it gives glory to God, utility to the publick, tranquillity and joy to the confcience, relief to fome, counfel to others, and example to all. 812. Let prophane minds laugh at it as much as they will, there is a fecret commerce between God and the fouls of good men; they feel the influence of heaven, and become both wifer and better for it. Their thoughts are nobler as well as freer; those that truly fear God have a fecret guidance from a higher wisdom than what is barely human, namely, the fpirit of truth, which does really, though privately, prevent and direct them that fear, depend and call upon God for his guidance and direction. Though the divine affiftance is principally seen in matters relating to the foul, yet it is very often found in the concerns which a good man, that fears God, and begs his help, fhall very often, if not at all times find. Sir Matthew Hale called his own experience to witness, that in the external actions of his whole life, he never was disappointed in the best guidance and affistance, when he had, in humility and fincerity, implored the divine aid and benediction. There are peculiar happy flights, and bright minutes, which open to men great landscapes, and give them a full and most beautiful profpect of things, which do not always arife out of a previous meditation, or chain of thought, but are flashes of light from the eternal fource, which often break in upon the peaceful, pure, and pious mind. 813. The mind of man is not only an image of God's spirituality, but his infinity; it is a substance of a boundlefs comprehenfion; nothing does more discover the foul's / infinity, than thought. ナ 814. The extremes either of youth or age, make a man's judgment often fail him; for if he thinks too little on things, he over-looks truth, and if too long, he is too much dozed to perceive it. Just as in the positions of a picture, there is but one point moft proper to fhew it in, the other may mifreprefent by too great diftance, or nearness, by being too high, or too low. 815. Confidence, which ought to make the tyes of friendship stronger, does generally produce a contrary effect; fo that it is a wife man's part to be as referved in this particular, as is confiftent with the laws of decency, and united affections; but, above all, let us have a care not to disclose our hearts to those who shut up theirs from us. 816. Good breeding is learnt from the converfation of ladies, and good humour from men; the one teaches us gallantry, the other wisdom. 817. To discern true merit, and reward it when a man has found it out, are two great steps to make at once, and fuch as few of the great ones are capable of. 818. Did men but take as much care to mend, as they do to conceal their failings, they would both spare themfelves that trouble which diffimulation puts them to, and gain befides the commendations they afpire to, by their feeming virtues. 819. A man is more referved and fecret in his friend's concern, than his own; a woman, on the contrary, keeps her own fecret better than another's. 820. There is never so strong a love in a young lady's breast, but what may receive fome addition, either from ambition or interest. 821. A jea 821. A jealous husband, who finds out his wife, gets this by the bargain, that it cures him of his jealousy, which is one of the worst torments a man can have; and who would not bear with a faucy companion, to get rid of the devil? 822. It is commonly imagined, that a great memory feldom accompanies a great wit, or a good judgment, and that those three are incompatible, that they have divers habitations in, and a diverse temperature of the brain. I think the contrary is generally, but not always true; doubtless they are managed by one great agent in the foul, which is above temperature, place and matter. 823. An entire inactivity of body and mind is fo far from giving us tranquillity, that it only brings upon us an uneafy fatiety and difrelish of all things about us. 824. What is loft by the firft Adam, we have recovered by the fecond; fo we fuffer no more by an imputed fin, than we may enjoy by an imputed righteousness. 825. Those that reveal a secret, do an injury to whom they reveal it; for it is natural not only to hate those who tell, but them alfo that hear what we would not have disclosed. 826. The foundation of a good government over a man's self, is to be laid in the command of the paffions; a good life is aptly compared to mufick, for they who make virtue the fcope of their actions, proceed in harmony and order. 827. The greatest pleasure of life, is love; the greatest treasure, contentment; the greatest poffeffion, health; the the greatest ease, is fleep; and the greatest medicine, a true friend. 828. Of all the affections that attend human life, the love of glory is the most ardent; called by fome, a raging fit of virtue in the foul. Honour's a spark of the celeftial fire, That above nature makes mankind afpire. 829. I look upon arrears for past benefits, as the most facred of all debts, and think no excefs fo commendable, as an excess of gratitude. 830. He that thinks to expiate a fin by going barefoot, does the penance of a goose, and only makes one folly the atonement for another. In the church of Rome, a man cannot be a penitent, unless a vagabond, by pilgrimaging about the world; that which was Cain's curfe, is become their religion. 831. We read that St Paul was beaten by the Jews, but never that he beat himself; if the Papists think his keeping under the body imports fo much, they must first prove the body cannot be kept under by a virtuous mind, and that the mind cannot be made virtuous without a fcourge. The truth is, if men's religion be no deeper than the skin, it is poffible they may scourge themselves into great improvements; but let them lafh on never fo fast, they may as well expect to bring a cart, as a foul to heaven, by these means. 832. The regular courfe, and ftanding order of nature is a much more glorious evidence of divine wisdom, power and providence, than the moft miraculous interruptions, and disorders of it. 833. The 833. The vifible marks of extraordinary wisdom and power appear fo plainly in all the works of the creation, that a rational creature, who will but feriously reflect, cannot miss the discovery of the deity. 834. It is obfervable, that, through all fucceffions of men, there never was any fociety, any collective body of atheists; a fingle one might here and there perhaps be found, as we sometimes fee monsters, and mishapen births; but, for the generality, they had always fuch inftincts of a deity, that they never thought they ran far enough from atheism, but rather chofe to multiply their Gods, to have too many, than none at all; they were even apt to defcend to the adoration of things below themselves, rather than renounce the power above them; by which we may fee the notion of a God is the most indelible character of natural reason, and therefore, whatever pretence our atheists make to ratiocination, and deep difcourfe, it is none of the primitive fundamental reafon, coetaneous with our humanity, but is, indeed, a reason fit only for those who own themselves like the beafts that perish. 835. If the world had no beginning, how is it that the Grecks (the moft antient writers) mention nothing higher than the wars of Thebes and Troy? Were there, from eternity, no memorable actions till that time? or had men no means to record or propagate the memory of them to pofterity? If men were from eternity, it is ftrange they fhould not find out the way of writing in that long duration. But it may be faid, those records and memorials perished in univerfal deluges, which is the atheift's plea. Eut these inundations must be either natural or fupernatural; if the lat ter, |