unquietness, if the highest faculty, which is most perceptive, be not tied up to its peculiar and proper object; if the reason of our minds go one way, and our wills another way; when we have judgment and confcience of what is right, but impetuoufnefs of paffion and ungoverned affection beat us off; when pleafurable and profitable, are preferred before just and honest these are things of deformity and greatest violence; and where there is violence antecedent, there mischief follows it at the heels.

Tho' in cafes and circumftances which may happen, there may be fome doubtfulness and cause of irrefolution; as it is in case of those which we call particulariora, contractiora jura, the leffer rights; yet the majora jura, pietatis, juftitiæ, fobrietatis, the greater rights of piety to God, reverence, regard, duty, obfervance of him; fairness, juftice, equal-dealing with men ; fobriety, chastity, temperance; the government of the body, so as to be subservient to the temper of the mind; and the mind living in love, dwelling in peace, well-compofed, fitted for mental and spiritual acts; these are such bright lights, as the eye of reafon cannot but fee them. No man can make an excufe for his being immoral, in any kind. whatsoever. For these things are of univerfal acknowledgment, in all times, in all places; there is nothing of religion and confcience, where these things do not take place. The principles of reason, and the further light of revelation, agree in these things, Ti. tus ii. 12. For the grace of God that brings falvation, teaches us, that denying ungodliness, and worldly lufts, we fhould live foberly, righteously, and godly in this prefent world i

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world; now he hath put out both his eyes, that fees not these things, that doth not difcern his obligation to them; he hath put out the eye of natural light, and that eye whereby he fees things of divine revelation.

I have now given you an account of these things which are fo mifchievous in man, which are conjoined with his everlafting fate and destiny; things of high offence and difpleasure to God. And if you va lue your fafety to eternity, if you value your approving yourselves to God, if you would approve yourfelves to be capable of judgment of truth, and right and wrong; take these things into confideration,

The end of the fourth Volume.

Some parts of which were ordinarily used by Dr. WHICHCOTE before fermon.

Lmighty God, the father of our Lord Jefus Chrift, the God of the fpirits of all flefh, we profefs all dependence upon thee, we live in all expectation from thee. Awaken (we intreat thee) all the powers and faculties of our fouls to acts of lively fenfe and apprehenfion of thee. Call us to due diligence and careful attendance upon thee, that we may have our God highly in regard; that we may have great reverence of Deity in our minds; that we may be in the fear and apprchenfions of thee while we are before thee.

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Put us (we humbly pray thee) upon all thofe acts towards thee that ever thou madft us capable of, in the moment of thy creation of us ; that we may ly acknowledge thee, who art the original of our beings; that we may greatly reverence thee, who art the father of our fpirits; that we may obey thee fully, who art our governor; that we may ferve thee freely, who art our Lord and owner; that we may be thankful unto thee, who art our great benefactor; that we may admire and adore thee, who art a being of all perfection; that we may love and delight in thee, who art the first and chiefeft good; that we may place all affiance, truft, and confidence in thee, because of thy gracious promifes; that we may come unto thee, in answer to thy invitation and call; that we may believe thee, who art moft certain and infallible; that we may commit the great truft of our fouls unto thee, because of thy known faithfulness to us; that we may reft in thee, the center of immor

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tal fpirits; and ultimately refer to thee, who art the end of all things; and in the use of our liberty, that we may prefent thy majefty with a free-will offering and bring unto thee the confent of our minds; that fo we may become altogether thine; that as we are thine by thy creation of us, by thy maintenance, and prefervation, by thy conftant providence over us, by thy gracious affuming of us into a relation to thyself by thy Son, making us the adoption of thy grace; fo we may be alfo thine, by our voluntary dedicating and devoting ourfelves to thy fear and fervice.

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2. To this purpose destroy out of us, whatever we have acquired unnatural to the principles of thy creation of us, by abufe of ourselves, by neglect of thy grace, by compliance with the corrupt guife of this finful, degenerate, and apoftate world. O naturalize us to heaven, reconcile us to all the things of that high eftate that fo we may not drudge in the world, nor act in a flavish fpirit in ways of religion; but that we may ferve thee with ingenuity of mind, with freedom of fpirit, as thofe that are fet at liberty, and delivered from the bondage and flavery of iniquity, having the law of the fpirit of life which is in Chrift Jefus, making us free from the law of fin and death,

3. Eleffed God, we have caule thankfully to acknowledge the divine goodnefs, for thou haft loved our fouls from the pit of deftruction: thou haft laid help for us upon one that is mighty, and every ways able to fave; and haft declared thy falvation (God in Chrift reconciling the world unto himfelf, not imputing trefpaffes ;) thou haft raised up for us a prince and a Saviour, to give repentance to us, and forgivenefs of fins. Now it is the language of our fouls in the ears of our God; make us partakers of that falvation which thou haft appointed, and which our Saviour has wrought, and our fouls thall blefs thee to eternity.

4. To this purpose bring us within the terms of the covenant of grace (repentance from dead works, refolved obedience in all things to God, and faith in the Lord Jefus Chrift) and fuffer us not herein to fail or to fall fhort. Give us heartily and fincerely to revoke and undo whatfoever we have done amifs in life; to condemn ourselves for doing those things, to deprecate thy juft offence, and difpleafure; to cry thee mercy; to ask thee pardon; and for all time to come, to leave off to fin, and to return to our duty.

5. And let us herein be gainers by our former loffes and miscarriages, to make us more fenfible of our weakness and inability; and of our neceffary depen dence upon thee our God: to be more thankful unto thee for thy gracious interpofure, in preventing of us from running into thofe evils, that we have not committed; to be modeft and humble in the fenfe of our former mifcarriages; to be cautious and wary, that in time to come we do not tranfgrefs; and to make us more charitable and compaffionate to our brethren, that in many things may have failed as well as

we.

6. Give us carefully to hold the head of the church, and to make all due acknowledgments to the Saviour of the body myftical; help us to conceive of him, for the height and excellency of his perfon; for the worthinefs and fulnefs of his undertaking, and performance on our behalf; according as we ought. Let us have that dependence upon him, that expectation by him, that thou haft warranted us to have; and make that use of him, that thou haft fet him up for ; both that our faith and hope may finally reft in God; as also, that we may be planted into the likenefs of his death, by mortification, felfdenial, felf-furrender; and may bear the image of his refurrection, by fpirituality and heavenly-mindednefs; that fo he may become a compleat Saviour to

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