mercy, of his justice, his wisdom, his omnipotence, his excellence, his beauty, his fidelity, his sweetness, his truth, his felicity, with the rest of those inexhaustible riches and perfections that are contained in his divine essence. All which are so great and wonderful, that, according to St. Augustine, if the whole world were full of books, and each particular creature employed to write in them, and all the sea turned into ink, the books would be sooner filled, the writers sooner tired, and the sea sooner drained, than any one of his perfections could be fully expressed. The same doctor says further, that should God create a new man, with a heart as large and as capacious as the hearts of all men together, and he, by the assistance and favor of an extraordinary light, come to the knowledge of any one of his inconceivable attributes, the pleasure and delight this must cause in him would quite overwhelm and make him burst with joy, unless God were to support and strengthen him in a very particular manner.
3. This, therefore, is the first and chief reason, that obliges us to the love and the service of God. It is a point so universally agreed upon, that the very Epicureans, who, by their denying of a Divine Providence, and the immortality of the soul, have ruined all philosophy, never went so far as to cut off all religion, which is nothing else but the worship and adoration we owe to God. For one of those philosophers, discoursing upon this matter (Cic. de Nat. Deorum), brings very strong and undeniable arguments, to prove, that there is a God; that this God is infinite in all his perfections, and deserves, therefore, to be reverenced and adored; and that this duty would be incumbent on us, though God had no other title to it. If a king, even out of his own dominions purely only for the dignity of his person, is treated with respect and honor, when we have no expectation of any favor from him; with how much more justice are we to pay the same duties to this King and Lord, who, as St. John says, has these words written upon his garment, and upon his thighs. King of kings and Lord of lords! This is he, who with three fingers holds up the frame of the earth. It is he that disposes the causes of all things; it is he that gives motion to the celestial orbs, that changes the seasons, and that alters the elements. He it is that divides the waters, produces the winds, and creates all things. It is from him that the planets receive their force and influences. It is he, in fine, that, as King and Lord of the universe, gives every creature its life and nourishment. And, besides all this, the kingdom he is in possession of, neither came to him by succession, nor by election or inheritance, but by nature. And as man is naturally above an ant, so this noble Being is, in such an eminent degree, above all created things whatsoever, that they, and all the world together, are scarce any more, in regard of him, than one of these insects. If philosophers, so ill principled as the Epicu-
