that only is capable of being imprest by the intervening ministry of our own understanding viz. by its Vision intimated as was formerly observed in that of the Apostle We shall be like for we shall see him c. It s natural perfections are antecedent and presupposed therefore not so fitly to be understood here And I say both these wayes for as we cannot form an intire Idea of God without taking in together his perfections of both sorts communicable and incommunicable the former whereof must serve instead of a genns the latter of a differentia in composing the notion of God so nor will his impresse on us be intire without something in it respecting both in the senses already given What it will contribute to future blessedness we shall shortly see in its place when we have made a brief enquiry which is the next thing according to our order proposed concerning Thirdly The satisfaction that shall hence accrue Where it will not be besides our purpose to take some notice of the significancy of the word And not to insist on its affinity to the word used for swearing or rather being sworn which an oath being the end of controversies and beyond which we go no further nor expect more in way of testifying would the more fitly here represent to us the soul in its non-ultra having attained the end of all its motions and contentions Its equal nearness to the word signifying the number of seven is not altogether unworthy observation That number is we know often used in Scripture as denoting plenitude and perfection and God hath as it were signalliz'd it by his rest on the seventh day and if this were not designedly pointed at here in the present use of this word as it must be acknowledged to be frequently used where we have no reason to think it is with such an intendment It may yet occasion us to look upon the holy soul now entered into the eternal Sabbath the rest of God which secluding all respect to that circumstance is yet the very substance and true notion of the thing it self to the consideration whereof I now passe under the word held forth to us For this satisfaction is the souls rest in God It s perfect enjoyment of the most perfect good The expletion of the whole capacity of its will the total filling up of that vast enlarged appetite the perfecting of all its desires in delight and joy Now delight or joy for they differ not save that the latter word is thought something more appropriate to reasonable nature is more fitly defined the rest of the desiring faculty in the thing desired Desire and Delight are but two acts of Love diversified only by the distance or presence of the same Object which when 't is distant the soul acted and prompted by love desires moves towards it pursues it when present and attained delights in it enjoyes it staies upon it satisfies it self in it according to the measure of goodness it finds there Desire is therefore love in motion Delight is love in rest and of this latter delight or joy Scripture evidently gives us this Notion He will rejoyce over thee with joy unto which is presently added as exegetical he will rest in his love Which resting can be but the same thing with being satisfied This satisfaction then is nothing else but the repose and rest of the soul amidst infinite delights It s peaceful acquiescence having attained the ultimate tearm of all its motions beyond which it cares to go no further the solace it finds in an adequate full good which it accounts enough for it and beyond which it desires no more reckons its state as good as it can be and is void of all hovering thoughts which perfect rest must needs exclude or inclination to change And so doth this being satisfied not only generally signifie the soul to be at rest but it specifies that rest and gives us a distinct account of the nature of it As that it is not a forced violent rest such as proceeds from a beguiled ignorance a drowsie sloth a languishing weakness or a desire and hope of happiness by often frustrations bafled into despair to all which the native import and propriety of that word satisfaction doth strongly repugne But it discovers it to be a natural rest I mean from an internal principle the soul is not held in its present state of enjoyment by a strong and violent hand but rests in it by a connaturalness thereunto is attempered to it by its own inward constitution and frame It rests not as a descending stone intercepted by something by the way that holds and stops it else it would fall further but as a thing would rest in its own centre with such a rest as the earth is supposed to have in its proper place that being hung upon nothing is yet unmoved ponderibus librata suis equally ballanced by its own weights every way It is a rational judicious rest upon certain knowledge that its present state is simply best and not capable of being changed for a better The soul cannot be held under a perpetual cheat so as alwayes to be satisfied with a â—hadow It may be so befool'd for a while but if it remain satisfied in a state that never admits of change that state must be such as commends it self to the most throughly informed reason and judgement It is hence a free voluntary chosen rest Such as God professes his own to be in Zion This is my rest here will I dwell for I have desired it It is a complacential rest wherein the soul abides steady bound only by the cords of love a rest in the midst of pleasantnesses The Lord is my portion the lots are fallen to me in amanitatibus it cannot be more fitly exprest than amidst pleasantnesses And this speaks not only what the Psalmists condition was but the sense and account he had of it That temper of mind gives us some Idea of that contentful satisfied abode with God which the blessed shall have He intimates how undesirous he was of any change Their sorrows he told us above should be multiplied that hasten after another God Hereafter there will be infinitely less appearance of reason for any such thought Now it is the sense of an holy soul Whom have I in heaven but thee and there is none I desire on earth besides thee q. d. Heaven and Earth yield not a tempting Object to divert me from thee 't is now so at sometimes when faith and love are in their triumph and exaltation but the Lord knows how seldom but much more when we see him as he is and are satisfied with his likeness It 's an active vigorous rest Action about the end shall be perpetuated here though action towards it ceases 'T is the rest of an awâ—kned not of a drowsie sluggish soul of a soul satiâ—fiâ—d by heavenly sensations and fruitions
or lose the disposition by which it is contempered and made proportionable thereto Hence no weariness can ensue What a soul in which the love of God is perfected grow weary of beholding him The Sun will sooner grow weary of shining The touch'd Needle of turning its self to its wonted point every thing will sooner grow weary of its centre and the most fundamental Laws of Nature be sooner antiquated and made void for ever The eye of the fool Solomon tells us is in the ends of the earth his only is a rolling wandring eye that knows not where to fix wisdom guides and fixes the eye of the holy soul determines it unto God only I will bless the Lord who hath given me counsel my reines â—â—so instruct me I have set the Lord alwayes â—efore me Surely heaven will not render it less capable of dijudication of passing a right judgment of the excellency worth of things And here a rational judgment will find no want an irrational will find no place Therefore as permanent glory will certainly infer a perpetual vision perpetuated vision will as certainly perpetuate thesouls satisfaction and blessedness 4. 'T will be a possessive intuition as 't is an appropriate glory which it pitches upon 'T will be the language of every look this glory is mine The Soul looks not upon it shily as if it had nothing to do with it or with slight and careless glances but the very posture of its eye speaks its interest and proclaimes the pretentions it hath to this glory With how different an aspect doth a stranger passing by and the owner look upon the same house the same lands A mans eye layes his claim for him and avowes his right A grateful object that one can say is his own he arrests it with his eye So do Saints with appropriative looks behold their God and the Divine Glory Even with such an eye as he was wont to behold them To this man will I look c. that is as the place of my rest mentioned before he designes him with his eye which is the import of that expression The Lord knows who are his His eye markes them out owns them as his own As concerning others whom he disowns the phrase is I know you not And how vastly different is such an intuition from that when I look upon a thing with an hungry lingring eye which I must never enjoy or never expect to be the better for This vision is fruitive unites the soul with the blessed object Which kind of sight is meant when actual blessedness is so often exprest by seeing God We see then what vision the sight of Gods face contributes to the satisfaction of blessed souls CHAP. VII Wherein assimilation the likeness or glory of God imprest contributes unto satisfaction Where is particularly propounded to be shewn what pleasure it involves what it disposes to What it involves in the esse of it what in the cognosci 1. The pleasure of being like God discovered 1. Shewing concerning the Image of God generally considered that it is the souls health and soundness restored that it is a vital an intimate a connatural a perfect image OUr next business is to discover what assimilation or the impressed likeness of God may further add to this satisfied state or what satisfying pleasure the blessed soul finds in this that it is like God And here we are distinctly to enquire into The pleasure which such an assimilation to God involves in it self tends and disposes to 1. The pleasure it involves in it self or which is taken in it abstractly considered which we may more particularly unfold by shewing The pleasure involved 1. In being like God 2. In knowing or reflecting upon the same The Esse Cognosci Of this assimulation 1. The pleasure in being like God which may be discovered both by a general consideration hereof and by instancing in some particulars wherein blessed souls shall be like him 1. It is obvious to suppose an inexpressible pleasure in the very feeling the inward sensation the holy soul will have of that happy frame in general whereinto it is now brought That joyful harmony that intire rectitude it finds within it self You may as soon separate light from a Sun-beam as pleasure from such a state This likeness or conformity to God is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a perfect temperament an athletique health ness a strong sound constitution of soul Do but imagine what it is to a mans body after a wasting sickness to find himself well Frame a notion of the pleasure of health and soundness when both all the parts and members of the body are in their proper places and proportions a lively active vigour a sprightly strength possesses every part and actuates the whole how pleasant is this temper If we were all body there could be no greater felicity than this But by how much the more noble any creature is so is it capable of more exquisite paines or pleasures Sin is the sickness and disease of the soul infeebles all its powers exhausts its vigour wasts its strength You know the restless tossings the weary rollings to fro of a diseased languishing body such is the case of a sinful soul. Let it but seriously bethink it self and then speak its own sense but here is the malignity of the disease it cannot be serious it always raves what will it be O I can take no rest The way of wickedness is called a way of pain Sinners would find it so if the violence of the disease had not bereft them of sense Nothing savors with me I can take comfort in nothing The wicked is as a troubled Sea as their name imports that cannot rest Whose waters c. The Image of God renewed in holiness nad righteousness is health restored after such a consuming sickness which when we awake when all the drowsiness that attends our disease is shaken off we find to be perfect The fear of the Lord an ordinary paraphrase of holiness or piety is said to be health to the navel and marrow to the bones Our Lord Jesus invites wearied sinners to come to him to take his yâ—ke on them to learn of him that is to imitate him to be like him and promises they shall finde rest to their souls How often do we find grace and peace in conjunction in the Apostles salutations and benedictions We are told that the wayes of divine wisdom i. e. which it prescribeth are all pleasâ—ntness and peace That in keeping the Commandments of God is great reward That they are not grievous i. e. for there seems to be a Meiosis in the expression are joyous pleasant And what are his Commandments but those expresses of himself wherein we are to be like him and conform to his will The Kingdom of God that holy order which he settles in the spirits of men his Law transcribed and imprest upon
beforehand make thee any promise of that A promise would give thee a full certainty of the issue if it were absolute out of hand if conditional assoon as thou findest the condition performed But what canst thou act upon no lower rate then a foregoing certainty a preassurance of the event My friend consider a little what thou canst not but know already that 't is HOPE built with those that are rational upon rational probabilities with many oftentimes upon none at all is the great Engine that moves the World that keeps all sorts of men in action Doth the Husbandman foreknow when he Ploughs and Sows that the Crop will answer his cost and pains Doth the Merchant foreknow when he Imbarques his goods he shall have a safe and gainful return Dost thou foreknow when thou eatest it shall refresh thee when thou takest Physick that it shall recover thy health and save thy life Yea further can the câ—â—tous man pretend a promise that his unjust practises shall inrich him the malicious that he shall prosper in his design of revenge the ambitions that he shall be great and honourable the voluptuous that his pleasures shall be always unmixt with gall and wormwood Can any say they ever had a promise to ascertain them that profaneness and sensuality would bring them to Heaven that an ungodly dissolute life would end in blessedness Here the Lord knows men can be confident and active enough without a promise and against many an expresse threatning Wilt thou not upon the hope thou hast before thee do as much for thy soul for eternal blessedness as men do for uncertain riches short pleasures an airie soon-blasted name yea as much as men desperately do to damn themselves and purchase their own swift destruction Or canst thou pretend though thou hast no preassuming promise thou hast no hope Is it nothing to have heard so much of Gods gracious Nature Is it suitable to the reports and discoveries he hath made of himself to let a poor wretch perish at his feet that lies prostrate there expecting his mercy Did'st thou ever hear he was so little a lover of souls Do his giving his Son his earnest unwearied strivings with sinners his long patience the clear beams of Gospel-light the amiable appearances of his Grace give groâ—nd for no better no kinder thoughts of him yea hath he not expresly stiled himself the God hearing prayers taken a name on purpose to encourage all flesh to come to him Wilt thou dare then to adopt those profane words what profit is it to pray to him and say 't is better sit still resolving to perish then address to him or seek his favour because he hath not by promise assured thee of the issue and that if he suspends his grace all thou dost will be in vain How would'st thou judge of the like resolution If the Husbandman should say when I have spent my pains and cost in breaking up and preparing the Earth and casting in my Seed if the Sun shine not and the rain fall not in season if the influences of Heaven be suspended if God withhold his blessing or if an evading enemy anticipate my Harvest all I do and expend is to no purpose and God hath not ascertain'd me of the contrarie by expresse promise 't is as good therefore sit still Censure and answer him and thy self both together But thou wilt yet it may be say that though all this may be possibly true yet thou canst not all this while be convinc't of any need so earnestly to â—uâ—ie thy self about this affair For God is wont to surprise soule by preventing acts of Grace to be found of them that sought him not to break in by an irristible power which he least thought of And to goal to anticipate his grace were to detract from the 〈◊〉 and so from the glory of it But art thou not in all this afraid of charging God foolishly When the merciful God in compassion to the souls oâ— men hath given his Gospel constituted and settled a standing Office to be perpetuated through all ages for the publication of it Invited the world therein to a treaty with him touching the concernments of their eternal peace required so strictly their attendance to and most serious consideration of his proposals and offers encouraged and commanded their addresses to him set up a Throne of Grace on purpose wilt thou dare to say all this is needless When God speaks to thee is it needless for thee to hear him or regard what he saith or when he commannds thee to pour forth thy soul to him wilt thou say 't is a needlesse thing Dost thou not plainly see that the peculiar appropriate aptitude of the things prest upon thee speaks them necessary as means to their designed end whence also they are sitly called means of Grace Is not the Word of God the Immortal Seed are not Souls begotten by that Word to be the first fruits of his creatures Is it not the Type the Mould or Print by which Divine Impressions are put upon the Soul The Instrument by which he sanctifies Are not the exceeding great and precious promises the Veâ—icula the conveighances of the Divine Nature And what can be the means to mollifie and melt the obdurate heart of a sinner to asswage its enmity to overcome it into the love of God to transform it into his image but the Gospel-discovery of Gods own gracious and holy nature and can it operate to this purpose without being heard or read and understood and considered and taken to heart Do but compare this means God works by with the Subject to be wrought upon and the Effect to be wrought and nothing can be conceived more adequate and sitly corresponding But in as much as there hath been an enmity between God and sinners and that therefore the whole entire means of reconciliation must be a Treaty And that a Treaty cannot be managed or conceived without mutual interlocutiâ—n therefore must the sinner have a way of expressing its own sense to God as well as he speaks his mind to it which shews the necessity of Prâ—yer too and therefore because the Peace begins on his part though the War began on ours he calls upon sinners to open themselves to him Come now let us reason together he invites and addresses Seek the Lord while he may be fâ—und and call upon him while he is nigh c. And doth not the natural relation it self betwen the Creatour and a Creature require this besides the exigencie of our present case Every Creature is a supplicant It s necessary dependence is a natural Prayer The eyes of all things look up c. 'T is the proper glory of a Deity to be depended on and addrest to Should nâ—t a people seek unto their God 't is an appeal to reason is it not a congruous thing Further dost thou not know thy Makers will
glances or which speaks more inwardness more fixed views when their eyes do even feed and feast upon each other This we should endeavour to be as in a continual interview with God How frequent mention have we of the fixed posture of his eye towards Saints To this man will I look I have found out q. d. that which shall be ever the delight of mine eye do not divert me Towards him I will look What he speaks of the material Temple is ultimately to be refer'd to that which is typified his Church his Saints united with his Christ mine eys and my heart shall be there perpetually and elsewhere He withdraweth not his eyes from the righteous He cannot admirable grace allow himself to look off to turn aside his eye And he seems impatient of the aversion of theirs Let me see thy countenance saith he for it is comely Is it not much more reasonable it should be thus with us towards him that we should be more delighted to behold real comelinesse than he with what is so only by his gracious vouchsafement and estimation how careful should we be that our eye may at every turn meet his that he never look towards us and find it in the ends of the earth carelesly wandring from him How well doth it become us to set the Lord alwayes before us to have our eye ever towards the Lord This you see is the initial leading thing in this blessedness of heaven So it must have also a prime ingrediency into our heaven on earth It is a part of celestial blessedness but it is not peculiar to it The present blessedness the righteous injoy here is a participation of heaven It hath something in it of every thing that is ingredient into that perfect blessedness Our present knowledge of God is often exprest by vision or sight as we have had occasion to observe in many passages of Scripture He hath given us such a visive power and made it connatural to that heavenly creature begotten of him in all the true subjects of this blessedness We know that we are of God and presently it follows he hath gâ—ven us an understanding to know him that is true This new man is not born blind The blessed God himself is become liable to the view of his regenerate intellectual eye clarify'd and fill'd with vigour and Spirit from himself He therefore that hath made that hath new formed this eye shall not he be seen by it shall not we turn it upon him Why do we not more frequently bless our eye with that sight This Object though of so high excellency and glory will not hurt but perfect and strengthen it They are refreshing vital beams that issue from it Sure we have no excuse that we eye God so little i. e. that we mind him no more Why have we so few thoughts of him in a day What to let so much time pass and not spare him a look a thought Do we intend to imploy our selves on eternity in the visions of God and is our present aversion from him and intention upon vanity our best preparation thereto This loudly calls for redress Shall God be waiting all the day as on purpose to catch our eye to intercept a look and we studiously decline him and still look another way as of choice and what is it but choice can we pretend a necessity to forget him all the day How cheap is the expence of a look how little would it cost us and yet how much of duty might it express how much of comfort and joy might it bring into us How great is our offence and loss that we live not in such more constant views of God Herein we sin and suffer both at once things both very unsuitable to heaven Mindfulness of God is the living Spring of all holy and pleasant affections and deportments towards him sets all the wheels agoing makes the soul as the Chariots of Aminadab These wheels have their eyes also are guided by a mind by an intellectual principle Knowing intelligent beings as we also are by participation and according to our measure so act mutually towards one another We cannot move towards God but with an open eye seeing him and our way towards him If we close our eyes we stand still or blindly run another course we know not whither All sin is darkness whether it be neglect of good or doing of evil It s way is a way of darkness as a course of holy motion is walking in the light Our shutting our eyes towards God creates that darkness surrounds us with a darkness comprehensive of all sin Now is every thing of enjoyned duty waved and any evil done that sinful nature prompts us to Well might it be said He that sinneth hath not seen God When we have made our selves this darkness we fall of course under Sathans Empire and are presently within his Dominions He is the Prince of darkness and can rule us now at his will Perishing lost souls are such as in them the God of this world hath blinded their minds To open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light is to turn them also from the power of Sathan unto God What an hell of wickedness are we brought into in the twinkling of an eye We are without God in the world as if a man wink though at noon-day he hath as it were put out the Sun 't is with him as if there were no such thing When we have banished God out of our sight and forgotten him 't is with us as if there were no God If such a state grow habitual to us as we know every sinful aversion of our eye from God tends thereto what wickedness is there that will not lurk in this darkness How often in Scripture is forgetting God used as a character yea as paraphrase a full though summary expression of sin in general As if the wickedness the malignity the very hell it self of sin were wholly included and not connated only here Now consider this after so dreadful an ennumeration so black a Catalogue all that forget God And as deep calleth to deep one hell to another The wicked shall be turned into hell and all the people that forget God That keep that mass of wickedness of pride of persecution cursing blasphemy deceit and mischief all meet with one that hath not God in all his thoughts But who is so hardy to look the holy God in the face and sin against him what an astonishment is it when he watches over present sin or brings forth former sins out of secret darkness and sets them in the light of his countenance Who that understands any thing of the Nature and Majesty of God dare call him for a witness of his sinning The worst of men would find themselves under some restraint could they but abtain of themselves to sit down sometimes and solemnly think of God Much more would it prove
