thy Mercies our Friends Relations and even our Enemies and all that are in Adversity We render thee Thanks O Lord for all the Mercies of this Day in particular but especially for the Liberty of thy House and for the Means of Grace we have there enjoyed Hear O Lord the Prayers we have offered to thee Bless thy Word and Sacraments to us whenever we enjoy them let them be thy power to our Salvation We humbly beg thy Protection for this Night and evermore even unto thy Heavenly Kingdom for the sake of Jesus Christ to whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all Honour and Glory world without End OVR Father which art in Heaven Hallowed be thy Name Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven Give us this day our daily bread And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us And lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil For thine is the Kingdom the Power and the Glory for ever and ever Amen THE Pleasantness of Religion Demonstrated and Improved Let us Pray PRevent us O Lord in all our doings with thy most gracious favour and further us with thy continual help that in all our works begun continued and ended in thee we may glorify thy Holy Name and finally by thy Mercy obtain Everlasting Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Prov. 3. 17. Her Ways are Ways of Pleasantness THese words are spoken of Wisdom as you may see by Verse 13. of this Chapter where Solomon begins the Commendation of that Saying Happy is the Man that findeth Wisdom and the Man that getteth Vnderstanding The Merchandize of it is better than the Merchandize of Silver and the gain thereof than fine Gold She is more precious than Rubies and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared to her Length of Days is in her right Hand and in her left Hand Riches and Honour then he adds Her ways are ways of Pleasantness And by Wisdom of which he says these great things he means Religion or the Wisdom of good and vertuous living to which the Scripture it self does elsewhere plainly give that Name Job 28. 28. The Fear of the Lord that is Wisdom and to depart from Evil is Vnderstanding The Ways of Wisdom then means the Practice of Religion and Vertue This he says is very pleasant He has Joy and Pleasure in abundance who steadily lives in a religious and good course of Life This is the import and sense of these Words And if this be true here is a very sensible and important inducement to a good Life contained in them There is nothing usually more powerful and attractive with Mankind than Pleasure nothing which they more earnestly or more universally covet If then it can be made appear that there is a great deal of this even in well-doing this may be a means to allure Men to the trial of it and to divert them from those courses of Wickedness which draw many into Everlasting Perdition by the allurement of Pleasure To make this good and to prove what Solomon here says will be the chief business of this Discourse And I do not doubt but it will be beyond any Man's Power to deny or question this who shall soberly consider the following Particulars 1. The Principle from whence all true and sincere Religion proceeds and springs is Love and that must needs render it highly pleasant in the Practice of it This must be the Principle and Spring of true and sincere Religion All the Duties we perform towards God or Man must proceed from Love to God and Man This must be the Principle of our good Actions and wherever true Love is it will be a Principle of good Actions All the instances of Duty required of us are but such things as Love it self will put us upon such as Love naturally suggests and does incline to He that truly loves God cannot chuse but seek what will please him and endeavour to do all that and he must endeavour to avoid whatever would offend God He must delight to contemplate the Divine Perfections to think upon the Object that he loves to adore and worship God to seek and promote the Love and Honour of him So he that loves his Neighbour sincerely must delight in and desire the Wellfare and Happiness of Men he must endeavour to promote it as much as he can and will be far from wishing or endeavouring any evil to any Man or from delighting in what does happen to any And this now is even a Demonstration of the Pleasantness of a Religious Life that all of it is nothing else but the Exercise of Love He that is driven to do his Duty by Fears and Terrors performs indeed an ungrateful Task and goes on in these ways with Reluctancy and Sorrow But he that is drawn with the Cords of Love follows with Joyfulness He will run and not be weary whom Love inspires He minds not is not discouraged with any Ruggedness of the way but is rather pleased with Difficulties and put on than troubled or retarded because they give him opportunity to express the greater Love This renders the Labours of Religion easy and even Sufferings delightful I take pleasure in Infirmities in Reproaches in Necessities in Persecutions in Distresses for Christ's sake says a great Lover of Jesus 2 Cor. 12. 