consist in Bodily pleasure 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and when the molestation is gone and the just constitution of Nature recovered Pleasure ceaseth But the highest Pleasure of Minds and Spirits does not onely consist in the relieving of them from any antecedent pains or grief or in a relaxation from some former molesting Passion neither is their Happiness a mere Stoical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Happiness of the Deity is not a mere Negative thing rendring it free from all disturbance or molestation so that it may eternally rest quiet within it self it does not so much consist in Quiete as in Actu vigore A Mind and Spirit is too full of activity and energy is too quick and potent a thing to enjoy a full and complete Happiness in a mere Cessation this were to make Happiness an heavy Spiritless thing The Philosopher hath well observ'd that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there is infinite power and strength in Divine joy pleasure and happiness commensurate to that Almighty Being and Goodness which is the Eternal source of it As Created Beings that are capable of conversing with God stand nearer to God or further off from him and as they partake more or less of his likeness so they partake more or less of that Happiness which flows forth from him and God communicates himself in different degrees to them There may be as many degrees of Sanctity and Perfection as there are of States and Conditions of Creatures and that is properly Sanctity which guides and orders all the Faculties and Actions of any Creature in a way suitable and correspondent to that rank and state which God hath placed it in and while it doth so it admits no sin or defilement to it self though yet it may be elevated and advanced higher and accordingly true Positive Sanctity comes to be advanced higher and higher as any Creature comes more to partake of the life of God and to be brought into a nearer conjunction with God and so the Sanctity and Happiness of Innocency it self might have been perfected Thus we see how True Religion carries up the Souls of Good men above the black regions of Hell and Death This indeed is the great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Souls it is Religion it self or a reall participation of God and his Holiness which is their true restitution and advancement All that Happiness which Good men shall be made partakers of as it cannot be born up upon any other foundation then true Goodness and a Godlike nature within them so neither is it distinct from it Sin and Hell are so twined and twisted up together that if the power of Sin be once dissolv'd the bonds of Death and Hell will also fall asunder Sin and Hell are of the same kind of the same linage and descent as on the other side True Holiness or Religion and True Happiness are but two severall Notions of one thing rather then distinct in themselves Religion delivers us from Hell by instating us in a possession of True Life and Blisse Hell is rather a Nature then a Place and Heaven cannot be so truly defined by any thing without us as by something that is within us Thus have we done with those Particulars wherein we considered the Excellency and Nobleness of Religion which is here exprest by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The way of life and elsewhere is stiled by Solomon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A tree of life true Religion being an inward Principle of life of a Divine life the best life that which is Life most properly so called accordingly in the Holy Scripture a life of Religion is stiled Life as a life of Sin and Wickedness is stiled Death In the ancient Academical Philosophy it was much disputed whether that Corporeal and Animal life which was always drawing down the Soul into Terrene and Material things was not more properly to be Stiled Death then Life What sense hereof the Pythagoreans had may appear by this practise of theirs They were wont to set up 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Empty coffins in the places of those that had forsaken their School and degenerated from their Philosophy and good Precepts as being Apostates from life it self and dead to Vertue and a good life which is the true life therefore fit only to be reckoned among the dead For a Conclusion of this Discourse The Use which we shall make of all shall be this To awaken and exhort every one to a serious minding of Religion as Solomon doth earnestly exhort every one to seek after true Wisedome which is the same with Religion and Holiness as Sin is with Folly Prov. 4. 5. Get Wisedome get understanding and v. 7. Get Wisedome and with all thy getting get understanding Wisedome is the principal thing This is the summe of all the Conclusion of the whole matter Fear God and keep his Commandements for this is the whole duty business and concernment of man Let us not trifle away our time and opportunities which God hath given us wherein we may lay hold upon Life and Immortality in doing nothing or else pursuing Hell and Death Let us awake out of our vain dreams Wisedome calls upon us and offers us the hidden treasures of Life and Blessedness Let us not perpetually deliver over our selves to laziness and slumbering Say not There is a lion in the way say not Though Religion be good yet it is unattainable No but let us intend all our Powers in a serious resolv'd pursuance of it and depend upon the assistance of Heaven which never fails those that soberly seek for it It is indeed the Levity of mens spirits their heedlesseness and regardlesseness of their own lives that betrays them to Sin and Death It is the general practice of men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 extempore vivere as the Satyrist speaks they ordinarily ponderate and deliberate upon every thing more then how it becomes them to live they so live as if their Bodies had swallowed up their Souls their lives are but a kind of Lottery the Principles by which they are guided are nothing else but a confused multitude of Fancies rudely jumbled together Such is the life of most men it is but a meer Casual thing acted over at peradventure without any fair and calm debates held either with Religion or with Reason which in it self as it is not distorted and depraved by corrupt men is a true Friend to Religion and directs men to God and to things good and just pure lovely and praise-worthy and the directions of this Inward guide we are not to neglect Unreasonableness or the smothering and extinguishing the Candle of the Lord within us is no piece of Religion nor advantageous to it That certainly will not raise men up to God which sinks them below men There had never been such an Apostasy from Religion nor had such a Mystery of iniquity full of deceiveableness and imposture been revealed and wrought so powerfully in the Souls of
Truth wrapt up one within another which cannot be discern'd but onely by divine Epoptists We must not think we have then attained to the right knowledge of Truth when we have broke through the outward Shell of words phrases that house it up or when by a Logical Analysis we have found out the dependencies and coherencies of them one with another or when like stout champions of it having well guarded it with the invincible strength of our Demonstration we dare stand out in the face of the world and challenge the field of all those that would pretend to be our Rivalls We have many Grave and Reverend Idolaters that worship Truth onely in the Image of their own Wits that could never adore it so much as they may seem to doe were it any thing else but such a Form of Belief as their own wandring speculations had at last met together in were it not that they find their own image and superscription upon it There is a knowing of the truth as it is in Jesus as it is in a Christ-like nature as it is in that sweet mild humble and loving Spirit of Jesus which spreads itself like a Morning-Sun upon the Soules of good men full of light and life It profits litle to know Christ himself after the flesh but he gives his Spirit to good men that searcheth the deep things of God There is an inward beauty life and loveliness in Divine Truth which cannot be known but onely then when it is digested into life and practice The Greek Philosopher could tell those high-soaring Gnosticks that thought themselves no less then Jovis alites that could as he speaks in the Comedy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and cried out so much 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 look upon God that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Without Vertue and real Goodness God is but a name a dry and empty Notion The profane sort of men like those old Gentile Greeks may make many ruptures in the walls of God's Temple and break into the holy ground but yet may finde God no more there then they did Divine Truth is better understood as it unfolds itself in the purity of mens hearts and lives then in all those subtil Niceties into which curious Wits may lay it forth And therefore our Saviour who is the great Master of it would not while he was here on earth draw it up into any Systeme or Body nor would his Disciples after him He would not lay it out to us in any Canons or Articles of Belief not being indeed so careful to stock and enrich the World with Opinions and Notions as with true Piety and a Godlike pattern of purity as the best way to thrive in all spiritual understanding His main scope was to promote an Holy life as the best and most compendious way to a right Belief He hangs all true acquaintance with Divinity upon the doing Gods will If any man will doe his will he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God This is that alone which will make us as S. Peter tells us that we shall not be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour There is an inward sweetness and deliciousness in divine Truth which no sensual minde can tast or rellish this is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that natural man that savours not the things of God Corrupt passions and terrene affections are apt of their own nature to disturb all serene thoughts to precipitate our Judgments and warp our Understandings It was a good Maxime of the old Jewish Writers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Holy Spirit dwells not in terrene and earthly passions Divinity is not so well perceiv'd by a subtile wit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as by a purified sense as Plotinus phraseth it Neither was the antient Philosophy unacquainted with this Way and Method of attaining to the knowledge of Divine things and therefore Aristotle himself thought a Young man unfit to meddle with the grave precepts of Morality till the heat and violent precipitancy of his youthful affections was cool'd and moderated And it is observed of Pythagoras that he had several waies to try the capacity of his Scholars and to prove the sedateness and Moral temper of their minds before he would entrust them with the sublimer Mysteries of his Philosophy The Platonists were herein so wary and solicitous that they thought the Mindes of men could never be purg'd enough from those earthly dregs of Sense and Passion in which they were so much steep'd before they could be capable of their divine Metaphysicks and therefore they so much solicite a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they are wont to phrase it a separation from the Body in all those that would 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Socrates speaks that is indeed sincerely understand Divine Truth for that was the scope of their Philosophy This was also intimated by them in their defining Philosophy to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Meditation of Death aiming herein at onely a Moral way of dying by loosening the Soul from the Body and this Sensitive life which they thought was necessary to a right Contemplation of Intelligible things and therefore besides those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which the Souls of men were to be separated from sensuality and purged from fleshly filth they devised a further way of Separation more accommodated to the condition of Philosophers which was their Mathemata or Mathematical Contemplations whereby the Souls of men might farther shake off their dependency upon Sense and learn to go as it were alone without the crutch of any Sensible or Material thing to support them and so be a little inur'd being once got up above the Body to converse freely with Immaterial natures without looking down again and falling back into Sense Besides many other waies they had whereby to rise out of this dark Body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they are wont to call them several steps and ascents out of this miry cave of mortality before they could set any sure footing with their Intellectual part in the land of Light and Immortal Being And thus we should pass from this Topick of our Discourse upon which we have dwelt too long already but that before we quite let it goe I hope we may fairly make this use of it farther besides what we have openly driven at all this while which is To learn not to devote or give up our selves to any private Opinions or Dictates of men in matters of Religion nor too zealously to propugne the Dogmata of any Sect. As we should not like rigid Censurers arraign condemn the Creeds of other men which we comply not with before a full mature understanding of them ripened not onely by the natural sagacity of our own Reasons but by the benign influence of holy and mortified Affection so neither should we over-hastily credere in fidem alienam subscribe to the Symbols and Articles of other men They
