God; and are dead to the world, and are not servants to our fleshly appetites or senses, or to the things below. 8. In thankfulness for received mercies, and praising the glorious name of God. 9. In the willing and diligent use of the means that God hath appointed us for salvation. 10. In charity or love to all men, even our enemies; and a special love to true believers. 11. In a love to the holy communion of saints, especially in public worship. 12. In a tender desire of the unity of the saints, and their concord and increase of charity; and a trouble at their discord and divisions. 13. In dealing justly in our places with all men, and carefully avoiding all that may be injurious to any. 14. In studying to do all the good we can, and doing it to our power; especially to the household of faith. 15. In a conscionable discharge of the duties of our relations, as rulers, teachers, parents, masters, subjects, and inferiors. 16. In watchfulness against temptations, and avoiding occasions of sin. 17. In serious preparations for sufferings and death, and patient bearing them when they come. These are the things that Godliness doth consist in.

And now out of all I will draw up ten practical directions, which in a special manner I would entreat you to practise, if you would be solidly godly, and not be deceived with names or counterfeits.

Direct. 1. Be sure to live upon the substantials of religion, and let them receive no detriment by a pretence of zeal for lesser points: lay not your religion in uneffectual opinions; and let lower truths and duties keep their places, and not be set above the higher.

Direct. 2. See that your religion be principally seated in the heart. Understand it as well as you can (lest it be taken from you); but never think it is savingly your own while it is but in the brain. So much you believe indeed as you love, and as hath imprinted the image of God upon your hearts. Ever see that your wills be resolved for God and holiness; and that you be able truly to say, I would be perfect; and I would fain be better than I am.

Direct. 3. Be sure you take up with God alone, as your whole felicity, and think not that there is a necessity of the approbation of men, or of liberty, plenty, life, or any thing besides God. Do not only think that there is a God, and a life of glory for you, but live upon them, and be moved

and actuated by them; trust to them, and take them for your part. Live by faith, and not by sight.

Direct. 4. Live daily upon Christ as the only Mediator, without whom we have no access to God, acceptance with him, or receivings from him. Look for all that you have from God to come by him; live on him for reconciliation, for teaching, for preservation, for communication, for consolation, and for salvation. Let Christ make your thoughts of God more familiar, as now reconciled and condescending

to us.

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Direct. 5, Obey the sanctifying motions of the Spirit: and if you have disobeyed, repent; not despairing, but returning to obedience; but see that you live not in any known sin, which a sanctified will can enable you to avoid, Resist sins of passion; but most carefully take heed of sins of interest, deliberately chosen, and kept up as necessary or good.

Direct. 6. Make it the principal work of your religion and your lives, to inflame your hearts with the love of God, as he is presented amiable in his wonderful grace in Jesus Christ. Strive no further to affect your hearts with fears or griefs, or other troubling passions, than as tendeth to the work of love, or is a just expression of it. Go daily to promises, and mercies, and Christ, and heaven, of purpose for fuel to kindle love: be much therefore in thankfulness and praise, which are works of love. All goeth on sweetly, and easily, and acceptably that is carried on by love. That is the best soul, and most like to God, that hath most of love to God and godliness. And that is the best service, and most like to the work of heaven, that hath most of love. Let the principal striving and pleading with your hearts be to kindle love; and your principal complaints, for the want of it.

Direct, 7. Keep up charity to all, even unto enemies; and special love to all the godly. And therefore hate backbiting and slandering, and making the worst of other men's actions take them as thieves that come to rob you of your charity. He that speaks evil of another, persuadeth you so far to hate him, (unless it be in charity, persuading you to seek his cure.) Hear the reproacher and backbiter understandingly, as if he said in words, as he doth in sense, ‘ I pray you hate such a man, or abate your love to him.' As

the way to cause love is to represent the object lovely, which doth much more than command me to love it; so the way to cause hatred, is to represent the object hateful or unlovely, which is more than to bid us hate our brother. And he that hateth his brother is a manslayer; and none such have eternal life abiding in them. Away therefore with those volumes of learned slanders and reproaches, begotten betwixt uncharitableness and self-love, (or pride ;) and take them as the devil's books, that are written to draw thee to hate thy brother. Frown also upon the censorious take heed also of divisions and parties, because they are enemies to universal love, and are but imposthumes or boils of the church, where zeal and love are diseasedly drawn into a narrow compass; and that is appropriated to a few, that should be common to all believers. Cherish meekness and patience, and reject all that carnal zeal or envy, contention and animosities, which are contrary to love. Read and study well the third chapter of St. James, and the epistle of St. John.

