blessed to be under the Love of Christ p. 881. Excitations Desires p. 182. 3. Communion with Angels and Saints by reception p. 188 More of the good of Vnion and Communion as distinct from singular Propriety p. 190. 5. The constitutive Reasons from our heavenly Practice p. 195. Better works for us there than here proved What they are in general What particularly I. Concordant praising God Excitations and Petitions p. 169. II. The blessed probably used for the good of men and things below p. 198. Their Opinion rejected that assert the cessation of sense proof Objection from Bruits answered The concluding Application p. 202. A Breviate of the helps of Faith Hope and Love for a dying Man I. The Gospel Evidence on 1 Tim. 3. 16. p. 260. II. A Breviate of the proof of supernatural Revelation and the Truth of Christianity p. 262. III. The difference between the World which I am leaving and the World which I am going to With Reasons of my comfortable hope p. 283. IV. More Reasons and Helps of my Faith and Hope p. 289. V. A discourse of the sensible manifestation of the Kingdom of Christ at his Transfiguration which is expounded and applied for the help of Faith and Patience p. 300. VI. Short Meditations on Rom. 5. 1 2 3 4 5. Of the shedding abroad of God's Love on the Heart that we may rejoice in hope of the Glory of God p. 360. THe exercise of Three sorts of LOVE to God to Others and to my Self afford me a Threefold satisfaction conjunct to be vvilling to depart I. I am sure my departure vvill be the fulfilling of that Will vvhich is Love it self vvhich I am bouâ—d above all things to Love and Please and vvhâ—â—â— is the beginning rule Antonineâ—ould â—ould hence fetch good Thoughts of Death II. The World dieth not vvith me vvhen I die nor the Church nor the Praise and Glory of God vvhich he vvill have in and from this World unto the end And if I love others as my self their Lives and Comforts vvill novv be to my Thoughts as if I vvere to live my self in them God vvill be praised and honoured by Posterity vvhen I am dead and gone Were I to be annihilated this vvould comfort me novv if I lived and died in perfect Love III. But a better and glorious World is before me into vvhich I hope by Death to be translated vvhither all these Three sorts of Love should rap up the desires of my ascending Soul even the Love of my self that I may be fully happy the Love of the triumphant Church Christ Angels and glorified Man and the Glory of all the Universe vvhich I shall see and above all the Love of the most Glorious God Infinite Life and Light and Love the ultimate Amiable Object of Man's Love in vvhom to beperfectly pleased and delighted and to vvhom to be perfectly pleasing for ever is the chief and ultimate end of me and of the highest vvisest and best of Creatures Amen THE INTRODUCTION PHIL. 1. 23. For I am in a streight between two c. I Write for my self and therefore supposing the sense of the Text shall only observe what is useful to my Heart and Practice It was a happy state into which Grace had brought this Apostle who saw so much not only tolerable but greatly desirable both in living and dying To live to him was Christ that is Christ's interest or work To die would be gain that is His own interest and reward His streight was not whether it would be good to live or good to depart Both were good But which was more desirable was the doubt I. Quest But was there any doubt to be made between Christ's interest and his own Ans No if it had been a full and fixed competition But by Christ or Christ's interest he meaneth his work for his Churches interest in this World But he knew that Christ also had an interest in his Saints above and that he could raise up more to serve him here Yet because he was to judge by what appeared and he saw a defect of such on Earth this did turn the Scales in his Choice and for the work of of Christ and his Churches good he more inclined to the delay of his reward by self-denial Yet knowing that the delay would tend to its increase It 's useful to me here to note That even in this World short of Death there is some good so much to be regarded as may justly prevail with Believers to prefer it before the present hastning of their reward I the rather note this that no temptation carry me into that extream of taking nothing but Heaven to be worthy of our minding or regard and so to cast off the World in a sinful sort on pretence of mortification and a heavenly mind and life I. As to the sense the meaning is not that any thing on Earth is better than Heaven or simply and in itself to be preferred before it The end is better than the means as such And perfection better than imperfection But the present use of the means may be preferred somtimes before the present possession of the end And the use of means for a higher end may be preferred before the present possession of a lower end And every thing hath its season Planting and Sowing and Building are not so good as Reaping and Fruit gathering and Dwelling But in their season they must be first done II. Quest But what is there so desirable in this Life Ans 1. While it continueth it is the fulfilling of the will of God who will have us here And that 's best which God willeth II. The life to come dependeth upon this As the life of Man in the World upon his Generation in the Womb Or as the reward upon the work or the Runners or Souldiers Prize upon his Race or Fighting Or as the Merchants gain upon his Voyage Heaven is won or lost on Earth The possession is there but the preparation is here Christ will judge all men according to their works on Earth Well done good and faithful Servant must go before Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord I have fought a good Fight I have finished my Course goeth before the Crown of Righteousness which God the righteous Judge will give All that ever must be done for Salvation by us must here be donc It waron Earth that Christ himself wrought the work of 〈◊〉 Redemption fulfilled all Righteousness became our Ransom And paid the Price of our Salvation And it 's here that our part is to be done And the bestowing of the reward of God's work who we are sure will never fail There is no place for the least suspicion or fear of his misdoing or failing in any of his undertaken work But the danger and fear is of our own miscarrying lest we be not found capable of receiving what God will certainly give to all that are disposed Receivers To distrust God is heinous sin 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.
Either no Dreams or vain or troublesom Dreams are much more common And to say that Rest and Ease is my pleasure is but to say that my daily labour and cares are so much greater than my waking pleasure that I am glad to lay by both together For what is Ease but deliverance from weariness and pain For in deep and dreamless sleep there is little positive sense of the Pleasure of Rest itself But indeed it is more from Natures necessitated inclination to this self-easing and repairing means than from the positive pleasure of it that we desire sleep And if we can thus be contented every Night to die as it were to all our waking pleasures why should we be unwilling to die to them at once 5. If it be the inordinate pleasures forbidden of God which you are loath to leave those must be left before you die or else it had been better for you never to have been born Yea every wise and godly Man doth cast them off with detestation You must be against Holiness on that account as well as against Death And indeed the same Cause which maketh men unwilling to live a Holy life hath a great hand in making them unwilling to die even because they are loth to leave the pleasure of sin If the wicked be converted he must be gluttonous and drunken no more he must live in Pride Vain-glory Worldliness and sensual pleasures no more and therefore he draweth back from a Holy life as if it were from Death itself And so he is the lother to die because he must have no more of the pleasures of his Riches Pomp and Honours his Sports and Lust and pleased Appetite no more for ever but what 's this to them that have mortified the Flesh with the affections and lusts thereof 6. Yea it is these forbidden pleasures which are the great impediments both of our Holiness and our truest pleasures And one of the Reasons why God forbiddeth them is because they hinder us from better And if for our own good we must forsake them when we turn to God it must be supposed that they should be no reason against our willingness to die but rather that to be free from the danger of them we should be the more willing 7. But the great satisfying Answer of this Objection is that Death will pass us to far greater pleasures with which all these are not worthy to be compared But of this more in due place § 5. III. When I die I must depart not only from sensual delights but from the more manly Pleasures of my Studies knowledge and converse with many wise and godly men and from all my pleasure in Reading Hearing publick and private Exercises of Religion c. I must leave my Library and turn over those pleasant Books no more I must no more come among the Living nor see the faces of my faithful Friends nor be seen of Man Houses and Cities and Fields and Countreys Gardens and Walks will be nothing as to me I shall no more hear of the Affairs of the World of Man or Wars or other News nor see what becomes of that beloved Interest of Wisdom Piety and Peace which I desire may prosper c. Answ 1. Though these delights are far above those of sensual Sâ—â—ners yet alas how low and little are they How small is our knowledg in comparison of our Ignorance And how little doth the knowledge of Learned Doctors differ from the thoughts of a silly Child For from our Childhood we take it in but by drops and as trifles are the Matter of childish knowledge so Words and Notions and artificial Forms do make up more of the Learning of the World than is commonly understood and many such Learned men know little more of any Great and excellent Things themselves than Rusticks that are contemned by them for their ignorance God and the Life to come are little better known by them if not much less than by many of the unlearned What is it but a Child-game that many Logicians Rhetoricians Grammarians yea Metaphysicians and other Philosophers in their eagerest Studies and Disputes are exercised in Of how little use is it to know what is contained in many Hundred of the Volumes that fill our Libraries Yea or to know many of the most glorious Speculations in Physicks Mathematicks c. Which have given some the Title of Virtuosi Ingeniosi in these times who have little the more Wit or Virtue to Live to God or overcome Temptations from the Flesh and World and to secure their everlasting Hopes What pleasure or quiet doth it give to a dying Man to know almost any of their Trifles 2. Yea it were well if much of our Reading and Learning did us no harm and more than good I fear lest Books are to some but a more honourable kind of temptation than Cards and Dice Lest many a precious Hour be lost in them that should be employed on much higher matters And lest many make such knowledge but an unholy natural yea carnal Pleasure as Worldings do the Thoughts of their Lands and Honours and lest they be the more dangerous by how much the less suspected But the best is it is a pleasure so feâ—â—ed from the sloathful with Thorny labour of hard and long Studies that laziness saveth more from it than Grace and holy Wisdom doth But doubtless Fancy and the Natural Intellect may with as little Sanctity live in the pleasure of Reading Knowing Disputing and Writing as others spend their time at a Game at Chess or other ingenious sport For my own part I know that the Knowledg of Natural things is valuable and may be Sanctified much more Theological Theory And when it is so it is of good use and I have little knowledge which I find not some way useful to my highest ends And if Wishing or Money would procure more I would wish and empty my Purse for it but yet if many score or hundred Books which I have read had been all unread and I had that time now to lay out upon higher thing I should think my self much richer than now I am And I must earnestly pray The Lord forgive me the Hours that I have spent in reading Things less profitable for the pleasing of a Mind that would fain know all which I should have spent for the increase of Holiness in my self and others And yet I must thankfully acknowledge to God that from my youth he taught me to begin with things of greatest weight and to refer most of my other Studies thereto and to spend my days under the Motives of Necessity and Profit to my self and those with whom I had to do And I now think better of the Course of Paul that determined to know nothing but a Crucified Christ among the Corinthians that is so to converse with them as to Use and Glorying as if he knew nothing else And so of the the rest of the Apostles and Primitive Ages And
