there is very little difference between having reason, and having none, if we had nothing to do with it, but cunningly to lay up our food, and make provision for this corruptible flesh, and had not another life to mind. It were no such great difference, in my opinion, as it commonly goes for, whether we were men or dogs, if it were only for the matters of this transitory life. For though I may not deny but yet man were the nobler creature, yet alas the difference would be but gradual and small, as an ape or dog excels a swine. And as to his happiness, it is doubtful whether man would not have the worst of it. For as brutes have not man's knowledge, so they have not his toil and trouble of mind, his care, and fear, and griefs, and disappointments. Nor have they so terrible forethoughts of death through all their lives, as man must have, much less such fears of what would follow after death.

And therefore I may boldly say, that you have thrown away your wits, and laid by your reason as to the principal use of it, if you have forgot, or have not chiefly sought the one thing necessary. Where were your wits when a lump of flesh was preferred before immortal souls? and when the trouble and dung of a transitory world, was more esteemed than God and endless glory? Where were your wits when you might have had Christ, and life in him, and his pardoning, healing, sanctifying grace, and you had no mind of him, and were not sensible of your necessity, and passed him by with as much neglect, as if you could have been saved without him? When you might long ago have made sure of heaven; and now you are even ready to drop into hell, and stay but for a fever, or consumption, or some other disease to cut the thread, and turn the key, unless a speedy, sound conversion shall yet prevent it. What have you done in all your lifetime that should make a wise man judge you reasonable? Is that your reason to be 'Penny wise and pound foolish ;' to be wise to do evil, and to have no knowledge to do good? Jer. iv. 22. To run up and down for I know not what, and to leave that undone that you were created and redeemed for? Can you think that it is reasonable to make such ado for the air of dying men's applause, and to be well thought of, or to live like gentlemen, or to the contentment of a fleshly mind, when you know that you are just ready to pass out of this world into an endless life of joy or torment,

(yea, certainly of torment, if you thus hold on)? Where all these things will afford you no relief or benefit; but the memory of your course will be the fuel of your misery. Can that man be wise that damns his soul? Can he deserve the name of a sober man, that will sell his salvation for so short, so small, so filthy a pleasure as sin affordeth? Is he worthy the name or reputation of a wise man, that hath not wit enough to escape eternal fire? nor wit enough to forbear laying hands upon himself, and doing all this against his own soul? What think you, is not the case plain enough?

Be not offended if I speak yet plainer to you; for in a case so lamentable, how can we be too plain or serious? Suppose you knew a prince or lord, that had an itch upon him, which the physician offereth speedily and easily to cure; but he hath so much pleasure in scratching, that he doth not only refuse the cure, lest it deprive him of his delight, but he will give his kingdom or lordship to one that will scratch him but a little while, though he be sure to live a beggar after, all his days. I put it to yourselves, What name you would give this man, or what esteem you would have of him. Do you think that any ungodly, worldly person is wiser than this man? Alas, their case is so much worse, that there is no comparison. They are more foolish than your hearts can now conceive, or than I am able fully to express. You have now the itch of pride and lust; and your throats must be pleased in your meats and drinks; and you itch after riches, and honour, and recreations; and Christ telleth you by his word, that these are but your sick desires, and that the pleasing of them tends to kill you; and he offereth you for nothing a safe, and certain, and speedy cure. But you refuse it, and will not hearken to him. You must be scratched, whatever it cost you. You must have your riches, and honour, and fleshly pleasure, as the felicity which you cannot part with, though it cost you your salvation. Though God be neglected, and his favour lost, and your souls be lost, and the one thing needful cast aside, you must have your carnal imaginations gratified. And is this your wisdom? The Lord bless us from such a kind of wisdom.

Yet this is not the worst. I will shew you one strain more of the distraction of the ungodly world. If these men do but see one person of a hundred that are more diligent for hea

