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free spirit, but a voluntary, fleshly humility; mere trammels of their own making and putting on, without prescription or reafon. In all which, it is plain, they are their own law-givers, and fet their own rule, mulet and ranfom: a constrained harfhnefs, out of joint to the reft of the creation: for fociety is one great end of it, and not to be deftroyed for fear of evil; but fin banished that spoils it, by fteady reproof, and a confpicuous example of tried virtue. True godliness does not turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it, and excites their endeavours to mend it: not hide their candle under a bushel, but fet it upon a table, in a candlestick.' Befides, it is a selfifh invention; and that can never be the way of taking up the cross, which the true cross is therefore taken up to lubject. But again, this humour runs away by itfelf, and leaves the world behind to be loft; Chriftians fhould keep the helm, and guide the veffel to its port; not meanly steal out at the ftern of the world, and leave those that are in it without a pilot, to be driven by the fury of evil times, upon the rock or fand of ruin. In fine, this fort of life, if taken up by young people, is commonly to cover idleness, or to pay portions; to fave the lazy from the pain of punishment, or quality from the difgrace of poverty: one will not work, and the other fcorns it. If aged, a long life of guilt fometimes flies to fuperftition for refuge; and after having had its own will in other things, would finish it in a wilful religion to make God amends.

§. XIII. But taking up the crofs of Jefus is a more interior exercise: it is the circumfpection and difcipline of the foul, in conformity to the divine mind therein. revealed. Does not the body follow the foul, and not the foul the body? Do not fuch confider, that no outward cell can fhut up the foul from luft, the mind from an infinity of unrighteous imaginations? The thoughts of man's heart are evil, and that continually. Evil comes from within, and not from without: how then can an external application remove an internal caufe; or a restraint upon the body, work a confinement of

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the mind? Lefs much than without doors: for where there is least of action, there is moft time to think; and if those thoughts are not guided by an higher principle, convents are more mifchievous to the world than exchanges. And yet a retirement is both an excellent and needful thing: crowds and throngs were not much frequented by the ancient holy pilgrims.

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§. XIV. But then examine, O man, thy bottom, what it is, and who placed thee there; left in the end it fhould appear, thou haft put an eternal cheat upon thy own foul. I must confefs I am jealous of the falvation of my own kind, having found mercy with my heavenly Father: I would have none deceive themselves to perdition, especially about religion, where people are most apt to take all for granted, and lofe infinitely by their own flatteries and neglect. The inward steady righteousness of Jefus is another thing, than all the contrived devotion of poor fuperftitious man: and to stand approved in the eye of God, excels that bodily exercife in religion, refulting from the invention of And the foul that is awakened and preferved by his holy power and fpirit, lives to him in the way of his own institution, and worships him in his own fpirit, that is, in the holy fenfe, life, and leadings of it; which indeed is the evangelical worship. Not that I would be thought to flight a true retirement: for I do not only acknowledge, but admire folitude. Christ himself was an example of it: he loved and chose to frequent mountains, gardens, fea-fides. They are requifite to the growth of piety; and I reverence the virtue that seeks and ufes it; wifhing there were more of it in the world: but then it should be free, not conftrained. What benefit to the mind, to have it for a punishment, and not a pleasure? Nay, I have long thought it an error among all forts, that ufe not monaftick lives, that they have no retreats for the afflicted, the tempted, the folitary, and the devout; where they might undisturbedly wait upon God, pass through their religious exercifes; and, being thereby ftrengthened, may, with more power over their own spirits,

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enter into the business of the world again; though the lefs the better to be fure. For divine pleasures are found in a free folitude.

