art within the sight of home and Heaven is in thine eye and thou art conversing with that God in whose converse the highest Angels do place their highest felicity and delight How little cause then have all the Churches enemies to triumph that can never shut up a true believer from the presence of his God nor banish him into such a place where he cannot have his conversation in Heaven The stones that were cast at holy Stephen could not hinder him from seeing the Heavens opened and Christ sitting at the right hand of God A Patmos allowed holy Iohn Communion with Christ being there in the Spirit on the Lords day Rev. 1.9 10. Christ never so speedily and comfortably owneth his servants as when the world disowneth them and abuseth them for his sake and hurls them up and down as the scorn and off-scouring of all He quickly found the blind man that he had cured when once the Jews had cast him out Ioh. 9.35 Persecutors do but promote the blessedness and exceeding joy of sufferers for Christ Mat. 5.11.12 And how little Reason then have Christians to shun such sufferings by unlawful means which turn to their so great advantage and to give so dear as the hazard of their souls by wilful sin to escape the honour and safety and commodity of Martyrdom And indeed we Judge not we Love not we â—ive not as sanctified ones must do if we judge not that the truest Liberty and Love it not as the Best Condition in which we may Best converse with God And O how much harder is it to walk with God in a Court in the midst of sensual delights than in a prison or wilderness where we have none to interrupt us and nothing else to take us up It is our prepossessed minds our earthly hearts our carnal affections and concupisence and the pleasures of a prosperous state that are the prison and the Jaylors of our souls Were it not for these how free should we be though our bodies were confined to the straightest room He is at Liberty that can walk in Heaven and have access to God and make use of all the Creatures in the world to the promoting of this his Heavenly conversation And he is the prisoner whose soul is chained to flesh and earth and confined to his lands and houses and feedeth on the dust of worldly riches or walloweth in the dung and filth of gluttony drunkenness and lust that are far from God and desire not to be near him but say to him Depart from us we would not have the knowledge of thy ways that Love their prisons and chains so well that they would not be set free but hate those with the cruellest hatred that endeavour their deliverance Those are the poor prisoners of Satan that have not liberty to believe nor to Love God nor converse in Heaven nor seriously to mind or seek the things that are high and honourable that have not liberty to meditate or pray or seriously to speak of holy things nor to love and converse with those that do so that are tyed so hard to the drudgery of sin that they have not liberty one month or week or day to leave it and walk with God so much as for recreation But he that liveth in the family of God and is employed in attending him and doth converse with Christ and the Host of Holy ones above in reason should not much complain of his want of friends or company or accommodations nor yet be too impatient of any corporal confinement Lastly be sure then most narrowly to watch your hearts that nothing have entertainment there which is against your Liberty of converse with God Fill not those Hearts with 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 seldom 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 days 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 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
you can thankfully take your Food from any hand that your Father sends it by it is a Correction very suitable to your sin 9. Do you so highly value your Friends for God or for them or for your selves in the final consideration If it was for God what reason of trouble have you that God hath disposed of them according to his wisdom and unerring Will should you not then be more pleased that God hath them and employeth them in his highest service than displeased that you want them But if you value them and love them for themselves they are now more lovely when they are more perfect and they are now fitter for your content and joy when they have themselves unchangeable content and joy than they could be in their sin and sorrows But if you valued and loved them but for your selves only it is just with God to take them from you to teach you to value Men to righter ends and upon better considerations And both to prefer God before your selves and better to understand the nature of true Friendship and better to know that your own felicity is not in the hands of any Creature but of God alone 10. Did you improve your Friends while you had them or did you only love them while you made but little use of them for your Souls If you used them not it was just with God for all your Love to take them from you They were given you as your Candle not only to Love it but to work by the Light of it And as your Garments not only to Love them but to wear them and as your meat not only to Love it but to feed upon it Did you receive their Counsel and hearken to their Reproofs and pray with them and confer with them upon those holy Truths that tended to elevate your minds to God and to inflame your Breasts with sacred Love If not be it now known to you that God gave you not such helps and mercies only to talk of or look upon and Love but also to improve for the benefit of your Souls 11. Do you not seem to forget both where you are your selves and where you must shortly and for ever live Where would you have your Friends but where you must be your selâ—es Do you mourn that they are taken hence Why if they had staid here a thousand years how little of that time should you have had their Company When you are almost leaving the World