this Resurrection of the Soul is I will also endeavour to satisfie you in that too but very briefly It is the inward Life of Righteousness it is the renewing of the Soul the shaping of it again into the image and similitude of God in a word it is the Life or Spirit of Christ whereby a mans Soul is alive to all Spiritual and Heavenly things I will explain it by a comparison When a mans Natural Life is gone all his imaginations and machinations perish He desires not any thing belonging to this Natural Life nor Food nor Clothing he feels not though his Body be rent or cut or rot away goes not about to preserve or recover the Health or Life of his dead Body thinks not of Wife nor Children nor any Natural thing else But when a man is alive according to Nature he desires Food Meat and Drink for the preservation of his Natural Life Cloths both for shelter and ornament is sensible of what hurts his living Body provides for his Health and Strength is active in the deeds of Nature and if he be a mere Natural man all his joy pleasure and content is in the same Just thus it is Beloved in the Death and Life of the Soul While the Soul is dead Spiritually it hath no true desire to the Word of God which is the Food of the Soul but doth come to the Church only for fashion sake gives no ear to the Voice of God rebuking her in her Conscience hath no unfeigned thirst after Righteousness nor is she sensible of the violent heat of Passion how wicked it is nor feels her self frozen and stark cold to all Charity and due Devotion she goes not about to obtain that saving Health even Jesus Christ that precious Balsam of the Soul nor is she a whit moved whatever mischief betides him But when the Soul hath risen from this Death and hath got the new Life of Christ being enquickened by his Spirit Then hath she a right healthful appeal to that Heavenly Bread and those Spiritual Waters those Refreshments from above the sweet Comforts of the Holy Ghost Then doth she heartily abhor all filth of Sin and keeps her Affections unspotted before her Lord and Husband Jesus Christ clothed in fine Linnen pure and white which is the Righteousness of the Saints Then is the living Law of God to her sweeter than the Honey and the Honey-comb so delightful and pleasant that she meditates thereon day and night She is very sensible of whatsoever is disgraceful to Christ or wounds or hurts his precious Body in any thing very tenderly loves the Communion of Saints and hath a very forward desire to propagate and enlarge the true and living Church of God She never falls by any infirmity or surprisal but is grieved and hurt as the Natural man is vexed when his Body chanceth to fall upon stones and is bruised Beloved where there is Life there is also Sense and where there in Sense there is also Grief and Joy Grief at such things as are contrary or destructive of the Life and Joy at such things as are agreeable and healthful for the same BY this time I hope you are sufficiently instructed concerning the Spiritual Resurrection both that it is and what it is Let us now make some Vses of this Doctrine That there is a Spiritual Resurrection belonging to every true Christian. 1. Then it is plain from hence That every Christian be he what he will that hath been made partaker of this Resurrection was once dead himself For as rising presupposeth a being down first so doth also a rising from death or being quickened presuppose a being dead Hence therefore it is plain That every Christian man or if you will even every man or was once or is at this present Spiritually dead Now the Nature of Death you know is such that nothing that is held therewith nothing that is Dead can recover it self to Life As it is also said in the Book of Psalms No man hath quickened his own Soul Wherefore Beloved this is the proper Vse we can make of this Consideration That if we find the fruits of the Resurrection of Christ Spiritually in our Souls we give God alone the Glory For it is he alone that killeth and maketh alive that leadeth down to Hell and bringeth up again He it is that is the death of deaths and a mighty destruction to the destroyer He it is that is the Resurrection and the Life as he himself witnesseth of himself He it is I mean the Spirit of Christ in us that fights against all the powers of Death and Darkness in our Souls and triumpheth gloriously over his and our enemies He is the strong arm of Salvation from God He hath wrought all our works in us Therefore not to us but unto God be the praise for his mercy and truths sake Nor only are we to praise God but also to live humbly and meekly before our Neighbour For thou whoever thou art that presumest thou hast attained to the Resurrection or enquickening or enlivening of the Spirit of Christ If hereby thou contemnest thy sinful Brother and settest him at nought and art not mercifully and kindly affected toward all men acknowledging very sensibly and inwardly that wherewith thou conceivest thy self to excel others or to be distinguished from them to be the Grace of God and his free work Thou art a lyar and a deceiver and jugglest with God and thine own Soul and art vainly puffed up in thy Carnal Mind For where Pride is there is not the saving Spirit of Christ where harshness of Mind is and contempt of our Neighbour there abides not the Love of God 2. If men be dead till they partake of the Resurrection of Christ then such neither can nor ought to take upon them any office of the living Who will make a Blind man judge of Colours or a Sick man of Tasts or a Deaf man of Musick But he that is Dead is worse than Sick or Blind or Deaf Wherefore no man that is devoid of the Resurrectiod of Christ in the Spirit is fit to judge in Spiritual things or in the secret Mysteries of God It is the Spiritual man that judgeth all the Heavenly man the Lord from Heaven and yet with man upon Earth the true Emanuel God with us and in us by his Spirit the true Judge of the Quick and the Dead As it is written The first man is of the earth earthly the second man is the Lord from heaven As is the earthly such are they that are earthly and as is the heavenly such are they that are heavenly Wherefore Beloved judge nothing before the time that is till the coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus till his glorious appearing from Heaven when he shall make every work of man manifest and shall judge with right judgment 3. I will only add an Vse of Examination and so conclude Is there such a State of the Soul belonging to every
health of his Bodies sake when every such perception so heartily and feelingly taken in is either poyson or a stab to the life of the Soul But that will be more seasonably considered anon In the mean time I hope I have made it clear enough what is meant by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Fleshly Lusts as also what it is to abstain from them WE come now to consider the Second part of our Discourse the means or artifice the Apostle uses to fasten this Duty I have described upon the Hearts and Consciences of his Auditors His humble Address I beseech you and that kind and friendly compellation Dearly beloved And indeed the one implies the other Non bene conveniunt nec in unâ sede mor antur Majest as Amor While he calls them Dearly beloved it is more comely and suitable to beseech them than command them But the Prudence and Discretion of the Apostle is very conspicuous in both thus to insinuate himself into the Affections of his Auditors by such sweet and wining Rhetorick he being to convey something to them which is over bitter and distastful to Flesh and Blood and therefore he does well to besmear the brim of this cup of Wormwood with the sweetness of Honey that his Patients may the better take this wholesome Potion as Lucretius uses this Similitude though in a subiect of less moment Sea veluti pueris absynthia tetra medentes Cum dare conantur priùs oras pocula circùm Contingunt meltis dulci flavuque liquore Hard commands given with an harsh imperiousness befits not the Spirit of the Gospel And it is not so much external force at the assurance of the kindness integrity and fidelity of the Instructer that can engage the Affections and Conscience of the Auditor to the observance of such Spiritual Precepts as these Indeed the falsly-pretended Successor of Peter may by law and force keep Men from eating Flesh in Lent and engage them to observe such Commandments of Men whereby they more easily make the Commandments of God of no effect But to win upon Mens Consciences indeed to set upon the true and real mortification of our Fleshly Lusts in such a sense as I have described this is more likely to proceed from the perswasion they have of him that gives this wholesome Counsel that it is out of sincere kindness and faithfulness to them for the safety of their Souls than if they discern it proceeds out of an affectation of dominion over their Consciences and of exposing them to unnecessary faults and mulcts While the Apostle therefore layes aside all imperiousness of Command he seems to insinuate his sensibleness of the hardness of the task and to suggest that it is not out of an affectation of dominion over their Christian Liberty that he offers this Advice but out of the mere indispensableness of the Duty in order to their Salvation For as he calls them Dearly beloved so he treats them as in that endearing respect and seems to profess that it is merely out of his Brotherly Love and Tenderness towards them and faithful care of their highest and most important concerns that constrains him to offer this severer Counsel unto them Those whom we dearly love we cannot endure to hurt or grieve any way And therefore professing this tender affection to them in the midst of severer Counsel it is a plain manifestation that nothing but the indispensableness thereof could extort from him the Advice as when a tender Mother perswades her Child to endure the Searing Iron or Incision-Knife and to be content to quit some festred or gangren'd part of the securing of the whole Body This is the genuine sense of this wise and discreet insinuation of the Apostle into the affections of his Auditors that his Exhortation to Abstinence from Fleshly Lusts may take the more certain effect with them WE proceed now to the last part of our Discourse which is to consider the Apostles Argumentation whereby he would engage them to this Duty Which Argumentation as I said was fetched from a two-fold Topick First From the dignity of an Humane Soul especially Christian. Secondly From that enmity or hostility of the Fleshly Lusts against her 1. The dignity and excellency of Humane Souls is intimated in those words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The former