It is God that justifieth Who shall separate us from the love of Christ Shall tribulation or distresse or persecution or famine or nakednesse or perill or sword Nay in all these things we are more then conquerours through him that loved us So as neither death nor life nor Angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Lo where this love is placed were it our love of God how easily might the power of a prevalent temptation separate us from it or it from us for alas what hold is to be taken of our affections which like unto water are so much more apt to freez because they have been heated but it is the love of God to us in Christ Jesus which is ever as himself constant and eternall He can no more cease to love us then to be himself he cannot but be unchangeable we cannot but be happy SECT 10. Our sense and improvement of Christs love in all the former particulars and first in respect of the inequality of the persons ALL this O dear Jesu hast thou done all this hast thou suffered for men And oh now for an heart that might be some wayes answerable to thy mercies Surely even good natures hate to be in debt for love and are ready to repay favours with interest Oh for a soul sick of love yea sick unto death why should I how can I be any otherwise any whit lesse affected O Saviour this only sicknesse is my health this death is my life and not to be thus sick is to be dead in sins and trespasses I am rock and not flesh if I be not wounded with these heavenly darts Ardent affection is apt to attract love even where is little or no beauty and excellent beauty is no lesse apt to enflame the heart where there is no answer of affection but when these two meet together what breast can hold against them and here they are both in an eminent degree Thou canst say even of thy poor Church though labouring under many imperfections Thou hast ravished my heart my sister my Spouse thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes with one chain of thy neck how fair is thy love my sister my Spouse And canst thou O blessed Saviour be so taken with the incurious and homely features of thy faithfull ones and shall not we much more bee altogether enamoured of thine absolute and divine beauty of whom every beleeving soul can say my beloved is white and ruddy the chiefest among ten thousand his head is as the most fine gold his eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters his cheeks are as a bed of spices as sweet flowers his lips like lillies dropping sweet smelling myrrhe c. It hath pleased thee O Lord out of the sweet ravishments of thy heavenly love to say to thy poor Church Turn away thine eyes from me for they have overcome me but oh let me say unto thee Turn thine eyes to me that they may overcome me I would be thus ravished thus overcome I would be thus ravish thus overcome I would be thus out of my self that I might be all in thee Thou lovedst me before I had beeing Let me now that I have a beeing be wholly taken up with thy love Let me set all my soul upon thee that gavest me beeing upon thee who art the eternall and absolute Self-being who hast said and only could say I am that I am Alas Lord we are nothing but what thou wilt have us and cease to be when thou callest in that breath of life which thou hast lent us thou art that incomprehensibly glorious and infinite self-existing Spirit from eternity in eternity to eternity in and from whom all things are It is thy wonderfull mercy that thou wouldst condescend so low as to vouchsafe to be loved of my wretchednesse of whom thou mightest justly require and expect nothing but terrour and trembling It is my happinesse that I may be allowed to love a Majesty so infinitely glorious Oh let me not be so far wanting to my own felicity as to be lesse then ravished with thy love SECT 11. A further inforcement of our love to Christ in respect of our unworthiness and his sufferings and prepared glory THou lovedst me when I was deformed loathly forlorn and miserable shall I not now love thee when thou hast freed me and deckt me with the ornaments of thy Graces Lord Jesu who should enjoy the fruit of thine own favours but thy self How shamefully injurious were it that when thou hast trimm'd up my soul it should prostitute it self to the love of the world Oh take my heart to thee alone possesse thy self of that which none can claim but thy self Thou lovedst me when I was a professed rebell against thee and receivedst me not to mercy only but to the indearment of a subject a servant a son where should I place the improvement of the thankfull affections of my loyalty and duty but upon thee Thou O God hast so loved us that thou wouldst become the Son of man for our sakes that we who are the sons of men might become the sons of God Oh that we could put off the man to put on Christ that we could neglect and hate our selves for thee that hast so dearly loved us as to lay aside