for sin 2. The Fatherly Love and Benefits of God do call for our best returns of Love The Benefits of Creation oblige all to Love him with all their Heart and Soul and Might Much more the Benefits of Redemption and especially as applyed by sanctifying Grace to them that shall be heirs of life it obligeth them by multiplied strongest obligations The Worst are obliged to as much Love of God as the Best for none can be obliged to more than to Love him with all their Heart c. but they are not as much obliged to that Love We have new and special obligations and therefore must return a Hearty Love or we are doubly guilty Mercies are Loves Messengers sent from Heaven to win up our Hearts to Love again and entice us thither All mercies therefore should be used to this end That mercy that doth not encrease or excite and help our Love is abused and lost as seed that is buried when it 's sowed and never more appeareth Earthly Mercies point to Heaven and tell us whence they come and for what Like the Flowers of the Spring they tell us of the reviving approaches of the Sun But like foolish children because they are near us we Love the Flowers better than the Sun forgetting that the Winter is drawing on But Spiritual Mercies are as the Sun-shine that more immediately dependeth on and floweth from the Sun it self And he that will not see and value the Sun by its Light will never see it These beams come down to invite our Minds and Hearts to God and if we shut the windows or play till night and they return without us we shall be left to utter darkness The Mercies of God must imprint upon our minds the fullest and deepest conceptions of him as the most perfect suitable Lovely Objects to the soul of man when all our Good is Originally in him and all flows from him that hath the Goodness of a Means and finally himself is all not to Love God then is not to Love Goodness it self and there is nothing but Good that 's suited to our Love Night and day therefore should the Believer be drawing and deriving from God by the views and tasts of his precious Mercies a sweetness of nature and increase of holy Love to God as the Bee sucks Honey from the flowers We should not now and then for a recreation light upon a flower and meditate on some Mercy of the Lord but make this our work from day to day and keep continually upon our souls the lively tasts and deep impressions of the Infinite Goodness and Amiableness of God When we Love God most we are at the best most pleasing to God and our lives are sweetest to our selves And when we steep our minds in the believing thoughts of the abundant Fatherly Mercies of the Lord we shall most abundantly Love him Every Mercy is a Suiter to us from God! The contents of them all is this My Son Give mee thy Heart Love him that thus loveth thee Love him or you reject him O wonderful Love that God will regard the Love of man that he will enter into a Covenant of Love that he will be Related to us in a Relation of Love and that he will deal with us on terms of Love that he will give us leave to Love him that are so base and have so Loved Earth and Sin yea and that he will be so earnest a suiter for our Love as if he needed it when it is only we that need But the paths of Love are mysterious and incomprehensible 3. As God is in special a Benefactor and Father to us we must be the readiest and most diligent in obedience to him Childlike duty is the most willing and unwearied kind of duty Where Love is the principle we shall not be eye-servants but delight to do the Will of God and wish O that I could please him more It is a singular delight to a Gracious soul to be upon any acceptable duty and the more he can do good and please the Lord the more he is pleased As Fatherly Love and Benefits are the fullest and the surest so will filial duty be The Heart is no fit soil for Mercies if they grow not up to holy fruits The more you love the more chearfully will you obey 4. From hence we must well learn both How God is mans End and what are the chief Means that lead us to him 1. God is not the End of Reason nakedly considered but he is Finis Amantis the End which Love inclineth us to and which by Love is attained and by love enjoyed The understanding of which would resolve many great perplexing difficulties that à natura finis do step into our way in Theological studies I will name no more now but only that it teacheth us How both God and our own Felicity in the fruition of him may be said to be our Ultimate End without any contradiction yet so that it be Eminently and Chiefly God For it is a Union such as our Natures are capable of that is desired in which the soul doth long to be swallowed up in God Understand but what a filial or friendly Love is and you may understand what a regular Intention is and how God must be the Christians End 2. And withall it shews us that the most direct and excellent means of our felicity and to our End are those that are most suited to the work of Love Others are means more Remotely and necessary in their places but these directly And therefore the Promises and Narratives of the Love and Mercy of the Lord are the most direct and powerful part of the Gospel conducing to our End and the Threatnings the remoter means And therefore as Grace was advanced in the world the Promissory part of Gods Covenant or Law grew more illustrious and the Gospel consisted so much of Promises that it is called Glad tydings of great joy And therefore the most full demonstration of Gods Goodness and Loveliness to our hearers is the most excellent part of all our Preaching though it is not all And therefore the meditation of Redemption is more powerful than the bare meditation of Creation because it is Redemption that most eminently revealeth Love And therefore Christ is the Principal Means of Life because he is the Principal Messenger and Demonstration of the Fathers Love and by the wonders of Love which he revealeth and exhibiteth in his wondrous Grace he wins the soul to the Love of God For God will have external objective means and internal effective means concur because he will work on man agreeably to the nature of man Though there was never given out such prevalent invincible measures of the Spirit as Christ hath given for the Renewing of those that he will save yet shall not that Spirit do it without as excellent objective means And though Christ and the Riches of his Grace revealed in the Gospel be the most wonderful
Related to us as our Lord By a Lord we mean strictly a Proprietary or Owner as you are the Owner of your goods or any thing that is your Own Secondly He is Related to us as our Ruler our Governour or King This riseth from our nature made to be Ruled in order to our End being Rational Voluntary Agents and also from the Dominion and blessed nature of God who only hath Right to the Government of the world and only is fit and capable of Ruling it Thirdly He is Related also to us as our Benefactor or Father freely and of his bounty giving us all the good that we do receive His first Relation in this Trinity answereth his first Property in the Trinity He is our Almighty Creator and therefore is our Owner or our Lord. The second of these Relations answereth the second Property of God He is most Wise and made an Impress of his Wisdom on the Rational Creature and therefore is our Governour The third Relation answereth the third property of God As he is most Good so he is our Benefactor Psal. 119. 68. Thou art Good and dost Good Mans nature and disposition is known by his Works though he be a free agent For the Tree is known by its fruit Mat. 7. 17. And so Gods nature is known by his works as far as is fit for us here to know though he be a free agent In each of these Relations God hath other special Attributes which are denominated from his Relations or his following works As he is our Lord or Owner his proper Attribute is to be Absolute having so full a title to us that he may do with us what he list Mat. 20. 15. Rom. 9. 21. As he is our Ruler his proper Attribute is to be our Soveraign or Supream there being none above him nor co-ordinate with him nor any Power of Government but what is derived from him As he is our Benefactor it is his prerogative to be our Chief or All the Alpha and Omega the Fountain or first Efficient cause of all that we receive or hope for and the End or ultimate final cause that can make us Happy by fruition and that we must still intend As these are the Attributes of God in these his great Relations so in Respect to the Works of these Relations he hath other subordinate Attributes As he is our Owner it is his Work to Dispose of us and his proper Attribute to be most Free. As he is our Ruler it is his work to Govern us which is first by making Laws for us and then by teaching and perswading us to keep them and lastly by executing them which is by Judging Rewarding and Punishing In respect to all these his principal Attribute is to be Just or Righteous In which is comprehended his Truth or Faithfulness his Holiness his Mercy and his terrible dreadfulness As his Attributes appear in the Assertions of his word he is True his Veracity being nothing but his Power Wisdom and Goodness expressing themselves in his Word or Revelations For he that is Able to do what he will and so wise as to Know all things and so Good as to Will nothing but what is Good cannot possibly lye For every lie is either for want of Power or Knowledge or Goodness He that is most Able and Knowing need not deceive by Lying And he that is most Good will not do it without need As his first properties appear in the word of Promise he is called Faithful which is his Truth in making good a word of grace As he Commandeth Holy duties and condemneth sin as the most detestable thing by a pure righteous Law so he is called Holy and also as the fountain of this Law and the Grace that sanctifieth his people As he fulfilleth his promises and rewardeth and defendeth men according to his word so he is called Merciful and Gracious as a Governour where his Mercy is considered as limited or ordinate by his laws As he fulfilleth his Threatnings he is called Angry wrathful terrible dreadful holy jealous c. But he is Just in all And as these are his Attributes as our Soveraign Ruler so as our Benefactor his special Attribute is to be Gracious or Bountiful or Benign or to be Loving and inclined to do good These are the Attributes of God resulting from his Nature as appearing in his Image in the Creation Laws and the person of his Son and resulting from his Relations and the works of those Relations even as he is our Creator in Unity and our Lord or Owner our Ruler and Benefactor in Trinity Were it not my purpose to consine my self to this short discovery of the nature attributes and works of God but to run deeper into the rest of the body of Divinity I should come down to the fall and work of Redemption and shew you in the Gospel and all the ordinances c. the footsteps of this Method of Trinity in Unity which I have here begun but that were to digress Besides what is said we might name you many Attributes of God that are commonly called Negative and do but distinguish him from the Imperfect Creature by setting him above us Infinitely in his perfections Man hath a Body but God is not a Body but a spirit Man is mutable but God Immutable Man is Mortal but God Immortal c. And now as I have shewed you these Properties Relations and Attributes of God so I must next tell you that we also stand in answerable counter-relations unto him and must have the qualities and do the works that answer those Relations 1. As God is our Almighty Creator so we are his Creatures impotent and insufficient for our selves We owe him therefore all that a Creature can owe his Maker that hath but our receivings 2. In this Relation is contained a Trinity of Relations 1. We are his Own as he is our Lord. 2. We are his subjects as he is our Ruler 3. We are his Children as he is our Father or his obliged Beneficiaries as he is our Benefactor And now having opened to your observation the Image of God and the extrinsick seals I have ripened the discourse so far that I may fitlyer shew you How the Impression of this Image of God is to be made upon the soul of the Believer CHAP. II. Of the Knowledge of Gods Being 1. HE that cometh to God must believe that God is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him Heb. 11. 6. The first thing to be imprinted on the soul is that there is a God that he is a real most Trascendent Being As sure as the Sun that shineth hath a Being and the Earth that beareth us hath a being so sure hath God that made them a Being infinitely more excellent then theirs As sure as the streams come from the fountain and as sure as Earth and Stones and Beasts and Men did never make themselves nor do uphold themselves or continue the
