infirmities are wholesome, his wants enrich him, his dif- SERM. graces adorn him, his burdens eafe him; his duties are HI. privileges, his falls are the grounds of advancement, his very fins (as breeding contrition, humility, circumfpection, and vigilance) do better and profit him: whereas impiety doth spoil every condition, doth corrupt and embase all good things, doth embitter all the conveniences and comforts of life.

III. Piety doth virtually comprise within it all other profits, ferving all the designs of them all: whatever kind of defirable good we can hope to find from any other profit, we may be affured to enjoy from it.

He that hath it is ipfo facto vaftly rich, is intitled to immense treasures of most precious wealth; in comparison whereto all the gold and all the jewels in the world are mere baubles. He hath intereft in God, and can call him his, who is the all, and in regard to whom all things exiftent are less than nothing. The infinite power and wifdom of God belong to him, to be ever, upon all fit occafions, employed for his benefit. All the inestimable treasures of heaven (a place infinitely more rich than the Indies) are his, after this moment of life, to have and to hold for ever: so that great reason had the Wise Man to say, that In the house of the righteous is much treasure. Prov. xv. 6. Piety therefore is profitable, as immediately inftating in wealth: and whereas the defired fruits of profit are chiefly these, honour, power, pleasure, safety, liberty, ease, opportunity of getting knowledge, means of benefiting others; all these, we shall see, do abundantly accrue from piety, and in truth only from it.

Κατ' ἀλή

The pious man is in truth most honourable. Inter ho- Sen. Ep. xc. mines pro fummo eft optimus, faith Seneca; whom Solomon tranflateth thus; The righteous is more excellent than Prov. xii. his neighbour. He is dignified by the most illuftrious 26. titles, a fon of God, a friend and favourite to the fovereign JayaKing of the world, an heir of heaven, a denizen of the Je- os povos TIrufalem above: titles far furpaffing all those which world-fot. Eth. iii. ly state doth assume. He is approved by the best and most infallible judgments, wherein true honour refideth.

μόνος τις

μητός. Ari

3.

II.

SERM. He is respected by God himself, by the holy angels, by the bleffed faints, by all good and all wife perfons; yea, Prov. xii. commonly, by all men: for the effects of genuine piety are fo venerable and amiable, that scarce any man can do otherwife than in his heart much esteem him that worketh them.

8, 4.

The pious man is also the most potent man: he hath a kind of omnipotency, because he can do whatever he will, that is, what he ought to dod; and because the Divine Power is ever ready to affift him in his pious enterprises, fo that he can do all things by Chrift that ftrengtheneth him. He is able to combat and vanquish him that is i iσxupòs, the Stout and mighty one; to wage war with happy success against principalities and powers. He conProv. xvi. quereth and commandeth himself, which is the bravest 32. xxv. 28. victory and noblest empire: he quelleth fleshly lusts, subde Ben.v.7. dueth inordinate paffions, and repelleth ftrong tempta

Vide Sen.

13.

Heb. iii. 6.

tions. He, by his faith, overcometh the world with a. conquest far more glorious than ever any Alexander or Cæfar could do. He, in fine, doth perform the most worthy exploits, and deferveth the most honourable triumphs that man can do.

The pious man alfo doth enjoy the only true pleasures; hearty, pure, folid, durable pleasures; fuch pleasures as Pf. xvi. 11. those, of which the divine Pfalmift fingeth: In thy prefence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleaRom. xv. fures for evermore. That all joy in believing, that gaiety of hope, that inceffant rejoicing in the Lord, and greatly Phil. iv. 4. delighting in his law, that continual feast of a good concxii. 1. i. 2. science, that ferving the Lord with gladness, that exceeding cxix. 16.24. gladness with God's countenance, that comfort of the Holy Spirit, that joy unspeakable and full of glory; the fatisc. 2. xxi. 6. faction refulting from the contemplation of heavenly truth, If. xxix. 19. from the fenfe of God's favour, and the pardon of his John xvi. fins, from the influence of God's grace, from the hopes 1 Pet. i. 8. and anticipation of everlasting bliss; these are pleasures

Pf. xliii. 4.

47.70.77.

92.111.143.

xciv. 19.

20, &c.

Rom. xiv.

17.

Tantum quantum vult poteft, qui fe nifi quod debet non putat poffe. Senec. Ep. xc.

II.

indeed, in comparison whereto all other pleasures are no SERM. more than brutish fenfualities, fordid impurities, fuperficial touches, tranfient flashes of delight: fuch as should be infipid and unfavoury to a rational appetite; such as are tinctured with fournefs and bitternefs, have painful remorfes or qualms confequente. All the pious man's performances of duty and of devotion are full of pure fatisfaction and delight here, they shall be rewarded with perfect and endless joy hereafter.

xxxvi. 7.

As for fafety, the pious man hath it most abfolute and fure; he being guarded by Almighty power and wisdom; refting under the shadow of God's wings; God upholding Pf. xvii. 8. him with his hand, ordering his steps, fo that none of them lvii. 1. lxi. Jhall flide, holding his foul in life, and suffering not his feet 4. xci. 4. to be moved; he being, by the grace and mercy of God, fecured from the affaults and impreffions of all enemies, xxxvii. 23. from fin and guilt, from the Devil, world, and flesh, from 133. Ixvi. 9. death and hell, which are our most formidable, and in cxix. 45. effect only dangerous enemies.

xxxvii. 24. cxix. 117.

