and Recollection of Thought which our Publick Prayers command and without which we shall offer but the Sacrifice of Fools The more Men are affected with the Prayers of a Family at home the more sacred and awful will the publick Service in the House of God appear to them if attentive and devout there much more so here and the more they feel the Comfort of joint Devotions in their own Houses the more desirous will they be of and the more benefited and refreshed by the Harmony of a full Choir of Saints in the Holy Temple I 'm afraid this pious Custom is now-a-days too much neglected some grudging to take so much Time from their other Employments as this Duty requires and others on Evenings especially making themselves unfit for the Performance of it by tarrying long at the Wine and enflaming themselves with Strong Drink and some truly thinking it too precise and puritanical a Thing to be practis'd now-a-days But these last should have a Care how they throw ill Names upon what our Religion has made our Duty and what has all along been observ'd by the best Men in the World and they would do well to consider those Words of our Lord Mark 8.38 Whosoever shall be asham'd of me and of my Words in this adulterous and sinful Generation of him also shall the Son of Man be asham'd when he cometh in the Glory of his Father and of the Holy Angels Is it a fitting Reason that a thing so excellent as this should be despis'd and disus'd because those that in other Matters dissent from us are so careful to observe it Let their Piety in this Instance rather shame us into Amendment that we may be behind them in no Good Work and leave them no Occasion of Caviling and making Objections against our Church by reason of the careless indifferent Religion of some that are of our Communion In particular this Neglect of Family-Devotions is often thrown in our Teeth and the best way to take off the Aspersion is heartily to set about the Practice of the Duty 'T is our great Happiness were we duly sensible of it that we are Members of the most Primitive Church in the World and the greatest Encouragers of True Piety and Religion and methinks we should be very careful had we any Love for this Church any desire that it should flourish and prosper not to disparage it by our so disagreeable Conversation Other Sects and Parties we see extraordinary diligent to gain Honour and Reputation by all means to their Profession that their Antagonists may discover no Flaw or Indecency no Breach of the Orders and Customs they have embrac'd while we that have the best Cause are generally the worst Managers of it For Shame let us at length grow wise and live up to what we profess in this and every other Particular and transcribe the excellent Rules of our Church in our Conversation let us act like true Sons of the Church of England as well as talk as such and then no Doubt but God and his Truth will prevail We are as a City built upon a Hill a Light set in an eminent Place many envious Eyes are upon us and rejoyce to see our Taper burn dim and our City defil'd by Wickedness and Impurity wherefore we should be the more careful to trim our Lamps and purge out our Stains and shine brightly in the midst of a crooked and perverse Generation That these Men seeing our good Works may at length glorifie our Heavenly Father by a Hearty Union and Communion with us and return to the Fold which they have so groundlesly deserted As for such as grudge Time for this Duty of praying in their Families let them consider whether they can indeed improve it more to their Advantage whether the Gain of a little Money is to be compar'd to having the Blessing of God and the Guidance and Protection of his good Providence And whether their Time was not chiefly given them to worship God in and to make Provision for another World And as for such as make themselves unfit for this Holy Duty by Night Revels and Intemperance they can't but be sensible that that 's a very ill Excuse such as they should blush and be asham'd of and a Fault which it highly concerns them speedily to amend remembring that Drunkards are in that black List of such as shall not enter into the Kingdom of Christ and of God 1 Cor. 6.10 Having thus shewn that Prayer is not only the Priviledge but the Duty of a Christian and how far the Obligation to this Duty does extend I proceed to the Third and last thing to be done which is to shew what is requir'd in order to the effectual Performance of this Duty and what St. Paul says 1 Tim. 2.8 added to the Importunity recommended in the Parable we are now discoursing upon will doubtless make our Prayers to be availing The Apostles Words are these I will that Men pray every where lifting up Holy Hands without Wrath and doubting and of these Requisites I shall first discourse and then of Importunity First If we would be accepted at the Throne of Grace we must lift up Holy Hands The Word in the Original signifies pure and undefil'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 't is an Allusion to the Custom of the Jews who constantly us'd the Ceremony of washing before they pray'd which was intended to signifie the Necessity of a clean Heart in order to Acceptance with God For God is a Being infinitely Pure and Holy and that cannot behold Iniquity and into whose Presence no unclean thing can enter and therefore the Sacrifice of the Wicked as Solomon observes must needs be an Abomination to him and bring down a Curse rather than a Blessing and the Prayer of the Upright only his Delight Prov. 15.8 