of good, ambitious rackings, covetous toils, envious underminings, irksome disappointments, weary satieties, restless desires, and many worlds of discontentments in this one? What wonder is it, that we would live! We laugh at their choice, that are in love with the deformed: and what a face is this we dote upon! See, if sins, and cares, and crosses, have not, like a filthy morphew, overspread it; and made it loathsome to all judicious eyes.

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I marvel then, that any wise men could be other but stoics; and could have any conceit of life, but contemptuous: not more for the misery of it, while it lasteth, than for the not lasting. We may love it: we cannot hold it. What a shadow of a smoke, what a dream of a shadow, is this we affect! Wise Solomon says, There is a time to be born, and a time to die: you do not hear him say, a time to live." What is more fleeting than time? yet life is not long enough to be worthy of the title of Time. Death borders upon our birth; and our cradle stands in our grave. We lament the loss of our parents; how soon shall our sons bewail ours! Lo, I that write this, and you that read it, how long are we here? It were well, if the world were as our tent; yea, as our inn; if not to lodge, yet to bait in: but now it is only our thoroughfare: one generation passeth; another cometh; none stayeth. If this earth were a paradise, and this which we call our life were sweet as the joys above; yet, how should this fickleness of it cool our delight! Grant it absolute: who can esteem a vanishing pleasure? How much more now, when the drams of our honey are lost in pounds of gall; when our contentments are as far from sincerity as continuance !

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Yet the true apprehension of life, though joined with contempt, is not enough to settle us, if either we be ignorant of death, or ill persuaded: for, if life have not worth enough to allure us; yet, death hath horror enough to affright us. that would die cheerfully, must know death his friend. What is he, but the faithful officer of our Maker, who ever smiles or frowns with his Master; neither can either shew or nourish enmity, where God favours: when he comes fiercely, and pulls a man by the throat, and summons him to hell, who can but tremble? The messenger is terrible, but the message worse. Hence have risen the miserable despairs, and furious raving of the ill conscience; that finds no peace within, less without. But when he comes sweetly, not as an executioner, but as a guide to glory; and proffers his service; and shows our happiness; and opens the door to our heaven: how worthy is he of entertainment! how worthy of gratulation! But his salutation is painful, if courteous: what then? The physician heals us, not without pain; and yet we reward him. It is unthankfulness to complain, where the answer of profit is excessive. Death

paineth: how long? how much? with what proportion to the sequel of joy? O death, if thy pangs be grievous, yet thy rest is sweet. The constant expectation, that hath possessed that rest, hath already swallowed those pangs; and makes the Christian, at once, wholly dead to his pain, wholly alive to his glory. The soul hath not leisure to care for her suffering, that beholds her crown; which if she were enjoined to fetch through the flames of hell, her faith would not stick at the condition.

Thus in brief, he, that lives Christianly, shall die boldly: he, that finds his life short and miserable, shall die willingly; he, that knows death and foresees glory, shall die cheerfully and desirously.

EPISTLE III.

TO MR. SAMUEL BURTON.

ARCH DEACON OF GLOUCESTER.

A DISCOURSE OF THE TRIAL AND CHOICE OF THE TRUE RELIGION.

Sir, This Discourse, enjoined by you, I send to your censure, to your disposing; but to the use of others. Upon your charge, I have written it for the wavering. If it seem worthy, communicate it; else, it is but a dash of your pen. I fear only the brevity: a volume were too little for this subject. It is not more yours, than the author. Farewel.

We do not more affect variety in all other things, than we abhor it in religion. Even those, which have held the greatest falsehoods, hold that there is but one truth. I never read of more than one heretic, that held all heresies true: neither did his opinion seem more incredible, than the relation of it. God can neither be multiplied, nor Christ divided: if his coat might be parted, his body was entire. For that, then, all sides challenge truth, and but one can possess it; let us see who have found it, who enjoy it.

There are not many religions, that strive for it; though many opinions. Every heresy, albeit fundamental, makes not a religion. We say not, the Religion of Arians, Nestorians, Sabellians, Macedonians; but the Sect, or Heresy. No opinion challenges this name in our usual speech, (for I discuss not the propriety) but that which, arising from many differences, hath settled itself in the world, upon her own principles, not without an universal division. Such may soon be counted: though it is true, there are by so much too many, as there are more than

one.

Five Religions, then, there are, by this rule, upon earth : which stand in competition for truth: Jewish, Turkish, Greekish Popish, Reformed; whereof each pleads for itself, with disgrace of the other. The plain reader doubts, how he may sit judge, in so high a plea: God hath put this person upon him: while he chargeth him to try the spirits; to retain the good, reject the evil. If still he plead, with Moses, insufficiency; let him but attend; God shall decide the case, in his silence, without difficulty.

The JEW hath little to say for himself, but impudent denials of our Christ; of their prophecies: whose very refusal of him, more strongly proves him the true Messiah: neither could he be justified to be that Saviour, if they rejected him not; since the prophets foresaw and foretold, not their repelling of him only, but their reviling.

If there were no more arguments, God hath so mightily confuted them from heaven, by the voice of his judgment, that all the world hisseth at their conviction. Lo, their very sin is capitally written in their desolation and contempt. One of their own late Doctors seriously expostulates, in a relenting Letter to another of his fellow Rabbins, what might be the cause of so long and desperate a ruin of their Israel; and, comparing their former captivities with their former sins, argues, and yet fears to conclude, that this continuing punishment must needs be sent for some sin, so much greater than idolatry, oppression, Sabbath-breaking; by how much this plague is more grievous, than all the other: which, his fear tells him, and he may believe it, can be no other, but the murder and refusal of their true Messiah. Let now all the Doctors of those obstinate Synagogues, answer this doubt of their own objecting.