Patience a better and sweeter life than rest and joy § 14. But alas how deaf is Flesh to Reason Faith hath the Reason which easily may shame all contrary Reasoning but sense is unreasonable and especially this inordinate tenacious Love of present Life I have Reason enough to be willing to depart even much more willing than I am O that I could be as willing as I am convinced that I have Reason to be Could I Love God as much as I know that I should Love him then I should desire to depart and to be with Christ as much as I know that I should desire it But God in Nature hath here laid upon me some necessity of aversation though the inordinateness came from sin Else Christ had not so feared and deprecated the Cup Death must be a penalty even where it is a gain and therefore it must meet with some unwillingness Because we willingly sinned we must unwillingly suffer The Gain is not the pain or dissolution in itself but the happy consequents of it All the Faith and Reason in the World will not make Death to be no penalty and therefore will not take away all unwillingness No Man ever yet Reasoned or Believed himself into a Love of Pain and Death as such But seeing that the gain is unspeakably Greater than the Pain and Loss Faith and Holy Reason may make our willingness to be Greater than our unwillingness and our Hope and Joy than our Fear and Sorrow And it is the deep and effectual notice of Goodness which is God's way in Nature and Grace to change and draw the Will of Man Come then my Soul and Think believingly what is BEST for thee And wilt thou not Love and Desire most that which is certainly the BEST To Depart and to be with Christ is far better or rather to be chosen § 1. TO say and hear that it is far better to be with Christ is not enough to make us willing Words and Notions are such instruments as God useth to work on Souls but the convincing satisfying powerful Light and the inclining Love are other things The Soul now operateth ut forma hominis on and with the Corporeal Spirit and Organs and it perceiveth now its own perceptions but it is a stranger to the Mode of its future Action when it is separated from the Body and can have no formal conception of such conceptions as yet it never had And therefore its Thoughts of its future â—â—ate must be Analogical and General and partly â—range But General notices when certain may be very powerful and satisfie us in so much as is needful to our â—onsent and to such a measure of Joy as is suitable to this earthly state And such notices we have from the Nature of the Soul with the Nature of God the course of Providence and Government of Mankind the internal and external conflicts which we perceive about Mens Souls the Testimony and Promises of the Word of God the Testimony of Conscience with the Witness of the sanctifying Spirit of Christ and in it the Earnest and the foretast of Glory and the beginnings of Life eternal here of all which I have before considered § 2. The Socinians who would interpret this of the state of Resurrection only against plain evidence violate the Text Seeing Paul expresly speaketh of his Gain by Death which will be his abode with Christ and this upon his departure hence which in 2 Cor. 5. 7 8. he calleth his being absent from the Body and present with Lord And Christ to the penitent Thief calleth his being with him in Paradise And Luke 16. in the Parable of the Steward Christ intimateth to us that wise preparers when they go hence are received into the Everlasting habitations as he there further tells us Lazarus was in Abrahams bosom § 3. Goodness is primaria mensurans vel secundaria mensurata The first is God's perfect Essence and Will The second is either properly and simply Good or Analogical The former is the Creatures conformity to the Will of God or its Pleasingness to his will The later is 1. The Greater which is the wellfare or perfection of the Universe 2. The Lesser which is the Perfection of the several parts of the Universe either 1. In the nobler respect as they are Parts contributing to the Perfection of the whole or 2. In the lower respect as they are Perfect or Happy in themselves or 3. In the lowest respect of all as they are good to their fellow Creatures which are below themselves § 4. Accordingly It is far better to be with Christ I. Properly and simply as it is the fulfilling of God's will II. Analogically as it tendeth to the Perfection of the Universe and the Church III. And as it will be our own good or felicity IV. And as it will be Good to our inferiour fellow Creatures though this last be most questionable and seemeth not included in the meaning of this Text Somewhat of these in order § 5. I. It is an odious effect of Idolatrous SELFISHNESS to acknowledge no Goodness above our own FELICITY and accordingly to make the Goodness of God to be but formally his Usefulness Benovolence and Beneficence to his Creatures which is by making the Creature the ultimate End and God but the Means to make the Creature to be God and deny God indeed while we honour his Name As also it is to acknowledge no higher goodness formally in the Creature than its own felicity as such As if neither the pleasing of God's will nor the Perfection of the Church and World were better than we are We are not of our selves and therefore we are not chiefly for our selves and therefore we have a higher Good to Love That is simply Best which God willeth Therefore to Live here is Best whilest I do live here and to depart is best when the time of my departure cometh That is Best which is which is the work of God The World cannot be Better at this Instant than it is nor any thing Better which is of God because it is as he willeth it to be But when God hath changed them it will then be Best that they are changed Were there no other Good in my departure hence but this simple Good the fulfilling of God's will my Reason telleth me that I should be fully satisfied in it But there is also a subordinate sort of Good § 6. II. For my change will tend to the perfection of the Universe even that Material Good or Perfection which is its Aptitude for the use to which God hath created and doth preserve it As all the parts the modes the situation the motions of a Clock a Watch or other such Engine do to the ends of the Artificer Though God hath not told me particularly Why every Thing and Mode and Motion is as it is I know it is all done in perfect Wisdom and suited to its proper use and end If the Hen or Bird knoweth
Essential transcendent Love is ready to receive thee The Spirit of Love hath sealed thee to that blessed state Christ will present thee justified and accepted Most of my old holy familiar Friends are gone before me and all the rest that died since the World began And the few imperfect ones left behind are hasting after them apace and if I go before will quickly overtake me Though they weep as if it were for a long separation it is their great mistake The gate of Death stands all Day open and my sorrowful Friends are quickly following me as I am now following those for whom I sorrowed O pitty them who are left a while under the temptations dangers and fears which have so long been thy own affliction But be not afraid of the Day of thy deliverance and the bosom of everlasting Love and the Society of the wise and just and holy and of the end of all thy troubles and the entrance into the Joy of thy Lord and the place and state of all thy hope O say not notionally only as from argumentative conviction but confidently and with glad desire and hope TO DEPART AND BE WITH CHRIST IS FAR BETTER than to be here But O my God I have much more hope in speaking to thee than to my self Long may I plead with this dark and dull yet fearful Soul before I can plead it into joyful hope and heavenly desires unless thou shine on it with the light of thy Countenance and Thou whom my Soul must Trust and Love wilt give me Faith and Love themselves I thank Thee for convincing Arguments But had this been all the strength of my Faith and Hope the tempter might have proved too subtile for me in dispute I thank thee that some experience tells me that a holy Appetite to heavenly Work and a love to the heavenly Company and State doth more to make me willing to die and think with Pleasure of my change than ever bare Arguments would have done O send down the streams of thy love into my Soul and that will powerfully draw it up by longings for the near and full fruition O give me more of the divine and heavenly Nature and it will be natural and easie to me to desire to be with Thee Send more of the heavenly Joys into this Soul and it will long for Heaven the place of Joy I must not hope on Earth for any such acquaintance with the World above as is proper to the enjoying state But if the Sun can send its illuminating warming Rays to such a World as this according to the various disposition of Recipients doubtless Thou hast thy effectual though unsearchable waies of illuminating sanctifying and attractive influence on Souls And one such Beam of thy pleased Face one Taste of thy complacencial Love will kindle my love and draw up my desires and make my pains and sickness tolerable I shall then put off this cloathing with the less reluctancy and willingly leave my Flesh to the Dust and sing my Nunc dimittis when I have thus seen and tasted thy Salvation O my God Let not thy strengthning comforting grace now forsake me lest it should overwhelm me with the fears of being finally forsaken Dwell in me as the God of Love and Joy that I may long to dwell in Love and Joy with Thee for ever As Grace abounded where sin abounded let thy strengthning and comforting Mercy abound when weakness increaseth and my necessities abound My Flesh and my Heart◠faileth but Thou art the strength of my Heart and my Portion for ever This short life is almost at an end But thy loving kindness is better than life I know not with what pains thou wilt further trie me But if I love Thee thou hast promised that all things shall work together for my good The World that I am going to by Death is not apparent to my sight But my life is hid with Christ in God and because he liveth we shall live and we shall be with him where he is and when he appeareth we shall appear with him in Glory and shall enter into our Masters joy and be for ever with the Lord Amen What sensible manifestation of his Kingdom Christ gave in his Transfiguration § 1. Our Lord who brought Life and Immortalility to Light well knew the difficulty of believing so great things unseen And therefore it pleased him to give men some sensible helps by demonstration In Mat. 16. 17. 1 2. c. Mark 9. 1. Luk. 9. 28. he promised some of his Disciples a sight of his Kingdom as coming in power or such a glimpse as Moses had of the Backparts of God's Glory This he performed first in his Transfiguration as afterward in his Resurrection Ascension and sending the holy Ghost to enable them with power to preach and work Miracles and convert the Nations § 2. By the Kingdom of God is meant God's Government of his Holy ones by a heavenly communication of Life Light and Love initially on Earth by Grace and perfectly in Heaven by Glory A special Theocracy § 3. For the understanding of this we must know that when God had made Man good in his Image he conversed with him in a heavenly manner either immediately or by an Angel speaking to him and telling him his will But Man being made a free self-determining Agent he was left to choose whom he would follow And hearkening unto Satan and turning from God he became a Slave of Satan and gave him advantage to be his deceiving Ruler Not that Man's rebellion nullified God's Power or disposing Government or took Man from under Obligation to Obedience but that forsaking God he was much though not wholly forsaken by his special fatherly approving Government and left to Satan and his own will But the eternal Word interposing for Man's Reprival and Redemption undertook to break the Serpents Head and to conquer and cast out him that had deceived and captivated Man And choosing out a special Seed he made them a peculiar People and set up a heavenly Prophetical Government over them himself by heavenly Revelation making their Laws and choosing their chief Governours under him from time to time and would not leave it to blind and sinful Man to make Laws or choose Princes for themselves but would keep them in a special dependance upon Heaven But the carnal Israelites having provoked God by odious Idolatry to deny them much of the benefit of Government save when they repented and cryed to him for help they thought to amend this by choosing a King like other Nations and ending their dependance on heavenly Revelation and choice for Government And so Theocracy was turned into a more humane Regiment and God more cast off Though yet he would not quite forsake them And the rest of the World was yet more left under the power of Satan and their own corrupted mind and will So that Satan hath both an Internal Kingdom in wicked Souls and a visible
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