More particularly by this Expression of lifting up Holy Hands is meant these three Qualifications First That the Suppliant be one of a good Life or if he has not formerly been so repents and is sincerely resolv'd to live as becomes the Gospel of Christ for the future For how can he that is a Rebel to God a Traytor and Judas to his Saviour and that will obey none but the Devil and his own vile Lusts how can such an one think that God should hearken to his Requests who consumes God's Blessings upon his Lusts Jam. 4.3 as St. James expresses it and as S. Paul Turns the Grace of God into Lasciviousness and sins still more that Grace may still abound and is encourag'd by God's Goodness to persist in his Wickedness He only can with Reason expect to be heard by a Holy God who is either actually pious and good or heartily desires and intends to be so Secondly By lifting up Holy Hands is meant Purity of Intention unmix'd Desires of advancing the Glory of God and of the Supply of our real Needs and of promoting our Eternal Salvation That is no Man must
yet be so taken up with minding other things as not to attend to the Danger and heedlessly fall into it And so a Man may habitually believe that there is a Pit of Bottomless Destruction which will at length swallow up the incorrigibly wicked and yet be so deeply engag'd in the Pleasures and Follies of the World as not to attend to it till 't is too late But suppose some that call themselves Christians do not at all believe any thing of the Christian Religion there are innumerable more that do believe and live accordingly and the Harmony of their Belief and Practice methinks should be a better Argument in the Affirmative than the Infidelity and Debauchery of a few titular Christians should be in the Negative And though to a Man that stiles himself a Christian and yet believes not a Word of the Matter to him the Whole of Religion 〈◊〉 is as nothing yet certainly it cannot be from thence concluded that therefore 't is really and indeed a Fiction For that may be assuredly true and that to their Cost which some Men don't care to believe Thus we see 't is no strange thing that there should be both good and bad that go under the general Name of Christians in this World and that though some are much scandaliz'd at it and raise an Objection from it against the Truth of the Religion yet there is no Reason so to do for 't is not the Name that makes a Christian he only is a Christian indeed that to a right Belief adjoins good Works The first Planters of the good Seed or the Tares the bad or good Professors of Christianity respectively are Christ and the Devil Christ by teaching a holy Reliligion to the World such as shall conduct Men to Glory and Immortality and by the good Motions and Inspirations of his holy Spirit inclining 'em to imbrace it does endeavour to make all Men happy to deliver 'em from the Miseries of this World for if Sin were weeded out of it there would be no Misery in it and to prepare 'em for the eternal and ineffable Felicities of the Kingdom of Glory in which after a persevering Righteousness here they shall be actually instated The Devil on the contrary that great Enemy both to God and Man makes it his great Endeavour by all Sorts of Wiles â—nd Stratagems to obliterate the divine Impressions of this holy Religion upon Mens Souls to divert 'em from attending to its great Beauty and Excellency and the Nature and Duration of its Rewards and Punishments to perswade 'em that here lies the only Scene of Happiness and that a future Felicity or Misery is only fit to amuse and frighten Children withall that the Desires of the Body are given us that we might gratify them to the full and that to deny and mortify our selves is the most unnatural Cruelty in the World that we must make our selves happy while we have Opportunity and not trust too much to uncertain Reversions And when he can't wholly blot out the Belief of another World then he endeavours to corrupt it by perswading us that a very little Religion will serve turn seeing we have to do with so merciful a God And if by these Means or the like of which he has great Variety he can incline Men if not intirely to apostatize from Christianity yet like Tares to rest satisfyed with the Name and Appearance of Christians and live at loose and random and follow the Stream of their own Passions and Desires and his sly Insinuations and tempting Delusions then he has his End and will at length cheat 'em of the Happiness that Christ design'd 'em and decoy 'em into his own Possession and so bring them to the Portion of Tares and noxious Weeds that Furnace of Fire prepar'd for himself and his Angels And therefore as we tender our eternal Welfare we must be very watchful and observant that we may discover the sly Insinuations of this our great Enemy Whatever would disparage Religion or lessen the Obligation to a good Life comes certainly from that infernal Tempter The Temptations to an excessive Gratification of our bodily Appetites assuredly come from him the Opportunities of Vice are of his disposing and 't is he that ingages us in so great a Love and earnest Persuit of the World And therefore every thing of this Nature must be rejected with the greatest Abomination as the Endeavours of our great Enemy to deprive us of our Happiness and involve us in his own Ruin And on the contrary those blessed Motions that we all of us often feel to a more pious and holy Conversation must be thankfully embrac'd and chearfully follow'd as the Directions and