perance, and Chastity, and Humility, and Charity, and Refignation to God, as your Religion will oblige you to? But admitting that nothing of this difcourages you, Are you fure, in the laft Place, that you are Proof against the many outward Difficulties and Difcouragements that poffibly may be thrown in your Way upon Account of your Religion? For it is not always Sun-shine in this World with pious Men, tho' for the most part it is. Times have come, and may come again, when the beft Treatment you will meet with for your ftrict Profeffion of Religion will be the Derifion, and Reproaches, and Perfecutions of all about you. Thus it fared with our Saviour, and with the best of his Difciples for fome Years together. How now are you armed, how are you prepared against these Attacks? It is impoffible you fhould be to any Purpose, unless you have well thought of them before-hand. But if you have confidered them, and yet find your Refolutions firm and unfhaken, it is a good Sign they are rightly made. On the contrary, if you have not confidered them, it is to be feared your good Purposes may fail you in the Hour of Temptation; and you will meet with no better Success in your Undertaking, than that foolish Builder in the Gospel, that our Saviour speaks of, who began to build a Tower, but did not fit Luke 14. down firft and compute the Charges it would

put

28.

put him to, and whether he had Ability to v. 29. Support them; but laid the Foundation at adventure, and afterwards was not able to v. 30. finish it. So that all who beheld it began to mock him, faying, This Man began to build, but was not able to finish.

2. But, fecondly, as we ought to have a particular Confideration of Things themfelves, fo also ought we to have of our own Humours and Tempers when we are a making good Refolutions. By not attending to this, a Man is often deceived in his devout Purposes, taking those to be firm and fincere ones, which really are not fo. We are not always equally capable of religious Impreffions, but are much better difpofed for them at fome Times than at others. A good Book, or a warm Difcourfe, may often put a Man into a ftrange devout Frame, and then he can refolve any thing; but when he is cool again, he has forgot all. A fharp Affliction likewife, or a Fit of Sickness, or the Apprehenfion of any fudden Danger, doth often make us wonderful ferious and fenfible of our Follies paft, and full of good Purposes to change our Courfe of Life. But then these Purposes and Impreffions do ufually vanish with the Things that caufed them; when the prefent Apprehenfions and Terrors are over, we are the fame Men that we were before. Nay, even a Man's Sins, and the full Gratifications of his Lufts, will naturally work

in him a prefent Deteftation of them. Having newly fatisfied his Appetites, all his Defires and Expectations are over, and the Man is cloyed, and then he begins to reflect upon the Vanity and Sinfulness of fuch kind of Courses, and he refolves to be guilty of them no more. But this lafts but for a fhort while; as his ufual Temper and Temptations return, fo the fame Appetites return with them, and they must again, in fpite of his late Refolution, have their ufual Satisfactions. It is no wonder that all the Refolutions that are made in fuch Circumftances as thefe, prove generally very idle and infignificant. For the Man is not himself when he makes them. He is in a preternatural State: He is in the Heat and Transport of a Paffion. If he will refolve to Purpose, he muft refolve in cold Blood, as well as when he is heated by fome extraordinary Occafion.

Never therefore let any one truft to his pious Refolutions, unless he have tried how they appear to him, how he approves of them, how they fit his Mind in all kind of Tempers and Humours. It is in this Cafe as it is in Matters of Senfe; there are fome Objects which, if you look upon only in one kind of Light, you will hardly avoid your being mistaken in your Judgment about them. As you must put them into all their various Poftures, fo muft you view them in all forts of Lights, if

you

you mean to form true, fteady Ideas of them.

I am not indeed at all for difcouraging those devotional Fits (as I may call them :) on the contrary, I would have every one do their Endeavours to raise up themselves into that Temper as often as they can. For fuch fudden Heats do really fometimes prove the Beginnings of a lafting Virtue. They are the Occafions that put a Man upon thinking. And the Impreffions that are then left upon his Spirit (if there be due Care taken to cherish and preferve them) may be effectual, by the Grace of God, for the new modelling his Mind, and quite altering the whole State and Frame of his Life. But this I fay, If we mean that our Refolutions fhould be pertinent, and not vanish like the Morning Dew, we muft not think it fufficient to refolve in a Fit or an Humour, but we muft, when we are cool and fedate, and the accidental Violence is off from our Spirits, review our Refolutions, and canvas them over and over again. And if we then find ourselves to approve of them, and in all Tempers, and Difpofitions, and Circumftances, have the fame Earneftnefs, and Defire and Vigour of Mind to pursue them, it is a good Sign that they were well formed, and that we shall proceed profperously in them.

3. But another Thing fit to be observ'd is, that we do not content ourselves with refolving in general, but that our Refolutions be as particular as may be. It is not enough to make our Purposes in the Grofs; to fay, as the Ifraelites did to Jofbua upon the fore-mentioned Occafion, Nay, but we will ferve the Lord, we will be good, we will break off our Sins, and enter upon a new Course of Life: Alas! all this is but fhooting at Rovers. If we mean to hit the Mark, we must take more particular Aims. He who thinks to get the Maftery over his Sins and evil Habits, only by making general Resolutions against them, is juft like the Man who hopes to be victorious in the Fight he is engaged in, merely by making a general stout Resistance against his Enemies, tho' he bestow all his Blows at random, neither attending to the Advantages that are offered him, nor regarding the Disadvantages to which he himfelf muft lie open. It will therefore concern us, when we are framing Refolutions, to live a holy Life, to examine well the State of our own Souls. To fee. where we are weak, and obnoxious, and where we are pretty well able to defend ourfelves, and accordingly to make Provifion. To enquire what particular Sins our Temper, or our Education, or our Business, or our evil Cuftoms do moft incline us to, what are the moft reigning Lufts and Vices in and to fortify our Minds moft particularly VOL. VI.

us,

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against