and to be than to be seen His Heavenly-mindedness was such as rendred him neither too sour nor too talkative and his Patience was always equally distant from Stupidity and Effeminacy For so when he endured that miserable Death of the Cross he suffered like a Man that was sensible of Pain and yet very well knew how to undergo it as became him For as on the one hand he did not breath out his Soul like an effeminate Epicure in whining Complaints and wretched Lamentations so neither on the other hand did he give up the Ghost like a flanting Stoick in a huffing Contempt of death or an affected Insensibility of Pain and Misery But from the beginning to the end he acted his Part in that bloody Tragedy as one that was neither insensible of Torment nor conquered by it For the last words which he breathed which were a hearty Prayer for his Murderers manifested his Soul to be calm and serene under all the Agonies of his Body Thus is his great Example intirely composed of those excellent Virtues that are the proper Graces and Ornaments of humane Nature Now though there be some Actions of our Saviours Life which were never intended for our Imitation viz. such wherein he either exercised or proved and asserted his divine Authority yet whatsoever he did of precise Morality and in pursuance to his own Laws he designed and intended for our Imitation So that in all such matters as his Law is to be our Map and Rule so his Practice is to be our Guide and President FOR this is the great End of our Religion to which God hath predestinated us namely to be conformable to the Image of his Son Rom. viii 29 and in this consists our putting on of the Lord Jesus Christ namely in imitating his Manners and following the Garb and Fashion of his Conversation and accordingly our Saviour tells his Disciples John xiii 15 I have given you an example that is of Humility and Charity that you should do as I have done to you and 't is one of his great Commands that we should learn of him who was meek and lowly of heart with a promise that in so doing we should find rest unto our Souls Mat. xi 29 WHEREFORE if we would lead a holy Life pursuant to our holy Resolution we must set holy Examples before our eyes and especially that most holy one of our blessed Saviour We must peruse the History of his sacred Life and diligently observe his Carriage and Demeanour in all those Capacities and Circumstances wherein he was placed and closely apply it all to our selves as a perfect Pattern of Action Thus and thus did my Saviour Sic ille manus sic ora so he demeaned himself when he was in my Circumstances after this manner he acted and thus he suffered and can I follow a more glorious Example nay would it not be a burning Shame for me not to imitate his Manners whilst I profess my self his Disciple Think O my Soul what would he have now done if he were in thy Condition and had thy Temptations before him Would he have pawned his Innocence for such a Trifle or prostituted himself to such a base infamous Action to avoid such an inconsiderable Inconvenience No doubtless he would not and art thou not ashamed to comply with such a Temptation knowing with what Indignation thy Saviour would have rejected it If we would but thus inure our selves to reflect upon our Saviours Example and apply it to and compare it with our own Actions we cannot imagine with what a divine Emulation 't would inspire us how it would animate our Weaknesses and shame our Irregularities and inamour our Souls with true Virtue and Goodness III. TO the Course and Progress of our Christian Warfare it is also necessary that we should frequently apply our selves for Advice and Direction to our spiritual Guides For it is to be considered that men of a secular Life and Conversation are generally so engaged in the Business and Affairs of this World that they very rarely acquire Skill enough in Religion to conduct themselves safely to Heaven through all those Difficulties and Temptations that lie in their way For before they can be capable to guide themselves safely they must in all points of great moment be able to distinguish between Truth and Falshood and to make a difference between good and evil which in many Instances do border so near upon one another that it requires much greater Skill and Knowledge than the Generality of men are Masters of to discern the Point and Boundary that parts them And supposing their Vnderstandings to be so well instructed as to be able to resolve them truly in all those doubtful Cases wherein they are or may be concerned yet still there is generally such a fault in their Wills as renders them incompetent Judges for themselves and that is that through an Excess of Self-love they are prone to be partial in their own Concerns and consequently unless the Case be very plain to vote that true that is most for their Interest and determine on that side they are most inclined to For when a mans Judgment is before in Suspence a very small weight of Interest on the wrong side of the Question usually turns the Scale against the greater probability on the right And whilst Interest fees mens Affections and their Affections bribe their Judgments it will be almost impossible for them to secure their Innocence whilst they determine all Cases of Right and Wrong at the Tribunal of their own Reason For when once they have determined falsly as many times to be sure they will besides the many single Miscarriages in Practice that will be consequent thereunto by practising on upon their false Determinations they will intangle themselves in such evil Customs and Habits as by that time they have discovered the Error of their Judgment will render it very difficult for them to correct the error of their Practice And therefore to secure our selves in our Innocence and Duty it is mighty necessary that in all doubtful Cases we should appeal from our selves to the Judgment of others who having no Interest to biass them one way or t'other will be much more impartial and therefore if they have but equal Understanding more competent Judges of our Case than our selves UPON both which accounts the Christian Religion hath wisely separated an Order of Men from the World to be the Guides and Conducts of Souls to oversee and direct the secular Flock who upon the above-mentioned accounts cannot be supposed to be in all Cases competent Guides of themselves For 't was to this purpose that our Saviour before his Ascension commissioned his Disciples Mat. xxviii 18 19 20. All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth Go ye therefore and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded
embracing the most desirable Goods then is the whole Rational Nature Happy Now if you cast abroad your thoughts over the whole extent of Being you will presently find that there is nothing in it so worthy to be known and chosen as God whose Power being the source and fountain of all Truth that is of all that either is or is possible and whose Nature being the subject of all rational Perfection wherein it originally resides and from whence'tis derived to all the Rational Creation you must upon these accounts necessarily allow Him to be infinitely the most worthy Object in all the World of Beings for our Vnderstanding to contemplate and our Will to chuse And if so then the very Life and Quintessence of the Heaven of a Man considered as a Reasonable Being must needs consist in a close and intimate Knowledge of God and a Free and Uncontroverted Choice of Him BUT that we may more fully comprehend the Nature of this Happiness it will be needful that we should more distinctly explain what these two Essential Acts of it do import and what Happiness is included in them And I. THE Happiness of a Man consists in a free and intimate Knowledge of God For our Vnderstanding hath naturally as strong an Appetite to Truth as our Stomach hath to Food and as grateful a relish of it when it hath once discovered it as an Hungry-man hath of a pleasant morsel And though in this life its Appetite is many times pall'd and deadned partly through the difficulty of knowing occasioned either by the natural indispositions of its Organs or the inveterate prejudices of a bad Education and partly by being continually employed in secular cares and pursuits which do perpetually divert and so by degrees wean it from its natural inclination to Truth Yet when we go from this World and leave these causes behind us which give such a check to its Appetite doubtless its hunger after Knowledge will immediately revive and there will be no possibility of ever satisfying it without it SUPPOSE we then the future World to be inhabited with a company of Intellectual Beings that do all most vehemently gasp after the knowledge of Truth What can there be imagined more grateful to them than to be admitted to the very Fountain of all Truth and Reality there to quench their Thirst and satisfie their infinite Desires with the free and easie but still fresh discoveries of his infinite Glories and Perfections Where will they be able to fix their greedy Eyes with comparably that Pleasure and Delight as upon the Mysterious Trin-un-Divinity which is the eternal Author of all Being the Root of all Good and the Rule and Source of all Perfection But then supposing what is the case of these Blessed Contemplators that their Minds are so raised and their Apprehensions are rendred so unspeakably quick and sagacious as that they can All know whatsoever they have a mind to without the difficulty of Study and presently discern the Dependence and Connexion of Things without any puzling Discourse or laborious Deduction with what incomparable satisfaction must they needs peruse that infinite Volume of the Divine Being and Perfections NOW that in that Blessed State they have unspeakably clearer and more perspicuous apprehensions of Things than ever they had here that noble passage of St. Paul assures us 1 Cor. xiii 12 For now we see through a glass darkly but then face to face now I know in part but then I shall know even also as I am known that is now our Knowledge of Divine things is very obscure and imperfect they being shewn us as it were through a glass on purpose to give us but a glympse of them but when we come to Heaven we shall look close upon them and have a far clearer and more distinct Apprehension of them Then we shall know God as truly as He knows us and have as real and certain Apprehensions of his All-glorious Being as He hath of Ours So that in Heaven you see the Eyes of those Blessed Minds that inhabit it are so invigorated that they can gaze upon the Sun without dazling contemplate the pure and immaculate Glories of the Deity without being confounded with their brightness and their Understandings being thus exalted they must needs apprehend more at one single view than we can do in volumes of Discourse and tedious long trains of Deduction AND then enjoying as they do a most perfect repose both from within and without them they are never disturbed in their eager contemplations which having such an immense Horizon of Truth and Glory round about them are still discovering farther and farther and so continually entertain'd with fresh Wonders and Delights What an infinite deal of Pleasure then must that All-glorious Object afford to such raised and elevated Minds as these which like transparent Windows let in without any Labour or Difficulty all that Divine and Heavenly light which freely offers it self unto and shines for ever round about them and which by every new Discovery of God and of these bottomless secrets and mysteries of his Nature are still enlarged to discover more and still have new Discoveries offering themselves as fast as they are enlarged to receive them This of it self is so