contexture of many proofs or on any long operous work of Reason men have a natural consciousness of the uncertainty of it Yea though our Doctrines of the Immortality of our own Souls and of the Life of Retribution after this and the Truth of the Gospel have so much certain Evidence as they have yet a Lively certain Faith is the more rare and difficult because men are so conscious of the fallibility of their own understandings that about things unseen unsensible they are still apt to doubt whether they be not deceived in their apprehensions of the Evidence By these twenty instances it is too plain that there is little solid wisdom in the world that wise men are few and those few are but a little wise And should not this suffice to make all men but especially the unlearned half-learned the young and unexperienced to abate their ungrounded confidence and to have humble and suspicious thoughts of their own apprehensions Chap. 17. Inference 5. That it is not the dishonour but the Praise of Christ his Apostles and the Gospel that they speak in a plain manner of the Certain Necessary things without the Vonity of School-uncertainties and feigned unprofitable nations I Have been my self oft Scandalized at the Fathers of the 4th Carthage Council who forbad Bishops the reading of the Heathens Books and at some good old unlearned Christian Bishops who spake to the same purpose and oft reproach Apollinaris Aetius and other Hereticks for their Secular or gentile Learning Logick c. And I wondered that Julian and they should prohibit the same thing But one that is so far distant from the action is not a competent Judge of the reasons of it Perhaps there were some Christian Authors then who were sufficient for such literature as was best for the Church Perhaps they saw that the danger of reading the Heathens Philosophy was like to be greater than the benefit Both because it was them that they lived among and were to gather the Churches out of and if they put an honour upon Logick and Philosophy they might find it more difficult to draw men from that party which excelled in it to the belief of the Scriptures which seemed to have so little of it And they had seen also how a mixture of Platonick notions with Christianity had not only been the Original of many heresies but had sadly blemished many great Doctors of the Churches Whatever the cause was it appeareth that in those days it was the deepest insight into the Sacred Scriptures which was reckoned for the most solid Learning Philosophy was so confounded by Differences Sects Uncertainties and Falshoods that made it the more despicable by how much the less pure And Logick had so many precarious Rules and Notions as made it fitter to wrangle and play with than to further grave men in their deep and serious enquiry in the great things of God and mysteries of Salvation But yet it cannot be denied but that true Learning of the Subservient Arts and Sciences is of so great use to the accomplishing of mans mind with wisdom that it is one of the greatest offences that ever was taken against Christ and the holy Scriptures that so little of this Learning is found in them in comparison of what is in Plato Aristotle Demosthenes or Cicero But to remove the danger of this offence let these things following be well considered I. Every means is to be judged of by its aptitude to its proper use and end Morality is the subject and business of the Scriptures It is not the work of it to teach men Logick and Philosophy any more than to teach them Languages Who will be offended with Christ for not teaching men Latine Greek or Hebrew Architecture Navigation or Mechanick Arts And why should they be more offended with him for not teaching them Astronomy Geometry Physicks Metaphysicks Logick c. It was none of his work II. Nature is presupposed to Grace and God in Nature had before given man sufficient helps to the attainment of so much of the knowledge of Nature as was convenient for him Philosophy is the knowledge of Gods works of Creation It was not this at least chiefly that man lost by his fall It was from God and not from the Creature that he turned And it was to the knowledge of God rather than of the Creature that he was to be restored What need one be sent from Heaven to teach men the order and rules of speaking Or to teach men those Arts and Sciences which they can otherwise learn themselves As it is presupposed that men have reason so that they have among them the common helps and crutches of reason III. The truth is it is much to be suspected lest as an inordinate desire of Creature-knowledge was a great part of our first Parents sin so it hath accordingly corrupted our nature with an answerable vicious inclination thereunto Not that the thing in it self is evil to know Gods works but good and desireable in its place and measure But it is such a good as by inordinacy may become a dangerous evil Why should we not judge of this desire of knowing the Creatures as we do of other creature-Creature-affections It is lawful and meet to love all Gods Creatures His works are good and therefore amiable And yet I think no man is damned but by the inordinate loving of the Creature turning his Heart from the love of God. And as our Appetites are lawful and necessary in themselves and yet Natures pravity consisteth much in the prevalency of them against reason which is by reasons infirmity and the inordinacy of the sensitive Appetite even so a desire to know Gods works is natural and good but its inordinateness is our pravity and a sinful Lust Doubtless the mind and phantasie may find a kind of pleasure in knowing which is according to the nature and use of the thing known When it is vain or low and base the pleasure is vain and low and base When the object is ensnaring and diverting from higher things it doth this principally by delight Verily this inordinate desire of Creature-knowledge is a Lust a vicious Lust I have been guilty of it in some measure my self since I had the use of reason I have lived a Life of constant pleasure gratifying my Intellect and Phantasie with seeking to know as much as I could know And if I could not say truly that I referred it as a means to the knowledge and love of God I should say that it was all sin But because I have loved it too much for it self and not referred it to God more purely and intirely I must confess that it was never blameless And the corruption of the noblest faculty is the worst The delights of Eating Drinking Venery are the matter of common Sensuality when they are inordinately desired And is not the inordinate desire of Creature-knowledge if it be desired from the like principle and to the like ends
even good men may think and speak evil of us as Bernard and others of the Waldenses and many Fathers of many Godly Men that were called Hereticks and many called Hereticks of such Fathers But to us it is a small thing to be judged of man that is not our final judge and knoweth not our cause and is ready to be judged with us We have one that judgeth us and them even the omniscient God who knoweth every Circumstance of our cause 3. Our very Friends know us not No not they that dwell with us In some things they judge us better than we are and in some things worse For they know not our hearts And interests and cross dispositions may deceive them and even our bosom Friends may slander us and think they speak the truth And when they entirely Love us their Love may hurt us while they know not what is for our good But God knoweth us perfectly and knoweth how to Counsel us Conduct us and Dispose of us He seeth the inwards and the outwards the onwards and the upwards of our case which our dearest Friends are utter strangers to 4. We know not our selves throughly nor our own concerns We oft take our selves to be better or worse than indeed we are We are oft mistaken in our own hearts and our own actions and in our interest We oft take that to be good for us that is bad and that to be bad which is good and necessary We long for that which would undo us and fear and fly from that which would save us We oft rejoyce when we are going to the slaughter or are at least in greatest danger and we lament and cry when God is saving us because we know not what he is doing Paul saith I know nothing by my self yet I judge not my own self that is though I have a good Conscience yet that is not my final judge It must go with me as God judgeth of me and not as others or my self Is it not then an unspeakable comfort in all these cases that we are known of God Desiring to know inordinately for our selves was our first sin And this sin is our danger and our constant trouble But to be to God as a Child to his Father who taketh care to Love him and obey him and in all things trusteth his Fathers Love as knowing that he careth for him this is our duty our interest and our only peace Remember then with comfort O my Soul 1. Thy Father knoweth what it is fittest for thee to do His precepts are wise and just and good Thou knowest not but by his word Love therefore and submit to all his Laws The strictest of them are for thy good Thy Guide and not thou must lead the way Go not before him nor without him nor stay behind him In this night and wilderness if thou have not his Light and Presence how forlorn Erroneous and Comfortless wilt thou be He knoweth thy heart and knoweth thy Enemies Temptations and Dangers and therefore best knoweth how to guide thee and what to put into his Laws and into thy duty 2. He knoweth what place what state of Life of Health of Wealth of Friends is best for thee None of these are known to thee He knoweth whether ease or pain be best The flesh is no fit judge nor an ignorant mind That is best which will prove best at last Which he that foreknoweth all events knoweth That therefore is best which infinite Wisdom and Love doth choose Ease and Pain will have their end It is the end that must teach us how to estimate them And who but God can foretell thee the end He knoweth whether Liberty or Imprisonment be best Liberty is a Prison if sin prevail and God be not there A Prison is a Pallace if God by his Love will dwell there with us There is no thraldom but sin and Gods displeasure and no true liberty but his Love. 3. He knoweth whether Honour or Dishonour be best for thee If the esteem of men may facilitate their reception of the saving truth of God which is preached to them God will procure it if he have work to do by it If not how little is it to be regarded What doth it add to me to be highly esteemed or applauded by men who are hasting to the dust where their thoughts of me and all the world are at an end When I see the Skulls of the dead who perhaps once knew me how little doth it now concern me what thoughts of me were once within that Skull And as for the immortal Soul if it be in the world of light it judgeth as God judgeth by his Light If in hell I have no more cause to be troubled at their malice than at the devils And I have little cause to rejoyce that those damned Souls did once applaud me Oh miserable men that have no better than the Hypocrites reward to be seen and honoured of men Gods approbation is the felicitating honour He will own all in me that is his own and all that he owneth is everlastingly honoured The Lord knoweth the way of the Righteous Psal 1.6 For it is his way The way which he prescribed them and in which he did Conduct them Good and evil are now so mixed in me that it is hard for me fully to discern them But the all-seeing God doth discern them and will separate them 4. Thy Heavenly Father knoweth whether it be best for thee to abound or want And with what measure of worldly things it is fittest for thee to be entrusted Abundance hath abundant snares and cares and troubling employments which divert our thoughts from things of real and perpetual worth Provision is desirable according to its usefulness to our work and end It is far better to need little and have little than to have much and need it all For it cannot be got or kept or used without some troublesome and hurtful effects of its vanity and vexation Let the foolish desire to be tired and burdened with Provision and lose the prize by turning their helps into a snare and miss of the end by over-loving the way My Father knoweth what I want and he is always able to supply me with a word It doth not impoverish him to maintain all the World. His store is not diminished by Communication The Lord is my Shepherd what then can I need Psal 23.1 How oft have I found that he careth for me and that it is better to be at his finding and provision than to have been my own Carver and to have cared for my self Blessed be my bounteous Father who hath brought me so near to the end of my Race with very little care for provision in my way and with lesser want Necessaries I never wanted and superfluities are not wanted Blessed be that wise and gracious Lord that hath not given me up to greedy desires nor ensnared and burdened me with needless plenty How safe how easie
their writings And for want of other words to supply our needs what abundance of distinctions of Actus and Potentiae are the Scotists and other Schoolmen fain to use What abundance of disputes are kept up by the ambiguity of the word Cause while it is applyed to things so different as Efficience Constitution and Finality The like may be said of many more And then when it cometh to a dispute of the Divine Nature of the Soul of the most weighty things these confounding notions must over-rule the Case We must not have an argument for the Souls Immortality but what these notions check or vitiate no nor scarce for an Attribute of God. XXV And it is so hard a thing to bring men to that self-denial and labour as at Age throughly and impartially to revise their juvenile conceptions and for them that learnt words before things to proceed to learn things now as appearing in their proper evidence and to come back and cancel all their old notions which were not found and to build up a new frame that not one of a multitude is ever Master of so much virtue as to attempt it and go through with it Was it not labour enough to study so many years to know what others say but they must now undo much of it and begin a new and harder labour who will do it XXVI And indeed none but men of extraordinary Acuteness and Love of truth and Self-denial and Patience are fit to do it For 1. The Common dullards will fall into the ditch when they leave their Crutches And will multiply Sects in Philosophy and Religion while they are unable to see the truth in itself And indeed this hath made the Protestant Churches so liable to the derision and reproach of their adversaries And how can it be avoided while all men must pretend to know and judge what indeed they are unable to understand 2. Yea the half-witted men that think themselves acute and wise fall into the same Calamity 3. And the proud will not endure to be thought to err when they plague the world with error 4. And the Impatient will not endure so long and difficult studies 5. And when all is done as Seneca saith they must be content with a very few approvers and must bear the scorn of the ignorant-learned crowd Who have no way to maintain the reputation of their own Wisdom Orthodoxness and Goodness but by calling him Proud or Self-conceited or Erroneous that differeth from them by knowing more than they And who but the truly self-denying can be at so much cost and labour for such reproach when they foreknow that he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow XXVII By these