he does not confess that there are no Joys like Spiritual Joys and that one Day spent in these Ante-Courts of Heaven is better than a Thousand And now since it appears to be a thing of so much reason and becomingness and of so great use and advantage to have our Conversation in Heaven methinks we should easily be perswaded to enter upon this Heavenly Dispensation of Life The Region we now Converse in is very incommodiously seated and of an unwholsom Complexion such as does not at all agree with the Constitution of the Soul where she is always sickly and out of order full of weaknesses and indispositions why then do we not change our Abode and remove our dwelling into our Native Country where there is a purer Air and a more healthy Climate When we hear or read a Description of a very pleasant Country such as the Bermuda Islands where the Sky is Serene and Clear the Air Temperate and Healthy the Earth Fruitful and Entertaining where there are Walks of Oranges and Woods of Cedar Trees though we have no probable prospect of ever going to dwell there yet we can't chuse but often think and sometimes dream of it and wish our selves the happiness of so pleasant an Abode Why then do not our Thoughts dwell more in Heaven where besides the far greater delightsomness of the Place we have a particular Interest and Concern to invite us thither 'T is the hope of arriving at Heaven at last that supports our Life upon Earth it is not able to support it self One or two turns here gives a Considering Man a full compass of its Enjoyments and he no sooner comes to understand them but he despises them And what shall a Wise Man do what refuge has he after this Discovery but to Converse in Heaven What Expedient is there left but to anticipate those Joys when he can no longer tast these So that there is a necessity of Conversing in Heaven if 't were only to relieve the Vanity of Earth and happy is the Man who has so much of Heaven while he is upon Earth Yea Blessed is the Man whom thou choosest O Lord and receivest unto thee he shall dwell in thy Court and shall be satisfied with the Pleasures of thy House even of thy Holy Temple A DISCOURSE CONCERNING Submission to Divine Providence John 18. 11. The Cup which my Father has given me shall I not Drink it THIS is a Question which our Lord puts to himself and 't is well he did so for had he put it to any body else 't is great odds but that it had been answered in the Negative for the great and general Center of Human Nature whither all the Lines of Appetite tend and where they all meet is Happiness The desire of Happiness is the First and Master-Spring of the Soul as the Pulse of the Heart is in the Body that which sets all the Wheels on work and governs all the under-motions of the Man 'T is that original Weight and Bias which the Soul first received from the Hands of her Creator and which she can never lose so long as she her self is 'T is indeed the strongest and most radical Appetite that we have an Appetite to which God has not set any bounds and to which Man cannot an Appetite that is ungovernable and unconfined it self and that gives Measures and Laws to all the rest and consequently there is nothing which so ill comports with our Nature which so directly crosses the grain of our Constitution as that which threatens or offers the least contradiction to this ruling Inclination of it Hence it is that Evil is the great Antipathy of Human Nature which though it has many particular Aversions yet this is her great and general Abhorrence From this at its first approach the whole Man shrinks in and stands averse and would be removed from it if possible an infinite distance the Animal part of Man is against it and the Reason of Man wonders and disputes how such an uncooth thing came into the World and several Hypotheses have been advanced to account for that strange Appearance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was the great knot of antient Morality and the most gravelling Problem of all the Heathen Philosophy and I question whether Reason without the assistance of Revelation can conquer the Difficulty So that considering the Opposition that it carries to the whole Man both to our Appetites and to our Understandings there seems nothing more difficult than to be reconciled to it though it be in order to a greater advantage and we see an excellent glory behind the Cloud 'T is said by Plato that Pleasure and Pain are the two Nails that fasten both the Wings of the Soul down to the Earth and hinder its Ascent upward And the Wise Stoick has most excellently summ'd up the whole difficulty of Vertue into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Abstain and Sustain Indeed Abstinence and Patience are the Two most rough and uneasy Places in all the Stage of Vertue the rest of her ways are ways of Pleasantness and all her other Paths are Peace But here the Traveller meets with Trouble and Discouragement is ingaged in a point of Labour and Contention and though in the Event he perform his Duty and bear forth good Seed yet 't is always with the reluctancy of his lower faculties and as the Psalmist expresses it he goes on his way sorrowing But the chiefest and noblest Scene of Vertue lies in Patience 't is hard to abstain from Pleasure but 't is much harder to indure Misery which is the Reason by the way that the Sanctions of Laws are generally taken rather from Punishments than from Rewards and of all Obedience that which is Passive is most difficult for we hate Pain to an higher degree than we love Pleasure And of this the Infernal Spirit was so sensible one who dwelling with everlasting Burnings is best able to judge of the difficulty of submitting to Misery that he presumed to say concerning that excellent Person whom God had commended for his Integrity in all the instances of Active Obedience and whom he himself knew to be a Miracle of Patience in particular that if God would but put forth his Hand and touch him with some near and cleaving Affliction he would curse him to his Face And to this purpose 't is yet further observable that even the Disciples of the Blessed Jesus whom he had picked and chosen out of the promiseuous Herd of Mankind and who followed this Lamb whithersoever he went and traced him through all the narrow paths of a Vertuous and Religious Life yet when he came to Mount Calvary within view of the Cross they all forsook him and fled stopt short at the foot of the dreadful Hill and left him to tread the Wine-press alone And even he that had most courage and presence of Mind and dared furthest he whom St. Chrysostom calls
World to be Conformable to the Understanding of God those Immutable Ideal Representations which are in the Divine Mind so is it the Perfection of the Moral World to be Conformable to his Will and in both these the Second Person of the Sacred Trinity the Eternal Word seems equally and particularly concerned As to the Natural World St. John tells us that all things were made by him or according to him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and without him was not any thing made that was made And St. Paul that by him were all things Created that are in Heaven and that are in Earth and that by him all things consist Again 't is said by whom also he made the Worlds And again Thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the Foundation of the Earth and the Heavens are the Works of thy Hands Then as to the perfecting the frame of the Moral World as t was his Meat and Drink to do the Will of his Father himself so was it his principal business and the Main of his Undertaking to repair the Ruins of Morality to inlarge the bounds of his Fathers Kingdom to make others conformable to the Divine Will and Partakers of the Divine Nature which in part has already taken effect and of which as we are told we are yet to expect a further accomplishment under his glorious Millennial Reign when Righteousness shall flourish and be exalted and the Will of God be done on Earth to a very near degree as it is in Heaven To this end serves the great Mystery of Godliness that Grace of God which has appeared to the World teaching us that denying Ungodliness and Worldly Lusts we should live Soberly Righteously and Godlily in this present World the Covenant of Grace being so ordered and contrived that our Duty is secured as well as our Insirmity and Necessity relieved and our Repentance is only made effectual by the satisfaction of Christ not unnecessary To this End he gave us a new System of Christian Morals which though no addition to the Eternal Law of Nature and right Reason was yet a great Improvement of that of Moses And he took care also to second his excellent Precepts by as excellent an Example that they might appear to be Practicable as well as Reasonable And here because Example has the greater Influence of the Two he not only gave us an absolute one of his own and exhorted us to the imitation of it when he said Learn of me but also remits us to the excellent Example of the Angels those ready Performers of God's Will and winged Ministers of his Pleasure in that he bids us Pray Thy Will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven That God's Will is done in Heaven is here supposed we are therefore further concerned only to inquire 1. Of what Will of God our Lord is to be here understood 2. By whom it is done in Heaven 3. After what manner it is there done 4. How far we are concerned to imitate this great Pattern of Obedience 5. How reasonable it is for us to do so And First by Will here our Lord cannot be supposed to mean that which is a Faculty in the Divine Essence or rather the very Essence it self for how may we Pray that that should be done which Eternally and Necessarily is Neither by Will here are we to understand the Act of Willing for this can no more properly be said to be done than the other but that Will for the doing of which we here Pray is the Res Volita or the Object of the Divine Will But then this is Two-fold either the Object of his Will Decreeing or the Object of his Will Commanding or to word it according to the ordinary distinction the Will of his Decrees or the Will of his Commands And 't is generally held that both these are to be here understood But I must confess it does not appear to me how the Will of God's Decrees can be at all here concerned any further than as our Submission to it is a part of the Will of his Commands for not to insist upon the necessary and uncontroulable accomplishinent of God's Decrees and that things necessary and certain are not so proper Objects of Prayer I only observe that this Will of God is here desired to be done in Earth as it is in Heaven which supposes it to be more perfectly performed in the one than in the other the latter being proposed as a Pattern and Precedent to the former But now as God is in all Places equally Almighty so are his Decrees in all Places alike performed in Earth as well as in Heaven according to that of the Psalmist Whatsoever the Lord pleased that did he in Heaven and in Earth and in the Sea and in all deep Places this therefore cannot be meant of the Will of God's Decrees any further than as 't is a part of the Will of his Commands that we should submit to them and acquiesce in them Neither indeed can this be directly and strictly intended but only by way of Proportion that as the whole Will of God which is capable of being done in Heaven is there done so all that is capable of being done on Earth should in like manner be there done But I say it cannot be directly intended there being no Afflictive Dispensations of Providence incident to those who do God's Will in Heaven and consequently no room for the Exercise of Patience and Submission as will further appear by considering the Second Inquiry namely by whom it is that this Will of God is done in Heaven And this indeed is of no great Difficulty to resolve since the nature of the Will does of it self point out to the Doers of it for it being the Will of God's Commands it can no more be done by God than 't is possible for God to obey himself Nor can it be done by the Celestial Bodies for however these in a large and improper sense are sometimes said to obey God as when the Psalmist says that the Heavens declare the Glory of God and the Firmament sheweth his Handy-work and that Wind and Storm fulfil his Word and the like Yet being necessary Agents they cannot yield any Moral and Acceptable Obedience much less in such an eminent and exemplary manner as to be a Pattern to us which yet is here supposed And yet they will be every whit as capable of this Obedience as we are if we be not free Agents which by the way leave to be considered by those who deny that Priviledge to Human Nature It remains therefore that the Holy Angels are they that do this Will of God in Heaven none else are capable of doing it and of these the Psalmist says expressly that they fulfil his Commandment and hearken to the Voice of his Word Proceed we therefore to the next Inquiry namely after what manner this Will of God is done by the Holy Angels in