great a part of Heaven that St. John himself seems to be at a loss how to imagine any Heaven beyond it 1 Joh. iii. 2 Beloved now we are the Sons of God and it doth not yet appear what we shall be but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like him that is in Glory and Happiness for we shall see him as he is But then II. THE Heaven or Happiness of a Man consists also in a free and undistracted choice of God that is in chusing him for the Rule and Pattern of our Natures and for the object of our Love Adoration and Dependence all which as I shall shew hereafter are Beatifical Acts and do abundantly contribute to the Happiness of Reasonable Creatures For Happiness as hath been premised consists not in Rest but in Motion and there is no Motion can contribute to the Happiness of any Being but what is suitable to its own Nature Now what motion can be more suitable to the nature of a Reasonable Creature than to Love and Adore the Author of its Being and Well-Being to bow to the will of the Almighty Sovereign and to imitate the Perfections of the Supreme Standard and Pattern of all Reasonable Beings to rely and depend on his infinite Power that is always conducted by his infinite Wisdom and Goodness All which are founded upon so many strong evident and undeniable reasons that the very naming of them is sufficient to justifie them to our Faculties and demonstrate them to be infinitely agreeable to the most fundamental Principles of our Reasonable Nature And being so it is impossible but that of themselves they should be exceeding joyous and blissful for as the sensitive nature is most gratified with
Country and live a great way off from the Heavenly City have as yet no Domicilium in Vrbe no actual Possession of any of its blessed Mansions are notwithstanding Free Denizens of it and have by Covenant a Right to all those blessed Priveledges which its Inhabitants do actually enjoy From whence it is evident that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in that Text referrs to their being Citizens of Heaven and as such it earnestly exhorts them to behave themselves to live as those who being now in a remote Country are yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle expresses it Ephes. ii 19 i. e. Fellow-Citizens with the Saints above that are connaturalized with them into that Heavenly Commonwealth And being thus understood the Apostles Advice will comprehend in it both those kind of Means which I have before described For to live as Cittizens of Heaven is First to live like those who are the Inhabitants of Heaven to imitate their blessed Manners and Behaviour in doing the Will of God upon Earth as it is done by them in Heaven and this takes in the Practice of all those Heavenly Virtues of which the Religion of the End consists Secondly To live like those that have a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Citizenship in Heaven that are entitled by Covenant to the Priviledges and Immunities of it but are as yet to win its Possession by a continual Warfare and Contention with those manifold Difficulties and Oppositions which lie in our way to it and this takes in the Practice of all those Duties in which the Religion of the Means consists So that to live like Christians or as becomes the Gospel is to live in the continual Use of both kinds of the Means of Happiness So that the Christian Conversation consisting of these Two is the only full and adequate Means by which Heaven can be obtained BUT that I may make this more fully appear I shall consider these two parts of it distinctly and indeavour to shew how effectually each of them doth contribute in its kind to our obtaining the Happiness of Heaven And First I shall begin with the Proximate Means viz. The Practice of all those Heavenly Virtues which are implied in the Religion of the End and do make the Heavenly Part of the CHRISTIAN LIFE CHAP. III. Concerning the Heavenly Part of the Christian Life which is the Proximate Means of obtaining Heaven shewing what Virtues it consists of and how much every Virtue contributes to the Happiness of Heaven VIRTUE in the general consists in a suitable Behaviour to the State and Capacities in which we are placed Now Man who is the Subject of that Virtue we are here discoursing of is to be considered under a threefold Capacity The First is of a Rational Animal the Second of a Rational Animal related to God the Third of a Rational Animal related to all other Creatures And these are the only capacities of Virtue that are in Humane Nature So that all the Virtues we are obliged to and capable of consist in behaving our selves suitably to the State and Condition of Rational Animals that are related to God and their Fellow Creatures BY which three Capacities of our Nature the Virtue or Suitableness of Behaviour which we stand obliged to is distinguished into three kinds viz. The Humane The Divine and The Social Humane Virtue consists in behaving our selves suitably to the State and Capacity of mere Rational Animals Divine Virtue consists in behaving our selves suitably to the Condition of Rational Animals related to God Social Virtue consists in behaving our selves suitably to the Capacity of Rational Animals related to their Fellow Creatures but especially to Rational Creatures that are of the same Class and Society with us THAT I may therefore proceed more distinctly in this Argument I shall endeavour to shew what those Vertues of the Christian Life are which are proper to a man in each of these Capacities and how much each of those Virtues contributes to the Happines of Heaven SECT I. Concerning those Humane Virtues which belong to a Man as he is a Reasonable Animal shewing that they are all included in the Heavenly Part of the Christian Life and that the Practice of them effectually conduces to our future Happiness FIRST we will consider Man in the