also is in our power This is the importance of those words Let us search and try our ways and turn unto the Lord. And this is a great Fundamental the very Pillar of the Law and Precept according to what is written Deuter. 30. See I have set before thee this day life and death good and evil Thus we see Maimonides who was well vers'd in the ancientest Jewish learning and in high esteem among all the Jews is pleased to reckon this as a main Principle and Foundation upon which that Law stood as indeed it must needs be if Life and Perfection might be acquired by virtue of those Legal precepts which had only an External administration being set before their External Senses and promulged to their Eares as the Statute-laws of any other Common-wealth use to be Which was the very notion that they themselves had of these Laws And therefore in Breshith Rabba a very ancient Writing the Jewish Doctors taking notice of that passage in the Canticles Let him kiss m with the kisses of his mouth they thus gloss upon it At the time of the giving of the Law the Congregation of Israel desired that Moses might speak to them they being not able to heare the words of God himself and while he spake they heard and hearing forgat and thereupon moved this debate among themselves What is this Moses a man of flesh and blood and what is his law that we so soon learn and so soon forget it O that God would kiss us with the kisses of his mouth that is in their sense that God would teach them in a more vital and internal way And then as they goe on Moses makes this answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That this could not be then But it should so come to pass in the time to come in the daies of the Messiah when the Law should be written in their hearts as it is said Jer. 31. I will write it in their hearts By this we may see how necessarie it was for the Jews that they might be consistent to their grand Principle of obtaining Life and Perfection by this dead letter and a thing merely without themselves as not being radicated in the vital powers of their own Souls to establish such a power of Free-will as might be able uncontrollably to entertain it and so readily by its own Strength perform all the dictates of it And that Maimonides was not the first of the Jewish writers who expound that passage Gen. 3. Behold man is become like one of us to know good and evil of Free-will may appear from the several Chaldee Paraphrasts upon it which seem very much to intimate that Sense Which by the way though I cannot allow all that which the Jews deduce from it I think is not without something of Truth viz. That that Liberty which is founded in Reason and which Mankind only in this lower world hath above other Creatures may be there also meant But whatever it is I am sure the Jewish Commentators upon that place generally follow the rigid sense of Maimonides To this purpose R. Bechai a man of no small learning both in the Talmudick and Cabalistical doctrine of the Jews tells us That upon Adam's first transgression that grand Liberty of Indifferency equally to Good or Evil began first to discover it self whereas before that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all Intellect and wholy Spiritual as that common Cabalistical Notion was being from within only determined to that which was Good But I shall at large relate his words because of their pertinency and usefulness in the Matter now in hand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Adam before his sin acted from a necessity of Nature and all his actions were nothing else but the issues of pure and perfect Understanding Even as the Angels of God being nothing else but Intelligences put forth nothing else but acts of intelligence just so was Man before he sinned and did eat of the Tree of Knowledg of good and evil But after this transgression he had the power of Election and Free-will whereby he was able to will good or evil And a little after glossing on those words Gen. 3. 7. And the eyes of them both were opened he addeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They derived the power of Free-will from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil And now they became endued with this power of determining themselves to Good or Evil and this Property is divine and in some respect a good Property So that according to the mind of our Author the First original pedigree of Free-will is to be derived not so much from the Aera of Creation as from that after Epocha of Mans transgression or Eating of the forbidden fruit so that the Indifferency of mans Will to Good or Evil and a Power to determine himself freely to either did then first of all unfold it self whereas before he conversed like a pure Intelligence with its First cause without any propension at all to Material things being determined like a proper natural Agent solely to that which is good and these Propensions arising upon the First transgression to Material things which they supposed to be in mens power either so to correct and castigate as to prevent any sin in them or else to pursue in a way of vice are if not the Form and Essence yet at least the Original and Root of that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which they speak so much of But of this in another place All this we have further confirmed out of Nachmanides an Author sufficiently versed in all Matters concerning the Jewish Religion His words are these in his Comment upon Deut. 30. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 From the time of the Creation Man had a power of Free-Will within him to do Good or Evil according to his own choice as also through the whole time of the Law that so he might be capable of Merit in freely chusing what is Good and of Punishment in electing what is Evil. Wherein that he tells us that this Free-will hath continued ever since the Creation we must not understand rigidly the very moment of mans Creation but that Epocha taken with some latitude so that it may include the time of mans First transgression for he after suggests thus much That before the First Sin Adam's power to Good was a mere Natural power without any such Indifferency to Evil and therefore he makes that State of Adam the Model and platform of future perfection which the most ancient Jewish Authors seem to expect in the time of their Messiah which he expresseth in this manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He shall not covet nor desire after a Sensitive manner but Man shall return in the times of the Messiah to that Primitive State he was in before the sin of the First man who naturally did whatsoever was good neither was there any thing and its contrary then in his choice Upon which Ground he afterwards
Israelites became shining and clear without any defilement and their Bodies did shine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the brightness of the Firmament And then thus concludeth all When the Israelites received the Law upon Mount Sinai 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the world was then perfum'd with a most aromatick smell and Heaven and Earth were established and the Holy Blessed One was known above and below and he ascended in his glory above all things By all which Mystical and Allegorical Expressions our Author seems to aim at this main Scope viz. To set forth the Law as that which of it self was sufficient without any other Dispensation from God for the perfecting of those to whom it was dispensed and to make them Comprehensours of all Righteousness here and Glory hereafter Which they are wont to set forth in that transcendent state of Perfection which the Israelites were in at the receiving of the Law whence it hath been an ancient Maxime amongst them In Statione montis Sinai Israelitae erant sicut Angeli ministerii And thus we have endeavoured to make good that which we first propounded namely to shew That the grand Opinion of the Jews concerning the way to Life and Happiness was this viz. That the Law of God externally dispensed and only furnished out to them in Tables of Stone and a Parchment-roll conjoined with the power of their own Free-will was sufficient both to procure them acceptance with God and to acquire Merit enough to carry them with spread sails into the Harbour of Eternal rest and blessedness So that by this time we may see that those Disputes which S. Paul and other Apostles maintain against the Jews touching the Law and Faith were not merely about that one Question Whether Justification formally and precisely respects Faith alone but were of a much greater latitude CHAP. IV. The Second Enquiry Concerning the Evangelical Righteousness or the Righteousness of Faith and the true difference between the Law and the Gospel the Old and the New Covenant as it is laid down by the Apostle Paul A more General Answer to this enquiry together with a General observation of the Apostle's main End in opposing Faith to the Works of the Law viz. To beat down the Jewish proud conceit of Merit A more particular and Distinct answer to the Enquiry viz. That the Law or Old Covenant is considered only as an External administration a dead thing in it self a Dispensation consisting in an Outward and Written Law of Precepts But the Gospel or New Covenant is an Internal thing a Vital Form and Principle of Righteousness in the Souls of men an Inward manifestation of Divine life and a living Impression upon the Minds and Spirits of Men. This proved from several Testimonies of Scripture HAving done with the First Enquiry we now come to the Second which was this What the Evangelical Righteousness or the Righteousness of Faith is which the Apostle sets up against that of the Law and in what Notion the Law is considered by the Apostle Which in summe was this viz. That the Law was the Ministery of death and in it self an External and Liveless thing neither could it procure or beget that Divine life and spiritual Form of Godliness in the Souls of men which God expects from all the heirs of Glory nor that Glory which is only consequent upon a true Divine life Whereas on the other side the Gospel is set forth as a mighty Efflux and Emanation of life and spirit freely issuing forth from an Omnipotent source of Grace and Love as that true God-like vital influence whereby the Divinity derives it self into the Souls of men enlivening and transforming them into its own likeness and strongly imprinting upon them a Copy of its own Beauty and Goodness Like the Spermatical virtue of the Heavens which spreads it self freely upon this Lower world and subtily insinuating it self into this benummed feeble earthly Matter begets life and motion in it Briefly It is that whereby God comes to dwell in us and we in him But that we may the more distinctly unfold the Difference between That Righteousness which is of the Law That which is of Faith so the better shew how the Apostle undermines that fabrick of Happiness which the Jews had built up for themselves we shall observe First in general That the main thing which the Apostle endeavours to beat down was that proud and arrogant conceit which they had of Merit and to advance against it the notion of the Divine grace and bounty as the only Fountain of all Righteousness and Happiness For indeed that which all those Jewish notions which we have before taken notice of aim principally at was the advancing of the weakened Powers of Nature into such an height of Perfection as might render them capable of Meriting at Gods hands and that Perfection which they speak so much of as is clear from what hath been said was nothing else but a mere sublimation of their own Natural Powers and Principles performed by the strength of their own Fancies And therefore these Contractors with Heaven were so pleased to look upon Eternal life as a fair Purchase which they might make for themselves at their own charge as if the spring and rise of all were in themselves their eyes were so much dazled with those foolish fires of Merit and Reward kindled in their own Fancies that they could not see that light of Divine grace and bounty which shone about them And this Fastus and swelling pride of theirs if I mistake not is that which S. Paul principally endeavours to chastise in advancing Faith so much as he doth in opposition to the works of the Law For which purpose he spends the First and Second Chapters of this Epistle to the Romans in drawing up a charge of such a nature both against Gentiles and Jews but principally against the Jews who were the grand Justitiaries that might make them bethink themselves of imploring Mercy and of laying aside all plea of Law and Justice and so chap. 3. 27. he shuts up all with a severe check to such presumptuous arrogance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where then is boasting This seems then to be the main End which S. Paul every where aims at in opposing Faith to the works of the Law namely to establish the Foundation of Righteousness and Happiness upon the Free mercy and grace of God the glorifying and magnifying of which in the real manifestations of it he holds forth upon all occasions as the designe plot of the Gospel-administration seeing it is impossible for men by any Works which they can perform to satisfie God's Justice for those Sins which they have committed against him or truly to comply with his Divine will without his Divine assistance So that the Method of reconciling men to God and reducing of straying Souls back again to him was to be attributed wholy to another Original then that which the Jews imagined But Secondly That