whereof signifies such Qui sedem habent extra Patriam the latter qui extra Patriam peregrinantur as Grotius notes upon the Text. So that according to the sense of either of these expressions it is manifest that we carry something about us that is of a far higher dignity than to be accounted a Citizen or Indigena of this Terrestrial Globe If this round Hillock of Earth can lay claim to any thing of us born therein or therefrom it is only this Earthly Body At verò animis aeterna Coeli sedes quaerenda eaque propriae illorum Patria as Cicero speaks And something like this is intimated by the Author to the Hebrews who according as Philo Judaeus also somewhere insinuates touching the Souls of the Patriarchs here upon Earth does declare them Pilgrims and Strangers in this present World upon their own confession which he will also have further to imply that in thus saying they are Pilgrims and Strangers that they seek a Country which belongs more peculiarly to them that they desired a better Country that is an Heavenly and adds Wherefore God is not ashawed to be called their God for he hath prepared for them a City namely in Heaven 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We come into his World to sojourn uot to dwell here for the soul of every wise man has Heaven for its Country but this Earth for its land of Pilgrimage as Philo speaks Like that of Cato in Tully Commorandi enim Natura diversorium nobis non habitandi locum dedit And Plato in his Axiochus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Philo de Somniis does expresly make the History of the Pilgrimages of Abraham and the Patriarchs a Type or Shadow of the Peregrination of Humane Souls here upon Earth but that they have their proper Country in Heaven 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which methinks with more elegancy the Holy Apostle calls his Tabernacle which alludes to the pilgrimage of the Israelites through the Wilderness into the Promised Land that illustrious Type of Heaven in which journey they liv'd in Tabernacles or Booths Yea I think it meet as long as I am in this Tabernacle to stir you up by putting you in remembrance knowing that shortly I must put off this my Tabernacle Which Tabernacle being dissolved we have a building of God saith S. Paul an house not made with hands eternal in the Heavens That was only commorandi diversorium This an everlasting habitation to dwell in Wherefore the littleness of the concerns of this Life being proportioned to our short stay here and the Soul of Man being capable of so high and lasting
Phancies suggest or our vacillant Reason blind or drunk with the foul steams of an impure and unsanctify'd Heart would pretend to coin for us Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee in whose heart are thy wayes The next is Faith By which I do not so much understand Faith in general as that which has for its proper Object the Power of God for the destroying of Sin and the erecting his Kingdom in us For out of this ariseth our Strength in God and our Victory over the World This is the victory that overcometh the world even our Faith as S. Iohn speaks Which Requisite is also hinted in this Psalm the last verse O Lord of Hosts blessed is the man that trusteth in thee And indeed sith our Faith and Trust and Confidence is in the Lord of Hosts how can we despair of the victory over any Sin whatsoever Cannot he that created Heaven and Earth by his Word create in us a pure Heart and renew a right Spirit within us I can do all things saith S. Paul through Christ that strengthens me Certainly it is a Contradiction that Omnipotency should not be able so effectually to assist a willing Soul as to bring all her enemies under her feet Can he that is the Lord of Hosts and has the power over all Nature be baffled in his assaults upon the corrupt Nature of any poor Creature so that he cannot reduce it if he will And can we possibly imagine God not to be willing to subdue Sin in the World who has given us such express Laws against it both within and without who expresses his Wrath and Vengeance against it so frequently in Scripture who is so irreconcileable an enemy unto it that nothing less than the Death of his only begotten Son could make an Atonement for it And lastly the Holiness of whose Nature is so contrary and diametrically opposite to the pollutedness of it Wherefore the fault most assuredly lyes at our own doors viz. because we are not sincerely willing to have our Sins vanquished and overcome by the Power of God Which therefore is the third and last Requisite which the Travellers in the Valley of Baca are said to be provided with namely Sincerity which comprehends not only a belief that all our Sins ought to be subdued and that they are all vanquishable through the assistance of Gods Spirit but also an unfeigned willingness to have them subdued and an hearty endeavour to the utmost of that power we have received to conquer them and subdue them He that is provided of all these three is fitly furnished for a prosperous Journey toward the House of God and the Almighty will be his safeguard in his travel 3. Which is the Third Particular we named What Convoy to guard them safe in their Iourney which is intimated in the Psalm also For the Lord is a sun and a shield the Lord will give grace and glory and no good thing will he with-hold from them that walk uprightly that is to say that walk sincerely In which Sincerity if they keep themselves he will also be faithful unto them and not suffer them to be tempted above what they are able and will deliver them from all straits and assaults of their enemies both inward and outward The Lord will be their fortress and tower their defence and shield a present help in the day of trouble The Angels of the Lord will encamp round about them and deliver them For such as these as it is said of those few names in Sardis Christ will confess their names before his Father and his holy Angels namely profess how dear they are to him and so commit them to their safe protection 4. And surely the Influences of Heaven which is the Fourth Particular cannot but be very benign to those that are thus dear to the God of Heaven And therefore for light and warmth and kindly dews and showres they shall not be destitute of these in this Journey of theirs to the Temple of God And therefore God is said as well to be a Sun to them as a Shield in the forecited Verse of this Psalm And in Ver. 6. They that pass through the valley of Baca are said to make it a well and that the rain filleth the pools Like that in Psalm 68. O God when thou wentest forth before thy people when thou didst march through the wilderness the clouds dropped at thy presence thou sentest a gracious rain upon thy inheritance and refreshedst it when it was weary But in this present Psalm the Rain is said to be received into some hollows of the Earth dug out the Latin renders it cisternas I suppose any fossae or hollows of what form soever will serve the turn made by the diging away the Earth that this Heavenly Liquor may supply the vacuity For that is a great mistake in the Carnal-minded that they think that when we empty our selves of the Old Adam and the comforts of that Life that we thus stand empty for ever and that Religion is a forlorn disconsolate condition No dig away thy Earth and God will fill the vacuity with a substance from Heaven Or starve away the fulsomness of thy Flesh by assiduous mortification and purification and thou shalt make this arid Soil this Valley of Baca a springing Well as it is suggested in the beginning of the Verse When our Terrestrial substance becomes a dry barren Soil as to the fruits of the Flesh then will those Well-springs of living Water bubble up in us as our Saviour has promised unto Eternal Life by which is understood the irrigation of the Spirit Non datur vacuum is a Maxime as true in Divinity as in Philosophy Empty thy self therefore of thy Earth and thou shalt most certainly be replenished with Heaven 5. Now for the Fifth Particular which occurs in my Text properly so called for I have made the whole Psalm in a manner my Text hitherto it is of the greatest importance of all throughly to consider it namely our gradual advance in this journey through the Valley of Baca. They go from strength to strength è virtute in virtutem the Latin has it from vertue to vertue And indeed this progress from strength to strength is nothing else but a proficiency in Vertue either from one vertue to another Add to your Faith Fortitude to your Fortitude Patience c. or from one Degree of vertue to another And this vertue is very significantly termed strength there being no true Vertue which is not such It is but the imagination of vertue if it be not accompanied with Life and Power And forasmuch as Vertue and Grace are all one let every one take notice that he that has no Vertue has no Grace as well as he that has no Power has no Vertue Which is a plain Note to examine a mans self by that he may not lye lusking in his softnesses and infirmities and in the mean time flatter himself that
Shield of Faith in the power of God whereby we are enabled to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked And we must take the Helmet of Hope and sure expectation of Everlasting Life which will keep us from being easily knock'd down to the Earth by the fiercest Assaults of our Adversaries And lastly we must take to us the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God whereby we may divide betwixt Good and Evil and admit the one and reject the other And being thus appointed we must pray alwaies with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit watching thereunto with all perseverance And especially to watch in such a sense as this as to be extremely shy and careful how we admit any thing under the colour or upon the rellish of Animal pleasure but rather eo nomine to decline it Which is an impregnable Bulwark against the assaults of the Flesh and such as will ever defeat them If we do these things we shall never fall let the assaults of the Fleshly Lusts be as violent as they will 3. But if we be overcome let us now see what a lamentable spoil they will make of us and how cruelly and tyrannically they will use us For First They will rob us of whatever is precious that we have They will take down and carry away with them that chearful and delightful furniture of the Soul Peace and Tranquillity of mind For the mind of man is not of so base an Original as to enjoy it self in things so much below it self as are the Fleshly Lusts Whence it must needs be that she will be ever and anon disturbed with loathings and regrets of Conscience amidst her so base condition and practices and instead