things but in shipwracks even of worldly things where all sinks but the sorrow to save them or especially upon the very first tempest of spirituall distresse they steere away before the Sea and Wind leaving him to sink or swim without all possibility of helpe or rescue even to the rage of a wounded conscience and gulfe many times of that desperate madnesse which the Prophet describes Isa. 8. 21 22. He shall fret himselfe and curse his King and his GOD and looke upward And he shall looke unto the earth and behold trouble and darknesse dimnesse of anguish and he shal be driven to darknesse By comfortable Provision therefore I meane treasures of a more high lasting and noble nature The blessings of a better life comforts of godlinesse graces of salvation favour and acceptation with the highest Majesty c. They are the riches of heaven onely which we should so hoard up and will ever hold out in the times of trouble and Day of the Lords wrath Amongst which a sound faith and a cleare conscience are the most peerlesse and unvaluable jewels able by their native puissance and infused vigour to pull the very heart as it were out of Hell and with confidence and conquest to looke even Death and the Devill in the face There is no darknesse so desolate no crosse so cutting but the splendor of these is able to illighten their sweetnesse to mollifie So that the blessed counsell of CHRIST Mat. 6. 19 20. doth concurre with and confirme this Point Lay not up for your selves treasures upon earth where moth and rust doth corrupt and where theeves breake thorow and steale But lay vp for your selves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where theeues do not breake thorow nor steale By moth and rust those two greedy and great devourers of gay clothes and glistering treasures two capitall vanities upon which worldlings dote and two greatest inchanters of mortall men are insinuated and signified unto us all those iron teeth and devouring instruments of mortality by which corruption eats into the heart of all earthly glory wasts insensibly the bowels of the greatest bravery and ever at length consumes into dust the strongest sinewes of the most Imperiall Soveraignty under the Sun Somtimes A day an houre a moment is enough to overturne the things that seemed to have been founded and rooted in Adamant The LORD of Heaven hath put a fraile and mortall nature a weake and dying disposition into all worldly things They spring and flourish and die Even the greatest and goodliest Politique Bodies that ever the earth bore though animated with the searching spirit of profoundest Policy strengthened with the resolution and valour of the most conquering commanders sighted with eagle eyes of largest depths fore-sights and comprehensions of state crowned with never so many warlike prosperities triumphs and victorious atchievements yet like the naturall Body of a man they had as it were their Infancy youthfull strength mans state old age and at last their grave We may see Dan. 2. 35. The glory and power of the mightiest Monarchies that ever the Sun saw shadowed by Nebuchadnezzars great Image sink into the dust and become like the chaffe of the Summers threshing floores upon a windy day Heare a wise and noble writer speaking to this purpose though for another purpose Who hath not observed what labour what practice perill bloud-shed and cruelty the Kings and Princes of the world have undergone exercised taken on them and committed to make themselves and their issues Masters of the world And yet hath Babylon Persia Egypt Syria Macedon Carthage Rome and the rest no fruit flower grasse or leafe springing upon the face of the earth of those seeds No their very roots and ruines do hardly remaine All that the hand of man can make is either over-turned by the hand of man or at length by standing and continuing consumed What trust then or true comfort in the arme of flesh humane greatnesse or earthly treasures What strength or stay in such broken staves of reed In the time of need the Worme of vanity will wast and wither them all like Ionahs gourd and leave our naked soules to the open rage of wind and weather to the scourges and Scorpions of guiltinesse and feare It transcends the Sphere of their activity as they say and passeth their power to satisfie an immortall soule to comfort thorow the length of eternity either to corrupt or conquer any spirituall adversaries For couldest thou purchase unto thy selfe a Monopoly of all the wealth in the world wert thou able to empty the Westerne parts of gold and the East of all her spices and precious things shouldest thou enclose the whole face of the earth from one end of heaven to another and fill this wide worlds circumference with golden heapes and hoards of pearle diddest thou in the meane time sit at the sterne and hold the reines in thine hand of all earthly kingdomes nay exalt thy selfe as the Eagle and set thy nest among the starres nay like the sun of the morning advance thy Throne even above the starres of God yet all these and whatsoever els thou canst imagine to make thy worldly happinesse compleate and matchlesse would not be worth a button unto thee upon thy bed of death nor do thee a halfe-penny-worth of good in the horrour of that dreadfull time Where did that man dwell or of what cloth was his coat made that was ever comforted by his goods greatnesse or great men in that last and sorest conflict In his wrastlings with the accusations of conscience terrours of death and oppositions of hell No no It is matter of a more heavenly metall treasures of an higher temper riches of a nobler nature that must hold out and helpe in the distresses of soule in the anguish of conscience in the houre of death against the stings of sinne wrath of GOD and last Tribunall Do you think that ever any glorified soule did gaze with delight upon the wedge of gold that tramples under foot the Sun and lookes All-mighty GOD in the face No no It is the society of holy Angels and blessed Saints the sweet Communion with its dearest Spouse that unapproachable light which crownes GODS sacred Throne the beauty and brightnesse of that most glorious Place the shining Body of the SONNE of GOD the beatificall fruition of the Deity it selfe the depth of Eternity and the like everlasting Fountaines of spirituall ravishment and joy which onely can feed and fill the restlesse and infinite appetite of that immortall Thing with fulnesse of contentment and fresh pleasures world without end Thrice blessed and sweet then is the advice of our Lord and Master IESVS CHRIST who would have us to turne the eye of our delight and eagernesse of affection from the fading glosse and painted glory of earthly treasures wherein naturally the worme of corruption and vanity ever breeds and many times the worme of an
honours offices extraordinary advancements and royall favours into gall and wormewood And Haman told them of the glory of his riches and the multitude of his children and all the things wherein the King had promoted him and how he had advanced him above the Princes and servants of the King Haman said moreover yea Esther the Queene did let no man come in with the King unto the Banquet that she had prepared but my selfe and tomorrow am I invited unto her also with the King Yet all this availeth me nothing so long as I see Mordecai the Iew sitting at the Kings gate Whereas now David a King as I told you before by the benefit of this blessed grace did not suffer his Princely spirit to be un-calmed at all no not by the traiterous and most intolerable reviling of a dead dog and his baseft vassall 2. Keepe off thy heart from the world in the greatest affluence of wealth and worldly prosperity Earthly-mindednesse ever sharpeneth and keenes the sting in all distresses It gives teeth to the crosse to eat out the very heart of the afflicted Had not Iob beene able to have professed that in the height of his happinesse he was thus affected If I have made gold my hope or have said to the â—…ine gold Thou art my confidence If I rejoyced because my wealth was great and because my hand had gotten much Here say Divines somthing is understood as dispeream then let me perish or the like If I beheld the Sun when it shined or the Moone walking in brightnesse And my heart hath beene secretly entised or my mouth hath kissed my hand Then should I have denied the GOD that is above If I grew proud puft up or pleased my selfe with the glistering brightnesse of my earthly abundance let it be so and so with me I say except Iobs heart had beene thus wained from the world when as yet he wallowed in wealth he had never been able to hold out in the evill day and to have borne so bravely the ruine of so rich a state without repining But now churlish Nabal whose affections were notoriously nail'd to the earth though perhaps once or twice a yeare he made a joviall and frolicke feast as other cunning worldlings are wont to their good-fellow-companions upon purpose to procure and preserve a Pharisaicall reputation of bounty with some flattering dependants and for a cloke to colour their covetousnesse and cruelty yet he was of a â—…linty bosome in respect of doggednesse and extreme niggardise especially towards GODS people and his heart by excessive rooting there was turned wholly into earth and therefore in the evill day it died within him and he became as a stone To keepe off the world in a fit distance that it do thee no deadly hurt and undoe thee quite keepe still fresh and strong in thy thoughts a true estimate and right conceipt of the mutability of all things here below and thine owne mortality In their best condition and highest confluence they are but 1. Vanity We shall never â—…ind in them any solidity or that good or comfort which we still with much eager pursuit and thirst expect and labour in vaine to extract from them but upon triall and trust in them they will ever proove empty clouds broken staves of reed Appâ—…s of Sodom Wells without water And when we graspe them most greedily we embrace nothing but smoke which wrings teares from our eyes and vanisheth into nothing 2 Vexation of spirit Besides the emptinesse and absence of that imaginary felicity which we hunt after in them there is also the presence and plenty of much 〈◊〉 and hearts griese which the slaves of pleasure and lovers of the world little looke for when they at first resolve to sell their soules for such transitory trash Divitias invenisti saith one Requiem perdidisti Hast thou found riches Thou hast lost thy rest A man that will be rich takes no more rest than one upon a racke or bed of thornes like Anacreon with his five Talents still distracted with worldly thoughts and continually prickt with cares and feares 3. They cannot satisfie the soule Gold can no more fill the spirit of a man than grace his purse Betweene heaven and earth spirits and bodies soules and silver there is no proportion And therefore no earthly excellencies no carnall pleasures no worldly treasures are fit matter or a full object for such an immateriall immortall and heavenly borne-being to feed upon with any proper delight true comfort or sound contentment Not all this great materiall world or greatest masse of gold can possibly fill the mighty capacity and immeasurable appetite of this little sparke of heaven breath'd into us by the infinite power of an Almighty hand A man may as well fill a bag with wisedome as the soule with the world a chest with vertues as the mind with wealth 4. They cannot helpe in the evill day Their bloud saith the Prophet shal be powred out as dust and their flesh as the dung neither their silver nor their gold shal be able to deliver them in the day of the LORDS wrath Put a man into a pang of any painefull maladie and bodily torture as into a fit of the Stone Strangury deepe Melancholy Gout Cholicke or the like let some incurable devouring Ulcer Canker Elephantiasis the Wolfe the Plica c. take hold upon any part of his Body and let him tell me then what account he would make of all the Imperiall Crownes upon earth attended with the height and utmost of humane felicities Or what comfort could he take in the riches glory and pleasures of the whole world Or what ease and refreshing can large possessions sumptuous buildings pleasant walks princely favours dainty fare choisest delights or any thing under the Sun afford in such a case The very pricke of a needle or paine of a tooth for the time will take away the taste of all carnall contentments and pleasure of the worlds Monarchy If the LORD should let loose the cord of thy conscience and set His just and deserved wrath a worke to enkindle flames of horrour in thy heart what helpe couldest thou have in heapes of gold or hoards of wealth Remember Spira They would be so â—…rre from healing the wound or allaying the smart that they would yet more horribly afflict thy already enraged spirit and turne them even into fiery Scorpions for thy further torment Let thy last sicknesse seize upon thee and then say for the houre of death as they say is the houre of truth whether all the gold and goods in the world can any more deliver thee from the Arrest of that inexorable Serjeant than can an handfull of dust Nay whether then the extremity of thy spirituall affliction and anguish of soule will not be answerable to the former excesse of thine inordinate affection to earthly things and delights of sense Or suppose thou shouldest be
of almighty GOD with all terrible and torturing ingredients to make it most fierce and raging and a sit instrument for so great and mighty a GOD to torment everlastingly such impenitent reprobate rebels It is said to be prepared Matth. 2â—… 41. Isa. 30. 