Grandchildren descending from himself and trained up under his eye In all his life there was no other news in his Family but of weddings births successes jollities and triumphs no such thing as a funeral mourning or any disaster all his days and all this crowned with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a gentle and easy death at last in the presence and imbraces of all his dearest Friends Children and Family BUT this as I said was a rare and extraordinary case not to be matched again in all History the common method of providence in this world is to mingle sweet with bitter grief with joy and so light and darkness day and night prosperity and adversity intercept and succeed each other he that is now miserable may expect to be one day happy and he that is happy now must expect his turn of misery It was therefore worthily esteemed a brave and noble carriage of Paulus Aemilius when he had conquered and taken captive the potent Prince Perseus after he had gently treated and comforted the unfortunate Prince he turns himself to admonish the unexperienced young Men of his Train and Family Exemplum insigne cernitis saith he mutationis rerum humanarum vobis haec praecipue dico Juvenes ideo in secundis rebus nihil in quenquam superbe ac violenter consulere nec praesenti credere fortunae cum quid vesper ferat incertum sit c. You see here before you saith he a remarkable example of the mutability of humane affairs a Prince that was lately a terrour to the Roman name now in chains and at our mercy learn hereby you young men that you neither suffer your selves to be transported with pride nor trust too much to fortune since you see by this spectacle what changes a little time may produce But most memorable of all and most accommodate to my purpose is that carriage of the same Paulus when in the midst of all his glories and successes the news was brought him that his two Sons were dead he recollecteth himself and addresses himself to the people of Rome in this sort Mihi quoque ipsi nimia jam fortuna mea edque suspecta esse coepit postquam omnia secundo cursu fluxissent neque erat quod ultra precarer illud optavi ut cùm ex summo retrò volvi fortuna consuescit mutationem ejus domus mea potiùs quam respublica sentiret c. I was aware saith he that my fortune was too great to hold on at that rate and since I could not but expect an ebbe to succeed such tide I am glad it hath pleased God that the change hath happened in my private family rather then in the publick affairs THIS great man well understood the course of this world in which nothing is so certain as uncertainty it self nothing so sad but hath some qualifications or abatements nothing so perfectly happy but it hath some grievous consequents or appendages But in those happy regions we speak of a constant gale breaths always from the same point a man is evenly carried along his course without interruptions and turnings I say in the world to come only there is pure and unmixed joy and there it is in the truest and fullest measures NOW the result of all these things together must make it a most glorious and comfortable estate when a man shall arrive at the summ of all his wishes when he shall not be put to contentment but receive satisfaction not shrink himself and contract his mind to his condition but his condition be fitted to his mind when there shall not be that thing which is possible and can minister any delight but shall be poured out upon him and that in such full measure as to replenish and overflow all his powers and capacities and where his powers shall be all inlarged and refined to that very end that he may receive in more of happiness and that of the noblest purest kind without mixture or allay O happy and glorious state of things O happy day when these things shall come to pass and most happy they that shall be thought worthy of it Stay my Soul and wonder at thy Father's bounty and goodness ravish thy self with admiration of these glorious preparations for thy entertainment Look up hither and comfort thy self under all the uncertainties disappointments adversities conflicts of this life turn thy eyes this way and loath the husks of sinfull pleasure despise the unsincere the guilded hypocritical treatments of the lower world trample upon all the glories of it and reach after this and hasten hither 3. BUT this is not all yet the joys of Heaven are as lasting as they are great and full When God hath recovered his lost Son as aforesaid he shall never be lost again he shall never be miserable more he now gives him an inheritance by an indefecible title A Crown immortal that fadeth not away a Kingdom that cannot be shaken A house not made with hands but eternal in the Heavens Stronger then the foundations of the Earth or the poles of Heaven for those shall be dissolved and these shall melt away with fervent heat But thy throne O God indureth for ever and ever LET there be never so many and great ingredients of felicity otherwise if this be wanting of the duration of it it answers not the desires of a man and is very short and defective For whenever it shall expire it will be as if it never had been nay if any sense of things remain afterwards it is a great aggravation of unhappiness fuisse foelicem that a man hath out-lived his own comforts and the comparing his present destitution with his former injoyments is really a torment to him Therefore it is observed to be the humour of some of the wisest Nations to bestow as little cost as they possibly can upon feasting and the bodily entertainments of eating and drinking who yet are very sumptuous and magnificent in buildings and such other things as are durable because they consider those former perish in the using And this is the very argument upon which the Holy Scripture slurs all the glories of this world that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Scene changes all is but acting a part for a while and shortly the lights are put out the curtain drawn and sic transit gloria mundi in whatever gallantry a man appeared upon the Stage he must retire and be undrest and be what he was before upon which account he must be a very vain and silly man who so little forethinks what will shortly befall him as to bear himself high upon his present ornaments BUT it was without doubt a cutting saying to the Glutton in the Gospel Son remember thou hast had thy good things and Lazarus evil things now therefore he is comforted and thou art tormented For although as we noted before it be the common fate of this world that good and evil take their turns yet most certainly the