means mens minds that should be taken up with God and his Service are abused and vilified and filled with the dust and smoak of vain and false and confused notions And mans life is spent as David saith in a vain shew And men dream waking with as great industry as if they were about a serious work Alas how pitifully is much of the learned world employed XXVIII By this means also mens precious time is lost And he that had time little enough to learn and do things necessary for the common good and his own salvation doth waste half of it on he knoweth not what And Satan that findeth him more ingenious than to play it away at Cards and Dice or than to Drink and Revel it away doth cast another bait before him and get him learnedly to dream it away about unprofitable words and notions XXIX And by this means the Practice of goodness is hindred in the world yea and Holy Affections quenched While these arbitrary Notions and Speculations being mans own are his more pleasant game And Studies and Pulpits must be thus employed and heart and life thus stoln from God. Yea it 's well if Godliness grow not to be taken by such dreamers for a low a dull and an unlearned thing yea if they be not tempted by it to Infidelity and to think not only the zealous Ministers and Christians but even Christ and his Apostles to be unlearned men below their estimation XXX And by the same means the devilish sin of Pride will be kept up even among the Learned yea and the Preachers of Humility For what is that in the world almost that men are prouder of than that Learning which consisteth in such notions and words as are afore described And the proudest man I think is the worst XXXI And by this means the sacred Chairs and Pulpits will be possessed by such men whose spirits are most contrary to a Crucified Christ and to that Cross and Doctrine which they must preach And when Christ's greatest Enemies are the Pastors of his Churches all things will be ordered and managed accordingly and the faithful hated and abused accordingly Though I must add that it is not this Cause alone but many more concurring to constitute a worldly wicked mind which use to procure these effects XXXII And by false and vain Learning Contentions are bred and propagated in the Churches None are instruments so apt and none have been so successful as all Church History recordeth and the Voluminous contentions of many such learned parties testify XXXIII And this is an increasing malady for new Books are yearly written containing the said arbitrary notions of the several Authors And whereas real and organical Learning should be orderly and conjunctly propagated and Things studied for themselves and Words for Things the systems of of Arts and Sciences grow more and more corrupted our Logicks are too full of unapt notions our Metaphysicks are a meer confused mixture of Pneumatology and Logick and What part hath totally escaped XXXIV And the number of such Books doth grow so great that they become a great impediment and snare and how many years precious time must be lost to know what men say and who saith amiss or how they differ XXXV And the great diversity of Writers and Sects increaseth the danger trouble especially in Physicks by that time a man hath well studied the several sects the Epicureans and Somatists the Cartesians with the by-parties Regius Berigardus c. the Platonists the Peripateticks the Hermeticks Lullius Patricius Telesius Campanella White Digby Glisson and other Novelists and hath read the most learned improvers of the curranter sort of Philosophy Scheggius Wendeline Sennertus Hoffman Honorat Faber Got c. how much of his life will be thus spent And perhaps he will be as far to seek in all points saving those common evident certainties which he might have learned more cheaply in a shorter time than he was before he read them And will wish that Antonine Epictetus or Plutarch had served instead of the greater part of them And will perceive that Physicks are much fuller of uncertainties and emptier of satisfying usefulness than Morality and true Theology XXXVI By such false methods and notions men are often led to utter Scepticism and when they
more accurate than any Logical Author doth prescribe And the Lords Prayer and Decalogue especially will prove this when truly opened And the Doctrine of of the Trinity and the Baptismal Covenant is the Foundation of all true method of Physicks and Morality in the World. What if a novice cannot Anatomize Cicero or Demosthenes doth it follow that they are immethodical Brand-miller and Flaccher upon the Scripture Text and Steph. Tzegedine Sohnius Gomarus Dudley Fenner and many others upon the Body of Theology have gone far in opening the Scripture Method But more may be yet done VI. Consider also that the Eternal Wisdom Word and Son of God our Redeemer is the Fountain and giver of all Knowledge Nature to be restored and Grace to restore it are in his hands He is that true Light that lighteneth every one that cometh into the World The Light of Nature and Arts and Sciences are from his Spirit and Teaching as well as the Gospel Whether Clemens Alexandrinus and some other Ancients were in the right or not when they taught that Philosophy is one way by which men come to Salvation it is certain that they are in the right that say it is now the gift of Christ And that as the Light which goeth before Sun-rising yea which in the night is reflected from the Moon is from the Sun as well as its more glorious Beams So the Knowledge of Socrates Plato Zeno Cicero Antonine Epictetus Seneca Plutarch were from the Wisdom and Word of God the Redeemer of the World even by a lower gift of his Spirit as well as the Gospel and higher illumination And shall Christ be thought void of what he giveth to so many in the World VII Lastly Let it be considered above all that the grand difference between the teaching of Christ and other men is that he teacheth effectively as God spake when he Created and as he said to Lazarus Arise He giveth wisdom by giving the Holy Ghost All other Teachers speak but to the Ears but he only speaketh to the Heart Were it not for this he would have no Church I should never have else believed in him my self nor would any other seriously and savingly Aristotle and Plato speak but words but Christ speaketh LIFE and LIGHT and LOVE in all Countreys through all Ages to this day This above all is his witness in the World. He will not do his work on Souls by ludicrous enticing words of the Pedantick wisdom of the World but by illuminating Minds and changing Hearts and Lives by his effectual operations on the Heart God used not more Rhetorick nor Logick than a Philosopher when he said only Let there be Light but he used more Power Indeed the first Chapter of Genesis though abused by Ignorants and Cabalists hath more true Philosophy in it than the presumptuous will understand as my worthy Friend Mr. Samuel Gott lately gone to God hath manifested in his excellent Philosophy excepting the style and some few presumptions But operations are the glorious Oratory of God and his wisdom shineth in his works and in things beseeming the Heavenly Majesty and not in childish Laces and Toys of Wit. Let us therefore cease quarrelling and learn wisdom of God instead of teaching and reprehending him Let us magnifie the mercy and wisdom of our Redeemer who hath brought Life and Immortality to light and certified us of the matters of the World above as beseemed a Messenger sent from God and hath taught us according to the matter and our capacity and not with trifling childish notions Chap. XVIII Inference VI. The true and false ways of restoring the Churches and healing our Divisions hence opened and made plain HAving opened to you our Disease it is easie were not the Disease it self against it to discern the Cure. Pretended knowledge hath corrupted and divided the Christian World. Therefore it must be CERTAIN VERITIES which must Restore us and Unite us And these must be Things PLAIN and NECESSARY and such as God hath designed to this very use or else they will never do the work One would think that it should be enough to satisfie men of this 1. To read Scripture 2. To peruse the terms of Concord in the Primitive Church 3. To peruse the sad Histories of the Churches Discord and Divisions and the Causes 4. To peruse the state of the World at this day and make use of Universal Experience 5. To know what a Christian is what Baptism is and what a Church is 6. To know what Man is and that they themselves and the Churches are but Men. But penal and sinful Infatuation hath many Ages been upon the minds of those in the Christian World who were most concerned in the Cure and our sin is our misery as I think to the damned it will be the chief part of their Hell. But this subject is so great and needful and that which the Wounds and Blood of the Christian World do cry for a skilful Cure of that I will not thrust it into this corner but design to write a Treatise of it by it self as a second part of this This Book is since Printed with some Alteration and called The true and Only way of the Concord of the Churches Chap. XIX Of the Causes of this Disease of Prefidence or Proud Pretended Knowledge in order to the Cure. THE Cure of Prefidence and pretended knowledge could it be wrought would be the Cure of Souls Families Churches and Kingdoms But alas how low are our hopes yet that may be done on some which will not be done on all or most And to know the causes and oppugn them is the chief part of the Cure so far as it may be hoped for 1. The first and grand cause is the very Nature of ignorance it self which many ways disableth men from knowing that which should abate their groundless confidence For 1. An ignorant man knoweth but little parcels and scraps of things And all the rest is unknown to him Therefore he fixeth upon that little which he knoweth and having no knowledge of the rest he cannot regulate his narrow apprehensions by any conceptions of them And all things visible to us not light it self excepted which as seen by us is Fire incorporated in Air being Compounds the very Nature or Being of them is not known where any Constitutive part is unknown And in all Compounds each part hath such relation and usefulness to others that one part which seemeth known is it self but half known for want of the knowledge of others Such a kind of knowledge is theirs that knowing only what they see do take a Clock or Watch to be only the Index moving by the Hours being ignorant of all the causal parts within Or that know no more of a Tree or other Plant than the Magnitude Site Colour Odour c. Or that take a man to be only a Body without a Soul or the Body to be only the Skin and Parts discerned by the Eye in converse
man is Morally to be reputed and denominated And it is the final Grace which animateth or informeth the rest as means And thus it is true that when you will prove any Grace to be sincere and saving or any evidence certain you must prove it to participate of the love of God and goodness or you have failed and said nothing Yea you must prove it to be conjunct with predominant love which setteth God above all Creatures And if you will prove any good work to be acceptable to God Prayer Praise Alms Justice c. you must prove that it cometh from this predominant love For it is so far and no further acceptable to God. And their ignorance is but to be pitied who tell you that this is to make our love of God to be instead of Christ to us or to set up an acceptable righteousness or merit in our selves For we dream not that our love of God was a Sacrifice for our sins and the Expiatory Atonement and Satisfaction to Justice nor that Merit which procured us Love it self or purchased us the Holy Ghost Our meaning is that goodness is the only proper object of love And God loveth his Essential goodness first and Created goodness next And our Moral goodness which is his Image is holy love produced by and joined with holy wisdom and vitality And so though God love us in Christ or as Related to him it is as holy Members of him and not that he loveth complacentially the haters of God for their Relation to Christ without respect to any goodness in themselves And to say that Christ maketh us acceptable and amiable to God is all one as to say that he procureth us the pardon of Sin and the gift of the Holy Ghost and maketh us holy Lovers of God Or that he is indeed our Saviour He that commendeth health as wrought by his Physician doth not set health instead of the Physician Christ is the Physician the Holy Ghost or Holy Love in us is our health To procure and give us the Holy Ghost is Christs Office. He pardoneth our sin when he pardoneth the punishment The privation of the Holy Ghost and his operations is our principal punishment And therefore not all but the principal part of our pardon lyeth in the giving us the Holy Ghost But some will say That if God love nothing but goodness and love us no further than we are good how then did he love us first and while we were his Enemies Are not Election Creation Redemption and Conversion acts of love And is not our love the fruit of his love Ans Thus Names not opened by confounding Heads are made the matter of a thousand Controversies As our love is nothing but our will so the word love is taken strictly and properly or largely and less properly A mans will is considered as efficient or as final As it respecteth a future effect or a present existent good And so Gods will as it final and respecteth things existent either 1. In esse cognito 2. Or in esse reali is called complacence and only complacence is love in the strict and properest sense But Gods will as efficient of good may in a laxer sense be called love Gods will is the Fountain or efficient cause of all good Natural and Moral in the World. And so you may call Gods causing or making good by the name of love if you please remembring that it is but the name that is questioned But his complacency in good foreseen or existent is strictly called his love And so still God loveth nothing in either sense but good For 1. He causeth nothing but good 2. And he is pleased in nothing but good as good Quest But how then doth God love his Enemies Ans 1. He maketh us men which may be called one act of efficient love And he Redeemeth them and he giveth them all the good things which they possess And he sanctifieth some and maketh them lovers of him that is holy And thus he willeth their good while they are Nothing or Evil which is called Benevolence and Love efficient 2. And he hath true love of complacency in them 1. As they have the good of humane nature 2. And thereby are capable of grace and all the love and service which after they may perform 3. And as they are Related to Christ as his Redeemed ones 4. And as by Relation they are those that God fore-knoweth will love and serve him here and in the perfections of Eternal Glory There is all this good in some Enemies of God to be the matter of his complacency And beyond their goodness he hath no complacency in them 3. And to clear up all this still remember that though mans will is changed by or upon the various objects yet so is not the will of God. And therefore all these words signifie no variety or change in God but only how his simple immutable Essential will is variously related to and denominated from the Connotation of Effects and Objects 4. Also it must be noted as included in the Text that God loveth all that truly love him For to be known of him here meaneth to be known with approbation and love as his peculiar people As Psal 1.6 It is said The Lord knoweth the way of the righteous and so oft And of the wicked Mat. 25.12 Depart from me I know you not God owneth with love all those that love him What Parts what Quality what Degree soever men are of whatever difference else there be among them if they are true lovers of God they are certainly approved and beloved by him This being the very Heart and Essence of the new Creature and the Divine Nature in us must needs prove that man to be Amiable to God that hath it Other things are true marks of a Child of God only so far as they participate of love But love is the primary proper Character which proveth us Adopted directly of it self And here you may resolve the question that seemeth so difficult to many Whether when the Scripture either by describing the godly or by promising Life doth mention some one Grace or Duty as the Character of a Saint or the Condition of Salvation it be to be understood with a caeteris paribus if other Graces and Duties concur as supposing them separable Or absolutely as supposing that one mark infallible because it is never separated from the rest Ans The New Man hath 1. It s Essential parts and 2. Its Integrals and 3. Its Accidents The Essentials are ever infallible marks and are inseparable from each other Any one of them will prove us Holy and will prove the presence of the rest These Essentials are an united Trinity of Graces Holy Life Light and Love where each one hath the common Essence of Holiness which is their objective termination upon God and each is linked by participation to another Holy Vitality is Vital Activity towards God in mind will and practice