of that steady peace and chearfulness of Spirit which are enjoyed in our adherence to Holiness and Vertue be exposed to many horrours and distractions and confusions of thoughts and an ungrateful sense of inward shame and reproach which accompanies such unworthy actions Secondly They will disarm the Soul of that honest activity and diligence which we ought to have in our Affairs and make us more uncareful and more unable to pursue and manage our Business with that discretion and faithfulness we ought to do to the scandal of the World as well as to our own detriment This Lucretius notes of that notorious kind of Fleshly Lusts the being addicted to Women Languent officia atque aegrotat fama vacillans But takes place also in Gluttony in Drunkenness and whatever other pleasure has once overcome the Soul and subdued her to it self Thirdly These Fleshly Lusts rob a man of the safe use of his Reason They will make it wonderfully prevaricate in the behalf of themselves and commit such Paralogisms as the Soul cannot but be ashamed of so soon as she has got out of the reach of their power And they will in the conclusion so weaken the Faculties of the Mind that they shall very fondly dote in their Verdicts even touching such things as the Fleshly Lusts themselves are unconcerned in For these Lusts bereaving the Mind of her purity must needs dim and obscure her Faculties more or less in all uses of them where there is ordinarily any difference of Sentiments amongst men Fourthly and lastly These Lusts deprive us of the Life and Influence of the Divine Spirit and most dismally damp and dead the Power of Faith and Sense of Religion in the Soul which is of more consequence than even Reason it self which proves very weak in the assurance of these things when the sagacity of a better Life is extinguished or smothered by the soul impurities of the Lusts of the Flesh. But the Soul being once purged from these ipso facto unites with the Spirit of God and by an Holy and Divine Instinct is in a proneness and readiness to believe such things as God is truly said to have done or to intend to do concerning the sons of men by vertue of her union with the Divine Spirit or that Eternal Mind that immutably contains the whole Counsel of God touching things past present and to come This miserable spoil do the Fleshly Lusts make of the poor Soul when they overcome her and not only so but they use her cruelly to boot That they put out her Eyes I have already intimated in that I noted that they bereave her both of Faith and Reason And that they pluck all her Feathers out of her Wings it is as manifest since our being captivated with Fleshly Lusts keeps down the Soul and hinders all Holy and Heavenly Aspires and extinguishes the pure Flames of Devotion Nor are they content with this but they also crucifie and nail the captive Soul to this Earthly Body as Plato complains 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All Pleasure and Grief nails saith he the Soul to the Body Nor is it impertinent to name enormous Grief amongst the Lusts of the Flesh since no Grief is enormous but out of the enormity of Self-love or inordinate love of this Corporeal Personality of ours which if we could be sufficiently unconcerned for and love and esteem nothing but the Almighty Lord of Heaven and Earth and those Divine Laws and Holy Sentiments he has implanted in our Souls Enormity of Grief would not be able to seize upon us Nor do they only thus crucifie and kill that higher and Diviner Life of the Soul but by the exorbitant excitations of the contrary Life into several enormous modes and forms metamorphose men into so many abhorred Monsters whom they keep in the chains of this base servility and captivity and then let them loose upon the most villainous outrages or the basest and most contemptible actions imaginable Wrath and Revenge like a Bear robb'd of her Whelps makes them tear apieces and destroy all they meet with in their way Ambition and Avarice like an Evening-Wolf makes them fall upon the Sheepfolds and suck the blood of innocent Lambs to satisfie their thirst Superstition and false Zeal turnes them into such Furies or Devils that they destroy whole Cities and Countries with Fire and Sword out of pride and impatience that others do not submit to their Wisdom and give themselves up to their Guidance who yet have no Light but those Infernal Torches of an ignorant and bitter Zeal devoid of all Christian Charity which they could light no where but from the Flames of Hell nor conduct a Soul by this Light any whither but to the place of those Infernal Flames The sting of Lust transforms them into such Satyrs and Baboons that they fly upon all promiscuously not sparing their own Mothers Sisters nor Daughters Gluttony and Drunkenness as Circe did Vlysses his Companions changes their shapes into foul dirty Swine To say nothing of those ugly indecorums of Effeminacy that brings some into as base a Servility as Omphale did Hercules who made him put off his Lyons-Skin and sit amongst her Maids at the Distaff and Spindle Not to add what one would
scarce dare to name had not the Apostle himself taken notice of it That this Beastly Lustfulness has made Women change the natural use into that which is against Nature and likewise also the Men leaving the natural use of the Woman burned in their Lusts one towards another men with men working that which is unseemly Rom. 1. With such base and inglorious with such wretched and hideous Servilities do the Fleshly Lusts tyrannize over the Soul when they have once captivated her carrying her thus in triumph and exposing her to all baseness and lewdness and dragging her by her chains of captivity through all filthiness and unseemliness and having thus besmear'd and defac'd her with the filth of all manner of Sins in this Life fit her for a delivery to her fellow-Devils in the other to be reserv'd with them in everlasting chains of darkness unto the judgment of the great day This is the lamentable success of that Warfare betwixt the Lusts of the Flesh and the Soul if she suffer her self to be overcome And therefore it is no wonder the Holy Apostle uses all the Reason and Rhetorick he has to make us stand upon our guard and defend our selves from so subtle and malicious Enemies Dearly beloved I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul. DISCOURSE II. PSAL. lxxxiv 7. They go from strength to strength every one of them appeareth before God in Sion THE Text is a Presage of admirable Prosperity and Success to some sort of People so that it may well excite in us a desire of searching out who they may be And if we begin further off at first or go about yet it may according to the Proverb prove the nighest way home If any one therefore demand who these are I shall answer him out of the 24th Psalm the subject whereof seems to be the very same with this and in the words of the same Prophet This is the generation of them that seek him that seek thy face O Iacob the God of the People that prevail by their importunities and wrestlings with God as Iacob is said to do Gen. 32. whereby he purchased to himself the name of Israel because as a Prince he had power with God And David as being one of this extraction himself he seems to challenge a Blessing from God on that very account O Lord God of Hosts hear my prayer give ear O God of Iacob in the Verse immediately following my Text. In this present Psalm as also in the 24th and 15th Psalms the Holy Prophet so speaks of the Court Tabernacle Temple or House of God as of a place of the highest enravishments that the Soul of man can enjoy which Expositors generally and I doubt not but truly interpret of the Mosaical Tabernacle and Literal Temple But that the mind of the Prophet was carry'd up also to some higher matter I do not at all question And the first Verse of the 15th Psalm Lord who shall abide in thy Tabernacle who shall dwell in thy holy Hill which is almost verbatim repeated again in the 24th Psalm the Chaldee Paraphrast does expresly interpret of Heaven So warrantable is it not to be ty'd down to the Letter but to seek a further edifying Mystery in the Holy Oracles of God And such a Temple as the abode wherein will be more suitable to such earnest breathings and vehement expressions of the Prophet Ver. 1. 2. How amiable are thy tabernacles O Lord of Hosts My soul longeth yea even fainteth for the courts of the Lord my heart and my flesh cryeth out for the living God And again Ver. 4. Blessed are they that dwell in thy house they will be still praising thee These things do not suit so well methinks to a house that is made of any earthly materials into which the wicked can throng as well as the just Nor does God dwell in any House made with hands according to the Apostolick Philosophy Acts 7. Any yet according to their Doctrine We are the Temple of God at least design'd so to be And the Apostle Paul sayes expresly 1. Cor. 6. 19. What know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost And yet the same Apostle Rom. 7. 18. I know saith he that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing This Earthly Tabernacle is no House of God as being from the Earth From whence it is that we groan earnestly as the same Apostle speaks 2 Cor. 5. desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from Heaven For we that are in this tabernacle do groan being burdened not for that we would be unclothed but clothed upon or further clothed that mortality might be swallow'd up of life Now he that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit That is to say He that works us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into this condition is God himself by the operation of his Spirit which is the Architect of its own House as it is said of the Soul the Builder of that Holy Temple in us in which all is fulfilled which the Prophet David sets out in such devotional and vehement Language For when we are come to this state we are then truly the Temple of the Living God and it is Strength to a mans Navel and Marrow to his Bones So that well may the Holy Prophet raise himself into so high expressions touching this condition Ver. 2. My soul longeth yea even fainteth for the courts of the Lord my heart and my flesh cryeth out for the living God For this Earthly Tabernacle destitute of this is but a burden or body of Vanity wherein are all the Seeds and Fruits of Sin and Misery But of this Heavenly House is that plentifully verify'd which the Prophet David presageth Blessed are they that dwell in thy house they will be still praising thee And they that are arrived to this condition will easily fulfil that Precept of the Apostle Eph. 5. 18 19. Be not drunk with wine but be filled with the Spirit speaking to your selves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. This is the real participation of the Body or Flesh of Christ the true Bread from Heaven which is the immediate receptacle of the Divine Spirit so that he that comes hither cannot fail to be replenish'd with Righteousness and Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost And this may serve for a brief intimation Who these Persons are to whom such good Success is promised in the Text and what the place is towards which they are journeying viz. the Tabernacle Temple or House of God mystically understood LET us now consider 1. The Country through which they pass 2. How well accoutred they are in their persons for the Journey 3. What Convoy to guard them safe 4. Under what Influences of Heaven they travel 5. What the