never under an Eclips no not so much as in part but as they always receive equal Illumination from God so do they shine upon their Wills with an equal Light and consequently they must needs stand always equally affected and disposed to what is good as appearing to them always in a Light equally advantagious For the variety and changableness of our Wills proceeds from the variety of our Judgments and were our Thoughts and Apprehensions of things always uniform our Actions would be so too for we always act as for that instant we think This therefore being the happy condition of Angels to have the Eye of their Understanding always equally awake and in full Illumination there must needs be also a constant regularity in their Wills The short is as long as they Contemplate the Divine Essence they cannot divert aside to any thing irregular because of the Superlative Excellence of the Divine Good which fills and wholly ingages their Faculties and for the same reason they cannot chuse but for ever to Contemplate And herein I suppose must be placed that happy Necessity the Holy Angels are under of doing the Will of God and of persevering in it to all Eternity and that this is that which we mean when we say they are Confirmed in good But leaving these Flaming Excellencies a while to their Happy and Noble Employments before we go further let us see how these Speculations may be improved to the benefit of our Practice And First since God has made his Angels such excellent and accomplished Creatures let us make the same use of it that the Psalmist did when he took from hence an occasion of Praise and Thanksgiving Praise the Lord O my Soul says he and then mentioning some Characters of his Greatness he adds He maketh his Angels Spirits and his Ministers a flaming Fire Indeed the Angels are the greatest Occasions as well as Instruments of Praise as being the Noblest part of the Divine Workmanship Look upon the Rain-bow and praise him that made it says the Son of Sirach And if God is to be Praised for the Beauty of the Rain-bow caused only by various Reflections and Refractions of the Globules of the Second Element in their passage through a Cloud how much more is he to be adored for these great Master-pieces of his Art these Closet-Draughts of his Beauty Secondly We may take a Caution hence to beware of that Voluntary Humility which the Apostle speaks of and were he now alive would have fresh Occasion given him to Condemn in Worshipping Angels take heed to thy self left when thou liftest up thine Eyes to Heaven and seeft the Sun and the Moon and the Stars even all the Host of Heaven thou shouldest be driven to worship them says Moses to the People of Israel And there is the same and greater danger here when we Contemplate the Glory of this other Heavenly Host for however through Envy or Emulation we usually lessen and disparage one anothers Excellencies yet when we have to do with Creatures of another rank and order we are apt to be guilty of the opposite extream and to exchange Detraction for Idolatry Thirdly We have here a most excellent Antidote against Pride which is a littleness of Mind that arises from our Ignorance of the World about us as well as of our Selves and consequently is best Cured by considering what Excellencies there are above us The young Home-bred Heir that thinks his Father's Mannour a considerable part of the World is sent abroad to see more of it and returns Home Cured by his Travels And would the Man that swells and looks big upon his Parts or Learning but bestow a Thought or Two upon the Perfections of Angels I dare warrant him his Plumes will quickly fall and that he will never find in his Heart to set up for a Wit more For alas what are we to the Angels Hereafter indeed 't is to be hoped that some of us may be made like them but what are we in Comparison now They excel us more than we do the Beasts of the Field and we need nothing else but this one Consideration well thought upon to convince us That Pride was not made for Man Fourthly we may learn hence so to fear the Devil as to look upon him as a considerable Adversary and not to be too secure in our best Condition for he is an Angel still and we know not what he has lost by his Fall besides that Grace and Goodness whereby he might be disposed to help and befriend us And the Apostle tells us that we still wrestle against Principalities and Powers And therefore it concerns us to provide our selves accordingly and as he there advises to take unto us the whole Armour of God Lastly we should endeavour to imitate all the Moral and Imitable Excellencies of the good Angels our Saviour has made them our Pattern in his Prayer and we should make them so in our Lives by endeavouring to perform God's Will in Earth as it is in Heaven Which calls upon me to return to the Fourth Enquiry namely How far we are concerned to imitate this Pattern of Obedience That our Imitation of it is in some Measure or other required is most certain otherwise our Lord would never have taught us to Pray that God's Will should be done on Earth as it is in Heaven but how far is the Question In answer to which I observe that the Obedience of the Angels may be considered either Intensively or Extensively or in other Words either with respect to the Act or with respect to the Object which last may again be meant either of the kinds of Good or of the several degrees in each kind This being premised I answer First That we are not obliged to the Intenseness of Angelical Obedience this I say we are not obliged to because 't is not among the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the things which are in our Power This indeed will be part of our Reward hereafter but it cannot be our Duty here and therefore though we are to obey God readily and chearfully yet 't is not required we should do it with such a degree of Alacrity as excludes all imperfect motions to the contrary 'T is not required while we are a Compound of Flesh and Spirit that the latter should be wholly free from the Solicitations of the former 't is sufficient if it have the Casting Voice and prevail in the Contention and so much indeed is Duty And therefore says the Psaimist He that now goes on his way weeping and beareth forth good Seed shall doubtless come again with Joy and bring his Sheaves with him He must bear forth good Seed and if he does so it shall be no Prejudice to him that he goes on his way weeping Neither are we obliged to serve God always with equal heights of Devotion and with an uniform fervency of Mind for besides that our Saviour himself who led the most
serve me with an Answer to an Objection wherein it is pretended that Men are the worse for having so much Application made to them for their Recovery that they suffer in their Morals by being over-tutour'd as some Men do in their Health by being over-Physick'd The ground of which Objection proceeds I suppose upon this Observation that when there are the greatest helps and advantages to goodness the Age is then always worst The Observation I confess is too true but the Consequence that is made from it may I conceive be taken off by supposing that this comes to pass by the special Assignment of God's Providence reserving the best assistances against the worst times and not by any natural connexion that is between the things themselves in order to such a Juncture Upon these Considerations I am incouraged to send these Discourses abroad having this only to say concerning them that as the Subjects of them are of extraordinary importance so I think they do not fall very much beneath what they undertake for in their several Titles that they consist of very weighty and serious matter and are indifferently Correct as to their Composition that they speak both to the Reason and to the Affection of the Reader and are in good measure fitted both to Convince and to Perswade In short that they may be read with a great deal of Profit and not without some Entertainment The former is the more considerable end and 't is what I mainly aim at I wish the Reader may do the same and when both of us concur in so laudable an End 't is to be hoped the Blessing of God will not be wanting and I pray God it may not J. Norris The General CONTENTS OF THIS VOLUME A Discourse concerning Worldly and Divine Wisdom upon Luke 16. 8. A Discourse concerning Righteous and Unrighteous Judgment upon John 7. 24. A Discourse concerning Religious Singularity upon Rom. 12. 2. A Discourse concerning the Excellency of Praise and Thanksgiving upon Psal. 50. 23. The Importance of a Religious Life considered from the happy Conclusion of it upon Psal. 37. 38. A Discourse concerning Heavenly-Mindedness upon Phil. 3. 20. A Discourse of Submission to Divine Providence upon John 18. 11. A Discourse concerning the Folly of Covetousness upon Luke 12. 20. A Discourse concerning the Consideration of God and of the Divine Presence upon Psal. 16. 9. A Discourse concerning doing God's Will on Earth as it is in Heaven upon Mat. 6. 10. A DISCOURSE CONCERNING Worldly and Divine Wisdom Luke 16. 