14. To conclude Vindictive Justice will be doubly honoured upon them that are final rejecters of this grace Though conscience would have had matter enough to work upon for the torment of the sinner and the justifying of God upon the meer violation of the Law of nature or works yet nothing to what it now will have on them that are the despisers of this great salvation For of how much sorer punishment suppose yee shall he be thought worthy that hath trodden under foot the Son of God when it is willful impenitency against most excellent means and mercies that is to be charged upon sinners and when they perish because they would not be saved Justice will be most fully glorified before all and in the conscience of the sinner himself All this considered you may see that besides what reasons of the counsel of God are unknown to us there is abundant reason open to our sight from the great advantages of this way why God would rather save us by a Redeemer then in a way of Innocency as our meer Creator But for the answering of all objections against this I must desire you to observe these two things following 1. That we here suppose man a terrestrial inhabitant cloathed with flesh otherwise it is confessed that if he were perfect in heaven where he had the Beatifical Vision to confirm him many of these forementioned advantages to him would be none 2. And it is supposed that God will work on man by Moral means and where he never so infallibly produceth the good of man he doth it in a way agreeable to his nature and present state and that his work of Grace is Sapiential magnifying the contrivance and conduct of his Wisdom as well as his Power otherwise indeed God might have done all without these or any other means 3. The knowledge of God in Christ as our Redeemer must imprint upon the soul those Holy Affections which the design and nature of our Redemption do bespeak and which answer these forementioned ends As 1. It must keep the soul in a sense of the odiousness of sin that must have such a remedy to pardon and destroy it 2. It must raise us to most high and honourable thoughts of our Redeemer the Captain of our Salvation that bringeth back lâ—st sinners unto God and we must study to advance the Glory of our Lord whom the Father hath advanced and set over all 3. It must drive us out of our selves and bring us to be nothing in our own eyes and cause us to have humble penitent self condemning thoughts as men that have been our own undoers and deserved so ill of God and man 4. It must drive us to a full and constant dependance on Christ our Redeemer and on the Father by him As our life is now in the Son as its root and fountain so in him must be our faith and confidence and to him we must daily have recourse and seek to him and to the Father in his Name for all that we need for daily pardon strength protection provision and consolation 5. It must cause us the more to admire the Holiness of God which is so admirably declared in our Redemption and still be sensible how he hateth sin and loveth Purity 6. It must invite and encourage us to draw near to God who hath condescended to come so near to us and as sons we must cry Abba Father and though with reverence yet with holy confidence must set our selves continually before him 7. It must cause us to make it our daily imployment to study the Riches of the Love of God and his abundant mercy manifested in Christ so that above all books in the world we should most diligently and delightfully peruse the Son of God incarnate and in him behold the Power and Wisdom and Goodness of the Father And with Paul we should desire to know nothing but Christ crucified and all things should be counted but loss and dung for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord Phil. 3. 8. That we may be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the bredth and length and depth and heighth and to know the Love of Christ which passeth knowledge that we may be filled with all the fulness of God 8. Above all if we know God as our Redeemer we must Live in the Power of holy Love and Gratitude His Manifested Love must prevail with us so far that unfeigned Love to him may be the predominant affection of our souls And being free from the spirit of bondage and slavish fear we must make Love and Thankfulness the sum of our Religion and think not any thing will prove us Christians without prevailing Love to Christ nor that any duty is accepted that proceedeth not from it 9. Redemption must teach us to apply our selves to the holy Laws and Example of our Redeemer for the forming and ordering of our hearts and lives 10. And it must quicken us to Love the Lord with a redoubled vigour and to obey with double resolution and diligence because we are under a double obligation What should a people so Redeemed esteem too much or too dear for God 11. Redemption must make us a more Heavenly people as being Redeemed to the incorruptible inheritance in Heaven The blessed God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible undefiled and that fadeth not away reserved in Heaven for us who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation 1 Pet. 1. 3. 12. Lastly Redemption must cause us to walk the more carefully and with a greater care to avoid all sin and to avoid the threatned wrath of God because sin against such unspeakable Mercy is unspeakably great and condemnation by a Redeemer for despising his grace will be a double condemnation Joh. 3. 19. 36. CHAP. XII 11. THE third Relation in which God is to be Known by us is as he is our Sanctifier and Comforter which is specially ascribed to the Holy Ghost And doubtless as the Dispensation of the Holy Ghost is the Perfecting dispensation without which Creation and Redemption would not attain their ends and as the sin against the Holy Ghost is the great and dangerous sin so our Belief in the Holy Ghost and Knowledge of God as our Sanctifier by the Spirit is not the least or lowest act of our faith or Knowledge And it implieth or containeth these things following 1. We must hence take notice of the certainty of our common original sin The necessity of sanctification proveth the corruption as the necessity of a Redeemer proveth the guilt It is not one but all that are Baptized that must be Baptized into the Name of the Son and Holy Ghost as well as of the Father which is an entering into Covenant with the Son as our Redeemer and with the
doth sweetly relish and take pleasure in as we would do to hear an Angel speak of the Holy things of the invisible Glory 3 And Relative Holiness it self though the lowest must be H 〈…〉 ured by us Holy offices and persons in them must be Re 〈…〉 d for their Relative Holiness Holy dayes must be holily 〈…〉 rved Holy Ordinances which also participate of the 〈…〉 of the Law as significative must be reverently used Due reverence must be given even to that which is lawfully by men â—â—voted to a Holy use as are Temples and Utensils of worship and the maintenance dedicated to the service of God That which is Holy must not be devoured Prov. 20. 25. nor used as we do things common and unclean â— Gods Holiness must make us Holy we must fall in Love with it and wholly conform our selves unto it Every part of Sanctifying grace must be entertained and cherished and excited and used by us Sin must be loathsome to us because it is contrary to the Holiness of God No Toad or Snake should seem to us so ugly A dead carkass is an unpleasant sight because it sheweth us a privation of natural life But an unholy soul is incomparably a more loathsome ghastly sight because it sheweth us the privation of the life of Holiness No man can well know the odiousness of sin and the misery and loathsomeness of the unholy soul that knoweth not the Holiness of God Speak unto all the Congregation of Israel and say unto them Ye shall be Holy for I the Lord your God am Holy Lev. 19. 2. Sanctifie your selves therefore and be ye Holy for I am the Lord your God Lev. 20. 7 8. As be that hath called us is Holy so must we be holy in all manner of Conversation 1 Pet. 1. 25. It is an holy calling wherewith we are called 2 Tâ—â— 1. 9. We are sanctified to be a peculiar people to Christ Tit. 2. 14. That denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godly in this present world ver 12. We are made an Holy Priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifice acceptable to God by Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 2. 5. Rom. 12. 1 2. We must therefore present our bodies a living sacrifice Holy acceptable to God our reasonable service For we are chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world that we should be Holy and without blame Ephes. 1. 4. and are Redeemed and Sanctified by Christ that we may be presented Glorious Holy and without blemish Ephes. 5. 26 27. See therefore that you follow Holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. Heb. 12. 14. For Blessed are the Pure in heart for they shall see him Mat. 5. 8. 3. The Holiness of God must be to us a standing unanswerable Argument to shun all temptations that would draw us to be unholy and to confound all the words of wicded men that are spoken against Holiness Remember but that God is Holy and if thou like that which is spoken against God thou art his Enemy Think on the Prophesie of Henoch Jude 14. 15. Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his Saints to execute Judgement upon all and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him God will not hold him guiltless that taketh his holy Name in vain much less that blasphemeth Holiness which is the perfection of his blessed nature 4. The Holiness of God must possess us with a sense of our Uncleanness and further our Humiliation When Isaiah heard the Seraphims cry Holy Holy Holy is the Lord of Hosts the whole Earth is full of his Glory Isa. 6. 3 He said Woe is mee for I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips for mine eyes have seen the King the Lord of Hosts v. 5. 5. The Holiness of God must cause us to walk continually in his Fear and to take heed to all the affections of our souls and even to the manner of our behaviour when we come near to him in his Holy Worship What suffered the Beâ—shemiâ—es for unreverent looking into the Holy Ark 1 Sam 6. 19. and Uzzah but for touching it And what a dreadful example is that of the two Sons of Aaron that were slain by a devouâ—ing fire from the Lord for offering strange fire which he commanded not Lev. 10. 1 2. And Aaron was awed into silence by this account from God I will be sanctified in them that come nigh mee and before all the people I will be glorified v. 3. Take heed lest unreverence or deadness or customary heartless wordy services should be brought before a Holy God Take heed of hypocritical carnal worship The Holy God will not be mocked with complements and shews CHAP. XIX 18. THe next Attribute of God to be spoken of is His Veracity Truth and Faithfulness This is the result of his perfect Wisdome Goodness and Omnipotency For because he is most Wise and Powerful he cannot be Necessitated to Lye And because he is most Good he will not Lye Though God speaketh by none but a Created Voice and signifie his Will to us by men that in themselves considered are defectible yet what he maketh his Voice shall speak Truth and what he chooseth to signifie his Will shall truly signifie it He therefore condemneth Lying in man because it is contrary to his own Veracity For if any should say that God is under no Law and therefore is not bound to speak Ttuth or not deceive a Prophet or Apostle by his Inspirations I answer that he hateth Lying as contrary to his Perfect Nature and is himself against it and cannot possibly be guilty of it because of his own Perfection and not because he is under a Law Lying comes from some Imperfection either of Knowledge Power or Goodness which can none of them befall the Lord. The Goodness of the Creature is a Goodness of Conformity to an Obliging Law and the Goodness of the Law is a Goodness of Conformity to and expression of the Good Will of God But the Goodness of God is a Perfection of Essence the Primitive Goodness which is the Fountain and Standard and End of all other Good and not a Goodness of Conformity to another And this Attribute of God is of very great use to his servants 1. From hence we must be Resolved for Duty and for a holy heavenly life because the Commands of God are serious and his Promises and Threatnings True If God were not True that tells us of these great Eternal things then might we excuse our selves from Godliness and justifie the worldling in his sensual way There is nothing of common sense and reason that can be said against a Holy life by a man that denieth not the Truth of God or of his Word And to deny Gods Truth
hide their heads instead of confessing him before men 2. From a laziness of minde and weariness of duty when slothful unprofitable servants hide their talents pretending their fear of the austerity of their Lord. It s easier to run away from our work then do it and to go out of the reach of ignorance malice contradiction and ungodliness than to encounter them and conquer them by Truth and Holy lives So many persons as we converse with so many are there to whom we owe some duty And this is not so easie as it is to over-run our work and to hide our selves in some Wilderness or Cell whilst others are fighting the battels of the Lord. 3. Or it may proceed from meer impatience When men can-cannot bear the frown and scorns and violence of the ungodly they fly from sufferings which by patience they should overcome 4. Or it may come from humour and mutability of mind and discontent with ones condition Many retire from humane converse to please a discontented passionate mind or expecting to finde that in privacy which in publick they could not find nor is anywhere to be found on earth 5. And some do it in Melancholy meerly to please a sick imagination which is vexed in company and a little easeth it self in living as the possessed man among the Tombs â— And sometimes it proceedeth from self-ignorance and an unhumbled state of a soul When men think much better of themselves than others they think they can more comfortably converse with themselves than with others Whereas if they well understood that they are the worst or greatest enemies or troubles to themselves they would more fear their own company than other mens They would then consider what proud and fleshly and worldly and selfish and disordered hearts they are like to carry with them into their solitude and there to be annoyed with from day to day And that the nearest enemy is the worst and the nearest trouble is the greatest These vices or infirmities carry many into solitude and if they live where Popish vanity may seduce them they will perhaps imagine that they are serving God and entring into perfection when they are but sinfully obeying