CHAP. XXII.

§. 1. Of the way of living amongst the firft Chriftians. §. 2. An Exhortation to all profeffing Chriftianity, to embrace the foregoing Reafons and Examples. §. 3. Plain dealing with fuch as reject them. §. 4. Their Recompences. §. 5. The Author is better perfuaded and affured of fome: An Exhortation to them. §. 6. Encouragement to the Children of Light to perfevere, from a confideration of the Excellency of their Reward; the End and Triumph of the Christian Conqueror. The whole concluded with a brief Supplication to Almighty God.

§. I.

THE

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CONCLUSION.

AVING finished so many Teftimonies; as my time would give me leave, in favour of this fubject, No CROSS, NO CROWN; No Temperance, No Happiness; No Virtue, No Reward; No Mortification, No Glorification: I fhall conclude with a fhort defcription of the life and worship of the Chriftians, within the first century, or hundred years after Chrift: What fimplicity, what fpirituality, what holy love and communion did in that bleffed age abound among them! It is delivered originally by Philo Judæus, and cited by Eufebius Pamphilius, in his Ecclefiaftical History; That thofe Chriftians renounced their fubftance, and < fevered themfelves from all the cares of this life; • and forfaking the cities, they lived folitary in fields and gardens. They accounted their company, who followed the contrary life of cares and buftles, as • unprofitable and hurtful to them; to the end that with earnest and fervent defires, they might imitate ⚫ them which led this prophetical and heavenly life. In many places, fays he, this people liveth (for it < behoveth as well the Grecians as the Barbarians, to ⚫ be partakers of this abfolute goodness); but in Egypt,

Egypt, in every province they abound; and especially about Alexandria. From all parts the better fort ⚫ withdrew themselves into the foil and place of these worshippers, (as they were called) as a moft commodious place, adjoining to the Lake of Mary, in a valley very fit, both for its fecurity and the temperance of the air. They are farther reported to have meeting-houses, where the moft part of the day was employed in Worshipping God: That they were ⚫ great Allegorizers of the fcriptures, making them all figurative: That the external fhew of words (or the letter) refembleth the fuperficies of the body; and the hidden fense or understanding of the words feem ⚫ in place of the foul; which they contemplate by their beholding names, as it were in a glafs*: That is, their religion confifted not chiefly in reading the letter, difputing about it, accepting things in Literal Conftructions, but in the Things declared of, the fubstance itself; bringing things nearer to the mind, soul, and spirit, and preffing into a more hidden and heavenly fense; making religion to confift in the Temperance and Sanctity of the Mind, and not in the Formal Bodily Worship, so much now-a-days in repute, fitter to please Comedians than Chriftians. Such was the practice of thofe times: But now the cafe is altered; people will be Chriftians, and have their worldlymindedness too: But though God's kingdom fuffer violence by fuch, yet fhall they never enter: The Life of Christ and his followers hath in all ages been another thing; and there is but One Way, One Guide, One Reft; all which are pure and holy.

§. II. But if any (notwithstanding our many fober reasons, and numerous teftimonies from fcripture, or the example or experience of religious, worldly and profane, living and dying men, at home and abroad, of the greatest note, fame, and learning, in the whole world) fhall yet remain lovers and imitators of the

Philo Judæus of the worship of Egypt and Alexand. Euseb. Pam, Eccl. Hift. 1. 2. c. 17.

folly

folly and the vanity condemned; if the cries and groans, fighs, and tears, and complaints, and mournful wishes of fo many reputed great, nay, fome fober men." O that I had more time!-O that I might " live a year longer, I would live a ftricter life!-O "that I were a poor Jean Urick!-All is vanity in this "world:-O my poor foul, whither wilt thou go?-O "that I had the time spent in vain recreations!-A "ferious life is above all," and fuch-like; if, I say, this by no means can prevail, but if yet they shall proceed to folly, and follow the vain world, what greater evidence can they give of their heady refolution to go on impiously; to defpife God; to disobey his precepts; to deny Chrift; to fcorn; not to bear his cross; to forfake the examples of his fervants; to give the lie to the dying serious sayings and confent of all ages; to harden themselves against the checks of confcience; to befool and sport away their precious time, and poor immortal fouls to wo and mifery? In fhort, it is plainly to difcover you neither have Reason to justify yourselves, nor yet enough of Modesty to blush at your own folly; but, as thofe that have loft the sense of one and the other, go on to "eat and drink, and rise up to play.". In vain therefore is it for you to pretend to fear the God of heaven, whose minds ferve the god of the pleasure of this world: In vain it is to fay, you believe in Chrift, who receive not his felf-denying doctrine: And to no better purpose will all you do, avail. If he that had loved "God and his neighbour, and kept the command"ments from his youth," was excluded from being a disciple," because he fold not all, and followed