immediately meets it presenting its self to him It onely views him instead of it self and would not now change its state for any thing not if one could give it the whole heaven in exchange And else where discussing whether life in the body be good and desirable yea or no he concludes it to be good not as it is an union of the soul and body but as it may have that vertue annex't to it by which what is really evil may be kept off But yet that that death is a greater good That life in the body is in it self evil but the soul is by vertue stated in goodness not as enlivening the body with which it is compounded but as it severs and so joyns it self from it meaning so as to have as little communion as possible it can with it To which purpose is the expression of another That the soul of an happy man so collects and gathers up it self out from all things into it self that it hath as it were separated it self from the body while it is yet contained in it And that it was possest of that fortitude as not to dread its departure from it Another gives this character of a good man that as he liv'd in simplicity tranquility purity not being offended at any that they believed him not to live so he also comes to the end of his life pure quiet and easie to be dissolved disposing himself without any constraint to his lot Another is brought in speaking thus If God should grant me to become a Child again to send forth my renewed infant-cries from my Cradle and having even run out my race to begin it again I should most earnestly refuse it for what profit hath this life and how much toil Yet I do not repent that I have lived because I hope I have not liv'd in vain And I now go out of this life not as out of my dwelling house but my Inn. O blessed day when I shall enter into that Council and Assembly of souls and depart from this rude and disorderly rout and crew c. I shall adde another of a not much unlike strain and rank that discoursing who is the Heir of Divine things as being either not an open or no constant friend to Christianity Saith he cannot be who is in love with this animal sensitive life but only that purest mind that is inspired from above that partake of an Heavenly and Divine portion that onely despises the body c. with much more of like import Yea so have some been transported with the desire of immortality that being wholly ignorant of the sin of self-murder they could not forbear doing violence to themselves Among the Indians two thousand years ago were a sort of wise men as they were called that held it a reproach to dye of age or a disease and were wont to burn themselves alive thinking the flames were polluted if they came amidst them dead The story of Cleombrotus is famous who hearing Plato discourse of the immortality of the soul by the Sea side leapt from him into the Sea that he might presently be in that state And 't is storied that Nero refused to put Apollonius to death though he were very much incenst against him only upon the apprehension he had that he was very desirous to dye because he would not so far gratifie him I onely make this improvement of all this Christian Principles Rule do neither hurry nor misguide men but the end as we have it revealed should much more powerfully and constantly attract us Nothing is more unsuitable to Christianity our way nor to that blessedness the end of it then a terrene Spirit They have nothing of the true light and impress of the Gospel now nor are they ever like to attain the Vision of the blessed face of God and the impress of his likeness hereafter that desire it not above all things and are not willing to quit all things else for it And is it not a just exprobration of our earthliness and carnality if meer Philosophers and Pagans shall give better proof then we of a spirit erected above the world and alienated from what is temporary and terrene Shall their Gentilism outvy our Christianity Methinks a generous indignation of this reproach should inflame our souls and contribute somewhat to the refining of them to a better and more Spiritual temper Now therefore O all you that name your selves by that worthy name of Christians that profess the Religion taught by him that was not of the earth earthly but the Lord from heaven you that are partakers of the heavenly calling Consider the great Apostle and High-priest of your profession who only took our flesh that we might partake of his Spirit bare our earthly that we might bare his heavenly Image descended that he might cause us to ascend Seriously bethink your selves of the Scope and end of his Apostleship and Priesthood He was sent out from God to invite and conduct you to him to bring you into the Communion of his glory and blessedness He came upon a Message and Treaty of peace To discover his Fathers love and win yours To let you know how kind thoughts the God of love had conceived to you-wards And that however you had hated him without cause and were bent to do so without end he was not so affected towards you To settle a friendship and to admit you to the participation of his eternal glory Yea he came to give an instance and exemplifie to the world in his own Person how much of heaven he could make to dwell in mortal flesh how possible he could render it to live in this world as unrelated to it How gloriously the divine life could triumph over all the infirmities of frail humanity And so leave men a certain proof and pledge to what perfections humane nature should be improv'd by his grace and Spirit in all them that should resign themselves to his conduct and follow his steps That heaven and earth were not so far asunder but he knew how to settle a commerce and intercourse between them That an heavenly life was possible to be transacted here and certain to be gloriously rewarded hereafter And having testifi'd these things he seals the Testimony and opens the way for the accomplishment of all by his death Your heavenly Apostle becomes a Priest and a Sacrifice at once That no doubt might remain among men of his sincerity in what even dying he ceased not to profess and avow And that by his own propitiatory bloud a mutual reconciliation might be wrought between God and you that your hearts might be won to him and possest with an ingenuous shame of your ever having been his enemies And that his displeasure might for ever cease towards you and be turned into everlasting friendship and love That eternal redemption being obtained heaven might be opened to you and you finally be received to the
Holiness is intellectual beauty Divine holiness is the most perfect and the measure of all other And what is the pleasure or satisfaction of which we speak but the perfection and rest of love Now Love as love respects and connotes a pulchritude in its object And then the most perfect pulchritude the ineffable and immortal pulchritude that cannot be declared by words or seen with eyes they are an Heathens expressions concerning it how can it but perfectly and eternally please and satisfie And we are told by the great Pagan Theologue in what state we can have the felicity of that spectacle not in our present state When we have indeed but obscure representations of such things as are with souls of highest excellency But when we are associated to the blessed quire When we are delivered from the body which we now carry about as the Oyster doth its shell When we are no longer sensible of the evills of time when we wholly apply our selves to that blessed vision are admitted to the beholding of the simple permanent sights and behold them being our selves pure in the pure light Then have we the view of the bright shining pulchritude c. 2. It is an entire or united glory We have something of the divine glory shining now upon us but the many interpositions cause a multifarious refraction of its light We have but its dispersed rayes it s scattered dischevel'd beams we shall then have it perfect and full 'T is the eternal glory we are hereafter to behold Eternity as the notion of it is wont to be stated is a duration that excludes both Succession and End And if it be an unsuccessive duration though it is more difficult to apprehend how the being or injoyments of a creature can come under that mensuration the glory presented to the view of a blessed soul cannot be presented by parcels but at once In our temporary state while we are under the measure of time we are not capable of the fulness of blessedness or misery for time exists not altogether but by parts And indeed we can neither injoy nor suffer more at once than can can be compast within one moment for no more exists together But our relation to eternity according to this notion of it will render the same invariable appearance of glory alwayes presentaneous to us in the entire fulness of it We read indeed of certain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 afterings of Faith as it may be significantly enough rendred let but the novelty of the expression be pardoned things lacking we read it but there will be here no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 afterings of glory What is perfect admits no increase 't is already full and why should not a full glory satisfie there 's here no expectation of greater future to abate the pleasure of present discoveries Why therefore shall not this satisfaction be conceived full and perfect It must be the fulness of joy 3. 'T is permanent glory a never fading unwithering glory 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 glory that will never be sullied or obscured never be in a declination This blessed face never grows old never any wrinkle hath place in it 'T is the eternal glory in the other parts of the notion of eternity as it imports an endless duration neither subject to decay in it self or to injury or impairment from without As stable as the divine being thy God thy Glory the Lord thy everlasting light if that have a true sense with respect to any state of the Church militâ—â—â— on earth it must needs have a more full tâ—nse in reference to it triumphing in heaven As therefore full entire glory afford's fulness of joy permanent everlasting glory affords pleasures for ever more An appropriate glory even to them 't is so a glory wherein they are really interessed 'T is The glory of their God And their happiness is designed to them from it They are not unconcern'd in it as 't is the glory of God It cannot but be grateful to them to behold the shining glory of their God whom they feared and served before while they could have no such sight of him That glory of his was once under a cloud concealed from the world wrapt up in obscurity It now breaks the cloud and justifies the fear and reverence of his faithful and Loyal servants against Atheistical Rebels that feared him not 'T is infinitely pleasing to see him now so glorious whom they thought to have a glory beyond all their conceptions before while others would not think so of him but judg'd it safe to slight and set him at nought Subjects share in their Princes glory Children in their Fathers But besides that collateral interest that interest by reflection They have a more direct interest in this glory A true and real right upon a manifold title The Fathers gift Sons purchase Holy Ghosts obsignation and earnest The promises tender their faiths acceptance their forerunners prepossession yea 't is their inheritance they are children and therefore heirs heirs of God and joynt-heirs with Christ to the same glory with him They are by him received to the glory of God called to his Kingdom and glory Will it not contribute exceedingly to their satisfaction when they shall look upon this glory not as unconcern'd spectators but as interressed persons This is my happiness to behold and enjoy this blessed God what a rapturous expression is that God our own God shall bless us and that Thy God thy glory Upon interest in God follows their interest in his glory and blessedness Which is so much the dearer and more valuable as it is theirs Their glory from their God They shall be blessed by God their own God Drink waters out of their own well How indearing a thing is propriety Another mans son is ingenious comely personable this may be matter of envy but mine â—wn is so this is a joy I read in the life of a devout Nobleman of France that receiving a Letter from a friend in which were incerted these words Deus meus omnia my God and my all he thus returns back to him I know not what your intent was to put into your letter these words Deus meus omnia my God and my all Only you invite thereby to return the same to you and to all creatures My God and my all my God and my all my God and my all If perhaps you take this for your Motto and use it to express how full your heart is of it think you it possible I should be silent upon such an invitation and not express my sense thereof Likewise be it known unto you therefore that he is my God and my all and if you doubt of it I shall speak it an hundred times over I shall add no more for any thing else is superfluous to him that is truly penetrated with my God and my all I leave you
collect who are in this world ordinarly and caeteris paribus where more unusual violent temptations hinder not the most satisfied and contented persons even those that have most of the clarifying sights of God and that thence partake most of his image indeed Scripture only vouchsafes the name to such sights of God he that doth evil hath not seen God Such as have most of a godly frame wrought into their spirits and that have hearts most attempered and conformed to God These are the most contented persons in the world Content is part of the gain that attends godliness it concurring renders the other a great gain godliness with contentment the form of expression discovers how connatural contentment is to godliness as if they were not to be mentioned apart Godliness as if he had said is a very gainful thing but if you would comprehend the gainfulness of it fully do not abstract too curiously take in with it that which is of so near an alliance that you will hardly know how to consider them apart let its inseparable adjunct contentment go along with it and you will find it againful thing indeed The true knowledge of God so directly tends to holiness and that to contentation that it may be too evidently concluded that a discontented person hath little of the one or the other not much knowledge and less grace he is so far from being like God that in the Apostles language above we may say he hath not seen him Doth that person know God or hath ever seen him that falls not into the dust admiring so glorious a Majesty that subjects not himself to him with Loyal affections accounting it his only grand concernment to please and serve him But the discontented person takes upon him as if he were God alone and as if he expected every creature to do him homage and thought the creation were made for the pleasure and service of none but him Hath that person ever seen God that acknowledges him not a sufficient portion a full all-comprehending good Hath he seen him that sees not reason to trust him to commit all his concernments to him Hath he seen him that loves him not and delights not in his love Hath he seen him that quits not all for him and abandons not every private interest to espouse his and how evidently do these things tend to quiet and compose the soul Discontent proceeds from idolizing thoughts of our selves 't is rooted in self-conceit in self-dependence self-love self-seeking all which despicable Idols or that one great Idol Self thus variously served and Idolized one sight of the Divine Glory would confound and bring to nothing The sights of God melt the heart break it under a sense of sin and hence compose it to a meek peaceful humility but the discontented spirit is an unbroken proud imperious spirit The sights of God purifie the soul refine it from the dross of this vile world make it daily aspire to a conformity unto the pure and Spiritual nature of God But a discontented spirit is a sensual terrene spirit for what but such objects are the usual matter of most mens discontents taking sensuality in its just latitude 't is a low Dâ—nghil spirit fit for nothing but to rake and scrabble in the dirt I insist upon this apprehending what deserves more lamentation then it hath observation that too many annex a profession of eminent godliness and spirituality into an indulged querulous impatient temper of spirit joyn a splendid appearance of piety to an unreformed perverse frowardness which agree as well as a Jewel of Gold to a Swines â—nout nothing pleases them their mercies are not worth the acknowledging their afflictions intolerable not to be born They fall out and quarrel with all occurrences actions events neither Man nor God doth any thing good in their sight The world is not well govern'd nothing falls out well as to themselves What can possibly be thought on more repugnant to the knowledge of God The gâ—and design of all Religion and the very Spirit of the Gospel than this temper which way do these tend and aime but to lead souls to blessedness to bring them into a peaceful happy satisfied state and frame and must we because that end cannot be attained here therefore go the quite contrary way or pretend we are going to heaven with our backs turned upon it Sure the discoveries God now makes of himself to us and by which he impresses his likeness upon his own though they ultimately design our satisfaction and blessedness in heaven as intermediate there unto they aime at the bringing us into an Heaven upon Earth to form us unto a life agreeable and hath analogie with that of heaven unto which nothing is more analogous in our pre-present state then that peace and serenity which result from Divine Knowledge and holiness nothing more inconsistent then a peevish fretful turbulent Spirit The one is a participation of a bright and mild light from heaven the other of a dark and raging fire from Hell 'T is onely Gods face his glorious likeness reflected on our souls that shall satisfie hereafter and make heaven heaven He doth not now wholly conceal himself from us nor altogether hide his face The shining of the same face in what degree he now vouchsafes them will make this Earth an Heaven too One glance towards him may transmit a lively pleasant lustre upon our spirits They looked to him and were lightned And we live in the expectation of clearer and more impressive eternal visions It will become us to express a present satisfiedness proportionable to our present sights and expectations and to endeavour daily to see more and to be more like God that we may be daily more and more satisfied While me cannot yet attain to be making gradual approaches towards that blessed state By how much any have more of the vision and likeness of God in their present state so much they approach nearer unto satisfaction 6. We infer The love of God to his people is great which hath designed for them so great and even a satisfying good We cannot overlook the occasion this Doctrine gives us to consider and contemplate a while the love of God Iâ— this shall be the blessedness of his Saints 't is a great love that shall be the Spring and source of it Two things here before our eyes discover the greatness of this love That it designes satisfact on to the persons meant and that they shall be satisfied with the Divine vision and likeness 1. It designs their sâ—tisfactiâ—n This is as far as love can go 'T is love to the uttermost Iâ— doth not satisfie itself till it satisfie them 'T is love to spare an enemy to relieve a stranger but to satisfie for ever them that were both this sâ—â—e exceeds all the wonted measures of love Much love is shewn in the forgiveness of sin in the sâ—pply of necessities but herein as the Apostle