your selves would you not send your treasure before you to the place where you must abide How quickly will you pass from hence to God where you shall find your Friends that you lamented as if they had been lost and there shall dwell with them for ever O foolish Mourners would you not have your Friends at home at their home and your home with their Father and your Father their God and your God Shall you not there enjoy them long enough Can you so much miss them for one day that must live with them to all Eternity And is not Eternity long enough for you to enjoy your Friends in Obj. But I do not know whether ever I shall there have any distinct knowledge of them or love to them and whether God shall not there be so far All in All as thâ—t we shall need or fetch no comfort from the Creature Answ. There is no reason for either of these doubts For 1. You cannot justly think that the knowledge of the Glorified shall be more confused or imperfect than the knowledge of natural Men on Earth We shall know much more but not so much less Heaven exceedeth Earth in knowledge as much as it doth in joy 2. The Angels in Heaven have now a distinct particular knowledge of the least Believers rejoycing particularly in their conversion and being called by Christ himself Their Angels Therefore when we shall be equal to the Angels we shall certainly know our nearest Friends that there dwell with us and are employed in the same attendance 3. Abraham knew the Rich Man in Hell and the Man knew Abraham and Lazarus Therefore we shall have as distinct a Knowledge 4. The two Disciples knew Moses and Elias in the Mount whom they had never seen before Though it is possible Christ told them who they were yet there is no such thing expressed And therefore it is as probable that they knew them by the Communication of their irradiating glory Much more shall we be then illuminated to a clearer knowledge 5. It is said expresly 1 Cor. 13.10 11 12. That our present knowledge shall be done away only in regard of its imperfection and not of it self which shall be perfected when that which is perfect is come then that which is in part shall be done away As we put away childish thoughts and speeches when we become men The change will be from seeing in a glass to seeing face to face and from knowing in part to knowing even as we are known 2. And that we shall both Know and Love and rejoyce in creatures even in Heaven notwithstanding that God is all in all apeareth further thus 1. Christ in his glorified humanity is a Creature and yet there is no doubt but all his members will there Know and Love him in his glorified humanity without any derogation from the glory of the Deity 2. The Body of Christ will continue its unity and every member will be so nearly related even in Heaven that they cannot choose but Know and Love each other Shall we be ignorant of the members of our Body and not be concerned in their felicity with whom we are so nearly one 3. The state and felicity of the Church hereafter is frequently described in Scripture as consistent in Society It is a Kingdom the City of God the Heavenly Ierusalem and it is mentioned as part of our happiness to be of that society Heb. 12.22 23 24 c. 4. The Saints are called Kings themselves and it is said that they shall judge the world and the Angels And Judging in Scripture is frequently put for Governing Therefore whether there will be another world of mortals which they shall Govern as Angles now Govern men or whether the Misery of damned men and Angels will partly consist in as base a subjection to the glorified Saints as Dogs now have to men or wicked reprobates on Earth to Angles or whether in respect of both these together the Saints shall then be Kings and Rule and Judge or whether it be only the participation of the Glory of Christ that is called a Kingdom I will not here determine but it is most clear that they will have a distinct particular Knowledge of the world which they themselves must judge and some concernment in that work 5. It is put into the description of the Happiness of the Saints that they shall come from the East and from the West and shall sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of
same sin And so your friends may be in effect your most deadly Enemies deceivers and destroyers 15. And if you have friends that are never so firm and constant they may prove not only unable to relieve you but very increasing to your grief If they are afflicted in the participation of your sufferings as your troubles are become theirs without your ease so their trouble for you will become yours and so your stock of sorrow will be encreased And they are mortals and liable to distress as well as you And therefore they are like to bear their share in several sorts of sufferings And so friendship will make their sufferings to be yours Their sicknesses and pains their fears and griefs their wants and dangers will all be yours And the more they are your hearty Friends the more they will be yours And so you will have as many additions to the proper burden of your griefs as you have suffering Friends When you do but hear that they are dead you say as Thomas Joh. 11.16 Let us also go that we may die with him And having many such friends you will almost always have one or other of them in distress and so be seldom free from sorrow besides all that which is properly your own 16. Lastly if you have a Friend that is both true and useful yet you may be sure he must stay with you but a little while The godly men will cease and the faithful fail from among the Children of men while men of lying flattering lips and double hearts survive and the wicked walk on every side while the vilest men are exalted Psal. 12.1 2 8. while swarms of false malicious men are left round about you perhaps God will take away your dearest Friends If among a multitude of unfaithful ones you have but one that is your friend indeed perhaps God will