10. It was the strength of Love in the Primitive Followers of Jesus which made them very laborious and diligent in Religion and made them suffer much even to the most cruel and tormenting Deaths and do both with unspeakable Joy and Pleasure They prov'd what a great Lover of God said long ago Cant. 8. 6 7. Love is strong as Death Many waters cannot quench Love neither the Floods drown it All the Task of Love is pleasant and nothing is counted hard or uneasy which that enjoins us 2. Another thing that renders the Practice of Piety and Vertue very pleasant and therefore proves it so is the fitness and reasonableness of all that which Religion enjoins us to do It is most highly equitable and just in all the parts of it and is most perfectly what the Apostle calls it Rom. 12. 1. namely Reasonable Service There is nothing required of us within the whole compass of our Duty but what a Man 's own Mind and Reason upon serious consideration must needs be perfectly satisfied in nothing that he can have any reason to be ashamed of or to think below him or unfit for him to do or that he can justly upbraid or condemn himself for doing How reasonable and just are all the Duties of Piety towards God This will appear upon a fair stating and proposal of them Is it not highly so that we reverence and adore an infinitely glorious and excellent Being That we trust the Original Truth That we love the Sovereign and the Fountain Good That we obey the supream Authority of the World in all
the Precepts and Rules of Religion and Vertue till his mind is formed by them These things have their Influence upon us by our serious and deliberate Meditation upon them 'T is true the Spirit of God is the efficient Cause of all that is good in us but in grown Persons he does this in and by the exercise of their own Thoughts upon the Rules and the Motives of Vertue and Religion and we must be our selves the Instruments as well as the Subjects of his Operations in us It is therefore that God has appointed the preaching of his Word to be the ordinary means of making men religious and vertuous that thereby those things which may direct and perswade them to be so may be proposed and set before them with strong Reason and earnest Exhortation Thus then is the Vanity or Inconsiderateness of the Mind a mischievous Quality and worthy the Hatred of him who desires to be good as it hinders men from being good and by consequence from doing well 2. It is very mischievous too as it does exceedingly expose men to do Evil and often betrays them into Sin And this Effect it has by these two ways 1. As this Vanity of Mind abandons a man to his Inclinations 2. As it exposes us to the Influence of Temptations 1. This inconsiderate Vanity of the Mind abandons a man to his Inclinations it makes him follow these instead of leading them and to obey what he should govern whatever the Inclinations of a man are the Vanity of the Mind carries him after them and they are mostly to Evil. The ungoverned thoughts are usually employed by the reigning Sin and the Man shall be musing on that and be guilty of it in his Heart when he has not opportunity of committing in overt Acts. The covetous Man's idle Thoughts are all upon Gain and good Bargains or great Losses The proud Man's ungovern'd Thoughts are extolling himself magnifying every good Quality in him if he has any into a Mountains Bulk and diminishing his most enormous Faults they are despising others and preferring him above them Thus do these Thoughts usually actuate and exercise in the Mind the prevailing Vice and so our Thoughts become sinful when they are inconsiderate they will not be only so but will be angry proud prophane unclean or any thing else according to the inward Character or Tincture of the Mind and then such Thoughts as these do cherish and strengthen these Inclinations which ought to be mortified and subdued they make them the less governable and ready and apt to break out into suitable Actions when temptation and opportunity are offer'd 2. This State of Mind mightily exposes a man to the Influence of Temptations for it renders him always ready to receive them He that hath no Rule over his Spirit says Solomon Is like a City that is broken down and without Walls Prov. 25. 