against the most pernicious errours and restoring true Religion as they are contain'd in the Sermons and occasional Discourses of Jesus recorded by the Evangelists and by considering how Jesus inculcated and abetted this holy truth as a pattern to us how we should hold and profess and propugne such his Doctrine Secondly By exhibiting the true spirit and genius of the Christian Life and Practice collected from the Example of Jesus And that first By drawing the great lines of his Life as the admirabâ—â— pattern of ours Secondly By appâ—ying the light of this Example for oâ—r Instruction in the necessity nature extent and excellency of true holiness Thirdly By shewing what obligation and encouragement the Life of Christ contains to render us followers of him concluding with an Exhortation to that purpose THE PATTERN Of Pure and Undefiled RELIGION CHAP. I. Containing the Principles of Christian Doctrine JEsus being a Teacher sent from God Sect. 1 to restore true Religion levell'd his Doctrine principally against those Errours contrary thereunto which yet Mankind was very prone to fall into and inculcated those prime and fundamental truths which make up the genuine Spirit constitute the Essence and are as it were the Informing Soul of true and undefil'd Religion As First Concerning the Nature and Government of God. He that lay in the bosome of the father Joh. 1.18 hath reveal'd him to us Whom Men rather conceived of as a powerful than as a good Being a God of wrath and the object of their dread rather than a God of perfect Wisdom and Goodness the object of their love and holy imitation One whom they might possibly appease by Gifts and atone by servile performances little apprehending in the mean while that He was most easy to reconcile and forward to do them good and sufficiently pleased if they were but willing to be made happy by him This was the degenerate and mis-shapen notion of God that inform'd the Religion of the World and render'd it servile superstitious unsavoury and uncomfortable As for the Jews God was their King and they consider'd him as the Lord of their Hosts dreading his Power and limiting his goodness Whilst they reverenc'd his Sanctuary hallow'd his Sabbaths and paid his tyth and oblations they were safe under his Almighty Protection and to them possibly he might make some allowance and bear with the transgressions of his peculiar people but the Nations of the World they look'd upon as the people of his Wrath and either devoted to destruction or not regarded by him who whatever goodness he had in his nature had appropriated that to the Jews only Jesus therefore who hath shew'd us plainly of the Father inculcates worthy apprehensions of God teaching us to conceive of him as the Father of Mercies as kind to the unthankful and freely good towards all and that Universal Love the most generous and fervent Charity the most tender Bowels of Pity these are his true Image and make us like God the children of our Father which is in Heaven Math. 5.44 He therefore tells the Jews that God loved not them only but the whole World and that to such degree as he sent his only Son into it for the Salvation of all that should become willing to be saved by him Joh. 3.16 That He came to seek and save that which was lost and that Repentance and remission of Sins should be preach'd in his Name to All People without exception Luk. 24.47 that God is gracious and reconcileable in his nature and that there is Joy in Heaven at the conversion of a sinner Luk. 15.7 10. In a word the true notion of God is that he is indeed to be Reverenc'd for his excellent Greatness but that he is especially to be loved for his Goodness as being the excellent pattern of all that is good and original of all perfection whom to know is Life Eternal to be like him is to be as perfect as we are capable and to see God our supream felicity and that Vision is the portion of his Children that strive to imitate the Being they Adore and Love that Copy out his Purity his Righteousness and Mercy they shall be blessed for they shall see God Mat. 5. such are the excellent notions of God which the Doctrine of Christ inspires banishing those narrow and stingy mean and servile conceptions of him that had infected the minds and vitiated the Religion of Jews and Gentiles and which Mankind are exceeding prone to fall into Secondly Jesus in his preaching Sect. 2 did especially inculcate the truth of divine Worship with what things God is pleas'd and what is the Worship and Homage he requires of us dispelling the gross Ignorance and dangerous Errours both of the Jews and Gentiles God he tells them is a Spirit and will be worshipped in spirit and truth with the Mind and Soul without shadows and ceremonies Joh. 4.23 as he will not be honour'd with Images so he little regardeth any external performances That he values neither