take away that one He may be separated from you into another Country or taken away to God by Death Not that God doth grudge you the mercy of a faithful Friend but that he would be your All and would not have you hurt your selves with too much affection to any Creature and for other reasons to be named anon And to be forsaken of your Friends is not all your affliction but to be so forsaken is a great aggravation of it 1. For they use to forsake us in our greatest sufferings and streights when we have the greatest need of them 2. They fail us most at a dying hour when all other worldly comfort faileth As we must leave our houses lands and wealth so must we for the present leave our Friends And as all the rest are silly comforters when we have once received our citation to appear before the Lord so also are our Friends but silly Comforters They can weep over us but they cannot with all their care delay the separating stroak of death one day or hour Only by their prayers and holy advice remembring us of everlasting things and provoking us in the work of preparation they may prove to us friends indeed And therefore we must value a holy heavenly faithful friend as one of the greatest Treasures upon Earth And while we take notice how as men they may forsake us we must not deny but that as Saints they are precious and of singular use to us and Christ useth by them to communicate his mercies and if any Creatures in the World may be blessings to us it is holy persons that have most of God in their hearts and lives 3. And it is an aggravation of the Cross that they often fail us when we are most faithful in our Duty and stumble most upon the most excellent acts of our obedience 4. And those are the persons that oft-times fail us of whom we have deserved best and from whom we might have expected most Review the experiences of the choicest Servants that Christ hath had in the World and you shall find enough to confirm you of the vanity of man and the instability of the dearest Friends How highly was Athanasius esteemed and yet at last deserted and banished even by the famous Constantine himself How excellent a Man was Gregory Nazianzene and highly valued in the Church and yet by reproach and discouragements driven away from his Church at Constantinople whither he was chosen and envyed by the Bishops round about him How worthy a man was the eloquent Chrysostom and highly valued in the Church And yet how bitterly was he prosecuted by Hierome and Epiphanius and banished and dyed in a second banishment by the provocation of Factious contentious Bishops and an Empress impatient of his plain reproofs What person more generally esteemed and honoured for learning piety and peaceableness then Melanchthon and yet by the Contentions of Illyricus and his party he was made aweary of his life As highly as Calvin was deservedly valued at Geneva yet once in a popular lunacy and displeasure they drove him out of their City and in contempt of him some called their Dogs by the name of Calvin though after they were glad to intreat him to return How much our Grindal and Abbot were esteemed it appeareth by their advancement to the Archbishoprick of Canterbury And yet who knoweth not that their eminent piety sufficed not to keep them from dejecting frowns And if you say that it is no wonder if with Princes through interest and with People through levity it be thus I might keep up instances of the like untrustiness of particular Friends But all History and the experiences of the most do so much abound with them that I think it needless Which of us must not say with David that all men are lyars Psal. 116. that is deceitful and untrusty either through unfaithfulness weakness or insufficiency that either will forsake us or cannot help us in the time of need Was Christ forsaken in his extremity by his own Disciples to teach us what to expect or bear Think it not strange then to be conformed to your Lord in this as well as in other parts of his humiliation Expect that Men should prove deceitful Not that you should entertain censorious suspicions of your particular friends But remember in general that Man is frail and the best too selfish and uncertain and that it is no wonder if those should prove your greatest grief from whom you had the highest expectations Are you better then Iob or David or Christ and are your Friends more firm and unchangeable then theirs Consider 1. That Creatures must be set at a sufficient distance from their Creator All-sufficiency Immutability and indefectible fidelity are proper to Jehovah As it is no wonder for the Sun to set or be Eclipsed as glorious a body as it is so it is no wonder for a Friend a pious Friend to fail us for a time in the hour of our distress There are some that will not But there is none but may if God should leave them to their weakness Man is not
Inimica est multorum conversatio I never bring home well from a Crowd the manners which I took out with me Something is disordered of that which I had set in order Something of that which I had banished doth return The conversation of many I find an enemy to me O how many vain and foolish words corrupt the minds of those that converse with an ungodly World when your Ears and Minds who live in Solitude are free from such Temptations You live not in so corrupt an Air as they You hear not the filthy ribbald Speeches which fight against modesty and chastity and are the bellows of Lust You hear not the discontented complaining words of the impatient nor the passionate provoking words of the offended nor the wrangling quarrelsom words of the contentious nor the censorious or slanderous or reproachful words of the malicious who think it their interest to have their Brethren taken to be bad and to have others hate them because they them selves hate them and who are as zealous to quench the Charity of others when it is destroyed in themselves as holy persons are zealous to provoke