4. Again, it is very certain that mankind hath a huge kindness and partiality for matters of their own invention, and fet a greater rate upon them than upon other matters handed over to them by others: and. hence it comes to pass that a new fancy or opinion, a new Form of Worship, Difcipline, or Government, that any man hath invented or ftudied out, is to fuch a man ordinarily of greater value and moment than it deferves, and fhall be maintained with greater zeal, fervour and animofity, than points of greater truth and moment, as if the great moment and weight of Religion and Christianity lay in it, which is in truth nothing elfe but the effect of felf-love and felfconceit.

5. Again, though by nature man be a fociable creature, yet there is in moft men a certain itch of pride, which makes them affect a difcrimination from others, and to become a kind of feparated party, more refined than the rest of the fame common profeffion.

I do remember, in the beginning of our late troubles, the only party that visibly appeared, were fome that defired fome Reformation in Church-matters: and when that party had obtained, under the name of the Prefbyterian Party, in a very little while there arose a more fublime party of men, called the Independent or Congregational men, which much defpifed the former, as not arrived to a just measure of reformation. Shortly after that there arose a kind of Lay Party, which as much undervalued the Independent, and indeed the Ministry in general.

After that there arofe a party difcriminating itself from all the former, viz. the Quakers. These various parties were as fo many fubdivifions and rectifications of what went before.

Now the means of holding up this discrimination of parties are certain felect opinions, practices, or modes, which are like the badges or colours that give each party his denomination, diftinction, and difcrimi

nation:

nation: and confequently thefe difcriminative badges have as great a rate fet upon them as each fect fets upon itself; and therefore must be upheld under the very notion of the life of Religion, and must be maintained with the greatest fervour imaginable; for otherwife the distinction of the fects themselves would fall to the ground, and become contemptible both among themselves and others, because otherwise there woud appear very little and inconfiderable reason, upon trifling or fmall reafons, to feparate and divide from others, and to unchurch and unchristian them that are not of their company or fociety.

A DISCOURSE OF RELIGION.

PART. II.

THE LIFE OF RELIGION,

AND

SUPERADDITIONS TO IT.

THE Truth and Spirit of Religion comes in a narrow compass, though the effect and operation thereof are large and diffufive. Solomon comprehended it in a few words, Fear God and keep his Commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.' The foul and life of religion is the fear of God, which is the Principle of Obedience; but Obedience to his Commands, which is an act or exercife of that life, is various, according to the variety of the Commands of God. It I take a kernel of an acorn, the principle of life lies in it the thing itfelf is but fmall, but the vegetable principle that lies in it takes up a lefs room than the kernel itself, little more than the quantity of a small pin's head, as is eafy to be obferved by experiments: but the exercife of that fpark of life is large and comprehenfive in its operation; it produceth a great tree, and in that tree the fap, the body, the bark, the limbs, the leaves, the fruit; and fo it is with the principle of True Religion; the principle itself lies in a narrow compafs, but the activity and energy of it is diffufive and various.

This principle hath not only productions that naturally flow from it, but where it is it ferments and affimilates, and gives a kind of tincture even to other actions that do not in their own nature follow from it, as the natural and civil actions of our lives. Under

the

.

the former was our Lord's parable of a Grain of Muftard, under the latter of his comparison of Leaven, juft as we fee in other things of nature: take a little red wine, and drop it into a veffel of water, it gives a new tincture to the water; or take a grain of falt, and put it into fresh liquor, it doth communicate itself to the next adjacent part of the liquor, and that again to the next, until the whole be fermented: fo that small and little vital principle of the Fear of God doth gradually and yet fuddenly affimilate the actions of our life flowing from another principle. It rectifies and moderates our affections; and paffions, and appetites, it gives truth to our fpeech, fobriety to our fenfes, humility to our parts, and the like.

Religion is beft in its fimplicity and purity, but difficult to be retained fo, without fuperftructions. and acceffions; and those do commonly in time ftifle and choke the fimplicity of religion, unleis much care and circumfpection be ufed: the contemperations are fo many and fo cumberfome, that religion lofeth its, nature, or is ftrangled by them: just as a man that hath some excellent fimple cordial or fpirit, and puts in musk in it to make it fmell fweet, and honey to make it taste pleasant, and it may be cantharides to make it look glorious. Indeed by the infufions he hath given it a very fine fmell, and taste, and colour, but yet he hath fo clogged it, and sophisticated it with fuperadditions, that it may be he hath altered the na-, ture, and destroyed the virtue of it.

The fuperadditions and fuperftructions in point of religion are very many, and form very many andvarious tempers in men that add them. As, for inftance:

1. There is one common fuperaddition that naturally all men are apt to bring into it, viz. that it may gratify the fenfe; for inasmuch as the most powerful and immediate influence upon us comes from and through our fenfes, and that fpiritual and internal apprehenfions have not fo ftrong or conftant an impreffion upon us, they feem things at a distance, flat,

X 3.

and

6

and the foul is weary of bearing itself upon them. Men are apt to dress up Religion fo as it may be grateful to the sense: Make us Gods that may go before us:' And this is the chief original of Idolatry, and alfo of Superftition.

2. There are other fuperadditions that come even from the accidental inclinations of men to fome fpecial matter which they value and love; and that they carry over into religion, and many times mingle with it. As for the purpose, take a man greatly admiring Natural Philofophy, he will be apt to mingle and qualify religion with philofophical notions. Many of those things of Ariftotle that are harfhly and dishonourably afferted concerning the Deity, are from his tenacious adhering to certain philofophical pofitions that he had fixed upon.

Behmen, who was a great chymift, refolves almost all Religion in chymistry, and frames his conceptions of Religion fuitable and conformable to chymical notions.

Socinus and his followers, being great mafters of reafon, and deeply learned in matters of Morality, mingle almost all Religion with it, and form Religion purely to the model and platform of it.

Many great phyficians that have much obferved the conftitutions of man's body, have figured to themfelves notions of the foul conformable to the results of their obfervations on the body.

And as thus in these forts of men, fo again men of metaphyfical and notional brains and education, as the schoolmen, they have conformed religion, and their notions concerning it, to Metaphyfics; and indeed have made that which is and ought to be the common principle for the actuating of all men, yea even of the meaneft capacities, to be a mere collection of fubtilties, far more abftrufe than the most intricate and fublimated human learning whatsoever. Again, take a politician, or statefman, and he fhall most easily conform religion to State policy, and make