thine heavenly glory for us How shall I be vile enough O Saviour for thee who for my sake being the Lord of life and glory wouldst take upon thee the shape of a servant How should I welcome that poverty which thy choice hath sanctified How resolutely shall I grapple with the temptations of that enemy whom thou hast foiled for me How â—hearfully should I passe through â—hose miseries and that death which â—hou hast sweetned With what comfortable assurance shall I look upon the face of that mercifull Justice which thou hast satisfied But oh what a blessed inheritance hast thou in â—ine infinite love provided for me 〈◊〉 inheritance incorruptible and unâ—â—filed and that fadeth not away reâ—erved in heaven for me so as when â—â—y earthly house of this Tabernacle â—hall be dissolved I have a building of God an house not made with â—ands eternall in the heavens An â—ouse Yea a Palace of heavenly â—â—ate and magnificence neither is it â—esse then a kingdome that abides there â—or me a kingdome so much more â—bove these worldly Monarchies as â—eaven is above this clod of earth Now Lord what conceits what affections of mine can be in the least sort answerable to so transcendent mercy If some friend shall have been pleased to bestow some mean Legacy upon me or shall have feoffed me in some few acres of his Land how deeply do I finde my self obliged to the love and memory of so kinde a Benefactor O then Lord how can my soul be capable
the least of them but a world of light and what are all of them but a confluence of so many thousand worlds of beauty and brightnesse met in one firmament And if this floor of thine heavenly Palace be thus richly set forth oh how infinite glory and magnificence must there needs be within Thy chosen Vessell that had the priviledge to be caught up thither and to see that divine state whether with bodily or mentall eyes can expresse it no otherwise then that it cannot possibly be expressed No Lord it were not infinite if it could be uttered Thoughts go beyond words yet even these come far short also He that saw it sayes Eye hath not seen nor ear heard neither have entred into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him SECT 7. His love in our redemption from death and hell YEt is thy love O Saviour so much more to be magnified of me in this purchased glory when I cast down mine eyes and look into that horrible gulf of torment and eternall death whence thou hast rescued my poor soul Even out of the greatest contentment which this world is capable to afford unto mankinde to be preferred to the joyes of heaven is an unconceivable advantage but from the depth of misery to be raised up unto the highest pitch of felicity addes so much more to the blessing as the evill from which we are delivered is more intolerable Oh blessed Jesu what an hell is this out of which thou hast freed me what dreadfull horror is here what darknesse what confusion what anguish of souls that would and cannot die what howling and yelling and shrieking and gnashing what everlasting burnings what never slaking tortures what mercilesse fury of unweariable tormentors what utter despair of any possibility of release what exquisitenesse what infinitenesse of pains that cannot yet must be endured Oh God if the impotent displeasure of weak men have devised so subtle engins of revenge upon their fellow-mortals for but petty offences how can we but think thine infinite justice and wisdome must have ordained such forms and wayes of punishment for hainous sins done against thee as may be answerable to the violation of thy divine Majesty Oh therefore the most fearfull and deplored condition of damned spirits never to be ended never to be abated Oh those unquenchable flames Oh that burning Tophet deep and large and those streams of brimstone wherewith it is kindled Oh that worm ever gnawing and tearing the heart never dying never sated Oh ever-living death oh ever renuing torments oh never pitied never intermitted damnation From hence O Saviour from hence it is that thou hast fetcht up my condemned soul This is the place this is the state out of which thou hast snatcht me up into thy heaven Oh love and mercy more deep then those depths from which thou hast saved me more high then that heaven to which thou hast advanced me SECT 8. Christs love in giving us the guard of his Angels NOw whereas in my passage from this state of death towards the fruition of immortall glory I am way-laid by a world of dangers partly through my own sinfull aptnesse to miscarriages and partly through the assaults of my spirituall enemies how hath thy tender love and compassion O blessed Jesu undertaken to secure my soul from all these deadly perils both without out and within without by the guardance of thy blessed Angels within by the powerfull inoperation of thy good Spirit which thou hast given me Oh that mine eyes could be opened with Elishaes servant