of such for Gods who had not been fit to live if they had been men, which were all things so commonly practised in the Idolatries of the Heathens. But the nature of the Worship is such as the minds of those who come to it ought to be, and as becomes that God whom we profess to serve, pure and holy, grave and serious, solemn and devout, without the mixtures of superstition, vanity or ostentation. The precepts of our Religion are plain and easie to be known, very suitable to the nature of Mankind, and highly tending to the advantage of those who practise them, both in this and a better life. The arguments to perswade men are the most weighty and powerful, and of as great importance as the love of God, the death of his Son, the hopes of happiness, and the fears of eternal misery, can be to men. And where∣in is the contrivance of our Religion defective, when the end is so desireable, the means so effectual for the obtaining of it?
2. Which is the next thing to be considered. There are two things which in this degenerate estate of man are neces∣sary in order to the recovery of his happiness; and those are Repentance for sins past, and sincere Obedience for the future: now both these the Gospel gives men the greatest encourage∣ments to, and therefore is the most likely to effect the design it was intended for.
1. For Repentance for sins past. What more powerful mo∣tives can there be to perswade men to repent, than for God to let men know that he is willing to pardon their sins upon the sincerity of their Repentance, but without that, there re∣mains nothing but a fearful expectation of judgement, and fie∣ry indignation? that their sins are their follies, and therefore to repent is to grow wise: that he requires no more from men, but what every considerative man knows is fitting to be done whenever he reflects upon his actions: that there can be no greater ingratitude or disingenuity towards the Son of God than to stand at defiance with God when he hath shed his blood to reconcile God and Man to each other: that every step of his humiliation, every part of the Tragedy of his life, every wound at his death, every groan and sigh which he uttered upon the Cross, were designed by him as the most prevailing Rhetorick, to perswade men to forsake their sins, and be hap∣py: that there cannot be a more unaccountable folly, than by impenitency to lose the hopes of a certain and eternal happi∣ness for the sake of those pleasures which every wise man is ashamed to think of: that to continue in sin with the hopes to repent, is to stab a mans self with the hopes of a cure: that