their corruptions and that they are advanced above others in degrees of grace while they are pleasing a diseased fancy and entring into a dangerous course of sin No doubt but the duties of a publick life are more in number and greater in weight and of more excellent consequence and tendency even to the most publick good and greatest honour of God than the duties of privacy or retirement Vir bonus est commune bonum A good man is a common good And saith Seneca Nulla essent communia nisi pars illorum pertineret ad singulos If every one have not some share or interest in them how are they common Let me add these few Considerations to shew you the evil of voluntary unnecessary Solitude 1. You less contribute to the honour of your Redeemer and less promote his Kingdom in the world and less subserve his death and office while you do good but to few and live but almost to your selves 2. You live in the poorest exercise of the grace of Charity and therefore in a low undesirable condition 3. You will want the communion of Saints and benefit of publick ordinances for I account not a Colledge life a Solitary life And you will want the help of the Charity Graces and Gifts of others by which you might be benefited 4. It will be a life of smaller comfort as it is a life of smaller benefit to others They that do but little good according to their ability must expect but little comfort They have usually most peace and comfort to themselves that are the most profitable to others Non potest quisquam bene degere qui se tantum intuetur Alteri vivas oportet si tibi viâ— vivere Sen. No man can live well that looketh but to himself Thou must live to another if thou wilt live to thy self O the delight that there is in doing good to many None knoweth it that hath not tryed it Not upon any account of Merit but as it Pleaseth God and as Goodness it self is amiable and sweet and as we receive by communicating and as we are under promise and as Charity makes all the good that 's done to another to be to us as our own 5. We are dark and partial and heedless of our selves and hardly brought or kept in acquaintance with our hearts and therefore have the more need of the eye of others And even an enemies eye may be useful though malicious and may do us good while he intends us evil saith Bernard Malum quod nemo videt nemo arguit Ubi autem non timetur reprehensor securus accedit tentator licentius perpetratur iniquitas The evil that none seeth none reproveth and where the reprover is not feared the tempter cometh more boldly and the sin is committed the more licentiously It 's hard to know the spots in our own faces when we have no glass or beholder to acquaint us with them Saith Chrysostome Solitude is velamen omnium vitiorum the cover of all vices In company this cover is laid aside and vice being more naked is more ashamed It is beholders that cause shame which Solitude is not acquainted with And it 's a peece of impenitency not to be ashamed of sin 6. And we are for the most part so weak and sickly that we are unable to subsist without the help of others Sen. Nemo est ex imprudentibus qui relinqui sibi debet unwise men or infants or sick-like men must not be left to themselves And God hath let some impotency insufficiency and necessity upon all that should keep men sociable and make them acknowledge their need of others and be thankful for assistance from them and be ready to do good to others as we would have others do to us He that feeleth not the need of others is so unhumbled as to have the greater need of them 7. Pride will have great advantage in private and Repentance great disadvantage while our sins seem to be all dead because there is not a temptation to draw them out or an observer to reprove them Tam diu pations quisque sibi videtur humilis donec nullius hominum consortio commiscetur ad naturam pristinam reversurus quum interpellaverit cujuslibet occasionis commotio inquit Cassianus Many a man seems to himself patient and humble while he keeps out of company who would return to his own nature if the commotion of any occasion did but provoke him It 's hard to know what sin or grace is in us if we have not such tryals as are not to be found in Solitude 8. Flying from the observation and judgement of others is a kind of self-accusation as if we confest our selves so bad as that we cannot stand the tryal of the Light Bona conscientia turbam advocat
the use of means in the course of our Conversations 9. A seeking him in the choise and use of means 10. An obeying him as our Soveraign Governour 11. An honouring and praising him as God 12. And an enjoying him and delighting in him in some small foretasts here as he is seen by saith but perfectly hereafter as beheld in Glory The affective practical Knowing of God which is Life eternal containeth or implyeth all these parts And every Christian that hath any of this Knowledge desireth more It is his great desire to Know more of God and to know him with a more affecting powerful knowledge He that groweth in grace doth accordingly grow in this knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ. The vigour and alacrity of our souls lieth in it The rectitude of our actions and the holiness of them floweth from it God is the excellency of our Hearts and lives Our advancement and our joy is here only to be found All other knowledge is so far desirable as it conduceth to the knowledge of God or to the several duties which that knowledge doth require All knowledge of words or things of causes and effects of any creatures actions customes Laws or whatsoever may be known is so far valuable as it is useful and so far useful as it is Holy subserving the knowledge of God in Christ. What the sun is to all mens eyes that God is to their souls and more It is to Know him that we have understandings given us And our understandings enjoy him but so far as they know him as the eye enjoyeth the Light of the sun by seeing it The ignorance of God is the blindness and part of the atheism of the soul and inferreth the rest They that know him not desire not heartily to know him nor can they Love him Trust him fear him serve him or call upon him whom they do not Know How shall they call upon him in whom they have not believed Rom. 10. 14. The heart of the Ungodly saith to God Depart from us for we desire not the knowledge of thy wayes what is the Almighty that we should serve him and what profit shall we have if we pray unto him Job 21. 14 15. 22. 17. All wickedness hath admission into that heart or land where the knowledge of God is not the watch to keep it out Abraham inferred that the men of Gerar would kill him for his wife when he saw that the fear of God was not in that place Gen. 20. 11. It was Gods controversie with Israel because there was no truth nor mercy nor knowledge of God in the land but by swearing and lying and killing and stealing they brake out and blood touched blood Hos. 4. 1 2. They are called by God a foolish people sottish children of no understanding that knew not God though they were wise to do evil Jer. 4. 22. He will pour out his fury upon the heathen that know him not and the families that call not on his name Jer. 10. 25. As the day differeth from the night by the light of the sun so the Church differeth from the world by the Knowledge of God in Jesus Christ. Psal. 76. 1 2. In Judah is God known his name is great in Israel In Salem also is his Tabernacle and his dwelling place in Sion The Love and Unity and peace which shall succeed persecution and malice in the blessed times shall be because the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea Isa. 11. 6 7 8 9. Hypocrites shall know him superficially and uneffectually and his holy ones shall know him so as to Love him fear him trust him and obey him with a knowledge effectual upon heart and life And he will continue his loving kindness to them that know him Psal. 36. 10. He is the best Christian that hath the fullest impression made upon his soul by the Knowledge of God in all his Attributes Thus it is our Life eternal to Know God in Christ. It is to reveal the Father that the Son was sent and it is to reveal the Father and the Son that the Holy spirit is sent God is the light and the life and felicity of the soul. The work of its salvation is but the restoring it to him and putting it in possession of him The beginning of this is Regeneration and Reconciliation the perfection oâ— it is Glorification beatifical Vision and Fruition The Mind that hath least of God is the darkest and most deluded Mind And the mind that hath most of him is the most lucide pure and serene And how is God in the Mind but as the Light and other visible objects are in the eye and as pleasant melodie is in the ear and as delightful meats and drinks are in the tast But that God maketh a more deep and durable impress on the soul and such as is suitable to its spiritual immaterial nature As your seal is to make a full impression on the wax of the whole figure that is upon it self so hath God been pleased in divers seals to engrave his Image and these must make their Impress upon us 1. There is the seal of the Creation sor the world hath much of the Image of God It is engraven also on the seal of Providential disposals though there we are uncapable of reading it yet so fully as in the rest 2. It is engraven on the seal of the holy Scriptures 3. And on the Person of Jesus Christ who is the purest clearest Image of the Father as also on the holy example of his life 4. And by the means of all these applyed to the soul in our sober consideration by the working of the Holy Ghost the Image of God is made upon us Here note 1. That All the revealed Image of God must be made on the soul and not a part only and all is wrought where any is truly wrought 2. That to the compleatness of his Image on us it is necessary that each part of Gods Description be orderly made and orderly make the Impress on us and that each part keep its proper place For it is a monster that hath feet where the head should be or the backside forward or where there is any gross misplacing of the parts 3. Note also that all the three forementioned seals contain all Gods Image on them but yet not all alike but the first part is more clearly engraven upon the first of them and the second part upon the second of them and the third part most clearly on the third and last To open this more plainly to you Unity in Trinity and Trinity in Unity is the sum of our holy faith In the Deity there is revealed to us One God in three persons the Father Son and Holy Ghost The Essence is but one the subsistences are three And as we must conceive and speak of the Divine Nature according to its Image while we see it but in a glass so
distresses Eternity is your Religion and the Life of all your holy motions and as without the Capacity of it you would be but beasts so without the Love and Desire of it and title to it you would be but wicked miserable men Set not your hearts on transitory things while you stand near unto Eternity How can you have room for so many thoughts on fading things when you have an Eternity to think on what light can you see in the Candles or Glow-worms of this world in the Sunshine of Eternity Oh remember when you are tempted to please your eyes your tast and sensual desires that these are not Eternal pleasures Remember when you are tempted for wealth or honour to wrong your souls that these are not the Eternal riches Houses and Lands are not Eternal meats and drinks are not Eternal sports and pastimes and jocund sinful company are not Eternal Alas how short how soon do they vanish into nothing But it is God and our dear Redeemer that are Eternal The flower of beauty withereth with age or by the nipping blast of a short disease the honours of the world are but a dream your graves will bury all its glory Down comes the Prince the Lord the gallant and suddenly takes his lodgings in the dust The corps that was pampered and adorned yesterday is a clod to day The body that was bowed to attended and applauded but the other day is now interred in the vault of darkness with worms and moles To day it is corruption and a most loathsome thing that lately was dreaming of an earthly happiness One day he is striving for riches and preheminences or glorying and rejoycing in them that the next day may be snatcht away to hell O fix not your minds on fading things that perish in the using and by their vanishing mock you that set your hearts upon them You will not fix your eye and mind upon every bird that flyeth by you as you will on the houses that you must dwell in nor will you mind every passenger as you will do your friends that still live with you And shall transitory vanity be minded by you above Eternity 3. It is Eternity that must direct you in your estimate of all things It is this that sheweth you the excellency of man above the beasts It is this that tells you the worth of Grace and the weight of sin the preciousness of holy Ordinances and helps and the evil of hinderances and temptations the wisdome of the choice and diligence of the Saints and the folly of the choice and negligent sinful lives of the ungodly the worth of Gods favour and the vanity of mans and the difference between the godly and the unsanctified world in point of Happiness Were noâ— Grace the egg the seed the earnest of an Eternal glory it were not so glorious a thing But O how precious are all those thoughts desires delights and breathings of the soul that bring us on to sweet Eternity Even those sorrows and groans and tears are precious that lead to an Eternal joy Who would not willingly obey the holy motions of the holy Spirit that is but hatching and preparing us for Eternity This is it that makes a Bible a Sermon a holy Book to be of greater value then Lands and Lordships It is Eternity that makes the illuminated soul so fearful