that I might see those troops of heavenly souldiers those horses and chariots of fire wherewith thou hast encompassed me every one of which is able to chase away a whole host of the powers of darknesse Who am I Lord who am I that upon thy gracious appointment these glorious spirits should still watch over me in mine uprising and down lying in my going out and coming in that they should bear me in their arms that they should shield me with their protection Behold such is their majesty and glory that some of thy holiest servants have hardly been restrained from worshipping them yet so great is thy love to man as that thou hast ordained them to be ministring spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation Surely they are in nature far more excellent then man as being spirituall substances pure intelligences meet to stand before the throne of thee the King of glory What a mercy then is this that thou who wouldst humble thy self to be lower then they in the susception of our nature art pleased to humble them in their offices to the guardianship of man so far as to call them the Angels of thy little ones upon earth How hast thou blessed us and how should we blesse thee in so mighty and glorious attendants SECT 9. His love in giving us his holy Spirit NEither hast thou O God meerly turn'd us over to the protection of those tutelary spirits but hast held us still in thine own hand having not so strongly defenced us without as thou hast done within Since that is wrought by thine Angels this by thy Spirit Oh the Soveraign and powerfull influences of thy holy Ghost whereby we are furnished with all saving graces strengthned against all temptations heartned against all our doubts and fears enabled both to resist and overcome and upon our victories crowned Oh divine bounty far beyond the reach of wonder So God the Father loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever beleeveth in him should not perish but have everlasting life So God the Son loved the world of his elect that he gave unto them the holy Spirit of promise whereby they are sealed unto the day of redemption whereby according to the riches of his glory they are strengthened with might in the inner man by the vertue whereof shed abroad in their hearts they are enabled to cry Abba Father Oh gifts either of which are more worth then many worlds yet through thy goodnesse O Lord both of them mine how rich is my soul through thy divine munificence how over-laid with mercies How safe in thine Almighty tuition How happy in thy blessed possession Now therefore I dare in the might of my God bid defiance to all the gates of hell Do your worst O all ye principalities and powers and rulers of the darknesse of this world and spirituall wickednesses in high places doe your worst God is mine and I am his I am above your malice in the right of him whose I am It is true I am weak but he is omnipotent I am sinfull but he is infinite holinesse that power that holinesse in his gracious application is mine It is my Saviours love that â—ath made this happy exchange of his righteousnesse for my sin of his power for my infirmity Who then shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect
the Spouse of this heavenly Bridegroom whom he marrieth unto himself for ever in righteousnesse and in judgement and in loving kindnesse and in mercies Esai 62. 5. Hos 2. 9. and this match thus made up fulfils that decretive word of the Almighty They twain shall be one flesh Eph. 5. 31. Gen. 2. 24. O happy conjunction of the second Adam with her which was taken out of his most precious side Oh heavenly and compleat marriage wherein God the Father brings and gives the Bride Gen. 2. 22. All that the Father giveth me shal come to me saith Christ Joh. 6. 37. wherein God the Son receives the Bride as mutually partaking of the same nature and can say This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh Joh. 1. 14. Gen. 2. 23. wherein God the holy Ghost knits our wils in a full and glad consent to the full consummation of this blessed wedlock And those whom God hath thus joyned together let no man no Devill can put asunder What is there then which an affectionate husband can withhold from a dear wife He that hath given himself to her what can he deny to impart He that hath made himself one with her how can he be divided from his other-self Some wilde fancies there are that have framed the links of marriage of so brittle stuffe as that they may be knapt in sunder upon every sleight occasion but he that ordained it in Paradise for an earthly representation of this heavenly union betwixt Christ and his Church hath made that and his own indissoluble Here is no contract in the future which upon some intervenient accidents may be remitted but I am my welbeloveds and my welbeloved is mine Cant. 6. 3. Cant. 2. 