intuitively and as Face to Face That which is essentially Life as a Living Principle will Live And that which is essentially an Active Intellective Volitive principle force and Virtue will still be such while it is itself and is not annihilated or changed into another thing which is not to be feared And that which is such can never want an Object till all things be annihilated § 8. Reason assureth me that were my will now what it should be and fully obsequious herein to my understanding to fulfil Gods will would be the fulfilling my own will for my will should perfectly comply with His and to please him perfectly would be my perfect pleasure And it is the unreasonable adhesion to this Body and sinful selfishness which maketh any one think otherwise now I am sure that my Soul shall Live for it is Life itself and I am sure that I shall live to God and that I shall fulfil and please his blessed will and this is as such incomparably better than my Felicity as such And yet so far as I am pleased in so doing it will be my Felicity § 9. I begin now to think that the strange Love which the Soul hath to this Body so far as it is not inordinate is put into us of God partly to signifie to us the great Love which Christ hath to his Mystical Political Body and to every member of it even the least He will gather all his Elect out of the World and none that come to him shall be shut out and none that are given him shall be lost As his Flesh is to them Meat indeed and his Blood is to them Drink indeed and he nourisheth them for Life eternal His Spirit in them turning the Sacrament the Word and Christ himself in esse objectivo as Believed in into Spirit and Life to us as the Soul and our Natural Spirits turn our food into Flesh and Blood and Spirits which in a dead Body or any lifeless repository it would never be so as we delight in the ease and prosperity of our Body and each Member and have pleasure in the pleasant food that nourisheth it and other pleasant Objects which accommodate it Christ also delighteth in the welfare of his Church and of all the Faithful and is pleased when they are fed with good and pleasant Food and when hereby they prosper Christ Loveth the Church not only as a Man must love his Wife but as we Love our Bodies And no Man ever hated his own Flesh Eph. 5. 27 c. And herein I must allow my Saviour the preeminence to overgo me in powerful faithful Love He will save me better from pain and death than I can save my Body and will more inseparably hold me to himself If it please my Soul to dwell in such a House of Clay and to operate on so mean a thing as Flesh how greatly will it please my glorified Lord to dwell with his glorified Body the triumphant Church and to cherish and bless each Member of it It would be a kind of death to Christ to be separated from his Body and to have it die Whether Augustine and the rest of the Fathers were in the right or no who thought that as our Bodies do not only shed their Hairs but by sicknesses and wast lose much of their very Flesh so Christ's Militant Body doth not only lose Hypocrites but also some living justified Members yet certain it is that confirmed Members and more certain that glorified Members shall not be lost Heaven is not a place for Christ or us to suffer such loss in And will Christ love me better than I love my Body Will he be lother to lose me than I am to lose a Member or to die Will he not take incomparably greater pleasure in animating and actuating me for ever than my Soul doth in animating and actuating this Body O then let me long to be with him And though I am naturally loth to be absent from the Body let me be by his Spirit more unwilling to be absent from the Lord And though I would not be unclothed had not sin made it necessary let me groan to be clothed upon with my heavenly Habitation and to become the delight of my Redeemer and to be perfectly loved by Love itself § 10. And even this blessed Receptivity of my Soul in terminating the Love and Delight of my glorified Head must needs be a felicity to me The insensible Creatures are but Beautified by the Suns communication of its Light and Heat but the sensitives have also the Pleasure of it Shall my Soul be sensless will it be a Clod or Stone Shall that which is now the form of be then more Lifeless Sensless or uncapable than the form of Bruits is now Doubtless it will be a living perceiving sensible Recipient of the felicitating Love of God and my Redeemer I shall be loved as a living Spirit and not as a dead and senseless thing that doth not comfortably perceive it § 11. And if I must rejoice with my fellow Servants that rejoice shall I not be glad to think that my blessed Lord will rejoice in me and in all his glorified Ones Union will make his pleasure to be much mine And it will be aptly said by him to the faithful Soul Enter thou into the Joy of thy Lord Mat. 25. 21. His own active Joy will objectively be Ours as Ours will be Efficiently His or from Him Can that be an ill condition to me in which my Lord will most rejoice It is Best to Him and therefore Best to me § 12. And the heavenly Society will joyfully welcome a Holy Soul If there be now Joy in Heaven among the Angels for one Sinner that Repenteth who hath yet so little Holiness and so much Sin What joy will there be over a perfected glorified Soul Surely if Our Angels there behold our Fathers Face they will be glad in Season of our Company The Angels that carried Lazarus to Abraham's Bosom no doubt rejoiced in their work and their success And is the Joy of Angels and the heavenly Host as nothing to me Will not Love and Union make their Joy to be my own if Love here must make all my Friends and Neighbours comforts to become my own And as their Joy according to their Perfection is greater than any that I am now capable of so the participation of so great a Joy of theirs will be far better than to have my little separated apartment Surely that will be my best condition which Angels and blessed Spirits will be best pleased in and I shall rejoice most in that which they most rejoice in III. The Constitutive Reasons from the Intellective state III. § 1. Though the Tempter would persuade men because of the case of Infants in the Womb Apoplectick's c. that the understanding will be but an unactive Power when separated from these corporeal Organs I have seen before sufficient Reasons to repel this
temptation I will suppose that it will not have such a mode of Conception as it hath now by these Organs But 1. The Soul will be still essentially a Vital Intellective substance disposed to act naturally and that is to those acts which it is formally inclined to as fire to illuminate and heat And as it cannot die while it is what it is in Essence because it is Life itself that is The Vital substance so it cannot but be Intellective as to an Inclined Power because it is such Essentially though God can change or annihilate any thing if he would 2. And it will be among a world of Objects 3. And it will still have its dependence on the first cause and receive his continual actuating influx 4. And no Man can give the least shew of true Reason to prove that it shall cease sensation whether the sensitive Faculties be in the same substance which is Intellective which is most probable or in one conjunct as some imagine though the Species and Modes of Sensation cease which are denominated from the various Organs 5. Yea no Man can prove that the departing Soul doth not carry with it its igneous Spirits which in the Body it did immediately actuate If it were never so certain that those Greek Fathers were mistaken as well as Hippocrates who took the Soul itself to be a sublime Intellectual Fire And as to the Objection some hold that the Soul preexisted before it was in the Body others and most that it then received its first being If the first were true it would be true that the Soul had its Intellectual Activity before though the Soul itself incorporate remember it not because it Operateth but ut forma hominis and its Oblivion they take to be part of its penalty And they that think it a radius of the Anima mundi vel systematis must think that then it did Intellectually animate hunc mundum vel mundi partem And to do so again is the worst they can conjecture of it As the rays of the Sun which heat a burning Glass and by it set a Candle on fire are the same rays still diffused in the Air and illuminating heating and moving it and terminated on some other Body and not annihilated or debilitated when their contracted Operation ceaseth by breaking the Glass or putting out the Candle And as the Spirit of a Tree still animateth the Tree when it retireth from the Leaves and lets them fall But this being an unproved imagination of mens own Brains we have no further use of it than to confute themselves But if the Soul existed not till its incorporation what wonder if it Operate but ut forma when it is united to the Body for that use What wonder if its initial Operations like a spark of Fire in Tinder or the first lighting of a Candle be weak and scarce by us perceptible What wonder if it operate but to the uses that the Creation did appoint it and first as vegetative fabricate its own Body as the Makers instrument and then feel and then understand And what wonder if it Operate no further than Objects are admitted And therefore what wonder if in Apoplexies c. such Operations are intercepted But the departing Soul is 1. in its Maturity 2. No more united to this Body and so not confined to sense and imagination in its Operations and the admission of its Objects 3. And it is sub ratione meriti and as a governed subject is ordinate to its reward which it was not capable of receiving in the Womb or in an Apoplexy And as we have the Reasons before alledged to hold 1. That it shall not be annihilated 2. Nor dissolved 3. Nor lose its essential Faculties or Powers 4. Nor those essential Powers be continued useless by the wise and merciful Creator though by Natural revelation we know not in what manner they shall act whether on any other Body and by what conjunction and how far so by Supernatural Revelation we are assured that there is a reward for the Righteous and that holy Souls are still members of Christ and live because he liveth and that in the Day of their departure they shall be with him in Paradise and being absent from the Body shall be present with the Lord and that Christ therefore died rose and revived that he might be Lord both of the Dead and of the Living that is of those that being Dead hence do Live with him and of those that yet live in the Body For he that said God is not the God of the dead but of the Living that is stands not related to them as his People as a King to Subjects is not himself the Lord of the absolute Dead but of the Living Therefore as Contarenus against Pomponatius de Immortal Anim saith the Immortality of the Soul is provable by the Light of Nature but the manner of its future Operation must be known by Faith And blessed be the Father of Spirits and our Redeemer who hath sent and set up this excellent Light by which we see further than purblind Infidels can do § 2. But I deny not but even the Scripture itself doth tell us but little of the Manner of our Intellection when we are out of the Body and it is not improbable that there is more Imperfection in this Mode of Notional Organical Abstractive knowledge which the Soul exerciseth in the Body than most consider of And that as the Eye hath the visive Faculty in sleep and when we wink and an internal action of the visive Spirits no doubt and yet seeth not any thing without till the Eyelids are opened and was not made to see its own sight so the Soul in the Body is as a winking Eye to all things that are not by the Sense and Imagination intromitted or brought within its reach And whether sicut non video visum neque facultatem neque substantiam videntem videndo tamen certo percipio me videre so it may be said Non intelligo immediatè ipsam intellectionem neque facultatem aut substantiam intelligentem Intelligendo tamen certo percipio me intelligere quia actus Intellectûs in Spiritus sensitivos operans sentitur or whether we must further say with Ockam that Intellectus tum intuitivè tum abstractivè se intelligit I leave to wiser men to judge But I am very suspicious that the Body is more a Lanthorn to the Soul than some will admit and that this Lusus notionum secundarum or abstractive knowledge of Things by Organical Images Names and Notions is occasioned by the Union of the Soul with the Body ut formae and is that Childish knowledge which the Apostle saith shall be done away And how much of Mans fall might consist in such a knowing of good and evil I cannot tell or in the overvaluing such a knowledge And I I think that when vain Philosophy at Athens had called the thoughts and desires of Mankind from
But what should an Intellectual Spirit be changed into How should it lose its formal Power not by Nature for its Nature hath nothing that tendeth to deterioration or decay or self-destruction The Sun doth not decay by its wonderful Motion Light and Heat And why should Spirits Not by God's destroying them or changing their Nature For though all things are in constant motion or revolution he continueth the Natures of the simple Beings and sheweth us that he delighteth in a constancy of operations insomuch that hence Aristotle thought the world Eternal And God hath made no Law that threateneth to do it as a penalty Therefore to dream that Intellectual Spirits shall be turned into other things and lose their Essential formal Powers which specify them is without and against all sober reason Let them first but prove that the Sun loseth Motion Light and Heat and is turned into Air or Water or Earth Such changes are beyond a rational fear § 29. VI. But some men dream that Souls shall sleep and cease their Acts though they doe not their powers But this is more unreasonable than the former For it must be remembred that it is not a meer obediential Passive power that we speak of but an Active Power consisting in a great an Inclination to Act as Passive natures have to forbear action So that if such a nature Act not it must be because its natural Inclination is hindred by a stronger And who shall hinder it 1. God would not continue an Active Power Force and Inclination in nature and forcibly hinder the operation of that nature which he himself continueth unless penally for some special cause Which he never gave us any notice of by any threatning but the contrary 2. Objects will not be wanting for all the world will be still at hand and God above all It is therefore an unreasonable conceit to think that God will continue an Active Vital Intellective Volitive Nature Form Power Force Inclination in a noble substance which shall use none of these for many hundred or thousand years and so continue them in vain Nay 3. It is rather to be thought that some Action is their constant state without which the cessation of their very form would be inferred § 30. But all that can be said with reason is that separated Souls and Souls hereafter in Spiritual Bodies will have Actions of another mode and very different from these that we now perceive in flesh And be it so They will yet be radically of the same Kind and they will be formally or eminently such as we now call Vitality Intellection and Volition And they will be no lower nor less excellent if not far more And then what the difference will be Christ knoweth whom I trust and in season I shall know But to talk of a Dead Life an unactive activity or a Sleeping Soul is fitter for a sleeping than a waking man § 31. It 's true that Diseases or Hurts do now hinder the Souls Intellectual perceptions in the body and in Infancy and Sleep they are imperfect Which proveth indeed that the Acts commonly called Intellection and Volition have now somthing in them also of sensation and that sensitive operations are diversifyed by the Organs of the several senses And that bare Intellection and Volition without any sensation is now scarce to be observed in us though the Soul may have such acts intrinsecally and in its profundity For it is now so united to this body that it acteth on it as our form And indeed the Act observed by us cannot be denied to be such as are specified or modified at least by the Agents and the Recipients and Sub-Agents parts conjunct But 1. As the Sun would do the same thing ex parte sui if in vacuo only it sent forth its beams though this were no Illumination or Calefaction because there were no Recipient to be Illuminated and Heated by it And it would lose nothing by the want of objects so the Soul had it no Body to