and leave nothing to the mercy of a Law-quirk And in both cases thank the vigilant care of their informer that gave them notice of their danger but let the Divine tell them he sees their Souls languishing under the most mortal diseases that they have actually forfeited their inheritance in the land of the living they can hear it unconcernedly say or at least think those cares are to be remitted to Felix his more convenient season that when their Bodies are as infirm as their Souls then care may be taken for both together That 't is enough for their spiritual Life to commence when the natural is expiring and then to provide for everlasting Habitations when they are putting off their Earthly Tabernacle as for the thanks they give their Monitor 't is generally the same that St. Paul received from the Galatians to count him their enemy for telling them the truth Gal. 4. 16. but alass he has no reason to resent the injury since 't is but the same they offer to their nearest and most intimate friend that Angel guardian which God and Nature has placed within their own breasts I mean their Conscience let that at any time whisper the same admonition and immediately they cry out as Ahab to Eliah Hast thou found me O my Enemy All arts are us'd to convey themselves out of its Reach Business or Company or Drink or any thing is solicited to come in to their rescue that in that throng they may deceive its pursuit or at least in that louder noise drown its voice and is not this to look on it as their Enemy while they shun it as a Malefactor does the Officer Yet I appeal to the breasts of those who lean upon the broken reed of a late Repentance whether this be not the case with them let them tell me whether they dare trust themselves alone with their Conscience give it opportunity of speaking freely to them of laying before them the mad adventure they make of their precious Souls which they do not only expose to as many hazards of a swift damnation as there are accidents which may surprize their bodies with a sudden death but do besides by this resistance repel and quench that Spirit without which they can never hope to effect that so necessary so difficult a work nay I may I fear ask some of them whether they have not so often shunned these parleys that their Consciences like an abus'd Friend has at last given them over ceast to pursue them with more of those unwelcome importunities and by its silence left them secur'd from all noise which may disturb that treacherous sleep into which they have lulled themselves To those who are thus given up to the spirit of slumber I cannot hope to speak loud enough to rouse them but to those that are but of the former rank that have not yet so prosper'd in their unkind design against themselves as quite to have alienated their bosom friend that are yet within the reach of those amica verbera the stripes and reproofs of their own Conscience to such I would address with this most affectionate petition that they would not seek to remove themselves from that wholsome discipline that they would not fly that Chyrurgion whose Lancet threatens none but the imposthumated parts but rather chuse to be shewed the formidableness of their Danger than by a blind embracing it to perish in it And if they have but any general confus'd inclinations to this so reasonable a request I shall then put on more solemnity assume to come as an Envoy from those dreaded Consciences of theirs to mediate an enterview to propose the fixing some time of parley and bespeak their patience to hear it out And let them but grant this let them but dare to do so much in order to their own safety and I can scarce think it possible they should after retain that daring which only tends to their ruine In a word let men seriously and attentively listen to that voice within them and they will certainly need no other medium to convince them either of the error or danger of thus procrastinating their Repentance which themselves acknowledge must not upon their utmost peril be finally omitted and yet nothing but an immediate dispatch can secure it shall not 'T WILL be needless to descend to a particular view of more of these deceits they will easily be detected by this one general Rule that whatsoever falls short of a present universal permanent Change falls as much short of Repentance All the pretences that are made upon any other score are but the Garments of the elder brother put upon the back of the younger which though they might delude a blind Isaac will never be able to deceive an all-seeing God All that remains is to offer to the Readers consideration how nearly he is concern'd to guard himself against all delusions in this so important an affair It was an ancient Stratagem of War to poison the waters in an Enemies Camp that so they may drink their own deaths but Satan has here far out-vied that Policy Were but our Nourishment infected we had still a recourse left us to Medicine but here he has envonom'd our very Physick and what cure remains for those whose very remedies are their disease when that Bath which was design'd to cleanse us is its self polluted we may well cry out as Dyonisius of the corrupted River of Alexandria 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what Flood shall cleanse these Waters Where can we be secure when our Repentance which the Apostle 2 Tim. 2. 