Excitations of our dear Saviour to what is conducive to our eternal Happiness They are those heavenly Dews which will refresh our Souls and improve their Growth and Increase in Holiness and if sincerely cooperated with will at length bring the Fruits of our holy Religion to Perfection And thus much for the first thing this Parable informs us of namely That the State of the Gospel in this World is such that there will be both bad and good under the general Name of Christians as good Corn and Weeds together go under the Name of one Field of Corn and that the first Planters of this Good and Evil respectively are Christ and the Devil together with the Improvement of each Consideration to the Interest of Religion But before I quite leave this Particular I shall from what has been said of the promiscuous Mixture of bad and good Men in the Christian Church and God's suffering it to be so without any extraordinary Discrimination From this I shall observe how unreasonable 't is for some to object as too many do against the Reception of the Lord's Supper in our Church because as they say we admit any that will come even those that have been scandalous Livers and by that Means the Solemnity is prophan'd and made less beneficial to the good But now supposing though not granting that we admit any that will come though Men of ill Lives I say not granting this for the thing is evidently false as appears from the Exhortations to the Communicants before and at the Solemnity and from the Rubric of that Office And from the 26 27 and 28th Cannons of our Church in which Ministers are expresly forbidden to admit notorious Offenders Schismaticks and Strangers to the Communion But supposing this which is so evidently false as to the Church to be true as to some particular Ministers why must communicating with such Ministers and as we think in such prophane Company be unchristianly abstain'd from and the Ministers declaim'd against with so much Bitterness At this rate they may as well desert the Communion of the whole Church of Christ and refuse to join in any part of divine Worship for no Doubt but ill Men are intermxi'd in all though they may not be discover'd and if their Company
Wicked Men and occasioning much Thanksgiving unto God O may I never forget that I am the Steward only of that Portion of this World 's Good with which thou hast intrusted me for the Good of thy great Family And that thou wilt one Day call me to give an Account of the Discharge of this my Stewardship particularly enquire into my Acts of Charity and infinitely reward me if I be found Faithful in this Trust and for ever punish me with the Devil and his Angels if I be not And that I may abound the more in this excellent Grace of Charity Assist me effectually and immediately to cut off all Excesses and vain Superfluities of Life and never let me be so forsaken of all Piety and Humanity as to suffer my poor Fellow-Servants to want Necessaries rather than retrench my vile Extravagancies May this most excellent and royal Law of thine be always present with me as my Rule to do to others as I would be done by in like Circumstance and in all the Expresses of my Charity let thy Glory and the Good of my Brethren and the Public be my sole End and remove far from me all Pride and Vain-Glory for thy Mercies Sake This and whatever else is necessary to the Perfection of this great Duty grant me I beseech thee O most Compassionate Saviour Jesus Amen PARABLE VIII Of the Talents Matth. xxv 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30. The Kingdom of Heaven is as a Man travelling into a far Country who called his own Servants and deliver'd unto them his Goods And unto one he gave five Talents to another two and to another one to every Man according to his several Ability and straightway took his Journey Then he that had received the five Talents went and traded with them and made them other five Talents And likewise he that had received two he also gained other two But he that had received one went and digged in the Earth and hid his Lords Money After a long time the Lord of these Servants cometh and reckoneth with them And so he that had received five Talents came and brought other five Talents saying Lord thou deliver'dst unto me five Talents behold I have gain'd besides them five Talents more His Lord said unto him Well done thou good and faithful Servant thou hast been faithful over a few things I will make thee Ruler over many things enter thou into the Joy of thy Lord. He also that had receiv'd two Talents came and said Lord thou deliver'dst unto me two Talents behold I have gained two other Talents besides them His Lord said unto him Well done good and faithful Servant thou hast been c. Then he which had received the one Talent came and said Lord I know thee that thou art an hard man reaping where thou hast not sown and gathering where thou hast not strew'd And I was afraid and went and hid thy Talent in the Earth lo there thou hast that is thine His Lord answer'd and said unto him thou wicked and slothful Servant thou knowest that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I have not strewed Thou oughtest therefore to have put my Money to the Exchangers and then at my coming I should have received mine own with Vsury Take therefore the Talent from him and give it unto him that hath ten Talents For unto every one that hath shall be given and he shall have abundance but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath And cast ye the unprofitable Servant into