and such as will fully convince the Communicants Without such a miraculous glimpse of Glory God sometime giveth some of his Servants such a Mental illustration and inward glimpse and taste of Heaven as greatly overcometh all the fears of Pain and Death such many old and later Martyrs have had It was a strange word of the godly Bishop of St. Davids Mr. Farrar to his Neighbours If I stir in the Fire believe not my Doctrin and accordingly he stirred not If he had not had some Prophetical Inspiration this could not have been justified from being a presumptuous tempting God And Mr. Baynam's case was a meer wonder who in the Flames called to the Papists to see a Miracle professing to them that in the Fire he felt no more pain than if he had been laid in a Bed of Down or Roses I am just now reading in Adam's Lives of the German Philosophers the Life of Olympia Fulvia Morata which ended with some such experience In many Ages there hath been some one rare Woman who hath excelled men in the Languages Philosophy and other humane Learning Such a one was this Olympia Fulvia Morata of Ferrarrie She married Andr. Gundler a Physician She removed with him into Germany being by the way convinced of the Guard of Angels by her young Brothers falling out of a high Window on cragged Stones without any more hurt than if it had been on the soft ground In Germany she thus wrote to Anna Estensis a Guisian Princess As soon as by the singular goodness of God I was departed from the Italian Idolatry and came with my Husband into Germany it is incredible how God changed my Soul or mind which being formerly most averse or abhorring to the Divine Scriptures am now delighted in them alone and place in them all my Study Labour Care and Mind And as much as possible contemn all the Riches Honours and Pleasures which formerly I was wont to admire But the Cross presently following in God's usual Method her Husband and She were by Souldiers stript naked save the shift next the Body and narrowly scaping with life were put so to wander from place to place none daring to entertain them even when she was sick of a Feaver till at last they found liberal entertainment in which she shortly fell into a mortal Disease of which she died And in her last Sickness and after much torment of Body near Death she pleasantly smiled Her Husband asked her the Cause who said I saw a certain place which was full of a most clear and beauteous Light Intimating that she should be quickly there and saying I am wholly full of Joy And spake no more till her Eye-sight failing she said I scarce know any of you any more But all things else about seem to be full of most beauteous Flowers which were her last words having a long time professed that nothing seemed more desirable to her than to be dissolved and to be with Christ in all her sickness magnifying his Mercies to her Many have thus joyfully laid down the Flesh to go to Christ What wonder then if Peter was loth to lose the pleasure of what he saw Two things are necessary to great and solid joy First That the Object be truly and greatly amiable and delectable and Secondly That the apprehensions of it be clear and strong As to the first we have so great and glorious things to delight us as would feast our Souls with constant Joy were not the Second alas much wanting What Man could choose but be even in Peter's rapture continually if he had but ascertained heavenly Glory apprehended by him in as satisfactory a manner as these sensible things are If I lay in Prison yea or in torment of Colick Stone or any such Disease and had but withal such apprehensions or sight of assured Glory surely the pain would not be able to suppress my joy What a mixture what a discord would there be in my expressions Torment would constrain my Flesh to groan and the sight of Heaven would make me triumph I cannot but think how this great discord would shew the difference between the Spirit and the Flesh What a strange thing it would be to hear the same Man at the same time crying out in pain with groans and magnifying the love of God with transporting joy But we are not yet fit for such joyful apprehensions our weak Eyes must not see the Sun but through the allaying Medium of a humid Air at a vast distance and by the Chrystalline humour and organical parts of the Eye Fain we would get nearer and have sight or clearer apprehensions of the Spiritual Society and glorious World We study we pray we look up we groan under our distance darkness and unsatisfying conceptions But yet it must not be We must be ripened before the Shell will break or the dark Womb will deliver us up to the Glorious Light But Christ vouchsafed that to his three Apostles which we are unworthy of and yet unfit for O happy sight O happy men It is incongruous to say What would I not give for such a sight Lest it should savour of Simon Magus folly And I have nothing to give But it is not incongruous to say What would I not do And what would I not suffer for such a fight Yea Christ puts such kind of Questions to us O that I had better answered them in the Hour of Duty and in the Hour of Temptation When he asked Can ye drink of the Cup that I drink of and be Baptized with the Baptism that I am Baptized with I have been ready with James and John to say I can but when the trial comes as they after in his suffering forsook him and fled how insufficient is my own strength to perform my promise When he imposeth on me the denying of my self forsaking all and taking up the Cross and following him I yielded and covenanted by Vow to do it but it was By the help of the Holy Spirit which he promised to give me I stand Lord to my Covenant Help me to perform it and give me though not his present sight yet some of Peter's Mental apprehensions and a glimpse a taste of that which transported him with delight Let who will or who Thou wilt take the Riches and Grandeur of the World O give me some delightful taste of that which I am made for redeemed for and which thy Spirit hath long taught me to seek and hope for as my All. § 25. Peter was not weary with the sight of this heavenly Apparition Why should I be weary of the believing contemplation of greater things Though sight affect us more sensibly than meer believing and thinking yet these have their happy Office which may be effectual And Christ who thus appeared in Glory to Peter hath said Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed And Peter himself saith of them that see not Christ that They rejoice with joy unspeakable
taste little more than a Beast may taste Poor Food and Rayment is sweet with the sense of the Love of God Had I more of this I should lie down and rise and walk in Pleasure and content I could bear the loss of other things And though Nature will feel pains I should have Pleasure and Peace in the midst of all my pains and groans This is the white Stone the New Name No Man well knoweth it who never felt it in himself 1. There is no dying comfortably without this experienced taste of the Love of God This will draw up the desires of the Soul Love tasted casteth out fear though God be Holy and Just and Judgment terrible and Hell intollerable and the Soul hath no distinct Idea of its future state out of the Body and though we see not whither it is that we must go the taste of God's love will make it go joyfully as trusting him as a Child will go any whither in his Father's power and hand But all the knowledge in the World without this quiets not a departing Soul A Man may write as many Books and Preach as many Sermons of Heaven as I have done and speak of it and think of almost nothing else and yet till the Soul be sweetned and comforted with the Love of God shed abroad on it by the Holy Ghost death and the next life will be rather a Man's fear than his desire And the common fear of death which we see in the far greatest part even of godly Persons doth tell us that though they may have saving desires and hopes yet this sense of God's love on the Heart is rare What wonder then if our Language our Converse our Prayers have too little savour of it and in comparison of joyful Believers duties be but like green Apples to the mellow ones My God I feel what it is that I want and I perceive what it is that is most desirable O let not guilt be so far unpardoned as to deprive my Soul of this greatest good which thou hast commended to me and commanded and which in my languishing and pains I so much need Did I beg for Wealth or Honour I might have it to the loss of others But thy Love will make me more useful to all and none will have the less for my enjoyment For thou Lord art enough for all Even as none hath the less of the Sun-light for my enjoying it The least well grounded hope of thy Love is better than all the pleasures of the Flesh But without some pleasant sense of it alas what a withered languishing thing is a Soul thy loving kindness is better than life but if I taste it not how shall I here rejoice in God or bear my heavy burdens O let me not be a dishonour to thy Family where all have so great cause to honour thy bounty by their joy and hopes Nor by a sad and fearful Heart tempt men to think that thy love is not real and satisfactory I can easily believe and admire thy Greatness and thy Knowledge Let it not be so hard to me to believe and taste thy Goodness and thy Love Which is as necessary to me If there be any thing as surely there is in which the Divine Nature and Spirit of Adoption consisteth as above all the Art and Notions of Religion which are but like to other acquired Knowledge sure it must be this holy Appetite and Habitual Inclination of the Soul to God by way of Love which is bred by an internal sense of his Loveliness and Loving inclination to Man which differenceth a Christian from other men as a Child differs towards his Father from Strangers or from common Neigbours Till the love of God be the very state or nature of the Soul working here towards his Honour Interests Word and Servants no Man can say that he is God's habitation by the Spirit And how the Heart will ever be thus habited without believing God's Love to us it 's hard to conceive Experience tells the World how strongly it constraineth Persons to love one another if they do but think that they are strongly beloved by one another In the love that tends to marriage if one that is inferior do but know that a Person of far greater worth doth fervently love them it almost puts a necessity and constraint on them for returns of Love Nature can scarce choose but love in such a case Love is the Loadstone of Love A real taste of the Love of God in saving Souls by Christ and grace is it that constraineth them to be holy that is to be devoted to that God in Love III. But this must as necessarily be the work of the Holy Ghost and can be no more done without him than the Earth can be illuminated and the Vegetables live without the Sun But all the approaches of the Holy Spirit suffice not to produce this great effect and give us the Divine holy Nature The same Sun shine hath three different effects on its Objects 1. On most things as Houses Stones Earth it causeth nothing but the Accidents of Heat Colour and Motion 2. On some things it causeth a seminal Disposition to Vegetable life but not Life itself 3. In this disposed matter it causeth Vegetable life itself So doth the Spirit of God 1. Operate on Millions but lifeless Accidents as the Sun on a stone Wall 2. On others Dispose and prepare them to Divine Life 3. On others so disposed it effecteth the Divine life itself When holy Love is turned into a habit like to Nature That none but the Holy Ghost doth make this holy change is evident For the effect cannot transcend the causes 1. Nature alone is dark and knoweth not the attractive amiableness of God till illuminated nor can give us a satisfactory notice of God's special Love to us 2. Nature is Guilty and Guilt breedeth fears of Justice and fear makes us wild and fly from God lest he will hurt us 3. Nature is under penal sufferings already and feeleth pain fear and many hurts and foreseeth Death And under this is undisposed of itself to feel the pleasure of God's Love 4. Nature is corrupted and diverted to Creature vanity and its Appetite goeth another way and cannot cure itself and make itself suitable to the amiableness of God 5. God hateth wickedness and wicked men and meer Nature cannot secure us that we are saved from that enmity Diligence may do much to get religious Knowledge and Words and all that which I call the Art of Religion And God may bless this as a preparation to holy Life and Love But till the Souls Appetite incline with desire to God and Holiness Divine things will not sweetly relish And this is a great comfort to the Thoughts of the Sanctified that certainly their holy Appetite Desire and Complacency is the work of the Holy Ghost For 1. This secureth them of the Love of God of which it is the proper token 2. And
Nos quâ—que floruimus sed flos fuit ille 〈◊〉 Flâ—mmaque de stipula nostra brepusque fuiâ— Oâ— VERA EFFIGIES RICHARDI BAXTERI MIN IES CH IN OPâ— ET PATâ— FIDEI SPEI ET CHARITATIS AN O 168â— AETAT SUAE â—8 Farewell Vaine World as thou hast bin to me Dust and a Shadow those I leave with thee The vnseen Vitall Substance I committ To him that 's Substance Life-Light-Love to it The Leavs Fruit are dropt for soyle Seed Heavens heirs to generate to heale and feed Them also thou wilt flatter and molest But shalt not keep from Everlasting Râ—st BAXTER'S DYING THOUGHTS UPON PHIL. 1. 23. Written for his own Use in the latter Times of his corporal Pains and Weakness LONDON Printed by Tho. Snowden for B. Simmons at the Three golden Cocks at the West end of St. Pauls 1683. THE PREFACE TO THE READER Reader I Have no other use for a Preface to this Book but to give you a true excuse for its Publication I wrote it for my self unresolved whether any one should ever see it but at last inclined to leave that to the will of my Executors to publish or suppress it when I am dead as they saw cause But my Person being seized on and my Library and all my Goods distrained on by Constables and sold and I constrained to relinquish my House for preaching and being in London I knew not what to do with multitudes of Manuscripâ—â— that had long lain by me having no House to go to but a narrow hired Lodging with strangers Wherefore I cast away whole Volumes which I could not carry away both Controversies and Letters practical and Cases of Conscience but having newly lain divers Weeks Night and Day in waking torments Nephritick and Colick after other long pains and languor I took this Book with me in my removal for my own use in my further sickness Three Weeks after falling into another extream fit and expecting Death where I had no Friend with me to commit my Papers to meerly lest it should be lost I thought best to give it to the Printer I think it is so much of the work of all mens lives to prepare to die with safety and comfort that the same Thoughts may be needful for others that are so for me If any mislike the Title as if it imported that the Author is Dead let him know that I die daily and that which quickly will be almost is It 's suited to my own use They that it is unsuible to may pass it by If those mens lives were spent in serious preparing Thoughts of Death who are now studying to destroy each other and tear in pieces a distressed Land they would prevent much dolorous Repentance R. B. THE CONTENTS Doct. 1. THat the Souls of Believers when departed hence shall be with Christ I. The necessity of believing this proved pag. 1 c. II. Whether it be best believing it without consideration of the difficulties or proofs p. 7. III. The certainty of it manifested 1. From the Immortality of the Soul which is proved p. 11. 