26. supposes the Means of disentangling us is its self become our Snare This as it loudly proclaims our danger so surely in all reason it should awake our care teach us not to suffer our selves to be abus'd with delusive appearances and shadows of Repentance lest we finally find that Ixion-like we have embrac'd a Cloud What an amazing defeat will it be to him who presumes his Tears have blotted out the hand-writing against him to find the full Bill brought in at the great Assize and those he call'd his penitential sorrows here to prove but the Prologue to that Tragedy which ends in weeping and gnashing of teeth And therefore let every one timely provide against that fatal surprize use this excellent receipt not as a Cosmetick only to beautifie the face give him some fair appearance to himself but as Medicine to restore health reduce him to such an Athletick vigorous Habit as may evidence its self in all vital Actions which will prove the best evidences in our last trial where the inquisition will not be so much upon our Mouths or Eyes as upon our Hands not how many confessions we have made or how many tears shed but what acts of Vertue we have substituted in the room of our Vices whether we have broke off our Sins by righteousness and our Iniquities by shewing mercy to the Poor and without this 't is infallibly
one side and then to another he will be apt to think the only clue to extricate him out of this labyrinth of many Religions is to abandon all Nor is this meer Speculation and Conjecture God knows we have had successively through the whole round of Error too many practick experiments of it Several persons there have been whose Zeal to find out truth by an unhappy rule of False directed them to allow of every Error While like sick men who desire to die good cheap they put themselves into the hands of any Empirick follow each bold pretender that has the impudence to talk of Truth till Superstition ends in Profanation Godliness proves Atheism and by having been of many Sects at last have no Religion And surely this is a most unhappy Effect of our discords thus to be stumbling-blocks in our brothers way and when we remember the woes pronounc'd against those that shall Scandalize any of the little ones 't will be strange how men can think to approve their Christianity by the ruine of their Brothers or secure themselves of Heaven by keeping Others thence For though Christ tells his Disciples there should be some that should think it a service to God to kill their Bodies yet to phancy the destroying of Souls so too is a Deception of which we have neither record nor prediction in Holy Writ and is a superfaetation of the spirits of delusion peculiar to those who have placed their own sanctity in these religious wranglings which serve to destroy it in other men And as they thus serve on the one side to shipwrack the faith of these weak unstable Souls so do they on the other advance the impiely of the daring sinner for as they are Temptation to the one so are they Pretence and Excuse to the other to bid defiance to all Religion He whose dissolute affections have so long been courting his understanding to turn Atheist will sure not lose the advantage of so plausible an Argument as our divisions afford him and since his lusts engage him in an irreconcilable War against the practick part of Piety he will most gladly embrace this occasion of quarrel against the Theory also So making himself entire and extinguishing those uneasie regrets and misgivings arising from the repugnancy of his life to his belief It were not hard to give a compendium of these mens Logick and draw out those Schemes of Discourse by which from our differences in Religion they infer the discarding of all But I fear these are already too well known and where they are not I should be loth to be any mans Instructor This is I am sure too palpable that how fallacious soever these Reasonings are they have been very operative as appears by the number of those avowed Atheists among us who placing themselves in the seat of the scorner give themselves much pleasing Divertisement by deriding our eager scuffles about that which they think nothing If any man thinks that the Church is no loser by the defection of such Libertines I must be allowed to dissent from him For first there are examples of the most vicious Persons that have been reduced and while they retain their Christian belief that lays such undeniable obligations to good life that whenever they resume their reason they must take up vertue also with it so that there is an equal possibility of their being good that there is of their being rational But when all hope and fear of a future estate is disclaim'd when those cords are broken which should pull them up from the Dungeon then and not before is their state visibly desperate But besides this possibility of recovering them the danger of losing others is to be considered Bold Atheism is like a raging Pestilence which taints the very Air so that those impious discoursings which are the effects of some mens Vices may be the cause of others and we too often see that those who ascended themselves by degrees do in an instant advance their Proselytes to the height of Irreligion as appears by the strange proficiency of some whose Years allow them not to have arrived to it otherwise than per Saltum And sure this spreading Contagion has been so destructive to the Church that it were to be wisht the