And therefore, seeing that goodness is naturally the object of man's will, one would think you should quickly be resolved of your choice. Sensual good is but a nominal good, if it reach not higher. All that you hunt after so eagerly in the world, is nothing but real vanity and vexation, a shadow of good, a picture of profit, a dream of delight, which one frown of God will turn into astonishing horror and despair: like a tender flower that is nipt with one frosty night, or withered with one scorching day: but it is only this one thing, that is the solid, substantial, and enduring good. The pleasure of the flesh is a good that is common to men with brutes; they can eat, and drink, and play, and satisfy their lusts, and master one another as well as you. But it is the spiritual good that is proper to a reasonable creature. The pleasure of the flesh may melt you into foolish mirth, and make you like drunken men, that are gallant fellows in their own eyes, while sober men are ashamed of them, or pity them, or they become a laughingstock to others. But it is this one thing only which is that good which wisdom itself will justify. A man that is tickled may laugh more than he that is possessed of a kingdom, or hath the desires of his heart; but he is not therefore to be accounted the happier man, nor will any wise man so account him. O sirs, one would think that to men that have read and heard what we have done, and have had that experience which we have had, these things should be plain and past all question; and that spiritual, heavenly, everlasting things. should be confessed by us all to be that good part that should possess all the fervent desires of the soul.

But O that we could see the truth of this belief in the choice of your wills, and the drift of your endeavours! If God would open your eyes and shew you things as they are, and save you from your wilful blindness, you would then see which is the better part, and you would be ashamed that ever you should make any question of it. That is the good part, which beareth the most lively image of God, which is goodness itself, yea, which possesseth us of this good. That is the good part which will make us good, and not that which deceiveth us and makes us worse. That is the good part which the wisest and best men judge to be so, yea, which God himself doth judge to be so; and not that

which the most blind, deluded sinners do judge the best. That is the good part which is best at last, and which is an enduring good, and not that which perisheth in the using, and flieth from us when we have greatest need. That is the good part which all men will say is good in the conclusion; which the wicked themselves, that are now of another mind, will confess at last to be the best; and not that which is commended only in prosperity, while the frensy or dream of sensuality doth beguile men, and which they will all cry out against at last. If you would know which is the best part, take counsel of God, and see what he saith, and ask men of wisdom and of greatest experience, that have tried both, and men that have staid the end, and seen what fleshly pleasures, and profits, and honours can do for them: for how can men make so true a judgment that do not either stay the end, or else foresee the end by faith? Do not take their judgments that are drunk with their sensual delights, and that will confess they must repent themselves, and therefore confess they must be of another mind. Take not their judgments that neither have seen, nor yet foresee the end; the worst is yet to come with them. Their states and minds are near a change. The day is near when they will say, that heaven was the better part, and be convinced by punishment, that would not be convinced by instruction.

Surely, sirs, it is so easy a question to reason itself, where sin hath not blinded it, whether God or the world be the better part, that one would think there should be left no room for doubting. Dare any of you speak out and say, that earth is better than heaven, or sin than grace, or temporal pleasure than eternal happiness? I think you dare not. Shame will forbid you, and conscience will contradict you, if you should say so. And will you commend God by your words, and discommend him by your lives? Will you say heaven is best, and yet seek the world before it; and not let it have the best of your affections and endeavours? Shall it be highest in your mouths, and lowest in your hearts and lives? Shall it have the first place in your prayers, and the last in your labours? Why then you commend God but to his dishonour, and your condemnation. You extol heaven and heavenly things but to the confusion of your own faces, that your own confessions may be brought in hereaf

ter as witnesses against you. In the name of God therefore I charge you, if you know which is the better part, condemn not yourselves by making choice against your knowledge. 4. Consider also, that this good part is offered you, and you have your choice, whether God or the world, whether heaven or earth shall be your portion.

It is not purchasing, or proper meriting, but choosing the good part, that you are called to. It is not, Mary hath purchased or merited the better part, but, hath chosen the better part.

