where the undertaking of the Pfalmift fhall be completely answer'd, thofe that fear the Lord fball want no manner of thing that is good, Pfalm 34.10. And this happy ftate is as acceffible as excellent. God is not unfincere in his proposals, offers not thefe Glories only to tantalize and abuse us, but to animate and encourage Mankind. He fets up an inviting prize; and not only marks out, but levels the way to it; makes that our duty which is alfo our pleasure, yea and our honour too. So has he contriv'd for our cafe, that knowing how hardly we can diveft, our voluptuousness and ambition, he puts us not to it: all he demands is but that he may choose the object. And in that he is yet more obliging, for by that at once he refines and fatiffies the defires. He takes us off indeed from the fulfome pleasures of fenfe, which by their groffness may cloy, yet by reason of their emptiness can never fill us; and brings us to tast the more pure Spiritual delights which are the true Elixirs of pleasures, in comparison whereof all the fenfual are but as the dregs or fæces in an extraction, after the fpirits are drawn off. In like manner he calls us from an afpiring to those pinacles of Honour, where we always fit tottering and often fall down, but yet invites us to foar higher, where we fhall have the Moon with all her viciffitudes, and changes under our feet, Revel. 12. 1. and LI 2 enjoy

enjoy a Grandeur as irreversible as fplendid. II. THUS do's he fhew us a way to hallow our most unfanctified affections; thus, according to the prophefie of Zechariah, may boliness be writ even upon the bells of the horses, Zechar. 14. 20. upon our moft brutal inclinations; and thus may all thofe Feminine paffions which now feduce Women from Virtue, advance them in it. Let her that is amorous, place her love upon him who is (as the Spoufe tells us, Cantic. 5. 10.) the chiefest among ten thoufand; fhe that is angry, turn her edge againft her fins; fhe that is haughty, disdain the Devil's drudgery; fhe that is fearful, dread him who can destroy both body and foul in hell, Matt. 10. 28. and the that is fad, reserve her tears for her penitential Offices. Thus may they confecrate even their infirmities, and tho' they cannot Deify, or erect Temples to them, as the Romans did to their paffions, nay their diseases; yet after they are thus cleanfed, they may facrifice them as the Jews did the clean beafts in the Tabernacle. Only Irreligion and Profaneness is exempt from this privilege, no water of Purification can cleanse it, or make it ferviceable in the Temple; that like the spoils of Jericho, is fo execrable, that it must be devoted to deftruction, as an accurfed thing, Fofb. 6. 17. For tho' God do's not despise the work of his own hands, hath fo much kindness to his Creatures, that he endeavours

to

to reduce all our native inclinations to their primitive rectitude; and therefore do's not abolish, but purify them, yet Atheism is none of those; 'tis a counter-blaft from hell, in oppofition to that mighty wind in which the Holy Spirit defcended. Tho' the fubject in which it fubfifts may be reform'd, the Perfon may turn Chriftian, and the wit that maintain'd its Blafphemous paradoxes, may be converted to Holier ufes: yet the quality it felf is capable of no fuch happy Metamorphofis; that must be extirpated, for it cannot be made tributary. Which fhews how transcendent an ill that is which cannot be converted to good: even that Omnipotence which can out of the very ftones raise Children to Abraham, attempts not any tranfmutation of this; which ought therefore to poffefs all hearts with a deteftation of it, and advance them in an earnest pursuit of all the parts of Piety.

12. AND that is it which I would now once more (as a fare-well exhortation) commend to my Female Readers, as that which virtually contains all other accomplishments. 'Tis that Pearl in the Gospel for which they may part with all, and make a good bargain too. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, fays the Wifeft of Men, Prov. 1. 7. and by his experience he fhews, that it is the completing end of it too; for he no fooner declin'd from that, but he grew to dotage

and

and dishonour. Let all those therefore to whom God has difpens'd an outward affluence, given them a vifible fplendor in the eyes of the world, be careful to fecure to themselves that honour which comes from God only, John 5. 44. unite their Souls to that Supreme Majefty, who is the fountain of true Honour: who in his beftowing the Crown of Righteoufnefs proceeds by the fame measures by which he difpofed the Crown of Ifrael, when he avow'd to Samuel that he lookt not on the outward appearance but beheld the heart, 1 Sam. 16. 7. If God fee not his own Image there, all the beauty and gayety of the outward form is despicable in his eyes, like the Apples of Sodom only a kind of painted duft. But if Piety be firmly rooted there, they then become like the King's daughter, all glorious within too; a much more valuable bravery than the garment of needle work and vefture of gold, Pfalm 45. 14. And this is it that muft enter them into the King's Palace, into that New Jerufalem, where they fhall not wear, but inhabit Pearls and Gems, Rev.21. 19. be beautiful without the help of Art or Nature, by the mere reflection of the Divine Brightnefs; be all that their then enlarg'd comprehenfions can wifh, and infinitely more than they can here. imagine.