Holy Light is that Knowledge and Belief which kindleth Love and causeth a Holy Life Holy Love is that complacency of the Will in God and Goodness which is kindled by Holy Life and Light and operateth in Holy practice Any one of these thus described where Love is the Heart of all is an infallible mark of Holiness But all other Graces and Duties which are but the Integrals of Holiness are in all Characters and Promises to be understood with a caeteris paribus that is supposing them to be animated with Holy Love and caused by Holy Life and Light Knowledge and Belief And that God doth most certainly Love all that Love him besides the forementioned proofs from Scripture is further evident 1. The Love of God and Goodness is the Divine Nature And God cannot but Love his own Nature in us It is his Image which as in its several degrees he Loveth for himself and next to himself 2. The Love of God is the Rectitude of Man's Soul its soundness health and beauty And God Loveth the Rectitude of his creatures 3. The Love of God is the final perfect operation of the Soul even that end which it was created and redeemed for And God Loveth to have his works attain their end and to see them in their perfection 4. The Love of God is the Goodness of the Soul it self And Goodness is Amiableness and must needs be Loved by Him that is Goodness and Perfection Himself 5. The Love of God is our uniting adhesion to him And God that first draweth up the Soul to this Union will not himself reject us and avoid it 6. Love is a pregnant powerful pleasing Grace It delivereth up our selves and all that we have to God It delighteth in duty It conquereth difficulties It contemneth competitors and trampleth on temptations It accounteth nothing too much nor too dear for God. Love is the Soul's nature appetite and pondus according to which it will ordinarily act A man's Love is his Will his Heart himself And if God have our Love he hath our selves and our all So that God cannot but Love the Soul that truly Loveth him as God. But here are some Doubts to be resolved Q. 1. What if the same Soul have Love and Sin mixed or sincere Love in a degree that is sinfully defective and so is consistent with something of its contrary God must hate that Sin How then can he Love that Soul Ans Remember still that Diversity is only in us and not in God Therefore God's Will is related and denominated towards us just as its object is All that is Good in us God Loveth All that is Evil in us he hateth Where Goodness is predominant there God's Love is predominant or greatest from this Relation and Connotation Where Sin is predominant God's aversation displicency or hatred is the chief And we may well expect that the effects be answerable Obj. But we are beloved as Elect before Conversion Ans That was answered before That is God from Eternity purposed to make us Good and Amiable and Happy if you will call that as you may his Love. Obj. But we are beloved in Christ for his Righteousness and Goodness and not for our own Ans The latter is false The former is thus true For the Merits of Christ's Righteousness and Goodness God will pardon our sins and make us Good Holy and Happy and will Love us as the Holy Members of his Son that is both as Related to him and as Holy. Obj. But if God must needs Love sincere imperfect Lovers of him as such with a predominant Love which will not damn them then sin might have been pardoned without Christ's death and the sinner be loved without his Righteousness if he had but sincerely loved God. Ans The supposition is false that a sinner could have Loved God without Pardon and the Spirit purchased by the Death and Righteousness of Christ God perfectly Loveth the perfected Souls in Glory for their own holy perfection But they never attained it but by Christ And God Loveth us here according to the measure of our Love to him But no man can thus Love him till his sin be pardoned for which he was deprived of the Spirit which must kindle Love. And imperfect Love is ever joyned with imperfect Pardon whatever some falsly say to the contrary I mean that Love which is sinfully imperfect Quest 2. Doth not God's Loving us make us Happy And if so it must make us Holy. And then none that he Loveth will fall away from him Whereas the fallen Angels and Adam Loved him and yet fell from him How then were they beloved by him Ans I before told you that God's Will or Love is first Efficient causing Good and then Final being pleased in the Good that is caused God's Efficient Will or Love doth so far make men Holy and Happy as they are such even efficiently But God's Will or Love as it is our Causa finalis and the termiting Object of our Love and is pleased in us and approveth us is not the Efficient Cause of our Holiness and Happiness but the objective and perfect constitutive Cause Now you must further note that God's Benevolent Efficient Will or Love doth give men various degrees of Holiness To Adam in Innocency he gave but such a degree and upon such terms as he could lose and cast away which he did But to the blessed in Glory he giveth that which they shall never lose These degrees are from God's Efficient Love or Will which therefore causeth some to persevere when it left Adam to himself to stand or fall But it is not God's Final Love of Complacency as such that causeth our perseverance For Adam had this Love as long as he Loved God and stood and he after lost it so that it is not that Final Complacency which is the Terminus of our Holiness and Constitutive Cause of our Happiness which alone will secure the perpetuity of either of them Obj. Thus you make God mutable in his Love as Loving Adam more before his fall than after Ans I told you Loving and not Loving the Creature are no changes in God but in the Creature It is Man that is mutable and not God. It is only the Relation of God's Will to the Creature as varying in it self and the extrinsick denomination by connotation of a changed Object which is changed as to God. As the Sun is not changed when you wink and when you open your Eyes Nor a Pillar changed when your motion sets it sometimes on your right hand and sometimes on your left 5. Lastly It must be noted as included in the Text That our own Loving God is not the only or total notion of our end perfection or felicity but to be Known and Loved by God is the other part which must be taken in to make up the total notion of our end In our Love God is considered as the Object But in God's Complacential Love to us
Love to the blessed God who is Love it self O happy exchange did I part with all the pleasures of the world for one flame one spark more of the Love of God I hate not my self for my ignorance in the common Arts and Sciences But my God knoweth that I even abhor and loath my self because I love and delight in him no more O what a Hell is this dead and disaffected heart O what a foretast of Heaven would it be could I but feel the fervours of Divine Love Well may that be called the First-fruits of Heaven and the Divine Nature and Life which so uniteth Souls to God and causeth them to live in the pleasures of his Goodness I dare not beg hard for more common knowledge But my Soul melteth with grief for want of Love and forceth out tears and sighs and cries O when will Heaven take acquaintance with my heart and shine into it and warm and revive it that I may truly experience the delightful life of holy Love I cannot think them loathsom and unlovely that are unlearned and want the ornaments of Art. But I abhor and curse those hateful sins which have raised the clouds and shut the windows and hindred me from the more lively Knowledge and Love of God. Would God but number me with his zealous Lovers I would presume to say that he had made me wise and initially happy But alas such high and excellent things will not be gotten with a lazy wish nor will holy Love dwell with iniquity in unholy and defiled Souls But if Wisdom were justified of none but her Children how confidently durst I call my self a Son of Wisdom For all my Reason is fully satisfied that the learned ungodly Doctors are meer fools and the Lovers of God are only wise And O that my Lot may be with such however I be esteemed by the dreaming world Chap. VI. The second Inference To abate our Censures and Contempt of the less Learned Christians and Churches upon Earth I Must confess that Ignorance is the great Enemy of Holiness in the world and the Prince of Darkness in his Kingdom of Darkness oppugneth the Light and promoteth the works of Darkness by it And it is found that where Vision ceaseth the People perish even for lack of knowledge And the ignorantest Countreys are the most ungodly But I must recant some former apprehensions I have thought the Armenians the Syrians the Georgians the Copties the Abassines the Greeks more miserable for want of Polite Literature than now I judge them Though I contemn it not as the Turks do and the Moscovites yet I perceive that had men but the knowledge of the holy Scriptures yea of the summaries of true Religion they might be good and happy men without much more If there be but some few among them skill'd in all the Learning of the world and expert in using the Adversaries weapons against themselves as Champions of the Truth the rest might do well with the bare Knowledge of God and a Crucified Christ It is the malice of assaulting Enemies that maketh all other Learning needful in some for our defence But the New Creature liveth not on such food but on the bread of life and living waters and the sincere Milk of the sacred Word The old Albigenses and Waldenses in Piedmont and other Countreys did many Ages keep up the life and comfort of true Religion even through murders and unparallel'd cruelties of the worldly Learned Church when they had little of the Arts and common Sciences But necessary Knowledge was propagated by the industry of Parents and Pastors Their Children could say over their Catechisms and could give account of the Principles of Religion and recite many practical parts of Scripture And they had much Love and Righteousness and little Division or Contention among them which made the moderate Emperor Maximilian profess to Crato that he thought the Picards of all men on Earth were likest the Apostolick Primitive Churches And Brocardus who dwelt among them in Judea tells us that the Christians there that by the Papists are accounted Hereticks as Nestorians or Eutychians were indeed good harmless simple men and lived in Piety and mortifying Austerities even beyond the very Religious sort the Monks and Fryars of the Church of Rome and shamed the wickedness of our Learned part of the World. And though there be sad mixtures of such Superstitions and Traditions as ignorance useth to breed and cherish yet the great devotion and strictness of many of the Abassines Armenians and other of those ruder sort of Christians is predicated by many Historians and Travellers And who knoweth but there may be among their vulgar more love to God and Heaven and Holiness than among the contentious Learned Nations where the Pastors strive who shall be the greatest and Preach up that Doctrine and Practice which is conformable to their own Wills and worldly Interests and where the people by the oppositions of their Leaders are drawn into several Sides and Factions which as Armies Militate against each other Is not the love of God like to be least where Contentions and Controversies divert the peoples minds from God and necessary saving Truths And where men least love one another And where mutual Hatred Cruelty and Persecution proclaim them much void of that love which is the Christian Badge I will not cease praying for the further Illumination and Reformation of those Churches But I will repent of my hard thoughts of the Providence of God as if he had cast them almost off and had few holy Souls among them For ought I know they may be better than most of Europe And the like I say of many unlearned Christians among our selves we know not what love to God and goodness doth dwell in many that we have a very mean esteem of The Breathings of poor Souls towards God by Christ and their desires after greater holiness is known to God that kindleth it in them but not to us Chap. VII The third Inference By what measures to judge of the Knowledge necessary to Church Communion I Know that there are some that would make Christ two Churches one Political and Congregate as they phrase it and the other Regenerate Or one Visible and the other Invisible And accordingly they say that professed Faith is the qualification of a Member of the Church-Congregate and Obedience to the Pope say the Papists and real love is the qualification of the Church-Regenerate But as there is but one Catholick Church of Christ so is there but one Faith and one Baptism by which men are stated as Members in that Church But as Heart-consent and Tongue-consent are two things but the latter required only as the Expression and Profession of the former so Heart-consenters and Tongue-consenters should be the same men as Body and Soul make not two men but one But if the Tongue speak that consent which is not in the Heart that Person is an Hypocrite and is but
