Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	bind_v	law_n	nature_n	1,568	5	5.4669	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39675	Pneumatologia, a treatise of the soul of man wherein the divine original, excellent and immortal nature of the soul are opened, its love and inclination to the body, with the necessity of its separation from it, considered and improved, the existence, operations, and states of separated souls, both in Heaven and Hell, immediately after death, asserted, discussed, and variously applyed, divers knotty and difficult questions about departed souls, both philosophical, and theological, stated and determined, the invaluable preciousness of humane souls, and the various artifices of Satan (their professed enemy) to destroy them, discovered, and the great duty and interest of all men, seasonable and heartily to comply with the most great and gracious design of the Father, Son, and Spirit, for the salvation of their souls, argued and pressed / by John Flavel ...	Flavel, John, 1630?-1691.	1685 (1685)	Wing F1176; ESTC R5953	379,180	504

there are of the rude and ignorant multitude who are bred themselves much like the Beasts they daily converse withal and so they are fitly described Iob 30.6 7. Go into their houses and you may sooner find in the window or upon the shelf a Pack of Cards than a Bible or Catechise their Beds and Tables differ little or not at all from the Stalls and Cribs where beasts lye down and feed in respect of any worship of God among them or if for fashion sake a few words be hudled over in the evening when their bodies are tired the man saith something he scarce knows what the wife is asleep in one corner the children in another and the servants in a third This is the Education multitudes of Parents give their Children all the week and when the Sabbath comes the most they learn to know at Church is where their own seat stands and that it is necessary to speak with such a Neighbour after Prayers about such or such a bargain or business for the next week And others there are who breed their Children as prophanely as these do sottishly teaching them by their Examples the newest Oaths that were last minted in Hell and to revile and scoff all serious Godliness and the sincere Professors of it smiling to hear with what an Emphasis they can talk in the Dialect of Devils and how wittily they can droll upon godly Ministers and Christians Such Families are Nurseries for Hell and though God by an extraordinary hand of Providence now and then snatch a Soul by conversion from among them as a brand out of the fire yet generally they die as they live going to the generation of their Fathers where they shall never see light Psal. 49.19 I know Education and Regeneration are two things but I also know one is frequently made the instrument of working the other Quo semel est imbuta recens c. and that the savour of what first seasons our youth generally abides to old age Prov. 22.6 We may observe all the World over how tenacious men are of that which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 delivered to them by their Parents O what a cut must it be to the heart of that Father whose Sons life shall tell his Conscience what a profane Sons lips once told his Father to his face Si malè seci à te didici If I have done evil I have learnt it of you Had they felt more of your prudent correction it might have prevented their destruction Prov. 23.14 Thou shalt beat him with the rod and shalt deliver his soul from hell That this is a common beaten path to Hell is beyond all question but how to bar it up and stop the multitudes that are engaged in it to their own ruine this is the labour this the work I cannot be large but I will offer a few weighty Considerations The first way to Hell barr'd 1. Let all Parents consider what a fearful thing it is to be the instruments of ruining for ever those that received their Beings instrumentally from them and to seek whose good they stand obliged by all the Laws of God and Nature In vain are all your cares and studies for their bodies whilst their Souls perish for want of knowledge You rejoyced at their birth but they will have cause to curse the day they were born of you and say Let the day perish wherein I was born and the night in which I was conceived You were solicitous for their bodies but careless of their Souls earnest to see them rich but indifferent whether they were gracious You neglected to teach them the way of Salvation but the Devil did not neglect to teach them the way of sin You will one day wish you had never been Parents when the dol●ful cries of your damned Children shall ring such Notes as these in your Ears O cursed Father O cruel merciless Mother whose examples have drawn me after you into all this misery You had time enough and motives enough to have warned me of this place and misery whilst my heart was tender and my affections pliable Had it not been as easie to have put a Bible as a Play-book before me To have chastised me when I provoked God by sin as when I provoked you about a trifle One word spoken in season might have saved my Soul one reproof wisely given and set on by your example might have preserved me Had it not been the same pains to have asked me Child what wilt thou do to be saved as what wilt thou do to live in the world Or had I but observed any serious Religion in you had I but found or heard my Father or Mother upon their knees in prayer it might have awakened me to a consideration of my condition in my youth I was shame fac'd fearful credulous and apt to imitate had you had but wisdom as other Parents have to have taken hold of any of these handles in time you had rescued my Soul from Hell Nay so cruel have you been to your own Child that you allowed me no time if I had had