course of the instrumental efficacy of baptismal waters, talks ignorantly in respect of him who hath the answer of a good conscience' within, and is cleansed by the purifications of the Spirit. If the question concern any thing that can perfect a man and make him happy, all that is the proper knowlege and notice of the good man. How can a wicked man understand the purities of the heart? and how can an evil and unworthy communicant tell what it is to have received Christ by faith, to dwell with him, to be united to him, to receive him in his heart? The good man only understands that: the one sees the color, and the other feels the substance; the one discourses of the sacrament, and the other receives Christ; the one discourses for or against transubstantiation, but the good man feels himself to be changed, and so joined to Christ, that he only understands the true sense of transubstantiation, while he becomes to Christ bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, and of the same spirit with his Lord.

We talk much of reformation, and (blessed be God) once we have felt the good of it; but of late we have smarted under the name and pretension : the woman that lost her groat, everrit domum, not evertit ; "she swept the house, she did not turn the house out of doors." That was but an ill reformation, that untiled the roof and broke the walls, and was digging down the foundation.

Now among all the pretensions of reformation, who can tell better what is, and what is not, true reformation, than he that is truly reformed himself? He knows what pleases God, and can best tell by what instruments he is reconciled. The mouth of the just bringeth forth wisdom, and the lips of the righteous know what is acceptable,' saith Solomon.* He cannot be cozened by names of things, and feels that reformation to be imposture that is sacrilegious: himself is humble and obedient, and therefore knows that is not truth that persuades to schism and disobedience and most of the questions of Christendom are such which are either good for nothing, and therefore to be laid aside; or if they be complicated with action, and are ministries of practice, no man can judge them so well as the spi

Prov. x. 31, 32.

ritual man. That which best pleases God, that which does good to our neighbor, that which teaches sobriety, that which combines with government, that which speaks honor of God, and does him honor,—that only is truth. Holiness therefore, is a proper and natural instrument of divine knowlege, and must needs be the best way of instruction in the questions of Christendom, because, in the most of them, a duty is complicated with the proposition.

No man that intends to live holily, can ever suffer any pretences of religion to be made to teach him to fight against his king. And when the men of Geneva turned their bishop out of doors, they might easily have considered, that the same person was their prince too; and that must needs be a strange religion, that rose up against Moses and Aaron at the same time: but that hath been the method ever since. There was no church till then ever governed without an Apostle or a bishop: and since then, they who go from their bishop, have said very often to their king too, Nolumus hunc regnare: and when we see men pretending religion, and yet refuse to own the king's supremacy, they may, on the stock of holiness, easily reprove their own folly, by considering that such recusancy does introduce into our churches the very worst, the most intolerable parts of popery: for perfect submission to kings is the glory of the protestant cause: and really the reprovable doctrines of the church of Rome are by nothing so much confuted, as that they destroy good life by consequent and evident deduction; as by an induction of particulars were easy to make apparent, if this were the proper season for it.

2. Holiness is not only an advantage to the learning all wisdom and holiness, but for the discerning that which is wise and holy from what is trifling, and useless, and contentious; and to one of these heads all questions will return: and therefore, in all, from holiness we have the best instructions. And this brings me to the next particle of the general consideration. For that which we are taught by the holy Spirit of God, this new nature, this vital principle within us, it is that which is worth our learning; not vain and empty, idle and insignificant notions, in which when you have labored till your eyes are fixed in their orbs, and your flesh unfixed from its bones, you

are no better and no wiser. If the Spirit of God be your teacher, he will teach you such truths as will make you know and love God, and become like to him, and enjoy him for ever, by passing from similitude to union and eternal fruition. But what are you the better, if any man should pretend to teach you whether every angel makes a species? and what is the individuation of the soul in the state of separation? what are you the wiser, if you should study and find out what place Adam should for ever have lived in, if he had not fallen? and what is any man the more learned, if he hears the disputes, whether Adam should have multiplied children in the state of innocence, and what would have been the event of things, if one child had been born before his father's sin?