analogically or equivocally called a Christian or Member of Christ And such among the sincere are not a distinct Church or Society if they were they should be called the Hypocritical Church and not the Political or Congregate Church But they are as Traytors in an Army or as stricken Ears in a Corn Field But the true Church being One is considered as consenting with Heart and with the Tongue As a Corn Field hath Straw Chaff and Grain and as a Man hath Soul and Body So that it is the same Church that is visible by Baptism and Profession and Invisible by Heart-consent or Sincerity But it is the same thing and not divers that is in the Hearts of the sincere and that is to be professed by the Tongue Even that voluntary practical Faith which is described in Baptism and no other The same Faith which is accepted to Salvation in the sincere and invisible Members of the Church as they are called must be professed by all that will at Age be visible Members And the Knowledge and Belief required in Baptism is so much as prevaileth with the Person to give up himself to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as his Reconciled Creator his Saviour and Sanctifier And he that hath so much knowledge as will do this hath as much as is necessary to his reception into the Church Doubtless he that is capable of Baptism is capable of Church Membership and he that is capable of Church Membership is capable de jure as to right of so much Church Communion as he is capable of by real aptitude An Infant is not naturally capable of the actions of the Adult nor half-witted Persons of the receptions and performances of the judicious some cannot understand a Sermon or Prayer or Praise the twentieth part so well as others can do and so cannot receive and do beyond their understanding Some may not so well understand the nature of the Lords Supper as to be really fit at present to receive it And some may be unfit through some extraordinary doubts opinions or lapses But still de jure a Church Member hath right to so much Church Communion as their real qualifications make them capable of For that right is part of the definition of a Church member And to be made a Church member is the work of Baptism And here we must consider of the reason why God would have Baptism to be the Profession of that Faith which maketh us Christians Sometime we are called Believers and said to be Justified by Faith as if it were Faith alone that were our Christianity And yet when it cometh to Church entrance and to the solemn profession of our faith and reception of a Sealed and Delivered pardon we must do more than profess that we believe with the understanding We must give up our selves absolutely by a Vow and Covenant to God the Father Son and Holy-Ghost renouncing the flesh the World and the Devil which is the act of a resolved Will. And to Will is rationally to Love and Choose By which Christ telleth us that as words of Knowledge in Scripture usually imply affection so the Faith that he means and requireth to our justification is not a meer assent or act of intellection but it is also the wills consent and a practical Affiance As a man Believing the Skill and Fidelity of a Physician doth Desire Will or Choose him for his Physician and Practically Trust him or cast himself upon his Fidelity and care for cure Therefore Christ joyneth both together Mark 16.16 He that Believeth and is baptized shall be saved not principally intending the washing of the flesh but the answer of a good Conscience as Peter expoundeth it that is He that so believeth as by hearty consent to devote and give up himself openly and absolutely and presently to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost shall be saved And so the Apostle saith Eph. 4.4 5. There is one Baptism as part of the uniting bond of Christians That is there is one solemn Covenant between God and Man in which we profess our Faith and give up our selves to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and are stated in a gracious Relation to him and one another And thus it is that Baptism is reckoned Heb. 6. among the principles And that the ancient Doctors unanimously conclude that Baptism washeth away all sin and certainly puts us into a present state of life That is The delivering up our selves sincerely to God in the Baptismal Covenant is the condition of our right to the benefits of that Covenant from God. From all which it is plain that the Head is but the guide of the Heart and that God looketh more to the Heart than to the Head and to the Head for the Heart And that we are not Christians indeed till Christ have our Hearts indeed Nor Christians by profession till by Baptismal Covenant and profession we deliver up the Heart to Christ Now so far as Consent and Will may be called Love fo far even Love is Essential to our Christianity and to this faith which is required to our baptism and justification And no other faith is Christianity nor will justify us But to them that are here stalled with the great difficulty How Love is that grace of the Holy Ghost which is promised to believers in the Covenant as consequent if it go before it in the Covenanters I answer at present that they must distinguish between 1. Love to Christ as a Saviour of our selves proceeding principally from the just Love of our selves and our Salvation and Love to God above our selves for his own Infinite Goodness as our ultimate end 2. Between the Act of Love and a Habit 3. Between that spark of Love which consisteth in the said consent and is contained in true Faith and that Flame of Love which it self carryeth the name as being the most eminent operation of the Soul. And if hereupon they cannot answer this question themselves I must refer them to the Appendix of the third Chapter of my Christian Directory in which I have largely opened this case with as much exactness as I could reach unto All that remaineth very difficult then as to our judging of the Knowledge of men to be admitted to Christian Church Communion is but what knowledge is necessary in the adult unto their lawful Baptism And to that I say so much as is necessary to an understanding consent to the Baptismal Covenant or to an hearty giving up themselves to God the Father Son and Holy-Ghost And here we must know that the same Covenanting words being comprehensive are understood in different degrees according to mans different Capacities even of true believers Insomuch that I do not think that any two men in the world have in all notions and degrees just the same understanding of them And therefore it is not the same distinctness and clearness of understanding which we must expect in all which is found in some or
which is desireable When one man nameth GOD he hath an orderly conception of his several Attributes in which yet all men are defective and most Divines themselves are culpably ignorant When another man conceiveth but of fewer of them and that disorderly And yet these must not be accounted Atheists or denied to believe in the same God or refused Baptism nor is it several Gods that men so differently believe in I. He that knoweth God to be a most perfect Spirit most powerful Wise and Good the Father Son and Holy Ghost the Creator of the world our Owner Governour and most Amiable Lover Benefactor and End I think knoweth as much of God as is of necessity to Baptism and Church Communion II. He that knoweth that Jesus Christ is God and man the Redeemer of the sinful world and the Mediator between God and Man who was conceived by the Holy-Ghost in the Virgin Mary fulfilled all righteousness was crucified as a Sacrifice for mans sin and being dead and buried rose again and ascended into Heaven and is the Teacher King and Intercessor of his Church and hath made the new Covenant and giveth the Holy-Ghost to sanctify believers and pardoneth their sins and will raise our Bodies at last and Judge the World in righteousness according to his Gospel and will give everlasting happiness to the Sanctified I think knoweth as much of Christ as is necessary to Baptism and Church Communion III. He that knoweth that the Holy Ghost is God proceeding from the Father and the Son the sanctifier of Souls by Holy Life and Light and Love by the Holy Gospel of which he is the Inditer and the Seal I think knoweth all that is necessary unto Baptism concerning the Holy Ghost IV. And as to the Act of Knowing this Trinity of Objects there is great difference between 1. Knowing the Notions or Words and the matter 2. Between an orderly clear and a dark and more confused Knowledge 3. And between apt significant words and such as any way notify a necessary true conception of the mind 4. Between such a Knowledge as maketh a man Willing and Consent to give up himself to this Trinity in Covenant and that which prevaileth not for such consent And so 1. It 's true that we know not the Heart immediately and therefore must judge by Words and Deeds But yet it is the Knowledge of the Things as is aforesaid that is necessary to Salvation because it is the Love of the Things is chiefly necessary But by what words to express that Love or Knowledge is not of equal necessity in itself 2. There being no man whose conceptions of God Christ the Holy Ghost the Covenant c. are not guilty of darkness and disorder a great degree of darkness and disorder of conceptions may consist with true grace in those of the lowest rank of Christians 3. The second Notions and Conceptions of things and so of God our Redeemer and Sanctifier as they are verba mentis in the mind itself are but Logical Artificial Organs and are not of that necessity to Salvation as the conception of the matter or incomplex objects 4. Many a man in his studies findeth that he hath oft a general and true Knowledge of Things in themselves before he can put names and notions on them and set those in due Order and long before he can find fit words to express his mental notions by which must cost him much study afterward And as Children are long learning to speak and by degrees come to speak orderly and composedly and aptly mostly not till many years use hath taught them So the expressive ability is as much matter of art and got by use in men at age And they must be taught yet as Children to speak of any thing new and Strange and which they learned not before As we see in learning Arithmetick Geometry and all the Arts and Sciences Even so men how holy internally soever must by study and use by the help of Gods Spirit learn how to speak of holy things in Prayer in Conference in answering such as ask an account of their Faith and Knowledge And hypocrites that are bred up in the use of such things can speak excellently in Prayer Conference or Preaching When true Christians at first that never used them nor were bred up where they heard them used cannot tell you intelligibly what is in their minds but are like men that are yet to learn the very Language in which they are to talk in I know this by true experience of my self and many others that I have examined 5. Therefore I say again if men cannot aptly answer me of the very Essentials of Religion but speak that which in its proper sense is Heresie or unsound and false Yet if when I open the questions to them my self and put the Article of Faith into the question and ask them e. g. Do you believe that there is but One God or are there many Doth God know all things or not Is he our Owner or not Doth he rule us by a Law or not c If they by Yea or Nay do speak the truth and profess to believe it I will not reject them for lack of knowledge if the rest concur I meet with few censorious Professors to say nothing of Teachers that will not answer me with some nonsense or falseness or ineptitude or gross confusion or defectiveness if I examine them of the foregoing Notions of the very baptismal Covenant As what is a Spirit what doth the word God signifie what is Power in God what Knowledge what Will what Goodness what Holiness what is a Person in the Trinity what is the difference between the three Persons How is God our End Had Christ his humane Soul from the Virgin or only his flesh Had he his Manhood from Man if not his Soul which is the chief essential part what is the Union of the Divine and Humane Nature wherein different from the Union of God and Saints or every Creature with an hundred such In which I must bear with ignorant false answers from eminent Professors that separate from others as too ignorant for their Communion And why then must I not bear with more in those that are new beginners and have not had their time and helps 6. But if a man can speak never so well and profess never so confident a belief if he Consent not to the Covenant and Vow of Baptism to give up himself presently and absolutely to Christ I must reject that man from the Communion of the Church But if these two things do but concur in any 1. The foresaid signification of a tolerable Knowledge and Belief by yea or nay Dost thou Believe in God c. as the Ancient Churches used to ask the Baptized 2. And a ready professed consent to be engaged by that holy Vow and Covenant to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost I will not deny Baptism to such if Adult nor after Church
our Enemies conquered our fears removed our wants supplied our Bodies and all that is ours under the protection of Almighty love and we are secured by Promise that all our Sufferings shall work together for our good And what will cause love if all this will not When we perceive with what love the Father hath loved us that of Enemies we should be made the Sons of God and of condemned Sinners we should be made the Heirs of endless Glory and this so freely and by so strange a means we may conclude that this is the Doctrine of Love which is taught us from Heaven by love it self 3. And especially this work of love is promoted by opening the Kingdom of Heaven to the foresight of our Faith and shewing us what we shall enjoy for ever and assuring us of the Fruition of our Creators Everlasting Love yea by making us fore-know that Heaven consisteth in perfect mutual endless love This will both of it self draw up our Hearts and engage all our Reason and Endeavours in beginning that work which we must do for ever and to learn on Earth to love in Heaven 4. And besides all these objective helps Christ giveth to Believers the Spirit of Love and maketh it become as a nature in us which no other Teacher in the World could do Others can speak reason to our Ears but it is Christ that sendeth the warming Beams of holy Love into our Hearts If the love of God and holiness were no better than common Philosophical Speculations then Aristotle or Plato or such other Masters of names and notions might compare with Christ and his Apostles and Athens with the Primitive Church and the Schoolmen might be thought the best Improvers of Theology But if thousands of dreaming Disputers wrangle the World into misery and themselves into Hell and are ingenious Artificers of their own damnation and if the love of God and Goodness be the healthful constitution of the Soul its natural content and pleasure the business and end of life and all its helps and blessings the Soder of just Societies the Union of Man with God in Christ and with all the Blessed and the Fore-taste and First-fruits of endless Glory then Christ the Messenger of Love the Teacher of Love the Giver of Love the Lord and Commander of Love is the best Promoter of Knowledge in the World. And as Nicodemus knew that he was a Teacher come from God because no man could do such works unless God were with him so may we conclude the same because no man could so reveal so cause and communicate Love the holy Love of God and Goodness unless the God of Love had sent him Love is the very end and work of Christ and of his Word and Spirit Chap. IX The fifth Inference What great cause men have to be thankful to God for the Constitution of the Christian Religion And how unexcusable they are that will not learn so short and sweet and safe a Lesson SO excellent and every way suitable to our case is the Religion taught and instituted by Christ as should render it very acceptable to Mankind And that on several accounts 1. The brevity and plainness of Christian Precepts greatly accommodateth the necessity of Mankind