fider the Quality of him that speaks to us, if we can be thus liftlefs and regardless of what he says. As we do neither,

Secondly, The moment of the Address it self which is concerning the greatest, perhaps the only, Intereft we have at ftake. For 'tis not God's own fuit,that he thus earnestly follicits with us; neither is it for his own advantage,that he makes these continual Applications to us. But it is our Interest and our Concern,that he efpoufes; and, as 'tis to us that he speaks, fo 'tis for us, and for our Good; and the greatest Good too, that we are capable of. That which he courts us to, and importunes us for, is, that we would be Happy, and that we would take such a Course as will make us fo; That we would live and act wifely and like our felves, that is, like rational Creatures, according to the Order of our Being, and the Perfection of our Nature. That we would fit and difpofe our felves for the Happiness he has prepared for us, bring our felves within the compafs of his Love and Mercy, and fo demean our felves for this short time, that he may reward us with a Blessed Eternity. This is the thing, which God treats with us about; this is the burthen of all his Applications. He that firft fpake us into Being, would fain now fpake us into the Order and Perfection of Being, into Happiness, And is not fuch an Addrefs as this, moft worthy of our Attention and Compliance, meerly upon the account of its own Moment, tho' it came from fome inferiour Being, and had no recommendation from

the

the Divinity of the Speaker? Much more then, fince it comes to us from above, from the very Eternal and Substantial Wisdom of God; who tho' too Great to gain by our Happiness, is yet too good to fee us Miferable.

See then, that ye refufe not him that speaketh; Heb. 12. for 'tis not a light thing, to reject fuch an Address, from fuch a Speaker. But if we fhould be so stupid and difingenuous, Wisdom her felf has forewarn'd us, what we must trust to, and what return we must expect. Because I have call'd and ye refufed, I have stretch'd out my hand and no Man regarded; But ye have fet at naught my Counsel, and would none of my Reproof; I also will Laugh at your Calamity, I will mock when your Fear cometh, Prov. 1. 24.

4

There is a time coming on, when we shall be very willing that God fhould hear us, and that is, at the Hour of Death; and there will be a time, when we must and shall hear him; namely, in the Day of Judgment; when he shall fit in the Court of his Justice, and give final Sentence upon us. And therefore, as we would have God readily to hear us at the Hour of our Death, and as we would comfortably hear him in the Day of his Judgment; fo,it concerns us to hear him now, in this his Day of Addrefs and Treaty with us, while he bespeaks us by all the variety of Application, while Wisdom cries, and while Underftanding puts forth her Voice.

Let us all then ferioufly confider, and comply. with, this Divine Address; and let this be the re

turn

turn of every Soul, Speak, Lord; for thy Servant heareth. Amen.

POSTSCRIPT to the First Difcourfe.

FOR

OR a further Juftification of the Measures laid down concerning the Love of God in our Account of that First and Great Commandment which injoyns it, I fhall now offer another Confideration taken from the Will of God, and our Obligation of being conformable with it. I beg leave here to fuppofe that the Will of God is the Measure of all Good, as the Understanding of God is the Measure of all Truth. Not as if I thought either the Understanding or the Will of God to be (as is the Opinion of fome) in fuch a Sense the Measure of Truth or Good, that what God conceives as True, fhould be therefore True because he fo conceives it; or that what he wills, fhould be therefore Good because he wills it;which would be a Suppofition of very mischievous Confequence as well in refpect of Morality and Religion, as of Science and Speculation. But only that as the Understanding of God is fo exact and infallible, that he can form no Judgment but what is according to Truth; fo the Will of God is alfo fo orderly and regular (as following the Conduct of an unerring Light,) that he can will nothing but what is Good. And that therefore as we can fafely argue a Pofteriori, that fuch a Propofition is true, because God fo conceives it,

fo

fo we may in like manner argue from the Will of God, that fuch a thing is Good, because he wills it. In this Senfe,I fuppofe we may warrantably fay, that whatever God wills is Good; not as if it were therefore Good because he wills it, but because such is his Perfection that he can will nothing but what is fo antecedently in its own Nature. So that the Will of God may and must be admitted as a juft Standard and Measure, tho' not as the Cause of all Good.

But now if the Will of God be the Standard and Measure of all Good, as the Understanding of God is the Measure of all Truth; then 'twill follow, that it is as much the Perfection of our Will to be conformable to the Will of God, as 'tis the Perfection of our Understanding to be conformable to the Understanding of God; that the former does perfect the Soul as much in a Moral way, as the latter does in an Intellectual way; and that therefore if we would fincerely confult the Perfection of our Rational Nature, we should at least as much endeavour to conform our Wills to the Will of God, as to conform our Understandings to the Understanding of God; to will as God wills, as to think or conceive as God thinks or conceives. For if Good be as perfective of the Will, as Truth is of the Understanding,then the Perfection of the Will must as much confift in Conformity with that which is the Measure of Good (whatever it be) as the Perfection of the Understanding does confift in its Conformity with the Measure of Truth. And

fince this Measure of Good is acknowledged to be no other than the Supream Will, the Will of God; it is evident that Conformity with his Will must be as much the Perfection of our Will, as Conformity with his Understanding is the Perfection of our Understanding. Whence it will follow, that as our Understandings cannot vary, tho' never fo little, from the Divine Understanding without falling into Error; fo our Wills cannot decline, tho' never fo little,from the Divine Will, without falling into Sin. As all Deviation from the Understanding of God is an Intellectual, fo all Deviation from the Will of God will be a Moral Disorder. We ought therefore to be thoroughly Conformable with this great and universal Standard of Morality; to tune our Wills to a perfec Unifon with the Will of God, and in every respect to will the fame that he Wills, if we would be exact Followers of Order, and contain our Souls within the strict Bounds of what is just and fit. And there is a time coming,when we fhall do fo; when Self fhall be quite extinguifh'd in us, when we shall maintain no private or particular Motions, but fhall follow the Order and Motion of God; and be carried along as it were with this great Vortex, having our Wills intirely refolv'd into the Divine, without fo much as the leaft Velleity left of our own; that fo the Will of God, as God himself, may be All in All.

This Conformity of the Human Will with the Divine, is a Subject much handled and inculcated in the Writings of the Mystics; and the Jefuit Drexelius