the wilderness to tremble the Lord maketh the wilderness of Kadesh to tremble The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to bring forth young and unbareth the thick bushes Every plant that my Heavenly Father hath not planted saith our Saviour shall be rooted out And indeed this was the end of his coming utterly to eradicate what so is evil And till he have his work in mans heart there be not a few ill Plants rather a Wilderness a Wood thick set with Trees not penetrable by any Star nothing capable of the light of Heaven But by the awful Voice of God the Hinds those fearful and timorous Creatures they bring forth the thick and shadowing Bushes are unbared And what follows In his Temple doth every man speak of his glory Now what is that Glory of God but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the glorious eradiation of the Father of Lights the Wisdom of God and the Power of God And the Hinds that is those that fear and tremble who they are and what they bring forth and how presently the thick Bushes are unbared so that they that were in darkness see a marvellous light I leave to any man to judge that is not as fraid of a Spiritual sense as of a Night-spirit But if they will in this Psalm so full of life and vigour have all Body and no Soul How shall we expound the next Verse The Lord sitteth upon the water-floods and shall sit King for ever What will you turn the God of Heaven and Earth to some Triton or Water-Nymph Or the great Pastour of Israel who feeds the Souls of his people like a Flock will you have him Proteus-like to feed Sea-monsters It is true that all things according to their several degrees have their dependance and expectancy from God Yet so narrow and straitend sense as the bare letter sutes not here I think with the Majesty and Divinity of the Spirit of David or rather the Spirit of God in David The Summe is this Fear and Honour goes before and the Light of God follows after 4. I will only add this Fourth Proof or Illustration more and so go on 1 Kings 19. And the Lord said unto Elias Go forth and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And behold the Lord passed by and a great and strong wind rent the mountains and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord but the Lord was not in the wind and after the wind came an earthquake but the Lord was not in the earthquake and after the earthquake fire but the Lord was not in the fire and after the fire a still small voice the voice of him that spake as never man spake But I would not have any mistaken as if the Fear of God which is said to be the Beginning of Wisdom were but an hours amazement or at most but a wonder of nine dayes Tam de repente Which Errour will easily be wiped out of their phansie if they observe but the description of the Fear of God in Holy Scripture The Fear of the Lord is to hate evil as pride and arrogancy and the evil way Now that which a man truly hates he will do the utmost of his endeavour to destroy or else to sever himself from it and decline it So the Prophet David in Psal. 34. where he professeth the teaching of the Fear of the Lord Eschew evil and do good saith he So that a lazy inert sluggish hatred is not sufficient See how that Victorious King uses his enemies in Psal. 18. I have pursued mine enemies and taken them and have not returned again till I had consumed them I have wounded them that they are not able to rise they are fallen under my feet I did beat them small as the dust before the wind I did tread them flat as the clay in the streets Now a mans enemies are they of his own Houshold Corruption residing in a mans own breast which he will never leave fighting against till he have the victory if he truly hate them which he will truly hate if he unfeignedly fear God So that the Fear of God is the victory over Corruption Which victory over Corruption maketh us capable of the Divine Nature as S. Peter speaks which Divine Nature is nothing else but Christ the Wisdom of God Wherefore whosoever would attain unto Wisdom the way is laid open the Old way known to those Antients of Renown Trismegist long since could point it out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Be Godly my Son for he that is Godly philosophizeth in the highest degree or most efficacious manner Which Sentence of Trismegist puts me in mind of the Septuagints Paraphrastical variation of the Text For beside 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they add 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In which variation that which is most remarkable is the substitution of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sense for Wisdom No man I believe is so devoid of Reason as to think the Prerogative of the Godly to be to have a more exquisite sense than others Though too too many gape after as a reward of obedience that which proves too oft the fewel of Sensuality sensible things What 's then meant by Sense There is a swimmering superficial Knowledge a light phantastical impression or abortive imagination engendered of aery words which many times neither the hearer nor speaker rightly understand false phantasms elicited out of misunderstood writings notional conjectures vain and temerarious efformations of that which we have not yet attained to so unlike the thing we would have it that if we did not do as the old bungling Painters did in their uuskilfully scralled pieces write on it Knowledge it would be hard to find what to call it But this false-nam'd Knowledge the Fear of God doth not begin but consume As clear Light makes all those shadows and resemblances to vanish that by the Opticks skill had been convey'd into a dark close room But the Fear of God is the beginning of Sense Which is to be understood according to that in S. Iohns Epistle That which was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the word of life this declare we unto you This is true Science quieting and setling the moveable mind This is the right 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even according to Aristotles Etymon which begets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a rest and steddy standing in the Soul and therefore is not to be found in Cains Progeny nor to be light upon in all the Land of Nod. AND thus much of the first part of my Discourse That the Fear of God is the Beginning of Wisdom I will now enter upon the Reasons Why this is the only way that God hath pointed out for the attaining to Wisdom 1. One Reason may be the Falseness of mans Spirit The Heart is deceitful above all things So that God will not trust it with
sides that Obedience and the Fear of God is the Begetter of Saving Knowledge surely the practice of a Godly Life and Conversation will notwithstanding be exceeding abundantly worth our labour though it had not the promise of this Life as well as that which is to come But if I shall shew plainly that there is a further abundant luxuriancy of the goodness of God upon an Obedient mans Understanding intimated in this word Wisdom I hope there will be nothing wanting for the inflaming of our desires to a Godly Life and Conversation Prov. cap. 8. Wisdom is said there to cry and Vnderstanding to utter her voice to speak to men from the high places and by the way of the places of the path to cry unto them beside the gates of the city to speak unto them at the entry of the doors to take all occasions to be acquainted with them She would salute them at every turn For the good Spirit of Wisdom is loving and sincere aud would fain clasp with our Souls if they were pure that she might discourse with us of the wonders of the Almighty and shew unto us his Everlasting Glory Now that this Blessed Spirit would reside with us is plain What be her operations when she doth reside will anon be as plain I wisdom dwell with prudence and I find forth knowledge and counsels I have counsel and wisdom I am understanding and I have strength I love them that love me and they that seek me early shall find me This Wisdom therefore will make a man no Idiot when it stores a man with Prudence and Counsels But it affords not this only to the Souls of Holy men but it gives them a Theory of the hidden things of God This Wisdom was at the making of the World and so can best unfold the Mysteries of the whole Creation When he prepared the Heavens I was there when he set the compass upon the deep when he established the clouds above when he confirmed the fountains of the deep when he gave his decree to the sea when he laid the foundations of the earth then was I with him as his darling I was dayly his delight rejoycing alway before him and took my solace in the compass of his earth and my delight is with the sons of mens But it is yet more evident out of the 7th of Wisdom For he hath given me saith Solomon the true knowledge of the things that are So that I know how the World was made and the powers of the Elements the beginning and the end and the middes of times how the times alter and the change of seasons the course of the year and the situation of the stars the nature of living things the furiousness of beasts the powers of the winds and the imaginations of men the diversity of plants and the vertue of roots and all things both secret and known do I know For Wisdom the worker of all things hath taught me it It is very apposite to this purpose that which is in Philo Iudeus in his Tractate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon these words of Moses And God saw all that he made and behold it was very good 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. For none else were able to discern and judge accurately of the things that were made but he that was the Maker of them Go to now saith he you seeming wife ones full-fraught with Pride Ostentation and Ignorance You that say not only you know every thing but dare so boldly and confidently avouch this or that to be the Causes of them as though you had been present at the making of the World and had seen the composure of all things as they were put together as though the Creator had consulted with you about the means and contrivements of his work A just increpation of the bold and blind attempts of those that pursue after Wisdom without the guidance of God the Giver of it Why What you will say must we think to get Wisdom as Solomon did Nay but I say rather is it to be thought that we are already wiser than Solomon that we should have found out a better way to trafick for Wisdom than he could light on Prayer and a serious seeking after God with industrious study was the way that he went to compass it And surely it is a way no whit mis-becoming any good Christian Neither ought we to be inwardly ashamed of doing of that which the Apostle openly exhorts us to Iames 1. 