I say his necessity lest you think it is but his sloth Ars longa Vita brevis is the true and sad complaint of Students Had our Salvation been laid upon our Learning a Body of true Philosophy how desperate would our case have been For 1. Mans great Intellectual weakness 2. His want of leisure would not have allowed him a knowledge that requireth a subtile wit and tedious studies 1. Most men have wits of the duller sort Such quickness subtilty and solidity as is necessary to great and difficult studies are very rare So rare as that few such are found even amongst the Preachers of the Gospel Of a multitude who by hard Studies and honest Hearts are fit to Preach the Doctrine of Salvation scarce one or two are found of so fine and exact a wit as to be fit judiciously to manage the curious Controversies of the Schools What a case then had Mankind been in if none could have been wise and happy indeed but these few of extraordinary capacity The most publick and common good is the best God is more merciful than to confine Salvation to subtilty of wit Nor indeed is it a thing it self so pleasing to him as a Holy Heavenly Heart and Life 2. And we have Bodies that must have Provision and Employment We have Families and Kindred that must be maintained We live in Neighbourhoods and publick Societies which call for much Duty and take up much time And our sufferings and crosses will take up some thoughts Were it but Poverty alone how much of our time will it alienate from contemplation whilst great necessities call for great care and continual labour Can our common poor Labourers especially Husbandmen have leisure to inform their minds with Philosophy or curious Speculations Nay we see by experience that the more subtile and most vacant wits that wholly addict themselves to Philosophy can bring it to no considerable certainty and consistency to this day except in the few Rudiments or common Principles that all are agreed in Insomuch that those do now take themselves to be the chief or only wits who are pulling down that which through so many Ages from the beginning of the World hath with so great wit and study been concluded on before them and are now themselves no higher than new Experimenters who are beginning all anew again to try whether they can retrieve the errours of Mankind and make any thing of that which they think the World hath been so long unacquainted with And they are yet but beginning at the Skin or Superficies of the World and are got no further with all their wit than Matter and Motion with Figure Site Contexture c. But if they could live as long as Methusalem it is hoped they might come to know that besides Matter and Motion there are Essential Virtues called substantial Forms or active Natures and that there is a Vis Motiva which is the cause of Motion and a Virtus Intellectiva and Wisdom which is the cause of the Order of Motion and a Vital Will and Love which is the perfection and end of all In a word they may live to know that there is such a thing in the World as Life and such a thing as Active Nature and such a thing as Sense and Soul besides Corporeal Matter and Motion and consequently that man is indeed man. But alas they must die sooner perhaps before they attain so far and their Successors must begin all anew again as if none of all these great attempts had been made by their Predecessours and so by their method we shall never reach deeper than the Skin nor learn more than our A B C And would we have such a task made necessary to the Common
The Lord deliver us from such wit and learning Is it not enough to refuse Heaven and choose Hell in the certain causes to lose the only day of their hopes and in the midst of light to be incomparably worse than mad but they must needs be accounted wise and learned in all this self-destroying folly As if like the Physician who boasted that he killed men according to the Rules of art it were the heighth of their ambition to go learnedly to Hell and with Reverend gravity and wit to live here like brutes and hereafter with Devils for evermore Chap. 11. The seventh Inference Why the ungodly world hateth Holiness and not Learning FRom my very Child-hood when I was first sensible of the concernments of mens Souls I was possest with some admiration to find that every where the Religious godly sort of people who did but exercise a serious care of their own and other mens Salvation were made the wonder and obloquy of the world Especially of the most vitious and flagitious men so that they that professed the same Articles of faith the same Commandments of God to be their Law and the same Petitions of the Lords Prayer to be their desire and so professed the same Religion did every where revile those that did endeavour to live according to that same profession and to seem to be in good sadness in what they said I thought that this was impudent Hypocrisie in the ungodly worldly sort of men To take them for the most intolerable persons in the Land who are but serious in their own Religion and do but endeavour to perform what all their Enemies also vow'd and promised If religion be bad and our faith be not true why do these men profess it If it be true and good why do they hate and revile them that would live in the serious practice of it if they will not practise it themselves But we must not expect Reason when sin and sensuality have made men unreasonable But I must profess that since I observed the course of the world and the concord of the Word and Providences of God I took it for a notable proof of mans fall and of the verity of the Scripture and the supernatural Original of true Sanctification to find such an universal enmity between the holy and the serpentine seed and to find Cain and Abels case so ordinarily exemplified and him that is born after the Flesh to persecute him that is born after the Spirit And methinks to this day it is a great and visible help for the confirmation of our Christian Faith. But that which is much Remarkable in it is that nothing else in the world except the Crossing of mens carnal interest doth meet with any such universal enmity A man may be as learned as he can and no man hate him for it If he excel all others all men will praise him and proclaim his excellency He may be an excellent Linguist an excellent Philosopher an excellent Physician an excellent Logician an excellent Orator and all commend him Among Musicians Architects Souldiers Seamen and all Arts and Sciences men value prefer and praise the best Yea even Speculative Theology such wits as the Schoolmen and those that are called great Divines are honoured by all and meet as such with little Enmity Persecution or Obloquy in the world Though I know that even a Galilaeus a Campanella and many such have suffered by the Roman Inquisitors that was not so much in enmity to their Speculations or Opinions as through a fear lest new Philosophical notions should unsettle mens minds and open the way to new opinions in Theology and so prove injurious to the Kingdom and Interest of Rome I know also that Demosthenes Cicero Seneca Lucan and many other learned men have died by the hands or power of Tyrants But that was not for their Learning but for their opposition to those Tyrants Wills and Interests And I know that some Religious men have suffered for their Sins and Follies and some for their medling too much with secular affairs as the Councellours of Princes as Functius Justus Jonas and many others But yet no Parts no Excellency no Skill or Learning is hated commonly but honoured in the World no not Theological Learning save only this practical Godliness and Religion and the Principles of it which only rendereth men amiable to God through Christ and saveth mens Souls To know and love God and live as those that know and love him to seek first his Kingdom and the Righteousness thereof to walk circumspectly in a holy and heavenly Conversation and studiously to obey the Laws of God this which must save us this which God loveth and the Devil hateth is hated also by all his Children for the same malignity hath the same effect But methinks this should teach all considering men to perceive what Knowledge it is that is best and most desirable to all that love their happiness Sure this sort of Learning Wit and Art which the Devil and the malignant World do no more dispraise oppose and persecute though as it is sanctified to higher ends it be good yet of it self is comparatively no very excellent and amiable thing I know Satan laboureth to keep out Learning it self that is truly such from the world because he is the Prince and Promoter of darkness and the Enemy of all useful light And lower Knowledge is some help to higher and speculative Theology may prepare for practical and the most gross and brutish ignorance best serveth the Devils designs and turn And even in Heathen Rome the Arts prepared men for the Gospel and Learning in the Church Reformers hath ever been a great help and furtherance of Reformation But yet if you stop in Learning and Speculation and take it as for it self alone and not as a means to holiness of Heart and Life it is as nothing It is Paul's express resolution of the case that if we have all Knowledge without this holy Love we are nothing but as sounding Brass or a tinkling Cymbal 1 Cor. 13. But surely there is some special excellency in this holy knowledge and Love and Obedience which the Devil and the malignant World so hate in high and low in rich and poor in Kindred Neighbours Strangers or any where they meet with it It is not for nothing This is the Image of God this is it that is contrary to their carnal Minds and to their fleshly Lusts and sinful Pleasures This tells them what they must be and do or be undone for ever which they cannot abide to be or do Let us therefore be somewhat the wiser for this discovery of the mind of the Devil and all his Instruments I will love and honour all Natural Artificial acquired Excellencies in Philology Philosophy and the rest As these expose not men to the Worlds Obloquy so neither unto mine or any sober mans In their low places they are good and may be used to a greater good
But let that holy knowledge and love be mine which God most loveth and the World most hateth and costeth us dearest upon Earth but hath the blessed end of a Heavenly Reward Chap. XII The eighth Inference What is the work of a faithful Preacher and how it is to be done IF that Knowledge which kindleth in us the Love of God be the only saving Knowledge then this is it that Ministers must principally preach up and promote Could we make all our hearers never so learned that will not save their Souls But if we could make them holy and kindle in them the love of God and goodness they should certainly be saved The holy practical Preacher therefore is the best Preacher because the holy practical Christian is the best and only true Christian We work under Christ and therefore must carry on the same work on Souls which Christ came into the World to carry on All our Sermons must be fitted to change mens Hearts from Carnal into Spiritual and to kindle in them the love of God. When this is well done they have learnt what we were sent to teach them and when this is perfect they are in Heaven Those Preachers that are Enemies to the godliest of the people and would make their Hearers take them all for Hypocrites that go any further than obedience to their Pastors in Church-forms and Orders Observances and Ceremonies and a civil Life are the great Enemies of Christ his Spirit his Gospel and the Peoples Souls and the Eminent Servants of the Devil in his malignant War against them all All that Knowledge and all those Formalities which are set up instead of divine Love and holy Living are but so many cheats to deceive poor Souls till time be past and their convictions come to late I confess that ignorance is the calamity of our times and people perish for lack of Knowledge And that the Heart be without Knowledge it is not good And lamentable ignorance is too visible in a great degree among the religious sort themselves as their manifold differences and errours too openly proclaim And therefore to Build up men in Knowledge is much of the Ministerial work But what Knowledge must it be Not dead Opinions or uneffectual Notions or such Knowledge as tendeth but to teach men to talk and make them pass for men of parts But it is the Knowledge of God and our Redeemer the Knowledge of Christ Crucified by which we Crucifie the Flesh with all its Affections and Lusts And by which the World is Crucified to us and we to it If the Gospel be hid it is hid to them that are lost in whom the God of this World hath blinded their Eyes when there is no truth and mercy and knowledge of God in the Land no wonder if such a Land be clad in mourning When men have not so much Knowledge of the evil of sin and their own sin and misery and of the need and worth of Christ of the truth of Gods Word of the vanity of the World of the greatness wisdom and goodness of God and of certain most desirable Glory of Heaven as shall humble their Souls and turn them from the World to God and absolutely deliver them up to Christ and mortifie fleshly Lusts and overcome temptations and renew them unto the Love of God and goodness and set their Hearts and Hopes on Heaven This is the ignorance that is mens damnation And the contrary effectual Knowledge is it which saveth Souls Chap. XIII The ninth Inference Those that Know God so far as to Love him above all may have comfort notwithstanding their remaining ignorance A Great number of upright hearted Christians who Love God sincerely and obey him faithfully are yet under so great want of further knowledge as is indeed a great dishonour to them and a hinderance of them in their duty and comfort and to many a great discouragement And O that we knew how to cure this imperfection that Ignorance might not feed so many Errours and cause so many fractions and disturbances in the Church and so many sinful miscarriages in its members But yet we must conclude that the person that hath knowledge enough to renew his Soul to the Love of God shall be loved by him and shall never perish and therefore may have just comfort under all the imperfections of his knowledge More wisdom might make him a better and more useful Christian But while he is a Christian indeed he may rejoyce in God. I blame not such for complaining of the dulness of their Understandings the badness of their Memories their little profiting by the means of Grace I should blame them if they did not complain of these And I think their case far more dangerous to the Church and to themselves who have as much ignorance and know it not but proudly glory in the wisdom which they have not But many a thousand Christians that have little of the Notional and Organical part of Knowledge have powerful apprehensions of the Power Wisdom and Love of God and of the great Mercy of Redemption and of the Evil of Sin the Worth of Holiness and the Certainty and Weight of the Heavenly Glory And by how much these men love God and Holiness more than the more Learned that have less Grace by so much they are more beloved of God and accounted wiser by the God of wisdom and therefore may rejoice in the greatness of their felicity I would have none so weak as to under-value any real useful Learning But if Pharisees will cry out against unlearned godly Christians These people know not the Law and are accursed Remember the Thanksgiving of your Lord I thank thee Father Lord of Heaven and Earth that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them to Babes And as the reputed foolishness of God that is of Gods Evangelical Mysteries will shortly prove wiser than all the reputed wisdom of men so he that hath wisdom enough to love God and be saved shall quickly be in that World of light where he shall know more than all the Doctors and subtile disputers upon Earth and more in a moment than all the Books of men can teach him or all their Authors did ever here know Jer. 9.23 24. Thus saith the Lord Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom neither let the mighty man glory in his might let not the rich man glory in his riches But let him that glorieth glory in this that he understandeth and knoweth me that I am the Lord which exercise loving kindness and righteousness in the Earth For in these things do I delight saith the Lord. Chap. XIV Questions and Objections answered Quest 1. IF so much knowledge will save a man as helpeth him to love God as God may not Heathens or Infidels at least be saved For they know that there is one God who is Infinitely Good and Perfect and more amiable than all the World and the