But how, past all contradiction, is the ancient witness of all the holy prophets, answered and confirmed by their events! whose foresayings, verified in all particular issues, are more than demonstrative. No art can describe a thing past, with more exactness, than they did this Christ to come. What circumstance is there, that hath not this prediction? Have they not forewritten, who should be his mother; a virgin: of what tribe; of Judah: of what house; of David: what place; Bethlehem what time; when the sceptre should be taken from Judah; or after sixty-nine weeks: what name; Jesus, Immanuel : what habitation; Nazareth: what harbinger; John, the second Elias: what his business; to preach, save, deliver what entertainment; rejection: what death; the cross: what manner; piercing the body, not breaking the bones: what company; amidst two wicked ones: where; at Jerusalem whereabouts; without the gates with what words; of imploration: what draught; of vinegar and gall:

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who was his traitor, and with what success? If all the Synagogues of the Circumcision, all the gates of Hell, can obscure these evidences, let me be a proselyte.

My labour herein is so much less, as there is less danger of Judaism. Our Church is well rid of that accursed nation: whom yet Rome harbours, and, in a fashion, graces; while, instead of spitting at, or that their Neapolitan correction whereof Gratian speaks, the Pope solemnly receives at their hands that Bible, which they, at once, approve and overthrow.

But would God there were no more Jews than appear! Even in this sense also, he is a Jew, that is one within: plainly, whose heart doth not sincerely confess his Redeemer. Though a Christian Jew, is no other than an atheist; and therefore must be scourged elsewhere.

The Jew thus answered, the TURK stands out for his Mahomet, that cozening Arabian; whose religion, if it deserve that name, stands upon nothing, but rude ignorance and palpable imposture.

Yet, lo here a subtle Devil, in a gross religion; for, when he saw that he could not, by single twists of heresy, pull down the well-built walls of the Church; he winds them all up in one cable, to see if his cord of so many folds might happily prevail: raising up wicked Mahomet, to deny, with Sabellius, the distinction of persons; with Arius, Christ's Divinity; with Macedonius, the Deity of the Holy Ghost; with Sergius, two wills in Christ; with Marcion, Christ's suffering.

And these policies, seconded with violence, how have they wasted Christendom! O damnable mixture, miserably successful! which yet could not have been, but that it meets with sottish clients; and sooths up nature; and debars both all knowledge and contradiction.

What is their Alcoran, but a fardel of foolish impossibilities? Whosoever shall hear me relate the stories of angel Adriel's death, Seraphuel's trumpet, Gabriel's bridge, Horroth and Marroth's hanging, the moon's descending into Mahomet's sleeve, the Litter wherein he saw God carried by eight angels, their ridiculous and swinish Paradise, and thousands of the same bran; would say, that Mahomet hoped to meet, either with beasts or mad men. Besides these barbarous fictions, behold their laws, full of licence, full of impiety: in which, revenge is encouraged, multitude of wives allowed, theft tolerated; and the frame of their opinions such, as well bewrays their whole religion to be but the mongrel issue of an Arian, Jew, Nestorian, and Arabian: a monster, of many seeds, and all accursed. In both which regards, nature herself, in whose breast God hath written his royal Law, though in part by her defaced, hath light enough to condemn a Turk, as the worst

Pagan. Let no man look for further disproof. These follies, a wise Christian will scorn to confute, and scarce vouchsafe to laugh at.

The GREEKISH Church (so the Russes term themselves) put in the next claim; but with no better success: whose infinite Clergy affords not a man, that can give either reason or account of their own doctrine. These are the basest dregs of all Christians. So we favourably term them; though they, perhaps in more simplicity than wilfulness, would admit none of all the other Christian world to their font, but those, who, in a solemn renunciation, spit at and abjure their former God, religion, baptism. Yet, peradventure, we might more justly term them Nicolaitans: for, that obscure Saint (if a Saint; if honest) by an unequal division, finds more homage from them than his Master. These are as ignorant, as Turks; as idolatrous, as Heathens; as obstinate, as Jews; and more superstitious than Papists. To speak ingenuously from that I have heard and read, if the worst of the Romish religion and the best of the Muscovite be compared, the choice would be hard, whether should be less ill. I labour the less in all these, whose remoteness and absurdity secure us from infection, and whose only name is their confutation.

I descend to that main rival of truth, which creeps into her bosom, and is not less near than subtle; the religion, if not rather the faction, of PAPISM: whose plea is importunate; and so much more dangerous, as it carries fairer probability. Since then, of all religions, the Christian obtaineth; let us see, of those that are called Christians, which should command assent and profession. Every religion bears in her lineaments the image of her parent: the true religion, therefore, is spiritual; and looks like God, in her purity: all false religions are carnal; and carry the face of Nature, their mother; and of him whose illusion begot them, Satan.

In sum, nature never conceived any, which did not favour her; nor the Spirit any, which did not oppugn her. Let this then be the Lydian stone of this trial: we need no more. Whether religion soever doth more plausibly content nature, is false; whether gives more sincere glory to God, is his truth.

Lay aside prejudice: Whither, I beseech you, tendeth all Popery, but to make nature either vainly proud, or carelessly wanton?

What can more advance her pride, than to tell her, that she hath, in her own hands, freedom enough of will, with a little prevention, to prepare herself to her justification; that she hath, whereof to rejoice, somewhat, which she hath not received; that, if God please but to unfetter her, she can walk alone? she is insolent enough of herself: this flattery is enough to make her mad of conceit: after this; that, if God will but bear half the