This, my friend, will help you to reap where you have not sown, and be a continual source of grace in your soul. This will not only help you to receive good from those prayers, which seem too good for the state of your heart, but will help you to find good from every thing else: for every thing that inwardly stirs in you, or outwardly happens to you, becomes a real good to you, if it either finds or excites in you this humble form of mind: for nothing is in vain, or without profit, to the humble soul; like the bee, it takes its honey even from bitter herbs; it stands always in a state of divine growth; and every thing that falls upon it, is like a dew of heaven to it. Shut up yourself therefore in this humility, all good is inclosed in it. Let it be as a garment wherewith you are always covered, and the girdle with which you are girt; breathe nothing but in and from its spirit; see nothing but with its eyes; hear nothing but with its ears: and then, whether you are in the church, or out of the church; hearing the praises of God, or receiving wrongs from men; all will be edification, and every thing will help forward your growth in the life of God. _Academicus._ Indeed, _Theophilus_, this answer to my scruple is good. All my desire now is, to live no longer to the world, to myself, my natural tempers and passions, but wholly to the will of the blessed and adorable God. *_Theophilus._ This resolution, _Academicus_, only shews that you are just come to yourself; for every thing short of this earnest desire to live wholly unto God, may be called a most dreadful infatuation or madness, and insensibility that cannot be described. For what else is our life, but a _trial_ for the greatest evil, or good that an eternity can give us? What can be so dreadful, as to die possessed of a wicked immortal nature, or to go out of this world with tempers, that must keep us for ever miserable? What has God not done to prevent this? His redeeming love began with our fall, and calls every man to salvation, and every man is forced to hear, tho’ he will not obey his voice. God has so loved the world, that his only Son hung and expired, bleeding on the cross for us. Are we yet sons of pride, and led away with vanity? Do the powers of darkness rule over us? Do evil spirits possess and drive on our lives? Is remorse of conscience no longer felt? Are falshood, guile, debauchery, profaneness, perjury, bribery, corruption, and adultery, no longer seeking to hide themselves in corners, but openly entering into all our high places, giving battle to every virtue, and laying claim to the government of the world? Are we thus near being swallowed up by a deluge of vice and impiety? All this is not come upon us, because God has left us without help from heaven, or exposed us to the powers of hell; but because we have rejected and despised the _whole mystery_ of our salvation, and trampled under foot the precious blood of Christ, which alone has that omnipotence that can either