31. cxix.

As for liberty, the pious man moft entirely and truly doth enjoy that; he alone is free from captivity to that cruel tyrant Satan, from the miferable flavery to fin, from the grievous dominion of lust and paffion. He can do what he pleaseth, having a mind to do only what is good and fit. The Law he obferveth is worthily called the per- Jam. i. 25. fect law of liberty; the Lord he serveth pretendeth only to command freemen and friends: Ye are my friends, faid John xv. he, if ye do whatever I command you; and, If the Son fet où ve içi, you free, then are ye free indeed.

14. viii. 36.

ἐκ ἔτιν ἐλεύ θερος, ἀλλ ̓

v.

And for eafe, it is he only that knoweth it; having his ves mind exempted from the distraction of care, from diforder Xes Chryfoft. ad of paffion, from anguish of conscience, from the drudge- Theod. ries and troubles of the world, from the vexations and difquiets which fin produceth. He findeth it made good to

* Quid enim jucundius, quam Dei Patris et Domini reconciliatio, quam veritatis revelatio, quam errorum recognitio, quam tot retro criminum venia? quæ major voluptas, quam faftidium ipfius voluptatis, quam fæculi totius contemptus, quam vera libertas, quam confcientia integra, quam vita fuffi, ciens, quam mortis timor nullus, &c.? Tert. de Spectac. 29.

II.

Matt. xi.

SERM. him, which our Lord inviting him did promife, Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you reft: he feeleth the truth of thofe divine affertions, Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whofe mind is flayed on thee; and, Great peace have they which love thy law, and nothing fhall offend them.

28.

If. xxvi. 3.

Pf. cxix. 165.

Prov.

xxviii. 5.

As for knowledge, the pious, man alone doth attain it confiderably, fo as to become truly wife and learned to purpose. Evil men, faith the Wife Man himself, who knew well, understand not judgment: but they that seek the Lord understand all things. It is the pious man that employeth his mind upon the most proper and worthy objects, that knoweth things which certainly best deserve to be known, that hath his foul enriched with the choiceft notions; he skilleth to aim at the best ends, and to compass them by the fittest means; he can affign to each thing its due worth and value; he can prosecute things by the best methods, and order his affairs in the best manner : fo that he is fure not to be defeated or disappointed in his endeavours, nor to miffpend his care and pains, without anfwerable fruit. He hath the best master to instruct him in his ftudies, and the best rules to direct him in his proceedings he cannot be mistaken, seeing in his judgment and choice of things he confpireth with infallible wisdom. Therefore ὁ εὐσεβῶν ἄκρως φιλοσοφεῖ, the pious man is the exJob xxviii. quifite philofopher. The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; Prov.ix. 10. and to depart from evil is understanding. The fear of the Lord (as is faid again and again in Scripture) is the head (or top) of wisdom. A good understanding have all they that keep his commandments.

Trifmeg.

28.

i. 7.

Pfal. cxi. 10. cxix. 34.99. 104. 130.

:

Farther: the pious man is enabled and difpofed (hath the power and the heart) most to benefit and oblige others. He doth it by his fuccour and affiftance, by his inftruction and advice, which he is ever ready to yield to any man upon fit occafion: he doth it by the direction and encouragement of his good example: he doth it by his conftant and earnest prayers for all men: he doth it by drawing down bleffings from heaven on the place where he refideth. He is upon all accounts the most true, the most common

benefactor to mankind; all his neighbours, his country, SERM. the world are in fome way or other obliged to him: at II. least, he doth all the good he can, and in wish doth benefit all men.

Thus all the fruits and confequences of profit, the which engage men fo eagerly to pursue it, do in the best kind and highest degree refult from piety, and indeed only from - it. All the philofophical bravados concerning a wife man being only rich, only honourable, only happy, only above fortune, are verified in the pious man: to him alone, as fuch, with a fure foundation, without vanity, with evident reason, those aphorifms may be applied. They are paradoxes and fictions abstracting from religion, or confidering men only under the light and power of nature: but suppofing our religion true, a good Christian soberly, without arrogance, in proportion and according to the measure of his piety, may affume them to himself, as the holy Apoftles did: I poffefs all things, I can do all things, he may in a fort say after St. Paul.

As for all other profits, fecluding it, they are but ima- Sen. Ep. 59. ginary and counterfeit, mere fhadows and illufions, yielding only painted shows instead of substantial fruit.

If from bare worldly wealth (that which usurpeth the name of profit here) a man feeketh honour, he is deluded, for he is not thereby truly honourable; he is but a shining earth-worm, a well-trapped ass, a gaudy statue, a theatrical grandee with God, who judgeth most rightly, he is mean and despicable: no intelligent perfon can inwardly respect him. Even here, in this world of fallacy and dotage, the wisest and fobereft men, whose judgment ufually doth sway that of others, cannot but contemn him, as master of no real good, nor fit for any good purpose; as seeing that in the end he will prove most beggarly and wretched.

If a man affecteth power thence, he is grievously mistaken for, instead thereof, he proveth exceedingly feeble and impotent, able to perform nothing worthy a man, fubject to fond bumours and paffions, fervant to divers lufts and pleasures, captivated by the Devil at his pleasure,

D