a disposition for any exercise of Religion yea you have quenched and stifled the sparks of convictions and better inclinations that sometimes were in my heart O happy had it been if I had never been born of you or seen your faces This must be the result and issue of your negligence except God by some other hand which is no thanks to you rescue them from their impending ruine 〈…〉 ldren whose unhappy Lot it is to be born of 〈…〉 carnal and irreligious Parents consider God hath endued them with a Reason and Conscience of their own to enable them to make a better choice than their Parents did and that there is no taking Sanctuary from the wrath of Go● in their Parents examples We read in 1 Kings 14.13 of a good Abijah in whom was found some good thing towards the Lord God of Israel in the house of Ieroboam Here was a Child that would not follow his wicked Father to Hell though he had both the authority of a Father and of a King over him Amandus genitor sed praeponendus Creator You must honour your Parents but still you must prefer your God before them God will never lay it to your account as your sin but place it to the account of your duty and comfort that you refused to follow them in paths of sin and destruction No Law of God no tye of Nature binds you to obey their commands or tread in their steps farther than they command in Gods Authority and Name and walk in his ways Your temptations indeed are strong and disadvantages great but the greater will the mercy of your deliverance be It will be no Plea for you at the Judgment-seat to say Lord my Father or Mother did so and so before me and I thought I might safely follow them or thus and thus they commanded me and I thought I

him from duty who had already separated his Soul from his Body and all this World by fixed and deep thoughts of death 2. Hereby we gain a more inward knowledge and acquaintance with the Nature of death and the more we are acquainted with it the less it terrifies us A Lion is much more dreadful to him that never saw him than he is to his Keeper who feedeth him every day A pitcht Battle is more frightful and scaring to a new listed Souldier that never took his place in the Field before nor saw the dreadful countenance of an Army ready to engage nor heard the thundering noise of Cannon and Vollies of Shot the shouts of Armies and groans of dying men on every side than it is to an old Souldier who hath been used to such things The like we may observe in Seamen who it may be trembled at first and now can sing in a Storm Scarce any thing is more necessary for weak and timorous Believers to meditate on than the time of their Separation Our hearts will be apt to start and boggle at the first view of death but it is good to do by them as men use to do by young Colts ride them up to that which they fright at and make them smell to it which is the way to cure them Sicut panis necessarius est prae caeteres e●ementis it a intenta mortis meditatio ne●●ssaria est prae caeteris donis exercitiis Dionys. Look as Bread saith one is more necessary than other Food so the meditation of death is more necessary than many other meditations Every time we change our habitations we should realize therein our great change Our Souls must shortly leave this and be lodged for a longer season in another mansion when we put off our cloaths at night we have a fit occasion to consider that we must strip nearer one of these days and put off not our cloathes only but the Body that wears them too Holy Iob had by frequent thoughts familiarized death and the Grave to himself and could speak of them as men use to speak of their Houses and dearest Relations Iob 17.14 I have said to corruption thou art my father to the worm thou art my Mother and Sister But it needs much grac● to bring and hold the heart to this work and therefore Moses begs it of God Psal 90.12 So teach us to number our days and David Psal. 39.4 Lord make me to know my end Yea the advantages of it have been acowledged by men whose light was less and diversions more than ours The Iews for this use and end had their Sepulchers built before-hand and that in their Gardens of pleasure too that they might season the delights of life with the frequent thoughts of death Iohn 19.41 Philip of Macedon would be awakened by his Page every morning with this sentence Memento te esse mortalem Remember O King thou art a mortal man A Great Emperor of Constantinople not only at his Inauguration but at his great Feasts Elig● ab his saxis ex quo invictissime Caesar tibi Tumulum me fabricare velis ordered a Mason to bring two stones before him and say Chuse O Emperor which of the two thou wilt for thy Tomb-stone Reader thou wilt find mental Separation much easier than real separation 't is easier to think of death than it is to feel it and the more we think of it the less we are like to feel it PROP. II. Actual Separation may be considered either in fieri in the previous Pangs and foregoing Agonies of it or in facto esse in the last separating stroke which actually parts the Soul and Body asunder lays the Body prostrate and dead at the feet of Death and thrusts the Soul quite out of its ancient and beloved habitation 1. LET it be considered in the previous pangs and fore-running Agonies which commonly make way for this actual Dissolution And to the people of God this is the worst and bitterest part of death except those conflicts with Satan which they sometimes grapple with on a death-bed which they encounter at that time There is saith one no ponyard in death it self like those in the way or Prologue to it I like not to dye said another but I care not if I were dead the end is better than the way The conflicts and struggles of Nature with death are bitter and sharp pains unknown to men before whatever pains they have