5. If any of you lack wisdom let him ask it of God that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not and it shall be given him But what true Christian can with patience think upon the stupid Atheism that is so rife in these wicked ungodly dayes When as in the highest attempts of men the power of Heaven is held but for a Cypher Their Philosophy certainly hath removed God into so high and remote an Excelsis that they think him out of the call of mans voice and man out of the reach of his sight He must sit upon the primum mobile 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so speaks Aristotle Afraid forsooth that the Godhead should be defiled if his Presence should be among men on the Earth So he confines him to that fine phantastick place the Eighth Sphere O goodly and profound Mystery Like to that of Mahomet that makes God clamber back to Heaven when he had finished here his six days work O high Divinity And now who shall rule among men I know well enough who doth rule among men Verily the Devil or that Devilish Natural Spirit of man who sets it self up for a Deity attributing all to its self with detestable arrogancy Our good Natural parts are our Gods Or if they chance to fail and not answer our desire in their performance whither go we Right readily to some Temple of Bacchus to the Sacred Tavern Where we do devoutly magnifie the miraculous power of that sparkling Deity enthron'd in his Crystalline Heaven and somewhat more largely partaking of that fiery aethereal Spirit our Eyes no question are so illuminated that vve see double All things are then augmented and seem bigger as the Horizontal Sun by reason of muddy Vapours We find then our selves and our Comrades such notable Wiselins as not vve our selves nor others could ever have suspected O the deplorable vanity of misled Youth When it hath cast off the memory of God and due respect to its careful Tutors and faithful Governours Is not this Idolatry in preferring the povver of Sack before the Spirit of God a greater shame than a timely practice of true Piety and adorning our minds vvith all manner of Vertues in the highest degree Fighting manfully against all manner of Passions to the utter suppression of that Life of Darkness in our lovver Spirit that the Spirit of Truth may shine in our purged Souls as the Sun in a pure diaphanous substance And what hurt can come of this Why surely
but as the Prophet expresses it a meer dream of eating and drinking It is even as when a hungry man dreameth and behold he eateth but he awaketh and his soul is empty or as when a thirsty man dreameth and behold he drinketh but he awaketh and behold he is faint and his soul hath appetite Isa. 29. Such is the condition of all the adversaries of Sion the holy people of God that hunger and thirst after God and his Righteousness the fulfilling of the Will of God for this alone can fill the Soul of man He that feeds of any thing else sucks but in a rotten mist or fog of scarce so good as the Prodigals husks of no better than Mahomets Ezeck that infernal Tree whose fruit be but Devils heads and root streams with flames of fire and tracts of smoke of which who tasts feeds not but is fed upon ever consuming in unsatiable fiery appetite and restless desire But the sound and satisfying meal of the Soul is the Will of her Maker not when it is done without her but when her Life is that and she never finds her self to live but in that The very Life and Spirit of God drunk in by mans thirsty Soul that by continual repast from thence growes stronger and stronger and sucks so sweet delight from these breasts that she never hungers nor thirsts again never desires the tempting Poysons the pernicious Pleasures and false Contentments of this vain World This is Christ alive in us quite another Principle of Life and another Food from all that feeds our Eyes or Ears or worse than these our inordinate desires of Pleasure Profit or Honour This is that true Manna that Bread from Heaven Of this our Saviour witnesses viz. of himself I am the bread of life He that cometh to me shall never hunger and he that believeth on me shall never thirst Iohn 6. 35. DISCOURSE VI. JAM i. 22. Be ye Doers of the Word and not Hearers only deceiving your own selves NOT to be troublesome neither to you nor to my self by any tedious Preface or Introduction The Text will afford us at least these Three Doctrines 1. We must be Hearers of the Word 2. We must be Doers of the Word as well as Hearers 3. We are not to deceive our selves I. WE must be Hearers of the Word To exhort men to hear sith there is naturally in them such an itching Desire of hearing and knowing it may seem but a losing of time and labour But because some mens dispositions are low and groveling veluti pecorum quae natura prona atque ventri obedientia finxit as Salust speaks all their desires and imagination tending downward it will not be amiss to shew what good Causes there are that men should give their mind to the hearing of the Word 1. And surely no mean one is the Resuscitation of that better part of Mans Soul that lieth slumbering in a Trance which many times being strongly called upon by the Word with much adoe is reared up and slowly and heavily moves its dull sight that darkness so strongly had possessed before But if so be a man here be not propitious to himself and foster that Life which is then given him like one not perfectly recovered out of a swound he sinks down again out of the hands of him that held him and many such neglects may enter his name amongst the Dead whom Death gnaweth upon because he heard not the Monitions of his Teachers The eye that slighteth his fathers counsel and despiseth the instruction of his mother the ravens of the valley will pick it out He lying thus like a dead carryon exposed to the fowls of the Air the accursed Angels of darkness shall seize upon him and quite eradicate the principles of true light and sight in the valley of the shadow of death Wherefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Awake thou that sleepest that Christ may give thee light Surge ne longus tibi somnus unde Non times detur And indeed a man least of all suspects his Friend to be his deadly enemy Yet it fares so with foolish wicked men Righteousness is immortal But unrighteousness bringeth death and the ungodly call it unto them both with hands and words and while they think to have a friend of it they come to nought Wisd. 1. Which mischief might happily be prevented by giving due heed and attention to the Word 2. For this Word if we were grown fitly prepared for the receiving of it is the Seed of Eternal Life whereby we may be born again and regenerate into the image of Christ And it is our Saviours own gloss The seed is the word of God Luke 8. Wherefore as in Nature were it not for Seed there would be no Herbs no Plants no Living Creatures so without the Word there would be no generation of the New Creature which S. Paul also confirms For this is plain where no Salvation no Regeneration and without the calling upon the Lord no Salvation For so it is written in the 10th to the Romans Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved But how shall they call on him on whom they have not believed And how shall they believe on him of whom they have not heard And how shall they hear without a preacher And at last he concludes Then faith is by hearing and hearing by the word of God But here some for the infringing of the necessity of this Seed perhaps may demand otherwise than the Apostle for he presently annexeth But I demand have they not heard Some might be prone to say Have they heard But the Answer is indifferent to both No doubt their sound went through all the earth and their words to the end of the world And this is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the voice of the Heavens or the voice of that vast expansum from the Earth upward For that no man too confidently restrict and straiten this Preaching and this Word that S. Paul speaks of in this place the Quotation is a part of the 19th Psalm which begins The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament sheweth his handy-work This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Theon calls it in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon Aratus this far-stretched Firmament or all-incircling Air 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We never let rest ever anvelling out its Makers praise by Air-beating sounds and voices Yea that lower noise of the breathing of Men and Beasts call aloud unto us for obedient thankfulness to him that is the life and breath of all living things that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Life of the World as R. Moses the AEgyptian calls him who if he should draw in his rayes of livelihood out of this great Universe the World would be as a dead fabrick in silence and desolation But this by the way for the due extent of S. Pauls words in that place For I
