embracing the most desirable Goods then is the whole Rational Nature Happy Now if you cast abroad your thoughts over the whole extent of Being you will presently find that there is nothing in it so worthy to be known and chosen as God whose Power being the source and fountain of all Truth that is of all that either is or is possible and whose Nature being the subject of all rational Perfection wherein it originally resides and from whence'tis derived to all the Rational Creation you must upon these accounts necessarily allow Him to be infinitely the most worthy Object in all the World of Beings for our Vnderstanding to contemplate and our Will to chuse And if so then the very Life and Quintessence of the Heaven of a Man considered as a Reasonable Being must needs consist in a close and intimate Knowledge of God and a Free and Uncontroverted Choice of Him BUT that we may more fully comprehend the Nature of this Happiness it will be needful that we should more distinctly explain what these two Essential Acts of it do import and what Happiness is included in them And I. THE Happiness of a Man consists in a free and intimate Knowledge of God For our Vnderstanding hath naturally as strong an Appetite to Truth as our Stomach hath to Food and as grateful a relish of it when it hath once discovered it as an Hungry-man hath of a pleasant morsel And though in this life its Appetite is many times pall'd and deadned partly through the difficulty of knowing occasioned either by the natural indispositions of its Organs or the inveterate prejudices of a bad Education and partly by being continually employed in secular cares and pursuits which do perpetually divert and so by degrees wean it from its natural inclination to Truth Yet when we go from this World and leave these causes behind us which give such a check to its Appetite doubtless its hunger after Knowledge will immediately revive and there will be no possibility of ever satisfying it without it SUPPOSE we then the future World to be inhabited with a company of Intellectual Beings that do all most vehemently gasp after the knowledge of Truth What can there be imagined more grateful to them than to be admitted to the very Fountain of all Truth and Reality there to quench their Thirst and satisfie their infinite Desires with the free and easie but still fresh discoveries of his infinite Glories and Perfections Where will they be able to fix their greedy Eyes with comparably that Pleasure and Delight as upon the Mysterious Trin-un-Divinity which is the eternal Author of all Being the Root of all Good and the Rule and Source of all Perfection But then supposing what is the case of these Blessed Contemplators that their Minds are so raised and their Apprehensions are rendred so unspeakably quick and sagacious as that they can All know whatsoever they have a mind to without the difficulty of Study and presently discern the Dependence and Connexion of Things without any puzling Discourse or laborious Deduction with what incomparable satisfaction must they needs peruse that infinite Volume of the Divine Being and Perfections NOW that in that Blessed State they have unspeakably clearer and more perspicuous apprehensions of Things than ever they had here that noble passage of St. Paul assures us 1 Cor. xiii 12 For now we see through a glass darkly but then face to face now I know in part but then I shall know even also as I am known that is now our Knowledge of Divine things is very obscure and imperfect they being shewn us as it were through a glass on purpose to give us but a glympse of them but when we come to Heaven we shall look close upon them and have a far clearer and more distinct Apprehension of them Then we shall know God as truly as He knows us and have as real and certain Apprehensions of his All-glorious Being as He hath of Ours So that in Heaven you see the Eyes of those Blessed Minds that inhabit it are so invigorated that they can gaze upon the Sun without dazling contemplate the pure and immaculate Glories of the Deity without being confounded with their brightness and their Understandings being thus exalted they must needs apprehend more at one single view than we can do in volumes of Discourse and tedious long trains of Deduction AND then enjoying as they do a most perfect repose both from within and without them they are never disturbed in their eager contemplations which having such an immense Horizon of Truth and Glory round about them are still discovering farther and farther and so continually entertain'd with fresh Wonders and Delights What an infinite deal of Pleasure then must that All-glorious Object afford to such raised and elevated Minds as these which like transparent Windows let in without any Labour or Difficulty all that Divine and Heavenly light which freely offers it self unto and shines for ever round about them and which by every new Discovery of God and of these bottomless secrets and mysteries of his Nature are still enlarged to discover more and still have new Discoveries offering themselves as fast as they are enlarged to receive them This of it self is so great a part of Heaven that St. John himself seems to be at a loss how to imagine any Heaven beyond it 1 Joh. iii. 2 Beloved now we are the Sons of God and it doth not yet appear what we shall be but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like him that is in Glory and Happiness for we shall see him as he is But then II. THE Heaven or Happiness of a Man consists also in a free and undistracted choice of God that is in chusing him for the Rule and Pattern of our Natures and for the object of our Love Adoration and Dependence all which as I shall shew hereafter are Beatifical Acts and do abundantly contribute to the Happiness of Reasonable Creatures For Happiness as hath been premised consists not in Rest but in Motion and there is no Motion can contribute to the Happiness of any Being but what is suitable to its own Nature Now what motion can be more suitable to the nature of a Reasonable Creature than to Love and Adore the Author of its Being and Well-Being to bow to the will of the Almighty Sovereign and to imitate the Perfections of the Supreme Standard and Pattern of all Reasonable Beings to rely and depend on his infinite Power that is always conducted by his infinite Wisdom and Goodness All which are founded upon so many strong evident and undeniable reasons that the very naming of them is sufficient to justifie them to our Faculties and demonstrate them to be infinitely agreeable to the most fundamental Principles of our Reasonable Nature And being so it is impossible but that of themselves they should be exceeding joyous and blissful for as the sensitive nature is most gratified with
be In a word so far shall we be from repining and murmuring at God for not rewarding us as liberally as others that we shall be thoroughly sensible that he hath been bountiful to us infinitely beyond our Desert or Expectation that 't was not out of a fond Partiality ot blind Respect of Persons that he raised others to higher Degrees of Glory than our selves but out of a Principle of strict Justice that exactly ballances and adjusts its Rewards according to the Degrees of our Desert and Improvement The sense of which will not only compose our Minds into a perfect Satisfaction but also continually excite us to those Beatifical Acts of Love and Praise Thanksgiving and Adoration Thus Humility you see tunes and composes us for Heaven and only casts us down like Balls that we may rebound the higher in Glory and Happiness THUS you see how all those Virtues which appertain to a man considered as a Reasonable Animal conduce to the Great Christian End viz. The Happiness of Heaven 'T is true indeed the immediate product of this sort of Virtues is only at least chiefly priâ—ative Happiness or the Happiness of Rest and Indolence which consists in not being miserable or in a perfect cessation from all such Acts and Motions as are hurtful and injurious to a Rational Spirit For as I have shewed you in the Beginning of this Section the proper office of Humane Virtue consists in so regulating all our Powers of Action as that we do nothing that is hurtful or injurious to our Rational Nature and thus you plainly see these Five aforenamed Virtues do most effectually perform But besides this Priâ—ative there is as I shewed you a Positive Part of Happiness which consists not in Rest but in Motion in the Vigorous Exercise of our Rational Faculties upon such Objects as are most suitable to them And to the obtaining of this Part of our Happiness there are other kinds of Vertues necessary to be practised by us of which I shall discourse in the two following Sections But though the immediate Effect of these Humane Virtues we have been discoursing of be only the Happiness of Rest yet do they tend a great deal farther even to the Happiness of Motion and Exercise For it is impossible so to suppress that Active Principle within us as to make it totally surcease from Motion and therefore as every intermission of its sober and regular Actings does but make way for wild and extravagant ones so every abatement of its hurtful and injurious motions makes way for beatifical ones And so the Humane Virtues by giving us rest from those Motions that are afflictive to our Natures incline and dispose us to such Motions and Exercises as are most pleasant and grateful to it SECT II. Concerning those Divine Virtues which belong to a Man considered as a Reasonable Creature related to God shewing that these also are comprehended in the heavenly part of the Christian Life and that the practice of them effectually conduces to our future happiness I PROCEED now to the second kind of Virtues viz. Divine to which I told you we are obliged in the capacity of reasonable Creatures related to God who being not only endowed with all possible perfections with infinite Truth and Justice Wisdom and Goodness and Power with all that can render any being most highly reverenced admired loved and adored who being not only the Author of our Being and Well-being as he is Creator and Preserver of all things but also our sovereign Lord and King as he is God almighty the supream and over-ruling Power of heaven and earth hath upon all these accounts a just and unalienable claim to sundry duties and homages from his Creatures all which I shall reduce to these six particulars 1. That we should frequently think of and contemplate the beauty and perfection of his nature 2. That upon the account of these perfections we should humbly worship and adore him 3. That we should ardently love and take complacency in him 4. That we should attentively and unweariedly imitate him in all his imitable perfections and actions 5. That we should intirely resign up our selves to his conduct and disposal 6. That we should chearfully rely and depend upon him All which as I shall shew are included in the heavenly part of the Christian Life and do most effectually contribute to our future happiness I. AS we are rational Creatures related to God we are obliged to be often contemplating and thinking upon him For the natural use of our understanding is to contemplate Truth and therefore the more of Truth and Reality there is in any knowable object and the farther it is removed from Falshood and Non-entity the more the Understanding is concerned to contemplate and think upon it God therefore being the most true and real object as he stands removed by the necessity of his existence from all possibility of not-being must needs be the most perfect Theme of our Understanding the best and greatest Subject on which it can employ its Meditations And besides that he is the most true and real of all beings he is also the source and spring of all Truth and Reality his Power conducted by his Wisdom and Goodness being the cause not only of all that is but of all that either shall be or can be And is it fit that our Understanding which was made to contemplate should wholly overlook the fountain of it But besides this too that he is the greatest Truth himself and the cause of every thing else that is true and real he is the Sovereign of Beings and the most amiable and perfect as he includes in his infinite Essence all possible perfections both in kind and degree And what a monstrous Irreverence is it for minds that were framed to the contemplation of Truth to pass by such a great and glorious one without any regard or observance as if he stood for a cypher in the world and were not worthy to be thought upon Nay and besides all this which one would think were enough to oblige our Understandings to the strictest attendance to him he is a Truth in which above all others we are most nearly concerned as he is not only the Father and Prop of our Beings and the Consolation of our lives but the sole Arbiter of our Fate too upon whom our everlasting well or ill being depends And what can we be more concerned to think and meditate upon than this great being from whom we sprang in whom we live and breath and of whom we are to expect all that evil or good that we can fear or hope for All which considered there is no doubt to be made but that our Understanding was chiefly made for God to look up to him and contemplate his Being and Perfections And though in this imperfect State it is too often averted from him by this vast variety of sensual things that surround it and intercept its Prospect yet as our Soul
to give a larger Account FROM the whole I would recommend to the pious Reader the Consideration of the admirable Structure and Contrivance of the Practical Part of Christianity which having proposed to us an End so great and sublime and so highly worthy of our most vigorous prosecutions hath also furnish'd us with such choice and effectual Means of all sorts to attain it The consideration of which would be in itself a great Inducement to me to believe Christianity a Divine Religion though I were utterly unacquainted with its External Evidence and Motives of Credibility For it can never enter into my Head that such a rare and exquisite Contrivance to make men good and happy could ever owe its Original to the mere invention of a Carpenters Son and a company of illiterate Fishermen Especially considering how far it excels the Moral Precepts even of those divine Philosophers who believ'd the future State of a blessed Immortality and exerciz'd their best Wit in prescribing Rules to guide and direct men thither AND having given this large Account of the instrumental Duties of the Christian Life and also inforc'd the several Divisions of them with proper Arguments and Motives I thought fit to add a fifth Chapter wherein I have given some Rules for the more profitable reading of this practical Discourse and also some general Directions for the Exercise of our private Religion in all the different States of the Christian Life together with certain Forms of private Devotion fitted for each State In which I have supposed what I doubt is a very deplorable Truth viz. that the Generality of Christians after their Initiation by Baptism into the Publick profession of Christianity are so unhappy as to be seduc'd either through bad Example or Education into a vicious State of Life and that consequently from thence they must take their first start into the through Practice of Christianity Not that I make the least doubt but that there are a great many excellent Christians who by the Blessing of God upon their pious Education have been secur'd from this Calamity and trained up from their Infancy under a prevailing Sense of God and Religion and therefore for such as these as there is no need of that solemn method of Repentance prescribed in the first Section of the fourth Chapter so neither is there of those first penitential Prayers in this fifth Chapter which are accomodated to that State For these persons have long since been actually ingaged in the Christian Life and as 't is to be supposed have made considerable Improvements in it and therefore as they are only concerned in the Duties of the second and third States of the Christian Life so they are only to use the Prayers which are fitted to those States which with some variation of those phrases which suppose the past Course of our Life to have been vicious they may easily accommodate to their own Condition But the Design of this Discourse is not only to conduct them onwards in their Way who have already entered upon the Christian Life but also to reduce those to it who have been so unhappy as to wander into vicious Courses or rather though it serves both Purposes 't is wholly designed for the same persons viz. to seek and bring back those lost Sheep who have straid from the Paths of Christian Piety and Vertue and then to lead them on through all the intermediate Stages to the happy State of immortal Pleasures at the end of them And now if what hath been said should by the Blessing of God obtain its designed Effect upon any person I ask no other Requital for all the Pains it hath cost me but his earnest Prayers to God for me that after my best Endeavours to guide and direct him to Heaven I may not fall short of it my self THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. COncerning the Ultimate End of the Christian Life the Necessity of explaining what it is in order to our understanding the Christian Life Page 1. that Heaven is the End of it p. 2.3 c. that Heaven and Gods Glory are the same thing p. 5.6 what kind of Happiness Heaven implies with a general Account of the Happiness of Rest and the Happiness of Motion shewing that Heaven includes both but consists principally of the latter p. 7.8 c. that the Happiness of a Man consists in the vigorous Motion of his Vnderstanding and Will towards suitable Objects p. 11.12 and chiefly in the Knowledge and Choice of God p. 12.13 c. and also in the Knowledge and Choice of those that are most like him p. 21.22 c. the Glory of the Place p. 25.26 the Eternity of the Enjoyment p. 26.27 two Inferences from the whole p. 27.28 c. CHAP. II. Concerning the Means by which the End of the Christian Life is to be obtained that the Means must be more and greater than what was necessary to the first End of man viz. the Enjoyment of an earthly Paradice p. 33.34 c. that the great Distance of man from Heaven in his degenerate State creates a Necessity of many more Means than otherwise would be needful p. 35.36 c. two Kinds of Means necessary to our attainment of Heaven viz. the Practice of the Vertues of Christianity and the Vse of the instrumental Duties of Christianity p. 38.39 c. that the instrumental Duties of Christianity conduce no farther to our Happiness than as they are Means of Vertue proved in four particulars p. 42.43 c. CHAP. III. Concerning the Proximate Means of attaining Heaven viz. the Practice of the Christian Vertues shewing what Vertues this kind of Means consists of and how much every Vertue contributes to the Happiness of Heaven A distribution of the Christian Vertues into Humane Divine Social p. 57.58 SECT I. Concerning the Humane Vertues shewing that from the Constitution of humane Nature there are five Vertues necessary to its Happiness p. 59.60 c. first Prudence p. 62.63 c. secondly Moderation p. 70.71 c. thirdly Fortitude p. 79.80 c. fourthly Temperance p. 89.90 c. fifthly Humility p. 97.98 c. SECT II. Concerning the Divine Vertues which are comprehended in this first sort of Means shewing what they are and how effectually they conduce to our future Happiness that from the Relation we stand in to God there arises an Obligation to six several Vertues all which are necessary to our Happiness p. 108.109 c. first Contemplation of his Nature p. 109.110 c. secondly Adoration of his Perfections p. 117.118 c. thirdly Love p. 123.124 c. fourthly Imitation p. 136.137 c. fifthly Resignation p. 147.148 c. sixthly Trust and Dependance p. 162.163 c. SECT III. Concerning the Social Vertues which are included in this first sort of Means shewing that from our Inclination to Society and from the Nature and Condition of humane Society there arises a necessity of five Vertues to our everlasting Happiness p. 175.176 c.