of sinning so diligent in holy duties so chearful and resolved in suffering because he believeth it is all for an Eternity A Christian in the holy Assemblies and in his reading learning prayer conference is laying up for Everlasting when the worldling in the Market in the field or shop is making provision for a few dayes or hours Thou gloriest in thy Riches and preheminence now but how long wilt thou do so To day that house that land is thine but canst thou say it shall be thine to morrow Thou canst not But the Believer can truly say My God my Christ is mine to day and will be mine to all Eternity O Death thou canst take my friends from me and my worldly riches from me and my time and strength and life from me but take my God my Christ my Heaven my Portion from me if thou canst My sin is all thy sting and strength But where is thy sting when sin is gone and where is thy strength when Christ hath conquered thee Is it a great matter that thou deprivest me of my sinful weak and troublous friends when against thy will thou bringest me to my perfect blessed friends with whom I must abide for ever Thou dost indeed bereave me of these Riches but it is that I may possess the unvaluable Eternal riches Thou endest my Time that I may have Eternity Thou castest me down that I may be exalted Thou takest away my strength of life that I may enter into Life Eternal And is this the worst that Death can do And shall I be afraid of this I willingly lay by my cloaths at night that I may take my rest and I am not loth to put off the old when I must put on new The bird that is hatcht is not grieved because he must leave the broken shell Nor is it the grief of man or beast that he hath left the womb Death doth but open the womb of Time and let us into Eternity and is the second birth day of the soul. Regeneration brings us into the Kingdom of Grace and Death into the Kingdom of Glory Blessed are they that have their part in the New birth of Grace and the first Resurrection from the death of sin for to such the Natural Death will be Gain and they shall have their part in the second Resurrection and on them the everlasting Death shall have no power O sirs it is Eternity that telleth you what you should mind and be and do and that turneth the seales in all things where it is concerned Can you slâ—ep in sin so neer Eternity Can you play and laugh before you are prepared for Eternity Can you think him wise that selleth his eternal Joy for the ease the mirth the pleasure of a moment and trifleth away the time in which he must win or lose Eternity If these men be wise there are nâ— fools nor any but wise men in Bedlam Dare thy tongue report or thy heart imagine that any holy work is needless or a heavenly life too much adoe or any suffering too dear that is for an Eternity O happy souls that win Eternity with the loss of all the world O bless that Christ that spirit that light that word that messenger of God that drew thy heart to choose Eternity before all transitory things That was the day when thou beganst to be wise and indeed to shew thy self a man Thy wealth thy honour thy pleasure will be thine when the sensual world hath nothing to shew but sin and Hell of all they laboured for Their pleasures honours and all die when they die But thine will
the worldling the sensualist the proud the negligent who should please him then he shall be good and he shall be God if not say these judges he shall be evil and unmerciful and no God They will not believe that he is Good that punisheth them And thus if the Thief or Murderer had the choise of Kings and Judges you may know what persons he would choose No one should be a Judge or accounted a good man that would condemn and hang him But I beseech you consider what is sit to be the Rule and standard if not perfection of Goodness it self Do you think that the Will of ignorant fleshly sinful man is fitter to be the Rule of Goodness then the Will of God We are sure that God is not deceived and sure that there is no iniquity with him but we know that all men are lyable to deceit and have private interests and corrupted minds and wills that have some vicious inclinations O what Blaspheamy is in the heart of that man that will sooner condemn the holy Will and Law of God then his own Will or the Wills of any men be they never so seemingly wise or great The will of God is revealed in his Laws concerning the necessity of a holy life and the will of foolish wicked men is by their scornful speeches and sinful lives revealed to be against it And which of these do you follow which is it that prescribeth you the better course the will of God that is infinitely good or the will of man that is miserably evil If thou know any Better then God follow him before God But if none be Greater and more Powerful then he if none be Wiser or of more Knowledge it is as sure that none is Better Much less are those ignorant wicked men that despise the Scripture and a holy life and would perswade you that they can tell you of a Better way Let me speak it to the terrour of the ungodly soul that by the deceits or scorns of any sort of men is drawn away from Christ and holiness It shall stand on record against thee until judgement and it shall stick everlastingly as a dagger in thy heart that thou didst prefer the Reasons and the Will of man yea perhaps of a sottish drunkard or a worldling before the word or Will of God And though thy tongue durst not speak it thy life did speak it that thou thoughtest the word and will of man to be Better then the word and will of God Yea more that thou tookest the way of the Devil to be better then Gods wayes who is infinitely good For surely thou choosest that which thou takest to be best for thee And therefore if that man deserve damnation that sets up a man or a horse or an image and saith This is greater and wiser then God and therefore this shall be my God then dost thou deserve the same damnation that â—eâ—â—est up the words or will of man even of wicked men and sayest by thy practice These are Better then God and his word or will and therefore I will choose or follow them For God is full as jealous of the honour of his Goodness as of his Power or Wisdom Well Christians let flesh and bloâ—d say what it will and let all the world say what they will judge that Best that is most agreeable to the Will of God for Good and Evil must be measured by this will That Event is best which he determineth of and that Action is best which he Commandeth And all is naught and will prove so in the end that is against this will of God what policy or good soever may be pretended for it 8. And if the will of God be Infinitely Good we must all labour both to understand it and perform it Many say Who will shew us any Good Psal. 4. 6. Would you not know what is Best that you may choose and seek it As the inordinate desire of Knowing natural Good and Evil did cause our misery so the holy rectified desires of Knowing spiritual Good must recover us search the Scriptures then and study and enquire for it more concerns you to know the Will of God then to know the will of your Princes or benefactors or to know of any treasures of the world The Riches of Grace are given to us by Gods making known the mystery of his will according to his Good pleasure which he purposed in himself Eph. 1. 7 9. And our desire to know the Good will of God must be that we may Do it For this must we pray Col. 1. 9. 10. That we may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding that we may walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing being fruitful in every good work that we may be made perfect in every good work to do his will and have that wrought in us which is pleasing in his sight Heb. 13. 21. that we may not only know his will and approve the things that are excellent Rom. 2. 18. but may prepare our selves to do according to his Will lest we be punished the more Luk. 12. 47. See that the will of no man be preferred before Gods will seck not your own Wills nor set them up against the Lords If Christ whose will was pure and holy profess that he sought not his own will but his Fathers Joh. 5. 30. and that he came not to do his own will but his that sent him Joh. 6. 38. should it not be our resolution whose wills are so misguided and corrupt 9. If Gods will be Infinitely Good we must Rest in his Will when his wayes are dark or grievous to our flesh when his word seems difficult when we know not what he is doing with us remember it is the Will that is Infinitely Good that is disposing of us Only let us see that we stand not cross to the greater Good of his Church and honour and then we may be sure that he will not be against our Good We that can Rest in the will of a dear and faithful friend should much more Rest in the Will of God Do your duty and be not unwise but understanding what the will of the Lord is for you to do Eph. 5. 17. and then distract not your minds with distrustful fears about his will that is infinitely Good but say The Will of the Lord be done Act. 21. 14. 10. The Infinite Goodness of God should draw out our hearts to desire communion with him and to long after the blessed fruition of him in the life to come O how glad should we be to tread his courts to draw neer him in his holy worship to meditate on him and secretly open our hearts before him and to converse with those gracious souls that love to be speaking honourably of his name What will draw the heart of man if Goodness and infinite Goodness will not When the drunkard saith in the Alehouse It is Good
is called a new begetting or new birth without which none can enter into heaven Joh. 3. 3 5 6. A renewing us and making us new men and new creatures so far as that old things are past away and all become new Eph. 4. 23 24. Col. 3. 10. 2 Cor. 5. 17. It is a new creating us after the Image of God Eph. 4. 24. It maketh us Holy as God is Holy 1 Pet. 1. 15 16. yea it maketh us partakers of the Divine nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. It giveth us repentance to the acknowledging of the truth that we may recover our selves out of the snare of the Devil who were taken captive by him at his will 2 Tim. 2. 25 26. It giveth us that Love by which God dwelleth in us and we in God 1 Joh. 4. 16. We are redeemed by Christ from all iniquity and therefore it is that he gave himself for us to purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Tit. 2. 14. It is an abundant shedding of the Holy Ghost on us for our renovation Tit. 3. 5 6. and by it a shedding the Love of God abroad in our hearts Rom. 5. 5. It is this Holy Spirit given to believers by which they pray and by which they mortifie the flesh Jud. 20. Rom. 8. 26. 13. By this Spirit we live and walk and rejoyce Rom. 8. 1. and 14. 17. Our joy and peace and hope is through the power of the Holy Ghost Rom 15. 13. It giveth us a spiritual mind and taketh away the carnal mind that is enmity against God and neither is nor can be subject to his law Rom. 8. 7. By this Spirit that is given to us we must know that we are Gods children 1 Joh. 3. 24. 4. 13. For if any man have not the spirit of Christ the same is none of his Rom. 8 9. All holy graces are the fruits of the spirit Gal. 5. 22 23. It would be too long to number the several excellent effects of the sanctifying work of the spirit upon the soul and to recite the Elogies of it in the Scripture Surely it is no low or needless thing which all these expressions do intend Quest. 3. If you think it a most hainous sin to vilifie the Creator and his work and the Redeemer and his work why should not you think so of the vilifying of the sanctifier and his work when God hath so magnified it and will be glorified in it and when it is the applying perfecting work that maketh the purchased benefits of Redemption to be ours and formeth our Fathers Image on us Quest. 4. Do we not Doctrinally commit too much of that sin if we undervalue the Spirits sanctifying work as a common thing which the ungodly world do manifest in practice when they speak and live in a contempt or low esteem of grace And which is more injurious to God for a prophane person to jest at the Spirits work or for a Christian or Minister deliberately to extennate it especially when the preaching of grace is a Ministers chief work sure we should much fear partaking in so great a sin Quest. 5. Why is it that the Scripture speaks so much to take men off from boasting or ascribing any thing to themselves Rom. 3. 19. That every mouth may be stopped and why doth not the Law of works exclude boasting but only the Law of faith Rom. 3. 27. Surely the actions of nature except so far as it is corrupt are as truly of God as the acts of grace And yet God will not take it well to deny him the glory of Redemption or Sanctification and tell him that we paid it him in another kind and ascribed all to him as the author of our free will by natural production For as Nature shall honour the Creatour so Grace shall also honour the Redeemer and Sanctifier And God designeth the humbling of the sinner and teaching him to deny himself and to honour God in such a way as may stand with self abasement leaving it to God to honour those by way of reward that honour him in way of duty and deny their own honour Quest. 6. Why is the Blaspheming and sinning against the Holy Ghost made so hainous and dangerous a sin if the works of the Holy Ghost were not most excellent and such as God will be most honoured by Quest. 7. Is it not exceeding ingratitude for the soul that hath been illuminated converted renewed quickened and saved by the Holy Ghost to extenuate the mercy and ascribe it most to his natural Will O what a change was it that Sanctification made what a blessed birth day was that to our souls when we entered here upon Life Eternal Joh. 17. 3. And is this the thanks we give the Lord for so great a Mercy Quest. 8. What mean those texts if they consute not this unthankful opinion Phil. 2. 13. It is God that worketh in you to Will and to do of his good pleasure Eph. 2. 7 8 9 10. God hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus that in the ages to come he might shâ—w the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us through Christ Jesus For by Grace ye are saved through faith and that not of your selves it is the gift of God Not of works lest any man should boast For we are his workmanship Created to Good works in Christ Jesus The like is in Tit. 3. 5 6. 7. Joh. 15. 16. Ye have not chosen me but I have chosen you and ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit and that your fruit should remain 1 Joh. 4. 10. Herein is Love not that we loved God but that he loved us 1 Cor. 4. 7. For who maketh thee to differ and what hast that thou that thou didst not receive Joh. 6. 44. No man can come unto me except the Father which hath sent me draw him 1 Cor. 2. 14. The natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God for they are foolishness unto him neither can be know them because they are spiritually discerned Joh. 3. 6. That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit that is plainly the fleshly birth produceth but flesh and not spirit if any man will have the spirit and so be saved it must be by a spiritual begetting and birth by the Holy Ghost Act. 16. 14. The Lord opened Lydia's heart that she attended to the things that were spoken of Paul c. Was the Conversion of Paul a murdering persecuter his own work rather then the Lords when the means and manner were such as we read of Act. 22. 14. The God of our Fathers hath chosen thee that thou shouldst know his will and see that just one and hear the voice of his mouth c. He was chosen to the Means and to faith and not only in faith to salvation When Christ called his Disciples