men or rather as much as the advantages of Christianity out-went those of Philosophy For this man is not only improved by humane discourse but raised by divine revelation and governed by the wisedom of God is not under the faint and fluctuating hopes which reason can suggest but under the assurances of faith is not only eminent for some one or more vertues but being inflamed by the love of God and the prospect of Heaven he breaths nothing but greatness and glory wherever he goes God is in his heart Heaven is in his eye joy in his countenance and he spreads the sweet odours of piety and casts a lustre upon Religion FOR in the first place he is sanctified throughout the image of God is restored upon him and Christ Jesus formed in him All the maims of his fall are cured the confusion of his powers rectified the tyranny of custom vanquished his Conscience is inlightned his reason raised his passions subdued his will set right and all the inferiour powers obedient Vertue is made natural easy and delightfull to him and it is his meat and drink to doe the will of his Heavenly Father FURTHERMORE to assure his station he is confirmed by the grace of God and upheld by divine power he is the peculiar care of God's providence the special charge of the holy Angels and the Temple of the blessed Spirit all God's dispensations provide for his safety consider his strength and work for his good The Devil is so restrained that he shall not tempt him above what he shall be able to bear and hath not so little wit with his great malice to attempt where he is sure to be foiled Persecutions may assault him and flatteries may undermine him prosperity may indeavour to blow him up or adversity to crush him down raillery may goe about to shame him out of his course or buffonry to laugh him out of it but his race is as certain as that of the Sun or the Stars in the Firmament and his foundation sure as the Mountains for he knows whom he hath believed AGAIN he is adopted a Son of God and sealed by the Holy Ghost to the day of redemption he feels himself quickned by his vital presence warmed with his motions and assured by his testimony This erects the hands that would hang down and strengthens the feeble knees this lifts up his head with joy because he knows his redemption draweth nigh Every day he walks he finds himself a days journey nearer Heaven therefore he sets his face thitherwards he puts on the habit the mein the joy the very heart of Heaven he goes up by contemplation and views it he ravishes his heart with the sight of it he falls into a trance with admiration and when he comes to himself again cries out Come Lord Jesus come quickly He needs nothing he fears nothing he despises the world life is tedious death is welcome to be dissolved and to be with Christ is best of all WHAT can trouble him that hath peace in his Conscience what can disturb him that hath Heaven before him what can dismay him that is secure of immortality what can affright him whom death cannot hurt and what can deject him that is sure of a crown of glory AND lastly no wonder if after all this such a man be active and vigorous for God if he be used by God and become his Embassadour beseeching men in Christ's stead to be reconciled to God For all those comforts and incouragements afore mentioned inlarge his Soul like an Angel put wings upon him like a Cherub and set him on fire like one of the Seraphim with holy zeal of God's glory and the good of men Therefore with David he tells the unbelieving world what God hath done for his Soul and with his Lord and Master Christ Jesus he goes about doing good and in this flame of holy love is contented to offer up himself a sacrifice of a sweet smell to God HERE is adulta virtus Religion and Piety at their highest pitch and fullest maturity that is attainable in this world the next step is Heaven one degree more commences Glory Let the envious world now if they dare reproach Religion as hypocrisy or as meer pretences and great words when they observe that this glorious state is the design and the attainment of it whenever it is wisely and worthily prosecuted or let them say all this is impossible who as Tully well expresses it Ex sua ignavia inertia non ex ipsa virtute de virtutis robore existimant These things are no Romances nor have I dressed up any Legendary Hero the things are true and real Thus shall it be done to the man whom God delights to honour All this hath been attained and might be attained again would men but cease to take up an opinion of their own goodness from the extream badness of others and take their measures rather from the rules and motives and assistances of the Gospel then from the examples and customs of the world then without doubt others besides St. Paul might be able to say I have fought the good fight I have finished my course I have kept the faith from henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give me at that day and not to me only but to all them also that love his appearing 2 Tim. 4. 7 8. And that brings me to the last instance of the Father's kindness and the top of that glory which God bestows upon truely good men CHAP. V. The splendid Entertainment or the joys of Heaven St. Luk. Chap. 15. Vers 23. And bring hither the fatted Calf and kill it and let us eat and be merry THE CONTENTS § I. The peculiar intendment of this passage of the Parable That by the feast upon the fatted Calf are represented the joys of Heaven § II. The several figurative expressions which the joys of Heaven are set out by in holy Scripture viz. Paradise Rest a City a Kingdom a Feast § III. A more plain and literal account of the felicities of the other world especially in four particulars 1. The resurrection of the Body 2. Provision of objects fit to entertain and satisfy all the powers both of Soul and Body 3. The eternity of that state of life and happiness 4. The blessed presence of God and our Saviour and the happy society of Angels and Saints § I. IT was thought to be a just civility amongst the more soft and voluptuous Nations especially those of the East that those who were to be the Guests at a Feast should be as curious in the preparation of themselves for the solemnity as he that made the entertainment was for their accommodation and for that cause usually a considerable time of notice was given them before-hand that they might be in such circumstances as should both do honour to him that invited them and also render them
going quite back again and undoing all he hath done besides the agonies of conscience and the strong convulsions which he must suffer that casts off a long settled and habitual course of sin To which adde that whatever diligence or zeal of God's glory a late Convert that comes into the vineyard as it were at the eleventh hour may express at last yet it is certain he hath done God a great dishonour heretofore whereas he we now speak of is one that coming in at the first hour labours all day in God's work and equally carries on the affair of God's glory and his own comfort here and salvation hereafter Now all these things considered if there shall be any man so rash and injudicious as notwithstanding to press all men without distinction in order to their title to the mercies of God and hopes of Heaven to make the same severe reflexions upon themselves or to shew the like sensible and discernible change in their lives let them know by this unskilfulness of theirs they unreasonably minister trouble to the best and happiest of men and have a design quite contrary to that of our Saviour who professed he came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance And in the seventh verse of this Chapter he speaks of just men which need no repentance that is have no need to make a change of their whole course and begin a new as notorious sinners ought to doe Both which places I take to be clearly interpreted and to the sense we are assigning to them by that other passage of our Saviour Jo. 13. 