each new satisfaction shall immediately spring a new desire and each new desire immediately terminate in a new satisfaction And now O happy mind what tongue can express thy joys and raptures that being thus in conjunction with God art always filled with glorious Ideas and compassed round with the wonders of his perfection so that at every glance thou seest some new Charm and with every thought makest some vast Discovery O the transporting pleasure of that blessed Vision which now I can hardly think of without an ecstasie when my poor longing Mind which here gropes about for truth in a dark dungeon of Errour and Ignorance shall be let forth into the heavenly light to see as it is seen and know as it is known how will it fix its greedy eyes upon God of whose acquaintance it is now so desirous With what infinite delight will its winged and active thoughts hover in the light of his Countenance which through every moment of Eternity will be still revealing new Beauties to us such as will not only for ever employ but for ever inflame our Meditations II. AS we are Rational Creatures related to God we are obliged humbly to Worship and Adore him that is that out of a most awful esteem and profound reverence of his super-excellent Majesty and boundless Perfections we should bow down our Souls before him and address our selves to him by Invocation and Prayer by Praise and Thanksgiving as to the Alsufficient Independent and sole disposer of every good and perfect gift and that in these our Addresses we should outwardly express this our reverential Esteem of him by such humble gestures of Body as are most apt to testifie it to others For all this is but a just and due acknowledgment of what he is in himself and to us and all his Creation The profoundest Reverence and Veneration we can pay him is but a just Acknowledgment of his Infinite Majesty and Power the most fervent Invocations and Prayers we can offer him are but a due owning of him to be what he is the supream Disposer and Author of all things the most ample and glorious Praises we can give him are incomparably short of what is owing to his infinite Excellencies and Perfections the most thankful Acknowledgments we can make him are but poor compositions for those vast sums which we owe to his Bounty and Liberality So that all our Worship is a most just Due arising from what he is in himself and from what he doth to us and to all his Creatures And till we are made throughly sensible of both we are utterly incapable of eternal Happiness which consisting as I shewed you before in the vigorous exercise of our Rational Faculties upon God doth necessarily require that we should be duely affected with his Perfections and Actions For unless we are so we shall never be able to engage our Faculties vigorously to employ and exercise themselves about him unless our minds be over-awed with an habitual sense of his infinite Majesty and Power we shall be apt to negglect him as an object too mean for our great Faculties to converse with unless our minds be strongly disposed to esteem and admire his Glory and Excellencies we shall never be able to excite our Understanding and Will to act upon him with any life and vigour in a word unless we are possessed with a constant sense that he is the Spring of all those goods which we enjoy or hope for we shall be apt to look upon him as one with whom we are very little concerned and so to neglect and disregard him So that unless we do now acquire an habitual Devotion of mind toward God when we go from hence into the other world we shall find our faculties so averse and listless to all that heavenly Motion and Exercise wherein the Happiness above consists that we shall be utterly incapable to tast and enjoy it For in eternity our Souls will run according to the prevailing byass which they carry thither with them but 't is impossible they should run towards God with life and freedom unless they are constantly drawn and inclined to him by a devout veneration of his Majesty and admiration of his Glory and Perfection And hence it is that the Gospel doth so strictly oblige us to adore and worship God Rev. xxii 9 to worship him in spirit and in truth Joh. iv 24 to pray without ceasing 1 Thes. v. 17 and pray always with all prayer and supplication that is earnestly to supplicate God upon every fit opportunity and time of need Ephes. vi 18 in a word to offer to God the sacrifice of praise that is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name Heb. xiii 15 and to thank God without ceasing 1 Thes. ii 13 The meaning of all which is that out of a deep and quick sense of the infinite Majesty and Power Alsufficience and Beneficence of God we should be frequently bowing our selves before him and offering up our Prayers and Praises and Thanksgivings to him And in the constant practice of these we shall be growing up by degrees to that blissful state of Heaven For all these acts of divine Worship being immediate addresses of our minds to God do so unite us to him that in every hearty Prayer Praise or Thanksgiving we do in a manner touch 〈…〉 him So while we humbly adore 〈…〉 we are sensibly struck with the rays of it while we earnestly invocate his Goodness and Mercy we are touched with a strong attractive virtue from him whereby we plainly feel our selves drawn up to him and rapt into a real enjoyment of him in a