himself; because he would not have that reason to love himself, for which he loves and takes delight in us. Since therefore there is nothing but our resemblance of God can reconcile him to us; and since our resemblance of him consists in virtue and true goodness, it hence follows, that all the religion of the means is insignificant to our reconciliation with God, if it doth not render us truly virtuous. So that till this is effected, there is so vast a gulph between God and us, that neither we can go to him, nor he come to us; and unless he alter his nature by becoming impure as we are impure, or we alter ours by becoming pure as he is pure, there will be so immense a distance between him and us, as that it is impossible we should ever meet and agree. So that what the prophet saith of sacrifice may be truly affirmed of all religion of the means, Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Will he be reconciled upon our bare believing, praying, or receiving sacraments? &c. No, no; He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? Micah vi. 7, 8.

II. This religion of the means is of no farther use as to the perfecting our natures, than as it is instrumental to produce and promote in us those heavenly virtues which are implied in the religion of the end. For, doubtless, to be a perfect man, is to live up to the highest principle of human nature, which is reason; and till we are once released from the slavery of sense and passion, and all our powers of action are so subdued to this superior principle as

to be wholly regulated by it, and we choose and refuse, and love and hate, and hope and fear, and desire and delight, according as right reason directs, we are in a maimed and imperfect condition. Now what else is virtue but a habit of living according to the laws of reason, or of demeaning ourselves towards God, ourselves, and all the world, as best becomes rational beings placed in our condition and circumstances? And till we are in some measure arrived to this, our nature is so far from being perfect, that it is the most wretched and confused thing in the whole world; a mere undistinguished chaos, where frigida cum calidis, sense and reason, brute and man, are shuffled together without any order, like a confounded heap of ruins. And therefore as for this religion of the means, it will be altogether insignificant to the perfection of our natures, unless by the practice of it we do acquire a habit of acting according to the law of our reason, which habit includes all heavenly virtue. For constantly to know and do what is best and most reasonable, is the very crown and perfection of every reasonable nature; and therefore, so far as our faith and consideration, our sorrow for sin, and the other instrumentals of religion, promote this heavenly habit in us, so far are they perfective of our nature, and no farther.

III. This religion of the means is of no farther use to us, as to the entitling us to heaven, than as it is productive of those heavenly virtues which the religion of the end implies. For our title to heaven depending wholly upon God's promise, must immediately result from our performance of those conditions upon which he hath promised it; which till we have done, we can have no more claim or title to

it than if he had never promised it at all. But the sole condition upon which he hath promised it is universal righteousness and goodness; for so, without holiness, we are assured, that no man shall see God; and Matt. v. our Saviour entails all the beatitudes of heaven upon those heavenly virtues of purity of heart, benignity of temper, &c. So also, Rom. ii. 7. the promise of eternal life is limited to our patient continuance in well doing. And that we may know beforehand what to trust to, our Saviour plainly tells us, that not every one that cries, Lord, Lord, that make solemn prayers and addresses to me, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven: and, This is the will of God, saith the apostle, even our sanctification; that is, our being purged from all impurities of flesh and spirit, and inspired with all heavenly virtues. And the apostle expressly enumerates those virtues upon which our entrance into eternal life is promised, 2 Pet. i. 5-8. Add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, saith he, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ: that is, that you shall receive the proper fruit of that knowledge, which is eternal life: for thus, ver. 11. he goes on; For so, or upon this condition, an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. So that unless our faith purifies our hearts, and works by love; unless our sorrow for

sin works in us repentance, or a change of mind; unless our prayers raise in us divine and heavenly affections; that is, unless we so practise the duties of the religion of the means, as thereby to acquire the virtues of the religion of the end, it will be all as insignificant to our title to heaven, as the most indifferent actions in the world.

IV. This religion of the means is of no farther use to the disposing and qualifying us for heaven, than as it is an effectual means of the religion of the end; which is a perfectly distinct consideration from the former for it would be no advantage to us to have a right to heaven, unless we were antecedently qualified and disposed for it: because pleasure, which is a relative thing, implies a correspondence and agreement between the object and the faculty that tastes and enjoys it. But in the temper of every wicked mind there is a strong antipathy to the pleasures of heaven; which being all chaste, and pure, and spiritual, can never agree with the vitiated palate of a base and degenerous soul. For what concord can there be between a spiteful and devilish spirit, and the fountain of all love and goodness? between a sensual and carnalized one, that understands no other pleasures but only those of the flesh, and those pure and virgin spirits that neither eat nor drink, but live for ever upon wisdom, and holiness, and love, and contemplation? Certainly, till our mind is contempered to the heavenly state, and we are of the same disposition with God, and angels, and saints, there is no pleasure in heaven that can be agreeable to us. For, as for the main, we shall be of the same temper and disposition when we come into the other world, as we are when we leave this;

it being unimaginable how a total change should be wrought in us merely by passing out of one world into another. And therefore as in this world it is likeness that does congregate and associate beings together, so doubtless it is in the other too. So that if we carry with us thither our wicked and devilish dispositions, (as we shall doubtless do, unless we subdue and mortify them here,) there will be no company fit for us to associate with, but only the devilish and damned ghosts of wicked men, with whom our wretched spirits, being already joined by a likeness of nature, will mingle themselves as soon as ever they are excommunicated from the society of mortals. For whither should they flock, but to the birds of their own feather? With whom should they associate, but with those malignant spirits to whom they are already joined by a community of nature? So that supposing that when they land in eternity, it were left to their own liberty to go to heaven or hell, into the society of the blessed or the damned, it is plain that heaven would be no place for them, that the air of that bright region of eternal day would never agree with their black and hellish natures. For, alas! what should they do among those blessed beings that inhabit it, to whose godlike natures, divine contemplations, and heavenly employments, they have so great a repugnancy and aversation? So that besides the having a right to heaven, it is necessary to our enjoying it, that we should be antecedently disposed and qualified for it. And it being thus, God hath been graciously pleased to make those very virtues the conditions of our right to heaven, which are the proper dispositions and qualifications of our spirits for it; that so with