16. And therefore each is so others that neither of them is their own Oh the comfortable mystery of our uniting to the Son of God! The wife hath not the power of her own body but the husband 1 Cor. 7. 4. We are at thy disposing O Saviour we are not our own Neither art thou so absolutely thine as that we may not through thine infinite mercy claim an interesse in thee Thou hast given us such a right in thy self as that we are bold to lay challenge to all that is thine to thy love to thy merits to thy blessings to thy glory It was wont of old to be the plea of the Roman wives to their husbands Where thou art Caius I am Caia and now in our present marriages we have not stuck to say With all my worldly goods I thee endow And if it be thus in our imperfect conjunctions here upon earth how much more in that exquisite onenesse which is betwixt thee O blessed Saviour and thy dearest Spouse the Church What is it then that can hinder us from a sweet and heavenly fruition of thee Is it the loathsome condition of our nature Thou sawst this before and yet couldst say when when we were yet in our bloud Live Ezek. 16. 6. Had we not been so vile thy mercy had not been so glorious thy free grace did all for us Thou washedst us with water and anointedst us with oyle and cloathedst us with broidered work and girdedst us about with fine linnen and coveredst us with silk and deckedst us with ornaments and didst put bracelets upon our hands and a chain on our neck and jewels on our fore-heads and ear-rings on our ears a beautifull crown on our own heads Ezek. 16. 9 10 11 12. What we had not thou gavest what thou didst not find thou madest that we might be a not-unmeet match for the Lord of life Is it want of beauty Behold I am black but comely Cant. 1. 5. what ever our hiew be in our own or others eyes it is enough that we are lovely in thine Cant. 1. 16. Behold thou art fair my beloved behold thou art fair yea pleasant Cant. 1. 16. Thou art beautifull O my love as Tirzah comely as Jerusalem How fair and how pleasant art thou O Love for delights Cant. 6 3. 7. 6. But oh Saviour if thou take contentment in this poor unperfect beauty of thy Spouse the Church how infinite pleasure should thy Spouse take in that absolute perfection that is in thee who art all loveliness and glory And if she have ravished thy heart with one of her eyes Cant. 5. 16. 4. 9. how much more reason hath her heart to be wholly ravished with both thine which are so full of grace and amiablenesse and in this mutuall fruition what can there be other then perfect blessedness SECT 6. The resemblance of this union by the nourishment and the body THe Spirit of God well knowing how much it imports us both to know and feel this blessed union whereof himself is the only worker labours to set it forth to us by the representations of many of our familiar concernments which we daily finde in our meats and drinks in our houses in our gardens and orchards That which is nearest to us is our nourishment what can be more evident then that the bread the meat the drink that we receive is incorporated into us and becomes part of the substance whereof we consist so as after perfect digestion there can be no distinction betwixt what we are and what we took Whiles that bread was in the bing and that meat in the shambles and that drink in the vessell it had no relatian to us nor we to it yea whiles all these were on the Table yea in our mouthes yea newly let down into our stomachs they are not fully ours for upon some nauseating dislike of nature they may yet go the same way they came but if the concoction be once fully finished now they are so turned into our bloud and flesh that they can be no more distinguished from our former substance then that could be divided from it self now they are dispersed into the veins and concorporated to the flesh and no part of our flesh and bloud is more ours then that which was lately the bloud of the grapes and the flesh of this fowl or that beast Oh Saviour thou who art truth it self hast said Joh. 6. 51. I am the living bread that came down from heaven v. 55. My flesh is meat indeed and my bloud is drink indeed and thereupon hast most justly inferred v. 56. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my bloud dwelleth in me and I in him and as a necessary consequent of this spirituall manducation v. 54. whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my bloud hath eternal life Lo thou art bread indeed not the cōmon bread but Manna not the Israelitish Manna alas that fell from no higher then the region of clouds and they that are it died with it in their mouthes but thou art the living bread that came down from the heaven of heavens of whom whosoever eats lives for ever Thy flesh is meat not for our stomachs but for our souls our faith receives and digests thee and