us and Rest to the troubled 2. The Justice of God is the terrour of the ungodly As he would not make unrighteous Laws for the pleasure of unrighteous men so neither will he pass unrighteous judgement But look what a man soweth that shall he also reap All his peremptory threatnings shall be made good and his wrath poured out for ever upon impenitent souls because he is the Righteous God CHAP. XVIII 17. ANother of Gods Attributes is his Holiness He is called Holy 1. As he is Transcendently above and separated from all the Creatures in comparison of whom the Heâ—vens are not clean and from whom all things stand at an Infinite distance 2. As the Perfection of his nature is the Fountain of all Moral Good 1. In the Holiness of his Law the Rule of Holiness 2. In the Holiness of the soul and 3. In his holy Judgements And consequently as this Perfect Nature is contrary to all the Moral Pollution of the Creature loathing iniquity forbiding and condemning it That Perfect Goodness of the will of God from whence floweth holy Laws and motions and the Holiness of the soul of man is it that Scripture meaneth usually by Gods Holiness rather then the foresaid distance from the Creatures And therefore his Holiness is usually given as the Reason of his Laws and Judgements and of his enmity to sin And our Holiness is called his Image who imitate not his Transcendency and we are commanded to be Holy as he is Holy 1 Pet. 1. 16. The nature of the Image will best tell us what Holiness is in God Holiness in us is called The Divine Nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. and therefore is radically a right inclination and disposition of the soul which hath its rise from a Transcendent Holiness in God even as our Wisdome from his Transcendent Wisdome and our Being from his Being Holiness therefore being indeed the same with the Transcendently Moral Goodness of God which I have spoken of before I shall say but little of it now Thus must the Holiness of God be known 1. It must cause us to have a most high and honourable esteem of Holiness in the Creature because it is the Image of the Holiness of God Three sorts of Creatures have a Derivative Holiness The first is The Law which is the meer signification of the Wise and Holy Will of God concerning mans Duty with Rewards and Penalties for the Holy Governing of the world This is the nearest Image of God engraven upon that Seal which must be the Instrument of imprinting it on our souls Now the Holiness of the Word is not the meer product of the Will of God considered as a Will but of the Will of God considered as Holy that is as the Infinite Transcendent Moral Goodness in the Architype or Original For all events that proceed from God are the products of his Will which is Holy but not as Holy as the creating preserving disposing of every fly or fish in the sea or worm in the earth c. There is somewhat therefore in the Nature of God which is the Perfection of his Will and is called Holiness which â—he Holiness of the Law doth flow from and express This Holy Word is the Immortal seed that begetteth Holiness in the soul which is the second subject of derived Holiness And this our Holiness is a conformity of the soul to the Law as the Product of the Holy Will of God and not a meer conformity to his predictions and decreeing Will as such It is a separation to God but not every separation Pharaoh was set apart to be the Passive monument of the Honour of Gods Name and Cyrus was his servant to restore his people and yet not thus Holy But it is a separation from common and unclean uses and a Purgation from polluting vice and a renovation by reception of the Image of Gods Holiness whose Nature is to encline the soul to God and devote it wholly to him both in Justice because we are his own and in Love because he is most Holy and perfectly Good The third subject of Holiness is those creatures that are but separated to Holy uses and these have but a Relative Holiness and secundum quid As the Temple the holy utensils the Bible as to the materials the Minister as an Officer the people as visible members c. All these must be reverenced and honoured by us according to the proportion of their Holiness 1. Our principal Reverence must be to the Holy Word of God For Holiness is more perfect there then in our souls The Holiness of the Word which is it that the ungodly hate or quarrel at is the Glory of it in the eyes of Holy men We may much discern a Holy and an unholy soul by their Loving or not loving a Holy Law especially as it is a Rule to themselves A distast of the Holiness of Scripture and of the Holiness of the writings of Divines and of the Holiness of their preaching or conference discovereth an unholy soul. A Love to holy Doctrine sheweth that there is somewhat suitable to it in the soul that Loveth it It is the elogy of the Scriptures the Promises the Covenant the Prophets and Apostles that they are all Holy Rom. 1. 2. Psal. 105. 42. Luk. 1. 70 72. Rev. 18. 20. 2 Tim. 3. 15. Rom. 7. 12. The Holiness of the Scripture doth make it as suitable and savoury to a Holy soul as Light is suitable to the eye-sight and sweetness to the tast and therefore it is to them as the hony comb But to the unholy it is a mystery and as foolishness and that which is contrary to their disposition and they have an enmity to it which makes a wonderful difference in their judging of the evidences of Scripture Verity and much facilitateth the work of Faith in one sort and strengtheneth unbelief in the other Holy doctrine is the Glass that sheweth us the Holy face of God himself and therefore must needs be most excellent to the Saints 2. And we must honour and love also the Holiness of the Saints For they also bear the Image of the Lord. Their Holy Affections Prayers Discourses and Conversations must be beautiful in our eyes And we must take heed of those temptations that either from personal injuries received from any or from their blots or imperfections or from their meanness in the world or from the contempt and reproach and slanders of the ungodly would draw us to think dishononrably of their Holiness He that honoureth the Holy God will honour his Image in his Holy people In his eyes a vile person will be contemned but he will honour them that fear the Lord Psal. 15. 4. The Saints on earth are the excellent in his eyes and his delight is in them Psal. 16. 2 3. The breathings of Divine Love in the holy Prayers Praises and Speeches of the Saints and their Reverent and Holy mention of his Name are things that a holy soul
Tell them that death and judgement are at hand and that when they laugh or sport or scorn and jeast at the Displeasure of the Dreadful God it is posting toward them and will be upon them before they are aware and when they slumber their damnation slumbereth not but while unbelieving sinners say Peace Peace sudden destruction will come upon them as unexpected travail on a woman with child and they shall not escape O tell them how dreadful a thing it is for a soul that is unregenerate and unsanctified to go from that body which it pampered and sold its salvation to pleasure and to appear at the tribunal of God and how dreadful it is for such a soul to fall into the hands of the living God At least save your own souls by the faithful discharge of so great a duty and if they will take no warning let them at last remember when it is too late that they were told in time what they should see and feel at last and what the later end would prove and that God and man did warn them in compassion though they perish because they would have no compassion or mercy upon themselves Thus let the Terribleness of God provoke you to do your duty with speed and zeal for the converting and saving of miserable souls AND thus I have briefly set before you the Glass in which you may see the Lord and told you how he must be known and how he must be conceived of in our apprehensions and how the knowledge of God must be improved and what impressions it must make upon the heart and what effect it must have upon our lives Blessed and for ever blessed are those souls that have the truly and lively Image of this God and all these his Attributes imprinted on them as to the Creature they are communicable And O that the veil were taken from our hearts that we all with open face beholding as in a glass the Glory of the Loord may be changed into the same Image from Glory to Glory as by the spirit of the Lord 2 Cor. 3. 18. and may increase and live in the knowledge of the true and only God and of Jesus Christ which is Eternal Life Amen THE DESCRIPTION Reasons Reward OF THE BELIEVERS Walking with God On Gen. 5. 24. By RICHARD BAXTER LONDON Printed for Francis Tyton at the three Daggers in Fleet-street and Nevil Simmons Bookseller in Kederminster 1664. THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. THE Text explained what it is to Walk with God what it containeth both for Matter and Manner Page 159 CHAP. II. The first Use A Lamentation of the practical Atheisme of the world Motives to change your inordinate creature-converse into converse with God How much sinners have to do with God more than with all the world besides shewedin 14 instances p. 185 CHAP. III. An answer to them that think God doth us good by necessity of Nature as the sun doth illuminate and warm us and therefore though he have much to do for us yet much is not required from us towards him And to them that think he is above our converse and unsuitable to us Ten Quere's to evince the necessity of our own holy diligence in godliness Especially of exercising our Thoughts upon God Ten mischiefs that befall them who have not God in all their Thoughts p. 205 CHAP. IV. Practical Atheism further detected An answer to them that think it unfit for ignorant men or poor men to think so much of God and that it will make men melancholy and mad Ten propositions shewing how far it is our duty to Think of God by way of explication p. 220 CHAP. V. An answer to them that say God regardeth not Thoughts but Deeds Twelve evidences of the regardableness of our Thoughts p. 230 CHAP. VI. The application to the Godly The Benefits of walking with God I. It is suitable to humane Nature Hoâ— it is Natural No middle life between the sensual and the Holy Of them that delight in Knowledge and moral vertue Nature in its first constitution was not only Innocent but Holy Proved II. To walk with God is the highest and noblest life III. It is the only course to prove and make men truly wise Proved by ten evidences IV. It maketh men good as well as wise and advanceth to the greatest holiness and rectitude Proved by five evidences V. It is the best preparation for sufferings and death shewed by seven advantages to that end p. 235 CHAP. VII Five special obligations on true believers to walk with God and to avoid inordinate Creature-converse p. 277 CHAP. I. Gen. 5. 24. And Henoch walked with God and he was not for God took him BEeing to speak of our Converse with God in Solitude I think it will not be unsuitable nor unserviceable to the Ends of that Discourse if I here premise a short description of the General Duty of practical godliness as it is called in Scripture a Walking with God It is here commended to us in the example of Holy Henoch whose excellency is recorded in this signal character that he walked with God and his special Reward expressed in the words following and he was not for God took him I shall speak most of his Character and then somewhat of his Reward The Samaritan and vulgar-Latine versions do strictly translate the Hebrew as we read it but the interpretation of the Septuagint the Syriack the Chaldee and the Arabick are rather good expositions all set together of the meaning of the word than strict translations The Septuagint and Syriack read it Henoch pleased God The Chaldee hath Henoch walked in the fear of God And the Arabick he walked in obedience to God And indeed to walk in the fear and obedience of God and thereby to please him is the principal thing in our Walking with God The same Character is given of Noah in Gen. 6. 19. and the extraordinary Reward annexed He and his family were saved in the Deluge And the holy life which God commanded Abraham is called a walking before God Gen. 17. 1. Walk before me and be thou perfect And in the New Testament the Christian Conversation is ordinarily called by the name of Walking Sometime a Walking in Christ as Col. 2. 6. Sometime a Walking in the spirit in which we live Gal. 5. 25. And a Walking after the spirit Rom. 8. 1. Sometime a Walking in the Light as God is in the Light 1 Joh. 1. 7. Those that abide in Christ must so walk even as he hath walked 1 Joh. 2. 6. These phrases set together tell us what it is to Walk with God But I think it not unprofitable somewhat more particularly to shew you what this Walking with God doth contain As Atheism is the sum of wickedness so all true Religiousness is called by the name of Godliness or Holiness which is nothing else but our Devotedness to God and Living to Him and our Relation to Him as thus Devoted in Heart and Life