33. as if the all-powerfull wisdome did deliberate and as it were sit downe and devise most tormenting temper for that most formidable fire the one is blowne by an aiery breath the other by the angry breath of the great GOD which burnes farre hotter than ten thousand rivers of brimstone The pile thereof saith the Prophet is fire and much wood the breath of the LORD like a streame of brimstone doth kindle it What soule doth not quake and melt with thought of this fire at which the very Devils tremble There is no proportion betweene the heat of our breath and the fire that it blowes What a fearefull fire then is that which is blowne by a breath dissolved into brimstone which a great torrent of burning brimstone doth ever mightily blow If it be metaphoricall as Austin seemes some where to intimate and some moderne Divines are of mind and as the gold pearles and precious stones of the wall streets and gates of the heavenly Ierusalem Rev. 21. were metaphoricall so likewise it should seeme that the fire of hell should also be figurative And if it be so it is yet something els that is much more terrible and intolerable For as the Spirit of GOD to shadow unto us the glory of heaven doth name the most pretious excellent and glorious things in this life which notwithstanding come infinitely short so doth He intimate unto us the inexplicable paiâ—…es of hell by things most terrible and tormenting in this world fire brimstone c. which yet are nothing to hâ—…llish tortures Whether therefore it be materiall or metaphoricall I purpose not here to dispute or go about to determine neither is it much materiall for my purpose For be it whether it will it is infinitely horrible and insâ—…fferable beyond all compasse of conceipt and above the reach either of humane or Angelicall thoughts It doth not onely exceed with an incomparable disproportion â—…ll possibility of patience and resistance but also even ability to beare it and yet notwithstanding it must upon necessity be borne so long as GOD is GOD. Take in a word all that I intend to tell you in the point at this time If the severall paines of all the diseases and maladies incident to our nature as of the stone gout colicke strangury or what other you can name most afflicting the body nay and add besides all the most exquisite and unheard of tortures and if you will even those of the Spanish Inquisition which ever were or shal be inflicted upon miserable men by the bloudiest executioners of the greatest tyrants as that of him in the brazen chaire mentioned before c. and collect them all into one extremest anguish and yet it were nothing to the torment which shall for ever possesse and plague the least part of a damned body And as for the soule let all the griefes horrours and despaires that ever rent in peeces any heavy heart and vexed conscience as of Iudas Spira c. And let them all be heaped together into one extremest horrour and yet it would come infinitely short of that desperate rage and restlesse anguish which shall eternally torture the least and lowest faculty of the soule What then do you think wil be the torment of the whole body What wil be the terrour of the whole soule Here both invention of words would faile the ablest Oratour upon earth or the highest Angell in heaven Ah then is it not a madnesse above admiration and which may justly amaze both heaven and earth and be a prodigious astonishment to all creatures that being reasonable creatures having understanding like the Angels of GOD eyes in your heads to fore-see the approaching wrath hearts in your bodies that can tremble for trouble of mind as the leaves of the forrest that are shaken with the wind consciences capable of unspeakable horrour bodies and soules that can burne for ever in hell and may by taking lesse paines in the right way than a drunkard worldling or other wicked men in the wayes of death and going to hell escape everlasting paines yet will sit here still in the face of the Ministry with dead countenances dull eares and hard hearts as senslesse and unmooved as the seates you sit on the pillars you leane to and the dead bodies you tread on and never be said as they say never warn'd untill the fire of that infernall lake flame about your eares O monstrous madnesse and mercilesse cruelty to your owne soules Let the Angels blush heaven and earth be amaz'd and all the creatures stand astonished at it 3. When sentence is once irrevocably past by that high and everlasting Iudge and the mouth of the bottomlesse pit hath shut it selfe upon thee with that infinite anguish and enraged indignation thou wilt take on teare thy haire bite thy nailes gnash the teeth dig furiously into the very fountaine of life and if it were possible spit out thy bowels because having by a miracle of mercy beene blessed all thy life long in this gloriously illightened Goshen with the fairest noone-tide of the Gospell that ever the Sun saw and either diddest or mightest have heard many and many a powerfull and searching Sermon any one passage wherof if thou haddest not wickedly and wilfully forsaken thine own mercy and suffered Satan in a base and beastly maner to blindfold and baâ—…le thee might have beene unto thee the beginning of the new-birth and everlasting blisse yet thou in that respect a most accursed wretch diddest passe over all that long day of thy gracious visitation like a sonne or daughter of confusion without any piercing or profit at all and passed by all those goodly offers and opportunities with an inexpiable neglect and horrible ingratitude and so now liest drown'd and damn'd in that dreadfull lake of brimstone and fire which thou mightest have so easily and often escaped This irksome and furious reflexion of thy soule upon its owne wilfull folly whereby it hath so unnecessarily and sottishly lost everlasting joy and must now live in endlesse woe will vexe and torture more than thou canst possibly imagine continually gnaw upon thy heart with remedilesse and unconceivable griefe and in a word even make an hell it selfe O then having yet a price in thine hand to get wisdome to go to heaven lay it out with all holy greedinesse while it is called To day for the spirituall and eternall good of thy soule Improve to the utmost for that purpose the most powerfull Ministry holiest company best bookes all motions of GODS Spirit all saving meanes c. Spend every day passe every Sabbath make every prayer heare every Sâ—…imon thinke every thought speake every word do
evill conscience attends the one of which eats out their heart when we expect an harvest The other seizes upon the Soule in the time of sorrow and sinks it into the lowest hell And as Men of GOD and Sonnes of Wisdome to mount our thoughts and raise our spirits and bend our affections to things above which are as farre from diminution and decay as the Soule from death and can be no more corrupted or shaken than the Seat and Omnipotency of GOD surprised For besides that they infinitely surpasse in eminency of worth and sweetnesse of pleasure the comprehension of the largest heart and expression of any Angels tongue they also out-last the dayes of heaven and run parallell with the life of GOD and line of Eternity As we see the Fountaine of all materiall light to powre out his beames and shining abundantly every day upon the world without wearinesse emptinesse or end so and incomparably more doth joy and peace glory and blisse spring and plentifully flow every moment with fresh streames from the face of the Father of Lights upon all His holy ones in heaven and that everlastingly O blessed then shall we be upon our beds of death if following the counsell of our dearest LORD who shed the most precious and warmest bloud in His heart to bring our soules out of hell we treasure ap now in the meane time heavenly hoards which will ever happily hold out a stocke of grace which never shrinks in the wetting but abides the triall of the spirit and touch-stone of the Word in all times of danger and Day of the LORD even that accurate circumspect and precise walking pressed upon us by the Apostle Eph. 5. 15. Though pestilently persecuted and plagued by the enemies of GOD in all ages And that purity which Saint Iohn makes a property of every true-hearted Professour 1 Iohn 3. 3. So much opposed and bitterly opprest by the world and yet without which none of us shall ever see the face of GOD with comfort If while it is called To Day we make our peace with His heavenly Highnesse by an humble continued exercise of repentance by standing valiantly on His side by holding an holy acquaintance at His mercifull Throne with a mighty importunity of prayer and godly conversation above by ever offering up unto Him in the armes of our Faith when he is angry the bleeding Body of His owne crucified SONNE never giving Him over or any rest untill He bepleased to register and enroll the remission of our sinnes in the Booke of Life with the bloudy lines of CHRISTS Soule-saving sufferings and golden characters of His owne eternall love If now before we appeare at the dreadfull Tribunall of the euer-living GOD and little know we whose turne is next we make our friends in the Court of Heaven the blessed Angels in procuring their joy and love by a visible constancy in the fruits teares and truth of a sound conversion The Spirit of comfort by a ready and reverent entertainment of His holy Motions and inspirations of grace the Sonne and Heire of the King of glory the Foundation and Fountaine of all our Blisse in this world and the world to come from whose meritorious bloud shed and blessed mediation arise all those flouds of mercy and favour which refresh our Soules in this vale of teares and also those unknown bottomlesse seas of pleasure peace and all unspeakable delights which will superabound and overflow with new and fresh sweetnesse for ever and ever in the Paradise of GOD. Blessed are they that ever they were borne who have already got Him their Advocate at the right hand of His Father For besides many other glorious priviledges thereby in all their exigents and extremities they may be ever welcome to the Seat of mercy and be sure to speed If a man had a suit unto the King it were a comfortable and happy thing to find a friend in Court But if the Kings speciall and choisest Favourite nay His own only Son were his Intercessour how confident would he be to prevaile and prosper to conquer his opposites and crowne his desires Why then should any poore Christian be discomforted and cast downe nay why should he not be extraordinarily raised and ravished in spirit with much joyfull hope and sweet assurance when he throwes himselfe downe at the Throne of grace sith the dearest Sonne of the eternall GOD the Heire of heaven and earth the Mediator of the great Covenant of endlesse salvation is his Advocate at the hand of His All-mighty Father in the most high and glorious Court of Heaven Wherefore when an humbled soule and trembling spirit is sore troubled and almost turned backe from his purpose of prayer and prostration at the foot of heavenly Majesty by entertaining before hand a feeling apprehension of his owne abhorred vilenesse and the holy purity of GODS all-seeing and searching eye which cannot looke on iniquity let this consideration comfort and breed confidence that IESVS CHRIST the Son of GODS love doth sollicite and tender the suit who out of His owne sense and sympathy of such like troubles and temptations doth deale for us with a true a naturall and a sensible touch of compassionatenesse and mercy Shall that blessed Saviour of ours call and cry for a pardon to His Father for those which put Him to death who were so farre from seeking unto him that they sought and suckt his bloud and shall He shut His eares against the groanes of thy grieved spirit and heavy sighes of thy bleeding soule who values one drop of His bloud at an higher price than the worth of many worlds It cannot be Thus that saying of Salomon and this counsell of CHRIST makes good the truth of the Point which may further appeare by these Reasons 1. Taking this counsell betime and hoarding up heavenly things in this harvest time of grace mightily helps to asswage the smart mollifie the bitternesse and illighten the darknesse of the evill Day It is soveraigne and serves to take the venime sting and teeth out of any crosse calamity or distresse and so preserves the heart from that raging hopelesse sorrow which like a devouring Harpie dries up dissolves and destroyes the bloud spirits and life of all those who are destitute of such a divine Antidote What vast difference may we discerne betweene Iob and Iudas David and Achitophel in the daies of evill The two men of God being formerly enriched with his favour and familiarity so behaved themselves the one in the ship-wracke of his worldly happinesse the other in the hazard of his Kingdome as though they had not beene troubled at all The LORD gave and the LORD hath taken away saith Iob when all was gone blessed be the name of the LORD If I shall find favour in the eyes of the LORD saith David He will bring me againe and shew me both it and His habitation But if He thus say I have no delight in thee behold here
every action c. As though when that were done thou wert presently after to passe to judgement and to give up an exact account for it and whatsoever els done in the flesh 4. That the conceipt of the everlastingnesse of the torments when they are now already seiz'd upon the soule and hopelesnesse of ever coming out of hell wil be yet another hell If thou once come there and there most certainly must thou be this night if thou diest this day in thy naturall state and not new-borne I say then so terribly would the consideration of eternity torture thee that thou wouldest hold thy selfe a right happy man if thou mightest endure those horrible paines and extremest horrours no moe millions of yeares than there be sands on the sea-shore haires upon thine head starres in the firmament grasse piles upon the ground and creatures both in heaven and earth For thou wouldest still comfort thy selfe incredibly with this thought My misery will once have an end But alas This word Never will ever rent thine heart in peeces with much rage and hideous roaring and give still new life to those insufferable sorrowes which infinitely exceed all expression or imagination Let us suppose this great body of the earth upon which we tread to be turned into sand and mountaines of sand to be added still untill they reach unto the Empyrean Heaven so that this whole mighty creation were nothing but a sandy mountaine let us then further imagine a little wren to come but every hundred thousandth yeare and carie away but the tenth part of one graine of that immeasurable heape of sand what an innumerable number of yeares would be spent before that world of sand were all so fetcht away And yet woe and alas that ever thou wast borne When thou hast lien so many yeares in that fiery lake as all they would amount to thou art no nearer coming out than the very first houre thou enteredst in Now suppose thou shouldest lie but one night grievously afflicted with a raging fit of the stone collicke strangury tooth-ache pangs of travaile c. Though thou haddest to helpe and ease thee a soft bed to lie on friends about thee to comfort thee Physitians to cure thee all cordiall and comfortable things to asswage the paine yet how tedious and painfull how terrible and intolerable would that one night seeme unto thee How wouldest thou tosse and tumble and turne from one side to another counting the clock telling the houres esteeming every minute a moueth and thy present misery matchlesse and unsupportable What will it be then thinkest thou to lie in fire and brimstone kept in highest flame by the unquenchable wrath of GOD world without end Where thou shalt have nothing about thee but darknesse and horrour wailing and wringing of hands desperate yellings and gnashing of teeth thine old companions in vanity and sinne to ban and curse thee with much bitternesse and rage wicked Devils to insult over thee with hellish cruelty and scorne the never-dying worme to feed upon thy soule and flesh for ever and for ever O Eternity Eternity Eternity Sith it is thus then that upon the little ynch of time in this life depends the length and bredth the height and depth of immortality in the world to come even two eternities the one infinitely accursed the other infinitely comfortable losse of everlasting joyes and lying in eternall flames sith never ending pleasures or paines do unavoidably follow the well or mis-spending of this short moment upon earth with what unwearied care and watchfulnesse ought we to attend that One necâ—…ssary Thing all the dayes of our appointed time till our change shall come How ought we as strangers and pilgrims to abstaine from fleshly lusts What manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godlinesse How thriftily and industriously to husband the poore remainder of our few and evill dayes for the making our Calling and Election sure In a word with what resolution and zeale to do or suffer any thing for IESVS CHRIST With what industry and dearenesse to ply this moment and prize that eternity Concerning the joyes of HEAVEN Let me tell you before hand that the excellency glory and sweetnesse thereof no mortall heart finite braine created understanding can possibly conceive and comprehend to the life For 1. Paul tâ—…ls us 1 Cor. 2. 9. That neither eye hath seene nor eare heard neither heart of man conceived the incomprehensible sublimity and glorious mysteries of that heavenly wisdome and inexplicable divine sweetnesse revealed in the Gospell For I take that to be his naturall immediate meaning How transcendently then unutterable and unconceiveable is the complement perfection the reall actuall and full fruition of all those Evangelicall mysterious revelations accomplished to the height in the highest heavens thorow all eternity Where we shall enjoy the face and beatificall presence of the most glorious and all susticient GOD as an object wherein all the powers of our soules wil be satisfied with everlasting delight The eye of man hath seene admirable things Coasts of Pearle Crystall mountaines rocks of Diamond Golden mines Spicy Ilands c. so Travailers talke and Geographers write Mausolus Tombe Dianaes Temple the Egyptian Paramides and all the wonders of the world The eare hath heard the most delicious exquisite and ravishing melody Such as made even Alexander the Great transported with an irresistable pang of a pleasing rage as it were and delightfull dancing of his spirits that I may so speake Exilire è convivio c. Mans heart can imagine miraculous admirabilities rarest peeces worlds of comforts and strange felicities In conceipt it can convert all the stones upon earth into pearles every grasse pile into an unvaluable jewell the dust into silver the sea into liquid gold the aire into crystall It can clothe the earth with farre more beauty and sweetnesse than ever the Sun saw it It can make every Starre a Sun and all those Suns ten thousand times bigger and brighter than it is c. And yet the height and happinesse of Evangelicall wisdome doth farre surpasse the utmost which the eare eye or heart of man hath heard seene or can possibly apprehend And this so excellent light upon earth discovering the inestimable treasures of hidden wisdome in CHRIST is but as a graine to the richest golden mine a drop to the Ocean a little glimpse to the glory of the Sun in respect of that fulnesse of joy hereafter and everlasting pleasures above with what a vast disproportion then doth the inimaginable excellency of heavenly blisse surpasse and transcend the most enlarged created capacity Infinitely infinitely 2. Our gracious GOD in his holy unsearchable wisdome doth reserve and detaine from the eye of our understandings a full comprehension of that most glorious state above to exercise in the meane time our faith love obedience