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§. 1. But men of more refined belief and practice are yet concerned in this unlawful felf about religion. §. 2. It is the rife of the performance of worship God regards. §. 3. True worship is only from an heart prepared by God's fpirit. §. 4. The foul of man dead, without the divine breath of life, and fo not capable of worshipping the living God. §. 5. We are not to study what to pray for. How Chriftians fhould pray. The aid they have from God. §. 6. The way of obtaining this preparation: it is by waiting, as David and others did of old, in holy filence, that their wants and supplies are best seen. §. 7. The whole and the full think they need not this waiting, and so use it not: but the poor in spirit are of another mind; wherefore the Lord hears and fills them with his good things. §. 8. If there were not this preparation, the Jewish times would have been more holy and spiritual than the gospel; for even then it was required, and much more now. §. 9. As fin, fo formality cannot worship God: thus David, Ifaiah, &c. §. 10, God's own forms and inftitutions hateful to him, unless his own fpirit use them; much more thofe of man's contriving. §. 11. God's children ever met God in his way, not their own; and in his way they always found help and comfort. In Jeremiah's time it was the fame; his goodness was manifest to his children that waited truly upon him: it was an inward fenfe and enjoyment of him they thirfted after. Chrift charged his disciples alfo to wait for the fpirit. §. 12. This doctrine of waiting farther opened, and ended with an allufion to the pool of Bethesda; a lively figure of inward waiting, and its bleffed effects. §. 13. Four

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things neceffary to worship; the fanctification of the worshipper, and the confecration of the offering, and the thing to be prayed for: and laftly, faith to pray in: and all must be right, that is, of God's giving. §. 14. The great power of faith in prayer; witness the importunate widow. The wicked and formal ask, and receive not; the reason why. But Jacob and his true offspring, the followers of his faith, prevail. §. 15. This fhews, why Chrift upbraided his difciples with their little faith. The neceffity of faith. Chrift works no good on men without it. §. 16. This faith is not only poffible now, but neceffary. §. 17. What it is, farther unfolded. §. 18. Who the heirs of this faith are; and what were the noble works of it in the former ages of the juft.

§. I. practice, BU

UT there be others, of a more refined specu

ufe, and lefs adore, a piece of wood or ftone, an image of filver or gold; nor yet allow of that Jewish, or rather Pagan pomp in worship, practifed by others, as if Christ's worship were of this world, though his kingdom be of the other; but are doctrinally averfe to fuch fuperftition, and yet refrain not to bow to their own religious duties, and esteem their formal performance of feveral parts of worship, that go against the grain of their fleshly ease, and a precifenefs therein, no small cross unto them; and that if they abftain from grofs and fcandalous fins, or if the act be not committed, though the thoughts of it are embraced, and that it has a full career in the mind, they hold themselves fafe enough, within the pale of difcipleship, and wall of Christianity. But this alfo is too mean a character of the difcipline of Chrift's crofs: and those that flatter themselves with such a fort of taking it up, will in the end be deceived with a fandy foundation, and a midnight cry. For faid Chrift, But I fay unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they fhall give an account thereof in the day of judgment "."

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§. II. For firft, it is not performing duties of religion, but the rife of the performance, that God looks at. Men may, and fome do, cross their own wills, in their own wills; voluntary omiffion, or commiffion: who

has required this at your hands"?' faid the Lord of old to the Jews, when they feemed industrious to have ferved him; but it was in a way of their own contriving or inventing, and in their own time and will; not with the foul truly touched and prepared by the divine power of God; but bodily worship only, that the apoftle tells us, profiteth little. Not keeping to the manner of taking up the crofs in worship, as well as other things, has been a great cause of the troublefome fuperftition that is yet in the world. For men have no more brought their worship to the teft, than their fins nay, lefs; for they have ignorantly thought the one a fort of excufe for the other; and not that their religious performances fhould need a cross, or an apology.

§. III. But true worship can only come from an heart prepared by the Lord. This preparation is by the fanctification of the Spirit; by which, if God's children are led in the general courfe of their lives, (as Paul teaches) much more in their worship to their Creator and Redeemer P. And whatever prayer be made, or doctrine be uttered, and not from the preparation of the Holy Spirit, it is not acceptable with God: nor can it be the true evangelical worship, which is in fpirit and truth; that is, by the preparation and aid of the Spirit. For what is an heap of the most pathetical words to God Almighty; or the dedication of any place or time to him? He is a fpirit, to whom words, places and times (ftrictly confidered) are improper or inadequate. And though they be the inftruments of public worship, they are but bodily and vifible, and cannot carry our requests any farther, much lefs recommend them to the invifible God; by no means; they are for the fake of the congregation:

a Ifa. i. 12.

Prov, xvi.

Rom. viii. 14.

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