Fifthly we shall not only render our Recovery more difficult for the future but plung our selves for the present into a far more criminal and guilty Condition p. 501.502 c. sixthly we shall not only render our selves more guilty for the present but expose our selves if we die in our sin to a deeper and more dreadful Ruine 508.509 CHAP. V. Containing some short Directions for the more Profitable reading the ensuing Discourse p. 513.514 and also directions for the good Conduct and regular Exercise of our Closet Religion in all the different states of the Christian Life together with Forms of private Devotion fitted to each State p. 517. the first are for the State of Entrance into the Christian Life p. 517.518 c. the second for the state of actual Engagement in it p. 530. the third for the state of Growth and Improvement towards Perfection OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE CHAP. I. Concerning the ultimate End of the Christian Life IN order to our understanding what is the Nature Use and Excellency of any Means it is necessary we should have a true and genuine Notion of those peculiar Ends which they drive at For the nature of them as they are Means consists in being serviceable to some End but to what they are particularly serviceable must be collected from the nature of those particular Ends whereunto they are directed And therefore till we know what those particular Ends are it is impossible we should know whether they are Means or no or which is the same thing whether they are serviceable to any End or Purpose IT being therefore the Design of this Work to explain the nature of the Christian Life it will be necessary for the clearing of our way to give some account of the blessed End for which it is intended which will very much contribute to our right understanding of the great usefulness and subserviency of each part of it thereunto Therefore I. I shall endeavour to shew what is the peculiar End of the Christian Life II. Wherein the true Nature of this End consists I. As for the End of the Christian Life we are assured from Scripture that it is no other but Heaven it self that state of endless Bliss and Happiness which God hath prepared in the World above for the reception of all those who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality That this is the End of the Christian Life is evident from hence because 't is every where proposed by our Saviour and his Apostles as the Chief Good of a Christian and the Supreme Motive to all Christian Virtue For so St. John that bosome-Favourite of our Saviour assures us that This is the promise which Christ hath promised us even Eternal Life 1 John ii 25 And if we look into the Gospel of St. John who hath more largely recorded our Saviours Sermons and Discourses than any other Evangelist we shall find Eternal Life still proposed by him as the supereminent Promise to encourage and persuade men to the profession and practice of Christianity For so John iv 36 't is proposed by our Saviour as that which is the Harvest of a Christian to which like the Husbandman's plowing and sowing all our care and endeavour is to be directed He that reapeth receiveth wages and gathereth fruit unto eternal life Consonantly whereunto St. Paul tells us that he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting Gal. vi 8 And this as our Saviour tells us is the great Reward which he gives to all those that hear and follow him John x. 27 28. and this the great argument which he every where insists on that he that believeth hath Life Everlasting that whosoever heareth his word hath Life Everlasting and that his commandment is Life Everlasting And Rom. vi 22 Everlasting Life is expresly said to be the End of having our fruit unto Holiness and as such we are bid to direct our actions unto it to believe in Christ unto Everlasting Life 1 Tim. i. 16 to do good to this end that we may lay hold upon Eternal Life 1 Tim. vi 18 19. to look unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross c. Heb. xii 2 And therefore Heaven is described to be the Christian Canaan to which we are to direct all our steps whilst we are travailing through this World Heb. xi 14 15 16. And the whole life of a Christian is expressed by seeking it Mat. vi 33 Heb. xiii 14 Col. iii. 1 And the incorruptible Crown is affirmed to be as much the end of the race of the Christian Life as those corruptible Crowns were of the races in the Olympick Games 1 Cor. ix 25 For it is to Eternal Glory that we are called 1 Pet. v. 10 2 Thes. ii 14 and in the discharge of all that Duty whereunto we are called we are to look to this blessed Hope as our great End and Encouragement Tit. ii 13 THIS I have the more largely insisted upon because of a great mistake that many persons have lain under in this matter which is that the Glory of God is the only ultimate End of a Christian and that this is a distinct End from Heaven The first of which I confess is very true but the last absolutely false That the glory of God is the last End of a Christian is evident from those Texts which bid us do all to the glory of God 1 Cor. x. 31 and which make the glory of God to be the point in which all the fruits of righteousness do concenter Phil. i. 11 which propose this as the End of all Religious Performances that God in all things may be glorified 1 Pet. iv 11 and affirm that t is to this purpose that we are chosen to be Christians that we should be to the Praise of his Glory Eph. i. 12 But that the glory of God is no distinct End from our being made partakers of the Happiness of Heaven is as evident from hence that this Glory consists not in any thing that we can add or contribute to Him whose essential Glory is so immense and secure that there is nothing we can do can either Increase or Diminish it and there is no other Glory can redound to him from any thing without but what is the Reflection of his own natural Rays He understands himself too well to value him self either the more or the less for the Praises or Dispraises of his Creatures For he is enough of Stage and Theatre to himself and hath the same satisfying Prospect of his own Glory in the midst of all the loud Blasphemies of Hell as among the perpetual Halelujahs of Heaven And having so it cannot be supposed that he should injoyn us to Praise and Glorifie him for the sake of any Good or Advantage that can accrue to Himself by it or out of any other pleasure he takes in
hearing himself applauded and commended by us than he doth in any other Act that is decent and reasonable in it's own Nature but 't is therefore he will have us Praise him because he knows it is for Our Good and highly conduces as it is a most reasonable Action to the Perfection and Happiness of our reasonable Natures because our praising him naturally excites us to imitate him and to transcribe into our own Natures those Adorable Perfections which we do so admire and extol in His. So that to pursue our own Perfection and Happiness is to Glorifie God according to his own design and intention who requires us to Glorifie him for no other purpose but that thereby we may Glorifie our selves And indeed our Happiness is Gods Glory even as all other worthy Effects are the Glory of their Causes T is He that gives being to it and consequently He that is glorified by it It being nothing but the resplendency of his own Almighty Goodness or his own out-stretched Rays shining back upon Himself And therefore we aim at Gods glory just as He himself doth when we aim to be as happy as He would have us that is when we pursue Heaven and co-operate with his Infinite Goodness whose great design is to advance us to that blessed condition in which we shall Glorifie him for ever and be Everlasting Monuments of his overflowing Benignity So that whether we call our last End Heaven or the Glory of God it is all but one and the same thing since by obtaining Heaven we shall Glorifie him according to his own Design and Intention And this I think may suffice to shew what is the true ultimate End of the Christian Life But then II. IT will be yet farther necessary for our clearing the way to the Design in hand to enquire what Kind of Happiness this is Which when we understand we shall be the better able to comprehend what Duties or Means are necessary for the obtaining it And this Enquiry will be easily resolved by considering the Nature of Those for whom it was prepared and intended For all Happiness consists in the free and vigorous Exercise of the Faculties of Nature about Objects that are suitable to themselves There is indeed a privative happiness which is nothing but Indolence or freedom from pain and misery and this consists not so much in the Exercise as in the rest and quiet of the Faculties And herein the soft and restive Epicureans placed the whole Happiness of a Man In which I confess they would not be very much mistaken if there were no happiness belonging to a Man beyond that Animal and Sensual one in which the Disciples of this Atheistical Philosopher placed their chief Good For the greatest part of the Pleasures of Sense indeed are merely Privations of Misery and short Reprieves from the Griefs and Troubles of a wretched Life For what else is our Ease and Rest but only the removal of our Pain and Weariness which being removed the Pleasure is presently over and then we grow weary again of our Rest and Ease till Pain and Weariness return and sweeten them and gives them a fresh and new relish For when we are weary of Rest we are fain to recreate our selves with Action and when we are weary of Action to refresh our selves with Rest and so round again still in the same Circle Thus the greatest part of the pleasure of Eating and Drinking consists in asswaging the pain of our Hunger and Thirst. For when this is over you see the pleasure ceases and till it returns again every fresh morsel is but a new load to a tired Digestion So that in short the greatest part of those sensual Felicities which we do here enjoy are only short intermissions of the pains and uneasinesses of a wretched Life But if there were no other Happiness belonging to a Man but what consists in not being sensible of Misery it were much more desirable to be a Stone than a Man and the only way for him to be perfectly Happy would be to deprive himself of all Sense and Perception T IS true That which is positive in our Happiness can never be perfectly injoyed by us without a perfect Indolence and Insensibility of Pain it being impossible for us to have a perfect sense of any thing whilst we have the least touch or feeling of its Contrary But were Happiness nothing else but a non-perception of Misery it would have no positive Essence or Reality of its own which is directly contrary to all humane Experience For we plainly feel that our Happiness hath in it not only a Rest from Evil but a grateful Motion to Good and that as our Pain and Misery consists in an acute and sensible perception of such things as are most ungrateful to our Natures so Pleasure or Satisfaction consists in a vigorous perception of the contrary So that besides the not being miserable which is not so properly an Essential Part of Happiness as a necessary Disposition to it without which the Faculties of our Natures will be indisposed to relish and perceive it there is a positive Happiness which as I said before consists in a constant free and vigorous Exercise of the Faculties about such Objects as are most convenient and suitable to their Natures For Happiness in the general includes Perfection and Pleasure both which are necessarily included in such an Exercise of the Faculties For then the Faculties are Perfect when they are freely constantly and vigorously imployed about such objects as are most congruous to their several natures when they are recovered from all indispositions whether natural or moral to those proper motions and exercises for which they were framed and do freely constantly and without any clog or interruption direct all their courses towards such Objects as are their natural Centers And then the Faculties are most pleas'd and delighted too when they are most vigorously exercised about that which is most suitable to them when they are not only determined to such Objects as are most agreable to their Natures but do also act upon and exert themselves towards them with the greatest Sprightliness and Vigour THESE things I thought meet to premise concerning Happiness in the General as being very needful to the clearer resolution of the present Enquiry viz. Wherein consists the Heaven or Happiness of a Man In short therefore the proper Heaven and Happiness of a Man considered as a rational Being consists in the constant free and sprightful Exercise of his Faculties about such Objects as are most convenient to his rational Nature which consisting wholly of Vnderstanding and Will that is of a Faculty of Knowing and a Faculty of Chusing the most suitable Objects of it are such as are most worthy to be known and most worthy to be chosen When therefore the Vnderstanding is always vigorously exercised in seeing and contemplating the most glorious and excellent Truths and the Will is always vigorously employed in chusing and
Happiness not only to co-habit but be acquainted with and in Heart and Will united to this Blessed and Glorious Company For what Soul that has any Spark of Cordial Love to Jesus the best Friend of Souls that ever was any grateful remembrance of what he did and suffered for our sakes would not esteem it a mighty Felicity to be admitted into his Presence and to be an Eye-witness of the happy Change of his past woful Circumstances To see him that was so cruelly treated so barbarously vilified tortured and butchered for our sakes raised to the highest pitch of Splendour and Dignity to be Head and Prince of all the Hierarchy of Heaven to be worshipped and celebrated throughout all the noble Choir of Archangels and Angels and Spirits of just men made Perfect Verily methinks had I only the Priviledge to look in and see my dear and blessed Lord surrounded with all this Circle of Glories it would be a most Heavenly Consolation to me though I were sure never to partake of it The very Communion I should have in the Joyes of my Master would be a kind of Heaven at Second-hand to me and my Soul would be wondrous Happy by Sympathizing with him in his Felicity and Advancement But Oh! when that Blessed Person shall not only permit me to see his Glory but introduce me into it and make me Partaker of it when I shall not only behold his Beloved Face but be admitted into his Dear Conversation and dwell in his Arms and Embraces for ever when I shall hear him record the wondrous Adventures of his Love through how many woful Stages he passed to rescue me from Misery and make me Happy and in the mean time shall have a most ravishing Feeling of that Happiness how will my Heart spring with Joy and burn with Love and my Mouth o'reflow with Praises and Thanksgivings to him AND as our Acquaintance with and Choice of the Blessed Jesus must needs contribute vastly to our Happiness so must also though not in so high a Degree our being intimately acquainted and united with Saints and Angels Who being not only endowed with large and comprehensive Vnderstandings but also with perfect Good-nature and most generous Charity must needs make excellent Company For as their Goodness cannot but render their Conversation infinitely free and benign so their great Knowledge must necessarily render it equally profitable and delightful And then being so Knowing as they are they must needs be supposed to understand all the wise Arts of Endearment and being so Good they must be also supposed to be continually practising them And if so what a Heavenly Conversation must theirs be the Scope whereof is the most glorious Knowledge and the Law whereof is the most perfect Friendship Who would not be willing to leave a foolish froward and ill-natured World for the blessed Society of these wise Friends and perfect Lovers And what a Felicity must it be to spend an Eternity in such a noble Conversation Where we shall hear the deep Philosophy of Heaven communicated with mutual Freedom in the Wise and Amicable Discourses of Angels and of Glorified Spirits who without any Reserve or affectation of Mystery without Passion or Interest or peevish Contention for Victory do freely Philosophize and mutually impart the treasures of each others Knowledge For since all Saints there are great Philosophers and all Philosophers perfect Saints we must needs suppose Knowledge and Goodness Wisdom and Charity to be equally intermingled throughout all their Conversation and being so what can be imagined more delightful When therefore we shall leave this impertinent and unsociable World and all our good old Friends that are gone to Heaven before us shall meet us as soon as we are landed upon the shore of Eternity and with infinite congratulations for our safe Arrival shall conduct us into the Company of the Patriarchs and Prophets Apostles and Martyrs and introduce us into an intimate Acquaintance with them and with all those brave and generous Souls who by their glorious Examples have recommended themselves to the World when we shall be familiar Friends with Angels and Arch-Angels and all the Courtiers of Heaven shall call us Brethren and bid us Welcome to their Masters Joy and we shall be received into their glorious Society with all the tender indearments and Caresses of those Heavenly Lovers what a mighty Addition to our Happiness will this be THERE are indeed some other additions to the Happiness of Heaven such as the Glory and Magnificence of the Place which is the Highest Heaven or the upper and purer Tracts of the Aether which our Saviour calls Paradise Luke xxiii 43 and St. Paul the Third Heaven 2 Cor. xii 2 both which in the phrase of that Age bespeak it to be a place of unspeakable Glory for so the Jews do commonly call this blessed Seat the Third or Angel-bearing Region of Heaven by which they denote it to be the Palace of the King of the whole World where his most glorious Courtiers do reside and they also call it Paradise in allusion to the Earthly Paradise of Eden because as that was the Garden of this lower World so this is of the whole Creation And though we have no exact description of this place in Scripture and that perhaps because no humane language can describe it yet since God hath chosen it for the Everlasting Theatre of Bliss and Happiness we may thence reasonably conclude that he hath most exquisitely furnished it with all accommodations that are requisite to a most happy and blissful Life BESIDES which also there is the everlasting Duration of it which is another great Accession to its Happiness That such is the Nature of its Enjoyments as that they do not like all other Pleasures spend and wast in the Fruition that though it will be always feeding our Faculties with new Delights yet it will never be exhausted but be always equally because infinitely distant from a Period So that its Happiness consisting of an infinite Variety of Pleasure extended to an infinite Duration it will be impossible for those that enjoy it to be either cloyd with the repetition of it or tormented with the fear of losing it BUT these Two last I only mention because they do not so properly belong to our present Argument which is only to explain the Nature of Heaven so far as is necessary to the right understanding of the Nature of those Means by which it is to be attained NOW from what hath been said concerning this great End of the Christian Life these Two things are to be inferr'd concerning the Nature of it I. THAT the main of Heaven consists not so much in any outward Possession as in an inward State and Temper For though Heaven be doubtless a most glorious Place and all its blessed Inhabitants do possess and hold it by an everlasting Tenure yet 't is a great mistake to imagine that the main happiness of Heaven consists in living