ven than earth, to fall into melancholy, or distress of soul; or suppose it were into some loss of reason, they presently cry out against religion, and strictness, and preciseness, and making so much ado to be saved; and say it is the way to make men mad. Hence comes the proverb of the Papists ('Spiritus Calvinianus est spiritus melancholicus'); and of the profane among ourselves, that A Puritan is a Protestant frightened out of his wits.' They dare not study the Scripture so much, nor meddle with such high matters as their salvation, nor be so godly, nor meditate on the world to come, lest it should drive them out of their wits. O miserable men! As if it were possible for you to be more dan gerously mad than you are already! (Unless by growing unto greater wickedness!) Do you lay out your wit, and strength, and time in feeding a corruptible body for the grave, and spend your lives in running after your own shadows, while your everlasting life is forgotten or neglected? Do you sell your Saviour with Judas for a little money; and change your part in God and glory, for the brutish pleasures of sin for a season? And are you afraid of altering this course of life, and turning to God, lest it should make you mad? Lord, what a besotting thing is sin! What a cunning cheater is the devil! What a deluded, distracted sort of people are the ungodly! Will you run from God, from Christ, from grace, from mercy, from Scripture, from the godly, and from heaven itself for fear of being mad? Why what greater madness can you fear than this? What worse is human nature capable of? Unless it be the addition of a further measure of the same, and unless it be to hold on in that way, and persecute the contrary with such like aggravations of your madness, I know not of any worse that you should fear. Will you run to hell to prove yourselves to be in your wits? Again I say, the Lord bless us from such a kind of wit. Nay, hell itself hath no such distractedness. as yours. The difference between the one thing needful, and your many things, is there better, though too late, understood! Is loving God the way to be mad? and loving the world and fleshly pleasures the way to be wise? Is conversing with God in humble prayer, and believing his love, and loving him, and delighting in him, and speaking of his name, and word, and works unto his praise, and hoping to live with him for ever, I say is this (which is the work of a

believer) a liker course to make men mad, than serving the devil, and drudging in the world, and living under the curse of God, and in continual danger of damnation? What men are they that dare entertain such horrid, and unreasonable suggestions?

I confess we are not unacquainted with the sadness and melancholy that some persons have contracted by religious employments; and perhaps one of a thousand may lose their wits. But I must tell you all these following points, that will shew you that religion is not to be blamed for it, nor avoided.

1. It is ordinarily persons of the weaker sex, or of very weak brains, and very strong passions, that are naturally inclined to it, and are not able to bear any long and serious thoughts, about matters of that moment, which are apt to make the deepest impressions. But persons that naturally are of sound and calm dispositions, are seldom troubled with any such effects.

2. It is usually the case of persons that mistake the nature of religion, though not in the main, yet in some particulars of great concernment; that study not sufficiently the love of God declared to us in our Redeemer, but feed their grief and troubles only by the thoughts of their own infirmities, and that consider not that the chief part of religion doth consist in love, and joy in the Holy Ghost, and in thanksgiving and delightful praising our Creator. So that it is not long of religion if men will leave out the chief part of religion, and make themselves a religion of so much only as may break their troubles.

3. And I must further tell you, that as I have had opportunity of knowing the state of as many troubled, distempered minds as any one of you, whoever he be; so I must needs bear witness, that I have met with many that have been distracted by worldly cares, or sorrows, or discontents, for one that ever I knew distracted with the cares about the matter of their salvation. And yet though it be worldly care and sorrow that most commonly bringeth death and madness, you will not therefore give over your callings, and resolve that you will meddle no more with meat, or drink, or clothes, or houses, or lands, or friends, or children. Nay, it were well if you would be brought to moderation, and taken off your inordinate desires.

And yet in the conclusion I must tell you, that, though I know that the loss of a man's understanding is a very grievous affliction, and such as I hope God will never lay upon me, yet I had a thousand times rather go distracted to Bedlam with the excessive care about my salvation, than be one of you that cast away the care of your salvation for fear of being distracted, and will go among the infernal Bedlams into hell for fear of being mad. The height of your carnal wisdom is more deplorable than their distraction. For God will condemn no man because he is distracted, nor so much as blame him for it, unless as it is the fruit of sin, no more than he will condemn or blame an idiot or a beast because they have no use of reason. If David had been what he feigned himself to be, (1 Sam. xxi. 13, 14.) it would not have cast him out of God's favour, so far as one sin did, much less so far as the ungodly are. A man may go to heaven for such a madness. But you that have reason for the world, but none for God; that are wise to do evil, that have wit to destroy yourselves, and serve the flesh, but none to look after your recovery and salvation; it is you that shall have the stripes, the many, the great, the endless stripes. You that have so much wit as that you glory in it, and think yourselves wiser than the rest of the world, and yet have not wit to know, and love, and serve your Maker; nor to value and seek first the one thing necessary, it is you that will prove the miserable fools.

If you had not a natural capacity of understanding, you had had no sin. But now you have no cloak for your sin, when you have the worldly wisdom, which is foolishness with God, and have a sinning, selfdestroying wit, and are wilfully void of the wisdom that should save you (1 Cor. i. 25. iii. 19. Jer. viii. 9.), when you have not a necessitated, but a voluntary distraction; and "this is your condemnation, that light is come into the world, and you have loved darkness rather than light, because your deeds were evil;" John iii. 19.

If you think this wilful and senseless neglect of the one thing needful is not a sufficient evidence to prove that miserable distraction which I charge upon you, will you but believe your Maker, and let the word of God be judge between us, and mark what language it giveth to such as I now describe, 2 Thess. iii. 2. Jer. iv. 22. Jer. iv. 22. Eccles. vii. 25.