mind to rest upon, but a happiness in the hopes of religion.

Consider now with yourself, how unreasonably it is pretended that a life of strict piety must be a dull and anxious state. For can it, with any reason, be said that the duties and restraints of religion must render our lives heavy and melancholy, when they only deprive us of such happiness, as has been here laid before you?

Must it be tedious and tiresome to live in the continual exercise of charity, devotion, and temperance, to act wisely and virtuously, to do good to the utmost of your power, to imitate the Divine perfections, and prepare yourself for the enjoyment of God? Must it be dull and tiresome to be delivered from blindness and vanity, from false hopes and vain fears, to improve in holiness, to feel the comforts of conscience in all your actions, to know that God is your Friend, that all must work for your good, that neither life nor death, neither men nor devils, can do you any harm; but that all your sufferings and doings that are offered unto God, all your watchings and prayers, and labours of love and charity, all your improvements, are in a short time to be rewarded with everlasting glory in the presence of God; must such a state as this be dull and tiresome, for want of such happiness as Flatus, or Feliciana, enjoys?

Now if this cannot be said, then there is no happiness or pleasure lost, by being strictly pious; nor has the devout man anything to envy in any other state of life. For all the art and contrivance in the world, without religion, cannot make more of human life, or carry its happiness to any greater height, than Flatus and Feliciana have done.

The finest wit, the greatest genius upon earth, if not governed by religion, must be as foolish, and low, and vain in his methods of happiness, as the poor Succus.

If you were to see a man dully endeavouring all his

life to satisfy his thirst, by holding up one and the same empty cup to his mouth, you would certainly despise his ignorance.

But if you should see others of brighter parts, and finer understandings, ridiculing the dull satisfaction of one cup, and thinking to satisfy their own thirst by a variety of gilt and golden empty cups; would you think that these were ever the wiser, or happier, or better employed, for their finer parts?

Now this is all the difference that you can see in the happiness of this life.

The dull and heavy soul may be content with one empty appearance of happiness, and be continually trying to hold one and the same empty cup to his mouth all his life. But then let the wit, the great scholar, the fine genius, the great statesman, the polite gentleman, lay all their heads together, and they can only show you more and various empty appearances of happiness; give them all the world into their hands, let them cut and carve as they please, they can only make a greater variety of empty cups.

So that if you do not think it hard to be deprived of the pleasures of gluttony, for the sake of religion, you have no reason to think it hard to be restrained from any other worldly pleasure. For search as deep, and look as far as you will, there is nothing here to be found, that is nobler, or greater, than high eating and drinking, unless you look for it in the wisdom and laws of religion.

And if all that is in the world, are only so many empty cups, what does it signify which you take, or how many you take, or how many you have?

If you would but use yourself to such meditations as these, to reflect upon the vanity of all orders of life without piety, to consider how all the ways of the world are only so many different ways of error, blindness, and mistake; you would soon find your heart made wiser and better by it. These meditations would awaken your soul into a zealous desire of that solid

L

happiness, which is only to be found in recourse to God.

Examples of great piety are not now common in the world; it may not be your happiness to live within sight of any, or to have your virtue inflamed by their light and fervour. But the misery and folly of worldly men is what meets your eyes in every place, and you need not look far to see how poorly, how vainly, men dream away their lives, for want of religious wisdom.

This is the reason that I have laid before you so many characters of the vanity of a worldly life, to teach you to make a benefit of the corruption of the age, and that you may be made wise, though not by the sight of what piety is, yet by seeing what misery and folly reigns where piety is not.

If you would turn your mind to such reflections as these, your own observation would carry this instruction much farther, and all your conversation and acquaintance with the world would be a daily conviction to you of the necessity of seeking some greater happiness, than all the poor enjoyments of this world can give.

To meditate upon the perfection of the Divine attributes, to contemplate the glories of Heaven, to consider the joys of saints and Angels, living for ever in the brightness and glory of the Divine Presence; these are the meditations of souls advanced in piety, and not so suited to every capacity.

But to see and consider the emptiness and error of all worldly happiness; to see the grossness of sensuality, the poorness of pride, the stupidity of covetousness, the vanity of dress, the delusion of honour, the blindness of our passions, the uncertainty of our lives, and the shortness of all worldly projects; these are meditations that are suited to all capacities, fitted to strike all minds; they require no depth of thought or sublime speculation, but are forced upon us by all our senses, and taught us by almost everything that we see and hear.

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This is that wisdom that crieth and putteth forth her voice" in the streets, that standeth at all our doors, that appealeth to all our senses, teaching us in everything, and everywhere, by all that we see, and all that we hear, by births and burials, by sickness and health, by life and death, by pains and poverty, by misery and vanity, and by all the changes and chances of life, that there is nothing else for man to look after, no other end in nature for him to drive at, but a happiness which is only to be found in the hopes and expectations of religion.

CHAPTER XIII

That not only a life of vanity, or sensuality, but even the most regular kind of life, that is not governed by great devotion, sufficiently shows its miseries, its wants and emptiness, to the eyes of all the world. This represented in various characters.

It is a very remarkable saying of our Lord and Saviour to His disciples, in these words: "Blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear."† They teach us two things; first, that the dulness and heaviness of men's minds, with regard to spiritual matters, is so great, that it may justly be compared to the want of eyes and ears.

Secondly, That God has so filled everything and every place, with motives and arguments for a godly life, that they who are but so blessed, so happy as to use their eyes and their ears, must needs be affected with them.

Now though this was, in a more especial manner, the case of those whose senses were witnesses of the life, and miracles, and doctrines, of our blessed Lord, yet it is as truly the case of all Christians at this time. For the reasons of religion, the calls to piety, are so written and engraved upon everything, and present

* Prov. viii. 1.

Matt. xiii. 16.

themselves so strongly, and so constantly, to all our senses in everything that we meet, that they can be disregarded by eyes that see not, and ears that hear

not.

What greater motive to a religious life, than the vanity, the poorness of all worldly enjoyments? And yet who can help seeing and feeling this every day of his life?

What greater call to look towards God, than the pains, the sickness, the crosses and vexations of this life? And yet whose eyes and ears are not daily witnesses of them?

What miracles could more strongly appeal to our senses, or what message from Heaven speak louder to us, than the daily dying and departure of our fellowcreatures? So that the one thing needful, or the great end of life, is not left to be discovered by fine reasoning and deep reflections; but is pressed upon us, in the plainest manner, by the experience of all our senses, by everything that we meet with in life.

Let us but intend to see and hear, and then the whole world becomes a book of wisdom and instruction to us; all that is regular in the order of nature, all that is accidental in the course of things, all the mistakes and disappointments that happen to ourselves, all the miseries and errors that we see in other people, become so many plain lessons of advice to us; teaching us, with as much assurance as an Angel from Heaven, that we can no ways raise ourselves to any true happiness, but by turning all our thoughts, our wishes, and endeavours, after the happiness of another life.

It is this right use of the world that I would lead you into, by directing you to turn your eyes upon every shape of human folly, that you may thence draw fresh arguments and motives of living to the best and greatest purposes of your creation.

And if you would but carry this intention about you, of profiting by the follies of the world, and of learning the greatness of religion, from the littleness and vanity