endured Nor can it be expected to be otherwise seeing the tyes and ingagements betwixt the Soul and Body are so strong as we shew'd before The Soul will not easily part with the Body but disputes the passages with death from Member to Member like resolute Souldiers in a stormed Garrison till at last it is forced to yield up the Fort Royal into the hands of victorious death and leave the dearly beloved Body a Captive to it This is the dark side of death to all good men and though it be not worth naming in comparison with the dreadful consequents of death to all others yet in it self it is terrible Separation is not natural to the Soul which was created with an inclination to the Body Cum separatio naturalis non sit neque etiam violenta sit consequ●ns ut ex approbata Philosophorum approbatione praeternaturalis esse dicatur Conim●r 't is natural indeed to clasp and embrace to love and cherish its own Body but to be divided from it is grievous and praeternatural 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 partus dolo●em The Agonies of death are expressed in Scripture by a word which signifies the travelling pains of a Woman yea by the sharpest and most acute pains they feel even the birth-pangs or bearing throe Acts 2.24 And yet all are not handled alike roughly by the hands of death some are favoured with a desirable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gentle and easy death 'T is the priviledge of some Christians to have their Souls fetcht out of their Bodies as it were by a kiss from the mouth of God as the Jewish Rabbins use to express the manner of Moses his death Mr. Bolton ●elt no pain at his death but the cold hand of his friend who asked him what pain he felt Yea holy Bayn●ham in the midst of the flames professed it was to him as a Bed of Roses Every Believer is equally freed from the sting and curse of death but every one is not equally favoured in the agonies and pains of death 2. Separation from the Body is to be considered in facto esse i. e. in the result and issue of all these bitter pangs and Agonies which end in the actual dissolution of Soul and Body * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vel anime à corpore discessus Vives Death or actual separation is nothing else but the dissolving of the tye or loosing of the bond of Union betwixt the Soul and Body † Privatio actus secundi

Mic. 5.7 2. No grace is or can be acted here without the clog of a contrary corruption upon its heel Rom. 7.21 When I would do good evil is present with me Every beam of faith is presently darkned by a cloud of unbelief Mark 9.24 Lord I believe help thou my unbelief Saepè in libro experientiae legimus quomodo à corde nostro relinquimar nunc est nobis●um nunc alibi nunc avo●at nunc recurrit in sola lubricitate manens Bern. We often read in the Book of experience saith one what an inconstant fickle thing the heart is in duties Now it is with us by and by it 's fled away and gone we know not where to find it It is constant only in its inconstancy and lubricity There is iniquity in our most holy things which needs pardon Exod. 28.38 Our best duties have enough in them to damn us as well as our worst sins but in that perfect state above grace flows purely out of the Soul as beams do from the Sun or crystal streams from the purest Fountain No impure or imperfect acts proceed from Spirits made perfect 3. Here the graces of the Saints are never or very rarely acted in their highest and most intense degree When they love God most fervently there is some coldness in their love Who comes up to the height of that rule Matt. 22.37 Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy mind and all thy strength When we meditate on God it is not in the depth of our thoughts without some wanderings and extravagancies 't is very hard if not impossible for the Soul to stand long in its full bent to God But in Heaven it doth so and will do so for ever without any relaxation or remission of its fervour Christ among the Saints and Angels in Heaven is as a mighty Load-stone cast in amongst many Needles which leap to him and fix themselves inseparably upon him They all act in glory as the fire doth here to the utmost of their power and ability There is no note lower than Glory to God in the highest 4 The most spiritual Souls on earth who live most with God have and must have their dayly and frequent intermissions The necessities of the Body as well as the defectiveness of their graces require and necessitate it to be so Our hands with Moses will hang down and grow weary Our affections will cool and fall do what we can But as the Spirits of just men made perfect know no remissions in the degree so neither any intermissions in the actings of their grace They shall serve him day and night in his Temple Rev. 7.15 You that would purchase the continuance of your spiritual comforts but for a day with all that you have in this World will there enjoy them at full without any intermitting throughout eternity 5. If the best hearts on earth be at any time more than ordinarily enlarged in spiritual comforts they need presently some humbling providence to hide pride from their eyes Even Paul himself must have a thorn in the flesh a messenger of Satan to buffet him Bernard could never perform any duty with comfortable enlargement but he seemed to hear his own heart whisper thus benè fecisti Bernarde O well done Bernard But in Heaven the highest comforts are injoyed in the deepest humility and the intire glory is ascribed to God without any unworthy defalcations Rev. 4.10 They put not the Crown upon their own heads but Christs they cast down their Crowns and fall down at the feet of him that sitteth upon the Throne 6. All Assemblies for worship in this World are mixed They consist of Regenerate and Unregenerate