truce with Heaven and all divine displeasure laid asleep yet would our own Sins if they continue unmortified first or last make an Aetna or Vesuvius within us Nay those Sun-beams of Eternal Truth that by us are detained in unrighteousness would at last in those hellish vaults of vice and darkness that are within us kindle into an unquenchable fire It would be of small benefit to us That Christ hath triumph'd over the principalities and powers of darkness without us while Hell and Death strongly immur'd in a Fort of our own Sins and Corruptions should tyrannize within us That his Blood should speak peace in heaven if in the mean while our own Lusts were perpetually warring and fighting in and against our own Souls That he hath taken off our guilt and cancell'd that hand-writing that was against us which bound us over to Eternal condemnation if for all this we continue fast sealed up in the Hellish dungeon of our own filthy Lusts. Indeed we could not expect any relief from Heaven out of that misery under which we lie were not Gods displeasure against us first pacified and our Sins remitted But should the Divine Clemency stoop no lower to us then to a mere pardon of our sins and an abstract Justification we should never rise out of that Misery under which we lie This is the Signal and Transcendent benefit of our free Justification through the Bloud of Christ that God's offence justly conceived against us for our sins which would have been an eternal bar and restraint to the Efflux of his Grace upon us being taken off the Divine grace and bounty may freely flow forth upon us The Fountain of the Divine grace and love is now unlock'd and opened which our Sins had shut up and now the Streams of holiness and true goodness from thence freely flow forth into all gasping Souls that thirst after them The warm Sun of the Divine love whenever it breaks through and scatters the thick Cloud of our iniquities that had formerly separated between God us it immediately breaks forth upon us with healing in its wings it exerciseth the mighty force of its own light and heat upon our dark and benummed Souls begetting in them a lively sense of God and kindling into sparks of Divine goodness within us This Love when once it hath chased away the thick Mist of our Sins it will be as strong as Death upon us as potent as the Grave many Waters will not quench it nor the Floods drown it If we shut not the windows of our Souls against it it will at last enlighten all those Regions of darkness that are within us and lead our Souls to the Light of Life Blessedness and Immortality God pardons mens Sins out of an Eternal designe of destroying them and whenever the sentence of death is taken off from a Sinner it is at the same time denounced against his Sins God does not bid us be warm'd and be fill'd and deny us those necessaries which our starving and hungry Souls call for Christ having made peace through the bloud of his cross the Heavens shall be no more as Iron above us but we shall receive freely the vital dew of them the former and the later Rain in their season those Influences from above which Souls truly sensible of their own Misery and Imperfection uncessantly gaspe after that Righteousness of God which drops from above from the unsealed Spring of Free goodness which makes glad the city of God This is that Free Love and Grace which the Souls of Good men so much triumph in This is that Justification which begets in them lively Hopes of an happy Immortality in the present Anticipations thereof which spring forth from it in this life And all this is that which we have called sometimes the Righteousness of Christ sometimes the Righteousness of God and here the Righteousness which is of Faith In Heaven it is a not-imputing of sin in the Souls of men it is a reconciliation of rebellious Natures to Truth and Goodness In Heaven it is the lifting up the light of God's countenance upon us which begets a gladsome entertainment in the Souls of men holy and dear reflections and reciprocations of Love Divine Love to us as it were by a natural emanation begetting a Reflex love in us towards God which like that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spoken of by the Ancients live and thrive together CHAP. VI. How the Gospel-righteousness is conveighed to us by Faith made to appear from these two Considerations 1. The Gospel lays a strong foundation of a chearful dependance upon the Grace and Love of God affiance in it This confirmed by several Gospel-expressions containing plainly in them the most strong Motives and Encouragements to all ingenuous addresses to God to all chearfull dependance on him and confident expectation of all assistance from him 2. A true Evangelical Faith is no lazy or languid thing but an ardent breathing and thirsting after Divine grace and righteousness it looks beyond a mere pardon of sin and mainly pursues after an inward participation of the Divine nature The mighty power of a living Faith in the Love and Goddness of God discoursed of throughout the whole Chapter WE come now to the last part of our Discourse viz. To shew the Way by which this God-like and Gospel-righteousness is conveighed to us and that is by Faith This is that powerful Attractive which by a strong and divine Sympathy draws down the virtue of Heaven into the Souls of men which strongly and forcibly moves the Souls of good men into a conjunction with that Divine goodness by which it lives and grows This is that Divine Impress that invincibly draws and sucks them in by degrees into the Divinity and so unites them more and more to the Centre of Life and Love It is something in the hearts of men which feeling by an Occult and inward sensation the mighty insinuations of the Divine goodness immediately complies with it and with the greatest ardency that may be is perpetually rising up into conjunction with it and being first begotten and enlivened by the warm Beams of that Goodness it alwaies breaths and gasps after it for its constant growth and nourishment It is then fullest of life and vivacity when it partakes most freely of it and perpetually languisheth when it is in any measure deprived of that sweet and pure nourishment it derives from it But that we may the more clearly unfold this business How Gospel-righteousness comes to be communicated through Faith we shall lay it forth in 2 Particulars First The Gospel lays a strong foundation of a chearfull dependance upon the Grace and Love of God and affianee in it We have the greatest security and assurance that may be given us of God's readiness to relieve such forlorn and desolate Creatures as we are That there are no such dreadful Fates in Heaven as are continually thirsting after the bloud
Despair Fretfulness against God pale Jealousies wrathfull and embittered Thoughts of him or any struglings or contests to get from within the verge of his Power and Omnisciency which would mantle up their Souls in black and horrid Night I mean not all this while by this holy Boldness and Confidence and Presence of Mind in a Believer's converse with the Deitie that high pitch of Assurance that wafts the Souls of good men over the Stygian lake of Death and brings them to the borders of life that here puts them into an actual possession of Bliss and reestates and reestablishes them in Paradise No That more general acquaintance which we may have with God's Philanthropy and Bounty ready to relieve with the bowells of his tender compassions all those starving Souls that call upon him for surely he will never doe less for fainting and drooping Souls then he doth for the young Ravens that cry unto him that converse which we are provoked by the Gospel to maintain with God's unconfined love if we understand it aright will awaken us out of our drowsie Lethargy and make us aske of him the way to Sion with our faces thitherward This will be digging up fresh fountains for us while we goe through the valley of Baca whereby refreshing our weary Souls we shall goe on from strength to strength until we see the face of our loving and ever-to-be-loved God in Sion And so I come to the next Particular wherein we shall further unfold how this God-like righteousness we have spoken of is conveighed to us by Faith and that is this A true Gospel-faith is no lazie or languid thing but a strong ardent breathing for and thirsting after divine Grace and Righteousness it doth not only pursue an ambitious project of raising the Soul immaturely to the condition of a darling Favourite with Heaven while it is unripe for it by procuring a mere empty Pardon of sin it desires not only to stand upon clear terms with Heaven by procuring the crossing of all the Debt-books of our sins there but it rather pursues after an Internal participation of the Divine nature We often hear of a Saving Faith and that where it is is not content to wait for Salvation till the world to come it is not patient of being an Expectant in a Probationership for it untill this Earthly body resignes up all it's worldly interest that so the Soul might then come into its room No but it is here perpetually gasping after it and effecting of it in a way of serious Mortification and Self-denial it enlarges and dilates it self as much as may be according to the vast dimensions of the Divine love that it may comprehend the height and depth the length and breadth thereof and fill the Soul where it is seated with all the fullness of God it breeds a strong and unsatiable appetite where it comes after true Goodness Were I to describe it I should doe it no otherwise then in the language of the Apostle It is that whereby we live in Christ and whereby he lives in us or in the dialect of our Saviour himself Something so powerfully sucking in the precious influences of the Divine Spirit that the Soul where it is is continually flowing with living waters issuing out of it self A truely-believing Soul by an ingenuous affiance in God and an eager thirst after him is alwaies sucking from the full breasts of the Divine love thence it will not part for there and there only is its life and nourishment it starves and faints away with grief and hunger whensoever it is pull'd away from thence it is perpetually hanging upon the arms of Immortal Goodness for there it finds its great strength lies and as much as may be armes it self with the mighty Power of God by which it goes forth like a Gyant refreshed with wine to run that race of Grace Holiness that leads to the true Elysium of Glory and that heavenly Canaan which is above And whensoever it finds it self enfeebled in its difficult Conflict with those fierce and furious Corruptions those tall sons of Anak which arising from our terrene and sensual affections doe here encounter it in the Wilderness of this world then turning it self to God and putting it self under the conduct of the Angel of his presence it finds it self presently out of weakness to become strong enabled from above to put to flight those mighty armies of the aliens True Faith if you would know its rise and pedegree it is begotten of the Divine bounty and fulness manifesting it self to the Spirits of men and it is conceived and brought forth by a deep and humble sense of Self-indigency and Poverty Faith arises out of Self-examination seating and placing it self in view of the Divine plenitude and Allsufficiency and thus that I may borrow those words of S. Paul we received the sentence of death in our selves that we should not trust in our selves but in him The more this Sensual Brutish and Self-Central life thrives and prospers the more divine Faith languisheth and the more that decays and all Self-feeling Self-love and Self-sufficiency pine away the more is true Faith fed and nourished it grows more vigorous and as Carnal life wasts and consumes so the more does Faith suck in a true divine and spiritual life from the true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who hath life in himself and freely bestowes it to all those that heartily seek for it When the Divinity united it self to Humane nature in the person of our Saviour he then gave mankind a pledge and earnest of what he would further doe therein in assuring of it into as near a conjunction as might be with Himself and in dispensing and communicating himself to Man in a way as far correspondent and agreeable as might be to that first Copy And therefore we are told of Christ being formed in us and the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us of our being made conformable to him of having fellowship with him of being as he was in this world of living in him and his living in us of dying and rising again and ascending with him into Heaven and the like because indeed the same Spirit that dwelt in him derives it self in its mighty Virtue and Energy through all believing Souls shaping them more and more into a just resemblance and conformitie to him as the first Copy Pattern Whence it is that we have so many waies of unfolding the Union between Christ and all Believers set forth in the Gospel And all this is done for us by degrees through the efficacy of the Eternal spirit when by a true Faith we deny our selves and our own Wills submit our seves in a deep sense of our own folly and weakness to his Wisdome and Power comply with his Will and by a holy affiance in him subordinate our selves to his pleasure for these are the Vital acts of a Gospel-Faith And according to this which hath been said I