thing for a man to hold constant to his own apprehensions Lord God! what a world do we meet with of those who mis-call themselves severall Religions indeed severall professions of one and the same Christianity Melchites Georgians Maronites Jacobites Armenians Abysines Cophti Nestorians Russians Mengrellians and the rest that fill up the large Map of Christianography all which as whiles they hold the head Christ they cannot be denyed the priviledge of his members so being such they are or should be indissolubly joyned together in the unity of spirit and maintenance of the faith which was once delivered unto the Saints Jude 3. It is not the variety of by-opinions that should or can exclude them from having their part in that one Catholick Church and their just claim to the communion of Saints whiles they hold the solid and precious foundation it is not the hay or stubble 1 Cor. 3. 12. which they lay upon it that can set them off from God or his Church But in the mean time it must be granted that they have much to answer for to the God of peace and unity who are so much addicted to their own conceits and so indulgent to their own interesse as to raise and maintain new Doctrines and to set up new Sects in the Church of Christ varying from the common and received truths labouring to draw Disciples after them to the great distraction of souls and scandall of Christianity With which sort of disturbers I must needs say this age into which we are fallen hath been and is above all that have gone before us most miserably pestered What good soul can be other then confounded to hear of and see more then an hundred and fourscore new and some of them dangerous and blasphemous opinions broached and defended in one once famous and unanimous Church of Christ Who can say other upon the view of these wilde thoughts then Gerson said long since that the world now grown old is full of doting fancies if not rather that the world now near his end raves and talks nothing but fancies and frenzies How arbitrary soever these self-willed fanaticks may think it to take to themselves this liberty of thinking what they list and venting what they think the blessed Apostle hath long since branded them with an heavy sentence Rom. 16. 17. Now I beseech you brethren mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which you have learned and avoid them For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly and by good words and by fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple But notwithstanding all this hideous variety of vain and heterodoxall conceptions he who is the truth of God and the Bridegroom of his Spouse the Church hath said Cant. 6. 9. My Dove my undefiled is one One in the main essentiall fundamentall verities necessary to salvation though differing in divers mis-raised Corollaries inconsequent inferences unnecessary additions feigned traditions unwarrantahle practises the body is one though the garments differ yea rather for most of these the garment is one but differs in the dressing handsomely and comly set out by one disguised by another Neither is it nor ever shall be in the power of all the fiends of hell the professed make-bates of the world to make Gods Church other then one which were indeed utterly to extinguish and reduce it to nothing for the unity and entity of the Church can no more be divided then it self It were no lesse then blasphemy to fasten upon the chaste and most holy husband of the Church any other then one Spouse In the Institution of Marriage did he not make one yet had he the residue of the spirit and wherefore one that he might seek a goodly seed Mal. 2. 15. That which he ordained for us shall not the holy God much more observe in his own heavenly match with his Church Here is then one Lord one Faith one Baptisme One Baptisme by which we enter into the Church one Faith which we professe in the Church and one Lord whom we serve and who is the head and husband of the Church SECT 21. The union of Christians in matter of affection HOw much therefore doth it concern us that we who are united in one common beleef should be much more united in affection that where there is one way there should be much more one heart Jer. 32. 39. This is so justly supposed that the Prophet Amos 3. 3. questions Can two walk together except they be agreed if we walk together in our judgments we cannot but accord in our wils This was the praise of the Primitive Christians and the pattern of their successors The multitude of them that beleeved were of one heart and of the soul Acts 4. 32. Yea this is the Livery which our Lord and Saviour made choice of whereby his meniall servants should be known and distinguished By this shall all men know that ye be my Disciples if ye have love to one another Joh. 13. 