Direct. 8. Understand the preciousness and use of time. Love diligence the better, because it is a redeeming of time; a doing much in a little time. Hate that which would rob you of so precious a commodity.

Direct. 9. See that there be no predominant selfishness or worldly interest unmortified at the heart. Study duty, and do it faithfully, and trust God with life, estate, and events; and shift not for yourselves by sinful means.

Direct. 10. Maintain your authority over your sense and fleshly appetites. Captivate not reason to the brutish part; especially under pretence of liberty. Use your bodies as may strengthen them, and best fit them for the work of God: let them have so much delight in things allowed as conduceth to this; but take heed of making the delights of flesh and sense your end, or allowing yourselves in an unprofitable pleasing of your enemy; or of corrupting your minds, and relishing too much sweetness in the things of the flesh, and losing your relish of spiritual things. Set not the bait too near you: keep the gunpowder from the fire. He that believeth that if ever he be damned, it will be for pleasing his flesh before God, and if ever he be saved, he must be first and principally saved from the inordinate pleasures of the flesh,

will not be so forward as brutish infidels are, to seek out for delights, and plead for all that pleaseth them as harmless.

Having thus in the introduction shewed you what Godliness is, and how it may be known, and what you must do to be soundly and sincerely godly, I hope you are prepared for the following discourse, of the Certain Necessity and Excellency of Godliness, which tends to fetch over the delaying, resisting, unresolved wills, of those that are yet in the BRUTISH state, and are strangers to the dispositions, employments, desires, hopes, and joys of true believers. The Lord concur effectually with his blessing. Amen.

LUKE x. 41, 42.

And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things; but one thing is needful; and Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her.

In order to the decision of the great controversy practically managed through the world, Whether Godliness or Worldliness and Sensuality be better? I have already performed the first part of my task, in proving the certainty of the principles of Godliness and of Christianity; which of itself will infer the conclusion, which I undertake to prove, that the reasons for Godliness are so sure, and clear, and great, one must be a SAINT or A BRUTE. that He that will every not choose a life of HOLINESS, hath no other to fall into but a life of SENSUALITY. Either the superior faculties proper to a rational nature must be predominant; and then we can be no less than SAINTS: or else the inferior, brutish faculties will be predominant; and then, (though from your natural powers you are called MEN, yet) if you may be denominated from your intended END and from the USE of your faculties in order to that END, you are but an ingenious kind of BRUTES; exceeding apes and monkies in the cunning contrivance of your unhappy designs, but incomparably worse in your successes; because you were indeed intrusted with the noble faculties and gifts of MEN, while you

captivated them unto your appetites and sense, and lived but to the END of BEASTS.

The second thing that I have to do, for the conquering all opposition to this conclusion, is to prove the NECESSITY of HOLINESS, which (being now to speak to such as profess to believe the Holy Scriptures,) I may easily do from this plain and pregnant text. To which I shall annex such cogent REASONS as may silence those that will not acquiesce in the authority of the holy word.

So great is the difference between a dreaming opinion in religion, (called a dead faith,) and a serious, hearty, practical belief, that if they that say (and do but say) they believe the Holy Scriptures, and yet are ungodly, had soundly believed, considered, and digested this very text, it would have made such a change both in their hearts and lives, as would have told them by happy experience, that the Gospel is not a dead letter, nor saving faith a lifeless, ineffectual thing; and that God sent not his Son into the world only to be complimented with, and reverently treated with a few good words; nor his Gospel and ministers merely to be entertained with a demure, silent, and respectful audience; nor hath proposed his kingdom to be merely the matter of commendation or discourse. But that as man is a creature of a noble and capacious nature, so he hath a high and noble end, and consequently the highest employment for his reason; and that religion is the most NECESSARY and must be the most SERIOUS business in the world. Did they believe this text, as verily they pretend to believe the Gospel, it would help to the recovery of the understandings of the ambitious, and make the proud ashamed of their glory, and settle the drunken, aspiring minds of those that think it worth more than their salvation, to sit upon the highest perch. It would call off the covetous worldling his immoderate seeking provisions for the flesh, and save them that are drowned in the cares of this life, by shewing them the true and necessary treasure. It would spare them many a vexatious thought, and a great deal of unnecessary labour, and prevent the shame and horror that must befal them, when in the end they find their labour lost, and all their expectations frustrated. It would quickly stop the mouths which prejudice, ignorance, malignity, enmity and deliration have opened against a life of faith and serious godliness; and