Selected quad for the lemma: blood_n
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A51292
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Discourses on several texts of Scripture by Henry More.
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More, Henry, 1614-1687.; Worthington, John, 1618-1671.
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1692
(1692)
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Wing M2649; ESTC R27512
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212,373
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520
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heart O God thou wilt not despise And Psal. 4. 5. Offer the sacrifice of righteousness and put your trust in the Lord. And Rom. 12. 1. I beseech you brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice holy acceptable to God which is your spiritual service So Beza They were not to offer any dead or unclean Beast under the Law wherefore are we here under the Gospel to offer our selves a living and holy Sacrifice impolluted of the World and alive to Righteousness and to God Give me leave here a little to enlarge my self Who can doubt but that the Heart of a Christian from whence sweet odours of Prayers and Praises ascend up is a better Altar of Incense than that in Moses's Temple that God is more truly fed by relieving his living Members true and sincere Christians than by feeding the unsatiable fire by thousands of Holocausts that the seven Spirits the Spirit of the Lord the Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding the Spirit of Counsel and Might the Spirit of Knowledge and the Fear of the Lord are a truer and clearer light than the Seven Golden Candlesticks of Moses that the Iewish Temple was but a strait prison in comparison of the enlarged Soul of man So many load of Sand or Gravel would have filled that up to the top but no less than God himself can fill the Heart of man which therefore is the meetest Temple or Mansion for him In brief what is this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but as Nonnus speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to honour and worship God and what doth that consist in but in appropriating or consecrating unto him times or places or things persons also and solemnity of actions Is not this therefore to worship God in spirit and in truth truly and unfeignedly to devote our selves and dedicate all we have to the God of Heaven seeking his Will in all our actions and denying our selves and our own desires What comparison is there betwixt the offering the Firstlings of our Flock or the Fruit of our Ground whereby we acknowledge we hold all these things of God the great Lord of Heaven and Earth what comparison is there I say betwixt this and the not arrogating any thing to our selves of either knowledge and power but very sensibly and affectionately ascribing all to God whatsoever we can do think or speak which is the right Christian Humility and Spiritual Decimation to the true Melchizedek Christ Jesus And let me be yet bolder if there be any boldness in it What is Baptism or the washing of Water in respect of the real cleansing by the Spirit the being Baptized with the Holy Ghost and with Fire What is Bread and Wine in comparison of that true Bread from Heaven the Flesh and Blood of Christ Tell me therefore now is nothing of Religion left when I only consider the inward essence or substance of it abstracting from shell or husk Is the very heart or kernel of it nothing The pure and unpainted Religion is truly Religion if not the only true Religion And pardon me if I seem too careful and curious in reserving the name of Religion to it because that word strikes more powerfully upon the ears of men and summons at the very first alarm all the power we have both of Soul and Body to assist countenance and maintain it Wherefore I would under the name as the notion it self doth most eminently deserve it commend unto my self and all men this truth of Godliness that we may as heartily and zealously both aspire unto our selves and endeavour the same in others as ever we did or can do the opinions and institutions of men or yet the opposing of them For this will not be found pure and undefiled Religion in his eyes who is the judge thereof viz. God the Father Which is the Second Particular and upon which I would now fall did not another sense step between which must awhile hold me back 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hitherto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have signified the pure and un-colour'd truth of Religion without Show or Ceremony The words are not incapable of another sense which our English Translation favours Pure impolluted or undefiled Religion is this Which implies that there are impure filthy and impious Religions in the World How it would make a noise to speak of the obscene Ceremonies of Baal-Peor the cruel Rites of Moloch and that most ridiculous Devil-service in India But we need not run back so much in time or travel to so remote places I do not see but the Invocation of Saints and Worshipping of Idols is impious enough and the relying on any one man or a multitude for infallible guides of his Faith and Religion mere Idolatry and Irreligiousness For what is this but to cut our selves off from the living God and free guidance of his gracious Spirit and to give up our selves to men blind guides to the sons of men that are found deceitful upon the weights lighter than vanity it self Is it not the Lord that hath made Heaven and Earth and filleth all things with his spirit and power Behold the nations are as a drop of a bucket and are counted as the small dust of the ballance All nations are before him even as nothing and they are counted of him less than nothing and vanity It is he alone that has established the mountains and has given laws to the measureless deep that has stretched out the Heavens as a curtain and spreadeth it out as a tent to dwell in that sitteth upon the circle of the earth and the inhabitants thereof are as grashoppers Which of these will you chuse for your God Or what number of them for the stay of your hearts Will you worship a Fly instead of your Maker Will you ask counsel of the God of Ekron Will you advise with Baal-Zebub concerning your Salvation Is not Christ the only Healer the only Saviour the only Recoverer of fallen man Is his Holiness at Rome infallible Or may not a many gray heads joyn'd together go astray together 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Elihu in Iob And I said days should speak and multitude of years should teach wisdom But there is a spirit in man and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding Great men are not alwayes wise neither do the aged understand judgment Iob 32. It is the Lord that is the only wise God that Auncient of dayes alone it is that can instruct us in Prudence 't is God the Father alone that can guide us safely in his Truth And thus am I again cast upon the Second Particular viz. II. That God the Father is judge of what is true pure and undefiled Religion And indeed there is very good reason for it For what is Religion but the worship and service of God He therefore knows best how he would be worshipped and served And here it will not be unseasonable to