Capacity of a meer Rational Animal that is compounded of contrary Principles viz. Spirit and Matter or a Rational Soul and Humane Body by which Composition He is as it were the Buckle of both Worlds in whom the Spiritual and Material World are clasped and united together and partaking as he does of both Extreams of Spirit and Matter Angel and Brute there arise within him from those contrary Natures contrary Propensions viz. Rational and Sensual or Angelical and Brutish And in the due Subordination of these his Sensual to his Rational Propensions consists all Humane Virtue For his Reason being the noblest Principle of his Nature must be supposed to be implanted in him by God to rule and govern him to be an Eye to his blind and bruitish Affections to correct the Errours of his Imagination to bound the Extravagancies of his Appetites and regulate the whole Course of his Actions so as that he may do nothing that is destructive or injurious to this excellent Frame and Structure of his Nature But now in this compounded Nature of a Man there are his Concupiscible and Irascible Affections with the first of which he desires and pursues his Pleasures and with the second he shuns and avoids his Dangers and there are also Bodily Appetites such as Hunger Thirst and Carnal Concupiscence and together with these a Self-Esteem and Valuation all which are the natural Subjects of his Reason and indeed the only Subjects upon which it is to exercise its Dominion So that in the well and ill Government of these consists all Humane Virtue and Vice To the perfect well governing therefore of a mans self there are Five things indispensably necessary 1. That He should impartially consult his Reason what is absolutely best for him and by what means it is best attainable and and then constantly pursue what it proposes and directs him to For so far as he is wanting in this he casts off the Government of his Reason 2. That he should proportion his Concupiscible Affections to the just value which his Reason sets upon those things which he affects For every Degree of Affection which exceeds the merit of Things is irrational and consequently injurious to our Rational Nature 3. That he should not suffer his Irascible Affections to exceed those Evils and Dangers which he would avoid For if he doth they will prove greater Evils to him than those Evils or Dangers are which raise and provoke them 4. That he should not indulge his Bodily Appetites to the Hurt and Prejudice of his Rational Nature For if he does he will violate the nobler for the sake of the viler Part of Himself And 5. That upon the
Reverence and Veneration For there we shall have far greater and clearer apprehensions of his Majesty than ever we had in this imperfect state which will improve our pre-acquired sense of it to such a degree of Respect and Veneration as will for ever over-rule our Faculties and keep our Understandings Wills and Affections in close and strict attendance to him And as our sense of his Majesty will sweetly command so our sense of his infinite Beauty and Beneficence will invincibly allure us to exert and exercise our faculties upon him For he that hath an affectionate sense of the Beauty and Goodness and Bounty of God hath a heart ready tuned for the Musick of heaven ready set and composed for everlasting Praises and Halelujahs So that when he goes away from hence into the other world and is there admitted to a more intimate view of the perfections and a more abundant participation of the blessings of God than ever his predisposed mind will immediately be seized with such a strong pathetick sense of both as that he will not be able to withhold expressing and venting it in the most rapturous strains of Admiration and Praise and Thanksgiving And this will be his business and employment for ever to admire and extoll the Perfections of God of which he will every moment make new and glorious Discoveries and to celebrate with grateful acknowledgments the infinite riches of his Bounty of which he will every moment have fresh and sweet experiences So that whilst by continual acts of Praise and Thanksgiving we endeavour to affect our minds with a due sense of the Goodness and Bounty of God we are practising before-hand the Musick of Heaven and taking out the Songs of Zion that so when we go from hence we may be qualified and prepared to bear a part in the Celestial Choir So that true devotion you see which consists in a quick and lively sense of the infinite Majesty Beauty and Benignity of God doth most effectually dispose the mind to all those divine and heavenly exercises wherein the state of heaven consists III. AS we are rational Creatures related to God we are obliged to an unfeigned love of and complacency in him And that both upon the account of what he is in himself as he is the most lovely and amiable of beings in whom there is an harmonious concurrence of all imaginable Beauties and Perfections of Wisdom and Goodness of Justice and Mercy and every other amiable thing that can claim or attract a reasonable Affection all which in infinite degrees are contempered together in his nature and also upon the account of his infinite Kindness and Beneficence to us For besides that he hath compassed us round like so many fortunate Islands with a vast Ocean of external Blessings in which there is all that is either necessary convenient or pleasant for our bodily use and enjoyment besides that he hath inspired us with immortal Minds and stamped them with those fair impresses of his own Divinity the knowledge of Truth and the love of Goodness which are both of them very forward capacities of the highest Perfection and most exalted Happiness in a word besides that to supply and gratifie these our noble Capacities he hath prepared for us an immortal Heaven and furnisht it with all the Pleasures and and Delights that a Heaven-born Mind