A SAINT OR A BRUTE.

THE SECOND PART.

Clearly proving by Reason as well as Scripture: I. In general, that Holiness is best, and necessary to our felicity. II. Particularly, that it is best, 1. For Societies. 2. For Individual Persons. And more distinctly, (1.) That it is the only way to Safety. (2.) Of Honesty. (3.) The most Gainful way. (4.) The most Honourable. (5.) The most Pleasant, and therefore to be chosen by all that will obey true Reason and be happy.

CHAP. I.

Holiness and its fruits are the best part. Wherein the Happiness of Saints consisteth.

LUKE x. 4

But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen the good part, which shall not be taken from her.

THOUGH I have before taken up this latter part of the text by way of motive, in the conclusion of the former part of this Treatise, I am very loath that a subject of so great importance should be so lightly passed over. And therefore, by God's assistance, I shall attempt a fuller handling of it. The Necessity of Holiness I have spoken of already. It is the Goodness of it that I am next to speak of.

And before I enter upon it, let me entreat thee reader, whoever thou art that openest this book, to remember that I am writing, and thou art reading of the greatest and highest matters in the world; and therefore come not to it with common affections, and read not this as thou wouldst do a history, or a rhetorical oration, to find delight for a curious mind; but confessing thyself a scholar to Christ, with reverence take thy lesson from him, as that which thou camest into the world to learn, and which all thy comforts, thy hopes, thy safety, and thy everlasting happiness depend

upon.

And here in the entrance, I will freely tell you what moveth me to fall upon this subject, and be so earnest with you in this point. One thing is the observation of the carelessness and wilfulness of the most, that live in the neglect of holiness and everlasting life, for all that can be said to persuade them to a wiser course. While they all profess themselves to be Christians, and to take the Scripture for the word of God, and confess this word in particular to be true, that it is heaven and holiness that are the most necessary, and most to be desired and sought after, yet will they not be moved to live according to this profession, nor to love that most which they confess to be the best, nor to seek that first which they confess to be most needful. They have the case here decided by the mouth of the Lord Jesus Christ himself, and as plainly, and fully, and peremptorily decided as they could wish. If they were infidels, and understood but the law of nature, even reason might tell them that there is no doubt of it, but that eternal life is more to be sought after than transitory things. And yet they live as if the case had never been decided by Christ or by reason; or as if they had never heard of any life but this. Look into most towns, and see whether there be not more at Martha's work (and worse) than at Mary's. Look into most families, and see whether they be not with Martha, troubling themselves with many things, when the good part is almost cast aside. Even in the families of lords, knights, and gentlemen, that are doubly obliged to God, and pretend to be wiser than the ignorant vulgar, the matters of their salvation are turned out of doors, or thrust into a corner, and the matters of their bodies do take up the day. How many Marthas for one Mary shall we find among both rich and poor!

Yea, that is not the worst, but they that are so blind and wicked as to choose the worse part themselves, would have all about them do so too. And as Martha grudged at Mary's practice, and complaineth to Christ against her, so these repine at the choice of the godly, and think them but melancholy, crack-brained people, that make more ado for their salvation than they need. And they are not content to keep such ungodly thoughts in their breasts, to their own damnation, but they must be the devil's mouth to spit reproach in the face of holiness, and consequently in the face of Christ, as if they bid defiance to the Lord, and would make it their employment to jeer and scorn men's souls from heaven. If one in a family do with Mary choose the better part (though without any neglect of their calling in the world), the rest make a wonder of them, and some deride them; and some hate, and vilify, and threaten them, and few will imitate them. And who more forward to distaste and despise them than the masters of the families that are bound to teach and lead them in that way! So that a poor soul (even in a land and age that countenanceth holiness more than almost any other in the world) can scarcely sit at the feet of Christ, and learn his word, and seek his kingdom and righteousness first, but they are gazed at, and censured and derided, as if they did some very foolish, needless, yea, or wicked thing! As if it were the only folly for a man to follow Jesus Christ, and obey his God, and save his soul, and do that work with greatest diligence, for which he is a man, for which he hath his life, and time, and mercies, and which if he neglect, he is lost for ever! The Lord have mercy upon the poor deluded world! Whence comes this general damp and dotage upon the understandings and the hearts of men; of great men, of learned men, of men that are accounted wise in the world!