of Life To all which you may add that those that are regenerate into the Image of God or Christ there does accrew to them by vertue of their Second Birth an Intellectual or Divine Sense which you may also if you please call Moral sith what is Moral is also Intellectual For it is an Intellectual Sense which discerns the pulchritude or deformity of things or actions And as all handsomeness and proportionableness of the forms and shapes of things in the Universe is from that Vniversal Intellect which is the maker of the World so all honest and decorous actions is from an Intellectual Principle in us which bounds and figures into due proportion all our Corporeal Passions or Actions which otherwise would flow rudely and undeterminately like the tumbling of the particles of matter it self committed to no other guide than Chance or Fortune Wherefore he that walks as in the day decently and honestly it is a sign his Eyes are opened and that he is not asleep He that disrelishes every evil motion whether in himself or others that feels or sees plainly what is just or unjust that abominates every appearance of haughtiness or envy or worldly baseness and brutish intemperance to whom these things and others of the like kind are distastful unsavoury and unsufferable it is a sign that he is awoke into this part of the Intellectual Life which we call Moral But such as have neither love of Vertue nor aversation of Vice whether in themselves or others they have these Senses bound by a Lethargick Sleep out of which the recuperation of the Divine Image where-ever it is loosens and awakens men into a perpetual quickness of perception of what is truly Good or Evil. Thus apparently is the Image of Christ the resuscitation of the Soul into these two first parts of Life which we call'd self-activity and sense or perception The last but not the least considerable is Pleasure Love or Ioy Which how little it is in the Worldly-minded I have above declared But how unspeakably great it must be in him upon whom this glorious Image of God is risen is discoverable at first sight For this Image does most eminently contain in it the sense of Love or Goodness God is Love and he that abideth in Love abideth in God and God in him Which intellectual Love or Goodness is certainly the highest joy or pleasure that Humane Nature is capable of the flower and quintessence of all sweetness Here 's no afflicting Care nor consuming Envy no disquieting Lust nor tyrannical Superstition no distrust or fear of our Future State nor any jealousies concerning the Favour of God this Spirit of Love being an inseparable Pledge thereof And even the more miserable Objects in this present scene of things cannot devest him of his Happiness but rather modifie it the sweetness of his Spirit being melted into a kindly compassion in the behalf of others Whom if he be able to help it is a greater accession to his joy and if he cannot the being conscious to himself of so sincere a compassion and so harmonious and suitable to the present state of things carries along with it some degree of Pleasure like mournful Notes of Musick exquisitely well fitted to the sadness of the Ditty But this not unpleasant surprize of Melancholly cannot last long And this cool allay this soft and moist Element of Sorrow will be soon dry'd up like the Morning Dew at the rising of the Summer Sun when but once the warm and chearful gleams of that Intellectual Light that represents the glorious and comfortable comprehension of the Divine Providence that runs through all things shall dart into our Souls the remembrance how infinitely scant the region of these more Tragical Spectacles is compared with the rest of the Universe and how short a time they last For so the consideration of the Happiness of the whole will swallow up this small pretence of discontent and the Soul will be wholly overflown with unexpressible joy and exultation it being warmed and cheared with that joy that is the joy of God that free and infinite Good who knows the periods and issues of all things and whose pleasure is in Good as such and not in contracted selfishness or in petty and sinister projects And certainly this is such an enlargement of Life that He must needs seem either dead or asleep and fixt and congealed in some contractive and obstupifying Dream whom the love and admiration of himself and covering over that sack of dirt his Body and wholly rejoycing in the ease and pleasure of it and the honour or respect conciliated to his own particular Person has made unsensible and uncapable of this transcendent Satisfaction and Happiness I have described Which leads me to the Fourth Particular viz. 4. That this Mystical Resurrection of Christ or the Revelation of the Face or Image of God in us is the only solid Enjoyment and Satisfaction to the Souls of the Faithful even in the Life Which I need not at all insist upon the truth thereof being so exceeding manifest from the foregoing Particular And David accordingly has declared it in the 4th Psalm Many say who will shew us any good Lord lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us And so in my Text At the awaking of thy image I shall be satisfied therewith The LXX have it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I shall be really fed when I shall see thy Glory Not according to the condition of those whom the Prophet describes As when an hungry man dreameth and behold he eateth but he waketh and his soul is empty or as when a thirsty man dreameth and behold he drinketh but he awaketh and behold he is faint But according as our Saviour Christ has promised I am the bread of life he that cometh to me shall never hunger and he that beleiveth on me shall never thirst For being fed and transformed into the Image of Christ by truly partaking of his Body and Blood they have that which fills their vastest Capacities and fits them for an Eternal Enjoyment thereof Which perpetuity of the conditon plainly shews that the condition is most natural and that perfection which is most natural must needs be most satisfactory For every thing seeks the perfection of its own Nature and when it is where it is most natural for it to be is naturally satisfied and rests therein And this briefly shall serve for the Fourth Particular 5. The Fifth and Last is That the way to arrive to this Satisfaction which is the enjoyment of the Face or Image of God is Righteousness or Sincerity of Heart I will behold thy Face in Righteousness I must confess that Righteousness is sometimes of so comprehensive a Sense that it takes in all that which we have described in the Image of God and so is in a manner the same with it And if it were understood so here the Sense would be good for by this Image we do see