And I do not doubt but it will be beyond any Man's Power to deny or question this who shall soberly consider the following Particulars 1. The Principle from whence all true and sincere Religion proceeds and springs is Love and that must needs render it highly pleasant in the Practice of it This must be the Principle and Spring of true and sincere Religion All the Duties we perform towards God or Man must proceed from Love to God and Man This must be the Principle of our good Actions and wherever true Love is it will be a Principle of good Actions All the instances of Duty required of us are but such things as Love it self will put us upon such as Love naturally suggests and does incline to He that truly loves God cannot chuse but seek what will please him and endeavour to do all that and he must endeavour to avoid whatever would offend God He must delight to contemplate the Divine Perfections to think upon the Object that he loves to adore and worship God to seek and promote the Love and Honour of him So he that loves his Neighbour sincerely must delight in and desire the Wellfare and Happiness of Men he must endeavour to promote it as much as he can and will be far from wishing or endeavouring any evil to any Man or from delighting in what does happen to any And this now is even a Demonstration of the Pleasantness of a Religious Life that all of it is nothing else but the Exercise of Love He that is driven to do his Duty by Fears and Terrors performs indeed an ungrateful Task and goes on in these ways with Reluctancy and Sorrow But he that is drawn with the Cords of Love follows with Joyfulness He will run and not be weary whom Love inspires He minds not is not discouraged with any Ruggedness of the way but is rather pleased with Difficulties and put on than troubled or retarded because they give him opportunity to express the greater Love This renders the Labours of Religion easy and even Sufferings delightful I take pleasure in Infirmities in Reproaches in Necessities in Persecutions in Distresses for Christ's sake says a great Lover of Jesus 2 Cor. 12. 10. It was the strength of Love in the Primitive Followers of Jesus which made them very laborious and diligent in Religion and made them suffer much even to the most cruel and tormenting Deaths and do both with unspeakable Joy and Pleasure They prov'd what a great Lover of God said long ago Cant. 8. 6 7. Love is strong as Death Many waters cannot quench Love neither the Floods drown it All the Task of Love is pleasant and nothing is counted hard or uneasy which that enjoins us 2. Another thing that renders the Practice of Piety and Vertue very pleasant and therefore proves it so is the fitness and reasonableness of all that which Religion enjoins us to do It is most highly equitable and just in all the parts of it and is most perfectly what the Apostle calls it Rom. 12. 1. namely Reasonable Service There is nothing required of us within the whole compass of our Duty but what a Man 's own Mind and Reason upon serious consideration must needs be perfectly satisfied in nothing that he can have any reason to be ashamed of or to think below him or unfit for him to do or that he can justly upbraid or condemn himself for doing How reasonable and just are all the Duties of Piety towards God This will appear upon a fair stating and proposal of them Is it not highly so that we reverence and adore an infinitely glorious and excellent Being That we trust the Original Truth That we love the Sovereign and the Fountain Good That we obey the supream Authority of the World in all
that he commands That we resign and submit our selves entirely to his disposing Providence who is rightful Owner and just Disposer of all things That we praise and acknowledge those glorious Perfections which are daily exercised to our Comfort and Advantage and give him Thanks for all the good things that we enjoy since it is he that freely bestows them What can be more equitable and more agreeing to right reason than these things Again That the things which are made to be our Duty in our carriage towards Men are all highly reasonable and just does sufficiently appear in that these two are the Fundamental Rules of that Duty Namely That we do to others as we would they should do unto us and that we love our Neighbour as our selves What can be more agreeing to reason and more satisfactory to a Man 's own Mind than to give my Neighbour what in his Circumstances I my self might desire or than to love him as my self who is my Fellow-Creature and in all Points like my self How reasonable is it for me to shew mercy who need mercy For me to be ready to do good and perform all manner of kind Offices to my Neighbour when I must needs desire that others should be so disposed towards me How ready should I be to forgive who must often need forgiveness How reasonable is it that I should be honest and faithful to others when I desire them to be so towards me A little sober Consideration would make it evidently appear concerning every instance of Duty towards our Neighbour that it is most highly reasonable and just And when a Man apprehends and considers this thing he will perform his Duty with an entire satisfaction And it must please him to think that in what he has done he has paid a just Debt to Almighty God he has render'd what was due to him to think he has acted as becomes his Reason and so as he must needs be justified by the Wisdom and Consciences of his Neighbours in his carriage towards them He finds in himself what