act on would have its profound Immanent Acts of self-living self-perceiving and self loving and all its external acts on other objects which need not Organs of sense for their approximation And 2. It s sensitive faculty is it self or such as it is not separated from though the Particular sorts of sensation may be altered with their uses And therefore it may still act on or with the sense And if one way of sensation be hindered it hath another 3. And how far this Lanthorn of flesh doth help or hinder its operations we know not yet but shall know hereafter Sondiâ—s de Orig. Animae though an heretical Writer hath said much to prove that the Body is a hinderance and not a help to the Soul's Intuition And if Ratiocination be a compound act yet Intuition may be done for ever by the Soul alone 4. But as we are not to judge what Powers the Soul hath when the Acts are hindered but when they are done nor what Souls were made by God for by their state in the Womb or Infancy or Diseases but by our ordinary mature state of life so we have little reason to think that the same God who made them for Life Intellection and Volitions here will not continue the same Powers oâ— the same or as noble uses hereafter whether with Organs or without as pleaseth him If in this flesh our Spirits were not unactive and useless we have no reason to think that they will be so hereafter and that for ever § 32. This greatest and hardest of all Objections doth make us confess with Contarenus contra Pomponatium de Anim. Immortalit that though by the Light of Nature we may know the Immortality of Souls and that they lose not their Powers or Activity yet without supernatural Light we know not what manner of Action they will have in their separated state or in another world because here they act according to objective Termination and the Receptivity of the Sense and Phantasie Recipitur ad modum recipientis and in the Womb we perceive not that it acteth intellectually at all But we know That 1. If even then it differed not in its formal â—ower from the Souls of Brutes it would not so much afterward differ in Act And it would never be raised to that which was not virtually in its Nature at the first 2. And we find that even very little Children have quick and strong knowledge of such Objects as â—â—e brought within their reach And that their Ignorance is not for want of an Intellectual Power but for want of Objects or Images of things which time and use and conversation among Objects must furnish their Phantasies and Memories with And so a Soul in the Womb or in an Apoplexy hath not Objects of Intellection within its reach to act upon but is as the Sun to a Room that hath no windows to let in its light 3. And what if its profound Vitality Self perception and
that is every where but by a peculiar operation and relation And so holy Souls being under a more felicitating operation of God may well be said to have a Nearer Union with him than now they have § 35. 〈◊〉 And I observe that as is aforesaid all things have naturally a strong inclination to Union and Communion with their like Every clod and stone inclineth to the Earth Water would go to Water Air to Air Fire to Fire Birds and Beasts associate with their like And the noblest natures are most strongly thus inclined And therefore I have natural reason to think that it will be so with holy Souls § 36. 3. And I find that the inordinate Contraction of Man to himself and to the interest of this Individual-Person with the defect of Love to all about us according to every creatures goodness and specially to God the Infinite good whom we should love above our selves is the very sum of all the pravity of man And all the injustice and injury to others and all the neglect of good works in the world and all our daily terrours and self-distracting self-tormenting cares and griefs and fears proceed from this inordinate Love and Adhesion to our selves Therefore I have reason to think that in our better state we shall perfectly Love others as our selves and the selfish Love will turn into a common and a Divine Love which must be by our preferring the common and the Divine Good and Interest § 37. And I am so sensible of the power and Plague of selfishness and how it now corrupteth tempteth and disquieteth me that when I feel any fears lest individuation cease and my Soul fall into one common Soul as the Stoicks thought all Souls did at death I find great cause to suspect that this ariseth from the power of this corrupting selfishness For Reason seeth no cause at all to fear it were it so § 38. 4. For I find also that the nature of Love is to desire as near a Union as is possible And the strongest Love doth strongliest desire it Fervent Lovers think they can scarce be too much One. And Love is our Perfection and therefore so is Union § 39. 5. And I find that when Christians had the first and full pourings out of the Spirit they had the ferventest Love and the nearest Union and the least desire of propriety and distance § 40. 6. And I find that Christs prayer for the felicity of his disciples is a prayer for their Unity Joh. 17. 22 23. And in this he placeth much of their Persection § 41. 7. And I find also that man is a sociable nature and that all men find by experience that conjunction in societies is needful to their Safety strength and Pleasure § 42. 8. And I find that my Soul would fain be nearer God and that darkness and distance is my misery and near communion is it that would answer all the tendencies of my Soul Why then should I fear too near a Union § 43. I think it utterly improbable that my Soul should become more nearly united to any creature than to God though it be of the same kind with other Souls and infinitely below God For God is as near me as I am to my self I still depend on him as the effect upon its total constant cause And that not as the fruit upon the Tree which borroweth all from the Earth Water Air and Fire which it communicateth to its fruit but as a creature on its Creator who hath no Being but what it receiveth totally from God by constant communication Hence Autonine Seneca and the rest of the Stoicks thought that all the World was God or one Great Animal consisting of Divine Spirit and Matter as Man of Soul and body Sometime calling the supposed Soul of the World GOD and sometime calling the whole World God But still meaning that the Universe was but one Spirit and Body united and that we all are parts of God or of the Body of God or Accidents at least § 44. And even the Popish Mystical Divines in their pretensions to the highest Perfection say the same in sense such as Benedict Anglus in his Regula Perfectionis approved by many Doctors who placeth much of his Supereminent Life in our Believing verily that there is nothing but God and Living accordingly Maintaining that all creatures are nothing distinct from God but are to God as the Beams are to the Sun and as the Heat is to the Fire which really is it self And so teaching us to rest in all things as Good as being nothing but Gods essential will which is himself resolving even our sins and Imperfections accordingly into God so that they are Gods or None § 45. And all these men have as fair a pretence for their conceits of such a Union with God now as for such an Union after death For their Reason is 1. That God being Infinite there can be no more Beings than his own But God and the smallest Being distinct would be more Entity than God alone But Infinity can have no addition 2. Because Ens Bonum Convertuntur But God only is good And if we are notwithstanding all this distinct Beings from God now we shall be so then For we shall not be Annihilated and we shall not be so advanced as to be deified and of creatures or distinct Beings turned into a Being infinitely above us If we be not Parts of God now we shall not be so then But if they could prove that we are so now we should quickly prove to them 1. That then God hath material divisible parts as the Stoicks thought 2. And that we are no such parts as are not distinct from one another but some are tormented and some happy And 3. That as is said it will be no abatement of the misery of the tormented nor of the felicity of the blessed to tell them that they are all parts of God For though the manner of our Union with him and dependance on him be past our comprehension yet that we are distinct and distant from each other and have each one a joy or misery of his own is past all doubt Therefore there is no Union with God to be feared by holy Souls but the utmost possible to be highliest desired § 46. And if our Union with God shall not cease our Individuation or resolve us into a Principle to be feared we may say so also of our Union with any common Soul or many If we be Unible we are Partible and so have a distinct though not a divided substance which will have its proper Accidents All Plants are parts of the Earth really united to it and radicated in it and live and are nourished by it And yet a Vine is a Vine and an Apple is an Apple and a Rose is a Rose and a Nettle is a Nettle And few men would be toiled Horses or Toads if it were proved that they are animated by a common Soul § 47.
Nature in all the works of Creation for in Him we Live and Move and Are and by the way of Grace in all the Gracious doth Operate and Is by the works and splendour of his Glory eminently in Heaven By which Glory therefore we must mean some Created Glory For his Essence hath no inequality § 5. 2. We shall be present with the Humane Nature of Christ both Soul and Body But here our present narrow Thoughts must not too boldly presume to resolve the difficulties which to a distinct understanding of this should be overcome For we must not here expect any more than a dark and general Knowledge of them As 1. What is the formal difference between Christs glorified Body and his Flesh on Earth 2. Where Christ's glorified Body is and how far it extendeth 3. VVherein the Soul and the Glorified Body differ seeing it is called A Spiritual Body These things are beyond our present reach § 6. 1. For what conceptions can we have of a Spiritual Body save that it is Pure incorruptible invisible to mortal Eyes and fitted to the most perfect state of the Soul How near the Nature of it is to a Spirit and so to the Soul and how far they agree or differ in substance extensiveness divisibility or activity little do we know § 7. 2. Nor do we know where and how far Christ's Body is present by extent The Sun is commonly taken for a Body and its Motive Illuminative and Calefactive Beams are by the most probable Philosophy taken to be a real emanant part of its substance and so that it is Essentially as extensive as those Beams that is It at once filleth all our Air and toucheth the surface of the Earth and how much further it extendeth we cannot tell And what difference there is between Christ's glorified Body and the Sun in Purity Splendour Extent or Excellency of Nature little do poor Mortals know And so of the rest § 8. Let no Man therefore cavil and say How can a whole World of glorified Bodies be all present with the One Body of Christ when each must possess its proper room For as the Body of the solar Beams and the extensive Air are so compresent as that none can discern the difference of the places which they possess and a World of Bodies are present with them both so may all our Bodies be with Christ's Body and that without any true confusion § 9. 2. Besides Presence with Christ there will be such an Union as we cannot now distinctly know A political Relative Union is past doubt such as Subjects have in one Kingdom with their King But little know we how much more We see that there is a wonderful Corporeal continuity or contact among the material works of God And the more Spiritual pure and noble the more inclination each Nature hath to Union Every Plant on Earth hath a Union with the whole Earth in which it liveth they are real parts of it And what Natural Conjunction our Bodies shall have to Christ's and what influence from it is past our Knowledge Though his similitudes in Joh. â—5 Joh. 6. Eph. 5. 1 Cor. 12. seem to extend far yet being but similitudes we cannot fully know how far § 10. The same variatis variandis we may say of our Union with Christ's humane Soul Seeing Souls are more inclinable to union than Bodies when we see all Vegetables to be united parts of one Earth and yet to have each one its proper individuating form and matter we cannot though Animals seem to walk more disjunct imagine that there is no kind of Union or Conjunction of invisible Souls though they retain their several substances and forms Nor yet that our Bodies shall have a nearer Union with Christ's Body than our Souls with his Soul But the nature manner and measure of it we know not § 11. Far be it from us to think that Christ's glorified Spiritual Body is such in form parts and dimensions as his earthly Body was That it hath Hands Feet Brains Heart Stomach Liver Intestines as on Earth Or that it is such a Compound of Earth Water and Air as here it was and of such confined extent for then as his Disciples and a few Jews only were present with him and all the World besides were absent and had none of his Company so it would be in Heaven But it is not such only as Paul but all true Believers in the World from the Creation to the end shall be with Christ and see his Glory And though inequality of Fitness or Degrees of Holiness will make an inequality of Glory no Man can prove an inequality by local distance from Christ Or if such there be for it 's beyond our reach yet none in Heaven are at such a distance from him as not to enjoy the Felicity of his Presence § 12. Therefore when we dispute against them that hold Transubstantiation and the ubiquity of Christ's Body we do assuredly conclude that Sense is Judge whether there be real Bread and Wine present or not But it is no Judge whether Christ's Spiritual Body be present or not no more than whether an Angel be present And we conclude that Christ's Body is not Infinite or Immense as is his Godhead but what are its dimensions Limits or extent and where it is absent far be it from us to determine when we cannot tell how far the Sun extendeth its secondary substance or emanant Beams nor well what Locality is as to Christ's Soul or any Spirit if to a Spiritual Body § 13. Their fear is vain and carnal who are afraid lest their Union with Christ or one another will be too near even lest thereby they lose their individuation as Rivers that fall into the Sea or extinguished Candles whose Fire is after but a Sun-beam or part of the common Element of Fire in the Air or as the Vegetative Spirits which in Autumn retire from the Leaves into the Branches and Trunk of the Tree I have proved before that our Individuation or numerical Existence ceaseth not And that no Union is to be feared were it never so sure which destroyeth not the Being or formal Powers or Action of the Soul and that it is the great radical disease of SELFISHNESS and want of Holy LOVE to God and our Saviour and one another which causeth these unreasonable Fears Even that Selfishness which now maketh men so partially desirous of their own wills and pleasure in comparison of God's and their own Felicity in comparison of other and which maketh them so easily bear God's injuries and the Sufferings of a Thousand others in comparison of their own But he that put a great desire of the Bodies preservation into the Soul while it is its form will abate that desire when the time of separation is come because there is then no use for it till the Resurrection Else it would be a torment to the Soul § 14. 3. And as we shall
