fupreme good; and the greatelt happiness to confift in the enjoyment of him; and a feparation from him to be the greatest mifery. Now, God is not to be enjoyed, but in a way of religion. Holiness makes us like to God; and likènefs will make us love him; and love will make us happy in the enjoyment of him; and without this it is impoffible to be happy. There can be no happinefs without pleasure and delight; and we cannot take pleasure in any thing we do not love; and there can be no love, without a likenefs and fuitablenefs of difpofition. So long as God is good, and we evil; fo long as he is pure, and we unholy; fo long as he hates fin, and we love it; there can be no happy intercourse, no agreeable communion, and delightful fociety between God and us. So that if we be holy, happiness will refult from this temper and if we be wicked, we are neceffarily and unavoidably miferable. Sin feparates between God and us, and hinders our happinefs; and it is impoffible that a wicked man fhould be near God, or enjoy him. God and a finner are fuch two unequal matches, that it is impoffible to bring then together; for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteoufnefs? or what communion hath light with darkness? 2. Every man which believes the revelations which God hath made, cannot but be fatisfied, how much reJigion is his intereft from the promifes and threatenings of God's word. God in his word hath in plain and exprefs terms promised everlasting glory and happiness to them that obey him; and hath threatened wicked men with dreadful and eternal punishments; to them that by patient continuance in well-doing, feek for glory, and honour, and immortality, he hath promifed eternal life: but to them that obey not the truth, but obey unrighteoufnefs, he hath threatened indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish. Now if we believe the gofpel, which affures us of another life after this, and a future judgment which will determine all men to a state of everlasting happiness or mifery, we cannot but know it to be our intereft, by all poffible means to endeavour to attain the happiness which God hath promifed, and to avoid the mifery which he hath threatened. All men natu rally rally defire happiness, and dread mifery and deftruction ; and these defires and fears are intimate to our natures, and can never be feparated from them; because they flow immediately from thofe principles of felf-love, and felf-prefervation, which are deeply rooted in every man's heart, and are woven into the very make and frame of his nature, and will last as long as our be. ings. And fo long as thefe principles remain in us, there is no man that is firmly perfuaded of the promifes and threatenings of the gofpel, but muft believe it to be his highest interest to be religious. Fear and hope are the two paffions which govern us; hope is as it were the fpur that quickens us to our duty, and fear is the curb that reftrains us from fin; and the greater the good hoped for, or the evil that is feared, the greater power and influence thefe paffions have upon us. Now there cannot be a greater good, than compleat and everlasting happiness; nor a greater evil, than extreme and eternal mifery. So that whoever believes the promifes and threatenings of the gofpel, hath his hope raifed to the expectation of the greatest good and happiness in cafe of obedience; and his fears extended to the expectation of the greatest evil and mifery in cafe of final impenitency and difobedience. And a true divine faith doth contain in it both this hope and fear for a faith in the promifes of the gospel is nothing elfe, but the hopes of eternal life; and a belief of the threatenings of the gofpel is nothing elfe, but the fear of hell and eternal mifery. So that a firm belief of the promises and threatenings of the gofpel, muft needs have as great influence upon men to make them religious, as the higheft hopes and greatest fears can have: and thofe men that are not moved by the hopes of the greateft good, nor by the fears of the greatest danger, are not to be wrought upon in human ways, nothing will prevail with them. : Thus I have shewn you, what influence a divine faith hath upon religion; for as much as whoever believes there is a God, and that the fcriptures are the word of God, is fully fatisfied and convinced how reasonable it is, and how much it is his intereft to be religious. I come in the last place to the application of this difcourfe. Firft, This fhews why there is fo little of true religi on in the world; it is for want of faith, without which it is impoffible for men to be religious. Men are not firmly perfuaded that there is a God; that there is a being above them that is omnifcient, and knows every thing that they do, and takes notice of every word, and thought, and action; that is fo good, and fo powerful, as to make thofe happy that love and obey him; and fo jutt and powerful, as to make thofe miferable who hate him, and rebel against him. Men are not perfuaded that their fouls are immortal; and that there is another life after this, in which men fhall be happy or miferable to all eternity, according as they demean themselves in this world. Men are not firmly perfuaded that the fcriptures are the word of God, and that the precepts and prohibitions of the bible are the laws of a great King, who will amply reward the obfervances of his laws, and feverely vindicate the breach and violation of them. Men do not believe that the promises and threatenings of God's word are true, and that every jot