Nor are we less out of the way when we tincture our Religion with our Passions, and fashion an Idea of it according to our own Complection not the tenor of the Gospel. Hence comes that great diversity we meet with both in Practice and Theory, for as there is somewhat Peculiar almost in every ones Temper, so is there in their Religion. Is our Disposition Sad and Cloudy, are we apt to take Offence, Suspicious and hard to be pleas’d? we imagine GOD is so, Religion is not our Joy but our Task and Burden, we become extremely scrupulous and uneasie to our selves and others. And if Resolution and Daring be joyn’d with our Melancholy, and Temptations fall pat in our way, we discard such a troublesome Religion and set up for Atheism and Infidelity. On the other hand, if we’re Fearful and Timerous our Superstition has no bounds, we pay less regard to those Laws our Maker has prescrib’d, than we do to those Chimera’s our own Fancy has invented to reconcile Him. A mistake which the Brisk and Jovial are sensible of, but not of the contrary extreme they run into; they discern that GOD’s ways are ways of Pleasantness, and all his Paths are Peace, that Good Christians live the Happiest Lives, ’tis their Duty to Rejoyce evermore, and all the good things of the World are at their service. All which is very true, but then it is as true, that their Pleasures are not Sensual but Rational and Spiritual, which is not a lessening, but an Addition to their Character; that we are to Use the World so as not to abuse either our selves or it, to testify on all occasions our Moderation and Contempt of it, to be ready to quit it, nay even to part with Life it self when ever they come in competition with our Duty. In a word, if our Anger against our own Sins provokes us to be Peevish with others, tho not so good as they shou’d be, it goes too far. If our Zeal finds fault with all who do not come up to our Heights, or who don’t express their Devotion in our way, it is not according to Knowlege, that is, it is not Discreet and Christian. If our great Love to GOD takes us up so much, that we think we may be morose and ill-natur’d to our Neighbour, we express it in a very disagreeable way: And I dare say it wou’d be more acceptable to Him, if insted of spending it all in Rapture and Devotion, a part of it were employ’d in Imitating his Beneficence to our Fellow-Creatures.