VI.

to be Religious; that it will be highly for our Advantage to be fo, and Sermon eminently to our Prejudice to be otherwife; that if we be fo we fhall be happy, if we be not, we fhall be miferable, and undone for ever. every Man that believes a God, and the Revelations which he hath made, cannot but be fully fatisfied of this.

And

And this will appear upon these two

accounts.

1. From the Nature and Reason of the thing. And,

2. From the Promises and Threatnings of God's word.

1. From the Nature and Reason of the thing. Every Man that believes a God, must believe him to be the Supream good; and the greatest Happiness to confift in the enjoyment of him; and a feperation from him to be the greatest mifery. Now God is not to be enjoyed, but in a way of Religion. Holiness makes us like to God; and likeness will make us love him; and love will make us happy

in the enjoyment of him; and withVolume out this it is impoffible to be happy. XII. There can be no happiness without pleasure and delight; and we cannot take pleasure in any thing we do not love; and there can be no love, without a likeness and fuitableness of difpofition. So long as God is good, and we evil; fo long as he is pure, and we unholy; fo long as he hates fin, and we love it; there can be no happy entercourse, no agreeable Communion, and delightful Society between God and us. So that if we be holy, happiness will refult from this temper and if we be wicked, we are neceffarily and unavoidably miferable. Sin separates between God and us, and hinders our Happiness; and it is impoffible that a wicked Man fhould be near God, or enjoy him.

God and a Sinner are fuch two unequal matches, that it is impoffible to bring them together; for what fellowship hath Righteousness with Vnrighteousness? or what Communion hath light with darkness?

2. Every Man which believes the Revelations which God hath made,

cannot

cannot but be fatisfied, how much Religion is his intereft from the Sermon Promifes and Threatnings of God's VI. Word. God in his Word hath in plain and express terms promife everlasting Glory and Happiness to them that obey him; and hath threatned wicked men with dreadful and eternal punishments; to them that by patient continuance in well-doing, feek for glory, and honour, and immortality, he hath promised eternal life: but to them that obey not the truth, but obey unrighteoufnefs, he hath threatned indignation; and wrath, tribulation and anguish. Now if we believe the Go Ipel, which affures us of another life after this, and a future Judgment which will determine all men to a state of everlasting happiness, or mifery, we cannot but know it to be our intereft, by all poffible means to endeavour to attain the Happiness which God hath promifed, and to avoid the mifery which he hath threatned. All men naturally defire happinefs, and dread mifery and deftruction; and these defires and fears are intimate to our Natures, and can never be feparated from them; because

they

they flow immediately from those olume Principles of felf-love, and felf-preferXII. vation, which are deeply rooted in eve

ry man's heart, and are woven into the very make and frame of his Nature,and will last as long as our Beings. And fo long as these Principles remain in us, there's no Man that is firmly perfwaded of the Promifes and Threatnings of the Gofpel, but muft believe it to be his higheft intereft to be Religious. Fear and hope are the two Paffions which govern us; hope is as it were the Spur that quickens us to our duty, and fear is the Curb that reftrains us from fin; and the greater the good hoped for, or the evil that is feared, the greater power and influence thefe paffions have upon us. Now there cannot be a greater good, than compleat and everlafting happiness; nor a greater evil, than extream and eternal mifery. So that whoever believes the Promises and Threatnings of the Gospel, hath his hope raised to the expectation of the greatest good and happiness in cafe of Obedience; and his fears extended to the expectation of the greatest evil and mifery in cafe

of

of final impenitency and difobedience. And a true Divine Faith doth contain in it both this hope and fear: for a Faith in the Promises of the Gospel is nothing elfe, but the hopes of eternal life; and a belief of the Threatnings of the Gofpel, is nothing elfe, but the fear of Hell and eternal mifery. So that a firm belief of the Promises and Threatnings of the Gospel, muft needs have as great influence upon men to make them Religious, as the higheft hopes and greatest fears can have: and those men that are not moved by the hopes of the greatest good, nor by the fears of the greateft danger, are not to be wrought upon in human ways, nothing will prevail with them.

Thus I have fhewn you, what influence a Divine Faith hath upon Religion; for as much as whoever believes there is a God, and that the Scriptures are the Word of God, is fully fatisfied and convinced how reafonable it is, and how much it is his intereft to be Religious. I come in the laft place to the Application of this Discourse.

Sermon

VI.