8. The Children of this World are in their Generation Wiser than the Children of Light Of all the infinite Follies incident to Mankind there is none that may more justly imploy both our Pity and our Admiration than an Ill-timed Misplaced and Disproportionate Wisdom The thorough Fool is not nigh so great a Prodigy as the Half-wise Man nor is a stark uniform Ignorance so mysterious and unaccountable as an uneven misconducted Prudence Of this latter we may conceive Two sorts either a proposal of a wrong End or an undue prosecution of a right one In the sormer the Man is supposed to be right enough in his Means but to be wrong in his End in the latter he is supposed to be as right in his End but to be wrong in his Means In the former we consider the Man as Wife in little things and a Fool in great concerns Wife where Wisdom might be spared and a Fool where 't is highly necessary In the latter we consider him as not so wise in great things as either himself or another is in little things And this I take to be a stranger sort of Folly than the former for here the Man is supposed to be so wise as to have aim'd at the true Mark and to have fixed upon a right End but yet withal at the same time to be so much a Fool as not to prosecute this right End as prudently and carefully as the other does a wrong one which truly is a very odd Combination 'T is a great Folly not to propose a good End and he that fails in this part can never expect to have any thing orderly and regular in the whole course of his Life Such a Man if he deserve that Name lives Backward and the longer he lives and the more active and busie he is the more he is led out of his way and the further he is from his Journey 's End A Man were better have no Mark before him but live at Rovers without any End or Design at all than to propose an End to himself that is not good The former indeed seems to be more sottish and stupid and to have less of Soul and Thought in it but the latter if I mistake not is more dangerous and mischievous and will lead a Man into more fatal Miscarriages But though it be so great a Folly not to propose a good End yet it seems a much Stranger Folly not to prosecute it when you have proposed it and when one has attained so far not to proceed further The Reason may be obvious why a Man does not propose a good End for he may want clearness of Understanding to discern which is so But he that has proposed aright shews by his very doing so that he does not want that The rightness of his Aim sufficiently argues the goodness of his Eye-sight and why then he should not prosecute his well-chosen End is somewhat unaccountable And besides the greatness and the goodness of the End has a natural and genuin efficacy both to quicken and to regulate the execution of it and the more considerable the End 18 the more it has of this Influence As the Means themselves do take their measure from the End so does the execution of them too and the more weighty and concerning is the End proposed the more pressing and urging is the engagement that lies upon the Proposer both to chuse fit and proper Means for the compassing it and to be diligent in the use and application of them when chosen So that whether we regard that rational Light and discernment of Mind which he discovers himself to be Master of that proposes a right End or that aid and assistance which is communicated to him from the weight and moment of the End it self which cannot but help on its own prosecution the Folly of not prosecuting a well-proposed End will appear to be of all others the most strange and amazing And yet this is that Folly which is more or less chargeable upon the Wisest of Men those who have duly considered and taken a just measure both of themselves and of the World without them that have well examined and sifted out the capacities of their Nature and the utter insufficiency of all created Good to fill those Capacities those that have duly prized and valued the whole Inventory of this Worlds Goods and have fixed a general Inscription of Vanity upon them all and who
the Faint and Cold Glimmerings of a Twinkling Star And accordingly the Holy Ghost takes notice of it as an extraordinary thing in Moses and that argued him to be a Person of great Presence and Discernment of Mind that he could so rightly Calculate his Interest as to prefer the Future Rewards of Heaven before the Present Glories of Egypt Then 2dly The Good Things of this World are not only Present and at Hand but Sure and Certain I mean as to us for the other are no less so in themselves We are sure as Job says that there is a Vein for the Silver and a Place for Gold where they fine it Our Senses inform us of this and that 's a Testimony we seldom reject As for the place of Happiness we have heard the Fame thereof indeed with our Ears but have neither seen it our selves nor discoursed with those that have and although 't is assured to us with as much Evidence as is consistent with the Nature and Vertue of Faith nay with almost as much as a thing Future is capable of yet Darkness and Fear commonly go together and Men are generally very jealous and distrustful about things whereof they are Ignorant or half Inform'd as Imperfect Eyes are apt to start And though the Principles of Faith are in themselves as Firm and Firmer than those of Science yet to us 't is not so Evident nor do we ever assent so strongly to what we Believe be the Testimony never so Authentick as we do to what we Know Then 3dly The Good Things of this World as they are Present and Sure so do they strike upon the most Tender and Impressible part about us our Senses They attempt us as the Devil did Adam in our Weaker part through the Eve of our Natures A Sensible Representation is the strongest of all Representations a Sensible Representation even of the Vanity of the World would work more with us than the Discourse of an Angel about it and I question not but that Alexander the Great was more inwardly affected when he saw the Ruins of the Grave of Cyrus when he saw so great Power reduced to such Narrow Limits such Majesty seated on such a Throne the Monarch of Asia Hid or rather Lost in an Obscure Cave a Stone for his Bed Cobwebs for his Tapestry and all his Pomp and Glory turned into Night and Darkness I say he was more Convinced of the Vanity of Greatness by this lively Appeal to his Senses than he ever was or could be by all the grave Lectures of his Master Aristotle And if the Vanity of the World when represented to the Senses has such vigorous Effects upon them what shall we think of the Glory of it when so Represented How would that Affect and Subdue us And this the Devil very well knew and considered when he was to Tempt the Son of God his Design was to decoy him into Covetousness and Ambition and in order to this he might have entertained him with fine Discourses about the Wealth and Glories of the Terrestrial Globe and have read him a Geographical Lecture upon the Kingdoms and Empires of it but he knew his Advantage better than so and chose rather to draw a Vistonary Landskip before him and present him with a Sensible Idea of all this knowing by old Experience how much more apt the Senses are to take Impression than any other faculty of Man Now this is the great advantage that the Good Things of this World have they are obvious to our Senses we See them we Hear them We Smell them we Tast them we Feel and Handle them and have the most intimate and indearing Conversation with them The things that are Temporal are Seen says the Apostle 'T is their distinguishing Character But the things that are Eternal are not seen but only through a Glass darkly so Seen as not to be discerned and in reference to the other World as the same Apostle says We walk by Faith and not by Sight From these and other such Collateral Advantages which the Things of this World have above those of the next it may in the First place be presumed that those who have erred so far as to make this their End are in all probability like to Love it more Intensely and value it more highly than the Children of Light do their End which wants these Sensible Indearments and Recommendations Well and if so then it further follows that of necessity they must be more heartily concerned for its Attainment and consequently more Wary in the Choice and more Diligent in the Use of such Means as serve to that purpose For the Love of the Means always receives its Measure from that of the End And thus we see what grounds of probability there are that it should be so I come now in the Second Place briefly to compare the Proceedings of each of these Men whereby it will appear that de facto it is so And here First we find by Experience that the Men of this World do prefer their Secular Interest above all other things whatsoever and that not only in Notion and Theory Habitually and in General for that 's supposed in its being made their End but also in every instant of Action in all Junctures and Circumstances Though their End be False yet they are not so but keep true to it and always prefer it retaining in every point of Action the very same Sense and Judgment they had of it when they first made it their Choice And to satisfy that they are in good earnest they will adhere to it at any rate they will forfeit any Good and undergo any Evil to Secure this their grand Stake For will they not Rise Early and Late take Rest Drudge and Toil Plot and Contrive Cheat and Defraud Lye and Dissemble be of any Religion or of no Religion and submit to all the Basenesses imaginable to Get or Secure or Recover a Place of Honour or Profit Will they not incur the Curses of the Widow and Orphan the Contempt of Wise Men the Hatred of Mankind the Censures of Posterity the Displeasure of God and even Damnation it self for the sake of their beloved Mammon They will they will bustle through all this and will gain their Point though they lose every thing besides And herein they are consistent with themselves they act agreeably to their Principles But now will the Children of Light do much for their End Will these part with the World for Heaven as the other will part with Heaven for the World Will these do or suffer any thing for the Interest of their Souls as the other will for that of their Bodies Some few there are that will and God add to their Number But are there not many who Habitually and in General have proposed to themselves Heaven for their End and so far are supposed to give it the Preference above all and yet when they come to be set upon by a
the just and this is that Wisdom which God commends and which we our selves shall hereafter when best able to judge commend too for this is that Wisdom from above which is first Pure then Peaceable which will bring us Peace at the last and whereby we shall become Wise unto Salvation The Conclusion of all is Time it self is short the Time of Man is much shorter Eternity has neither end nor change and every Man is hastening to this Eternal and Unchangable State and therefore it infinitely concerns us all so to live while we sojourn in this World that when we come to dye we may have these Two things to support us in that dreadful Hour the Reflection upon the Innocency of our Life past and the Prospect of future Glory and Happiness Which God of his Goodness grant us all c. A DISCOURSE CONCERNING Heavenly-Mindedness Phil. 3. 20. For our Conversation is in Heaven THat Man is deeply lapsed and degenerated from a state of Excellency and Perfection is evident frem the Ruins of his Nature which is now too faulty and defective to be the first and original workmanship of God but in nothing is his Fall more fignalized than in that abject servile and groveling disposition of Mind he now labours under He has suffered indeed in all his Faculties and every String of his Soul is put out of Tune his Understanding has a Cloud dwelling upon it his Will has lost much of its Verticity or Magnetick Inclination towards the chief Good but that wherein he is most diminished and stands most alienated from the Life of God and the order of Grace is the Passionate part of him his Affections these have suffered such a vast Declination from their true and natural Point and are so depressed into the dregs of the Material World and are now become so unperceptive of any thing but the gusts and relishes of the Animal Nature that instead of serving as they were originally intended to the invigoration and actuation of the Soul they are her greatest clog and impediment in all her Endeavours and Aspirations after the Divine Life This is that so much Celebrated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Platonists the Moulting of the Plumes of the Soul she is not only broken and wounded in her Wings but utterly unpinioned she has dropt her Feathers and can no longer sustain her weight in the higher Regions but falls down and lies groveling upon the Ground as if besides the Primitive Curse upon Man of Tilling the Earth from whence he was taken he had inherited that of the Serpent too Upon thy Belly shalt thou go and Dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy Life And as this Demission of Soul is the most signal instance of the Degeneracy of Man so is it commonly the last from whence we recover our Affections are the most stubborn and unconquerable part about us as being