10. He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet onely that is he that is already ingaged in a holy course and habituate to the ways of piety hath only need to be duely cleansed from those occasional soils and defilements which the infirmity of humane nature and conversation in the world suffer no man wholly to escape but not to enter upon a new state or begin a whole course of repentance To which effect I understand those words of Origen in his Books against Celsus Christ Jesus saith he was sent indeed a Physician to cure and recover sinners but to improve and instruct those further in the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven that were already vertuous I 'le conclude and confirm all I have said of this kind with the sense of Manasses which he expresses in his famous penitential prayer Thou O Lord that art the God of the just hast not appointed repentance to the just as to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob c. but thou hast appointed repentance unto me who am a sinner c. This I take to be sufficient for the determination who is meant by the Elder Brother and then we cannot be much to seek who is denoted by the Younger for what we have now said being granted it necessarily follow that by the Younger Son are described all such persons as have run a dangerous risk of sin and impiety that have committed gross and hainous transgressions and continued in a state of disobedience and impenitency after such manner as the Publicans and Sinners in the text are supposed to have done These are said to forsake their Father's house and presence to mispend their portion in riotous living who yet at last being reduced to extremity come to themselves turn serious penitents bewail their folly resolve upon amendment implore pardon double their diligence and care for the time to come and of old sinners become young Saints whereupon they are by a gracious God admitted to pardon and reconciliation and adoption for these the best robe is fetched out the fatted calf slain and upon their conversion as a thing utterly despaired of and unexpected there is joy in Heaven and amongst the holy Angels These were dead in trespasses and sins but are now quickned and revived by the grace of God they were Strangers and Aliens from the covenant of Grace but now become of the houshold of God and heirs of eternal life And now these two points being resolved of we have a key by which we may easily open all the circumstances of the whole Parable so that it will not be necessary that I insist longer upon a general interpretation Neverthelesse lest there should seem one difficulty not sufficiently provided against or any man should yet be at a losse how if the Elder Brother denote sincerely good men it can stand with their character to grumble at the mercifull reception of poor penitents as here he is represented to doe And moreover it may raise another doubt if the Elder Brother be set to describe men of constant and unblemished Sanctity how such a person should be fit to denote the Scribes and Pharisees who were certainly very evil and corrupt men Unlesse a plain account can be given of these it must follow that either we have not hit the occasion of the Parable or the Parable did not answer to the occasion Wherefore to these I answer joyntly That our Saviour the more effectually to convince these Jews that reproached and censured him proceeds with them upon their own Hypothesis namely taking it for granted that they were as eminently good and holy men as they either took themselves or pretended to be and that the Publicans and Sinners were indeed as bad as they esteemed them I mean he doth not intend to signifie that these censorious persons were indeed good men for upon all occasions we see he upbraids their rottennesse and hypocrisie but because they out of opinion of their own sanctity and contempt of others reproached his carriage in this matter therefore the designs to shew them that if that was true which is utterly false and they as good men as they were extremely bad yet upon due consideration they ought not to blame his management of himself and gracious condescension to sinners As if he had said You Scribes and Pharisees wonder that instead of applying my self to your conversation who are men of great note for sanctity and devotion and never blemished with any great disorder I rather chuse to lay out my self upon the recovery of flagitious and desperate sinners now see your own unreasonablenesse in this instance You will allow a Father to be more passionately concerned for and expresse a greater joy upon the recovery of a Lost Son then he usually doth about him that was always with him and out of danger and if that Son who had never departed from his Father and so never given him occasion for those change of passions should expostulate with his Father for his affectionateness in such a case you would in your own thoughts blame him as envious and undutifull Now apply this to your selves and think as well as you can of your selves yet upon the premisses you will see no reason to calumniate my endeavours of reclaiming sinners or my kindnesse and benignity towards them upon their repentance By this time I doubt not but the whole
condition not to his mind and not being willing to bring his mind to that he is tempted to run upon adventures and to make experiments that he may give his mind full scope and contentment Hence it is as I observed before that the wicked in the Sacred Language are called Reshagnim unquiet seditious and turbulent pride and discontent prompting them to unruly attempts against God disputing his prerogative and breaking down the laws and boundaries he hath settled Either such men conceit God hath not been benign enough in the provisions of his care and providence or the instances of duty are too many and too hard and too great intrenchments made upon humane liberty thereby that God consulted his own prerogative in the constitution of his Laws rather then his wisedom and the reason of things and good of his Creatures that man might be more happy if he were left to his own counsels Would God permit them they think nothing so sweet as meram haurire libertatem pure and unconfined liberty that all restraint is intolerable slavery to a generous mind and imagining there must needs be some admirable delights in those things God forbids have thereupon a mighty mind and huge impetus upon them to try those things above all other whatever come of it Such kind of mutinous thoughts such jealousies and suspicions are the immediate issue of pride and the seminalities of all rebellion against God IT is the current opinion of Divines that it was only this height of pride which ruined the Apostate Angels for indeed it is not easily imaginable what else should doe it in regard they being before their Fall bright intellectual Beings no cloud of ignorance could probably so overwhelm them as to betray them to that fatal miscarriage And being also pure spiritual Substances they lay under no corporeal allurements It seems therefore necessary to conclude that an overweening reflexion upon their own height fooled them into that presumption to forget themselves and to vie with the Almighty And this seems to be plainly enough glanced at by the Prophet when he describes the fall of proud Sennacherib Isa 14. 