foreseeth c. The righteous man so far excells in this faculty as that his eye looks thorow all the periods of time and penetrates into eternity recommends to the Soul a blessedness of that same stamp and alloy that will endure and last for ever It will not content him to be happy for an hour or for any Space that can have an end after which it shall be possible to him to look back and recount with himself how happy he was once Nor is he much solicitous what his present state be if he can but find he is upon safe tearms as to his future and eternal state As for me saith the Psalmist he herein sorts and severs himself from them whose portion was in this life I shall behold I shall be satisfied when I awake he could not say it was well with him but it shall be q. d. Let the purblind short-sighted Sensualist imbrace this present world who can see no further Let me have my portion in the world to come may my soul always lie open to the impression of the powers of the coming world and in this so use every thing as to be under the power of nothing What are the pleasures of sin that are but for a season or what the sufferings of this now this moment of affliction to the glory that shall be revealed to the exceeding and eternal glory He considers patient afflicted godliness will triumph at last when riotous raging wickedness shall lament for ever He may for a time weep and mourn while the world rejoyces he may be sorrowful but his sorrow shall be turned into joy and his joy none shall take from him Surely here is wisdom this is the wisdom that is from above and tends thither This is to be wise unto salvation The righteous man is a judicious man he hath in a measure that judgment wherein the Apostle prayes the Philippians might abound to approve the things that are excellent and accordingly to make his choice This is a sense little thought of by the Authour wherein that sober Speech of the voluptuous Philosopher is most certainly true A man cannot live happily without living wisely No man shall ever enjoy the eternal pleasures hereafter that in this acquits not himself wisely here even in this chusing the better part that shall never be taken from him In this the plain righteous man out-vies the greatest Sophies the Scribe the disputer the Politician the prudent Mamonist the facete Wit who in their several kinds all think themselves highly to have merited to be accounted wise And that this point of wisdom should escape their notice and be the principal thing with him can be resolved into nothing else but the Divine good pleasure In this contemplation our Lord Jesus Christ is said to have rejoyced in Spirit it even put his great comprehensive soul into an extasie Father I thank thee Lord of heaven and earth that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes Even so Father because it pleased thee Here was a thing fit to be reflected on as a piece of Divine Royalty a part worthy the Lord of heaven and earth And what serious spirit would it not amaze to weigh and ponder this case awhile to see men excelling in all other kinds of knowledge so far excelled by those they most contemn in the highest point of wisdom such as know how to search into the abstrusest Mysteries of Nature that can unravel or see through the most perplext intrigues of State that know how to save their own Stake and secure their private Interests in whatsoever times yet so little seen often for not many wise in the matters that concern an eternal felicity It puts me in mind of what I find observed by some the particular madness adementia quoad hoc as 't is called when persons in every thing else capable of sober rational discourse when you bring them to some one thing that in reference to which they became distempered at first they rave and are perfectly mad How many that can manage a discourse with great reason and judgment about other matters who when you come to discourse with them about the affairs of practical godliness and which most directly tend to that future state of blessedness they are 〈◊〉 at their wits end know not what to say They savour not those things These are things not understood but by such to whom it is given And surely that given wisdom is the most excellent wisdom Sometimes God doth as it were so far gratifie the world as to speak their own language and call them wise that affect to be called so and that wisdom which they would fain have go under that name Moses 't is said was skil'd in all the wisdom of Egypt c. but at other times he expresly calls those wise men fools and their wisdom folly and madness or annexes some disgraceful adject for distinction sake or applies those appellatives Ironically and in manifest derision No doubt but any such person as was represented in the parable would have thought himself to have done the part of a very wise man in entertaining such deliberation and resolvs as we find he had there with himself How strange was that to his ears Thou fool this night shall they require thy soul c. Their wisdom is sometimes said to be foolish or else called the wisdom of the flesh or fleshly wisdom said to be earthly sensual devillish they are said to be wise to do evil while to do good they have no understanding they are brought sometimes as it were upon the stage with their wisdom to be the matter of divine triumph where is the wise and that which they account foolishness is made to confound their wisdom And indeed do they deserve to be thought wise that are so busily intent upon momentary trifles and trifle with eternal concernments that prefer vanishing shadows to the everlasting glory that follow lying vanities and forsake their own mercies Yea will they not cease to be wise in their own eyes also when they see the issue and reap the fruits of their foolish choice when they find the happiness they preferred before this eternal one is quite over and nothing remains to them of it but an afflictive remembrance That the torment they were told would follow is but now beginning and without end when they hear from the mouth of their impartial Judge Remember you in your life time had your good things and my faithful servants their evil now they must be comforted and you tormented When they are told you have received the consolation you were full ye did laugh now you must pine and mourn and weep Will they not then be as ready to befool themselves and say as they be those righteous ones are they whom we sometimes had in derision and for a proverb of reproach we fools counted their life madness
been all this while a sleep we saw the light that shone upon us we heard the voice that called to us wherewith shall we then excuse our selves that our desires were not mov'd that our Souls were not presently in a flame was it then that we thought all a meer fixion that we durst not give credit to his word when it brought us the report of the everlasting Glory will we avow this Is this that we will stand by or what else have we left to say have we a more plausible reason to alledge that the discovery of such a glory mov'd us not to desire it then that we believed it not sure this is the truth of our case We should feel this heavenly fire alwayes burning in our breasts If our Infidelity did not quench the coal If we did believe we could not but desire But doth not the thoughts of this shake our very souls and fill us with horrour and trembling We that should be turn'd into indignation and ready to burn our selves with our own flame and all about us if one should give us the lie that we should dare to put the lye upon the Eternal Truth upon him whose Word gave stability and being to the world who made and sustains all things by it That awful Word That Word that shivers Rocks and melts down Mountains that make the inanimate Creation tremble that cna in a moment blast all things and dissolve the frame of Heaven and Earth which in the mean time it upholds is that become with us fabulous lying breath Those God-breath'd Oracles those Heavenly Records which discover and describe this blessed state are they false and foolish Legends must that be pretended at last if men durst that is so totally void of all pretence what should be the gain or advantage accrewing to that Eternal All-sufficient being What accession should be made to that infinite self-fulness by deluding a Worm Were it consistent with his Nature what could be his design to put a cheat upon poor mortal dust If thou dare not impute it to him such a deception had a beginning but what Author canst thou imagine of it or what end did it proceed from a good mind or a bad could a good and honest mind form so horribly wicked a design to impose an universal delusion and lye upon the world in the name of the true and holy God or could a wicked mind frame a design so directly level'd against wickedness or is there any thing so aptly and naturally tending to form the World to sobriety holiness purity of conversation as the discovery of this future state of glory and since the belief of future felicity is known to obtain universally among men who could be the Author of so common a deception If thou had'st the mind to impose a lie upon all the world what course would'st thou take how would'st thou lay the design or why dost thou in this case imagine what thou knowest not how to imagine And dost thou not without scruple believe many things of which thou never had'st so unquestionable evidence or must that Faith which is the foundation of thy Religion and eternal hopes be the most suspected shaking thing with thee and have of all other the least stability and rootedness in thy soul If thou can'st not excuse thy infidelity be ashamed of thy so cold and sluggish desires of this glorious state And doth it not argue a low sordid Spirit not to desire and aim at the perfection thou art capable of not to desire that blessedness which alone is suitable and satisfying to a reasonable and spiritual being Bethink thy self a little how low art thou sunk into the dirt of the earth how art thou plunged into the mity Ditch that even thine own clothes might adhor thee Is the Father of Spirits thy Father Is the world of Spirits thy Country Hast thou any relation to that Heavenly Progeny Art thou ally'd to that blessed Family and yet undesirous of the same blessedness Can'st thou savour nothing but what smells of the Earth Is nothing grateful to thy Soul but what is corrupted by so vicious and impure a tincture are all thy delights centred in a Dunghill and the polluted pleasures of a filthy world better to thee then the eternal visions and enjoyments of Heaven what art thou all made of Earth Is thy soul stupifi'd into a Clod hast thou no sense with thee of any thing better and more excellent can'st thou look upon no glorious thing with a pleased eye Are things onely desirable and lovely to thee as they are deformed O consider the corrupted distempered state of thy Spirit and how vile a disposition it hath contracted to it self Thine looks too like the Mundan◠Spirit The Spirit of the World The Apostle speaks of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of distinction we have not received the Spirit of the world but the Spirit that is from God that we might know or see and no doubt 't is desire that animates that eye 't is not bare speculative intuition and no more the things freely given us of God Surely he whose desire doth not guide his eye to the beholding of those things hath received the Spirit of the world onely A Spirit that conforms him to this world makes him think onely thoughts of this world and drive the designs of this world and speak the language of this world A Spirit that connaturalizes him to the world makes him of a temper suitable to it He breathes onely worldly breath carries a worldly aspect is of a worldly conversation O poor low spirit that such a world should with-hold thee from the desire and pursuit of such glory Art thou not ashamed to think what thy desires are wont to pitch upon while they decline and wave this blessedness Methinks thy very shame should compel thee to quit the name of a Saint or a Man To forbear numbring thy self with any that pretend to immortality and go seek Pasture among the Beasts of the Field with them that live that low animal life that thou dost and expect no other And while thou so fallest in with the world how highly dost thou gratifie the pretending and usurping God of it The great fomentor of the sensual worldy genius The Spirit it self that works in the children of disobedienence and makes them follow the course of the world hold them fast bound in worldly lusts and leaves them captive at his will causes them after his own Serpentine manner to creep and crawl in the dust of the Earth He is most intimate to this apostate world informs it as it were and actuates it in every part i◠even one great soul to it The whole world lies in that wicked one as the body by best Philosophers is said to be in the Soul The world is said to be convicted when he is judged He having fall'n from a state of blessedness in God hath involv'd the world with himself
look for this blessed hope the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. That which you know consummates that blessedness For when Christ who iâ— their life shall appear then shall they also appear with him in glory by the participation of the divine nature their Spirits escape and get up above this corrupt impure world That new nature is a holy flame that carries theâ—r hearts upwards towards heaven Further such desires appear hence to be of divine originall an infusion from the blessed God himself That nature is from him immediately in which they are implanted The Apostle speaking of his earnest panting desire to have mortality swallowed up of life presently add's He that wrought us to the self same thing is God They are obedient desires The souls present answere to the heavenly call by which God calls it to his kingdom and glory This glory is as hath been formerly noted the very term of that calling The God of all grace hath called us into his eternal glory by Christ Jesus The gloriâ—ied state is the marke the price of the high calling of God in Christ. T is the matter of the Apostles thanksgiving unto God on the behalf of the Thessalonians that they were called by his Gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ when the soul desires this glory it obediently answers this call This is a complyance and subjection of heart to it How Lovely and becoming a thing is this when God touches the heart with a stamp and impress of glory and it forthwith turnes it self to that very point and stands directly bent towards the state of glory if not wayward or perverse but here in yield it self to God and complyes with the divine pleasure Such desires have much in them of a child-like ingenuity To desire the sight of a Fathers face when this is this intimate sense of the soul show me the Father and it suffices To desire the fullest conformity to his nature and will to be perfect as that heavenly Father is perfect what doth better become a child They are generous desires they aim at perfection the highest that created nature is capable of not contented to have had some glances of divine glory some stroaks and lines of his image but aspiring to full-eyd visions a perfect likeness They are victorious desires they as it were ride in triumph over the world and every sublunarie thing they must be supposed to have conquered sensual inclinations to have got the mastery over terrene dispositions and affections With what holy contempt and scorn of every earthly thing doth that loftie soul quit thiâ— dirty world and ascend that is powerfully carryed by its own desire towards the blessed state The desire of such a knowledge of Christ as might transform into his Likeness and pass the soul through all degrees of conformity to him till it attain the resurrection of the dead and become like a risen glorified Jesus Such a desire I say if it make all things seem as loss and dung in comparison even a formal Spirit less religion it self will it not render this world the most despicable dunghill of all the rest Try such a soul if you can tempt it down to injoy a flattering kind world or to please it when angry and unkind When desires after this glory are once awakn'd into an active lively vigour when the fire is kindled and the flame ascends and this refined Spirit is joyfully ascending therein see if you can draw it back and make it believe this world a more regardable thing Why should not all those considerations make thee in love with this blessed frame of Spirit and restless till thou find thy self uncapable of being satisfied with any thing but divine likeness 6. That while we cannot as yet attain the mark and end of our desires we yeild not to a comfortless despondency in the way but maintain in our hearts a lively joy in the hope that hereafter we shall attain it We are not all this while perswading to the desire and pursuit of an unattainable good Spiritual desires are also rational and do therefore involve hope with them and that hope ought to infer and cherish joy Hopeless desire is full of torment and must needs banish joy from that breast which it hath not the possession of T is a disconsolate thing to desire what we must never expect to enjoy and are utterly unlikely ever to compass But these desires are part of the new creature which is not of such a composition as to have a principle of endless trouble and disquiet in it self The Father of mercies is not so little merciful to his own child to lay it under a necessity from its very natural constitution of being for ever miserable by the desire of that which it can never have It had been very unlike the workmanship of God to make a creature to which it should be necessarie to desire and empossible to enjoy the same thing Not but as he hath given holy souls as to the present case great incentives of desire so doth he afford them proportionable encouragements of hope also and that hope intervening can very well reconcile desire and joy and lodge them together in the same bosome So that as it is a thing capable of no excuse to hear of this blessedness and not desire it so it would be to desire and not expect it to expect it and not rejoyce in it even while we are under that expectation And it must be a very raised joy that shall answer to the expectation of so great things If one should give a stranger to Christianity an account of the Christian hopes and tell him what they expect to be and enjoy erelong he would sure promise himself to find so many angells dwelling in humane flesh and reckon when he came among them he should be as amidst heavenly Quire every one ful of joy and praise He would expect to find us living on earth as the inhabitants of heaven also many pieces of immortal glory lately dropt down from above and shortly again returning thither He would look to find every where in the Christian world incarnate glory sparkling through the over-shaddowing vail and wonder how this earthly sphere should be able to contain so many great souls But when he draws nearer to us and observs the course and carriage of our lives when he sees us walk as other men and considers the strange disagreement of our daily conversation to our so great avowed hopes and how little sense of joy and pleasure we discover our selves to conceive in them would he not be ready to say sure some or other willing only to amuse the world with the noise of strange things have composed a Religion for these men which they themselves understand nothing of If they do adopt and own it for theirs they understand not their own pretences they are taught to speak
glory of God Your hearts being bent thitherward and made willing to run through whatsoever difficulties of life or death to attain it Do not think that Christ came into the world and dyed to procure the pardon of your sins and so translate you to heaven while your hearts should still remain cleaving to the earth He came and returned to prepare a way for you and then call not drag you thither That by his Precepts and Promises and Example and Spirit he might form and fashion your Souls to that glorious state And make you willing to abandon all things for it And low now the God of all grace is calling you by Jesus Christ unto his eternal Glory Direct then your eyes and hearts to that marke the Prise of the High calling of God in Christ Jesus 'T is ignominious by the common suffrage of the civiliz'd world not to intend the proper business of our Callings To your Calling to forsake this world and mind the other make hast then to quit your selves of your entanglements of all earthly dispositions and affections Learn to live in this world as those that are not of it that expect every day and wish to leave it whose hearts are gone already 'T is dreadful to dye with pain and regret To be forced out of the Body To dye a violent death and go away with an unwilling refluctant heart The wicked is driven away in his wickedness Fain he would stay longer but cannot He hath not power over the Spirit to retain the Spirit nor hath he power in death He must away whether he will or no. And indeed much against his will So it cannot but be where there is not a previous knowledge and love of a better state where the Soul understands it not and is not effectually attempered and framed to it O get then the lovely Image of the future glory into your minds keep it ever before your eyes Make it familiar to your thoughts Imprint daily there these words I shall behold thy face I shall be satisfied with thy likeness And see that your souls be inrich't with that righteousness Have inwrought into them that holy rectitude that may dispose them to that blessed state Then will you dye with your own consent and go away not driven but allur'd and drawn You will go as the redeemed of the Lord with everlasting joy upon their heads As those that know whether you go even to a state infinitely worthy of your desires and choice and where 't is best for you to be You will part with your souls not by a forcible separation but a joyful surrender and resignation They will dislodge from this earthly Tabernnacle rather as putting it off then having it rent and torn away Loosen your selves from this body by degrees as we do any thing we would remove from a place where it sticks fast Gather up your spirits into themselves Teach them to look upon themselves as distinct thing Inure them to the thoughts of a dissolution Be continually as taking leave Cross and disprove the common maxime and let your hearts which they use to say are wont to dye last dye first Prevent death and be mortifi'd towards every earthly thing beforehand that death mave have nothing to kill but your body And that you may not die a double death in one hour and suffer the death of your body and of your love to it both at once Much less that this should survive to your greater and even incurable misery Shake off your Bands and Fetters the terrene affections that so closely confine you to the house of your bondage And lift up your heads in expectation of the approaching Jubilee the day of your redemption when you are to go out free and enter into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God When you shall serve and groan and complain no longer Let it be your continual song and the matter of your daily praise that the time of your happy deliverance is hastening on that ete long you shall be absent from the body and present with the Lord. That he hath not doom'd you to an everlasting imprisonment within those closs and clayie walls wherein you have been so long shut up from the beholding of his sight and glory In the thoughts of this while the outward man is sensibly perishing let the inward revive and be renewed day by day What Prisoner would be sorry to see the walls of his Prison House so an Heathen speaks mouldering down and the hopes arriving to him of being delivered out of that darkness that had buried him of recovering his liberty and injoying the free air and light What Champion inur'd to hardship would stick to throw off rotten rags rather expose a naked placid free body to naked placid free air The truly generous soul to be a little above never leaves the body against its will Rejoyce that it is the gracious pleasure of thy good God thou shalt not always inhabit a Dungeon nor lie amid'st so impure and disconsolate darkness that he will shortly exchange thy filthy Garments for those of Salvation and Praise The end approaches As you turn over these leaves so are your days turned over And as you are now arrived to the end of this Book God will shortly write Finis to the Book of your Life on Earth and shew you your names written in Heaven in the Book of that Life which shall never end FINIS Senec. * Pruritus disputandi scobies Ecclesia * Ut ulcera quaedam nocituras manus apoetunt tactu gaudent faedam corporum scabiem delectat quicquid â—xâ—sperâ—t Non alitè◠dixerim his mâ—ntibus in quas voluptates velut mala ulcera crupê unt voluptati esse laborem vexâ—tionemque Sâ—n. de tranquillitate anâ—â—â— Sen de Brev. vit * Nihil est Deo similius aut gratius quam vir animo perfectè bonus c. Apul. de Deo Soâ—â—atis * Inter bonos viros ac Deum amicitia est conciliante virtute amicitiam dico etiam necessitudâ— similitudâ— c. Sca de prov * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plato in Minâ—e 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Dyonys Halicar Antiq. Rom. lib. 8. Rom. 2 6 7 8 9. * Rom. 16 18. Phil. 3. 19. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sept. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The vâ—lgar Latine Eâ—oautem 〈…〉 appaâ—câ—o â—oâ—spectui 〈◊〉 satiabo◠〈◊〉 â—â—pâ—â—uâ—riâ— gloâ—ia tua Exactly following the Seventy as doth the Ethiopique the Chaldee Paraphrase disagrees little the Arabique lesse the Syâ—iâ—ck mistook it seem◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so read that word saith which we read likenesse Hieronymus juxta Hebr. reads the words exactly as we do Ego in justiâ—iâ viâ—â—bo faciâ—m tuam implebor cum evigilavero similitudine tua 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Seems best to be rendered here by or through righteousness as by the condition
