all accounts caft up, it will appear, upon a juft cal culation of things, that all the reftraints which the laws of God lay upon men, are highly reasonable, and greatly for their benefit and advantage, and do not abridge us of any true pleafure or happiness, but are wife and merciful provifions of heaven, to prevent our harm and mifchief; fo that we are not wife, if we act without regard to God, and his laws, and are not willing to be governed by him, who loves us better than we do ourfelves, and truly defigns our hap pinefs, and commands us nothing but what directly tends to it. For the laws of God are not arbitrary conftitutions, and mere inftances of fovereign will and power; but wife rules and means to procure and advance our happiness.

And in like manner, all that wifdom which men ufe to compafs their worldly defigns, of riches and greatness, without confideration of the providence of God, and dependence upon it for the fuccefs of our affairs, is all perfect folly and mistake. For though the defign be never fo well laid, and vigorously pró. fecuted, and no means which human wisdom can de vife for the attaining of our end have been omitted by us; yet if we leave God out of the account, we forget that which is principal, and fignifies more to the fuccefs of any defign, than all other things put together. For if God favours our defigns, the most improbable fhall take effect; and if he blow upon them, the most likely fhall mifcarry. Whenever he pleafeth to interpofe to cross the counfels and defigns of men, the race is not to the fwift, nor the battle to the frong; neither yet bread to the wife, nor riches to men of understanding, nor favour to men of fkill; but time and chance happens to all.

So that it is s great folly not to confider the providence of God in all our defigns and undertakings, not to implore his favour and bleffing, without which nothing that we take in hand can profper. That which is principal to any purpofe, ought to be confidered in the first place, nothing being to be at tempted either without or against it. And fuch is the providence of God in all human affairs; it is more confiderable

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confiderable to the promoting or hindering of any event, than all things in the world befides; and therefore all policy, which fets afide God and his providence, is vain; because there is no wifdom, nor understanding, nor counfel against the Lord.

So likewife all that wifdom which only confiders and regards this fhort life, and the narrow concernments of it, and makes provifion only for our welfare in this world, and therefore can only be tempted with the hopes of temporal advantages, and terrified only with the danger of temporal evils and sufferings; but hath no fenfe of an immortal spirit within us, no profpect of a life after death, no confideration of a happy or miferable eternity, of rewards and punishments, infinitely greater than all the temptations and terrors of time and fenfe; I fay, all this is a prepofterous and pernicious wifdom, and proceeds upon a falfe fuppofition, and a quite contrary fcheme of things to what really is; and confequently our whole life, and all the designs and actions of it, do run upon a perpetual mistake, and a falfe fta ting of our own cafe: and whatever we do pursuant to this mistake is foolish and hurtful; and fo far from conducing to our true intereft, that it is all either be⚫ fides it, or contrary to it; because we act upon a fuppofal only of this life, and a being only in this world, and that there is nothing either to be feared or ho ped for beyond it; and being thus grofsly mistaken, we fet our hearts only upon temporal things, and fudy our prefent fecurity and fatisfaction, and in all our counfels and actions are fwayed only by the confideration of temporal good and evil, of the present eafe and pleasure, the disturbance and pain of our flefhly and fenfual parts; without any fenfe of our own immortality, and of that everlasting state which remains for us in another world.

But there is, (my brethren), moft certainly there is, another life after this; we are not beasts, if we do not make ourselves fo; and if we die, we shall not die like them, neither fhall our last end be like theirs. For whatever we may think or with, it will not be in our power to extinguith our own beings when

when we have a mind to be rid of them, and to chufe whether or no we fhall live for ever.

And if this be a falfe fcheme of things which we have framed to ourfelves, and proceeded upon, (as undoubtedly it is), then our whole life is one great error, and a perpetual miitake, and we are quite wrong in all that we design to do. Our wildom hath begun at the wrong end, and we have made a falfe calculation and account of things, and have put our cafe otherwife than it is; and the farther we proceed upon this mistake, our miscarriage will be fo much the more fatal in the iffue. But if our wildon begin at the right end, and our cafe be fruly stated, that God hath put into these frail and mortal bodies of ours immortal fpirits that fhall live for ever; and hath fent us into this world, to fojourn here for a little while, and to be disciplined and trained up for eter nity; and that after a fhort proof and trial of our obedience, we shall be tranflated into an everlasting ftate of unspeakable happinefs or mifery, according as we have demeaned ourselves in this world; if we believe this to be truly our cafe, our intereft is then plainly before us, and we fee where our happiness lies, and what remains for us to do, in order to the obtaining of it, and what we are to expect to fuffer, if we do it not.

