SERM. erected this great and goodly fabric; that incomprehenI. fible Wisdom, which preserves it in a conftant harmony; that immenfe Goodness, which hath fo carefully provided for the various neceffities, delights, and comforts of its innumerable inhabitants. I fay, by representing those infinitely glorious perfections, it engages us with highest respect to esteem, reverence, and honour him. Alfo, by minding us of our manifold obligations to him, our receiving being, life, reason, sense, all the faculties, powers, excellencies, privileges, and commodities of our natures from him; of his tender care and loving providence continually supporting and protecting us; of his liberal beneficence, patient indulgence, and earnest desire of our good and happiness, by manifold expreffions evidently manifefted toward us; it inflames us with ardent love, and obliges us to officious gratitude toward him. Also, by declaring the necessary and irreconcileable contrariety of his nature to all impurity and perverfeness, his peerless majefty, his irresistible power, and his all-seeing knowledge, it begets an awful dread and a devout fear of him. By discovering him from his infinite benignity willing, and from his unlimited power only able to fupply our needs, relieve us in diftreffes, protect us from dangers, and confer any valuable benefit upon us, it engenders faith, and encourages us to rely upon him. By revealing to us his fupereminent fovereignty, uncontrolable dominion, and unquestionable authority over us; together with the admirable excellency, wisdom, and equity of his laws, so just and reasonable in themselves, so suitable to our nature, fo conducible to our good, so easy and practicable, fo fweet and comfortable; it powerfully inclines, and by a gentle force as it were constrains us to obedience. By fuch efficacious inducements Wisdom urges us to all duties of religion, and withal surely directs us (as I before faid) wherein it confifts; teaching us to have right and worthy apprehenfions of the divine nature, to which our devotion, if true and good, must be fuited and conformed: and fo it frees us, as from irreligion and profane neglect of God, so from fond superstitions, the fources

I.

of fo much evil to mankind. For he that wifely hath con- SERM. fidered the wisdom, goodness, and power of God, cannot imagine God can with a regardless eye overlook his presumptuous contempts of his laws, or endure him to proceed in an outrageous defiance of Heaven, to continue hurting himself, or injuring his neighbour; nor can admit unreasonable terrors, or entertain fufpicious conceits of God, as of an imperious mafter, or implacable tyrant over him, exacting impoffible performances from, or delighting in the fatal miferies of his creatures; nor can suppose him pleased with hypocritical fhews, and greatly taken with superficial courtships of ceremonious address; or that he can in any wife favour our fiery zeals, fierce paffions, or unjuft partialities about matter of opinion and ceremony; or can do otherwise than detest all factious, harsh, uncharitable, and revengeful proceedings, of what nature, or upon what ground foever; or that he can be so inconsistent with himself, as to approve any thing but what is like himself, that is, righteoufnefs, fincerity, and beneficence.

15.

viii. 35.

Laftly, Wisdom attracts the favour of God, purchaseth a glorious reward, and secureth perpetual felicity to us. For God loveth none but him that dwelleth with wisdom. Wif. vii. 28. And, Glorious is the fruit of good labours: and the root of iii. wisdom fhall never fall away. And, Happy is the man Prov.iii. 13. that findeth wisdom: and, Whofo findeth her, findeth life, and fhall obtain favour of the Lord. These are the words of wife Solomon, in the book of Wisdom, and in the Proverbs. God loveth her, as most agreeable to his nature; as resembling him; as an offspring, beam, and efflux of that Wisdom which founded the earth, and established the heavens; as that which begetteth honour, love, and obedience to his commands, and truly glorifies him; and as that which promotes the good of his creatures, which he earnestly defires. And the paths the leads in are fuch as directly tend to the promised inheritance of joy and blifs.

Thus have I fimply and plainly prefented you with part of what my meditation fuggefted upon this fubje&t; it

I.

SERM. remains that we endeavour to obtain this excellent endowment of foul, by the faithful exercise of our reason, careful obfervation of things, diligent ftudy of the divine law, watchful reflection upon ourselves, virtuous and religious practice; but efpecially, by imploring the divine influence, the original fpring of light, and fountain of all true knowledge, following St. James's advice: If any man lack wifdom, let him afk it of God, who giveth freely. Therefore, O everlasting Wisdom, the Maker, Redeemer, and Governor of all things, let fome comfortable beams from thy great body of heavenly light descend upon us, to illuminate our dark minds, and quicken our dead hearts; to enflame us with ardent love unto thee, and to direct our steps in obedience to thy laws, through the gloomy fhades of this world, into that region of eternal light and blifs, where thou reignet in perfect glory and majesty, one God ever bleffed, world without end. Amen,

SERMON II.

THE PROFITABLENESS OF GODLINESS.

I TIM. iv. 8.

-But Godliness is profitable for all things.

How generally men, with most unanimous confent, are SERM.

23.

Φεῦ, δύο ὀβο

δύνασθον

Plut.

devoted to profit, as to the immediate scope of their de- II. figns, and aim of their doings, if with the flightest attention we view what is acted upon this theatre of human affairs, we cannot but difcern. All that we see men fo very serious and industrious about, which we call bufi-Prov. xiv. nefs; that which they trudge for in the streets, which they work or wait for in the shops, which they meet and sy crowd for at the exchange, which they fue for in the hall, avraxou. and folicit for at the court, which they plough and dig Ariftoph. for, which they march and fight for in the field, which they travel for at land, and fail for (among rocks and ftorms) upon the fea, which they plod for in the closet, and dispute for in the schools, (yea, may we not add, which they frequently pray for and preach for in the Church?) what is it but profit? Is it not this apparently, for which men fo eagerly contest and quarrel, so bitterly envy and emulate, fo fiercely clamour and inveigh, fo cunningly fupplant and undermine one another; which stuffeth their hearts with mutual hatred and fpite, which tippeth their tongues with flander and reproach, which often embrueth their hands with blood and flaughter; for which they expofe their lives and limbs to danger, for

II.

SERM. which they undergo grievous toils and drudgeries, for which they distract their mind with cares, and pierce their heart with forrows; to which they facrifice their present ease and content, yea, to which commonly they prostitute their honour and confcience? This, if you mark it, is the great mistress, which is with fo paffionate rivality every where wooed and courted; this is the common mark, which all eyes aim, and all endeavours ftrike at; this the hire which men demand for all their pains, the prize they hope for all their combats, the harvest they seek from all the year's affiduous labour. This is the bait, by which you may inveigle moft men any whither; and the most certain fign, by which you may prognofticate what any man will do: for mark where his profit is, there will he be. This fome profeffedly and with open face, others flily and under thin veils of pretence, (under guise of friendship, of love to public good, of loyalty, of religious zeal;) fome directly and in a plain track, others obliquely and by fubtile trains; fome by fordid and base means, others in ways more cleanly and plaufible; fome gravely and modeftly, others wildly and furiously; all (very few excepted) in one manner or another, do clearly in most of their proceedings level and drive at a.

This practice then being fo general, and seeing that men are reasonable creatures, that it is so cannot surely proceed from mere brutishness, or dotage; there must be fome fair colour or semblance of reason, which draweth men into, and carrieth them forward in this way. The reafon indeed is obvious and evident enough; the very name of profit implieth it, fignifying that which is useful, or conducible to purposes really or feemingly good. The gain of money, or of fomewhat equivalent thereto, is therefore fpecially termed profit, because it readily fupplieth neceffity, furnisheth convenience, feedeth pleasure,

Omnes ad affectum atque appetitum utilitatis fuæ naturæ ipfius magifterio atque impulfione ducuntur. Salv. ad Eccl. Cath. 2.