See how they go about to vilifie the Meat rather than any way suspect the foulness and weakness of their own ill Stomachs But as all are not to stretch out their hand to every dish and intemperately and unseemlyly to seize upon that which is not meant for them Seek not out the things that are too hard for thee saith Siracides neither search the things rashly that are too mighty for thee But that which God hath commanded think upon that with reverence c. Ecclesiasticus 3. I say as we are modestly to decline that which we are not as yet fitted for receiving So no man hath excuse from receiving some or other of the variety of meats that He hath prepared who feedeth with his goodness every living thing Old men and babes young men and children they all are sustained by the Word according to every ones necessity and capability Or else how could the young ones increase Or they of full age subsist Both which is the Will of God That which Theophrastus hath in his First Book of his History of Plants belongs indifferently to all kind of Generation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nature is not content with the bestowing of a being upon things but works them up to the perfection of that being As an little Plants that in time grow to their just bulk blooming and bearing Fruit plentifully And it is said of our Saviour that he shall grow up like a plant And our Saviour saith of the Kingdom of Heaven that it is like the growth of the mustard-seed tree Now as this new Life is called a Plant for its vegetation so is it also termed a Child for its tender sense and simplicity of meaning That therefore that hath knowledge and sense having also an appetite to nourishment and that a nourishment proper to sustain its own Nature and the Word being the proper nourishment of those spiritual new-born babes then if there be no such desire in us to this Word it 's a sign there is no such Principle of life in us or if there be that it is sick or the Stomach past by over-much fasting But if this Life by not giving it its due nutriment either for measure or quality come to be extinguished we prove our selves it's an horrible thing to think of it no better than Murderers of the Innocent and Just one For Murder is not the cutting and slashing of the Visible Body but the extinguishing of Life And thus we have seen in brief That for the raising of our Souls from Death for the begetting of the Holy Life and for the conservation and increase of the same we ought to be Hearers of the Word II. WE pass on now to that other Doctrine proposed That we ought not only to be Hearers but Doers also of the Word That awing sense of God which is impressed if not upon all yet at least upon most mens Souls together with a Natural desire of security and tranquillity of mind and every pleasing good That experience and acknowledgment of our own imbecillity and insufficiency walking in the fear of darkness and knowing not as the Apostle speaks whither we go doth easily induce even our Natural and Fleshly minds out of love to our selves to lay hold upon somewhat which we conceive stronger than our selves And this we call God and that outward erected form of Religion in all Churches as Hearing and saying of Prayers and giving Attention to the Word we call Gods Worship And a Worship it is surely too too easie and so fit for the vafrous and subdolous Spirit of the Natural man to play its wily pranks in that it being well instructed by the sly and subtle counsels of that Old Serpent the Devil and Satan it turns those good constitutions which should have been introductions to further Holiness into a strong fort or castle of false satisfaction of Conscience and most pernicious diabolical delusion whiles we take our selves to be distinguished from the wicked reprobate brood by outward performances of Ear-labour and Lip-labour without the practice of that which is taught us out of Moses or Christ plainly according to the Pharisees in our Saviours time whom the Holy Baptist sharply rebukes for such kind of imaginations Bring forth fruit worthy amendment of life saith he And think not to say within your selves we have Abraham to our father For I say unto you that God is able even of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham Surely it is out of the want of that feeling Knowledge of that which is so acceptable to God and a fond over-estimation of our own poor naked and contemptible Souls or a conceit that God would want persons if we Christians be excluded to make up the number of the Inheritors of Heaven that makes us think that such superficial performances will make us allowable before God But nothing is acceptable to him but a simple humble and unfeigned obedient Spirit Nothing glorious in his eyes but his own Life the Soul inacted and quickened by Christ. All flesh is grass and all the glory thereof as the flower of the field The grass withereth the flower fadeth but the word of our God endureth for ever This is the Word and Eternal Life on whom whosoever doth believe and by true Faith in his strength is Regenerate into shall obtain Everlasting Life otherwise he abideth in the Sentence of Death and the Wrath of God is upon him 'T is true there be notable Preheminences and Priviledges given even to the Natural Fleshly Adam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Hermes The whole World subsists for Mans sake But this Prerogative howsoever hath its condition which follows 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The World for Man but Man for God And how for God To wit that his Life may be in us that his Christ may be in us Not so many verbal points of Christianity not so many notions of Divinity not so many moon-shine imaginations from the Word heard or read in Books in our Hearts in the Visible World in Heaven in Earth in Men. Christ is not dead and unprofitable phansie but the vigorous ebullition of Life Which Life if it be not in us then are we not partakers of that we were destinate to for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Man was made for a Tabernacle for God he 's Materials for his Holy Temple But if we will not be living stones as the Apostle speaks we shall have the same doom that unprofitable trees or timber They are fit for nothing but to be hewn in pieces and cast into the fire This is the end of that frustraneous brood of the Sons of Belial the off-spring of unprofitableness that fall short of the end they were intended to by their own disobedient perversness The best of them fare no better Man being in honour hath no understanding but is like to the beasts that perish I but we learned Scholasticks have Vnderstanding enough or at least as much as any As much as we have
he doth not a good man count every day a Festival Surely if it be so he must needs count it so And that it is so my Text can witness Solomon hath asserted it and the Devil himself cannot deny it nor good men conceal it nor wicked men confute it for they have not experience of it But do I not seem to Tantalize you all this while by describing so desirable a Banquet and not shew you the way to be partakers of it Verily neither God nor good men do envy us it But to say the truth the way to it is as undesirable as the Feast is to be wished for Abstinence and emptyness is the way to be filled with this precious Food The full soul saith Solomon loatheth the honey-comb And if we be taken up with and filled with the delights of this sensible World and the pleasures of the Flesh we shall never relish the sweetness of this Banquet never so much as taste of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If false transitory pleasures get possession of the Soul they will exclude that true light and safe delight in God What 's the way then to this continual Happiness A contemptible thing they call Self-denyal or abstinence from our own Wills and Desires Upon which if I should enter a Discourse you especially of the younger sort might account it or a dull Melancholick Dream or a pretty solemn Night-piece but when you have viewed it immerse your selves again into the false light of this bewitching World and closely embrace that life and pleasure that I should wish you to part with But be you assured that he that is so slightly affected with the most solemn and solid Duties of Christianity is so far off from the good Conscience or good Heart named in the Text that he is not so much as in a preparation to it which is Contrition and Brokenness of Spirit But he that even now begins and sets himself seriously upon the curbing of his Lusts and denyal of his own wayes and endeavours cordially from the very depth of his Heart to perform whatsoever he conceives is the Will of God and allowes himself in no fault this man shall in due time be wrought into the Life and Spirit of Christ And shall continually enjoy in a more eminent manner whatsoever or Sight or Hearing or Smelling or Tasting shall judge pleasant and delectable such Beauty such Harmony such Fragrancy such Deliciousness as no man can conceive but he that hath it nor he that hath it can know how to utter it To this Happiness God grant that we may all arrive through Iesus Christ our Lord to whom c. DISCOURSE VIII PSAL. xvii 15. As for me I will behold thy face in righteousness I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness THE Excellency of this Holy resolution and High aspires of the Prophet David will be better set off and more-savourly relished if we bring into view that lively character of men of a quite contrary dispensation in the foregoing Verse which are stiled men of the world which have their portion in this life who are very Belly-gods and Cormorants greedy devourers of the Temporary good things which God has treasured up in these lower Regions of the Universe These they dig out and rake up together and lay on heaps that they may satisfie their own Worldly Appetite and gratifie themselves in the lusts of the Flesh in the lusts of the Eyes and in the pride of Life that they may eat and drink plentifully yea riotously fill their Bellies with the choicest delicates and feed their Eyes with the inexhaustible store and plenty of their riches and their treasure being inexhaustible when they have lived in all the jollity and gayity of this World in all the affluency and felicity this present Life will afford bequeath or entail upon their Posterity the like Happiness themselves enjoy'd by leaving the rest of their Substance to their Babes as is described in the foregoing Verse This is the state of that Blessedness which the meer Natural man breaths after neither his foresight nor desire piercing any further But this Holy man of God who was inspired from above has a thirsty presage of matters of far greater moment whose mind is not fixt upon these hid treasures of the Earth but upon that treasure which is reserved in Heaven whose neither hopes nor enjoyments are in the things of this Life but deems this Life as Death or Sleep in comparison of that which is to come who evangelizes before the Gospel and speaks the language of Christians before the coming of the Messias as if he would anticipate the words of S. Paul Col. 3. 