blind and unperceptive Appetites and such as are set at the greatest distance from the Light of the Mind which shines first upon the Will and then upon the Passions whose illumination is therefore more feeble and languid Hence it comes to pass that this is the most difficult part to be managed as there is more trouble with One Fool than with Ten Wise Men and when the Understanding and Will are resigned up and given over to the importunity of him that stands at the Door and knocks these still maintain the Fort against the Heavenly Battery and are very often too successful in their resistence Indeed the regulation of the Pathetie part is commonly the last conquest of Divine Grace the consummating degree of Spiritual Life the closing feature of that Image of God which is form'd in us for nothing is more common than to see Men of singular Strictness and vertuous Conversation in all other respects who yet have their Affections deeply ingaged in Secular Interests who stoop and yield to the Magnetism of this dirty Planet and as the Apostle phrases it in the Verse before the Text Mind or relish Earthly things An eminent Example of this we have in the Story of the Young Man who came to our Saviour to inquire what he should do to inherit Eternal Life who though a diligent Observer of the Law and generally accomplished with moral Qualifications insomuch that our Lord began to have a kindness for him yet the affectionate part of his Soul had still a wrong Bias and was not sufficiently weaned from Earthly good One thing thou lackest and what was that not more Justice nor more Charity nor more Temperance but to have his Affections more loose and disingaged from the World for when he was bid go and Sell what he had and give it to the Poor he was sad at that Saying and went away grieved though he was told at the same time that it was to be only an Exchange and that far for the better that he should have Treasure in Heaven for what he quitted upon Earth But however difficult it may be for a Soul so low sunk in her Affections to recover again upon the Wing and bear up above the steams of the Flesh and the attractions of the Animal Nature yet this is that excellent end which the Christian Institution aims at and which every good Christian ought diligently to endeavour after For what the Author of our Faith and Happiness said of some particular words of his is true of all that they are Spirit and Life such as are able and were designed to reanimate the dead and senseless Minds of Men and to diffuse a-vital heat throughout the torpid and benumm'd World And accordingly St. Paul tells us that Christianity is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Law of the Spirit of Life and in another place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Ministration of the Spirit such as becomes a Vital Form in us to give us Motion and Activity and to raise us from that Sown and Lethargy which by our Fall we were cast into And the same Apostle makes it here the Character of an accomplished Christian such who is fit to be proposed as an Example for our Imitation that he is one that is not only above but has nothing to do with the petty trifling Interests of this lower World but has his Thoughts and Affections wholly taken up and imployed about the Beatitudes of the next For says he Brethren be Followers together of me and mark them that walk so as ye have us for an Example for our Conversation is in Heaven In discoursing upon which Words I shall shew First What it is to have our Conversation in Heaven Secondly How reasonable and becoming it is for a Christian to do so Thirdly What are the Uses and Advantages of such an Heavenly Dispensation of Life Now concerning the First I consider that Heaven here may be understood either largely for the state of the other Life in general by way of opposition to this or more strictly for
that special and excellent Portion of it Glory and Happiness If we consider it according to the former sense then to have our Conversation in Heaven will be to be perpetually mindful of our Mortality and that we are Citizens of another World and must shortly take our leave of this to have a constant prospect into that other World which must be our last Home and to be always looking beyond the Horizon of Time to the Long Day of Eternity to dwell in the Meditation of the Four last things Heaven Hell Death and Judgment how great they are in their Consequence how certain in the Event and how near in their Approach and in consideration of all this to be always preparing for our great and final Change But if we consider it according to the latter and stricter Sense then to have our Conversation in Heaven will be frequently to contemplate the Infinite Perfections of the Divine Essence the First of Beings and the Last of Ends and the unconceivable Happiness of those who shall enjoy the Communications of his Blessedness to Contemplate and have always in view that weight of Glory that incorruptible Crown with which the Sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared no not to be mentioned To Meditate Day and Night upon that happy time when we shall be Partakers of Moses's Wish and be admitted to that intimate and naked Vision of that Mysterious and Incomprehensible Excellence which is too great for our Mortal Faculties and which none can See and Live When we shall see him not in Symbols and Figures not in Glories and sensible Manifestations but openly and clearly really and as he is and from seeing him be transformed into his Likeness To meditate upon the blessed Society of Saints and Angels upon the delicious repasts of Anthems and Alleluiahs and that more ravishing Harmony of Divine Love and intellectual Sympathy upon the elevated and raised Perfections of a glorified Soul the inlargements of its Understanding and the sublimations of its Will and Affections and upon the Angelical Clarity and Divine Temper of our Resurrection Body In sum upon all those glorious things which are spoken and which even he that saw them could not utter of the City of God and upon the infinite Consolations of that joyful Sentence Come ye Blessed of my Father Inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the World Lastly to contemplate all this not coldly and indifferently as a thing that is a great way off or as an uncertain Reversion or maginary Utopia but as a state that will shortly and certainly be and with that Faith and Assurance which is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen to Dwell Converse and have our Civil Life in Heaven for so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies as if we were already Inhabitants of that Blessed Place and actual Members of that Sacred Policy and Community This is to have our Conversation in Heaven this is that Heavenly-Mindedness which the great Apostle who had personally conversed in the Third Heaven and seen there more than he could utter proposes to the imitation of his Followers and for which he esteemed himself fit to be an Example Which leads me to shew Secondly what a reasonable and becoming thing it is for a Christian thus to have his Conversation in Heaven and to convince him that it is so let him consider First That the other Life is the state we are chiefly intended for without respect to which there is nothing in this considerable enough to justify the Wisdom and Goodness of God in making the World that here we have no abiding City no durable concern and consequently what a folly 't is to let our Thoughts dwell where we but Sojourn our selves that this present state both by reason of its shortness and other Vanities is upon no other account considerable than as 't is an opportunity for and a Passage to the next that as it was not worth while for God to make it so neither is it for us to live in it if it were not in order and relation to something further that 't is a short Voyage and where the Haven lies always in sight that 't is the greatest short-sightedness imaginable not to see beyond so little a prospect as the Grave and the greatest stupidity and dotage to confine our Cares and Affections on this side of it if we do 'T is true indeed if there were no other state but the present 't would be our greatest Prudence to make as much of it as we could though 't were more vain and contemptible than 't is because 't is our All 't would then be as reasonable to have our Conversation on Earth as now 't is to have it in Heaven and the Epicure's Proverb would then be as Wise as any of Solomon's Let us Eat and Drink for to Morrow we Dye But since we are assured by him who brought Life and Immortality to light through the Gospel that there is another state and that our Death is but the beginning of a new and never to be ended Life this one would think should deserve and engross all our Thoughts and Affections our Meditations and Discourses and that we should be no more concerned with the things of this World than a Ghost is that only comes to do a Message of Providence and when his Errand is over vanishes and disappears Or if we did at any time condescend to interest our selves in the Affairs or lawful Entertainments of this Life methinks it should be only transiently and by the by as the Hungry Disciples pluck'd the Ears of Corn just to serve a present Necessity or as the Israelites ate the Passover in hast with our Loins girt our Shoes on our Feet and our Staff in our hand Secondly Let him consider that as the other state is the chief and proper state of Man so Heaven is the good and happiness of that state that 't is the true and natural Centre of our Rest our Home and Native Region that the Joys there are unspeakable and full of Glory such as the Senses of Man cannot tast such as his Understanding cannot at present conceive and such as it will never be able to comprehend Joys that are without example above experience and beyond imagination for which the whole Creation wants a Comparison we an Apprehension and even the Word of God a Revelation That Eternal Word of God which opened to us a Prospect of a future state and brought Life and Immortality to light yet he attempted not to give us a representation of the Heavenly Felicity but thought fit rather to cast that unexpressible Scene of Glory into a Shade For indeed to what purpose should the Son of God go about to reveal the Secrets of the Kingdom to us since if it were possible to describe it as it is yet 't is not possible for us to conceive it as
