are reduced, and set in order again, our mind will be like our body, while its bones are out of joint, continually restless and unquiet. And therefore to remove this great indisposition of our nature to happiness, prudence is required of us, as one of the principal virtues of the heavenly part of the Christian life.

For thus our Saviour enjoins, that we should be wise as serpents, as well as harmless as doves, Matt. x. 16. which though it be here prescribed in a particular case only, viz. that of persecution; yet since the reason of it extends to all other cases, and it is fit we should be prudent in all our undertakings, as well as in suffering persecution, it is upon that account equivalent to an universal command. So also, Ephes. v. 15. See that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise; i. e. in the whole course of your actions, take heed that ye follow the guidance of your reason, and do not suffer yourselves to be seduced by your blind passions and appetites, which are mere ignes fatui, or the guides of fools. And accordingly the apostle prays for his Christian Colossians, That they might be filled with the knowledge of God in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, Col. i. 9; i. e. that they might have such a knowledge of God's will as might render them truly prudent, and cause them to pursue the best ends by the best means. And though this virtue seldom occurs in the New Testament under its own name; yet as in the abovenamed places it is expressed by wisdom, so it is elsewhere by knowledge, as particularly 2 Cor. vi. 6. where he commands the ministers of the church to approve themselves such by several virtues, and particularly by pureness, i. e. continence; and by knowledge, i. e. by prudence: for besides that know

ledge, as it signifies an understanding of divine things, was not a virtue in the apostle, but a gift of God, and so not proper to be enumerated amongst these virtues; there is hardly any account can be given why the apostle should place knowledge in the midst of so many moral virtues, if he did not thereby mean the virtue of prudence, which is, as it were, the eye and guide of all the other virtues. So again, 2 Pet. i. 6. where he bids us add to faith, virtue, i. e. fortitude, or constancy of mind; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance: by knowledge it is highly probable he means prudence, because he places it in the midst of those two virtues which border nearest upon prudence.

Now that the practice of this virtue is a most proper and effectual means of our everlasting happiness, is evident from hence, because the practice of it is a constant exercise of reason. For to act prudently in religion is to follow the best reason; to aim at heaven, which is the best end, and direct our actions thither by the best rules: it is to consult what is best for ourselves, and how it may be most effectually obtained. In a word, it is to intend the chiefest good above all, and to level our lives and actions most directly towards it: this is religious prudence in the general; and as for those particulars of it which we are obliged to exercise in the several states, relations, and circumstances wherein we are placed, they all consist in doing what is most fit and reasonable, with respect to that great and blessed end.

For by living in the continual practice of religious prudence, we shall by degrees habituate ourselves to a life of reason, and shake off that drowsy charm of sense and passion which hangs upon our minds, and

renders our faculties so dull and unactive: and having disused ourselves a while to obey their blind and imperious dictates, our reason will reassume its throne in us, and direct all our aims and endeavours to what is fittest and most reasonable. For we, being finite and limited beings, cannot operate divers ways with equal vigour at once; and our rational and sensitive propensions are made in such a regular and equilibrious order, that proportionably as the one does increase in activity, the other always decays; and so accordingly as we abate in the strength of our brutish, we shall improve in the vigour of our rational faculties. But to act suitably to their natures being the end of all our faculties and powers of action, the God of nature, to excite them thereto, has founded all their pleasure in the vigorous exercise of them upon suitable objects. Since therefore our reason is the best and noblest of all powers of action, to be sure the greatest pleasure we are capable of must spring out of the exercise of our reason. Wherefore, since prudence consists in the use of our reason, the practice thereof must needs effectually contribute to our pleasure and happiness: for use and exercise will mightily strengthen and improve our reason, and render it not only more apprehensive of what is fit and reasonable, but also more persuasive and prevalent; and when once it is improved into a prevailing principle of action, and hath acquired not only skill enough to prescribe what is right to us, but also power enough to persuade us to comply with its prescriptions; to choose and refuse, to love and hate, to hope and fear, desire and delight, and regulate all our actions by its laws and dictates, then are we entering upon our heaven and happiness.

For that which makes us unhappy is, that our sinful and unreasonable affections do so hamper and entangle us, that we cannot freely exercise our faculties upon such objects as are most suitable to them; that our minds and wills are so fettered by our vicious inclinations, that we cannot exert them upon that which is most worthy to be known and chosen, without a great deal of difficulty and distraction. But now, under the conduct of our reason, our faculties will, by degrees, recover their freedom, and disengage themselves from those vicious encumbrances which do so clog and interrupt them in their rational motions: and when this is throughly effected, we are in full possession of the heavenly state, which (as I have shewed) consists in the free and vigorous exercise of our rational faculties upon the best and worthiest objects. For when once our passions and appetites are perfectly subdued to our reason, all our rational faculties will be free, and every one will move towards its proper object, without any let or hinderance; our understanding will be swallowed up in a fixed contemplation of the sublimest truths; our wills entirely resigned to the choice and embraces of the truest good; our affections unalterably devoted to the love and fruition of the most excellent beauty and perfection; and in this consists the happy state of heaven so that to live prudently, or, which is the same, to govern ourselves by our best reason, is both a necessary and effectual means of attaining to the heavenly state.

II. Another virtue which appertains to a man, considered merely as a rational animal, is moderation; which consists in proportioning our concupiscible affections to the just worth and value of things,

so as neither to spend our affections too prodigally upon trifles, nor yet be oversparing or niggardly of them to real and substantial goods; but to love, desire, and expect things more or less, according to the estimate which our best and most impartial reason makes of their worth and goodness. For he that affects things more than in the esteem of reason they deserve, affects them irrationally, and regulates his passion by his wild and extravagant imagination, and not by his reason and judgment. And while men do thus neglect their reason, and accustom themselves to desire, and love, and affect without it, they necessarily disable themselves to enjoy a rational happiness. For, besides that their rational faculties, being thus laid by and unemployed, will naturally contract rust, and grow every day more weak and restive; besides that their unexercised reason will melt away in sloth and idleness, and all its vital powers freeze for want of motion, and, like standing water, stagnate and gather mire, and by degrees corrupt and putrefy, till at last it will be impossible to revive them to the vigorous exercise and motion wherein their pleasure and happiness consists: besides this, I say, by habituating ourselves to affect things irrationally, i. e. to love the least goods most, and the greatest least, we shall disable ourselves from enjoying any goods, but only such as cannot make us happy. For he that loves any good more than it is worth, can never be happy in the enjoyment of it; because he thinks there is more in it than he finds, and so is always disappointed in the fruition of it. And the grief of being disappointed of what he expects does commonly countervail the pleasure of what he finds and enjoys. While he is in