place nor time but every where and at all times he will have Men call upon him holding up pure hands with sincere and fervent minds That he preferreth Mercy to Sacrifice and is only glorify'd by our being fruitful in good works Joh. 15.8 that the Gentile Image-worship was abominable and the Jews Ceremonies trifles and the Pharisaick superstition intolerable with God. To turn Religion into noise and shew to place it in Fringes and Phylacteries in distinguishing opinions or unprofitable speculations in regard to Altars and Shrines to difference of meats and days and such like Traditions of Men this was an offence and scandal that moved the Spirit the meek and gentle Jesus and made him reprove sharply and lash severely the abetters of it Math. 23. Especially they having advanced these trifles and superstitions into the place of Justice Mercy and Faith and the greater things of the Law and made void the Commandments of God through their traditions There is nothing our Saviour tells us entring into the Man that can defile him in the estimate of God but the evil things that proceed out of the heart these defile the man Mark 7.18 nor can any thing on the other hand avail him but what proceeds from a mind full of God and is a genuine fruit of the true knowledge of him That true Religion and true Happiness its natural issue consist in and are the results of a due temper of mind the poor in spirit the penitent Mourners the meek Math. 5.3 c. the merciful the pure and peaceable these are the true Worshippers and truly happy Men. That God needeth not our Prayers to inform him of our wants or to move his pity nor are we heard the sooner for our much speaking but that our due apprehensions concerning God and humble confidence in him fervent application of our Soul towards him and a ready obsequiousness to his Will these render us capable of his Blessings and secure them to us
obtains so his Kingdom comes with effect and when it shall rest universally upon his Followers then shall come salvation and strength the Kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ Rev. 12.10 c. 11.15 for the Kingdoms of the World shall become his and he shall reign for ever and ever This is the Summ and Accomplishment of all these glorious Prophecies concerning the Kingdom of the Messiah That the Knowledge of the Lord shall fill the Earth as the Waters cover the sea Isa 11.4 The plentiful effusion of this spirit upon the primitive Christians made them hope for the speedy accomplishment of these Predictions and speak of the perfection of Christ's Kingdom as near at hand But so great a Reformation was a work of time and Christ had foretold not only a failing of the spirit of Christianity but a reviving of the Kingdom of darkness an Apostasie from the Faith such a return of the ejected prejudices and depravation of Religion as should undermine the very Foundations 1 Tim. 4.1 c. and subject men again to the ignorant infidelity anxious Superstition abominable Idolatry and foolish Lusts of the benighted Pagans But that himself in due time will again set up his Kingdom and restore to his Followers 2 Tim. 1.7 the spirit of power of love and a sound mind make truth righteousness and peace to reign and so break the Empire of Satan that he shall never be able to erect it more In the mean while he hath left with us his Heavenly Doctrine and holy Life as an Antidote against those delusions which are the passages to and the very Sinews and Strength of Satan's Kingdom whether Pagan or Antichristian and powerfully to inculcate the contrary truths which constitute the genuine Spirit of Christianity building men up into the Image of God and into the Glorious Kingdom of his Son Jesus Christ First Sensuality and the Love of Sin is the inlet of errour the root and sap of false Religion but Purity and the Love of Righteousness inculcated in the Doctrine and Life of Jesus is the Friend of Truth and Wisdom and the way to be filled with the knowledge of God. They who love their Lusts cannot love the truth that is contrary to them nor endure the light that discovers their vile deformities An impure mind is unmeet to receive the knowledge of a pure and holy God and a guilty mind cannot bear it The effect of such knowledge upon impure spirits is dread and that quickly converts into Superstition For a guilty Conscience like a drowning man that catches hold of every twig embraces every expedient offered to compound with an offended God and will do any thing to please save only the rendring that holy obedience that he requires of him If atonement may be made by Sacrifice the Altars shall flame and smoke continually their Flocks and Herds be all devoted they will make if possible Rivers of Oyl to run from the Sacrifices yea they will not spare their own Bowels but give the fruit of their body Mich. 6.6 an expiation for the