mooving Orbs. 2 Cor. 3. 2. Eph. 4. 10. 1 Kin. 8. 27. 30. 39. 43. 49. And it is the biggest and most beautifull Body of the whole creation incorruptible unmooveable unalterable wholly shining with the most exquisite glory and brightnesse of purest light wherein as in a confluence of all possible felicities Iehovah GOD blessed for ever doth familiarly and freely communicate Himselfe to be beatifically seene and fully enjoyed face to face of all the elect humane and Angelicall spirits for ever Where the glorified Body of IESVS CHRIST shines with unconceiveable splendour above the brightnesse of the Sun c. This place most excellent replenished with those unknowne pleasures which attend everlasting happinesse where GOD blessed for ever is seene face to face is made admirable and illustrious by its bignesse and beauty Guesse the immeasurable magnitude and beautifull signes of it 1. By its description Rev. 21. It is called Ver. 10. by an excellency That great City c. Which if it be immediately meant as many learned and holy Divines would have it of the glory of the Church here on earth when both Iewes and Gentiles shal be happily united into one Christian Body and Brother-hood before CHRISTS second comming it is no lesse pregnant to proove that the Heaven of Heavens is a place most glorious above all comparison and conceipt For if there be such goodlinesse amplitude beauty and majesty in this Militant Church how infinitely will this beauty be yet more beautified and all this glory glorified with incredible additions in the Church Triumphant If there be such excellency upon earth what may we expect in the Heaven of Heavens 2. By those many Mansions prepared for many thousand thousands of glorified Bodies after the last Day Ioh. 14. 2. Besides the numberlesse numbers of blessed Angels the present inhabitants of those heavenly Palaces 3. By the incredible distance from the earth to the Starry Firmament If I should here tell you the severall computations of Astronomers in this kind the summes would seeme to exceed all possibility of beliefe And yet besides the late learnedst of them place above the eight Sphere wherein all those glorious lamps shine so bright three mooving Orbs more Now the Empyrean Heaven comprehends all these how incomprehensible then must its compasse and greatnesse necessarily be 4. By considering what a large Expansion and immensity the mighty LORD of heaven and earth is like to chuse for revealing His glory in the highest and most transcendent manner to all His noblest creatures infinitely endear'd unto Him by the bloudy death of His dearest Son even the Son of His love thorow all eternity Who doth all things like Himselfe if He love it is with a frâ—…e infinite and eternall love if He worke He makes a world If He go out with our Hosts the Sun shall stand still if need be and the Starres must fight if He come against a people He will make His sword devoure flesh and His arrowes drinke bloud if He be angry with the world He brings a sloud over the whole face of the earth If He set His affection upon a mortall worme that trembles at His Word and is weary of sinne He will make him a King give him a Paradise crowne him with eternity if He builds a house for all His holy Ones it must needs be a None-such most magnificent stately and glorious farre above the reach of the thoughts of men 5. What a spacious and specious inheritance what a rich super-eminent and sumptuous Purchase and Palace do you thinke was the precious bloud of the Son of GOD by its inestimable price and merit able to procure at the hands of His Father for His Redeemed Let us here also lay hold upon some considerations whereby we may behold at least some little glimpses of the admirable glory of its light 1. To say nothing of that glorious projection and transfusion of Aethereall light both of the Sun and of the Starres of the six magnitudes which by Astrologicall computation constitute three hundred Suns at the least whence ariseth a masse of shining beauty upward into the Empyrean Heaven which Patricius endeavours industriously to proove I say to passe it by as a groundlesse conceipt let us take a scantling as it were and estimate of the incomparable brightnesse and splendour of the highest heaven by that which Orthodoxe Divines soberly tell from Rev. 21. and other places to wit that it is verus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wholly light not like the Starry Firmament bespangl'd here and there with glittering spots but all as it were one great Sun From every Point powring out abundantly whole rivers as it were of purest heavenly light c. Hence with allusion to brightest things below it is said to have a wall of Iasper building of gold a foundation of precious stones and gates of pearles Being cleare as Cristall shining like unto glasse transparent in brightnesse as a molten looking glasse It may be those places may also in latitude of sense intimate and include this glorious visible light I speake of Coloss. 1. 12. Psal. 36. 9. 1 Tim. 6. 16. Ancient Divines also apprehended this glorious beauty and brightnesse in the blessed heaven The eternall City saith Austin is incomparably bright and beautifull where there is victory verity dignity sanctity life eternity If those which be condemned saith Basill be cast into utter darknesse it is evident that those which walked worthy of GOD have their rest in supercelestiall light 2. Besides the superexcellency of its native lustre that I may so speak this blessed heaven wil yet be made infinitely more illustrious and resplendent by all the most admirable and amiable shining glory of that dearest ravishing object to a glorified eye the glorified Body of IESVS CHRIST In respect of the beauty and brightnesse whereof all sydereall light is but a darksome mote and blackest mid-night See Mat. 17. 2. 3. Adde hereunto the incredible and unspeakble splendour of many millions of glorified Saints whose bodies also will out-shine the Sun See Mat. 13. 43. Phil. 3. 21. Dan. 12. 3. Who are said to shine as the brightnesse of the Firmament as the Stars Dan. 12. 3. As the Sun Mat. 13. 43. To be like CHRIST Himselfe Iohn 3. 2. And to appeare with Him in glory Col. 3. 4. Now what a mighty and immeasurable masse of most glorious light will result and arise from that most admirable illustrious concurrence and mutuall shining reflexions of the Empyrean Heaven more bright and beautifull than the Sun in his strength the Sun of that sacred Pallace and all the blessed Inhabitants All which every glorified eye shal be supernaturally inlarged enabled and ennobl'd to behold and enjoy in a kindly and comfortable manner with ineffable delight and everlastingnesse 4. If the porch and first entry be so stately and glorious garnished and bespangl'd with so many bright shining Lights and beautifull Starres What workmanship
the longest line of eternity In which respect also our condition is a thousand times more happy and glorious than if we had stood still with Adam in his innocency and felicity If so he could but have conveighed unto us bodies immortall potentiâ non moriendi ex Hypothesi as they say that is endowed onely with power of not dying if so and so but now they shall be immortall impotentiâ moriendi that is shine for ever in the highest heavens with impossibility of ever perishing 2. Incorruptiblenesse 1 Corinth 15. 42. 54. For every glorified body shall for ever be utterly impassible and un-impressionable with any corruptive quality action or alteration Whether 1. By the power of some peculiar glorifying endowment implanted in the body or redounding from the soule upon the body for that purpose Or 2. From an exquisite temper and harmony of the Elementary qualities freed everlastingly from all possibility of any angry contrariety and combate Or 3. Which seemeth most probable and approoved by the learned'st Schoole-men from an exact subjection of the body to the soule as of the soule to GOD I say whether so or so I doe not here enquire or contend but leave all alterations in this kinde to the curious disquisitions of such idle and ill-exercis'd Divines The testimony of GODS never-erring Spirit in the cited place is more than infinitely sufficient to assure every Christian heart that our raised bodies reformed by the All-mighty glorious hand of GOD shall never more be exposed to violence or hurt from any externall agent or obnoxious to the least disposition towards any inward decay putrefaction or dissolution 3. Potency 1 Corinth 15. 43. Our soules are in nature substance and immateriality like the Angels of GOD One of which killed in one night an hundred fourescore and five thousand 2 Kings 19. 35. And therefore little know we though the edges excellency and executions may be dul'd and drown'd in our heavy fraile sinfull bodies of what might and power they may be originally But then when to the soules native strength there is an addition of glorifying vigour and GODS mighty Spirits more plentifull inhabitation and it shall also put on a body which brings with it besides its owne peculiar inherent power an exact serviceablenesse and sufficiency apted and apportion'd to the soules highest abilities and executions how incredibly powerfull and mighty may we suppose a Saint in heaven shal be 4. Spiritualnesse 1 Cor. 15. 44. Not that our bodies shall be turned into spirits but imployed spiritually Or more fully thus 1. Because they shal be fully possessed with the Spirit which dwelling primarily and above measure in CHRIST our head is communicated from Him to us His members so that then we shall no more live by our animall faculty nor need for preservation of life meat drinke sleepe clothing physicke or the former naturall helpes In which respect they cease to be naturall bodies being freed from those animall faculties of nourishing increasing and multiplying by generation They shall no more live by vertue of food and nourishment thrice concocted first in the stomach c. but shal be spirituall and heavenly living without all these helpes as the Angels in heaven do 2. Because they shall in all things become subject to the Spirit of GOD and be wholly perfectly and willingly guided by Him with a spirituall Angelicall most absolute and free obedience As the spirit serving the flesh may not unfitly be called carnall so the body obedient to the soule saith Austin is rightly termed spirituall 3. By reason of their activenesse nimblenesse agility whereby they shal be able to moove from place to place with incredible swiftnesse and speed not being at all hindered by their weight An heavy lumpe of lead that sinkes now to the bottome being wire-drawne as it were by the workman into the forme of a boat will swimme saith Austin And shall not GOD give that ability to our bodies which the Artificer doth to the lead c. Here some of the Schoolemen moove an idle unnecessary question to wit Whether glorified Bodies moove from place to place in an instant For they may well know out of the Principles in Philosophy and Rules of sound reason that it is utterly impossible and implies contradiction That a body should in an instant be in many places at once But if a glorified body moove from place to place in an instant it will necessarily follow that the same body is in an instant In termino à quo locis intermedijs termino ad quem simul in the beginning middle and end of the space thorow which it passeth at once which is more than utterly impossible and quite destroyes the nature of a true Body I would rather interpret those words of Austin Certè ubi volet spiritus ibi protinus â—…rit corpus the body will presently be there where the soule would have it of extraordinary speed and incredibly short time Aquinas cals it imperceptible So that I doubt not but that a glorified Saint desiring to be in such or such a place a thousand miles off after the very first bent of his will that way would be there in an incredibly lesse time than thou wouldest imagine 5. Glory 1 Corinth 15. 43. The bodies of the Saints in heaven shal be passingly beautifull shining and amiable Two things according to Austin concurre to the constitution of beauty 1. A due and comely proportion an apt and congruent symmetry and mutuall correspondency of all the parts of the body or in a word well-favourednesse 2. Amiablenesse of colour a pleasing mixture of those two lively colours of white and red I add a third 3. A cheerfull lively light some aspect When the two former materials as it were are pleasantly enliv'd and actuated by a lively quicknesse and modest merrinesse of countenance Whereupon saith the Moralist it is not the red and white which giveth the life and perfection of beauty but certaine sparkling notes and touches of amiable cheerefulnesse accompanying the same In beauty saith another that of favour is more than that of colour and that of decent pleasing motion more than that of favour That is the best part of beauty which a picture cannot expresse c. All these concurre in eminency and excellency in glorified bodies 1. An exquisite feature and stature beautified by GODS owne blessed all-mighty hand with the utmost of created comlinesse and matchlesse proportion 2. Not onely sweetest mixture of liveliest colours but also a bright shining splendour of celestiall glory 3. And both these actuated to the life preserved in perpetuall freshnesse and oriency and quickened still with new supply of heavenly activenesse and amiablenesse by a more glorious soule for if the brightnesse of the body shall match the light of the Sun what do you thinke will be the glory of the soule and by an infinitely more glorious spirit which shall plentifully