28. The Enemy of our Souls will easily send in his black Troops of wicked Suggestions if we are not continually well guarded against him And what shall hinder an inconsiderate Man from receiving any manner of Temptations The Adversary has not so little craft as to awaken him to consider what he does by tempting to the most enormous kinds or degrees of wickedness at first No he draws the careless Sinner on to these by the Steps of lesser Sins He watches to do mischief and goes about like a roaring Lion seeking whom he may devour and the vain ungovern'd Mind is a ready Prey to him If we will not govern our selves well we leave our selves to him and he will govern us ill and unless God's restraining Grace prevent he will lead us captive at his will This Enemy of our Souls will sow his Tares there while we sleep and are careless He perfectly knows our Inclinations too and what to suggest that shall most effectually prevail with us and so does the more certainly draw us into Sin and Wickedness Thus we are in continual Danger from intestine and external Foes and therefore we cannot be careless of our selves but they will prevail over us and draw us into Sin And these Thoughts which men are apt to think very innocent ones and to neglect as not worth their minding we may see do expose and betray us into such Thoughts and by consequence dispose us for such Actions as are sinful And that Temper of Mind which some affect and are proud of as being called Wit does prove but Madness and Folly it is not only unprofitable but also very hurtful And thus much may suffice to the Second Part of this Discourse which was to shew the mischief of allowing and entertaining Vain Thoughts I shall now in the last place propose the proper Remedies of this Vanity and Inconsiderateness of Mind And let none think that to do so is an impertinent or vain Task for as the mischief and danger of it is great so the disease is common As the Imagination is a faculty natural to the Mind of Man so all men are more or less subject to the giddiness of it and liable to be diverted from any good design or to be disturbed and hindered in the prosecution of it thereby This Vanity of the Mind is a distemper common to the corrupted Nature Now to remedy this then we must observe these things following as absolutely necessary 1. A Man must needs set himself some task and employment With an idle Life it is cherisht and will reign and throw a man into a thousand Enormities Something to do and a diligent application of the Mind to it tames the unruly Thought uses it to government and makes it obedient and useful Business mightily helps consideration by exercise of thinking steadily to some one Purpose designed and chosen a Man becomes habituated to the doing so and is the more capable of fixing his Mind to any thing besides that This evidently appears in the great and extensive Knowledge in all Matters which we find in some Persons that were bred to a Trade and in the capacity which we see in many such to apply their thoughts to any thing and to learn and make a good Judgment of all Matters Those that have been so unhappy as to be taught nothing in their younger Years who rather diverted themselves with the Teachers of some Trifles than learnt any thing have the more to learn now and the more to do when they can be convinced of the danger the guilt the contemptibleness of an idle Life And how many wise and great Ladies have employed their Time and their Hands in working for the Poor to their own immortal Honour with God and Man Together with these employments such may very well mingle a set Task of publick and private Devotion and so keep the Mind well exercised as much as it needs to be But this leads me to another Remedy of this Distemper 2. We must endeavour to furnish our Minds with good store of Sacred Knowledge Ignorance and Vanity as well
shew Mercy to all Mankind Pour out thy Spirit upon all Flesh that they may know thee and seek thee and find and praise thee and rejoice in thy abundant Goodness Let thy continual Pity cleanse and defend thy Church Lord look down in mercy upon us and bless us that all the ends of the World may fear thee We pray thee do good to these Nations in which we live according thy infinite Sufficiency and our Necessities Oh let not our Iniquities with-hold good things from us but according to the multitude of thy tender Compassions blot out all our Transgressions Bless our Gracious King and Queen and make the one a Nursing Father and the other a Nursing Mother to that part of thy Church which thou hast planted among us and let their good Influence extend further to the Benefit of it and make Them the Honourable Instruments of Establishing Peace and Truth not only in these but also in the Neighbouring Nations to the Glory of thy great Name Bless all Ranks and Degrees of Men among us and make them to live to thy Glory to be conformable and obedient to our Governours and useful peaceable righteous and charitable one towards another in their several Stations We humbly pray for all Friends Relations Benefactors bless and preserve them from every evil Work and conduct them to thy Heavenly Kingdom Let this Day Oh Lord be happy to us in the fruitful and effectual Influences of thy Ordinances upon our Hearts and Lives Let us not be forgetful Hearers but be Doers of thy Word that we may be blest in our Deed. Grant us to lie down in Peace this Night to rest in Safety