living and dead Souls this spoils the harmony and allays the comfort of mutual Communion In a Congregation consisting of a 1000 persons Ah! How few comparatively are there that are heartily concerned in the Duty But it is not so above There are ten thousand times ten thousand even thousands of thousands before the Throne loving adoring praising and triumphing together and not a jaring string in all their Harps 7. Here the worship of God is impured mixed and adulterated by the sinful additions and inventions of men This gracious Souls groan under as an heavy burden sighing and praying for Reformation as knowing they can expect no more of Gods presence than there is of his Order and Institution in Worship But above all the Worship is pure the least pin in the heavenly Tabernacle is according to the perfect pattern of the divine Will 8. We have here Duties of divers kinds and natures to perform All our time is not to be spent in loving praising and delighting in God but we must turn our selves also to searching watching and Soul-humbling work Sometimes we are called to get up our hearts to the highest praise and then to humble them to the dust for sin and judgments One while to sing his praises and another while to sigh even to the breaking of our loins but the Spirits of just men made perfect have but one kind of imployment viz praising loving and delighting in God There is no groaning sighing searching or watching-work in that state 9. The most illuminated Believers on Earth have but dark and crude apprehensions of Christs intercession work in Heaven or of the way and manner in which it is there performed by him We know indeed that our High-Priest is for us entred within the vail Heb. 6.20 That he appears in that most holy place for us Heb. 9.24 That he there represents his sufferings for us to God standing before him as a Lamb that had been slain Rev. 5.6 That he offers up our prayers with his incense to God Rev. 8.3 But the immediate intuition of the whole performance by the person of Christ in Heaven the beholding of him in his work there with the smiles and honours the delight and satisfaction of the Father in his Person and Work certainly this must be a far different thing and what must make more deep and suitable impressions upon our hearts than ever the most affecting view of them by Faith at this distance could do 10. In such ravishing sights and joyful ascriptions of glory to him that s●tteth upon the Throne and to the Lamb for evermore all the separated Spirits of the just are imployed and wholly taken up in Heaven as they come in their several times thither and will be so imploy'd in that Temple-service unto the end of the World when Christ shall deliver up the Kingdom to his Father and thenceforth God shall be all in all The illustration and confirmation of this assertion we have in these two or three particulars 1 That all the Spirits of just men from the beginning of the World until Christs ascension into Heaven did enter into Heaven as a place of rest as a City prepared for them of God Heb. 11.16 and did enjoy blessedness and Glory there but yet there seems to

Rapt from the Body for a short time in an Ecstasie when in a Visional way heavenly things are presented to it Or 2 When the bodily eye is elevated and strengthened above its natural vigour and ability to behold the astonishing Objects of the other World 1 Of the first sort and rank was that famous Rapture of Paul mentioned 2 Cor. 12.2 3. I knew a man in Christ fourteen years ago whether in the Body I cannot tell or whether out of the Body I cannot tell God knoweth such an one caught up to the Third Heaven c. * Non constat an Anima Pauli fuerit tunc à corpore separata cum ipse id se nescire fatetur Unde quid illi circae absractionem à sensibus reipsa acciderit affirmare non possumus videlicet num mo●tuo Corpore per separation●m animae extincti fuerint in eo sensus vel non mortuo cons●piti duntaxat Col●eg Connimbr lib. 3. Art 3. p. 512. T is questionable indeed whether the Soul of the Apostle were really separated from his Body whilst he suffered that Ecstasie Or whether his senses were only laid as it were a-sleep for that time he himself could not determine the Question much less can any other but whether so or so this seems evident that his senses were for that time utterly useless to him if his Body was not dead it was all one as if it had been so for any use his Soul then made of it In ecstasi feriari omnes potentias praeter intellectum A●ulen In Ecstasies all the Senses and Powers are idle except the Understanding his Soul for that time seemed to be disjoyned from his Body much as a flame of fire which you shall sometimes see to play and hover at a distance from the Wood and then catching the Fewel again Probably this was that Trance he fell into in the Temple when he was praying mentioned in Acts 22.17 In this Rapture his Soul ascended above this World it was caught up into Paradise into the Third Heaven the place in which Christ's Soul was after his death and there he heard those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a man to utter For alas poor Mortals cannot pronounce the Shibboleth of Heaven the heavenly Inhabitants talk in no other Dialect but the Language of Heaven is not properly spoken by any but the Inhabitants of Heaven Now Paul was not admitted into their Society at that time as he was at his death but was only a Spectator a stander by as the Angels are in the Assemblies of the Saints here on earth But O what a day was that day to his Soul It was as one of the days of Heaven no words could signifie to another man what he felt what he tasted in that hour Such favours will not be indulged to many he was a chosen Vessel and appointed to extraordinary Sufferings for Christ and it was necessary