sin of their Soul. They will not fail to build Temples and adorn Shrines nor to visit them devoutly nor think much of a costly and painful devotion if they may have but hope to fatisfy God for the arrears they are in to his Justice And when they have labour'd it hard they begin to hope it may do and that God will surely be pleas'd that they have done so much to gain his favour 2 Thess 2.11 And just it is with God to send them strong delusion and give them over to the belief of lies who loved not the truth nor were obedient to it But the Spirit of Obedience is the Spirit of Children to be followers of God makes us dear to him and the doers of his will shall know the Doctrine this is the Lesson which Christ inculcates A pure mind hath a lively perception of truth is very apprehensive of Errours dishonourable to God and that deface his Image and such purity it is that the Doctrine and Life of Jesus travel to produce all Knowledge is of no further value than as ministring to proceeding from or accompanied with it All the Sacrifices of the wicked are declared an abomination but the delight of God is in those that love him and do his Commandments for they shall be loved of God he will manifest himself unto Joh. 14.21 22 23. and make his abode with them Secondly Sense and Imagination Fondness for external shew and pomp is the way of Superstition and false Religion but the love of spiritual worship and a rational service is the spirit of Christ and that way of his Kingdom God is a Spirit and chiefly to be worshipped with ours And although so long as we are cloathed with Flesh our Religion must have a Body as well as Soul yet by an uninstructed fondness for the Bodily part Men have ever departed from God into dotage and superstition and rendred themselves a prey to the powers of darkness This is the mistake of the vulgar especially or of Souls as mean and unimproved as theirs though hang'd with better trappings By this fondness for representation pomp and solemnity the Patriarchal Rites which were few and grave grew up at length into a theatrical and magnificent Religion that required a great Ministry and a huge body of Rubricks for the exact performance of it For now the height and magnitude and shape of the Altar the number of its steps and horns and innumerable things of like sort entred into Religion and exercised the servile Superstition of the Worshipper At this door came in Images with all their train of Foppish and Idolatrous Ceremonies and became stumbling blocks to the souls of men and snares to the feet of the unwise the singular diligence of the Artificer helping forward the ignorant to more superstition This devising of Idols was the beginning of spiritual Fornication the invention of them the corruption of life Wisd 14. The proneness of the Jews to revolt unto the way of the Heathen the fondness of those that became Christians for their old Rites whether of Paganism or Judaism the great multitude of these early obtaining in the Christian Church together with the necessity that the Apostles and first Reformers found of indulging for a time the accustomed Rites and Ceremonies these are convincing demonstrations of the power of this Childish fondness for somewhat sensible and pompous in Religion and of the danger of falling into false Religion by multiplying Rites to the subverting of spiritual worship or laying the stress of Religion on such bodily service But Christianity teacheth a spiritual worship and rational service viz. that of the Mind illuminated with true Knowledge and quickned with a lively sense of God and referring all unto him And the very bodily part is either the spiritual Sacrifice of Prayer and Praise or the Ministry of the Word and Sacraments
being raised from the deep sleep of sin were turned from darkness to light from the power of Satan unto God. This Light of Life dispersed throughout the Gospel of our Saviour Jesus Christ 't is the design of this little Tract to collect for instruction in the true Spirit and Genius of Christian Religion For since to be a Christian is to put on Christ i. e. to imitate him by copying out the Excellencies of his Spirit and Holiness of his Life it is necessary we should have the true Idea of his Mind and Spirit and the true Characters of his holy Conversation in intimate knowledge and constant remembrance as well as in highest veneration and love Our profession obliging us to walk as he walked and the efficacy of Example consisting much in being acted before our Eyes it is highly necessary that we look unto Jesus form to our selves such an exact Idea of his Life that seeing him as it were walking before us in every path of Vertue we may follow him more accurately treading in his steps In this consists the true study and use of the holy Gospels not in learning to make or defend Systems and Scheems of Orthodox