And be thou O God our Portion and Refuge in the Land of the Living and hereafter our exceeding great Reward for the sake of Jesus Christ in whose Name and Words we further present our Requests unto thee saying OVR Father which art in Heaven Hallowed be thy Name Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven Give us this day our daily bread And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us And lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil Amen THE Heavenly Mind DESCRIBED and URGED Let us Pray PRevent us O Lord in all our doings with thy most gracious favour and further us with thy continual help that in all our works begun continued and ended in thee we may glorify thy Holy Name and finally by thy Mercy obtain Everlasting Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Colos 3. 2. Set your Affections on Things above and not on things on the Earth HOW well did the Bounteous Creatour of all things contrive the Nature of Man for the making him exceedingly Happy He put into our Constitution an Immortal Spirit join'd to a Living and Sensible Body And so he made us capable of the Delights of both Worlds the Spiritual and the Material By our Souls we are capable to enjoy and delight in Spiritual Objects and their Properties and Qualities We are capable of a rational spiritual Delight in sensible Objects and we are capable to enjoy and delight in God himself and his Infinite Eternal Perfections And by our Bodies which are allied to this World we are capable of a sensual Delight in the things of it to enjoy and please our selves with the Properties Vertues and Qualities belonging to Material things So bounteous and kind was the Creatour to Man in the Forming of him But alas Man has not been kind to himself He did not remain long in the happy State which he was first set in but by following too much the Pleasures of his Sense he lost all the greatest Pleasures of his Mind By eating the Forbidden Fruit he sinned against God lost his Favour and the Enjoyment of him became alienated from God and his Mind became subject to the shameful Disease of Sensuality A low and sordid Propensity to Earthly things did from henceforth possess him and a wretched Incapacity and Averseness towards Heavenly and Spiritual things We are condemned to enjoy only the lowest and weakest and the least part of our Happiness to gnaw as it were on the Shell of Pleasure and enjoy no more than the Brute Beasts do We following the unhappy Fall of our Nature do amuse and entertain our selves only with the poor Objects of Sense utterly forget and neglect our higher Capacities and our true Happiness It is the whole Business of our Religion in all the parts of it to recover us from this shameful and deadly Fall to draw us off from this our wretched Attachment to this World and turn us from a false Happiness to a true one The scope and aim of all its Doctrins Precepts Promises Threatnings Motives and Assistances is this to make us truly happy And the Sum of all is to bring us to what the Apostle here exhorts to in saying Set your Affections on Things above not on Things on the Earth By Things above he means those very things which were recommended to you by the Discourse immediately foregoing this as the chiefest and the true Objects of our Happiness He means God himself who is our Chief Good and the Expressions and Exercises of his peculiar Favour and Love He meâ—â—â— the Graces which the Holy Spirit works 〈◊〉 the Souls of Men which perfect and adorn and compose the Mind He means the everlasting Blessedness which is to come the Happiness and Joys of Heaven By advising to set our Affections on those things he means they should be much the Objects of our Minds he intends the Application of the whole Soul to them and the employing of all our Powers about them The Original word which we render here set your Affections has this large Import and Signification and might be rendered Mind those things which are above Let your Judgments esteem them your Wills chuse and your Affections follow them And not on Things on the Earth that is rather than the Things of the Earth It is according to the Custom and Phrase of the Hebrew Language to express thus when it only intends to prefer the former things it speaks of before the latter So in Hos 6. 6. The Prophet in the Person of God says I will have Mercy and not Sacrifice that is rather than Sacrifice he intended to express God's preference of Mercy before Sacrifice Here then the Apostle who was an Hebrew of Hebrews speaking after the Phrase and Manner of his own Language must be understood to mean Set your Affections on Things above rather than on Things on the Earth Mind those Things most let them have the preference with you He does not forbid nor does our Religion forbid the moderate seeking and enjoyment of the Good things of this World We are not bound to be unsensible of their Goodness to take no delight in them nor absolutely and wholly to refuse or reject all sensual Pleasures The things of this World are good in their Kind and
