bling heart; whereas one otherwise cowardly, having his breast well defended with a plate of proof, will the more boldly venture upon the pikes. Thus righteousness, by defending the conscience, fills the creature with courage in the face of death and danger; whereas guilt, which is the nakedness of the soul, puts the stoutest sinner into a shaking fit of fear. "The wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous are bold as a lion." Prov. xxviii. 1. They say sheep are scared with the clatter of their own feet as they run, so is the sinner with the din of his guilt. No sooner Adam saw his plate off, and himself to be naked, but he is afraid at God's voice, as if he had never been acquainted with him. Never can we recover truly our courage, till we recover our holiness: "If our heart condemn us not, then have we boldness with God." 1 John iii. 21.

CHAP. II.

A SHORT POINT FROM THE CONNECTION OF THIS PIECE OF ARMOUR WITH THE FIRST: RIGHTEOUSNESS WITH

TRUTH.

THE words thus opened, the observations are now easy to be drawn from them; but the copulative "and," with which this piece of armour is so closely buckled to the former, bids us make a little stand, to take notice how lovingly truth and holiness are here conjoined, like the sister-curtains of the tabernacle, so called in the Hebrew, Exod. xxvi. 3. and it is pity any should unclasp them which God hath so fitted to each other. Let that then be the note from hence.

Note. That truth and holiness must go together.

First, Take truth for truth of doctrine. An orthodox judgment with an unholy heart and ungodly life, is as uncomely as a man's head would be on a beast's shoulders. That man hath little cause to brag that what he holds is

truth, if what he doth be wicked. Poor wretch, if thou art a slave to the devil, it matters not to what part thy chain be fastened, whether head or foot; he holds thee as sure to him by thy foot in thy practice, as he would by thy head, if heretical and blasphemous; yea thou art worse on it in some respects than they who are like themselves all over. Thy wickedness is greater, because committed in the face of truth. Many, the mistake of their erroneous judgments betray them unto the unholiness of their practice; their wicked lives are the conclusion which follows necessarily upon the premises of their errors; but thy judgment lights thee another way (except thou meanest further to accumulate thy sin by fathering thy unholiness on truth itself). They only miss their way to Heaven in the dark, or are misled by a false light of an erroneous judgment, which possibly, rectified, would bring them back into the path of holiness; but thou sinnest by the broad light of truth, and goest on boldly to Hell at noon-day, like the devil himself, who knows truth from error well enough, but hates to be ruled by it. Should a minstrel sing to a sweet tune with her voice, and play to another with her hand that is harsh and displeasing, such music would more grate the judicious ear, than if she had sung to what she played? Thus to sing to truth with our judgment, and play wickedness with our heart and hand in our life, is more abhorrent to God and all good men than when the judgment is erroneous as well as the life ungodly. Nahash had not enraged David so much, if he had come with an army of twenty thousand men into the field against him, as he did by abusing his ambassadors so basely: the open hostility which many express by their ungodly lives, does not so much provoke God, as the base usage they give to his truth, which he sends to treat with them, yea in them. This kindles the fire of his wrath into a flame to purpose, when he sees men put scorn upon his truth, by walking contrary to the light of it, and imprisoning it from having any command over them in their lives, and yet own it to be the truth of God.

Secondly, Take it for truth of heart; and so truth and holiness must go together. In vain do men pretend to