3. Our life is hid with Christ in God But when Christ which is our life shall appear then shall we also appear with him in glory Wherefore let others enjoy themselves as much as they will let these men of the World have all things succeed according to their desire and please themselves to the height in their Wealth Pleasure and Honours I do not at all envy their condition nor place my Happiness in these things While these mens Eyes and Minds while their Affection and Animadversion is wholly taken up with these Worldly Objects the pantings and breathings of my Soul are entirely directed towards God and to the blissful enjoyment of the Light of his Countenance As for me I will behold thy face in righteousness I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness Or as the Psalms in our Liturgy have it When I awake up after thy likeness I shall be satisfied with it That Saying of Heraclitus in Clemens Alexandrinus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All that we see waking is Death and what we see dreaming Sleep which is the Brother of Death as another termed him as if in this Body whether sleeping or waking it were in the valley of the shadow of Death I say this Speech of Heraclitus may seem to savour much of a very deeply Melancholized Spirit yet if to speak conformably to inspired men were an Argument of Inspiration Heraclitus his Melancholly would approve it self Divine by the apparent conformity it bears with the most notable passages of those who certainly were inspired God forbid saith S. Paul that I should glory save in the cross of the Lord Iesus Christ whereby the world is crucified to me and I unto the world What was it not sufficient that S. Paul was crucified to the World but the World must be also crucified unto him That he was dead to the World but the World must be also dead to him Or who ever except S. Paul ventur'd on such a Phrase as the Worlds being crucified or dead to us though we be rightly said to be crucified or dead to it Why yes Heraclitus said so long before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All these things which we see with these Bodily Eyes it is but a Scene of Death That vivid and chearful colour of the Heavens which
unspatter'd and unspall'd upon by foul Tongues 'T is a thing as impossible as unprejudicial to the Soul her self That which is without a man defiles not the man but that which is within him What is meant by World S. Iohn doth fully unfold unto us All that is in the world the lust of the flesh the lust of the eye and the pride of life is not of the Father but of the world Of these then we must keep our selves unspotted if we will be holy as our Heavenly Father is holy This is the World that we must keep our selves unstain'd of But for the Natural World 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all things are sacred and good 'T is Sensuality that soyles the Soul and fills the Mind full of impure thoughts unworthy desires that transform the Humane Nature which is capable of the Image of God into a loathsome Beast 'T is Covetousness that contracts the large Spirit of man and makes it shrivel up and wrinkle for want of that which can alone fill it those unspeakable treasures of Heaven that no tongue can number nor figures express How deformed is that mind whose are nothing but Bills and Bonds mouldy Money moth-eaten Housholdstuff and such like trash rusty Locks and Keys Iron Chests and strong hollow Vaults behung with Cobwebs This is the Covetous mans Soul if we could see within him nothing near so beautiful as the foulest pond or dunghil-puddle where if you cast your eye you may happily meet with the reflection of the Stars or the bright Circle of the Sun or the white moving Clouds or the pleasant blew-coloured Sky But such things as an Ingenuous man would scarce have the patience to look on be not only the continually desired Objects of the Worldlings sight but the perpetual Life and Energy of his mis-shapen Spirit And here though the Proud man may please himself in conceiting that this inward man is garnished with better bravery and is a more comely Creature his phansie glittering with the representation of Crowns and Scepters Silver Maces Purple and Scarlet Robes rich Stuffs and Holy Mitres Yet if we look upon the Beast that bears this glaring luggage his own dear Soul what is the very life and heart of it but Pride and Envy the two Essentials that constitute the ugliest of all Creatures the deformed Fiends of Hell And beside this innate ill-favouredness his whole Person is ordinarily besmear'd with the Bloud of the Innocent and his Garments drop and reek with the warm Tears of the Afflicted and Oppressed and are foul and greasie with the Sweat of the Poor This is the attire both of the Ambitious and Covetous man And certainly there is very little Religion in him that doth not heartily abhor so abominable a monster I◠but is there indeed much Religion in him that doth I confess that a man may be temperate for the Devil as we ordinarily conceive is not lyable to the sins of the Flesh and yet fall short of true Religion His constitution or some other strong but natural or secular design making him so Covetousness is also often but a complexion and Liberality may be no better in some men Some men are also born with a more low and quiet disposition which is not the Vertue of Humility but the lowness and stillness of their Natural Spirit But to be unspotted of the World is also to be free from the attraction of our own private Nature which is a piece of this dark deceivable World and to have our whole man acted and regulated by the Spirit of God Dull Phlegm is no Christian Patience nor all Fire true Zeal especially if it be fed by the fat of the Earth But that is true Zeal that flowes out in affliction and glories in the cross and tribulation He is not chast that never partak'd of the bed of defilement nor temperate that eats nor drinks to excess But he that enjoys the pleasure of the Creature only in reference to the Creator tasting the sweetness of his God even in his Meat and Drink lifting up his Soul to the Meat that perisheth not but endures to Eternal Life He is untouch'd of Covetousness that desires nothing for himself but is a faithful Steward of the manifold Blessings of God He is unstain'd of the Pride of life who is so dead to himself and the sense or cognoscence of his own power and will that he arrogates no good thing to himself but doth from the very ground of his Soul speak that of the Prophet Thou O Lord hast wrought all our works in us This is as I said before the right Idea or Paradigme of true Religion By how much more near we come to this by so much more near we are to Religion and the farther removed hence the farther off from true Religion If any man doubt of it I appeal to this judgment that cannot err even to God the Father and that 's included in my last particular viz. IV. That to visit the Fatherless and the Widows in their affliction and to keep our selves unspotted of the World this is pure and undefiled Religion even in the sight of God the Father I will dispatch this point in a word or two The Summ as you may remember of this description of Religion was comprised in these two words Charity and Purity Both these are so near the Nature of God that he is engaged as I may so say to give Sentence for them God is love and he that abideth in love abideth in God saith S. Iohn Can any thing then be more acceptable to God then Love To do good and communicate forget not for with such sacrifices God is well pleased saith the Author to the Hebrews And our blessed Saviour Matth. 5. Love your enemies bless them that curse you do good to them that hate you and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you that you may be the children of your father which is in heaven For he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust Be ye therefore perfect as your Father which is in heaven is perfect So then there is no doubt of Gods sentencing that Religion for the best whose Nature consists in that which himself loves and likes and is the image of himself viz. Love or Charity And we have his Command for the other part thereof back'd with his own Example viz. Purity Be ye holy saith he for I am holy But what is now this Holiness or Purity of God Is it not this That whereas he is present in all things he is not immerse nor polluted of any thing So must our Souls be We are of necessity here in this Orb of Death and Corruption actors in the administration of the affairs of this lower World Let not our hearts sink into that that our eye must needs attend if we be not idle and useless Every man has a part or province committed to him by
Pet. 2. 5. And ye as living stones be made a spiritual house and holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Iesus Christ. Ver. 9. You are a chosen generation a royal priesthood And if we consider the qualification of the righteous man the unfeigned Christian we shall find him fit for this employment Who more gracious with God than he Who more loving to men than he Who therefore more fit to make Prayers and Supplications for the People than he That Life which is in him even the Spirit of Christ doth adopt him into an higher Order than the Order of Aaron Or rather Christ whose Spirit of Life is in him is that High-Priest higher than the Order of Aaron A Priest after the Order of Melchizedek A Kingly Priest who officiates in Everlasting Righteousness Here 's a Priest without exception above all commendation worthy all honour and admiration worthy to be heard of God worthy to be obeyed by Men worthy to be attended by Angels worthy to whom all power should be given in Heaven and Earth worthy of that Glorious Throne even the Right-hand of God the Father in the height of Heaven where he makes intercession for us his poor members wandering and toyling in the mire and mud of this wicked earth That vve being redeemed vvith his most precious Blood may be made Kings and Priests to his Father to offer Spiritual Sacrifices and first of all our selves in a sensible apprehension that vve are vvholly from him nothing at all of our selves and then an open and free-hearted love to our Neighbour in acknovvledgment that our fulness is not of our selves but of God And this contains the last and best requisite in that description of a Sacrifice the acknowledgment of our Humane infirmity and the praise and profession of the Divine Majesty HITHERTO we have compared this Christian Sacrifice with the general notion of a Sacrifice We will now see how it fits with the kinds of Sacrifice Which according to the Schoolmens Division are three 1. Sacrificing or slaying of living Creatures which is most properly called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and is the word in my Text. 2. Immolation which is a Sacrifice of inanimate things as of Meal Bread Salt Frankincense and such like Or 3. Libamentum a Drink-offering as of Wine or other liquid things How well some kinds of doing good will agree with that first kind of Sacrifice we should easily understand if we did but rightly apprehend how that the sundry lives of beasts lurk in the bodies of men as in some the Fox in others the Lyon in others the Bull in some one in some other in others many Our Saviour calls Herod Fox S. Paul his Persecutors Lyons So Eccles. 