Opinions but in receiving the light of Life or as the Apostle calls it in 1 Cor. 2.16 the mind of Christ i. e. the imbibing the true sense and tincture of his Heavenly Doctrine and partaking of his Spirit therein lively express'd that beholding as in a Glass the glory of the Lord we be changed into the same image from glory to glory by the spirit of the Lord 2 Cor. 3.18 In order hereunto it must be ever remembred that Jesus was manifested to destroy the works of the Devil to rescue Religion from that depravation which was the dishonour of God and reproach of Man and to restore Men at once to Truth and Happiness The Mind therefore and Spirit of his Doctrine will be best conceived as opposite to those pernicious Errours which had depraved Religion debauched the Lives and enslaved the Spirits of Men which had brought them to become Vassals of Satan the Author and Abetter of such false Opinions and wicked Practices Christianity is to be considered as a supplement to natural Religion restoring it from depravation adding a new light authority and sanction to the truths and precepts thereof and by confirming what was doubtful through the ignorance and prejudices of Men clearing what was dark rectifying what was abused or mistaken reducing Men to the true knowledge of God and rendring them true Worshippers of him To this restauration of Religion and of Man it was necessary first to set them upon a firm basis and foundation by enlightning their darkness satisfying their doubts and helping their infirmity and then to prevent their falling again which they are extreamly prone to do into these pernicious conceits by which they had departed from God were captivated unto Satan and enslaved in his Kingdom of darkness In order to the first viz. the fixing Mens Minds upon a solid foundation by satisfying their important Doubts relieving their Ignorance and helping their Infirmity 't was necessary for the Saviour of the World 1. To reconcile God to Man by a propitiatory Sacrifice 2. To demonstrate the Immortality of the Soul the certainty of a future Life and Judgment 3. To reveal the object of Worship 4. To set a perfect Example of Life 5. To succour Men with supernatural Grace a strength Divine First A propitiatory Sacrifice and the most solemn Declaration that could be of God's being reconciled to returning Sinners was necessary to pacify Mens guilty Consciences to satisfy their diffident and doubtful minds to make an end of all that anxious busy and fruitless Religion of Expiations which could neither purge the Conscience nor improve the Man which by becoming the chief subject of religious solicitude jostled true Religion i. e. Wisdom and Goodness out of the World. Natural Religion knows no Sacrifice but Eucharistical 't is a service of Love and Gratitude but guilt is diffident and anxious sin begets dread of God as well as alienation from him and he that knows himself sadly in arrears to the Divine Justice and obnoxious to Almighty Anger must first be satisfied that that Justice and Anger appeas'd and God reconciled before he can be prevail'd with to love and thankfulness and holy imitation that is before he can be made to repent and return unto God. 2 Co. 5.19 Rom. 3.25 1 Jo. 4.10 God therefore was in Christ reconciling the World unto himself setting him forth a propitiation for the sins of it declaring himself reconciled and publishing an Act of Oblivion and Patents of Grace and Pardon ratified and seal'd with the bloud of that most inestimable Sacrifice By the most solemn sacred sensible and affectionate pledges of his love he hath assured us that he wills not the death of Sinners but his will is their return and happiness that he will communicate himself to his Creatures according to their capacity and that Repentance is a sure Capacity for his greatest Blessings but impenitence the only accursed thing that separates from God and that because it renders uncapable of those blessed streams which are ever flowing from the inexhaustable Fountain of Divine Goodness And as by the bloud of Jesus he hath pacified the Conscience of Sinners so by the revelation of his divine Mercy and Goodness by the Promise of the holy Spirit and of Eternal Life he hath revived their desponding Hearts he hath begotten them again to a lively hope that they may be filled with joy and peace in believing 1 Pet. 1.3 Rom. 15.13 and abound with hope through the power of the Holy Ghost that they may return with humble Confidence and chearful readiness to him who waits for that happy opportunity to shew them mercy and being reconciled to God by Faith and Repentance may be inseparably united unto him in love and hope and the participation of his holy Spirit Secondly To the Restauration of true Religion 't was fundamentally necessary to banish all doubtfulness about the immortality of the Soul and to render the