Too many scholars have lived on air and empty notions for many ages past, and troubled themselves with tying and untying knots, like hypochondriacs in a fit of melancholy, thinking of nothing, and troubling themselves with nothing, and falling out about nothings, and being very wise and very learned in things that are not and work not, and were never planted in paradise by the finger of God. Men's notions are too often like the mules, begotten by equivocal and unnatural generations; but they make no species: they are begotten, but they can beget nothing; they are the effects of long study, but they can do no good when they are produced: they are not that which Solomon calls viam intelligentiæ, 'the way of understanding.' If the Spirit of God be our teacher, we shall learn to avoid evil and to do good, to be wise and to be holy, to be profitable and careful: and they that walk in this way, shall find more peace in their consciences, more skill in the Scriptures, more satisfaction in their doubts, than can be obtained by all the polemical and impertinent disputations of the world. And if the Holy Spirit can teach us how vain a thing it is to do foolish things, he also will teach us how vain a thing it is to trouble the world with foolish questions, to disturb the church for interest or pride, to resist government in things indifferent, to spend the people's zeal in things unprofitable, to make religion to consist in outsides, and opposition to circumstances, and trifling regards. No, no; the man that is wise, he that is conducted by the Spirit of God,knows better in what Christ's kingdom does consist, than to

throw away his time and interest, and peace and safety-for what? for religion? no: for the body of religion? not so much: for the garment of the body of religion?. no, not for so much; but for the fringes of the garment of the body of religion; for such, and no better are the disputes that trouble our discontented brethren; they are things, or rather circumstances and manners of things, in which the soul and spirit are not at all concerned.

3. Holiness of life is the best way of finding out truth and understanding; not only as a natural medium, nor only as a prudent medium, but as a means by way of divine blessing.

He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me, shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.'* Here we have a promise for it; and on that we may

rely.

The old man that confuted the Arian priest by a plain recital of his creed, found a mighty power of God effecting his own work by a strange manner, and by a very plain instrument: it wrought a Divine blessing just as sacraments use to do: and this lightening sometimes comes in a strange manner, as a peculiar blessing to good men. For God kept the secrets of his kingdom from the wise heathens and the learned Jews, revealing them to babes; not because they had less learning, but because they had more love; they were children and babes in malice; they loved Christ, and so he became to them a light and a glory. St. Paul had more learning than they all; and Moses was instructed in all the learning of the Egyptians: yet because he was the meekest man on earth, he was also the wisest; and to his human learning, in which he was excellent, he had a divine light and excellent wisdom superadded to him, by way of spiritual blessings. And St. Paul, though he went very far to the knowlege of many great and excellent truths by the force of human learning, yet he was far short of perfective truth and true wisdom, till he learned a new lesson in a new school, at the feet of one greater than his Gamaliel his learning grew much greater, his notions brighter, his skill deeper,by the love of Christ, and his desires, his passionate desires, after Jesus.

* John, xiv. 21.

The force and use of human learning, and of this divine learning I am now speaking of, are both well expressed by the prophet Isaiah; And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot, for it is sealed. And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned.'* He that is no learned man, who is not bred up in the schools of the prophets, cannot read God's book for want of learning; for human learning is the gate and first entrance of divine vision; not the only one indeed, but the common gate. But beyond this, there must be another learning; for he that is learned, bring the book to him, and you are not much the better as to the secret part of it, if the book be sealed, if his eyes be closed, if his heart be not opened, if God does not speak to him in the secret way of discipline. Human learning is an excellent foundation: but the top-stone is laid by love and conformity to the will of God. For we may farther observe, that blindness, error, and ignorance, are the punishments which God sends on wicked and ungodly men. Etiamnum, propter nostræ intelligentiæ tarditatem et vitæ demeritum, veritas nondum se apertissime ostenderit, was St. Austin's expression: "The truth hath not yet been manifested fully to us, by reason of our demerits :" our sins have hindered the brightness of the truth from shining on us. And St. Paul observes, that when the heathens gave themselves' over to lusts, God gave them over to strong delusions, and to believe a lie.' But God giveth to a man that is good in his sight, wisdom, and knowlege, and joy,' said the wise Preacher.‡ But this is most expressly promised in the New Testament, and particularly in that admirable sermon, which our blessed Saviour preached a little before his death: The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things.'§ Well, there is our teacher told of plainly but how shall we be taught? Christ

*Isa. xxix. 11, 12. § John, xiv. 26.

† Rom. i. 25, 26.

Eccles. ii. 26.