the Law of Nature which seems to have been nothing else but only Right Reason dictating to us what is necessary to be done in order to an Earthly Happiness And accordingly the Duties of this Law were of a much lower strain than the Duties of Christianity they being intended for the Means and Instruments of a much lower Happiness For in this our Earthly and Animal State Right Reason could require nothing of us but what was subservient to our Earthly and Animal Felicity and nothing could be good for us but what tended thereunto nothing evil but what did obstruct and oppose it But now that our Happiness is placed in another World and in such vastly different Enjoyments from those of a Terrestrial Paradise we must proceed upon other Principles For now every Action is Good or Bad Wise or Foolish as it serves or hinders our Happiness in the World to come And therefore it is highly reasonable that now we should live at a different rate than what we were obliged to in that Animal state wherein we were first Created that we should submit our earthly to our heavenly Interest and renounce the Joyes and Pleasures of this Life whensoever they stand in competition with the spiritual Felicities of the Life to come Now we are no longer to look upon this World as our Native Countrey but as a Foreign Land and so we are to reckon our selves Strangers and Pilgrims upon Earth and accordingly to use the conveniencies of this Life as strangers do their Inns not to abide or take up our habitation in them but only to bait and away and refresh our selves that so we may be the better enabled to perform our Journey to the Eternal World For the scene of our Happiness being shifted from an Earthly Immortality to an Heavenly and consequently the Happiness it self being now much more sublime and pure and spiritual than it would have been had it continued Earthly it 's necessary that our Nature should be exalted with it and that we should be raised as high above the condion of mere Earthly Creatures as that is above the rank and quality of an Earthly Happiness otherwise it will be impossible for us to relish and enjoy it NOW every Agent hath need of more or fewer Means proportionably as he is farther off or nearer to the End he drives at As for instance the Husbandman that hath a fat and fruitful Soil to sow his Seed in is nearer to the attaining of a good Harvest than he that hath a barren or stony Ground to work upon and therefore hath much less to do For whereas the latter before he can plough and sow must manure his Ground and gather out the stones of it the former needs only plough up the fertile Earth and cast his Seed into it Or to come closer to the case in hand a man that is meerly ignorant is in a much nearer capacity of true Knowledge than he whose mind is altogether prejudiced with erroneous Principles and therefore needs much fewer Helps and Means to attain it For his mind being perfectly disengaged is like a fair Paper on which as there is nothing writ so there is nothing to be blotted out So that all that he hath to do is to inquire after and receive the Truth when it is fairly proposed to him But as for the Prejudiced man he hath a great deal to unlearn before he can be capable of Learning a great many false Principles to be expunged before ever the true Notions of Things can be imprinted on his Understanding IF therfore we would take a true account of all those Means that are necessary to our attaining of Heaven we must consider what a vast distance we are from it in this corrupt and degenerate state of our Nature If we were in a state of Indifference between Virtue and Vice we should be much nearer Heaven than we are For then as we should be without those Heavenly virtues in the free Exercise whereof the state of Heaven consists so we should be without all that Repugnance and Aversation to them which renders them so difficultly attainable and our Nature being already in an Aequilibrium would by the least over-weight of Motive be presently inclined to Virtue and Goodness But alas in this corrupt state whereinto we are sunk our Nature runs Evil-wards with a very strong and prevailing Biass and is not only void of virtue but averse to it And this sets us at a far greater distance from the blessed End of our Religion than otherwise we should be For every Degree of vicious Inclination that is in us is a Remove from Heaven a Descent from that Perfection of virtue wherein the Heavenly Blessedness consists And if so how remote from Heaven are the Generality of men in the Beginning of their Progress thither when to their natural Corruption they have superadded by their sinful Courses so many inordinate Inclinations and inveterate sinful Habits when by a long series of wicked Actions they have raised and blown up their Concupiscence into such raging flames of Lust as generally they do And being thus far gone back from our End there are sundry Means which otherwise would have been perfectly needless and superfluous that are now become absolutely necessary thereunto For had we begun our Progress towards Heaven from a state of Indifferency between virtue and vice we had had no more to do but to practise those several virtues of Religion of which the Heavenly Life and state consists to love and to contemplate to adore and to obey God and behave our selves justly and charitably towards one another all which would have been so easie that we should have had no occasion of any Instrumental Duties to facilitate them to us Whereas now starting Heaven-wards as we generally do from a most corrupt and degenerate State there are sundry other Means which we must use as Instruments that are necessary to our acquiring and persevering in the virtues of the Heavenly Life to our conquering the Difficulties of and killing the vicious Aversations of our Natures against them All which would have been needless at least in a great measure had not our Nature been so depraved and corrupt as it is SO that as the case now stands with us there are Two sorts of Means that are necessary to our obtaining of Heaven The first is the Practice of those Heavenly virtues in the Perfection whereof consists the state of Heaven the Second is the Practice of certain Instrumental Duties which are necessary to our acquiring those Heavenly virtues and overcoming the Difficulties of them The first sort of these are the proximate Means those which directly and immediatly respect the Great and Ultimate End The second the more remote Means which immediatly respect those Means that immediatly respect the End The first is like the Art of the Builder which immediatly respects the House The second like the Art of the Smith which immediately respects the Means
by passing out of one world into another And therefore as in this world it is Likeness that does congregate and associate Beings together so doubtless it is in the other too So that if we carry with us thither our wicked and devillish dispositions as we shall doubtless do unless we subdue and mortifie them here there will be no Company fit for us to associate with but only the devillish and damned Ghosts of wicked men with whom our wretched Spirits being already joined by a likeness of Nature will mingle themselves as soon as ever they are excommunicated from the society of Mortals For whither should they flock but to the Birds of their own Feather with whom should they associate but with those malignant Spirits to whom they are already joined by a Community of Nature So that supposing that when they land in Eternity it were left to their own Liberty to go to Heaven or Hell into the society of the Blessed or the Damned it is plain that Heaven would be no Place for them that the Air of that bright Region of eternal Day would never agree with their black and hellish Natures For alas what should they do among those Blessed Beings that inhabit it to whose God-like Natures Divine Contemplations and Heavenly Employments they have so great a Repugnancy and Aversation So that besides the having a Right to Heaven it is necessary to our enjoying it that we shoule be antecedently disposed and qualified for it And it being thus God hath been graciously pleased to to make those very Virtues the Conditions of our Right to Heaven which are the proper Dispositions and Qualifications of our Spirits for it that so with one and the same Labour we might entitle our selves to and qualifie our selves to enjoy it NOW as we shewed you before the Condition of our Right to Heaven is our practising those Heavenly Virtues which are implied in the Religion of the End and as the Religion of the Means no further entitles us to Heaven than as it produces and promotes in us those Heavenly Virtues so it no further qualifies us for it For when the Soul goes into Eternity it leaves the Religion of the Means behind it and carries nothing with it but only those Heavenly Virtues and Dispositions which it here acquired by those Means For as for Faith and Consideration Hearing of Gods Word and Receiving of Sacraments c. they are all but Scaffolds to that Heavenly Building of inward Purity and Goodness and when this is once finished for Eternity then must those Scaffolds all go down as things of no further Use or Necessity But as for the Graces of the Mind they are to stand for ever to be the Receptacles and Habitations of all Heavenly Pleasure And hence the Apostle tells us that of those three Christian Graces Faith Hope and Charity Charity which in the largest sense of it comprehends all Heavenly Virtue is the greatest because the Two former being but Means of Charity shall cease in Heaven and be swallowed up for ever in Vision and Enjoyment but Charity saith he never faileth 1 Cor. xii 13 BY all which it is apparent that the Religion of the Means is no further useful to us than as it is apt to produce and promote in us those Heavenly Virtues the practice of which is the most direct and immediate Means to the ultimate End of a Christian. Wherefore as a man may knock and file and yet be no Mechanick though the Hammer and File with which he does it are very useful Tools to the making of any curious Machine so a man may pray and hear and receive Sacraments c. and yet be a very Bungler in the blessed Trade of a Heavenly Life For though it is true these are excellent Means of Heavenly Living yet as the Art of the Mechanick consists not barely in using his Tools but in using them in such a manner as is necessary to the perfecting and accomplishing his Work So the Art of one that pretends to the Heavenly Life consists not barely in praying and hearing c. but in using these Means with that Religious Skill and Artifice which is necessary to render them effectually subservient to the Ends of Piety and Virtue AND thus I have given a general Account of the Means which are necessary to our obtaining of Heaven and which as I have shewed are either such as tend more directly and immediately to it or such as more remotely respect it The first is the Practice of those Heavenly Virtues in the Perfection whereof the Happiness of Heaven consists the second is the Practising of those Duties which are necessary to our acquiring and perfecting those Heavenly Virtues And of these two Parts consists the whole Christian Life which takes in not only all those Virtues that are to be practised by us in Heaven but also all those Duties by which we are to overcome the Difficulty of those Virtues and to acquire and perfect them The first of these for Distinction sake we will call the Heavenly Part of the Christian Life it being that part of it which we shall lead in Heaven after we have learnt it here upon Earth The second I shall call the Warfaring or Militant Part of the Christian Life which is peculiar to our Earthly State wherein we are to contend and strive with the manifold Difficulties which attend us in the Exercise of those Heavenly Virtues Both which I conceive are implied in those words of the Apostle Phil. i. 27 Only let your Conversation be as becometh the Gospel where the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render Let your Conversation be strictly signifies behaving our selves as Citizens or which if we may have leave to coin a word may be fitly rendered Citizen it as becomes the Gospel For the word implies that those of whom he speaks were Denizens of some Free City for so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Phil. iii. 20 is rendered Conversation strictly denotes a Citizenship from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Citizens and is of the same Import with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Acts xxii 28 is translatee a Freedom i. e. of the City of Rome which denotes the State and Condition of those who though they dwelt out of that City and sometimes remote from it had yet the Jus Civitatis Romanae the Privileges of it belonging to them For thus Cicero describes it Omnibus Municipibus duas esse Tatrias unam Naturae alteram Juris Catonis Exemplo qui Tusculi natus in Populi Romani Societaem susceptus est i. e. All such as are made free of the City have two Countries one of Nature the other of Law As Cato for instance who was born at Tusculum and afterwards admitted a Citizen of Rome Which exactly agrees with the Nature of this Heavenly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Citizenship which the Apostle here attributes to Christians who though they belong at present to another
Reverence and Veneration For there we shall have far greater and clearer apprehensions of his Majesty than ever we had in this imperfect state which will improve our pre-acquired sense of it to such a degree of Respect and Veneration as will for ever over-rule our Faculties and keep our Understandings Wills and Affections in close and strict attendance to him And as our sense of his Majesty will sweetly command so our sense of his infinite Beauty and Beneficence will invincibly allure us to exert and exercise our faculties upon him For he that hath an affectionate sense of the Beauty and Goodness and Bounty of God hath a heart ready tuned for the Musick of heaven ready set and composed for everlasting Praises and Halelujahs So that when he goes away from hence into the other world and is there admitted to a more intimate view of the perfections and a more abundant participation of the blessings of God than ever his predisposed mind will immediately be seized with such a strong pathetick sense of both as that he will not be able to withhold expressing and venting it in the most rapturous strains of Admiration and Praise and Thanksgiving And this will be his business and employment for ever to admire and extoll the Perfections of God of which he will every moment make new and glorious Discoveries and to celebrate with grateful acknowledgments the infinite riches of his Bounty of which he will every moment have fresh and sweet experiences So that whilst by continual acts of Praise and Thanksgiving we endeavour to affect our minds with a due sense of the Goodness and Bounty of God we are practising before-hand the Musick of Heaven and taking out the Songs of Zion that so when we go from hence we may be qualified and prepared to bear a part in the Celestial Choir So that true devotion you see which consists in a quick and lively sense of the infinite Majesty Beauty and Benignity of God doth most effectually dispose the mind to all those divine and heavenly exercises wherein the state of heaven consists III. AS we are rational Creatures related to God we are obliged to an unfeigned love of and complacency in him And that both upon the account of what he is in himself as he is the most lovely and amiable of beings in whom there is an harmonious concurrence of all imaginable Beauties and Perfections of Wisdom and Goodness of Justice and Mercy and every other amiable thing that can claim or attract a reasonable Affection all which in infinite degrees are contempered together in his nature and also upon the account of his infinite Kindness and Beneficence to us For besides that he hath compassed us round like so many fortunate Islands with a vast Ocean of external Blessings in which there is all that is either necessary convenient or pleasant for our bodily use and enjoyment besides that he hath inspired us with immortal Minds and stamped them with those fair impresses of his own Divinity the knowledge of Truth and the love of Goodness which are both of them very forward capacities of the highest Perfection and most exalted Happiness in a word besides that to supply and gratifie these our noble Capacities he hath prepared for us an immortal Heaven and furnisht it with all the Pleasures and and Delights that a Heaven-born Mind can desire or enjoy besides all this I say he hath sent his own Son from heaven to reveal to us the Way thither and to encourage us to return into it by dying for our sins and thereby obtaining for us a publick Grant and Charter of Mercy and Pardon upon Condition of our return yea and as if all this were too little he hath sent his Spirit to us in the room of his Son to abide amongst us and as his Vicegerent to drive on this vast design of his love to us to excite and persuade us to return into that sure way to heaven which he hath described to us and to assist us all along in our travel thither So wondrous careful hath he been not to be defeated of this his kind intention to make us everlastingly happy And now what Heart can be so hard and impenetrable as to resist such powerful Charms and Endearments Methinks if we had but the common Sense and Ingenuity of men in us it would be impossible for us to reflect upon such miracles of Beauty and Love as these are without being intimately touched and affected with them But till we are so it will be impossible for us to enjoy Heaven for how can we freely exert our Faculties upon an Object that we do not love and if we cannot how can we without loving God enjoy Heaven which consists in the free and cheerful out-goings of all our Faculties upon him For if when we go into Eternity we love him not either he will be indifferent or hateful to us if the former we shall altogether neglect and take no notice of him if the latter we shall either flie away from him and banish our selves from his presence or be forced to abide and endure it with extream regret and torment For whilst our minds are averse and repugnant to him whatsoever we see in him will but the more enrage and canker our malice against him and even the sight of those his glorious Perfections which so enravish the hearts of the blessed inhabitants of Heaven will only provoke and boil up our Dislike of him to a higher degree of Hatred and Aversation For so we find by experience in this life that while our minds are unreconciled to God it is a Pennance to us to come near him to admit any Thoughts of or Conversation with him And this is the reason why we take so much pains as we do to misrepresent him to our selves to draw such Pictures and Ideas of him upon our Minds as best correspond with our own Tempers that so having thus transformed the Notion of him into the Image of our selves Narcissus-like we may fall in love with him or at least more easily endure his blessed Presence and Conversation When therefore we shall go into the other world where all these Disguises of the divine Idea shall be taken off and we shall see him as he is circled about with his own Rays of unstained and immaculate Glory we shall never be able to abide him but being all affrighted and confounded at the Glory of his Presence we shall be forced to run away and if possible to hide our selves from him in everlasting Darkness and Despair For our Wills being poisoned and infected with an habitual Enmity against him it must needs be torment to us to see him because we must always see him happy which is so great an eye-sore to those damned Spirits that hate him that I am apt to think that next to being delivered out of their own Misery the chiefest Good they desire or wish for is to be delivered from the tormenting Sense of
when ever he surveys himself in the glorious mirrour of his own Mind he discerns nothing in himself but what is infinitely lovely nothing but what exactly corresponds with the fairest Ideas of his own infinite Reason Whereas if upon an impossible Supposal it were otherwise there would arise a Civil War within his own Bosom against which Omnipotence it self could not protect or defend him For in despight of himself he would be continually exposed to the just reproaches of his own Mind and his own All-seeing Eye would every moment detect and libel and upbraid him and render him a most inglorious Spectacle to himself So that he would be so far from being infinitely pleased and satisfied with himself that his own infallible Reason would be an everlasting vexation to him AND so will ours be to us unless we take care to imitate God in those his divine Perfections from whence his infinite self-satisfaction arises For so long as we are conscious to our selves that we wilfully swerve and deviate from the great Exemplar of our rational Natures we cannot but be ashamed of and condemn our selves and be highly dissatisfied with our own Actions Our Conscience must necessarily reproach our Will and our Reason upbraid our base Inclinations Now what an intolerable plague is it for a man to be forced to make Invectives against himself and continually to carry his own Satyrs in his bosom In this life indeed what by disguising our Faults with specious Names or colouring them over with plausible Pretences what by bribing our Consciences with false Presumptions or diverting our selves from listning to their reproaches by hurrying into Vice or Business we may happily make a shift to deal well enough with our selves But alas what shall we do when we come into the other world where all fair Colour and Pretence shall be wiped off our Vices and We shall appear to our selves in our own naked and undisguised Ugliness where all our false Presumption shall be baffled by a woful Experience and all the din of worldly Pleasure and Business in which we were wont to drown the clamours of our Conscience shall be for ever silenced so that we shall be exposed without Fence or Guard to the furious Reflections of our own mind and lie stark naked under the lash of an enraged Conscience for ever O good God! what Tongue can express the intolerable Anguish of such a State wherein our own Deformities shall be continually objected to our Eyes and we shall have nothing to palliate or excuse them but be always forced to condemn and hate and curse our selves for them and yet not be able to correct and reform them wherein we shall still be hurried on to such Actions by our own furious Inclinations as when we have done them will startle and amaze us set on our Reason and Conscience to worry us with their reproachful Reflections yet in despight of all their Reproaches we shall still reiterate and repeat them Like a desperate Murderer who having killed an innocent Person reflects with Horrour upon his own Act tears his Hair beats his Breast curses and calls himself a thousand Villains but being hereby chased into a greater Fury instead of reforming he grows more mischievous and so murthers another and then rages afresh at his own Act but still the more he rages the more he murthers And this will necessarily be our State in the other world if through our neglect of imitating God we go away thither under an habitual Contrariety of nature to him Besides that we shall be wholly indisposed to those beatifical Acts of divine Love Worship and Contemplation in which as I have shewed a great part of the pleasure Heaven consists For since all Love is founded in Likeness and Likeness is the effect of Imitation how is it possible we should love God unless we imitate him and if we do not love him what Pleasure can we take in contemplating and adoring him WHEREFORE in prosecution of its great Design which is to make us happy the Gospel strictly requires us to be always imitating so far as they are imitable the Perfections and Actions of our heavenly Father to endeavour to form our Natures to his to rectifie the Features and Lineaments of our Souls by his most amiable Idea to be continually framing our tempers by the noble pattern of his Mercy and Goodness his Justice Purity and Wisdom that so being new cast as it were in the perfect mould of his Nature we may be transformed into living Images of him So Ephes. v. 1 be ye therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imitators or followers of God as dear Children i. e. that so you may resemble him in the Qualities of your Minds as children do their Parents in the Lineaments of their Bodies And this is the sense of all those Evangelical Injunctions which require us to be pure as God is pure merciful as he is merciful and perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect that is to take example by God in the whole course of our lives and trace and follow him in all his imitable Perfections by putting on that new that god-like man that divine temper and disposition which after God that is according to the pattern of his Nature is created in righteousness and true holiness Ephes. iv 24 This therefore is an essential part of our Christian Life to set God always before our Eyes as the great Pattern of our Lives and Actions and to endeavour constantly to write after him and transcribe his Graces into our Natures that so when we go away into the other World we may carry with us at least a rude and imperfect draught of his blessed Image upon our Minds such as when we are removed from the manifold impediments of flesh and blood and the perpetual diversions of this sensitive World and admitted to a near view of God may be a prevailing byass upon our Wills and incline us to imitate him for ever For if for the main we are here transformed by imitating God into a godlike Temper and Disposition all those involuntary contrarieties to him which by reason of our Ignorance of his Nature of our bodily Temper and the manifold Temptations we are here exposed to are still remaining in our Natures will be immediately extinguished upon our arrival into the other World where being freed from all our misconceptions of God from all the repugnancies of our bodily Temper to him and from all those Temptations that were wont to avert us from him we shall have no involuntary Disposition or Inclination in us and then our Wills being already predominantly inclined to follow God and take example by him and having no contrary Inclination to contend with we shall presently attend to and imitate his Perfections with the greatest Vigour Freedom and Alacrity of Soul So that now we shall be so intensely fixed to chuse and act like God who is the Example and Pattern of our Natures that we shall everlastingly
