less a greater Good demands it of us, there is no Occasion for Self-Denial? 'Tis the whole Business of our Lives to endure Hardships and encounter Difficulties for future Prospects; and we have nothing to do, but to examine carefully the whole Scene of Futurity, to find proper Motives for a right Behaviour in all Cafes. The several Burdens which are necessary to try and improve our Patience, the several Exercises of our feveral Capacities as they are the necessary Means of our Virtue and Perfection, must be also the Means of our Happiness; and to call these things Evils, is as absurd, as to call Hunger an Evil, which is the Instrument of our Preservation and Health.

We see then that we cannot come after Christ, we cannot follow him in the Regeneration here, nor partake in his Glory hereafter, his Inheritance eternal in the Heavens, unless we deny

our

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our selves all those deceitful and treacherous Pleasures, which are continually obtruding themseves, and how agreeable foever they may seem for a time, do either impair the Health of our Bodies, or the Attention of our Minds; or our Neighbour's Welfare; or offend our own Confciences.

We fee also, that we are press'd byall kinds and Degrees of Motives, which regard either our Happiness both prefent and future, or our Neighbour's Happiness, by all and every Relation we stand in to Godour Neighbour and our selves, to be continually engaged in this Self-Denial.

Let us therefore exert our Reason, and weigh our Actions for the future with more Exactness: How strong and inveterate soever the Habits may be we have enslaved our selves to, how great foever their Pleasures, if we can but prevail with our selves to

consider them in their Consequences,

in their eternal and everlasting Consequences, they will be but as Wax before the Fire; and we shall rejoice as a Giant to run our Course. To close with every Pleasure that offers it self, without any regard to its Consequences, either in this Life or the next, is no other than a State of Madness. And where our own personal Happiness or Mifery are treated, a clear Representation of them is the best Argument and strongest Perfuafive. Pleasure and Pain carry with them their own Motives, such as need not, cannot be affifted or enforced. I call Heaven and Earth to record against you this Day, that I have set before you Life and Death, Blessing and Curfing; therefore chufe Life, that your Soul may live.

DISCOURSE VI.

The Duty and Delight of shewing Mercy, especially to the Stranger.

Exod. xxiii. 9.

Also thou shalt not oppress a Stranger, for ye know the Heart of a Stranger, Seeing ye were Strangers in the Land of Egypt.

T

HAT God is represented throughout the Scriptures, as a Being Rich in Mercy, full of Compassion, and plenteous in Goodness; That he seems to delight in the Character of Love above all others; that Judgment is his Strange work;

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work; that his Compaffions fail not, and his Mercy is everlasting and endureth for That this Disposition of Mind is also recommended to us as the chief Perfection of our Nature, as what will make us like unto God; his Sons or Children; as what will render us the Brethren of Christ, who went about doing good; as what will secure and enlarge to us a Portion in his Inheritance: These, I say, are Particulars, which, whether or no they mayhave influenced our Practice, cannot however have escaped any of our Observations.

On the other hand, it is equally obvious that Ill-nature and Malice are the Characters of the Devil; the Properties of those fallen and apostate Angels, who are at the greatest Enmity with God, the greatest distance from his Nature and Happiness; and that the further we are advanced in these evil Dispositions of Mind, so much the