great Realities to the Logical and Philological game at Words and Notions it was Socrates his wisdom to call them to more concerning Studies and Pauls greater Wisdom to warn men to take heed of such vain Philosophy and to labour to know God and Jesus Christ and the things of the Spirit and not to overvalue this ludicrous dreaming worldly Wisdom And if I have none of this kind of Notional childish knowledge when I am absent from the Body the Glass and Spectacles may then be spared when I come to see with open Face or as face to Face Our future knowledge is usually in Scripture called SEEING Mat. 5. 8. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God 1 Cor. 13. 12. We shall see Face to Face 1 Joh. 3. 2. We shall see him as he is Joh. 17. 24. Father I will that those which thou hast given me be with me where I am that they may behold my Glory which thou hast given me c. An Intuitive knowledge of all things as in themselves immediately is a more excellent sort of knowledge than this by similitudes Names and Notions which our Learning now consisteth in and is but an Art acquired by many acts and use § 3. If the Sun were as the Heathens thought it an Intellective Animal and it s emitted rayes were vitally visive and when one of those rayes were received by prepared seminal matter as in Insects it became the Soul of an inferiour Animal in this case the said ray would operate in that Insect or Animal but according to the Capacity of the recipient matter whereas the Sun itself by all it s emitted rays would see all things Intellectually and with delight and when that Insect were dead that Ray would be what it was an Intellective Intuitive emanation And though the Soul in Flesh do not know itself how it shall be united to Christ and to all other holy Souls and to God himself nor how near or just of what sort that union will be yet united it will be and therefore will participate accordingly of the the universal Light or understanding to which it is united The Soul now as it is or operateth in the Foot or Hand doth not understand but only as it is and operateth in the Head And yet the same Soul which is in the Hand understandeth in the Head and the Soul operateth not so selfishly or dividedly in the Hand as to repine there because it understandeth not there but it is quiet in that it understandeth in the Head and performeth its due Operation in the Hand But this diversity of Operations seemeth to be from the Organs and the Bodies use or need But Souls dismissed from the Body seem to be as all Eye or Intuitive Light Therefore though it might content us to say that our Head seeth all things and we are united to him yet we may say further that we our selves shall see God and all things that are meet for us to see § 4. And seeing it is most certain that the Superior glorious Regions are full of blessed Spirits who do see God and one another having much more perfect Operations than we have whose effects we Mortals find here below why should I that find an Intellective Nature in my self make any doubt of my more perfect Operations when I am dismissed hence being satisfied that a Soul will not lose its simple Essence Either those superiour Spirits have ethereal Bodies to act in or are such themselves or not If they are or have such why should I doubt of the like and think that my Substance or Vehicle will not be according to the Region of my abode If not why should I think that my departed Soul may not know or see without an igneous or ethereal Body or Vehicle as well as all those worlds of Spirits And the certainty of Apparitions Possessions and Witches do tell us not only that there are such Inhabitants of other Regions Ordinarily invisible to us but also that we are in the way to that Happiness or Misery which is in our invisible state § 5. These things reviewed being partly mentioned before assuring me that I shall have actual Intellection in my separated state the Region with the Objects but above all the Holy Scriptures will tell me as much as it is meet that I should here know what it is that I shall intuitively understand The Apostle 1 Cor. 13. 10 11 12. doth distinguish our knowing in part and knowing Perfectly knowing as a Child and as a Man knowing darkly and enigmatically as in a Glass and knowing Face to Face as we are known The great Question is When this Time of Perfection is Whether he mean at Death or at the Resurrection If Dr. Hammonds observation hold that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Scripture when The Flesh or Body is not joined with it signifies that Life which the Soul doth enter upon immediately after our Death and so that the Soul hath that after living which is sinified by the very word which we Translate Resurrection then it will lead men to think that there is less difference between Mansstate at his first departure and at his last Resurrection than most think even than Calvin himself thought But the difference between our first and last state of after life or Resurrection cannot be now distinctly known What difference there is now between Henoch Elias and those who rose at Christs Resurrection and the rest of the Saints even the Spirits of the perfected Just and whether the first have as much greater Glory than the rest as it is conceived that we shall have at the Resurrection above that which immediately followeth Death what mortal Man can tell I am past doubt that Flesh and Blood formally so called and not only ab accidente as sinful shall not inherit the Kingdom of God vid. Hammond in loc but that our Natural Bodies shall be made Spiritual Bodies And how a Spiritual Body differeth from a Spirit or Soul I pretend not well to understand but must stay till God by experience or fuller Light inform me But surely the difference is not like to be so great as that a Soul in Flesh shall know in part and a Soul in a Spiritual Body shall know perfectly and a Soul between both shall not know at all If it be Perfection which we shall have in our Spiritual Body it is like that we are nearer to that Perfection in Knowledge and Felicity while we are between both than we are in the Flesh § 6. And sure a Soul that even Solomon saith goeth upward and to God that gave it is liker to know God than that which is terminated in Flesh and operateth ut forma according to its capacity and state And a Soul that is with Christ is liker to know Christ and the Father in him than that which is present with the Body and absent from the Lord. What less can the Promise of being with him signifie § 7.
more desire it V. I shall better understand all the World of God! The Matter and the Method of it Though I shall shall not have that use for it as I have now in this Life of Faith yet I shall see more of God's Wisdom and his Goodness his Love Mercy and Justice appearing in it than ever Man on Earth could do As the Creatures so the Scriptures are perfectly known only by perfect Spirits I shall then know how to solve all doubts and reconcile all seeming contradictions and to expound the hardest Prophesies That light will shew me the admirable Methods of those Sacred words where dark minds now suspect confusion How evident and clear then will every thing appear to me Like a small print when the light comes in which I could not read in the glimmering twilight How easily shall I then confute the cavils of all our present Unbelievers And how joyfully shall I praise that God and Saviour that gave his Church so clear a light to guide them through this darksom World and so sure a promise to support them till they came to life Eternal How joyfully shall I bless him that by that immortal Seed did regenerate me to the hopes of Glory And that ruled me by so Holy and Just a Law VI. In that World of Light I shall better understand God's present and past works of Providence by which he ordereth the matters of this World The Wisdom and Goodness of them is little understood in little parcels It is the union and harmony of all the parts which sheweth the beauty of them when the single Parcels seem deformed or are not understood And no one can see the whole together but God and they that see it in the light of his Celestial Glory It is a prospect of that End by which we have here any true understanding of such Parcels as we see Then I shall know clearly why or to what use God prospered the wicked and tryed the Righteous by so many afflictions I shall know why he set up the ungodly and put the humble under their Feet Why he permitted so much ignorance ungodliness pride lust oppression persecution falshood deceit and other sins in the World I shall know why the faithful are so few And why so many Kingdoms of the World are left in Heathenism Mahometanism and Infidelity The strange permissions which now so puzzle me and are the matter of my astonishment shall all be then as clear as day I shall know why God disposed of me as he did through all my life and why I suffered what I did and how many great deliverances I had which I understood not here and how they were accomplished All our mis-interpretations of God's works and permissions will be then rectified And all our Controversies about them which Satan hath made so great advantage of by a pretended zeal for some Truths of God will then be reconciled and at an end And all the works of Divine Providence from the beginning of the World will then appear a most delectable beauteous frame VII And among all these works I shall specially know more the nature and excellency of Gods mercies and gifts of Love which here we too unthankfully undervalued and made light of The special works of Love should be the matter of our most constant sweet and serious Thoughts and the fuel of our constant Love and Gratitude The lively sense of Love and Mercy maketh lively Christians abounding in Love to God and Mercy to others But the Enemy of God and Man most laboureth to obscure diminish and disgrace God's Love and Mercys to us or to put us out of relish to them that they be unfruitful as to their excellent ends and uses Little do most Christians know how much they wrong God and themselves and how much they lose by the diminutive poor Thoughts which they have of God's Mercies Ingratitude is a grievous misery to the Sinner as gratitude is a very pleasant work Many a Thousand Mercies we now receive which we greatly undervalue But when I come to the state and work of perfect gratitude I shall have a more perfect knowledge of all the Mercies which ever I received in my Life and which my Neighbours and Friends and God's Church and the World did ever receive For though the thing be past the use of it is not past Mercies remembred must be the matter of our everlasting thanks And we cannot be perfectly thankful for them without a perfect knowledge of them The worth of a Christ and all his grace the work of the Gospel the worth of our Church-priviledges and all God's Ordinances the worth of our Books and Friends and Helps of our Life and Health and all conveniences will be better understood in Heaven than the most holy and thankful Christian here understandeth them VIII And it will be some addition to my future happiness that I shall then be much better acquainted with my self Both with my Nature and with my Sin and Grace I shall then better know the Nature of a Soul and its formal Faculties Three in One I shall know the nature and way of its Operations and how far its acts are simple or compound or organical I shall know how far Memory Phantasie and Sense internal and external belong to the rational Soul and whether the sensitive and rational are two or one and what Senses will perish and what not I shall know how the Soul doth act upon it self and what acts it hath that are not felt in sleep in Apoplexies and in the Womb I shall know whether the vegetative nature be any thing else than Fire and whether it be of the same Essence with the Soul sensitive or rational and whether Fire eminenter be a common fundamental substance of all Spirits diversly specified by the Forms mental sensitive and vegetative or whether it be as a Body or Vehicle to Spirits or rather a nature made for the Copulation of Spirits and Bodies and the Operation of the former on the latter as between both And whether Fire and of what sort be the active forma telluris and of other Globes I shall know how far Souls are One and yet Many and how they are Individuate And whether their Quantitas discreta in being numerically many do prove that they have any Quantitatem continuam and whether they are a purer sort of Bodies as the Greek Fathers Tertullian and others Thought and what Immateriality signifieth and what substantiality of Spirits and how substantia materia differ and how far they are penetrable and indivisible and whether a Soul be properly pars and whether individual Souls are parts of any common Soul and how far the individuation doth continue And whether separated from the Body they operate in and by any other Vehicle or without and how and whether they take with them any of the fiery Nature as a Vehicle or as a constitutive part I shall know how God produceth Souls And how
1 Pet. 2. 5. I refuse not Lord to lie in Tears and Groans when thou requirest it and do not thou refuse those Tears and Groans but O give me better that I may have better of thine own to offer thee And by this prepare me for the far better which I shall find with Christ And that which is Best to us thy Creatures will be accepted as Best by Thee who art glorified and pleased in the Perfection of thy works § 4. II It is at least very probable that God maketh glorified Spirits his Agents and Ministers of much of his beneficence to the Creatures that are below them For 1. We see that where he endueth any Creature with the noblest endowments he maketh most use of that Creature to the benefit of others We shall in Heaven be most furnished to do good and that furniture will not be unused 2. And Christ tells us that we shall be like or equal to the Angels which though it mean not simply and in all things yet it meaneth more than to be above carnal Generation for it speaketh of a similitude of Nature and State as the Reason of the otheâ— And that the Angels are God's Ministers for the good of his chosen in this World and Administrators of much of the Affairs on Faith 〈◊〉 past all doubt 3. The Apostle telleth us 〈◊〉 the Saintâ— shall Judg the World and Angels And Judging in Scripture is oft put for Ruling It is therefore probable at least that the Devils and the Damned shall be put under the Saints and that with the Angels they shall be employed in some Ministerial Oversight of the Inhabitants and Affairs of the promised New-Earth 4. And when even the more noble Superiour Bodies even the Stars are of so great use and influx to inferiour Bodies it is like that accordingly Superiour Spirits will be of use to the Inhabitants of the World below them § 5. But I think it not meet to venture here upon uncertain conjectures beyond the revelation of God's Word and therefore shall add no more but conclude that God knoweth what use to make of us hereafter as well as here and that if there were no more for us to do in Heaven but with perfect Knowledg Love and Joy to hold communion with God and all the heavenly Society it were enough to attract a sensible and considerate Soul to fervent desires to be at home with God § 6. And here I must not overpass my rejection of the injurious opinion of too many Philosophers and Divines who exclude all Sense and Affection from Heaven and acknowledge nothing there but Intellect and Will And this is because they find Sense and Affection in the Bruits and they think that the souls of Bruits are but some quality or perishing temperament of Matter and therefore that Sense and Affection is in us no better § 7. But 1. What felicity can we conceive of without any affection of delight or joy Certainly bare Volition now without these doth seem to be no felicity to us Nor knowledg neither if there were no delight in knowing § 8. 2. Yea I leave it to mens experience to judge whether there be now any such thing in us as proper willing which is not also some internal sense of and affection to the good which we will If it be Complacency or the Pleasedness of the Will this signifies some Pleasure and Love in the first act is nothing else but such an Appetite If it be Desire it hath in it a Pleasedness in the thing desired as in esse cognito as it is thought on by us and what Love is without all sense and affection § 9. 3. Why doth the Scripture ascribe Love and Joy to God and Angels if there were not some reason for it Doubtless there is great difference between the heavenly Love and Joy and ours here in the Body And so there is also between their knowledge and ours and their Will and ours But it is not that theirs is less or lower than ours but somwhat more excellent which ours giveth us some analogical or imperfect formal notice of § 10. 4. And what though Bruits have Sense and Affection doth it follow therefore that we have none now Or that we shall have none hereafter Bruits have Life And must we therefore have no Life hereafter because it is a thing that 's common â—oBruits Rather as now we have all that the Bruits have and more so shall we then have Life and Sense and Affection of a nobler sort than Bruits and more Is not God the Living God Shall we say that he liveth not because Bruits live Or rather that they live a sensitive life and Man a Sensitive and Intellectual because God is Essential Transcendent Infinite Life that makes them live § 11. 5. But if they say that there is no Sensation or Affection but by bodily Organs I answered before to that the Body feeleth nothing at all but the Soul in the Body The Soul uniteth itself most nearly to the Igneous-aereal parts called the Spirits and in them it feeleth seeth tasteth smelleth c. And that Soul that feeleth and seeth doth also inwardly love desire and rejoice And that Soul which doth this in the Body hath the same power and faculty out of the Body And if they judge by the cessation of sensation when the Organs are undisposed or dead so they might as well conclude against our future Intellection and Will whose operation in an Apoplexy we no more perceive than that of Sense But I have before shewed that the Soul will not want exercise for its Essential faculties for want of Objects or bodily Organs and that men conclude basely of the souls of Bruits as if they were not an enduring substance without any proof or probability And tell us idle dreams that they are but vanishing temperaments c. which are founded on another Dream that FIRE or the Motive-Illuminative-Calefactive Cause is no substance neither and so our unnatural Somatists know none of the most excellent substances which actuate all the rest but only the more base and gross which are actuated by them and they think they have well acquit themselves by telling us of subtâ—le actâ—d Matter and Motion without understanding what any Living Active-Motive Faculty or Virtue is And because no Man knoweth what God doth with the souls of Bruits whether they are only one common sensitive soul of a more common Body or whether Individuate still and Transmigrant from Body to Body or what else Therefore they make Ignorance a plea for Errour and feign them to be no substances or to be Annihilate § 12. I doubt not but Sensation as is aforesaid is an excellent Operation of the Essential faculties of real substances called Spirits and that the highest and noblest Creatures have it in the highest excellency and though God that fitteth every thing to its use hath given e. g. a Dog a more perfect Sense of Smelling than a Man