the Mischief of them may abundantly out-weigh the Benefit of this And this being so how extremely unfit are we to make Choices for our selves since in most particulars 't is almost an equal lay whether what we chuse will prove our Food or our Poison But now God being the supreme Orderer and Disposer of things and having the first link of every Chain of Causes in his own hands must needs have an intire Comprehension of all the intermediate ones from the beginning to the end and his Power being not only the cause of all actual Events but also of the possibility of those that shall never be actual he must needs discern the utmost Issues and Concomitants of every possible as well as of every future Event and perfectly understand not only what will be beneficial or injurious to us but also what might be so So that 't is impossible for him to be mistaken in his Choices because he knows as well before hand what things would be to us if they were as what they are when they do actually exist Upon the whole therefore 't is doubtless of inestimable Advantage to us to be in the hands of God and verily next to Hell it self I know nothing that is more formidable than for God to let us alone and give us up to our own Wills and Desires And should he call to us from Heaven and tell us that he was resolved to cross our Desires no more but to comply with all our Wishes let the event prove good or bad we should have just reason to look upon our selves as the most forlorn and abandoned Creatures on this side Hell as Persons excluded from the greatest Blessing that belongs to a Creature and if we had any hope of his re-acceptance of us it would be infinitely our Interest to resign back our selves and all our concerns to him and on our bended knees to beseech him above all things not to leave us to our selves or throw us from his Care and Conduct It being therefore upon all accounts so highly fit and reasonable and so much to our Interest and Advantage that we should freely trust our selves and all our Affairs into the hands of God and depend upon him for the good success of all our honest Endeavours and Undertakings that we should acquiesce in his Disposal of things and under all outward events be pleased and satisfied with his Conduct as knowing that howsoever things may happen to us they cannot be otherwise than as the wise and good God is pleased either to permit or to order and determine them this I say being so fit in it self and so much for our Interest it is impossible that without it we can be happy either here or hereafter For since both our Being and Well-being are wholly dependent on the Will of God and we can neither be nor be happy one moment longer than he pleases how is it possible we should ever be quiet and satisfied in our own minds without a great Assurance of and Confidence in him When we consider what a mighty Stake we have in his hands how all our Fortunes lie at his feet and how easily he can frown us into nothing or spurn us into a Condition ten thousand times worse than nothing when ever he pleases how can we be otherwise secure in our own minds or avoid being eternally anxious and solicitous but by firmly relying on his Truth and Goodness to the want of which is to be attributed all that carking Care tormenting Fear and disquieting Thoughtfulness which perpetually haunts the minds of men They are sensible that their Condition is dependent and that it is not in their own Power either to make it what they would have it or to secure and continue it when it is made so they know that by a thousand Chances which in despight of their Foresight or Power may happen the next moment either themselves may be snatched from what they possess or what they possess may be snatched from them they find that their most probable Designs are liable to innumerable Miscarriages and that when they have formed their Projects never so wisely there are infinite cross Accidents may intercurr and dash them in pieces and in this uncertain State of their Affairs they either think not of God at all but live at the Courtesie of a fickle Chance and leave themselves to be tossed and bandied to and fro at the pleasure of a blind and undesigning Fortune upon whose ever-moving Wheel their wearied thoughts can never rest or if they think of God it is with great Mistrust and Despondency they fear he will not be regardful enough of them nor prove so kind to them as they could wish and are possest with an obstinate opinion that 't would be much better for them to be their own Carvers than to live at his Disposal and Allowance And hence proceed all those Anxieties and Discontents those fretting Cares dismaying Fears perplexing and misgiving Thoughts which do continually gaul and disquiet them and from these their thorny disquietudes it is impossible they should ever be wholly free no not in Heaven it self till they have wrought their Minds to a perfect Trust and Confidence in God For we shall be altogether as dependent upon God for our heavenly as we are for our earthly Happiness because though all those Acts of heavenly Virtue in which our heavenly Happiness consists will be much more in our own Power than any of these worldly goods are yet they will be no longer in our Power than God shall think fit to enable us to chuse and act and to support us in our Being and Existence which then we shall sensibly perceive entirely depends upon the All-enlivening vigour of his vital breath And therefore though he hath promised to continue our being in that most blessed State for ever yet unless we perfectly trust in his Veracity our Minds will be continually disturbed with anxious and misgiving Thoughts we shall be afraid lest one time or other he should forget his Promise and upon some unknown Reason or Emergency withdraw from us that Influence of his All-upholding Power upon which our Being and Well-being depends and let us drop into Nothing And the greater our Happiness is the more we should be afraid of losing it because we should be always sensible that it entirely depends upon the Pleasure of God whose Truth and Goodness we could not perfectly confide in So that were we placed in the midst of Heaven with a misgiving distrustful Mind of God that would imbitter all the joys of it and give them a harsh and ungrateful Farewel For the fearful Apprehensions we should continually have of being thrust out of Heaven again and tumbled headlong from all our Glory would be such a continual Affliction to us that we should even pine away our happy Eternity for fear of being eternally deprived of it So impossible it is for any dependent Being to be happy without an entire Trust
being by the Laws of the Invisible State always assigned to that Society of Spirits whereunto they are most connaturalized in their Temper we must expect if we go into Eternity with turbulent and contentious Minds to be thrust into the Society of Devils and damned Ghosts with whom we are already joined in a strict Communion of Natures And O! what a dreadful thing must it be to be forced to spend an Eternity in such wretched Company Verily methinks the most horrid and frightful Idea I can form in my own Mind is that of a company of snarling and quarrelsome Spirits crouded like so many Scorpions and Adders into a Den together and there forced by the Venomousness of their Temper to live in continual Mutiny and be perpetually hissing and spitting Poison at one another For though those words of our Saviour Mat. xii 25 26. imply that Satans Kingdom is not divided yet they are not to be so understood as if there were any such thing as Peace or Concord among those rancorous Spirits for that is impossible to be imagined no doubtless they would be divided eterdally if they could being such continual plagues as they are to one another and think it a mighty Happiness to be shut up all alone in separate Dens where they might never see nor hear of one another more but being chained together as they are by an adamantine Fate which they cannot withstand they consent in this and in this only to oppose all good Designs and do the utmost Mischief they are able But as to all their other Intercourses they are continually embroiled and do live in an eternal Variance with one another So that their Society is like that Monster Scylla whom the Poets talk of whose inferiour parts were a company of Dogs that were perpetually snarling and quarrelling among themselves and yet were inseparable from one another as being all of them parts of the same substance WHEREFORE since to be united by indissoluble Ligaments to this wretched Society will be the certain Fate of all factious and contentious Souls our blessed Religion whose great Design is to advance our happiness hath taken abundant care to educate our Minds in Quietness and Peace For hither tend all those Precepts of it which require us to follow peace with all men Heb. xii 14 to be at peace among our selves 1 Thess. v. 13 to follow after the things that make for peace Rom. xiv 19 to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace Eph. iv 3 to be of one mind and to live in peace 2. Cor. xiii 11 and if it be possible and as much as in us lies to live peaceably with all men Rom. xii 18 in a word to mark them that cause divisions among us and avoid them Rom. xvi 17 and to do our part that there be no divisions among us but that we be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgement 1 Cor. i. 10 The Design of all which is to bind us over to the Study and Practice of Vnity and Concord and restrain us by the strictest Obligations from all schismatical factious and turbulent Behaviour in those sacred or civil Societies whereof we are Members And unless we do sincerely endeavour to fulfil these Obligations however we may monopolize Godliness to our own Party and claw and canonize one another we are Saints of a quite different strain from those blessed ones above and are acted by the factious Spirit of the Devil whose Business it is to foment Divisions and kindle Disturbances and Commotions wherever he comes This therefore must be our great Care if we design for Heaven to root out of our Tempers all Inclination to Contention and Discord and to compose our selves into a sedate and peaceable calm and gentle frame of Spirit and not only to avoid all unnecessary Quarrels and Contentions our selves but so far as in us lies be Peace-makers between others and preserve a friendly Union with and among our fellow members And if through humane Frailty and Infirmity through our own Ignorance or the plausible Pretences of Seducers through the too great Prevalence of our worldly Interest or the Principles of a bad Education it should be our Misfortune to be insensibly misled into unwarrantable Dissents and Divisions yet still to keep our Minds in a teachable Temper and our Ears open to Truth and Conviction to be desirous of Accommodation and willing to hear the Reasons on both sides and as soon as we are convinced of our Error to repent of our Division and immediately return to Vnity and Peace WHICH if it be our constant Practice and Endeavour we shall by Degrees form our Minds into such a peaceable and amicable Temper that when we go into the other World where we shall be perfectly disengaged from all temporal Interests and throughly convinced of all our erroneous Prejudice our Souls will be effectually contempered to the quiet and peaceable Society of the Blessed who having no private Interests to pursue no particular Affections to gratifie no Ends or Aims but what are common to them all which is to adore and imitate and love that never-failing Spring whence all their Felicity flows it is impossible there should be any Occasion administred by any of them of any Schism or rupture of Communion And so those happy People live in the most perfect Unity and Concord as being all united in their Ends and tied together by their heart-strings For they having no counter Opinions or cross Interests to divide them nothing but Truth shining in their Minds nothing but Goodness reigning in their Wills it is impossible there should be any dissenting Brother among them any Non-conformist to the blessed Laws of their Communion but conspiring together as they do in the same Mind and Interest and in the same peaceable Intentions and Affections they must needs walk hand in hand together in a most perfect Vniformity So that if we would live for ever with these blessed Folk we must now endeavour to calm and compose our selves into their Temper to discharge our Minds as much as we are able of every froward and contentious Humour and reduce our Wills to a perfect loathing of them that so being qualified for their Society we may be admitted to it when we go away from this wrangling World And then how unspeakably happy shall we be when with Minds perfectly refined from all Contention and Bitterness we shall be received into the Company of those calm and sedate Spirits and bear our part in their sweet and placid Conversation wherein they freely communicate their minds to one another without the least Fierceness or Insolence Captiousness or Misconstruction Clamour or Contention for Victory and do eternally discourse over the wise things of Heaven and still perfectly concenter both in their Vnderstandings and Wills wherein like so many Stars in Conjunction they mingle Light with one another and do peaceably communicate the treasures of their Knowledge
to force and extort it when those that are superiour in Might and Power do all rule with a fierce and tyrannical Will and will condescend to nothing that is beneficial for their Subjects and those that are inferiour do obey with a perverse and stubborn Heart and will submit to nothing but what they are forced and compelled to and 't is nothing but meer Power and Dread by which they rule and are ruled in a word when they all mutually hate and abominate each other and those that command are a Company of cruel and imperious Devils that impose nothing but Grievances and Plagues and those that obey are a Company of surly and untractable Slaves that submit to nothing but what they are driven to by Plagues so that Plagues and Grievances are both the Matter and the Motive of all their Obedience and Subjection when this I say is the State of their Society with one another how is it possible but that they should be all of them in a most wretched and miserable Condition For where all is transacted by Force and Compulsion as to be sure all is among such a Company of perverse and self-willed Spirits there every one must be supposed to be so far as he is able a Fury and a Devil to every one and those that do compel are like so many salvage Tyrants continually vexed and enraged with stubborn Oppositions and Resistances and those that are compelled like so many obstinate Gally-Slaves are continually lashed into an unsufferable obedience and forced by one Torment to submit to another and thus all their Society with one another is a perpetual Intercourse of mutual Outrage and Violence THIS being therefore the miserable Fate and Issue of a perverse and stubborn and untractable Temper the Gospel whose great design is to direct us to our Happiness doth industriously endeavour to root it out of our Minds and to plant in its room a gentle obsequious and condescending Disposition For hither tend all those Evangelical Precepts which require us to become weak to the weak that we may gain them 1 Cor. ix 22 to bear with their infirmities Rom. xv 1 and support them and be patient towards them 1 Thess. v. 14 And on the other hand to submit our selves to our Elders 1 Pet. v. 5 and to those that have the rule over us Heb. xiii 17 to obey our Magistrates our Parents and our Masters to be subject to Principalities and not speak evil of Dignities to honour Kings and submit to their laws and Governours 1 Pet. ii 13 14. in a word to honour all men as they deserve 1 Pet. ii 17 and to hold good men in reputation Phil. ii 19 and in honour to prefer one another Rom. xii 10 The sense of all which is to oblige us to treat all men as becomes us in the Rank and Station we are placed in to honour those that are our Superiours whether in Place or Vertue to give that modest Deference to their Judgments that Reverence to their Persons that Respect to their Virtues and Homage to their Desires or Commands which the Degree or Kind of their Superiority requires to condescend to those that are our Inferiours and treat them with all that Candour and Ingenuity Sweetness and Affability that the respective Distances of our State will allow to consult their Conveniencies and do them all good Offices and pity and bear with their Infirmities so far as they are safely and wisely tolerable By the constant Practice of which our minds will be gradually cured of all that Perverseness and Surliness of Temper which indisposes us to the respective Duties of our Relations of all that Contempt and Selfishness which renders us averse to the proper Duty of Superiours and of all that Self-Conceit and Impatience of Command which indisposes us to the duty of Inferiours And our Wills being once wrought into an easie pliableness either to Submission or Condescension we are in a forward Preparation of Mind to live under the Government of of Heaven where doubtless under God the supream Lord and Sovereign there are numberless Degrees of Superiority and Inferiority For so some are said to reap sparingly and some abundantly some to be Rulers of five Cities and some of ten some to be the least and some the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven all which implies that in that blessed State there is a great Variety of Degrees of Glory and Advancement And indeed it cannot be otherwise in the Nature of the thing for our Happiness consisting in the Perfection of our Natures the more or less perfect we are the more or less happy we must necessarily be for every farther Degree of Goodness we attain to is a widening and enlargement of our Souls for farther Degrees of Glory and Beatitude And accordingly when we arrive at Heaven which is the Element of Beatitude we shall all be filled according to the Content and Measure of our Capacities and drink in more or less of its Rivers of Pleasure as we are more or less enlarged to contain them So that according as we do more and more improve our selves in true Goodness we do naturally make more and more Room in our Souls for Heaven which doth always fill the Vessels of Glory of all sizes and pour in happiness upon them till they all overflow and can contain no more Since therefore they are all of them entirely resigned to and guided by right Reason there is no doubt but in these their different Degrees of Glory and Dignity they mutually behave themselves towards one another as is most fit and becoming and that since under God the Head and King of their Society there is from the highest to the lowest a most exact and regular Subordination of Members they do every one perform their Parts and Duties towards every one in all those different Stations of Glory they are placed in and consequently do submit and condescend to each other according as they are of a superiour or inferiour Class and Order So that if when we go from hence into the other world we carry along with us a submissive and condescending Frame of Spirit we shall be trained up and predisposed to live under the blessed Hierarchy of Heaven to yield a chearful Conformity to the Laws and Customs of it and to render all the Honours to those above and all the Condescensions to those beneath us in Glory which the Statutes of that Heavenly Regiment do require in doing whereof we shall all of us enjoy a most unspeakable Content and Felicity For though in the Kingdom of Heaven as well as the Kingdoms of the Earth there are numberless Degrees of Advancement and Dignity and one Star there as well as here differeth from another Star in Glory yet so freely and chearfully do they all condescend and submit to each other in these their respective differences of Rank and Station that in the widest Distances of their State and Degrees of Glory they all
