cording to godliness; he is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil-surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, &c.a." "Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying, which is in faith: now the end of the commandment is charity, out of a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned "."

b

Yet I must here profess, that if any false-hearted, worldly hypocrite, that resolveth to be on the saving side, and to hold all to be lawful, that seemeth necessary to his safety or preferments, shall take any encouragement from what I have here said, to debauch his conscience, and sell his soul, and then call all those furious zealots that will not be as false to God as he; let that man know, that I have given him no cloak for so odious a sin, nor will he find a cover for it at the bar of God, though he may delude his conscience, and bear it out by his carnal advantages before the world.

Direct. XIII. Know that true godliness is the best life upon earth, and the only way to perfect happiness. Still apprehend it therefore, and use it as the best and with great diligence resist those temptations which would make it seem to you a confounding, grievous, or unpleasant thing.'

There are all things concurrent in a holy life, to make it the most delectable life on earth, to a rational, purified mind, that is not captivated to the flesh, and liveth not on air or dung. The object of it is the eternal God himself; the infallible Truth, the only satisfactory good; and all these condescending and appearing to us, in the mysterious, but suitable glass of a Mediator; redeeming, reconciling, teaching, governing, sanctifying, justifying and glorifying all that are his own. The end of it is the pleasing and glorifying our Maker, Redeemer and Sanctifier; and the everlasting happiness of ourselves and others. The rule of it is the infallible Revelation of God, delivered to the church by his Prophets, and his Son, and his Apostles, and comprised in the Holy Scriptures, and sealed by the miracles and operations of the Holy Ghost that did indite them. The work of godliness is a living unto God, and preparing for everlasting life, by foreseeing, foretasting, seeking, and rejoicing

in that endless happiness which we shall have with God; and by walking after the Spirit, and avoiding the filthiness, delusions and vexations of the world and the flesh. The nature of man is not capable of a more noble, profitable and delectable life, than this which God hath called us to by his Son. And if we did but rightly know it, we should follow it with continual alacrity and delight. Be sure, therefore, to conceive of godliness as it is, and not as it is misrepresented by the devil and the ungodly. Read what I have written of this in my " A Saint or a Brute."

As long as a man conceiveth of religion as it is, even the most sweet and delectable life, so long he will follow it willingly and with his heart, and despise the temptations and avocations of fleshly gain and pleasure. He will be sincere, as not being only drawn by other men, or outward advantages, nor frightened into it by a passion of fearfulness, but loving religion for itself, and for its excellent ends; and then he will be cheerful in all the duties of it; and he will be most likely to persevere unto the end. We cannot expect that the heart or will should be any more for God and godliness, than the understanding practically apprehendeth them as good. Nay, we must always perceive in them a transcendant goodness, above all that is to be found in a worldly life; or else the appearing goodness of the creature, will divert us, and carry away our minds. We may see in the very brutes, what a power apprehension hath upon their actions. If your horse be but going to his home or pasture, how freely will he go through thick and thin! But if he go unwillingly, his travel is troublesome and slow, and you have much ado to get him on. It will be so with you in your way to heaven.

It is therefore the principal design of the devil, to hide the goodness and pleasantness of religion from you; and to make it appear to you as a terrible or tedious life. By this means it is that he keeps men from it: and by this means he is still endeavouring to draw you back again, and frustrate your good beginnings and your hopes. If he can thus misrepresent religion to your understandings, he will suddenly alienate your will and corrupt your lives, and make you turn to the world again, and seek for pleasure somewhere else, and only take up with some heartless lip-service,

to keep up some deceitful hope of being saved. And the means which satan useth to these ends are such as these :

He will shew that you will He will cast in

1. He will do his worst to overwhelm you with appearing doubts and difficulties, and bring you to a loss, and to make religion seem to you a confounding, and not a satisfying thing. This is one of his most dangerous assaults upon the weak and young beginners. Difficulties and passions are the things which he makes use of to confound you, and put you out of a regular, cheerful seeking of salvation. When you read the Scriptures, he will mind you of abundance of difficulties in all you read or hear. you seeming contradictions; and tell you never be able to understand these things. thoughts of unbelief and blasphemy, and cause you, if he can, to roll them in your mind. If you cast them not out with abhorrence, but dispute with the devil, he hopes to prove too hard, at least, for such children and unprovided soldiers as you and if you do reject them, and refuse to dispute it with him, he will sometime tell you that your cause is naught, or else you need not be afraid to think of all that can be said against it; and this way he gets advantage of you to draw you to unbelief: and if you escape better than so, at least he will molest and terrify you with the hideousness of his temptations; and make you think that you are forsaken of God, because such blasphemous thoughts have been so often in your minds: and thus he will one while tempt you to blasphemy, and another while affright and torment you with the thoughts of such temp

tations.