outer Darkness there shall be weeping and gnashing of Teeth THE Interpretation of this Parable may be this By a Man travelling into a far Country is represented our Saviour's leaving this World and Ascending into Heaven after he had finish'd the great Work of our Redemption and by his calling to him his own Servants and delivering to them his Goods is signified his enabling his Disciples with sufficient Grace and the Assistance of his Holy Spirit to perform that Duty and Service which he requires of them in his Absence By his giving to one Five Talents to another Two and to a third but One according to their several Abilities is expressed that God affords his Grace according to Mens natural Capacity of serving him for there is a previous Ability first supposed and suitable to that is the number of Talents that are given and to the Kind and Degree of Service that he thereupon expects from them He that by the previous Gift of God in his natural Endowments is capable of doing him great Service and of being an excellent Example to others and is therefore by the Providence of God design'd for or actually plac'd in an eminent Station and employ'd in a Service of great Weight and Difficulty to him is given greater Aid from Above because he is more capable of improving what he receives to God's Glory and the Good of the Church and has likewise greater Need of the Divine Assistance by reason of the Difficulty of the Duty he is to perform And he that naturally is not so capable receives proportionably less Aid from Heaven but yet such as is sufficient to enable him to discharge that Duty which according to his natural Capacity is required of him By His Trading that had received Five Talents and gaining other Five and his gaining other Two that had received but Two is shewn that according to the Measure of Grace and supernatural Assistance that Men have received so should their Improvement be and that faithful Christians will be careful to make such Improvement And by His hiding his Talent in the Ground that had but One is represented the inexcusable Sloth and Idleness of wicked Men who will not take so much Pains as to improve tho but One Talent in order to their Salvation By the Lord of those Servants coming after a long time and reckoning with them is represented the Coming of Christ to Judgment at the End of the World then to enquire into every Man's Works and Reward or Punish as there is just Occasion By His receiving the Diligent into his Joy is express'd the Reward of the Righteous in the Blissful Kingdom of Heaven and by the Slothful and Wicked Servant who was therefore Wicked because Slothful by his bringing his One Talent to his Lord unimprov'd and excusing his Unprofitableness by saying that he knew him to be a hard Man unreasonably griping expecting to reap where he had not sown and the like and that therefore he brought him his own again as he gave it him fearing to employ it lest he should have lost it and yet been oblig'd to make it good to his Lord By this is represented the Base Thoughts too many have of God and Religion as if it were impossible to bear his Yoke and keep his Commands he exacting such unreasonable Services from us but this is only to excuse one Wickedness by
what Instruction he hath met with in the School of Righteousness what plenty of Religious Discourses and Exhortations he has enjoy'd and how frequently he has felt Motions from within to a still more and more holy and exemplary Life He that hath experienc'd all this in a great degree that hath had his pregnant natural Capacity well cultivated by an early and excellent Instruction and had the whole of Religion plainly laid before him in all the Doctrines Duties Rewards and Punishments of it and been often and affectionately exhorted to live accordingly in all holy Conversation and Godliness and has frequently felt secret internal Motions and Perswasions to it this Man has received much more than One Talent at the hands of God and God will expect from him a proportionable Improvement and he must abound in every good Word and Work For unto whomsoever much is given of him shall be much requir'd and to whom Men have committed much of him they will ask the more But because all Men are not of equal Abilities naturally neither have the same Opportunities of Instruction and Improvement nor the same immediate Impulses of the Blessed Spirit where there is any defect in these Respects God will abate proportionably in his Expectations and he that received the One Talent had he gained but One other with it would have been call'd a good and faithful Servant and been receiv'd into the Joy of his Lord. Let us all therefore endeavour to grow in Grace according to the measure of this unspeakable Gift to perform our Duties each in his Station and according to his Ability faithfully and industriously that when our Lord comes to make Enquiry into each ones Improvement of his Talent and call for every ones particular Account we may all from the least to the greatest chearfully give it up and receive the immense Reward of a sincere Diligence For In the third Place There will most certainly be a Time when our Great Lord will come to take Account of every Man's Improvement of the Grace that was given him and reward every Man according to his Deserving That there will certainly be a Day of Judgment both of Quick and Dead when every Man shall be rewarded according to that he hath done in the Body whether it be good or evil is a Truth so evident from Scripture that those who