word while we are offering our hearty Praises and Thanksgivings to him we are under a captivating sense of his infinite Gloy and Beneficence and with a sensible touch of this his heavenly fire our hearts are kindled and inflamed Insomuch that while we are upon our knees in a warmth and fervour of Devotion our minds have many times as quick a perception as strong and lively a relish of God as ever our bodily palate had of the most gustful meats or liquors So that by frequently repeating these our devotions we frequently repeat these our sensations of God which being often renewed will grow more vigorous and constant and so at last improve into an active permanent and habitual sense of him And having thus acquired by our frequent and devout Worship a lively constant feeling and perception of the Majesty and Glory of the Bounty and Benignity of God when ever we go into eternity this like a vital spring will give a perpetual motion to our Faculties and vigorously exert and employ them upon God for ever The quick and lively sense we shall have of his infinite Majesty and Power will for ever aw our Understandings and Wills into a strict attention and submission to him and have such a commanding power over us as will even constrain us to regard him with the profoundest
to give a larger Account FROM the whole I would recommend to the pious Reader the Consideration of the admirable Structure and Contrivance of the Practical Part of Christianity which having proposed to us an End so great and sublime and so highly worthy of our most vigorous prosecutions hath also furnish'd us with such choice and effectual Means of all sorts to attain it The consideration of which would be in itself a great Inducement to me to believe Christianity a Divine Religion though I were utterly unacquainted with its External Evidence and Motives of Credibility For it can never enter into my Head that such a rare and exquisite Contrivance to make men good and happy could ever owe its Original to the mere invention of a Carpenters Son and a company of illiterate Fishermen Especially considering how far it excels the Moral Precepts even of those divine Philosophers who believ'd the future State of a blessed Immortality and exerciz'd their best Wit in prescribing Rules to guide and direct men thither AND having given this large Account of the instrumental Duties of the Christian Life and also inforc'd the several Divisions of them with proper Arguments and Motives I thought fit to add a fifth Chapter wherein I have given some Rules for the more profitable reading of this practical Discourse and also some general Directions for the Exercise of our private Religion in all the different States of the Christian Life together with certain Forms of private Devotion fitted for each State In which I have supposed what I doubt is a very deplorable Truth viz. that the Generality of Christians after their Initiation by Baptism into the Publick profession of Christianity are so unhappy as to be seduc'd either through bad Example or Education into a vicious State of Life and that consequently from thence they must take their first start into the through Practice of Christianity Not that I make the least doubt but that there are a great many excellent Christians who by the Blessing of God upon their pious Education have been secur'd from this Calamity and trained up from their Infancy under a prevailing Sense of God and Religion and therefore for such as these as there is no need of that solemn method of Repentance prescribed in the first Section of the fourth Chapter so neither is there of those first penitential Prayers in this fifth Chapter which are accomodated to that State For these persons have long since been actually ingaged in the Christian Life and as 't is to be supposed have made considerable Improvements in it and therefore as they are only concerned in the Duties of the second and third States of the Christian Life so they are only to use the Prayers which are fitted to those States which with some variation of those phrases which suppose the past Course of our Life to have been vicious they may easily accommodate to their own Condition But the Design of this Discourse is not only to conduct them onwards in their Way who have already entered upon the Christian Life but also to reduce those to it who have been so unhappy as to wander into vicious Courses or rather though it serves both Purposes 't is wholly designed for the same persons viz. to seek and bring back those lost Sheep who have straid from the Paths of Christian Piety and Vertue and then to lead them on through all the intermediate Stages to the happy State of immortal Pleasures at the end of them And now if what hath been said should by the Blessing of God obtain its designed Effect upon any person I ask no other Requital for all the Pains it hath cost me but his earnest Prayers to God for me that after my best Endeavours to guide and direct him to Heaven I may not fall short of it my self THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. COncerning the Ultimate End of the Christian Life the Necessity of explaining what it is in order to our understanding the Christian Life Page 1. that Heaven is the End of it p. 2.3 c. that Heaven and Gods Glory are the same thing p. 5.6 what kind of Happiness Heaven implies with a general Account of the