meer titular Christians had rather remain'd such than thus to have averted others from being so much AND now if all these scandals be worth our regret if the emboldening and exasperating the bad the corrupting the innocent and the decay of Christian profession consequent to both be formidable Evils we know where to charge the guilt Our contentions must be arraigned as accessaries if not principals in the case And then sure it will befit our angry Zealots to consider whether this be the way of advancing Gods truth or what account they will give to the Lord of the Vineyard who while they pretend to dress and prune the branches do thus debilitate and destroy the roots Nay indeed in this they are treacherous even to their own pretensions for all those several Religions which they so tenderly cherish have no proper root of their own but like Excrescencies spring out of the main stock of Christianity live by its juice and moisture and consequently can never hope to survive it And then certainly there can be nothing more ridiculous than to express their kindness to the one by ways that are so ruinous to the other 'T is as if a Passenger in a Ship should to fortifie his private Cabin tear up the planks and expose the whole Vessel to sinking Yet thus preposterously do many of our chief Pilots apply their care In the mean time it cannot but be a very delightful prospect to the grand Enemy of Souls to see us thus busily promote his interest lay snares for our selves and by our own folly do that which all his subtilties could never compass Nor can we think but he will be as officious to us as is possible while we are thus employed will help us to contrive our Turrets whilst he sees we pluck out stones from the foundation to build them with nor shall we ever want new models of Churches so long as they thus help to destroy the old and how aptly they are fitted for that Purpose needs I suppose no farther Demonstration CHAP. XII A survey of the Mischiefs arising from Disputes in reference to Civil Peace AND now sure we cannot but conclude our Contentions highly injurious to Christianity that thus assault it both in the Practick and Theory And indeed how fierce soever our quarrels are with one another the heaviest blows are sure to fall on that which as in its constitution is of the most Pacifick temper imaginable so it has the common fate of reconcilers to suffer from all parties But Godliness having the promise as well of this life as of that which is to come it often happens that there is such a consent between our spiritual and secular Concerns that the Mischiefs
other design but that of taking the lightest those to which their constitutions or other circumstances carry least repugnance and come unto the Gospel not to as a law but to a Market cheapen what they best like and leave the rest for other customers THAT thus it is with many needs no other proof than the variety visible in the lives of several professors One man behaves himself modestly and tells you his religion commands him humility yet at the same time transgresses the as strict precept of Justice and will defraud him he bows to On the contrary another is Just but Insolent and though his Sentence do not bend expects his Clients should That man owns the purity of his religion in visiting the fatherless and widows yet disclaims it again by not keeping himself unspotted of the world This person is Abstemious but Uncharitable will drink no wine but thirsts for bloud He prays much yet curses more whilest he is meek but indevout Now while the Rule is one and the same how should it come that mens Practices should so vary were it not for the unequal Application did they take it entire though there might be difference in the degrees yet sure not in the kinds of their Vertues and as men would not differ so from one another so neither would they from themselves there would be then no such thing as a charitable Drunkard a devout Oppressor a chast Miser Monsters engendred by this unnatural commixture of light with darkness but Piety would be uniform and extensive and bring into captivity every thought unto the obedience of Christ 2 Cor. 10. 5. And till it be thus Christianity can never be thought to have atchiev'd any part of its design which was not aim'd against any one single limb but against the whole body of sin Alas 't is not the lopping off one of the remote members that will render the remaining ones any whit the less vital the having a part less to animate will rather serve to concenter the spirits and make them more active in the rest as we see the pruning of Trees makes them more prolifick And this effect is very obvious among men he who has no general dislike to vice if he repudiate one 't is commonly that he may cleave closer to another and what he defalks from some dry insipid sin is but to make up a Benjamin's Mess for some other more gustful If the Wanton be sober 't is odds he thinks excess a Rival to his lust if the Proud man be liberal 't is because covetousness is inglorious such unevennesses are caus'd not by an unkindness to any Sin unless possibly that aversion which natural constitution raises in some but by a partiality to one or more favourite Vices for whose better accommodation and securer reign not only Vertue but other Vices also must give place AND this 't is much to be fear'd will upon a true account be found to be the sum of many mens piety