the first table to obtain a dispensation in point of righ teousness to man in the second? Will thy pretended love to God excuse the malice and rancour which thy heart swells with against thy neighbour? thy devotion to God excuse thee from paying thy debts to man? God forbid thou shouldest think so; but if thou dost, Peter's counsel to Simon Magus is mine to thee: "Repent of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thy heart may be forgiven thee." Acts viii. 22. In the name of God, I charge every one that wears Christ's livery, to make conscience of this piece of righteousness, as you would not bring upon your heads the vengeance of God for all those blasphemies which the nakedness of some professors in this particular, yea base practices of some hypocrites, have given occasion to be belched out by the ungodly world against Christ and the good ways of holiness. Now the power of holiness (as to this particular) will be preserved when these two things are looked to.

First, when our care is uniform, and equally distributed to endeavour the performing of one duty we owe to our neighbour as well as another. For we must know there is a righteousness that (as one saith) runs through every precept, as it were the veins of every law in the second table; and calls for obedience due to parents natural, civil, ecclesiastical, in the fifth command; our care to preserve our neighbour's life in the sixth, chastity in the seventh, estate in the eighth, good name in the ninth, and our desires in their due bounds, against coveting what is our neighbour's in the tenth. Now as health in the body is preserved by keeping the passages of life open, for the spirits freely to move from one part to another (which once obstructed from doing their office in any part, the health of the body is presently in danger) so here the spirit and life of holiness is preserved in the Christian, by a holy care and endeavour to keep the heart free and ready to pass from doing one duty he owes his neighbour to another, according to the several walks that are in every command for him to move in.

Secondly, as our care must be uniform, so the motive and spring within that sets us at work, and makes all

these wheels move, must be evangelical. The command is a road in which both Heathen, Jew, and Christian may be found travelling. How now shall we know the Christian from the other, when Heathen and Jew also walk along with him in the same duty: seem as dutiful children, obedient wives, loyal subjects, loving neighbours, as the Christian himself? Truly if it be not in the motive from which and end to which he acts, nothing else can do it. Look therefore well to this, or else thou art out of thy way, while thou seemest to be in thy road. It is very ordinary for men to wrong Christ, when they do their neighbour right; and this is done when Christ is not interested in the action, and love to him doth not move us thereunto: without this thou mayest go for an honest Heathen, but canst not be a good Christian. Suppose a servant were entrusted by his master to go and pay such a man a sum of money, which he doth, yet not out of any dutiful respect to the command or love to the person of his master, but for shame of being taken for a thief. In this case the man should have his due, but the master a great deal of wrong. Such wrong all mere civil persons do the Lord Jesus: they are very exact and righteous in their dealings with their neighbours, but very injurious at the same time to Christ, because they do not this upon his account. This makes love to our neighbour evangelical, and, as Christ calls it, "a new commandment," John xiii. when our love to our brother takes fire from his love to us. We cannot in a Gospel sense be said to do the duty of any commandment, except we first love Christ, and then for his sake do it: "If ye love me, keep my commandments." John xiv. 15. where observe, that as God prefixed his name before the decalogue, so Christ for the same reason doth his before the Christian's obedience to any of them, that so they may keep them, both as his commandments, and out of love to him, who hath brought us out of a worse house of bondage than Egypt was to Israel.

CHAP. XI.

CONTAINS NINE OR TEN DIRECTIONS, TOWARDS THE HELPING THOSE THAT DESIRE TO MAINTAIN THE POWER OF A HOLY RIGHTEOUS CONVERSATION.

THE third thing propounded in handling the point calls now for our dispatch; and that is to lay down some directions by way of counsel and help to all those that desire to maintain the power of holiness and righteousness in their daily walking.

SECT. I.

First, Be sure thou gettest a good foundation laid, on which may be reared the beautiful structure of a holy righteous conversation; and that can be no less than the change of thy heart, by the powerful work of God's sanctifying Spirit in thee. Thou must be righteous and holy, before thou canst live righteously and holily. If the ship hath not its right make at first, be not equally poised according to the law of that art, it will never sail trim; and if the heart be not moulded anew by the workmanship of the Spirit, and fashioned according to the law of the new creature, "in which old things pass away, and all things become new," 2 Cor. v. 17. the creature will never walk holily; it is solid grace in the vessel of the heart that feeds profession in the lamp, holiness in the life, Matth. xxv. 4., Now this thorough change of thy heart is especially to be looked at in these two things.

