4. Again, religion may be termed _life_, because it is an inward, free, and self-moving principle; and those who have it, are not acted only by external motives, driven merely by threatnings, nor bribed by promises, nor constrained by laws; but are powerfully inclined to that which is good, and delight in the performance of it. The love which a pious man bears to God, and goodness, is not so much by virtue of a command enjoining it as by a new nature prompting him to it; nor doth he pay his devotions as a tribute, to appease the divine justice; but these religious exercises are the proper emanations of the divine life, the natural employments of a new-born soul. He prays, and gives thanks, and repents not only because these things are commanded, but because he is sensible of his wants, and of the divine goodness, and of the folly and misery of a sinful life. His charity is not forced, nor his alms extorted from him; his love makes him willing to give, and, though there were no outward obligations, his _heart would devise liberal things_. Injustice, or intemperance, and all other vices, are as contrary to his temper, as the basest actions to the most generous spirit: so that I may well say with St. _John_, _Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin: for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God_.¹ Though religious persons do much eye the law of God, and have a great regard unto it, yet it is not so much the sanction of the law, as its purity and goodness, which prevail with them. They account it excellent and desirable in itself; and that in keeping of it there is great reward. And that divine love wherewith they are acted, makes them become a law unto themselves. Quis legem det amantibus? Major est amor lex ipse sibi. _Who shall prescribe a law to those that love?_ _Love’s a more powerful law, which doth them move._ ¹ 1 John iii. 9.