of conscience. For it lies within, it centres in the heart, it grows into the very substance of the soul, so that it accompanies a man to his grave; he never outlives it, and that for this cause only, because he cannot outlive himself.

And thus I have endeavoured to describe the excellency of that pleasure that is to be found in the ways of a religious wisdom, by those excellent properties that do attend it; which whether they reach the description that has been given them or no, every man may convince himself, by the best of demonstrations, which is his own trial.

Now, from all this discourse, this I am sure is a most natural and direct consequence, that if the ways of religion are ways of pleasantness, such as are not ways of pleasantness, are not truly and properly ways of religion. Upon which ground it is easy to see what judgment is to be passed upon all those affected, uncommanded, absurd austerities, so much prized and exercised by some of the Romish profession. Pilgrimages, going barefoot, hair-shirts, and whips, with other such gospel artillery, are their only helps to devotion; things never enjoined, either by the prophets under the Jewish, or by the apostles under the Christian economy; who yet surely understood the proper and the most efficacious instruments of piety as well as any confessor or friar of all the order of St. Francis, or any casuist whatsoever.

It seems that, with them, a man sometimes cannot be a penitent, unless he also turns vagabond, and foots it to Jerusalem, or wanders over this or that part of the world to visit the shrine of such or such a pretended saint, though perhaps, in his life, ten times more ridiculous than themselves: thus, that which was Cain's curse, is become their religion. He that thinks to expiate a sin by going barefoot, only makes one folly the atonement for another; Paul indeed was scourged and beaten by the Jews, but we never read that he beat or scourged himself; and if they think "that his keeping under of his body" imports so much, they must first prove that the body cannot be kept under by a virtuous mind, and that the mind cannot be made virtuous but by a scourge, and consequently, that thongs and whipcord are means of grace and things necessary to salvation. The truth is, if men's religion lies no deeper than their skin, it is possible that they may scourge themselves into very great improvements.

But they will find that "bodily exercise" touches not the soul; and that neither pride, nor lust, nor covetousness, nor any other vice, was ever mortified by corporal discipline: it is not the back, but the heart, that must bleed for sin: and consequently, that in this whole course they are like men out of their way; let them lash on never so fast, they are not at all the nearer to their journey's end; and howsoever they deceive themselves and others, they may as well expect to bring a cart as a soul to heaven by such means. What arguments they have to beguile poor, simple, unstable

souls with, I know not; but surely the practical, casuistical, that is, the principal, vital part of their religion savours very little of spirituality.

And now upon the result of all, I suppose that to exhort men to be religious, is only in other words to exhort them to take their pleasure. A pleasure high, rational, and angelical; a pleasure embased with no appendant sting, no consequent loathing, no remorses or bitter farewells; but such a one, as, being honey in the mouth, never turns to gall or gravel in the belly; a pleasure made for the soul, and the soul for that, suitable to its spirituality, and equal to all its capacities. Such a one as grows fresher upon enjoyment, and though continually fed upon, yet is never devoured. A pleasure that a man may call as properly his own, as his soul and his conscience; neither liable to accident, nor exposed to injury; for it is the foretaste of heaven, and the earnest of eternity. In a word, it is such a one, as being begun in grace, passes into glory, blessedness, and immortality, and those pleasures "that neither eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man to conceive."

To which God of his mercy vouchsafe to bring us all: to whom be rendered and ascribed, as is most due, all praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen.

4

A SERMON

PREACHED AT THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST. PAUL,

NOVEMBER 9, 1662.

EPISTLE DEDICATORY.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

THE LORD-MAYOR AND ALDERMEN OF THE CITY OF LONDON.

RIGHT HONOURABLE,

WHEN I consider how impossible it is for a person of my condition to produce, and consequently how imprudent to attempt any thing in proportion either to the ampleness of the body you represent, or of the places you bear, I should be kept from venturing so poor a piece, designed to live but an hour, in so lasting a publication; did not what your civility calls a request, your greatness render a command. The truth is, in things not unlawful great persons cannot be properly said to request; because, all things considered, they must not be denied. To me it was honour enough to have your audience, enjoyment enough to behold your happy change, and to see the same city, the metropolis of loyalty and of the kingdom, to behold the glory of English churches reformed, that is, delivered from the reformers; and to find at least the service of the church repaired, though not the building; to see St. Paul's delivered from beasts here, as well as St. Paul at Ephesus; and to view the church thronged only with troops of auditors, not of horse. This I could fully have acquiesced in, and received a large personal reward in my particular share of the public joy; but since you are farther pleased, I will not say by your judgment to approve, but by your acceptance to encourage, the raw endeavours of a young divine, I shall take it for an opportunity, not as others in their sage prudence use to do, to quote three or four texts of scripture, and to tell you how you are to rule the city out of a concordance; no, I bring not instructions, but what much better befits both you and myself, your commendations. For I look upon

19

your city as the great and magnificent stage of business, and by consequence the best place of improvement; for from the school we go to the university, but from the university to London. And therefore, as in your city meetings you must be esteemed the most considerable body of the nation, so, met in the church, I look upon you as an auditory fit to be waited on, as you are, by both universities. And when I remember how instrumental you have been to recover this universal settlement, and to retrieve the old spirit of loyalty to kings (as an ancient testimony of which you bear not the sword in vain), I seem in a manner deputed from Oxford, not so much a preacher to supply a course, as orator to present her thanks. As for the ensuing discourse, which (lest I chance to be traduced for a plagiary by him who has played the thief) I think fit to tell the world, by the way, was one of those that by a worthy hand were stolen from me in the king's chapel, and are still detained; and to which, now accidentally published by your honours' order, your patronage must give both value and protection. You will find me in it not to have pitched upon any subject, that men's guilt, and the consequence of guilt, their concernment, might render liable to exception; nor to have rubbed up the memory of what some heretofore in the city did, which more and better now detest, and therefore expiate: but my subject is inoffensive, harmless, and innocent as the state of innocence itself, and I hope suitable to the present design and genius of this nation; which is, or should be, to return to that innocence, which it lost long since the fall. Briefly, my business is, by describing what man was in his first estate, to upbraid him with what he is in his present: between whom, innocent and fallen (that in a word I may suit the subject to the place of my discourse), there is as great an unlikeness, as between St. Paul's a cathedral, and St. Paul's a stable. But I must not forestall myself, nor transcribe the work into the dedication. I shall now only desire you to accept the issue of your own requests; the gratification of which I have here consulted so much before my own reputation; while, like the poor widow, I endeavour to show my officiousness by an offering, though I betray my poverty by the measure; not so much caring, though I appear neither preacher nor scholar (which terms we have been taught upon good reason to distinguish), so I may in this but show myself

Your Honours' very humble Servant,
ROBERT SOUTH.

Worcester House, Nov. 24, 1662.