the one as well as to mean us from the other Nay to speak the truth it will not so much support us under these Evils as take them away and render them slight and inconsiderable For suppose the worst that can be Death and a Painful Death he that has his Conversation in Heaven views the Glory that shall be revealed there and at once sees that the sharpest Sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with them no more than the Point of a Circle is with its Circumference He contemplates the Joy that is set before him and so indures the Cross and despises the Shame and the Pain too For a view of Heaven will mitigate any Cross upon Earth and help us to incounter any Affliction as St. Stephen did his Martyrdom He is one of those steddy Men the Psalmist speaks of who are not afraid at any evil Tidings but his Heart stands fixed in the Lord. Much less will he for the dread of any Persecutions or Worldly Losses deny his Religion or by a Trimming and Hypocritical Mode of Behaviour court the Favour of those in Power or by any sinful compliance part with a good Conscience He sees nothing so great or so terrible in this World as to fright him into any such unworthinesses no they that do so have not their Conversation in Heaven but are Earthly Sensual and Devilish and for all their Pretences to Self-denial deny nothing of themselves that I know of but their Understandings He that truly converses in Heaven sees infinitely more there than he can either get or lose here and can therefore never be guilty of such a Foolish Exchange as to gain not the whole but a little of the World and lose his own Soul Thirdly This Dispensation of Life is the best Preparatory for Heaven that can possibly be for besides that the greatness of that Happiness makes him that Contemplates it despise any good or evil that may here stand in competition with it he further considers the Nature and Quality of that Happiness that it is an union of the Soul with her best and last end that it is a clear Vision and an ardent Love of God who cannot be seen by him that Lives much less by him that Lives ill and this must needs put him upon thinking that a Holy and Divine frame of Spirit is absolutely requisite not only as a Condition to our Admission into Heaven but also as a Condition of Enjoyment without which there is no being Happy even when we are there And from this Consideration he naturally passes to fit himself for the enjoyment of his Maker to Purify himself as he is Pure to Purge Refine and Spiritualize his Nature that so he may be qualified for the refined Joys of Heaven The short is there are Two things that must and will be considered by him that has his Conversation in Heaven the Greatness of the Happiness there and the Nature of it and each of these has a particular influence for the preparing him for it The former will make him Temptation-Proof against any present good or evil that shall stand in his way to his great Prize and the latter will contribute to form and fashion the frame of his Mind into a likeness and affinity with the end which he proposes But both together will so strongly influence the Man that he will become perfectly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dead to himself and to all the Luscious Relishes of the Corporeal Life and the Life of God will be triumphantly seated in him so that now he has but one only Will in the World which is to have none at all of his own but to annihilate himself that God may be all in all in him And thus while like Moses he converses with God on this holy Mount his Face shine with a Divine Glory and he is transfigured into the likeness of him whom his Soul loves Fourthly and Lastly This is a dispensation of Life that affords the greatest Pleasure and Satisfaction of any in the World to ascend the top of the Mystical Pisgah and thence to take a survey of the Happy Land to contemplate the infinite Perfection of God and the Happiness of those Blessed Spirits that enjoy him the Order of Angels and that noble and blessed Communion of Saints to contemplate the last and richest Scene of Providence and the Discovery of all the rest that went before when the reason of all difficult and perplexing Appearances shall be made plain and the manifold Wisdom of God set in a clear Light to have our Minds imployed about the greatest and best things to walk with God and keep a constant Communication with Heaven must needs be the sweetest as well as the noblest and most worthy Entertainment on this side of it Intellectual Pleasures are certainly greater than Sensual even by the Confession of the greatest Sensualists as may appear from this single instance in that Men will abstain from the greatest Pleasures of Sense that they may not lose a good Reputation which is an Intellectual good and as Intellectual Pleasures are greater than Sensual so this is the greatest of those that are Intellectual Concerning this the same may be said that is of Wisdom that her Ways are Ways of Pleasantness and that all her Paths are Peace that she is a Tree of Life to them that lay hold upon her and happy is every one that retaineth her That they who eat of her shall yet be Hungry and they that drink of her shall yet be Thirsty For there is a certain inexhaustible Well of Pleasure a fathomless Abyss of Delight in this Heavenly Conversation which they only who have experimented it can conceive and which even they want Power to describe This I know will be far from satisfying some Voluptuaries who are sunk so low into the contrary Life that of Sense and Carnality that they will think a Man Mad that shall either Talk or Live at this Abstracted rate but to these I have Two things to say First That their having no notion of the Pleasure of this Dispensation is no Objection against it the thing may be true for any thing they know or can say to the contrary for they are not during the quick sensibility and invigoration of the lower Life proper Judges in the case any more than the Sense it self is of an Intellectual Object for these things are spiritually discerned by a certain Divine Tast and Sensation which is a Faculty which these Men want The other thing I shall commend to the Sensualist is this that since he is too scrupulous and sceptical to take our word for it he would endeavour after such a degree at least of Spiritual Purification as to try the Experiment that as the Psalmist speaks he would Tast and See how good and pleasant this Heavenly Conversation is and then I 'm much mistaken if he does not find that all the Madness lay on his side if
Quiver I will rest heartily satisfied with his severest dispensations and though he kill me yet will I trust in him Let us then at all times and on all occasions with all Patience Meekness Contentedness and Resignation of Spirit be Passively as well as Actively Conformable to the Divine Will and demean our selves as becomes Children under the Chastisement of so wife and so good a Father let us not only with calmness endure but with content and satisfaction approve and justify all his Dispensations so will he justify and acquit us hereafter and to the present benefit of our Affliction superadd a Reward of our Patience and reveal to us such an excellent Glory with which the Sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared To which God of his Infinite Mercy conduct us all Amen A DISCOURSE CONCERNING The Folly of Covetousness Luke 12. 20. But God said unto him Thou Fool 'T IS somewhat strange to consider that Wisdom should be a thing desired by all and highly pretended to by the most and yet that Men should betray their Folly in nothing more than in their Judgments concerning Wisdom and yet this is the frequent as well as unhappy fate of the many Pretenders to Wisdom that are in the World who in nothing take such absurd measures as in this We shew indeed enough of our Weakness and Ignorance in the search of Nature and in what we call our Philosophy We live among Mysteries and Riddles and there is not one thing that comes in at our Senses but what baffles our Understandings but though as the Wise Man complains hardly do we guess aright at the things that are upon Earth and with labour do we find the things that are before us yet find them out we do in some measure and are seldom so very much out in our Judgments as to mistake in Extremities and take one contrary for another 'T is very rare that we take the vertue of a Plant to be Hot when 't is extreamly Cold and he must be a very mean Botanic now that shall gather Poison instead of Pot-herbs and yet this we often do in the conduct of Life and in the great Ends and Measures of it Here we often mistake one contrary for another Evil for Good Darkness for Light and Folly for Wisdom We do not only act foolishly for that were something tolerable would we but acknowledge and be ashamed of our weakness but we back this Folly with another applaud and justify our absurd measures and think our selves Wise not only while we are Fools but for that very thing wherein we are so The generality of Men place their Wisdom in that which is directly their Folly and their greatest Wisdom in their greatest Folly they lay deep Plots for shallow Interests and are very slight and superficial in their Contrivances about things of real Moment and Consequence they work out a frame of little Designs with as much industry art and wariness as the laborious Spider weaves her fine-wrought Web and to as much purpose to catch a Fly to bring about a Trifle when the same perhaps half the labour and thoughtfulness would have served for the securing a weighty and substantial Interest And yet when they have done this they think they have been very Shrewd and Politick and compassed a very notable Point and are Proud of their little Atchievement and fancy the Title of Wise as much their due as if pronounced so by the Oracle and as sure and well established as if their Wisdom as well as that of Solomon had built her House upon Seven Pillars little thinking all the while that he that dwelleth in Heaven shall laugh them to Scorn that the Lord shall have them in Derision That God whose Ways are not as our Ways nor his Thoughts like our Thoughts has already weighed them in a truer Ballance than that wherein they weigh themselves and finds them wanting wanting in what they chiefly pretended to and charges them with downright Folly and Madness For this was the case of the Rich Man in the Parable the Fruitfulness of his Ground had put him upon a new Expedient and he was very busie and thoughtful within himself how to find room to dispose of his Goods What shall I do says he because I have no room where to bestow my Fruits The Poor Man it seems was as much straitened in his Plenty as other Men use to be in the extreamest Poverty What shall I do the very Language of those who are reduced to Straits Do why give the overplus to the Poor and that thou mayst not be so overstock'd again another Year part with a good piece of thy Land and build an Hospital No says he I understand better things than so this will I do I will pull down my Barns and build greater and there will I bestow not on the Poor all my Fruits and my Goods and I will say to my Soul Soul thou hast much Goods laid up for many Years take thine Ease Eat Drink and be Merry This was his Resolution and a Wise one too as he thought applauding himself as much in the Wisdom of his Contrivance as in the Fruitfulness of his Ground But God said unto him Thou Fool It is here supposed that the Rich Man thought he had done wisely and proceeded by the best Measures of Prudence and Discretion in that the Judgment of God is here by way of Opposition set against his he it seems and God were of two different Apprehensious But God said unto him From the Words therefore I shall in the First place observe how vastly the Judgment of God differs from that of Men and particularly that what we count Wisdom here is Folly with him And since the Judgment of God is always insallible and according to the truth and reality of things I shall therefore in the Second place consider the great Folly of what God here condemns as such First Of Sin in general Secondly Of placing our Happiness and Content in the good things of this World And here I shall consider the great Folly of Covetousness and particularly of the Covetous Rich Man in the Text. And First I observe how vastly different the Judgment of God is from that of Men and particularly that what we count Wisdom here is Folly with him My Thoughts says God by the Prophet are not your Thoughts neither are your Ways my Ways for as the Heavens are higher than the Earth so are my Ways higher than your Ways and my Thoughts than your Thoughts Indeed the disproportion is very great between Earth and Heaven between the Point and the Circumference of so vast a Circle and yet this cloes but faintly shadow out the mighty disproportion that is between the Measures of Men and the Ways of God for the difference is as great as between Truth and Falshood which are removed from each other by an unmeasurable distance There 's more Truth than we are easily
