rest to constitute the perfect frame. Christ doth not exclude faith, nor faith exclude repentance; nor faith and repentance exclude obedience; nor doth the office of one of these exclude the use and office of the rest. Public duties exclude not private, nor do private exclude public. One part excludeth not another. Reading excludeth not preaching, nor both of them praying; but their nature and use bespeaketh a conjunction. The whole body is not an eye or hand; nor doth the unity exclude but include even the smallest members.

4. Nor is there such a unity as excludeth difference of, degrees. For one means may be more necessary and excellent than another. And the same person by growing doth differ from himself as he was before; and one will hereafter excel another in glory, as they do in holiness and faithful improvement of their talents.

II. Let us next lay both together, and see how the troubling matters of the world are called 'many' in opposition to this one.

And 1. Every creature to a sensual man, is made by him in some sort his end and god. For he doth not use it only, and refer it as the godly do, to an end that is one; but he would enjoy it and make it objectively his end itself, and so idolize it. And therefore though in the general notion of delight they all agree; yet materially, what abundance of ends and gods have carnal men? Every sense must have its own delight! The eye must have its delight, and the appetite its delight; and so of the rest.

2. And also these fleshly baits and pleasures are discordant even among themselves. They draw the sinner several ways; and one of them fighteth against the other. The riches of the sensualist do usually contradict his ease; and often his voluptuous humour; and his ambition and pride doth bridle his disgraceful lusts; and one sin will not let another have its end, but robbeth him of the poor expected fruit. And thus they do distract the sinners, and tear their very hearts in pieces; and divide and dismember them, where God would heal them and unite them in himself. And the toilsome cares and labours by which these things must be obtained, are many, and oft contrary to each other; and a great deal of stir it is that a deluded sinner makes to little purpose.

The sum then of both these heads is this. The matter of a Christian's faith, and religion, desire, hope, and love, is therefore called one thing, because God who is one, is the sum of all. It is but one sun, though it hath many beams, and all those beams are nothing but the emanations of the sun; and have nothing but what they have from it. God is all to the religion and soul of a true believer; and therefore all to him is one. Creatures, and duties, and ordinances, which are many, are all but one to him in God. His faith beholdeth them, and his affections relish them, as united all in God. 1. As their spring from whom they flow. 2. And as the life by whom they are all animated; and as the matter and sense which they signify and import. 3. And as their end to which they tend, and in which they all terminate and agree.

Many branches are but one tree, and have one stock; and many members are one body, because they are animated with one soul. Many letters, syllables, and words may make one sentence; and many leaves may make one book, and treat but of one subject. Many actions of a ploughman are called ploughing, and of a weaver, weaving, &c. as being all united in one end. I know these similes have their dissimilitude, but this is the sum; that It is God that the believer seeth, and seeketh, and loveth, and converseth with, and intendeth in all the ordinances of grace, in all his duties, and in all the creatures; and in God they are united, and one thing to him. He hath nothing to do at church, or at home, in private or public, but live to God, and seek after the everlasting enjoyment of him. If weakness and temptation put any other business into his hands, he is so far stepped out of the Christian way. In his very common labours and mercies (so far as he is holy), God is to him, the spring, the life, the sweetness, the beauty, the strength, the meaning, and the end of all, and therefore all in all.

But the creatures in the hands and use of the ungodly, or of the godly, so far as they use them sinfully, have no such unity. Though in themselves they so depend on God, that none can make a separation, nor can they at all exist without him; yet in the sense, estimation, ends, and use of the ungodly, the creatures are separated from God, and are as branches cut off from the tree; and departing from God, these men are gone from unity, and are lost, distracted and

confounded in the multitude of the creatures; and will ne ver have unity till they return to God.

III. In the next place let us consider, What is the necessity that is here spoken of, and how far this one thing is necessary to us.

And 1. One thing is necessary morally, for itself, which is our ultimate end. When other things are necessary but for that.

2. Comprehensively of the means we may say, that one thing, that is, sanctification, is necessary to the pleasing of God; which is to be regarded, 1. As the end of obedience, and 2. As the end of love; by the obedient soul in way of duty; and by the loving soul devoted to God, as its delight.

The world hath many contrary masters, and therefore hath many things to do to please them; and when they have done their best, they cannot please them all, but may leave more displeased than they please. For those that they must please, expect impossibilities; and many a single person perhaps may look for as much as you can give to all. And they have such contrary interests, which you must humour, that the same things that one expects to please him, will vehemently displease another; and perhaps the more displease the other, because it is pleasing to that one.