35. In vain shall any man pretend to a Discipleship if he do not make it good by his love to all the family of Christ The whole Church is the spiritull Temple of God every beleever is a living stone laid in those sacred wals what is our Christian love but the morter or cement whereby these stones are fast joyned together to make up this heavenly building without which that precious fabrick could not hold long together but would be subject to dis-joynting by those violent tempests of opposition wherewith it is commonly beaten upon There is no place for any loose stone in Gods edifice the whole Church is one entire body all the lims must be held together by the ligaments of Christian love if any one will be severed and affect to subsist of it self it hath lost his place in the body Thus the Apostle Eph. 4. 15 16. That we being sincere in love may grow up into him in all things which is the head even Christ from whom the whole body fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every joynt supplyeth according to the effectuall working in the measure of every part maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of it self in love But in case there happen to be differences in opinion concerning points not essentiall not necessary to salvation this diversity may not breed an alienation of affection That charity which can cover a multitude of sins may much more cover many small dissensions of judgement We cannot hope to be all and at all times equally enlightned at how many and great weaknesses of judgment did it please our mercifull Saviour to connive in his domestick Disciples They that had so long sate at the sacred feet of him that spake as never man spake were yet to seek of those Scriptures which had so clearly foretold his resurrection Joh. 20. 9. and after that were at a fault for the manner of his kingdome Acts 1. 6.
a beeing thou shouldst follow me with succeeding mercies who but thou who art infinite in goodnesse would love that which is not Our poor sensuall love is drawn from us by the sight of a face or a picture neither is ever raised but upon some pleasing motive thou wouldst make that which thou wouldst love and wouldst love that which thou hadst made O God was there ever love so free so gracious as this of thine Who can be capable to love us but men or Angels Men love us because they see something in us which they think amiable Angels love us because thou dost so But why dost thou O blessed Lord love us but because thou wouldst There can be no cause of thy will which is the cause of all things Even so Lord since this love did rise only from thee let the praise and glory of it rest only in thee SECT 2. How free of us that had made our selves vile and miserable YEt more Lord we had lost our selves before we were and having forfeited what we should be had made our selves perfectly miserable even when we were worse then nothing thou wouldst love us was there ever any eye enamoured of deformity Can there by any bodily deformity comparable to that of sin yet Lord when sin had made us abominably loathsome didst thou cast thy love upon us A little scurf of leprosie or some few nasty spots of morphew or but some unsavory sent sets us off and turns our love into detestation But for thee O God when we were become as foul and ugly as sin could make us even then was thy love inflamed towards us Even when we were weltring in our bloud thou saidst Live and washedst us and anointedst us and cloathedst us with a broidered work and deckedst us with ornaments and graciously espousedst us to thy self and receivedst us into thine own bosome Lord what is man that thou art thus mindfull of him and the son of man that thou thus visitest him Oh what are we in comparison of thine once glorious Angels They sinned and fell never to bâ—â—â—covered never to be loosed from those everlasting chains wherein they are reserved to the judgement of the great day Whence is it then O Saviour whence is it that thou hast shut up thy mercy from those thy more excellent creatures and hast extended it to us vile sinfull dust whence but that thou wouldst love man because thou wouldst Alas it is discouragement enough to our feeble friendship that he to whom we wisht well is miserable Our love doth gladly attend upon and enjoy his prosperity but when his estate is utterly sunk and his person exposed to contempt and ignominy yea to torture and death who is there that will then put forth himself to own a forlorn and perishing friend But for thee O blessed Jesu so ardent was thy love to us that it was not in the power of our extream misery to abate it yea so as that the deplorednesse of our condition did but heighten that holy flame What speak I of shame or sufferings Hell it self could not keep thee off from us Even from that pit of eternall perdition didst thou fetch our condemned souls and hast contrarily vouchsafed to put us into a state of everlasting blessednesse SECT 3. How yet free of us that were professed enemies THe common disposition of men pretends to a kinde of justice in giving men their own so as they will repay love for love and think they may for hatred return enmity nature it self then