and he that peâ—ceiveth the operations of a strong effectual Lovâ— hath an acquaintance with God and Heaven whiâ—â— is above that of believing Faith seeth the Feaâ—â— but Love is the tasting of it And therefore it that the Holiest souls sticks closest unto God because though their reâ—soning faculty may be dâ—fective they know him by the highest and mâ— Tenacious kind of knowledge which this Worâ—â—ffâ—rdeth as I have lately shewed elsewhere â— Here you have described to you the true witness the spirit Not that of supposed Internal Voiceâ— which they are usually most taken up with whâ— have the smallest knowledge and Faith and Love and the greatest self esteem or spiritual pride with the strongest phantasies and pâ—ssiâ—ns But the objective and the sealing Testimony the Divinâ— Nature the renewed Image of God whose Children are known by being like to their Heavenly Father even by being Holy as he is Holy This is the Spirit of Adoption by which we are inclined by Holy Love to God and confidence in him to cry Abba Father and to flie unto him The Spirit of Sanctification is thereby in us the Spirit of Adoption For both signifie but the giving us that Love to God which is the filial nature and our â—athers Image And this Treatise doth happily direct thee to â—â—at faithful beholding God in Righteousness which â—ust here begin this blessed Assimilation which full â—tuition will for ever perfect It is a happy sign that God is about to repair our â—ins and divisions when he stirreth up his serâ—ants to speak so much of Heaven and to call â— the minds of impatient complainers and conâ—tious censurers and ignorant self conceited diâ—ders and of worldly unskilful and unmerciful â—stors to look to that state where all the godly shall one and to turn those thoughts to the furtherance Holiness to provoke one another to Love and to â—od works which two many lay out upon their hay â—â—d stubble And to call men from judging and â—spising each other and worse then both those out their Meats and Drinks and Dayes to study â—â—ghteousness and Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost â—r he that in these things serveth Christ in which â— Kingdom doth consist is acceptable to God and proved of men that are wise and good Let us â—â—erefore follow after the things which make for â—ace and things wherewith one may edifie anoâ—â—er whilest the contentious for meat will destroy â—e work of God Rom. 14. 17 18 19 20. The â—ion between Peace and Holiness is so strict that he â—o truly promoteth one promoteth both Heb. 12. â—4 Jam. 3. 17. The true way of our Union is exâ—lently described Eph. 4. 11 12 13 14 15 â—6 If any plain unlearned Readers shall blame the â—curateness of the stile they must remember that those persons have not the least need to hear of Heâ—ven and to be drawn up from the vanities of earâ—â— who cannot digest a looser stile As God hath endued the worthy Authour with more thâ—n ordinary measure of judiciousness 〈◊〉 soundness and accurateness of understanding 〈◊〉 seriousness spirituality and a heavenly mind we have for our common benefit the effects of these happy qualifications in this judicious heâ—venly discourse And if my recommendations mâ— in any measure further your acceptance in provement and practising of so edifying a Treatâ—â— it will answer the ends of him who waiteth with 〈◊〉 in hope for the same Salvation Rich. Baxter Acton May 30. 1668 THE BLESSEDNESSE OF THE RIGHTEOUS A Proemial Discourse to the intended Subject THe continual mixture of Good and Evil in this present state of things with its uncertain fluctuations and subjection to perpetual changes do naturally prompt a considering mind to the belief and hope of another that may be both more perfect and more permanent For certainly it could never be a design adequate or any way agreeable to the Divine Wisdom and goodness that the blessed God should raise such a thing as this lower Creation out of nothing Only to give himself the temporary pleasure of beholding the alternate Joys and Sorrows of the best part thereof his reasonable creature seated in it Nor a delight at all proportionable to an eternal happy being when he hath connaturalliz'd such a creature to this sensible world onely to take notice how variously the passions he hath planted in him may be mov'd and stir'd by this variety of occasions which he shal thence be presented with And what suddain and contrary impressions may be made upon his easie passive senses by the interchanged strokes and touches of contrary objects How quickly he can raise him into a transport of high contentment and pleasure and then how soon he can again reduce him to a very Paroxism of anguish and despair It would discover us to have very vile and low thoughts of God if we did not judge it altogether unanswerable to his perfections to design no further thing in creating this world and placing such a creature as man in it then onely to please himself for a while with such a spectacle and then at last clear the Stage and shut up all again in an eternal Silent darkness If we could suppose a man furnished with such power he would surely adde little to the reputation of his being wise or good beyond other men by a design so to use it Much less can we think it worthy of God to perpetuate such a state of things as this and continue a succession of such persons and actions as we now behold in the world through eternal generations onely to perpetuate to himself the same pleasure in the exercise of his immense power upon created natures over which he hath so infinite advantage And indeed nothing can be more unconceivable then that the great Creatour and Authour of all things should frame a Creature of so vast comprehension as the Spirit of man put into it a capacity of knowing and conversing with himself give it some prospect of his own glory and blessedness raise thereby in many boundless unsatisfied desires after him and an unexpressible pleasure in the preconceived hope of being received into the communion of that glory and blessedness and yet defeat and blast so great an expectation by the unsuspected reducement of the very subject of it again to nothing Yea and that he should deal herein as in that case he must the most hardly with the best And that such souls whose meer love and devotedness to him had made them abandon the pleasures of this life and run thorough whatsoever difficulties for his sake should fare worse then the very worst were beyond all the rest most utterly unimaginable and a thought which Pagan-reason hath not known how to digest or entertain If saith one and he speaks the sense of many another as well as his own with the dissolution of our bodies the essence of the Souls whatsoever that be should be dissolved too and for ever cease to be any thing I know not how
therefore in this happy state of subjection and conjure you to beg for me of God the solid sense of these words And do we think my God and my all or my God and my glory will have lost its emphasis in heaven or that 't will be less significant among awaked souls These things concur then concerning the object 't is most excellent even divine entire permanent and theirs How can it but satisfie CHAP. VI. What the Vision of Gods face contributes to the Souls satisfaction Estimated from the consideration of the act of vision it self Wherein this pleasure surpasses that of sense A comparison pursued more at large between this intuition and discourse between it and Faith This intuition more absolutely considered its characters and why they contribute to the satisfaction of the blessed Souls That 't is viz. efficacious comprehensive fixed appropriative THe act of vision or intuition it self How great the pleasure will be that accrues to the blessed from this sight of Gods face is very much also to be estimated from the nature of the act as well as the excellency of the object In as much as every vital act is pleasant the most perfect act of the noblest facultie of the soul must needs be attended with highest pleasure 'T is a pleasure that most nearly imimates divine pleasure And every thing is more perfect as it more nearly approaches divine perfection Intellectual pleasure is as much nobler than that of sense as an immortal Spirit is more noble than a clod of earth The pleasure of sense is drossie feculent the pleasure of the mind refined and pure that is faint and languid this lively and vigorous that scant and limited this ample and inlarged that temporary and fading this durable and permanent that flashie superficial this solid and intense that raving and distracted this calm and composed Whence even that great reputed sensualist Epicure himself professedly disclaimes or is represented as disclaiming the conceit of placing happiness in sensual delights And as the pleasure of intellection excells all the pleasure of sense so doth the pleasure of intuition excel all other intellectual pleasure Let us to this purpose but consider generally this way of knowing things and compare it with those two other waves by Discouse Faith 1. Discourse I mean that I be not mistaken by the vulgar Reader the discourse of the mind or ratiocâ—nation that way of attaining the knowledge of things by comparing one thing with another considering their mutual relations connexions dependencies and so arguing out what was more doubtful and obscure from what was more known and evident To the altogether unlearned it will hardly be conceiveable and to the learned it need not be told how high a gratification this employment of his Reason naturally yields to the mind of a man When the harmonious contexture of truths with truths the apt coincidence the secret links and junctures of coherent notions are clearly discerned When effects are traced up to their causes Properties lodg'd in their native subjects Things sifted to their Principles What a pleasure is it when a man shall apprehend himself regularly led on though but by a slender thred of discourse through the Labyrinths of nature when still new discoveries are successfully made every further enquiry ending in a further prospect and every new Scene of things entertaining the mind with a fresh delight How many have suffered a voluntary banishment from the world as if they were wholly strangers and unrelated to it rejected the blandishments of sense macerated themselves with unwearied studies for this pleasure making the ease and health of their bodies to give place to the content and satisfaction of their minds But how much intuition hath the advantage above this way of knowledge may be seen in these two obvious respects 1. 'T is a more facile way of knowing Here is no need of a busie search a tiresome indagation the difficulty whereof makes the more slothful rather trust than try a chaining together of consequencies The Soul hath its cloathing its vestment of light upon as cheap terms as the Lilies theirs doth neither toyl nor spin for it And yet Solomon in all the glory of his famed wisdom was not aray'd like it This knowledge saves the expence of study is instantaneous not successive The soul now sees more at one view in a moment than before in a lifes-time As a man hath a speedier and more grateful prospect of a pleasant Country by placing himself in some commodious station that commands the whole Region than by travelling through it 'T is no pains to look upon what offers it self to my eye Where there is a continued series of consequencies that lie naturally connected the soul pleasingly observes this continuity but views the whole frame the whole length of the line at once so far as its limited capacity can extend and needs not discuss every particle severally in this series of truths and proceed gradatim from the knowledge of one truth to another in which case only one at once would be present to its view It sees things that are connected not because they are so As a man coveniently plac't in some eminent station may possibly see at one view all the successive parts of a gliding stream but he that sits by the waters side not changing 〈◊〉 place sees the same parts only because 〈◊〉 succeed and these that passe make way 〈◊〉 them that follow to come under his eye 〈◊〉 doth a learned man apply describe the â—â—successive knowledge of God of which the glorified souls way of knowing is an imitation 〈◊〉 the very words seeing or beholding which it â—â—so frequently set forth by in Scripture do naturally import Yet that as to them all raâ—â—cination shall be excluded that state I see 〈◊〉 reason to admit though with God it can â—â—ve no place And as he is reckon'd to live â—â—pleasanter life that spends upon a plentiful â—â—ate than he that gets his bread by the sweat 〈◊〉 his brows so this more easie way of knowing must needs be reckon'd more pleasing This knowledge is as Jacob's Venison not hunâ—â—ed for but brought to hand The race is not â—ere to the swift The unlearned Ideot knows as much as the profoundest Rabbi at least with as much satisfaction and all arms are of an equal size 2. 'T is more certain For what do we use â—o reckon so certain as what we see with our eyes Better even in this respect is the sight of the eyes than the wandring of the desire While here the mind is carried with most earnest desire to pursue knowledge it very often mistakes its way and miserably wanders In our most wary ratiocinations we many times shoot at rovers but when we know by â—his Vision our mark is immediately presenâ—ed to our eye We are in no danger to be â—mposed upon by delusive appearances of things We look through no fallacious medium's are held
I assent to him I follow him with all my heart not because I cannot avoit it And another Lead me to whatsoever I am appointed and I will follow thee chearfully but if I refuse or be unwilling I shall follow notwithstanding A Soul cast into such a mould formed into an obediential subject frame what sweet peace doth it enjoy how pleasant rest every thing rests most composedly in its proper place A bone out of joynt knows no ease nor lets the body enjoy any The creature is not in its place but when 't is thus subject is in this subordination to God By flying out of this subordination the world of mankind is become one great disjoynted body full of weary tossings unacquainted with ease or rest That soul that is but in a degree reduc't to that blessed state temper is as it were in a new world so great and happy a change doth it now feel in it self But when this transformation shall be compleated in it and the will of God shall be no sooner known than rested in with a complacential approbation and every motion of the first and great mover shall be an efficacious law to guide and determine all our motions and the lesser-wheeles shall presently run at the first impulse of the great and master-wheel without the least rub or hesitation when the law of sin shall no longer check the law of God when all the contentions of a rebellious flesh all the counter-strivings of a perverse ungovernable heart shall cease for ever O unconceivable blessedness of this consent the pleasure of this joyful harmony this peaceful accord Obedience where 't is due but from one creature to another carries its no small advantages with it and conducibleness to a pleasant unsolicitous life To be particularly prescribed to in things about which our minds would otherwise be tost with various apprehensions anxious uncertain thoughts how great a priviledge is it I cannot forget a pertinent passage of an excellent person of recent memory And saith he for pleasure I shall profess my self so far from doting on that popular Idol liberty that I hardly think it possible for any kind of obedience to be more painful than an unrestrained liberty Were there not true bounds of Magistrates of Laws of piety of reason in the heart every man would have a fool I add a mad Tyrant to his Master that would multiply him more sorrows than bryars and thorns did to Adam when â—e was freed from the bliss at once and the restraint of Paradise and was sure greater slave in the wilderness than in the inclosure would but the Scripture permit me that kind of Idolatry the binding my faith and obedience to any one visible infallible Judg or Prince were it the Pope or the Mufti or the grand Tartar might it be reconcilible with my Creed it would be certainly with my interâ—st to get presently into that posture of obedience I should learn so much of the Barbarian Ambassadors in Appian which came on purpose to the Romans to negotiate for leave to be their servants 'T would be my policy if not my piety and may now be my wish though not my faith that I might never have the trouble to deliberate to dispute to doubt to chuse those so many profitless uneasinesses but only the favour to receive commands and the meekness to obey them How pleasurable then must obedience be to the perfect will of the blessed God when our wills shall also be perfectly attempered and conformed there unto Therefore are we taught Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven What is most perfect in its kind gives rule to the rest 3. Love This is an eminent part of the image or likeness of God in his Saints As it is that great Attribute of the divine being that is alone put to give us a notion of God God is love This is an excellency consider it whether in its original or copie made up of pleasantnesses All love hath complacency or pleasure in the nature and most formal notion of it To search for pleasure in love is the same thing as if a man should be solicitous to find water in the Sea or light in the body of the Sun Love to a friend is not without high pleasure when especially he is actually present and injoye'd Love to a Saint rises higher in nobleness and pleasure according to the more excellent qualification of its object 'T is now in its highest improvement in both these aspects of it where whatsoever tends to gratifie our nature whether as humane or holy will be in its full perfection Now doth the soul take up its stated dwelling in Love even in God who is Love and as he is Love 't is now enclosed with Love encompas'd with Love 't is conversant in the proper region and element of Love The Love of God is now perfected in it That Love which is not only participated from him but terminated in him That perfect Love casts out tormenting Fear So that here is pleasure without mixture How naturally will the blessed soul now dissolve and melt into pleasure It is new fram'd on purpose for Love-imbraces and injoyments It shall now love like God as one composed of Love It shall no longer be its complaint and burden that it cannot retaliate in this kind that being beloved it cannot love 4. Purity Herein also must the blessed soul resemble God and delight it self Every one that hath this hope viz. of being hereafter lâ—ke God and seeing him as he is purifieth himself as he is pure A God-like purity is intimately connext with the expectation of future blessedness much more with the fruition Blessed are the pure in heart besides the reason there annext for they shall see God which is to be considered under the other head the pleasure unto which this likeness disposes that proposition carries its own reason in it self It is an incomparable pleasure that purity carries in its own nature As sin hath in its very nature besides its consequent guilt and sorrow trouble and torment beyond expression Whatsoever defiles doth also disturb Nor do any but pure pleasures deserve the name An Epicurus himself will tell us there cannot be pleasure without wisdom honesty and righteousness 'T is least of all possible there should when once a person shall have a right knowledge of himself and which is moral impurity whereof we speak the filthiness of sin I doubt not but much of the torment of Hell will consist in those too-late and despairing self-loathings those sickly resentments the impure wretches will be possessed with when they see what hideous deformed monsters their own wickedness hath made them Here the gratifications of sense that attend it bribe and seduce their judgments into another estimate of sin but then it shall be no longer thought of under the more favourable notion of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they shall taste nothing but
and good impressions thou had'st but even all thou wast capable of and mightst have attained Thou shalt now recount with anguish and horror and rend thy own Soul with the thoughts what thou mightest now have been how excellent and glorious a creature hadst thou not contriv'd thy own misery and conspir'd with the Devil against thy self how to deform and destroy thy own Soul While this remembrance shall alwayes a fresh return that nothing was injoyned thee as a duty or propounded as thy blessedness but what thou wast made capable of and that it was not fatal necessity but a wilful choice made thee miserable CHAP. XII Inference 3. That a change of heart is necessary to this blessedness The pretences of ungodly men whereby they would avoid the necessity of this change Five considerations proposed in order to the detecting the vanity of such pretences A particular discussion and refutation of those pretences 3. 'T Is a mighty change must pâ—sse upon the Souls of men in order to their enjoyment of this Blessedness This equally follows from the consideration of the Nature and substantial parts of it as of the qualifying righteousness prerequired to it A little reflection upon the common state and temper of mens spirits will soon inforce an acknowledgement that the Vision of God and conformity to him are things above their reach and which they are never likely to take satisfaction in or at all to savour till they become otherwise disposed then before the renovating change they are The text expresses no more in stating the qualified subject of this blessedness in righteousness then it evidently implies in the account it gives of this blessedness it self that it lies in seeing God and being satisfied with his likeness Assoon as it is considered that the blessedness of Souls is stated here what can be a more obvious reflection then this Lord then how great a change must they undergo what such Souls be blessed in seeing and pertaking the Divine likeness that never loved it were so much his enemies 'T is true they are naturally capable of it which speaks their original excellencie but they are morally uncapable i. e. indisposed and averse which as truly and most sadly speaks their present vileness and the sordid object temper they now are of They are destitute of no natural Powers necessary to the attainment of this blessedness but in the mean time have them so depraved by impure and vitious tinctures that they cannot relish it or the means to it They have reasonable Soul's furnished with intellective and elective faculties but labouring under a manifold distemper and disaffection that they cannot receive they cannot savour the things of God or what is Spiritual They want the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as we may express it the well disposedness for the Kingdom of God intimated Luke 9. 62. the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the meetness the aptitude or idoneity for the inheritance of the Saints in light Col. 1. 12. A settled aversion from God hath fastned its roots in the very spirit of their minds for that is stated as the prime subject of the change to be made and how can they take pleasure then in the vision and participation of his glory whereas by beholding the glory of the Lord they should be changed into the same image a vail is upon the heart till it turn to the Lord as was said concerning the Jews 2 Cor. 3. The God of this world hath blinded their minds least that transforming light the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ who is the image of God should shine unto them Chap. 4. 4. They are alienated from the Life of God through their ignorance and blindness of heart The life they chuse is to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Atheists or without God in the world They like not to retain God in their knowledge are willingly ignorant of him Say to him depart from us we desire not the knowledge of thy wayes The Lord looks down from Heaven upon the children of men to see if any will understand if any will seek after God and the result of the inquiry is there is none that doth good no not one They are haters of God as our Saviour accused the Jews and Saint Paul the Gentiles Are lovers of pleasure more then lovers of God Their understandings are dark their minds vain their wills obstinate their Consciences seared their hearts hard and dead their lives one continued Rebellion against God and a defiance to Heaven At how vast distance are such Souls from such blessedness The notion and nature of blessedness must sure be changed or the temper of their Spirits Either they must have new hearts created or a new Heaven if ever they be happy And such is the stupid dotage of vain man he can more easily perswade himself to believe that the Sun it self should be transformed into a dunghill that the Holy God should lay aside his Nature and turn Heaven into a place of impure darkness then that he himself should need to undergo a change O ye powerful infatuation of self love that men in the gall of bitterness should think 't is well with their spirits and fancie themselves in a case good enough to enjoy Divine pleasures that as the Toads venome offends not it self their loathsom wickedness which all good men detest is a pleasure to them and while 't is as the poison of Asps under their lips they call it as a daintie bit revolve it in their thoughts with delight Their wickedness speakes it self out to the very hearts of others while it never affects their own and is found out to be hateful while they still continue slattering themselves And because they are without spot in their own eyes they adventure so high as to presume themselves so in the pure eyes of God too and instead of designing to be like God they already imagine him sucâ— a one as themselves Hence their allotment of time in the whole of it the Lord knowes little enough for the working out of their salvation spends a pace while they do not so much as understand their business Their measured hour is almost out an immense Eternity is coming on upon them and lo they stand as men that cannot find their hands Urge them to the speedy serious indeavour of an heart-change earnestly to intend the business of regeneration of becoming new creatures they seem to understand it as little as if they were spoken to in an unknown tongue and are in the like posture with the confounded builders of Babel they know not what we mean or would put them upon They wonder what we would have them do They are say they Orthodox Christians They believe all the Articles of the Christian Creed They detest all Heresie and false Doctrine They are no strangers to the house of God but diligently attend the injoyned Solemnities of Publick