maintain the dearest Intimacies and Familiarities with each other and neither those that are Superiour are either envied for their Height or contemned for their Familiarity nor those that are Inferiour despised for their Meanness or oppressed for their Weakness For in that blessed State every one being best pleased with what best becomes him it is every ones Joy to behave himself towards every one as best becomes the Rank and Degree he is placed in and those that are above do glory in condescending to those that are below them and those that are below do triumph in submitting to those that are above them and thus in all those Differences of Glory and Dignity between them they alternately reverence their Superiours and condescend to their Inferiours with the same unforced Freedom and Alacrity and so do eternally converse with one another notwithstanding all their Distances with the greatest Freedom and most endearing Familiarity AND thus I have endeavoured to give you an account of the first sort of Means by which Heaven the great End of a Christian is to be obtained viz. the proximate and immediate ones which comprehend the Practice of all those Virtues which as Rational Creatures related to God and one another we stand eternally obliged to and shewed how they are all of them essential Parts of the Christian Life and how Heaven it self consists in the Perfection of them SO that upon the whole the best Definition I can give of the State of Heaven is this That it is the everlasting perfect Exercise of all those Humane Divine and Social Virtues which as Rational Animals related to God and all his Rational Creation we are indispensably and everlastingly obliged to And therefore since the only natural way by which we can acquire and perfect these Vertues is Vse and Practice it hence necessarily follows that the Practice of them is the only direct and immediate Means by which that Heavenly State is to be purchased and obtained SECT IV. Wherein for a Conclusion of this Chapter some Motives and Considerations are proposed to persuade men to the Practice of these Heavenly Virtues IT having been largely shewn in the foregoing Sections that the Practice of all those Virtues which are included in the Heavenly Part of the Christian Life tends directly towards the heavenly State and naturally grows up into it I shall now briefly conclude this Argument wth some Motives to persuade men to the Practice of them And these I shall deduce 1. From the Suitableness of them to our present State and Relation 2. From the Dignity 3. From the Freedom 4. From the Pleasure 5. From the Ease and 6. And lastly From the Necessity of them I. Therefore let us consider the Suitableness of these Virtues to our present State and Relation For in our Baptism wherein we gave up our Names to Christ we become Denizens and Freemen of Heaven and were received into a Covenant that upon Performance of our Part of it actually intituled us to all its blessed Priviledges and Immunities So that in that sacred Solemnity of our Initiation into the Christian Covenant we contracted a strict Alliance with the blessed People of Heaven and became their Brethren and Fellow-Citizens For so the Apostle tells us Eph. ii 19 Now therefore ye are no more strangers and forraigners but fellow-citizens with the Saints and of the houshold of God and the houshold of God consists of the whole Congregation of the Saints whether militant upon Earth or triumphant in Heaven For so Eph. iii. 15 it is called the whole family of heaven and earth So that we are Confederates with them in the same Covenant even that by which they hold all the Joys and Glories they are possessed of and if we will do as they have done that is perform the Conditions of it we shall be Cohabitants with them in the same Glory We are adopted Children of the same Father with them Members of the same Family Coheirs of the Promise of the same Glory Brethren of the same Confraternity and Corporation and all the difference between them and us is only this that we are abroad and they at home we are on this and they on t'other side Jordan we in the Acquest and they in the Possession of the heavenly Canaan to which we are intitled as well as they and that by the same Grant from the supreme Proprietor So that by calling our selves Christians we do in other words call our selves Brethren Coheirs and Fellow-Citizens with the blessed Inhabitants of Heaven And what can be more suitable to such a Profession than for us to live as they do in the continued Practice of all these heavenly Virtues And what a shame will it be for us that are by Profession their Brethren not to coppy and imitate their Behaviour that we who are below Stairs in the same House and Family should abandon our selves to Sensuality and Devilishness whilst our blessed Kindred above are entertaining themselves with those heavenly Pleasures which result from the perfect Exercise of all heavenly Virtue that we should be neglecting provoking and blaspheming God whilst they are contemplating and admiring loving and praising imitating and obeying him that we should be cheating and defrauding envying and despising maligning and embroiling one another whilst they are conversing together with the greatest Freedom and Integrity with the most obliging Respects and Condescensions and in the strictest Vnity and dearest Friendship What a vile Reproach are our wicked lives to the Conversation of these our Fellow-Citizens above For while we profess our selves their Brethren those who understand no better will be prone to suspect that they live as we do and how would such a Suspicion tempt an honest Heathen to renounce Heaven as the Indian King did when he was told that the bloudy Spaniards went thither and rather chuse to go down to the darkest Hell than to a Heaven that is peopled with such diabolical Company So that by our wicked and unsaint-like Lives we take an effectual Course to bring Heaven it self into Disgrace and to cast such a Slander on its blessed Inhabitants as may justly expose them to the Scorn and Hatred of all those honest Minds that know them no otherwise than by us their unworthy and degenerate Fellow-Citizens and could those blessed Spirits look down from their Thrones of Bliss and see what a Company of wretched Christians there are that claim Kindred with them they would doubtless be ashamed of the Relation and count themselves highly dishonoured and disgraced by it and heartily wish that we would disown our Sins or our Baptism and openly renounce their Alliance or more strictly imitate their Manners And really 't is a burning Shame that we should profess our selves Fellow-Citizens with them for no other purpose but to scandalize and reproach them and it were heartily to be wished even for the Credit of Heaven and of our blessed Brethren that inhabit it that if we will not be so generous as to
follow their Example we would at least be so honest as to renounce their Kindred and not to claim a Relation to their Family meerly to shame and disgrace them II. CONSIDER the Honour and Dignity of the heavenly Life For if we may estimate Actions by the Examples from whence they are copied as in other Cases we are wont to do doubtless the most noble and honourable are such as are copied from the Lives of the glorious Inhabitants of Heaven For besides that sublime Rank of Dignity whereunto they are advanced as being the Courtiers and immediate Attendants of the Almighty Sovereign of Heaven and Earth a Dignity which by how much more it excells that of the greatest Potentate of this world by so much more it authorizes the Examples of those that wear it besides this I say their Examples being the most perfect Copies and Imitations of the Life of God are thereby rendred not only more eminent and glorious but also more obliging and authoritative For by following them we follow God who is the Standard of all rational Perfection and who by being the first and best in the whole kind of Rational Entities is the supream Rule and Measure of them all So that in imitating the blessed People above we imitate those who in their Place and Station do live at the same Rate as the great God doth in his and regulate themselves by the same infallible Reason We do what God himself would do if he were in our Place and there is no other difference between his life and ours but what necessarily arises out of our different States and Relations And what more glorious thing can we do than to live by the Pattern of their Lives who live so exactly by the Pattern of God's For the Example of living which those blessed People set us is the Example of God at second-hand 't is his most rational Life transcribed so far as it is rationally imitable that is so far as it is honourable and glorious for a rational creature to transcribe it For in the State of finite Creatures they live in a perfect Conformity to the same immutable Reason whereby God regulates himself in the State of an infinite Creator So that their Example is an Imitation in kind of all those particular Excellencies in him which they may and ought to imitate and 't is an Imitation in general of that eternal Decorum with respect to Conditions and States which he constantly observes in all his transactions with his Creatures And as their Example is a perfect Copy of God's so 't is a Copy fitted in all particulars for our Use and Imitation For it doth not only describe to us all those particular Excellencies in him which are to be imitated by us but all those particular Duties to which that eternal Law of Equity and Goodness by which he governs himself in his State requires of us in ours and shews not only wherein we are to imitate him in kind but also wherein we are to follow him in general in doing what is most fit for us in the State and Relation of Creatures even as he doth what is most fit for him in the State and Relation of a God and Creator So that the Example of those heavenly Inhabitants is the Example of God himself exactly fitted and attempered to the State and Condition of Creatures For just as they live the All-wise and All-good God himself would live if he were in their State and Relation Wherefore by imitating their heavenly Lives and Manners we do our selves the greatest Right and do most effectually consult the Glory and Honour of our own Natures For whilst we tread in theirs we tread in the Footsteps of God and have his glorious Example to warrant and justifie our Actions we behave our selves as it becomes the Children of the King of Heaven and so far as it consists with the condition of Creatures we live like so many Gods in the world which is doubtless the utmost height of Honour and Glory that any rational Ambition can aspire to So that methinks had we any spark of true Gallantry and Bravery of Mind in us we should despise all other kinds of Life but this and pity those gilded Bubbles that have nothing to boast of but their fine Cloaths and great Estates and empty Titles of Honour we should look upon all other Dignities as the trifling Play-games of Children in comparison of this of living like the great Nobility of Heaven that do all live by the pattern of the Life of God III. CONSIDER the great Freedom and Liberty of a heavenly Life So long as we live earthy and sensual Lives our free-born Souls are imprisoned in Sense and all their Motions are circumscribed and bounded within the narrow Sphere of sensitive Goods and Enjoyments So that when we would follow our Reason and do as that prescribes and dictates we find our selves miserably hampered and intangled the Lusts of our Flesh do hang like gyves so heavily upon us that when ever our Reason and Conscience call we cannot move with any Freedom but are fain to labour at every Step and after a few faint Essays are utterly tired under the weight of our reluctant Inclinations So that the good which many times we would we do not the law in our Minds being counter-voted by the law in our Members Our reason and conscience tell us that we ought to love God above all to adore and worship him and surrender up our selves to his Command and Disposal and we are many times strongly inclined to follow its Dictates and Directions but alas when we come to put them in Execution we find so many pull-backs within us â—o many strong and stubborn Aversions to our good Inclinations that we have not the power to do as we would or to dispose of our selves according to our own most reasoable Desires but like miserable Slaves that are chained to the Oar we are fain to row on whithersoever our imperious Lusts do command us though we plainly see we are running on a Rock and invading our own destruction And as we are not free in this ill State of life to follow our Reason so neither are we free to follow our Lusts. For as when we would follow our Reason our Lusts cling about and intangle us so when we would follow our Lusts our Reason clogs and restrains us and by objecting to us the Indecency and Danger the infinite Turpitude and Hazard of our sinful Courses lays so many Rubs in our way that we cannot sin with any Freedom but whithersoever we go we walk like Prisoners with the Shackles of Shame and Fear on our heels So that which way soever we turn our selves we find that our Power to dispose of our selves is under a great Restraint and Confinement and we can neither get leave of our Lusts to follow our Reason nor of our Reason to follow our Lusts. For when we attempt the latter our Reason curbs us with
Shame and Fear and when we endeavour the former our Appetite bridles us with Dislike and Aversation In this extremity therefore what is to be done that we may be free Why the case is plain we must resolve to conquer either our Reason or our Lusts if we conquer our Reason which we shall find by far the harder Task of the two we shall acquire the Freedom of Devils and Brutes the Freedom to do Mischief and wallow in the mire without Shame or Remorse but if we conquer our Lusts we acquire the Freedom of Men yea of Saints and of Angels the freedom to act reasonably without Reluctance or Aversation and this being much more easily to be acquired than the former I dare appeal to any mans Reason which of the two is in it self most eligible If therefore we would vindicate our rational Freedom we must resolve to shake off those slavish Fetters our brutish and our devilish Appetites that do so perpetually turmoil and incumber us in all our virtuous Attempts and rational Operations we must tie up our selves from executing their Commands and serving their wicked Wills and Pleasures and heartily resolve to act as it becomes us in the Capacity of rational Creatures related to God and one another And then though at first we must expect to find our selves confined and straitned by our vicious Aversations we shall be immediately released from all that Shame and Fear which did so continually curb us in the carreer of our Wickedness and even our vicious Aversation if we couragiously persist in our good Resolution will grow weaker and weaker and be every day less and less combersome to us till it is totally extinguished And then we shall feel our selves intirely restored into our own Power and be able without Check or Controle to dispose of our selves and all our Motions according as it shall seem to us most fit and reasonable then we shall act with the greatest Vigour and Freedom having no counter-striving Principles to restrain or retard us no vicious Aversations on the one side or guilty Shame or Fear on the other to counterpoize us in our rational Motions then we shall move without Check or Confinement in a large and noble Sphere for we shall be pleased with what is fit and wise and good without any Reserve or Exception and we shall do what we please without any Let or Hindrance So that by ingaging our selves in the heavenly Life we enter into a state of glorious Liberty and if we constantly persist in it and do still prevalently list to live as becomes us we shall be more and more free to live as we list till at last we are arrived into a perfect Liberty wherein we shall live without Restraint or Controul without check of Conscience or reluctance of Inclination which are the two main Bars that confine and straiten men in their Operations If therefore we would ever be free let us immediately come off from our vicious Courses to the Practice of this divine and heavenly Life wherein by degrees if we couragiously hold on we shall wear off those Shackles that do so miserably hamper and intangle us and then we shall be intirely free to do whatsoever our reason dictates to us then we shall run the ways of Gods commandments and like our blessed Brethren above be all Life and Spirit and Wing in the discharge of our Duty to him IV. CONSIDER the Pleasure of this heavenly Life 'T is true there is a sort of Pleasure that results from all the Acts of a sensual and earthly Conversation but we find by Experience that though in the pursuit it strangely allures and inchants us yet in the Fruition it always disappoints our Expectation and scarce performs in the Enjoyment one half of what it promised to our Hope and at the best 't is but a present and transient Satisfaction of our brutish Sense a Satisfaction that dims the Light sullies the Beauty impairs the Vigour and restrains the Activity of the Mind diverting it from better Operations and indisposing it to the fruition of purer Delights leaving no comfortable Rellish or gladsome Memory behind it but oftentimes going out in a stink and determining in Bitterness Regret and Disgrace But in each act of this divine and celestial Life there is something of the Pleasure of Heaven something of those divine Refreshments and Consolations upon which the good People of Heaven do live For the greatest part of their Heaven springs from within their own Bosoms even from the Conformity of their Souls to the heavenly State and the sprightful out-goings of their Minds and Affections towards the heavenly Objects from their contemplating and loving their praising and adoring the most high God from their Imitation of his Perfections their Subjection to his Will and Dependance on his Veracity all which Acts as I have already shewed have the most ravishing Pleasures appendant to them and are so necessary to the Felicity of rational Creatures that the Wit of Man cannot fancy a rational Heaven without them For the heaven of a rational Creature consisting in the most intense and vigorous Exercise of its rational Faculties about the most suitable and convenient Objects what Object can be more convenient to such Faculties than that Almighty Sovereign of Beings whose Power is the Spring of all Truth and whose Nature is the Pattern of all Goodness So that without a perfect Union of our Minds and Wills and Affections with God there can be no possible Idea of a perfect Heaven of rational Pleasures but in this blessed Union lies the very Soul and Quintessence of Heaven Since therefore in every Act of every Virtue of the divine Life there is at least an imperfect Union of the Soul with God it necessarily follows that there must be some degree of the Pleasure of Heaven in every one So that if we do not experience much greater Joy and Delight in the Acts of this divine Life than ever we did in the highest Epicurisms and Sensualities 't is not because there are not much greater in them but because we never exerted them with that Sprightliness and Vigour as we do our sensual Appetites and Perceptions because we are clogg'd in the Exercise of them either by false Principles or bodily Indispositions or sinful Aversations But if we would take the pains to inure and accustom our selves to these heavenly Acts we should find by degrees they would grow natural and easie to us and our Souls would be so habituated contempered and disposed to them that we should upon all Occasions exert them with great Fredom and Inlargement And then we should begin to feel and relish the Pleasure of them then we should perceive a Heaven of Delights springing up from within us and unfolding it self in each beatifical Act of our heavenly Conversation then we should find our selves under the central force of Heaven most sweetly drawn along and attracted thither by the powerful Magnetism of its Joys