with his own And had my resignation and devotedness to him been more absolute my trust in him would have been more easy But Lord thou knowest that I would fain be thine and wholly thine and it is to thee that I desire to live Therefore let me quietly Die to Thee and wholly Trust Thee with my Soul § 5. II. And why should my want of formal Conceptions of the future state of separated Souls and my strangeness to the manner of their subsistence and operations induce me to doubt of those generals which are evident and beyond all rational doubting That Souls are substances and not annihilated and essentially the same when they forsake the Body as before I doubt not Otherwise neither the Christians Resurrection nor the Pythagoreans transmigration were a possible thing For if the Soul cease to be it cannot pass into another Body nor can it re-enter into this If God raise this Body then it must be by another Soul For the same Soul to be Annihilated and yet to begin again to be is a contradiction For the second beginning would be by Creation which maketh a new Soul and not the same that was before It is the Invisible things that are excellent active operative and permanent The Visible excepting Light which maketh all things else visible are of themselves but lifeless dross It is the unseen part of Plants and Flowers which causeth all their growth and beauty their fruit and sweetness Passive Matter is but moved up and down by the invisible active Powers as Chess-men are moved from place to place by the Gamesters hands What a loathsom Corps were the World without the invisible Spirits and Natures that animate actuate or move it To doubt of the being or continuation of the most excellent Spiritual parts of the Creation when we live in a World that is actuated by them and where every thing demonstrates them as their effects is more foolish than to doubt of the being of these gross materials which we see § 6. How oft have I been convinced that there are good Spirits with whom our Souls have as certain communion though not so sensible as our Life hath with the Sun and as we have with one another And that there are evil and envious Spirits that fight against our Holiness and Peace as certain Narratives of Apparitions and Witches and too sad experience of Temptations do evince And the marvellous diversity of Creatures on Earth for kind and number yea the diversity of Stars in Heaven as well as the diversities of Angels and Devils do partly tell me that though All be of One and through One and to One yet absolute Unity is the divine Prerogative and we must not presume to expect such Perfection as to lose our specifique or numerical diversity by any Union which shall befall our Souls Nor can I reasonably doubt that so noble and active a Nature as Souls dwelling above in the lucid Regions in communion with their like and with their betters shall be without the activity the pleasure and felicity which is suitable to their Nature their Region and their Company And my Saviour hath entered into the Holiest and hath assured me that there are many Mansions in his Fathers House and that when we are absent from the Body we shall be present with the Lord. § 7. Organical sight is given me for my use here in the Body And a Serpent or a Hawk hath as much or more of this than I have Mental knowledge reacheth further than sight and is the act of a nobler Faculty and for a higher use Though it be the Soul itself embodied in the igneous Spirits that seeth yet it is by a higher and more useful Faculty that it understandeth And Faith is an understanding act It knoweth things unseen because they are revealed Who can think that all believing holy Souls that have passed hence from the beginning of the World have been deceived in their Faith and Hope And that all the wâ—cked worldly Infidels whose hope was only in this life have been the wisest men and have been in the right If Virtue and Piety are faults or foâ—lies and bruitish Sensualâ—ty be best then why are not Laws made to command Sensualâ—ty and forbâ—d Piety and Virtue To say this is to deny humanity and the Wisdom of our Creator and to feign the World to be governed by a Lie and to take the Perfection of our Nature for its disease and our greatest disease for our Perfection But if Piety and Virtue be better than Impiety and Vice the Principles and necessary Motives of them are certainly true and the exercise of them is not in vain What abominable folly and wickedness were it to say the wicked only attain their ends and that they all lose their labour and live and die in miserable deceit who seek to please God in hope of a better life to come believing that God is the Rewarder of them that diligently seek him Wouâ—d not this justifie the foolish Manichees that thought a bad God made this World yea and would infer that he not only made us for a mischief but Ruleth uâ— to our deceit and hurt and giveth us both Natural and Supernatural Laws in ill will to us to mâ—slead us to our misery and to fill our lives with needless troubles Shall I not abhor every suggestion that containeth such inhumane absurdities as these Wonderful that Satan can keep up so much Unbelief in the World while he must make men such fools that he may make them unbelievers and ungodly § 8. III. That my Soul is no more heavenly and my foretast of future Blessedness is so small is partly the fruit of those many wilful sins by which I have quenched the Spirit that should be my Comforter And it is partly from our common state of darkness and strangeness while the Soul is in Flesh and operateth as the Bodies form according to its Interest and Capacity Affections are more easily stirred up to things seen than to things that are both unseen and known only very defectively by general and not by clear distinct apprehensions And yet this O this is the misery and burden of my Soul Though I can say that I love God's Truth and Graces his Work and his Servants and whatever of God I see in the World and that this is a love of God in his Creatures Word and Works yet that I have no more desiring and delightful Love of Heaven where his Loveliness will be more fully opened to my Soul and that the thoughts of my speedy appearing there are no more joyful to me than they are is my sin and my calamity and my shame And if I did not see that it is so with other of the Servants of Christ as well as with me I should doubt whether affections so unproportionable to my Profession did not signifie unsoundness in my belief It is strange and shameful that one that expecteth quickly to see the glorious World
more impossible for Moses to assume such a Body as he appeared in on the Mount for that occasion than for Angels to appear in humane shapes and departed Souls too as many Apparitions have told men And if bad Souls can do it why not good ones when God will have it The Tradition seemeth but a Jewish Dream that God kept the Body of Moses uncorrupted in the Grave and that this was it that the Devil is said to strive for against Michael that the Body might be corrupted And say others that at this Transfiguration it rose again There need no such conceits to our satisfaction The Soul of Moses could assume a Body § 8. But still the dissimilitude of Henoch and Elias from all the Saints in Heaven is an unresolved difficulty If we knew that God would have it so it might satisfie us But there is a symmetry in the Body of Christ And it 's like that the same Region hath Inhabitants of the same Nature What shall we think then That Henoch and Elias at their entrance into those Regions laid by their Bodies and became such as Abraham and other holy Souls Why are they taken up to be so laid by The corruptibility no doubt they did lay by God knoweth but it s much unknown to us Or shall we think as all those Fathers cited by Faustus Regiensis and as Dr. More and some of late that all Spirits are Souls and animate some Bodies and so that all in Heaven have some Bodies If so what Bodies are they And how differ they from the Resurrection state As the Soul here operateth in and by the Igneous Spirits in our Bodies it may be so lodged in these as to take some of them with it at Death as the life of a dying Plant yet dieth not in the Seed And a Man may be said to go unclothed to Bed though he put not off his shift or nearest Garment and to be clothed again when he puts on the rest And at the Resurrection as there will be a New Heaven and Earth so Spirits now in Heaven may have much more delightful business on the New and Righteous Earth than now they have and therefore may have use for an additional Body as much differing from what they have now in Heaven as the New Earth and their employment there require and as the Seed doth differ from the Plant. And Spirits being communicative will be more happy by more communication As God delighteth to do good to all his works so the Souls now confined to Heaven will delight to be employed in doing good to the New Earth and to animate the Bodies suited to such work Though now they have use for no other than such Spiritual lucid Receptacles as are fit for the Regions where they dwell And it will be no debasement or dejection for a Spirit now in Heaven to animate a Body at the Resurrection fit for the New Earth no more than it was to Angels to speak to Adam and to Moses to Abraham Jacob Manoah and others or then it is to the Sun to enlighten and enliven things on Earth It is a foolish thing to think as some do that departed Souls will be as dormant and unactive as in Apopletick or Sleeping Persons for want of Organized Bodies to act in Spirits are Essentially Active Intellective and Volitive And will God continue such Essential Powers in vain Moses and Elias wanted not Bodies And those in Heaven can praise Jehovah and the Lamb with holy concordant Love and Joy whether in any sort of ethereal Bodies or without we shall shortly know § 8. It is said that Moses and Elias talked with Christ This sheweth that Christ hath familiar communion with the Blessed He that would come into Flesh on Earth and live with Man in an humbled state and refused not familiar converse with poor men and women and would eat and drink with Publicans and Sinners will not refuse everlasting near familiarity with the glorified If the Church be his dearly beloved Spouse and as it were one with him as his Body surely he will be no stranger to the least and lowest Member of it § 9. But what was it that they talkt about Luk. 9. 31. saith They appeared in Glory and spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem This was not to make it known to Christ who came into the World to die for sin What then was it for Did Christ tell them of it as not knowing it before That is not likely neither Did he need their comfort as Angels in his trials ministred to him and strengthned him The particular uses of this speech we know not But in general we know it was somwhat preparatory to his great Sufferings and Death And must Christ's Sufferings and Death have such preparation and must not mine have much premeditation and do I not need the consolatory messages of God Carnal men would rather have chosen pleasanter discourse than the talk of Sufferings and Death But that which must be undergone and requireth greatest strength must be forethought of and requireth the most preparing Thoughts It 's worse than madness to be surprized with Sufferings and Death before it 's seriously forethought of So sharp a trial and so great a change require the greatest preparation He that can refuse to suffer and die may refuse to talk or think of it If Christ must have men from Heaven to talk with him of his Cross what cause have we to study the Cross Even all our lives to foresee it and by obedient consent to submit unto it and take it up to follow Christ and even to determine with Paul to know nothing in the World but Christ and him Crucified that is to take this for the only needful and excellent Learning But alas how senslesly is Death and Suffering talkt of till it comes We are to learn how to suffer when suffering is upon us and to learn how to die till Nature or the Physician pass the sentence of Death on us at hand And it is God's Mercy to some of us to make our sufferings long that we may have a competent time of learning As we learn to write by writing and to discourse by discoursing and every Art and Trade by practice even so by suffering we learn to suffer And the Lesson is very hard Malefactors suffer without Learning whether they will or not but to suffer Obediently with Child-like affections is the Lesson to be learnt O little too little do many honest Christians think how much of their most excellent Obedience consisteth in Child-like holy Suffering Therefore they little expect it and provide for it And then they are overwhelmed with the unexpected surprizal when it comes Even in the sufferings which men bring on the Faithful for Righteousness sake how many shrink and shift off their duty or venture on forbidden things for safety because they were not prepared for it The loss of goods or imprisonment and want seem