12 13 14. How art thou faln from heaven O Lucifer son of the morning For thou hast said in thy heart I will ascend into heaven I will exalt my throne above the stars of God I will be like the most High c. AND undoubtedly this was the ruine of our first Parents when mankind first turned Prodigal God had dealt most liberally benignly with them as a gracious Father he brought not them into the world till he had furnished it like a large house with all things necessary for their accommodation and delight night and day were distinguished sea and land separated the earth blessed a paradise planted with all delicacies and then he brings this his younger Son Man as to a plentifull Table of most delightfull entertainments Besides this he put all inferiour Creatures in subjection to him as to their young Lord and Master nay makes that higher order of glorious Spirits the Angels to minister to him and keep watch about him and above all placed him in his own eye under the light of his countenance designed him for yet greater and unspeakable felicities as his favourite and darling NOW if after all this it had pleased God to have put somewhat a severe restraint upon him it ought justly to have seemed easie and reasonable being sweetened by so great obligations But the Divine Majesty to shew that in this also he remembred the kindness of a Father makes his Laws and Government as gentle as his favours were great for in the midst of an huge indulgence and that large scope of all the Trees in the Garden he laid an interdict but upon one saying Of all the Trees in the Garden you may freely eat save onely the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the midst of the Garden of that ye shall not eat lest ye die Who could now think any thing should become a temptation strong enough in this case to debauch mankind Notwithstanding here the Serpent finds occasion to set pride on work and to raise a discontent and first he begins thus Gen. 3. 1. Hath God said c. q. d. Is it not a mistake that you are forbidden that Fruit was that the meaning of the Almighty possibly your gracious Creatour had no such intention for why should you be restrained in this why not left perfectly to your own election have not you faculties to choose and desires to gratifie why should they be curbed or denied sure he never made a power which was not to come into act nor a capacity that was not to be satisfied nay this one abridgment despoils you perfectly of your liberty law and freedom are incompetible you are not used like Sons if you be thus chained up And what necessity is there to set such a fence about that one Tree above all the rest is it to exercise authority arbitrarily over you or to tempt your patience or rather is there not some great good which he knows in that Fruit and envies you the participation of why should not you that were made in his image be like Gods in this also knowing good and evil After this manner the old enemy of God and man tempers his poisons partly seeming to doubt of the meaning of the command partly insinuating suspicions of God's goodness but principally blowing them up with pride and self-conceit which whilest they swell withall they break to pieces and thus fell our first Parents And the same Tempter both knowing now the nature of man and encouraged also with this success attempts the Second Adam Christ Jesus after the same manner Matt. 4. for though it be true which is commonly observed that the Devil was put to it to try all his artifices upon our Saviour and to assail him both by the lusts of the flesh the lust of the eye and the pride of life yet if we carefully consider we shall find that the effort of ruining him by pride and vain-glory was that which he principally trusted to and aimed at in all the temptations but more conspicuously in the two former of them for so vers 3. when finding him an hungred he begins thus If thou be the Son of God command that these stones be made bread Our Saviour came not long since from his Baptism and then as we reade in the last verse of the foregoing Chapter a voice came to him from Heaven saying This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Of which the Devil endeavouring to make his advantage addresses himself to him q. d. If God own thee as his Son as he pretends to doe let him do something prodigious and pompous that may give remarkable testimony to it use thy interest in him for some signal miracle especially to supply thy necessity now thou art hungry for certainly he will rather do that then suffer his beloved Son to
himself on this wise What-ever my case is now sure I was made in the image of God placed under the eye of his Providence as it were of his Family and Table Heaven and Earth ministred to me I was Lord of the lower and Favourite of the upper World as if the one was made on purpose to exercise and divert me and the other to receive and reward me I have a nature capable of immortality and had eternal life designed for me as the inheritance of a Son and my task of obedience was as easie and honourable as my hopes were glorious For I had no hard burthen laid upon me nothing required of me but what was proportionable to my powers and agreeable to the reason of my mind no restraint was laid upon my passions but such as was evidently both necessary for the World and good for my self that it could not be drawn into an argument of harshness and severity in God nor make apology for my transgression All my faculties were whole and intire I was neither tempted by necessity nor oppressed by any fate I was therefore happy enough and why am I not so still It is true that humane nature hath miscarried since it came out of the hands of God and I carry the Skar of that common Wound yet is the dammage of the first Adam so repaired by the second that mankind is left inexcusable in all its actual transgressions but especially in a dissolute and impenitent course of rebellion Besides I see others whose circumstances were in all points the same with mine and their difficulties and temptations no less to live holily and comfortably having either escaped the too common pollutions of the world by an early compliance with the grace of God or at least quickly recovered themselves by repentance I find therefore that I might have lived in the light of God's countenance in serenity of mind quiet of conscience sense of my own integrity and comfortable hopes of unspeakable glory in contemplation of which I might have defied death and lived in Heaven upon Earth but I have been meerly fooled by my own incogitancy and undone by my own choice For proceeds he 2. I have forfeited all this by sinning against God and been so sottish as to prefer the satisfaction of my own humour before all the aforesaid felicities I have been ingratefull towards my great benefactour broken the law of my Creation confronted the wisedom of the most High been insolent towards a mighty Majesty violated just and righteous commandments sinned against light knowledge and conscience added presumption to folly wilfullness to weakness despised counsels exhortations promises assistances my sins are many in number horrible in their aggravations deadly in their continuance and my perseverance in them By this means I have not onely wrought disorder in the world but disordered my own Soul spoiled my own powers suffered passion to get head of my reason clouded my understanding and so by former sins rendered it in a manner necessary that I sin still For when I would doe good evil is present with me I find a law in my members rebelling against the law of my mind and carrying me into captivity to the law of sin O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death I have driven away the good Spirit of God and put my self under the power of Satan become his slave and