with stubborn and unruly Matter is fain to yield to it and to produce that which answers not her own Idea whence the Signatures and impressions of Nature sometimes vary so much from that Seal that Nature would have stamp'd upon them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If these Melancholick Opinions and disquieting Fears of the Deity mould not the Minds of men into Devotion as finding them too churlish and untameable to receive any such impressions they are then apt to exasperate men against it and stir them up to contend with that Being which they cannot bear and to destroy that which would deprive them of their own Liberty These unreasonable fears of a Deity will alwaies be moving into Flattery or Wrath. Atheism could never have so easily crept into the world had not Superstition made way and open'd a Back-door for it it could not so easily have banish'd the Belief of a Deity had not that first accused and condemn'd it as destructive to the Peace of Mankind and therefore it hath alwaies justified and defended it self by Superstition as Plutarch hath well exprest it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Superstition afforded the principle of Generation to Atheism and afterwards furnish'd it with an Apology which though it be neither true nor lovely yet wants it not a specious pretence And therefore Simplicius as we heard before calls the Notion of Superstition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as having an ill savour of Atheism in it seeing as he gives an account of it it disrobes the Deity of true Majesty and Perfection and represents it as weak and infirme cloth'd with such fond feeble and impotent passions as men themselves are And Dionysius Longinus that noble Rhetorician fears not to challenge Homer as Atheisticall for his unsavoury language of the Gods which indeed was only the Brat of his Superstition If the Superstitious man thinks that God is altogether like himself which indeed is a character most proper to such the Atheist will soon say in his heart There is no God and will judge it not without some appearance of Reason to be better there were none as Plutarch hath discours'd it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Were it not better for the Gaules and Scythians not to have had any Notion fansy or History of the Gods then to think them such as delighted in the Blood of men offered up in sacrifices upon their Altars as reckoning this the most perfect kind of Sacrifice and consummate Devotion For thus his words are to be translated in reference to those ancient Gauls and Scythians whom almost all Histories testifie to have been 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which horrid and monstrous Superstition was anciently very frequent among the Heathen and was sharply taxed by Empedocles of old 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This made Lucretius cry out with so much indignation when he took notice of Agamemnon's Diabolicall devotion in sacrificing his Daughter Iphigenia to make expiation at his Trojan Expedition Tantum Relligio potuit suadere malorum And indeed what sober man could brook such an esteem of himself as this blinde Superstition which overspread the Heathen world and I doubt is not sufficiently rooted out of the Christian fastned upon God himself which made Plutarch so much in defiance of it cry out as willing almost to be an Atheist as to entertain the Vulgar Superstition As for me saith he I had rather men should say that there is no such man nor ever was as Plutarch then to say that he is or was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an inconstant fickle man apt to be angry and for every trifle revengefull c. as he goes on farther to expresse this Blasphemy of Superstition But it may not be amisse to learn from Atheists themselves what was the Impulsive cause that mov'd them to banish away all thoughts and sober fear of a Deity what was the Principle upon which this black Opinion was built and by which it was sustein'd And this we may have from the confessions of the Epicureans who though they seemed to acknowledg a Deity yet I doubt not but those that search into their Writings will soon embrace Tully's censure of them Verbis quidem ponunt reipsa tollunt Deos. Indeed it was not safe for Epicurus though he had a good mind to let the World know how little he cared for their Deities to profess he believed there was none lest he should have met with the same entertainment for it that Protagoras did at Athens who for declaring himself doubtfull 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was himself put to Death and his books burnt in the streets of Athens 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sub voce Praeconis as Diogenes Laertius and others record and indeed the world was never so degenerated any where as to suffer Atheism to appear in publick View But that we may return and take the Confessions a little of these secret Atheists of the Epicurean sect and of these Tully gives us a large account in his Books de Finibus and other parts of his Philosophy Torquatus the Epicurean in his first book de Finibus liberally spends his breath to cool that too-much heat of Religion as he thought in those that could not apprehend God as any other then curiosum plenum negotii Deum as one of that Sect doth phrase it Lib. 1. de Nat. Deor. and so he states this Maxim of the Religion that then was most in use Superstitione qui est imbutus quietus esse nunquam potest By the way it may be worth our observing how this monstrous progeny of men when they would seem to acknowledge a Deity could not forget their own beloved Image which was always before their eyes and therefore they would have it as careless of any thing but its own pleasure and idle life as they themselves were So easy is it for all Sects some way or other to slide into a compliance with the Anthropomorphitae and to bring down the Deity to a conformity to their own Image But we shall rather chuse a litle to examine Lucretius in this point who hath in the name of all his Sect largely told us the Rise and Originall of this Design After a short Ceremony to his following Discourse of Nature he thus begins his Prologue in commendation of Epicurus his exploit as he fancies it Humana ante oculos foedè cùm vita jaceret In terris oppressa gravi sub Relligione Quae caput è coeli regionibus ostendebat Horribili aspectu semper mortalibus instans Primùm Graius homo mortales tendere contra Est oculos ausus primúsque obsistere contra Quem nec fama Deûm nec Fulmina nec minitanti Murmure compressit Coelum And a little after in a sorry Ovation proudly cries out Quare Relligio pedibus subjecta vicissim Obteritur nos exaequat victoria coelo But to proceed Our Author observing the timorous minds of men to have been struck with this dreadful
we shall adde but this one thing further to clear the Soul's Immortality and it is indeed that which breeds a true sense of it viz. True and reall goodness Our highest speculations of the Soul may beget a sufficient conviction thereof within us but yet it is onely True Goodness and Vertue in the Souls of men that can make them both know and love believe and delight themselves in their own Immortality Though every good man is not so Logically subtile as to be able by fit mediums to demonstrate his own Immortality yet he sees it in a higher light His Soul being purged and enlightned by true Sanctity is more capable of those Divine irradiations whereby it feels it self in conjunction with God and by a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Greeks speak the Light of divine goodness mixing it self with the light of its own Reason sees more clearly not onely that it may if it please the supreme Deity of its own nature exist eternally but also that it shall doe so it knows it shall never be deserted of that free Goodness that alwaies embraceth it it knows that Almighty Love which it lives by to be stronger then death and more powerful then the grave it will not suffer those holy ones that are partakers of it to lie in hell or their Souls to see corruption and though worms may devour their flesh and putrefaction enter into those bones that fence it yet it knows that its Redeemer lives and that it shall at last see him with a pure Intellectual eye which will then be clear and bright when all that earthly dust which converse with this mortal body filled it with shall be wiped out It knows that God will never forsake his own life which he hath quickned in it he will never deny those ardent desires of a blissfull fruition of himself which the lively sense of his own Goodness hath excited within it those breathings and gaspings after an eternal participation of him are but the Energy of his own breath within us if he had had any mind to destroy it he would never have shewn it such things as he hath done he would not raise it up to such Mounts of Vision to shew it all the glory of that heavenly Canaan flowing with eternal and unbounded pleasures and then tumble it down again into that deep and darkest Abyss of Death and Non-entity Divine goodness cannot it will not be so cruel to holy souls that are such ambitious suitors for his love The more they contemplate the blissfull Effluxes of his divine love upon themselves the more they find themselves strengthned with an undaunted confidence in him and look not upon themselves in these poor bodily relations and dependences but in their eternal alliances 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Arrianus sometimes speaks as the Sons of God who is the Father of Souls Souls that are able to live any where in this spacious Universe and better out of this dark and lonesome Cell of Bodily matter which is alwaies checking and clogging them in their noble motions then in it as knowing that when they leave this Body they shall then be received into everlasting habitations and converse freely and familiarly with that Source of Life and Spirit which they conversed with in this life in a poor disturbed and streightned manner It is indeed nothing else that makes men question the Immortality of their Souls so much as their own base and earthly loves which first makes them wish their Souls were not immortal and then to think they are not which Plotinus hath well observed and accordingly hath soberly pursued this argument I cannot omit a large recital of his Discourse which tends so much to disparage that flat and dull Philosophy which these later Ages have brought forth as also those heavy-spirited Christians that find so little divine life and activity in their own Souls as to imagine them to fall into such a dead sleep as soon as they leave this earthly tabernacle that they cannot be awakened again till that last Trumpet and the voice of an Archangel shall rouse them up Our Authors discourse is this Enn. 4. lib. 7. c. 10. having first premised this Principle That every Divine thing is immortall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Let us now consider a Soul saith he not such an one as is immerst into the Body having contracted unreasonable Concupiscence and Anger 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to which they were wont to distinguish between the Irascible and Concupiscible faculty and other Passions but such a one as hath cast away these and as little as may be communicates with the Body such a one as this will sufficiently manifest that all Vice is unnaturall to the Soul and something acquired onely from abroad and that the best Wisdome and all other Vertues lodge in a purged Soul as being allyed to it If therefore such a Soul shall reflect upon it self how shall it not appear to it self to be of such a kind of nature as Divine and Eternall Essences are For Wisdome and true Vertue being Divine Effluxes can never enter into any unhallowed and mortall thing it must therefore needs be Divine seeing it is fill'd with a Divine nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by its kindred and consanguinity therewith Whoever therefore amongst us is such a one differs but little in his Soul from Angelicall essences and that little is the present inhabitation in the Body in which he is inferiour to them And if every man were of this raised temper or any considerable number had but such holy Souls there would be no such Infidels as would in any sort disbelieve the Soul's Immortality But now the vulgar sort of men beholding the Souls of the generality so mutilated and deform'd with Vice and Wickedness they cannot think of the Soul as of any Divine and Immortall Being though indeed they ought to judge of things as they are in their own naked essences and not with respect to that which extraessentially adheres to them which is the great prejudice of knowledge Contemplate therefore the Soul of man denuding it of all that which it self is not or let him that does this view his own Soul then he will believe it to be Immortall when he shall behold it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fixt in an Intelligible and pure nature he shall then behold his own Intellect contemplating not any Sensible thing but Eternall things with that which is Eternall that is with it self looking into the Intellectuall world being it self made all Lucid Intellectuall and shining with the Sun-beams of eternall Truth borrowed from the First Good which perpetually rayeth forth his Truth upon all Intellectuall Beings One thus qualified may seem without any arrogance to take up that saying of Empedocles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Farewell all earthly allies I am henceforth no mortall wight but an Immortall Angel ascending up into Divinity and reflecting upon that likeness of it which I find