a net full of the fury of the LORD And in the morning they shall say would GOD it were even and at even they shall say would GOD it were morning for the feare of their heart wherewith they shall feare and for the sight of their eyes which they shall sâ—…e Then though too late will they lamentably cry out and complaine What hath pride profited us Or what good hath riches with our vaunting brought us All those things are passed away like a shadow and as a Poste that hastâ—…th by And as a ship that passeth over the waves of the water and when it is gone by the trace thereof cannot be found neither the path-way of the keele in the waves Or as when a bird hath flowne thorow the aire there is no token of her way to be found but the light aire being beaten with the stroke of her wings and parted with the violent noise and motion of them is passed â—…horow and therein afterwards no signe where she went is to be found Or like as when an arrow is shot at a marke it parteth the aire which immediately commeth together againe so that a man cannot know where it went thorow Even so we in like manner assoone as we were borne began to draw to our end and had no signe of vertue to shew but we consumed in our owne wickednesse For the hope of the ungodly is like dust that is blowne away with the wind like a thin froth that is driven away with the storme like as the smoke which is dispersed here and there with a tempest and passeth away as the remembrance of a guest that tarieth but a day If a Minister who labours industriously all his life long to worke upon such as sit under him every Sabbath Of which some all the while preferre some base lust before the LORD IESVS others will not out of their formality to the forwardnesse of the Saints do what he can or presse he them never so punctually and upon purpose I say if it were possible that he might talke with any of them some two houres after they had been in hell Oh! How should he find the case altered with them How would they then roare because they had dis-regarded his Ministry What would they not give to have a grant from GOD to trie them in hearing but one Sermon more How would they teare their haire gnash the teeth and bite their nailes that they had not listened more seriously and taken more sensibly to heart those many heavenly instructions spirituall discoveries secret but well understood intimations that their state to GOD-ward was starke naught by which he sought with much earnestnesse and zeale even to the wasting of his bloud and life to save the bloud of their soules And yet for all this you will not be warned in time charme the charmers never so wisely But some of you sit here before us from day to day as senslesse of those things which most deeply and dearely concerne the eternall ruine or welfare of your precious soules as the seaâ—…es upon which you sit the pillars you leane unto nay the dead bodies you tread upon others looking towards heaven afarre off and professing a little sit before us as though they were right and truly religious and they heare our words but they will not do them For with their mouth they shew much love but their heart goeth after their covetousnesse And loe we are unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument For they heare our words but they do them not They are friends to the better side may go farre and even suffer somtimes in good causes c. But let us once touch them in point of commodity about their enclosures immoderate plungings into worldly affaires detaining Church-dues usury and other dishonest gaine and base niggardise If out of griefe of heart for their shaming Religion exposing the Gospell of IESVS CHRIST to blasphemy and â—…dening others against Profession we meddle with their fashions their pride their worldly-mindednesse and conforming to the world almost in every thing save onely some religious formes If we presse them more particularly upon danger of damnation to more holy strictnesse precisenesse and zeale knowing too well by long observation and acquaintance that they never yet passed the perfections of formall Professours and foolish Virgins Alas We then find by too much wofull experience if they politikely bite it not in that this faithfull dealing doth marvellously discontent them and these precious Balmes do break their heads with a witnesse and make the bloud run about their eares whereupon they are wont to fall upon us more foule such true Pharisees are they than would either the drunkard or good-fellow the Publicans and harlots do in such cases they presently swelling with much passionate heat proud indignation disdaine and impatiency to be reform'd have recourse to such weake and carnall cavils contradictions exceptions excuses and raving that in nothing more do they discover to every judicious man of GOD or any who doth not flatter them or whom they do not blinde with their entertainments and bounty or delude with painted pretences and art of seeming their formality and false-heartednesse And yet as they are characteriz'd Isa. 57. 2. They seeke the LORD daily and delight to know his waies as a nation that did righteousnesse and forsooke not the ordinance of their GOD they aske of Him the ordinances of justice they take delight in approaching to GOD They may have divine Ordinances on foot in their families entertaine GODS people at their Tables fast and afflict their soules upon dayes of humiliation as appeares in the fore-cited Chapter Verse 3. Heare the word gladly with Heroâ—… and with much respect and acceptation observe the messenger c. But they will not stirre an inch further from the World or nearer to GOD say what he will let him preach out his heart as they say They will not abate one jot of their over-eager pursuit after the things of this life or wagg one foot out of the un-zealous plodding course of formall Christianity no not for the Sermons perhaps of twenty yeares and that from him who hath all the while laboured faithfully so farre to illighten them as that they might not depart this life with hope of heaven and then with the foolish Virgins fall utterly against all expectation both of themselves and others into the bottomlesse pit of hell O quà m multi cum hac spead aeternos labores bella descendunt How many saith one go to hell with a vaine hope of heaven whose chiefest cause of damnation is their false perswasion and groundlesse presumption of salvation Well be it either the one or the other the besotted sensualist or selfe-deluding formalist could we speake with them upon their beds of death their consciences awaked or the day after they were damned in hell we should find them then though in the meane
All-powerfull GOD scorne with infinite disdaine to feed upon Earth or any earthly things which are no proportionable object either for divinenesse or duration for so noble a nature to nestle upon But let them ply and fat themselves all the dayes of their appointed time with their proper native and celestiall food At that great Supper made by a King at the mariage of a Kings sonne Luke 14. 16. Mat. 22. 2. And therefore must needs be most magnificent and admirable At that Feast of fat things that Feast of wines on the lees of fat things full of marrow of wines on the lees well refined Isa. 25. 6. The founder and furnisher whereof is the LORD of Hosts He that made Heaven and Earth makes it and therefore it must needs be matchlesse and incomparable At the Well-head of Wisdomes richest Bounty who hath killed her beasts mingled her wine and furnished her table Prov. 9. 2. In and by these and the royallest â—…east that can be imagined are shadowed but infinitely short and represented unto us but nothing to the life all those inexplicable divine dainties delicates sweetnesses those gracious quicknings rejoycings and ravishments of spirit which GOD in mercy is wont to communicate and convey thorow all the ordinances and meanes of grace to truly humbled soules for a mighty increase of spirituall strength and invincible comfort O how deliciously may a heavenly hungry heart feed and fill it selfe 1. In the powerfull Ministry unfolding all the sacred sense and rich mines of GODS owne meaning in His blessed booke 2. In the precious promises of life by the applications and exercise of Faith 3. In the LORDS Supper by making the LORD IESVS surer to our soules every time and every time by feasting afresh upon His body and bloud spiritually with exultations of dearest joy and sweetest glimpses as it were of eternall glory 4. In fruitfull conferences and mutuall communications of gifts graces prayers duties with GODS people which the LORD doth usually and graciously water with the deawes of many sweet and glorious refreshings and quickning much increase of Christian courage and an holy contentation in the good way 5. In meditations upon the mystery of CHRIST the miracles of mercy upon us for our good all our life long and the eternity of joyes and blisse above 6. Upon the LORDS Day when showers of spirituall blessings are accustomed to fall from the Throne of grace all the day long upon those who sincerely endeavour to consecrate it as glorious unto Him 7. Upon those soule-fatting daies of humiliation which who ever tried either secretly privately or publikely either by himselfe alone with his yoke-fellow in his family or congregation and found not GOD extraordinary according to the extraordinarinesse of the exercise About the last IVDGEMENT Consider 1. How cuttingly and how cold the very first sight of the Son of Man comming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory will strike unto thine heart who hast refused to turne on His side and take His part all the time of thy gracious visitation Then wilt thou begin with extremest griefe and bitternesse of spirit to sigh and say within thy selfe Oh! He that I now see sitting downe upon yonder flaming white and glorious Throne is that IESVS CHRIST the mighty GOD the Prince of Peace that sweetest Lambe whose precious bloud was powred out as water upon the earth to save His people from their sinnes And He it was who so fairely invited and wooed me as it were by His faithfullest Messengers and intreated me with termes of dearest love all my life long but even to leave my lusts and biâ—… the Devill adieu and He even He would become my all-sufficient and everlasting Husband and now as at this time have set an immortall crowne of blisse and glory upon my head with His owne all-mighty hand But I alas like a wilfull desperate wretch did not onely neglect so great salvation forsake mine owne mercy and so judge my selfe unworthy of everlasting life but I also a bloudy butcher to mine owne soule all my few and evill dayes basely and bitterly oppos'd His blessed kingdome the purity power and holy precisenesse thereof as quite contrary to my carnall heart and that current of pleasures and worldly contentments into which I had desperately cast my selfe I indeed wretchedly and cruelly against mine owne soule persecuted all the meanes which should have sanctified me and all the men which should have sav'd me Happy therefore were I now if I could intreat the greatest Rocke to fall upon me or be beholding to some mighty mountaine to cover me there to lie hid everlastingly from the face of Him that sâ—…teth on the Thâ—…one and from the wrath of the Lambe O that I now might be turned into a beast or bird or stone or tree or aire or any other thing Blessed were I that ever I was borne if I could now be unborne That I might become nothing and in the state I was before I had any being Ah that my immortall soule were now mortall that I might die in hell and not lie eternally in those fiery torments which I shall never be able either to avoid or abide Let us then betime in the name and feare of GOD kisse the Son lest he be angry at that Day and so we perish everlastingly Let us now while the day of our visitation lasts before the Sun be sâ—…t upon the Prophets addresse our selves unto Him 1. With hearts burdened and broken with sight of siâ—…ne and sense of divine wrath Mat. 11. 28. 2. Prize Him infinitely and above all the world Matth. 13 46. 3. Sell all part with all sinne Ibid. Out of Egypt quite leave not an hoofe behind Exod 10. 26. 4. Take Him as our Husband and LORD whereby we become the sonnes of GOD Iohn 1. 12. 5. Take his yoke upon us and learne to be meeke and lowly Matth. 11. 28. 6. Enter into the way which is called the way of holinesse Isa. 35. 8. 7. And there continue Professours of the Truth and of the power of the Truth and of the power of the Truth in truth For otherwise thou mayest be a Professour and perish eternally That CHRIST may owne thee at that Day Many professe the Truth and not the power of the Truth some professe both the Truth and the power of it but are false-hearted Where then shall the non-Professour appeare Nay the Persecuter of the Sect which is spoken against every where Acts 28. 22. 2. That thou must presently passe to an impartiall strict the highest and last Tribunall which can never be appeal'd from or repeal'd there to give an exact account of all things done in the flesh For every thought of thine heart every word of thy mouth every glance of thine eye every moment of thy time every omission of any holy duty or good deed every action thou hast undertaken with all the circumstances thereof every office thou hast borne and
Heaven About HELL Consider 1. The Paine of losse Privation of GODS glorious presence and eternall separation from those everlasting joyes felicities and blisse above is the more horrible part of hell as Divines affirme There are two parts say they of hellish torments 1. Paine of losse and 2. Paine of sense but a sensible and serious contemplation of that inestimable and unrecoverable losse doth incomparably more afflict an understanding soule indeed than all those punishments tortures and extremest sufferings of sense It is the constant and concurrent judgement of the ancient Fathers that the torments and miseries of many hels come farre short are nothing to the shutting out everlastingly from the kingdome heaven and unhappy banishment from the beatificall vision of the most soveraigne onely and chiefest Good the thrice-glorious Iehovah blessed for ever For by how much the degrees of infinite good and happinesse in GOD exceed the finite wickednesse and misery of men by so much greater is the sorrow and griefe being rightly conceived for the losse of that than for the sense of this Assure then thy selfe before-hand though thou little thinke so in the meane time the losse but of the least raye of that Sun-like resplendent Body we should have in heaven but of a taste of those over-flowing rivers of pleasure and un-utterable blisse of that happy soule which should dwell in such a Body but of one foot-breadth of the pavement of the Empyrean Heaven to which the Starry Firmament is but a Porch or out-house but one houres company with all the crowned Saints and glorious inhabitants of that happy Place but of one glaunce upon the glorified Body of IESVS CHRIST but of one glimpse of that unapproachable Light and Iehovahs face in glory I say the losse but of any one of these would be a far dearer and more unvaluable losse than that of ten thousand worlds were they all compos'd of purest gold and brim-full with richest jewels What will it be then think you to loose all these nay the full and absolute fruition of all heavenly excellencies beauties glories pleasures and perfections and that eternally I know full well that carnall conceipts and worldly-wise men will wonder at this For having no sight but by sensuall eyes they cannot possibly apprehend or will by any meanes acknowledge any such thing Eagle-ey'd they are and sharpe-sighted enough into things of earth yet blinder than a mole as they say in beholding any spirituall or celestiall beauty But had we but the eyes of Austin Basill Chrysostome and some other holy Fathers and why should not ours be clearer and brighter considering the greater splendour and illustriousnesse of divine knowledge in these times we should easily confesse that the farre greatest and indeed most unconceiveable griefe would be to be severed for ever from the highest and supreme Good And that a thousand thousand rentings of the soule from the body were infinitely lesse than one of the soule from GOD. Nicostratus in Aelian himselfe being a cunning artisan finding a curious peece of worke and being wondred at by one and ask'd what pleasure he could take to stand as he did still gazing on the picture answered Hadst thou mine eyes my friend thou wouldest not wonder but rather be ravished as I am at the inimitable art of this rare and admired peece It is proportionably so in the present Point Or were we vouchsafed but one moment of Pauls heavenly rapture that we might sâ—…e but a glimpse of that insiniâ—…e glory and drinke but one drop of those ever-springing Fountaines of joy then should we freely acknowledge and feele the truth of what I say and that all I say comes farre short of what we shall find If it be so then that the losse of the presence of GOD and endlesse pleasures be so painefull irrecoverable and inestimable and that it hath beene many times made manifest unto you by Scriptures Fathers Reasons convincing familiar easie resemblances and the same also appeares and may be clearely concluded by the third exhortation before the Sacrament in the Common Prayer Booke to wit that living and lying wittingly and willingly in any one sinne against conscience robs us of all these infinite ever-during unutterable joyes and beatificall vision and fruition of GOD Himselfe for ever I say sith it is both thus and thus Let every one of us in the name and feare of GOD as we would not for a few 〈◊〉 pleasures nay sometimes one vile lust in this vale of teares for an inch of time lose 〈◊〉 knowne delights thorow all eternity in another world with an unshaken invincible resolution oppose all sorts and assaults of sinne with all motions enticements and temptations thereunto Let us hold with holy Chrysostome That it is worse and a more wofull thing to offend CHRIST than to be vexed with the miseries of hell Let us professe with Anselme That if we should see the hatefulnesse of sinne on the one side and the horrour of hell on the other and must necessarily fall into the one we would rather choose hell tâ—…an siâ—… It is reported also of Edmund his successor that he was wont to say I will rather leape into the siery lake than knowingly commit any sinne against GOD. Let us resolve with another of the Ancients Rather to be torne in peeces with wild horses than wittingly and willingly commit any sin See for this purpose twenty curbing Considerations to keepe from sin Instr. for comf afflict Consc. pag. 108. 