XVII. We see the height of our calling; that we are called to follow the example of our Lord and Master, and to go thro’ this world with his Spirit and temper. Now nothing is so likely a means to fill us with his Spirit and temper, as to be frequent in reading the _gospels_, which contain the history of his life and conversation in the world. We are apt to think, that we have sufficiently read a book, when we have so read it, as to know what it contains. This reading may be sufficient as to many books: but as to the _gospels_, we are not to think that we have read them enough, because we have often read and heard what they contain: but we must read them as we do our _prayers_, not to know what they contain, but to fill our hearts with the spirit of them. There is as much difference betwixt reading and reading, as there is betwixt praying and praying: and as no one prays well, but he that is daily and constant in prayer; so no one can read the scriptures to advantage, but he that is constant in the reading of them. By thus conversing with our blessed Lord; looking into his actions and manner of life; hearing his divine sayings; his heavenly instructions; his accounts of the terrors of the damned; his descriptions of the glory of the righteous, we should find our hearts formed and disposed _to hunger and thirst after righteousness_. Happy they who saw the Son of God upon earth converting sinners, and calling _fallen spirits_ to return to God! And next happy are we, who have his discourses, doctrines, actions, and miracles, which then converted _Jews_ and Heathens into _saints_ and _martyrs_, still preserved to fill us with the same heavenly light, and bring us to the same state of glory! CHAP. VIII. _An exhortation to Christian perfection._ I. WHOEVER hath read the foregoing chapters with attention, is, I hope, sufficiently instructed in the knowledge of Christian perfection. He hath seen that it requireth us to _devote_ ourselves _wholly_ unto God; to make the ends and designs of religion, the ends and designs of all our actions; that it calleth us to be _born again of_ God; to live by the light of his Holy Spirit; to _renounce the world_, and all _worldly tempers_; to practise a constant _universal self-denial_; to make daily war with the corruption of our nature; to shew the power of _divine grace_, by holiness of conversation; to avoid all pleasures and cares which _grieve the Holy Spirit_, and separate him from us; to live in a _daily, constant state_ of prayer and devotion; and, as the crown of all, to imitate the _life and Spirit_ of the Holy Jesus.