It is good and evil that constituteth all that wonderful difference that is between the reasonable creatures, both here and hereafter. The good of holiness, and the evil of sin do make the difference between the godly and the wicked. The good of everlasting happiness, and the evil of everlasting misery, doth make the difference between the glorified and the damned. Goodness in general is so naturally the object of man's will, that evil as evil cannot be desired, and good as good cannot be hated. What then is the matter that

few attain the greatest good, and few will escape the greatest misery? It is because they would not choose that good, and refuse the way and cause of misery. But how cometh it to pass that men will make no wiser a choice? Is the case so doubtful that they cannot be resolved in it? Every man would have that which he thinks is best for him. Why do men follow after wealth, or pleasure, or credit in the world, but because they take it to be best for them? Why do they set so light by holiness, and Christ, and heaven, but because they apprehend them not to be best for them? Would men refuse, and obstinately against all persuasions refuse a holy life, if they took it practically to be best for them? What! will they contrive their own destruction ? Do they long to do themselves a mischief, and the greatest mischief in the world? No, that is not the case; but the matter is this: Their senses draw them another way; their eye, their ear, their taste, their feeling, every sense hath a pleasure of its own, and this sense or flesh is violent and unreasonable, and would fain be satisfied; and reason that was given us to rule it, is bribed, and blinded, and perverted by it, and so is ready as a servant to obey it, and to take its part; and the fleshly mind discerneth not the things of God, for they are spiritually discerned. The will also, and the affections are, by the bias of a fleshly inclination, corrupted and habitually lean to the fleshly part. And that which men love, they will easily think well of, and are glad of any thing like reason to defend it; and that which is against the inclination of the will, will hardly be thought well of, and any thing like reason will serve against it. This depravation of the mind and will of man, enslaved and ruled by the flesh or sensuality, is the very cause that most men will not choose the better part, and so the cause of their perpetual misery. And till the Holy Ghost send in a heavenly light of wisdom into the mind, to shew them the true difference between the good and the evil; and a new inclination into the will, that shall turn their hearts from the evil to the good, they will still go on, and the matters of God will seem foolishness to them, and they will take those men for the veriest fools that follow the wisdom of the Lord, and provide carefully for eternal life; and they will take those for the wisest men, that are most contrary to the God of wisdom, and that dare leap most fearlessly into hell. Or if this

be not their opinion, but conviction force them to a wiser kind of language, yet will it be their practical estimation, and their hearts, as their choice and lives will easily declare. For "that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit ;" John iii. 6. The fleshly man will have a fleshly mind and will, and openly or secretly will live after the flesh, and such are the heirs of death; Rom. viii. 5. 7. 13. Fleshly generation cannot make a spiritual mind or heart in any, but it must be by spiritual regeneration. And therefore "except a man be born again of the Spirit," as well as of" water, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven;" John iii. 3. 5.

This inward difference of inclination is the true cause of the difference of the judgments, and the courses of men, about the matters of God and their salvation.

This is it that makes so many to think none wise but those that are more dangerously mad than men in Bedlam; and that makes so many others stand in doubt as men unresolved what to choose, and what course to follow. As if it were really a difficult point for a man to be resolved in, whether it be best and wisest to follow the teachings of God or of the flesh; and to seek first the kingdom and righteousness of God or to make a pudder for nothing in the world; and to tickle this itching flesh awhile, though they must smart for it for ever, or to master the flesh and live to God!

In a word, the world are half unresolved, Whether it be better to be holy with God's promise of eternal glory, or to take the pleasures of sin for a season, and neglect this holiness, though this course be threatened by the living God with everlasting torments? This is the true state of the question, which I say one part of the world doth seem to be unresolved in, and another part are resolved on the worser side, against their souls and a holy life; and only those that the illuminating, sanctifying Spirit hath resolved, do choose the needful, better part.

The reason of this distracted judgment of the most, is within themselves. It is not because that there is any such difficulty in the case, as should put a wise man to a stand; nor is it because they have not sufficient evidence in the word, or that God denied them teachers, books, or any necessary means for their information. The light is among