towards one another they slide insensibly into each others bosomes even the most churlish morose natures are wrought upon by assiduous repeated kindnesses gutta cavat lapidem c. as often falling drops at length wear and work into very stones Towards God their hearts are more impenetrable then Rocks harder then Adamants He is seeking with some an acquaintance all their days They live their whole age under the Gospel and yet are never wonne They hearken to one another but are utterly unperswadable towards God as the deaf Adder that hears not the voice of the Charmer though charming never so wisely The clearest Reason the most powerful Arguments move them not no nor the most insinuative allurements the sweetest breathings of love How often would I have gathered thee as the Hen her Chickens under her wings and ye would not God draws with the cords of a man with the bends of love but they still perversly keep at an unkind distance Men use to believe one another were there no credit given to each others words and some mutual confidence in one another there could be no humane converse all must affect solitude and dwell in Dens and Desarts as wild beasts but how incredulous are they of all Divine Revelations though testified with never so convincing evidence â—ho hath believed our report The word of the eternal God is regarded O amazing wickedness as we would the word of a Child or a Fool. No sober rational man but his Narrations Promises or Threatnings are more reckon'd of Men are more reconcileable to one another when enemies more constant when friends How often doth the power of a conquering enemy and the distress of the conquered work a submission on this part and a remission on that How often are haughty spirits stoopt by a series of calamities and made ductile proud arrogants formed by necessity and misery into humble supplicants so as to lie prostrate at the feet of a man that may help or hurt them while still the same persons retain indomitable unyielding spirits towards God under their most afflictive pressures Though his gracious Nature and Infinite fulness promise the most certain and liberal relief 't is the remotest thing from their thoughts to make any address to him They cry because of the oppression of the mighty but none says where is God my Maker who giveth songs in the night Rather perish under their burdens then look towards God when his own visible hand is against them or upon them and their lives at his mercy they stand it out to the last breath and are more hardly humbled then consumed Sooner burn then weep shrivel'd up into ashes sooner then melted into tears Scorched with great heat yet repent not to give glory to God Gnaw their tongues for pain and yet still more disposed to blaspheme then pray or sue for mercy Dreadful thought As to one another Reconciliations among men are not impossible or unfrequent even of mortal enemies but they are utterly implacable towards God! yet they often wrong one another but they cannot pretend God ever did them the least wrong yea they have liv'd by his bounty all their days They say to God depart from us yet he filleth their houses with good things So true is the Historians observation Hatred is sharpest where most unjust Yea when there seems at least to have been a reconciliation wrought are treacheries Covenant-breakings revolts strangeness so frequent among men towards one another as from them towards God How inconsistent with friendship is it according to common estimate to be alwayes promising never performing upon any or no occasion to break off intercourses by unkind alienations or mutual hostilities to be morose reserv'd each towards other To decline or disaffect each others converse To shut out one another from their hearts and thoughts But how common and unregretted are these carriages towards the blessed God It were easie to expatiate on this Argument and multiply Instances of this greater disaffection But in a word what observing person may not see what serious person would not grieve to see the barbarous sooner putting on civility the riotous sobriety the treacherous fidelity the morose urbanity the injurious equity the churlish and covetous benignity and charity then the ungodly man piety and sincere devotedness unto God Here is the principal wound and distemper sin hath infected the nature of man with Though he have suffered a universal impairment he is chiefly prejudic'd in regard of his habitude and tendency towards God and what concerns the duties of the first Table Here the breach is greatest and here is greatest need of repair True it is an inoffensive winning deportment towards men is not without its excellency and necessity too And it doth indeed unsufferably reproach Christianity and unbecome a Disciple of Christ yea it discovers a man not to be led by his Spirit so to be none of his to indulge himself in immoral deportments towards men to be undutiful towards Superiors unconversable towards equals oppressive towards Inferiors unjust towards any Yet is an holy disposition of heart towards God most earnestly and in the first place to be indeavoured which will then draw on the rest as having in it highest equity and excellency and being of most immediate necessity to our blessedness Fifthly consider That there may be some gradual tendencies or fainter essayes towards godliness that fall short of real godliness or come not up to that thorough change and determination of heart Godward that is necessary to the blessedness There may be a returning but not to the most high and wherein men may be as the Prophet immediately subjoyns like a deceitful Bow not fully bent that will not reach the mark They come not home to God Many may be almost perswaded and even within reach of Heaven not far from the Kingdom of God may seek to enter and not be able their hearts being somewhat inclinable but more averse for they can only be unable as they are unwilling The soul is in no possibility of taking up a complacential rest in God till it be brought to this to move toward him Spontaneously and with as it were a seâ—f motion And then is it self moved towards God when its preponderating bent is towards him As a massie stone that one attempts to displace if it be heav'd at till it preponderate it then moves out by its own weight otherwise it reverts and lies where and as it did before So 't is with many mens hearts all our lifting at them is but the rolling of the returning stone they are mov'd but not remov'd sometimes they are lifted at in the publique Ministry of the Word sometimes by a private seasonable admonition sometimes God makes an affliction his Minister a danger startles them a sickness shakes them and they think to change their course but how soon do they change those thoughts and are where they were what inlightnings and
speaks in another case is the love of God perfected as to its exercise it hath now perfectly attained its end when it hath not left so much as a craving desire not a wish unsatisfied the soul cannot say I wish it were better O thâ—t I hâ—d â—ut this one thing more to 〈◊〉 my hâ—ppiâ—â—ss It hath neither pretence nor inclination to think such a thought Divine Love is now at rest It was travailing big with gracious designs before it hath now delivered it self It would rather create new heavens every moment then not satisfie but it hath now done it to the full the utmost capacity of the soul is filled up it can be no happier then it is This is loves triumph over all the miseries wants and desires of a languishing soul. The appropriate peculiar glory of Dâ—vâ—ne love If all the excellencies of their whole creation besides were contracted into one glorious creature it would never be capable of this boast I have satisfied one soul. The love of God leaves none unsatisfied but the proud despisers of it Now is the eternal Sabbath of love Now it enters into rest having finish't all its works it views them over now with delight for â—o they are all Good its works of Pardon of Justification and Adoption Its works of Regeneration of Conversion and Sanctification its establishing quickning comforting works they are all good good in themselves and in this their end the satisfaction and reposâ— of blessed souls Now divine love puts on the Crown ascends the Throne and the many Miriads of glorified Spirits fall down about it and adore All professe to owe to it the satisfying pleasures they all injoy Who can consider the unspeakable satisfaction of those blessed Spirits and not also reflect upon this exalted greatness of divine love 2. 'T is again great love if we consider wherewith they shall be satisfied The sight and participation of the Divine glory his face his likeness his represented and impressed glory There may be great love that never undertakes nor studies to satisfie all the desires of the persons we cast our love upon especially where nothing will satisfie but high and great matters The love of God knows no difficulties nor can be overset The greater the performance or vouchsafement the more suitable to Divine Love It hath resolved to give the soul a plenary satisfaction perfectly to content all its desires and â—nce nothing else can do it but an eternal beholding of the glorious face of the Divine Majesty and a transformation into his own likeness that shall not be with-held Yea it hath created refined inlarged its capacity on purpose that it might be satisfied with nothing less Great love may sometimes be signified by a glance the offered view of a willing face Thus our Lord Jesus invites his Church to discover her own love and answer his Let me see thy face c. Cant. â— 14. Love is not more becomingly exprest or gratified then by mutual looks ubi amor 〈◊〉 oculus How great is that love that purposely layes aside the vail that never turns away its own nor permits the aversion of the beholders eye throughout eternity Now we see in a glass then face to face as if never weary of beholding on either part but on that part the condiscention lies is the transcendent admirable love That a generous beneficent the other till it be satisfied here a craving indigent love And how inexpressible a condiscension is this poor wretches many of whom possibly were once so low that a strutting Grandee would have thought himself affronted by their look and have met with threatning rebukes their overdaring venturous eye lo now they are permitted to stand before Princes that 's a mean thing to feed their eyes with Dâ—vine glory to view the face of God He sets them before his face for ever And that eternal vision begets in them an eternal likeness they behold and partake glory at once that their joy may be full They behold not a glorious God with deformed souls that would render them a perpetual abomination and torment to themselves Love cannot permit that Heaven should be their affliction that they should have cause to loath and be weary of themselves in that presence It satisfies them by cloathing and filling them with glory by making them partake of the Divine likeness as well as behold it 'T is reckon'd a great expression of a complying love but to give a Picture when the parties loved only permit themselves to view in a mute representation a vicarious face This is much more a vital image as before Gods one living likeness propagated in the soul the inchoation of it is called the Divine Nature the seed of God what amazing love is this of the great God to a worm not to give over till he have assimilated it to his own glory till it appear as a ray of light begotten of the Father of Lights Every one saith the Apostle that doth righteousness is â—orn of him and then it follows Behold what manner of love to be â—he sons of God to be likâ— him to see him as he is c. How great a word is that spoken in reference to our present state to make us partakers of his holiness And as well it might 't is instanc't as an effect and argâ—ment of love for sure chastening it self abstracted from that end of it doth not import love Whâ—m the Lord loveth he chesteneth and then by and by in the same series and line of discourse is added to make nâ— partakers of his his holiness Love always either supposes similitude or intends it and is sufficiently argued by it either way And sure the love of God cannot be more directly expressed then in his first intending to make a poor soul like him while he loves it with compassion and then imprinting and perfecting that likeness that he may love it with eternal delight Love is here the first and the last the beginning and end in all this business CHAP. XIV The 7th Inference That since this blessedness is limited to a qualified subject I in righteousness the unrighteous are necessarily lest excludâ—d The 8th Inference That righteousness is no vain thing in as much as it hath so happy an issue and ends so well 7. COnsidering this blessedness is not common but limited â—o a qualified subject I in righteousness person cloth'd in righteâ—usness Iâ— evidently follows Thâ— unrighteous are necâ—ssâ—â—ily excluded and shut out can have no pâ—râ— nor pâ—rtion in this blessedness The same thing that the Apostle tells us without an inference Know ye not that the unrighteouss shall not inherit the Kingdom of God c. Intimating that to be a most confessed known thing Know ye not is it possible ye can be ignorant of this The natural necessity of what hath been here infeâ—'d hath been argued already from the consideration of the nature of this blessedness The legal necessity of it arising from
thy Soul then with this question again and again art thou yet certain yea or no. 2. Is it a comfortable state to be uncertain or to have before thee apparent grounds of a rational and just doubt For causeless doubts may sooner vanish when their causelesness is once discovered and so they are less likely to keep a person that is capable of understanding his own case under a stated discomfort But I suppose thee in order to the answering the foregoing Querie to have in some measure considered thy case and that with a preponderating apprehension of danger in it thou returnest it uncertain Uncertain man and what wilt thou remain uncertain wilt thou sit still so till thou perish shall thy life hang in doubt and thy soul be in jeopardy every hour till the everlasting flames resolve the doubt and put the matter out of question with thee What course canst thou apply thy self to but to inquire and search further into thy own state to avoid the torture of thy own fears the pangs and dreadful expectations of a palpitating misgiving heart 't is tru that inquisitive diligent doubtfulness hath hope and comfort in it But doubtfulness joyned with a resolution of casting off all further care is utterly desperate and disconsolate what remains to thee in that case but a fearful looking for a fiery indignation how canst thou pass an hour in peace while thou apprehendest it unlikely thou see the face and be satisfied with the image of God do not thy own thoughts represent to thee the amazing sights the horrid images which shall for ever entertain and possess thy soul Art thou not daily haunted with Divine Horrors when thou sayest at night thy bed shall refresh thee art thou not terrified with dreams and affrighted with visions Dost thou not say in the morning would to God it were evening and in the evening say would to God it were morning And while thou knowest not what else to do meditate onely changes instead of remedies Or if thou find no such trouble invading thy mind let me further ask 3. Is it reasonable to be secure in such a state of uncertainty Debate this matter a little while with thy self Is it thy reason or thy sloth that makes thee sit still and forbear to look into thy Spiritual affairs Is it any rational consideration or not rather the meer indisposition of a Soul affraid to know its own state that suspends thee from inquiring what hast thou to say that looks like a reason Is it that it will disturbe thy thoughts interrupt thy pleasures fill thee with anxious cares and fears which thou art as loath to admit as burning coals into thy bosome Is it that thou canst not endure to look upon so dreadful an object as the appearing danger or possibility of thy being miserable to eternity And art thou therefore resolved to shut thine eyes and cry peace peace This is to avoid a present inconvenience by an eternal mischief a gross overstraining of the Paradox for avoiding the present fear of Hell to run into it as if because a man cannot bear the thoughts of dying he should presently cut his own throat Vain man canst thou not bear the thoughts of eternal misery how wilt thou bear the thing And how long-liv'd dost thou think that peace shall be that thou purchasest upon so dear and hard tearms canst thou promise thy self an hour may'st thou not lose thy purchase and price together the next moment canst thou defer thy misery by forgetting it or will thy judgment linger and thy damnation slumber while thou securely lingerest and slumberest canst thou wink Hell into nothing and put it out of being by putting it out of thy thoughts Alas man open thy eyes when thou wilt thou shalt find thou hâ—st nâ—t bettered thy case by having kept them â—â—st closed The bitterness of death is not yet past The horrid image is still before thee This is not a phansied evil which a man may dream himself into and eadem operâ with as little difficultie dream himself out of it again no thy case is miserable and dangerous when thou composest thy self to sleep if thou awakest thou wilt find it still the same onely thou did'st not apprehend it before for then thou wouldest not have slept As the Drunkard that kills a man and after falls asleep in his drunken fit he awakes and understands his wretched case Would his sleeping on till the Officers arrest had awak't him have mended the matter with him But thou wilt possibly say is it not better here to have a little quiet now then to be miserable by sad thoughts here and miserable by actual suffering hereafter too Is not one death enough why should one kill himself so often over and hasten misery as if it came on too slowly Better man an hard choice Supposing thou art to be eternally miserable If thou understand'st that word eternity The good or evil of this little inch of time will signifie so little with thee as hardly to weigh any thing in the Scale of a rational judgment But what art thou now dreaming while thou thus reasonest Dost thou yet no better understand thy case Art thou not under the Gospel Is it not the day of thy hope and of the Lords grace and patience towards thee It was said that sleeping would not better thy case but it was not said that awaking would not but all that is here said is designed to the awakening of thee that thou may'st know thy case and indeavour a redress Dost thou think any man in his sober wits would take all this pains thus to reason with thee if that were the acknowledged and agreed state of thy case that it were already taken for granted thou must perish We might as well go preach to Devils and carry down the Gospel into Hell But dost thou think the holy merciful God sent his Son and his Ministers to mock men and to treat with them about their eternal concernments when there is no hope Were that thy case thou hadst as good a pretence as the Devil had to complain of being tormented before thy â—im But if thou be not wilfully perverse in mistaking the matter we are reasoning about thou may'st understand Thy reason is here appealed to in this whether having so fair hopes before thee as the Gospel gives of this blessedness we are discoursing of it be not reasonable from the apprehension of a meer possibility of miscarrying which can only be through thy wilful security and neglect to give up thy self to a supine negligence and indulge that security which is so sure to ruine thee and exchange possible hâ—ped heaven for a certain Hell or whether rather it be not reasonable to stir up thy soul to consider in what posture thou art towards the attainment of this blessedness that thou may'st accordingly steer thy course in order to it If an Accusation or a Disease do threaten thy life or a suspected slaw thy