others to Love which dweâ—â—eth and ruleth in themselves In your Solitude with God you shall not hear the lyes and malicious revilings of the ungodly against the generation of the just Nor the subtile cheating words of Hereticks who being themselves deceived would deceive others of their Faith and corrupt their lives You shall not there be distracted with the noise and clamours of contending uncharitable professors of Religion endeavouring to make odious first the Opinions and then the persons of one another one saying here is the Church and another there is the Church One saying This is the true Church Government and another saying Nay but that is it One saying God will be worshipped thus and another not so but thus or thus You shall not there be drawn to side with one against another nor to joyn with any faction or be guilty of divisions You shall not be troubled with the Oaths and Blasphemies of the wicked nor with the imprudent miscarriages of the Weak with the Persecutions of Enemies or the falling out of Friends You shall not see the cruelty of proud Oppressors that set up lyes by armed violence and care not what they say or do nor how much other men are injured or suffer so that themselves may tyrannize and their wills and words may rule the World when they do so unhappily rule themselves In your solitude with God you shall not see the prosperity of the wicked to move you to envy nor the adversity of the just to be your grief You shall see no Worldly pomp and splendor to be fool you nor adorned beauty to entice you nor wasting calamities to afflict you You shall not hear the laughter of Fools nor the sick mans groans nor the wronged mans Complaints nor the poor mans murmurings nor the proud mans boastings nor the angry mans abusive ragings As you lose the help of your gracious friends so you are freed from the fruits of their peevishness and passions of their differing opinion and ways and tempers of their inequality unsuitableness and contrariety of minds or interests of their levity and unconstancy and the powerful temptations of their friendship to draw you to the errors or other sins which they are tainted with themselves In a word you are there half delivered from the VANITY and VEXATION of the world and were it not that you are yet undelivered from your selves and that you take distempered corrupted hearts with you O what a felicity would your solitude be But alas we cannot overrun our own diseases we must carry with us the remnants of our corrupted nature our deadness and dulness our selfishness and earthly minds our impatience and discontents and worst of all our lamentable weakness of faith and love and heavenly mindedness and our strangeness to God and backwardness to the matters of eternal life O that I could escape these though I were in the hands of the cruellest enemies O that such a heart could be left behind How gladly would I overrun both house and land and honour and all sensual delights that I might but overrun it O where is the place where there is none of this darkness nor disaffection nor distance nor estrangedness from God! O that I knew it O that I could find it O that I might there dwell though I should never more see the face of mortals nor ever hear a human Voice nor ever taste of the delights of flesh Alas foolish Soul such a place there is that hath all this and more than this But it is not in a Wilderness but in Paradise not here on Earth but above with Christ And yet am I so loath to die yet am I no more desirous of the blessed day when I shall bâ— uncloathed of flesh and sin O death what an Enemy art thou even to my Soul By affrighting me from the presence of my Lord and hindring my desires and willingness to be gone thou wrongest me much more than by laying my flesh to rot in darkness Fain I would know God and fain I would more love him and enjoy him But O this hurtful love of life O this unreasonable fear of dying detaineth my desires from pressing on to the happy place where all this may be had O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death this carnal unbelieving heart that sometime can think more delightfully of a Wilderness then of Heaven that can go seek after God in desert solitude among the Birds and Beasts and Trees and yet is so backward to be loosed from flesh that I may find him and enjoy him in the World of glory Can I expect that Heaven come down to Earth and that the Lord of glory should remove his Court and either leave the retinue of his Celestial Courtiers or bring them all down into this drosly World of flesh and sin and this to satisfie my fleshly foolish mind Or can I expect the translation of Henoch or the Chariot of Elias Is it not enough that my Lord hath conquered Death and sanctifyed the passage and prepared the place of my perpetual abode Well! for all this though a Wilderness is not Heaven it shall be sweet and welcom for the sake of Heaven if thence I may but have a clearer prospect of it and if by retiring from the crowd and noise of Folly I may but be more composed and better disposed to converse above and to use my Faith alas my too weak languid Faith until the beatifical Vision and Fruition come If there may be but more of God or readier access to him or more heart quickning flames of Love or more heart-comforting intimations of his Favour in a wilderness than in a City in a Prison than in a Palace let that Wilderness be my City and let that Prison be my Palace while I must abide on Earth If in