something they think they must pay to the importunity of their Religion which upbraids them so loudly that they are willing to stop its mouth but yet would do it with as much frugality and good managery as may be and so consider what 't is they can best spare what refuse Sin which brings them in little of satisfaction and is perhaps in competition with some other more agreeable and this they can be content to devote to the slaughter set it to receive all the impressions of the sword of the spirit and so use it as a buckler to their darling lusts to ward off those blows which must else fall heavy on them but alas this is not to obey but to delude to ransom a greater Sin with a less and to transcribe in this matter the Counsel of Caiphas to let one die for the People that the whole nation Perish not To make one forlorn guilt a Patriot to the rest whilest in the tempest which threatned a general shipwrack the precious wares are preserv'd by throwing the less valuable over board AND truly that is commonly the event men are so jolly and triumphant when they have worsted a trivial inconsiderable sin as if they had defeated the whole army this poor despicable spoil is set up as their Trophe and must they think witness for them both to God and man that they are good souldiers of Iesus Christ they can like Saul with full confidence meet the Prophet and tell him they have fulfilled the Commandment of the Lord 2 Sam. 15. 13. though Agag and the best cattle the reigning and fattest sins be spar'd and while they are thus secure their sins will certainly be so also have no disturbance or disquiet from them but lie at Ease and rest feed like Canibals upon their own kind be nourisht by the carkasses of those unlucky vices on whom the exterminating lot hapned to fall and by that means grow to a prodigious bulk and corpulency And upon these terms Satan himself will allow us to mortifie some sins nay will himself cast the first stone at them and like a rooking gamester purposely lose these petty stakes that he may afterwards sweep the board FOR if men should give themselves up universally to all sorts of Ill if they should set themselves in a total opposition to all the documents of their profession he would lose one of his most useful engins there could be no such thing as a false delusive hope they might possibly by obstinacy harden or by diversion gag Conscience but they could not bribe and corrupt it make it sit down well pleas'd and satisfied with its self For when the threats against disobedience shall occurr to the mind of one who has in all instances disobey'd 't is impossible he should find any salve any way of Evading the Threats they make so directly at him but he who can alledge for himself that he obeys in some things confronts that to all Objections and resolves he is not in the list of the disobedient One or two such comfortable instances are as mighty as God promis'd the Israelites should be Deut. 32. 30. one able to chase a thousand and two to put ten thousand to flight all fears and misgiving thoughts are dissipated and fled before them and as once the French King in his return to the numerous swelling titles of the Spaniard thought the bare repetition of France France France was a full ballance to them all so when whole files of great and scandalous Crimes present themselves one single vertue is thought a sufficient counterpoize He whose Conscience upbraids him with all Profaneness towards God and in Sobriety towards himself yet if he can but answer that he is just to his neighbour he thinks he has quit scores and fears no farther reckonings he who is immerst in all the filthiness both of flesh and spirit has abandon'd his Mind to pride and envie his Body to lust and intemperance and so sacrificed both those to Devils yet if he
attendance on practick Duties and so whilest we quarrel with one another give our great Master too just ground of quarrel with us all by neglecting the great and indeed only Business entrusted to us NOW indeed that our contentions do thus divert us is too apparent to any that shall consider it in any of the three forementioned particulars for first for our time they do not only insensibly steal away much of it a modesty which most other diversions do still retain but Magisterially exact it and accordingly have large parcels of it solemnly and avowedly devoted to them the scanning old questions and raising new ones having been the profest Business of many mens lives their very Vocation and Trade wherein they have arrived to such eminence as shews they made liberal oblations of their Time to it And of this every age has left so many Records as the meer reading them would allow few vacant minutes to the succeeding And had not time a little reveng'd his own quarrel and consum'd many of those writings by which himself was wasted the Hyperbole would not be very extravagant in this case which we find warrantably us'd in another Io. 21. that even the world its self could not contain the Books which have been written As it is there are more than enough to employ nay devour time for when men once launch into the vast Sea of Controversie they are tossed there endlesly and seldom recover a harbour Difficulties like waves crouding one upon the neck of another And accordingly we see in Polemick Disputes how every rejoynder swells bigger and bigger till like Gehazies cloud from a hand breadth it