yet the true ultimate end of all things is God himself And the love of God is the highest love And Gods Justice is not without that love of himself and tendeth to that good which he is capable of receiving which is but the fulfilling or complacency of his own will which is but improperly called his Receiving 2. And we little know how many in another World or in the renewed Earth are to be profited by his Justice on the damned as Angels and Men are by his Justice on the Devils 1. LOVE is the Life of Religion and of the Soul and of the Church And what can be a just pretence for any to destroy or oppose the very Life of Religion the Life of Souls and the Life of the Church of Christ Physick Blood-letting and Dismembring may be used for Life But to take away Life except necessarily for a Good that is better than that life is Murder And what is it that is better than the Life of Religion in all matters of Religion Or than the life of the Church in all Church affairs Or than the life of mens Souls in all matters of Soul concernment 2. LOVE is the great command and summary of all the Law And what can be a just pretence for breaking the greatest command yea and the whole Law 3. LOVE is Gods Image and he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God who is LOVE and God in him And what can be a pretence sufficient for destroying the Image of God which is called by his name 4. There is nothing in man that God himself loveth better than our love And therefore nothing that as better can be set against it And yet alas what enmity is used in the World against the Love of God and Man and many things alledged as pretences to justify it Let us consider of some few of them 1. The great Tyrants of the World such as in several ages have been the Plagues of their own and neighbour Nations care not what havock they make of Religion and of mens lives by Bloody Wars and Cruel Persecutions destroying many thousands and undoing far more thousands of the Country Families where their armies come and sacrificing the lives of the best of their subjects by butcheries or flames And what is the pretence for all this Perhaps they would be Lords of more of the World and would have larger Kingdoms Or more honour Perhaps some Prince hath spoken a hard word of them or done them some wrong Perhaps some subjects believe not as they bid them believe or forbear not to worship God in a manner which they forbid them Perhaps Daniel will not give over praying for a time or the Apostles will not give over preaching or the three Confessors will not fall down to the Golden Image and so Nebuchadnezzar or the other Rulers seem despised And their wills and honour are an Interest that with them seemeth to warrant all this But how long will it seem so I had rather any friend of mine had the Sins of a Thief or Drunkard or the most infamous Sinner among us to answer for than the Sins of a Bloody Alexander Caesar or Tamerlane 2. The Roman Clergy set up Inquisitions force men by cruelties to submit to their Church Keys whose very nature is to be used without force and they silence yea torment the faithful Ministers of Christ and have murdered thousands of his faithful people raised rebellions against Princes and Wars in Kingdoms and taught men to hate Gods Servants as Hereticks Schismaticks Rebels Factious and what not And what pretence must justify all this Why the Interest of the Pope and Clergy called in ignorance or craft by the name of the Holy Church Religion Unity and such other honourable name But must their Church live on Blood and holy Blood And be built or preserved by the destruction of Christs Church Must their doctrine be kept up by silencing faithful Ministers and their worship by destroying or undoing the true worshippers of Christ Are all these precious things which die with Love no better than to be sacrificed to the Clergies Pride and Worldly lusts 3. Among many Schismaticks and Sectaries that are not miscalled so but are such indeed their Discipline consisteth in separating from most other Christians as too bad and that is too unlovely to be of their Communion and their Preaching is much to make those seem bad that is unlovely that are not of their way and their worship is much such as relisheth of the same envy and strife to add affliction or reproaches to their Brethren or to draw the people from the Love of others unto them And their ordinary talk is back-biting others for things that they understand not and reporting any lie that is brought them and telling the hearers something of this Minister or that person or the other that is unlovely as if Satan had hired them to Preach down Love and prate and pray down Love and all this in the name of Christ And the third chapter of James is harder than Hebrew to them they do not understand it but though they tear it not out of the Bible they leave it out of the Law in their Hearts as much as the Papists leave the Second Commandment out of their Books And it is one of the marks of a good man among them to talk against other parties and make others odious to set up them And what are the Pretences for all this Why Truth and Holiness 1. Others have not the Truth which they have And 2. Others are not against the same Doctrines and Ceremonies and Bishops and Church Orders and ways of worship which they are against and therefore are ungodly antichristian or men of no Religion But Truth seldom dwelleth with the Enemies of Love and Peace They that are Strangers and Enemies to it indeed do often cry it up and cry down those as Enemies to it that possess it The wisdom that hath bitter envying and heart-strife is from beneath and is earthly sensual and devilish I admonish all that care for their Salvation that they set up nothing upon love killing terms If you are Christs disciples you are taught of God to love each other you are taught it as Christs last and great Commandment You are taught it by the wonderful example of his life and specially Joh. 13.14 By his washing hiâ— disciples feet You are taught it by the Holy Ghosts uniting the hearts of the disciples and making them by Charity to live as in Community Acts 3. and 4. You are taught it by the Effective operation of the Spirit on your own hearts The new nature that is in you inclineth you to it And will you now pretend the necessity of your own Interest Reputation your Canons and things indifferent your little Church orders of your own making yea or the positive institutions of Christ himself as to the present exercise against this Love Hath Christ commanded you any thing before it except the
body or the fruit of 3. This life of Love is the perfection of mans faculties as to their intended end and use As all the operations of the lower faculties Vegetative and Sensitive are subordinate to the use and operations of the Intellectual part which is the higher so all the Acts of the Intellect itself are but subservient and Dirigent to the Will or Love and Practice The understanding is but the Eye by which the Soul seeth what to love and choose or refuse and what to do or to avoid Love is the highest act of our highest faculty And complacency in the highest infinite good is the highest of all the acts of Love. This is the State of the Soul in its Ripeness and Mellow Sweetness when it is delightful embracing its most desired object and is blessed in the fruition of its ultimate end All other Graces and Duties are Servants unto this They are the parts indeed of the same new creature but the Hands and Feet are not the Heart 4. For Love is the very foretast of Heaven the beginning of that felicity which shall there be perfect In Heaven all Saints shall be as One and all united to their glorious Head as he is united to the Father disparities allowed Joh. 17.24 And what more uniteth Souls than Love Heaven is a state of Joyful Complacence and what is that but Perfect Love The Heavenly work is perfect Obedience and Praise And what are these but the actions and the breath of Love 5. Therefore they that live this life of Love are fitter to die and readier for Heaven than any others Belief is a foresight of it but Love is a foretast the first fruits and our earnest and pledge He that Loveth God and Christ and Angels and Saints and perfect Holiness and Divine Praise is ready for Heaven as the Infant in the womb is ready for birth at the fulness of his time But other Christians whose Love is true but little to their fears and damped by darkness and too much love of the body and this world do go as it were by untimely birth to Heaven and those in whom the love of the body is predominant come not thither in that state at all The God of Grace and Glory will meet that Soul with his felicitating embracements who panteth and breatheth after him by Love And as Love is a kind of Union with the Heavenly Society the Angels who love us better than we love them will be ready to convey such Souls to God. As the living dwell not in the graves among the dead and the dead are buried from among the living so holy Souls who have this life of Love cannot be among the miserable in Hell nor the dead in sin among the blessed 6. Therefore this life of holy Love doth strengthen our Belief it self Strong Reasons that are brought for the Immortality of Souls and the future Glory are usually lost upon unsanctified hearers yea with the Doctors themselves that use them When they have perswaded others that there is a Heaven for Believers and that by Arguments in themselves unanswerable they have not perswaded their own hearts but the predominant Love of Flesh and Earth doth byass their understandings and maketh them think that they can confute themselves Their gust and inclination prevaileth against Belief And therefore the greatest Scholars are not always the strongest Believers But holy Love when it is the Habit of the Soul as it naturally ascendeth so it easily believeth that God that Glory to which it doth ascend The gust and experience of such a Soul assureth it that it was made for Communion with God and that even in this life such Communion is obtained in some degree and therefore it easily believeth that it is Redeemed for it and that it shall perfectly enjoy it in Heaven for ever Though Glory be here but seminally in Grace and this world be but as the womb of that better world for which we hope yet the life that is in the Embrio and seed is a confirming Argument for the perfection which they tend to O that men knew what holy Love doth signifie and foretel As the seed or Embrio of a man becometh not a Beast or Serpent so he that hath the habitual Love of God and Heaven and Holiness is not capable of Hell no more than the Lovers of worldliness and sensuality are capable of present Communion with God and of his Glory God doth not draw mens Hearts to Himself nor kindle Heavenly desires in them in vain He that hath the Spirit of Christ hath the Witness in himself that Christ and his Promises of Life are true 1 John 5.10 11 12. And what is this Spirit but the Habit of Divine and Heavenly Love and its concomitants May I but feel my Soul inflamed with the fervent Love of the Heavenly Perfection surely it will do more to put me quite out of doubt of the certainty of that blessed state than all Arguments without that Love can do 7. And holy Love will be the surest Evidence of our Sincerity which many old Writers meant that called it The Form of Faith and other graces As means as means are informed by their aptitudinal respect unto the End so Love as it is the Final Act upon God the Final Object thus informeth all subordinate Graces and Duties as they are means And as all Morality is subjected in the Will as the proper primary seat and is in the Intellect executive power and senses only by participation so far as their acts are imperate by the Will so Love and Volition being really the same thing it may accordingly be said that nothing is any further acceptable to God than it is Good and nothing is morally Good any further than it is voluntary or willed and to be willed as Good as End or as Means and to be Loved are words that signifie the same No preaching praying fasting c. no fear of punishment no belief of the Truth c. will prove us sincere and justified any further than we can prove that all this either cometh from or is accompanied with Love that is with a Consenting Will. With the heart man believeth unto righteousness Rom. 10. And If thou believe with all thy heart thou mayest be baptized saith Philip to the Eunuch Acts 8. My Son give me thy heart is Wisdom's invitation All 's nothing without the heart that is without willingness or Love. They that love most are sureliest forgiven and have most holiness or grace how unskifull soever they may be in their expressions The sealing Spirit of Adoption is the Spirit of Love and the Abba Father and the unexpressed groans of filial Love are understood and acceptable to God. A Loving Desire after God and Holiness is a better Evidence than the most taking Tongue or largest Knowledge 8. This life of Holy Love will make all our Religion and Obedience easy to us It will give us an alacrity to the performance and a