Happiness of Rest and the Happiness of Motion shewing that Heaven includes both but consists principally of the latter p. 7.8 c. that the Happiness of a Man consists in the vigorous Motion of his Vnderstanding and Will towards suitable Objects p. 11.12 and chiefly in the Knowledge and Choice of God p. 12.13 c. and also in the Knowledge and Choice of those that are most like him p. 21.22 c. the Glory of the Place p. 25.26 the Eternity of the Enjoyment p. 26.27 two Inferences from the whole p. 27.28 c. CHAP. II. Concerning the Means by which the End of the Christian Life is to be obtained that the Means must be more and greater than what was necessary to the first End of man viz. the Enjoyment of an earthly Paradice p. 33.34 c. that the great Distance of man from Heaven in his degenerate State creates a Necessity of many more Means than otherwise would be needful p. 35.36 c. two Kinds of Means necessary to our attainment of Heaven viz. the Practice of the Vertues of Christianity and the Vse of the instrumental Duties of Christianity p. 38.39 c. that the instrumental Duties of Christianity conduce no farther to our Happiness than as they are Means of Vertue proved in four particulars p. 42.43 c. CHAP. III. Concerning the Proximate Means of attaining Heaven viz. the Practice of the Christian Vertues shewing what Vertues this kind of Means consists of and how much every Vertue contributes to the Happiness of Heaven A distribution of the Christian Vertues into Humane Divine Social p. 57.58 SECT I. Concerning the Humane Vertues shewing that from the Constitution of humane Nature there are five Vertues necessary to its Happiness p. 59.60 c. first Prudence p. 62.63 c. secondly Moderation p. 70.71 c. thirdly Fortitude p. 79.80 c. fourthly Temperance p. 89.90 c. fifthly Humility p. 97.98 c. SECT II. Concerning the Divine Vertues which are comprehended in this first sort of Means shewing what they are and how effectually they conduce to our future Happiness that from the Relation we stand in to God there arises an Obligation to six several Vertues all which are necessary to our Happiness p. 108.109 c. first Contemplation of his Nature p. 109.110 c. secondly Adoration of his Perfections p. 117.118 c. thirdly Love p. 123.124 c. fourthly Imitation p. 136.137 c. fifthly Resignation p. 147.148 c. sixthly Trust and Dependance p. 162.163 c. SECT III. Concerning the Social Vertues which are included in this first sort of Means shewing that from our Inclination to Society and from the Nature and Condition of humane Society there arises a necessity of five Vertues to our everlasting Happiness p. 175.176 c.
be In a word so far shall we be from repining and murmuring at God for not rewarding us as liberally as others that we shall be thoroughly sensible that he hath been bountiful to us infinitely beyond our Desert or Expectation that 't was not out of a fond Partiality ot blind Respect of Persons that he raised others to higher Degrees of Glory than our selves but out of a Principle of strict Justice that exactly ballances and adjusts its Rewards according to the Degrees of our Desert and Improvement The sense of which will not only compose our Minds into a perfect Satisfaction but also continually excite us to those Beatifical Acts of Love and Praise Thanksgiving and Adoration Thus Humility you see tunes and composes us for Heaven and only casts us down like Balls that we may rebound the higher in Glory and Happiness THUS you see how all those Virtues which appertain to a man considered as a Reasonable Animal conduce to the Great Christian End viz. The Happiness of Heaven 'T is true indeed the immediate product of this sort of Virtues is only at least chiefly priâ—ative Happiness or the Happiness of Rest and Indolence which consists in not being miserable or in a perfect cessation from all such Acts and Motions as are hurtful and injurious to a Rational Spirit For as I have shewed you in the Beginning of this Section the proper office of Humane Virtue consists in so regulating all our Powers of Action as that we do nothing that is hurtful or injurious to our Rational Nature and thus you plainly see these Five aforenamed Virtues do most effectually perform But besides this Priâ—ative there is as I shewed you a Positive Part of Happiness which consists not in Rest but in Motion in the Vigorous Exercise of our Rational Faculties upon such Objects as are most suitable to them And to the obtaining of this Part of our Happiness there are other kinds of Vertues necessary to be practised by us of which I shall discourse in the two following Sections But though the immediate Effect of these Humane Virtues we have been discoursing of be only the Happiness of Rest yet do they tend a great deal farther even to the Happiness of Motion and Exercise For it is impossible so to suppress that Active Principle within us as to make it totally surcease from Motion and therefore as every intermission of its sober and regular Actings does but make way for wild and extravagant ones so every abatement of its hurtful and injurious motions makes way for beatifical ones And so the Humane Virtues by giving us rest from those Motions that are afflictive to our Natures incline and dispose us to such Motions and Exercises as are most pleasant and grateful to it SECT II. Concerning those Divine Virtues which belong to a Man