nothing can be of greater advantage than to know how this may be done.

And here, rejecting the equally unreasonable and impracticable flights of stoicism in this matter, we should first observe, that we must not pretend utterly to root out and destroy our passions, for that is neither possible nor desirable. Good and evil will always suitably affect us, whether we will or no, and raise those quick perceptions and brisk motions within us; and it is highly fitting and needful that it should be so; and neither the affairs of the present world nor those relating to the next can be carried on successfully without them.

And so inseparable are they to us, that even in the world of spirits, when our souls shall be in a state of separation, much more when our bodies shall be reunited to them at the resurrection; we shall have such joyous or dolorous perceptions, as are suitable to the state and condition we are in, whether it be happy or miserable, and which will be continually increasing to all eternity, as the causes and objects of them make new and stronger impressions.

And though, in one respect, they cannot be strictly called passions, because there can be no extraordinary commotion of the blood and spirits attending them, in a state wherein even our bodies shall be spiritualized, and into which such flesh and blood as ours cannot enter; yet there is no doubt but we shall be infinitely more affected with the objects of the other world, whether good or evil, and thereby feel such alterations in our souls, as will make us beyond comparison more happy or more miserable than it is possible to be in this.

As for the dolorous impressions that shall then be made upon unhappy souls, they may be called passion with propriety enough, as it signifies a state of most exquisite suffering; and all the perturbation, and disorder, and confusion, and rage, and fury, that attend the utmost excesses of our passions here, will be infinitely exceeded in hell.

And as for the raptures of love and joy, which the blessed experience in heaven, though nothing of perturbation can attend them, it is true, yet they will affect them most vigorously and intimately, and cause such delectable perceptions in their happy souls, as are suitable to that constant flow of bliss upon them, and which they know will be rising still higher and higher for ever.

No doubt but this must proportionably raise their love and joy and delight to still greater and greater degrees, and as their happiness increases, their perception of it must do so too, or else it will be no increase of happiness to them; and this quick perception of their still growing happiness must make a proportionable pleasing alteration in them, and cause some new and vigorous emotions of love to the divine Author of all this bliss, and so on with a fresh increase of delight, as they drink still deeper and deeper at the fountain of goodness and perfection.

Indeed the transports are so high, that were not those who feel them enabled by God to bear them, and their capacities made equal to them, they would be too great for any creature to receive without a surcharge of delight: the least transient touch of which would quite overcome us in this our state of infirmity, and snatch the soul from the body in a

moment.

So that our passions themselves are not designed to be destroyed, nor indeed can be; but will last, the chief of them at least, as long as our being lasts, and will be the instrument of our happiness or misery, in the future world as well as this; but the extravagancy of them is that which we are to reduce into good order, that they may be governable by reason and religion. Now the way to do that is in short, and in general, this; viz. to rectify our notions of good and evil, and make a due estimate of this world and the next.

For if we are mistaken in this matter, and look upon that as our great, and, it may be, supreme good, which is so far from it, that it is one of the worst and most destructive evils; and that as a great and formidable evil, which is quite otherwise, and a very valuable good; it is plain that our passions will be most wretchedly misplaced, and we shall love, desire, and pursue, what we should by all means shun and avoid; and hate and fly from what deserves our greatest affection. And whilst we are under this most fatal error, it is impossible to be otherwise than extremely miserable. All our choices and pursuits will then be most unreasonable, extravagant, and destructive, and we shall inevitably and speedily bring ruin upon ourselves by those very methods which we thought would make us happy.

No man can be in a more deplorable condition than this; and such is the condition of every wicked man; and this is one reason why wickedness is so often called folly in the scriptures, and a wicked man a fool. For what can be a greater argument of folly, and a juster reproach to those that pretend to reason, than to be ignorant of what every in

ferior creature knows, viz. what is good for it, and will preserve its being, and best conduce to its happiness? Indeed this ignorance is wilful and affected, and the man cannot but know better, and act more wisely if he pleases; but this only serves to aggravate his fault, and make his folly inexcusable, and his misery but just: since for the sake of gratifying some of his senses and brutal inclinations at present, he violently overturns the order of nature as well as religion, and with the utmost abjectness of spirit prefers the sordid enjoyments of a brute before those noble satisfactions which arise from the practice of virtue, and which are so near of kin to the pleasures of heaven itself.

The only way to prevent all this mischief is to begin upon a new bottom, to go upon new principles of action, to rectify our notions of good and evil, and engage our affections upon their proper objects, and in due degrees. Not to be too eager and hot in the pursuit of any worldly good, too much transported when we have attained it, excessively troubled and dejected when we miss of it or lose it, and at the same time very cool and indifferent to, and shamefully negligent of, what is of infinitely greater consequence to us, and deserves our utmost application and regard.

For, as for our estimate of the things of this world, he that is so mistaken in them as to place his happiness in their enjoyment, and hath a gustful, sapid relish of them, will, ere he is aware, affect them to that degree, that his passions will grow headstrong and unruly in their pursuit: and therefore that vicious appetite must be checked betimes by frequent reflections upon the empty, unsatisfying,

and hurtful nature of them, till we bring ourselves to an indifference to them, which by degrees will wean us from them, till at length we become out of conceit with, and shy of them, as things that are very dangerous to us, and destructive of our happiness, which yet we are exceeding apt to dote upon too much.

And he that seriously and often thus employs his thoughts, as every wise man and good Christian ought to do, will in time become as it were dead and insensible to all the false, deluding blandishments of wealth and greatness and pleasure, and be got out of danger of being transported by any extravagant degrees of passion in the pursuit of any thing here below.

Especially if he hath so due a value for the glorious things of the world to come, as upon them to fix his affections, as the only engaging and fully satisfying object of them.

For he that is often in contemplation of the exceeding happiness of heaven, and firmly believes that Jesus has prepared for him a mansion there, where in a little time he shall certainly arrive, and dwell for ever in it, if he follows the directions his Saviour has plainly marked out to him, and which even at present he finds are ways of pleasantness, unspeakable satisfaction, tranquillity, and peace; and being warmed with strong desires of enjoying that immense felicity which awaits him in those blissful regions, breathes and pants after it as the chased hart after the cool stream, and whose conversation is in heaven beforehand, by frequent acts of prayer and meditation :-he that is thus employed, and has his mind filled with such bright and glorious ideas,