aware of in that fancy of Homer that the Gods call things by other Names than we do so far are they from thinking our Thoughts that they do not so much as speak in our Phrase Not only the Thoughts of God are above our reach but even his very Words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Words that cannot be utter'd by a Mortal Tongue nor understood by an imbodyed Understanding there 's an unimaginable difference even in the very Nomen-clature as well as the Logick of Earth and Heaven for God dwells in unapproachable Light and Glory nay he himself as St. John tells us is a pure and unmix'd Light a Light which has no Darkness and to which nothing is dark but all things open and naked He therefore pierces through the very Essences of things sees them all in their proper Colours and calls them all by their proper Names He has before him in one simple view the whole Field of Truth nay he is very Truth himself and consequently can no more be deceived in his Judgment of things than he can cease to be what he is But we though we see in his Divine Light yet we have it reflected to us through false Mediums and mingled with Clouds and Mists and thick Darkness We look upon Truth as we do upon the Face of the Setting Sun through a gross and fallacious Atmosphere and by a Refracted Ray which makes it to appear where it is not for we see through a Veil of Flesh those dim Spectacles of the Soul and the Vapours of the Body cloud the Understanding and blunt the Edge of the Mind We seldom discern things as they truly are and when we do we can hardly keep true to the Judgment which we have once rightly made but are oftentimes by the intervening Eclipses of sudden Passion actually ignorant of what we habitually know and then act as foolishly and absurdly as if we had never known it These are the accidental Disadvantages we labour under besides the finiteness of our Understandings which even in the Perfection of our Nature are bounded within a narrow compass And since this is the Case between God and us the Judgment which God makes of things must needs be vastly different from the Sentiments of Men for if the Judgment of one Man be so widely different from that of another if the Conceptions of Philosophers be so far removed from the fancy of the Vulgar and the Measures of an Experienced Statesman be so quite otherwise than those of a poor Home-bred Peasant how vastly different must the Measures and Judgments of God be from those of Men who sees Darkness even in the Angels of Light and charges the loftiest Seraph with Folly Certainly so very different that they are for the most part quite contrary in so much that what we think Truth and withal dogmatically pronounce as such and perhaps bind with an Anathema God in the mean while judges to be Error and what we take to be Wisdom he esteems to be Folly And I doubt most of our Wisdom is of such a Stamp as will not pass above in the Regions of Light however current it may be here below by the advantage of this our Night and Obscurity And the Apostle says plainly of the Wisdom of the World which indeed is the Wisdom of the most that 't is Foolishness with God But of this we shall be better convinc'd by some particular Instances whereof there are a Multitude but I shall briesly touch upon a few And First as to the frame of the Natural World some Mathematicians and Naturalists have quarrel'd with the Geometry and Contrivance of it one dislikes the Situation and Motion of the Sun in making some Countreys so very Hot and some so very Cold and in occasioning so frequent Eclipses Another quarrels with the conduct of the Weather and can by no means think it well that a full Cloud should empty it self upon the barren Sand or upon the Sea when in the mean time many a rich Ground is almost starved for want of Relief from Heaven and he can as little reconcile it to wise Administration that the hopes of the promising Year should be crush'd in Pieces by the rude Arrest of an unseasonable Frost Another wonders to what purpose there should be such vast numbers of little Infects why there should be any such thing as Poison and why among Fishes the Greater should prey upon the Less and why those which are Food for us should be so thick set with little Bones and he can never forgive Nature for the Luxuriancy and easie growth of Weeds when choice Flowers are hardly brought up even with Labour and Care But to all this and the like the Judgment of God stands directly opposed who upon a Solemn Review of his Works pronounced all things good that he had made and found not one Erratum in the whole Book of Nature Thus again as to the Administration of the Moral World we don't like the System of this neither but are wont to be dissatisfied First That there should be any such thing as Evil in it this has been censured as a great Flaw by a whole School of Philosophers and the most favourable Plea they could advance for it was to resolve it into Necessity and the Invincible Stubborness of Matter as much as to say God could not help it And those who could be pretty well reconciled to the being of Evil in the World would yet by no means indure to think that the greatest share of it should light upon good Men. This was ever an unanswerable Scandal and an unmoveable Objection and yet 't is most certain that if God did not judge it best upon the whole matter that there should be Evil in the World and that the most of it too should fall upon those who deserved the least he would never suffer either the one or the other There is yet another thing in relation to the Moral World which lies very cross upon our Minds and that is the Adjournment of the full Administration of Justice to another World we would fain see it in this and are for an immediate and visible distinction and separation to be made between Good and Bad between the Tares and the Wheat and because we see no such difference made we are apt to censure the Order if not to question the very Being of Divine Providence But it seems the Judgment of God is against ours he thinks it not so well that the Tares should now be separated from the Wheat but that both should grow together till the Harvest Thus again as to the Matter of the Christian Faith and the manner of planting it in the World which the Apostle in one Word calls the Preaching of the Crofs this we know was a Stumbling Block to the Fews and Foolishness to the Wise Greeks who were then the Vertuoso's of the World and yet we are told by an inspired Pen that 't was both the Power and
his Folly will further appear if we consider Secondly the Error and Mistake that must necessarily precede in his Judgment before he does or can make such a Choice all Sin is founded upon Ignorance and Mistake for as 't is impossible to chuse Evil as Evil in general so is it no less imposfible to chuse any particular kind of Evil as Evil and consequently 't is impossible to chuse the Evil of Sin as such The Devil himself as Abstract a Sinner as he is can't love Sin as Sin If therefore it be chosen it must be chosen under the appearance of Good and it can have this appearrance no otherwise than as considered as a lesser Evil for that 's the only way whereby an Evil may appear good or eligible and so it must be considered before it be chosen He therefore that chuses Sin considers it at the instant of Commission as a lesser Evil and therein consists his Error and Mistake he is either Habitually or Actually Ignorant he either has not the Habitual Knowledge of all those things which should preserve him in his Duty or at least he has not the Actual Consideration of them for 't is that which must bring him to Repentance there being no Consideration beyond this And 't is impossible a Man should Sin with the very same Thoughts Convictions and Considerations about him as he has when he Repents This I say is no more possible than for a Ballance to move Two contrary ways with the same Weight and in the same Posture He therefore that Sins wants that Consideration at least to keep him in his Duty which when he Repents brings him to it and is therefore Ignorant and Mistaken The Sum of this matter lies in this form of Argument Whoever thinks Sin a lesser Evil is mistaken in his Judgment but whoever commits Sin does then think it a lesser Evil Therefore whoever commits Sin is mistaken in his Judgment So great is the folly of Sin both in reference to the Absurdity of the Choice and to the Error and Mistake of the Chuser and so great reason has every Sinner to take up that Confession of the Psalmist so Foolish was I and Ignorant and even as a Beast before thee And thus far of the Folly of Sin in general I come now in the Second place to the other ground of the Charge where I am to consider the folly of placing our Happiness and Content in the good things of this World and of that particular sort of Earthly-Mindedness which we call Covetousness It is certainly a very great folly to place our Happiness in any Created Good even in the very Best of the Works of God there is nothing even in Heaven that 's Created which can be our Happiness not the Discourses of Angels not the Love of Seraphins not the Musick of Alleluiahs And therefore the Psalmist excludes all the Creatures even in Heaven as well as in Earth from being the Objects of his Happiness Whont have I in Heaven but thee says he 't would be a great folly therefore to make any Created Good our Happiness even in the very Region of Blessedness But then to place it in any good that this World this Sediment and Sink of the Creation can afford is such a degree of Sottishness and Stupidity as did not Experience convince us that there are such Fools one would hardly think incident to a Rational Creature for it plainly argues that we are grosly ignorant of one of these Two things either of our selves or of the things of the World we are either ignorant of the Dignity and Excellency of our Natures of the Designs and Ends of our Creation and of the Strengths and Capacities of our Appetites which are to be satisfied with nothing less than Infinite or if we do know and consider all this of our selves then we are so much the more ignorant of the World about us to think that there is any thing to be had in this Circle of Vanity to satisfy the importunity of such Hungry and Capacious Appetites So far indeed is any thing in this World from being able to afford us Happiness and Satisfaction that 't is well if it can give us Entertainment and sweeten the otherwise insipid and to some very bitter Draught of Life The wisest Enquirer into the Capacities of Nature will hardly allow it so much as that but says of all here that 't is not only Vanity but also Vexation of Spirit and if we do by an extraordinary Fortune meet with any thing in this World that can a little cool and allay the heat of our great Thirst and refresh the drought of our Spirit yet we are assured by our Saviour who well understood the World though he enjoy'd but little of it that whosoever drinks of this Water shall thirst again and we all find by repeated Experiences that 't is so and our Reason tells us it must be so considering the vast the infinite disproportion between the best things of this World yea of the whole Creation and the largeness the immensity of our Appetites and Capacities which are a plain Demonstration that we were neither made for them nor they for us and that here is neither our Good nor our Evil. And what a Folly then is it to place our Happiness and take up our Rest in such things as these against the Confession and experimental Verdict of the Wisest of Men against the express Declaration and Asseveration of God who made both the World and us and knows the exact Proportion that all his Works have to each other and that a Barn full of Corn can never satisfy the Hunger of a Soul against the united experience of all Men ever since Adam nay and against our own Experience too which will witness to us if we but ask her that we never enjoyed but were disappointed and found our Souls empty when our Arms were full nay and against the Answer of our Reason too which satisfies us of the Necessity of what our Experience confesses to be true and that as it has ever been so so it ever will and must be so I say what a desperate incorrigible Fool must he be who after all this will yet dream of a Heaven upon Earth and place his Happiness in the good of this World The short is there is no Folly or Disappointment like that of being mistaken in ones End and of all Ends none is so foolishly mistaken as our Last End and this can never be more foolishly mistaken than when 't is placed in the things of this World This therefore is a very great instance of Folly and Stupidity and to him that is guilty of it whatever he be for Wit and Parts in other Matters of lesser consequence God justly may and will say Thou Fool. And now if there be so much of Folly in Centring in this World which consists of great variety of Good and wherein there is a great Latitude