2. The Paine of sense The extremity exquisitenesse and eternity whereof no tongue can possibly expresse or heart conceive Consider before hand what an unspeakable misery it would be and yet it would not be so much as a slea biting to this to lie everlastingly in a red hot scorching fire deprived of all possibility of dying or being ever consum'd I have some where read of the horrid execution of a Traitour in this manner being naked he was chained fast to a chaire of brasse or some other such metall that would burne most furiously being fil'd with fiery heat about which was made a mighty fire that by little and little caused the chaire to be red and raging hot so that the miserable man roared hideously many houres for extremest anguish and so expired But what an horrible thing had it beene to havelien in that dreadfull torment eternally And yet all this is nothing For if the blacke fire of hell be truly corporall and taken properly as some of the Fathers suppose yet it is such say they that as farre passeth our ordinary hottest fire as ours exceeds the fire painted upon the wall And it must be so I meane as farre surpasse our most furious ordinary sire immeasurably unconceiveably in degrees of heat and fiercenesse of burning For the one was created for comfort the other purposely to torment the one is made by the hand of man the other tempered by the angry arme
patience c. As a father shewes sometimes and represents to the eye of his child a glimpse and sparkle as it were of some rich orient jewell to make him love long pray and cry for a full sight of it and grasping of it in his owne hand So our heavenly Father in this case If celestiall excellencies and those surpassing joyes arising principally from the visible apprehension of the purity glory and beauty of GOD were clearely seene and fully knowne even by speculation it would be no strange thing or thanksworthy for the most horrible Beliall to become presently the holiest Saint the worlds greatest minion the most mortified man But in this vale of teares we must live by Faith 3. It is a fruit of our fall with Adam and the condition of this unglorified mortall state here upon earth to know but in part From which our knowledge above shall differ as the knowledge of a child from that of a perfect man as knowledge by a glasse from apprehension of the reall object as knowledge of a plaine speech from that which is a riddle It is not for us saith one in these earthly bodies to mount into the clouds to pierce this fulnesse of light to breake into this bottomlesse depth of glory or to dwell in that unapproachable brightnesse This is reserved to the last Day when CHRIST IESVS shall present us glorious and pure to His Father without spot or wrinkle 4. Our understandings upon necessity must be supernaturally irradiated and illightened with extraordinary enlargement and divinenesse before we can possibly comprehend the glorious brightnesse of heavenly joyes and full sweetnesse of eternall blisse It is as impossible in this life for any mortall braine to conceive them to the life as to compasse the heaven with a span or containe the mighty Ocean in a nut-shell The Philosopher could say that as the eyes of an Owle are to the light of the Sun so is the sharpest eye of the most pregnant wit to the mysteries of nature How strangely then would it be dazeled and struck starke blind with the excessive incomprehensible glory and greatnesse of celestiall secrets and immortall light But although we cannot comprehend the whole yet we may consider part Though we cannot take a full draught of that over-flowing fountaine of endlesse blisse above yet we may taste though we cannot yet enjoy the whole harvest yet we take a survey of the first fruits For the Scriptures to this end shadow unto us a glimpse by the most excellent precious and desireable things of this life Thus much premis'd let us for my present purpose about the joyes of Heaven consider 1. The Place where GOD and all His blessed ones inhabite eternally But how can an infinite GOD be said to dwell in a created heaven GOD from all eternity when there was nothing to which He might manifest and make knowne Himselfe is not said to dwell any where either to have been out of Himselfe or in any thing but onely in Himselfe He was therefore an heaven to Himselfe But when He pleased He created the world that in so large and goodly a Theater He might declare and conveigh His power goodnesse and bounty some way or other to all creatures Especially He prepared this glorious heaven we speake of not that it might enclose or enlarge His happinesse But that He might unspeakably beautifie and irradiate it with unconceiveable splendour of His Majesty and Glory and so communicate Himselfe beatifically to all the Elect Saints and Angels even for ever and ever I said not that it might enclose conclude and confine Him For He is as truly without the heavens as He is in them And He is where nothing is with Him He was when nothing was and then He was where nothing was beside Himselfe Before the Creation there was properly neither when nor where but onely an incomprehensible perfection of indivisible immensity and eternity which would still be the same though neither heaven nor earth nor any thing in them should any more be But we may not so place Him without the Heavens as to cloath Him with any imaginary space or give the checke to His immensity by any parallell distance locall He is said to be without the heavens in as much as His infinite Essence cannot be contained in them but necessarily containes them He is so without them or if you will beyond them that albeit a thousand moe worlds were heaped up by His all-powerfull hand each above other and all above this He should by vertue of His infinite Essence not by free choyce of will or mutation of place be as intimately coexistent to every part of them as He now is to any part of this heaven and earth we enjoy In a sober sense Bernard saith true Nusquam est ubique est He is no where because no place whether reall or imaginary can comprehend or containe Him He is every where because no body no space or spirituall substance can exclude His presence or avoid the penetration if I may so speake of His Essence This glorious Empyrean Heaven where nothing but light and blessed immortality no shadow of matter for teares discontentments griefes and uncomfortable passions to worke upon but all joy tranquillity and peace even for ever and ever doth dwell is seated above all the visible Orbs and Starry Firmament See Deut. 4. 39. 10. 14. Iosh. 2. 11. Pro. 25. 3. 1 King 8. 27. 30. 39. 43. 49. Luke 24. 51. Acts 1. 9. 7. 69. Eph. 4. 10. 2 Cor. 12. 2. where it is called the third heaven 1. The first is that whole space from the Earth to the Sphere of the Moone where the birds fly whence raine snow haile and other Meteors descend See Gen. 7. 11. Psal. 8. 8. Mat. 8. 20. Deut. 28. 12. Mat. 6. 26. where they are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. The second consists of all the visible Orbs. See Gen. 1. 14 15. where he cals the whole 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Expansion Firmament Heaven And in this He placeth the Sun Moone and other Starres Deut. 17. 3. Within this second Extension we comprehend three other Orbs represented to our knowledge by their motion Of which see Eustachius Table at pag. 94. 3. The third is that where GOD is said specially to dwell whither CHRIST ascended and where all the blessed Ones shall be for ever No naturall knowledge can possibly be had of this heaven neither any helpe by humane arts Geometry Arithmetike Opticks Hypotheses Philosophy c. To illighten us thereunto For it is neither aspectable nor moveable Hence it is that Aristotle the most eagle-eyed into the mysteries of nature of all Philosophers and whom they call Natures Secretary yet said that beyond the moveable Heavens there was neither body nor time nor place nor vacuum But GODS Booke assures us of this Heaven of happinesse and House of GOD above all the aspectable
and rare peeces what majesty and incomprehensible excellencies may we expect in the Palace of the great King and the heavenly habitations of the Saints and Angels * How full of beauty and glory are the chiefe roomes and Presence-Chamber of the great and royall Monarch of Heaven and Earth O with what infinite sweetest delight may every truly gracious soule bathe it selfe before-hand even in this vale of teares in the delicious and ravishing contemplation of this most glorious Place wherein he hath an eternall blisfull mansion most certainly purchased and prepared for him already by the bloud of IESVS CHRIST Let us therefore as an holy Divine would have us spend many thoughts upon it Let us enter into deepe meditations of the inestimable glory of it Let us long untill we come to the fingering and possession of it even as the heire longeth for his inheritance Let us strive and straine to get into this golden Citie where streets walls and gates and all is gold all is pearle nay where pearle is but as mire and dirt and nothing worth O what fooles are they who deprive themselves willingly of this endlesse glory for a few stinking lusts O what mad men are they who bereave themselves of a roome in this Citie of Pearle for a few carnall pleasures O what bedlams and humane beasts are they who shut themselves out of these everlasting habitations for a little transitory pelfe O what intolerable sots and senselesse wretches are all such who wilfully barre themselves out of this Palace of infinite pleasure for the short fruition of worldly trash and trifles 2. In a second place let us take notice of some names titles and epithetes attributed to heavenly joyes eternall glory which may yet further represent to our relish their incomparable sweetnesse and excellency They are called 1. A Kingdome Mat. 25. 34. Luke 12. 32. Now a Kingly Throne is holden the top and crowne of all earthly happinesses the highest aime of the most eager and restlesse aspirations and ambitions of men A confluence it is of riches pleasures glory all royall bravery or what mans heart can wish for outward welfare and felicity What stirres and stratagems what murders and mischiefes what mining and counter-mining what mysterious plots and machivillian depths what strange adventures and effusions sometimes even of bloudy seas to catch a Crowne Witnesse Lancaster and Yorke nay all habitable parts of the earth which from time to time have become bloudy cock-pits in this kind 2. An Heavenly Kingdome Mat. 7. 21. And 18. 3. to intimate that it surpasseth in glory and excellency all earthly kingdomes as farre as heaven transcendeth earth and unconceiveably more 3. The Kingdome of GOD Acts 14. 23. A Kingdome of GODS owne making beautifying and blessing who doth all things like Himselfe as I said before replenished and shining with Majesty pleasures and ineffable felicities beseeming the glorious Residence of the King of Kings 4. An Inheritance Acts 20. 32. Not a tenement at will to be possessed or left at the landlords pleasure but an inheritance setled upon us and sealed unto us by the dearest and highest price that ever was payed which wil be as orient precious and acceptable after as many millions of yeares as you can think as it was the very first day it was powred out and payed 5. A rich and glorious inheritance Eph. 1. 18. Fit for the Majesty and mercy of Almighty GOD to bestow the un-valuable bloud of His Son to purchase and the dearely Beloved of His Soule to enjoy 6. An Inheritance of the Saints in light Coloss. 1. 12. Every word sounds a world of sweetnesse 7. An Inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away 1 Pet. 1. 4. There can never possibly be the least diminution much lesse any abolishment of the least glimpse of heavenly glory But all blisse above wil be as fresh and full innumerable yeares hence as at our first entrance and so thorow all eternity 8. A Crowne of righteousnesse 2 Tim. 4. 8. Fairly come by and full dearely bought A crowne of life Iaâ—… 1. 12. A Crowne of glory 1 Pet. 5. 4. Glory it selfe Rom. 9. 23. Nay an exceeding exceeding eternall waight of glory 2 Corinth 4. 17. Which Crownes Kingdomes Pearles Iewels Feasts c. do but weakely shadow out unto us A superlative transcendent Phrase saith one such as is not to be found in all the Rhetoricke of the Heathens because they never wrote of such a theme nor with such a spirit 9. Fulnesse of joy everlasting pleasures Psal. 16. 11. A swift flowing river and torrent of pleasures Psal. 36. 8. The very joy of our LORD and Master Mat. 25. 21. 3. In a third place let us consider the beauty and blessednesse of glorified Bodies I do not here curiously enquire with the Schoole-men whether the glory of the body doth spring originally out of the blessednesse and beautifull excellency of the soule and so redounds upon the body by a continued constant influence as Aquinas thinks Or which I rather follow that those excellent endowments and heavenly splendours are originally and dispositively implanted by GODS hand in the reformed body onely perfected and actuated as it were by the glorious soule as Bonaventure supposeth Sure I am in generall they shal be made like the glorious Body of CHRIST Philip. 3. 21. And that is happinesse and honour enough inexplicable supereminent Besides their freedome from all defects and imperfections diseases and distempers infirmities and deformities maimednesse and monstrous shapes infancy or decrepitnesse of stature c. From want of meate drinke mariage for we shal be like the Angels of GOD in heaven Matth. 22. 30. We shall hunger no more neither thirst any more Rev. 7. 16. of sleepe for there shal be no wearying of the body or tyring the spirits for we shall live by the all-sufficient Spirit of GOD which never needs refreshing of physicke for we shall enjoy perpetuall impregnable health a glorified body cannot possibly be distempered either by inward contrariety of elementary qualities or any outward contagion or hurtfull impression of aire to coole our heat or keepe us from stifling of clothes for we shal be clothed with long white robes of immortality Rev. 7. 9. which can never be worne out but shall be so beautifull and glorious that like the Sun we shall be best adorned when we have no other covering but our owne resplendent Majesticall brightnesse of Sun for the glory of GOD shall illighten that heavenly city and the Lambe shal be the light thereof Rev. 21. 23. Of any thing for GOD shal be unto us All in All 1 Cor. 15. 28. I say besides an everlasting exemption and priviledge from all ils paines miseries our bodies shal be gloriously crowned with many positive prerogatives marvellous excellencies high and heavenly endowments 1. Immortality 1 Cor. 15. 54. Glorified bodies can never possibly die They shall last as long as GOD Himselfe and run parallell with
