overflowings of holy Pleasure, that Joy unfpeakable and full of Glory in St. Peter, do ever and anon compensate the Toils and Difficulties of his Warfare; and a gracious God has provided Supports and Incouragements proportionable to his neceffities; which is the last thing I am to speak to.

3dly. The Motives to this Duty. The firft of which is, We are encompassed with a Cloud of Witnesses: without confidering whether this Expreffion do suppofe departed Saints Spectators and Judges of our Race here below, what I am to remark from it is, That the Apoftle lays before us their Examples as undeniable Proof of this Truth, that their does no Temptation befall us, but what is common, to men, and what has been conquer'd by them too. The Apostle has demonftrated this from the Old Teftament, and we may demonftrate it from the New. The Primitive Times were as bright for their Vertue, as their Miracles, and made as many Profelytes by the one as by the other: How triumphant did then the Strength of Faith, the Ardours of Zeal, and the Tenderness of Charity appear. 'Twas as much difficul

then to reftrain the Flights of Faith,

and

and Transports of Love within the Bounds of Chriftian Prudence, as to enkindle them now to any degrees of Decency. Then indeed the Juft did live by Faith, they acknowledged themselves to be Strangers, and Pilgrims upon Earth, and fought no Country but a Heavenly one; then indeed they followed after Righte ousness with that Refolution and Impe tuofity, which fhewed, that they did really believe they contended for a Crown and Kingdom: But now, alas! our Love of this World vies with their Contempt of it, and our Contempt of Heaven, with their Paffion for it: Now carnal Prudence eats up our Zeal; Faction confumes our Charity; the Luft of the Eye, and the Pride of Life deforms our Mortification ;difpirits our Devotion and every little blaft of Oppofition overthrows our Faith. The Atheift digs up the Foundations, and the Loose and Immoral demolish the Superstructures; the one denies the Truth, and the other the Power of our Chriftian Faith; in one word, we have degenerated to that degree, that there needs as many Miracles to revive and restore the Life and Spirit of Religion among us, as ever God has wrought to preserve the publick Profef

;

fion of it; and were there not a few Names among us dear to Heaven, I perfwade my felf, God could no more endure our Vices, than we their Reformation; and do you think now that in the Day of the Revelation of the righteous Judgment of God, when he fhall render to every Man according to his works, it will fuffice to present him with Excuses, instead of good Works; to urge the Temptation of the World and the Frailties of Nature instead of conquering them to plead the Hypocrifie of Pretenders, and the Immorality of this or that Ecclefiaftick, that is, the Vices of the Bad, instead of imitating the Vertues of the Good; Alas, a Cloud of Witnesses will be produced to baffle this Empty Sophistry, and refute these poor Shifts; and then those Examples which could not here enkindle and excite your Vertue will fhame and reproach your Vice, and what could not reform, will then ferve to condemn you. But never may this prove the Portion of any one here, but that Crown which is my second Motive.

Had there been any thing more dazling upon Earth than Royalty, the Spirit of God would have described the Felicity of Heaven by it; but fince, there

is not, he is content to call the Reward of Righteousness a Crown; the State of the Glorified a Kingdom, and themselves Kings and Priests to God for ever: But let not this Metaphor ferve to debase our Notion of that State. This is no Kingdom of fecret Fears and splendid Troubles, of wakeful Cares, and glittering Dangers: No, 'tis a Kingdom of Philofophy and Love, of Knowledge and Righteousnefs, of Beauty and Perfection, of Joy and Triumph,. of Tranquility and Reft; not bred like that of the Ambitious, fometimes either by Satiety, Disappointments, or an Increase of Years, but refulting purely from Security and Extafie. In one word, As God is his own Heaven, fo next to that, which results from the Injoyment of him, every one of the Bleffed will be a Kingdom to himself, being an Image of God drawn in little. And yet after all this, how little is it of Heaven that we yet know; It's Joys, for ought I know, are as boundless as the Perfections of God from whence they flow. Ages may run by, while we each day furvey new Scenes of Wonders, and tafte each day new Worlds of Pleasures. Ah! I cannot wonder that fuch as were poffef

poffeffed with the Belief and Expectation of this State, were willing to quit Mefopotamia or an Egypt for an Heaven, Nets and Fisher-Boats for Crowns and Kingdoms, Trifles for Treafure, Moments for an Eternity. Ah! did not Luft fully the Idea of Heaven; did not fome degree of Infidelity undermine our Belief of it, what Dangers, what Difficulties fhould we not defie in order to fecure it? Did doing Good expofe us to as many Reproaches from without, as doing Evil doth from within ? were the fate of the Righteous as uneafie as that of the Wicked, who are as the troubled Sea when it cannot reft; yet what would not a Man do, what would he not fuffer, were his Soul fired with the Belief and Hopes of fuch a Heaven? How much more fearless and active would Zeal be than Ambition ? how much more wakeful and indefatigable Charity than Luft or Covetousness, Revenge or Envy, (Ah! with what Tran(port would Man pour out his Time, his Treasure, his Strength on this one Defign of Doing Good) had he but a Heaven always in his Eye?

Let us then, that we may neither fhrink, nor tire through any Difficulties

or