1. The Soul is a substance 2. It is a substance formally differenced from lower substance by the Virtue of special Vital Activity Intellect and free will p. 14 3. It is not Annihilated at Death 4. Nor destroyed by dissolution of parts 5. Nor loseth its formal Power or Virtue p. 15. 6. Nor doth sleep or cease to act p. 16. 7. To cease to be Individuate by Vnion with any other common Spirit is not to be feared were it true p. 19. But it is not like to be true p. 31 c. II. The second proof It is a natural notice p. 33. III. From the duty of all men to seek a future happinessm p. 34. IV. From Man's capacity of knowing God c. as differenced from Bruits p. 37. V. From Godâ—s governing Justice p. 38. VI. From Revelation supernatural p. 39. VII From God's answering Prayers p. 42. VIII From our present communion with Angels p. 44. IX From Satan's temptations Witches Apparitions c. p. 45. X. Specially from the Operations of God's Spirit on our Souls preparing them for Glory p. 47. Faith excited and Objections answered in the Application The proofs summed up in Order p. 65. Why this Happiness is described by our being vvith Christ 1. What is included in our Being vvith Christ 1. Presence with Christ's glorified Body and Soul and God-head p. 66. 2. Vnion with him in each p. 73. Too near Vnion not to be feared as destroying individuation 3. Communion with him in each active and passive opened p. 74 c. We must DEPART that we may be with Christ I. From what p. 75. 1. From this Body and Life Yet it is far better so to do p. 76. 2. From all the fleshly Pleasures of this Life p. 83. Yet best 3. From the more manly delights of Study Books Friends c. considered 1. Of Knowledge and Books the vanity 2. Of Sermons p. 87. 3. Of Friends and Converse p. 95. 4. Of God's Word and Worship p. 98. Of Theology p. 99. Of my own labours herein p. 103. 6. Notice of the Affairs of the World p. 109. 7. From our Service to the Living p. 112. The Application to my self p. 115. To DEPART and to BE WITH CHRIST IS FAR BETTER or rather to be chosen p. 120. I. Simply better and properly at it is the fulfilling of God's will p. 122. II. Analogically better as it tendeth to the Perfection of the Vniverse and the Church III. Better to my self as to my own felicity p. 124. proved 1. By general Reasons from the efficients and means 2. The final Reasons 3. The constitutive Reasons from the state of my Intellect as to the Iuâ—uitive manner of knowledg and as to the matter Both opened 1. I shall know God better p 144. 2. And God's Works the Vniverse 3. And Jesus Christ 4. And the Church 5. And the Church triumphant the heavenly Jerusalem 6. And all God's Word for Matter and Method 7. God's present Works of Providence 8. The nature and worth of Mercies 9. And my self Body and Soul 10. And my fellow Creatures 11. And what the evil was from which I was delivered enemies dangers sins c. 4. The Constitutive Reasons from the state of my will I. Negatively p. 163. 1. Freed from Temptations of the Flesh World and Devil 2. There will nothing be in it that is against God my Neighbours or my self II. Positively 1. It will be conform to God's will The benefits of this p. 165. Fruition A fixed will The Object 1. God To love him and beloved of him is our end p. 169. He is a suitable full near Object II. The next Object God's golorius Image in the Perfection of the Vniverse p. 171. III. The Church Triumphant p. 174. 1. Jesus Christ 2. Angels 3. Holy Souls The Wills Reception in Glory p. 175. 1. What it is to be loved of God Excitations 179. 2. How
The Crown will come in its due time And Eternity is long enough to enjoy it how long soever it be delayed But if I will do that which must obtain it for my self and others it must be quickly done before my declining sun be set O that I had no worse causes of my unwillingness yet to die than my desire to do the work of life for my own and other mens Salvation And to finish my course with joy and the Ministry committed to me by the Lord. Use VI. And as it is on Earth that I must do good to others so it must be in a manner suited to their state on Earth Souls are here closely united to Bodies by which they must receive much good or hurt Do good to mens Bodies if thou wouldst do good to their Souls Say not Things corporeal are worthless Trifles for which the receivers will be never the better They are things that nature is easily sensible of And sense is the passage to the mind and will Dost not thou find what a help it is to thy self to have at any time any ease and alâ—crity of Body And what a burden and hinderance pains and cares are Labour then to free others from such burdens and temptations and be not regardless of them If thou must rejoice with them that rejoice and mourn with them that mourn further thy own joy in furthering theirs and avoid thy own sorrows in avoiding or curing theirs But alas what power hath selfishness in most How easily do we bear our Brethrens pains reproaches wants and afflictions in comparison of our own How few thoughts and how little cost or labour do we use for their supply in comparison of what we do for our selves Nature indeed teacheth us to be most sensible of our own case But Grace tells us that we should not make so great a difference as we do but should love our Neighbours as our selves Use VII And now O my Soul consider how mercifully God hath dealt with thee that thy streight should be between two conditions so desirable I shall either die speedily or stay yet longer upon Earth Which ever it be it will be a Merciful and Comfortable state That it is desirable to depart and be with Christ I must not doubt and shall anon more copiously consider And if my abode on Earth yet longer be so great a Mercy as to be put in the Ballance against my present possession of Heaven surely it must be a state which obligeth me to great thankfulness to God and comfortable acknowledgment And surely it is not my pain or sickness my sufferingâ— from malicious men that should make this Life on Earth unacceptable while God will continue it Paul had his Prick or Thorn in the Flesh the Messenger of Satan to Buffet him and suffered more from men though less in his Health than I have done And yet he gloried in such Infirmities and rejoiced in his Tribulationâ— and was in a streight between living and dying yea rather chose to live yet longer Alas it is another kind of streight that most of the World are in The streight of most is between the desire of Life for fleshly interest and the fear of Death as ending their felicity The streight of many is between a tiring World and Body which maketh them aweary of living and the dreadful prospect of future danger which makes them afraid of dying If they live it is in misery if they must die they are afraid of greater misery which way ever they Look behind or before them to this World or the next fear and trouble is their Lot yea many an upright Christian through the weakness of their Trust in God doth live in this perplexed streight aweary of living and afraid of dying between grief and fear they are prest continually But Paul's streight was between two Joys which of them he should desire most And if that be my case what should much interrupt my Peace or Pleasure If I live it is for Christ for his Work and for his Church for Preparation for my own and others everasting felicity And should any suffering which maketh me not unserviceable make me impatient with such a work and such a life If I die presently it is my gain God who appointeth me my work doth limit my time and sure his glorious reward can never be unseasonable or come too soon if it be the time that he appointeth When I first engaged my self to preach the Gospel I reckoned as probable but upon one or two years And God hath continued me it above Forty four with such interruptions as others in these times have had And what reason have I now to be unwilling either to live or die God's Service hath been so sweet to me that it hath overcome the trouble of constant pains or weakness of the Flesh and all that men have said or done against me But the following Crown exceeds this pleasure more than I am here capable to conceive There is some trouble in all this pleasant work from which the Soul and Flesh would rest And blessed are the dead that die in the Lord Even so saith the Spirit for they rest from their Labours and their Works follow them But O my Soul what need'st thou be troubled in this kind of streight It is not left to thee to choose whether or when thou wilt live or die It is God that will determine it who is infinitely fitter to choose than thou Leave therefore his own work to himself and mind that which is thine whilst thou livest live to Christ and when thou diest thou shalt die to Christ even into his blessed Hands So live that thou maist say It is Christ liveth in me and the life that I live in the Flesh I live by the Faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me And then as thou hast lived in the comfort of hope thou shalt die unto the comfort of Vision and Fruition And when thou canst say he is the God whose I am and whom I serve thou maist boldly add and whom I trust and to whom I commend my departing Soul And I know whom I have trusted Richard Baxter's Dying Thoughts Philippians 1. 23. For I am in a strait betwixt two having a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better or for this is much rather to be preferred or better § 1. MAN that is born of a Woman is of few daies and full of trouble He cometh forth like a Flower and is cut down He fleeth also as a shadow and continueth not And dost thou open thine Eyes upon such a one and bringest me into Judgment with thee saith Job ch 14. v. 1 2 3. As a Watch when it is wound up or as a Candle newly lighted so Man newly conceived or born beginneth a motion which incessantly hasteth to its appointed period And an Action and its Time that is past is Nothing So vain a thing would
an universal Soul And so that either every man is God as to his Soul or that it is the Body only that is to be called Man as distinct from God But this is the Self-ensnaring and self-perplexing temerity of busie bold and arrogant heads that know not their own capacity and measure And on the like reasons they must at last come with others to say that all passive matter also is God and that God is the Universe consisting of an Active Soul and Passive Body As if God were no cause and could make nothing or nothing with Life or Sense or Reason § 22. But why depart we from things certain by such presumptions as these Is it not certain that there are baser creatures in the World than Men or Angels Is it not certain that one Man is not another Is it not certain that some men are in torment of body and mind And will it be a comfort to a man in such torment to tell him that he is God or that he is part of an universal Soul Would not a man on the Rack or in the Stone or other misery say Call me by what name you please that caseth not my pain If I be part of God or an universal Soul I am sure I am a tormented miserable part And if you could not make me believe that God hath some parts which are Serpents Toads Devils or wicked or tormented men you must give me other senses and perceptive powers before it will comfort me to hear that I am such a part And if God had wicked and tormented parts on Earth why may he not have such and I be one of them hereafter And if I be a holy and happy part of God or of an universal Soul on Earth why may not I hope to be such hereafter § 23. We deny not but that God is the continued first cause of all Being whatsoever and that the branches and fruit depend not as effects so much on the causality of the Stock and Roots as the creature doth on God and that it is an impious conceit to think that the World or any part of it is a Being independent and separated totally from God or subsisting without his continued causation But cannot God cause as a Creator by making that which is not himself This yieldeth the self-deceiver no other honour nor happiness but what equally belongeth to a Devil to a Fly or Worm to a Dunghill or to the worst miserablest man § 24. II. As Man's Soul is a SUBSTANCE so is it a Substance differenced formally from all inferiour Substances by an Innate indeed Essential Power Virtue or Faculty of Vital-Action Intellection and Free-will For we find all these Acts performed by it as Motion Light and Heat are by the Fire or Sun And if any should think that these Actions are like those of a Musician compounded of the Agents principal and organical several parts could he prove it no more would follow but that the lower powers the Sensitive or Spirits are to the higher as a Passive Organ receiving its operations and that the Intellectual Soul hath the power of causing Intellection and Volition by its Action on the inferiour parts as a man can cause such motions of his Lute as shall be melody not to it but to himself And consequently that as Musick is but a lower operation of man whose proper acts of Intellection and Volition are above it so Intellection and Volition in the Body are not the noblest Acts of the Soul but it performeth them by an Eminent Power which can do greater things And if this could be proved what would it tend to the unbelievers ends or to the disadvantage of our hopes and comforts § 25. III. That man's Soul at death is not annibilated even the Atomists and Epicurians will grant who think that no Atom in the Universe is annihilated And we that see not only the Sun and Heavens continued but every grain of matter and that compounds are changed by dissolution of parts and rarefaction or migration c. and not by Annihilation have no reason to dream that God will annihilate one Soul though he can do it if he please yea and annihilate all the World It is a thing beyond a rational expectation § 26. IV. And a destruction by the dissolution of the parts of the Soul we need not fear For 1. Either an Intellectual Spirit is divisible and partible or not if not we need not fear it if it be either it is a thing that Nature tendeth to or not But that Nature doth not tend to it is evident For 1. There is naturally so strange and strong an inclination to unity and averseness to separation in all things that even Earth and Stones that have no other known natural motion have yet an aggregative motion in their gravitation But if you will separate the parts from the rest it must be by force And Water is yet more averse from partition without force and more inclined to union than Earth and Air than Water and Fire than Air so that he that will cut a Sun-beam into pieces and make many of one must be an extraordinary Agent And surely Spirits even Intellectual Spirits will be no less averse from partition and inclined to keep their Unity than Fire or a Sun-beam is so that naturally it is not a thing to be feared that it should fall into pieces 2. And he that will say that the God of Nature will change and overcome the Nature that he hath made must give us good proofs of it or it is not to be feared And if he should do it as a punishment we must find such a punishment somewhere threatened either in his Natural or Supernatural Law which we do not and therefore need not fear it § 27. 