Title to thy Estate would'st thou not think it reasonable to inquire into thy case and is it not much more desirable in a matter of this consequence to be at some certainty and prudent to indeavour it if it may possibly be attain'd Whence let me further ask Fourthly Canst thou pretend it to be impossible Hath God left thee under a necessitated ignorance in this matter or denied thee sufficient means of knowing how 't is with thee in respect of thy Spiritual Estate Though he have not given thee a List or told thee the Number or Names of his Sanctified ones yet hath he not sufficiently described the persons and given thee characters by which they may be known And hath he not furnish't thee with a self reflecting power by which thou art inabled to look into thy self and discern whether thou be of them or no Doth he not offer and afford to serious diligent souls the assisting light of his blessed Spirit to guide and succeed the inquirie And if thou find it difficult to come to a speedy clear issue to make a present certain judgment of thy case ought not that to ingage thee to a patient continued diligence rather then a rash despairing madness to desist and cast off all In as much as the difficultie though great is not insuperable and the necessity and advantage incomparably greater And though divers other things do confessedly fall in the principal difficultie lies in thy aversation and unwillingness Thou art not put to traverse the Creation to climb Heaven or dig through the Earth but thy work lies nigh thee in thy own heart and Spirit and what is so nigh or should be so familiar to thee as thy self 'T is but casting thy eye upon thy own soul to discern which way 't is inclin'd and bent thou art urged to Which is that we propounded next to discover Viz. 2. That we are to judge of the hopefulness of our enjoying this blessedness by the present habitude or disposedness of our spirits thereto For what is that righteousness which qualifies for it but the impress of the Gospel upon the minds and hearts of men The Gospel-revelation is the onely Rule and Measure of that righteousness It must therefore consist in conformity thereto And look to the frame and design of the Gospel-revelation and what doth so directly correspond to it as that very habitude and disposedness of spirit for this blessednesse whereof we speak Nothing so answers the Gospel as a propension of heart towards God gratifi'd in part now and increasing till it find a full satisfaction a desire of knowing him and of being like him 'T is the whole design of the Gospel which reveals his glory in the face of Jesus Christ to work and form the spirits of men to this They therefore whose spirits are thus wrought and framed are righteous by the Gospel-measure and by thâ—t righteousness are evidently entituled and fitted for this blessedness Yea that righteousness hath in it or rather is the elements the first Principles the seed of this blessedness There can therefore be no surer Rule or Mark whereby to judge our states whether we have to do with this blessedness may expect it yea or no than this How stand we affected towards it in what disposition are our hearts thereto Those fruits of righteousnesse by which the soul is qualified to appear without offence in the day of Christ the several graces of the Sanctifying Spirit are nothing else but so many holy Principles all disposing the soul towards this blessednesse and the way to it Mortification Self-denial and godly sorrow take it off from other objects the World Self and Sin Repentance â—that part of it which respects God turns the course of its motion towards God the end Faith directs it through Christ the way Love makes it more freely desire earnestly joy pleasantly hope confidently humility evenly fear circumspectly patience constantly and perseveringly All conspire to give the Soul aright disposition towards this blessedness The result of them all is heavenliness an heavenly temper of spirit For they all one way or other as so many Lines and Rayes have respect to a blessedness in God which is heaven as the point at which they aim and the cuspis the point in which they meet in order to the touching of that objective point is heavenliness This is the ultemate and immediate disposition of heart for this blessedness the result the terminus productus of the whole work of righteousness in the Soul by which 't is said to be as it were gnota ad gloriam begotten to the eternal inheritance Concerning this therefore chiefly institute thy inquiry Demand of thy self is my soul yet made heavenly bent upon eternal blessednesse or no And here thou mayest easily apprehend of how great concernment it is to have the right notion of heaven or future blessedness as was urged under the foregoing Rule For if thou take for it another thing thou missest thy mark and art quite beside thy business But if thou retain a right and scriptural state and notion of it the Rule thou art to judge by is sure They shall have heaven whose hearts are intent upon it and framed to it Scripture is every where pregnant and full of this The Apostle plainly intimates this will be the rule of Gods final judgment Certainly it cannot be unsafe for us to judge our selves by the same Rule He tells us when God shall judge every one according to his works the great business of the judgment day eternal life shall be the portion of them who by patient continuance in well doing sought glory and honour and immortality which are but other expressions of the same thing what can be more plain They shall have eternal life and glory that seek it whose hearts are towards it Again speaking of true Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. in a way of contradiction from Pseudo-Christians such as he saith were enemies of the Crosse he gives us among other this brand of these latter that they did mind earthly things and tells us their end would be destruction but gives us this opposite character of the other our conversation is in heaven our trade and business our daily negotiations as well as the priviledges of our Citizen-ship lie there as his expression imports and thence intimates the opposite end of such whence we look for a Saviour not destruction but salvation And in the same Context of Scripture where they that are risen with Christ and who shall appear with him in glory are requir'd to fet their mind on things above not on things on the earth That we may understand this not to be their duty onely but their character we are immediately told they who do not so mortifie not their earthly members those lusts that dispose men towards the earth and to grovel in the dust as the graces of the Spirit dispose them heaven-ward and to converse with glory
are the children of disobedience upon whom the wrath of God cometh The Faith the just live by is the substance of things hoped for c. Such believers are confessed avowed strangers on earth seekers of the better the heavenly Country whence 't is said God will not be ashamed to be called their God plainly implying that as for low terrene spirits that love to creep on the earth and imbrace Dunghills God will be ashamed of them he will for ever disdain a relation to them while and as such And if we will be determined by the express word of our great Redeemer to whom we owe all the hopes of this blessedness When he had been advising not to lay up treasure on earth but in heaven he presently adds where your treasure is there will your hearts be also If thy treasure thy great interests thy precious and most valuable good be above that will attract thy heart it will certainly be disposed thitherward Yet here it must carefully be considered that in as much as this blessednesse is thy end i. e. thy Supream good as the notion of treasure also imports Thy heart must be set upon it above any other injoyment else all is to no purpose 'T is not a faint slight overmastered inclination that will serve the turn but as all the forementioned Scriptures import such as will bespeak it a mans business to seek heaven his main work and give ground to say of him his heart is there If two lovers solicit the same person and speaking of them in comparisons she say this hath my heart is it tolerable to understand her as meaning him she loves less so absurd would it be to understand Scriptures that speak of such an intention of heart heaven-ward as if the faintest desire or coldest wish or most lazie inconstant indeavour were all they meant No 't is a steady prevalent victorious direction of heart towards the future glory in comparison whereof thou despisest all things else all temporal terrene things that must be the evidential ground of thy hope to enjoy it And therefore in this deal faithfully with thy own soul and demand of it Dost thou esteem this blessednesse above all things else Do the thoughts of it continually return upon thee and thy mind and heart as it were naturally run out to it Are thy chieâ—est solicitudes and cares taken up about it least thou should'st fall short and suffer a disappointment Dost thou savour it with pleasure hath it a sweet and grateful relish to thy Soul dost thou bend all thy powers to pursue and presse on towards it Urge thy self to give answer truly to such enquiries and to consider them seriously that thou may'st do so Such whose Spirits are either most highly raised and lift up to heaven or most deeply deprest and sunk into the earth may make the clearest judgment of themselves With them that are of a middle temper the trial will be more difficult yet not fruitless if it be managed with serious diligence though no certain conclusion or judgment be made thereupon For the true design and use of all such enquiries and reflections upon our selves which let it be duly considered is not to bring us into a state of cessation from further indeavours as if we had nothing more to do suppose we judge the best of our state that can be thought but to keep us in a wakeful temper of Spirit that we may not forget our selves in the great business we have yet before us but go on with renewed vigour through the whole course of renewed indeavours wherein we are to be still conversant till we have attained our utmost mark and end Therefore is this present enquiry directed as introductive to the further duty that in the following Rules is yet to be recommended CHAP. XVII Rule 3d. Directing such as upon enquirie find or see cause to suspect a total aversation in themselves to this blessednesse to be speedy and restlesse in their indeavours to have the temper of their Spirits altered and made suitable to it Doubts and Objections conconcerning the use of such indeavours in such a case answered Some Considerations to enforce this Direction propounded and pressed 3. THat if upon such reflection we find or suspect our selves wholly diseffected and unsuitable to this blessedness we apply our selves to speedy incessant indeavours to get the temper of our Spirits changed and fitted thereto The state of the case speaks it self that there is no sitting still here This is no condition Soul to be rested in unless thou art provided to encounter the terrours of eternal darkness and endure the torture of everlasting burnings Yet am I not unapprehensive how great a difficulty a carnal heart will make of it to bestir itself in order to any redresse of so deplorable a case And how real a difficulty it is to say any thing that will be thought regardable to such a one Our sad experience tells us that our most efficacious words are commonly wont to be entertained as neglected puffs of wind our most convictive reasonings and perswasive exhortations lost yea and though they are managed too in the name of the great God as upon the deaf and dead Which is too often apt to tempt into that resolution of speaking no more in that name And were it not that the dread of that great Majesty retains us how hard were it to forbear such expostulations Lord why are we commonly sent upon so vain an errand Why are we required to speak to them that will not hear and expose thy sacred truths and counsels to the contempt of sinful worms to labour day by day in vain and spend our strength for nought Yea we cannot forbear to complain None so labour in vain as we Of all men none so generally improsperous and unsuccessful Others are wont to see the fruit of their labours in proportion to the expence of strength in them But our strength is labour and sorrow for the most part without the return of a joyfull fruit The Husbandman ploughs in hope and sowes in hope and is commonly partaker of his hope we are sent to plough and sow among Rocks and Thorns and in the high Way how seldom fall we upon good ground where we have any increase Yea Lord how often are men the harder for all our labours with them the deader for all indeavours to quicken them Our breath kills them whom thou sendest us to speak life to and we often become to them a a deadly savour Sometime when we think somewhat is done to purpose our labour all returns and we are to begin again and when the duties we perswade to come directly to cross mens interests and carnal inclinations they revolt and start back as if we were urging them upon flames or the swords point and their own souls and the eternal glory are regarded as a thing of naught Then Heaven and Hell become with them Phancies and Dreams and all
that we have said to them false and fabulous We are to the most as men that mock in our most serious warnings and counsels and the word of the Lord is a reproach We sometimes fill our mouthes with Arguments and our hearts with Hope and think sure they will now yield but they esteem our strongest reasonings as Leviathan doth Iron and Brass but as Straw and rotten Wood and laugh at Divine threatnings as he doth at the shaking of the Spear Yea and when we have convinc't them yet we have done nothing though we have got their Judgements and Consciences on our side and their own their Lusts onely reluctate and carry all They will now have their way though they perish We see them perishing under our very eye and we cry to them in thy name O Lord to turn and live but they regard us not For these things sometimes we weep in secret and our eyes trickle down with tears yea we cry to thee O Lord and thou hearest us not thy hand seems shortened that it cannot save it puts not on strength as in the days of old It hath snatcht souls by thousands as firebrands out of the fire but now thou hidest and drawest it back Who hath believed our report to whom is the Arm of the Lord revealed Mean while even the Divels instruments prosper more than we And he that makes it his business to tempt and intice down souls to hell succeeds more then we that would allure them to heaven But we must speak whether men will hear or forbear though it concerns us to do it with fear and trembling Oh how solemn a business is it to treat with souls and how much to be dreaded least they miscarry through our imprudence or neglect I write with sollicitude what shall become of these lines with what effect they will be read if they fall into such hands by them whom they most concern Yea and with some doubt whether it were best to write on or forbear Sometimes one would incline to think it a merciful omissionâ— lest we adde to the account and torment of many at last but sense of duety towards all and hope of doing good to some must oversway Considering therefore the state of such souls I am now dealing with I apprehend there may be obstructions to the entertainment of the counsell here recommended of two sorts partly in their minds partly in their hearts something of appearing reason but more of reâ—â— perverse will That which I shall do in persuance of it will fall under two answerable heads 1. A reply to certain doubts and objections wherein to meet with the former 2. The proposal of some considerations wherein to contend against the latter As to the first It appears men are grown ingeniously wicked and have learned how to dispute themselves into hell and to neglect what concerns their eternal blessednesse with some colour and pretence of reason It will therefore be worth the while to discusse a little their more specious pretences and consider their more obvious supposeable scruples which will be found to concern either the possibility lawfulness advantage or necessity of the endeavours we perswade to Is it a possible undertaking you put us upon or is there any thing we can do in order to the change of our own hearts We find our selves altogether undesirous of those things wherein you state blessedness and they are without savour to us If therefore the notion you give us of blessedness be right all the work necessary to quallifie us for it is yet to be done we yet remain wholly destitute of any principle of life that may dispose us to such relishes and injoyments If the new Creature as you say consist in a suitable temper of Spirit unto such a state as this 't is as yet wholly unformed in us And is there any thing to be done by a dead man in order to life Can a Child contribute any thing to its first formation or a Creature to its coming into being If you were serious in what you say methinks you should have little mind to play the Sophisters and put fallacies upon yourselves in a matter that concerns the life of your souls And what else are you now doing For sure otherwise one would think it were no such difficulty to understood the difference between the esse simpliciter the meer being of any thing and the esse tale its being such or such by the addition of somewhat afterward to that being Though nothing could contribute to it s one being simply Yet sure when it is in being it may contribute to the bettering or perfecting of it self as even the unreasonable creatures themselves do And if it be a creature naturally capable of acting with design It may act designedly in order to its becoming so or so quallified or the attaining of somewhat yet wanting to its perfection You cannot be thought so ignorant but that you know the new Creature is onely an additional to your former being And though it be true that it can do no more to its own production than the unconceived Child as nothing can act before it is doth it therefore follow that your reasonable soul in which it is to be formed cannot use Gods prescribed means in order to that blessed change You cannot act holily as a Saint but therefore can you not act rationally as a man I appeal to your reason and conscience in some particulars Is it impossible to you to attend upon the dispensation of that Gospel which is Gods power unto salvation the seal by which he impresses his image the glass through which his glory shines to the changing of soules into the same likeness are you not as able to go to Church as to the Tavern and to sit in the assembly of Saints as of Mockers Is it Impâ—ssible to you to consult the written word of God and thence learn what you must be and do in order to blessedness will not your eyes serve you to read the Bible as well as a Gazett or Play-book Is it impossible to inquire of your Minister or an understanding Christian neighbour concerning the way and terms of blessednesse Cannot your tongue pronounce these words what shall I do to be saved as well as those pray what do you to think of the weather or what news is there going Yet further Is it impossibly to apply your thoughts to what you meet with suitable to your case in your attendance upon preaching reading or discourse Have all such words a barbaroâ—s sound in your ear can you not consider what sense is carried under them What they import and signify can you not bethink yourself do the doctrines of God and Christ and the life to come signifie something or nothing or do they signifie any thing worth the considering or that t is fit for me to take notice of And yet to proceed a little further with you I pray you once more demand of yourselves and
for it for this end to be relieved 'T is the mistaking of the notion of Heaven that hath also an ingrediency into this doubt if it be really a doubt what is it a low thing to be filled with the Divine fulness to have his Glory replenishing our souls to be perfectly freed from sin in every thing conformed unto this holy nature and will That our minding our interest in this or any affairs should be the principal thing with us is not to be thought our Supreme end must be the same with his who made all things for himself of whom through whom and to whom all things are that he alone might have the glory But subordinates need not quarrel A lower end doth not exclude the higher but serves it and is as to it a means God is our end as he is to glorified and enjoyed by us our glorifying him is but the agnition of his glory which we do most in beholding and partaking it which is therefore in direct subordination thereto 3. But it may further be doubted what if it be acknowledged that these are both things possible and lawful yet to what purpose will it be to attempt any thing in this kind O! what assurance have I of success is there any word of promise for the encouragement of one in my case or is God under any obligation to reward the indeavours of nature with special grace wherefore when I have done all I can he may with-hold his influence and then I am but where I were and may perish notwithstanding And suppose thou perish notwithstanding Do but yet consult a little with thy own thoughts which is more tolerable and easie to them to perish as not attaining what thy fainter struglings could not reach or for the most direct wilful rebellion doing wickedly as thou couldest Or who shall have thinkest thou the more fearful condemnation He that shall truely say when his Master comes to judgment I never had indeed Lord an heart so fully changed and turned to thee as should denote me to be the subject of thy saving pardoning mercy but thou knowest who knowest all things I long and with some earnestness did endeavour it Thou hast been privy to my secret desires and moanes to the weak strivings of a listless distempered spirit not pleased with it self aiming at a better temper towards thee I neglected not thy prescribed means onely that grace which I could not challenge thou wast pleased not to give thou didst require what I must confess my self to have owed thee thou did'st with-hold onely what thou owedst me not therefore must I yield my self a convicted guilty wretch and have nothing to say why thy sentence should not pass Or he that shall as truely hear from the mouth of his Judge Sinner thou wast often forewarned of this approaching day and call'd upon to provide for it Thou hadst Precept upon Precept and Line upon Line The counsels of life and peace were with frequent importunity prest upon thee but thou rejectedst all with proud contempt did'st despise with the same profane scorn the offers commands and threats of him that made thee hardenest thy heart to the most obstinate rebellion against his known Laws did'st all the wickedness to which thy heart prompted thee without restraint declinedst every thing of duty which his Authority and the exigency of thy own case did oblige thee to did'st avoid as much as thou couldest to hear or know any thing of my will could'st not find one serious considering hour in â— who le life time to bethink thy self whaâ— was likely to become of thee when thy place on earth should know thee no more Thou might'st know thou wast at my mercy thy breath in my hand and that I could easily have cut thee off any moment of that large space of time my patience allow'd thee in the world Yet thou never thought'st it worthy the while to sue to me for thy life Destruction from the Lord was never a terrour to thee Thou would'st never be brought upon thy knees I had none of thy addresses never didst thou sigh out a serious request for mercy Thy soul was not worth so much in thy account Thy blood wretch be upon thy guilty head Depart accursed into everlasting flames c. Come now use thy reason a while imploy a few sober thoughts about this matter remember thou wilt have a long eternitie wherein to recognize the passages of thy life and the state of thy case in the last judgement Were it supposeable that one who had done as the former should be left finally destitute of Divine Grace and perish Yet in which of these cases would'st thou chuse to be found at last But why yet should'st thou imagine so sad an issue as that after thine utmost endeavours grace should be with-held and leave thee to perish because God hath not bound himself by promise to thee what promise have the Ravens to be heard when they cry But thou art a sinner True otherwise thou wert not without promise the promises of the first Covenant would at least belong to thee Yet experience tells the world his unpromised mercies freely flow every where The whole earth is full of his goodness yea but his special grace is convey'd by promise onely and that onely through Christ and how can it be communicated thrâ—ugh him to any but those that are in him What then is the first inbeing in Christ no special grace or is there any being in him before the first that should be the ground of that graciâ—us communication things are plain enough if we make them not intricate or intangle our selves by foolish subtilties God promises sinners indefinitely pardon and eternal life for the sake of Christ on condition that they believe on him He gives of his good pleasure that grace whereby he draws any to Christ without promise directly made to them whether absolute or conditional though he give it for the sake of Christ also His discovery of his purpose to give such grace to some indifinitely amounts not to a promise claimable by any for if it be said to be an absolute promise to particular persons who are they whose duty is it to believe it made to him If conditional what are the conditions upon which the first grace is certainly promised who can be able to assign them But poor soul thou need'st not stay to puzzle thy self about this matter God binds himself to do what he promises but hath he any where bound himself to do no more Did he promise thee thy being or that thou should'st live to this day did he promise thee the bread that sustains thee the daily comforts of thy life Yea what is nearer the present purpose did he promise thee a station under the Gospel or that thou should'st ever hear the name of Christ if ever his Spirit have in any degree mov'd upon thy heart inclin'd thee at all seriously to consider thy eternal concernments did he