future Life and Judgment indisputably certain Men lost with their Innocence their hope in God and the sense of those immortal Capacities the divine goodness had bestowed upon them They corrupted also that Tradition which should have supported their hope and forgot both what their Reason and their Fathers had told them from God concerning his design to make them Eternally happy And the Arguments of Philosophy were too fine and artificial to encounter the prejudices of Lust and jealousies of guilt and to perswade minds that knew very little of God or of themselves that rather dreaded the presence than desired the enjoyment of the Divinity and whose secular Religion taught them to look for no other rewards than the averting a misfortune or a plague or the procuring the comforts and emoluments of this Life Vt averteretur imminens ira vel
to be built upon it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de Isid Osir 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Simpl. in Epictet c. 34. whether there were two first Principles the one of good the other of evil which was the most ancient and universal opinion as Plutarch tells us or whence else those lapses and errours of the humane Soul should proceed whence it was that the brutish part had enslaved the rational and the sensitive appetite broke loose from the governing power They knew not the head of this over-flowing Nile but found themselves involved in the Inundation whilst their understandings reasoned tolerably well of Vertue their inclinations engaged them powerfully in Vice So that either despairing of liberty they tamely yielded to the torrent of inclination and custom or else with great perplexity but little success strove against the mighty stream and in so great a streight as was natural look'd up to God Plutar. de superstit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who is the hope of Vertue but not the Patron of Sloth and Cowardize Although they sometimes magnified humane nature yet experience of their own infirmity at other times extorted this confession from them that a divine impulse was necessary to make a Man truly great and good Nunquam vir magnus sine divino afflatu Cicero 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pythag Aur. Carm. and that there is something divine in holy men that informs and guides them Which differs but little from that of St. John 1 Ep. c. 2.20 Ye have an unction from the holy one and know all things But the knowledge of their remedy was not equal to the sense and pressure of their Disease they could cry out with St. Paul Oh wretched Man that I am who shall deliver me but could not answer with him I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. It is the Redeemer of the World who by a divine strength hath relieved the weakness of Man and by the law of the spirit of life Rom. 8.2 made them free from the law of sin and death The Sun of Righteousness just before his rising upon the benighted World had emitted some twilight Rayes into the darkness of it by raising up some eminent Philosophers Preachers of Righteousness to check the superstition and madness of the Priests and to scatter some rayes of knowledge among the people thereby to prepare the way to the Eternal Word who was to bring with him the treasures of divine Knowledge and Wisdom But when this glorious Sun was risen he not only shed a divine light but quickening heat and influence upon the benummed and frozen World. He revived the dead restored the languishing redeem'd the Captive and enabled Slaves to break off their Fetters Joh. 8.36 and those whom the Eternal Truth set at liberty were free indeed He plentifully poured out that Spirit that rested on himself even the Spirit of wisdom and understanding Isa 11.2 of counsel and might of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. By the miraculous effusion of the Holy Ghost he awaken'd the stupid World and called them into his Church an unconquerable never-failing Principle of Eternal Righteousness By the abounding of this grace he hath provided Rom. 5.21 that as sin hath reigned unto death so righteousness may now reign unto Eternal Life The Gospel preached in the demonstration of the Spirit made a speedy and wonderful reformation in the understandings tempers and lives of Men and yielded a most powerful conviction that God was both able and willing to restore his lost Image in them And all the treasures of this divine Spirit are promised to those that humbly ask and are willing to receive them The Conscience therefore awakened by the light of Truth is no longer amazed or distracted but confiding in the divine aids and strengthened with his Heavenly Grace pursues its conflict with the Flesh to a compleat Victory Every good motion is from the same Spirit of Truth and Grace which hath made such admirable Conquests over Ignorance