Two things are here contained. (1.) That it is not matter of impossibility that you are called to: you are not excluded from the hopes of salvation, by any exceptions that God hath put in against you in his promises; but it is conditionally made as well to you as to others.

but

(2.) And the condition is not any thing unreasonable, your own consent. Christ and salvation are offered to your choice. If you will but prefer them before the trifles of the world, you may have them. The door of grace is open to you as well as to others. If you will but enter you may live. You are not left in a remediless case, nor given over to desperation. You cannot say, Repenting and believing will do us no good; we cannot have Christ though we were never so willing.' You cannot say, 'We would fain have Christ and his Spirit to sanctify us, but we cannot; we are willing to be his disciples, but he is not willing. to accept us, and to be our Saviour.' You cannot say so, and say truly. You cannot say he is set to sale to you, and that he expecteth such a price as you are unable to give; for you are called to take him freely; and though this be sometimes called buying, yet it is "a buying without money and without price;" Isa. lv. 1-4. And though you must "sell all you have" for this valuable pearl (Matt. xiii. 46.), yet that is but a metaphorical selling, a parting with your sin and fleshly pleasure, as troubles and impediments that would keep you from salvation. As a sick man sells his diseases for health; or at least, as he hath health by forbearing some hurtful things that please him; or as a prisoner purchaseth the liberty that is freely given him, by consenting to come forth and cast off his fetters. Your hands are full of dirt, and God offers you gold, and you cannot receive it till you throw away the dirt. This is your

purchase. You give God nothing as a valuable price for his mercy, but you throw away the sin that is inconsistent with your happiness. Still I shall tell you, you may have Christ if you will. Pleasures and profits are flattering you to your destruction, and God calls you from them, and offereth you his Son and everlasting life, and entreateth you to accept them. And here you have your choice. The offer is, "Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely;" Rev. xxii. 17. And if you will but choose that happiness that is offered you, and Christ the way to that happiness, all the world cannot bereave you of your choice. It is brought to your hand and urged on you. You have now your choice, whether you will have Christ or the flesh, grace or sin, heaven or hell. As you choose, so you shall have. And if you miss of life, it will be because you did not choose it. Even because you "would not come to Christ that you might have life" (John v. 40.), and "would not have him to rule over you" (Luke xix. 27.), and "would not have the Lord indeed for your God" (Psal. lxxxi. 11.), and "did not choose the fear of the Lord” (Prov. i. 29.); yea, when" Christ would have gathered you, would not be gathered;" Matt. xxiii. 37. It is this "turning away of the simple that doth slay them, because they refuse when Christ calls them, and regard not when he stretcheth forth his hand, but set at naught his counsel, and will have none of his reproof;" Prov. i. 24, 25.32. See therefore that you refuse not him that speaketh; for if you turn away from him that speaks from heaven, and neglect or make light of so great salvation, how do you think it possible you should escape? Heb. xii. 25. ii. 3. Matt. xxii. 5.

But perhaps some of you will think to excuse yourselves for want of freewill, and say,' How is it in our choice, when God must give us to will and to do? and we can do nothing of ourselves? Have we freewill or power to choose the better part? You must not set up the power or will of man too high.'

Answ. No; it is you that would set up your wills too high, in making us believe that you are not wilfully ungodly and impenitent, but omit all the good, and do all the evil that you do, because you cannot help it. You cannot but know that he is the sinner to be blamed and punished, that can and will not, rather than he that would but cannot do

good, and forbear the contrary. You know that it is wilfulness, and not unwilling impotency that the venom of malice and naughtiness lieth in ; and therefore you are excusing your wills, and laying all upon your impotency, which is but to excuse your faults. I would make you know the baseness of your wills, and that it is long of your badness that you are like to be undone, if grace prevent it not by your thorough conversion. I do not say that you have any power but what you have from God; but I say you have the natural and legal power, and more than power, even a grant and offer of such a mercy from God. You have human faculties, and leave, and offers, and entreaties; and you may have Christ and life as he is offered if you will. When I say it is in your choice, I do not say that you have the wit or the heart to make a right choice. No; if you had but so much wit and grace, I need not use all these words to you to persuade you to choose the better part. Your wills are free from any force that God puts upon them to determine them to sin; or from any force that satan or any enemy you have can use to determine them to sin. All they can do is morally to entice you. God doth not make you sin. If you choose your death, and forsake your own mercy, it is not God that determineth your wills to make this choice. Yea, he commandeth, and persuadeth, and urgeth you to make a better choice. And though satan tempt you, he can do no more. You have so much power, that you may have Christ if you will. You cannot say, I am truly willing to have Christ, and cannot. Thus much freewill undoubtedly you have.

But I must confess that your wills are not free from the misguiding of a blinded mind, nor from the seduction of a sensual inclination; nor from a base and wicked disposition of your own. This kind of freewill you shew us that you have not. But is your wickedness your excuse? and is your wilfulness your innocency? What then can be culpable?

Sirs, I would not have you abuse God, and befool yourselves with names and words, saying, you have not power and freewill, as if you might thus excuse your sin. I have opened the matter in plain terms to you, that children may understand it, though learned men have endeavoured to obscure it. God giveth you your choice, though your own