David said Then shall I not be ashamed when I have respect unto all thy Commands he sees he has no reason to be ashamed of his Actions but they are such as he can justify and applaud himself for and certainly there can be nothing more pleasant to a Man than the just applauses of himself 3. The Dignity and Nobleness of good Actions does render it very pleasant to do well and therefore also proves that it is so He that lives well lives up to the highest and most noble capacities of his Nature In pious and vertuous Actions alone do we greatly excel the Beasts that perish not in any sensual Pleasures or Enjoyments They have Senses as well as we and as many and can delight in the Objects of them and have perhaps as many delights of that kind as we But they cannot be pious or wise they cannot be vertuous or good because they do not know or chuse their own Actions In these things the religious Man excels them and advances himself truly above them and he only among Men does in any considerable measure excel them Further so far as we become Religious we are already here on Earth become like the Angels which are in Heaven He that lives religiously is employed as they are and conforms himself to them as our Saviour does plainly intimate when he bids us pray that the Will of God may be done on Earth as it is done in Heaven The Psalmist says of the Angels They perform the Commandments of God they hearken to the voice of his word Psal 103. 20. The pious Man then that carefully performs his Duty towards God joins himself to that noble Company he is a Fellow-Citizen of the Saints or holy Ones which may mean the Angels And of the Houshold of God as the Apostle speaks Eph. 2. 19. I am thy Fellow-Servant said an Angel to St. John And Fellow-Servant of the Prophets and of them which keep the Sayings of this Book Rev. 22. 9. When we worship and praise God we join with Angels and Arch-Angels and all the Company of Heaven When we pay him a profound Reverence and come before him with a godly Fear we do as they who are represented as covering their Faces in their solemn Addresses to him When we are concern'd and endeavouring to promote his Glory in the World this is what they constantly endeavour When we combat the Temptations that assault our selves and set our selves against the works of the Devil in others we are on the same side with Michael and his Angels are join'd and taking part with those bright Hosts against the Devil and his Angels And this surely is greatly to our Honour And there is a further Dignity and Excellence in a good and vertuous Life and that is it is conformity to the Ever-blessed God himself And therefore when any are made righteous and holy they are said to be renewed after his Image and Likeness Eph. 4. 24. When we best perform our Duties to Men then we do best imitate and most resemble the most excellent and perfect Being When we are merciful 't is as our Father in Heaven is merciful When we return good for evil 't is to do like him who is good to the Unthankful and the Evil. When we are sincere and true just and righteous in all our behaviour this is to resemble him who is a God of Truth and without Iniquity When we patiently bear with the Infirmities of others this is a noble imitation of his long-sufferings with us all When we forgive those that injure us this is as he does who is a God forgiving Iniquity Transgression and Sin When we set our selves to do all the Offices of kindness that we can to be beneficial to Mankind in our several Stations this is a very Honourable Imitation of his abundant Goodness Upon these accounts a good and vertuous Life is truly great and honourable and noble This puts upon a Man the greatest worth and value that he can attain to this is his best accomplishment and as it raises him in the esteem of God so it renders him truly deserving the respect and esteem of Men and is that which does best deserve it Hence it is said The Righteous is more excellent than his Neighbour Prov. 12. 26. Now though it were very unreasonable that the Sense of this should make any Man Proud and Disdainful of his Neighbour whom he thinks not to be so good as himself when in all this he has nothing but what he receiv'd and it was the free Grace of God that made him to differ and in becoming Proud he ceases to be the good Man Yet a thankful humble Sense of this a Man may have and the Thoughts of it may afford him a great deal of Delight and Pleasure To think the Creatour made the Humane Nature at first but little lower than the Angels and Crown'd it with Honour and Dignity
is the reason why it remains with many so discouraging a Difficulty all their days they never proceed further than to a few lazy Wishes or at most to a few short and faint Endeavours They are good sometimes when they meet with no Temptation or Provocation to be otherwise But whenever these Assault they presently yield and renew their Sins 2. It is easie to keep the Commands of God with that Assistance which the Grace of God affords them who diligently seek it 'T is good and safe for a Man to despair of succeeding by his own Strength and Endeavour alone but it is also foolish and absurd to conclude from our own Weakness the utter Impossibility of keeping the Commands of God because we may obtain sufficient Assistance from above He that hath said his Yoke is easie hath as we may say therein bound himself to make good his own gracious Word and we need not doubt but he will do this Our great and kind Saviour we may be assur'd is ready and able to help us in all our Difficulty and Weakness We have not an High-Priest says the Apostle of him that cannot be touched with a feeling of our Infirmities but was in all Points tempted like as we are yet without Sin Heb. 4. 