considered as a Reasonable Creature related to God shewing that these also are comprehended in the heavenly part of the Christian Life and that the practice of them effectually conduces to our future happiness I PROCEED now to the second kind of Virtues viz. Divine to which I told you we are obliged in the capacity of reasonable Creatures related to God who being not only endowed with all possible perfections with infinite Truth and Justice Wisdom and Goodness and Power with all that can render any being most highly reverenced admired loved and adored who being not only the Author of our Being and Well-being as he is Creator and Preserver of all things but also our sovereign Lord and King as he is God almighty the supream and over-ruling Power of heaven and earth hath upon all these accounts a just and unalienable claim to sundry duties and homages from his Creatures all which I shall reduce to these six particulars 1. That we should frequently think of and contemplate the beauty and perfection of his nature 2. That upon the account of these perfections we should humbly worship and adore him 3. That we should ardently love and take complacency in him 4. That we should attentively and unweariedly imitate him in all his imitable perfections and actions 5. That we should intirely resign up our selves to his conduct and disposal 6. That we should chearfully rely and depend upon him All which as I shall shew are included in the heavenly part of the Christian Life and do most effectually contribute to our future happiness I. AS we are rational Creatures related to God we are obliged to be often contemplating and thinking upon him For the natural use of our understanding is to contemplate Truth and therefore the more of Truth and Reality there is in any knowable object and the farther it is removed from Falshood and Non-entity the more the Understanding is concerned to contemplate and think upon it God therefore being the most true and real object as he stands removed by the necessity of his existence from all possibility of not-being must needs be the most perfect Theme of our Understanding the best and greatest Subject on which it can employ its Meditations And besides that he is the most true and real of all beings he is also the source and spring of all Truth and Reality his Power conducted by his Wisdom and Goodness being the cause not only of all that is but of all that either shall be or can be And is it fit that our Understanding which was made to contemplate should wholly overlook the fountain of it But besides this too that he is the greatest Truth himself and the cause of every thing else that is true and real he is the Sovereign of Beings and the most amiable and perfect as he includes in his infinite Essence all possible perfections both in kind and degree And what a monstrous Irreverence is it for minds that were framed to the contemplation of Truth to pass by such a great and glorious one without any regard or observance as if he stood for a cypher in the world and were not worthy to be thought upon Nay and besides all this which one would think were enough to oblige our Understandings to the strictest attendance to him he is a Truth in which above all others we are most nearly concerned as he is not only the Father and Prop of our Beings and the Consolation of our lives but the sole Arbiter of our Fate too upon whom our everlasting well or ill being depends And what can we be more concerned to think and meditate upon than this great being from whom we sprang in whom we live and breath and of whom we are to expect all that evil or good that we can fear or hope for All which considered there is no doubt to be made but that our Understanding was chiefly made for God to look up to him and contemplate his Being and Perfections And though in this imperfect State it is too often averted from him by this vast variety of sensual things that surround it and intercept its Prospect yet as our Soul
which End it will be needful that we should read and impartially consider some of the Apologies for the Christian Religion of which we have sundry excellent ones in our own Language and if we will but take the pains to instruct our selves in the plain and easie Evidences of Christianity we shall quickly see abundant cause to assent to it and then our Faith being founded on a firm Basis of Reason will be able to bid defiance to the World and to out-stand the most furious Storms of Temptation II. TO our good Beginning of this our Christian Warfare it is also necessary that we should duly consider the Motives of our Religion and ballance them with the Hardships and Difficulties we are to undergo For thus our Saviour makes Consideration a necessary Introduction to our Christian Warfare Luke xiv 28 where he compares mens rushing headlong into the Difficulties of the Christian Life without Consideration to a mans resolving to build a Tower without computing the Charge of it or a Kings going to War without ever considering before-hand whether with his Army of ten Thousand he be able to encounter his Enemy with Twenty By both which Comparisons he intimates to us the unprosperous Issue of mens listing themselves under his Banner to combat the Devil the World and their own Lusts without ever considering before-hand either their own Strength or their Enemies the Arguments with which they must fight