rejoice, if God fhall please to make any Part of this Difcourfe effectual to perfwade any into the Love of Holiness, without which, certain it is, no Man fhall fee the Lord: But the pure in Heart fhall behold him for ever.

To conclude, I cannot pass this Reflection upon what is obferved of the Sayings of dying Men, and which to me feems to have great Inftruction in it, viz. All Men agree, when they come to die, it is beft to be religious; to live an holy, humble, strict, and self-denying Life; retired, folitary, temperate, and difincumbred of the World. Then loving God above all, and our Neighbours as ourselves, forgiving our Enemies, and praying for them, are folid Things, and the effential Part of Religion, as the true Ground of Man's Happiness. Then all Sin is exceeding finful, and yields no more Pleasure: But every inordinate Defire is burthenfome, and feverely reproved. Then the World, with all the lawful Comforts in it, weighs light against that Senfe and Judgment, which fuch Men have between the temporal and eternal. And fince it is thus with dying Men, what Inftruction is in it to the Living, whofe Pretence for the moft Part is a perpetual Contradiction? O! that Men would learn to number their Days, that they might apply their Hearts to Wisdom; of which, the Fear of the Lord, is the true and only Beginning. And blessed are they that fear always, for their Feet hall be preferved from the Snares of Death.

СНАР.

CHA P. XXII.

§. 1. Of the Way of Living among the first Christians. §. 2. An Exhortation to all profeffing Chriftianity, to embrace the foregoing Reafons and Examples. §. 3. Plain Dealing with fuch as reject them. §. 4. Their Recompences. §. 5. The Author is better perfwaded and affured of fome: An Exhortation to them. §. 6. Encouragement to the Children of Light to perfevere, from a Confideration of the Excellency of the Reward; the End and Triumph of the Chriftian Conqueror. The whole concluded with a brief Supplication to Almighty GOD.

§. I.

The CONCLUSION.

H

AVING finish'd fo many Testimonies, as my Time would give me Leave, in Favour of this Subject, No CROSS, No CROWN: No Temperance, no Happiness: No Virtue, no Reward: No Mortification, no Glorification: I fhall conclude with a fhort Description of the Life and Worship of the Chriftians, within the firft Century, or hundred Years after Chrift: What Simplicity, what Spirituality, what holy Love and Communion did in that bleffed Age abound among them? Ii 2

It

It is deliver'd originally by Philo Judæus, and cited by Eufebius Pamphilus in his Ecclefiaftical Hiftory; That thofe Chriftians renounced 'their Subftance, and fever'd themselves from all the Cares of this Life; and forfaking the Cities, they liv'd folitary in Fields and Gardens. They accounted their Company, who followed the contrary Life of Cares and • Buftles, as unprofitable and hurtful unto them, to the End that with earnest and 'fervent Defires, they might imitate them which led this prophetical and heavenly Life. In many Places,' fays he, this People liveth, ⚫ for it behoveth as well the Grecians as the • Barbarians, to be Partakers of this abfolutę Goodness, but in Egypt, in every Province they abound; and efpecially about Alexandria. From all Parts the better Sort withdrew themfelves into the Soil and Place of thefe Worshippers, as they were called, as a moft commodious Place, adjoining to the Lake of Mary, in a Valley very fit, both for its Security and the Temperance of the · Air. They are further reported to have Meeting-houses, where the most Part of the ¿ Day was employed in worshipping God: That they were great Allegorizers of the Scriptures, making them all figurative: That the external Shew of Words, or the Letrefembleth the Superfices of the Body;

ter,

and

*Philo Judæus of the Worship of Egypt and Alexandria. Eufeb. Pam, Eccl, Hift. 1. 2, C. 17.

⚫ and the hidden Senfe or understanding of the • Words feem in Place of the Soul; which

they contemplate by their beholden Names, as it were in a Glafs.' That is, their Religion confifted not chiefly in reading the Letter, difputing about it, accepting Things in literal Conftructions, but in the Things declared of the Substance itself, bringing Things nearer to the Mind, Soul, and Spirit, and preffing into a more hidden and heavenly Sense; making Religion to confift in the Temperance and Sanctity of the Mind, and not in the formal, bodily Worship, fo much now-a-days in Repute, fitter to please Comedians than Chriftians. Such was the Practice of thofe Times: But now the Cafe is alter'd; People will be Chritians, and have their Worldly - mindedness too: But though God's Kingdom fuffer Violence by fuch, yet fhall they never enter; the Life of Christ and his Followers hath in all Ages been another Thing; and there is but one Way, one Guide, one Reft; all which are pure and holy.

§. II. But if any, notwithstanding our many fober Reasons, and numerous Teftimonies from Scripture, or the Example or Experience of religious, worldly, and profane living and dying Men, at Home and Abroad, of the greatest Note, Fame, and Learning, in the whole World, fhall yet remain Lovers and Imitators of the Folly, and the Vanity condemned: If the Cries and Groans, Sighs and Tears, and Complaints, and mournful Wishes of so many reputed

1i3

puted great, nay, fome fober Men ;-' O that I had more Time!-O that I might live a Year longer, I would live a ftricter Life!O that I were a poor Jean Urick !-All is Vanity in this World!-O my poor Soul! 'whither wilt thou go?-O that I had the Time spent in vain Recreations!-A serious Life is above all,' and fuch like: If, I fay, this by no means can prevail, but if yet they fhall proceed to Folly, and follow the vain World, what greater Evidence can they give of their heady Refolution, to go on impioufly to defpife God, to difobey his Precepts, to deny Chrift, to fcorn, not to bear his Crofs, to for fake the Examples of his Servants, to give the Lie to the dying ferious Sayings and Confent of all Ages; to harden themfelves against the Checks of Confcience, to befool and sport away their precious Time, and poor immortal Exod. 32. Souls to Woe and Mifery? In fhort, 'tis plainly to discover, you neither have Reason to justify 3, to 6. yourselves, nor yet enough of Modesty to blush Ephef. 4. at your own Folly; but as thofe that have lost 17, 21. the Sense of one and the other, go on to eat and drink, and rife up to play. In vain thereMat. 19. fore is it for you to pretend to fear the God of Heaven, whofe Minds ferve the God of the Pleasure of this World: In vain it is to fay, You believe in Chrift, who receive not his felfdenying Doctrine: And to no better Purpose will all you do, avail. If he that had loved God and his Neighbour, and the Commandments from his Youth, was excluded from be

6.

Amos 6.

2 Tim. 2.

19.

16, to 22.