and Lust and he that hath the same Principle in himself can't but have a good hope of the same blessed Fruits The Soul that feels a divine strength cannot but expect from the same Fountain a constant supply and thus united to God in the same design of restoring his Image and animated with the holy Spirit can't fail to master all opposition for greater is he that is in us than he that is in the World. This therefore is the Foundation on which Christs Kingdom of Righteousness and Grace is built viz. Faith establishing the heart by a full and certain perswasion of these Fundamental Points viz. That God is Reconciled and Pardon and gracious acceptance sure to returning Sinners That a future Judgment and Eternal Life and consequently the difference of moral good and evil are indisputably certain and unquestionable realities That there is but one God the Creator of all things and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the only object of worship and Fountain of Blessing whom we must glorify in and worship through as he blesseth us by the Eternal Word and Spirit That the true service of God consists in the imitation of him of which the Life of Jesus is our Pattern that such Holiness is indispensibly necessary certainly practicable and can never fail of the divine acceptance That the corruption of nature and the power of inclination and custom are infallibly conquerable by the grace of God and God most ready to prevent and follow us with his grace and that he will never fail to assist and prosper our endeavours till they are crowned with Everlasting Success This is the Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon these fundamentals of religious Belief must the Superstructure of Holiness and Happiness be raised and built Now Christians even of the meanest Capacities believing Jesus to be the Son of God and receiving that account the Evangelists give of him have thereby most evident demonstration lively perswasion and certain knowledge of these fundamental truths such as the most learned Philosophers could not attain unto and the generality of the World were extreamly far from This Foundation being laid sure God having made Faith of these truths to all men in a most easy and certain way and most powerfully and solemnly attested them by the miraculous effusion and demonstration of the Spirit that which remains for restoring Religion and Man for perfecting the Kingdom of Christ is to build upon this holy Faith the true Image of God and Spirit of Holiness to pluck up those prejudices that debauched Mens minds the Sources and Tap-roots of false Religion and to inculcate those truths which contain the true Spirit and Genius of pure and undefil'd Religion With this design the Doctrine and Life of Jesus travail viz. to introduce amongst his Followers that excellency of Spirit that was in himself which is the true Image of God the glory and the perfection of Man. And as this spirit
for spiritual ends and purposes for the help of Faith Devotion and Resolution and the more effectual uniting the heart unto God in fervent love in thankful and dutiful affection Rom. 14.17 The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost for he that in these things serveth Christ is accepted of God and approved of men But he that has a mighty opinion of bodily labour that values a Ceremony before a Vertue his opinion about a Rite before Charity or Peace that acts his fancy more than his understanding is more nice and curious about the bodily than the spiritual part of worship such an one is departed from the genuine spirit of Christianity entred in at the gate of Superstition in danger of all the extravagance and dotage thereof and thereby of Apostatizing into the Kingdom of darkness Thirdly 2 Tim. 1.7 A dark and servile dread of God is the temper and spirit of false Religion but the Spirit of Christianity is light and love and a sound mind When Men become alienated from God by wicked works and serve him chiefly with their vain imaginations then they lose the true and amiable notion of him they consider him only as terrible and dreadful 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plutarc de superst who is the supream good and only happiness of his creatures They conceive of him altogether as arbitrary power who is Eternal mind and wisdom and the glory and perfection of whose nature it is that as he can do whatever he will so he can will nothing but what is wise and good The Dreams of such dark and timorous minds are very frightful wild and extravagant they worship the Idol of their own brains express their own ill nature and disturbed imaginations in that worship which should be a confession of the excellency and perfection of the Deity Hence Men came to place Religion in solemn darkness in cloud and mystery venerable because hidden or unintelligible Rites obscure