First, That there be a change made in thy judgment of and disposition of heart to sin: Thou hast formerly had such a notion of sin as hath made it desirable; thou hast looked upon it, as Eve did on the forbidden fruit, thou hast thought it pleasant to the eye, good for food, and worth thy choice to be desired of thee. If thou continuest of the same mind, thy teeth will be watering, and heart continually bankering after it; thou mayest possibly be kept from expressing and venting the inward

thought of thy heart for awhile; but as two lovers, kept asunder by their friends, will one time or other make an escape to each other, so long as their affection is the same it was, so wilt thou to thy lust; and therefore never rest till thou canst say, thou dost as heartily loathe and hate sin as ever thou lovedst it before.

Secondly, Look that there be such a change in thy judgment and heart, as makes thee take an inward complacency and delight in Christ and his holy commands Then there is little fear of thy degenerating, when thou art tied to him and his service by the heart-strings of love and complacency. The devil finds it no hard work to part him and his duty that never joyed nor took true content in doing of it. He whose calling doth not like him, nor fit his genius, as we say, will never excel in it. A scholar learns more in a week, when he comes to relish learning, and is pleased with its sweet taste, than he did in a month, when he went to school to please his master whom he feared, not himself. Observe any person in the thing wherein he takes high content, and he is more careful and curious about that than any other: if his heart be on his garden, O how neatly it is kept! it shall lie, as we say, in print; all the rare roots and slips, that can be got for love and money, shall be sought for. Is it beauty that one delights in? how curious and nice is such a one in dressing herself? she hardly knows when she is fine enough. Truly thus it is here: a soul that truly loves Christ, delights in holiness, all his strength is laid out upon them; may he but excel in this one thing, be more holy, more heavenly, he will give others leave to run before him in any thing else.

SECT. II.

Secondly, Be sure to keep thy eye on the right rule thou art to walk by. Every calling bath a rule to go by, peculiar to itself, which requires some study to get an insight into, without which a man will but bungle in his work. No calling hath such a sure rule, and perfect law to go by, as the Christian's; therefore in earthly professions, and worldly callings, men vary in their way

and method, though of the same trade, because there is no such perfect rule but another may superadd to it. But the Christian hath one standing rule, the Word of God, "able to make the man of God perfect;" now, he that would excel in the power of holiness, must study this. The physician he consults with his Galen; the lawyer with his Lyttleton; and the philosopher with his Aristotle, the master of the arts. How much more should the Christian with the Word, so as to be determined by that, and drawn by that, more than by a whole team of arguments from men? "We can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth," saith Paul, 2 Cor. xiii. 8. O Christian! when credit votes this way, friends and relations that way; when profit bid thee do this, and pleasure that, say as Jehoshaphat concerning Micaiah, "Is there not here a prophet of the Lord besides, that I may enquire of him?" 1 Kings xxii. 7. Is there not the Word of God, that I may be concluded by it, rather than by any of these lying prophets? Now there are three ways that men go contrary to this direction, all of them destructive to the power of holiness: some walk by no rule; some by a false rule; and a third by the true rule, but partially. The first is the Antinomian and libertine; the second is the superstitious zealot; the third is the hypocrite. Beware of all these, except thou meanest to lay the knife to the throat of holiness.

First, Take heed thou dost not take away the rule God sets before thee, with the Antinomian and libertine, who say the Law is not a rule to the Christian. These must needs make crooked lines in their lives, that live by rote, and not by rule. I had thought Christ had baptized the Law and Gospelized it, both by preaching it as a rule of holiness in his sermons, Matt. v. 27. and by walking in his life by the rule of it, 1 Pet. ii. 21, 22. That principle therefore may be indicted for a murderer

righteous and holy life which takes away the rule by which it should be led. This is a subtle way indeed of Satan to surprise the poor creature; if he make the Christian traveller weary of his guide, and once send him away, then it will not be long before he will wander out of Heaven's way, and fall into Hell's road. The Apostle