Jefus," with what confidence can you call yourselves Chriftians, who have neither kept the commandments, nor yet forfaken any thing to be fo? And if it was a bar betwixt him and the eternal life he fought, that (notwithstanding all his other virtues) love to Money, and his external poffeffions, "could not be parted with;"

a Exod. xxxii. 6. Amos vi. 3 to 6. Eph. iv. 17, 24. 2 Tim. ii. 19. Mat. xix. 16 to 22.

what shall be your end, who cannot deny yourselves many less things, but are daily multiplying your inventions, to please your fleshly appetites? Certainly, much more impoffible is it to forfake the Greater. Chrift tried his love, in bidding him forfake All, because he knew, for all his brags, that his mind was rivetted therein; not that if he had enjoyed his poffeffions with Christian Indifferency, they might not have been continued: But what then is their doom, whose hearts are fo fixed in the vanities of the world, that they will rather make them Chriftian, than not to be Christians in the use of them? But fuch a Chriftian this Young Man might have been, who had more to say for himfelf than the strictest Pharifee living dare pretend to; yet he went away forrowful from Jefus "." Should I afk you, if Nicodemus did well to come by night, and be ashamed of the great Meffiah of the world? And if he was not Ignorant when Chrift fpake to him of the New Birth? I know you would answer me, He did

very ill, and was very ignorant.' But, ftay a while, the beam is in your own eyes; you are ready doubtless to condemn Him, and the Young Man for not doing what you not only refuse to do yourselves, but laugh at Others for doing. Nay, had such paffages not been writ, and were it not for the reverence fome pretend for the Scriptures, they would both be as ftupid as Nicodemus in their anfwers to fuch heavenly matters, and ready to call it Canting to speak fo; as it is frequent for you, when we fpeak to the fame effect, though not the fame words: juft as the Jews, at what time they called God their Father, they defpifed his Son; and when he fpake of fublime and heavenly myfteries, fome cried, "He has a devil;" others, "He is mad:" and most of them, "These are hard "fayings, who can bear them?"

§. III. And to you all, that fport yourselves after the manners of the World, let me fay, that you are those, "who profefs you know God, but in works deny him';'

John iii. 1 to 5.

Titus i. 16.

VOL. II.

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living

living in those pleasures which flay the Juft in yourfelves. For though you talk of Believing, it is no more than taking it for granted that there is a God, a Chrift, Scriptures, &c. without farther concerning yourselves to prove the verity thereof, to yourselves or others, by a strict and holy converfation: Which flight way of Believing is but a light and careless way of ridding yourselves of farther examination; and rather throwing them off with an inconfiderate granting of them to be fo, than giving yourselves the trouble of making better inquiry (leaving that to your priefts, oft-times more ignorant, and not lefs vain and idle, than yourselves) which is fo far from a Gospel Faith, that it is the leaft refpect you can fhew to God, Scriptures, &c. and next to which kind of Believing is nothing, under a Denial of All.

But if you have hitherto laid aside all temptations to Reason and Shame, at least be intreated to refume them now in a matter of this importance, and whereon no less concernment refts, than your temporal and eternal happiness. Oh! retire, retire; obferve the reproofs of inftruction in your own minds: that which • begets fadness in the midst of mirth, which cannot folace itself, nor be contented below immortality; ⚫ which calls often to an account at nights, mornings, ⚫ and other seasons; which lets you see the vanity, the folly, the end, and mifery of these things; this is the Just Principle and Holy Spirit of the Almighty within you: hear him, obey him, converse with them who are led by him; and let the glories of another world be eyed, and the heavenly recompence of reward kept in fight.' Admit not the thoughts of former follies to revive; but be fteady, and continually exercised by his Grace, to deny ungodlinefs and worldly lufts, and to live foberly, righteously and godly in this prefent world . For this is the true and heavenly nature of Chriftianity, To be fo awaken-: ed and guided by the Spirit and Grace of God, as

d Tit. ii. 11, 12, 13, 14.

• to

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