your corrupt Natures yet if you vigorously persist in it you will find the Difficulty will soon wear off and then 't will be all Ease and Pleasure For when our Nature is depraved either by Sensuality or Devilishness 't is like a Bone out of joint full of Pain while it is out and much more painful while it is setting but as soon as that is done 't is immediately well and easie VI. AND lastly Consider the absolute Necessity of this heavenly Life and Conversation For besides that God exacts it of us as an indispensable Condition of our Happiness and hath assured us that if we live after the flesh we shall die and that without holiness we shall never see the Lord besides this I say an heavenly Conversation is in the Nature of the thing necessary to qualifie us for Heaven or as the Apostle expresses it to make us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light For Happiness being a relative thing implies in the very Nature of it a mutual Correspondence between the Objects which felicitate and the Faculties which are felicitated by them and be the Objects never so good in themselves never so pregnant with Pleasure and Bliss yet if they do not agree with the Faculties whereunto they are objected instead of blessing they will but afflict and torment them and if a man were placed in the midst of Heaven among all the ravishing Fruitions with which that blessed place abounds yet unless his Mind and Temper did suit and agree with them they would be so many Miseries and Vexations to him and he would be afflicted even in Abraham's Bosom and grope for Heaven in the midst of Paradise So that supposing that God were so unreasonably fond of the Happiness of wicked Souls as to prefer it before the Honour of his Government and the Purity of his Nature and the Sanction of his Laws yet still there is an invincible Obstacle behind that must render their future Felicity impossible and that is that it cannot be without a plain Contradiction to the Nature of things the Temper of wicked Souls being wholly repugnant to all the Felicities of the other World So that if they were all set before them they would not be able to enjoy them but must be forced to pine and famish amidst all that plenty of Delights there being no viand in all that heavenly Entertainment that they would relish any Sweetness in And therefore if God should so far pardon them as not to punish them himself by any immediate stroke of Vengeance that would be the utmost Favour that his Omnipotent Goodness could do for them whilst they continued in their Sins which notwithstanding such a Pardon would for ever continue them extremely miserable And what great matter doth a Pardon signifie to a Malefactor that is dying of the Stone or Strangury he could but have died though he had not been pardoned and die he must though he be And just as little almost would it signifie to a depraved Soul to be pardoned and absolved by God whilst it hath a Disease within that preys upon its Vitals and hastens it on to a certain Ruine For it could have been but miserable in the future Life if it had not been pardoned and miserable it must be if it continue wicked whether it be pardoned or no. For it is not so much the Place as the State that makes either Heaven or Hell and the State of Heaven and Hell consists in perfect Holiness and Wickedness and proportionably as we do improve in either of these so we do approach towards the one State or the other For as Heaven is the center of all that is virtuous pure and holy and all that is good tends thither by a natural Sympathy so Hell is the center of all Impiety and Wickedness and all that is bad doth naturally press and sink down thither as towards its proper Place and Element and should not the divine Vengeance concern it self to exclude wicked Souls out of Heaven yet their own Wickedness would do it For that is a Place of such inaccessible Light and Purity that no Impurity or Wickedness can approach it but must of necessity be beaten off with the dreadful lightnings of its Glory and tumbled headlong down as oft as it essays to climb up thither as on the other hand should not God by an immediate Vengeance precipitate wicked Souls into Hell yet their own Wickedness by the mighty weight of its own Nature would inevitably press and sink them down into that miserable Condition What egregious Nonsense therefore is it for wicked men to talk of going to Heaven Alas poor Creatures what would you do there There are no wanton Amours among those heavenly Lovers no Rivers of Wine among their Rivers of Pleasure to gratifie your unbounded Sensuality no Parasites to flatter your lofty Pride no Miseries to feed your meagre Envy no Mischiefs to tickle your devillish Revenge nothing but chast and divine pure and spiritual Enjoyments such as your brutish and devilish Appetites will eternally loath and nauseate Wherefore if we mean to go to Heaven and to be happy there we must now endeavour to dispose and attemper our Minds to it which is no other way to be done but by leading a heavenly Life and Conversation which by degrees will habituate and naturalize our Souls to the heavenly Virtues and so work and inlay them into the Frame and Temper of our Minds that 't will be our greatest Pleasure to be exerting and exercising them And then our Souls will be dressed and made ready for Heaven and when we go from hence to take Possession of its Joys they will be all so agreeable to our prepared Appetites that we shall presently fall to and feed upon them with infinite Gust and Relish But till by living a heavenly Life we have disposed our selves for Heaven we are utterly incapable of enjoying it So that now things are reduced to this Issue that either our Sins or our Souls must die and we must necessarily shake hands either with Heaven or our Lusts. And therefore unless we value eternal Happiness so little as to exchange it for the sordid and trifling Pleasures of Sin and unless we love our Sins so well as to ransom them with the bloud of our Immortal Souls it concerns us speedily to ingage our selves in this heavenly Life and Conversation For this is an eternal and immutable Law that if we will be wicked we must be miserable CHAP. IV. Concerning the militant or warfaring Part of the Christian Life by which we are to acquire and perfect the heavenly Virtues shewing how effectually all the Duties of it conduce thereunto HAVING in the former Chapter given a large Account of the heavenly Part of the Christian Life and shewn how directly and immediately the Practice of all the Virtues that are comprehended in it tends to the heavenly State and how naturally they all grow into eternal
to and fairly represent to our selves all the Difficulties and Temptations wherewith we must ingage and as much as in us lies render them actual and present to us by supposing our selves already ingaged in our Spiritual Warfare and surrounded with all the Temptations both from within and without that we can reasonably expect will oppose themselves against us and having thus placed our selves in the midst of the Difficulties of Religion we must never cease urging our selves with the great Arguments and Motives of it till we have throughly persuaded our stubborn Wills and obtained of them an explicit Consent to every Duty that calls for our Consent and Resolution III. TO our good Beginning of the Christian Warfare it is also necessary that we be deeply and throughly convinced of our great need of a Mediator to make a Propitiation for our Sins and render us acceptable to God For 't is to convince us of this necessary Truth that the Scripture doth so expresly declare that as there is one God so there is one Mediator between God and men the man Christ Jesus 1 Tim. ii 5 that if any man sin we have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous and that he is the Propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world and that 't is for his name sake that our sins are forgiven 1 John ii 1 2 12. that we have redemption through his blood Eph. i. 7 and that without the shedding his blood there is no remission and that 't was by the sacrifice of himself that Christ put away sin Heb. ix 22 26. that we are accepted of God through his beloved Son Eph. i. 6 that Christ is entred into heaven now to appear in the presence of God for us Heb. ix 24 and that there he ever lives to make intercession for us Heb. vii 25 that 't is through him that we have access unto the Father Eph. ii 18 and by him that we have admittance to his grace and favour Rom. v. 2 The design of all which is throughly to convince us of this great truth that by our Apostacy from God and Rebellion against him we have all rendred our selves so very obnoxious to his Vengeance that he would not pardon us upon any less Atonement than the precious Blood nor admit us into favour upon any less Motive than the powerful Intercession of his own Son that by the heinousness of our Guilt we have so highly incensed the Father of Mercies against us that no less consideration than the Death and Advocation of the greatest and dearest Person in the whole world will move him to admit of our Repentance and listen to our Supplications And certainly next to exacting the Punishment due to our sins at our own hands the most dreadful Severity he could have expressed was to resolve not to remit it upon any other consideration than that of his own Sons undergoing it in our stead by which he hath given us the greatest reason that Heaven and Earth could afford to tremble at his Justice even whilst we are inclosed in the Arms of his Mercy THIS therefore we ought to be deeply and throughly convinced of that our Sins have set us at such a distance from God that 't is nothing but the bloud of Christ will reconcile him to us and that though without our Repentance he will never be reconciled to us yet 't is not for the sake of that or any thing else we can do that he will be induced to receive us into favour but only for the sake of that precious Sacrifice which his eternal Son hath offered up for us The firm Persuasion and Consideration of which will mightily over-awe our minds and imprint upon them such gastly and horrible Apprehensions of sin as will scare us from all thoughts of Compliance with it the dreadful demonstration which God hath given us of his righteous severity against it in the very Reason of his pardoning it will effectually antidote us against all our sinful Securities and Confidences For this way of Gods pardoning us upon the Sacrifice of his Son guards his Mercy with such an awful Terror as is sufficient to dishearten the most desperate sinner from presuming upon it For he that dares presume to sin on upon a Mercy that cost the bloud of the Son of God hath courage enough to out-face the Flames of Hell and is not capable of any Mercy that the great God can indulge with safety to his own Authority For what Mercy can be safe from that mans Abuse and Presumption that dares abuse a Mercy so guarded and secured as this is by being founded upon such a dreadful Consideration AND as a through Persuasion of the Necessity of Christs Sacrifice to the Forgiveness of our Sins will fill us with awful Apprehensions of the divine Severity and set before us a most dismal Prospect of the vast demerit of our Sin both which are necessary to ingage us to a through Reformation so a through conviction of the Necessity of his Intercession to render our Duties our Prayers and Persons acceptable to God will effectually humble and abase us in our own eyes which as I shall shew you by and by is highly conducive to a good Beginning of this our Christian Warfare For next to banishing us from his Presence for ever the most effectual course God could take to abase us was to exclude us from all immediate Intercourse with him and not to admit of any more Addresses or Supplications from us but only through the hands of a Mediator which is a plain Demonstration how infinitely pure he is and how base and vile our Sins have rendred us insomuch that he will not suffer a sinful Creature to come near him otherwise than by a Proxy that he will not accept of a Service from a guilty Hand nor listen to a Prayer from a sinful Mouth till 't is first hallowed and presented to him by a pure and holy Mediator So that unless we are strangely inconsiderate we cannot but be touched with a deep sense of our own Vileness when we think at what a distance the pure and holy God keeps us how he stands off at the Stench of our Abominations and notwithstanding all his Benignity towards us will neither hear us nor have any thing to do with us without the powerful Intercession of his own Son AND as our Conviction of the Necessity we have of Christs Sacrifice and Intercession is very apt to affect us with holy Sorrow and Fear both which are very powerful Instruments of our Reformation so our persuasion of the Reality and Excellency of his Mediation is no less apt to inspire us with a mighty Hope and Assurance of Acceptance with God if we reform and amend For it seems that upon propitiatory Sacrifices and interceding Spirits guilty Minds have been always inclined to place their Confidence of Acceptance with God Hence it was a Principle generally
if we ever mean to wage War with it with Success it is necessary we should acquire before-hand a through sense and feeling of the Evil of it that we should chastise our souls with some degree of that bitter Sorrow and Regret it deserves and inflict upon our selves some part of that Hell of infinite Horror and Anguish that is ingendring in its Womb that so being the more sensible of its Malignity we may be the more enraged against it and enter the Lists with it with the greater Resolution and Animosity For our Sorrow and Remorse for our Sins if it be serious and hearty will convert into Hatred and Indignation against them and that Hatred will animate us in all our Conflicts with them and render us more obstinate against their Terrors and Alurements So that when in the aftercourse of our Warfare against them we are tempted afresh to yield and comply with them the Remembrance of the past Shame and Sorrow Remorse and Confusion we have undergone for their sakes will render us far more deaf and inexorable than otherwise we should be to their Solicitations IF therefore we would ingage in this spiritual Warfare with Success we must be often reflecting upon our past Sins and representing them to our selves in all their aggravating Circumstances And when we have surveyed them round about and considered them in all their natural Turpitude Disingenuity and Indecency and applied them to our selves with all their appendant Stings shameful Effects and dismal Circumstances so that our hearts begin to feel them and to smart and bleed under the dolorous Sense of them then must we pour them out before God in sad and mournful Confessions For the very Confession of our Sins before so pure and great a Being is in it self an effectual Means to increase our Shame and Sorrow for them and he must have a very hard Heart that can ingenuously and without any Reserve lay open his crimes before the God of Heaven and Earth in all their black Aggravations without being stung with a sensible Regret and Confusion especially if he frequently repeat his Confessions as he ought to do V. TO our successful Beginning of this our Christian Warfare it is also necessary that we earnestly implore the divine Aid and Assistance to enable us to go through with it For God knowing how unable we are of our selves to ingage in this great Enterprize with that good Conduct that is necessary to give us any probability of Success hath promised us his own Presence and Assistance even from the Beginning to the End of it and if in any part of it his Assistance be necessary 't is doubtless in the Entrance which as I shall shew you by and by is by far the most difficult and hazardous If therefore we presume to enter upon it without supplicating God to second us with his Grace and Assistance we shall quickly find our selves shamefully foiled and defeated For though he hath promised to assist us yet 't is upon Condition that we earnestly beg and seek him he will give his Spirit but it is to those that ask it Luke xi 13 he will draw near unto us but first we must draw near unto him James iv 8 and we are assured that we shall have if we ask that we shall find if we seek and that it shall be opened unto us if we knock Mat. vii 7 And therefore we are bid to go boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help us in the time of need Heb. iv 16 and not only to pray without ceasing 1 Thess. v. 17 but in every thing by prayer and supplication to let our requests be made known unto God Philip. iv 6 and if in every thing we ought to make known our Wants to him then much more in this great and difficult Undertaking in which it will be impossible for us to succeed without his heavenly Aid and Assistance WHEREFORE as we hope for Victory in this our spiritual Warfare we must earnestly implore his Concurrence with us and beseech him to second us in all our weak Efforts and Endeavours We must lay open our woful Case before him and remonstrate to him that we are heartily willing to do what we are able but that without him we are abundantly sensible all will be in vain We must tell him that our Dependance is upon him and that all our Hope of Success is in him and that we dare not stir one step without him and beseech him that he will not stand by and see us spend our selves in ineffectual Struglings but that he will graciously stretch forth his helping Hand to us and not suffer us to miscarry for want of his necessary Assistance Which if we do we may assure our selves that the merciful God who is the Father of our Spirits will never abandon his own off-spring whilst it cries out to him and with pitiful and bemoaning Looks implores his Aid and gracious Co-operation WHILST therefore we are thus endeavouring to prepare our selves for our spiritual Warfare we ought in every act of Preparation to look up to God and earnestly supplicate the Concurrence of his Grace and Spirit While we are endeavouring to believe we must beg him to help our Vnbelief to remove all Prejudices from our minds and present the Evidences of our Religion to our Understandings in a clear and convincing Light When we are setting our selves to a serious Consideration we must beseech him to fix our Thoughts to suggest to and repeat his heavenly Motives and Arguments so fast and thick upon our Minds that no sinful or worldly Thought may be able to crowd in to disturb or divert our Meditations When we are labouring to persuade our selves of our Need and the Reality of our Saviours Mediation we must earnestly intreat him to open our eyes and convince us effectually of the horrible Danger of our sin and of the infallible Efficacy of that blessed Remedy When we are attempting to affect our selves with the bitter Sense of our past Transgressions we must implore him to strike in with us and to inspire our Minds with such piercing and powerful Convictions of the infinite Shame Baseness and Danger of them as may sting our brawny Consciences to the quick and dissolve our frozen Souls into a sorrowful Repentance that so when we enter the lists and proceed to Resolution which is the Beginning of our spiritual Warfare we may be armed against our Sins with such a lively Faith such puissant Considerations such Horror and Animosity against them and such an assured Hope of being rescued from the fatal Issues and Effects of them as that we may be able to promise our selves a happy Success in the ensuing Course of our Warfare against them And having thus fitted and accoutred our selves for this great and momentous Enterprize VI. WE are to enter into a serious and solemn Resolution of Amendment of forsaking and renouncing all our Sins and