can desire or enjoy besides all this I say he hath sent his own Son from heaven to reveal to us the Way thither and to encourage us to return into it by dying for our sins and thereby obtaining for us a publick Grant and Charter of Mercy and Pardon upon Condition of our return yea and as if all this were too little he hath sent his Spirit to us in the room of his Son to abide amongst us and as his Vicegerent to drive on this vast design of his love to us to excite and persuade us to return into that sure way to heaven which he hath described to us and to assist us all along in our travel thither So wondrous careful hath he been not to be defeated of this his kind intention to make us everlastingly happy And now what Heart can be so hard and impenetrable as to resist such powerful Charms and Endearments Methinks if we had but the common Sense and Ingenuity of men in us it would be impossible for us to reflect upon such miracles of Beauty and Love as these are without being intimately touched and affected with them But till we are so it will be impossible for us to enjoy Heaven for how can we freely exert our Faculties upon an Object that we do not love and if we cannot how can we without loving God enjoy Heaven which consists in the free and cheerful out-goings of all our Faculties upon him For if when we go into Eternity we love him not either he will be indifferent or hateful to us if the former we shall altogether neglect and take no notice of him if the latter we shall either flie away from him and banish our selves from his presence or be forced to abide and endure it with extream regret and torment For whilst our minds are averse and repugnant to him whatsoever we see in him will but the more enrage and canker our malice against him and even the sight of those his glorious Perfections which so enravish the hearts of the blessed inhabitants of Heaven will only provoke and boil up our Dislike of him to a higher degree of Hatred and Aversation For so we find by experience in this life that while our minds are unreconciled to God it is a Pennance to us to come near him to admit any Thoughts of or Conversation with him And this is the reason why we take so much pains as we do to misrepresent him to our selves to draw such Pictures and Ideas of him upon our Minds as best correspond with our own Tempers that so having thus transformed the Notion of him into the Image of our selves Narcissus-like we may fall in love with him or at least more easily endure his blessed Presence and Conversation When therefore we shall go into the other world where all these Disguises of the divine Idea shall be taken off and we shall see him as he is circled about with his own Rays of unstained and immaculate Glory we shall never be able to abide him but being all affrighted and confounded at the Glory of his Presence we shall be forced to run away and if possible to hide our selves from him in everlasting Darkness and Despair For our Wills being poisoned and infected with an habitual Enmity against him it must needs be torment to us to see him because we must always see him happy which is so great an eye-sore to those damned Spirits that hate him that I am apt to think that next to being delivered out of their own Misery the chiefest Good they desire or wish for is to be delivered from the tormenting Sense of
maintain the dearest Intimacies and Familiarities with each other and neither those that are Superiour are either envied for their Height or contemned for their Familiarity nor those that are Inferiour despised for their Meanness or oppressed for their Weakness For in that blessed State every one being best pleased with what best becomes him it is every ones Joy to behave himself towards every one as best becomes the Rank and Degree he is placed in and those that are above do glory in condescending to those that are below them and those that are below do triumph in submitting to those that are above them and thus in all those Differences of Glory and Dignity between them they alternately reverence their Superiours and condescend to their Inferiours with the same unforced Freedom and Alacrity and so do eternally converse with one another notwithstanding all their Distances with the greatest Freedom and most endearing Familiarity AND thus I have endeavoured to give you an account of the first sort of Means by which Heaven the great End of a Christian is to be obtained viz. the proximate and immediate ones which comprehend the Practice of all those Virtues which as Rational Creatures related to God and one another we stand eternally obliged to and shewed how they are all of them essential Parts of the Christian Life and how Heaven it self consists in the Perfection of them SO that upon the whole the best Definition I can give of the State of Heaven is this That it is the everlasting perfect Exercise of all those Humane Divine and Social Virtues which as Rational Animals related to God and all his Rational Creation we are indispensably and everlastingly obliged to And therefore since the only natural way by which we can acquire and perfect these Vertues is Vse and Practice it hence necessarily follows that the Practice of them is the only direct and immediate Means by which that Heavenly State is to be purchased and obtained SECT IV. Wherein for a Conclusion of this Chapter some Motives and Considerations are proposed to persuade men to the Practice of these Heavenly Virtues IT having been largely shewn in the foregoing Sections that the Practice of all those Virtues which are included in the Heavenly Part of the Christian Life tends directly towards the heavenly State and naturally grows up into it I shall now briefly conclude this Argument wth some Motives to persuade men to the Practice of them And these I shall deduce 1. From the Suitableness of them to our present State and Relation 