of this world, and to love and labour for the other. Before this faith can enable them to resist a temptation, they must derive their assent from principles of another nature; and, therefore, because few men can dispute it with arguments invincible and demonstrative, and such as are naturally apt to produce the more perfect assent, it is necessary that these men, of all other, should believe, because it is said to come from God, and rely upon it, because it brings to God,trust it, because it is good, acknowledge it certain, because it is excellent; that there may be an act of the will in it, as well as of the understanding, and as much love in it as discourse.

For he that only consents to an article because it is evident, is, indeed, convinced, but hath no excellency in his faith, but what is natural,-nothing that is gracious and moral: true Christian faith must have in it something of obscurity, something that must be made up by duty and by obedience; but it is nothing but this, we must trust the evidence of God in the obscurity of the thing. God's testimony must be clear to him, and the thing, in all other senses, not clear; and then to trust the article, because God hath said it, it must have in it an excellency which God loves, and that he will reward. In order to this, it is highly con siderable, that the greatest argument to prove our religion is the goodness and the holiness of it; it is that which makes peace and friendships, content and comfort; which unites all relations, and endears the relatives; it relieves the needy, and defends the widow; it ends strife, and makes love endless. All other arguments can be opposed and tempted by wit and malice; but against the goodness of the religion no man can speak: by which it appears, that the greatest argument is that which moves love, intending, by love, to convince the understanding.

But then for others who can inquire better:- their inquiries also must be modest and humble, according to the nature of the things, and to the designs of God. They must not disbelieve an article in Christianity, which is not proved like a conclusion in geometry; they must not be witty to object, and curious to inquire beyond their limit. For some are so ingeniously miserable, that they will never believe a proposition in divinity, if any thing can be said against it

they will be credulous enough in all the affairs of their life, but impenetrable by a sermon of the Gospel: they will believe the word of a man, and the promise of their neighbour; but a promise of Scripture signifies nothing, unless it can be proved like a proposition in the metaphysics. If Sempronius tells them a story, it is sufficient if he be a just man, and the narrative be probable: but though religion be taught by many excellent men, who gave their lives for a testimony; this shall not pass for truth, till there is no objection left to stand against it. The reason of these things is plain : they do not love the thing; their interest is against it: they have no joy in religion: they are not willing and desirous that the things shall appear true. When love is the principle, the thing is easy to the understanding; the objections are nothing, the arguments are good, and the preachers are in the right. Faith assents to the revelations of the Gospel, not only because they are well proved, but because they are excellent things; not only because my reason is convinced, but my reason yields upon the fairer terms, because my affections are gained. For if faith were an assent to an article but just so far as it is demonstrated, then faith were no virtue, and infidelity were no sin: because in this there is no choice, and no refusal. But where that which is probable, is also naturally indemonstrable, and yet the conclusion is that in which we must rejoice, and that for which we must earnestly contend, and that in the belief of which we serve God, and that for which we must be ready to die—it is certain, that the understanding observing the credibility, and the will being pleased with the excellency, they produce a zeal of belief, because they together make up the demonstration. For a reason can be opposed by a reason, and an argument by an argument: but if I love my religion, nothing can take me from it, unless it can pretend to be more useful and more amiable, more perfective and more excellent, than heaven and immortality, and a kingdom and a crown of peace, and all the things, and all the glories of the eternal God.

2. That faith which disposes to the holy communion, must have in it a fulness of confidence and relying upon God, a trusting in, and a real expectation of, the event of all the promises of the Gospel. God hath promised sufficient

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for the things of this life to them, that serve him. They who have great revenues and full bags, can easily trust this promise but if thou hast neither money nor friends, if the labour of thy hands, and the success of thy labour fails thee, how is it then? Can you then rely upon the promise? What means your melancholy and your fear, your frequent sighs, and your calling yourself miserable and undone? Can God only help with means? or cannot he also make the means, or help without them? or see them when you see them not? or is it that you fear whether he will or no? He that hath promised,—if he be just, is always willing, whether he be able or no; and, therefore, if you do not doubt of his power, why should you at all doubt of his willingness? For, if he were not able, he were not almighty: if he were not willing to perform his promise, then he were not just; and he that suspects that, hath neither faith nor love for God: of all things in the world, faith never distrusts the good-will of God, in which he most glories to communicate himself to mankind. If yet your fear objects and says, that all is well on God's part; but you have provoked him by your sins, and have lost all title to the promise:' I can say nothing against that, but that you must speedily repent and amend your fault; and then all will be quickly well on your part also; and your faith will have no objection, and your fears will have no excuse. When the glutton Apicius had spent a vast revenue in his prodigious feastings, he killed himself for fear of starving: but if Cæsar had promised to give him all Sicily, or the revenues of Egypt, the beast would have lived and eaten. But the promises of God give to many of us no security, not so much as the promise of our rich friend, who yet may be disabled, or may break his word or die. But let us try again.