drudge I know nothing now of the comforts of innocence of the joy of a good Conscience mine is a continual torture to me I have lost the light of God's countenance and the very thoughts of him are dreadfull to me by all which together life is a burden and yet the thoughts of death are intolerable Such reflections and considerations as these break the very heart of a sinner and resolve him into sighs and tears 3. BUT this is not the worst of the case for in the third place he considers what is like to be the issue of this This miserable life saith the sinner cannot last always death will arrest me shortly and present me before a just Tribunal the grave will e're ong cover me but not be able to conceal me for I must come to Judgment Methinks I hear already the sound of the last Trump Let the dead arise let them come to judgment I see the Angels as Apparitors gathering all the world together and presenting them before that dreadfull Tribunal How shall I be able with my guilty Conscience to appear upon that huge Theatre before God Angels and Men Methinks I see the Devil standing at my right hand to aggravate those faults which he prompted me to the commission of I behold the Books opened and all the debaucheries extravagancies and follies of my whole life laid open Christ the Judge of all the World coming in flaming fire to take vengeance upon them that have not known him nor obeyed his Gospel How shall I endure his presence how shall I escape his eye I cannot elude his judgment nor evade his sentence come then ye Rocks and fall upon me and ye Mountains cover me from the face of the Lamb and from him that sitteth upon the Throne But the Rocks rend in sunder the Sea and the Earth disclose their dead the Earth dissolves the Heavens vanish as a Scroll and I hear the dreadfull Sentence Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels Methinks I hear Christ Jesus thus upbraiding me You have listened to the Devil and not to me I would have saved you but you would not be ruled by me you have chosen the way of death now therefore you shall be filled with your own ways I forewarned you what would be the issue of your courses but you would have your full swing of pleasure for the present whatever came of it hereafter you laughed at judgment and it is come in earnest you have had your time of jollity and sensual transports and now your portion is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth O therefore saith the sinner that I had never been born cursed be the day that brought me forth and the Sun that shone upon me would the womb had been my grave and I had never seen the light Thus my guilty Conscience anticipates its own punishment and I am tormented before my time 4. BUT is there no hope left must I lie down thus in sorrow and despair These things I may justly expect but they are not yet incumbent upon me I am yet alive and they say there is hopes in the land of the living the door is not yet shut against me Hell hath not yet closed her mouth upon me I have heard God is a mercifull God and thereupon I presumed hitherto and abused his goodness but sure his mercies are above the measure of a man if they be infinite like himself he hath more goodness then I have ingratitude Possibly there may be some hope left in the bottom of this
into the Kingdom of Heaven but he that doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven q. d. It is not all the importunity of prayers or addresses that will avail without obedience So the Apostle St. Paul 2 Tim. 2. 19. The foundation of God standeth sure having this seal the Lord knoweth who are his and let him that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity q. d. The election of God shall not be frustrate nor the ends of Christ's death defeated nevertheless let no man pretend to be concerned in the one nor interested in the other but he that is really a good and holy man And not to heap up Scriptures unnecessarily in so plain a case upon this account it is that Religion is described by a walk a course a warfare a life c. because that which God requires indispensably of men is not an agony or passion for their miscarriages or a resolution of amendment but an habit of vertuous conversation and all this is graphically represented by our Saviour in a Parable not unlike this before us Matt. 21. vers 28 29 c. What think you a certain man had two Sons and he said to the first Son go work to day in my Vineyard He answered and said I will not but afterwards he repented and went And he came to the second and said likewise And he answered and said I goe Sir but went not Whether of them twain did the will of his Father c. The case was this the Scribes and Pharisees and Rulers of the Jews made a great shew of piety they complemented God with prayers and other addresses and seemed ready prest for his service whereas the Publicans and Harlots had lived with as little pretence of piety as morality yet these at last being convinced of their danger come to repentance and really perform what the other did but promise And this puts me in mind of a story in Plutarch very applicable to the present purpose It happened that the Image of Minerva the great Goddess of Athens was to be new made and in a case which they esteemed of so great moment all care was taken to employ the most accurate and able Workman whereupon every Artist both desirous of the honour and profit by some means or other recommends himself to the employment but amongst the rest appears one who in a long and eloquent Oration magnifies his own ability in that kind and drew all men's eyes upon him till at last another rises up and uses only this short but significant saying What-ever that man hath said I will perform This man no doubt was entertained for the employment and most assuredly the man who actually performs his vows and doth what others talk of or make pretences to is the only person that finds acceptance with the Almighty For SECONDLY it would beget in the minds of men very mean and unworthy notions of God as an easy Majesty should he suffer himself to be put off with complemental addresses or divert his just indignation without honourable satisfaction and to think to prevail with him by costly Sacrifices and Oblations would speak him a necessitous Deity that could either be pleased with such trifles or were fond of such empty things as men dote upon it would also take away all the veneration of his Laws and divest him of that glorious Attribute of Justice if he could be supposed to dispense with obedience upon any of these conditions To imagine that sighs and tears and melancholy reflections upon our selves would propitiate him charges him with severity and cruelty as if he took pleasure in the calamities and sufferings of his Creatures it makes him appear like to the Pagan Idol Baal whose Priests not onely with vehement importunity called upon him from Morning till Noon O Baal hear us 1 Kings 18. but in a frantick mood leaped upon the Altar and cut themselves with Knives and Lancets till the bloud gushed out that by this means they might move his compassion towards them And which is worse yet no man that considers these things can reasonably doubt but God may abate his Creatures these things if he pleases and then the consequence is very sad for if he be supposed to require those things as the conditions of his favour which he may abate all Religion is made arbitrary and the most fundamental