The Unsearchable Riches of Christ

Fifthly, All other exercises without the exercise of Grace, will profit nothing.

Or if you will, take it thus;

All other exercises will be less to us without the exercise of Grace, therefore we had need to Improve our Graces. When the house is on fire, if a man should only pray, or cry, &c. he may be burnt for all that; therefore he must be active and stirring, he must run from place to place, and call out for help, and must work even in the fire, and bestir himself as for life, in the use of all means, whereby the fire may be quenched; so if Grace be not acted, its not all a mans praying and crying, &c. that will profit him, or better him, grace must be exercised, or all will be lost, prayers lost, tears lost, time lost, strength lost, soul lost, &c. 1 Tim. 4. 7, 8. But refuse profane and old wives ¹fables: shift them off, as the word is, set them by, say thou art not at leisure to attend them, make a fair excuse, as the word notes, tell them thou hast business of an eternal concernment to look after, and exercise thy self rather unto Godliness, or ²lay aside thy upper Garments, as runners and wrestlers do, (to which the Apostle alludes) and bestir thy self lustily; for says he in the 8 ver. Bodily exercise profits little, but Godliness is profitable unto all things, and hath the promise of this life and of that which is to come. The Babylonians are said to make 360 several Commodities of the Palm Tree, but what are those hundred Commodities to those thousands that attend holiness, that attend the exercise of grace? nothing makes a man rich in spirituals, like the frequent and constant actings of grace. In the fourth of the