sincerity, if they be unholy in their lives. God owns no unholy sincerity; the terms do clash one with another. Sincerity teacheth the soul to point at the right end of all its actions, the glory of God; now it is not enough to set the right end before us, but to walk in the right way to it; we shall never come at God's glory out of God's way; holiness and righteousness is the sincere man's path set by God as a causeway on which he is to walk, both to the glorifying of God and the being glorified by God. Now he that thinks to find a shorter cut, and a nearer way to obtain this end, than this way, he takes but pains to undo himself. As he finds a new way of glorifying God, which God hath not chalked, so he must find a new Heaven which God hath not prepared, or else he must go without one to reward him for his pains. O friends! look to find this stamp of righteousness and holiness on your sincerity. The proverb saith, Hell is full of good wishes, of such who now, when it is too late, wish they had acted their part otherwise when on earth than they did. And do you not think there are there more than a good store of good meanings also? Such who pretended, when on earth, they meant well, and their hearts were honest, however it happened that their lives were otherwise. What a strange delusion is this! If one should say, though all the water the bucket brings up be naught and stinking, yet that which is in the well is all sweet, who would believe him? Thy heart upright, and thy meanings good, when all that proceeds from thy heart in thy life is wicked, how can it be? who will believe thee? Surely thou dost not thyself.

CHAP. III.

WHEREIN THE GRAND POINT FROM THE WORDS IS LAID

DOWN, THAT THE CHRISTIAN'S ESPECIAL CARE SHOULD BE TO KEEP ON HIS BREAST-PLATE, i. e. MAINTAIN THE POWER OF HOLINESS IN HIS CONVERSATION; WITH THE FIRST REASON OF THE POINT TAKEN FROM GOD'S DESIGN AS TO THIS.

IT is now time, having measured the ground, to lay the bottom stone, on which the structure from these words. is to be reared. I thought to have drawn out several points as distinct foundations to build our discourse upon; but shall now rather chuse to unite all in a single point, as one main building, though I make a few more rooms therein, to entertain what else should have been handled severally. The point is this.

Doct. That he who means to be a Christian indeed must endeavour to maintain the power of holiness and righteousness in his life and conversation. This is to have the breast-plate of righteousness, and to have it on also. He is a holy righteous man that hath a work of grace and holiness in his heart, as he a living man that hath a principle of life in him; but he maintains the power of holiness that exerts this vigorously in his daily walking, as he the power of natural life in whom the principle of life, seated in the heart, empowers every member to do its particular office in the body strenuously. Thus walked the primitive Christians (in whose veins, saith Jerome, the blood of Christ was yet warm) their great care was to keep on this breast-plate of righteousness close and entire, that it neither might loosen by negligence, nor be broken by presumptuous sinning; the character then a saint was known by from other men was his holy walking. Luke i. 16. There it is said of Zacharias and Elizabeth, "They were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless." This was also holy Paul's

every-day exercise, "to have always a conscience void of offence towards God and man." Acts xxiv. Never did any more curiously watch the health of their body, than he attended to the health of his soul, that no unholiness or unrighteousness (which is the only bane of it) might distemper and defile it. And truly we who come after such holy ones in the same profession do bind ourselves to our good behaviour, that we will walk holily and righteously as they did. The point carries its evidence on its forehead, and needs rather pressing than proving; and therefore I may be pardoned if the demonstrations of the point be handled as well as motives to as reasons for the duty, which will spare work in the application. Reasons of the point shall be taken from several heads.

First, in regard of God, whose great design is to have his people a holy people. This is enough to oblige, yea to provoke, every Christian to promote what God hath so strongly set upon his heart to effect. He deserves to be cashiered that endeavours not to pursue what his general declares to be his design: and he to have his name blotted out of Christ's muster-roll, whose heart stands not on tiptoes ready to march yea run on his design. It is an honourable epitaph which Paul sets on the memory of David long before deceased, that he "in his own generation served the will of God;" Acts xiii. 36. he made it the business of his life to carry on God's designs. And all gracious hearts, touched with the same loadstone of God's love, stand to the same point. All the private ends of a sincere soul are swallowed up in this, that he may do the will of God in his generation. This he heartily prays for, "Thy will be done;" this is his study, to find what is the "good and acceptable will of God;" which is the very cause why he loves the Bible above all the books of the world beside, because in none but that can he find what is the mind and will of God concerning him. Now I shall endeavour to shew that this is the great design of God, to have his people holy : it runs like a silver thread through all God's other designs.