reason of obedience destroyed and the horrible imputation laid upon God that if he damn any it is because he rigidly insists upon such things as he might have indulged NOW all these things being intolerable it must needs be true that the only way of propitiating the Divine Majesty is by being sincerely good by ingenuous compliance with his Laws by actual reformation for this renders him truely great and just and good this is a reasonable service worthy of his excellency when all the powers of man are made subject to him and we love him with all our might and soul and strength BUT if it be said all this may be done by the resolution of the mind to amend though no such thing actually follow because God sees things in their causes and knowing the hearts of men needs not the fruits since he foresees it in the roots To this I answer that where it pleases God by cutting off the thread of men's lives to interrupt the prosecution of their intended reformation there it is reasonable to hope that he will accept the will for the deed but wherever he affords opportunity of executing men's intentions there at least can be no just expectation that he should admit of less then what is both so agreeable to his revealed will and also so much necessary to the interest of his glory inasmuch as it is fit that the divine sovereignty as well as the justice and wisedom of his Laws all which have been violated by sin should be vindicated and justified by the sinners retracting his own act and doing contrary to that wherein he had offended and that by letting his good works shine before men he may glorify his heavenly Father as heretofore he hath dishonoured him by his neglects and disobedience But THIRDLY if it were both consistent with the declaration of the divine will and also with his glory and interest to admit of any thing less then actual reformation at the hands of the sinner and could God be supposed inclinable to dispense with it yet the very condition of Heaven and the state and condition of the other world will necessarily require it The Apostle tells us Hebr. 6. 9. there are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. some things that carry such a relation to the other world that a man cannot be damned with them nor saved without them Or as the same Apostle saith elsewhere 1 Col. 12. there are certain things that make men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 meet to be partakers of the inheritance with the saints in light and on the other hand it is in the nature of
love so long as they are enemies to the common enemy so it happens here that a Convert zealously combating against some one vice in studious declension of that insensibly slips into some degrees of the other extream and then finds it a fresh difficulty vincere eos per quos vicisti to conquer that other infirmity by which he conquered the former TO which purpose it is remarkable concerning that holy man St. Jerom whilst he lived in the affluence of the City and used a free conversation he felt frequent temptations of the flesh and setting himself with all his might to mortify these and to do it effectually retired into a desart that he might both take away the cause and the occasions of those dangers but whilst in that retirement he exercises himself to great severity and austerity he insensibly grew into a blameable asperity of temper which needed a second labour to subdue I will not say as some do that as God would have some remainders of the seven Nations preserved amongst the Children of Israel in the Land of Canaan to be continually as thorns in their eyes and goads in their sides so he orders it that there should be some remainders of the old Adam in us to keep us always humble and employed for certainly God would have all sin expelled our natures But this I say that as Israel was truely in possession of the Land of Canaan from such time as Joshua had conquered those powers that made head against them and had put the chief Cities and places of strength into their hands notwithstanding that a long time after some of those old inhabitants remained amongst them and were no very good Neighbours so I affirm that so long as there is not only a resolution against all sin but a constant hostile pursuit of it and that a man goes on conquering and to conquer such a man is a true Israelite though he have not perfected his conquest nor can yet say with St. Paul I have fought the good fight I have finished my course I have kept the faith and therefore henceforth is laid up for me the crown of righteousness BUT now forasmuch as God both for his own glory and service the comfort of the Convert's own Soul and his greater capacity of the Kingdom of Heaven designs to bring men to higher degrees of sanctification then what he was pleased to accept of when he first received the Penitent to mercy therefore he afterwards puts upon him the Best Robe 2. IT is to be considered that the beginnings of all things that are any way notable especially are wrought with pain and difficulty insomuch that nemo repente fit turpissimus no man finds it very easy at first to doe any egregious wickedness Men become evil by degrees and there is proficiency even in the Devil's school and therefore much more reasonably may it be expected that those that first enter into a strict course of vertue should be sensible of difficulty in their first undertaking IT was an ingenious answer which Plutarch reports to have been given by a Lacedemonian Turor when he was asked what he pretended to and of what avail his indeavours were I make saith he that to become easy and delightfull which is of it self good and necessary It is true Christ Jesus tells us his yoke is easy and his burden is light and without doubt it is so but it is a yoke and a burden still and no man finds it easy untill he have exercised himself to it rewards and punishments set before us and reason and resolution working thereupon will prevail with men to doe their duty but only practice and assuetude makes it become easy and familiar so to doe especially supposing as we do in the present case a man but lately accustomed to indulge himself in a course of sin let such a man's conversion be never so real and hearty however it cannot be expected that he should presently do Christ's commands and say they are not grievous It is certain such a man if he be what we suppose him that is sincere will resist his inclination and change his course but because it was lately a course there will yet be an inclination towards it and consequently a conflict and difficulty in avoyding it for as we said before it is only one custome can perfectly supplant another and only habit can imitate nature and make easy the cutting off our corrupt members is a hard task till by time and degrees they become mortified and then it is done without any considerable pain or difficulty Whosoever hath any principle of divine life or true sense of God in him will not allow himself in the neglect of God's worship yet he will find it no easy business to hold his heart intent and constant in it till it have become customary and natural to him and then it is so far easy and delightfull to him that he knows not how to live without it Now although that state which tuggs at the Oare and draws on heavily may be sincere because it discharges its duty honestly though with great difficulty and therefore find acceptance with a good God yet forasmuch