When he had fent the multitude away, he went up into a mountain, apart to pray.

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T hath been difputed, which is a state of greater perfection, the focial, or the folitary; whereas, in truth, neither of thefe eftates is complete without the other; as the example of our bleffed Lord (the unerring teft and measure of perfection) informs us. His life (which ought to be the pattern of ours) was a mixture of contemplation and action, of aufterity and freedom: We find him often, where the greateft concourfe was, in

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the market-places, in the fynagogues, and at festival entertainments; and we find him also retiring from the crowd into a defert, or a garden, and there employing himself in all kinds of religious exercise, and intercourfe with God, in fafting, meditation, and prayer. In imitation of his fpotless example, we may, doubtless, lead public lives, innocently and usefully; converfing with men, and doing good to them; mutually fowing and reaping the feveral comforts and advantages of human fociety. But because the pleasures of conversation, when too freely tasted, are intoxicating and dangerous; because the temptations we there meet with are many and mighty; and even where the pirit is willing to relist, yet the fle/b is often werk we ought, therefore, to leffen the too great complacence we are apt to have in fuch fatisfactions, by fit intermiffions of them; to strengthen ourselves for fuch public encounters, by our religious privacies; to retire from the world fometimes, and converse with God, and our own confciences; examining the ftate, and fortifying the powers of our fouls, in fecrecy and filence: We must do, as our Lord did, "Send the multitude away, and go up into "the mountain, apart, to pray."

I fhall, from thefe words, take occafion to dif-" courfe to you concerning the great (but much neglected) duty of religious retreats and recollection. I fhall, firft, briefly fhew you, under what limitations I would be underftod to recommend the duty; and, then, what the advantages are, which arife from a devout and difcreet performance of it.

I mean not to prefs upon you that fort of retirement, which is fo much efteemed and practifed in the church of Roe; where all perfection is reckoned to confift in folitude, and no man is allowed capable of arriving at the height of virtue, who doth not ftrip himself of all the conveniencies of life, and renounce all manner of acquaintance with the world and the things of it: I fee not, wherein this ftate of life claims the pre-eminence over all others; how it is founded in nature, and reafon; what particular example, precept, or direction there is in the gofpel, inviting us to it. John Baptift is indeed, there reprefented, as sequeftring himself from human converfe, and fpending his time in the wilderness: but as he is faid to have come in the Spirit and power of Elias Lukei.17.ix 55.(a fpirit far different from the spirit of the gofpel) and did, therefore, profeffedly imi

that t prophet, in his fevere manner of life, and look, and diet, and garb, and behaviour, and doctrine; fo his example belonged rather to the Mofaic ftate, under which he lived and taught, than to the Chriftian difenfation, which began, where his preaching ended. Nor did, even the Baptist himfelf propofe his own practice, as a pat tern to his followers; on the contrary, when the people, the publicans, and the foldiers enquired of him, what they should do to flee from the wrath to come, he did not exhort them to go out of the world into the wilderness; but gave them fuch directions only as related to a faithful difcharge of their duty in their feveral ftations and callings : And when afterwards our Saviour began to enter on his ministry, and to appear as our Saviour,

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by publishing the gofpel of his kingdom, we find nothing either in his actions, or his doctrine, to countenance that reclufe and folitary state, which fome fince, who would be thought beft to have imitated his example and obeyed his precepts, have fo zealously efpoufed and practifed. His divine difcourfes were chiefly ipent in preffing men to exercise those graces which adorn the fociable ftate even his firft fermon on the mount to the multitude did, in the entrance of it, recommend and enjoin a public, confpicuous, and exemplary virtue; and (with fome allufion, perhaps, to that eminence on which he fat, and the company which furrounded him) he then likened his disciples to a city fet on an hill, that cannot be hid; he com‐ manded them to put their light in a candlestick, not under a bufbel; and fo to make it fhine before men, that they, feeing their good works, might glorify their Father which is in heaven, Matt. v. 14. 15, 16.

Far be it from me, however to condemn all thofe good and holy perfons, who have betaken themselves to this folitary and auftere course of living. Doubtlefs, many of them were acted by a fincere, but mifguided, principle of piety; the fruits of which, tho' mixed with a great alloy of fuperftition, did yet, in divers refpects, redound to the credit of religion, and the good of mankind. But fuppofing these to be real, yet they were, I fay, uncommanded inftances of virtue; not poffible, or, if poffible, not fit to be practifed by the far greater part of Chriftians. The retreat, therefore, which I am speaking of, is not that of monks and hermits, but of men living in

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the world, and going out of it for a time, in order to return into it; it is a temporary, not a fo❤ tal retreat; fuch as we may leave off, or refume, at pleasure according as we have need of it, or an opportunity for it, fuch as is confiftent with all the business, and even with the innocent pleafures of life; and is fo far from interfering with the duties of our public offices and ftations, that it difpofes and enables us for the better difcharge of them. 'Tis this fort of retreat which may be properly made the matter of general exhortation from the pulpit, becaufe it is really matter of general obligation to every good and fincere Chriftian.

No man is, or ought to be, fo deeply immersed in the affairs of this world, as not to be able to retire from them now and then into his clofet, there to mind the concerns of another. Every day of his life, early or late, fome moments they may and must find to beftow this way; the Lord's day particularly is a great opportunity of this kind, which can never wholly be neglected without indevotion, or even without fcandal. And fuch alfo is the annual feafon of recollection in which we are now far advanced; not, I truft, without having employed it, in fome measure, to thofe good purpofes for which it was intended. At fuch times as thefe, either when the labours and ordinary occupations of life ceafe, or when public diversions and entertainments are forbidden; Then every one, the noble and the mean, the wealthy and the poor, hath it certainly in his power, if it be but in his heart, to retire: to ftep aside from the hurry and vanities of life, and VOL. I.

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