that are connatural and fuitable; wherefore fometime you have faith when repentance is comprehended tho' not mentioned; fometime repentance when faith is not mentioned. For this is a rule, that in things that are connatural and of the fame nature, where there is one there is all the rest. Aristotle hath this notion in his moral virtues, of which he reckons eleven; they are all connext and all terminate in prudence fo it is in divinity; that radical and vital spirit of religion which doth appear in one act that is truly an act of religion and of purity and conscience, that act will also produce all other acts that are connatural and suitable. Alfo you yourselves do comprehend that no man doth know, understand and believe, if he do act the contrary; no man believes a thing to be deadly poifon, if he will take it. This in the general that you may understand here that it is not a precife notion of the understanding alone, but it is such an act as contains in it the utmost improvement and highest excellency of the whole man, to understand and know God. And truly thus to understand and know God, we may glory; for we have a hearty fatisfaction; for nothing is more fatisfactory to the mind of man, than to perceive God, and to receive from him. It is good to draw near to God; happiness and immortality are in his prefence, hell and misery in the loss of him. It is fo much of the future ftate, as this ftate will bear. For the future ftate is ever to be with the Lord; and he that is awakened to a lively sense of God in his foul, he is much with God, he clofes with all advantages. to think of him, and to make all application to him;

account.

this is a lively fenfation and perception of God in our minds, the love of God ruling in our hearts, the fear of God before our eyes, being always in the fight and apprehension of God; how precious are thy thoughts unto me, O God! When I awake, I am fill with thee, Pfal. cxxxix. 17, 18. A man may be faid to awake in the sense of the Pfalmist, upon a five-fold 1. When I did awake, or when I arose out of nothing into being; that is, when God at first made us, he made us to have fight and sense and apprehension of him; for then the spirit of a man is the candle of the Lord, lighted by God; a candle is, lux illuminata & lux illuminans, fo the fpirit of a man, for mind and understanding are faculties fitted for God, that have an appropriation unto God. 2. When we awake by fpiritual regeneration; fo the apoftle faith of regeneration, he hath shined in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God, that is, when he takes us out of the darkness of fin and brings us unto the light of God. 3. When I awake every morning, when I awake from nature's reft; for my eyes prevent the dawnings of the morning, I prevent the night watches in thoughts of him. 4. When I awake, that is, after I have given over to act or to think, when I begin de novo, take a new thing in hand; for it is creature-like and chriftian too, to begin always with God, to acknowledge him duly, to afk him leave, go out in his name, depend upon his affiftance in every further undertaking; that is, whenever i engage in a new business, awake to a new employment. 5. When I awake, when I fhall awake at the refurrection unto life; for then we fhall be ever with the Lord.

I

It

It is well obferved by our great orator Tully, that religion is a kind of juftice towards God; we do God right by religious motion, for we do fuum tribuere. Obfervance, regard, and dutiful acts in religion, are the bond between God and man: by religion we become alfo partakers of the divine nature; we come to imitate and resemble him. Religion is in us, the refemblance and likeness of God. By religion we come to have the fame fenfe of things, and the fame motions with God himself. For we are reconciled to God, to goodness, righteousness and truth. Religion, it brings us to God, ftays us with God, and makes us to end in him. The law of na ture makes it the common condition of created beings, to live, to move and to have being in God; but it is religion that gives fenfe and feeling of it, to ufe the apoftle's words, Acts xvii. 27. if haply they might feel after him and find him. Wicked men are faid to be without God in the world, Eph. ii. 12. God is far from their reins, Jer. xii. 2. God is not in their thoughts, notwithstanding his almighty effence doth fupport and maintain them in being; for this is the explication of it. They that are reconciled in temper and difpofition to God, they are near; then God is present and they are capable of him and apprehenfive of him but God is not prefent to him that is wicked and in a malign spirit, in a contrary difpofition to the nature of God. We are prefent to God by conformity to God; we are abfent from him by diffimilitude and unlikenefs to God. God is not enjoyed by bare notion and speculation, but by imitation and refemblance, viz. when we are in measure

and

It

and degree according to our proportion, what God himself is in his height, excellency and fulness. was a good and short definition of religion, of one of the ancient fathers, fumma religionis imitari quod colis. This is the fum of all religion, and it lies in this, to imitate him whom we worship, and to endeavour after thofe excellencies and perfections which we do attribute to God. The ftate of religion confifts in a God-like frame and temper of mind, and expresses itself in life and actions conformed to the divine will; and whoever is not renewed and changed in the spirit of his mind, not finally settled in a good frame of fpirit and brought to lead a good life, he doth but deceive himself about religion; for his religion is but a name. Pfal. cxi. 10. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; a good understanding have all they, and only they, who do his commandments. This is to understand God, to execute his pleafure; to fulfill his will, to follow his guidance and direction. Now on the contrary, wickedness is a declared independence upon God, and a renunciation of him. Religion fettles itself in fettling the mind in intimacy and acquaintance with God. The foul that is enlivened by religion, seeing the brightness and excellency of divinity, is diffolved into affection after God, fo as fire doth expire in a fun-beam. A holy underftanding climbs up to God by contemplation, meditation and motion of heavenly affection, as to the image and some resemblance of God; climbing up by steps to behold God, the original and the fountain of all happiness. For religion, it is an efflux of primitive truth and goodness upon the fouls and fpirits

of

Now I will give you an account of this in three particulars.

of men.

1. By understanding and knowing God in the fense I have expreffed, we come to a true self-enjoyment, to a folid content and fatisfaction, fuch as is neceffary to make us happy. For there is no happiness, unless there be a compofure of mind, heart'scafe, quiet, content and fatisfaction. Now if we do know and understand God in this fenfe, then we fhall be brought to this felf-enjoyment, this quiet and fatisfaction; for vital and formal happiness within us, confifts in the fruition of the object of happiness. The moralifts are wont to diftinguish between objective happiness and formal happiness. Formal happiness, that is that act of ours, whether it be intellection, or dilection, or both, whereby we ourselves are united to God, do enjoy him, objective happiness, God is the objective happiness, because he is the object that makes them happy who do enjoy him for this is certain, we do but uti mundo, but we do frui Deo. For concerning means, it is the use of means: but fruition and enjoyment, is the enjoyment of the end. Now God is the utmost end; he is the object that doth make happy; therefore all other things elfe, are but as means ; God is the center, and there is motion towards the center; God is the center of spirits and immortal fouls.

2. Our fouls have not the utmost use and improvement of themselves, faving in the enjoyment of God. For all other things and all other employment is below the poffibility and capacity of the faculty; and you know a man fuffers great lofs if his parts and a

bilities