to draw after it a punishment proportionable! And if so, then doubtless the portion of apostates among wicked and miserable spirits will be the most wretched and deplorable. For besides those supernumerary stripes they must expect to receive from God, as being servants that have known their Master's will, and experienced the goodness of it, and yet have finally refused to comply with it; their reflections on their own apostasy, and the folly and madness of it, will doubtless gall and torment them a thousand times more than all the other stings of their conscience together. For how must it enrage them against themselves to ruminate on their own follies, as they are wandering through the infernal shades! O desperate creatures! from what glorious hopes have we precipitated ourselves into this dismal state! We had once got a fair way onwards to heaven, and were arrived within sight of its blessed shores: we had shaken off our lusts, mastered our inclinations, and subdued our wills to the will of God; and in so doing had conquered the most difficult part of our voyage: we had weathered the cross winds of temptation from without, and stemmed the tide of corrupt nature within; so that, had we but bore up courageously a little farther, we, that are now howling among damned ghosts, might have been triumphing with blessed spirits. But, O abominable fools and traitors to ourselves! after all the successful pains we had taken to be happy, we have shipwrecked our souls at the mouth of our harbour, and, to gratify a base lust, have leaped headlong from the brink of the rivers of pleasure into this lake of fire and brimstone. And have we thus undone ourselves, thus madly, thus without pretence of temptation!

O cursed be our folly, cursed be our lusts, and for ever cursed be we for harbouring and entertaining them! Thus will these miserable people incessantly rave against themselves, and with dire reflections on their desperate follies for ever enrage and multiply their own torments. So that were I descending to the bottomless pit, and had but so much time before I came there, as to make one prayer more in my own behalf, next to that of being wholly delivered thence, I know none I should sooner pitch upon than this, O Lord, deliver me from that portion of hell which thou hast reserved for apostates.

So that if, now that we have so far engaged ourselves in the Christian warfare, we should be so mad as to retreat into our own sinful courses, it had been a thousand times better for us that we had never engaged in it at all. For unless we repent of our retreat, and come on again, we have taken a great deal of pains in religion to no other purpose, but only to treasure up to ourselves wrath against the day of wrath, and heat the furnace of our future torments yet seven times hotter. Wherefore, since the matter is now reduced to this issue, that if we revolt from our Christian warfare we shall not only defeat ourselves of all the fruit of our past labour and contentions, but also enhance our future punishment; so that we must either resolve to win heaven by our perseverance, or sink ourselves into the nethermost hell by our apostasy; let us pull up our courage, and, maugre all temptations to the contrary, continue steadfast and immoveable in our Christian resolution, remembering what the Captain of our salvation hath promised, Rev. iii. 21. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne,

even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.

CHAP. V.

Containing some short directions for the more profitable reading the preceding discourse, and also for the conduct and regular exercise of our closet religion in all the different states of the Christian life; together with forms of private devotion fitted to each state.

IN the foregoing chapter I have endeavoured a full

account of all those instrumental duties of Christianity, by which we are to acquire, improve, and perfect the principal virtues of it; in the perfection of which virtues, heaven, which is the great end of Christianity, consists. And for the more distinct management thereof, I considered men under a threefold state: first, as entering into the Christian life; secondly, as actually engaged in the course of it; thirdly, as improving towards perfection by perseverance in it; and gave a distinct account of all those instrumental duties that are proper to each of these states. And now that what hath been said in that and the preceding chapters may have its due effect upon the reader's mind, I have thought fit to reduce it to practice, by directing men,

First, how to read and apply the several parts of it to their own particular states:

Secondly, by furnishing them with some short rules, for the more profitable exercise of their private religion in each of those different states, together with forms of private devotion, fitted to each state.

I. As to the first of these, it is to be considered,

that to the making men sincere and hearty Christians, it is highly necessary that they should have a right understanding, first, of the nature of the great and chief end which Christianity proposes to them; secondly, of the means by which that end is to be obtained; thirdly, of the natural tendency of all the virtues of Christianity towards this blessed end, and of the contrary tendency of the opposite vices towards their eternal misery and ruin. Of all which I have endeavoured to give an account in the three first chapters of this book. Wherefore I would advise the reader,

1. Carefully and seriously to peruse those chapters, wherein (because I have been sometimes forced by the sublimity of my argument to discourse a little more abstrusely than in any of the following parts) it will be necessary for him to employ more of his thoughts and considerations, and not to content himself with a slight and cursory perusal. And when, by a serious consideration of what hath been there discoursed, his mind is fully convinced what a kind of heaven he is to expect hereafter, what kinds of means are necessary to obtain it, how naturally all the virtues of religion do raise up men's souls to heaven, and how all the contrary vices do as naturally sink and press them down to hell, it is to be hoped he will be fully persuaded of the indispensable necessity of entering into the Christian life; which if he be, I would advise him,

2. Seriously to read over and consider the first and second sections of the fourth chapter, wherein are contained the several duties which are proper to his state of entrance into the Christian life, and also proper arguments and motives to engage him to the

practice of them; which if he would read to good effect, he must by no means content himself with a single perusal, but read them over at least once a week whilst he continues in that state, till he fully comprehends the meaning and use of all those duties, and the force and cogency of those arguments; which if he do, it is to be hoped he will at last be reduced to a through and well-weighed resolution of forsaking his sins, and actually engaging in the Christian life. Which being done, I would advise him,

3. With the same care and fervency, to peruse the third and fourth sections of the fourth chapter, wherein are contained all the several duties proper to this second state of actual engagement in the Christian life, as also sundry arguments or motives to press and enforce them; and when by the assistance of these duties he hath continued for some time faithful and constant to his good resolution,

4. Together with the third and fourth section, let him often peruse and consider the fifth and sixth, wherein are contained the duties appertaining to the third state of improvement and preservation in the Christian life, together with some considerations to enforce the practice of them. All which I would earnestly persuade the pious reader to read and consider over and over again, till his mind is fully instructed in the nature and use of each duty, and hath throughly digested the force and evidence of every argument. And this may suffice for the first thing proposed, concerning the profitable method of reading this practical treatise.

II. As for the second part of it, which is that which I mainly design in this chapter, viz. the rules and directions for the private exercise of our religion,