dwell in them both for ever Amplifie the glory of our bodies in heaven from such places as these Dan. 12. 2. Mat. 13. 45. Phil. 3. 20 21. Col. 3. 4. From which the ancient Fathers also thus collect and affirme If we should compare saith Chrysostome our future bodies even with the most glistering beames of the Sun we shall yet say nothing to the expression of the excellency of their shining glory The beauty of the just in the other life saith Anselme shal be equall to the glory of the Sun though sevenfold brighter than now it is The brightnesse of a glorified body doth as farre excell the Sun as the Sun our mortall body Then shall the righteous shine forth as the Sunne in the Kingdome of their Father Not saith Chrysostome because they shall not surpasse the brightnesse of the Sun but because that being the most glittering thing in the world he takes a resemblance thence towards the expressing of their incomparable glory But how can there be so much beauty and delightfull amiable aspect in such intensive and extraordinary brightnesse Or what pleasure can we take in beholding such extremely bright and shining bodies Sith we find by experience that there is farre more content and delight in looking upon a well-proportioned object beautified with a pleasant mixture of colours than in seeing the Sun though it should not so dazle and offend the eyes For satisfaction herein we must know that the glorified eye shall become impassible elevated farre above all mortall possibility and fortified by an heavenly vigour to apprehend and enjoy all celestiall light and glory with much ravishing contentment and inexplicable delight Secondly that omnipotent mercifull hand of GOD which will raise our bodies out of the dust and reforme them anew can cause light and colour to concurre and consist in excellency in glorified bodies Those things which according to nature can consist together the one or both being in gradu remisso as they say abated of their height can by divine power consist together in gradu intensissimo suae speciei in their excellency but it is so with light and colour according to nature ergo c. as Durandus one of the acutest Schoolemen makes good by arguments Whether shall colour or light be seene Why not both in a most delicious admirable mixture Here the Schoolemen according to their wont do curiously inquire discusse and determine the manner of the acts exercise and objects of all the senses They say not only 1. That the eye shall delightfully contemplate CHRISTS glorious body the shining bodies of the Saints the beauty of the Empyrean Heaven c. 2. The eare drinke up with infinite delight the vocall harmony of Hailelu-jahs c. But also audaciously undertake to define without any good ground or found warrant many particulars about the other senses not without much absurdity and unspiritualnesse But let it be sufficient for us without searching beyond the bonds of sobriety to know for a certaine that every sense shal be filled with its severall singularity and excellency of all possible pleasure and perfection 4. In a fourth place let us take a glance of the unutterable happinesse of the Soule I should be infinite and endlesse if I did undertake to pursue the severall glories felicities and excellencies of every faculty of the soule and when I had done ended with the utmost of all both Angelicall and humane understanding and eloquence come infinitely short of expressing them to the life I will at this time but give you a taste onely in the understanding Part And that shal be extraordinarily and supernaturally enlarged and irradiated with the highest illuminations largest comprehensions and utmost extent of all possible comfortable knowledge of which such a creature is capable 1. Humane knowledge of Arts Nature created things is delicious and much desired Witnesse 1. The wisest Heathens and best Philosophers who were so ravished but even with a dimme glimpse of this knowledge that in comparison thereof they have contemned all the riches pleasures and preferments of the world 2. That wise saying A learned man doth as farre excell an illiterate as a reasonable creature a brute 3. The extraordinarily exulting and triumphant cry of the famous Mathematician hitting after long and laborious disquisition upon some abstruse excellency of his Art I have found it I have found it 4. That passage in an Epistle of Aeneas Silvius to Sigism D. of Austria If the face of humane learning could be seene it is fairer and more beautifull than the Morning and Evening Starre 5. For the pleasure and delight of knowledge and learning saith another it farre surpasseth all other in nature for shall the pleasures of the affections so exceed the senses as much as the obtaining of desire and victory exceedeth a song or dinner And must not of consequence the pleasures of the intellect or understanding exceed the pleasures of the affections We see in all other pleasures there is a saetiety and after they be used their verdour departeth which sheweth well they be but deceipts of pleasure and not pleasures and that it was the novelty which pleased and not the quality And therefore we see that voluptuous men turne Friers and ambitious Princes turne melancholy But of knowledge there is no satiety But satisfaction and appetite are perpetually interchangeable and therefore appeareth to be good in it selfe simply without fallacy or accident Now this learning shall then be fully perfected and raised to the highest pitch so that the least and lowest of the Saints in heaven shall farre surpasse in cleare contemplation of the causes of all naturall things and conclusions of Art the deepest Philosophers greatest Artists and learnedst Linguists that ever lived upon earth There are many difficulties and doubts in all kinds of humane learning which have from time to time exercised the bravest wits but by reason of the native dimnesse of our understanding never received cleare resolution and infallible assent As Whether the Elementary formes be in mixt Bodies 1. Corrupted 2. Remitted only 3. Or Entire Whether the celestiall Orbs be moved by Angels or internall formes Whether there be three distinct soules in a man 1. Vegetative 2. Sensitive 3. Rationall Or one onely in substance containing vertually the other two How all the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Appearances in the Aethereall Heaven may be truliest and with least exception maintained whether by Excentricks and Epicycles or onely by Concentricks or the Earths motion or the motion of the Starres in the heavens as fish move in the sea and birds in the aire c. So the best wits are inextricably pusl'd also about the Sympathy and Antipathy of things Alchymie cause of Criticall daies The mysts about these and many things moe shal be dispel'd out of our minds by a cleare sunne of a new and excellent knowledge so that we shal be exactly acquainted with the
more Our mutuall knowledge one of another in heaven shall not be in outward and worldly respects but divine and spirituall as we know them in CHRIST by the illumination of the Spirit 5. We shall know the spirituall substances offices orders excellencies of the Angels the nature immortality operations and originall of our owne soules c. In a word all things knowable 6. We shall be beatifically illightened with a cleare and glorious sight of GOD Himselfe which Divines call Beatificall Vision About which the Schoolemen audaciously discoursing fall upon differing conceipts 1. Some say GOD shall then be knowne by a Species representing the divine Essence and by a Light of glory elevating the understanding by a supernaturall strength 2. Others That the divine Essence shall be represented to the glorified understanding not by any Species but immediately by It Selfe yet they also require light of glory to elevate and fortifie the understanding by reason of its weakenesse and infinite disproportion and distance from the incomprehensible Deity 3. Others hold that to the cleare vision of GOD there is not required a Species representing the divine Essence as the first sort suppose nor any created light elevating the understanding as the second sort think but onely a change of the naturall order of knowing It is sufficient say they that the divine Essence be immediately represented to a created understanding Which though it cannot be done according to the order of nature as experience tels us For we so conceive things first having passed the sense and imagination Yet it may be done according to the order of divine grace c. But it is sufficient for a sober man to know that in heaven we shall see Him face to face Upon my Patron And here by your good leaves I will be bold to make benefit of the instant occasion because it is very seasonably coincident with the Point And presse from that the practice of this last mortifying motive These artificiall Formes of sadnesse and complementall representations of sorrow in blacks and mourning weeds are nothing for my purpose neither do I desire to stirre up or renew in any man thoughts of heavinesse or griefe of heart which he might conceive and nourish by reason of some particular interest in the bounty love person and worthy parts of the departed many times men are too forward and overflowing in those tender offices and last demonstrations of natural affection And therfore my counsel in such cases is that we would shew our selves Christians and by the sacred rules of Religion ever prevent that unseasonablenesse and excesse which many times with a fruitlesse torture doth tyrannise over the hopelesse hearts of meere naturall men The Point that I would principally presse and perswade unto is a Christian and compassionate taking to heart the publike losse that every one of us may upon that occasion be truly humbled in himselfe and bettered in his owne soule And I tell you true especially in these times this losse is great He was a revexend and learned Iudge a Prince and a great Man in Israel nay a God upon earth for so are Iudges stiled by the Spirit of GOD Psal. 82. 6. Though he be departed this life like a man and fallen as one of the Princes But these are nothing they are but bare titles in respect of any true worth He was really remarkable and renowned for very speciall judiciary endowments and sufficiencies and those aided and attended with many worthy additions of morality and subordinate abilities As first 1. Such calmnesse in his affections and moderation of his passions as I never saw even in his ordinary cariage He might have been a mirrour me thinks in this point even amongst the exactest Moralists And they say that appeared most eminently in his publike passages and executions of justice And how needfull a vertue this is to a Iudiciall Place those may best conceive who either feele or but consider what a cruell and intolerable thing it is for an ingenuous man to stand before a Iudge who is prejudicately and passionately transported with anger malice or hatred against the party to be sentenced 2. Patience to heare the basest both parties all they could say And unwillingnesse to lend his eare to the one without the others presence 3. A great and happy memory 4. Singular sagacity in searching and diving into the secretest and utmost circumstances so farre as was possible of the causes that came before him that he might give the more righteous judgement 5. A marvellous tendernesse and pitifull exacttnesse in his inquisitions after bloud Holding on the one side the life of a man very precious and yet on the other side perswaded of the truth and terrour of that place Numb 35. 33. For bloud that defileth the land and the land cannot be cleansed of the bloud that is shed therein but by the bloud of him that shed it But yet all these whatsoever you apprehend in my conceipt had not beene much worth though good in their owne nature neither to tell you true should I have so much as nam'd them had they not been aided as it were and managed with three other most noble and necessary vertues especially in these times which actuated them as it were and gave them their life and lustre 1. A love to integrity the right and truth in all his judiciall courses which for any thing I know or could ever heare no man living upon just ground can or will contradict 2. With a constant and resolute heart-rising against bribery and corruption the cursed bane of all goodnesse honesty and good conscience wheresoe'er it comes And to this that high place he worthily held about the Prince can give royall attestation where he qualified fees to his owne losse and protested his resolution and all possible opposition to all offers for offices with this reason he would have them come in clearehanded that they might deale honestly in their places And his owne followers to whom he gave a charge at his first entrance to a judiciall place that they should not meddle nor make any motions to him that he might be secur'd from all appearance of corruption And as I am credibly inform'd his ordinary reading of great letters and rejection of gratuities after judgement given 3. With a noble and unshaken resolution and mighty opposition of Popery and that without respect or feare of any greatnesse as we have evident demonstration Now of this we need no further testimony though there be very pregnant and plentifull besides than the present triumph of the Papists and barbarous insultations of that bloudy and murdrous generation And especially in yonder Country of Lancashire and those Northerne Parts where he shooke the pillars of Popery more valiantly and succesfully than any these many yeares Officers in those Parts observ'd that in his two or three yeares he convicted confin'd and conform'd moe Papists than were in twenty yeares before And that last