3. But if it were to be feared that Souls were partible and would be broken into parts this would be no destruction of them either as to their substance powers form or action but only a breaking of one Soul into many For being not compounded of Heterogeneal parts but as simple Elements of Homogeneal only as every Atom of Earth is Earth and every drop of Water in the Sea is Water and every particle of Air and Fire is Air and Fire and have all the properties of Earth Water Air and Fire so would it be with every particle of an Intellectual Spirit But who can see cause to dream of such a partition never threatened by God § 28. V. And that Souls lose not their formal Powers or Virtues we have great reason to conceive because they are their Natural Essence not as mixt but simple substances And though some imagine that the Passive Elements may be attenuation or incrassation be transmuted one into another yet we see that Earth is still Earth and Water is Water and Air is Air and their conceit hath no proof And were it proved it would but prove that none of these are a first or proper Element
I know that it is the sinful Soul that is in all this the chief cause and agent But what is it but Bodily Interest that is its temptation bait and end What but the Body and its Life and Pleasure is the chief Objective alluring cause of all this sin and misery And shall I take such a Body to be better than Heaven or be loth to be loosed from so troublesom a Yoak-fellow on to be separated from so burdensom and dangerous a Companion § 3. Obj. But I know this Habitation but the next I know not I have long been acquainted with this Body and this World but the next I am unacquainted with Ans 1. If you know it you know all that of it which I have mentioned before you know it to be a burden and snare I am sure I know by long experience that this Flesh hath been a painful lodging to my Soul and this World as a tumultuous Ocean or like the uncertain and stormy Region of the Air. And well he deserveth bondage pain and enmity who will love them because he is acquainted with them and is loth to leave them because he hath had them long and is afraid of being well because he hath been long sick 2. And do you not know the next and better Habitation Is Faith no knowledge If you believe God's Promise you know that such a state there is And you know in general that it is Better than this World And you know that we shall be in Holiness and Glorious happiness with Christ And is this no knowledge 3. And what we know not Christ that prepareth and promiseth it doth know And is that nothing to us if really we Trust our Souls to him He that knoweth not more Good by Heaven than by Earth is yet so earthly and unbelieving that it is no wonder if he be afraid and unwilling to depart § 4. II. In Departing from this Body and Life I must depart from all its ancient Pleasures I must taste no more sweetness in meat or drink or rest or sport or any such thing that now delighteth me House and Lands and Goods and Wealth must all be left and the place where I live must know me no more All my possessions must be no more to me nor all that I laboured for or took delight in than if they had never been at all And what though it must be so Consider O my Soul 1. Thy ancient Pleasures are all past already Thou losest none of them by Death for they are all lost before if immortal Grace have not by sanctifying them made the benefits of them to become immortal All the sweet draughts and morsels and sports and laughters all the sweet Thoughts of thy worldly Possessions or thy Hopes that ever thou hadst till this present Hour are past by dead and gone already All that Death doth to such as these is to prevent such that on Earth thou shalt have no more 2. And is not that the Case of every Bruit that hath no comfort from the prospect of another Life to repair his loss And yet as our dominion diminisheth their pleasure while they live by our keeping them under fear and labour so at our will their lives must end To please a Gentleman's Appetite for half an hour or less Birds Beasts and Fishes must lose life itself and all the pleasure which life might have afforded them for many Years yea perhaps many of these Birds and Fishes at least must die to become but one Feast to a rich Man if not one ordinary Meal And is not their sensual pleasure of the same Nature as ours Meat is as sweet to them and ease as welcome and lust as strong in season And the pleasure that Death depriveth our Flesh of is such as is common to Man with Bruits Why then should it seem hard to us to lose that in the Course of Nature which our Wills deprive them of at our Pleasure When if we are Believers we can say that we do but exchange these delights of Life for the greater delights of a Life with Christ which is a comfort which our fellow Creatures the Bruits have not 3. And indeed the Pleasures of Life are usually embittered with so much pain that to a great part of the World doth seem to exceed them The Vanity and Vexation is so great and grievous as the pleasure seldom countervaileth It 's true that Nature desireth Life even under Sufferings that are but tolerable rather than to die But that is not so much from the sensible Pleasure of life as from meer Natural Inclination which God hath laid so deep that free will hath not full power against it As before I said that the Body of Man is such a thing that could we see through the Skin as men may look through a Glass Hive upon the Bees and see all the parts and motion the filth and excrements that are in it the Soul would hardly be willing to actuate love and cherish such a mass of unclean matter and to dwell in such a loathsom place unless God had necessitated it by Nature deeper than Reason or sense to such a Love and such a labour by the Pondus or Spring of Inclination Even as the Cow would not else lick the unclean Calf nor Women themselves be at so much labour and trouble with their Children while there is little of them to be pleasant but uncleanness and crying and helpless impatiency to make them wearisom had not necessitating Inclination done more hereto than any other sense or reason Even so I now say of the pleasure of Living that the sorrows are so much greater to Multitudes than the sensible delight that life would not be so commonly chosen and endured under so much trouble were not men determined thereto by Natural necessitating Inclination or deterred from Death by the fears of misery to the separated Soul And yet all this kept not some counted the best and wisest of the Heathens from taking it for the Valour and Wisdom of a Man to make away his life in time of extremity and from making this the great answer to them that grudge at God for making their lives so miserable If the misery be greater than the good of life Why dost thou not end it Thou maist do that when thou wilt Our Meat and Drink is pleasant to the healthful but it costeth poor men so much toil and labour and care trouble to procure a poor Diet for themselves and their families that I think could they live without eating and drinking they would thankfully exchange the pleasure of it all to be eased of their care and toil in getting it And when sickness cometh even the pleasantest Food is loathsom 4. And do we not willingly interrupt and lay by these Pleasures every Night when we betake our selves to sleep It 's possible indeed a Man may then have pleasant Dreams But I think few go to sleep for the pleasure of Dreaming
water Brooks so panteth my Soul after thee O God My Soul thirsteth for God for the living God When shall I come and appear before God Psa 40. 12. And would I not have my Prayers heard and my desires granted What else is the summ of lawful Prayers but God himself If I desire any thing more than God what sinfulness is in those desires and how sad is their signification How oft have I said Whom have I in Heaven but Thee and there is none on Earth I desire besides Thee It is good for me to draw near to God Psal 73. 25 28. Woe to me if I did dissemble If not Why should my Soul draw back Is it because that Death stands in the way Do not my fellow Creatures die for my daily Food And is not my passage secured by the Love of my Father and the Resurrection and Intercession of my Lord Can I see the Light of heavenly Glory in this darksome shell and womb of Flesh § 2. All Creatures are more or less excellent and glorious as God is more or less Operative and refulgent in them and by that Operation communicateth most of himself unto them Though he be immense and indivisible his Operations and Communications are not equal And that is said to be Nearest to Him which hath most of those Operations on it and that without the intervenient causality of any second created Cause and so all those are in their Order Near unto him as they have Noblest Natures and fewest intervenient Causes far am I from presuming to think that I am or shall be the Best and Noblest of God's Creatures and so that I shall be so near him as to be under the influx of no second or created Causes of which more anon But to be as Near as my Nature was ordained to approach is but to attain the End and Perfection of my Nature § 3. And as I must not look to be the Nearest to Him as he is the first Efficient no more must I as he is the first Dirigent or governing Cause As now I am under the government of his Officers on Earth I look for ever to be under subgovernours in Heaven My glorified Saviour must be my Lord and Ruler and Who else under him I know not If Angels are not equal in Perfection nor as is commonly supposed equal in Power nor without some regimental order among themselves I must not conclude that no created Angel or Spirit shall have any government over me But it will be so Pure and Divine as that the blessed Effects of God's own Government will besweetly powerful therein If the Law was given by Angles and the Angel of God was in the burning Bush and the Angel conducted the People through the Wilderness and yet all these things are ascribed to God much more near and glorious will the Divine Regiment there be whoever are the Administrators § 4. And as I must expect to be under some created Efficient and Dirigent Causes there so must I expect to have some subordinate Ends Else there would not be a proportion and harmony in causalities whatever nobler Creatures are above me and have their Causalities upon me I must look to be finally for those nobler Creatures When I look up and think what a world of glorious Beings are now over me I dare not presume to think that I shall finally any more than Receptively be the Nearest unto God and that I am made for None but Him I find here that I am made and ruled and sanctified for the Publick or Common Good of many as above my own of which I am past doubt And I am sure that I must be finally for my glorified Redeemer and for what other Spiritual Beings or Intelligences that are above me little do I know And God hath so ordered all his creatures as that they are mutually Ends and Means for and to one another though not in an Equality nor in the same respects But whatever nearer Ends there will be I am sure that he who is the first Efficient and Dirigent will be the ultimate final Cause And I shall be in this respect as near him as is due to he rank and order of my Nature I shall be useful to he Ends which are answerable to my Perfection § 5. And if it be the honour of a Servant to have an honourable Master and to be appointed to the most honourable work If it be some honour to a Horse above a Swine or a Worm or Fly that he serveth more nearly for the use of Man yea for a Prince will it not be also my advancement to be ultimately for God and subordinately for the highest created Natures and this in such Services as are suitable to my Spiritual and Heavenly State § 6. For I am far from thinking that I shall be above Service and have none to do For Activity will be my Perfection and my Rest And all such Activity must be Regular in harmony and order of Causes and for its proper use And what though I know not now fully what service it is that I must do I know it will be good and suitable to the blessed state which I shall be in And it is enough that God and my Redeemer know it and that I shall know it in due time when I come to practice it of which more afterward § 7. The inordinate Love of this Body and present composition seduceth Souls to think that all their use and work is for its maintenance and prosperity and when the Soul hath done that and is separated from Flesh it hath nothing to do but must lie idle or be as nothing or have no considerable work or pleasure As if there were nothing in the whole World but this little fluid mass of matter for a Soul to work upon As if itself and all the Creatures and God were nothing or no fit Objects for a Soul And why not hereafter as well as now Or as if that which in our compounded state doth Operate on and by its Organs had no other way of Operation without them As if the Musician lost all his power or were dead when his Instrument is out of tune or broken and could do nothing else but play on that As if the fiery part of the Candle were annihilated or transmutate as some following-Philosphers imagine when the Candle goeth out and were not fire and in action still Or as if that Sun beam which I shut out or which passeth from our Horizon were annihilated or did nothing when it shineth not with us Had it no other individual to illuminate or to terminate its beams or action were it nothing to illuminate the common Air Though I shall not always have a Body to Operate in and upon I shall always have God and a Saviour and a world of fellow-Creatures and when I shine not in this Lanthorn and see not by these Spectacles nor imaginarily in a Glass I shall yet see things suitable