Ex tot generibus nullum est animal praeter hominem quod habeat notitiam aliquam Dei ipsisque in hominibus nulla gens est neque tam immansueta neque tam fera quae non etiamsi ignoret qualem habere Deum deceat tamen habendum sciat OF THE EXISTENCE AND NATURE OF GOD. CHAP. I. That the Best way to know God is by an attentive reflexion upon our own Souls God more clearly and lively pictur'd upon the Souls of Men then upon any part of the Sensible World WE shall now come to the other Cardinal Principle of all Religion treat something concerning God Where we shall not so much demonstrate That he is as What he is Both which we may best learn from a Reflexion upon our own Souls as Plotinus hath well taught us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He which reflects upon himself reflects upon his own Originall and finds the clearest Impression of some Eternall Nature and Perfect Being stamp'd upon his own Soul And therefore Plato seems sometimes to reprove the ruder sor◠of men in his times for their contrivance of Pictures and Images to put themselves in mind of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Angelicall Beings and exhorts them to look into their own Souls which are the fairest Images not onely of the Lower divine Natures but of the Deity it self God having so copied forth himself into the whole life and energy of man's Soul as that the lovely Characters of Divinity may be most easily seen and read of all men within themselves as they say Phidias the famous Statuary after he had made the Statue of Minerva with the greatest exquisiteness of Art to be set up in the Acropolis at Athens afterwards impress'd his own Image so deeply in her buckler ut nemo delere possit aut divellere qui totam statuam non imminueret And if we would know what the Impresse of Souls is it is nothing but God himself who could not write his own name so as that it might be read but onely in Rationall Natures Neither could he make such without imparting such an Imitation of his own Eternall Understanding to them as might be a perpetual Memorial of himself within them And whenever we look upon our own Soul in a right manner we shall find an Urim and Thummim there by which we may ask counsel of God himself who will have this alway born upon its breast-plate There is nothing that so embases and enthralls the Souls of men as the dismall and dreadfull thoughts of their own Mortality which will not suffer them to look beyond this short span of Time to see an houres length before them or to look higher then these materiall Heavens which though they could be stretch'd forth to infinity yet would the space be too narrow for an enlightned mind that will not be confined within the compass of corporeal dimensions These black Opinions of Death and the Non-entity of Souls darker then Hell it self shrink up the free-born Spirit which is within us which would otherwise be dilating and spreading it self boundlesly beyond all Finite Being and when these sorry pinching mists are once blown away it finds this narrow sphear of Being to give way before it and having once seen beyond Time and Matter it finds then no more ends nor bounds to stop its swift and restless motion It may then fly upwards from one heaven to another till it be beyond all orbe of Finite Being swallowed up in the boundless Abyss of Divinity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 beyond all that which darker thoughts are wont to represent under the Idea of Essence This is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Areopagite speaks of which the higher our Minds soare into the more incomprehensible they find it Those dismall apprehensions which pinion the Souls of men to mortality churlishly check and starve that noble life thereof which would alwaies be rising upwards and spread it self in a free heaven and when once the Soul hath shaken off these when it is once able to look through a grave and see beyond death it finds a vast Immensity of Being opening it self more and more before it and the ineffable light and beauty thereof shining more and more into it when it can rest and bear up itself upon an Immaterial centre of Immortality within it will then find it self able to bear it self away by a self-reflexion into the contemplation of an Eternall Deity For though God hath copied forth his own Perfections in this conspicable sensible World according as it is capable of entertaining them yet the most clear and distinct copy of himself could be imparted to none else but to intelligible and inconspicable natures and though the whole fabrick of this visible Universe be whispering out the notions of a Deity and alway inculcates this lesson to the contemplators of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Plotinus expresseth it yet we cannot understand it without some interpreter within The Heavens indeed declare the glory of God and the Firmament shews his handy-work and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which may be known of God even his eternal power and Godhead as S. Paul tells us is to be seen in these externall appearances yet it must be something within that must instruct us in all these Mysteries and we shall then best understand them when we compare that copie which we find of them within our selves with that which we see without us The Schoolmen have well compared Sensible and Intelligible Beings in reference to the Deity when they tell us that the one doe onely represent Vestigia Dei the other Faciem Dei We shall therefore here enquire what that Knowledge of a Deity is which a due converse with our own naked Understandings will lead us into CHAP. II. How the Contemplation of our own Souls and a right Reflexion upon the Operations thereof may lead us into the knowledge of 1. The Divine Unity and Omniscience 2. God's Omnipotence 3. The Divine Love and Goodness 4. God's Eternity 5. His Omnipresence 6. The Divine Freedome and Liberty IT being our design to discourse more particularly of that knowledge of the Deity that we may learn immediately from our selves we shall observe First There is nothing whereby our own Souls are better known to us then by the Properties and Operations of Reason but when we reflect upon our own Idea of Pure and Perfect Reason we know that our own Souls are not it but onely partake of it and that it is of such a Nature that we cannot denominate any other thing of the same rank with our selves by and yet we know certainly that it is as finding from an inward sense of it within our selves that both we and other things else beside our selves partake of it and that we have it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neither doe we or any Finite thing contain the source of it within our selves and because
made for us as our Saviour hath taught us when he tells us that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath and as sincere and reall Christians grow up towards true perfection the lesse need have they of Positive precepts or Externall helps Yet I doubt it is nothing else but a wanton fastus and proud temper of spirit in our times that makes so many talk of being above Ordinances who if their own arrogance and presumption would give them leave to lay aside the flattering glasse of their own Self-love would find themselves to have most need of them What I have observ'd concerning the Things absolutely good I conceive to be included in that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mention'd Dan. 9. everlasting righteousness which the Prophet there saith should be brought in and advanced by Messiah this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the Righteousness which is of an eternall and immutable nature as being a conformity with Eternall and Unchangeable Truth For there is a Righteousness which thus is not Eternall but Positive and at the pleasure of God that dictates it and such was the Righteousness which Christ said it became him to fulfill when he was baptiz'd there was no necessity that any such thing should become due But the Foundation of this Everlasting righteousness is something unalterable To speak more particularly That the Highest good should be loved in the Highest degree That dependant creatures that borrow all they have from God should never glory in themselves or admire themselves but ever admire and adore that unbounded Goodness which is the Source of their Beings and all the Good they partake of That we should alwaies doe that which is just and right according to the measure we would others should doe with us these and some other things which a rectified Reason will easily supply are immutably true and righteous so that it never was nor can be true that they are unnecessary And whoso hath his Heart molded into a delight in such a Righteousness and the practise thereof hath this Eternall righteousness brought into his Soul which Righteousness is also true and reall not like that imaginary Externall righteousness of the Law which the Pharisees boasted in CHAP. X. The Conclusion of this Treatise concerning the Existence and Nature of God shewing how our Knowledge of God comes to be so imperfect in this State while we are here in this Terrestriall Body Two waies observ'd by Plotinus whereby This Body does prejudice the Soul in her Operations That the Better Philosophers and more Contemplative Jewes did not deny the Existence of all kind of Body in the other state What meant by Zoroaster's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What kind of knowledge of God cannot be attain'd to in this life What meant by Flesh and Blood 1 Cor. 15. FOR the concluding of this Discourse as a Mantissa to what hath been said we shall a little consider how inconsistent a thing a Perfect knowledge of God is with this Mundane and Corporeall state which we are in here While we are in the Body we are absent from the Lord as S. Paul speaks and that I think without a mysterie Such Bodies as ours are being fitted for an Animal state and pieces of this whole Machina of Sensible Matter are perpetually drawing down our Souls when they would raise up themselves by Contemplatior of the Deity and the caring more or less for the things of this Body so exercises the Soul in this state that it cannot attend upon God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without distraction In the antient Metaphysicks such a Body as this is we carry about us is call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. the dark Den and Sepulchre in which Souls are imprison'd and entomb'd with many other expressions of the like importance and Proclus tells us that the Commoration of the Soul in such a Body as this is according to the common vote of Antiquity nothing else but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a dwelling or pitching its Tabernacle in the Valley of Oblivion and Death But Plotinus in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seems not to be easily satisfied with Allegoricall descriptions and therefore searching more strictly into this business tells his own and their meaning in plainer terms that This Body is an occasion of Evil to the Soul two waies 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it hinders its Mentall operations presenting its Idola specûs continually to it 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it calls forth its advertency to its own Passions which while it exerciseth it self about too earnestly it falls into a sinfull inordinacy Yet did not the Platonists nor the more Contemplative Jews deny the Existence of all kind of Body in the other State as if there should be nothing residing there but naked Souls totally devested of all Corporeall Essence for they held that the Soul should in the other World be united with a Body not such a one as it did act in here which was not without disturbance but such as should be most agreeable to the Soul which they call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Spirituall Vehicle of the Soul and by Zoroaster it was call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a kind of Umbra or Aereal Mantle in which the Soul wraps her self which he said remain'd with her in the state of glory 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in the Jewish language it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 indumentum quoddam interius as Gaulmin hath observed in his De vita morte Mosis But to return the Platonists have pointed out a threefold knowledge of God 1. one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. the second 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. the last 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and this last they affirm'd to be unattainable by us it being that ineffable Light whereby the Divinity comprehends its own Essence penetrating all that Immensity of Being which it self is The First may be attain'd to in this life but the Second in its full perfection we cannot reach here in this life because this knowledge ariseth out of a blissfull Union with God himself which therefore they are wont to call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Contact of Intellectuall Being and sometimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is that I may phrase it in the Scripture words a beholding of God face to face which is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arcanum facierum the Jewish writers speak of which we cannot attain to while we continue in this concrete and bodily state And so when Moses desir'd to behold the face of God that is as the Jewes understand it that a distinct Idea of the Divine Essence might be imprinted upon his Mind God told him No man can see me and live that is no man in this corruptible state is capable of attaining to this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or visio facierum as Maimonides expounds it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Understanding of the