15. And from thence he adds in the 16th Chapter Let us therefore come boldly to the Throne of Grace that we may obtain Mercy and find Grace to help in time of need Since we have such an High-Priest such an Advocate in Heaven we are not to doubt but upon earnest and sincere seeking we shall obtain sufficient Grace We may come boldly for this may ask with an assured Expectation to receive Accordingly St. James tells us If any Man lack Wisdom he may ask it of God who gives to all Men liberally and upbraids not Jam. 1. 5. But let us also know since we are bid strive to enter in at the strait Gate that we must not expect the Grace of God will inable us to enter in without our Striving As the Grace of God must make our Striving successful so our Striving is necessary to the obtaining the effectual Grace of God Let us take notice to this purpose of what God says by his Prophet concerning the People of Israel in Ezek. 11. In the 18th Verse of that Chapter he mentions their earnest Application of themselves towards the making a Reformation among them and then in Vers 19. and 20. he says I will give them one Heart and I will put a new Spirit within you and I will take away the stony Heart out of their flesh and will give them an Heart of flesh That they may walk in my Statutes and keep my Commandments and do them If then we apply our selves in great earnest to be Religious the Spirit of God will put this new Spirit into us and we shall be renew'd in the inner Man as the Scripture speaks and then it will be easie to us to keep the Commands of God And the Grace of God restores our decayed Powers and rectifies our Nature and makes us suitable to the Divine Law When this is wrought in us so far as it prevails it will be as agreeable to us to perform good Actions as it is for the Sun to shine and the Waters to flow These will be as agreeable and easie as natural Actions to a Man that is in perfect Health and Strength The Graces wrought in us in this rectifying of our Nature do altogether conduce to the easie Performance of our Duty I shall instance only in Love which in the proper Exercises of it is the fulfilling of the Law and all the Exercises of Love are sweet and easie Love to God will make us ready and inclin'd to perform all the Duties which we owe to God and Man There is Strength in Love it can do more than without it we could think possible to be done It rises against Difficulties and will never cease till it surmounts and overcomes them This makes crooked Ways strait and rough Places plain It is very laborious and diligent and does alleviate and sweeten Labour and Diligence It delights to do whatever is pleasing to God and to express by all possible ways an Honour and Esteem of him Hence 't is said by our Saviour If a Man love me he will keep my Commands Thus if our depraved Natures were but rectified we should find it easie to perform the Commands of God And this shews that they are easie in themselves To him that is born of God and does truly love him his Commandments are not grievous as the Apostle plainly intimates in the 1 Epist of John and the 5th Chap. by the Connextion of the 3d. Verse there Those then that apply themselves seriously to the Performance of their Duty and wait for the good Motions of the Spirit of Grace and carefully obey them when they are offer'd they will find the Spirit of God ready to assist them and after he has wrought in them to will he will inable them to do It is according to his good Pleasure to do so And it may be also concluded and expected from this which he has declar'd concerning himself That he does not delight in the death of a Sinner but had rather that he should turn to him and live 3. Religion is easie in comparison to Vice and Wickedness or is truly much more easie than that It is indeed more suitable to the Frame and Constitution of our Nature than Wickedness is Vertue however seldom it can be found and though it be accounted difficult is for all that agreeing and suitable to the Essential Constitution of Humane Nature and Wickedness however common and familiar it is is an adventitious and adverse thing The former is that we were made for and suited and fitted to the Practice of it and then the latter must by Consequence be contrary to the Frame and Contrivance of our Nature Religion is the Rectitude of our Nature Wickedness is the Disorder of it Vice is an Aberration from Nature and the Deformity and Corruption of it All the Motions of vehement Passions and unlawful Lusts are Departures from true and right Nature But from hence it must needs be that Wickeness is the most difficult and troublesome of the two What is most natural must needs be most easie and Vertue is in truth most natural Accordingly how does a violent and furious Passion disorder the Mind confound our Thoughts and dissipate and spend the Spirits Is not an excessive and inordinate Motion of the Mind more troublesome than a calm and gentle one And is it not easier and sooner done to use with Moderation and Temperance the Pleasures of Sense than to use them with Excess the one sooths and cherishes Nature the other weakens frets and hurts it Besides may we not observe that Vice must be Learnt that no Man can arrive at a great Degree of Wickedness without taking some Pains with himself for this Further it