over-spread the Heavens every little Manual becomes the Parent of vast Volumes and unless the evil cure its self by majoration unless the greatness of the task bring in despair to supplant curiosity and keep men from reading the spectators will have as little respite as the Combatants both Writers and Readers will be so ingrost that they will have little leisure for any thing else And I dare in this appeal to any that have engag'd deep either way whether they have not found it experimentally true I wish they would but snatch some broken parcel as a plank from the common shipwrack of their time rescue a few minutes for a sober reflection and audit what real Profit accrues to them from the expence of so many precious Hours how much it advances that grand business for which their Time here was allotted and according to which their Eternity hereafter will be awarded always remembring that if it promote it not it hinders it by diverting that time which should have been so employed And indeed there cannot be a more comprehensive mischief than this of the loss of time it being that which virtually contains the frustrating of all other Advantages whereby we should work out our Salvation The operations even of Christ himself were he tells us limited to a certain season I must work the work of my Father whilest it is day the night cometh when no man can work and if the Night overtake us it matters not how we are stored with instruments of Action since they all at once then become useless Our Laws anciently set a greater penalty upon the stealing Beasts of breed than on other Cattel of the same species as calculating the dammage by the possibilities of which the Owner was robb'd Time is the universal womb of things and actions and therefore when we lose that we suffer an accumulative prejudice forfeit our Rights in reversion as well as our Possessions our capacities as well as enjoyments As in an Abortion the unhappy Mother besides the frustration of her hopes and child-birth pains sustain'd acquires an aptitude to miscarry for the future and never to be able to bring forth a vital birth And thus God knows multitudes of Embryon purposes perish and the misery of it is they are our best that do so We generally pursue our frivolous projects with an active vigour but keep our great and concerning affairs only in design till death come and surprize us which like the fatal Metamorphoses the Poets talk of fixes us in the posture it finds us and so presents us to Iudgment Now I would know of the most eager Contender whether he would not chuse then to be found with his hands stretcht out in prayer to God or alms to the poor rather than dealing blows amongst his fellow servants if he would certainly 't is his concern to put himself into that form he would then appear in to husband his little span of time so as may stand him in stead when time shall be no more BUT if men will needs be improvident yet why will they be ridiculous too if they will barter away their time methinks they should at least have some ease in exchange but to be industrious ill-husbands to lose all their advantage and none of their toil is such a solemn piece of folly as is at once matter of Scorn and Wonder yet this is the very case here our wranglings do not only exhaust our time but our strength too We pursue them with so vehement an intention as if our Faith propos'd not to us any other victory but over this sort of Opponents We run our selves breathless in this race where the prize is only a few fading Leaves or what is more transitory a little popular applause and make not towards the incorruptible Crown till we are grown too feeble and decrepit for the other pursuit Men macerate their Bodies and waste their Spirits in Polemick studies prescribe themselves no time of discharge from that War till they are able no longer to weild their weapons and then when meer Impotence makes them peaceable begin to cry out of contention snatch up Devotion when Controversie begins to be too heavy for them and at their Death pray for that peace of the Church which they have made it the business of their life to disturb This as it sufficiently attests what mens thoughts are in their cool blood what apprehensions they have of the way when they draw near their journeys End so does it abundantly evince the unspeakable prejudice Piety receives from our Disputes Those have the active and vigorous Abettors while That is turn'd off to languishing bed-rid Votaries So that the division between these two is like that of the Cattel between Iacob and Laban all the stronger to the one and feebler to the other Would God the Scene were not in one respect chang'd and that the Syrian had not here got the better share But in the mean time what greater advantage can Satan wish for our strength and industry is diverted upon these foreign expeditions and Sion is left to be guarded by the lame and the blind such only as are not able to follow the Camp and then 't is not strange to see what succesful assaults he has made that that true practick vertue which once made such victorious salleys on