God hath promised, that "all things should work together for good to them that fear him." Do we believe, that our present affliction will do so? Will the loss of our goods, the diminution of our revenue, the amission of our honour, the death of our eldest son, the unkindness of a husband, the frown of our prince, the defeating of our secular hopes, the unprosperous event of our employment? Do we find, that our faith is right enough really to be satisfied in these things so much as to be pleased with God's order and method

of doing good to us by these unpleasant instruments? Can we rejoice under the mercy by joys of believing at the same time, when we groan under the affliction by the passion of sense? Do we observe the design of cure, when we feel the pain and the smart? Are we patient under the evil, being supported by expectation of the good which is promised to follow? This is the proper work of faith, and its best indication.

Plutarch tells, that when the cowards of Lacedemon' depicted upon their shields the most terrible beasts they could imagine, their design was to affright their enemies that they might not come to a close fight; they would fain have made their enemies afraid, because themselves were so: which when Lacon espied, he painted upon a great shield, nothing but a little fly for his device; and to them who said he did it that he might not be noted in the battle, he answered, 'yea, but I mean to come so near the enemy, that he shall see the little fly.'-This is our case: our afflictions seem to us like gorgons' heads, lions and tigers, things terrible in picture, but intolerable in their fury; but if we come near and consider them in all the circumstances, they are nothing but a fly upon a shield, they cannot hurt us; and they ought not to affright us, if we remember that they are conducted by God, that they are the effect of his care, and the impress of his love, that they are the method and order of a blessing, that they are sanctified and eased by a promise; and that a . present ease, it may be, would prove a future infelicity. If our faith did rely upon the promise, all this were nothing; but our want of faith does cause all the excess of trouble. For the question is not whether or no we be afflicted, whether we be sick, or crossed in our designs, or deprived of our children, this we feel and mourn for;-but the question is, whether all this may not, or be not intended to, bring good to us? Not whether God smiles or no, but to what purpose

a Si qua latent, meliora puta.-Or. M. i. 502.

The cowards of Lacedemon] Plutarch does not mention these cowards: he merely states, that a Lacedemonian (Lacon) painted a fly upon his shield. Λάκων ἐπὶ τῆς ἀσπίδος μυῖαν ἔχων ἐπίσημον, καὶ ταύτην οὐ μείζω τῆς ἀληθινῆς, ὡς καταγελῶντές τινες ἔλεγον ὑπὲρ τοῦ λανθάνειν τοῦτο πεποιήκει, Ἵνα μὲν οὖν (εἶπε) φανερὸς ὦ· οὕτω γὰρ τοῖς πολεμίοις πλησίον προσέρχομαι ὥστε τὸ ἐπίσημον ἡλίκον ἐστὶν ὑπ ̓ αὐτῶν ópãodai.-Lacon. Apoph. Xyland. t. ii. pag. 234. D. (J. R. P.)

• Pœnam, Phaeton, pro munere poscis.

he smiles? not whether this be not evil, but whether this evil will not bring good to us? If we do believe, why are we without comfort and without patience? If we do not believe it, where is our faith?

And why do any of us come to the holy communion, if we do not believe it will be for our good? but if we do think it will, why do we not think so of our cross? for the promise is that every thing shall. Cannot the rod of God do good as well as the bread of God? and is not he as good in his discipline as in his provision? is not he the same in his school as at his table? is not his physic as wholesome as his food? It is not reason, but plainly our want of faith, that makes us think otherwise. Faith is the great magazine of all the graces, and all the comforts of a Christian: and, therefore, the devil endeavours to corrupt the truth of it, by intermingling errors, the sincerity of it by hypocrisy, the ingenuity of it by interest, the comforts of it by doubting, the confidence of it by objections and secular experiences, and present considerations; by adherence to human confidences, and little sanctuaries, and the pleasures of the world, and the fallibilities of men. When Xerxes had a great army to conduct, and great successes to desire, and various contingencies to expect,- he left off to sacrifice to his country gods, forsook Jupiter and the sun: and, in Lydia, espying a goodly platan-tree, tall, and straight, and spread, he encamped all his army in the fields about it, hung up bracelets and coronets upon the branches, and, with costly offerings, made his petitions to the beauteous tree: and when he marched away, he left a guard upon his god, lest any thing should do injury to the plant, of which he begged to be defended from all injury. By such follies as these does the devil endeavour to deflower our holy faith and confidences in God; we trust in man, who cannot trust himself; we rely upon riches, that rely upon nothing; for they have no stabiliment, and they have no foundation, but are like atoms in the air; the things themselves can bear no weight, and the foundation cannot bear them. In our afflictions, we look for comfort from wine

J Herodotus does not say, that Xerxes made any petitions to the plane tree.—εὗρε (ὁ Ξέρξης) πλατάνιστον, τὴν, κάλλεις εἵνεκα, δωρησάμενος κόσμῳ χρυσέῳ, καὶ μenedwvõ åv‡pánæ åJaváry ävdpi imitpé↓as, &c.— Polym. c. 31. Schweigh. vol. iii. pag. 191. (J. R. P.)