Now this foundation being laid, it is evident, that the best thing we can do for ourselves, is to provide for our future ftate, and to fecure the everlafting happinefs of another life. And the belt way to do that, is to live in obedience to thofe laws which our maker and our fovereign hath prefcribed to us; and according to which he will one day fentence us to eternal rewards or punishments.

It is evident likewife, that all our fenfual appetites and defires are to be bounded by the rules of reafon and virtue, which are the laws of God; and that no prefent eafe and pleasure, trouble and fuffering, are to be confidered and regarded by us, in competition with the things which are eternal; and that fin is of all other the greatest evil, and moft mifchievous to our main intereft, and therefore with all poffible care

to be avoided; and that the favour of God is to be fought, and the falvation of our fouls to be provided for, at any pains and expence whatsoever, and even with the hazard and lofs of our dearest interests in this world, yea and of life itself.

And now, if this matter hath been rightly stated, then religion, and the fear of God, is the first prin ciple and foundation of true wisdom, and that which we are to confider, and take along with us in all the defigns and actions of our lives; and all wifdom which does not begin here, is prepofterous, and will prove folly in the illuc.

II. As religion is the beginning of wisdom, fo it is the perfection of it; it is the highest point of wildom in which we can be inftructed: The fear of the Lord (fays Solomon, Prov. xv. 33.) is the inftruction of wijdom. A good understanding (fays David, Pfal. cxi.. 10.) have all they that do his commandments. The practice of religion is the perfection of wifdom; and he understands himself beft, who lives moft according to the laws of God. And this I might fhew, by intancing in particular virtues, the practice whereof is much wifer, and every way more for our interest, than the contrary vices; but this is too large an argument to engage in; and therefore I fhall content. myfelf at prefent briefly to fhew, that the chief characters and properties of wifdom do all meet in religion, and agree to it.

The first point of wisdom is, to understand our true intereft, and to be right in our main end; and in this religion will beft inftruct and direct us. And if we be right in our main end, and true to the interest of it, we cannot mifcarry: but if a man mistake in this, he errs fatally, and his whole life is vanity and folly.

Another property of wisdom is, to be fteady and vigorous in the profecution of our main end; to oblige us hereto, religion gives us the most powerful arguments, the glorious happinefs, and the difmal mifery of another world.

The next point of wifdom is, to make all things floop and become fubfervient to our main end. And

where

where ever religion bears fway, it will make all other things fubordinate to the falvation of our fouls, and the intereft of our everlasting happiness; as the men of this world make every thing to fubmit and give way to their covetous, and ambitious, and fenfual designs.

Another part of wifdom is, to confider the future, and to look to the laft end and iffue of things. It is a common folly among men, to be fo intent upon the prefent, as to have little or no regard to the future, to what will be hereafter. Men defign and labour for this prefent life, and their fhort continuance here in this world, without taking into ferious confideration their main duration, and their eternal abode in another world. But religion gives us a clear profpect of a life after death, and overlooks time, and makes eternity always prefent to us, and minds us of ma king timely provifion and preparation for it. It takes into confideration our whole duration, and infpires us with wifdom, to look to the end of things, and to what will be hereafter, as well as to what is present.

It is likewife a great property of wisdom, to fecure the main chance, and to run no hazard in that. And this religion directs us to take care of, because the neglect of it will prove fatal.

Another mark of wifdom is, to lay hold of opportunities, thofe especially, which, when they are once paft, will never return again. There are fome feafons wherein great things may be done, which if they be let flip, are never to be retrieved. A wife man will lay hold of thefe, and improve them; and religion inculcates this principle of wisdom upon us, that this life is the opportunity of doing great things for ourselves, and of making ourselves for ever. This very day and hour may, for ought we know, be the laft and only opportunity of repentance, and making our peace with God: therefore to day, whilst it is called to day, let us fet about this neceffary work, left any of us be hardened through the deceitfulness of fin; to morrow it may be too late to begin it, and the juftice of God may cut us off whilft we are wil

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