A Continuation of morning-exercise questions and cases of conscience practically resolvedA Continuation of morning-exercise questions and cases of conscience practicaly resolved

Answ. 3 Religion is best able to manage and master all the evils that are in any Condition, and every thing on this side the Power of Godliness, is too feeble to grapple with any one inconvenience; let but Grace be asleep, (if I may so speak) and how weak is the best? How was Peter, the forwardest of all the Disciples, in a fright foiled by a Servant-maid! But to Grace in exercise nothing is impossible, Mark 9.23.

Answ. 3 Religion is best able to manage and master all the evils that are in any Condition, and every thing on this side the Power of Godliness, is too feeble to grapple with any one inconvenience; let but Grace be asleep, (if I may so speak) and how weak is the best? How was Peter, the forwardest of all the Disciples, in a fright foyled by a Servant-maid! But to Grace in exercise nothing is impossible, Mark 9.23.

Prop. II All things on this side Religion, whereby men endeavour to get above Vanity, increase it. The multiplication of Ciphers amounts to less than nothing: Isa. 40.17. All Nations, the Persons and things of all Nations, before him, compared with God, aye and in the esteem of the Godly, are as nothing, and they are counted to him, and so far as they are gracious, to them, less than nothing and Vanity: Happiness is that which every one aims at; now that which can make us happy, must supply all the Wants, satisfy all the Desires, fill all the Capacities of the Soul, and above all these, be of equal duration and continuance with the Soul it self; now none of all these are to be found in any thing on this side serious Godliness, but the quite contrary, and therefore every thing that pretends to it, doth but increase Vanity: Can any thing of the World supply the Soul with Grace? satisfy the desires in so much as any one thing? or fill any one Faculty of the Soul to satisfaction? can the World fill the mind with heavenly Light? or the Will with heavenly Love? or the Conscience with that Peace that passeth understanding? But you will say, this is to beg, not prove; forbear me a little, 'till I have answered a By-question, and I will in the Prosecution of the next Proposition, prove this by little less than Demonstration.