his Supports and Encouragements should be answerable Isaiah 6.1 2. Ezekiel 1.1 Dan. 10.8 9. Apoc. 1.17 It was no less extraordinary and wonderful a Vision which Isaiah Ezekiel Daniel and Iohn had such Representations of God as overwhelmed them and made Nature faint under them and no wonder for if the eyes of Creatures be so weak that they cannot directly behold such a glorious Creature as the Sun How much less can they bear the glorious Excellency and Majesty of God 2 And sometimes without an Ecstasie Representations of Christ and the glory of Heaven have been made and the very bodily eye fortified and elevated above its natural vigor and ability to behold them Thus it was with Stephen at his Martyrdom Acts 7.55 56. Who being full of the Holy Ghost looked up stedfastly into Heaven and saw the Glory of God and Iesus standing on the right hand of God That this was not a sight of faith but an extraordinary sight by the bodily eye is evident from its effect upon his outward man it made his face shine as the face of an Angel 2. There are also beside these ordinary and more common foretasts of Heaven and the glory to come with which many Believers are favoured in this World And such are those which come into the heart upon the steddy and more fixed views of the World to come by Faith and the more raised and Spiritual actings of grace in duty Believing we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory 1 Pet. 1.8 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with a glorified joy or a joy of the same kind and nature with the joy of glorified Spirits though in an inferiour and allayed degree And yet with the allowance of its allay and rebatement it is like new Wine put into old and crazy Bottles which is ready to make them fly and would do so should they be of any long continuance Stay me saith the Spouse with Flaggons comfort me with Apples I am sick of love Cant. 2.5 The sickness was not the sickness of desires or of grief of that she had complained before But the sickness of Love i. e. She was ready to faint under the insupportable weight of Christs manifested and sealed Love not able to bear what she felt pained with the Love of Christ and the desired cure speaks this to be her Case Stay me with Flaggons comfort me with Apples As if she had said Lord support and under-prop my Soul for it reels staggers and fails under the pressure and weight of thy Love Much like the case of an holy man who cryed out under the overwhelming sense of the Love of Christ shed abroad into his heart in Prayer Hold Lord hold thy poor Creature is a Clay Vessel and can hold no more Though these Joys bring not the Soul into a perfect Ecstasie they certainly bring it as near as may be to it Acts Mon. p. 811. Mr. Fox tells us of one Giles of Bruxels a godly Martyr who in Prison spent most of his time apart from the rest in secret Prayer in which his Soul was so ardent and intent that he often forgot himself and the time and when he was called to Meat he neither saw nor heard those that stood by him till he was lifted up by the arms and then he would gently speak to them as one newly awaked out of a sweet sleep These foretasts of Heaven may from the manner of their conveyance be distinguished into 1. Mediate and into 2. Immediate 1. Mediate in and by the previous use and exercise of Faith heart-Examination c. the Spirit of God concurring with and blessing of such duties as these helps the Soul by them to a sight of its interest in Christ and the glory to come which being gained joy is no more under the Souls command I have with good assurance this account of a Minister who being alone in a Journey and willing to make the best improvement he could of that days Solitude set himself to a close Examination

hurry them onward You read not only of single persons but whole Nations drown'd in this Gulph Psal. 9.17 The wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forget God How rare is the conversion of a Soul in the dark places of the Earth where the sound of the Gospel is not heard the Devil drives them along in huge droves to destruction scarce a man reluctating or hanging back And though some Nations enjoy the inestimable priviledge of the Gospel of Salvation yet multitudes of precious Souls perish notwithstanding sinking into Hell daily as it were betwixt the merciful arms of a Saviour stretched out to save them The light of Salvation is risen upon us but Satan draws the thick curtains of ignorance and prejudice about the multitude that not a beam of saving light can shine into their hearts 2 Cor. 4.3 4. But if our Gospel be hid it is hid to them that are lost In whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ who is the image of God should shine unto them If our Gospel Ours not by way of institution as the Authors but by way of dispensation as the Ministers and Preachers of it and certainly it was never preached with that clearness authority and efficacy by any meer man as it was by Paul and the rest of the Apostles and yet the Gospel so powerfully preached is by him here supposed to Be hid If not as to the general light and superficial knowledge of it yet as to its saving influence and converting efficacy upon their hearts this never reacheth home to the Souls and spirits of multitudes that hear it but it is never finally so hidden except To them that are lost So that all those to whom the converting and saving power of the Gospel never comes whatever other knowledge they have whatever duties they perform whatever names and reputations they may have among men yet this Text looks upon them all as a lost generation they may have as many amiable homilitical Vertues as sweet and lovely Natures as clear and piercing eyes in all other things as any others but they are such however Whose eyes the God of