teacheth us to love our friends it is only grace that can love an enemy But as of injuries so of enmities thereupon grounded there are certain degrees some are sleight and triviall some main and capitall If a man do but scratch my face or give some light dash to my fame it is no great Mastery upon submission to receive such an offender to favour but if he have endeavoured to ruine my estate to wound my reputation to cut my throat not only to pardon this man but to hug him in my arms to lodge him in my bosome as my entire friend this would be no other then an high improvement of my charity O Lord Jesu what was I but the worst of enemies when thou vouchsafedst to embrace me with thy loving mercy how had I shamefully rebelled against thee and yeelded up all my members as instruments of unrighteousnesse unto sin how had I crucified thee the Lord of life how had I done little other then trod under foot thee the blessed Son of God and counted the bloud of the Covenant an unholy thing how had I in some sort done despight unto the spirit of grace yet even then in despight of all my most odious unworthynesse didst thou spread abroad thine arms to receive me yea thou openedst thine heart to let me in O love passing not knowledge only but wonder also O mercy not incident into any thing lesse then infinite nor by any thing lesse comprehensible SECT 4. The wonderfull effects of the love of Christ His Incarnation BUt oh dear Lord when from the object of thy mercy I cast mine eyes upon the effects and improvement of thy divine favours and see what thy love hath drawn from thee towards the sons of men how am I lost in a just amazement It is that which fetcht thee down from the glory of the highest heavens from the bosome of thine eternall Father to this lower world the region of sorrow and death It is that which to the wonder of Angels cloathed thee with this flesh of ours and brought thee who thoughtst it no robbery to be equall with God to an estate lower then thine own creatures Oh mercy transcending the admiration of all the glorious spirits of heaven that God would be incarnate Surely that all those celestiall powers should be redacted to either worms or nothing that all this goodly frame of creation should run back into its first confusion or be reduced to one single atome it is not so high a wonder as for God to become man those changes though the highest that nature is capable of are yet but of things finite this is of an infinite subject with which the most excellent of finite things can hold no proportion Oh the great mystery of godlinesse God manifested in the flesh and seen of Angels Those heavenly spirits had ever since they were made seen his most glorious Deity and adored him as their omnipotent Creator but to see that God of spirits invested with flesh was such a wonder as had been enough if their nature could have been capable of it to have astonished even glory it self And whether to see him that was their God so humbled below themselves or to see humanity thus advanced above themselves were the greater wonder to them they only know It was your foolish misprision O ye ignorant Lystrians that you took the servants for the Master here only is it verified which you supposed that God is
of those thoughts and dispositions which may reach to the least proportion of thine infinite bounty who of a poor worm on earth hast made me an heir of the kingdome of heaven Wo is me how subject are these earthly principalities to hazard and mutability whether through death or insurrection but this Crown which thou hast laid up for me is immarcescible and shall sit immovably fast upon my head not for years not for millions of ages but for all eternity Oh let it be my heaven here below in the mean while to live in a perpetuall fruition of thee and to begin those Alelujahs to thee here which shall be as endlesse as thy mercy and my blessednesse SECT 1. The improvement of our love to Christ for the mercy of his deliverance of the tuition of his Angels of the powerfull working of his good Spirit HAdst thou been pleased to have translated me from thy former Paradise the most delightfull seat of mans originall integrity and happinesse to the glory of the highest heaven the preferment had been infinitely gracious but to bring my soul from the nether most hell and to place it among the Chore of Angels doubles the thank of thy mercy and the measure of my obligation How thankfull was thy Prophet but to an Ebedmelech that by a cord and rags let down into that dark dungeon helpt him out of that uncomfortable pit wherein he was lodged yet what was there but a little cold hunger stench closenesse obscurity Lord how should I blesse thee that hast fetcht my soul from that pit of eternall horrour from that lake of fire and brimstone from the everlasting torments of the damned wherein I had deserved to perish for ever I will sing of thy power unto thee O