And ourselves have our contrarieties in ourselves, and are as hard to be pleased by others or ourselves. We have our sensual desires which are unreasonable and inordinate, unseasonable and importunate, and will take no nay. A sensual, covetous, ambitious fancy, is a bottomless vessel : your pouring in doth no whit fill it. It is a devouring gulf; a consuming (that I say not an unquenchable) fire. Like the horseleech it crieth, Give, give, and the more you give, the more it craveth, and is never less satisfied than when it hath glutted itself with that from which it seeketh satisfaction.

But God is one, and with this one thing is he pleased; even with a holy heart and life. He hath no contradictory interests or assertions; and therefore hath no contradictory commands; that which must please him, must be suitable to his blessed nature. He is infinite in wisdom, and therefore hath no pleasure in fools, that bring him sacrifice, and refuse obedience, and "know not that they do evil;" Eccles. 1. And have not the wit to know what they do, and

V.

whom they speak to; and to know that which only is worth the knowing. How often do we read him rejecting the sacrifice of the wicked, and casting their most costly offerings in their faces, as things that he abhorreth, when they come to him without that humble, loving, and obedient heart, which he requireth!" Their oblations are vain, the multitude of their sacrifice is to no purpose, and incense is an abomination to him; their feasts and sabbaths his soul hateth, they are a trouble to him, he cannot bear them" (Psal. 1.8. &c. Isa. i. 11, 12—20.), if they come without the "one thing necessary. Without this he careth not for their fastings, or formalities; Isa. lviii. 5. It is not " thousands of rams, or ten thousand rivers of oil, nor the fruit of their body, if they would give it for the sin of their soul," that he will accept. "But he hath shewed thee, O man, what is good. And what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God?" Mich. vi. 7, 8. The conclusion of the whole matter is this: "Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man ;" Eccles. xii. 13.

You are never the better beloved of God for being rich, or honourable in the world, nor yet because you are poor, or in a mean condition, nor because you are sick or well, weak or strong, comely or uncomely; but because you love him through his Son, and "believe in him whom the Father hath sent;" John xvi. 27. "Without faith it is impossible to please God;" Heb. xi. 6. The "new man must be put on, which is renewed in knowledge, after the image of him that created him, where there is neither Greek, nor Jew, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all in all;" Col. iii. 10, 11. "For in Christ Jesus circumcision availeth nothing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature, and faith that works by love, and the keeping of the commands of God;" Gal. v. 6. vi. 15. 1 Cor. vii. 19.

This one thing (" even Godliness which is profitable to all things) is necessary in us, (supposing the necessaries in Christ) to render us acceptable to the holy God. And without this all the accomplishments imaginable will make us but as "sounding brass, or as a tinkling cymbal;" 1 Cor. xiii. 1.

3. One thing is needful to the saving of our souls; without which all things else are vain. There are many ways to

hell; but to heaven there is but one. There are a thousand ways to delude and blind a soul, but only one for its true and saving illumination. Erroneous sectaries are blinded in some particular points, by the seducing words of men. And ungodly sensualists are blinded in the main, and damnably err from the necessary, practical doctrines of salvation, being deceived by the inclination of their own concupiscence, Errors are multifarious, and abound even in many that inveigh most fiercely against the erroneous. But truth is simple. We have one Teacher to instruct us, one Spirit to enlighten us, one word of God to be our rule, one light to guide us through all the darkness and mazes of the world, and recover our deluded, darkened minds. Thousands are ready to draw us away from God. Temptations lie thick on every hand. Within us, and without us; before us, and on each side. Which way can you look or go, but you will meet with baits and snares, And if Eve be once deceived, Adam is the more easily overcome. When the appetite and senses are ensnared by their objects, and imagination corrupted, the understanding is in danger of deceit. You may go into a hospital, and see a variety of diseases; but health is one and the same. One hath the pestilence, and another hath the leprosy, and another a palsy, and another is distracted; but among a thousand people in health, you see no such difference. Health only is formally the cure of all.

What abundance of miserable sinners be in the world, that are almost at hell already? But only one sort of men, even the regenerate, are rescued by grace, and shall be saved from it. Many inventions have men found out for their destruction; but there is no way but by Christ, through faith and holiness, to their salvation. Set as light by Christ and holiness as you will, and deride it as foolishly and perversely as you please, you will find at last, that this way or none must bring you to heaven. Either ignorance, or pride, or covetousness, or malice, or gluttony, or voluptuousness, or lust, or any one sin of a hundred may be your ruin. But there is only one salve to heal these sores; and only one cordial or antidote that can expel these several sorts of poison from your hearts. "Godliness is profitable to all things;" 1 Tim. iv. 8.

Drudge for the world as long as you will, and gape after honour, and applause from men, and try a thousand ways for