them pleasing them and shewing them respect while they take no notice of God at all as if they believed not that he is there Hence it is that the men of God were wont to speak though reverently yet familiarly of God as children of their Father with whom they dwell as being indeed fellow-citizens with the Saints who are his houshold Abraham calleth him Gen. 24. 40. The Lord before whom I walk And Jacob Gen. 48. 15. God before whom my Fathers Abraham and Isaac walked And David resolveth Psal. 116. 9. I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living Yea God himself is pleased to use the terms of gracious condescending familiarity with them Christ dwelleth in them by faith Eph. 3. 17. His spirit dwelleth in them as his house and temple Rom. 8. 9. Yea the Father himself is said to dwell in them and they in him 1 Joh. 3. 24. He that keepeth his Commandements dwelleth in Him and He in him and 3. 12. If we love one another God dwelleth in us 13. Hereby we know that we dwell in him and He in us because he hath given us of His spirit 15. Whoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God God dwelleth in him and he in God 16. God is Love and he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God and God in him Yea God is said to walk in them as they are said to walk with Him 2 Cor. 6. 16. For ye are the Temple of the living God as God hath said I will dwell in them and walk in them and I will be their God and they shall be my people Our walking with God then is not only a sense of that common presence which he must needs afford to all but it is also a believing apprehension of his Gracious presence as our God and reconciled Father with whom we dwell being brought near unto Him by Christ and who dwelleth in us by his spirit 9. To walk with God as here we are in flesh includeth not only our believing his presence but also that we see him as the chief cause in the effects in his creatures and his daily providence that we look not on creatures as independent or separated from God but see them as the Glass and God as the represented face and see them as the letters and words and God as the sense of all the creatures that are the first Book which he appointed man to read We must behold his glory declared by the Heavens Psal. 19. 1. and see Him shining in the Sun and see his Power in the Fabrick of the world and his wisdom in the admirable order of the whole we must tast the sweetness of his Love in the sweetness of our food and in the comforts of our friends and all our accommodations we must see and Love his Image in his Holy ones and we must hear his Voice in the Ministry of his Messengers Thus every creature must become a Preacher to us and we must see the Name of God upon it and thus all things will be sanctified to us while Holiness to the Lord is written upon all Though we must not therefore make Idols of the creatures because God appeareth to us in them yet must we hear the message which they bring us and reverence in them the Name of the Creatour which they â—ear By this way of conversing with them they will not ensnare us or deceive or poyson us as they do the carnal unbelieving world but as the Fish brought money to Peter to pay his tribute so every creature would bring us a greater even a spiritual gain When we behold it we should say with pleasant admiration This is the work of God and it is wonderful in our eyes This is the true Divine Philosophy which seeketh and findeth and contemplateth and admireth the Great Creatour in his works When that which sticketh in the creature it self whatever discovery it seem to make is but a childish unprofitable trifling like learning to shape all the letters aright without learning to know their signification and sense It is God appearing in the creatures that is the life and beauty and use and excellency of all the creatures wthout him they are but carkasses deformed useless vain insignificant and very nothings 10. Our walking with God doth contain our willing and sincere attendance on him in the use of those holy duties in which he hath appointed us to expect his grace He is everywhere in his essential presence but he is not everywhere alike to be found in the communications of his grace The assemblies of his Saints that worship him in holy communion are places where he is likelyer to be found then in an Ale-house or a Play-house You are likelier to have holy converse with him among the holy that will speak of holy things to your edification then among the senseless ignorant sensualists and the scornful enemies of Holiness that are the servants of the Devil whom he useth in his daily work for the deceiving and perdition of the world Therefore the conversation of the wicked doth grieve and vex a righteous soul as it s said the Sodomites did by Lot 2 Pet. 2. 7 8. because all their conversation is ungodly far from God not savouring of any true knowledge of him or love to him but is against him by enmity and provocation If God himself do dwell and walk in all his holy ones then they that dwell and walk with them have the best opportunity to dwell and walk with God To converse with those in whom God dwelleth is to converse with him in his Image and to attend him at his dwelling And willfully to run among the wicked is to run far away from God In his Temple doth every man speak of his Glory Psal. 29. 9. when among his brutish enemies every man speaketh to the dishonour of him in his word and wayes He is otherwise present with those that are congregated in his Name and for his worship then he is with those that are assembled for wickedness or vanity or live as brutes without God in the world And we must draw as near him as we can if we would be such as walk with God We must not be strange to him in our Thoughts but make him the object of our most serious meditations It s said of the wicked that they are far from God and that God is not in all their thoughts Ps. 73. 27. Ps. 10. 4. The thoughts are the minds employment It dwells on that which it frequently thinks of It is a walk of the Mind and not of the Body which we are treating of To mind the world and fleshly things is contrary to this walk with God we are far from him when our thoughts are ordinarily far from him I know that it is lawful and meet to think of the business of our callings so far as is necessary to the prudent successful management of them and that it is not requisite that our thoughts
the credit of being esteemed wise and learned or because their gain and maintenance comes in this way They that fill many Volumes with Controversies concerning God and fill the Church with contentions and troubles by them and their own hearts with malice and uncharitableness against those that are not of their opinions have many and many a thought of God which yet will do nothing to the saving of their souls no more than they do to the sanctifying of them And such learned men may think more Orthodoxly and Methodically concerning God than many an honest serious Christian who yet thinks of him more effectually and savingly Even as they can discourse more orderly and copiously of God when yet they have no saving knowledge of him 3. All men must not bestow so much time in Meditation as some must do It is the Calling of Ministers to study so as to furnish thrir minds with all those truths concerning God which are needful to the Edification of the Church and so to meditate on these things as to give themselves wholly to them 1 Tim. 4. 15 16. It is both the work of their common and their special Calling The study necessary to Christians as such belongeth as well to others as to them But other men have another special or particular Calling which also they must think of so far as the nature and ends of their daily labours do require It is a hurtful errour to imagine that men must either lay by their Callings to meditate on God or that they must do them negligently or to be taken up in the midst of their employments with such studies of God as Ministers are that are separated to that work 4. No man is bound to be continually taken up with actual distinct cogitations about God For in duty we have many many other things to think on which must have their time And as we have Callings to follow and must eat our bread in the sweat of our brows so we must manage them with prudence A good man will guide his affairs with discretion Psal. 112. 5. It is both necessary as duty and necessary as a means to the preservation of our very faculties that both body and mind have their times of employment about our lawful business in the world The understandings of many cannot bear it to be alwaies employed on the greatest and most serious things Like Lute strings they will break if they be raised too high and be not let down and relaxed when the lesson is plaid To think of nothing else but God is to break the Law of God and to confound the mind and to disable it to think aright of God or any thing As he that bid us pray continually did not mean that we should do nothing else or that actual prayer should have no interruptions but that habitual desires should on all meet occasion be actuated and exprest so he that would be chief in all our thoughts did never mean that we should have no thoughts of any thing else or that our serious meditation on him should be continual without interruption but that the final intending of God and our dependence on him should be so constant as to be the spring or mover of the rest of the thoughts and actions of our lives 5. An habitual intending God as our End and depending on his support and subjection to his Government will carry on the soul in a sincere and constant course of Godliness though the actual most observed thoughts of the soul be fewer in number about God than about the means that lead unto him and the occurrences in our way The soul of man is very active and comprehensive and can think of several things at once and when it is once clear and resolved in any case it can act according to that knowledge and resolution without any present sensible cogitation nay while its actual most observed thoughts are upon something else A Musician that hath an habitual skill can keep time and tune while he is thinking of some other matter A Weaver can cast his shuttle right and work truly while he is thinking or talking of other things A man can eat and drink with discretion while he talks of other things Some men can dictate to two or three Scribes at once upon divers subjects A Traveller can keep on his way though he seldome think distinctly of his Journies end but be thinking or discoursing most of the way upon other matters For before he undertook his Journey he thought both of the end and way and resolved then which way to go and that he would go through all both fair and foul and not turn back till he saw the place And this habitual understanding and resolution may be secretly and unobservedly active so as to keep a man from erring and from turning back though at the same time the Travellers most sensible thoughts and his discourse may be upon something else When a man is once resolved of his End and hath laid his design he is past deliberating of that and therefore hath less use of his cogitations thereabout but is readier to lay them out upon the means which may be still uncertain or may require his frequent deliberation We have usually more thoughts and speeches by the way about our company or our Horses or Innes or other accommodations or the fairness or foulness of the way and other such occurrences than we have about the place that we are going to And yet this secret intention of our end will bring us thither So when a soul hath cast up his accounts and hath renounced a worldly and sensual felicity and hath fixed his hopes and resolutions upon Heaven and is resolved to cast himself upon Christ and take God for his only portion this secret habitual resolution will do much to keep him constant in the way though his thoughts and talk be frequently on other things Yea when we are thinking of the creature and feel no actual thoughts of God it is yet God more than the creature that we think of For we did beforehand look on the creature as Gods work representing him unto the world and as his talents which we must employ for him and as every creature is related to him And this estimation of the creature is still habitually and in some secret less-perceived acts most prevalent in the soul. Though I am not alwaies sensibly thinking of the King when I use his Coin or obey his Law c. yet it is only as his Coin still that I use it and as his Laws that I obey them Weak Habits cannot do their work without great carefulness of thoughts but perfect habits will act a man with little thoughtfulness as coming near the natural way of operation And indeed the imperfection of our Habitual Godliness doth make our serious thoughts and vigilancy and industry to be the more necessary to us 6. There are some thoughts of God that are necessary to the very