this world hath blinded Satan is here called the God of this World not properly but by a Mimesis because he challenges to himself the honour of a God a●d hath a world of Subjects that obey him and to secure their obedience he blinds them that they may never see a better way or state than that he hath drawn them into Therefore he is called the Ruler of the darkness of this World who rules in the hearts of the children of disobedience the eye of the Soul is the mind that thinking considering and reasoning power of the Soul this is as the Philosophers truly call it the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the leading faculty to all the rest the guide to all the other faculties which in the order of Nature follow this their Leader if therefore this be blinded the Will which is caeca potentia a blind power in it self and all the Affections blindly following the blind all must needs fall into the ditch And this is the case of the far greater part of even the professing World Let us suppose a number of blind men upon an Island where there are many smooth paths all leading to the top of a perpendicular cliff and these blind men going on continually some in one path and some in another but all in some one of those many paths which lead to the brink of their ruine which they see not it must needs follow if they all move forward the whole number will in a short time be cast away the Island clear'd and its Inhabitants dead and lost in the bottom of the Sea This is the case of the unregenerate World they are now upon this habitable spot of earth environed with the vast Ocean of Eternity there are multitudes of paths leading to eternal misery one man takes this way another that as it is Isa. 53.6 We have turned every one to his own way one to the way of pride another to the way of covetousness a third to the way of persecution a fourth to the way of Civility and Morality and so on they go not once making a stand or questioning to what end it will bring them till at last over they go at death and we hear no more of them in this world and thus one generation of sinners follows another and they that come after approve and applaud those miserable wretches that went before them Psal. 49.13 and so Hell fills and the World empties its Inhabitants daily into it Now I will make it my work out of a dear regard to the precious Souls of men and in hope to prevent which the Lord in mercy grant the loss and ruine of some under whose eyes this Discourse shall fall to note some of the principal ways in which precious Souls are lost and to put such bars into them as I am capable to put and among many more I will set a mark upon these following twelve paths wherein millions of Souls have been lost and millions more are confidently and securely following after among which 't is likely some are within one step one day or hour to their eternal downfal and destruction There is but one way in all the world to save and preserve the precious Souls of men but there are many ways to lose and destroy them it is here as it is in our natural birth and death but one way into the World but a multitude out of it And first The first way to Hell discovered 1. And to begin where indeed the ruine of very many doth begin it will be found that an ill Education is the high way to destruction Vice need not be planted if the Gardiner neglect to dress sow and manure his Garden he need not give the weeds a greater advantage but if he also scatter the seed of Hemlock Docks and Nettles into it he spoils it and makes it fit for nothing Many Parents and those godly too are guilty of too many neglects through carelesness worldly incumbrances or fond indulgence and whilst they neglect the season of sowing better seed the Devil takes hold of it if they will not improve it he will if they teach them not to pray he will teach them to curse swear and lye if they put not the Bible or Catechise into their hands he will put obscene Ballads into them and thus the off-spring of many godly Parents turn into degenerate plants and prove a generation that know not the God of their Fathers This debauched Age can furnish us with too many sad instances hereof Thus they are spoiled in the bud simple ignorance in youth becomes affected and wilful ignorance in age blushing sins in children become impudent sins in age and all this for want of a timely and prudent preventing care Others

us it were bad enough a wrong to the Soul is a greater evil than the ruine of the body or estate and all the outward enjoyments of this life can be but to lose the precious Soul and destroy it to all Eternity O who can estimate such a loss Now the result and last effect of sin is death the death of the precious Soul Rom. 6.21 The end of those things is death So Ezek. 18.4 The soul that sinneth shall dye Sin doth not destroy the Being of the Soul by annihilation but it doth that which the damned shall find and acknowledge to be much worse it cuts off the Soul from God and deprives it of all its felicity joy and pleasure which consists in the enjoyment of him Such is dolefulness and fearfulness of this result and issue of sin that when God himself speaks of it he puts on a passion and speak of it with the most feeling concernment Ezek 33.11 As I live saith the Lord I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked turn ye turn ye for why will ye dye O house of Israel q. d. why will ye wilfully cast away your own Souls why will ye chuse the pleasures of sin for a season at the price of my wrath and fury poured out for ever O think upon this you that make so light a matter of committing sin We pity those who in the depth of melancholy or desperation lay violent hands upon themselves and in a desperate mood cut their own throats but certainly for a man to murder his own Soul