Consideration of things with that Shame and Sorrow and those earnest Cries to Heaven for Aid and Assistance which are necessary to the founding of a strong and lasting Resolution is no so easie a matter For in all those preparatory Exercises we have a roving Mind a hard Heart and a perverse Nature to contend with and we shall find it a very hard matter to call in our wandering Thoughts and unite them together into a fixt and steady Consideration of the Evidences of the Truth of Religion and of the Duties and Motives and Difficulties of it And whilst we are entertaining them with this unwonted Argument there are a thousand Objects with which they are better acquainted that will be calling them away so that without a great deal of Violence to our selves we shall never be able to keep them together so long as is necessary to the forming a firm Assent to the Truth and the passing a true and impartial Judgment upon the Proposals of Religion And when we have fixt our Thoughts into a serious Consideration of the Evidences of Religion we shall find that our Lusts will object much more against them than our Reason that they will be casting mists before our Eyes and bribing and biassing our Understanding the other way and that thereupon 't will be more difficult than we are aware to convince our selves throughly of the truth of a Religion that is so diametrically opposite to our vicious Inclinations But when this is done and we proceed to consider the Duties of Religion and to ballance the Motives with the Difficulties of them in order to the obtaining of our selves a full and free Consent to them here again we shall find our selves at a mighty Plunge For though the Motives to our Duty are at first View infinitely greater and more considerable than the Difficulties of it though it be unspeakably more intolerable to lose the Joys of Heaven and incur the Pains of Hell than to endure the sharpest Brunts of this spiritual Warfare yet these being present and sensible have a more Immediate Access to us and consequently are apter to move us than either of those Motives which are both of them future and invisible So that unless we do earnestly press and urge our selves with those Motives and imprint them upon our minds in the most lively and real Characters we shall find our selves over-ruled in despight of them by these present and sensible Difficulties that are before us But when we have effectually convinced our selves that those Difficulties of our Duty are much less considerable than the Motives to them we shall find it a hard Task to persuade our Wills into a free and explicit Consent to all the Particulars of it For now we shall find a strong Aversation in our Natures to sundry of those Duties that call for our Approbation and there will be a mighty Counterstriving between our Reason and Inclinations Our darling Lusts those bosom Orators within us will now employ all their Rhetorick to dissuade us from parting with them they will clasp about our Souls like departing Lovers and use all their Charms and Allurements to hold us fast and reconcile themselves to us and under these Circumstances though we have all the reason in the world on our side we shall find it will be no such easie matter effectually to dispose our Wills to close with so many offensive Duties and part with so many beloved Sins But when this is done which to be sure will cost us many a violent Struggle and Contention with our selves there are other Difficulties to be mastered For now we must reflect upon our past ill Life and expose it to our own Eyes in all its natural Horror Turpitude and Infamy and never leave reproaching our selves with the Foulness and Disingenuity the Madness and Folly of it till we find our hearts affected with Shame and Sorrow for and Indignation against it And for us that have been so long used to cokes and flatter our selves to paint and varnish our Deformities and crown our Brows with forced and undeserved Applauses for us to condemn and upbraid our selves to strip our Actions of all their artificial Beauty and set our selves before our own Eyes in all our naked undisguised Ugliness and not look off till we have lookt our selves into Shame and Horror and Hatred of our selves will be at first especially a very ungrateful Employment and yet it may be a good while perhaps before our hard and unmalleable Hearts will yield to the impressions of godly Sorrow and Remorse But when this Difficulty is conquered our Work is not yet totally finished For now we must come off from our selves and all our presumptious Dependances upon our own Ability and Power and in a deep sense of our own most wretched Weakness and Impotency throw our selves wholly upon God and with earnest and importunate Outcries implore his gracious Aid and Assistance And let me tell ye to men that have been all along inured to such glorious Conceits of themselves such mighty Confidences in their own Abilities that have promised themselves from time to time that at such and such a time they would repent and amend as if without Gods Help 't were in their Power to repent when they pleased for such men as these I say to come out of themselves and their own self-confidences and wholly cast themselves upon a foreign Help so sensibly to feel and ingenuously to own their own Inability as to fly to God and confess themselves lost and undone without him is a much harder matter than we can well imagine till we come to make the Experiment And yet this all this must be done bfore we can be well prepared to resolve upon the Christian Warfare THIS I have the longer insisted on because I would deal plainly with you and shew you the worst of things For whether you are told of it or no you will find it if ever you make the Experiment that all your good Resolutions without these Preparations will soon unravel in the Execution and that after you have resolved a thousand times over you will be just where you are and not one step farther in Religion But for your Encouragement know that when with these necessary Preparations you have solemnized your Resolution you have won the main and toughest Victory in all your spiritual Warfare a Victory by which you have pulled down your Sin from its Throne and broken and disarrayed its Power and Forces so that now you are upon the pursuit of a flying Enemy and if you do but diligently follow your Blow and pursue your brave Resolution through all Temptations to the contrary and do not suffer your vanquished Enemy to rally and reinforce himself against ye you will sensibly perceive his Strength decay and those Lusts which seemed at first invincible will languish away by degrees from weak to weaker till at last they expire into the Habits of their contrary Virtues and so proportionably
and to be than to be seen His Heavenly-mindedness was such as rendred him neither too sour nor too talkative and his Patience was always equally distant from Stupidity and Effeminacy For so when he endured that miserable Death of the Cross he suffered like a Man that was sensible of Pain and yet very well knew how to undergo it as became him For as on the one hand he did not breath out his Soul like an effeminate Epicure in whining Complaints and wretched Lamentations so neither on the other hand did he give up the Ghost like a flanting Stoick in a huffing Contempt of death or an affected Insensibility of Pain and Misery But from the beginning to the end he acted his Part in that bloody Tragedy as one that was neither insensible of Torment nor conquered by it For the last words which he breathed which were a hearty Prayer for his Murderers manifested his Soul to be calm and serene under all the Agonies of his Body Thus is his great Example intirely composed of those excellent Virtues that are the proper Graces and Ornaments of humane Nature Now though there be some Actions of our Saviours Life which were never intended for our Imitation viz. such wherein he either exercised or proved and asserted his divine Authority yet whatsoever he did of precise Morality and in pursuance to his own Laws he designed and intended for our Imitation So that in all such matters as his Law is to be our Map and Rule so his Practice is to be our Guide and President FOR this is the great End of our Religion to which God hath predestinated us namely to be conformable to the Image of his Son Rom. viii 29 and in this consists our putting on of the Lord Jesus Christ namely in imitating his Manners and following the Garb and Fashion of his Conversation and accordingly our Saviour tells his Disciples John xiii 15 I have given you an example that is of Humility and Charity that you should do as I have done to you and 't is one of his great Commands that we should learn of him who was meek and lowly of heart with a promise that in so doing we should find rest unto our Souls Mat. xi 29 WHEREFORE if we would lead a holy Life pursuant to our holy Resolution we must set holy Examples before our eyes and especially that most holy one of our blessed Saviour We must peruse the History of his sacred Life and diligently observe his Carriage and Demeanour in all those Capacities and Circumstances wherein he was placed and closely apply it all to our selves as a perfect Pattern of Action Thus and thus did my Saviour Sic ille manus sic ora so he demeaned himself when he was in my Circumstances after this manner he acted and thus he suffered and can I follow a more glorious Example nay would it not be a burning Shame for me not to imitate his Manners whilst I profess my self his Disciple Think O my Soul what would he have now done if he were in thy Condition and had thy Temptations before him Would he have pawned his Innocence for such a Trifle or prostituted himself to such a base infamous Action to avoid such an inconsiderable Inconvenience No doubtless he would not and art thou not ashamed to comply with such a Temptation knowing with what Indignation thy Saviour would have rejected it If we would but thus inure our selves to reflect upon our Saviours Example and apply it to and compare it with our own Actions we cannot imagine with what a divine Emulation 't would inspire us how it would animate our Weaknesses and shame our Irregularities and inamour our Souls with true Virtue and Goodness III. TO the Course and Progress of our Christian Warfare it is also necessary that we should frequently apply our selves for Advice and Direction to our spiritual Guides For it is to be considered that men of a secular Life and Conversation are generally so engaged in the Business and Affairs of this World that they very rarely acquire Skill enough in Religion to conduct themselves safely to Heaven through all those Difficulties and Temptations that lie in their way For before they can be capable to guide themselves safely they must in all points of great moment be able to distinguish between Truth and Falshood and to make a difference between good and evil which in many Instances do border so near upon one another that it requires much greater Skill and Knowledge than the Generality of men are Masters of to discern the Point and Boundary that parts them And supposing their Vnderstandings to be so well instructed as to be able to resolve them truly in all those doubtful Cases wherein they are or may be concerned yet still there is generally such a fault in their Wills as renders them incompetent Judges for themselves and that is that through an Excess of Self-love they are prone to be partial in their own Concerns and consequently unless the Case be very plain to vote that true that is most for their Interest and determine on that side they are most inclined to For when a mans Judgment is before in Suspence a very small weight of Interest on the wrong side of the Question usually turns the Scale against the greater probability on the right And whilst Interest fees mens Affections and their Affections bribe their Judgments it will be almost impossible for them to secure their Innocence whilst they determine all Cases of Right and Wrong at the Tribunal of their own Reason For when once they have determined falsly as many times to be sure they will besides the many single Miscarriages in Practice that will be consequent thereunto by practising on upon their false Determinations they will intangle themselves in such evil Customs and Habits as by that time they have discovered the Error of their Judgment will render it very difficult for them to correct the error of their Practice And therefore to secure our selves in our Innocence and Duty it is mighty necessary that in all doubtful Cases we should appeal from our selves to the Judgment of others who having no Interest to biass them one way or t'other will be much more impartial and therefore if they have but equal Understanding more competent Judges of our Case than our selves UPON both which accounts the Christian Religion hath wisely separated an Order of Men from the World to be the Guides and Conducts of Souls to oversee and direct the secular Flock who upon the above-mentioned accounts cannot be supposed to be in all Cases competent Guides of themselves For 't was to this purpose that our Saviour before his Ascension commissioned his Disciples Mat. xxviii 18 19 20. All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth Go ye therefore and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded
you and lo I am with you alway even unto the end of the world And that he did not intend this meerly for a temporary Commission which was to expire with the first Bishops and Propagators of the Gospel but designed to have it derived from their hands to all the succeeding Ages of Christianity is evident not only from the Promise annexed to it that he would be with them to the end of the world which plainly shews that 't was to continue in force till then but also from hence that they to whom this Commission was immediately given did actually derive it to others 2 Tim. i. 6 with a strict Charge that these also should successively derive it to others Tit. i. 5 AND as by this perpetual Commission Christ hath Established a Succession of men to be the Guides of Souls to the end of the World so he hath obliged all Christian People to attend to and respect them as such For he that heareth you saith he heareth me and he that despiseth you despiseth me and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me Luk. x. 16 and 1 Cor. iv 1 the Apostle injoins all Christians to account of these spiritual Guides as of the Ministers of Christ and stewards of the Mysteries of God so also 1 Thess. v. 12 13. he earnestly beseeches them as a matter of vast importance that they would know them which labour among them and are over them in the Lord and were to admonish them and esteem them very highly in love for their works sake and Heb. xiii 17 he gives this Injunction obey them which have the rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your souls as they that must give account that they may do it with joy and not with grief for that is unprofitable for you THERE being therefore an Order of men that are thus sanctified and set apart from the World by the Commission of our Saviour to consult the various Necessities of Souls and administer to them in all their religious Concerns it would doubtless mightily contribute to their successful Progress in the Christian Warfare if in all their streights and difficulties men would apply themselves to them for Counsel and Direction with such Modesty and Sincerity as they ought to do For besides that they might reasonably expect a greater Blessing upon their Counsels than other mens they being commissioned Guides under the great Shepherd of Souls who we must needs suppose will more especially cooperate with the Means of his own Ordination besides this I say they being persons that are wholly devoted to the Study and Ministries of Religion must needs be supposed caeteris paribus to have a farther Insight into the Cases of Souls into their Dangers and Refuges Diseases and Remedies and consequently to be better able to counsel and direct them than men of a secular Life and Conversation If therefore men would be but so kind to themselves as to apply themselves in all their spiritual Exigencies to a holy wise and well-instructed Guide to uncover their Sores lay open their Cases and reveal the Secrets of their Souls to him so far as is necessary to enable him to make proper Applications it is not to be expressed what a vast Advantage they might make of him He would be instead of a good Genius or Tutelar Angel to their Souls to suggest many a good Thought to them and feed their Meditations with many an useful Notion to enable them to extract from the Articles of their Belief their just and proper Inferences and reduce them to practical Principles to rectifie their Wanderings and extricate them from their Doubts to comfort them in their Sorrows and quicken them in their Indispositions to warm their Indifferencies and moderate their Zeal so as that they may neither be becalmed by the one nor over-born by the too violent Gusts of the other and in a word to direct them to the proper Methods of mortifying their bad Inclinations and conducting their Religion so as to render it more easie and delightful to them These and a great many other good Offices a wise and well-experienced Guide would be able to do men if they would but take him along with them in their Journey to Heaven and modestly submit themselves to his Conduct and Direction And in thus doing they would act not only with greater Security to their Innocence but with greater satisfaction to their Consciences because then their Actions would be warranted not only by their own private Sentiments which in many Cases they will have just cause to suspect but also by the better and more impartial Judgment of an authorised Guide For if under his Conduct they should happen in any doubtful Instance to err from the way of Truth or Righteousness they will have this Satisfaction that they have used the best Means to prevent it the Means to which God himself hath remitted them to whom alone they are accountable for their Actions and who as they may well imagine will very much compassionate such Miscarriages as may follow upon their Submission to his own Appointments But if notwithstanding the great Care that he hath taken of their Souls in appointing them Pilots to steer them safely to Heaven they will embark without them and presume so far upon their own Skill as to venture to their eternal Port through all those Rocks and Quicksands that lie in their way they must needs be in great Danger of miscarrying which if they do they may thank themselves for it and can expect no Pity from God whose careful provision for their eternal Safety they have so ungratefully contemned and neglected IV. TO our prosperous Course and Progress in the Christian Warfare it is also necessary that as often as we can we should actually intend and aim at God in the Course of our Lives and Actions For it is of mighty Advantage to the Conduct of a mans Life to have his Intentions united and continually to act with one steady Drift and Aim Because while he intends but one thing he unites the whole Vigour of his Nature in the pursuit of it and is continually driving at it with all the Force and Activity of his Faculties 'T is an Italian Proverb From the man of one Business good Lord deliver me because minding that only he must needs be supposed to be the more expert and sagacious in it and consequently the more able to exceed and over-reach another man who hath only minded it by the by but when a man acts with a multifarious Intention he must needs be distracted in his Operations and the force of his Faculties being divided by the multiplicity of his Aims must needs be so weakned that 't will be impossible for him to pursue any one of them with Vigour and Activity 'T is one of Pythagoras his Maxims 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a man ought to be one i. e. so far as he is able to fix all his Aims upon one End
is it to take so much pains as we do to recommend our selves to men to men that must stand at the same Tribunal and undergo the same Judgment with our selves For what will their good Opinion avail us if the Judg disaprove us in whose hands our Lives and Souls are If he think well of us we are safe though all the World should condemn us but if he condemn us though every Creature should acquit they cannot rescue us from his Sentence But alas how differently soever God and Men may think of us now yet when he comes to discover his Thoughts of us in his publick Judgment and Sentence all the World will be of his Mind and if we stand right in his Opinion we shall be applauded by the whole Universe howsoever we may be vilified now as on the contrary if he condemn us we shall be sure to be hissed at throughout all the Congregation of Spirits how gloriously soever we may be thought of at present And by how much the better we are esteemed of now by so much the more we shall be hissed at then when the Cheat is discovered and the hypocritical Vizor is pluckt from our Devils faces THIS if men duly considered and fixt it in their Minds would effectually cure them of all their Hypocrisie For alas what Hypocrisie can so cunningly disguise them as to render them Incognito to Omniscience If men will be wicked therefore they were e'en as good put on a bold Face and be wicked openly for 't is to very little purpose for them to sneak into Corners unless they could find one dark enough to conceal them from God and cover them from his All-seeing Eye For why should that man be ashamed or afraid to let a Boy or Neighbour be conscious to his Wickedness that never scruples to commit it in the open View of the dreadful Majesty of Heaven by whose final Sentence his everlasting Fate must be decided AND so on the other hand to what purpose should we study to be more devout and temperate sober and charitable in the view of the World than we are in our Retirements when we have no other Eye but God's upon us That which we are mainly concerned in is to approve our selves to him and if we can do this what great matter is it though our Closet be all our Stage and Heaven our only Spectator God hears the softest Whispers of our Souls and sees through all our honest Intentions and our most secret Vertues are as legible to his Eye as if they were written on our Foreheads with a Sun-beam We need no Trumpet to proclaim our Alms in his Ears for he knows by whom such a poor man was relieved such a starving family succoured though we should not superscribe our Names upon our Charity nor let our left hand know what our right hand hath done And if by the sincere Discharg of our Duty we have approved our selves to God what need we concern our selves any farther since 't is not from Men but from God that we expect the Recompence of our Obedience No doubtless did we but live under the constant sense of God Presence with and Inspection over us we should regard him much more in every good Action and the good Opinion of the World much less than we do and the more secret our good Deeds were the more we should rejoice in them because they would give us a stronger Testimony of our Simplicity and Sincerity For what should move us to be good when God only sees us but pure Respect to his Authority and an honest Intention of obeying him And if Obedience be our Design the more private our good Deeds are the more Pleasure they will afford us because those good Deeds have most of Obedience in them that have least of the Theatre VI. To prosper our Course and Progress in the Christian Warfare it is also necessary that we should frequently examin and review our own Actions For this our Religion injoins as a necessary Part of the militant Life of a Christian So 2 Cor. xiii 5 Examin your selves whether you be in the faith prove your own selves and particularly it is injoined as a proper Preparation to the Sacrament Let a man examin himself and so let him eat 1 Cor. xi 28 So also Gal. vi 4 Let a man prove or examin his own work where the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in all these Texts we render to prove or examin hath two Significations First to call our selves to Account to try our past Actions by the Rule whether they be good or evil Secondly to take such a due Care of our Actions as that upon a strict Tryal of them we may be able to approve them to God and our own Consciences In the first of which Sences the New-Testament doth most commonly understand it namely to call our selves to Account and make a strict Survey of our Actions and pass an impartial Judgment upon them whether they are good or evil and accordingly 1 Cor. xi 31 instead of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the 28th Verse i. e. let a man examin himself the Apostle uses as a synonimous Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. if we judg our selves if we summon our past actions before the Tribunal of our Consciences and try and examin them by the Rule whether they are good or evil and according as we find them to approve or condemn our selves for them AND this is a Duty of great Necessity to the successful Prosecution of our Christian Warfare For unless we do frequently reflect upon our selves and take a strict Account of our past Actions and Behaviour we shall incur a thousand Errors and Immoralities in the Hurry of our secular Occasions without taking any Notice of them and those sins which we heedlesly commit and never think of afterwards though at first perhaps they may have little or no Malice in them do yet leave a malicious Infusion behind them and infect the will with bad Inclinations and insensibly dispose it to wilful and deliberate Sins For the Pleasure of one bad Action will be still inviting us to another and that to a third and so we shall be inconsiderately tolled on from Sin to Sin in the course of a heedless and unreflecting Life till before ever we are aware our Inclination to the Sin which we have so heedlesly repeated becomes too strong for our pious Resolution For when we have carelesly permitted one Sin to break through our Fence that will open a gap for another to follow and if this be not presently stopt by Repentance 't will make the Breach yet wider for others and those again for others till at last they have quite trodden down our good Resolution and made a Through-fare in our Wills for a Custom of sinning But if we frequently reflect upon and examin our selves 't is impossible our Faults should long escape our Discovery and we shall be sure to see them time