Heritage govern them and lift them up for ever And make all that name the Name of Christ duly concern'd to adorn the Doctrin of God our Saviour in all things Let thy gracious Presence dwell in the Land of our Nativity bless us with Peace and Plenty with the Means of Grace and the Efficacy of them to enlighten our Minds to cleanse our Hearts to heal our Divisions to teach us all from the Highest to the Lowest our several Duties towards thee Give Health and Happiness to our King and Queen and teach us and all their Subjects our Duty towards them Bless and direct all inferiour Magistrates make them a Terror to evil Doers and a Praise to them that do well Let those that Minister in Holy things be a good Example to the Flock and make us Followers of them as they are of Christ We Implore thy Mercy upon all that are in Affliction especially upon those who are persecuted for Righteousness Sake give them Patience under their Sufferings and a happy Issue out of all their Afflictions Accept our humble Sacrifices of Praise and Thanksgiving which we have this day offer'd to thee in thy Sons Name And make the Word which we have heard to have such Influence upon our Hearts and to bring forth such Fruit in our Lives as thou dost expect from it Give us a Night of safe and comfortable Rest preserving us from Fear and Danger And when we awake in the Morning let us chearfully return to our Duty in all our ways acknowledge thee and do thou graciously direct our Steps for the Sake of Jesus Christ In whose Words we conclude these our poor imperfect Addresses OVR Father which art in Heaven Hallowed be thy Name Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven Give us this day our daily bread And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us And lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil For thine is the Kingdom the Power and the Glory for ever and ever Amen THE Easiness of Religion EXPLAINED and IMPROVED Let us Pray PRevent us O Lord in all our doings with thy most gracious favour and further us with thy continual help that in all our works begun continued and ended in thee we may glorify thy Holy Name and finally by thy Mercy obtain Everlasting Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Mat. 11. 29 30. Take my Yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart And ye shall find rest to your Souls For my Yoke is easie and my Burden is light IT is a strange and wonderful Degeneracy that the Humane Nature is fallen under as appears from the wonderful Aversness that is in all Mankind to a religious and a vertuous Life Religion is the greatest Ornament and Glory of the Humane Nature It is the Cure of all our Defects and Disparagements It is our true and compleat Perfection And yet we commonly appear to be most easily withheld from the Practice of it We devise Excuses to neglect it we receive the most false and unreasonable Prejudices against it without any Examination of them We do often obstinately persist in Wickedness against the most weighty Inducements to do well These Words of the Blessed Jesus who came into the World to save Sinners and to that Purpose has taught us as well as died for us do meet with one of the Prejudices against an Holy Life which he knew to be very common in the Hearts of Men And that is the Imagination that Religion is a Task too hard for Humane Nature and utterly impossible to be perform'd Because we must indeed take some Pains to be Religious our lazy and unwilling Souls magnify the little Oppositions into Mountains of Difficulties and make us think we shall never be able to get over them and the way down to the bottomless Pit seems easie and smooth is strow'd with Pleasures Riches and Worldly Honours and these things easily allure and engage us to follow that Against this fatal and discouraging Prejudice our Saviour says in the Words of our Text Take my Yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart And ye shall find rest unto your Souls For my Yoke is easie and my Burden is light Take my Yoke upon you That is charge your selves with the keeping my Commands submit to my Government For this Meaning the Word Yoke is wont to have in Scripture For my Yoke is easie and my Burden is light It shall be possible to you to keep my Commands you shall find I do not require of you that which you cannot perform that the Difficulties you may meet with are not invincible And further to encourage the taking up his Yoke he adds Learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart If ye take up this Yoke ye but take up that which I have born my self I am of a meek and submissive mind I do not disdain to be subject to the Laws of Religion I then command you nothing but what I have practised my self and your Obedience to these Laws will be your Imitation of