and Inspection be as strong a Preservative against Sin as the Presence of a Man Without doubt it would and infinitely more did we but equally consider it it would then secure us not only from Sin but even from Temptation too and keep us out out of Danger as well as in Innocence For how can he be tempted to Sin who dwells always in the Presence of his Creator and Judge Why are the Angels and the Souls of Just Men made Perfect secure from the danger of Sinning but only because they are always in the open Presence of God and dwell in the Light of his Countenance This is their great Preservative above and the same if well attended to would be a Preservative to us below The Perseverance of the Angels in Heaven is owing to their always beholding the Presence of God there and if we could do the same here in proportion that is if our Contemplation were but as actual steddy and uninterrupted as their Vision we should be as Confirmed and Established as they In short notwithstanding the great Corruption of our Nature and our Proneness to Evil we need no other Guard either against Sin or against Temptation than these Three Words well considered God is Present But there is One particular Sin to which this Consideration is utterly irreconcilable and against which it is a peculiar Antidote and that is the Sin of Hypocrisie this is a Sin which of all others proceeds most upon the Supposition of God's not being privy to our Thoughts and Intentions and his not having a thorough Comprehensive Knowledge of all things As the Fool says in his Heart there is no God so the Hypocrite says in his Heart that if there be yet he is no Observer as being neither Omnipresent nor Omniscient Which Attributes of God whoever seriously Contemplates must needs have his Antidote against this Vice For to what purpose should a Man play the Hypocrite before him who can discern the Fraud and Rottenness of the Proud Pharisee under his broad Phylactery and the ravenous Covetousness of the Precise Sectary under his long Prayer No as the Hypocrite takes care to avoid open Immoralities because they are visible to the Eye of the World so had he a due Sense of the Divine Presence and Observation he would be every whit as careful to be without all inward Impurities because they are Visible to the Eye of God But Secondly This Practice is also a general Incitement to all that is good As the Supposition of Gods Omnipresence and Omniscience is the Foundation of all Religion for to what purpose should we make Religious Addresses to a Being that is either afar off or unconscious of our Behaviour towards him so the constant and actual impression of it would greatly promote the Practice of all Religion Walk before me and be thou Perfect How can he be Perfect that does not walk with and before God and how can he be otherwise that does The actual Thoughts of the Presence of God is the very Life and Spirit of all Religion without which we should be quickly weary of well-doing and with which we shall be so far from flagging in our Duty that we shall be always endeavouring to do better and better that so we may the more approve our Selves and our Actions to our All-present and All-seeing Judge This was the Principle into which David resolved all the Perfection and Integrity of his Obedience that he acted as in the Sight and Presence of his Judge I have kept thy Commandments and Testimonies for all my Ways are before thee And no doubt if we acted by the same Principle we should live with the same exactness if we lived under a constant sense of the Presence of God as he did we should also with him have respect to all his Commandments When the Glorious Presence of God appeared to the Israelites upon Mount Sinai we find that they were so sensibly affected with that terrible Sight as to take up earnest Resolutions of Obedience for all the People answered Moses reporting the Words of God to them with one Voice and said All the Words which the Lord hath said will we do And as long as this Presence of God continued we don't find but that they were very Orderly and Obedient and contained themselves within those Boundaries which Moses by Divine Order had set about the Mount And there is no question to be made but that if they could still have maintained a fresh and lively Idea of this great Presence in their Minds they would also have retained the same obedient Temper of Spirit and would have contained themselves within all other Bounds of God's setting as well as those of Mount Sinai their Heart would have been whole with him and they would have continued stedfast in his Covenant We may therefore and without Censure conclude that those who take liberty to break through the Bounds which God has set by transgressing those excellent Laws which he has given for the good Order and happy Being of Mankind are not duly sensible of the Divine Presence and Observation They may know it indeed Habitually as a meer Point of Speculation but they do not actually weigh and consider it and have reason to say in the Words of the Patriarch when awakened from Sleep Surely God was in this Place and I knew it not And now since the Spiritual Advantages of setting God always before us are so great and so many I think I need use no other Perswasive to recommend this excellent Expedient of Holy Living to our constant Practice In all other things we love the most Compendious Methods and to make use of such Means as lead most directly and by the shortest Line to the End we aim at And why should we not follow the same Method in the Practice of a Religious Life the difficulty and consequence of which is enough to ingage us to seek out for the best and most forwarding Assistances Now this certainly of all others will deserve that Character being the most general Instrument of Perfection and consequently the most Compendious way to it Let us then be perswaded to make use of it by setting God always before us and having him always in our Thoughts especially under this Threefold Consideration as the Supream Good as a Pattern and as an Observer so shall we have a perpetual incouragement to do well and a sufficient Counterpoise against all Temptations And God grant we may so set him always before us here that we may not be afraid to appear before him hereafter Amen A DISCOURSE CONCERNING The doing God's Will on Earth as it is in Heaven Mat. 6. 10. Thy Will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven SO our Blessed Lord bids us to Pray who came to be the Promoter of Holiness as well as to be the Author of our Faith and to Reform the World as well as to Redeem it Now as 't is the Perfection of the Natural
Heaven that they do it after a very perfect and excellent manner far exceeding the highest Measures of Mortality is here implied in that they are proposed and commended to us as Patterns and might be further concluded from the Perfection of their Natures and Faculties which we cannot but suppose to be very extraordinary since the excellency of our future Condition is summ'd up in this short Description that we shall be like unto the Angels But waving this Consideration taken from the Powers and Faculties of Angels as somewhat too Nice and Metaphysical for a Practical Discourse I shall chuse rather to represent the great Excellency wherewith they perform the Will of God from Two Collateral Considerations First The Impediments they are free from Secondly The positive Advantages they enjoy And First as to the Impediments they are free from 'T is the great disadvantage of all Human Spirits in this Station as well as the complaint of some that they are united with Bodies that are not proportioned to the Native Excellency and Activity of their Natures for indeed the Soul has made an ill Match Marryed very much beneath her self and has met with a Clog instead of a Companion one that is too weak to obey her Dictates and Motions and too strong to be governed that cannot follow and that will not be led that sticks too close to her to be shaken off and yet is too loose from her to be well managed Such an untractable ill suited Consort as this must needs be a constant incumbrance to the Soul even in her Natural but much more in her Moral and Spiritual Operations because here the Consort has contrary Inclinations so that the Soul is put to incounter not only with her ordinary weight but with an Opposite Law even that Law of the Members which wars against the Law of the Mind and brings us into Captivity to the Law of Sin Neither is this all for we are not only cumbered with a weight of Flesh and depressed by its low tendencies and propensions but our Body which at best is but in an ill disposition for the Operations of the Rational and Divine Life is often discomposed and made worse by Sickness and then the Soul is forced to sympathize and condole with her ill-suited Companion and either not to act at all or to perform her Part upon an ill-tuned Instrument And he that is blessed with the strongest and most tunable Constitution and enjoys the most vigorous Health has yet a great many necessities of Nature to serve that will take up much of his Thoughts and much of his Time so that he can't chuse but be troubled about many things things below the concernment of a Rational Being and that though he has chosen the Better Part and is so well convinced of his true interest as to acknowledge only one thing to be needful Add to all this that we breath in an infected Air live in an ill World where every Object almost is a Temptation and have a Devil to tempt and seduce us one who makes it his proper and profest business to cross the Ends of God to disturb the Moral Harmony of the Universe and to hinder the symphony and agreement of the Two Worlds that so God's Will may not be done in Earth as it is in Heaven And with these disadvantages no wonder that it is not But now the Holy Angels have none of these Impediments they have either no Bodies or such as no way incommode or retard but rather help and further their Faculties for they are in the full height and last perfection of their Natures and consequently must not be supposed to have the least degree of any of their Natural Perfections detained or held back from exerting it self by any clog or impediment there being no reason imaginable why they should be invested with any degree of Power which must never be brought into Act as it never must be if not at present they being now supposed to be in the last Perfection of their Natures They must be therefore conceived in this respect to act like necessary Agents to the full and to the utmost of their natural Strength and to have nothing in them that is not put forth as far as possibly can be And besides the Scripture always speaks of them under the denomination of Spirits without making 〈◊〉 of any