yet Man's internal Sense is far more excellent than the Bruits and thereby is an advantage to our Intellection Volition and Joy here in the Flesh And that in Heaven we shall have not less but more even more excellent Sense and Affections of Love and Joy as well as more excellent Intellection and Volition but such as we cannot now clearly conceive of § 13. Therefore there is great reason for all those Analogical collections which I have mentioned in my Book called The Saints Rest from the present operarations and pleasures of the Soul in Flesh to help our Conceptions of its future pleasures And though we cannot conclude that they will not unconceivably differ in their manner from what we now feel I doubt not but feel and rejoice we shall as certainly as Live and the Soul is Essential Life and that our Life and Feeling and Joy will be unconceivably better The Concluding Application § 1. I am convinced that it is far better to depart and be with Christ than to be here But there is much more than such conviction necessary to bring up my Soul to such desires Still there resisteth 1. The natutural averseness to Death which God hath put into every Animal and which is become inordinate and too strong by sin II. The remnants of Unbelief taking advantage of our darkness here in the Flesh and our too much familiarity with this visible World III. The want of more lively fortasts in a heavenly mind and love through weakness of Grace and the fear of Guilt These stand up against all that is said and words will not overcome them what then must be done Is there no remedy § 2. There is a Special sort of the Teaching of God by which we must learn so to number our Days as to apply our Hearts to Wisdom Without which we shall never effectually practically and savingly learn either this or any the most common and obvious easie Lesson When we have read and heard and spoken and written the soundest Truth and certainest Arguments we know yet as if we knew not and believe as if we believed not with a slight and dreaming kind of apprehension till God by a special Illumination bring the same things clearly to our Minds and awaken the Soul by a special suscitation to feel what we know and suit the Soul to the Truth revealed by an influx of his Love which giveth us a pleasing sense of the Amiableness and Congruity of the things proposed Since we separated our selves from God there is a hedge of separation between our Senses and our Understandings and between our Understandings and our Wills and Affections so that the communion between them is violated and we are divided in our selves by this Schism in our Faculties All men still see the demonstrations of Divine Perfections in the World and every part thereof and yet how little is God known All men may easily know that there is a God who is Almighty Omniscient Goodness itself Eternal Omnipresent the Maker Preserver and Governour of all who should have our whole Trust and Love and Obedience and yet how little of this knowledge is to be perceived in mens Hearts to themselves or in their Lives to others All men know that the World is Vanity that Man must die that Riches then profit not that time is precious and that we have only this little time to prepare for that which we must receive hereafter And yet how little do men seem to know indeed of all such things as no Man doubts of And when God doth come in with his powerful awakening Light and Love then all these things have another appearance of affecting reality than they had before as if but now we began to know them Words Doctrines Persons Things do seem as newly known to us All my best Reasons for our Immortality and future Life are but as the New-formed Body of Adam before God breathed into him the Breath of Life It is he that must make them Living Reasons To the Father of Lights therefore I must still look up and for his Light and Love I must still wait as for his blessing on the Food which I have eaten which must concoct it into my living substance Arguments will be but undigested Food till God's effectual influx do digest them I must learn both as a Student and a Beggar when I have thought and thought a Thousand times I must beg thy Blessing Lord upon my Thoughts or they will all be but dulness or self-distraction If there be no Motion Light and Life here without the Influx of the Sun what can Souls do or receive or feel without thy influx This World will be to us without thy Grace as a Grave or Dungeon where we shall lie in Death and Darkness The eye of my Understanding and all its Thoughts will be useless or vexatious to me without thine illuminating Beams O shine the Soul of thy Servant into a clearer knowledge of thy Self and Kingdom and Love him into more Divine and heavenly love and then he will willingly come to thee § 3. 1. And why should I strive by the fears of Death against the common course of Nature and against my only hopes of Happiness Is it not appointed for all men once to die Would I have God to alter this determinate Course and make sinful Man immortal upon Earth When we are sinless we shall be immortal The love of life was given to teach me to preserve it carefully and use it well and not to torment me with the continual troubling foresight of Death Shall I make my self more miserable than the Vegetatives and Bruits Neither they nor I do grieve that my Flowers must fade and die and that my sweet and pleasant Fruits must fall and the Trees be uncloathed of their beauteous leaves until the Spring Birds and Beasts and Fishes and Worms have all a self-preserving fear of Death which urgeth them to fly from danger But few if any of them have a tormenting fear arising from the fore-thoughts that they must die To the Body death is less troublesom than sleep For in sleep I may have disquieting pains or dreams And yet I fear not going to my bed But of this before If it be the misery after Death that 's feared O what have I now to do but to receive the free reconciling Grace which is offered me from Heaven to save me from such misery and to devote my self totally to him who hath promised that those that come to him he will in no wise cast out § 4 But this cometh by my selfishness Had I studied my duty and then remembred that I am not mine own and that it is God's part and not mine to determine of the duration of my life I had been quiet from these fruitless fears But when I fell to my self from God I am faln to care for my self as if it were my work to measure out my Days and now I trust not God as I should do
true 4. They sharply reproved the Rulers for persecuting Christ which would provoke them to do their best to confute the Apostles for their own justification 5. Christ chose men of no great human Learning and Subtility but common plain unlearned men that it might not be thought a deceit of Art 6. Yea he did not make much more known to them before his Death than the bare Matters of Fact which they daâ—ly saw and that he was the Christ and Moral Doctrine his Death Resurrection Ascension and Kingdom of Heaven they knew little of before But experience and the sudden coming down of the Spirit suddenly taught them all the rest 7. They taught not one another but were every one personally taught of God 8. And yet they all agreed in the same Doctrine when they were dispersed over the World and never differed in any one Article of Faith 9 They were men that had no worldly Interest Wealth or Dominion to seek 10. Yea they renounced and denied all worldly Interest and sealed their Testimony by their Sufferings and Blood and all in hope of a heavenly reward which they knew that Lying was no means to obtain 11. Had they plotted to cheat the World for nothing the sin is so heinous that some one of them would have repented and confest it at least at death which none of them did but died joyfully as for the Truth 12. Paul was converted by a Voice and Light from Heaven in the presence of those that travelled with him in his persecuting design 13. But yet it is a fuller evidence that the Doctrine which they delivered as from God beareth a Divine Impress that as the Light it is its own Evidence 14. And for the more infallible conviction they that testified of Christs Miracles did the like themselves to confirm their Testimony they spake with Tongues which they never learnt They healed all Diseases even the shadow of Peter and the Clothes that came from Paul did heal men They raised the Dead And they that in all Countries converted the Nations by their own Miracles attesting the Miracles and Resurrection of Christ must needs compel the Spectators to believe them 15. Yet more than all this those that believed them were presently enabled to do the like in one kind and degree or other The same extraordinary gift of the Spirit fell upon the common multitude of Believers by the laying on of the Apostles hands So that Simon Magus would fain have bought that Power with Money And when men witnessed Christ's Miracles and wrought the like themselves and those that believed them had and did the like either Healing Tongues Prophesie or some wonders it was sure an infallible way of testifying 16. When wrangling Hereticks quarrelled with the Apostles and would draw away Disciples to themselves by disparaging them they still appealed to the Miracles wrought by these Disciples themselves or in their sight as Gal. 3. 1 2 3 5. And as Christ when the Jews said he did all by Beelzebub when he cast out devils askt them By whom do your Children cast them out Which had it been false would have turned all the People from them 17. Their adversaries were so far from writing any Confutation of their Testimony that they confest the Miracles and had no shift but either to blaspheme the Holy Ghost and say that they were done by the Devil or else by persecution and violence to oppress them As if the Devil were Master of the World and could remedilesly deceive it against God's will or God himself would send or suffer a full course of Miracles remedilesly to deceive the World which is to make God like the Devil Or as if the Devil were so good as by Miracles to promote so holy and amiable and just a Doctrine as that of Christianity to make men wise and good and just and kill their sin So that this blasphemy of the Holy Ghost makes Satan to be God or God to be Satan 18. All the cruelty powers Learning and Policy of their Adversaries was not able to stop the progress of this Testimony much less to prevail against it III. It is then most certain that the first Witnesses were not deceived by Christ nor Believers after deceived by them The next Question is whether we be not deceived by a false historical Tradition of these things Had we seen them all our selves we must needs have believed but at this distance we know not what misreports may interven what Eye-sight and hearing was to them that Tradition is to us Now the Question is Is it certainly the very same Fact and Doctrine which they received and which we receive And here let it be premised that there is no other way of assurance than that which God hath afforded us that the reason of Man could have desired 1. If we would see God and Heaven and Hell this is not a way suitable to the state of Probationers that live in Flesh on Earth Angels live by vision and fruition of Glory And Bruits by sense on sensible things But reasonable Travellers must live by reason and by believing certain Revelation 2. If God will send his Son from Heaven to ascertain us and we will believe no more than we see our selves then Christ must dwell on Earth to the end of the World he must be in all places of the Earth at once that all may see and he must die and rise again before all men in all Ages And how mad an expectation is this 3. Or if all that deliver us the History must work Miracles before our Eyes or else we will not believe them it is still most absurd Will you not believe that the Laws of the Land are genuine or that ever there were such Kings as made them unless he that tells it you work Miracles Shall not Children believe their Parents or Schollars their Tutors unless they work Miracles 3. I must premise that there is three sorts of Tradition I. Such as depends on the common Wit and Honesty of Mankind And this is very much to be suspected wickedness folly and lying being grown so common in the World II. Such as depends on the extraordinary skill and honesty of some proved men And this deserveth much belief but it is but an uncertain humane Faith III. Such as depends on Natural Necessity and cannot possibly be false we have both these last to ascertain us of the Gospel History This resteth on a distinction of the Acts of Mans Will Some of them are mutably free and these give no certainty Some of them are naturally and immutably necessary and Man can do no otherwise and these give even natural Infallible certainty Such are To love ones self to love felâ—city to hate torment and misery c. And to know that which is fully manifest to our sound Senses c. When men of contrary Interests and temper all confess the Truth of known things about which their Interests stand cross it is a