But God letteth us see that though the World be One yet he delighteth in a wonderful diversity and multiplicity of Individuals How various and numerous are they in the Sea and on the Land and in the Air And are there none in the other World How come the Stars therein to be so numerous which are of the same Element And though perhaps Saturn or some other Planets or many Stars may send forth their radiant Effluvia or parts into the same Air which the Sun Beams seem totally to fill and illuminate yet the Rays of the Sun and of other Stars are not the same how near soever in the same Air. § 48. Were there now no more Contraction by Egoity or Propriety among men nor Mine and Thine did signify no more nor the distance were greater than that of the several drops of Water in the Sea or particles of of Light in the illuminated Air but I had all my part in such a perfect unity and Communion with all others and knew that all were as happy as I so that there were no divisions by cross interests or minds but all were One certainly it would make my own comforts greater by far than they are now Are not an hundred Candles set together and united as splendid a flame as if they wâ—re all set asunder To one Soul one Love one Joy would be § 49. Object But it is only the fomes that individuateth Lights As when the same Sun by a burning Glass lighteth a thousand Candles they are individuate only by the matter contracting being still all united parts of the same Sun Beams And when they are extinct they are nothing or all one again Ans They were before they were extinct both One and many none but fools think that extinction annihilateth them or any part of them They are after as much Substance and as much solar Fire though diffused and as much and no more one than before but not indeed Many as before but Parts of one Nature hath made the equal diffused Sun Beams to be to the Air and surface of the Earth as the blood equally moving in the Body And our Candles and Fires seem to be like the same blood contracted in a bile or Inflammation which indeed is more felt than the equally diffused blood but it is as the pain of a disease And so when our Fires go out they are but like a healed Scattered Inflammation the same substance is more naturally and equally diffused And if the Individuation of Souls were only by Corporeal matter and the Union thus as great at their departure it would not diminish if it did not too much increase their perfection and felicity For there would be no diminution of any Substance or Power or Activity or Perfection whatsoever § 50. And this would confute their fond Opinion who think that separated Souls sleep in nudâ potentiâ for want of an organized body to operate in For no doubt but if all holy Souls were One this World either in Heaven or Earth hath a common Body enough for such a Soul to operate in Even those Stoicks that think departed Souls are One do think that that One Soul hath a nobler operation than ours in our narrow Bodies and that when our Souls cease animating this Body they have the nobler and sweeter work in part of animating the whole World And those that thought several Orbs had their several Souls of which the particular wights participated said the like of separated Souls as animating the bodies of their Globes or Orbs. And though all these men trouble their heads with their own vain imaginations yet this much the Nature of the Matter tells us which is considerable that whereas the utmost fear of the Infidel is that Souls departed lose their Individuation or Activity and are resolved into one common Soul or continue in a sleepy Potentiality for want of a Body to operate in they do but contradict themselves seeing it is a notorious Truth 1. That if all holy Souls were One no one would be a Loser by the Union but it would be a greater Gain than we must hope for For a part of One is as much and as noble and as active a Substance as if it were a separated Person And Annihilation or loss of specifique Powers is not to be rationally feared 2. And that one Soul is now either self-subsisting without a Body or animateth a suitable Body as some Ancients thought the Angels Stars If that One Soul can act without a Body so may Ours whether as parts of it or not If that One Soul animate a suitable Body ours were they united parts of it would have part of that Employment so that hereby they confute themselves § 51. Obj. But this would equalize the Good and Bad or at least those that were good in several degrees And where then were the Reward and Punishment Ans It would not equal them at all any more than distinct Personality would do For 1. The Souls of all holy Persons may be so united as that the Souls of the wicked shall have no part in that Union Whether the Souls of the wicked shall be united in one sinful miserable Soul or rather but in one sinful Society or be greatlier separate disunited contrary to each other and militant as part of their sin and misery is nothing to this case 2. Yet Natural and Moral Union must be differenced God is the Root of Nature to the worst and however in one sense it is said that There is nothing in God but God yet it is true that In Him all Live and Move and have their Being But yet the wickeds Inbeing in God doth afford them no Sanctifying and Beatifying communion with him as experience sheweth us in this life which yet holy Souls have as being made capable Recipients of it As I said different Plants Bryars and Cedars the stinking and the sweet are implanted parts or Accidents of the same World or Earth 3. And the godly themselves may have as different a share of happiness in one common Soul as they have now of Holiness and so as different Rewards even as Roses and Rosemary and other Herbs differ in the same Garden and several Fruits in the same Orchard or on the same Tree For if Souls are Unible and so Partible Substances they have neither more nor less of Substance or Holiness for their Union and so will each have his proper measure As a Tun of Water cast into the Sea will there still be the same and more than a spoonful cast into it § 52. Obj. But Spirits are not as Bodies extensive and quantitative and so not partible or divisible and therefore your supposition is vain Ans 1. My supposition is but the objectors For if they confess that Spirits are Substances as cannot with reason be denyed For they that Specify their operations by Motion only yet suppose a pure proper substance to be the subject or thing Moved then when they
talk of Many Souls becoming One it must be by conjunction and increase of the Substance of that one Or when they say that they were alwaies One they will confess withal that they now differ in number as individuate in the body And who will say that Millions of Millios are no more than one of all those Millions Number is a sort of Quantity And all Souls in the world are more than Cain's or Abel's only One feeleth not what another feeleth One knoweth not what another knoweth And indeed though Souls have not such corporeal extension as passive gross bodily Matter hath yet as they are more noble they have a more noble sort of Extension Quantity or Degrees according to which all Mankind conceive of all the Spiritual Substance of the Universe yea all the Angels or all the Souls on Earth as being more and having more Substance than one man's Soul alone 2. And the Fathers for the most part especially the Greeks yea and the Second Council of Nice thought that Spirits created had a purer sort of Material Being which Tertullian called a Body and doubtless all created Spirits have somewhat of Passiveness for they do Recipere vel pati from the Divine Influx Only God is wholly impassive We are moved when we move and acted when we act And it is hard to conceive that when Matter is commonly called Passive that which is Passive should have no sort of Matter in a large sense taken And if it have any parts distinguishable they are by God divisible 3. But if the contrary be supposed that all Souls are no more than One and so that there is no place for uniting or partition there is no place then for the Objection of all Souls becoming One and of losing Individuation unless they mean by Annihilation § 53. But that God who as is said delighteth both in the Union and yet in the wonderful multiplicity of Creatures and will not make all Stars to be only One though Fire have a most uniting or aggregative inclination hath further given experimental notice that there is Individuation in the other world as well as here even innumerable Angels and Devils and not one only as Apparitions and Witches and many other evidences prove of which more anon So that all things considered there is no reason to fear that Souls shall lose their Individuation or Activity though they change their manner of action any more than their Being or formal Power And so it is naturally certain that they are Immortal § 54. And if Holy Souls are so far Immortal I need not prove that they will be Immortally Happy For their Holiness will infer it And few will ever dream that it shall there go ill with them that are good and that the most just and holy God will not use those well whom he maketh holy § 1. II. That holy Souls shall be hereafter happy seemeth to be one of the common notices of Nature planted in the consciences of mankind And it is therefore acknowledged by the generality of the world that freely use their understandings Most yea almost all the Heathen Nations at this day believe it besides the Mahometans And it is the most barbarous Cannibals and Brasilians that do not whose understandings have had the least improvement and who have rather an inconsiderate Nescience of it than a denying opposition And though some Philosophers denyed it they were a small and contemned party And though many of the rest were somewhat dubious it was only a certainty which they professed to want and not a probability or opinion that it was true And both the Vulgar and the deep studyed men believed it and those that questioned it were the half studyed Philosophers who not resting in the Natural notice nor yet reaching full intellectual Evidence of it by discourse had found out matter of difficulty to puzzle them and came not to that degree of wisdom as would have resolved them § 2. And even among Apostates from Christianity most or many still acknowledge the Souls Immortality and the Felicity and Reward of holy Souls to be of the common Notices known by nature to mankind Julian was so much perswaded of it that on that account he exhorteth his Priests and Subjects to great strictness and holiness of life and to see that the Christians did not exceed them And among us the Lord Herbert de Veritate and many others that seem not to believe our supernatural Revelations of Christianity do fully acknowledge it Besides those Philosophers who most opposed Christianity as Porphyrius Maximus Tyrius and such others § 3. And we find that this notice hath so deep a root in Nature that few of those that study and labour themselves into Bestiality or Sadduceism are able to excuss the fears of future misery but Conscience overcometh or troubleth them much at least when they have done the worst they can against it And whence should all this be in man and not in Beasts if man had no further reason of hopes and fears then they Are a few Sadduces wiser by their forced or crude conceits than all the World that are taught by Nature itself § 1. III. If the God of Nature have made it every mans certain duty to make it his Chief care and work in this life to seek for happiness hereafter then such a happiness there is for them that truly seek it But the antecedent is certain as I have elsewhere proved Ergo c. § 2. As to the antecedent The world is made up of three sorts of men as to the belief of future retribution 1. Such as take it for a certain Truth such are Christians Mahometans and most Heathens 2. Such as take it for Uncertain but most probable or likeliest to be true 3. Such as take it for Uncertain but rather think it Untrue For as none can be certain that it is false which indeed is true so I never yet met with one that would say he was certain it was false So that I need not trouble you with the mention of any other party or opinion But if any should say so it is easy to prove that he speaketh falsly of himself § 3. And that it is the Duty of all these but especially of the two former sorts to make it their Chief care and work to seek for happiness in the life to come is easily proved thus Natural reason requireth every man to seek that which is Best for himself with the greatest diligence But Natural reason saith that a Probability or Possibility of the future everlasting happiness is better and more worthy to be sought than any thing attainable in this present life which doth not suppose it Ergo c. § 4. The Major is past doubt Good and Felicity being necessarily desired by the will of man that which is Best and known so to be must be Most desired And the Minor should be as far past doubt to men that use not their sense against their
the wicked to prosecure his Servants to the Death and make duty costly and give no after recompence 6. If he let the most wicked on the Earth pass unpunished or to scape as well hereafter as the best and to live in greater pleasure here The Objections fetcht from the intrinsecal good of Duty I have elsewhere answered § 1. VI. But God hath not left us to the Light of meer Nature as being too dark for men so blind as we The Gospel Revelation is the clear Foundation of our Faith and Hopes Christ hath brought Life and Immortality to Light One from Heaven that is greater than an Angel was sent to tell us what is there and which is the way and to secure our hopes He hath risen and conquered death and entered before us as our Captain and Forerunner into the Everlasting habitations And he hath all power in Heaven and Earth and all Judgment is committed to him that he might give Eternal life to his Elect he hath frequently and expresly promised it them that they shall live because he liveth and shall not perish but have Everlasting life And how fully he hath proved and sealed the Truth of his Word and Office to us I have so largely opened in my Reasons of the Christian Religion and unreasonableness of Infidelity and in my Life of Faith c. and since in my Houshold Catechizing that I will not here repeat it § 2. And as all his Word is full of promises of our future Glory at the Resurrection so we are not without assurance that at Death the departing Soul doth enter upon a State of Joy and Blessedness For 1. He expresly promised the penitent crucified Thief This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise Luk. 23. 2. He gave us the Narrative or Parable of the damned sensualist and of Lazarus Luk. 16. to instruct us and not to deceive us 3. He tells the Sadduces that God is not the God of the Dead as his Subjects and Beneficiaries but of the Living Mat. 22. 32. 4. Henoch and Elias were taken up to Heaven and Moses that died appeared with Elias on the Mount Mat. 17. 5. He telleth us Luk. 12. 4. that they that kill the Body are not able to kill the Soul 6. And Christ's own Soul was commended into his Father's hands Luk. 23. 46. and was in Paradise when his Body was in the Grave to shew us what shall become of ours 7. And he hath promised that Where he is there shall his Servant be also Joh. 12. 26. And that the life here begun in us is Eternal life and that he that believeth in him shall not die but shall live by him as he liveth by the Father for he dwelleth in God and God in him and in Christ and Christ in him Joh. 17. 3. 6. 54. 3. 16 36. 6. 47 56 57 50. 1 Joh. 4. 5. 13. Luk. 17. 21. Rom. 14. 17. 8. And accordingly Stephen that saw Heaven opened prayed the Lord Jesus to receive his Spirit Act. 7. 5. 59. 9. And we are come to Mount Sion c. to an innumerable Company of Angels and to the Spirits of the Just made perfect Heb. 12. 22 23. 10. And Paul here desireth to depart and be with Christ as far better And to be absent from the Body and be present with the Lord 2 Cor. 5. 8. 11. And the dead that die in the Lord are blessed from henceforth that they may rest from their labours and their works follow them 12. And if the disobedient Spirits be in Prison and the Cities of Sodom and Gomorrah suffer the vengeance of eternal Fire 1 Pet. 3. 19. Jude 7. then the Just have eternal Life And if the Jews had not thought the Soul immortal Saul had not desired the Witch to call up Samuel to speak with him The rest I now pass by We have many great and precious promises on which a departed Soul may trust 13. And Luk. 16. 9. Christ expresly saith that when we fail that is must leave this World we shall be received into the Everlasting habitations § 1. VII And it is not nothing to encourage us to hope in him that hath made all these Promises when we find how he heareth Prayers in this life and thereby assureth his Servants that he is their true and faithful Saviour We are apt in our distress to cry loud for Mercy and deliverances and when humane help faileth to promise God that if he now will save us we will thankfully acknowledg it his work and yet when we are delivered to return not only to security but to ingratitude and think that our deliverance came but in the course of common Providence and not indeed as an answer to our Prayers And therefore God in Mercy reneweth both our distresses and our deliverances that what once or twice will not convince us of many and great deliverances may This is my own case O how oft have I cryed to him when men and means were nothing and when no help in second Causes did appear and how oft and suddenly and mercifully hath he delivered me What sudden ease what removal of long afflictions have I had such extraordinary changes and beyond my own and others expectations when many plain-hearted upright Christians have by Fasting and Prayer sought God on my behalf as have over and over convinced me of Special Providence and that God is indeed a hearer of Prayers And wonders I have seen done for others also upon such Prayer more than for my self Yea and wonders for the Church and publick Societies Though I and others are too like those Israelites Psal 78. who cried to God in their troubles and he oft delivered them out of their distress but they quickly for got this Mercies and their Convictions Purposes and Promises when they should have praised the Lord for his Goodness and declared his works with thanksgiving to the Sons of Men. And what were all these Answers and Mercies but the fruits of Christ's Power Fidelity and Love the fulfilling of his Promises and the earnest of the greater blessings of Immortality which the same Promises give me Title to I know that no Promise of hearing Prayer setteth up our wills in absoluteness or above God's as if every will of our must be fulfilled if we do but put it into a fervent or confident Prayer But if we ask any thing through Christ according to his will expressed in his Promise he will hear us If a sinful love of this present life or of Ease or Wealth or Honour should cause me to pray to God against Death or against all sickness want reproach or other Trials as if I must live here in Prosperity for ever if I ask it this sinful desire and expectation is not the work of Faith but of Presumption What if God will not abate me my last or daily pains What if he will continue my life no longer who ever pray for