and rebellious people which was fruitlesly and vainly spilt as water upon the ground or lost upon the hardest slint many a piercing and powerfull Sermon had he spent amongst them to the wasting of his strength and spirits which yet was to them as an idle and empty breath vanishing into nothing and scatter'd in the aire The LORD as He saies Himselfe made His mouth as a sharpe sword and Himselfe as a chosen shaft and yet that two-edged sword was full often blunted upon their hardest hearts and his keene arrowes discharged by a skilfull hand rebounded from their flinty bosomes as shafts shot against a stone wall And that made that Seraphicall Oratour the unmatched Paragon of sacred eloquence thus to complaine Isa. 47. 4. I have laboured in vaine I have spent my strength in vaine and for nothing A course of extraordinary severity and terrour was taken with Pharaoh he was not onely chastised with rods but even scourged with Scorpions and yet all the plagues of Egypt were so farre from piercing and softening his hard heart as that every particular plague added a severall iron sinew and more slintinesse to his already stony heart And as the heart is naturally thus hardened towards godlinesse so also hollow towards the godly See Sauls cariage towards David No materiall waight can more crush the heart of man than braying in a morter and yet saith Salomon Prov. 27. 22. Though thou shouldest bray a foole a desperate sinner a rebellious wretch in a morter amongst wheat brayed with a pestill yet will not his foolishnesse his sinfulnesse which is the greatest depart from him no more than the skin from the Blacke-moore or the spots from the Leopard by washing him Shame an old obstinate beaten sinner with his horrible ingratitude show him the ugly face of his hainous sinnes tell him of the losse of the happinesse of heaven affright him with the feare of hell and damnation in all this he is like a Smiths anvill that growes harder and harder for all his hammering Lastly a damned spirit though he lie in the lowest dungeon of utter darknesse laden with that burden of sinne which prest downe a glorious Angell of light and all his followers from the top of heaven into that lowest pit with the full weight of the unquenchable and everlasting wrath of GOD with all the heavy chaines of that infernall lake and with that which me thinkes is farre worse and more cutting than many hels than ten thousand damnations even with despaire of ever having ease end or remedy of those most bitter everlasting intolerable hellish torments I say though a damned soule be thus laden and thus heavily prest downe with all this cursed waight and hainousnesse of hell yet he is still as hard as a stone So certaine it is that no curse or created power not the softest eloquence or severest course not the waight of the whole world or the heavines of hell if all were prest and laid upon the heart of a man could possibly breake that stubbornesse or tame that rebellion This is onely the worke of the blessed Spirit with the hammer of the Word This hardnesse of heart had attained a strange height even in the worlds infancy into what a prodigious rocke is that growne now then by length of time in so many ages sith every generation since by invention of new sinnes and addition of hainousnesse unto the old have every one added thereunto a severall iron sinew and a further degree of flintinesse What a heart was got into Cains breast who was first cut out of the stony rocke of corrupt man-kind remorse of shedding the guiltlesse bloud of his murthered brother which was able to have melted an adarnant into bloudy teares moved him never a whit Nay the presence of Almighty GOD at which the earth trembles the hills melt like waxe which turneth the rocke into water-pooles and the stint into a fountaine of water as David speakes yet made his stony heart relent never a whit Nay yet further GODS mighty voice immediately from His owne mouth which breakes the cedars and shakes the wildernesse which was able with one word even in a moment to turne the whole world into nothing and the sonnes of men as though they had never beene yet I say this powerfull and mighty voice did not at all amaze or mollifie the un-relenting stubbornenesse of this bloudy wretch but in a strange dogged fashion he answers GOD Almighty even to His face For when GOD mildly and fairely asked him what was become of his brother Abel he answered I cannot tell Nay further as though he had bid GOD go looke he faith Am I my brothers keeper Where take this note by the way Let not Christians thinke much to receive dogged answers and disdainfull speeches from prophane men you see how doggedly this fellow answers even GOD Almighty The Disciple is not above his Master nor the servant above his Lord It is enough for the Disciple to be as the Master and the servant as his Lord if they have called the Master of the house Beelzebub how much more them of his houshold Mat. 10. 24 25. What a strange stony heart lodged in the breast of the tyrant Pharaoh When the Prophet 1 Kin. 13. cried to the altar of Ieroboam O altar altar the altar clave presently asunder at the Word of GOD in the mouth of the Prophet but this mighty hammer of the Word Ier. 23. 29. with ten miracles gave ten mighty strokes at Pharaohs heart and yet could find no entrance could not pierce it but rebounded backe as an arrow shot against a stone wall Let no man then thinke it strange to see many stubborne and rebellious wretches run on in their courses and rage against the waies of GOD though they have both the Ministry of the Word of GOD to reclaime them and be many times singled out particularly by the hand of GOD with some speciall judgement for the abatement of their fury For the rebelliousnesse of mans nature can never possibly be tamed corrupt affection can never be conquered untill the heart wherein it sits inthron'd be crusht and broke in peeces and this hardnesse of heart can never be mortified no created power can possibly pierce it untill the Almighty Spirit take the hammer of the Word into His owne hand that by His speciall unresistable power He may first breake and bruise it and after by sprinkling it with the bloud of CHRIST dissolve it into teares of true repentance that so it may be softened sanctified and sav'd And let no man marvell that the powerfullest Ministry doth produce by accident the most pestilent scorners cruellest persecutors and men of most raging cariage against the meanes of their salvation for these reasons 1. From the nature of the glorious Gospell of IESVS CHRIST the sunn of righteousnesse which shining upon one that hath spirituall life will more reuiue and quicken him but in one dead in
in pursuit be unto him a counterpoyson to uphold his heart in comfort and contentment against the vanity and venome of such endlesse ambitions and if men be so infinitly ventrous for an earthly crowne which as one sayes if wee well weighed with what feares jealousies cares insidiations c. it is thick set if we found it before us in the way we would not take it up I say then how eager should wee bee after the glory of Heaven 2. If corrupt affection fall in love with riches and the wedge of gold it begets covetousnesse the vilest and basest of all the infection of the soule as ambition haunteth the haughtiest spirits so covetousnesse lodgeth in the most dunghill disposition it turnes the soule of man that noble and immortall spirit into earth and mud whereas it might live in heaven upon earth and by holy meditation by a sweet familiarity and acquaintance as it were with GOD and conversing above and in that everlasting heaven of endlesse happinesse hereafter It lies in hell upon earth and by restlesse torture of unsatiable greedinesse makes way by it rooting to descend into the hell of wicked devils in the world to come This devouring gangrene of greedinesse to get riches doth not onely by a most incompatible antipathy keepe out grace and GODS feare but also by it venomous heat wast and consume all honest and naturall affection both to man and beasts to parents kindred friends and acquaintance Nay it makes a man contemne himselfe body and soule wilfully to abandon both the comfortable enjoyment of this short time of this present mortality and all hope of thâ—… length of that blessed eternity to come for a litâ—…le transitory pelfe which he doth neither enjoy or use except it be for use which enlargeth his covetous thirst as mightily as it brings forth money monstrously Besides covetousnesse pierceth thorow the soule with a thousand torments and the riches of iniquity ingender in the heart of man many tortures envies and molestations as their proper thunderbolt and blasting And of all other vile affections it is most sottishly and senslesly unsatiable Eccles. 4. 8. For how is it possible that earth should feed or fill the immateriall and heaven-borne spirit of a man It cannot be and the Spirit of GOD hath said it shall not be Eccles. 5. 9. He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver c. Hence it is that the deeplier the drowsie heart of this covetous man doth drinke of this golden streame the more furiously it is inflam'd with spirituall thirst Nay it is most certaine that if the covetous man could purchase a monopoly of all the wealth in the world were he able to empty the Westerne parts of gold and silver and the East of pearles and jewels should he enclose the whole face of the earth from one end of heaven to the other and heape his hoards unto the starres yet his heart would be as hungry after more riches as if he had never a penny and much more Such is GODS curse upon that man which makes his gold his god And this insatiablenesse in the covetous man begets cruelty and oppression of others and perpetual want of contentment and comfort in that he hath already Sweetnes of gaine makes him many times drinke the bloud eat the flesh of the oppressed He begins first if he be of power and place to grind the faces of the poore then to pluck of their skins then to tear their flesh then to break their bones and chop them in peeces as flesh for the pot and at last even to eat the flesh of GODS people That is first to weary them out with petty wrongs and extraordinary occasions to vexe them with new conditions and unconscionable encroachments and at last to wring their pensive soules from their wasted and hunger-starv'd bodies with extremity of oppression and cruelty of covetousnesse And that which is a just curse upon the covetous man he is ever infinitely more tormented with the want of that which he doth immoderately and unnecessarily desire than contented and comforted with the enjoyment of those things he doth presently possesse The ambitious man if he be disgrac'd and over-top'd by any grand opposite and counterfactionist or derided and revil'd with baser and inferiour contempt or neglected by omission of some due observance and ceremony of state he I say is more griev'd if he want grace for some such little default in the attributions of his place and want of complementall respect in that measure and of such men as he desires than he hath glory and pompe in his highest place This is cleare in Haman though he was compassed and crown'd with such undeserved and extraordinary precedency and pompe yet this one little thing because Mordecai would not bow the knee and do reverence to him at the Kings gate did utterly marre and dissweeten all the other excellencies of his new advancement and extraordinarinesse of the Kings favour See Hester 5. 10 11 12 13. And Haman told his wife and friends of all his glory c. But all this saith he doth nothing availe me as long as I see Mordecai the Iew sitting at the Kings gate As it is thus in ambition and in great men that are gracelesse they many times take more to heart out of the pride of their hearts the want of some one circumstantiall observance and of reverence from some one man than they heartily enjoy all the other glory of their place so it is also with the covetous man though already he hath more than enough yet some greedy wish of a new addition doth more torture his heart than the rowing amongst al his other wealth can rejoyce it Ahab though he had already in his hand the riches glory pleasures soveraignty of a kingdome yet after he had cast his covetous eye upon poor Naboths vinyard which was near his palace his heart did more afflict and vex it self with greedy longing for that bit of earth than the vast and spacious compasse of a kingdome could counter-comfort He could take no joy in the beauty of a crowne and largenesse of his royall command because his poore neighbour would not deprive himselfe and all his posterity of the inheritance of his fathers which his ancestors had enjoyed time out of mind For a counterpoyson against the greedy gangrene of hoarding up riches consider in what stead thy riches will stand thee upon thy bed of death consider that speech of a poore distressed woman afflicted in conscience whom I heard thus say in the agony of her grieved spirit I have husband goods and children and other comforts I would give them all the treasures of the earth if I had them and all the good I shall have in this world or in the world to come to feele but the least taste of the favour of GOD in the pardon of my sinne she would in this case with all her heart haue giuen the warmest
is a right noble and heroicall revenge which doth not onely deprive the body of temporall life but bring also the immortall soule to endlesse flames everlastingly 3. Desperate corrupt affection is strangely desperate to run headlong upon the damnation of hell for a little earthly delight if we should see a naked man in some furious moode as prodigall of his temporall life runne upon his owne sword or throw himselfe from some steep rocke or cast himselfe into some deep river and teare out his owne bowels we should censure it presently to be a very desperate part and ruefull spectacle what shall we say of him then who thorough the fury of his rebellious nature to the endlesse destruction of the life of his immortall soule doth desperatly throw himselfe upon the devouring edge of GODS fiercest indignation upon the sharpest points of all the plagues and curses in his Booke and into the very flames of everlasting fire It is a very fearefull thing to see a man bath and embrue his hands in the blood and butchery of his owne body and with his murderous blade to take away the life thereof but of how much more horrour and wofulnesse is that spectacle when a desperate wretch with the empoysoned edge of his owne enraged corruption doth cut the throat of his owne deare immortall soule so that a man may teach him all his life long by the blood thereof in the sinfull passages of his life untill at length it bee stark dead in sinnes and trespasses for how can a soule all purple red with willfull sheading its own blood looke for any part in that pretious blood of that spotles lambe Nay assuredly such bloody stubbornnes and selfe-murthering cruelty will be paid home at last by the severe revenger of such cursed desperatnesse Hee will judge such a man after the manner of them that shed their owne blood and give him the blood of wrath and of jealousie Lord it is prodigiously strange and lamentably fearefull that so noble and excellent a creature as man prince of all other earthly creatures by the priviledge of reason and enlightned with the glorious beame of understanding nature should be so furiously madded with its owne malice and bewitchedly blindfolded by the Prince which rules in the Aire as for the momentany enjoyment of some fewglorious miseries bitter-sweet pleasures heart-vexing riches or some other worldly vanity at the best desperatly and wilfully to abandon and cast himselfe from the unconceivable pleasures of its joyfull place where GOD dwels into an infinite world of everlasting woefulnesse For let a carnall man consider in a word his prodigious madnesse in this point He might not onely in this vale of teares bee possest with a peacefull heart which is an incomparable pretiousnesse surpassing all created understandings For I dare say this I know it to bee true One little glimpse of Heaven shed sometimes into the heart of a sanctified man by the saving illumination of the comforting spirit whereby he sees and feeles that in despight of the rage of divels malice of men let sin and death the grave and hell doe their worst his soule is most certainely bound by the hand of GOD in the bundle of the living and that hee shall hereafter everlastingly inhabite the joyes of eternity I say this one conceit being the immediate certificate of the spirit of truth doth infinitely more refresh his affections and affect his heart with more true sweetnesse and tastfull pleasure then all carnall delights and sensuall delicacies can possibly produce though they were as exquisite and numberlesse as nature art and pleasure it selfe could devise and to be enjoyed securely as long as the world lasts Besides this heaven upon earth and glorious happinesse even in this world he might hereafter go in arme with Angels sit downe by the side of the blessed Trinity amongst Saints and Angels and all the truly worthy men that ever lived with the highest perfection of blisse endlesse peace and blessed immortality all the joyes all the glory all the blisse which lies within the compasse of heaven should be powred upon him everlastingly and yet for all this he doth not onely in a spirituall phrensie desperately deprive himselfe and trample under foot this heaven upon earth and that joyfull rest in heaven world without end but also throwes himselfe into a hell of ill conscience here and hereafter into that hell of Devils which is a place of flames and perpetuall darknesse where there is torment without end and past imagination The day will come and the LORD knowes how soone when he will clearely see and acknowledge with horrible anguish of heart his strange and desperate madnesse See Wisd. 5. 