my strength will I sing for God is my deliverer and the God of my mercie But O Lord if yet thou shouldst leave me in my own hands where were I how easily should I be rob'd of thee with every temptation how should I be made the scorn and insultation of men and devils It is thy wonderfull mercy that thou hast given thine Angels charge over me Those Angels great in power and glorious in Majesty are my sure though invisible guard O blessed Jesu what an honour what a safety is this that those heavenly spirits which attend thy throne should be my champions Those that ministred to thee after thy temptation are ready to assist and relieve me in mine they can neither neglect their charge because they are perfectly holy nor fail of their victory because they are under thee the most powerfull I see you O ye blessed Guardians I see you by the eye of my faith no lesse truly then the eye of my sense sees my bodily attendants I do truly though spiritually feel your presence by you gratious operations in upon and for me and I do heartily blesse my God and yours for you and for those saving offices that through his mercifull appointment you ever do for my soul But as it was with thine Israelies of old that it would not content them that thou promisedst and wouldst send thine Angell before them to bring them into the Land flowing with milk and honey unlesse thy presence O Lord should also go along with them so is it still with me and all thine wert not thou with and in us what could thine Angels do for us In thee it is that they move and are The same infinite Spirit which works in and by them works also in me From thee it is O thou blessed and eternall Spirit that I have any stirrings of holy motions any breathings of good desires any life of grace any will to resist any power to overcome evill It is thou O God that girdest me with strength unto battell thou hast given me the shield of thy salvation thy right hand hath holden me up thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies Glory and praise be to thee O Lord which alwaies causest us to triumph in Christ who crownest us with loving kindnesse and tender mercies and hast not held us short of the best of thy favours Truly Lord hadst thou given us but a meer beeing as thou hast done to the lowest rank of thy creatures it had been more then thou owest us more then ever we could be able to requite to thy divine bounty for every beeing is good and the least degree of good is farre above our worthiness But that to our beeing thou hast added life it is yet an higher measure of thy mercy for certainly of thy common favours life is the most precious yet this is such a benefit as may be had and not perceived for even the plants of the earth live and feel it not that to our life therefore thou hast made a further accession of sense it is yet a larger improvement of thy beneficence for this faculty hath some power to manage life and makes it capable to affect those means which may tend to the preservation of it and to decline the contrary but this is no other then the brute creatures enjoy equally with us and some of them beyond us that therefore to our sense thou hast blessed us with a further addition of reason it is yet an higher pitch of munificence for hereby we are men and as such are able to attain some knowledge of thee our Creator to observe the motions of the heavens to search into the natures of our fellow-creatures to passe judgement upon actions and events and to transact these earthly affairs to our own best advantage But when all this is done wo were to us if we were but men for our corrupted reason renders us of all creatures the most miserable that therefore to our reason thou hast superadded faith to our nature grace and of men hast made us Christians and to us as such hast given thy Christ thy Spirit and thereby made us of enemies sons and heirs co-heirs with Christ of thine eternall and most glorious kingdome of heaven yea hast incorporated us into thy self and made us one spirit with thee our God Lord what room can there be possibly in these strait and narrow hearts of ours for a due admiration of thy transcendent love and mercy I am swallowed up O God I am willingly swallowed up in this bottomelesse abysse of thine infinite love and there let me dwell in a perpetuall ravishment of spirit till being freed from this clog of earth and filled with the fulness of Christ I shall be admitted to enjoy that which I cannot now reach to wonder at thine incomprehensible blisse and glory which thou laid up in the highest heavens for them that love thee in the blessed communion of all thy Saints and Angels thy Cherubim and Seraphim Thrones Dominions and Principalities and Powers in the beatificall presence of thee the ever-living God the eternall Father of Spirits Father Son holy Ghost one infinite Deity in three co-essentially co-eternally co-equally glorious persons To whom