2. The active spirit of religion, where it is in the soul, will not suffer men to take up their rest in a mere pardon of sin; and they are but slothful souls that could be so satisfied. Blessed is the man indeed "whose iniquities are pardoned." But if we could suppose a soul to be acquitted of the guilt of all sin, and yet to lie bound under the dominion of lusts and passions, and to live without God in the world, he were yet far from true blessedness.

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real hell and misery will arise out of the very bowels of sin and wickedness, though there should be no reserve of fire and brimstone in the world to come. It is utterly impossible that a soul should be happy out of God, though it had the greatest security imaginable that it should never suffer any thing from him. The highest care and ambition indeed of a slavish and mercenary spirit, is to be secured from the wrath and vengeance of God, but the breathings of the ingenuous and holy soul are after a divine life, and God-like perfections. This right gracious temper you may see in David, which is also the temper of every truly religious soul: "Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence ; and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit."

3. The active spirit of religion, where it is in the soul, will not suffer men to take up their rest in mere innocency, freedom from sin; and they are slothful souls that could count it happiness enough to be harmless. I doubt men are much mistaken about

holiness; it is more than mere innocency, or freedom from the guilt or power of sin, it is not a negative thing; there is something active, noble, divine, powerful, in true religion. A soul that rightly understands its own penury and self-insufficiency, and the emptiness and meanness of all creaturegood, cannot possibly take up its rest, or place its happiness in any thing but in a real participation of God himself; and therefore is continually making out towards that God from whom it came, and is labouring to unite itself more and more unto him. Let a low-spirited, fleshly-minded Pharisee take up with a negative holiness and happiness, as he doth, "God, I thank thee, that I am not" so and so; a noble and high-spirited Christian cannot take up his rest in any negation or freedom from sin. Every godly soul is not so learned, indeed, as to be able to describe the nature and proper perfection of a soul, and to tell you how the happiness of a soul consists, not in cessation and rest, as the happiness of a stone doth, but in life, and power, and vigour, as the happiness of God himself doth: but yet the spirit of true religion is so excellent and powerful in every godly soul, that it is still carrying it to the fuller enjoyment of a higher good; and the soul doth find and feel within itself, though it cannot discourse philosophically of these things, that though it were free from all disturbance of sin and affliction in the world, yet still it wants some supreme and possible good to make it completely happy, and so bends all its power thitherward. This is the description which will every where find made in Scripture of the true spirit of holiness, which hath always some

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thing positive and divine in it, as "Cease to do evil, learn to do well;" and "Put off the old man-put on that new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." And, accordingly, a truly godly soul, to use the Apostle's words, though he know nothing by himself, yet doth not thereby count himself happy.

4. The active spirit of true religion, where it is in the soul, will not suffer men to take up their rest in some measures of grace received; and so far as the soul doth so, it is sluggish and less active than it ought to be. This, indeed, ofttimes comes to pass, when the soul is under some distemper of proud selfishness, earthly-mindedness, or the like; or is less apprehensive of its object and happiness; as it seems to have been the case of the spouse, "I have put off my coat; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them ?" Some such fainting fits, languishings, surfeitings, insensibleness, must be allowed to be in the godly soul during its imprisoned and imperfect state: but we must not judge ourselves by any present distempers, or infirmities. The nature of religion, when it acts the soul rightly and powerfully, is to carry after it a more lively resemblance of God, which is the most proper and excellent enjoyment of him. A mind rightly and actually sound is most sick of love; and the nature of love is, not to know when it is near enough to its object, but still to long after the most perfect conjunction with it. This well of water, if it be not violently obstructed for a time, is ever springing up till it be swallowed up in the ocean of divine love and grace. The soul that is rightly acquainted with

itself and its God, sees something still wanting in itself, and to be enjoyed in him, which makes it that it cannot be at rest, but is still springing up into him, till it come to the measure of the stature of the fulness of its Lord. In this holy, loving, longing, striving, active temper, we find the great Apostle: "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect; but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." And by how much the more of divine grace any soul hath drunk in, the more thirsty is it after much more.

5. The active spirit of true religion, where it is powerfully seated in the minds of men, will not suffer them to settle into a love of this animal life, nor indeed suffer them to be content to live for ever in such a kind of body as this; and that soul is in a degree lazy and slothful, that doth not desire to depart and be with his Lord. The godly soul eyeing God as his perfect and full happiness, and finding that his being in the body doth separate him from God, keeps him in a poor and imperfect state, and hinders his blissful communion with the highest good, groans within itself, with the Apostle, that mortality were swallowed up of life." I know not how much, but I think he hath not very much of God, neither sight of him, nor love of him, that could be content to abide for ever in this imperfect,

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mixed, low state, and never be perfected in the full enjoyment of him. And it seems, that they in whom the love of God is rightly predominant, potent, flourishing, do also look earnestly "for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life," as without doubt they ought to do: "What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God!"

Let this suffice by way of general reprehension.

2. More particularly, the consideration of the active nature of true religion may well serve to correct a mistake about that noble grace of faith.

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dishonourably do some speak of this excellent and powerful grace, when they make it to be a slothful, passive thing, an idle kind of waiting, or a melancholic sitting still; where, in deed and in truth, it is life and power. Be not mistaken in so high and eminent a grace: true faith doth not only accept the imputed righteousness of Christ for justification, but by a lively dependence upon God, drinks in divine influences, and eagerly draws in grace, and virtue, and life, from the fountain of grace, for its more perfect sanctification: and for this cause, I think, a purifying virtue is ascribed to it, Acts xv. 9. Faith is not a lazy, languid thing, content to wait for salvation till the world to come; but it is even now gasping after it, and accomplishing it too in a way of mortification, self-denial, and growing up in God: it is not content to be a candidate waiting for life and happiness, but is actually drawing down heaven into the soul, attracting God to itself, sucking in participations of divine grace and image into the soul: its