pleasure in the practice of it and so our obedience will be hearty willing and universal Who is averse to that which he Loveth unless for something in it which he hateth All men go willingly and readily to that which they truly Love. Therefore it is said that the Law is not made for a Righteous man that is a man that Loveth Piety Temperance and Justice and their several works so far hath no need of Threatning Laws and Penalties to constrain him to it And he that hateth sin so far hath no need of Legal Penalties to restrain him from it Thus is the Law said to be written in our Hearts not as it is meerly in our knowledge and memory but as the matter commanded is truly Loved by us and the sin forbidden truly hated Even our Horses will carry us cheerfully that way which they Love to go and go heavily where they go against their Wills. Win mens Love and the life and lips and all according to power will follow it 9. And such persons therefore are likest to persevere men go unweariedly if they be but able where they go with Love. Especially such a Love which groweth stronger as it draweth nearer the state of perfection which it loveth and groweth by daily renewed experiences and mercies as Rivers grow bigger as they draw nearer to the Sea. We easily hold on in that we Love But that which men loath and their hearts are against they are quickly weary of And the weary person will easily be perswaded to lie down The root of a Apostasie is already in those persons who Love not the end which they pretend to seek nor the work which they pretend to do 10. Lastly holy Love is a pregnant spreading fruitful grace It kindleth a desire to do good to others and to draw men to Love the same God and Heaven and Holiness which we love It made Gods word to be to Jeremy as a burning Fire shut up in his Bones he was weary of forbearing Jer. 20.9 As fire kindleth fire and is the active principle of vegetation as I suppose so Love kindleth Love and is a kind of generative principle of Grace Gods Love is the first cause but Mans Love maketh them meet Instruments of Gods Love For Love will be oft praising the God and Holiness which is loved and earnestly desireth that all others may Love and praise the same The Soul is not indeed converted till its Love is won to God and Goodness A man may be terrified into some austerities superstitions or reformations but he is not further holy than his Heart is won And as every thing that generateth is apt to produce its like so is Love and the words and works of Love. And as Love is the Heart of Holiness so must it be of all fruitful Preaching and conversation whatever the Words or Actions are they are like no farther to win Souls than they demonstrate the Love of God and of Holiness and of the hearers or spectators As among amorous and vain persons strong Love appearing though by a look or word doth kindle the like more than all complements that are known to be but feigned and affected words so usually Souls are won to God as by the Preachers words and works of Love the love and loveliness of God in Christ are fulliest made known Quest But how should we reach this excellent Life of holy Love which doth so far excel all knowledge Ans I have said so much of this in the first part of my Christian Directory and other writings that I must here say but little of it lest I be overmuch guilty of repetitions Briefly Direct I. Believe Gods Goodness to be equal to his Greatness Gods three great primary Attributes are coequal viz. His Power his Wisdom and his Goodness And then look up to the Heavens and think how Great and Powerful is that God that made and continueth such a frame as that Sun and those Stars and those Glorious unmeasureable Regions where they are Think what a World of Creatures God maintaineth in life on this little lower Orb of Earth both in the Seas and on the Land. And then think O what is the Goodness which is equal to all this Power Direct 2. Consider how communicative this Infinite Goodness is Why else is he called LOVE it self Why else made he all the World And why did he make the Sun so Glorious Why else did he animate and beautify the Universe with the Life and Ornaments of Created Goodness All his works shine by the splendor of that excellency which he hath put upon them all are not equal but all are Good and their inequality belongeth to the Goodness of the Universe The Communicative Nature with which God hath endowed all active Beings and the most Noble most is an Impress of the Infinite communicative LOVE Fire would communicate its Light Heat and Motion to all passive objects which are capable of receiving it How pregnant and fertile is the very Earth with plants flowers and fruits of wonderful variety usefulness and beauty What plant is not natured to the propagation of its kind yea to a plenteous multiplication How many Seeds which are Virtual Plants doth each of them bring forth at once and yet the same plant with all its off-spring perhaps liveth many years for further multiplication so that did not the far greatest part of Seeds yearly perish there must be very many such Earths to receive and propagate them This Earth hath not room for the hundredth part To shew us that the Active natures even of Vegetatives do quite exceed in their pregnant communicative activity the receptive capacity of all passive matter which teacheth us to observe that all created Patients are unconceiveably too narrow to receive such Communicative Influences as Infinite pregnant LOVE can communicate were there subjects to receive them It is wonderful to observe in all sorts of Animals the same multiplying communicative inclination and what use the God of nature maketh even of sensual LOVE to all Generation Uniting and Communicative LOVE is in all Creatures the incentive Principle of Procreation And what a multitude of young ones will some one Creature Procreate especially Fishes to admiration So that if other Fishes with Men and other Creatures did not devour them all the Waters on Earth could not contain them Yea our Moral Communicativeness also hath the same indication He that knoweth much would fain have others know the same secret knowledge kept to our selves only hath its excellent use but it satisfieth not the mind nisi te scire hoc sciat alter unless others know that you have such knowledge and unless you can make them know what you know Holy Souls therefore have a fervent but a regular desire and endeavour by communicative Teaching to make others wise But proud Heretical Persons that overvalue their conceits have an irregular Fornicating Lust of Teaching and adulterously invade the charge of others presuming that none can do
it so wisely and so well as they Men will compass Sea and Land to make a Proselyte and Tares and Weeds are as much inclined to propagation as the Wheat There is a marvellous desire in the Nature of man to make others of their own Opinion and when it is governed by Gods Laws it is greatly beneficial to the World. And even in Affections as well as Knowledge it is so We would have others love those that we love and hate what we hate Though where by the insufficiency of the narrow Creature Men must lose and want that themselves which they Communicate to others selfishness forbiddeth such Communication And doubtless all the Creatures in their several Ranks have some such Impresses from the Creator by which his transcendent perfections may be somewhat observed That God is now so Communicative as to give to all Creatures in the World whatever Being Motion Life Order Beauty Harmony Reason Grace Glory any of them possess is past all question to considering sober reason Which tempted Aristotle to think that the World was Eternal and some Christians to think that though this present Heaven and Earth were Created as in Gen. 1. is said yet that from Eternity some Intellectual World at least if not also Corporeal did flow from the Creator as an Eternal Effect of an Eternal Cause or an Eternal Accident of the Deity Because they could not receive it that a God so unspeakably Communicative now who hath made the Sun to be an Emblem of his Communicativeness should from all Eternity be solitary and not communicative when yet to all Eternity he will be so But these are questions which uncapable Mortals were far better let alone than meddle with unless we desire rather to be lost than to be blessed in the Abyss of Eternity and the thoughts of infinite pregnant LOVE But it is so natural for man and every Animal to love that love and goodness which is beneficent not only to us but to all rather than a meer self-lover that doth no good to others that it must needs conduce much to our love of God to consider that he is good to all and his mercy is over all his works and that as there is no light in the Air but from the Sun so there is no goodness but from God in all the World who is more to the Creation than the Sun is to this lower World. And a Sun that lighteth all the Earth is much more precious than my Candle A Nilus which watereth the Land of Egypt is more precious than a private Well It is the Excellency of Kings and publick Persons that if they are good they are good to many And O what innumerable Animals in Sea and Land besides the far greater Worlds of nobler Wights do continually live by one God of Love Study this Universal Infinite Love. Direct 3. Especially study Divine LOVE and Goodness in the Face of our Redeemer Jesus Christ and all the Grace which he hath purchased and conferreth As we may see that magnitude of the Stars in a Telescope which without it no Eye can discern so may we see that glory of the love of God by the Gospel of Jesus which all common natural helps are insufficient to discover to such minds as ours LOVE is the great Attribute which Christ came principally to manifest as was afore-said Joh. 3.16 1 Joh. 3.1 c. And love is the great Lesson which he came to teach us and love is the new nature which by his Spirit he giveth us And love is the great duty which by Law and Gospel he requireth of us Love hath wrought its Miracles in Christ to the posing of the understandings of Men and Angels There we may see God in the nearest condescending Unity with Man In Christ we may see the divine wisdom and word incorporate in such Flesh as ours conceived in a Virgin by the power of the Spirit of Love by which Spirit this Incorporate Word did Live Preach Converse familiarly with Man work Miracles heal Diseases suffer reproachful Calumnies and Death Rising Triumphing Ascending Interceeding sending the Embassies of Love to the World calling Home the greatest sinners unto God reconciling Enemies and making them the Adopted Sons of God forgiving all sin to penitent Believers quickening dead Souls illuminating the Blind and sanctifying the Wicked by the Spirit of Life and Light and Love and making it his Office his Work his Delight and Glory to rescue the miserable Captives of the Devil and to make Heirs of Heaven of those that were condemned to Hell and had forsaken Life in forsaking God. As this is shining burning love so it is approaching and self-applying love which cometh so near us in ways and benefits so necessary to us and so exceeding congruous to our case as that it is easier for us to perceive and feel it than we can do things of greater distance The clearer the Eye of Faith is by which we look into this mysterious Glass the more the wonders of Love will be perceived in it He never knew Christ nor understood the Gospel that wondered not at Redeeming saving love nor did he ever learn of Christ indeed that hath not learned the Lesson Work and Life of love Direct 4. Keep as full Records as you can of the particular Mercies of God to your selves and frequently peruse them and plead them with your frozen Hearts These are not the chiefest reasons of Christian love because we are such poor inconsiderable Worms that to do good to one of us is a far smaller matter than many things else that we have to think of for that end But yet when love doth chuse a particular Person for its object and there bestow its obliging Gifts it helpeth that Person far more than others to returns of thankfulness and love It 's that place that Glass which the Sun doth shine upon doth reflect its Beams rather than those that are shut up in darkness Self-love may and must be regulated and sanctified to the furthering of higher love It is not unmeet to say with David Psal 116.1 I love the Lord because he hath heard the voice of my supplication We should say as heartily I love the Lord because he hath prospered recovered comforted my Neighbour But this is not all so easie as the other And where God by personal application maketh our greatest duty easie we should use his helps Obj. But if it be selfishness as some tell us to love one that loveth us better than another of equal worth who doth not love us is it not selfishness to love God on so low an account as loving us God may say well I love those that love me Prov. 8.17 because to love him is the highest virtue but to love us is as inconsiderable as we are Ans 1. You may love another the more for loving you on several accounts 1. As it is a duty which God requireth him to perform but so you must love him equally
seek that and to enjoy it the little time that it will endure how should this love make them fit for Heaven for a Life of holiness with God and Saints It is this that they love not and will not love for if they truely loved it they should have it yea it is this that they hate and will not accept or be perswaded to And what a fond conceit then is it to think that they shall have Heaven that never loved it no nor the small beginnings here of the Heavenly Nature and Life and all because they loved the pleasures of the Flesh on Earth and loved God and their Neighbours for promoting it 5. Yea I would ask the Infidel whether God will save men for rebelling against him Their love to their Flesh and to the Creature as it is inordinate and taketh Gods place and shutteth out the love of Holiness and Heaven is their great Sin and Idolatry And shall this be called a saving love of God What gross self-deceit hath sensuality taught these men 6. I grant them therefore that all men that believe that there is a God do love somewhat of God or secundum quid or in some partial respect have some kind of love to God. But it is not a love to that of God which must save felicitate and glorifie Souls Meat and Drink and fleshly Sports do not this but Heavenly Glory Wisdom Holiness and Love to God and Man for God and this they love not and therefore never shall enjoy Nay that of God which should save and felicitate them they hate and hated holiness is none of theirs nor ever can be till they are changed And so much to the Infidels Objection 7. I add therefore in the last place to help men in the tryal of their love to God that their love must have these two qualifications 1. They must love that of God which maketh man happy and is indeed the end of his Nature and Sanctification And that is not only the comforts of this transitory natural Life and Flesh but the fore described Union and Communion with God in perfect knowledge love and praise 2. This love to God must be predominant and prevail against the power of alluring objects which Satan would use to turn our Hearts from him and to keep out holy Heavenly love Damning sin consisteth in loving somewhat that is good and lovely and that is of God but it is not simply in loving it but in loving it inordinately instead of God or greater things and out of its due time and rank and measure and so as to hinder that love which is our holiness and happiness Moral Good consisteth not in meer Entity but in Order and disorderly Love even of real good is sinful Love. Therefore when all is said the old mark which I have many and many times repeated is it that must try the sincerity of your love viz. If 1. in the esteem of a believing mind 2. And in the choice and adherence of a resolved will 3. And in the careful serious endeavours of your lives you prefer the knowing loving obeying and joyful praising of God begun here and perfected in Glory as the benefit of our Redemption by Christ before all the interests of this fleshly life the pleasures profits and honours of this World that is before the pleasures of sin and sensuality for this transitory Season Or in Christs words Mat. 6.33 If you SEEK FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS and trust him to superadd all other things This is that love of God and goodness which must save us And he that loveth God even in these high respects a little and loveth his fleshly pleasure so much more as that he will not consent to the regulating of his Lusts but will rather venture or let go his Salvation than his sins hath no true saving love to God. Obj. There is scarce any Fornicator Drunkard Glutton Swearer or other rash and sensual sinner but believeth that