have read and do believe those Writings can make no doubt of it And the Proof of this from Reason has been so convincingly manag'd by several Learned Pens particularly of late by Dr. Sherlock in his Excellent Discourse upon Judgment that I think nothing can be added to it I shall only therefore Collect such a Description of that Great Day and the Proceedings in it out of the Revelations where it is the most movingly represented as may incline us all with the greatest Diligence and immediately by self-Examination and Amendment of every evil Way to prepare for that great Audit that we may give up our Accounts with joy and not with grief In the 20th Chapter of the Revelations ver 12. after the divine Apostle had given a Description of the Appearing of the great Judge upon his Throne I saw a great White Throne says he and him that sat on it from whose face the Earth and the Heaven fled away and there was found no place for them He proceeds I saw the dead small and great stand before God and the Books were opened And another Book was opened which is the Book of Life and the dead were judged out of those Things that were written in the Books according to their Works and the Sea gave up the dead that were in it and Death and the Grave deliver'd up the dead which were in them and they were judged every man according to their Works And whosoever was not written in the Book of Life was cast into the Lake of Fire That is The Records shall then be laid open wherein every Man's Receipt of Grace is enter'd and those whose Works shall be found proportionably good according to the Assistance they have receiv'd from Above or in the Stile of the Parable that have made an answerable Improvement to the Number of Talents committed to them their Names shall be written in the Book of Life and they received into the eternal Joy of their Lord. But those who can then give no good Account of their Talents shew no suitable Improvement in Holiness according to the measure of Grace they have received shall never see Life but be cast into the Lake of Fire which is the second Death And because so very few will be so wise as to make due Preparation for this great Day of Account by improving the Grace God has given them to the great Ends for which it was design'd therefore as 't is describ'd Rev. 3.15 The Kings of the Earth and the great Men and the rich Men and the chief Captains and the mighty Men and every Bond-man and every Freeman many of all Qualities and Conditions from the highest to the lowest shall hide themselves in Dens in Rocks and Mountains and say to the Rocks and Mountains fall on us and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the Throne and from the Wrath of the Lamb for the great Day of his Wrath is come and who shall be able to stand May these Terrors of the Lord perswade us to provide in this our day for the Things that belong to our Peace before they be hid from our eyes looking for by frequent Meditation and hastning unto by a diligent Improvement of our Talents the coming of this dreadful day of God and being above all things careful That we be found of him in Peace without spot and blameless for God will bring every secret Thing into Judgment whether it be good or evil and exactly adapt every Man's Recompense to his Work Which brings me to the next Thing I am to consider in this Parable namely Fourthly That at that great Day of Account when every Man's Work is fully known and his Improvement compar'd with what he has receiv'd the Diligent shall not only in general be receiv'd into the Joy of their Lord and the unprofitable cast into outer Darkness but the most Diligent those that have made the greatest Improvement shall receive the greatest share of Happiness And those that have been most careless and Unprofitable shall be doom'd to the greatest misery That is in short there will be degrees of Happiness or Misery respectively awarded to Men according to the degrees of their Holiness or Impiety I know this has been much question'd by some and wholly deny'd by others and their main Reason against it I conceive to be this That since the Happiness of the Just in Heaven consists in the Vision of God or the Excellencies and Beauties of the Divine Nature which will fill a holy Soul with eternal and inexpressible Delight for so St. John expresses the Bliss of Heaven by seeing God as
will unhallow and make ineffecutal one Duty of Christianity I can't see why it should not do the like to all the rest And if a Separation were admitted upon such Accounts as as these there would be no such thing as an external Communion of Saints because such is the State of the Gospel in this World that the bad will be intermix'd with the Good as Tares are in a Field of Wheat And as to the Practice of particular Ministers I charitably hope none do admit of notorious Offenders to the Communion without receiving satisfactory Marks of their Repentance or at least by previous Discourse or writing When they know of their Intention to communicate let 'em know the great Danger of receiving unworthily and urge them to an immediate sincere Repentance or else forbid 'em at their Peril to approach the holy Table And if after all this they will come we are to suppose in Charity that they have repented except we are sure to the contrary And if a Minister sees one at the Table whose Life has in many Instances to his Knowledg been very faulty unless the Crimes have been very great and very notorious to reject such an one I think with Submission would be arrogant and