me And he adds further Ye shall find rest to your Souls This shall be Peace and Happiness to you In discoursing upon these Words I think it may be useful for the better promoting the Design of them to insist upon these Three Heads 1. To shew in what Sense it may be said that the Commands of God are easie to be observ'd Which will be both Explication and Proof of our Saviours Words 2. To suggest by what means we may best render this easie to our selves 3. To urge by some proper Motives the Use of those Means In the First place I shall shew you in what Sense we may understand this that 't is easie to keep the Commands of God And this will be sufficiently represented in the Three following Particulars 1. This is easie to a vigorous and earnest Endeavour ' Tit true there will be continual Opposition made against it by that Corruption that has gotten Possession in our Souls and by the frequent Assaults of Temptation from the World and the Devil But yet these are Difficulties that shall be overcome by an earnest and diligent Endeavour Our Saviour says Strive to enter in at the strait Gate for many I say unto you shall seek to enter in and shall not be able Luke 13. 24. By the strait Gate he means the way of Religion which the Opposition of our Spiritual Enemies and our own unworthy Averseness do render a strait Gate This we cannot pass without Striving and a good Endeavour but with this he intimates we may do so This will ccomplish what we desire but many seek to enter in and shall not be able To lazy Wishes 't is exceeding difficult indeed invincibly Difficult to be Religious He that cannot persuade himself to strive with Earnestness and Patience shall never become so And this
is the reason why it remains with many so discouraging a Difficulty all their days they never proceed further than to a few lazy Wishes or at most to a few short and faint Endeavours They are good sometimes when they meet with no Temptation or Provocation to be otherwise But whenever these Assault they presently yield and renew their Sins 2. It is easie to keep the Commands of God with that Assistance which the Grace of God affords them who diligently seek it 'T is good and safe for a Man to despair of succeeding by his own Strength and Endeavour alone but it is also foolish and absurd to conclude from our own Weakness the utter Impossibility of keeping the Commands of God because we may obtain sufficient Assistance from above He that hath said his Yoke is easie hath as we may say therein bound himself to make good his own gracious Word and we need not doubt but he will do this Our great and kind Saviour we may be assur'd is ready and able to help us in all our Difficulty and Weakness We have not an High-Priest says the Apostle of him that cannot be touched with a feeling of our Infirmities but was in all Points tempted like as we are yet without Sin Heb. 4. 15. And from thence he adds in the 16th Chapter Let us therefore come boldly to the Throne of Grace that we may obtain Mercy and find Grace to help in time of need Since we have such an High-Priest such an Advocate in Heaven we are not to doubt but upon earnest and sincere seeking we shall obtain sufficient Grace We may come boldly for this may ask with an assured Expectation to receive Accordingly St. James tells us If any Man lack Wisdom he may ask it of God who gives to all Men liberally and upbraids not Jam. 1. 5. But let us also know since we are bid strive to enter in at the strait Gate that we must not expect the Grace of God will inable us to enter in without our Striving As the Grace of God must make our Striving successful so our Striving is necessary to the obtaining the effectual Grace of God Let us take notice to this purpose of what God says by his Prophet concerning the People of Israel in Ezek. 11. In the 18th Verse of that Chapter he mentions their earnest Application of themselves towards the making a Reformation among them and then in Vers 19. and 20. he says I will give them one Heart and I will put a new Spirit within you and I will take away the stony Heart out of their flesh and will give them an Heart of flesh That they may walk in my Statutes and keep my Commandments and do them If then we apply our selves in great earnest to be Religious the Spirit of God will put this new Spirit into us and we shall be renew'd in the inner Man as the Scripture speaks and then it will be easie to us to keep the Commands of God And the Grace of God restores our decayed Powers and rectifies our Nature and makes us suitable to the Divine Law When this is wrought in us so far as it prevails it will be as agreeable to us to perform good Actions as it is for the Sun to shine and the Waters to flow These will be as agreeable and easie as natural Actions to a Man that is in perfect Health and Strength The Graces wrought in us in this rectifying of our Nature do altogether conduce to the easie Performance of