hath also used them to do abundance of good against Idolatry in the Heathen World Where-ever they come Idolatry is destroyed Yea the corrupt Christians Greeks and specially Papists that worship Images Angels and Bread are rebuked and condemned justly by Mahometans But O that they who have Conquered so far by the Sword were Conquered by the Sacred Word of Truth and truly understood the Mystery of Redemption and the Doctrin of the Gospel of Jesus Christ Obj. But they think us Idolaters for saying that Christ is God and believing the Trinity I. As to the Trinity it is no contradiction that one Fire or Sun should have Essentially a Virtue or Power to Move Light and Heat Nor that one Soul should have a power of Vegetation Sense and Reason Nor as Rational to have a peculiar power of Vitality Intellection and Free-will Why then should the Trinity seem incredidible II. We do not believe that the Godhead hath any change or is made Flesh or the Manhood made God but that the Godhead is incomprehensibly united to the humane Nature by assumption so as he is united to no other Creature by and for those peculiar Operations on the humanity of Christ which make him our Redeemer They that well think that God is All in All things more than a Soul to all the World and as near to us as our Souls to our Bodies in whom we live and move and have our being will find that it is more difficult to apprehend how God is further from any Soul than that he is so much One with Christ Save that different Operations of God on his Creatures are apparent to us By all this we see that every sanctified Christian hath the certain Witness in himself that Christ is true He is truly a Physician that healeth and a Saviour that saveth all that seriously believe and obey him The Spirit of God in a New and Holy and Heavenly Nature of Spiritual Life and Light and Love is the Witness VI. The Sixth Article in my Text is Received up into Glory That Christ after Forty Days continuance on Earth was taken up into Heaven in the sight of his Disciples is a Matter of Fact of which we have all the forementioned infallible proof which I must not here again repeat And 1. If Christ were not glorified now in Heaven he could not send down his Spirit with his Word on Earth nor have enabled the first Witnesses to speak with all Tongues and heal the Sick and raise the Dead and do all the Miracles which they did A dead Man cannot send down the Holy Spirit in likeness of Firy cloven Tongues nor enable Thousands to do such VVorks nor could he do what is done on the Souls of serious Believers in all Ages and Nations to this Day He is sure alive that makes men live and in Heaven that draws up Hearts to Heaven 2. And this is our Hope and Joy Heaven and Earth are in his Power The Suffering and VVork which he performed for us on Earth was short but his heavenly Intercession and Reign is Everlasting Guilty Souls can have no immediate access to God All is by a Mediator All our receivings from God are by him And all our services are returned by him and accepted for his sake And as he is the Mediator between his Father and us his Spirit interceedeth between him and us By his Spirit he giveth us Holy desires and every Grace and by his Spirit we exercise them in returns to him And our glorified Saviour hath Satan and all our Enemies in his Power Life and Death are at his command All Judgment is committed to him He that hath redeemed us is preparing us for Heaven and it for us and receiveth our departing Souls to his own Joy and Glory He hath promised us that we shall be with him where he is and shall see his Glory He that is our Saviour will be our Judge He will come with Thousands of his Angels to the confusion of wicked Unbelievers and to be glorified in his Saints He will make a New Heaven and a New Earth in which Righteousness shall dwell Angels and Glorified Saints shall with Christ our Head make one City of God or holy Society and Chore in perfect Love and Joy to praise the blessed God for ever I. The differences between this World and that which I am going to I. THis World is God's Footstool That is his Throne II. Here are his Works of Inferiour Nature and of Grace There he shineth forth in Perfect Glory III. Here is gross Receptive Matter moved by Invisible Powers There are the noblest efficient communicative Powers moving all IV. This is the Inferiour subject Governed World That is the Superiour Regent World V. This is a World of Trial where the Soul is his that can win its consent That is a World where the Will is perfectly determined and fixed VI. Satan winning mens Consent hath here a large Dominion of Fools There he is cast out and hath no Possession VII Here he is a 〈◊〉 and Troubler of the Best There he hath neither Power to Tempt or Trouble VIII This World is as the dark Womb where we are regenerated That is the World of Glorious Light into which we are born IX Here we dwell on a World of sordid Earth There we shall dwell in a World of Celestial Light and Glory X. Here we dwell in a troublesom tempting perishing Body There we are delivered from this burden and prison into glorious liberty XI Here we are under a troublesom Cure of our Maladies There we are perfectly healed rejoicing in our Physicians praise XII Here we are using the Means in weariness and hope There we obtain the end in full fruition XIII Here sin maketh us loathsom to our selves and our own annoiance There we shall love God in our selves and our Perfected selves in God XIV Here all our Duties are defiled with sinful imperfection There perfect Souls will perfectly love and praise their God XV. Here Satans temptations are a continual danger and molestation There perfect Victory hath ended our temptations XVI Here still there is a remnant of the Curse and Punishment of sin Pardon and Deliverance are perfected there XVII Repenting Shame Sorrow and Fear are here part of my necessary work There all the troublesom part is past and utterly excluded XVIII Here we see darkly as in a Glass the Invisible World of Spirits There we shall see them as Face to Face XIX Here Faith alas too weak must serve instead of sight There presence and sight suspend the use of such believing XX. Desire and Hope are here our very Life VVork But there it will be full felicity in fruition XXI Our Hopes are here oft mixt with grievous doubts and fears But there full possession ends them all XXII Our holy Affections are here corrupted with Carnal mixtures But there all are purely Holy and Divine XXIII The coldness of our Divine Love is here our sin and
reasoning deduction from that poor Degree which we here in the Kingdom of Grace possess Can I perceive substantiality in the dark terrene appearances which are but mutable lifeless matter agitated and used by invisible Powers and shall I think of those unseen powerful substances as if they were less substantial for being Spiritual or were not Objects for a knowing Thought Are the Stars which I see less substantial than a Carkass in a darksom Grave The Lord that appeared in shining Glory hath Members in their measure like himself and hath promised that we shall shine as Stars in the Kingdom of his Father If some degree of this be here performed in them who are called the Children of Light and the Lights of the World how much more will they shine in the World of Light They that call Light a quality or an Act must confess it hath a substance whose quality or act it is Alas what a deceived thing is a sensual Unbeliever who spendeth his Life in the pursuit of fugitive shaddows and walketh in a vain shew and thinks of Spiritual glorious substances as if they were the nothings or delusions of a Dream § 6. Christ Moses and Elias here visibly appeared as three distinct individual Persons This tells us that it is a false conceit that Death ceaseth Individuation and turneth all Souls into one of which before Perfect indivisible infinite Unity is proper to God From this One is multiplicity Reason forbids us when we see the numberless individuals in this World and see also the numerous Stars above to imagine that all the Worlds above us have so much of Divine Perfection as to be but one undivided substance and to have no multiplicity of Inhabitants Yea some of those Sadduces hold that the Stars are Worlds inhabited as the Earth is And why then should they think whither soever Souls go that they cease their individuation When they go among individuals But Christ hath confuted them even to Sense Moses is Moses still and Elias is Elias still And all our Friends that are gone to Christ are the same still that they were and may be called by the same Names Abraham Isaac and Jacob are the same in Heaven and Lazarus was Lazarus in Abraham's bosom When we lay by Flesh and are uncloathed we put not off our personality Every one shall receive his own reward according to what he hath done in the Body when every one must give account of his own works and talents Why then may I not with distinct conceptions and joyful desires look after the Souls of my departed Friends that are now in the Celestial Kingdom Though malignity hath scorned me for naming some few in my Saints Rest being such as the Despisers hated yet I forbear not on such accounts to Solace my self by naming more but because they are more than it 's fit to number In all places where I have lived how many excellent Souls though here they were not perfect are gone to Christ How sweet is the remembrance of the communion which I had with many of them in Shrewsbury and other parts of Shropshire Of many at Dudley and the adjoining parts Of Multitudes at Kiderminster Bewdley and other parts of Worcestershire Of abundance at Coventry and other parts of Warwickshire And of many where I have sojourned in other parts of the Land And above all in London and the adjoining parts As Mr. How hath elegantly exprest it in his excellent Character of my excellent and dear Friend Mr. Richard Fairclough What a Multitude of Blessed Saints will arise at the last Day out of London and this Earth is as it were hallowed with the Dust and Relicts of so many blessed Souls But it 's Heaven that is spangled with these Spiritual Stars The place honoured with them and they with it and all by Christ We are like Infants or Lambs or other young ones that cry for their Dams if they be but out of sight though they are never so near if they see them not they cry as if they were not or had forsaken them As Christ told his Disciples that it was needful for them that he departed from them and yet their Hearts for this were sorrowful till the Holy Ghost came upon them as better than Christ's fleshly presence to prepare them joyfully to follow him so we think of our Friends as almost lost to us by separation till the heavenly Spirit tell us where they are and prepare us to desire to be with them § 6. Elias hath a Body now in Heaven and so hath Henoch But can we think that only two or three that are there with Christ do so much differ from all the rest as to have Bodies when the rest have none Is there such a dissimilitude of Saints in Heaven What are two or three in such a Society Doubtless their Bodies are not corruptible Flesh and Blood but such Spiritual Bodies as all Saints shall have at the Resurrection But are they in Heaven such visible and shaped Bodies as they appeared on the Mount The same difficulty poseth us about the risen Body of Christ He would not have Mary touch him because he had not yet ascended to his Father He could appear and vanish from their sight at his pleasure And yet Thomas handled him and felt that he had Flesh and Bones That Body of Flesh ascended visibly up toward Heaven And yet it is not Flesh and Blood in Heaven but a Spiritual Body For it is not worse than he will make his Members What shall we say to these things We must say That we are not capable of knowing them but have Reason to be thankful that we may know so much more necessary for us But yet it seemeth probable that the Bodies of Christ and Henoch and Elias were changeable according to the Region in which they were to be Christ could take up a Body of Flesh and Blood and immediately change that state of it into a pure incorruptible Spiritual Body as it entered into the incorruptible Spiritual Region And so God did by Henoch and Elias As Paul saith that we shall not all die those that live till Christ's appearing but we shall all be changed And yet if Elias have business on the Mount he can put on the cloathing of a grosser Body to be so seen of men and can lay it by or return to his more invisible Spiritual state when he returneth to the place from whence he came And no wonder when Angels and the Ancients say Christ before his Incarnation assumed Bodies suitable to their several businesses on Earth yea such as could eat and drink with men when yet they dwelt not in Heaven so coursly cloathed § 7. But how came Moses to have a Body on the Mount who is said to have been buried and therefore took none with him into Heaven We must still remember that we enquire of things above our certain knowledge But in humble conjecture we may say That it 's no