to draw the most guilty miserable sinner to seek to God and sue for mercy But yet the sweetest converse is for children for those that have some assurance that they are children But perhaps you will say that this is not easily attained How shall we know that he is our friend In brief I answer If you are unfeignedly friends to God it is because he first loved you Prefer him before all other friends and all the wealth and vanity of the world Provoke him not by wilfulness or neglect use him as your best friend and abuse him not by disobedience or ingratitude own him before all at the dearest rates whenever you are called to it Desire his presence Lament his absence Love him from the bottom of your hearts Think not hardly of him Suspect him not Misunderstand him not Hearken not to his enemies Receive not any false reports against him Take him to be really better for you than all the world Do these and doubt not but you are friends with God God with you In a word Be but heartily willing to be friends to God and that God should be your cheifest friend and you may be sure that it is so indeed and that you are and have what you desire And then how delightfully may you converse with God! Direct 2. Wholly depend on the Mediation of Christ the great Reconciler Without him there is no coming near to God But in his Beloved you shall be accepted Whatever fear of his displeasure shall surprize you fly presently for safety unto Christ whatever guilt shall look you in the face commit your self and cause to Christ and desire him to answer for you When the doors of mercy seem to be shut up against you fly to him that bears the keyes and can at any time open to you and let you in Desire him to answer for you to God to your consciences and against all accusers By him alone you may boldly and comfortably converse with God But God will not know you out of him Direct 3. Take heed of bringing particular Guilt into the presence of God if you would have sweet communion with him Christ himself never reconciled God to sin And the sinner and sin are so nearly related that for all the death of Christ you shall feel that iniquity dwelleth not with God but he hateth the works of it and the foolish shall not stand in his sight and that if you will presume to sin because you are his Children be sure your sin will find you out O what fears what shame what self-abhorrence and self-revenge will guilt raise in a penitent soul when it comes into the light of the presence of the Lord it will unavoidable abate your boldness and your comforts When you should be sweetly delighting in his pleased face and promised Glory you will be be fooling your selves for your former sin and ready even to tear your flesh to think that ever you should do as you have done and use him as you would not have used a common friend and cast your selves upon his wrath But an innocent soul or pacified conscience doth walk with God in quietness and delight without those frowns and fears which are a taste of Hell to others Direct 4. If you would comfortably converse with God be sure that you bring not Idols in your hearts Take heed of inordinate affection to any Creature Let all things else be nothing to you that you may have none to take up your thoughts but God Let your Minds be further seperate from them than your Bodies Bring not into solitude or to contemplation a proud or lustful or covetous mind It much more concerneth thee what Heart thou bringest that what Place thou art in or what work thou art upon A mind that is drowned in ambition sensuality or passion will scarce find God any sooner in any wilderness than in a croud unless he be there returning from those sins to God where-ever he seeth him God will not own and be familiar with so foul a soul. Seneca could say Quid prodest totious regionis silentium si affectus fremunt What good doth the silence of all the Country do thee if thou have the noise of raging affections within And Gregory saith Qui corpore remotus vivit c. He that in body is far enough from the tumult of human conversation is not in solitude if he busie himself with earthly cogitations and desires and he is not in the City that is not troubled with the tumult of worldly cares or fears though he be pressed with the popular crouds Bring not thy house or land or credit or carnal friend along with thee in thy heart if thou desire and expect to walk in Heaven and to converse with God Direct 5. Live still by Faith Let Faith lay Heaven and Earth as it were together Look not at God as if he were far off set him aways as before you even as at your right hand Psal. 16.8 Be still with him when you awake Psal. 139.18 In the morning thank him for your rest and deliver up your self to his conduct and service for that day Go forth as with him and to do his work Do every action with the Command of God and the promise of Heaven before your eyes and upon your hearts Live as those that have incomparably more to do with God and Heaven than all this world That you may say with David Psal. 37.25 26. as aforecited Whom have I in Heaven but thee and there is none on Earth that I desire besides thee And with Paul Phil. 1.21 To me to Live is Christ and to Dye is gain You must shut up the eye of sense save as subordinate to Faith and live by Faith upon a God a Christ and a World that is unseen if you would know by experience what it is to be above the brutish life of sensualists and to Converse with God O Christian if thou hadst rightly learned this blessed life what a high and noble soul-conversation wouldst thou have How easily wouldst thou spare and how little wouldst thou miss the favour of the greatest the presence of any worldly comfort City or Solitude would be much alike to thee saving that the place and state would be best to thee where thou hast the greatest help and freedom to converse with God Thou wouldst say of human society as Seneca Vnus pro populo mihi est populus pro uno Mihi satis est unus satis est nullus One is instead of all the people to me and the people as one One is enough for me and none is enough Thus being taken up with God thou mightest live in prison as at liberty and in a wilderness as in a City and in a place of banishment as in thy native Land For the Earth is the Lords and the fulness thereof and everywhere thou mayest find him and converse with him and lift up pure hands unto him In every place thou