our Duty I shall instance only in Love which in the proper Exercises of it is the fulfilling of the Law and all the Exercises of Love are sweet and easie Love to God will make us ready and inclin'd to perform all the Duties which we owe to God and Man There is Strength in Love it can do more than without it we could think possible to be done It rises against Difficulties and will never cease till it surmounts and overcomes them This makes crooked Ways strait and rough Places plain It is very laborious and diligent and does alleviate and sweeten Labour and Diligence It delights to do whatever is pleasing to God and to express by all possible ways an Honour and Esteem of him Hence 't is said by our Saviour If a Man love me he will keep my Commands Thus if our depraved Natures were but rectified we should find it easie to perform the Commands of God And this shews that they are easie in themselves To him that is born of God and does truly love him his Commandments are not grievous as the Apostle plainly intimates in the 1 Epist of John and the 5th Chap. by the Connextion of the 3d. Verse there Those then that apply themselves seriously to the Performance of their Duty and wait for the good Motions of the Spirit of Grace and carefully obey them when they are offer'd they will find the Spirit of God ready to assist them and after he has wrought in them to will he will inable them to do It is according to his good Pleasure to do so And it may be also concluded and expected from this which he has declar'd concerning himself That he does not delight in the death of a Sinner but had rather that he should turn to him and live 3. Religion is easie in comparison to Vice and Wickedness or is truly much more easie than that It is indeed more suitable to the Frame and Constitution of our Nature than Wickedness is Vertue however seldom it can be found and though it be accounted difficult is for all that agreeing and suitable to the Essential Constitution of Humane Nature and Wickedness however common and familiar it is is an adventitious and adverse thing The former is that we were made for and suited and fitted to the Practice of it and then the latter must by Consequence be contrary to the Frame and Contrivance of our Nature Religion is the Rectitude of our Nature Wickedness is the Disorder of it Vice is an Aberration from Nature and the Deformity and Corruption of it All the Motions of vehement Passions and unlawful Lusts are Departures from true and right Nature But from hence it must needs be that Wickeness is the most difficult and troublesome of the two What is most natural must needs be most easie and Vertue is in truth most natural Accordingly how does a violent and furious Passion disorder the Mind confound our Thoughts and dissipate and spend the Spirits Is not an excessive and inordinate Motion of the Mind more troublesome than a calm and gentle one And is it not easier and sooner done to use with Moderation and Temperance the Pleasures of Sense than to use them with Excess the one sooths and cherishes Nature the other weakens frets and hurts it Besides may we not observe that Vice must be Learnt that no Man can arrive at a great Degree of Wickedness without taking some Pains with himself for this Further it
our Inclination to Evil will always be strongest when 't is excited by Temptation and favoured with Opportunity to exert its self Temptation and Opportunity are to our Evil Inclinations like Oyl to a Fire which pour'd on it will encrease its Strength and Fury As we put out Fire by with-drawing the Fuel so we must extinguish and weaken the Fire of Concupiscence by avoiding Temptation those Circumstances which we have found are apt to draw us into Sin we must carefully shun them if we can These are the Endeavours which must be opposed to the difficulties of Religion and the means whereby we may render it very easy to our selves If Men will but diligently take this Care they shall not fail to find it true which our Saviour says My Yoke is easy and my Burden is light Now because our Saviour himself adds some Motives to the taking up his Yoke besides this assurance of its easiness I shall proceed in the last place to urge this too That if we do not find it so easy at our first Attempts as we would desire we may yet not be discouraged but persist in our Endeavour and constantly take this course which has been directed to diminish the difficulty we meet with To which Purpose let these following things be considered which things will also help to settle and confirm us in good Resolutions and so will promote the easiness of Religion 1. All the Difficulty of Obedience will be no excuse for our neglecting it This will not excuse us in the Sight of God tho he be very merciful and forgiving For certainly this does not disanul our Obligations to it As we are bound to obey we are bound also to endeavour and strive to obey and the rather because