upon the Divine Comforts. After all Experi› ments, its last Sanctuary must be in God and Religion.

The Confideration of what has been hitherto difcours'd, will now lead us to a double Refle&tion, one upon the Condition of wicked Men in this World, and the other upon the Condition of damn'd Souls in the World to come.

And First,as to the Condition of wicked Men in this World. If the Divine Comforts are the proper and only Cure for all the Trouble, occafion'd by our Thoughts; then we must conclude the Condition of all fuch Men to be very miferable For as their Thoughts are apt to give them most trouble, as being for the most part irregular and full of diforder; fo they are the leaft capable of being reliev'd by the Comforts of God; for, as for the Spirit of Confolation, him they have long fince quench'd and extinguifh'd; as for the Joys of Religion, them they understand not, and are ready to fmile at the mention of them; as for the teftimony of Confcience, they have either no fenfe of any fuch thing, or fuch as is only tormenting and uneasy. Then laftly, As for meditating upon God; either he is not in all their Thoughts, or they think on him with horrour and amazement; and are fo far from taking any comfort in him, that they with him out of being, as their great Objection that chills the Fire of their Blood, damps their Hu-mour, and is an ever-returning Check upon their Mirth and Jollity. So then they have no part

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nor

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Vol. III. nor lot in these Divine Comforts, tho' at the fame time they want them moft. This noble Remedy is no Remedy to them; the Constitution of their Mind is quite cross to it, fo as to defeat all its Sovereign Power and Virtue. They must then either obftinately bear their trouble, or take up with Human Supports, feek Repose in their Thorns, roll themselves from one Vanity to another, and try to fill and fatisfy their hungry Souls with variety of Emptinefs, with a multiplied nothing.

Then Secondly, As to the Condition of damn'd Souls in the other World, it may be confider'd, that if now the whole trouble of the Soul be from the inward workings of her own Thoughts; how great will this trouble be, in how quick a current will it flow, when the Powers of the Soul shall be more awaken'd, and its thoughts more vehemently fet on work, as it will be in the other ftate! God will then proceed to the highest actuation of the Soul, found an Alarum to all her dormant Powers, and wind them up to the very pitch of Action; fo that her whole Life fhall be but one conftant ftretch of Thought. And what a Mifery must it be to the Soul, to have her Thoughts fo mightily fet on work, and not to have a God to reft them on! To have her Faculties inlarged, and her Defires increased; and not one Divine Comfort to imploy thofe Faculties, or to gratifie those Defires! Never certainly will that Saying of the Wife Man be fo highly verified as then, In much Wisdom is much Grief, and

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he that increases Knowledge, increases Sorrow. The activity of the Soul will then be her great Torment, and the multitude of her Thoughts will multiply her Trouble. There is nothing within the whole compass of intelligible Objects, but what the will then think upon; and the can think upon nothing but what will aggravate her Mifery, every new Thought will be a new Trouble. Whether the looks within or without, backward or forward, upon Time or Eternity, upon God or the Creature, ftill fhe will have a most uncomfortable Prospect; fo infinite indeed are the Thoughts that will then combine to afflict her, that I fhall not offer at an account of them; only I observe, that among the multitude of her. other Thoughts, the Soul will then have a true Idea, a thorough Conception far different from what she has now, or can now imagin, of the utter Vanity of the whole Creation; and to fee and feel that great Prop at once fail and fink under her, and nothing more folid, fubftituted in its room; to find her felf loofen'd and uncenter'd from the Creature, and not lodg'd upon God; to have no manner of taste or relifh for falfe Goods, (because the now fees their Vanity,) and to be utterly deprived of the true; and fo to lean with the full weight and stress of her defire upon nothing; What a Mifery, what a Hell must this be! 'Tis what perhaps we cannot well understand now; and I pray God we never may. In this Life, the Soul has always fome Prop or other to stay her self upon : If the be not fo well difpofed

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difpofed as to delight her felf in God, and relish his Divine Sweetnefs, then the can make a fhift to folace and entertain her felf with the Creatures; or if, upon a clear thorough fight of their Vanity, fhe cannot find any fatisfaction in fuch empty Enjoyments, then the can turn her self to a more fubftantial Good, and comfort her felf in her God. But to have neither God nor Creature, to be deftitute of both, (which is the case of a damn'd Soul) none but those who shall experiment this condition, can ever have a just Idea of it.

It is therefore the great concern, and ought to be the great care of us all, fo to govern our Thoughts here, that they may not be a Torment to us hereafter; to make fuch a right use of our Intellectual Powers and Faculties now, that when they fhall be more heighten'd and enlarged, they may have a proportionable Object to entertain them; that when we have moft Thoughts, we may have most and best Comforts, even the infinite Confolations of God; which will bear the Teft of Thinking, and, in the multitude of our most elevated Thoughts,will eternally delight our Souls.

A Difcourfe of the Natural and Moral Union of the Soul with God, and of Perfection that accrues to it from thence.

PSA L. lxxiij. 28.

It is good for me to draw near to God.

TH

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HE natural and inward Perfection of Human Nature bears fo little proportion to the Capacities and Defires of the fame nature; and Men are withal fo inwardly conscious and fenfible of this difproportion, between what they are, and what they naturally crave and afpire to; that they all, with one general Confent, agree (like Men in a Famine) to go out of themselves and their own Homes, to seek abroad for Prqvifion, to strengthen their flender Interest by fome Foreign Allie; and to unite themselves to fome other Being, for the further Perfection and Supplement of their own.

Thus far all Men agree,to go out of themselves for their Good and Happiness: And perhaps 'tis the only thing wherein they do fo; and you will scarce ever after this, be able to meet with them

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