and tittle of them fhall be accomplished. For did men believe these things, they would be religious; they would not dare to live in any known fin or impiety of life; unless we can prefume that a man can be feriously unwilling to be happy, and have a longing defire to be miferable, and undone for ever. For who ever believes the principles of religion, and the precepts, and promifes, and threatenings that are contained in this holy book, and yet after all this can continue in fin, he must not only put off the principles of a reasonable creature, but muft quit the very inclinations of his nature; that is, he must knowingly refufe that which he naturally defires, which is happinefs; and muft embrace that, which of all things that can be imagined he most abhors, and that is mifery. So that if men were verily perfuaded, that the great, and holy, and juft God looks continually upon them, and that it is impoffible to hide from him any thing that we do, they would not dare to commit any fin in his fight, and under the eye of him who is their Father and Mafter, their Sovereign and their Judge, their Friend and Benefactor, who is invefted with all these titles, titles, and stands to us in all these relations which may challenge reverence and refpect. Did men believe the holiness and juftice of God, that he hates fin, and will not let it go unpunished, would they venture to make him a witnefs of their wickedness, who they believe will be the avenger of it? Did men believe that they fhall live for ever, and that after this fhort life is ended, they must enter upon eternity; that when they leave the world, there are but two ways which all men must go, either into life everlafting, or into eternal and intolerable torments; did men believe this, would they not with all poffible care and diligence endeavour to attain the one, and avoid the other? Were men poffeft with a belief of eternity, how would they defpife temporal and tranfitory things? How would they neglect the concernments of this life, and over-look the little impertinencies of time, and refer all their thoughts, and cares, and endeavours, to eternity? This great and important intereft would fo fill their minds, and take up their thoughts, and employ their utmost cares, and endeavours, and diligence, that they would fcarce regard or fpeak, or think of any elfe; they would be reftlefs and impatient, 'till they had fecured this grand affair and concernment; they would fubordinate all the interests of this world to that of the other, and make all the concernments of time to ftoop to the grand concernment of eternity. Thus men would do, were they but firmly perfuaded that there is another life after this, to which this bears no proportion. Did men believe the fcriptures to be the word of God, and to contain matters of the highest importance to our everlafting happiness; would they neglect it and lay it afide, and study it no more than a man would do an almanack out of date, or than a man, who believes the attaining the philofopher's stone to be impoffible, would ftudy thofe books that treat of it? If men did believe that it contains plain and eafy directions for the attaining of eternal happinefs, and efcaping eternal mifery; they would converfe much with it, make it their companion and their counfellor, meditate in it day and night, read it with all diligence, and put in practice the dire ctions of it. So So that whatever men pretend, it is plain, that those who neglect God and religion, and contradict the precepts of his word by their lives, they do not firmly believe there is a God, nor that this book is the word of God. If this faith and perfuafion were firmly rooted in men, they could not live wickedly. For a man that defires happiness, can no more neglect those means which he is convinced are neceffary for the obtaining of it, than a man that defires life can neglect the means which he knows to be neceffary for the prefervation of it. Secondly, If faith have fo great an influence upon religion, then the next use shall be to perfuade men to believe. No man can be religious that doth not believe these two things. First, The principles of natural religion; that there is a God; that his foul is immortal; and that there are future rewards. Secondly, That the fcriptures are the word of God; or, which comes all to one, that the doctrine contained in them is a divine revelation. Therefore whoever would perfuade men to be religious, he must begin here; and whoever would improve men in religion and holiness, he muft labour to ftrengthen this principle of faith. Faith is the root of all other graces; and they will flourish, or decay, according to the degrees of our faith. Now he that would perfuade a man, or prevail with him to do any thing, must do it one of these three ways; either by entreaty, or authority, or argument; either he must entreat him as a friend, or command him as fubject to him and under his power, or convince him as a man. Now he that fhould go about to entreat men to believe any thing, or to charge them fo to do, before he hath convinced them by fufficient arguments, that it is reasonable to do fo, would, in my opinion, take a preposterous course. He that entreats or chargeth a man to do any thing, fuppofeth that he can do the thing if he will but a man cannot believe what he will; the nature of a human understanding is fuch, that it cannot affent without evidence, nor believe any thing to be true, unless it fee reafon fo to do, any more than a man can see a thing without light. So that if the dearest |