some parts of Knowledge which God has thought fit to seclude from us to fence them not only as he did the interdicted Tree by Precept and Commination but with Difficulties and Impossibilities made it not only our sin and danger but our Folly and madness to attempt them Of this kind are the Mysterious parts of our Religion which he shews us as it were a-far off to exercise our faith and reverence but stoops them not to our sense and disquisition These he has placed like the Sun where they may influence not annoy warm not scorch us And would we still permit them to remain at that safe and wholsome distance we should find none but benigne effects but so importunate are the instigations of Curiosity that no bounds will keep us from the Mount We will needs break through into the thick darkness how dreadful soever the thunders and lightnings are in the way Like bold Phaetons we despise all benefits wherewith the Father of light and us can court us unless we may guide his Chariot and we moralize the Fable as well in the tragicalness of the event as the insolence of the undertaking this unhappy Curiosity having not only ruin'd many of the inquisitors but set the whole world also in a conflagration Nor is this temerity more fatal in its Success than impious in its Foundation For besides that it is a direct invasion of Gods peculiar and violation of his Command it does evidently imply a distrust either of his Wisdom or his Goodness supposes him either so ignorant of the strength of those faculties himself has made that he has assigned them unproportionable objects and so they must have new work cut out for them by our selves or else presumes his Eye evil towards his own Creatures that as the Devil once suggested to our first Parents he fears the rivalry of poor mortals and by an envious detention of some parts of felicity like one that had been Bountiful only upon surprize and incogitancy illiberally retracts and contradicts his original design of making Man completely happy Nay indeed this represents him unkind not only to us his created Images but even to that Eternal and express image of his Person the Son of his bosom who may well be thought to have been as despised in his Eyes as he was once in ours Esay 53. 3. if he have so cheaply expos'd him for their sakes to whom he denies any of those intellectual advantages which difference them from Beasts Thus wickedly curious are we that rather than converse with vulgar ordinary things we create prodigies put new forms upon him that is unchangeable rob divinity of its most inseperable attribute and not only disobey God but reproach him And then 't is no wonder if that which affords so little glory to God hath no more good-will for Men and that which thus wars with Heaven leave little peace on Earth Indeed if we will be building our Babels and thus assault Omnipotence 't is but just we should have our language confounded and that that knowledge for which we boldly attempt to rifle Gods cabinet should like the Coal from the Altar serve only to embroil and consume the sacrilegious invaders Yet besides what is owing to divine vengeance in the case the thing has in its self a proper natural efficiency toward it for when so many men are engag'd in a blind search 't is not imaginable they should all stumble upon the same Notions and supposing them to fall upon variety 't is impossible but mens fond overweening of their own conceits and petulant disdains of others will improve that variety into Opposition and that opposition into set and Solemn Feuds And God knows the Church is too effectively acquainted with this fatal gradation and can experimentally attest the unhappy propriety of this sort of Curiosity towards the engendring of discord and confusion BUT besides this higher rank of things which God hath set so much above us there are others of an inferior sort as much below us which are concealed from us not for their sublimity but their uselesness for as God on the one hand remembers that we are but flesh unable to bear the nearer approaches of divinity and so talks with us as once with Moses through a cloud So on the other he forgets not that he breathed into us the breath of life a vital active spirit whose motions he expects should own the dignity of its original and as it was its self an emanation of the Essential Goodness should aim at only real and solid good and not evaporate and exhaust its powers in mean and impertinent pursuits And upon this score also he has found it necessary to hide many things from us not that they would dazzle but misemploy our Eye not swallow up our Understanding but divert our Attention from what is more important Of this sort are those many thin aerial speculations the certain knowledge whereof would bring us no real advantage make us at all the wiser to Salvation yet such a value does our inquisitive Nature set upon every thing for its being hid that as if our Life were bound up with these Secrets and all our Felicity dwelt in the Shade of these recesses we pursue this search with indefatigable industry ransack all corners with as great diligence as the Woman for her lost piece of Silver Luk. 15. 8. And as if this were indeed the treasure hid in the field sell all that we have lay out our whole selves upon the purchase Indeed he that shall consider what solemn Disquisitions there are upon the slightest and inconsiderablest Subjects with what Advertence and concern Questions of this kind are bandied in the world must wonder how men can at once be so serious and so trifling or that those who can say so much should not once ask themselves to what purpose they say any thing Yet what multitudes of men are there engag'd in such chases as this when alas the quarry is not worth half the toil could it be gotten but what Solomon sayes of the sluggard Prov. 12. 