Righteousness of Faith which the Apostle sets up against the Law and compares with it is indeed in its own nature a Vital and Spiritual administration wherein God converseth with Man whereas the Law was merely an External or Dead thing in it self not able to beget any true Divine life in the Souls of Men. All that Legal Righteousness which the Jews boasted so much of was but from the Earth earthly consisting merely in External performances so falling extremely short of that Internal God-like frame of Spirit which is necessary for a true conjunction and union of the Souls of Men with God and making of them capable of true Blessedness But that we may the more distinctly handle this Argument we shall endeavour to unfold the true Difference between the Law and the Gospel as it seems evidently to be laid down every where by S. Paul in his Epistles and the Difference between them is clearly this viz. That the Law was merely an External thing consisting in such Precepts which had only an Outward administration but the Gospel is an Internal thing a Vital Form and Principle seating it self in the Minds and Spirits of Men. And this is the most proper and formal Difference between the Law and Gospel that the one is considered only as an External administration and the other as an Internal And therefore the Apostle 2 Cor. 3. 6 7. calls the Law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the ministration of the letter and of death it being in it self but a dead letter as all that which is without a mans Soul must needs be But on the other side he calls the Gospel because of the Intrinsecal and Vital administration thereof in living impressions upon the Souls of men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Ministration of the Spirit and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Ministration of righteousness By which he cannot mean the History of the Gospel or those Credenda propounded to us to believe for this would make the Gospel it self as much an External thing as the Law was and according to the External administration as much a killing or dead letter as the Law was and so we see that the preaching of Christ crucified was to the Jews a Stumbling-block and to the Greeks Foolishness But indeed he means a Vital efflux from God upon the Souls of men whereby they are made partakers of Life and Strength from him and therefore ver 7. he thus Exegetically expounds his own meaning of that short description of the Law namely that it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which I think may be fitly thus translated it was a dead or liveless administration for so sometimes by an Hebraisme the Genitive case in regimine is put for the Adjective or else an administration of death exhibited in letters and engraven in tables of Stone and therefore he tells us ver 6. what the Effect of it was in those words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The letter killeth as indeed all External precepts which have not a proper vital radication in the Souls of men whereby they are able to secure them from the transgression of them must needs doe Now to this dead or killing letter he opposes ver 8. a quickning Spirit or the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the ministration of the Spirit which afterwards v. 9. he expounds by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the ministration of righteousness that is the Evangelical administration So that the Gospel or Evangelical administration must be an Internal impression a vivacious and Energetical Spirit and Principle of Righteousness in the Souls of men whereby they are inwardly enabled to express a real conformity thereto Upon this Ground the Apostle further pursues the Effects of both these from the 14. verse to the end By all which the Apostle means to set forth to us How vast a Difference there is between the External manifestations of God in a Law of Commandements and those Internal appearances of God whereby he discovers the mighty power of his Goodness to the Souls of men Though the History and outward Communication of the Gospel to us in scriptis is to be always acknowledged as a special mercy advantage and certainly no less Privilege to Christians then it was to the Jews to be the Depositaries of the Oracles of God yet it is plain that the Apostle where he compares the Law and the Gospel and in other places doth by the Gospel mean something which is more then a piece of Book-learning or an Historical Narration of the free love of God in the several contrivances of it for the Redemption of mankind For if this were all that is meant properly by the Gospel I see no reason why it should not be counted as weak and impotent a thing as dead a letter as the Law was as we intimated before and so there would be no such vast Difference between them as the Apostle asserts there is the one being properly an External declaration of Gods will the other an Internal manifestation of Divine life upon mens Souls and therefore Gal. 3. 21. he so distinguisheth between this double Dispensation of God that this Evangelical dispensation is a vital and quickening thing able to beget a Soul and Form of Divine goodness upon the Souls of men which because the Law could not doe it was laid aside as being insufficient to restore man to the favour of God or to make him partaker of his righteousness If there had been a Law which could have given life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 verily Righteousness should have been by the Law where by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he seems to mean the same thing which he meant by it when in his Epistle to the Corinthians he calls the Oeconomy of the Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the ministration of righteousness or as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is taken among the Jewish writers for acceptance with God and that Internal form of Righteousness that qualifies the Soul for Eternal life and so he takes it in a far more large and ample sense then that External righteousness of Justification is and indeed it seems to express the Just state of those who are renewed by the Spirit of God and made partakers of that Divine life which is emphatically called the Seed of God For this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Righteousness which he here speaks of is the proper result of an enlivening and quickening Law which is this New Law of the Gospel in opposition to that Old Law which was administred only in scriptis and therefore this New Law is called in the Epistle to the Hebrews chap. 8. 6. c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the better Covenant whereas the Old was faulty In which place this is put down as the Formal difference between the Legal and Evangelical administration or the Old and New Covenant That the Old Covenant was only externally promulged and wrapt up as it were in Ink and Parchment or as best engraven
correspondent to his own nature The ancient superstition of the Heathens was always very nice and curious in honouring every one of their Gods with Sacrifices and Rites most agreeable to their natures I am sure there is no Incense no offering we can present God with is so sweet so acceptable to him as our Love and Delight and Confidence in him and when he comes into the Souls of men he makes these his Throne his place of rest as finding the greatest agreeableness therein to his own Essence A Good man that finds himself made partaker of the Divine nature and transform'd into the image of God infinitely takes pleasure in God as being altogether Lovely according to that in Cant. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Totus ipse est desideria and his Meditation of God is sweet unto him Ps. 104. S. John that lay in the bosome of Christ who came from the bosome of the Father and perfectly understood his Eternal Essence hath given us the fullest description that he could make of him when he tells us that God is Love and he that dwells in God dwells in love and reposing himself in the bosome of an Almighty Goodness where he finds nothing but Love and Loveliness he now displays all the strength and beauty of those his choiest and most precious affections of Love and Joy and Confidence his Soul is now at ease and rests in peace neither is there any thing to make afraid He is got beyond all those powers of darknesse which give such continual alarms in this lower world and are always troubling the Earth He is got above all fears and despairs he is in a bright clear region above Clouds and Tempests infra se despicit nubes There is no frightful terribleness in the supreme Majesty That men apprehend God at any time in such a dismayed manner it must not at all be made an argument of his nature but of our sinfulness and weakness The Sun in the heavens always was and will be a Globe of Light and brightness howsoever a purblind Eye is rather dazled then enlightned by it There is an Inward sense in Mans Soul which were it once awaken'd and excited with an inward tast and relish of the Divinity could better define God to him then all the world else It is the sincere Christian that so tasts and sees how good and sweet the Lord is as none else does The God of hope fills him with all joy and peace in believing so that he abounds in hope as the Apostle speaks Rom. 15. He quietly reposes himself in God his heart is fixed trusting in the Lord he is more for a solid peace and setled calme of spirit then for high Raptures and feelings of Joy or Extraordinary Manifestations of God to him he does not passionately desire nor importunately expect such things he rather looks after the Manifestations of the Goodness and Power of God within him in subduing all in his Soul that is unlike and contrary to God and forming him into his image and likeness Though I think it worthy of a Christian to endeavour the Assurance of his own Salvation yet perhaps it might be the safest way to moderate his curiosity of prying into God's Book of life and to stay a while untill he sees himself within the confines of Salvation it self Should a man hear a Voice from Heaven or see a Vision from the Almighty to testify unto him the Love of God towards him yet methinks it were more desireable to find a Revelation of all from within arising up from the Bottome and Centre of a mans own Soul in the Reall and Internal impressions of a Godlike nature upon his own spirit and thus to find the Foundation and Beginning of Heaven and Happiness within himself it were more desirable to see the crucifying of our own Will the mortifying of the mere Animal life and to see a Divine life rising up in the room of it as a sure Pledge and Inchoation of Immortality and Happiness the very Essence of which consists in a perfect conformity and chearfull complyance of all the Powers of our Souls with the Will of God The best way of gaining a well-grounded assurance of the Divine love is this for a man to overcome himself and his own Will To him that overcomes shall be given that white stone and in it the new name written which no man knoweth but he that receives it He that beholds the Sun of righteousness arising upon the Horizon of his Soul with healing in its wings and chasing away all that misty darkness of his own Self-will and Passions such a one desires not now the Starr-light to know whether it be Day or not nor cares he to pry into Heaven's secrets and to search into the hidden rolles of Eternity there to see the whole plot of his Salvation for he views it transacted upon the inward stage of his own Soul and reflecting upon himself he may behold a Heaven opened from within and a Throne set up in his Soul and an Almighty Saviour sitting upon it and reigning within him he now finds the Kingdome of Heaven within him and sees that it is not a thing merely reserved for him without him being already made partaker of the sweetnesse and efficacy of it What the Jewes say of the Spirit of Prophesy may not unfitly be applyed to the Holy Ghost the true Comforter dwelling in the minds of good men as a sure Earnest of their Eternal inheritance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Spirit resides not but upon a man of Fortitude one that gives proof of this Fortitude in subduing his own Self-will and his Affections We read of Elisha that he was fain to call for a Musical instrument and one to play before him to allay the heat of his Passions before he could converse with the Prophetical Spirit The Hely Spirit is too pure and gentle a thing to dwell in a Mind muddied and disturb'd by those impure dreggs those thick fogs and mists that arise from our Self-will and Passions our prevailing over these is the best way to cherish the Holy Spirit by which we may be sealed unto the day of redemption To conclude this Particular It is a venturous and rugged guess and conceit which some men have That in a perfect resignation of our Wills to the Divine will a man should be content with his own Damnation and to be the Subject of Eternal Wrath in Hell if it should so please God Which is as impossible as it is for him that infinitely thirsts after a true Participation of the Divine Nature and most earnestly endeavours a most inward Union with God in Spirit by a denial of himself and his own will to swell up in Self-love Pride and Arrogancy against God the one whereof is the most substantial Heaven the other the most real Hell whereas indeed by conquering our selves we are translated from Death to Life and the kingdom of God and Heaven is