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
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
him when he promiseth and hear him before the worldly wise when he teacheth us the way to God Hear him for he knows what he saith Hear him for he is true and faithful and infallible Hear him for he is the Son of God the greatest Messenger that ever God sent Hear him for he purposly came down into Flesh that he might familiarly teach us Hear him for none else in the Word hath made known the things of God like him and none can do it Hear him for he meaneth us no hurt He is our dearest Friend and Love itself and saith nothing but for our Salvation and promiseth nothing but what he will perform Yea Hear him for every Soul that will not hear him shall be cut off Hear him therefore if he contradict thy fleshly Appetite Hear him if great or small if any or all shall be against it Hear him if he set thee on the hardest work or call thee to the greatest suffering Hear him if he bid thee take up the Cross and forsake all and follow him in hope of a reward in Heaven Hear him if he call thee to lay down thy Life for none can be a loser by him Hear him now in the Day of Grace and he will hear thee in the day of thy Extremity in the day of Danger Sickness Death and Judgment when the World forsaketh thee and no ones hearing else can help thee § 37. But I was not one that saw this Vision Had I seen it my self it would have satisfied me and confuted all my doubts Answ But it is the will of God that the Ministry and Testimony of Man shall be a means of our believing It 's Faith and not Sight that must be the ordinary way of our Salvation Else Christ must have shewed himself and his Miracles Resurrection and Ascension to every one in the World that must believe in him And then he must have been visible at once in every Kingdom Parish and Place on Earth and continued so to the end of the World and must have died risen and ascended many Millions of times and in every place They that will put such Laws on their Lawgiver before they will believe in him must be saved without him and against him if they can This is more unreasonable than to tell God that you will not believe that there is a Heaven or Hell unless you see them But God will have us live and be saved by believing and not by sight And he will use Man for the Instruction and Salvation of Man and not send Angels with every Message § 38. But Why did Christ shew this Vision but it Three of his Disciples Answ He is not bound to tell us why But we may know that a sight of heavenly Glory is not to be ordinarily expected on Earth Why did God shew the back parts of his Glory to none but Moses no not to his Brother Aaron Why did he speak to him only in the Bush and in the Mount Why did he translate none to Heaven without dying but Henoch and Elias Why did he save but Noah and Seven with him in the Ark These are not things ordinary nor to be common to many § 39. But by this it appeareth that even among his Twelve Apostles Christ made a difference and preferred some before the rest Though he set no one over the rest in any Governing Authority yet some of them were qualified above the rest and esteemed and used by him accordingly Peter is called the first and it seems was qualified above the rest by his more frequent speaking and familiarity with Christ and his Speeches and Miracles after the Resurrection Though yet the Faction that said I am of Cephas or I am of Paul was rebuked as Carnal so far was Christ from directing the Churches to end all difference by obeying Peter as their Supream Ruler James and John are called the Sons of Thunder They had some more eminent qualification than the rest So that James was the first Martyred Apostle and John the Disciple whom Jesus specially loved Ministers of the same Office and Order may much differ in Gifts and Grace in labour and success and in God's acceptance and reward and in the Churches just esteem and love All Pastors were not such as Cyprian Basil Gregory Nazianzene Chrysostome or Augustine And the rest must not envy at the preference of Peter James and John Andrew seems to be Peters Elder Brother and knew Christ before him as Aaron was Elder Brother to Moses and yet must give God leave to choose to give pre-eminence to whom he will § 40. But Why did not these Three Apostles tell any of this Vision till after Christ's Resurrection Ans Christ did forbid it them And it was according to the Method of his Revelation He would make himself known to the World by degrees and more by his Works than by bare Words And these works were to be finished and all set together to be his convincing Witness to the World And the chief of these were his Resurrection Ascension and sending down the Holy Ghost The Apostles could not say till then Jesus is risen ascended and hath given us the Seal of the Spirit therefore he is the Son of God Christ first preached Repentance like John Baptist And next he told them that the Kingdom of God by the Messiah was come and was among them And then he taught them to believe his Word to be sent from God and to be true And he taught them the Doctrines of Holiness Love and Righteousness towards men And he wrought those Miracles which might convince them that what he said or should say deserved their belief But yet before his Resurrection his Apostles themselves understood not many of the Articles of our Creed they knew not that Christ was to die for sin and so to redeem the World by his Sacrifice nor that he was to Rise Ascend and Reign and Intercede in Glory And yet they were then in a state of Grace and Life such as Believers were in before Christ's Incarnation And sure no more is required of the Nations that cannot hear the Gospel But the Resurrection was the beginning of the proper Gospel State and Kingdom to which all before was but preparatory then by the Spirit Christianity was formed to its setled Consistence and is a known unalterable thing And it is a great confirmation to our Faith that Christ's Kingdom was not settled by any advantage of his personal Presence Preaching and Persuasion so much as by the Holy Ghost in his Apostles and Disciples when he was gone from them into Heaven § 41. But how are we sure that these three men tell us nothing but the Truth Ans This is oft answered elsewhere The Spirit which they spake and work'◠by was Christ's Witness and theirs They healed the Sick raised the Dead spake various Languages which they never learnt and Preached and Recorded that Holy Doctrin committed to them by Christ which
itself contained the evidence of its Divinity and of their Truth And Christ then and to this Day hath owned it by the sanctifying Efficacy of the same Spirit upon Millions of Souls How Holy a Doctrin doth Peter himself deliver as confirmed by this Apparition 2 Pet. 1. 16 17 18. We have not followed cunningly devised Fables when we made known to you the Power and Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ but were Eye Witnesses of his Majesty For he received from God the Father Honour and Glory when there came such a Voice to him from the excellent Glory This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased And this Voice which came from Heaven we heard when we were with him in the Holy Mount The words In whom I am well pleased are only here and in Matthew Mark and Luke omitting them tell us that the Evangelists undertook not to recite all that was said and done but each one so much as seemed necessary for him to say § 42. And now what remaineth O my Soul but that thou take in the due Impression of this Apparition of the Glory of Jesus and his Saints and that thou joyfully obey this heavenly Voice and Hear the Beloved Son of God in whom the Father is well pleased I. As we that are Born in another Age and Land must know what Christ said by the transmission and certain testimony of them that heard him infallible Tradition by Act Word and Record being our way of notice as immediate sensation was theirs so even the glorious Apparition itself may be the mediation of their infallible Record be partly transmitted to our Imagination An Incorporate Soul is so used to a mixed way of knowing by imagined Idea's received by sense that it would fain have such a sort of knowledge of separated Souls and other Spirits and of their glorious state and place and work and is hardly fully satisfied without it Seeing Christ hath partly condescended to this our culpable weakness lose not the help of his condescension Let this clear description of the heavenly sight make it to thee partly as if thou had been one of the three Spectators till thou canst say Methinks I almost see the Face of Christ shine as the Sun and his raiment whiter than the Snow and Moses and Elias no doubt in some degree of glory standing with him Methinks I almost hear them discoursing of Christ's Death and Man's Redemption And by this sight I partly conceive of the unseen heavenly Company and State Methinks I see the Cloud receive them when Peter had been transported with the sight and I almost feel his pleasant raptures and am ready to say as if I had been with him It is good for us to be hear Methinks I almost hear the heavenly Voice This is my beloved Son Hear him And shall I yet doubt of the Celestial Society and Glory Had I once seen that what a sense would it have left upon my Heart of the difference between Earth and Heaven Man and God Flesh and Spirit Sin and Duty how thankfully should I have thought of the work of Redemption and Sanctification And why may I not accordingly put my self as into the case of them who saw all Christ's Miracles and saw him risen and ascend towards Heaven Or at least of all those ordinary Christians who saw all the wonders done by the Reporters of these things I can easily receive a pleasing Idea of some forreign happy Countrey which a Traveller describeth to me though I never saw it and my Reason can partly gather what great things are if I see but lesser of the same kind or somewhat like them A Candle sheweth somewhat by which we may conceive of the greatest flame Even Grace and Gracious actions do somewhat notifie to us the state of Glory But the sight on the Mount did more sensibly notifie it Think not then that heavenly contemplation is an impossible thing or a meer dream as if it had no conceivable subject matter to work upon the visible things of Earth are the Shaddows the Cobwebs the Bubbles the Shews Mummerries and Masques and it is loving them and rejoicing and trusting in them that is the dream and dotage Our heavenly Thoughts and Hopes and Business are more in comparison of these than the Sun is to a glow-Worm or the World to a Mole-hill or Governing an Empire to the motions of a Fly And can I make somwhat yea too much of these almost nothings and yet shall I make almost nothing of the active glorious unseen World and doubt and grope in my Meditations of it as if I had no substance to apprehend If invisibility to Mortals were a cause of doubting or of unaffecting unsatisfying Thoughts God himself who is All to Men and Angels would be as no God to us and Heaven as no Heaven and Christ as no Christ and our Souls which are our selves would seem as nothing to themselves and all men would be as no men to us and we should converse only with Carkasses and Cloaths Lord shine into this Soul with such an heavenly potent quickening Light as may give me more lively and powerful conceptions of that which is all my hope and life Leave me not to the exercise of Art alone in barren notions but make it as Natural to me to love Thee and breath after Thee Thou teachest the young ones both of men and bruits to seek to the Dam for food and shelter And though Grace be not a brutish Principle but work by Reason it hath its Nature and Inclining force and tendeth towards its Original as its End Let not my Soul be destitute of that holy Sense and Appetite which the Divine and Heavenly Nature doth contain Let me not lay more stress and trust upon my own Sight and Sense than on the Sight and Fidelity of my God and my Redeemer I am not so foolish as to live as if this Earth were no bigger than the little of it which I see Let me not be so much more foolish as to think of the vast and glorious Regions and the Blessed Inhabitants thereof and the Receptacles of justified Souls as if they wanted either substantiality or certainty to exercise a heavenly conversation here and to feast believing Souls with joy and draw forth well grounded and earnest desire to depart and be with Christ § 43. II. Hear then and Hear with Trust and Joy the tydings and promises of him whom the Voice from Heaven commanded Man to hear He is the glorified Lord of Heaven and Earth All is in his power He hath told us nothing but what he knew and promised nothing but what he is able and willing to give Two sorts of things he hath required us to Trust him for Things notified by express particular Promises and things only generally promised and known to us 1. We may know particularly that he will receive our departing Souls and justifie them in judgment and raise the Dead and