an advantage them whom I most intend to such as sin within the nearer call and reach of mercy that sin not to the utmost latitude Even such as lead the strictest lives and are seldom found to transgress are not their sins found to begin with forgetting God Did they eye God more would they not sin lesse frequently and with greater regret You his Saints that have made a Covenant with him by Sacrifice that profess the greatest love and devotedness to him and seem willing your selves to become sacrifices and lay down your lives for his sake what is it a harder thing to give him a look a thought or is it not too common a thing without necessity and then not without injury to withhold these from him Let us bethink our selves are not the principal distempers of our Spirits and disorders yet observable in our lives to be refer'd hither As to enjoyned services what should we venture on omissions if we had God in our eye or serve him with so declining backward hearts Should we dare to let pass a day in the Even whereof we might write down nothing done for God this day Or should we serve him as an hard Master with sluggish despondent Spirits The Apostle forbids servants to serve with eyeâ— service as men-pleasers meaning they should eye men less and God more Sure as to him our service is not enough eye-service We probably eye men more than we should but we do not eye Him enough Hence such hanging of hands such feebleness of knees such laziness and indifferency so little of an active zeal and laborious diligence so little fervency of Spirit in serving the Lord. Hence also such an aversion to hazardous services such fear of attempting any thing though never so apparent important Duty that may prove costly or hath danger in it We look not to him that is invisible And as to forbidden things should we be so proud so passionate so earthly so sensual if we had God more in view Should we so much seek our selves and indulge our own wills and humors drive a design with such solicitude and intention of mind for our private interests should we walk at such a latitude and more consult our own inclination than our rule allow our selves in so much vanity of conversation did we mind God as we ought And do we not sensibly punish our selves in this neglect what a dismal Chaos is this world while we see not God in it To live destitute of a divine presence to discern no beam of the heavenly glory To go up and down day by day and perceive nothing of God no glimmering no appearance this is disconsolate as well as sinful darkness What can we make of Creatures what of the daily events of Providence if we see not in them the glory of a Deity if we do not contemplate and adore the divine wisedom power and goodness diffused every where Our practical Atheism and inobservance of God makes the World become to us the region and shadow of death states us as among Ghosts and Spectres makes all things look with a ghastly face imprints death upon every thing we see encircles us with gloomy dreadful shades and with uncomfortable apparitions To behold the tragical Spectacles alwayes in view the violent lusts the rapine and rage of some the calamitous suffrings the miseries and ruines of others to hear every corner resounding with the insultations of the Oppressor and the mournful groans of the oppressed what a painful continuing death were it to be in the world without God! At the best all things were but a vanishing scheme an Image seen in the dark The Creation a thing the fashion whereof were passing away The whole Contexture and System of Providence were meer confusion without the least concinnity or order Religion an acknowledged triâ—le a meer mockery What to wink our selves into so much darkness and desolation And by sealing up our eyes against the divine light and glory to confirm so formidable miseries upon our own souls how dreadfully shall we herein revenge our own folly in nullifying him to our selves who is the All in All Sure there is little of Heaven in all this But if now we open our eyes upon that all-comprehending glory apply them to a steady intuition of God how heavenly a life shall we then live in the world To have God alwayes in view as the director and end of all our actions To make our eye crave leave of God to consult him ere we adventure upon any thing and implore his guidance and blessing Upon all occasions to direct our prayers to him and look up To make our eye await his commanding look ready to receive all intimations of his will this is an angelical life To be as those ministers of his that are alwayes ready to do his pleasure To make our eye do him homage and expresse our dependence and trust To approve our selves in every thing to him and act as alwayes in his presence observing still how his eye observes us and exposing our selves willingly to its inspection and search contented alwayes he should see through and through us Surely there is much of heaven in this life so we should endeavour to live here I cannot omit to give you this instruction in the words of an Heathen we ought saith he so to live as alwayes within view order our cogitations as if some one might or can look into the very inwards of our breast For to what purpose is it to hide any thing from man from God nothing can be hid he is continually present to our Spirits and comes amidst our inmost thoughts c. This is to walk in the light amidst a serene placid mild light that infuses no unquiet thoughts amidst no guilty fears nothing that can disturb or annoy us To eye God in all our comforts and observe the smiling aspect of his face when he dispenses them to us To eye Him in all our afflictions and consider the paternal wisdom that instructs us in them how would this increase our mercies and mitigate our troubles To eye Him in all his Creatures and observe the various prints of the Creators glory instampt upon them With how lively a lustre would it cloath the world and make every thing look with a pleasant face what an heaven were it to look upon God as filling all in all and how sweetly would it ere-while raise our souls into some such sweet seraphick strains holy holy the whole earth is full of his glory To eye Him in his Providences and consider how all events are with infinite wisdom disposed into an apt subserviency to his holy Will and Ends. What difficulties would hence be solved what seeming inconsistencies reconcil'd and how much would it contribute to the ease and quiet of our minds To eye Him in his Christ the expresse Image of his person the brightness of his glory and in the Christian Oeconomy the Gospel-revelation and Ordinances through
of your spirits I shall recommend onely some few instances that you may see how little reason or inducement a soul conformed to the holy will of God hath to seek its comforts and content elsewhere Faith corresponds to the Truth of God as it respects Divine Revelations How pleasant is to give up our understandings to the conduct of so safe a guide to the view of so admirable things as he reveals It corresponds to his goodnesse as it respects his offers How delectible is it to be filling an empty Soul from the Divine fulnesse What pleasure attends the exercise of this Faith towards the Person of the Mediatour viewing him in all his Glorious Excellencies receiving him in all his gracious Communications by this Eye and Hand How pleasant is it to exercife it in reference to another world living by it in a daily prospect of eternity in reference to this world to live without care in a chearful dependence on him that hath undertaken to care for us Repentance is that by which we become like the holy God to whom our sin had made us most unlike before how sweet are kindly relentings penetential tears and the return of the Soul to its God and to a right mind And who can conceive the Ravishing Pleasures of love to God! wherein we not onely imitate but intimately unite with him who is Love it self How pleasant to let our Souls dissolve here and slow into the Ocean the element of love Our Fear corresponds to his Excellent Greatnesse and is not as it is a part of the New Creature in us a tormenting servile passion but a due respectfulness and observance of God and there is no mean pleasure in that holy awful seriousness unto which it composes and formes our Spirits Our Humility as it respects him answers his high excellency as it respects our own inferiours his gracious condescention How pleasant is it to fall before him And how connatural and agreable to a good Spirit to stoop low upon any occasion to do good Sincerity is a most Godlike excellency an imitation of his Truth as grounded in his All-sufficiency which sets him above the necessity or possibility of any advantage by collusion or deceit and corresponds to his Omnisciency and heart-searching eye It heightens a mans spirit to a holy and generous boldness makes him apprehend it beneath him to do an unworthy dishonest action that should need a palliation or a concealment And gives him the continual pleasure of self approbation to God whom he chiefly studies and desires to please Patience a prime Glory of the Divine Majestie continues a mans possession of his own Soul his Liberty his Dominion of himself He is if he can suffer nothing a Slave to his vilest and most sordid passions at home his own base fear and bruitish anger and effeminate grief and to any mans lusts and humours besides that he apprehends can do him hurt It keeps a mans Soul in a peaceful calm delivers him from that most unnatural self-torment defeats the impotent malice of his most implacable enemy who fain would vex him but cannot Justice the Great Attribute of the Judge of all the Earth as such so farre as the imppression of it takes place among men preserves the Common Peace of 〈◊〉 World and the Private Peace of each 〈◊〉 in his own bosome so that the former be not disturbed by doing of mutual injuries nor the latter by the conscience of having done them The brotherly love of fellow Christians the impression of that special love which God bears to them all admits them into one anothers bosomes and to all the indearments and pleasures of a mutual communion Love to enemies the expresse image of our heavenly Father by which we appear his children begotten of him overcomes evil by goodness blunts the double edge of revenge at least the sharper edge which is alwayes towards the Author of it secures our selves from wounding impressions and resentments turns keen anger into gentle pity and substitutes mild pleasant forgiveness in the room of the much uneasier thoughts and study of retaliation Mercifulnesse towards the distressed as our Father in Heaven is merciful heaps blessings upon our Souls and evidences our Title to what we are to live by the Divine mercy An universal benignity and propension to d◠good to all in imitation of the immense diffusive goodnesse of God is but kindnesse to our selves Rewards it self by that greater pleasure is in giving then in receiving and associates us with God in the blessedness of this work as well as in the disposition to it who exercises loving kindnesse in the Earth because delighteth therein Here are some of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the things wherein consists that our conformity to the divine Nature and Will which is proper to our present state And now who can estimate the blessedness of such a soul Can in a word the state of that soul be unhappy that is full of the Holy Gost full of Love Joy Peace Long-suffering Gentleness Goodness Faith Meekness Temperance those blessed fruits of that blessed Spirit Blessedness is connaturalized unto this soul Every thing doth its part and all conspire to make it happy This soul is a Temple an habitation of holiness here dwells a Deity in his glory 'T is a Paradise a Garden of God Here he walks and converses daily delighted with its fragrant fruitfulness He that hath those things and aboundeth is not barren or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus he is the Sun and the knowledge of him the quickening beams that cherish and ripen these fruits But the soul that lacketh these things is a Desart a habitation of Devils Here is stupid disconsolate infidelity inflexible obstinacy and resolvedness for Hell Hatred and contempt of the Sovereign Majesty whom yet its secret misgiving thoughts tell it will be too hard for it at last Here is swoln pride and giddy vain-glory disguised hypocrisie and pining envy raging wrath and ravenous avarice with what you can imagine besides leading to misery and desolation You have then some prospect of a happy temper of Spirit It can now be no difficulty to you to frame an Idea of it in your thoughts to get a notional image or this likeness in the notion of it into your minds but that will avail you little if you have not the real image also that is your Spirits really fashioned and formed according thereto If having the knowledge of these things as the Pagan morallists expression before mentioned is of vertuous Rules and Precepts they become not habitual to you and your Spirits be not transfigured into them But now I treat with such as are supposed to have some such real impressions that they may be stir'd up to endeavour a further perfecting of them In order whereto I shall adde but this two-fold advice 1. Be very careful that this living Image such you have been formerly told it is may
world to come are so overmastered by the powers of this present world and objects of sense so much outweigh those of Faith And is not this apparently the case with the Christians of the present age Do not your thoughts run the same course with theirs that meditated nothing but sitting on the right and left hand of Christ in an earthly dominion while they never dream't of drinking of his Cup or being baptized with his Baptism How many vain dreamers have we of golden mountains and I know not what earthly felicity whose pretended Prophesies about a supposed near approaching prosperity to the Church on earth gain easier belief or are more savory and taking with too many then all that the Sacred Oracles discover about its glorious state in heaven Hence are our shoulders so unfitted to Christs yoke like the unaccustomed Heifer and the business of suffering will not enter into our hearts Methinks the belief and expectation of such a state hereafter should make us even regardless of what we see or suffer here and render the good or evil things of time as indifferent to us Yet neither plead I for an absolute Stoical Apathy but for patience A great follower of that Sect acknowledges It is not a vertue to bear what we feel not or have no sense of Stupidity under Providence is not a Christian temper as that Moralist sayes of the wise man 'T is not the hardness of stone or iron that is to be ascribed to him But least any should run into that more dangerous mistake to think that by the patience we have been all this while perswading to in the expectation of the blessedness yet to come is meant a love of this present world and a complacential adherence of heart to the earth which extream the terrene temper of many souls may much encline them to It will be necessary upon that account to adde in reference also to the yet future expected season of this blessedness this further and concluding instruction viz. That however we are not to repine at our being held so long in this world in an expecting state yet we let not our souls cleave too close to their terrestrial stations nor be too much in love with the body and this present low state of life on earth For evident it is that notwithstanding all the miseries of this expecting state the most are yet loath to leave the world and have hearts sordidly hankering after present things And surely there is much difference between being patient of an abode on earth and being fond of it Therefore since the true blessedness of Saints consists in such things as we have shewn and cannot be enjoy'd till we awake not within the compass of time and this lower world It will be very requisite to insist here a while in the prosecution of this last Rule And what I shall say to it shall be by way of Caution Inforcement 1. For Cautionâ—s that we misapprehend not that temper and disposition of Spirit we are in this thing to endeavour and aim at And it especially concerns us to be cautious about the Inducements Degree Of that desire of leaving this world or concontempt of this present life which we either aspire to or allow our selves in First Inducements Some are desirous others at least content to quit the world upon very insufficient or indeed wicked considerations 1. There are who desire it meerly to be out of the way of present troubles whereof they have either too impatient a sense or an unworthy and impotent fear Many times the urgency and anguish of incumbent trouble impresses such a sense and utters it self in such a language as that Now O Lord take I beseech thee my life from me for it is better for me to die then to live Or that My soul chuseth strangling and death rather then life Makes men long for death and dig for it as for hid treasures rejoyce and be exceeding glad when they can find the grave Yea and the very fear of troubles that are but impendent and threatning make some wish the Grave a Sanctuary and render the Clods of the Valley sweet unto their thoughts They lay possibly so humoursom and phansiful stress upon the meer circumstances of dying that they are earnest to dye out of hand to avoid dying so and so as the Poet would fain perswade himself it was not Death he feared but Shipwrack It would not trouble them to dye but to dye by a violent hand or to be made a publick spectacle they cannot endure the thoughts of dying so Here is nothing commendable or worthy of a Christian in all this It were a piece of Christian bravery to dare to live in such a case even when there is a visible likelihood of dying a sacrifice in the midst of flames How much this glory was affected in the earlier days of Christianity is sufficiently known Though I confess there were excesses in that kind altogether unimitable But if God call a man forth to be his Champion and witness to lay down a life in it self little desirable in a truly worthy cause The call of his Providence should be as the sound of the Trumpet to a truly Martial Spirit it should fill his soul with a joyful courage and sense of honour and be comply'd with cheerfully with that apprehension and resentment a stout Souldier would have of his Generals putting him upon some very hazardous piece of service viz. he would say My General hath not as the Morallist expresses his sense for him deserved ill of me but it appears he judged well It should be counted all joy to fall into such tryals that is when they become our lot by a providential disposition not by a rash precipitation of our selves And as it is a wickedness inconsistent with Christianity to be of that habitual temper to chuse to desert such a cause for the saving of life so it is a weakness very reproachful to it to lay down ones life in such a case with regret as unwilling in this kind to glorifie him who laid down his for us we are no more to dye to our selves then to live to our selves Our Lord Jesus hath purchased to himself a Dominion over both states of the living and dead and whether we live we must live to him or dye we must dye to him T is the glory of a Christian to live so much above the world that nothing in it may make him either fond of life or weary of it 2. There are others who are at least indifferent and careless how soon they dye out of either a worse than paganish infidelity disbelieving the concernments of another world or a bruitish stupidity not apprehending them or a gross conceited ignorance misunderdanding the terms of the Gospel and thinking themselves to be in a good condition as to eternity when the case is much otherwise with them Take heed thy willingness to dye