degenerate and depraved nature Could the Devil change his foul and impure nature he would neither be a Devil nor miserable and so long as any man carries about him a sinfull and corrupt nature he can neither be in perfect favour with God nor blessed Wickedness is the Form and Entelech of all the wicked spirits it is the difference of a name rather then any proper difference of natures that is between the Devil and Wicked men Wheresoever we see Malice Revenge Pride Envy Hatred Self-will and Self-love we may say Here and There is that Evil spirit This indeed is that Venenum Serpentis the poyson and sting too of that Diabolical nature As the Kingdome of Heaven is not so much without men as within as our Saviour tells us so the Tyranny of the Devil and Hell is not so much in some External things as in the Qualities and Dispositions of mens Minds And as the enjoying of God and conversing with him consists not so much in a change of place as in the participation of the Divine nature and in our assimilation unto God so our conversing with the Devil is not so much by a mutual local presence as by an imitation of a wicked and sinful nature derived upon mens own Souls Therefore the Jews were wont to stile that Original pravity that is lodged in mens spirits 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Angel of death and fiend of darkness Those filthy Lusts and Corruptions which men foment and entertain in their Minds they are the noisome Vapours that ascend out of the bottomless pit they are the thick Mists and fogs of Hellish darkness arising in their Souls as a Preface and Introduction of Hell and Death within Where we find Uncleanness Intemperance Covetousness or any such impure or unhallowed behaviour we may say Here Satan's throne is This sinfull and corrupt nature being the true issue of Hell it self is continually dragging down mens Souls thither All Sin and Wickedness in man's Spirit hath the Central force and Energy of Hell in it and is perpetually pressing down towards it as towards its own place There needs no Fatal necessity or Astral impulses to tumble wicked men down forcibly into Hell No for Sin it self hastned by the mighty weight of its own nature carries them down thither with the most swift and headlong motion As they say of true Holiness and Christianity Christi sacrina pennas habet Christ's burden which is nothing else but true Godliness is a winged thing and bravely bears it self upwards upon its own wings soaring aloft towards God so we may say of all Impiety Diaboli sarcina pondus habet the Devilish nature is alwaies within the Central attractions of Hell and its own weight instigates and accelerates its motion thither He that allows himself in any sin or useth an unnatural dalliance with any vice does nothing else in reality then entertain an incubus Damon he prostitutes a wanton Soul and forceth it to commit lewdness with the Devil himself Sin is nothing better then a Brat of darkness and deformitie it hath no other extraction or pedigree then may be derived from those unclean spirits that are nestled in Hell All men in reality converse either with God or with the Devil and walk in the Confines either of Heaven or of Hell They have their fellowship either with the Father and the Son as S. John speaks or else with the Apostate and evil Angels I know these Expressions will seem to some very harsh and unwelcome But I would beseech them to consider what they will call that spirit of Malice and Envy that spirit of Pride Ambition Vain-glory Covetousness Injustice Uncleanness c. that commonly reigns so much and acts so violently in the Minds and Lives of men Let us speak the truth and call things by their own Names let us not flatter our selves or paint our filthy sores so much as there is of Sin in any man so much there is of the old man so much there is of the Diabolical nature Why do we defie the Devil so much with our Tongues while we entertain him in our Hearts But indeed men do but quarrel with him in the name and notion of him while yet their Hearts can readily comply with all that which the Devil is that Antipathy which is ordinarily expressed against him like those natural Antipathies which the Philosophers speak of being nothing else but Occult qualities or Natural instincts which as they arise not from any principle of Reason or Understanding so neither are they guided or governed by it As mens Love to God is ordinarily nothing else but the mere tendencie of their Natures to something that hath the notion or name of God put upon it without any clear or distinct apprehensions of him so their Hatred of the Devil is commonly nothing else but an inward displicency of nature against something entitled by the Devil's name Or else at best Corrupt minds do nothing else but fashion out a God and a Devil a Heaven and a Hell to themselves by the power of their own Fancies and so they are to them nothing else but their own Creatures sustained and supported by the force of their own Imaginations which first raised them And as they commonly make a God like to themselves such a one as they can best comply with and love so they make a Devil most unlike to themselves which may be any thing but what they themselves are that so they may most freely spend their Anger and Hatred upon him just as they say of some of the Ethiopians who use to paint the Devil white because they themselves are black This is a strange merry kind of Madness whereby men sportingly bereave themselves of the Supremest Good and insure themselves as much as may be to Hell and Misery They may thus cheat themselves for awhile but the Eternal foundation of the Divine Being is immutable and unchangeable God is but One and his Name One as the Prophet speaks howsoever the several Fancies of men may shape him out diversly and where we find Wisdome Justice Loveliness Goodness Love and Glory in their highest elevations and most unbounded dimensions That is He and where we find any true participations of these there is a true Communication of God and a defection from these is the Essence of Sin and the Foundation of Hell Now if this be rightly considered I hope there will an Argument strong enough appear from the Thing it self to enforce S. James his Exhortation Resist the Devil endeavour to mortifie and crucifie the Old man with all the corrupt lusts and affections of the Flesh. We never so truly hate Sin as when we hate it for its own Ugliness and deformity as we never love God so truly as when we love him for his own beauty and excellency If we calculate aright as we shall find nothing Better then God himself for which we should love him so neither shall we find any thing
so much a Thing without us as some men would seem to fansy it were we so dead and liveless as that we could never move but from an External impetus as our Religion could never indeed be called Ours so neither could we ever have the inward sense of that Bliss and Peace which goes along with it but must be like so many heavy loggs or dul pieces of Earth in Heaven and Happiness That is a very earthly and flat Spirit in Religion which sinks like the lees to the bottome or rather it is like that Terra damnata which the Chymists speak of having no vigour life or activity left in it is truly dead to God and is reprobate to any thing of Heaven We know the Pedigree of those Exhalations that arise no higher then a mere external force from the Sun's heat weigheth them up to be but base and earthly and therefore having no natural warmth or energy within themselves imparted to them they sink down again to the Earth from whence they came The Spirit which is from Heaven is alwaies out of an in-bred Nobleness which bears it up carried upwards again towards Heaven from whence it came powerfully resisting all things that would deprive it of God or hinder it from returning to its Original it is alwaies moving upwards in an even and steady way towards God from whence it came leaving the dark Regions of Hell and Death under it it resists Hell and Darkness by assimilating and conforming it self to God it resists Darkness in the armour of light it resists Death and destruction by the power of Divine love It must be something of Heaven in the Minds of men which must resist the Devil and Hell We do not alwaies resist the Devil then when we bid defiance to him or when we declame most zealously against him neither does our Resisting and Opposing of Sin and Wickedness consist in the violence of some Feminine passions which may sometimes be raised by the power of Fancy in the Minds of men against it But it consists rather in a mature and sedate resolution against it in our own Souls arising from a clear judgment of the foul and hatefull nature of Sin it self and him who is the Patron of it in a constant and serious endeavour of setling the government of our own Souls and establishing the principality of Grace and Peace within our selves There is a pompous and popular kind of tumult in the world which sometimes goes for Zeal to God and his kingdome against the Devil whenas mens own Pride and Passions disguise themselves under the notions of a Religious fervencie Some men think themselves the greatest Champions for God and his Cause when they can take the greatest liberty to quarrel with every thing abroad and without themselves which is not shaped according to the mould of their own Opinions their own Self-will Humour and Interest Whereas indeed this Spiritual warfare is not so much maintained against a forrein enemy as against those domestick rebellions that are within neither is it then carried on most successfully when men make the greatest noise and most of all raise the dust That impetuous violence and tempestuousness with which men are acted in pretensions of Religion arises ordinarily I doubt from unquiet and disturbed Minds within whereas it is indeed the inward conflicts and commotions sin and vice and not a holy zeal for God which discompose the Minds of men Sin where it is entertained will indeed breed disturbance and break the peace of a mans own spirit but a true resisting and opposing of it is the restoring of the Soul to its just Consistency Freedome and Serenity again As God's kingdome is set up so the Devil's kingdome may be pulled down without the noise of axes and hammers We may then attain to the greatest atchievements against the gates of Hell and Death when we most of all possesse our own Souls in patience collect our Minds into the most peacefull composed and united temper The motions of true Practical Religion are most like that of the Heavens which though most swift is yet most silent As Grace and true Religion is no lazy or sluggish thing but in perpetual motion so all the motions of it are soft and gentle While it acts most powerfully within it also acts most peacefully The kingdome of heaven comes not with observation that men may say Loe here or Loe there it is not with the devouring fire coming after it or a whirlwind going before it This fight and contest with Sin and Satan is not to be known by the ratling of the Chariots or the sound of an alarm it is indeed alone transacted upon the inner stage of mens souls and spirits and is rather a pacifying and quieting of all those riots and tumults raised there by Sin and Satan it is rather a reconciling the minds of men to Truth Justice and Holiness it is a captivating and subjecting all our Powers and Faculties to God and true Goodness through the effectual working of a divine Love and Humility and this Ressistance is always attended with Victory and Triumph warts upon this Fight which is the Third and last Observation we shall make upon these Words CHAP. V. The Third Observable viz. The Certainty of Success and victory to all those that resist the Devil This grounded upon 1. The Weakness of the Devil and Sin consider'd in themselves 2. God's powerfull assisting all faithful Christians in this warfare The Devil may allure and tempt but cannot prevail except men consent and yield to his suggestions The Devil's strength lies in mens treachery and falseness to their own Souls Sin is strong because men oppose it weakly The Errour of the Manichees about a Principium mali defended by men in their lives and practices Of God's readiness to assist Christians in their spiritual Consticts his Compassionate regards and the more special respects of his Providence towards them in such occasions The Conclusion discovering the Evil and Horridness of Magick Diabolical Contracts c. THe Certainty of Successe to all those that resist the Devil Resist the Devil and he will flee from you He cannot stand when opposed in the strength of God he will fall down as swift as lightning he cannot bear the glory of God shining in the Souls of men Here it is no more but Stand and Conquer Resist and Vanquish For First of all The Devil and Sin in themselves considered are but weak and impotent they cannot prevail over that Soul which yields not to them the Evil spirit then onely prevails over us when we our selves consent to his suggestions all his strength lies in our treachery and falseness to our own Souls Though those wicked spirits be perpetually so near us yet they cannot bow or bend our Wills there is a place of defence in the Souls of men into which they cannot enter they may stand at a distance allure and intice them but they cannot prevail over