Bodies belonging to them which must needs imply that either they are all Pure Minds as the Platonists say of the highest Order or if they have Bodies they are of so refined and clarified a Mould so nigh to an Immaterial Substance that Spirit might serve as a common word for both They have therefore no weight or load upon their Faculties nothing to dead or slacken the Spring of their Nature no Concupiscence to darken their Understandings or to pervert their Wills no Indisposition Languor or Weariness occasioned through crazy and sickly Vehicles but are always Fresh Vigorous and Bright like the life and quickness of the Morning and rejoyce like the Sun to run their Course They have no Necessities to relieve or provide for no impertinent Avocations to call them off from their noble Exercises no ill Company to debauch them no Devil to tempt and insnare them and therefore must needs act with a full display of their Faculties and be carried out uncessantly and intirely toward the Supream Good with their whole bent and energy as a Stone would tend toward the Center through an unresisting Medium But this will further appear by considering Secondly the positive advantages which they enjoy Their great advantageis that they have a constant and clear Vision of the Essence of the great God Now I consider that the Essence of God is the very Essence of Goodness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Divine Philosopher fitly calls him whereupon I conceive that an Angel seeing God after this Essential manner must have the same Habitude and Disposition to him as one that does not thus see God has to the common nature of Good But now 't is impossible that a Man should either will or act any thing without attending to good in common and without proposing that as his aim And accordingly 't is as impossible that the Blessed Angels should will or act any thing without attending to God and making him their End as long as they have this Essential Vision of him and of this they are never deprived for our Lord says of them that they always behold the Face of his Father which is in Heaven This he speaks of the Missionary Angels that have the Charge and Office of Guardians here upon Earth that even they notwithstanding their imployment here have a constant view of the Divine Essence and are never interrupted in their Beatisick Vision much more then is this true of the Stationary Angels that wait upon the Throne of God the Residentiaries of Heaven Whence it further follows that 't is impossible they should
Angelical Life pray'd at some times more earnestly than at others this depends in a great measure upon the various junctures of Circumstances and the various impressions of Objects from without and the different fineness and quickness of the Animal Spirits within with many other Accidental Dispositions which are not in our Power We are only accountable for the Motions of our Wills and for ebbs and flows of Passion no further than they are at the disposal of the other and therfore if we Sail by a true Compass and steer our Course to the right Point we do our Duty and are not Chargeable for want of Gusty Blasts and Swelling Sails which are not in our Power to have Then Secondly as to the Extensiveness of Angelical Obedience if this be considered in the First Sense with respect to the kinds of Good we are certainly obliged to have our Obedience as Extensive as theirs being bound to obey the whole Will of God For the sincerity of our Obedience can no otherwise be justified than by its Universality and Uniformity Uniformity as to the Object though not as to the Act and therefore 't is that the Psalmist Prays O that my Ways were so direct that I might keep thy Statutes so shall I not be confounded when I have respect unto all thy Commandments But if the Extensiveness of Angelical Obedience be considered in the latter Sense with respect to the several Degrees in each kind of good so we are not bound to come up to the Measures and Attainments of Angels and that because 't is beyond the Capacity of our present Condition Nay I think we are not strictly obliged under Pain of Sin to attain to all the degrees of good which we possibly can or always to do what is simply Best for I think it plain from Scripture that the Degrees of good admit of Counsel as well as Precept and of Perfection as well as Duty Much less therefore are we obliged to the full extensiveness of Angelical Obedience as thus considered If we are not bound to our Best much less to their Best But besides this way of considering the Extensiveness of the Angelical Obedience as to the kinds and degrees of Good there is yet another namely with respect to Time or Continuance this is what we otherwise call their Perseverance or Constancy of Obedience Now as to the Measures of our Obligation to this we are to distinguish and consider the Gospel in a double Capacity as a Law and as a Covenant if we consider it as a Covenant then we are not obliged to a constant and all the way along continued Obedience For 't is not uninterrupted but only final Perseverance that is the condition of the Covenant But if we consider it as a Law then we are not only obliged to a final but to an uninterrupted Perseverance that is we are not only required to be found at our last Exit in a state of sincere Obedience which is the Condition of the Covenant but also to continue all the way in it For every deliberate and voluntary interruption of it is Sin and such as while unrepented of intitles us to and if never repented of will actually bring upon us Damnation Having thus in short stated the general Measures of our Conformity to the Angelical Pattern which are also the Measures of our Evangelical Obedience I come now lastly to consider how Reasonable it is that we should do thus and certainly if any thing in the World be reasonable 't is that we should do the Will of God for the Will of God is the highest Reason Indeed were God an Arbitrary Humersom Being that loved to domineer over his Creatures and to impose on them harsh and troublesom Commands only for his own Pleasure and to shew his Authority though even then we should justly owe him Homage and Obedience yet there might be some pretence for disputing it and making demurs about it But God is so good and kind as to enjoyn us nothing but what is pursuant of the End for which he Created us that is our Happiness and Perfection So kind as to link our Duty and Interest together and to make those very things the instances of our Obedience which are the natural Means and necessary Causes of our Happiness So that were we to contrive a way to make our Condition Happy we could pitch upon no better than what he has already prescribed to us in the Laws which he has given us So highly consonant and agreeable are they to the frame of our Natures and so absolutely necessary are they both to the order of this present World and to the Happiness of the next This might easily be demonstrated of every one of the Divine Commandments in particular but that being too long an Undertaking for the close of a Discourse I only consider that we have a certain ground to conclude what the Will of God must be in reference to us by what he is in himself for this is an evident Principle That such as God himself is such must be his Will it being unconceivable that he should will any thing contrary to his Nature But now we all take God to be a Being Essentially and Immutably Wise and Good Holy Just and True and if these are Properties inseparable from the Nature of God as all grant they are then the Will of God must also be Holy Wise Just True and Good and consequently highly fit and reasonable to be Obeyed But why O God do we want Reason to perswade us to do thy Will Is it not enough that it is Thine Thine who art the great Creator and Governor of the World and hast the highest right to be served by all the Creatures and by all the Powers which thou haft made Thine who art the best and greatest Being who art infinitely Wise Holy Just and True and canst therefore command nothing but what is so Thine who art above all capacity of addition to thy Happiness and canst therefore propose no good but that of thy Creatures in the Laws that thou givest them Why then do we inquire after the Reason of thy Will It ought to satisfy us that it is Thine And since this Will of God is done in Heaven why should it not be done on Earth Since the Blessed Angels who can discern the Reasons of things even the deep things of God and are infinitely better able to judge of the Reasonableness of Obedience than we are since they are so ready and forward to pay it why should we make any Question or any Delay about it Since the great Heavenly Host those Excellent Beings that excel both in Wisdom and Strength acknowledge and submit to the Government of God why should we a little handful of Rebels stand out Since the Will of God is done in Heaven why is it not on Earth Yes it is done on Earth for at his Commandment the Waters flow and the Wind and Storm fulfil his Word only Man disorderly Man will not be Obedient though he has a God for his Maker and Angels for his President But let as many of us as hope to be like Angels hereafter study to be like them here let us seriously and diligently endeavour to write after so fair a Copy and set before us the Holy Angelsas Patterns as well as Observers in all our Actions which would certainly work more upou us than that Expedient so much advised by a great Man the imaginary presence of a Cato or a Lelius Let us make it our care as much as in us lies by the Angelical Piety and Regularity of our Lives to resto e the Moral World to that Symphony and Uniform Harmony wherein God made it and not only Pray but also heartily Endeavour that the Will of the great God may be done here on Earth as it is in Heaven FINIS Psal. 84. 6. Phil. 3. 19. Luke 12. 15. Job 31. 24. Pfal 52.8 Phil. 3.19 1Tim 6.5 1 Thef 5.5 1 Cor. 3. 19. Psal. 49.13 Job 28. 2 Cor. 4. 18. 2 Cor. 5.7 Eccl. 9.10 2Cor 6.2 Prov. 6.6 1 Cor. 2.14 2 Cor. 3.4 Acts 13.10 Psal. 91. 6. * See a short but very convincing Account of this matter in Dr. Burnet's Latin Theory the Second Part Pag. 126. Luke 12 56. 1 Cor. 13. 6 Isa. 5. 20. Mat. 11.19 Prov. 22.4 Gen. 6.6 Ver. 5. Ver. 12. 2 Pet. 2. 5. Psal. 12. Psal. 14. Psal. 55. Psal. 74. Psal. 82. Rev. 12. Mat. 7.13 Psal. 64. Prov. 11. 21. 1Cor 9.22 10. 33. John 5.19 Mat. 23. 32. 1 Thes. 5. 5 6. 2 Pet. 2. 8. Rev. 2. 13. Gen. 7. 1. 2 Pet. 2. 5. Wisd. 2. Mat. 22.38 Rom. 13. 10. Rev. 2.13 1 Cor. 13.8 Acts 13.48 Psal. 1. 3. Heb. 2. 3. Psal. 39. Isa. 38. 2 Tim. 4. Deut. 32. Isa. 57. 20. Psal. 119. Prov. 14. 32. Isa. 32. 17. 2 Cor. 1. 12. John 3.14 Ver. 21. 1 Cor. 2. 11. Rom. 8.16 Ephef 1. 13. 14. Rev. 2.17 Eccles. 12. 6. 2 Cor. 1. 12. Jaâ—â— 3.17 Mark 10.21 Rom. 8. 2. 2 Cor. 3. I Joh. 3.2 2 Cor. 12. 4. Exod. 12. Mat. 6. 32 33. Col. 3. 1. 1 Pet. 1. 23. Psal. 27. Rom. 8. 5. John 12. 32. 2 Kin. 2.2 John 17. 15. Heb. 11.9 Psal. 112.7 Prov. 3. 17. Psal. 65. 4. * Epictetus Psal. 126. Job 1. 11. Luke 22. 54. Wisd. 11. 23. Theor. and Regulat Love P. 52. Job 22.13 Gen. 1.2 Mat. 18.10 Job 5. 6. Psal. 146. Lam. 3.33 Heb. 2.10 1 Cor. 12. 17. Ephes. 3. 10. Wisd 8. 1. Eccles. 1.9 Epist. 96. Epictetus Psal. 39. Job 1. 21. 1 Pet. 12. 1 John 4. 8. Job 2. 10. Wisd 9.16 Psal. 2. 4. Isa. 5. 5. Mat. 13.30 1 Cor. 1. 24. Eccl. 2. 9. Reason and Religion Pag. 250. Pfal 73. Pfal 73. Jeh 4. 13. Psal. 145. 17. Heb. 10. 23. Heb. 116. Mat. 22.38 Rom. 5. 5. Cant. 2. 3. Psai 45. Psal. 77.3 1 Joh 3. 12 Psal. 52.1 Psal. 10. De Sacrisiciis Lib. 1. Pag. 162. Heb. 4. 13. Job 22.13 Gen. 17. Gen. 4.16 Psal. 119. Gen. 28. John 1. 3. 1 Col. 16. 17. Heb. 1. 2. 10. 2 Tit. 11. Psal. 135. Psal. 103. Luk. 20.36 Rom. 7.23 Mat. 18.10 Joh. 3.2 Isa. 6. 2. Ezek. 10. Psal. 104.4 Eccl. 43.1 Deut. 4. 19. Ephes. 6. Psal. 126. Psal. 119.