visions of this Makers face that chuses thus to entertain it self on earth rather then partake the effusions of Divine glory above That had rather creep with Worms then soar with Angels associate with Bruits then with the Spirits of just men made perfect who can solve the Phaenomenon or give a rational account why there should be such a Creature as man upon the Earth abstructing from the hopes of another world who can think it the effect of an infinite wisdom or account it a more worthy design then the representing of such a Scene of actions and affairs by Puppets on a Stage for my part upon the strictest enquiry I see nothing in the life of man upon earth that should render it for it self more the matter of a rational election supposing the free option given him in the first moment of his being then presently again to cease to be the next moment Yea and is there not enough obvious in every mans experience to incline him rather to the contrary choice and supposing a future blessedness in another world to make him passionately desirous with submission to the Divine pleasure of a speedy dismission into it Do not the burdens that press us in this earthly taâ—ernacle teach our very sense and urge opprest nature into involuntary groans while as yet our consideration doth intervene And if we do consider is not every thought a sting making a much deeper impression then what only toucheth our flesh and bones Who can reflect upon his present state and not presently be in pangs The troubles that follow humanity are many and great those that follow Christianity more numerous and grievous The sickness pains losses disappointments and whatsoever afflictions that are in the Apostles language humane or common to men as are all the external sufferings of Christians in nature and kind though they are liable to them upon an account peculiar to themselves which there the Apostle intimates are none of our greatest evils yet even upon the account of them have we any reason to be so much in love with so unkind â— world Is it not strange our very Bridewel should be such a Heaven to us But these things are little considerable in comparison of the more Spiritual grievances of Christians as such that is those that afflict our Souls while we are under the conduct of Christ designing for a blessed eternity if we indeed make that our business and do seriously intend our spirits in order thereto The darkness of our beclouded minds The glimmering ineffectual apprehension we have of the most important things the inconsistency of our shattered thoughts when we would apply them to Spiritual Objects The great difficulty of working off an ill frame of heart and the no less difficulty of retaining a good our being so frequently tost as between Heaven and Hell when we sometimes think our selves to have even attained and hope to descend no more and are all on a suddain plung'd in the Ditch so as that our own Clothes might abhor us fall so low into an earthly temper that we can like nothing Heavenly or Divine and because we cannot are enforced justly most of all to dislike our selves Are these things little with us How can we forbear to cry out of the depths to the Father of our Spirits that he would pity and relieve his own Off-spring yea are we not weary of our crying and yet more weary of holding in How do repell'd Temptations return again and vanquished Corruptions recover strength We know not when our work is done We are miserable that we need to be always watching and more miserable that we cannot watch but are so often surprized and overcome of evil We say sometimes with our selves we will seek relief in retirement but we cannot retire from our selves or in converse with Godly friends but they sometimes prove snares to us and we to them Or we hear but our own miseries repeated in their complaints would we pray How faint is the breath we utter How long is it ere we can get our Souls possest with any becoming apprehensions of God or lively sense of our own concernments Would we meditate We sometimes go about to compose our thoughts but we may as well assay to hold the Windes in our fist If we venture forth into the world how do our Senses betray us How are we mockt with their impostures Their neerer objects become with us the onely realities and eternal things are all vanisht into airie shadowes Reason and Faith are laid asleep and our Sense dictates to us what we are to believe and do as if it were our only guide and Lord. And what are we not yet wearie Is it reasonable to continue in this State of our own choice Is misery become so natural to us so much our element that we cannot affect to live out of it Is the darkness and dirt of a dungeon more grateful to us then a free open air and sun Is this Flesh of ours so lovely a thing that we had rather suffer so many deaths in it then one in putting it off and mortality with it While we carry it about us our Souls impart a kind of life to it and it gives them death in exchange Why do we not cry out more feelingly O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this Body of Death Is it not grievous to us to have so cumbersome a yoke-fellow to be tied as Mezentius is said to have done the living and the dead together Do not we find the Distempers of our Spirits are mostly from these bodies we are so in love with either as the proper Springs or as the occasion of them From what cause is our drowsy sloth our eager passions our aversion to Spiritual objects but from this impure Flesh or what else is the Subject about which our vexatious cares or torturing fears our bitter griefs are taken up day by day And why do we not consider that 't is onely our love to it that gives strength and vigour to the most of our temptations as wherein it is more immediately concern'd and which makes them so often victorious thence to become our after-afflictions He that hath learn'd to mortifie the inordinate love of the Body will he make it the business of his life to purvey for it Will he offer violence to his own Soul to secure it from violence will he comply with mens Lusts and humors for its advantage and accommodation or yeild himself to the tyranny of his own avarice for its future or of his more-sensual Lusts for it s present content Will it not rather be pleasing to him that his outward man be exposed to perish while his inward man is renewed day by day He to whom the thoughts are grateful of laying it down will not though he neglect not duty towards it spend his days in its continual Service and make his Soul an hell by a continual provision for the flesh and
the Lusts of it That is cruel Love that shall enslave a man and subject him to so vile and ignoble a servitude And it discovers a sordid temper to be so imposed upon How low are our Spirits sunk that we disdain not so base a vassalage God and nature have obliged us to live in bodies for a time but they have not obliged us to measure our selves by them to confine our desires and designs to their compass to look no further then their concernments to entertain no previous joyes in the hope of being one day delivered from them No such hard law is laid upon us But how apt are we to become herein a most oppressive Law to our selves and not only to lodge in filthy earthen cottage but to love them and confine our selves to them loath so much as to peep out T is the apt expression of a Philosopher upbraiding hat base low temper The degenerous Soul saith he buried in the Body is as a slothful creeping thing that loves its hole and is loath to come forth And methinks if we have no love for our better and more noble self we should not be altogether unapprehensive of an obligation upon us to express a dutiful love to the Author of our beings doth it consist with the love we owe to him to desire always to lurk in the dark and never come into his blessed presence Is that our love that we never care to come nigh him Do we not know that while we are present in the body we are absent from the Lord should we not therefore be willing rather to be present with the Lord and absent from the body should we not put on a confidence an holy fortitude as 't is there exprest we are confident or of good courage and thence willing c. that might carry us through the Grave to him As is the brave Speech of that last mentioned Philosopher God will call thee ere long expect his call Old age will come upon thee and shew thee the way thither and death which he that is possest with a base fear laments and dreads as it draws on but he that is a lover of God expects it with joy and with courage meets it when it comes Is our love to God so faint and weak that it dares not encounter Death nor venture upon the imaginary terrours of the Grave to go to him How unsuitable is this to the character which is given of a Saints love And how expresly are we told that he who loves his life better then Christ or that even hates it not for his sake as certainly he cannot be said to do that is not willing to part with it to enjoy him cannot be his Disciple If our love to God be not Supreme 't is none or not such as can denominate us lovers of him and will we pretend to be so when we love a putide flesh and this base earth better then him And have we not professedly as a fruit of our avowed love to him surrendred our selves Are we not his devoted ones will we be his and yet our own or pretend our selves dedicated to his holy pleasure and will yet be at our own dispose and so dispose of our selves too as that we may be most ungrateful to him and most uncapable of converse with him How doth this love of a perishing life and of a little animated clay stop all the effusions of the Love of God suspends its sweet and pleasant fruits which should be always exerting themselves towards him Where is their fear obedience joy and praise who are through the fear of death all their lives subject to bondage And kept under a continual dismal expectation of an unavoidable dissolution But must the great God lose his due acknowledgements because we will not understand wherein he deals well with us Is his mercy therefore no mercy As we cannot nullify his truth by our unbelief so nor his goodness by our disesteem But yet consider doth it not better become thee to be grateful then repine that God will one day unbind thy Soul and set thee free Knock of thy Letters and deliver thee out of the house of thy bondage Couldst thou upon deliberate thoughts judge it tollerable should he doom thee to this earth forever He hath however judged otherwise as the Pagan Emperour and and Philosopher excellently speaks who is the Author both of the first composition of thy present being and now of the dissolution of it thou wert the cause of neither therefore depart and be thankful for he that dismisseth thee dealeth kindly with thee If yet thou understandest it not yet remember It is thy Father that disposes thus of thee how unworthy is it to distrust his Love What child would be afraid to compose it self to sleep in the Parents bosom It expresses nothing of the duty and ingenuity but much of the frowardness and folly of a child They sometimes cry vehemently in the undressing but should their cryes be regarded by the most indulgent Parent or are they fit to be imitated by us We have no excuse for this our frowardness The Blessed God hath told us his gracious purpose concerning us and we are capable of understanding him What if he had totally hidden from us our future state and that we know nothing but of going into an eternal silent-darkness The Authority of a Creator ought to have awed us into a silent submission But when we are told of such a glory that 't is but drawing aside this fleshly vaile and we presently behold it methinks the Blessed hour should be expected not with patience only but with ravishing joy Did we hear of a country in this world where we might live in continual felicity without toyl or sickness or grief or fear who would not wish to be there though the passage were troublesome have we not heard enough of Heaven to allure us thither Or is the eternal truth of suspected credit with us Are Gods own reports of the future glory unworthy our belief or regard How many upon the credit of his word are gone already triumphantly into glory That only seeing the promises afar off were perswaded of them and embraced them and never after owned themselves under any other notion then of Pilgrims on earth longing to be at home in their most desirable Heavenly Country We are not the first that are to open Heaven The main Body of Saints is already there 't is in comparison of their number but a scattering remnant that are now alive upon the earth How should we long to be associated to that glorious Assembly Methinks we should much more regret our being so long left behind But if we should desire still to be so why may not all others as well as we And as much expect to be gratified as we And then we should agree in desiring that our Redeemers triumph might be defer'd that his Body might yet remain incompleat that
he might still be debarr'd of the long expected fruit of the travail of his Soul that the name of God might be still subjected to the blasphemy and and reproach of an Atheistical world who have long ago said with derision where is the promise of his coming Would we have all his Designs to be still unfinisht and so mighty wheeles stand still for us while we sport our selves in the dust of the earth And indulge our sensual inclination which sure this bold desire must argue to be very predominant in us and take heed it argue not its habitual prevalency At least if it discover not our present sensuality it discovers our former Sloth and Idleness It may be we may excuse our aversness to dye by our unpreparedness that is one fault with another though that be besides the case I am speaking of what then have we been doing all this while What were the affairs of thy Soul not thought of till now Take then thy repro of from a Heathen that it may convince thee the more No one saith he divides away his money from himself but yet men divide away their very life but doth it not shame thee he after adds to reserve only the reliques of thy life to thy self and to devote that time only to a good mind which thou canst employ upon no other thing How late is it to begin to live when we should make an end and deser all good thoughts to such an Age as possible few do ever reach to The truth is as he speaks we have not little time but we lose much we have time enough were it well employ'd therefore we cannot say we receive a short life but we make it so we are not indigent of time but prodigal what a pretty contradiction is it to complain of the shortness of time and yet do what we can to precipitate its course to hasten it by that we call pastime If it have been so with thee art thou to be trusted with more time But as thy case is I cannot wonder that the thoughts of death be most unwellcome to thee who art thou that thou shouldst desire the day of the Lord I can onely say to thee hasten thy preparation have recourse to Rule 2. and 3d. and accordingly guide thy self till thou find thy Spirit made more suitable to this blessedness that it become savory and grateful to thy soul and thy heart be set upon it Hence thou may'st be reconciled to the grave and the thoughts of death may cease to be a terror to thee And when thou art attained so far consider thy great advantage in being willing and desirous to dye upon this further account that thy desire shall now be pitch't upon a thing so certain Thine other desires have met with many a disappointment Thou hast set thy heart upon other things and they have deceived thy most earnest thirsty expectations Death will not do so Thou wilt now have one certain hope One thing in reference whereto thou may'st say I am sure Wait a while this peaceful sleep will shortly seize thy body and awaken thy soul. It will calmly period all thy troubles and bring thee to a blessed rest But now if onely the meer terrour and gloominess of dying trouble thy thoughts this of all other seems the most inconsiderable pretence against a willing surrender of our selves to death Reason hath overcome it natural courage yea some mens Atheism shall not Faith Are we not ashamed to consider what confidence and desire of death some Heathens have exprest some that have had no preapprehension or belief of another state though there were very few of them and so no hope of a consequent blessedness to relieve them have yet thought it unreasonable to disgust the thoughts of death What would'st thou think if thou had'st nothing but the Sophisms of such to oppose to all thy dismal thoughts I have met with one arguing thus Death which is accounted the most dreadful of all evils is nothing to us saith he because while we are in being Death is not yet present and when Death is present we are not in being so that it neither concerns us as living nor dead for while we are alive it hath not touch't us when we are dead we are not Moreover saith he the exquisite knowledge of this that Death belongs not to us makes us injoy this mortal life with comfort not by adding any thing to our uncertain time but by taking away the desire of immortality Shall they comfort themselves upon so wretched a ground with a little Sophistry and the hope of extinguishing all desire of immortality and shall not we by cherishing the blessed hope of injoying shortly an immortal glory Others of them have spoken magnificently of a certain contempt of this bodily life and a not onely not fearing but desiring to dye upon a sixed apprehension of the distinct and purer and immortal nature of the soul and the preconcieved hope of a consequent felicity I shall set down some of their words added to what have been occasionally mentioned amongst that plentiful variety wherewith one might fill a volume purposely to shame the more terrene temper of many Christians The Soul saith one of them is an invisible thing and is going into another place suitable to it self that is noble and pure and invisible even into Hades indeed to the good and wise God whether also my Soul shall shortly go if he see good But this he saith in what follows belongs only to such a Soul as goes out of the body pure that draws nothing corporal along with it did not willingly communicate with the body in life but did even fly from it and gather up it self into it self always meditating this one thing A soul so affected shall it not go to something like it self divine and what is divine is immoâ—tal and wise whether when it comes it becomes blessed free from errour ignorance fears and wild or enormous loves and all other evils incident to men One writing the life of that rare person Plotinus sayes that he seemed as if he were in some sort ashamed that he was in body which however it would less become a Christian yet in one that knew nothing of an incarnate Redeemer it discovered a refined noble Spirit The same person speaks almost the language of the Apostle concerning his being rapt up into the third heaven and tells of such an alienation of the soul from the body That when once it finds God whom he had before been speaking of under the name of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the beauty shining in upon it it now no longer feels its body or takes notice of its being in the body but even forgets its own being that it is a man or a living creature or any thing else whatsoever for it is not at leisure to mind any thing else nor doth it desire to be Yea and having sought him out he
multi ex scholasticis Palud in 4. dist 49. q. 1. Arâ— 3. Corel 2. Thom. de Aâ—gent q. 2. Art 1. Major q. 4. Hâ—nr quâ—â—ibet 7. Zumel 1. p. q. 12. Art 5. disp 2. câ—ncl 3. Ita O tuphr de virtute poeâ—tenti Whether there be any veâ—bum creatum the product of intellection The Thomists are themselves divided Their more common opinion is that there is none as Ledesma assures us telling us also his reason why he conceives there can be none Beati noâ— formaâ—t verbum in videndo Deo sed plus vident quam verbâ— creato dicere pâ—ssunt nam beatus per visionem beatam quamvis non viâ—eat infinitè videt tamen infinitum which is their great argument against any intelligible species he further addes sicut visio Dei quae est in ipso Deo hâ—bet pro principio specie intelligibili ipsam Divinam Essentiam protermino ipsâ—m Divinam Essentiam visio beatorum est ità supernaturalis divini ordinis participatio diviâ—ae visionis ita perfecta ut ipsa etiam habeat pro principio specie intelligâ—bili divinâ Essenâ—iaÌ„ pâ—otermino sive verbo producto ipsammet divinaÌ„ Essâ—ntiaÌ„ So that the principle and term of this vision are own'd to be nothing else but the simple Divine Essence Concerning the formal act it self it is much disputed whether the creatures intellect do at all effectively concur to it or whether God himself be not the onely efficient or agent in this vision Some stick not to aâ—â—irm the latter Marsil in 3. q. 1. Palud in 4. dist 49 q. 1. Aâ—t 2. referente Ledâ—sâ—â and say plainly that the action of the inâ—eriour agent wholly ceases and the superiour onely acts the same thing that D. M. Causabon in his Enthusiasm charges one Mâ—ximus with who in a book entituled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 writes thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tâ—at the Soul taken into immediate union 〈◊〉 Goâ— loses all us kâ—owing power though this be not distinctively spoken of the state of glory And what doth this amount to but that while they are eagerly contending about the Saints blessednesse and too curiously labouring to explicate the manner of their seeing God they unawares destroy the subject of the question and deny that they see him at all and so upon the whole dispute themselves into a worse than Pâ—ganish infidelity And even the rest that agree in the sense of the passages above recited will not be easily able to avoid the charge of as intollerable consequences which it is my businesse here onely to discover and not to determine any thing in this controversie whiles I tax the too much boldnesse of others who adventure it And here not to insist on the absurdity of what they say concerning the intelligible species in general let it be considered 1. That the Divine Essence is said to be united to the intellect of the blessed as an intelligible species 2. That the intelligible species in the businesse of intellection and the intellect become one another do not remain distinct things united but are identified 3. That hence in understanding God the intellect is deified and becomes God which naturally followes from the two former and is moreover expressely asserted in plain words What need is there to presse this Doctrine with hard consequencies or how can it look worse than it doth already with its own natural face Nor can I apprehend which way it should be made look better For should it lay claim to that favour to be understood accoâ—ding to the usual sense of the peripat 〈◊〉 mâ—xime Intellectus intelligendo sit omnia it will be found manifestly to have precluded it self That maxime is wont to be understood thus that the intellect becomes that which it understands 〈…〉 by putting on the species or likeness of its Object the representation of it For instance when I form in my mind the notion of a mountain my understanding becomes an Ideal or Spiritual mountain it becomes that species which is liable to more exception too than I shall now insist on and looks more like the language of a Poet than a Philosopher that is now formed there and not the material mountain it self But how shall this assertion The understanding by its act of understanding God becomes Goâ— be capable of that intâ—rpretation i. e. It becomes his likeness his Idâ—a his representation now formed in it when any such intervening likeness or representation is utterly denied and thâ—t supposed species is said to be the simple Divine essence it self and if the Divine essence it self be that species by which 't is understood will it not follow from that other Aristâ—tâ—â—an axiome which with them must signifie as much as a Text from Saint Paul sâ—â—bile 〈…〉 That our very knowledge of God must be God too or would they disown that maxime sure when once the faculty is supposed deiâ—ied the act immanent in it cannot be a created accident nor can that maxime understood of the 〈…〉 or the 〈…〉 denied by them And sure if the Saints kâ—owledge of God the likeness of him in their 〈◊〉 be God their holiness the likeness of him in their hâ—arts must be so too How absurd then would it be to use that Scripture language and speak of these under the names of Gods image or likeness when 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 are notionâ— so vastly disagreeing and since a Saints knowledge and holiness here and in heaven differ but in degree they can be here on earth nothing but God dwelling in them And supposing that Scotus have better defended than his adversaries impugned the real identity of the soul and its faculties that must be deified too However whâ—t could be imagined more absurd than that the substance of the soul should be a creature and its faculty God Whence then do we think that modern familists have fetch their admired non-sense Whom have they had their original instructors or who have taught them that brave magnificent language of being Godded with God and Christed with Christ but these Nor sure need they blush to be found guilty of so profoundly learned inconsistencies or to speak absurdly after such Patrons And what should occasion these men so to involve themselves I cannot find or divine more than this that they were not able to fasten upon any more tolerable sense of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 13. 12. 1 John 3. 2. but taking that in its highest pitch of significancy all their arguments are generally levelled at this mark to prove that no created species can possibly represent God sicuti est and thence infer that he cannot be seen by any created species in the glorified state where he is to be seen sicuti est But could we content our selves with a modest interpretation of these words and understand them to speak not of a parity but of a similitude only between Gods knowledge and ours nor of an absolute omni modous similitude