them except they wilfully and shamefully deliver over their strength into the Enemies hand It is indeed nothing else but Hell it self in the Souls of men that gives the Devil such free entertainment there the Wills of men stamped with a Diabolicall form and bearing the Devil's image and inscription upon them declare his right over them Men are therefore so much captivated by him because they voluntarily take his yoke upon them Could we or would we resist Sin and Satan they could not hurt us Every thing is weak and impotent according to the distance it stands from God who is the onely Fountain of life and power and therefore it was well resolved by the Philosopher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sin in it self is a weak and impotent thing and proceeds from weakness it consists not properly in any native power and strength which it hath within it self but in an impotency and privation of all true Being and Perfection and therefore wheresoever any thing of God appears it will destroy it He that is born of God shall overcome the World the Devil and Sin for the seed of God remaineth in him Let us endeavour to get our Minds enlightned with Divine Truth clear and Practical Truth let us earnestly endeavour after a true participation of the divine nature and then shall we find Hell and Death to slee alway before us Let us not impute the fruits of our own sluggishness to the power of the Evil spirit without or to God's neglecting of us Say not Who shall stand against those mighty Giants No arme thy self with the mind of Christ a fixt resolution to serve the will and pleasure of the Almighty and then fear not what Sin and Hell can doe against thee Open thy windows thou Sluggard and let in the beams of Divine light that are there waiting upon thee till thou awake out of thy Slothfulness then shalt thou find the shadows of the night dispell'd and scattered and the warm beams of Light and Love enfolding of thee which the higher they arise upon the Horizon of thy Soul the more fully they will display their native strength and beauty upon thee transforming thee more more from darkness to light from the similitude of Satan into a participation of the Divine image The Devil is not to be kept off from us by setting any Spell about us or driven away from us by any Magical charms We need not goe and beat the air to drive away those Evil spirits from about us as Herodotus reports the Caunians once to have beaten out the strange Gods from amongst them but let us turn within our selves and beat down that Pride and Passion those Holds of Satan there which are therefore strong because we oppose them weakly Sin is nothing else but a degeneration from true Goodness conceived by a dark and cloudy Understanding and brought forth by a corrupt Will it hath no consistency in it self or foundation of its own to support it What the Jews have observed of Errour is true of all Sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mendacium non habet pedes it hath no feet no Basis of its own to subsist and rest it self upon Let us withdraw our Will and Affections from it and it will soon fall into nothing It was the fond Errour of the Manichees That there was some solid Principium mali which having an Eternal existence of its own had also a mighty and uncontrollable power from within it self whereby it could forcibly enter and penetrate into the Souls of men and seating it self there by some hidden influences irresistablie incline and inforce them to evil which Errour I wish were as well confuted by the lives and practices of men as it hath been by the Writings both of Fathers and Philosophers But it 's too apparent that men maintain that Lie by a compliance with the Diabolical powers We ourselves uphold that kingdome of darkness which else would tumble down and slide into that nothing from whence it came All Truth and Goodness are of an Eternal nature they are One and Unchangeable subsisting upon the strength of Omnipotency But all Sin and Vice is our own creature we onely give life to them which indeed are our death and would soon wither and fade away did we substract our concurrence from them Secondly We have a further Ground for our expectation of Victory in all contests with Sin and Satan from the powerful assistance of God himself who is never wanting to those that seek after him and never fails those that engage in his quarrels While we strive against Sin we may safely expect that the Divinity it self will strive with us and derive that strength and power into us that shall at last make us more then Conquerors God hath not forsaken the earth but as his Almightyessence runs through all things sustaining and upholding the frame of the whole Universe so more especially does it bear up in its Almighty armes those things that are more nearly related to himself always cherishing them with his own Goodness Wheresoever God beholds any breathings after himself he gives life to them as those which are his own breath in them As he who projects wickedness shall be sure to find Satan standing at his right hand ready to assist him in it so he that pursues after God and Holiness shall find God nearer to him then he is to himself in the free and liberal communications of himself to him He that goes out in God's battels fighting under our Saviour's banner may look upwards and opening his eyes may see the mountains full of horses and chariots of fire round about him God hath not so much delight in the death and destruction of men as to see them strugling and contending for life and himself stand by as a looker on No but with the most tender and fatherly compassions his bowels yern over them and his Almighty arme is stretched forth for them and in his strength they shall prevail they shall be born up as upon Eagles wings they shall walk in the might of his strength who is able to save and not faint Where there is any serious and sober Resolution against Sin any reall motion towards God there is the blessing of Heaven in it he that planted it will also water it and make it to bud and blossome and bring forth fruit Wherefore to shut up this Discourse by way of Application Let us make use of this as a further Argument to enforce the Apostles Exhortation upon our selves Be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might and as the Psalmist speaks of his Enemies so let us say of our spiritual Enemies They compass me about they compass me in on every side but in the name of the Lord I will destroy them Let us set our selves with all our might to mortify the old man to crucify all the affections of the Flesh Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily
already come into us CHAP. VIII The Sixth Property or Effect discovering the Excellency of Religion viz. That it Spiritualizes Material things and carries up the Souls of Good men from Sensible and Earthly things to things Intellectual and Divine There are lesser and fuller representations of God in the Creatures To converse with God in the Creation and to pass out of the Sensible World into the Intellectual is most effectually taught by Religion Wicked men converse not with God as shining out in the Creatures they converse with them in a Sensual and Unspiritual manner Religion does spiritualize the Creation to Good men it teaches them to look at any Perfections or Excellencies in themselves and others not so much as Theirs or That others but as so many Beams flowing from One and the Same Fountain of Light to love them all in God and God in all the Universal Goodness in a Particular Being A Good man enjoys and delights in whatsoever Good he sees otherwhere as if it were his own he does not fondly love and esteem either himself or others The Divine temper and strain of the antient Philosophy THE Sixth Property or Effect wherein Religion discovers its own Excellency is this That it Spiritualizes Material things and so carries up the Souls of Good men from Earthly things to things Divine from this Sensible World to the Intellectual God made the Universe and all the Creatures contained therein as so many Glasses wherein he might reflect his own Glory He hath copied forth himself in the Creation and in this Outward World we may read the lovely characters of the Divine Goodness Power and Wisdom In some Creatures there are darker representations of God there are the Prints and Footsteps of God but in others there are clearer and fuller representations of the Divinity the Face and Image of God according to that known saying of the Schoolmen Remotiores Similitudines Creaturae ad Deum dicuntur Vestigium propinquiores verò Imago But how to find God here and feelingly to converse with him and being affected with the sense of the Divine Glory shining out upon the Creation how to pass out of the Sensible World into the Intellectual is not so effectually taught by that Philosophy which profess'd it most as by true Religion that which knits and unites God and the Soul together can best teach it how to ascend and descend upon those golden links that unite as it were the World to God That Divine Wisdome that contrived and beautified this glorious Structure can best explain her own Art and carry up the Soul back again in these reflected Beams to him who is the Fountain of them Though Good men all of them are not acquainted with all those Philosophical notions touching the relation between Created and the Uncreated Being yet may they easily find every Creature pointing out to that Being whose image and superscription it bears and climb up from those darker resemblances of the Divine Wisdome and Goodness shining out in different degrees upon several Creatures 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Antients speak till they sweetly repose themselves in the bosom of the Divinity and while they are thus conversing with this lower World and are viewing the invisible things of God in the things that are made in this visible and outward Creation they find God many times secretly flowing into their Souls and leading them silently out of the Court of the Temple into the Holy Place But it is otherwise with Wicked men they dwell perpetually upon the dark side of the Creatures and converse with these things only in a gross sensual earthly and unspiritual manner they are so encompass'd with the thick and foggy mist of their own Corruptions that they cannot see God there where he is most visible the Light shineth in darkness but darkness comprehends it not their Souls are so deeply sunk into that House of Clay which they carry about with them that were there nothing of Body or bulky Matter before them they could find nothing to exercise themselves about But Religion where it is in truth and in power renews the very Spirit of our Minds and doth in a manner Spiritualize this outward Creation to us and doth in a more excellent way perform that which the Peripateticks are wont to affirm of their Intellectus agens in purging Bodily and Material things from the feculency and dregs of Matter and separating them from those circumstantiating and streightning conditions of Time and Place and the like and teaches the Soul to look at those Perfections which it finds here below not so much as the Perfections of This or That Body as they adorn This or That particular Being but as they are so many Rays issuing forth from that First and Essential Perfection in which they all meet and embrace one another in the most close friendship Every Particular Good is a Blossom of the First Goodness every created Excellency is a Beam descending from the Father of lights and should we separate all these Particularities from God all affection spent upon them would be unchast and their embraces adulterous We should love all things in God and God in all things because he is All in all the Beginning and Original of Being the perfect Idea of their Goodness and the End of their Motion It is nothing but a thick mist of Pride and Self-love that hinders mens eyes from beholding that Sun which both enlightens them and all things else But when true Religion begins once to dawn upon mens Souls and with its shining light chases away their black Night of Ignorance then they behold themselves and all things else enlightned though in a different way by one and the same Sun and all the Powers of their Souls fall down before God and ascribe all glory to him Now it is that a Good man is no more solicitous whether This or That good thing be Mine or whether My perfections exceed the measure of This or That particular Creature for whatsoever Good he beholds any where he enjoys and delights in it as much as if it were his own and whatever he beholds in himself he looks not upon it as his Property but as a Common good for all these Beams come from one and the same Fountain and Ocean of light in whom he loves them all with an Universal love when his affections run along the stream of any created excellencies whether his own or any ones else yet they stay not here but run on till they fall into the Ocean they do not settle into a fond love and admiration either of himself or any others Excellencies but he owns them as so many Pure Effluxes and Emanations from God and in a Particular Being loves the Universal Goodness Si sciretur à me Veritas sciretur etiam me illud non esse aut illud non esse meum nec à me Thus may a Good man walk up and down the World as in a Garden of Spices