So, also, in the study of other good books, he will tempt you to fix upon all that seems difficult to you, and there to confound and perplex yourselves: and in your meditations, he will seek to make all to tend, but to confound and overwhelm you; keeping still either hard or fearful things before your eyes; or breaking and scattering your thoughts in pieces, that you cannot reduce them to any order, nor set them together, nor make any thing of them, nor drive them to any desirable end. So in your prayers he would fain confound you, either with fears, or with doubtful or distracting thoughts about God, or your sins, or the matter or manner of your duty, or questioning whe

ther your prayers will be heard. And so in your self-exmination, he will still seek to puzzle you, and leave you more in darkness than you began, and make you afraid of looking homeward, or conversing with yourselves: like a man that is afraid to lie in his own house when he thinks it haunted with some apparitions. And thus the devil would make all your religion to be but like the unwinding of the bottom of yarn, or a skein of silk that is ravelled; that you may cast it away in weariness and despair.

Your remedy against this dangerous temptation is, to remember that you are yet young in knowledge, and that ignorance is like darkness that will cause doubts, and difficulties, and fears; and that all these will vanish as your light increaseth: and therefore you must wait in patience, till your riper knowledge fit you for satisfaction. And in the mean time, be sure that you take up your hearts most with the great, fundamental, necessary, plain and certain points, which your salvation is laid upon, and which are more suited to your state and strength. If you will be gnawing bones, when you should be sucking milk, and have not patience to stay till you are past your childhood, no marvel if you find them hard, and if they stick in your throats, or break your teeth. See that you live upon God in Christ, and love and practise what you know, and think of the excellency of so much as is already revealed to you. You know already what is the end that you must seek, and where your happiness consisteth; and what Christ hath done to prepare it for you, and how you must be justified, and sanctified, and walk with God. Have you God, and Christ, and heaven to think on, and all the mercies of the Gospel to delight in; and will you lay by these as common matters, or overlook them, and perplex yourselves about every difficulty in your way? Make clean work before you as you go, and live in the joyful acknowledgment of the mercies which you have received, and in the practice of the things you know, and then the difficulties will vanish as you go on.

2. Another of satan's wiles is, to confound you with the noise of sectaries, and divers opinions in religion; while the Popish sect tells you, that if you will be saved, you must be of their church; and others say, you must be of

theirs and when you find that the sects are many, and their reasonings such as you cannot answer, you will be in danger either to take up some of their deceits, or to be confounded among them all, not knowing which church and religion to choose.

But here consider, that there is but one universal church of Christians in the world, of which Christ is the only king and head, and every Christian is a member. You were sacramentally admitted into this catholic church by baptism, and spiritually by being "born of the Spirit." You have all the promises of the Gospel, that if you believe in Christ you shall be saved; and that all the living members of this church are loved by Christ as members of his body, and shall be presented unspotted to the Father, by him who is the Saviour of his body; " and that by one Spirit we are all baptized or entered into this one body d." If then thou hast faith, and love, and the Spirit, thou art certainly a Christian, and a member of Christ, and of this universal church of Christians. And if there were any other church, but what are the parts of this one, then this were not universal, and Christ must have two bodies. Thou art not saved for being a member of the church of Rome, or Corinth, or Ephesus, or Philippi, or Thessalonica, or of any other such; but for being a member of the universal church or body of Christ; that is, a Christian. And as thou art a subject of the king, and a member of this kingdom, whatever corporation thou be a member of (perhaps sometime of one, and sometime of another); so thou art a subject of Christ, whatever particular church thou be of: for it is no church if they be not Christians, or subjects of Christ. For one sect then to say, Ours is the true church, and another to say, Nay, but ours is the true church, is as mad as to dispute whether your hall, or kitchen, or parlour, or coal-house is your house; and for one to say, This is the house, and another, Nay, but it is that: when a child can tell them, that the best is but a part, and the house containeth them all. And for the Papists that take on them to be the whole, and deny all others to be Christians and saved, except the subjects of the Pope of Rome, it is so irrational, antichristian a fiction and usurpation, and odious, cruel, c Ephes. v. 23-27, d 1 Cor. xii. 12, 13.