God is better than the creature and that it were better for him to live to God in love and holiness than to live in sinful pleasures and therefore though he live in sin against this knowledge it seemeth that with the rational will he loveth God and Goodness best because he judgeth them best Ans 1. It is one thing what the judgment saith and another thing how it saith it A speculative judgment may drowsily say that God and Holiness are best when yet it saith it but as a dreaming opinion which prevaileth not with the will to choose them having at the same time so strong an apprehension of the pleasures of sin as carryeth away the will and practice 2. It is one thing therefore to love God under the notion of being best and another thing to love him best For the will can cross such a notion of the understanding at least by an omission as appeareth by the sin of Adam which began in the will or else had been necessitated The same understanding which sluggishly saith God or Holiness is better yet may more clearly and vehemently say Lust is pleasant or Pleasure of the flesh is good and being herein seconded with the strong apprehensions of sense and fantasie the will may follow this simple judgment and neglect the comparate 3. It is one thing for the understanding to say that God is more amiable to one that hath a heart to love him and a suitable disposition and another thing to say he is now more amiable to me those can say the first that cannot truly say the latter and therefore love not God as best and above all 4. It is one thing for the understanding sometimes under conviction to say God and Holiness are best for me and I ought to love them best and then to lay by the exercise of this judgment in the ordinary course of life though it be not contradicted and to live in the continual apprehension of the goodness of sensual pleasure and another thing to keep the judgment that God and Holiness are best in ordinary exercise For the will doth not always follow the judgment that we had before but that which we have at present and that which we exercise not we have not at that time in act and it is not a meer power or habit of knowledge which ruleth the will but the present act Many a man is said to know that which he doth not think of when indeed he doth not know it at that time but only would know it if he thought of it As a man in his sleep is said to know what he knew awake when indeed he knoweth it not actually till he be awake Obj. But true grace is rather to be judged of by the habit than by the present acts Ans By the habit of the Will it is that is by habitual love for that will command the most frequent acts but I propose it to the consideration of the judicious whether an ordinary habit of
drowsy knowledge or belief that God and Holiness are best may not be ordinarily kept out of act and consist with a prevailing habit of sensuality or love of forbidden pleasure in the will and with a privation of prevalent habitual love to God and Holiness I suppose with most such sinners this is the true case the understanding said lately It is best for thee to love God and live to him and deny thy lust And it oft forgetteth this while it still saith with sense that fleshly pleasure is desireable and at other times it saith Though God be best thou maist venture at the present on this pleasure and so le ts loose the corrupted will reserving a purpose to repent hereafter as apprehending most strongly at the present that just now sensual delight may be chosen though holiness will be best hereafter Obj. But if a habit will not prove that we sincerely love and prefer God how shall any man know that he loveth and preferreth him when the best oft sin and in the act of sin God is not actually preferred Ans 1. I told you that a habit of true love will prove sincerity though not a habit of true opinion or belief which is not brought into lively and ordinary act uneffectual faith may be habitual Yea such an uneffectual counterfeit half love which I before described to you may be habitual and yet neither act nor habit saving 2. The Sins of godly men are not prevalent absolutely against the being operation or effects of the love of God and Holiness For even when they sin these live and are predominant in all other things and in the main bent and course of life but only they prevail against some Degree of holy love perhaps both in the act and habit for such sins are not ungodliness but imperfection of godliness and the effects of that imperfection 3. When godly men fall into a great extraordinary sin it is not to be expected that they should comfortably discern the sincerity of their love to God either by that sin or in that sin but they may discern it 1. By the course of a godly life where the prevalency of the habit appeareth in the power and stream of acts and 2. By their Repentance for and abhorring and forsaking of that sin which stopt and darkened their love to God. And these two together viz A resolved course of living unto God and Repentance and Hatred of every sin which is against it and especially of greater sins will shew the sincerity and power of holy love Obj. But then one that sinneth daily e. g. by passion or too much love to the World or creatures and by omissions c. shall never be sure that he sincerely loveth God because this is a course of sin and he cannot have such assurance till he forsake it Ans One that ordinarily committeth gross and wilful sin that is such sin as he had rather keep than leave and as he would leave if he were but sincerely willing hath no predominant love of God at least in act and therefore can have no assurance of it But one that is ordinarily guilty of meer infirmities may at the same time know that the love of God doth rule both in his heart and life The Passion of fear or of anger or of sorrow may be inordinate and yet God loved best because the will hath so weak a power over them that a man that is guilty of them may truly say I would fain be delivered from them And some inordinate love of life health wealth friends honour may stand with a more prevailing love of God and the prevalency be well perceived But what greater actual sin as Noahs or Lots Drunkenness Davids Adultery and Murder Peters denial of Christ are or are not consistent with true love to God is a case that I have elsewhere largely handled and is unmeet for a short decision here Obj. But when I feel my heart desires and delights all cold to God and Holiness and too hot after fleshly worldly things may I not conclude that I love these better Ans Sensible near things may have much more of the passionate part of our love our desires and delights and yet not be best loved by us For God and Things Spiritual being out of the reach of sense are not so apt or like to move our sense and passion immediately to and by themselves As I said before that is best loved which hath 1. The highest esteem of the understanding 2. The most resolved prevalent choice of the will 3. And the most faithful endeavours of our life And many a Christian mistaketh his affection to the thing it self because of his strangeness to the place and to the change that death will make If the weakest Christian could have without dying the clear knowledge of God the communion of Faith and Love by his Spirit could he love God but as much as he would love him and answerably tast his love in every prayer in every promise in every Sacrament in every mercy could his Soul keep a continual sabbath of delight in God and in his Saints and Holy worship this seemeth to him more desireable and pleasing than all the treasures of the World. And he that desireth this communion with God desireth Heaven in reality though he fear the change that death will make because of the weakness of faith and our strangeness to the state of separated Souls Chap. XX. The second part of the Exhortation Rest in this that you are known with Love to God. 2. TO be KNOWN OF GOD here signifieth to be approved and Loved of him and consequently that all our concerns are perfectly known to him and regarded by him This is the full and final comfort of a believer Our Knowledge and Love of God in which we are agents are 1. The evidence that we are known with Love to God and so our comfort as is said by way of Evidence 2. And they are our comfort in their very exercise But the chief part of our comfort is from God not only as the Object of our Love but as the Lover of us and all his Saints even in our passive receiving of the blessed effects of his Love for ever When a Christian therefore hath any discerning of his interest in this Love of God by finding that he Loveth God and Goodness here he must finally Anchor his Soul and quietly rest in all Temptations Difficulties and Tribulations 1. Our enemies know us not but judge of us by blinding interest and the biass of their false opinions and by an easy belief of false reports or by their own ungrounded suspicions And therefore we are odious to them and abused slandered and persecuted by them But God knoweth us and will justify our righteousness and bring all our innocency into light and stop the mouth of all iniquity 2. Strangers know us not but receive such Characters of us as are brought to them with the greatest advantage And
on his truth and mercies But God will not lose his knowledge of me nor turn away his mercy from me The foundation of God standeth sure having this seal the Lord knoweth them that are his and let him that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity 2 Tim. 2.19 He can call me his Child when I doubt whether I may call him Father He doubteth not of his right to me nor of his graces in me when I doubt of my sincerity and part in him Known unto God are all his works Act. 15.18 What meaneth Paul thus to describe a state of grace Gal. 4.9 Now after ye have known God or rather are known of of God but to notify to us that though our knowledge of God be his grace in us and our evidence of his love and the beginning of life eternal Joh. 17.3 yet that we are loved and known of him is the first and last the foundation and the perfection of our security and felicity He knoweth his Sheep and none shall take them out of his hand When I cannot through pain or distemper remember him or not with renewed Joy or Pleasure he will remember me and delight to do me good and to be my Salvation 8. And though the belief of the unseen World be the principle by which I conquer this yet are my conceptions of it lamentably dark A Soul in flesh which acteth as the form of a body is not furnished with such images helps or light by which it can have clear conceptions of the state and operations of separated Souls But I am known of God when my knowledge of him is dark and small And he knoweth whither it is that he will take me what my state and work shall be He that is preparing a place for me with himself is well acquainted with it and me All Souls are his and therefore all are known to him He that is now the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob as being living with him while they are dead to us will receive my departing Soul to them and to himself to be with Christ which he hath instructed me to commend into his hands and to desire him to receive He that is now making us living Stones for the new Jerusalem and his heavenly temple doth know where every one of us shall be placed And his knowledge must now be my satisfaction and my peace Let unbelievers say How doth God know Psal 73.11 But shall I doubt whether he that made the Sun be Father of lights and whether he know his dwelling and his continued works Be still O my Soul and know that he is God Psal 40.10 and when he hath guided thee by his counsel he will take thee to Glory and in his Light thou shalt have Light And though now it appear not to sight but to Faith only what we shall be yet we known that we shall see him as he is and we shall appear with him in glory And to be KNOWN of God undoubtedly includeth his PRACTICAL LOVE which secureth our Salvation and all that tendeth thereunto It is not meant of such a knowledge only as he hath of all things or of such as he hath of the ungodly And why should it be hard to thee O my Soul to be perswaded of the love of God Is it strange that he should love thee who is Essential Infinite love Any more than that the Sun should shine upon thee which shineth upon all capable recipient objects though not upon the uncapable which through interposing things cannot receive it To believe that Satan or wicked men or deadly Enemies should love me is hard But to believe that the God of love doth love me should in reason be much easier than to believe that my Father or Mother or dearest friend in the World doth love me If I do not make and continue my self uncapable of his complacence by my wilful continued refusing of his grace it is not possible that I should be deprived of it Prov. 8.17 I love them that love me Psal 146.8 The Lord loveth the righteous John 16.27 2. Why should it be hard to thee to believe that he loveth thee who doth good so universally to the World and by his love doth preserve the whole Creation and give all Creatures all the good which they possess When his mercy is over all his works and his Goodness is equal to his wisdom and his power and all the World is beautified by it shall I not easily believe that it will extend to me The Lord is good to all Psal 145.9 Luk. 18.19 None is good essentially absolutely and transcendently but he alone Psal 33.5 The Earth is full of the goodness of the Lord Psal 52.1 The goodness of God endureth continually He is good and doth good Psal 119.68 And shall I not expect good from so good a God the cause of all the good that is in the World 3. Why should I not believe that he will love me who so far loved the World yea his Enemies as to give his only begotten Son that whoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life Joh. 3.16 Having given me so precious a gift as his Son will he think any thing too good to give me Rom. 8.32 yea still he followeth his Enemies with his mercies not leaving himself without witness to them but filling their hearts with food and gladness and causing his Sun to shine on them and his Rain to fall on them and by his goodness leading them to repentance 4. Why should I not easily believe his love which he hath sealed by that certain gift of love the Spirit of Christ which he hath given The giving of the Holy Ghost is the shedding abroad of his love upon the heart Rom. 5. I had never known desired loved or served him sincerely but by that Spirit And will he deny his name his mark his seal his Pledge and Earnest of Eternal life Could I ever have truly loved Him his Word his Ways and Servants but by the reflection of his love shall I question whether he love those whom he hath caused to love him When our love is the surest gift and token of his love shall I think that I can love him more than he loveth me or be more willing to serve him than he is willing and ready to reward his Servants Heb. 11.6 1 Joh. 3.24 and 4.13 5. Shall I not easily hope for good from him who hath made such a covenant of Grace with me in Christ Who giveth me what his Son hath purchased who accepteth me in his most beloved as a member of his Son Who hath bid me ask and I shall have And hath made to Godliness the promise of this life and that to come and will with-hold no good thing from them that walk uprightly Will not such a Gospel such a Covenant such promises of love secure me that he loveth me while I consent unto his covenant terms 6. Shall I not easily believe