as Grace inclineth a renewed soul to every holy Truth and duty and yet such a soul in its infancy of Grace hath not a sufficient immediate aptitude or promptitude to the receiving of every holy truth or the doing of every holy duty but must grow up to it by degrees But the addition of these degrees is no specifical alteration of the nature of man or of that grace which was before received Having been so long upon this first Consideration that Walking with God is most agreeable to humane nature I shall be briefer in the rest that follow II. TO Walk with God and live to him is incomparably the Highest and Noblest life To converse with men only is to converse with Worms whether they be Princes or poor men they differ but as the bigger vermine from the lesser If they be Wise and Good their Converse may be profitable and delightful because they have a beam of excellency from the face of God And O how unspeakable is the distance between his Wisdom and Goodness and theirs But if they be foolish ungodly and dishonest how loathsome is their conversation What stinking breath is in their profane and filthy language in their lies and slanders of the just in their sottish jears and scorns of those that Walk with God which expose at once their folly and misery to the pitty of all that are truly understanding When they are gravely speaking evil of the things which they understand not or with a fleering confidence deriding merrily the holy commands and waies of God they are much more lamentably expressing their infatuation than any that are kept in chains in Bedlam Though indeed with the most they scape the reputation which they deserve because they are attended with persons of their own proportion of wisdom that alwayes reverence a silken coat and judge them wise that wear gold lace and have the greatest satisfaction of their wills and lusts and are able to do most mischief in the world and because good men have learnt to honour the worst of their superiours and not to call them as they are But God is bold to call them as they are and give them in his word such names and characters by which they might come to know themselves And is it not a Higher Nobler life to Walk with God then to Converse in Bedlam or with intoxicated sensualists that live in a constant deliration Yea worse then so ungodly men are children of the Devil so called by Jesus Christ himself Joh. 8. 44. because they have much of the nature of the Devil and the lusts of their father they will do yea they are taken captive by him at his will 2 Tim. 2. 26. They are the servants of sin and do the drudgery that so vile a Master sets them on Joh. 8. 34. Certainly as the spirits of the just are so like to Angels that Christ saith we shall be as they and equal to them so the wicked are nearer kin to Devils then they themselves will easily believe They are as like him as children to their Father He is a lyar and so are they He is a hater of God and godliness and godly men and so are they He is a murderer and would fain devour the holy seed and such are they He envyeth the progress of the Gospel and the prosperity of the Church and the increase of Holiness and so do they He hath a special malice against the most powerful and successful Preachers of the Word of God and against the most zealous and eminent Saints and so have they He cares not by what lyes and fictions he disgraceth them nor how cruelly he useth them No more do they or some of them at least He cherisheth licentiousness sensuality and impiety and so do they If they do seem better in their adversity and restraint yet try them but with prosperity and power and you shall see quickly how like they are to devils And shall we delight more to converse with brutes and incarnate devils than with God Is it not a more high and excellent conversation to Walk with God and live to Him then to be companions of such degenerate men that have almost forfeited the reputation of humanity Alas they are companions so deluded and ignorant and yet so wilfull so miserable and yet so confident and secure that they are to a believing eye the most lamentable sight that the whole world can shew us out of hell And how sad a life must it then needs be to converse with such were it not for the hope that we have of furthering their recovery and Salvation But to Walk with God is a word so high that I should have feared the guilt of arrogance in using it if I had not found it in the holy Scriptures It is a word that importeth so high and holy a frame of soul and expresseth such high and holy actions that the naming of it striketh my heart with reverence as if I had heard the voice to Moses Put off thy shoes from off thy feet for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground Exod. 3. 5. Methinks he that shall say to me Come see a man that walks with God doth call me to see one that is next unto an Angel or glorified soul It is a far more reverend object in mine eye then ten thousand Lords or Princes considered only in their fleshly glory It is a wiser action for people to run and crowd together to see a man that Walks with God then to see the pompous train of Princes their entertainments or their triumphs O happy man that Walks with God though neglected and contemned by all about him What blessed sights doth he daily see What ravishing tydings what pleasant melody doth he daily hear unless it be in his swoons or sickness what delectable food doth he daily tast He seeth by faith the God the Glory which the blessed Spirits see at hand by nearest intuition He seeth that in a glass and darkly which they behold with open face He seeth the glorious Majesty of his Creatour the Eternal King the Cause of Causes the composer upholder preserver and governour of all the worlds He beholdeth the wonderful methods of his providence And what he cannot reach to see he admireth and waiteth for the time when that also shall be open to his view He seeth by Faith the world of Spirits the hosts that attend the throne of God their perfect righteousnesse their full devotednesse to God their ardent love their flaming zeal their ready and chearful obedience their dignity and shining glory in which the lowest of them exceedeth that which the Disciples saw on Moses and Elias when they appeared on the holy Mount and talkt with Christ. They hear by faith the heavenly consort the high and harmonious Songs of praise the joyful triumphs of crowned Saints the sweet commemorations of the things that were done and suffered on earth with the praises of him that redeemed them by his
wanteth more of God than he enjoyeth and his enjoying graces Love and Joy are yet imperfect But when he hath attained his nearest approach to God he will have fulness of Delight in fulness of fruition O Christians Do I need to tell you that after all the tryals you have made in the world you have never found any state of life that was worthy your desires nor that gave you any true content but only this living upon God If you have not found such comfort here as others have done yet at least you have seen it afar off within your reach As men that in the Indies in the discovery of Plantations expect Gold Mines when they find those golden sands that promise it You have found a life which is certainly desirable and leadeth to joy in the midst of sorrow And it is no small joy to have a certain promise and prospect of everlasting joy It is therefore more excusable in those that never tasted any better than the pleasures of the flesh to neglect this sweeter Heavenly life than it is in you that have been convinced by your own experience that there is no life to be compared with it 4. YOur Walking with God is the necessary prosecution of your Choice and Hopes of life eternal It is your necessary preparation to your enjoying him in Heaven And have you fixed on those Hopes with so great reason and deliberation and will you now draw back and be slack in the prosecution of them Have you gone so far in the way to Heaven and do you now begin to look behind you as if you were about to change your mind Paul setteth you a better example Phil. 3. 8 9 10 11 12 13. Yea doubtless I account all things but loss for the excellency of the Knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but dung that I may win Christ and be found in him If by any means I might attain to the resurrection of the dead Not as though I had already attained either were already perfect But I follow after if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus Brethren I count not my self to have apprehended but this one thing I do forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before I press toward the mark for the price of the high Calling of God in Christ Jesus He compareth himself to a runner in a race that till be apprehend the price or mark doth still make forward with all his might and will not so much as mind or look at any thing behind him that would turn him back or stop him in his course The world and the flesh are the things behind us We turned our backs upon them at our conversion when we turned to God It is these that would now call back our thoughts and corrupt our affections when we should run on and reach forward to the heavenly price It is God and Heaven and the remaining duties of a holy life that are the things before us And shall we now look back what we that are running and striving for a Crown of endless glory we that if we lose it do lose our souls and hopes for ever we that have loitered in the morning of our lives and lost so much precious time as we have done we that have gone so far in our way and held out through so many difficulties and assaults Shall we now grow weary of walking with God and begin to look to the things behind us Did he not tell us at the first that Father and Mother and house and land and life and all things must be forsaken for Christ if we will be his Disciples These are the things behind us which we turned our back on when we consented to the Covenant and are they now grown better or is God grown worse that we turn our hearts from him to them when we first begun our Christian race it was upon supposition that it was for that immortal Crown which all the world is not to be compared to And have we not still the same consideration before us to move us to hold on till we attain it Hold on Christians it is for Heaven Is there not enough in that word to drive back all the cares and pleasures that importune your minds to forget your God Is there not enough in that word to quicken you up in your greatest dulness and to call you home when you are wandring from God and to make you again fall out with all that would reduce you or divert you and call it Vanity and Vexation of spirit Methinks the fore-thought of that life and work which you hope to have with God for ever should make you earnestly desire to have as much of the like on earth as is here to be attained If it will he your Heaven and Happiness then it must needs be desirable now It is not beseeming a man that saith he is seeking for perfect communion with God in Heaven and that above all things as every Christian doth to live in a daily neglect or forgetfulness of God on earth Delightfully to draw near him and exercise all our faculties upon him or for him sometime in prayer and contemplation on himself and alwaies in works of obedience to him this is the life that beseemeth those that profess to seek eternal life O therefore let us make it our daily work to keep our God and Glory in our eye and to spur on our dull affections and in the diligent attendance and following the Captain of our salvation to prosecute our expected End 5. LAstly consider that God doth purposely provide you hard entertainment in the world and cause every creature to deny you the pleasure and satisfaction which you desire that so you may have none to walk with but himself with any heart-setling comfort and content If you see not enough in him to allure you to himself you shall feel enough in the world to drive you to him If his Love and Goodness will not serve alone to make him your pleasure and hold you to him in the best and most excellent way of Love at least the storms and troubles that are abroad shall shew you a Necessity of keeping close to God and the Love of your selves shall help you to do that which was not done by the attraction of his Love alone If you will put him to it to send out his command to every creature to cross and vex you and disappoint all your expectations from it that so he may force you to remember your Father and your home deny not then but it is long of your selves that you were not saved in an easier way Would you wish God to make that condition pleasant to you which he seeth you take too much pleasure in already or seek and desire it at least When as it is the pleasantness of the