uncharitable and might exasperate the Man to so high a Degree as to make him throw off all Regard to Religion for the future and in such a Case the Exhortation appointed to be read at the Time of celebrating those Holy Mysteries should one would think be Warning sufficient for such an one if unrepentant to withdraw and if he stays Charity would incline one to believe that he was penitent And if a Person kneeling by who perhaps knows much more of the Man's Course of Life than the Minister shall be offended at his communicating one that receives so unworthily and speak hard things of him and abstain from that blessed Ordinance upon this Account for the future as prophan'd by such mix'd Company at it this is highly unreasonable uncharitable and unnatural 'T is unreasonable with Relation to their hard Thoughts and Censures of the Minister because Charity obliges him to think well of such as present themselves at the holy Table unless there be great and undeniable Evidence of their obstinate and continu'd Wickedness and in such a Case I dare say no pious Minister would prostitute those holy Symbols to such Swine And where there is not such Evidence Ministers can search Mens Hearts no more than other Men and therefore must hope the best and judge according to the outward Appearance and should they communicate some that receive unworthily by this Means as 't is to be fear'd they too often do why should they be blam'd for that which 't is impossible for 'em to help and aspers'd and all further Communion with them deserted for suffering that ignorantly which God though the Searcher of all Hearts permits in his Church without any open Discrimination namely the bad to join in all holy Offices with the good And this Practice is as uncharitable as 't is unreasonable because 't is judging and condemning those as Reprobates obstinate unrepenting Sinners whose Hearts we cannot see and who though formerly egregiously wicked yet now through the mighty Efficacy of God's converting Grace may for ought we know to the contrary be better than our selves And 't is an unnatural Practice too because 't is the depriving our selves of the Comforts that attend the Reception of that holy Sacrament and those of Vnion and brotherly Love meerly upon a groundless Nicety Let us all rather learn not to judge others before the Time but leave every Man to stand or fall by the unerring Judgment of our great Master at the last Day lest by judging others we condemn our selves who do the same things and it may be worse And instead of abstaining from the Sacrament because some come and are admitted to it whom we think and it may be not without Reason are not so well prepar'd as they should be endeavour to make our selves still more and more fit for so holy an Ordinance by a dayly Amendment of Life and then our Fleece like that of Gideon shall be moistned tho' other Men's be dry The Apostles were never the less dear to our Saviour for Judas his being amongst 'em but the more so rather and though through the Wickedness that was in his Heart Satan enter'd into him after he had receiv'd the Sop our Lord gave him at the Celebration of the Passover and in all Probability did partake of what he consecrated in Memory of his succeeding Death and Sufferings yet the rest receiv'd miraculous Assistances of the holy Ghost and were faithful to the Death and for certain have receiv'd the Crown of Life And I hope this will satissy for the future such as upon this Account have abstain'd from the blessed Sacrament and censur'd the Ministers of our Church and though without all Reason our Church it self And as what has been said upon this Matter has been no impertinent Digression so I hope it may be a beneficial one Let us now proceed to the second thing this Parable informs us of namely The Time when God's and our great Enemy the Devil sowes his Tares among the Wheat and that is while Men sleep For so the Parable while Men slept the Enemy came and sow'd Tares among the Wheat and went his Way Then is the Time of his injecting his wicked Insinuations into Men's Hearts whereby to make 'em become like empty Tares Christians in Name and Appearance only but devoid of the substantial Graces and Vertues of that holy Profession By Men's sleeping is here meant a careless Inadvertency and Neglect of the things of Religion a stupid Security in a thoughtless Way of Life And this is a Metaphor which the sacred Writers have often made use of to this Purpose and 't is so expressive of what they would represent by it that 't will be worth our while briefly to consider wherein the Likeness of such thoughtless Inadvertency in religious Matters to sleep does consist It is like it in the first Place in its Cause For as Toil and Labour and any thing that brings Weariness and consumes the Spirits disposes the Body to Sleep and makes it desire Rest and Ease that it may have a Recruit so this moral Drowsiness or Hebetude of the Soul generally begins to creep upon Men when they find difficulty in Religion a little striving soon puts 'em out of Heart their Hands fall their Knees grow feeble their Soul faints within 'em all Hope of Victory is then laid aside and they sit them down as Men quite spent and then steals that deep Sleep upon them which too often ends in Death Thus we often see Men set very briskly upon the Practice of Religion at First and seem wondrously pleas'd with their new Choice and admire at their Stupidity that they did not sooner discover the transcendent Beauties of Holiness and are resolv'd