27. that he rosteth not that which he took in hunting is true of the contrary temper these over-busie spirits whose labour is their only reward they hunt a shadow and chase the wind and when they strein to their utmost speed there is still the wonted Distance between them and their aims all their eager pursuits bring them no acquest but after they have traverst so much ground traced all the mazes that learned Curiosity could contrive to perplex men and stâ—â—ied to the weariness of the flesh if not to the quenching of the Spirit too they are still in the same ignorance from whence they set out and 't were well if they were also in the same doubtfulness But the unhappiness of it is they acquire a confidence without any true ground of it and get such a Knowledge as may puff up but not edifie This was eminently exemplified in the Gnosticks of old
to bring us to bliss herein far exceeding the barbarity of the brutish Sodomites they would have violated the Messengers of their ruine but we those of our safety We having not only neglected but vilified and reproacht the Embassy sent us from Heaven and instead of embracing that purity and peace it recommended to us have done our Parts to make it forgotten that ever it was sent upon any such Errand and indeed so it is like to be if some Heroick piety do not revive its Memory and teach us to record it not so much in our books as lives There and there only it will be universally legible there it would indeed appear what it is in its own nature the power of God unto Salvation AND now why should we not all Emulously contend who shall first put off that ugly vizor we have put upon our Religion and restore it to its native form especially considering that with its Beauty we lose its Dowry too forfeit all those glorious Rewards which it promises to them that preserve it immaculate 'T is only a pure and undefiled Religion that will invest us in those white robes wherein we are to follow the Lamb. And sure those who have here endeavoured to darken and extinguish all the rays of Spiritual Light that have lived as if they profest Christianity meerly in spight to defame it must never hope it shall bring them to shine as the Sun in the Kingdom of their Father or procure them the reward of blameless Souls No it promises no other Crown than that of Righteousness and therefore they that want the Righteousness must want the Crown also Nay besides that so inestimable a Reversion they lose all those present Joys and satisfactions which true Christian practice would afford them and which both in respect of the intenseness and duration infinitely exceed the most profuse sensualities the World ever tasted THESE are interests that are sure Important enough and yet we must be woed to consider them nay that does not prevail neither but with a perverse Coyness we hold off all the solicitations and importunate Calls of God are lookt upon as Artifices and Designs as if he had some Ends of his own to serve upon us and as the Corinthians suspected St. Paul meant to make a gain of us we treat with him as if he were the Person to be advantaged and barter for Heaven with such an Indifference as if it would want Us more than We It never considering that 't is impossible for him to have any other Concern than that which his Compassion to us creates and the more earnest and passionate That is the more it should excite our own care it being the Extremest degree of perverse Folly to abandon and despise our own Interest meerly because a Friend or Patron considers and prizes it And this brand must lye upon every one of us who still refuse to discern the things that belong to our Peace after God has done so much to render them not only visible but attainable WHAT shall I say more but conclude with Christs passionate wish that we might in this our day understand the things that belong to our Peace and O that the Spirit of Peace and Light would descend among us illuminate us with that true practical Wisdom which may convince us that our Duty and Interest are the same thing under several forms and that while we impiously cast off the one we do as foolishly betray the other That so those inestimable advantages our Christianity gives towards both may not be thus madly lost serve only as a price in the hand of a Fool who hath no heart to it Prov. 17. And to this end let us humbly and earnestly invoke the Father of lights to illuminate all those whom the God of this world hath blinded that after he hath sent into the world the Image of his own eternal brightness caused the Sun of Righteousness so long to shine upon us it may not serve only to involve us in that most dreadful condemnation which awaits those who love darkness more than light but that answering the purpose of our holy calling walking as Children of light we may vindicate that Christian profession which we have so defamed secure to our selves the light of Gods countenance here and that of his glory hereafter FINIS ERRATA PAge 12. Line 19. for taught Read sought p. 97. l. 9. for diverts r. divests p. 99. l. 7. for insiduous r. insidious p. 105. l. 27. for them r. him p. 114. l. 14. for one r. own p. 118. l. 6. for owes r. owns p. 164. l. 27. for assimulation r. assimilation p. 165. l. 17. for shouls r. shoals p. 171. l. 16. for avow r. disavow