honest tender Souls from the damning part of unbelief and by their fears preserveth them from being bold with sin When many bold and impudent Sinners turn Infidels or Atheists by forfeiting the helps of Grace § 23. And indeed Irrational fears have so much power to raise Doubts that they are seldom separated insomuch that many scarce know or observe the difference between Doubts and Fears And many say they not only fear but doubt when they can scarce tell why as if it were no intellectual act which they meant but an irrational Passion § 24. If therefore my Soul see undeniable Evidence of Immortality and if it be able by irrefragable Argument to prove the future blessedness expected and if it be convinced that God's promises are true and sufficiently sealed and attested by him to warrant the most confident belief and if I trust my Soul and all my hopes upon this word and evidences of Truth it is not then our aversness to die nor the sensible fears of a Soul that looketh into Eternity that invalidate any of the Reasons of my Hope nor prove the unsoundness of my Faith § 25. But yet these Fears do prove its weakness and were they prevalent against the Choice Obedience Resolutions and Endeavours of Faith they would be prevalent against the Truth of Faith or prove its nullity for Faith is Trust and Trust is a securing quieting thing Why are ye fearful O ye of little Faith was a just reproof of Christ to his Disciples when sensible dangers raised up their fears For the established will hath a political or imperfect though not a despotical and absolute Power over our Passions And therefore our fears do shew us our unbelief and stronger Faith is the best means of conquering even irrational fears Why art thou cast down O my Soul and why art thou so disquieted in me Trust in God c. Psal 42. is a needful way of chiding a timorous Heart § 26. And though many say that Faith hath not evidence and think that it is an Assent of the Mind meerly commanded by the Empire of the Will without a knowledg of the Verity of the Testimony yet certainly the same Assent is ordinarily in the Scriptures called indifferently Knowing and Believing And as a bare Command will not cause Love unless we perceive an Amiableness in the Object so a bare Command of the Law or of the Will cannot alone cause Belief unless we perceive a truth in the Testimony believed For it is a Contradiction or an act without its Object And Truth is perceived only so far as it is some way Evident For Evidence is nothing but the objective perceptibility of Truth or that which is Metaphorically called Light So that we must say that Faith hath not sensible Evidence of the invisible things believed but Faith is nothing else but the willing Perception of the Evidence of Truth in the word of the Assertor and a Trust therein We have and must have Evidence that Scripture is God's Word and that his Word is true before by any Command of the Word or Will we can believe it § 27. I do therefore neither despise Evidence as unnecessary nor trust to it alone as the sufficient total cause of my belief For if God's Grace do not open mine Eyes and come down in power upon my Will and insinuate into it a sweet acquaintance with the things unseen and a tast of their Goodness to delight my Soul no Reasons will serve to stablish and comfort me how undeniable soever Reason is fain first to make use of notions words or signs and to know Terms Propositions and Arguments which are but Means to the knowledg of Things is its first employment and that alas which Multitudes of Learned men do take up with But it 's the Illumination of God that must give us an effectual acquaintance with the Things Spiritual and Invisible which these Notions signifie and to which our Organical Knowledg is but a Means § 28. To sum up all That our Hopes of Heaven have a certain ground appeareth I. From Nature II. From Grace III. From other works of Gracious Providence 1. From the Nature of Man 1. Made capable of it 2. Obliged even by the Law of Nature to seek it before all 3. Naturally desiring Perfection 1. Habitual 2. Active 3. And Objective 2. And from the Nature of God 1. As Good and Communicative 2. As Holy and Righteous 3. As Wise making none of his works in vain § 29. II. From Grace 1. Purchasing it 2. Declaring it by a Messenger from Heaven both by Word and by Christ's own and others Resurrection 3. Promising it 4. Sealing that Promise by Miracles there 5. And by the work of Sanctification to the end of the World § 30. III. By subordinate Providence 1. God's actual Governing the World by the hopes and fears of another Life 2. The many helps which he giveth us for a heavenly Life and for attaining it which are not vain 3. Specially the Ministration of Angels and their Love to us and Communion with us 4. And by accident Devils themselves convince us 1. By the Nature of their Temptations 2. By Apparitions and haunting Houses 3. By Witches 4. By Possessions Which though it be but a Satanical Operation on the Body yet is so Extraordinary an Operation that it differeth from the more usual as if I may so compare them God's Spirit so operateth on the Saints that it is called his dwelling in them or possessing them as different from his lower Operations on others § 1. II. Having proved that Faith and Hope have a certain future Happiness to expect the Text directeth me next to consider why it is described by being with Christ viz. I. What is included in our being with Christ II. That we shall be with him III. Why we shall be with him § 2. To be with Christ includeth 1. Presence 2. Union 3. Communion or participation of Felicity with him § 3. 1. Quest Is it Christ's Godhead or his Humane Soul or his Humane Body that we shall be Present with and united to or All Answ It is all but variously § 4. 1. We shall be Present with the Divine Nature of Christ Quest But are we not always so And are not all Creatures so Answ Yes as his Essence comprehendeth all Place and Beings But not as it is Operative and Manifested in and by his Glory Christ directeth our Hearts and Tongues to pray Our Father which art in Heaven And yet he knew that all Place is in and with God Because it is in Heaven that he Gloriously operateth and shineth forth to holy Souls Even as Man's Soul is eminently said to be in the Head because it understandeth and reasoneth in the Head and not in the Foot or Hand though it be also there And as we look a Man in the Face when we talk to him so we look up to Heaven when we pray to God God who is and operateth as the Root of
that were it not for the work and higher ends of life I had little Reason to be much in love with it or to be loath to leave it And had not God put into our Nature itself a necessary unavoidable sensitive Love of the Body and of Life as he puts into the Mother and into every Bruit a love of their young Ones how unclean and impotent and troublesome soever for the propagation and continuance of Man on Earth Had God but left it to meer Reason without this necessary pre-engagement of our Natures it would have been a matter of more doubt and difficulty than it is whether this life should be loved and desired and no small number would daily wish that they had never been Born A wish which I have had much a do to forbear even when I have known that it is sinful and when the work and pleasure of my life have been such to overcome the evils of it as few have had 6. Yea to depart from such a Body is but to be removed from a very foul uncleanly and sordid Habitation I know that the Body of Man and Bruits is the curious wonderful work of God and not to be despised nor injuriously dishonoured but admired and well used But yet it is a wonder to our Reason that so noble a Spirit should be so meanly housed And we may call it Our vile Body as the Apostle doth Phil. 3. 21. It is made up of the Airy Watery and Earthly parts of our daily food subacted and actuated by the fiery part as the instrument of the Soul The greater part of the same food which with great cost and pomp and pleasure is first upon our Tables and then in our Mouths to day is to morrow a fetid loathsom excrement and cast out into the draught that the sight and smell of that annoy us not which yesterday was the sumptuous fruit of our abundance the glory of that which is called great housekeeping and the pleasure of our Eyes and Taste And is not the rest that turneth into Blood and Flesh of the same general kind with that which is turned into loathsom filth The difference is that it is fitter for the Soul by the fiery Spirits yet longer to operate on and keep from corruption Our blood and flesh are as stinking and loathsom a substance as our filthiest excrements save that they are longer kept from putrefaction Why then should it more grieve me that one part of my food which turned into flesh should rot and stink in the Grave than that all the rest should daily stink in the draught Yea while it is within me were it not covered from my sight what a loathsom mass would my Intestines appear If I saw what is in the Guts the Mesentery the Ventricles of the Brain what filth what bilious or mucous matter and perhaps crawling Worms there are in the most proud or comely Person I should think that the cover of a cleaner Skin and the borrowed Ornaments of Apparel make no great difference between such a Body and a Carkass which may be also covered with an adorned Coffin and Monument to deceive such Spectators that see but out-sides the change is not so great of corruptible Flesh repleat with such fetid Excrements into corrupted Flesh as some Fools imagine 7. Yet more to Depart from such a Body is but to be loosed from the Bondage of Corruption and from a Clog and Prison of the Soul I say not that God put a pre-existent Soul into this Prison Penally for former faults I must say no more than I can prove or than I know But that Body which was an apt Servant to Man's Soul is become as a Prison to him now What alteration sin made upon the Nature of the Body as whether it be more terrene and gross than else it would have been I have no reason to assert Of Earth or Dust it was at first and to Dust it is sentenced to return But no doubt but it hath its part in that dispositive depravation which is the fruit of sin we find that the Soul as sensitive is so imprisoned or shut up in Flesh that sometimes it is more than one Door that must be opened before the Object and the Faculty can meet In the Eye indeed the Soul seemeth to have a Window to look out at and to be almost itself viâ—ible to others And yet there are many interposing tunicles and a suffusion or winking can make the clearest sight to be as useless for the time as if it were none And if sense be thus shut up from its Object no wonder if Reason also be under difficulties from coporeal impediments and if the Soul that is yoaked with such a Body can go no faster than its heavy pace 8. Yet further To Depart from such a Body is but to be separated from an accidental Enemy and one of our greatest and most hurtful Enemies Though still we say That it is not by any default in the work of our Creator but by the effects of sin that it is such What could Satan or any other Enemy of our Souls have done against us without our flesh What is it but the Interest of this Body that standeth in competition against the Interest of our Souls and God What else do the prophane sell their heavenly Inheritance for as Esau his Birthright No Man loveth evil as evil but as some way a real or seeming good And what good is it but that which seemeth good for the Body What else is the Bait of Ambition Covetousness and Sensuality but the Interest and Pleasure of this Flesh What taketh up the Thoughts and Care which we should lay out upon things Spiritual and Heavenly but this Body and its Life What Pleasures be they that steal away mens Hearts from the heavenly Pleasures of Faith Hope and Love but the Pleasures of this Flesh This draweth us to sin This hindereth us from and in our duty This Body hath its interest which must be minded and its inordinate Appetite which must be pleased or else what murmurings and disquiet must we expect Were it not for Bodily Interest and its Temptations how much more innocently and holily might I live I should have nothing to care for but to please God and to be pleased in him were it not for the care of this Bodily life What Employment should my Will and Love have but to Delight in God and Love Him and his Interest were it not for the Love of the Body and its concerns By this the mind is darkened and the Thoughts diverted By this our wills are perverted and corrupted and by Loving things Corporeal contract a strangâ—ness and aversation from things Spiritual By this Heaâ—â— and Time are alienated from God our Guilt is increased and our heavenly desire and hopes destroyed Life made unholy and uncomfortable and Death made terrible God and our Souls separated and Life eternal set by and in danger of being utterly lost
the Love of ancient Friends and Hearers I must say What mean you to weep and break my Heart I am ready to leave the dearest Friends on Earth and life and all the pleasures of life for the presence of far better Friends with Christ and the sweeter pleasures of a better life That little amiableness which is in things below is in godly men as life in the Heart which dieth last When that 's all gone when we are dead to the Love of the godly themselves and to Learning Books and mediate Ordinances so far as they serve a selfish interest and tempt down our Hearts from heavenly aspirings the World then is Crucified to us indeed and we to it I rejoice to tread in the Footsteps of my Lord who had some indeed weeping about his cross but was forsaken by all his Disciples while in the Hour of Temptation they all fled But my desertion is far less for it is less that I am fit to bear If God will justifie who shall condemn If he be for me who shall be against me O may I not be put to that dreadfull case to cry out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me And may nothing separate me from his Love And then were I forsaken of the sober and peaceable as I am in part of some quarrelsom Dividers how tolerable a tryal would it be Man is as dust in the Ballance that addeth little to it and signifieth nothing when God is in the other end But I suspect still that I make too much account of Man when this case hath taken up too much of my observation 1. And of all things surely a departing Soul hath least cause to fear the losing of its notice of the Affairs of the World Of Peace or Wars or Church or Kingdoms For 1. If the Sun can send forth its material Beams and operate by motion light and heat at such a distance as this Earth why should I think that blessed Spirits are such local confined and impotent substances as not to have notice of the things of Earth Had I but bodily Eyes I could see more from the top of a Tower or Hill than any one that is below can do And shall I know less of Earth from Heaven than I do now It 's unlike that my Capacity will be so little And if it were it is unlike that Christs and all the Angels will be so strange to me as to give me no notice of things that so much concern my God and my Redeemer to whom I am united and the Holy Society of which I am a part and my self as a Member of Christ and that Society I do not think that the Communion of the Celestial Inhabitants is so narrow and slow as it is of walking Clods of Earth and of Souls that are confined to such dark Lanthorns as this Body is Stars can shine one to another And we on Earth can see them so far off in their Heaven And sure