is an act of wickedness as much beyond it as the value of the Soul is above the body Inference IV. WHat an invaluable Mercy is Iesus Christ to the World who came on purpose to seek and to save such as were lost In Adam all were shipwrackt and cast away Christ is the plank of Mercy let down from Heaven to save some The loss of Souls by the Fall had been as irrecoverable as the loss of the fallen Angels had not God in a way above all humane thoughts and counsels contrived the method of their Redemption 'T is astonishing to consider the admirable Harmony and glorious Triumph of all the Divine Attributes in this great project of Heaven for the recovery of lost Souls 'T is the wonder of Angels 1 Pet. 1.21 the great Mystery of Godliness 1 Tim. 3.16 the matter and burden of the triumphant Song of redeemed Saints Rev. 1.5 and well it may when we consider a more noble Species of Creatures finally lost and no Mediator of reconciliation appointed betwixt God and them this is to save an earthen Pitcher whilst the Vessel of Gold is let fall and no hand stretched out to save it But what is most astonishing is that so great a Person as the Son of God should come himself from the Futhers bosom to save us by putting himself into our room and stead being made a Curse for us Gal. 3 13. he leaves the bosom of his Father and all the ineffable delights of Heaven disrobes himself of his Glory and is found in fashion as man yea becomes as a worm and no man submits to the lowest step and degree of abasement to save lost sinners What a low stoop doth Christ make in his Humiliation to catch the Souls of poor sinners out of Hell Herein was love that God sent his own Son to be the propitiation for our sins 1 Ioh. 4.10 and so God loved the world Ioh. 3.16 at this rate he was content to save lost sinners How seasonable was this work of Mercy both in its general Exhibition to the World in the Incarnation of Christ and in its particular Application to the Soul of every lost sinner by the Spirit When he was first exhibited to the world he found them all as lost sheep gone astray every one turning to his own way Isa. 53.6 he speaks of our lost estate by Nature both collectively or in general we all went astray and distributively or in particular every one turned to his own way and then in the fulness of time a Saviour appeared And how seasonable was it in its particular application How securely were we wandering onwards in the paths of destruction fearing no danger when he graciously opened our eyes by conviction and pulled us back by heart-turning Grace No Mercy like this it 's an astonishing act of Grace that stands alone Inference V. IF there be so many ways to Hell and so few that escape it how are all concerned to strive to the uttermost in order to their own Salvation In Luke 13.23 a certain person proposed a curious question to Christ Lord are there few that be saved He saw a multitude flocking to Christ and thronging with great zeal to hear him and he could not conceive but Heaven must fill proportionably to the numbers he saw in the way thither but Christs answer ver 24. at once rebukes the curiosity of the Questionist fully solves the question propounded and sets home his own duty and greatest concernment upon him It rebukes his curiosity and is as if he should say Be the number of the saved more or less what is that to thee strive thou to be one of them It fully solves the question propounded by distinguishing those that attend upon the means of Salvation into Seekers and Strivers In the first respect there are many who by a cheap and easie profession seek Heaven but take them under the notion of Strivers i. e. persons heartily ingaged in Religion and who make it their business and so they will shrink up into a small number and it presseth home his great business and concern upon him Strive to enter in at the strait gate By Gate understand whatsoever is introductive to Blessedness and Salvation By the Epithet strait understand the difficulties and severities attending Religion all that suffering and self-denial which those that are bound for Heaven must count and cast upon And by striving understand the diligent and constant use of all those means and duties how hard irksom and costly soever they be The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath a deep sense and Emphasis and imports striving even to an agony and this duty is enforced two wayes upon him and every man else first by the indisputable Soveraignty of Christ from whom the command comes and also from the deep interest and concern every Soul hath in the commanded duty It is not only a simple compliance with the will of God but what also involves our own Salvation and eternal Happiness in it our great duty and our great interest are twisted together in this command your eternal happiness depends upon the success of it A man is not crowned except he strive lawfully i. e. successfully and prevalently O therefore so run so strive that ye may obtain If you have any value for your Souls if you would not be miserable to Eternity strive strive Believe it you will find that the assurance of Salvation