2. From the Dignity 3. From the Freedom 4. From the Pleasure 5. From the Ease and 6. And lastly From the Necessity of them I. Therefore let us consider the Suitableness of these Virtues to our present State and Relation For in our Baptism wherein we gave up our Names to Christ we become Denizens and Freemen of Heaven and were received into a Covenant that upon Performance of our Part of it actually intituled us to all its blessed Priviledges and Immunities So that in that sacred Solemnity of our Initiation into the Christian Covenant we contracted a strict Alliance with the blessed People of Heaven and became their Brethren and Fellow-Citizens For so the Apostle tells us Eph. ii 19 Now therefore ye are no more strangers and forraigners but fellow-citizens with the Saints and of the houshold of God and the houshold of God consists of the whole Congregation of the Saints whether militant upon Earth or triumphant in Heaven For so Eph. iii. 15 it is called the whole family of heaven and earth So that we are Confederates with them in the same Covenant even that by which they hold all the Joys and Glories they are possessed of and if we will do as they have done that is perform the Conditions of it we shall be Cohabitants with them in the same Glory We are adopted Children of the same Father with them Members of the same Family Coheirs of the Promise of the same Glory Brethren of the same Confraternity and Corporation and all the difference between them and us is only this that we are abroad and they at home we are on this and they on t'other side Jordan we in the Acquest and they in the Possession of the heavenly Canaan to which we are intitled as well as they and that by the same Grant from the supreme Proprietor So that by calling our selves Christians we do in other words call our selves Brethren Coheirs and Fellow-Citizens with the blessed Inhabitants of Heaven And what can be more suitable to such a Profession than for us to live as they do in the continued Practice of all these heavenly Virtues And what a shame will it be for us that are by Profession their Brethren not to coppy and imitate their Behaviour that we who are below Stairs in the same House and Family should abandon our selves to Sensuality and Devilishness whilst our blessed Kindred above are entertaining themselves with those heavenly Pleasures which result from the perfect Exercise of all heavenly Virtue that we should be neglecting provoking and blaspheming God whilst they are contemplating and admiring loving and praising imitating and obeying him that we should be cheating and defrauding envying and despising maligning and embroiling one another whilst they are conversing together with the greatest Freedom and Integrity with the most obliging Respects and Condescensions and in the strictest Vnity and dearest Friendship What a vile Reproach are our wicked lives to the Conversation of these our Fellow-Citizens above For while we profess our selves their Brethren those who understand no better will be prone to suspect that they live as we do and how would such a Suspicion tempt an honest Heathen to renounce Heaven as the Indian King did when he was told that the bloudy Spaniards went thither and rather chuse to go down to the darkest Hell than to a Heaven that is peopled with such diabolical Company So that by our wicked and unsaint-like Lives we take an effectual Course to bring Heaven it self into Disgrace and to cast such a Slander on its blessed Inhabitants as may justly expose them to the Scorn and Hatred of all those honest Minds that know them no otherwise than by us their unworthy and degenerate Fellow-Citizens and could those blessed Spirits look down from their Thrones of Bliss and see what a Company of wretched Christians there are that claim Kindred with them they would doubtless be ashamed of the Relation and count themselves highly dishonoured and disgraced by it and heartily wish that we would disown our Sins or our Baptism and openly renounce their Alliance or more strictly imitate their Manners And really 't is a burning Shame that we should profess our selves Fellow-Citizens with them for no other purpose but to scandalize and reproach them and it were heartily to be wished even for the Credit of Heaven and of our blessed Brethren that inhabit it that if we will not be so generous as to
received by men of all Nations and Religions however it came to pass I know not that for sinful men to appease the incensed Divinity it was necessary first that some Life should be sacrificed to him by way of Satisfaction for their Sins and that the nobler it was the more propitious it rendred him 2. That some high Favourite of his should be prevailed with to intercede with him in their behalf Whereupon understanding by universal Tradition that there were a sort of middle Beings whom they called Demons between the sovereign God and Men they began to address to these and to bribe them with sacred Honours to interpose with God in their Behalf And if they could make a shift to rely upon Sacrifices the most precious of which were the Lives of sinful Men and to depend upon Intercessors of whose Interest with God they had little or no Security what a mighty ground of Confidence and Assurance have we for whom the Son of God once offered such a meritorious Sacrifice upon Earth and continues to make such a powerful Intercession in Heaven For besides that as he was a spotless and innocent Person his Sacrifice was wholly meritorious for guilty offenders and besides that as he was a Person of infinite Value and Dignity his Sacrifice was meritorious for a World of guilty offenders God upon whose good Pleasure the Admission or Refusal of it intirely depended has openly declared his Acceptation thereof as a Propitiation for the sins of the World and ingaged himself by a publick Grant and Charter of Mercy to