then if they have a seeing faculty each of them can see many of us even the Kingdoms of the World Spirits are most active and of powerful and quick communication They need not send Letters or write Books to one another nor lift up a voice to make each other hear Nor is there any unkindness division or unsociable selfishness among them which may cause them to conceal their notices or their joys But as Activity so Unity is Greatest where there is most Perfection They will so be Many as yet to be One and their Knowledge will be One Knowledge and their Love One Love and their Joy One Joy Not by so perfect a Unity as in God himself who is One and but One but such as is suitable to created imperfection which participate of the Perfection of the Creator as the Effect doth of the virtue of the Cause and therefore hath some participation of his Unity O foolish Soul if I shall fear this Unity with God Christ and all the Holy Spirits lest I should lose my present separate Individuation when Perfection and Union are so near akin In a word I have no cause to think that my Celestial advancement will be a diminution of any desirable Knowledge even of things on Earth but contrarily that it will be unconceivably increased 2. But if indeed I shall know less of things below it will be because that the knowledge of them is a part of Vanity and Vexation which hath no place in Heaven So much knowledge of good and evil in lower matters as came to us by sin is unworthy of our fond tenaciousness and fear of losing it Surely the sad tidings which we have Weekly in our News Books our lamentable notices of Heathen and Infidel Kingdoms of the overspreading prevalency of Barbarousness Idolatry Ignorance and Infidelity of the rage and success of cruel Tyrants of the bloody Wars of proud unquiet worldly men of the misery of the oppressed desolate Countreys the dissipated Churches the persecuted innocent Christians are no such pleasing things as that we should be afraid to hear of such no more To know or hear of the poor in Famine the rich in Folly the Church distracted the Kingdom discontented the godly scandalous by the effects of their Errours imperfections and divisions the wicked outrageous and waxing worse the falseness or miscarriages or sufferings of Friends the fury or success of Enemies is this an intelligence which I cannot spare What is the daily tidings that I hear but of bloody Wars the undone Countreys the persecuted Churches the silenced banished or imprisoned Preachers of the best removed in judgment from an unworthy World by Death and worse succeeding in their rooms of the renewed designs and endeavours of the Churches Enemies the implacable rage of the worldly and unquiet Clergy and the new divisions of self-conceited Sectaries and the obloquy and backbitings of each Party against the other How oft hear I the sad tidings of this Friends sickness or Death and that Friends discontent and of anothers fall and of many very many's Sufferings My Ears are daily filled with the cryes of the poor whom I cannot relieve with the endless complaints of fearful Melancholy despairing Persons with the wranglings of the ignorant and proud Professors and contentious Divines who censure most boldly where they are most Erroneous or dark Or with the troublesom discontents of those that I converse with And should I be afraid of the ending of so sad a Tragedy or of awaking out of such an unpleasant dream Have I not many times thought of the Priviledge of the deaf that hear not these troublesom and provoking things and of the Blind that see not the Vanities and Temptations of this World It is one part of the benefit of solitude or a private life and habitation to free me from many of these unpleasing Objects and a great part of the benefit of sleep that with my Cloaths I may lay by these troubleous Thoughts § 11. But other men
others groping for it in the dark wandring and lost in the clearest Light where the illuminated can but pitty the Blind but cannot make them willing to be delivered What is Heaven to me but GOD GOD who is LIFE and LIGHT and LOVE communicating himself to blessed Spirits perfecting them in the Reception Possession and Exercise of LIFE and LIGHT and LOVE FOR EVER These are not the Accidents but the Essence of that God who is Heaven and All to me should I fear that Death which passeth me to Infinite Essential Life Should I fear a darksom passage into a World of perfect LIGHT Should I fear to go to LOVE itself Think O my Soul what the Suns quickening Light and Heat is to this lower corporeal World Much more is GOD even Infinite LIFE and LIGHT and LOVE to the blessed World above Doth it not draw out thy desires to think of going into a World of LOVE When LOVE will be our Region our Company our Life More to us than the Air is for our Breath than the Light is for our sight than our Food is for our Life than our Friends are for our Solace And more to us than we are to our selves and we more for it as our ultimate end than for our selves O excellent Grace of Faith which doth foresee and blessed Word of Faith that doth foreshew this World of LOVE Shall I fear to enter where there is no WRATH no fear no strangeness nor suspicion nor selfish separation but LOVE will make every holy Spirit as dear and lovely to me as my self and me to them as lovely as themselves and God to us all more amiable than our selves and all Where LOVE will have no defects or distances no damps or discouragements no discontinuance or mixed disaffection but as LIFE will be without Death and LIGHT without Darkness a perfect everlasting Day of Glory so will LOVE be without any hatred unkindness or allay As many Coals make one Fire and many Candles conjoined make one Light so will many living Spirits make one Life and many illuminated Glorious Spirits one Light and Glory and many Spirits innaturalized into LOVE will make one Perfect LOVE of GOD and be LOVED as One by God for ever For all the Body of Christ is One even here it is One in initial Union of the Spirit and Relation to One God and Head and Life 1 Cor. 12. throughout Eph. 4. 1. to 17. and shall be presented as beloved and spotless to God when the great Marriage Day of the Lamb shall come Eph. 5. 24 25 c. Rev. 21. 22. Had thou not given me O Lord the LIFE of Nature I should have had no conceptions of a Glorious everlasting Life But if thou give me not the Life of Grace I shall have no sufficient delightful inclination and desire after it Hadst thou not given me Sight and Reason the Light of Nature I should not have thought how desirable it is to live in the Glorious Light and Vision but if thou give me not the Spiritual Illumination of a seeing Faith I shall not yet long for the Glorious Light and beatifical Vision Hadst thou not given me a Will and Love which is part of my very Nature itself I could not have tasted how desirable it is to live in a World of Universal perfect endless LOVE But unless thou also shed abroad thy LOVE upon my Heart by the Spirit of Jesus the Great Medium of LOVE and turn my very Nature or Inclination into Divine and Holy LOVE I shall not long for the World of LOVE Appetite followeth Nature O give me not only the Image and the Art of Godliness the approaches towards it nor only some forced or unconstant acts but give me the Divine Nature which is Holy Love and then my Soul will hasten towards thee and cry How long O Lord How long O come come quickly make no delay Surely the fear of dying intimateth some contrary Love that inclineth the Soul another way and some shameful unbelief and great unapprehensiveness of the Attractive Glory of the World of LOVE Otherwise no frozen Person so longeth for the Fire none in a Dungeon so desireth Light as we should long for the heavenly Light and Love God's Infinite Essential SELF-LOVE in which he is Eternally delighted in himself is the most Amiable Object and Heaven itself to Saints and Angels And next to that His Love to all his Works to the World and to the Church in Heaven speaketh much more of his Loveliness than his Love to me But yet due Self-love in me is his work and part of his natural Image and when this by sin is grown up to excess through the withdrawing of a contracted narrow Soul from the Union and due Love to my fellow Creatures and to God I must also I cannot but enquire after God's Love to me and by this my desires must much be moved For I am not so capable of ascending above Self-interest and Self-love as in the state of Glorious Union I shall be I am glad to perceive that others do love God and I love those most that I find most love him But it is not other mens love to God that will be accepted by him instead of mine Nor is it God's Love to others which yet rejoiceth me that will satisfie me without his love to me But when all these are still before me God's Essential Self-love and Delight his Love to his Creatures especially the Glorified and his Love to me also even to me a vile unworthy Sinner what then should stay my ascending Love or discourage my desires to be with God And dost thou doubt canst thou doubt O my Soul whether thou art going to a God that loveth thee If the Jews discerned the great love of Christ to Lazarus by his Tears canst not thou discern his Love to thee in his Blood It is never the less but the more obliging and amiable that it was not shed for thee alone but for many May I not say as Paul Gal. 2 20. I live by the Faith of the Son of God that hath loved Me and given himself for me Yea it is not so much I that live as Christ Liveth in me And will he forsake the Habitation which his love hath chosen And which he hath so dearly bought O read often that triumphing Chapter Rom. 8. and conclude What shall separate us from the Love of God If Life have not done it Death shall not do it If leaning on his Breast at Meat was a token of Christ's special love to John is not his dwelling in me by my Faith and his living in me by his Spirit a sure token of his love to me And if a dark saying If he tarry till I come what is that to thee raised a report that the beloved Disciple should not die why should not plain Promises assure me that I shall live with him that loveth me for ever Be not so unthankful O my Soul as to question
It is with each others Souls in the Body that we converse together on Earth And it is not sluggish but lively Faith and fervent desire that must converse in Heaven with Moses and Elias and our living Head § 23. But how did Peter know Moses and Elias whom he had never seen before Perhaps glorified Saints do bear each one his notifying Signature and need not names and sound of words to make them known Perhaps Christ told the Disciples who they were that talked with him Perhaps he made them know it by Inspiration as Prophets have their knowledge Any of these ways God could notifie them It 〈◊〉 not needful that we know which of them it was But that they were known is certain We shall be no Strangers to any Saints in Heaven and therefore not to our old acquaintance Whether we shall have any greater love to them or delight in them for old acquaintance sake or because they were instruments of our good on Earth I know not But I know that our love to them with whom we had Holy comfort on Earth may well render Heaven more familiar to us now and more suitable to our desires O how great a number of my godly Friends are there They are so many that I cannot make a Catalogue of their Names but the Memory of abundance of them doth delight me And when we meet there we shall be far better known to each other then we were to the most intimate on Earth O let Christians now so converse together as remembring that they must meet in Heaven where all that was secret will be brought to light If we now put on any Vizor and seem better than we are if we hide any sin or base corruption if we by fraud or falshood deceive our Friends all this will be opened when we meet in Heaven It is a daily grief and shame to my Soul to think of the sins that I have committed against some that are now in Heaven which I either excused extenuated or hid And to think how much evil they will know of me there which on Earth they knew not by me But God who pardoneth them will cause his Servants there to forgive each other but the detected sin for all that will be an odious shameful thing Lying and Hypocrisie are there no cloak but an aggravation of the shame If we cannot confess and take shame to our selves by repentance upon Earth how shall we appear in the open light and see the Faces of those whom we wronged What diminution it will make of our joy I know not but it must needs be a dishonour to have been false to God or Man And especially when we meet where sin is perfectly hated to think how we either sinned together or that we tempted and ensnared one another in any sin how it will affect us then I do not fully know but it is now to me a far greater grief to think of any in Heaven whom I tempted or wronged than it was while they lived with me on Earth And I think there is somwhat of this Nature common to good and bad Even the Consciences of wicked men do haunt them for notable injuries to others especially concealed ones and especially for persecuting the Servants of God when they are dead more than while they lived In so much that though I doubt not of real Apparitions I am ready to think that some that say they are haunted by the sight and the voice of such as seem to them to be deceased Persons are rather haunted by their own Consciences which strongly represent those Persons to their imaginations But on the other side it is a great delight to me to think of the good which I received from many that are now in Heaven Of the profitable Sermons which I heard from some and the profitable conversation which I had with others How oft we sweetly consulted together of the things which concern everlasting life How many days in publick and private we spent in preparation and in some prospect of the Blessedness which now they enjoy And it is not a small Mercy to me that I can think of Multitudes now in Heaven of whose Conversion and Salvation God hath made my weak endeavours a prosperous means O what a Mercy is it to think on that while I am yet compassed with temptations and languishing in weakness and groaning in pain and worst of all burdened with a dark and sinful Soul so many are past all this with Christ by means of any help which he sent them by my labours It hath oft humbled me greatly to read in the lives of such men as John Janeway and Joseph Allen how much of their proficiency they ascribed to my Writings and how far they over-went me and left me quite behind them in Holy delights and praises of God! But how much more am I below a Multitude now in Heaven who called me Father here on Earth And if here I must rejoice with them that rejoice as well as mourn with them that mourn why should I not much more rejoice with all the blessed Society above And more familiarly with my old Acquaintance Pupils and dear Friends My Love should be most to the best and therefore more to them than to any other of my Friends And therefore my Union with them being closer and their Felicity far greater I should think with more Joy of them than of any left behind They are safe in the Harbour past all our dangerous storms and waves And though they know or will know more of my sins than they did on Earth and hate them more yet they that feel the comfort of the Pardon of their own will imitate God in pardoning me and rejoice in God's forgiveness of me Though their vile Bodies lie like common dust how much better do they now know the love of God the Mysteries of Grace the heavenly Glory the state of Spirits in the City of God than I do who was wont to preach it to them God that sent down Moses and Elias to shew that Saints in Heaven and on Earth have communnion will bring me and my Friends now in Heaven together again into a far sweeter Communion than ever we had here § 24. It is no great wonder that Peter should be transported with this glorious sight and greatly delighted with this heavenly Communion and say Master it is good for us to be here Would not a sight a glimpse of Heaven have transported any Holy Soul Yea even those that now lie in tears and fears and are overwhelmed with doubts and troubles When they are groping after God and groaning on their Knees because they feel more of his frowns than of his love if then they had such a sight as this what a change would it make upon them Perhaps you 'll say that the doubt of their own sincerity might still deprive them of the Joy No This sight would banish doubts and troubles It is a communication of Love