or wit or wealth or power than you have and therefore seem more worthy of their friendship 10. And some of them may think when you are in a low and suffering state and in danger of worse that it is part of their duty of self-preservation to be strange to you though in heart they wish you well They will think they are not bound to hazard themselves upon the displeasure of superiours to own or befriend you or any other Though they must not desert Christ they think they may desert a man for their own preservation To avoid both extreams in such a case men must both study to understand which way is most serviceable to Christ and to his Church and withall to be able to deny themselves and also must study to understand what Christ meaneth in his final sentence In as much as you did it or did it not to one of the least of these my brethren you did it or did it not to me As if it were to visit the contagious we must neither cast away our lives to do no good or for that which in value holdeth no proportion with them nor yet must we deny to run any hazard when it is indeed our duty So is it in our visiting those that suffer for the cause of Christ but that here the owning them being the confessing of him we need more seldome to fear being too forward 11. And some of your friends may cover their unfaithfulness with the pretence of some fault that you have been guilty of some errour that you hold or some unhansome or culpable act that you have done or some duty that you have left undone or failed in For they think there is not a better shelter for their unfaithfulness then to pretend for it the Name and Cause of God and so to make a duty of their sin Who would not justifie them if they can but prove that God requireth them and Religion obligeth them to forsake you for your faults There are few crimes in the world that by some are not fathered on God that most hateth them as thinking no name can so much honour them False friends therefore use this means as well as other Hypocrites And though God is Love and condemneth nothing more then uncharitableness and malice yet these are commonly by falshearted Hypocrites called by some pious vertuous names and God himself is entitled to them so that few worldlings ambitious persons or timeservers but will confidently pretend Religion for all their falshood to their friends or bloody cruelty to the servants of Christ that comply not with their carnal interest 12. Perhaps some of your friends may really mistake your case and think that you suffer as evil doers and instead of comforting you may be your sharpest censurers This is one of the most notable things set out to our observation in the book of Job It was not the smallest part of his affliction that when the hand of God was heavy upon him and then if ever was the time for his friends to have been his comforters and friends indeed on the contrary they became his scourge and by unjust accusations and misinterpretations of the providence of God did greatly add to his affliction when God had taken away his children wealth and health his friends would take away the reputation and comfort of his integrity and under pretence of bringing him to repentance did charge him with that which he was never guilty of They wounded his good-name and would have wounded his conscience and deprived him of his inward peace Censorious false accusing friends do cut deeper then malicious slandering enemies It is no wonder if strangers or enemies do misjudge and misreport our actions But when your bosome friends that should most intimately know you and be the chief witness of your innocency against all others shall in their jealousie or envy or peevishness or falling out be your chief reproachers and unjust accusers as it makes it serve more credible to others so it will come nearest to your selves And yet this is a thing that must be expected yea even your most self-denying acts of obedience to God may be so misunderstood by godly men and real friends as by them to be taken for your great miscarriage and turned to your rebuke As Davids dancing before the Ark was by his wife which yet did but make him resolve to be yet more vile If you be cast into poverty or disgrace or prison or banishment for your necessary obedience to Christ perhaps your friend or wife may become your accuser for this your greatest service and say This is your own doing your rashness or indiscretion or self-conceitedness or willfulness hath brought it upon you what need had you to say such words or to do this or that why could not you have yeilded in so small a matter Perhaps your costliest and most excellent obedience shall by your nearest friends be called the fruits of pride or humour or passion or some corrupt affection or at least of folly and inconsiderateness When flesh and blood hath long been striving in you against your duty and saying Do not cast away thy self O serve not God at so dear a rate God doth not require thee to undo thy self why shouldest thou not avoid so great inconveniences When with much ado you have conquered all your carnal reasonings and denyed your selves and your carnal interest you must expect even from some religious friends to be accused for these very actions and perhaps their accusations may fasten such a blot upon your names as shall never be washed out till the day of judgement By difference of interests or apprehensions and by unacquaintedness with your hearts and actions the righteousness of the righteous may be thus taken from him and friends may do the work of enemies yea of Satan himself the accuser of the brethren and may prove as thorns in your bed and gravel in your shoes yea in your eyes and wrong you much more then open adversaries could have done How it is like to go with that mans reputation you may easily judge whose friends are like Jobs and his enemies like Davids that lay snares before him and diligently watch for matter of reproach yet this may befall the best of men 13. You may be permitted by God to fall into some real crime and then your friends may possibly think it is their duty to disown you so far as you have wronged God When you provoke God to frown upon you he may cause your friends to frown upon you If you will fall out with him and grow strange to him no marvel if your truest friends fall out with you and grow strange to you They love you for your godliness and for the sake of Christ and therefore must abate their love if you abate your godliness and must for the sake of Christ be displeased with you for your sins And if in such a case of real guilt you should be displeased
worldly trash which are made and new-made to be the dwelling place of God Desire not the company which would diminish your heavenly acquaintance and correspondency Be not unfriendly nor conceited of a self-sufficiency but yet beware lest under the honest ingenuous title of a friend a special faithful prudent faithful friend you should entertain an Idol or an enemy to your Love of God or a corrival and competitor with your highest friend For if you do it is not the specious title of a friend that will save you from the thorns and bryars of disquietment and from greater troubles than ever you found from open enemies O blessed be that High and everlasting friend who is every way suited to the upright souls To their Minds their Memories their Delight their Love c. by surest Truth by fullest Goodness by clearest Light by dearest Love by firmest Constancy c. O why hath my drowsie and dark-sighted soul been so seldome with him why hath it so often so strangely and so unthankfully passed by and not observed him nor hearkened to his kindest calls O what is all this trash and trouble that hath filled my memory and employed my mind and cheated and corrupted my affections while my dearest Lord hath been daies and nights so unworthily forgotten so contemptuously neglected and disregarded and loved as if I loved him not O that these drowsie and those waking nights those loitered lost and empty hours had been spent in the humblest converse with him which have been dreamed and doted away upon now I know not what O my God how much wiser and happier had I been had I rather chosen to mourn with thee than to rejoyce and sport with any other O that I had rather wept with thee than laughed with the creature For the time to come let that be my friend that most befriendeth my dark and dull and backward soul in its undertaken progress and heavenly conversation Or if there be none such upon earth let me here take no one for my friend O blot out every Name from my corrupted heart which hindereth the deeper engraving of thy Name Ah Lord what a stone what a blind ungrateful thing is a Heart not touched with celestial Love yet shall I not run to thee when I have none else that will know me shall I not draw near thee when all fly from me When daily experience cryeth out so loud NONE BUT CHRIST GOD OR NOTHING Ah foolish Heart that hast thought of it Where is that place that Cave or Desert where I might soonest find thee and fullest enjoy thee is it in the wilderness that thou walkest or in the croud in the Closet or in the Church where is it that I might soonest meet with God But alas I now perceive that I have a Heart to find before I am like to find my Lord O Loveless Lifeless stony heart that 's dead to him that gave it Life and to none but him Could I not Love or Think or Feel at all methinks I were less dead than now Less dead if dead than now I am alive I had almost said Lord let me never Love more till I can Love thee Nor think more on any thing till I can more willingly think of thee But I must suppress that wish for Life will act And the mercies and motions of Nature are necessary to those of Grace And therefore in the life of Nature and in the glimmerings of thy Light I will wait for more of the Celestial life My God thou hast my consent It is here attested under my hand Separate me from what and whom thou wilt so I may but be nearer thee Let me Love thee more and feel more of thy Love and then let me Love or be beloved of the world as little as thou wilt I thought self-love had been a more predominant thing But now I find that Repentance hath its Anger its Hatred and its Revenge I am truly Angry with that Heart that hath so oft and foolishly offended thee Methinks I hate that Heart that is so cold and backward in thy love and almost grudge it a dwelling in my breast Alas when Love should be the life of Prayer the life of holy meditation the life of Sermons and of holy conference and my soul in these should long to meet thee and delight to mention thee I straggle Lord I know not whither or I sit still and wish but do not rise and run and follow thee yea I do not what I seem to do All 's dead all 's dead for want of Love I often cry O where is that place where the quickening beams of Heaven are warmest that my frozen soul might seek it out But whither ever I go to City or to Solitude alas I find it is not Place that makes the difference I know that Christ is perfectly replenished with Life and Light and Love Divine And I hear him as our Head and Treasure proclaimed and offered to us in the Gospel This is thy Record that he that hath the Son hath Life O why then is my barren soul so empty I thought I had long ago consented to thy offer and then according to thy Covenant both He and Life in him are mine And yet must I still be dark and dead Ah dearest Lord I say not that I have too long waited but if I continue thus to wait wilt thou never find the time of Love and come and own thy gasping worm wilt thou never dissipate these clouds and shine upon this dead and darkened soul Hath my Night no Day Thrust me not from thee O my God! For that 's a Hell to be thrust from God But sure the cause is all at home could I find it out or rather could I cure it It is sure my face that 's turned from God when I say His face is turned from me But if my Life must here be out of sight and hidden in the Root with Christ in God and if all the rest be reserved for that better world and I must here have but these small beginnings O make me more to Love and long for the blessed day of thine appearing and not to fear the time of my deliverance nor unbelievingly to linger in this Sodom as one that had rather stay with sin then come to thee Though sin hath made me backward to the fight let it not make me backward to receive the Crown Though it hath made me a loiterer in thy work let it not make me backward to receive that wages which thy Love will give to our pardoned poor accepted services Though I have too oft drawn back when I should have come unto thee and walked with thee in thy waies of Grace yet heal that unbelief and disaffection which would make me to draw back when thou callest me to possess thy Glory Though the sickness and lameness of my soul have hindered me in my journey yet let their painfulness help me to desire to be delivered from them and to be at home where without the interposing nights of thy displeasure I shall fully feel thy fullest Love and walk with thy Glorified ones in the Light of thy Glory triumphing in thy Praise for evermore Amen BUT now I have given you these few Directions for the improvement of your solitude for converse with God lest I should occasion the hurt of those that are unfit for the Lesson I have given I must conclude with this Caution which I have formerly also published That it is not melancholly or weak-headed persons who are not able to bear such exercises for whom I have written these Directions Those that are not able to be much in serious solitary thoughtfulness without confusions and distracting suggestions and hurrying vexatious thoughts must set themselves for the most part to those duties which are to be done in company by the help of others and must be very little in solitary duties For to them whose natural faculties are so diseased or weak it is no duty as being no means to do them the desired good but while they strive to do that which they are naturally unable to endure they will but confound and distract themselves and make themselves unable for those other duties which yet they are not utterly unfit for To such persons therefore instead of ordered well-digested Meditations and much time spent in secret thoughtfulness it must suffice that they be brief in secret Prayer and take up with such occasional abrupter Meditations as they are capable of and that they be the more in reading hearing conference and praying and praising God with others untill their melancholly distempers are so far overcome as that by the direction of their Spiritual Guides they may judge themselves fit for this improvement of their Solitude FINIS * Charles Earl of Balcarres who dyed of a stone in his heart of a very strange magnitude