indemnifie for the sake of it every sinner in the World that will but return to him by a serious and hearty Repentance neither of which great things could ever be said of any other Sacrifice And in the virtue of this Sacrifice as well as of his own personal Interest with his Father he now intercedes in our behalf and pleading our Cause as he doth with the price of our Souls in his hand even his precious Blood by which he redeemed them we may be sure that with that powerful Oratory he cannot fail of succeeding in our behalf For having purchased for us by his Blood all those favours which he intercedes for he is invested with the Right and Power of bestowing them upon us So that now for our greater Security all those Favours which God hath promised us are actually deposited in the hands of our Mediator and though his bare Promise is in it self as great an Assurance as can be given us yet it is to be considered that guilty Minds are naturally anxious and full of unreasonable Jealousies and consequently whilst they looked upon God as their adverse Party and a Party infinitely offended by them would have been very prone to suspect the worst had they had nothing but his bare Word to depend on And therefore in Condescension to this pitiable Infirmity of his sinful Creatures he hath not only promised them his Acceptance and Favour upon Condition of their Return to him but hath also put the Performance of his Promise into a third Hand even into the Hand of a Mediator who by the Nature of his Office is equally concerned for both Parties as well that God should perform his Promise if we performed our Duty as that we should perform our Duty if we received the Benefit of his Promise And hence Heb. vii 22 our Mediator is called the Sponsor or Surety of a better Covenant So that now we have no longer to do with God immediately as our adverse Party but by a Mediator who by his Office is obliged to be on our side as well as Gods and to take care that neither receive the others Part of the Covenant without performing his own Thus as he hath been sometimes pleased in Complyance with humane Weakness to enforce his Promise with his Oath not that the one is in its own Nature a greater Security from God than the other but because with Men an Oath is more obliging than a Promise so in great Condescension to the unreasonable Diffidence of our guilty Minds he hath not only promised us Pardon and Acceptance upon our Repentance but he hath also given us a collateral Security for the Performance of it even the Security of a Mediator in whose hands he hath deposited whatsoever he hath promised us Not that in it self this is a greater Security than his own bare Word and Promise which he cannot falsifie without renouncing his Being but because this way of giving Security by a third Person is more accommodate to the Method of our Covenants and Agreements with one another and consequently more apt to satisfie our anxious and diffident Minds AND thus the Conviction of our need of a Mediator and the Persuasion of the Reality and Excellency of his Mediation will powerfully work both on our Hope and Fear which are the main Springs of all our religious Endeavours and give us at once the most horrible Prospect of the Evil of Sin and the most comfortable Assurance of Pardon and Acceptance with God upon our Repentance and Amendment both which are absolutely necessary to our successful Entrance into the Christian Warfare IV. TO our Beginning of this Holy Warfare it is also necessary that we should be affected with a deep Sorrow and Shame and Remorse for our past Iniquities For this the Apostle calls sorrowing to repentance and tells us that godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of 2 Cor. vii 9 10. and accordingly it is recorded of St. Peter's Converts that the beginning of their repentance was their being pricked at the heart Acts ii 37 and even Repentance it self is in Scripture called a broken and contrite heart this being the most immediate Preparation to a true Repentance or Change of mind Psal. li. 17 And hence the ancient Penitents are described in Scripture as girding themselves with sackcloth and repenting in dust and ashes in Allusion to the antient manner of great and solemn Mournings which was to put on Sackcloth cover the Head with Ashes and sit in the Dust. And in the primitive and purest Ages of Christianity it is evident that the bitterest Sorrows and Remorses were looked upon as necessary Preparations to Repentance for the Penitents in those days as Tertullian and Nazianzen describes them lay prostrate at the Church Doors in Sackcloth and Ashes supplicating the Prayers of the Presbyters and Widows hanging on the Garments and Knees of those that entred into the Church kissing their Footsteps and with rivers of Tears in their eyes beseeching their Prayers to God for their Pardon Now though we are not under the Severities of such an Ecclesiastical Discipline yet are we equally obliged with those ancient Penitents to exercise it internally in our Hearts For sin is as bad now as it was then and as great an evil in us as it was in them and therefore ought to be lamented by us with an equal Sorrow and Remorse And indeed