not how erroneously they think The sensible souls of Bruits are substance And therefore are not annihilated at death But God put them under us and made them for us and us more nearly for himself Bruits have not Faculties to know and love God to meditate on him or praise him or by moral agency to obey his Precepts They desire not any higher felicity than they have God will have us use their service yea their lives and Flesh to tell us they were made for us He tells us not what he doth with them after death But whatever it is it is not annihilation and it 's like they are in a state still of service unto Man Whether united or how individuate we know not Nor yet whether those Philosophers are in the right that think that this Earth is but a small Image of the vast superiour Regions where there are Kingdoms answerable to these here where the Spirits of Bruits are in the like subjection in aerial Bodies to those low rational Spirits that inhabite the Aerial Regions as in Flesh they were to Man in Flesh But it 's enough for us that God hath given us Faculties to know love praise and obey him and trust him for Glory which he never gave to them because they were not made for things so high Every Creatures Faculties are suited to their use and ends And Love tells me that the blessed God who giveth to Bruits that life health and pleasure which they are made and fitted for will give his Servants that heavenly delight in the fulness of his Love and Praise and and mutual joyful Love to one another which Nature fundamentally and Grace more immediately hath made them fit for Blessed Jehovah for what tasts of this effused Love thou hast given me my Soul doth bless thee with some degree of gratitude and joy And for those further measures which I want and long for and which my pained languid state much needs and would raise my joyful hopes of Glory I wait I beg from day to day O give me now at the Door of Heaven some fuller taste of the heavenly Felicity Shed more abroad upon my Heart by the Holy Ghost that Love of thine which will draw up my longing Soul to thee rejoicing in hope of the Glory of God FINIS This is the true mean between George Keith the Quakers Doctrine of Continued Inspiration Intuition and that on the other extream Matth. 28. 18. Joh. 5. 22. Joh. 17. 2. Joh. 12. 26. Joh. 3. 16. Rom. 8. 35 36 37 30. * 1 Pet. 4. 6. They that died to or in the Flesh according to Men do live in the Spirit according to God * Indeed if the Soul were not Immortal the Resurrection were impossible It might be a new Creation of another Soul but not a Resurrection of the same if the same be annihilated It 's certain that the Jews believed the Immortality of the Soul in that they believed the Resurrection and future life of the same Man * Psal 34. 7. 91. 11 12. Luk. 15. 10. 1 Cor. 11. 10. Heb. 1. 14. 12. 22. 13. 2. Mat. 18. 10. 25. 31. 13. 39 49. Act. 5. 19. 8. 26. 12. 7. 23. * Of this see the Second Edition by Dr. More of Mr. Glanvile's Book of Apparitions called Atheismus Triumphatus †For the truth of this read Mr. Fairclough's Life * See what I have said of particular Testimonies in my Saints Rest and unreasonableness of Infidelity * 1 Joh. 5. 9 10 11. Gal. 5. 17. Rom. 7. Phil. 3. 7. to the 15. * Eph. 1. 14. 2 Cor. 1. 22. 5. 5. Rom. 8. 23. 2 Tim. 2. 19. Eph. 1. 13. 4. 30. 1 Joh. 5. 9 10. Heb. 10. 15. * This one Truth will give great Light into the Controversies about God's gracious Operations on the Soul For when he useth second Causes we see he Operateth according to their limited aptitude And Christ's humane Nature and all other second Causes are limited and operate variously and resistibly according to the Recipients capacity * Treat of Infidelity Luke 15. 10. And Mr. Beverly in his Great Soul of Man ☞
and ease a Man's Faith is not tried to the uttermost by actual forsaking all And yet an easy Death alone doth not fully try a Man For they that know that all must die may submit to this who cannot bear long pains before it But great and long pains and the Sentence of Death together are the trial And if God will so try me why should I repine Flesh will groan but the Mind may obediently submit It is but Flesh that Flesh that hath tempted and imprisoned my Soul I have too much loved it and am too loth to leave it And is it not Mercy from God to make me weary of it God is engaged against Idols that is all that is loved and pleased before him and if any thing that 's likest to be this Flesh It 's corruptibility tells us that both its pleasure and its pain will be but short Long pain is usually tolerable And intolerable pain will conquer Nature and not be long The Grace of Christ is sufficient for us and his strength is manifested in our weakness when he will not take the Thorn out of our Flesh though as Christ and Paul did we pray thrice or oftner And to be impatient with Death is to repine that we are born Mortal men and to fly from Heaven and all true Hopes and all the Felicity purchased by Christ And is this renouncing the World and trusting Christ for Life everlasting And why fear we that which endeth all our pains and fears A true Believer never suffereth so much but his Mercies are far more and greater than his sufferings His Soul is united to Christ His hopes of Heaven have a sure Foundation He is sealed up to Glory Rest and Joy are near at hand And former Mercies should not be forgotten And should not such men patiently endure O what a shameful contradiction is it to choose Heaven as our only Portion to believe in Christ for it and to seek it as the business of all our lives and yet to be loth to die that we may obtain it and to fly with fear from that which we so seek and hope for What a contradiction is it to call God our God and Father the God of Love and to call Christ our Gracious glorified Redeemer and yet to Fly from his presence with distrustful fear Almighty love may correct us may kill us but it cannot finally hurt true Believers So much of Moses and Elias discourse of the Sufferings and Death of Christ § 13. Sure it is not true that the Souls of the Fathers before Christ's coming did not enter into Heaven but lay in some inferiour Limbus For Moses and Elias came from Heaven their shining glory shewed that and their discourse with Christ and the Voice and glory that went with them And it is not to be thought that they were separated from the rest of the Souls of the Faithful and with Henoch were in Heaven by themselves alone and the rest elsewhere Though it 's said that God's House hath many Mansions and there are various degrees of Glory yet the blessed are all Fellow-Citizens of one Society and Children in one Family of God And they that came from East and West shall sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of God and Lazarus is in Abraham's bosom and the believing Thief with Christ in Paradise § 14. It seems that Moses and Elias appeared thus to fore shew the Resurrection of Christ and of the Faithful and to make it easier to the three Disciples to believe it Why should they doubt whether Christ should rise when they saw Moses that was risen before him And why should they doubt of the Resurrection of the Faithful and the Glory following when they saw these glorified Saints Some think that this Apparition was for the strengthening of Christ himself whose humane Nature had use for such Ministry also of Angels But it 's more certain that it was for the strengthening of the Disciples Faith and of ours by their Testimony As it 's said Joh. 12. 30. This Voice came not because of me but for your sakes § 15. It is much worth our noting in what a Communion this Specimen of the Kingdom of Heaven was represented in the holy Mount Here was a Voice of God and a glimpse of his Glory Here was our Redeemer in a glimpse of his Glory Here was a Moses and Elias in a glimpse of their Glory And here were three beloved Disciples yet in the Flesh and in weakness of Faith which needed such confirmation God our Father and our Saviour the Saints of Heaven and those on Earth are all of one Society or Kingdom there is a near relation and a near communion among them all When the Eternal Word disdained not so wonderful condescension as to come to us in the form of a Servant even of a poor despised Crucified Man it 's less wonder that Moses and Elias should come down as his Witnesses and Servants Heb. 12. 23 c. The heavenly Jerusalem and City of the Living God of which we are Enrolled Burgesses or Heirs hath many parts There is the Assembly of the first Born and innumerable Angels and the Spirits of the Just made perfect and Jesus the Mediator of the New Covâ—nant and God the Judge of all O what holy glorious joyful Company shall we have above Christ and his Angels will not despise the least of Saints § 16. But what was the Introduction to this Apparition and Transfiguration It was Christ's praying Luk. 9. 28 29. He went up into a Mountain to pray and as he prayed he was transfigured Surely this is written to invite and encourage us to pray We are in greater need than Christ It 's folly in Unbelievers to think Prayer vain because God is unchangeable We are not unchangeable And the exercise of Faith dependance on God and true desires being the Conditions required in a due Receiver maketh those Blessings become ourâ—s which else we had been uncapable of God who commandeth fervent Prayer hath promised to answer it Though we must not think to be the Rulers of the World nor have whatever our Flesh or solly doth desire because we ask it earnestly yet true Prayer is the appointed way for obtaining what we need and is best for us and we are fitted to receive And as Christ had this wonderful return to his Prayers his Servants have experience that their choicest Mercies for Soul and Body have come this way § 17. Though the three Disciples were admitted to this glorious Society how different was their case from that of Christ and Moses and Elias In the beginning of the heavenly concourse they were asleep with heaviness Even while this glorious Company stood near them Alas such is our infirmity in Flesh and such a Clog are these earthly Bodies to us that when God is present and Heaven is before us and we have the greatest cause to watch and pray a heavy weary sluggish Body even
fettereth an active Spirit and we sleep or turn away in wandering Thoughts when we should seriously converse with Christ and Heaven Alas what unworthy Servants hath our Lord Are such as these meet for his work his Love his Acceptance or his Kingdom But O how merciful a Saviour have we who taketh not his poor Servants at the worst but when they after served him thus in his Agony he gently rebuketh them Could you not watch with me one Hour and that with an excuse The Spirit is willing but the Flesh is weak § 18. It is a matter of great Moment to understand in what cases this excuse will hold and our weakness will not make the willingness of the Spirit unacceptable to God If a Drunkard Fornicator or other Sensualist should say My Spirit is willing to leave my sin but my Flesh is weak and in temptation doth prevail Video meliora proboque c. This excuse would not prove God's forgiveness If a Man live in known sin which he could forbear were he truly willing and say To will is present with me but to do I am unable it is not I but sin that dwelleth in me this would be but a frivolous excuse And yet to the sleepy Disciples it was a good excuse and I think to Paul Rom 7. where then is the dâ—fference There are some acts of Man which the will hath not power to rule and some that it can rule The will hath not power always to keep a sleepy Man awake This sleep might be of the Flesh without any will at all And this excuseth from all guilt There are some acts of Man which the will cannot rule but by a great degree of power and endeavour As perhaps with much ado by preventing and resisting diligence the Disciples might have kept awake In this case their sleep is a fault but a pardoned fault of weakness Some Persons are liable to inordinate Fear and Grief which so surprizeth them by the Constitution of their Bodies that the greatest unwillingness would not hinder them And some could do more to resist these passions than they do but very hardly with the greatest diligence These are accordingly excusable in degree Paul would have perfectly obeyed God's Law and never have sinned But there is no Perfection in this Life Meer Imperfection of true Grace which is predominant in the will doth not damn men But there are acts which are so subject to the will that a sincere will though imperfect can command them He that doth these or doth the contrary it is not because he sincerely would and cannot but because he hath but uneffectual wishes and is not sincerely willing if he know them to be what they are Especially if they be materially great sins which he yieldeth to which true Grace more strongly resisteth than it doth an idle word or thought or action In short all omissions or commissions in which the will is positively or privatively guilty are sinful in some degree but only these do damn the Sinner which are inconsistent with the predominant Love of God and Heaven and Holiness in the Soul § 19. When the Disciples awaked they saw these glorious ones in converse Did they hear what they said or did Christ after tell them The later is most probable Doubtless as Moses tells us how God made the World which none could tell him but by God's telling them first so the Apostles have written many things of Christ which they neither saw nor heard but from Christ that told it them by Word or Inspiration How else knew they what Satan said and did to him in his Temptations in the Wilderness and on the Pinacle of the Temple How knew they what his Prayer was in his Agony And so in this instance also But Christ's own testimony was enough to put them out of Doubt to them that daily saw his confirming Miracles § 20. How great a difference was there between Mount Sinai and this Mount When God delivered the Law to Moses that Mount was terrible in Flame and Smoak and Thunder so that the People trembled and fled But now here is nothing but Life and Light and Love from Heaven A merciful Redeemer whose Face shined as the Sun with heavenly Company appearing nearly to the Disciples pittying and bearing with their heaviness and infirmity strengthning their Faith and Hope and proving to them a Resurrection and a heavenly Kingdom by a visible Apparition of some of its Possessors This was not a frightful but a confirming delectable sight The Law in terrour was by Moses but Grace and Truth Peace and Pleasure are by Christ This was an inviting and delighting and not an affrighting Apparition Was it not a shameful infirmity and a sin that Peter should deny Christ after such a sight as this and the rest of the Disciples forsake him and fly What! after they had seen the Kingdom of God come in Power and Christ's Face shine as the Sun in its brightness Could they forget all this Or could they doubt whether he or his Persecutors were the stronger and liker to prevail at last O how frail how uncertain how bad a thing is depraved Man But though Christ found them asleep and though he foreknew that they would forsake him he forsook not them nor used them as they deserved but comforted them with a glimpse of Heaven For he died for his Enemies § 21. But this was but once in all the time of his abode among them It was an extraordinary Feast and not their daily Bread They had Christ still with them but not transfigured in Glory nor Moses and Elias in their sight We are too apt to think that if God give us a joyful extraordinary glimpse of Heaven we must have it always or that he forsaketh us and castus off when he denieth it us O that we were as desirous of Holiness and Duty as we are of the Joy which is the reward But our Father and not we must be the chooser both of our Food and Feast Moses did not dwell on Mount Nebo that he might still see the Land of Promise It was enough to have one sight of it before his death As Flesh and Blood cannot enter into Heaven so it 's little of Heaven that entereth into it § 22. When the Disciples awake they see his Glory and the two men that stood with him It must not be a sleeeping but an awakened Christian that will have a sight of heavenly Glory As we must love God with all the Heart and Soul and Might all must be awakened in seeking him and in attending him before we can have a joyful foretast of his Love Carnal security supine neglect and dull contempt are dispositions which render us uncapable of such delights Heavenly joys suppose a heavenly disposition and desires Angels sleep not nor are clogged with Bodies of Clay Earth hath no Wings It must be holy vivacity that must carry up a Soul to God notwithstanding the fetters of Flesh