as his intention is that we should become partakers of the divine nature and that it be our meat and drink to doe his will that the way of his commands be to us as our necessary food that we should do his will with that alacrity on earth with which it is done by the Angels in Heaven that our wills should be perfectly conformed to his and Religion become natural to us partly to the end that we may do him the more honour for there is nothing doth so much reputation to the divine Law and government as the chearfull obedience of his Subjects partly also that we may be the more fit for the Kingdom of Heaven for those most easily fall in with the heavenly Quire who have practised their part beforehand therefore since he desires that we should not only be not evil but generously good nor meerly draw on heavily and uncomfortably but fly as upon the wings of a Cherub in his service it seems good to him when he hath pardoned a penitent to confer upon him greater measures of Sanctification 3. A young Convert though he have all the parts and members of a perfect man in Christ and should also be supposed in great measure to have overcome the difficulties which always attend vertuous beginnings yet he is but a beginner and must needs be conceived weak and feeble in his whole contexture he is not only apt to be abused with Sophistry and carried about with every wind of doctrine but less able to bear the burdens and to resist the temptations he must expect to meet with the traces of his former course are not yet worn out and so he is the apter to return he is not at the top but going up hill and may easily faint or slip he hath not such experience of
spoil and triumph of the Prince of darkness now by the wonderfull power of the Almighty this is raised up again out of its own ashes or out of whatever more desperate estate it might seem to be in and united to the Soul its old inmate again that so the whole man may be happy This is a point of felicity which as it is not naturally due to men but depends upon a voluntary act of the divine goodness so also it can no otherwise be proved but by divine revelation And those that were destitute of that light whatever raised apprehensions they might have of future rewards and the happiness of the other life could never with all their Philosophy make any discovery of this nay it was so far out of the rode of their thoughts that it is a well known story of Synesius who for his learning and piety was made of a Philosopher a Christian Bishop that he confessed his Philosophy represented this point as utterly incredible to him upon which account he desired to be excused that dignity in the Church and for the generality of the greatest Pagan wits they laughed at and derided this doctrine when it was preached by the Apostles And indeed the thing it self is so very wonderfull that had we not the plain and infallible promise of him to whom nothing is impossible and therewithall a satisfaction to our reason that he that could bring all things out of nothing at first may well be supposed able to effect other things also above our apprehension it would stagger Christian Faith it self to assent to it therefore for the manner of doing it we must leave that to him but for the matter it is as I said as certain as divine testimony can make it and being believed is of unspeakable consolation FOR what can be more comfortable then to be asserted from the power of the grave and rescued from death and mortality to have our Soul refitted with Organs and all the bodily powers awakened again so as to lose nothing by our fall when death shall like a faithfull depositary restore us our whole selves perfect and intire Is not the Spring very pleasant after a sharp and severe Winter wherein though the seeds of all things have been preserved yet they have been benummed and rendred inactive wherein the Heavens frowned the Sea wrinkled her face and the Earth grew effete and barren as if her youth was over to see now God renewing the face of all things rendring them their wonted vigour and cloathing them with their former verdure to observe the Sea smoothing her brow the Fields smile every thing gay and glorious and Heaven and Earth singing by way of Antiphone's to each other in praise of their great Creatour and in a word whole Nature triumphing as in a resurrection from the dead But now to see man after diseases had acted all their spite upon him and death had defloured his beauty and bound up all his powers and the grave had held him long in possession wherein his body had undergone a thousand changes from flesh to earth from earth to grass from grass to the substance of this or that beast c. and after all this to see him restored again fresh and glorious sprightly and vigorous like a Giant refreshed with wine and this same body to be united to its proper Spirit by more firm and indissoluble ligaments and be again usefull for all its offices and purposes how happy must this meeting how great must this joy be and not much unlike that we had lately before us in the Parable when the long sorrowfull and indulgent Father recovers his lost and deplored Son I do not doubt but that the Souls of men when they are separated from their Bodies are able to understand and perform some of their most proper and spiritual functions for I see no reason why the Soul should so much depend upon matter as to be utterly inactive without it especially when I consider that whilst we are in the Body we govern it prescribe to it deny it expose it to hardship and sometimes act directly cross to the interest of it and besides this we find that there are some things which our mind takes notice of which the Bodily faculties could give no intelligence of and other things which our mind apprehends at first before the exercise of any faculty at all as in first principles c. All which were it necessary to insist upon that point now would afford sufficient arguments to convince the mistake of those that assert the sleep of the Soul during its state of separation Nay I make no question but that the Souls of good men are in the actual perception and enjoyment of some measures of happiness before the resurrection for besides that if it were not so it would very much abate their joys here and so be apt to take off the edge of their endeavours but most certainly it would marvellously glue men to this life and make them extreamly unwilling to die besides this I say and all other arguments of that nature the holy Scripture is so clear and express in several places touching this point that a man may almost with as good confidence deny the world to come as disbelieve this AMONGST the rest I will only offer these two passages to the Reader 's consideration viz. Phil. 1. 21 22. 2. Cor. 5. 1 4. In the first the Apostle speaks on this wise I am in a strait betwixt two having a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needfull for you q. d. I cannot tell whether to desire to live longer or to die sooner being prest with arguments on both sides for if I consult my self and my own good it is doubtless better for me to die and to enter presently into happiness but then if I consult your convenience it were better I should live longer in the world to be serviceable to your edification Now I think it is evident that if the Apostle could have supposed that he should have entered into a state of silence after death and not presently been in the fruition of bliss there could have been no strait in the case nor any dispute but that it was better to live still in the world and continue in the comforts of a good Conscience and of doing good to others rather then to fall into a state of insensibility and inactivity IN the other place the same Apostle expresses himself thus For we know that if this earthly house of our tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands but eternall in the Heavens For we that are in this tabernacle do groan being burdened not that we would be uncloathed but cloathed upon that mortality may be swallowed up of life q. d. We are well assured that from such time as these Bodies of ours are dissolved by death which were