perfect in the Kingdom of God THAT the Spirits of just Men at the time of their separation from their Bodies do not utterly fall in their beings nor that they are so prejudiced and wounded by death that they cannot exert their own proper Acts in the absence of the Body hath been already cleared in the foregoing parts of this Treatise and will be more fully cleared from this Text. But the true level and aim of this discourse is at an higher mark viz the far more excellent free and noble life the Souls of the just begin to live immediately after their Bodies are dropt off from them by death at which time they begin to live like themselves a pleasant free and divine life So much at least is included in the Apostle Epithete in my Text Spirits of the just made perfect and suitable thereto are his words in 1 Cor. 13.10.12 When that which is p●rfect is come then that which is in part shall be done away For now we see through a glass darkly but then face to face now I know in part but then shall I know even as I am known These two Adverbs Now and Then distinguish the twofold state of gracious Souls and shew what it is whilst they are confined in the Body and what it shall be from the time of their emancipation and freedom from that clogg of mortality Now we are imperfect but then that which is perfect takes place and that which is imperfect is done away as the imperfect twilight is done away by the opening of the perfect day And it deserves a serious animadversion that this perfect State doth not succeed the imperfect one after a long interval as long as betwixt the dissolution and Resurrection of the Body but the imperfect state of the Soul is immediately done away by the coming of the perfect one The glass is laid by as useless when we come to see face to face and eye to eye The Waters will prove very deep here too deep for any line of mine to fathom there is a cloud always overshadowing the world to come a gloom and haziness upon that state fain we would with our weak and feeble beam of imperfect knowledge penetrate this cloud and dispel this gloom and haziness but cannot we think seriously and close to this great and awful subject but our thoughts cannot pierce through it we re-inforce those thoughts by a salley or thick succession of fresh thoughts and yet all will not do our thoughts return to us either in confusion or without the expected success For alas how little is it that we know or can know of our own Souls now whilst they are embodied much less of their unbodied state The Apostle tells us 1 Cor 2.9 That eye hath not seen nor ear heard neither have entred into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him And another Apostle adds it doth not yet appear what we shall be 1 John 3.1 Yet all this is no discouragement to the search and regular enquiry into the future state for though reason cannot penetrate these mysteries yet God hath revealed them to us though not perfectly by his Spirit And though we know not particularly and circumstantially what we shall be yet this we know that we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is And it is our priviledge and happiness that we are come to the Spirits of just men made perfect i.e. to a clearer knowledge of that state than was ordinarily attainable by Believers under former dispensations These things premised I will proceed to open my apprehensions of the separate state of the Spirits of just men made perfect in twelve Propositions whereby as by so many steps we may orderly advance as far as safely and warrantably we may into the knowledge of this great Mystery clearing what afterwards shall remain obscure in the solution of several Questions relating to this Subject and then apply the whole in several Uses of this great point and the first Proposition is this PROP. I. THere is a'twofold Separation of the Soul from the Body viz one Mental the other Real Or 1. Intellectual by the mind only 2. Physical by the stroke of death Separatio per intellectum fit cum duo revera conjuncta separatim contipimus Conimbr de Anima p. 595. 1. Of Intellectual or mental Separation I am first to speak in this Proposition and it is nothing else but an act of the understanding or mind conceiving or considering the Soul and Body as separated and parted each from other whilst yet they are united in a personal oneness by the breath of life This mental Separation may and ought to be frequently and seriously made before death make the real and actual Separation and the more frequently and seriously we do it the less of horror and distraction will attend that real and fatal stroke when ever it shall be given For hereby we learn to bear it gradually and by gentle essays to acquaint our shoulders with the burden of it Separation is a word that hath much of horror in the very sound and useth to have much more in the sense and feeling of it else it would not deserve that title Iob 8.14 The King of Terrors or the most terrible of all terribles but acquaintance and familiarity abates that horror and that two ways especially 1. As it is preventive of much guilt 2. As it gains a more inward knowledge of its Nature 1. The serious and fixed thoughts of the parting hour is preventive of much guilt and the greatest part of the horrour of death rises out of the guilt of sin The sting of death is sin 1 Cor. 15.56 Augustine saith Nothing more recals a man from sin Nihil sie revocat à p●ccato quam frequens mortis meditatio August than the frequent meditation of death I dare not say it is the strongest of all curbs to keep us back from sin but I am sure it is a very strong one Let a Soul but seriously meditate what a change death will make shortly upon his person and condition and the natural effects of such a meditation Qui considerat q●alis e●it in morte semper pavidus erit in operatione atque inde in oculis sui Condi●oris vivet Nihil quod transit appetit pene mortuum se considerat quia se moriturum non ignorat Greg. Mor. 12. through the blessing of God upon it will be a flatting and quenching of its keen and raging appetite after the ensnaring vanities of this World which draw men into so much guilt a conscientious fear of sin and an awakened care of duty It was once demanded of a very holy man who spent much more than the ordinary allowance of time in Prayer and searching his own heart why he so macerated his own Body by such frequent and long continued Duties His answer was O I must dye I must dye Nothing could separate