t journey to make. If ye give not all diligence to add
to your faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness,
brotherly kindness, and charity, ye are certainly blind, and see not afar
off, and have not been purged from your old sins, 2 Pet. i. 5-11. This
imports that those who make not religion their great comprehensive study,
do neither know eternity, nor see into it. Oh, how may this word strike
into the hearts of many Christians, and pierce as a sword! Is our lazy,
indifferent, and cold service at some appointed hours, "all diligence"?
Or, is it diligence at all? Is there not more diligence and fervour in
other things than this, to add grace to grace? Who is covetous of such a
game? Are not many more desirous of adding lands and houses to their lands
and houses, and money to their stock, than to add to their faith virtue?
&c. Who among you is enlarging his desires, as the grave, after conformity
to Jesus Christ, and the righteousness of his kingdom, that this treasure
of grace may abound? Alas, we are poor mean Christians, because we are
negligent! For "the hand of the diligent maketh rich," Prov. x. 4. But we
become poor in grace, because we deal with a slack hand. Is there any
great thing that is attainable without much pains and sweating?
_Difficilia quae pulchra._(500)

Think ye to come to a kingdom by sleeping through some custom of
godliness? "Seest thou a man diligent in his business? that man shall
stand before kings, he shall not stand before mean men," Prov. xxii. 29.
This advances him to be a courtier. And is not this business of
Christianity more considerable to be diligent about when it advances a man
into the court of heaven, into his presence in whose favour is life, and
whose loving kindness is better than life? And not only so, but if ye be
diligent here ye shall obtain a kingdom. "Seek first the kingdom of God."
"The hand of the diligent shall bear rule but the slothful shall be under
tribute," Prov. xii. 24. If ye make this your business, and spend your
spirits in it, ye shall be kings and priests with God in the kingdom
above, that may suffer many partakers without division or emulation. It is
he that overcomes, that shall have the new name, the white raiment, the
crown of life, and all the glorious things which are promised to them that
overcome in the second and third chapters of the Revelation. O what glad
tidings are these! This is the gospel of peace. This is the joyful sound
that