relish and remembrance of good things past makes the succession of evil most pungent and intolerable Nay which is more the very fears and expectation of this vicissitude makes the sense of the greatest present flat and insignificant IT would questionless be a great relief to the Souls in Hell and a remission of their torments if they could conceive any hopes of emerging at last out of that condition and it would be a great abatement of the joys of Heaven if any suspicion should enter there that possibly that felicity might one time or other expire But this is the very Hell of Hell that there is not the least crany through which to spy light beyond those dark regions no hopes but they that come thither are for ever abandoned by God and made the triumphs of his vengeance And it is the glory of coelestial glory the crown of the Heavenly Kingdom that it is eternal that the river of life is inexhaustible that the glorious enjoyments of that blessed state never fail and that men shall ever live to enjoy them O Eternal eternal that word speaks Seas of comfort and a boundless glory it fills us with wonder and astonishment it is that which we cannot comprehend and therefore fit to be the supream happiness Eternal life is all the world and more then ten thousand worlds in one word It is higher then the Heavens greater then the Universe it is all things It is the flower of joy the quintessence of comfort the pinnacle of glory the crown of blessedness the very soul and spirit of Heaven It is all miracle all ecstasy all that we can wish all that we can receive all that God can give nay all that he himself can enjoy BUT the wonder rises higher yet if we consider who it is that is made the subject of this blessed eternity If it had been some glorious Angelical Being who was by nature removed from all matter out of the reach of bodily contagion or infirmity a pure bright shining intellect or if it had been man that had never faln from Paradise that had contracted no sickliness and infirmity no disorder of passions nor violence of humours nor other presage of mortality or especially if it had been a man that never had voluntarily sinned against his Maker but such an one as by prudent management and subjugation of his Body under all the difficulties he is thereby exposed to had merited some extraordinary favour at God's hand if I say any of these had been the case eternal life had been less admirable BUT that man cloathed with a Body clogged with flesh that faln and degenerate man nay sickly infirm man a meer bundle of a thousand diseases the triumph of death and the prisoner of the grave that he should become the subject of eternity and be placed in a condition out of the reach of fate beyond the sphere of chance and contingency above mortality where no time shall wear him away no violence shall touch him no strife of principles shall gradually work his destruction WHEN the everlasting Springs are dried up that he should have life in himself when the Mountains shall be removed the Earth abolished and the Heavens pass away as a smoak that he should survive all this and be fresh and vigorous to a thousand Ages and feel a perpetual motion a constant circulation of the principles of life and joy in himself this is the wonder of all wonders and here we may cry out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O the height and depth and breadth of the power and goodness of God NOTWITHSTANDING all these multitudes of wonders this shall be done for besides that the Divine Majesty made the Soul of an immortal nature from the beginning that it cannot perish but by an act of his Omnipotency he will be so far from destroying it violently that he will everlastingly irradiate it by his own vital Spirit and thereby perpetually improve that energy he first gave it and then for the Body that shall be sublimed to such a purity and perfection that it shall admit of no corruptive fermentation nothing shall weaken weary or disorder it but it shall be plainly indissoluble as the Soul it self This is the third step of Heavens glory but there is a fourth yet behind which must not be forgotten And that is 4. THE consideration of the incomparably sweet and blessed society there to be enjoyed When God had first made man and placed him in the terrestrial Paradise where to the perfection of his nature he had furnished him also with all things of necessary use or delightfull entertainment he considered yet that it was not good for man to be alone and therefore provided a companion for him for in the midst of all affluence of other things solitude is most uncomfortable to humane nature insomuch that it is not to be doubted but that any man in his right wits would rather chuse very mean and hard circumstances in society then the most plentifull and commodious with seclusion from the conversation of men like himself For society not only relieves men's impotency and secures them against danger but fortifies the spirits and raises the parts of men as we see by daily experience and above all it eases the burdens and multiplies the joys of humane life and touching this last as the Earth is not so much warmed and inriched by the direct as by the reflected beams of the Sun so we find by experience that there is no happy accident or success equally refreshes us in its direct contingency as when we perceive it in the rebound or sally and find other men especially our Friends take notice of it and reflect it upon us And for this reason it is that though the world be full enough of men yet men not content with that common alliance enter besides into more strict confederations which we call Friendships which are therefore not unfitly called by some body sal societatis infirmitatis praesidium vitae humanae portus as if life was not only an unsafe but an insipid and flat thing without Friendship AND this is not only so amongst men but something of it is discoverable even amongst those higher and more noble Beings the Angels themselves touching whom though some have been too phantastical and boldly intruded into things they understand not peremptorily defining their distinct Orders and Colledges yet it 's plain enough that God placed not them in solitude but made several Orders and Societies of them and accordingly they find delight in one another not only in the mutual assistance they give each other in the discharge of their Ministeries here below but in joyning together in blessed Quires above to admire and praise their ever glorious Creatour And perhaps it is not impertinent to add this also that even the Divine Majesty it self who by reason of his infinite perfections is seipso contentus and can have no need of any thing without or besides himself