or the Difficulties that will trash and oppose them So that when they come to execute their rash Resolutions there start up so many Difficulties in their way which they never thought of and against which they took no care to fore-arm themselves that they have not the Heart and Courage to stand before them but after a few faint Attempts are presently sounding a cowardly Retreat FOR indeed Consideration is the Life and Soul of Faith that animates and actuates its Principles and elicits and draws forth all their natural Power and Energy And let the Truths we believe be never so weighty and momentous in themselves never so apt to spirit and invigorate us yet unless we seriously consider and apply them to our Wills and Affections and take the pains to extract out of them their native Vigour and Efficacy and to infuse it into our Faculties and Powers they will lie like so many dead Notions in our Minds and never impart to us the least Degree of spiritual Courage and Activity And accordingly our Saviour attributes the ill Success of Gods Word in the Hearts of men which he compares to the high-way the stony and thorny Ground either to their not considering it at all or to their not considering it deeply enough or to their not considering it long enough Either the divine Truths which they heard went no farther than their Ears and so lay openly exposed like so many loose corns upon the high-way to be picked up by the Fowls of the Air or if it entred into their Mind and Consideration it was so slightly and superficially that like corn sown in a rocky ground it had not Depth enough to take root to fasten and grow into their minds and digest into Principles of Action or if they at present received it into their deeper and more serious Consideration it was but for a little while for by and by they permit their worldly Cares and Pleasures like Thorns to spring up in their Thoughts and Choak it before it was arrived to any Maturity But that which rendred it so prosperous and fruitful in good and honest Hearts was that having heard the word they kept it i. e. retained it in their Thoughts and Consideration and so brought forth fruit with patience Luk. viii 12 13 14 15. So that to the making of a good Beginning in Religion it is not only necessary that we should ponder the Motives and Arguments of Religion and ballance them with the Difficulties of it but that we should revolve and repeat them on our minds till we have represented to our selves with the utmost Life and Reality whatsoever makes for and against our Entrance into the Christian Warfare and upon our having weighed them over and over in the Scales of an even and impartial Judgment we have brought the Debate to this Result and Conclusion that there is infinitely more Weight in the Arguments of Religion to persuade us to it than in all the Difficulties of it to dishearten us from it For unless we enter into Religion fore-armed with the Motives and forewarned of the difficulties of it we shall never be able to stand our Ground but finding more Opposition than we expected and having not a sufficient Strength of Argument to bear up against it we shall quickly repent of our rash Undertaking and be forced to retreat from it with Shame and Dishonour For this is usually the Issue of those rash and unsetled Purposes which men make in the heats of their Passion when they have been warmed by some pathetick Discourse or startled by some great Danger or chafed into a Displeasure against their Sins by the sense of some very dolorous Accident whereinto they have been betrayed by them in these or such like Cases its usual with men to make hasty Resolutions of Amendment without considering either the Matters which they resolve upon or the Motives which should support their Resolution and so finding when they come to Practice more Difficulty in the Matter than they were aware of and having not sufficient Motives to carry them through it their Resolution flags in the Execution and very often yields to the next Temptation which encounters them NOW though I do not deny but that those Heats of Passion are good Opportunities to begin our Religion in and if wisely improved will very much contribute to our Voyage heavenwards and like a brisk Gale of Wind render it much more expedite and easie yet if in these Heats we resolve too soon without a due Consideration of all Particulars and of the Difficulties on the one side and the Arguments on the other it is hardly possible that our Resolution should ever prove a lasting Principle of Goodness For when we resolve inconsiderately we resolve to do we know not what and our Resolution includes a thousand Particulars that we are not aware of most of which being repugnant to our vicious Inclinations will when we come to practise them be attended with such Difficulties as will easily startle our weak Resolution which having not a sufficient Foundation of Reason to support it will never be able to outstand those boisterous Storms of Temptation whereunto it will be continually exposed If therefore we mean our Resolution should hold out and commence a living Principle of Goodness we must found it in a through Consideration both of the Duties and Difficulties of Religion and of the Motives which should ingage us to embrace it we must set before our Minds all the Sins we must part with and all the Duties we must submit