Mind hast strengthened my Resolution and rendred it so successful and victorious 'T is to thy Grace that I owe all the good I have done and 't is by thy Aid that I have escap'd all the evils I have been tempted to wherefore not unto me O Lord not unto my Strength or Endeavours but unto thy Name be all the Glory and Praise of this days Deliverance and Preservation O never let the Remembrance of this thy Goodness towards me depart from my Mind but let it kindle in me such a grateful Sense as may more and more incite me to love and obey thee and depend upon thee for the future And as thou hast been pleased to conduct me safely by thy Grace through all the Dangers and Temptations of the Day so do thou take me into thy Care and Protection this Night and grant that I may awake in the Morning with a Heart so inflamed with the Remembrance of thy Goodness and so incourag'd with this Days success and so indeared to the Practice of Vertue by the growing Delights and Pleasures of it as that I may persist in my religious Course with greater Courage and Alacrity and this I humbly beg for Jesus Christs sake in whose name and words I farther pray Our Father c. If upon Enquiry you find that you have been failing in your Duty or that you have done any evil Action through meer Heedlessness or Surprize indeavour to affect your self with a sorrowful Sense of your own Folly Weakness and Carelesness and then conclude with this Form of Humiliation O Most blessed Lord God who art infinitely glorious in thy own Righteousness and Holiness and doest for ever will and act according to thy own Nature which is the most perfect Law and Pattern of Goodness To thy spotless Nature no Evil can approach who art of purer Eyes than to behold Iniquity with what Confidence then can such a polluted Creature as I am appear in thy Presence how can I lift up my guilty Eyes to thy Throne who to my past Rebellions which have been more in number than the hairs on my Head have this day added so many sinful Failings and Defects that shouldest thou be severe to mark what I do amiss were sufficient to kindle thy Displeasure against me 'T was but this Morning that I ingag'd my self to thee not only to abstain from all wilful and deliberate Sins but also to set a watch upon my Mouth and Actions that I might not offend thee unawares but to my Shame I must acknowledg I have been wofully careless and remiss having this Day suffered my self through my own Inadvertency to be surprized into such Actions as nothing can render pittiable or excusable in thy Sight but the miserable Frailty and Weakness of my Nature What shall I say unto thee O thou Judg of all the Earth I am guilty I am guilty and have nothing to plead for my self but the Blood of Jesus that all-sufficient Propitiation for the Sins of the whole World O Lord I do earnestly repent and am heartily sorry for these my Misdoings the Remembrance of them is grievous unto me the Burthen of them is intolerable have mercy upon me have mercy upon me most merciful Father and for Jesus Christ his sake forgive me all that is past and grant that the Sense of these my Miscarriages may render me more careful and vigilant for the future And let thy blessed Spirit be always present with my Mind to recollect my Distractions and awake my Considerations and warn me of my Dangers that I may no more be surprized by sudden Temptations nor hurried into evil Actions by unexpected Hopes or Fears but do thou so subdue my lower Appetites to my Will my Will to my Vnderstanding and my Vnderstanding to thy Spirit as that under his blessed Conduct I may for the future be prepared against all Temptations and furnish'd to every good work And now O Lord let not the Failings I have been guilty of this Day deprive me of thy gracious Protection this Night but grant that after a safe and comfortable Repose I may awake in the Morning with such a sorrowful Sense of them as may for the future oblige me to be more watchful and resolute against them All which I beg for Jesus Christ his sake with whose Prayer I conclude this my evening Sacrifice Our Father c. If upon Enquiry it appear that you have commited any wilful deliberate Sin indeavour to affect your self with Horror Shame and Compunction for it by representing to your Conscience the monstrous Foulness and Ingratitude the deep Malignity and desperate Madness of your own Action and then conclude with this Form of particular Repentance O Thou most dreadful Majesty of Heaven and Earth who hatest Iniquity and hast proclaimed from Heaven thy fierce Indignation against all Vnrighteousness and Vngodliness of men look down I beseech thee upon me a vile and guilty Wretch who stand here arraigned at thy Tribunal by my own Conscience and am so confounded with the sense of my Sin and of thy just Displeasure against me that I tremble to draw near unto thee and yet I dare not stay from thee I acknowledg my self unworthy infinitely unworthy to come before thee and am prompted by my own Horror and Shame to hide my self from thee but yet I know I must come or I must perish And therefore here O Lord I cast my self at thy Feet and if thou shalt think meet to tread upon me and to spurn me from thy Presence for ever I must own that thou art just and righteous in all thy Ways For thou hast been wonderfully good beyond what I could modestly have wisht or am able to express thou tookest pity upon me when I was all wounded and polluted and weltring in my Blood when I was sleeping securely upon the brink of Perdition and had scarce any Sense or Feeling of my Guilt and Misery in this woful plight didst thou visit my poor Soul and with thy preventing Grace awake me to a sense of my Danger and effectually warn me to flee from the wrath to come And now when thou hadst brought me to my self and to a through Resolution of Amendment and my Soul was in a fair way of Recovery like an ungrateful Wretch as I am I have flown in the Face of my Physitian I have abused his Goodness and baffled his Grace and wilfully and deliberately torn open my Wounds again And this I have done most treacherously as well as ungratefully not only against all the Obligations of thy Goodness but also against my own repeated Vows and Engagements For 't was but this Morning that I solemnly renewed to thee my Promise of Obedience and therein vow'd not to offend thee wilfully upon any Temptation whatsoever but O vile Traytor that I am both to thee and to my own Soul I have by most base basely falsified this my Engagement and this I did with the most unpardonable Circumstance even