Oracles sacred Paradoxes and Arks and Clefts full of divine and wonderful secrets of which the Priest and the Devil taking advantage made themselves absolute Masters of the belief and reverence of the people and by these of their Estates and Fortunes But this is the Message which we have heard of Christ 1 Joh. 1.5 that God is light and in him is no darkness at all That the Principles of his Service are Knowledge and Love and he regards not the Religion of those that worship they know not what nor why That we direct our Service and Obedience by what we clearly know of him and that the more we know the better we shall please him who will not be served with a blind submission nor with unintelligible mysteries but with our best understanding not with a servile Flattery and Court-like Address by many Intercessors with a ritual niceness or a pompous Pageantry or any such devices of ignorant and superstitious Minds but with purity of Heart and Life with a spirit of Love and of a sound Mind not with Terrour and Melancholy but with Hope and Alliance not with scruple and perplexity but generous Resolution not as an Arbitrary Tyrant but as a wise and loving Father Fourthly The Devil is the God of this World and the Spirit of errour is an earthly and secular one but the Kingdom of Christ is Heavenly and such is the spirit and genius of his Religion The love of the World and an inordinate estimate of the goods thereof was ever a mighty source of Superstition and Pillar of Satan's Empire With such Worldly-minded Men Interest is always more ponderous than Truth and that Religion best that most effectually provides for their temporal concerns To such secular Spirits 't was a very agreeable conceit to imagine that every business of theirs was under the especial care of some Patron Deity whose Rites if they carefully performed their affairs should succeed according to their wish The multitude of such Tutelar Gods for Cities Families and particular affairs the superstitious regard to Oracles and Prodigies the observation of times and all the Arts of divination and augury which made up the Pagan Superstition plainly shew the spirit of its Votaries viz. that their hopes and fortunes were Embarqued in this World and that they regarded the good and evil thereof as the sole reward of their labour or punishment of their negligence in Religion This principle the Idolatrous Jews plainly avowed to the Prophets Head when he expostulated with them concerning their sorsaking of God Jer. 44.17 that they would burn Incense to and serve the Queen of Heaven as their Fathers had done to good purpose for then they had plenty and saw no evil whereas since they had left off their service all things had gone to ruin Nor was this a vulgar conceit but the best defence the greatest Men among the Pagans could make for the worship of those many Lords Caecilius in Minut. Felic Orig. c. Cels l. 8. Jul. Ep. 51. that by their singular care the good things of life are distributed to men so Caecilius Celsus and the Emperour Julian defend the Cause of Daemon-worship It is also a mighty temptation unto Men to imagine that God must needs love such Riches Magnificence and Glory in his Service as they find themselves to be extreamly delighted withal that the long flourishing of a Religion is a demonstration of the truth of it and the misfortune and calamity of Men an argument against their way of serving God. Thus they are apt to conclude who mind Earthly things and over-rate the concerns of this Life and judge every petit affair thereof worthy of a divine decision But Christianity teacheth us to consider our selves as Strangers and Pilgrims here whose estate and interest doth not lye in sublunary things but in spiritual Promises and Immortal Hopes We are Citizens of Heaven and only travelling through this World thither Upon this our Heavenly Relation and Interest only we may value our selves and ought to love our Religion because it secures these to us and designs the improvement of our Spirits for the eternal Vision and Enjoyment of God. We are instructed therefore to have our affections very moderate and cool towards Earthly things but warm and tender towards Heavenly Objects This is the finishing Lesson and most excellent effect of the Christian Religion which is a Heavenly Philosophy and to make it truckle to the affairs of this Life or turn it into Maxims of secular Policy is the greatest abuse and subversion thereof Lastly The spirit and genius of false Religion is selfish narrow and stingy but that of Christianity Charitable and generous and large as the Kingdom and goodness of God. Superstition converts Religion into a private Commerce imagining God to gain by the service done him and expecting the return of that service only in personal and private Blessings And no wonder if they who conceive God to seek himself