2 c. For after the moment of a few miserable pleasures in this life be ended he is presently plunged into the fiery lake and ere he be aware the pit of destruction shutteth upon him everlastingly and if once he find himselfe in hell he knowes there is no redemption out of that infernall pit then would he think himselfe happy if he were to suffer those bitter and intolerable torments no mo thousands of yeares than there are sands on the sea shore haires on his head starres in heaven grasse piles on the ground and creatures both in heaven and earth for he would still comfort himselfe at least with this thought that once his misery would have an end but alas this word never doth ever burst his heart with unexpressible sorrow when he thinks upon it for after an hundred thousand of millions of yeares there suffered he hath as farre to suffer as he had at the first day of his entrance into those endlesse torments now let a man consider if he should lie in an extreme fit of the stone or a woman if she should be afflicted with the grievous torture of child-bed but one night though they lie upon the softest beds have their friends about them to comfort them Physitians to cure them all needfull things ministred unto them to asswage their paine yet how tedious painfull and wearisome would even one night seeme unto them how would they turne and tosse themselves from side to side telling the clocke counting every houre as it passeth which would seeme unto them a whole day What is it then think you to lie in fire and brimstone inflamed with the unquenchable wrath of GOD world without end Where they shall have nothing about them but darknesse and discomforts yellings and gnashings of teeth their companions in prophanenesse and vanity to ban and curse them the damned fiends of hell to scourge them and torment them despaire and the worme that never dies to feed upon them with everlasting horrour If carnall wretches be so desperate as wilfully to spill the bloud of their owne soules let us set light by the life of our bodies if the cruelty of the times call for it for the honour of the Saviour of our soules Let me give one instance of dangerous snares
majestas est DEI luxque illa Deitasipsius quam inhabitare DEVS dicitur Ea omnibus est inaccessa corporeis oculis invisibilis Ab hac majesta te verò pro bene placito voluntatis DEI lumen creatum proficiscitur quo tota urbs splendet quo electis etiam communicato efficit DEVS ut ipsum plenè quas facie ad faciem cognoscant Zanch. De Coelo beato Cap 4. b Coelum Beatorum est imprimis lucidisâ—…imum eóque verus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hoc est totum omni ex parte luminosum ac splendidum Non enim est sicut firmamentum varijs ornatum â—…ellis eóque alibi lucidum alibi verò non it a lucidum sed totum est pellucidum Est enim perindè atque si totum sit quidem Sol maximus omnia suo ambitu complectens Neque lux illa est similis luci stellarum neque etiam ejusdem generis Sed est lux verè divina licèt creata idcircò quià lux est alterius generis lux est gloriae non penetrat huc ad nos usque oculis tamen corporeis futuro saeculo à nobis videbitur Ideâ—… Ibid. * Incomparabilitèr clara est civitas eterna ubi victoria ubi veritas ubi dignitas ubi sanctitas ubi vita ubi aeternitas De vitâ aeternd Oh how brave how beautifull how glorious how glittering how gorgeous how admirable a City is this For if the gates be of pearle and the streets of gâ—…ld then what are the inner roomes What are the dining chambers And what are the lodging roomes O how unspeakable is the glory of this city that Kings shall throw downe their Crownes and Scepters before it counting all their pompe and glory but as dust in respect of it And the magnificence and pompe of all the Potentates of the earth shall here be laid downe And albeit none of the Kings and Nobles of the Gentiles might be admitted into the old Ierusalem yet all the Gentiles that believe shal be admitted into this new Ierusalem and made free Denisons thereof for ever Dent upon the Rev. I might tell you here of many other probable singularities about this celestiall palace and that from the hand of some godly and learned Divines To wit That this third Heaven is not penetrable by any creature whereas the other two are passable by the grossest Bodies so that it is said to open to the very Angels Ioh. 1. 51. Who though they be able to penetrate all things under it yet are they no more able to enter that Body than they are to passe into one anothers natures Hence it comes to passe that the third Heaven gives way to Angels soules and bodies of men to enter in by miracle GOD making way by His power where nature yeelds no passage For it is without pores and cannot possibly extend or contract it selfe into a large or straiter compasse That Tertium hoc summum coelum in medio non est corpus solidum sed inest aura aliquis coelestis quae supplet defectum aeris corporibus glorificatis In qua etsi pori non sunt in nobis tamen porierunt in quibus erit haec natura coelestior quâ—… etiam aeris vicem supplebit ad sermonem In coelo enim usuri sumus Hebrâ—…â linguâ 1. Nam natura ibi redibit quae primitùs hanc linguam tenuit 2. Confusio linguarum maledictior fuit And this aura coelestis say they shall maintaine life eternally and be answerable to our constitution even as this atre is c. But as I would my selfe by no means confidently entertaine so will I never ebtrude upon others any thing in this or any other divine point but that onely which iâ—… grounded either directly and immediately or by good and sound consequence upon GODs sure Word * Who hath not observed what labour practice perill bloud shed cruelty the Kings and Princes of the world have undergone exercised taken on them and committed to make themselves and their issues Masters of the world S. W Rawleigh * Restat ergò ut suam recipiat quisque mensuram quam vel habuit in juventute â—…msi senex est mortuusâ—… vel fuerat habiturus si antè est defunctus Aug. de Civit. DEI. Lib. 22 Cap 15. Circa triginta annos desinierunt esse etiam saeculi hujus doctissimi homines juventutem Idem Ibid. Resurgent omnes tà m magni corpore quà m vel erant vel futuri erant in juvenili aetate Idem Ibid. Cap. 16. Quibus omnibus pro nostro modulo consideratis tractatis haec summa conficitur ut in resurrectione carnis in aeternum eas mensuras habeat corporum magnitudo quas habebat perficiendae sive perfectae cujuscunque indita corpori ratio juventutis in membrorum quoque omnium modulis congruo decore servatur Ibid Cap 20. All the bodieâ—… of the Elect shall arise in that perfection of nature whereunto they should have attained by their naturall temper and constitution if no impediment had hindered and in that vigour of age that a perfect man is at about three and thirty yeares old each in their proper sexe So saith some worthy Divine whose name I forgot to note when I tooke his Saying * A ssruere licet sanitatem vitae futurae ità vigere immutabilem ac inviolabilem fore ut inessabili quadam dulcedine suavitatis totum hominem repleat omne quod alicujus in se vicissitudinis mutabilitatis aut laesionis suspicionem praetendere queat procul arâ—…at atque repellat Anselm de simililitud Cap. 54. * Immortalitas sumitur quadrifariam Pro 1. Impotentia moriendi absoluta natura Sic solus DEVS immortalitatem habet 1 Tim. 6. 16. 2. Impotentia moriendi ex gratia creationis sic Angeli animae humanae sunt immortales 3. Impotentia moriendi ex gratia doni sic coelum novum terra nova corpora beatorum immortalitatem habebunt 4. Potentia non moriendi ex aliqua Hypothesi licet in se sit mortale Sic homo ante peccatum erat immortalis corpore ex Hypothesi unionis cum anima originaliter perfecta immortali * In futuro igitur ut jam praelibavimus sie justus ortus erit ut etiam si velit terram commovere possit Anselm de similitud Cap. 52. Verùm praestabunt viribus quicunque supernis viribus associantur civibus in tantum ut nullatenus illis quisquam obsâ—…stere valeat vel si movendo quid aut evertendo voluerit a suo statu quin illicò cedat Nec in eo quod dicimus majori laborabunt conatu quà m nos modò in oculorum nostrorum motu Ne quaeso similitudo illa Angelorum nostro excidat ab animo quam adepturi sumus in futuro quatenus si in hac forticudine aut in his quae dictuâ—…i sumus ad exemplum non occurrit vel ipsa per quam Angelis
causes natures beginnings of-springs and ends of all creatures and created things 2. We shall clearely see and comprehend the vanity and rottennesse of all Hereticall cavils Antichristian depths Popish imposture the very bottome of that most wicked and abhorred Mysterie the true full and sweet meaning of all GODS blessed Booke whether Iobs wife bid her husband blesse or curse GOD whether Iphtah sacrific'd his daughter or onely consecrated her to virginity whether Naaman was a true or unfound convert what is the meaning of that place 1 Corinth 11. 10. And that 1 Cor. 15. 29 c. 3. We shall with wonderfull ravishment of spirit and spirituall joy be admitted to the sight of those sacred secrets and glorious mysteries 1. Of the holy Trinity into which some Divines may audaciously dive but shall never be able to explicate 2. Of the Vnion of CHRISTS humanity to the divine nature and of the faithfull to CHRIST 3. Of the causes of GODS eternall counsell in Election and Reprobation 4. Of the Angels fall 5. Of the manner of the creation of the world c. 4. We shall know one another For 1. All comfortable knowledge shall be so farre from being abolished that it wil be inlarged increased and perfected But c. Therefore Our knowledge shal be perfected For We shall know as we are knowne 1 Cor. 13. 12. Which is set out by comparison of the lesse That our knowledge then shall differ from that now as the knowledge of a child from that of a perfect man by a glasse from seeing the thing it selfe that of a plaine speech from a riddle Why then should we doubt of knowing one another especially sith our Saviour CHRIST setteth forth the state of the blessed by the knowledge one of another Mat. 17. And as the knowledge is perfect so the memory In nothing must our knowledge be empair'd but better'd 2. We shall then enjoy every good thing and comfortable gift which may any way increase and inlarge our joy and felicity But meeting there knowing then and conversing for ever with our old deare Christian friends and all the glorious Inhabitants of those sacred Palaces will mightily please and refresh us with sweetest delight Therefore c. Society is not comfortable without familiar acquaintance Be assured then it shall not be wanting in the height and perfection of all glory blisse and joy Nay our minds being abundantly and beatifically illuminated with all wisdome and knowledge we shal be enabled to know not onely those of former holy acquaintance but also strangers and such as we never knew before even all the faithfull which ever were are or shall be We shall be able to say this was Father Abraham this King David this Saint Paul this was Luther Calvin Bradford c. this my Father this my Sonne this my Wife this my Pastour this the occasioner of my conversion c. as may be gathered by proportion out of GODS Booke 1. If Adam before the fall had that measure of illumination that he knew Eve and from whence she came at the first sight much more shall our knowledge in heaven and highest happinesse be enlarged in this kind 2. If the Apostles accompanying CHRIST in His transfiguration and vouchsafed but a taste and glimpse as it were of glorification were able thereby to know Moses and Elias whom they had never seene how much more shall we being fully illuminated and perfectly glorified in heaven know exactly all the blessed ones though never acquainted with them upon earth 3. CHRIST tels the Iewes Luke 13 28. That they shall see Abraham and Isaac and Iacob and all the Prophets in the kingdome of GOD and therefore know them And Dives is said to know Abraham and Lazarus in so great a distance Luke 16. Whence I argue thus if the damned know those who are saved though they have never seene them much more shall the glorified Saints now plentifully endued with all knowledge and supernaturally illightened by the HOLY GHOST Many of the ancient Fathers are of the same mind Whose authority I never urge for necessity of proofe GODS blessed Word is ever more than infinitely all-sufficient and super-abundant for any such purpose but onely either 1. Somtimes in some singular Points to shew consent or 2. In our controversies against the Antichristians Antinomists Neopelagians c. Or 3. When somehonest passage of sanctification or seasonable opposition to the corruption of the times is falsely charged with novelty singularity and too much precisenesse 1. There was a Widow in Austins time who craved very importunately both by word and writing some consolations from him to support her under that incomparable crosse of her husbands losse and widow-hood and as it may seeme she desired to know whether she should know him in the second life For the first he hits upon the sweetest mightiest and most soveraigne comfort which could possibly be imagined You can by no meanes saith he thinke your selfe desolate who enjoyes the presence and possession of IESVS CHRIST in the inmost closet of your heart by faith About the other he answers peremptorily This thy husband by whose decease thou art called a widow shal be most knowne unto thee And tels her further that there shall be no stranger in heaven c. 2. In the Elect saith another there is somthing more admirable because they do not onely acknowledge those whom they knew in this world but also as men seene and knowne they know the good whom they never saw 3. There saith Anselm All men shal be knowne of every severall man and every severall man shal be knowne of all Againe Conceive if thou canst how comfortable that knowledge wil be by which as thou of all others so all others shal be knowne of thee in that life Yet let me tell you before I passe out of the Point that this for the most part is the curious Quaere of carnall people who feeding falsly their presumptuous conceipts with golden dreames and vaine hopes of many future imaginary felicities in the world to come whereas in the meane time they have no care at all use no meanes take no paines to enter into the holy path which leades unto that blessed place It is even as if one should busie himselfe much and boast what he will do in New-England when he comes thither and yet poore man he hath neither ship nor money nor meanes nor knowledge of the way nor provision before hand for his comfortable planting there To coole and confront such lazie idle and vaine curiosities take notice that we shall not know our old acquaintance by former stature feature favour so vast a distance and difference will there be betweene a mortall and glorified body neither in a worldly manner In which respect saith Paul 2 Cor. 5. 16. Henceforth know we no man after the flesh yea though we have knowne CHRIST after the flesh yet now henceforth know we Him no