to him our sincere willingness to do not only what we should have been obliged to if we had not been injurious but also what we are obliged to since we have been injurious Now as actual Reparation so far as we are able is necessary to evidence this when we remember the Injuries we have done so an extraordinary Charity is no less necessary to evidence this when we have forgotten them And this I suppose is the meaning of that Parallel Passage of St. James c. v. v. 20. he that converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins i. e. by such an illustrious Act of Charity to the Soul of his Brother he shall obtain Pardon of God for many of those forgotten Injuries which he hath formerly done and is now no otherwise able to repair So that if we would make sure Work of our Christian Warfare and ascertain its being finally Crowned with Success as in general we must indeavour to redeem the past Time we have spent in vicious Courses by abounding in the Practice of the contrary Vertues so in particular if for the time past we have lived in any of those injurious Courses which do naturally fix a more lasting Guilt upon the Mind we must take care not only to repair so far as we are able those Injuries we remember but also to wipe off the Guilt of those we have forgotten by an extraordinary Charity and Beneficence by laying hold of all Opportunities to do Good and indeavouring in our several Stations according as God hath inabled us to reduce the Souls relieve the Bodies and vindicate the Reputation of our Brethren X. AND lastly To our final Perseverance in wel-doing it is also necessary that we should labour after a Rational and wel-grounded Assurance of Heaven I put this in the last Place because 't is usually the last attain'd and is not to be presently expected and catch'd at as soon as we are entered into a religious State For there are a great many Stages of Religion to be past before we can modestly expect to arrive at Assurance In the Beginning of our Religion when we are just recovered out of a vicious State we cannot but be sensible if we do at all understand our selves that we are as yet in a great deal of Danger and do border so very near upon that bad State we are escap'd from that 't is almost impossible to distinguish whether we are in or out of it For though we are fully purposed and resolved against it yet we cannot well divine what will be the Issue of it Our Resolution is yet so young so raw and unexperienced and besieg'd with so many powerful counter-striving Inclinations that we cannot confide in it without great Folly and Presumption For till sufficient Trial hath been made of it for all that we know it may prove to be only a Godly Mood or a short Lucid Interval between the raving Fits of our Lust and extravagant Affections which in a few days perhaps may return again and utterly alienate and distract us from all our sober Counsels and Purposes And if it should so happen that which we now look upon as our Cure and Recovery will prove but an Intermission of our Disease And when for sometime we have tryed our Resolution and found that hath bravely resisted those Temptations that have hitherto assaulted it yet we cannot presently be reasonably assured of it considering the fickleness and Inconstancy of our Nature For it may be it hath not been yet assaulted on the weak Side or it hath not been nick'd with a seasonable Temptation or it may be we may be more remiss and careless another time or more vehemently inclined to a vicious Complyance and then those Temptations which we have hitherto conquered may captivate and subdue us And if it thus happen that which we now look upon as an everlasting Breach between us and our Lusts may prove only a Pet or short Distast and like the Fallings out of Lovers end in the renewing of Love And till we have made some considerable Progress in the mortification of our sinful Inclinations and the Acquisition of their contrary Habits our Religion will have so many Flaws Defects and Imperfections in it as will give us great Reason if we have any modesty in us to be very fearful and jealous of it But since without Sincerity in Religion we can have no Title to Heaven it hence follows that without a clear Sense of our Sincerity we can have no Assurance of our Title to it and such a clear Sense as is necessary to found such an Assurance on is not to be acquired you see without a thorough Tryal of our Resolution in a long and vigorous Course of Religion So that for men to be immediatly snatching at Assurance as soon as ever they are entred into a good Life argues them not to be so sensible as they should be of their own Imperfection and Frailty they ought in Modesty to expect a while and not conclude too soon for themselves till they have made a through Tryal of their Resolution and in the mean time to strive on in Hope that by the Blessing of God concurring with their Endeavours they shall at last attain such a certain Sense and Feeling of their own Sincerity as will be sufficient to infer a firm and rational Assurance For Assurance being the Top of Christian Attainment we must ascend to it gradually by the intermediate Staves and Rounds of a tryed and lasting Obedience and not leap up in an Instant before we have taken all the Steps and Degrees that lead thither BUT though we ought not to be too forward in our Assurance yet we are bound to labour after it in a due and regular Way that is to persist in our Obedience till we have reduced our inward and outward Motions to such a Degree of Conformity to the Standard of the Gospel as that upon comparing our selves with it we may be able without Flattery or Presumption to conclude our own Sincerity and Vprightness I know there is a much shorter Passage to Assurance which some of late have pretended to and that is by certain unaccountable Incomes and Manifestations of Gods Spirit who as they pretend doth immediatly whisper and reveal to them their Title and Interest in Heaven But this alas is too much like the North-east Passage to the Indies which is shorter indeed if it could be found but so very dangerous that I doubt there are but few that attempt it but miscarry and 't is well if they do not finally perish in the Discovery Not that I do in the least doubt but God doth many times suggest and whisper unspeakable Comforts and Assurances to the Minds of good men but then it is to be considered that this is an arbitrarious Gift which he seldom if ever bestows but in extraordinary Cases when 't is necessary to encourage
partakers of the holy Ghost and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the World to come if they fall away to renew them again to repentance Heb. vi 4 5 6. For besides that by falling from his first Repentance a man grieves and chases the Holy Spirit from him without whose Aid he can neither stand when he is up nor recover when he is faln and having Chased him away he cannot well expect that he will be so ready to return and co-operate with him after he hath treated him so rudely by quenching his Motions unraveling his Workmanship and extinguishing all those heavenly Effects which his Grace had produced in his Soul For how can this blessed Assistant of Souls but take it in great Disdain to be thus mock'd and disappointed when he had been so industriously labouring for a Wretches Good to lift him out of the Mire wherein he was sunk and perishing and when he had succeeded so far in his Labour as to help him quite out and was washing and cleansing his polluted Spirit and dressing it for the Embraces of the Father of spirits to see this Wretch turn back after all and plung himself headlong into the Mire again how can he but resent such an ungrateful Disappointment of his Labour with unspeakable Grief and Indignation And if upon such Resentment he should as he justly may wholly retire from him and leave him forever to wallow in his own Hearts Lust his Condition will not be only dangerous but desperate What the blessed Spirit will do in this Case I cannot certainly determine because he may do as he pleases being totally released by the Sinners Apostacy from all Obligation of Promise But it makes my Heart ake to think how much Reason there is to fear that he will utterly forsake and abandon him and not throw away any more of his Grace upon a Wretch on whom he hath already spent so much to no purpose And if the heinous Affront which the blessed Spirit receives by your Apostacy should put him upon this Resolution you are damn'd above-ground and everlastingly forsaken of all Hopes of Recovery But besides all this which one would think should be sufficient to startle any sober Man from making such a desperate Experiment by falling off from your Repentance you must needs be supposed to offer a mighty Violence to your Consciences which having been already awaken'd into a through Sense of your past Sins must necessarily reflect upon your present Apostacy with unspeakable Horror and Affrightment which if it doth not presently scare ye back again to Repentance will put ye upon more desperate Courses than ever For now if your Conscience won't be quiet you have no other Remedy but to ruffle with it and out-brave its Horrors by being more couragiously wicked and as those barbarous Parents that sacrificed their Children to Moloch were fain to make Noises round the burning Idol with Drums and Timbrels to drown their dying Shrieks and Grones least they should move them to Compassion so when by your wilful Relapses you have sacrificed your Conscience to your Lust and it begins to Shriek out from among those Flames of Guilt whereinto you have cast it you have no other Remedy unless you repent immediately but to make a Tophet round about it and drown its Out cries in Excesses of Riot to put your selves into a tumultuous Hurry of Wickedness and Folly that you may not hear those ill-boding Shrieks within and sear over the Wounds of your Conscience with a thick Custom of Sinning that they may neither bleed nor smart So that if once you turn Recreant to your Christian Warfare you will be forced in your own Defence to plung your selves deeper into Sin than ever For now you must sin not only to greatifie your Lusts but to stupifie your Conscience and this last you can never do without being excessively wicked You must now be puny Sinners no longer if ever you intend to sin quietly but resolve to turn Heroes in Iniquity and out-sin your natural Sense of Good and Evil. In order whereunto you must give your wounded Spirit Gash after Gash and follow the Blow till you have left it past feeling you must heap on Loads of Guilt upon your Conscience till with the continued Pressure you have rendered it callous and insensible and when by this means you have sunk your selves deeper into Sin than ever as you will doubtless soon do how much more difficult and hazardous must your Recovery be For now you will need much more Assistance than ever you did in your first Repentance and have much less Reason to expect it So that though I dare not say your Condition will be desperate yet I must tell ye 't will be so fearfully dangerous that unless God out of a peculiar Mercy to ye awake ye by some extraordinary providence and at the same time co-operate with ye by an extraordinary Grace you must certainly miscarry for ever V. CONSIDER that by your deserting of the Christian Warfare you will not only render your future Recovery more difficult but you will also plung your selves for the present into a far more guilty and criminal Condition than ever For thus St. Peter determines in the Case 2 Pet. ii 20 21. if after they have escap'd the pollutions of the world through the knowledg of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ they are again intangled therein and overcome the later end is worse with them than the beginning For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness then after they have known it to turn from the holy commandement that is by relapsing into those sinful Pollutions out of which they had been rescued by the Belief and Knowledg of Christianity they have rendered themselves much more guilty than they were before when they were Infidels so that if they had never been acquainted with the Gospel nor taken one Step in the Pathes of its holy Commandements it had been much better for them and God would have been much less angry and displeased with them For by our Apostacy into a wicked Life we do not only return back into as bad at least if not a worse Condition than ever but First We do also make void all those Operations of the Spirit of God by which we were so effectually persuaded to undertake and hitherto to prosecute the Christian Warfare By relapsing into a state of Sin again we wilfully undo all that he hath been doing we revive those Lusts which he hath been mortifying and root up those Graces which he hath been planting and watering within us and when with great Contrivance and Industry he hath drest and cultivavated our Nature pluckt up the Weeds of it and planted it with the Flowers of Heaven we wilfully spoil and lay it wast again and turn his growing Sharon into a barren Wilderness So that besides all that Guilt which arises from those sinful Courses whereinto we are
Nature but still it hangs upon me and sinks and weighs down my Soul as oft as 't is aspiring towards thee O my God have pity upon me deliver me from this Body of Sin ease my weary and heavy laden Soul of this grievous Burthen under which it labours and groans and suffer not this spark of divine Life which thou hast kindled in me to be opprest and extinguisht by it but so cherish it I beseech thee with the continual Influences of thy Grace as that it may at length it may break through all this Rubbish that suppresses it and finally rise into a glorious Flame Then shall I always approach thee with Joy and breath up my Soul to thee in every Prayer then shall my Heart be firmly united to thee in a devout and chearful Affection and my Prayers shall come up as incense before thee and breathe a sweet-smelling savour into thy Nostrils Hear me therefore O my God I beseech thee and strengthen me with all might in the inward man that for the future I may contend more vigorously and successfully against these vile Inclinations of my Nature which do so miserably hamper and depress my soul that so at last I may be a conqueror and more than a conquerer through Jesus Christ our Lord Amen If through any bodily Infirmity such as Melancholy Weariness Drousiness or Sickness you find your self indisposed to divine Offices indeavour to quicken your sluggish Mind with the Consideration of some one of the most moving Arguments of your Religion such as the Love of God and of your Saviour the Majesty of Gods Presence in which you are or the blessed Immortality you hope for and then address your self to God in this following Prayer O Blessed God thou art a most pure and active Spirit who doest always move with an uncontrolable Freedom and art never hindred or wearied in thy Operations have pity upon me I beseech thee thy poor infirm Creature who am cumbred with this Body of death and so deprest by its manifold Frailties that I cannot lift up my Heart unto thee Thou knowest O Lord my spirit is willing though my flesh is weak my labouring Soul aspires towards thee it stretches forth the Wings of its Desires toward thee and would fain mount up above all earthly things and unite it self with thee in eternal Love but alas its Fervours are dampt and its Endeavours tired by this clog of Flesh that hangs upon it and perpetually sinks and weighs it down again O my God draw near unto me and touch my Mind with such a powerful sense of thee as in despight of these my bodily Indispositions may attract and draw up my Soul unto thee And if it be thy blessed will release me from these fleshly Incumbrances and fit my Body to my Mind that I may serve thee as I desire to do with a fervent and a chearful Spirit But if it shall seem good in thine Eyes to leave me strugling under these bodily Oppressions Lord give me Patience and Submission to thy heavenly Will that so when I cannot approach thee with that Pleasure and Satisfaction I desire I may be heartily content to serve thee upon any Terms and that what I want of Vigour and Chearfulness in my Religion I may make up in Truth and in Reality And O let the Sense of these my present Indispositions cause me more vehemently to long after that free and blessed State wherein with fixt and steady Thoughts with flagrant Love and an entire Devotion of Soul I shall for ever worship praise and glorifie thy name Amen If through present Worldly-mindedness or Vanity of Spirit you find your self cold and apt to be distracted in your Religious Offices indeavour to stir up your Affections by representing to your self the Greatness and Urgency of your spiritual Wants the Vanity of all outward things and the Reality and Fulness of heavenly Enjoyments And do what you can to recollect your wandring Thoughts by setting your self in the Presence of the great God to whose All-seeing Eye every Thought and Motion of your Soul is open and naked And when by thus doing you have composed your Mind into a more serious Frame present this following Prayer O Thou ever blessed Majesty who fillest Heaven and Earth with thy Presence and art always listening to the Supplications of a world of Creatures that hang upon thee open I beseech thee thine Ears of Mercy to me who am unfit and unworthy to approach thee who by setting my Affections upon things below and plunging my self into the Cares and Pleasures of this Life have estrang'd and alienated my Mind from thee and lost that delightful Relish of thee with which I was wont to draw near unto thee And now that I am retired from the World to converse with thee and spread my wants and my desires before thee those worldly Cares and Delights with which I have been too too conversant are importunately thrusting themselves upon me to divert my Thoughts distract my Intentions and carry away my Affections from thee by reason whereof my Mind wanders my Hope droops and my Desires are frozen and whilst I am drawing near thee with my lips my heart is running away from thee O my God have pity upon me pluck my Soul out of this deep mire quicken raise and spiritualize these my groveling Affections Possess this Heart which opens it self to thy gracious Influences with such a strong and vigorous Love to thee as may lift me up above all earthly things and continually carry forth my Soul in vehement Desires after thee that so I may always approach thee with a joyful Heart being glad to leave the company of all other things to go to thee my God my exceeding Joy Give me a sober diligent and collected spirit that is neither choaked with Cares nor scattered with Levity nor discomposed with Passion nor estranged from thee with sinful Prejudice or Inadvertency but fix it fast to thy self with the Indissoluble Bands of an active Love and pregnant Devotion that so when-ever I prostrate my self before thee I may presently be born away far above all these sensible Goods in a high Admiration of thee and a passionate Longing after thee And now O Lord while I am addressing to thee gather in I beseech thee my wandering Thoughts and fix and stay them upon thy self And O do thou touch my cold and earthy Desires with an out-stretched Ray from thy self and cause them to rise and flame up to thee in Fervours answerable to my pressing Wants that I may so ask as that I may receive so seek as that I may find so knock as that it may be opened unto me through Jesus Christ my blessed Lord and Redeemer Amen If after this you find your Heart is very much enlarged and your Mind and Affections vigorously disposed towards God and heavenly things fix your Mind a little while upon the Beauty and Excellency of his Nature or upon some of the most