our Minds; it is as dangerous therefore to indulge thefe Tempers, as to live in Gluttony and Intemperance.

You think it fhameful to be an Epicure, you would not be fufpected to be fond of Liquor, you think thefe Tempers would too much spoil all your Pretences to Religion; you are very right in your Judgment, but then proceed a Step farther, and think it as fhameful to be fond of Drefs, or delighted with your felf, as to be fond of Dainties, and that it is as great a Sin to please any corrupt Temper of your Heart, as to please your Palate; remember that Blood heated with Paffion, is like Blood heated with Liquor, and that the Gronefs of Gluttony is no greater a Contrariety to Religion, than the Politenefs of Pride, and the Vanity of our Minds.

I HAVE been the longer upon this Subject, trying every Way to represent the Weakness and Corruption of our Nature, becaufe fo far as we rightly understand it, fo far we fee into the Reasonableness and Neceflity of all religious Duties. If we fanfy our felves to be wife and regular in our Tempers and Judgments, we can fee no Reafon for denying our felves; but if we find that our whole Nature is in Disorder, that our Light is Darkness, our Wifdom Foolishness, that our Tempers and

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Judgments are as grofs and blind as our Appetites, that our Senfes govern us as they govern Children, that our Ambition and Greatness is taken up with Gugaws and Trifles, that the State of our Bodies is a State of Error and Delufion, like that of Drunkenness and Paffion.

IF we see our felves in this true Light, we shall see the whole Reafon of Chriftian Self-denial, of Meeknefs, and Poverty of Spirit, of putting off our old Man, of renouncing our whole Selves, that we may fee all Things in God; of watching and Prayer, and mortifying all our Inclinations, that our Hearts may be mov'd by a Motion from God, and our Wills and Inclinations be directed by the Light and Wisdom of Religion.

RELIGION has little or no hold of us, till we have these right Apprehenfions of our felves; it may ferve for a little Decency of outward Behaviour, but it is not the Religion of our Hearts, till we feel the weeknefs and disorder of our Nature, and embrace Piety and Devotion, as the Means of recovering us to a State of Perfection and Happiness in God.

A MAN that thinks himself in Health, cannot lament the Sickness of his State.

IF we are pleased with the Pride and Vanity of our Minds, if we live in Pleafure

fure and Self-fatisfactions, we fhall feel no meaning in our Devotions, when we lament the Mifery and Corruption of our Nature. We may have Times and Places to mourn for Sins, but we fhall feel no more inward Grief, than hired Mourners do at a Funeral.

So that as the Corruption of our Nature, is the Foundation and Reason of Selfdenial, fo a right Sense and Feeling of that Corruption, is neceffary to make us rightly affected with the Offices and Devotions of Religion.

I SHALL NOW fhew, that the reafonableness and neceffity of Self-denial, is also founded upon another fundamental Doctrine of Religion, namely, the Neceffity of Divine Grace, which I fhall leave to be the Subject of the following Chapter.

CHA P. IX.

Of the Neceffity of Divine Grace, and the feveral Duties to which it calleth all Chriftians.

COME now to another Article of our Religion, namely, the abfolute Neceffity of Divine Grace, which is another univerfal and conftant Reafon of Self-denial. THE invisible Operation and Affistance of God's Holy Spirit, by which we are difpos'd towards that which is good, and made able to perform it, is a confess'd Doctrine of Christianity.

OUR natural Life is preferved by fome Union with God, who is the Fountain of Life to all the Creation, to which Union we are altogether Strangers; we find that we are alive, as we find that we think, but how, or by what Influence from God our Life is fupported, is a Secret into which we cannot enter. It is the fame Thing

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with Relation to our fpiritual Life, or Life of Grace, it arifes from fome invifible Union with God, or Divine Influence, which in this State of Life we cannot comprehend. Our bleffed Saviour faith, The Wind bloweth where it lifteth, and thou heareft the Sound thereof, but cannot tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth; fo is every one that is born of God (a). This fhews us, how ignorant we are of the manner of the Operations of the Holy Spirit; we may feel its Effects, as we may perceive the Effects of the Wind, but are as much Strangers to its manner of coming upon us, as we are Strangers to that exact Point, from whence the Wind begins to blow, and where it will cease.

THE Spirit of God is like the Nature of God, too high for our Conceptions, whilst we are in these dark Houses of Clay. But our bleffed Saviour has in fome Degree help'd our Conceptions in this Matter, by the manner of his giving the Holy Spirit to his Difciples. And he breathed on them, and faid unto them, receive the Holy Ghost. Now by this Ceremony of breathing, we are taught to conceive of the Communications

(a) John iii. 8.

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