upon our good endeavour and striving we shall be inabled to do it Those difficulties which we might overcome cannot excuse if they do discourage us and it is very unreasonable that such should discourage us We have no Fortitude in us no due Sense of Gods obliging Goodness of his terrible Wrath of the Excellency and Honour of Religion if such Difficulties can discourage us We trample upon all the Inducements to Obedience and are not good only because we will not be so But further this difficulty arises from our selves from the guilty corruption of our own Natures The Law is Spiritual and we are Carnal that is Holy Just and Good we are unholy and sold under Sin and hence is it difficult to us to obey the Laws of God hence we are unable So that we have contracted our own Inability and therefore we must not think that this will excuse us As well may a Man think his prodigal wasting of his Estate should make what he ows not due to his Creditors as that this should excuse our keeping the Commands of God 2. Let us consider that we have the Example of our Saviour to quicken and encourage us to our Duty 'T is true he had not that inward hinderance of it which we are unhappily encumbred with but yet even He was not free from many external Discouragements and Temptations He suffered many Indignities and Persecutions from Men he died for the Testimony that he bore to the Truth And was obedient unto Death even the Ignominious and Miserable Death of the Cross Nothing could divert him from doing his Father's Will and fulfilling the Work that he came into the World about And it greatly recommends the Yoke which he calls us to take up that it is the same that he has born himself He bids us learn of him in the Text to learn submission and obedience by his Example He spent his whole Life in a willing Obedience to the Commands of God He condescended to make himself subject to the Law of God And let us consider it was for our sakes that he became so to fulfill the Law on our Behalf and satisfy the Demands of it which we cannot fully satisfy and so to purchase for us the glorious Rewards of perfect Obedience 'T is he who has thus oblig'd us who calls us to take his Yoke upon us And shall we refuse to take a little Pains to please him who denied himself so much and condescended so far for our Advantage We see that he expects this of us he requires us to learn of him and follow him in Obedience And can we think he will ever own us if we do it not Can we imagine that this is not then a necessary Condition of finding Favour with him of obtaining his Intercession for us and of his owning us at the great Day of Judgment 3. Let us then set the Inconveniencies that Men are exposed to in a course of Wickedness against the difficulties of Religion and consider which of the two is most fit to be chosen Whether those difficulties which may be overcome or the Inconveniencies that cannot be avoided and are intolerable Certainly these latter things are not enough considered when Men forsake their Duty because of the little Labour and Self-denial that it would put us to Let me then briefly propose to you some few things to be further thought on at your Leisure 1. Consider the grievous and heavy Calamities in this Life which the Sins of Men always expose them to and often bring them under Evil pursueth Sinners 't is said and how often do we see that it overtakes them too with a very sudden and terrible Vengeance The Judgment and Wrath of God often mixes with the Sinner's pleasant and profitable Sins and does utterly spoil and imbitter them Idleness Drunkenness and Uncleanness bring a Man often to Rags and Poverty Diseases painful loathsome and mortal are the frequent troublesome effects of Intemperance and lawless Lusts Tho the World be very lamentably wicked yet are some Sins Matter of Ignominy and Shame in the sight of the World And Men have made Penal Laws against some sorts of Wickedness and he who will take no pains to restrain and regulate himself is often left by the Spirit of God to fall into those Sins which subject him to the Ignominy and Loss and Pain of those Penalties The Afflictions of this Life are very grievous and uneasy to whoever falls under them and he that constantly provokes Almighty God must needs be most exposed to them And these are most heavy and sensible to the wretched Sinner whose Heart is set on the things of this World and who wants those inward Consolations that are wont to support good Men under their Afflictions Sin in its Nature tends to misery Is it not our Wisdom then to take a little pains to avoid Sin rather than to expose our selves for want of that pains to a great deal of Misery To the suffering of much Affliction and that too from the Wrath and incensed Justice of God which will give what ever we can endure the greatest Sharpness and Aggravation that it can possibly have 2. The Sinner is liable to the anguish and pangs of a