rt to study this more,--to have fellowship one with another, as
members of the same body, by sympathy, by mutual helping one another in
spiritual and temporal things. Even amongst Christians that live obscurely
in a city, or in a village, there is not that harmonious agreement and
consent of hearts, that contention and plea of love, of gentleness and
forbearance, who shall exercise most of that, but there are many
jealousies, heart burnings, grudgings, strifes, evil speakings, &c., to
the stumbling of others, and the weakening of yourselves, which certainly
argue that ye are much carnal, and walk as men, and that the love of God
and fellowship with him is waxed cold, and is languished and dead, &c.

Sermon VIII.

1 John i. 4.--"And these things write we unto you, that your joy
may be full."

All motions tend to rest and quietness. We see it daily in the motions
below, and we believe it also of the circular revolutions of the heavens
above, that there is a day coming in which they shall cease, as having
performed all they were appointed for. And as it is in things natural, so
it is in things rational in a more eminent way. Their desires, affections,
and actions, which are the motions and stretches of the soul towards that
it desires and apprehends as good, tend of their own nature, and are
directed by the very intention of the soul to some rest and tranquillity,
some joy and contentation of spirit. If other things that have no
knowledge have their centre of rest, how much more must man, who is an
understanding creature, have it by the ordination and appointment of God!
But there is this wide difference in the point of capacity of happiness
between man and other creatures, that they, whatsoever excellent virtues
or properties they have, yet know them not themselves, and so can neither
enjoy what excellency themselves have, nor have use of what is in others.
For to what purpose is it to shine forth, if there be no eye to see? What
advantage hath the rose in its fragrancy, if it cannot smell itself? That
which is not perceived, is as if it were not. And therefore it is an
evident testimony, that all these visible things were created, not for
themselves, but for man's sake, who knows them, can use them, and enjoy
them. Here is, then, the peculiar capacity that God hath given to man,--to
discern and know what he seeks, what he hath, and possesses, that so he
may be able to enjoy it, or use it, according to