6. Be not proud in the device of thine own mind lest thy soul rend thee as a bull Where there is the living property of a Beast in a man no wonder that the Spirit of Truth that pierceth through the surface of things into the depth of Life calls them by that which they are within not by that which they seem without He therefore that can kill the Oxe the Bull the Goat in any mans Soul that is a stupid laborious toyl in the dirt an high raving unquietness of mind or that goatish nature that brutish sensual lust He that can exhibit these animalities dead before God who is Judge of the Quick and the Dead he offers of the first kind of Sacrifice which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the mortification of some Life that God was displeased with He that doth this either in himself or others doth sacrifice in this kind He that gives his Bread to the hungry sacrificeth an Immolation He that gives his Drink to the thirsty offers a Drink-offering As much as you did it to one of these little ones you did it unto me He that goes about doing good as our Saviour Christ that is He that lives not to himself but according to the Command of God and Example of his Son spends all his time power and ability in diffusing of that good which God hath bestowed on him offers Frankincense Or rather that precious composition of sweet odours which is mentioned Exod. 30. 34 35. And the Lord said unto Moses Take unto thee sweet spices Stacte and Onicha and Galbanum sweet spices with pure Frankincense of each like weight And thou shalt make of it a perfume c. Philo Iudaeus will have these four ingredients to be Emblems of the four general Principles or Elements of which this World consists and the evaporation of this fume to be that acceptable re-ascending of the Creature to God in holy thankfulness and evacuation of it self into that great ocean His words are very significant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is a Life saith he well befitting the World to give uncessant thanks to its Father and Maker even quite exhausting it self in a continual ascent and grateful fume and simplifying it self into its Elements that all may see that it hoards up nothing for it self but consecrates it self wholly unto God that made it Such a Sacrifice doth every Microcosm or little World every particular man offer dayly unto God when he spends all his dayes and employes all the strength and faculties of his Soul and Body It is a thankful acknowledgment of what he hath received resunding that goodness that he is partaker of back again to God through those sure conduits or conveiances the poor necessitous Brethren But there is yet another Division of Sacrifices into three kinds as before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So Philo Which our Modern Writers call thus Holocausta Hostias pacificas Hostias pro peccato The reason of this Division Philo thus unfolds The two main and general causes of Sacrificing be these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The latter consists in two things The participation of good and the removing or preventing of evil Hence that Sacrifice that respects the profit of the Sacrificer is twofold A Sin-offering for the preventing the just punishment thereof and a Peace-offering which was either pro beneficio accepto or accipiendo for a benefit received or at least hoped for 1. That the doing or communicating good appertains to the first sort which Philo calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Holocaust which respects merely the Glory of God and not the Profit of the Sacrificer will appear out of places of Scripture concerning this Duty of communicating Let your light so shine before men that they seeing your good works may glorifie your Father which is in heaven Matth. 5. 16. There 's the Honour of God Now that we are not to participate our selves in this but that it be wholly to God and for God a true Holocaust Our Saviour shews Matth. 6. 3. When thou doest thine almes let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doth That is We must not have any sinister respect but do it simply in obedience to God and for his Glory Consult
naturally from the Text and be most profitable for you to hear But God forbid That hath reference to the precedent Verse But they desire to have you circumcised that they might glory in your flesh Yet the Holy Apostle devoid of all ambition and emulation and of making an outward shovv among them contents himself vvith that vvhich is but the scorn of Worldly men nay glories in it and in it alone the Inward Cross the Mortification of the Old man the Circumcision of the Heart God forbid that I should glory in any thing c. See the exceeding deep humility of the Apostle a man endued vvith such excellent gifts from God so learned and vvell versed in the Lavv one acquainted vvith so Divine Revelations rapt up into the Third Heavens an Hebrew also an Israelite a Son of Abraham such an excellent Oratour as he approved himself before Felix before Festus before Agrippa and also at Lysta vvhere they took him to be the God of Eloquence Mercury himself and would have Sacrificed unto him so well versed in the Poets as his quotations out of Aratus and others testifie him to be But these are but trifles I mean Poetry and Oratory You may see him in the Acts casting out Devils healing the Sick making the Lame walk recovering the Dead to Life nay giving the Spirit of Life even the Holy Ghost and with it the power of Prophesie and speaking with Tongues Yet all these and many more the least whereof were able to puff up the vain mind of our ordinary Christians and swell them to an unusual extent stir not S. Paul above his wonted measure But he still continues himself a Paul i. e. little in his own eyes though the endowments God had bestowed on him were very great A true Disciple of Christ who taught his to be thus minded Learn of me for I am meek and lowly And methinks I hear the Apostle call to us out of this Text saying Be you followers of me as I am of Christ. But if a man propound the Example of the Apostles and Saints of God to some they look on them rather as Prodigies to gaze at than Examples to imitate and do usually with the rude Cyclops in Erasmus return this answer Paulus est Paulus Ego sum ego Paul had a privilege to be good my privilege is to be as bad as he was good But let Reason move thee if Example will not Why shouldst thou glory and in what Art thou Noble No more than the blood that runs out of thy Fathers Nose or that which is blown out of it unless thou be Vertuous Art thou well Apparel'd Yet a Lilly is better Art thou Fair It is but in thy superficies or surface of thy Body within is stinking dung and dirt Art thou Strong Yet weaker far than an ordinary Cart-horse Art thou Proper Yet not so tall as a Pine A goodly great-bodied man The whole Earth is but a Point why struttest thou then so proudly as if thou wouldst out-face Heaven Thou art a wise and subtil piece So is the Devil and a Serpent Thou art extolled and admired of men So is Vanity Beloved of women But their own Lust and Lasciviousness a great deal more 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All whatsoever thou boastest thy self in is but ludicrous and ridiculous contemptible dust and less than dust even nothing Why then dost thou glory in any thing God forbid that I should glory in any thing save in the cross What a Paradox is this More strange than not to boast at all For not to boast there being nothing worthy boasting of is but reasonable But to boast of that which is a shame and reproach among all men is uncouth and strangely admirable Crux crux inquam infaelici miseris The Cross was but the fate and doom of Thieves and Malefactors and as little glorious as the deserts that bring to it But it may be it was some fine Silver or Golden Crucifix A pretty toy for Children to glory in What was it The Cross of our Lord Iesus Christ Yet it is but a stumbling-block to the Iews and to the Greeks foolishness I but it is the Cross of Christ Whereby the World is crucified to him and he unto the World This is worse and worse a scandal also to the Christians themselves Sufficient for them it is that Christ bore his own Cross and the Cross bore him It was fitter one man should dye for the people What that we may securely live in sin God forbid He that will be my disciple let him take up his cross and follow me saith our blessed Saviour The death therefore of the Cross belongs to us as well as to him though we would fain avoid it This is true then truer than we would have it that a right Christian whose Pattern S. Paul is must be crucified to the World and the World to him be dead unto the World and the World dead to him But what is the World and what to be dead to it S. Iohn in his 1 Ep. Chap. 2. describes it from its parts Ver. 15 16. Love not the world neither the things that are in the world If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him For all that is in the world the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father but of the world These then ought we to be dead to viz. The lust of the flesh i. e. all carnal concupiscence and unlawful desires of the Body all gluttony drunkenness and leachery To the lust of the eyes i. e. all covetousness and filthy avariciousness desiring to encroach and compass all that we see and pleasing our selves with looking upon what we have got already but making no good use of it to the glory of God or good of our Neighbour To the pride of life i.e. ambition stately and lordly living the praise and applause of men superiority and authority over others All these things we are to be dead to by the inward Cross by an holy and serious mortification of our corrupt Life But how shall a man be able to mortifie this corruption to kill these inordinate desires I will tell you an infallible way upon condition you will remember it By a constant denial of their Cravings Give a Beggar nothing at thy door and he will never visit thee Desire is starved by being unfulfill'd A man you know often loseth his appetite by staying very long for his Dinner Inordinate desire will hurt a man like an Ague if we pamper or satisfie it The Devil and the Sop will both down into our guts at once But thou mayst pine out both Desire and the Devil that lurks in it by a pertinacious Temperance or stopping thy self in thy outward actions Affect not vain glory in thy actions or words but modestly decline it and Pride will fall in thy Soul in good time thou shalt find Humility rise