to all those that resist the Devil This grounded upon 1. The Weakness of the Devil and Sin considered in themselves 2. God's powerfull assisting all faithfull Christians in this warfare The Devil may allure and tempt but cannot prevaile except men consent and yield to his suggestions The Devil's strength lies in mens treachery and falseness to their own Souls Sin is strong because men oppose it weakly The Error of the Manichees about a Principium mali defended by men in their lives and practices Of God's readiness to assist Christians in their Spiritual Conflicts his Compassionate regards and the more special respects of his Providence towards them in such occasions The Conclusion discovering the Evil and Horridness of Magick Diabolical Contracts c. pag. 474. A DISCOURSE Concerning The true WAY or METHOD of attaining to DIVINE KNOWLEDGE Psal. 3. 10. The Fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Wisdome a good Understanding have all they that doe his Commandments John 7. 17. If any man will doe his Will he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God Clem. Alexandr Strom. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A PRAEFATORY DISCOURSE CONCERNING The true Way or Method of attaining to DIVINE KNOWLEDGE Section I. That Divine things are to be understood rather by a Spiritual Sensation then a Verbal Description or meer Speculation Sin and Wickedness prejudicial to True Knowledge That Purity of Heart and Life as also an Ingenuous Freedome of Judgment are the best Grounds and Preparations for the Entertainment of Truth Sect. II. An Objection against the Method of Knowing laid down in the former Section answered That Men generally notwithstanding their Apostasie are furnished with the Radical Principles of True Knowledge Men want not so much Means of knowing what they ought to doe as Wills to doe what they know Practical Knowledge differs from all other Knowledge and excells it Sect. III. Men may be consider'd in a Fourfold capacity in order to the perception of Divine things That the Best and most excellent Knowledge of Divine things belongs onely to the true and sober Christian and That it is but in its infancy while he is in this Earthly Body SECT I. IT hath been long since well observed That every Art Science hath some certain Principles upon which the whole Frame and Body of it must depend and he that will fully acquaint himself with the Mysteries thereof must come furnisht with some Praecognita or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that I may speak in the language of the Stoicks Were I indeed to define Divinity I should rather call it a Divine life then a Divine science it being something rather to be understood by a Spiritual sensation then by any Verbal description as all things of Sense Life are best known by Sentient and Vital faculties 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Greek Philosopher hath well observed Every thing is best known by that which bears a just resemblance and analogie with it and therefore the Scripture is wont to set forth a Good life as the Prolepsis and Fundamental principle of Divine Science Wisdome hath built her an house and hewen out her seven pillars But the fear of the Lord is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the beginning of wisdome the Foundation of the whole fabrick We shall therefore as a Prolegomenon or Preface to what we shall afterward discourse upon the Heads of Divinity speake something of this True Method of Knowing which is not so much by Notions as Actions as Religion it self consists not so much in Words as Things They are not alwaies the best skill'd in Divinity that are the most studied in those Pandects which it is sometimes digested into or that have erected the greatest Monopolies of Art and Science He that is most Practical in Divine things hath the purest and sincerest Knowledge of them and not he that is most Dogmatical Divinity indeed is a true Efflux from the Eternal light which like the Sun-beams does not only enlighten but heat and enliven and therefore our Saviour hath in his Beatitudes connext Purity of heart with the Beatifical Vision And as the Eye cannot behold the Sun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unless it be Sun-like and hath the form and resemblance of the Sun drawn in it so neither can the Soul of man behold God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unless it be Godlike hath God formed in it and be made partaker of the Divine Nature And the Apostle S. Paul when he would lay open the right way of attaining to Divine Truth he saith that Knowledge puffeth up but it is Love that edifieth The knowledge of Divinity that appears in Systems and Models is but a poor wan light but the powerful energy of Divine knowledge displaies it self in purified Souls here we shall finde the true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the antient Philosophy speaks the land of Truth To seek our Divinity meerly in Books and Writings is to seek the living among the dead we doe but in vain seek God many times in these where his Truth too often is not so much enshrin'd as entomb'd no intrate quaere Deum seek for God within thine own soul he is best discern'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Plotinus phraseth it by an Intellectual touch of him we must see with our eyes and hear with our ears and our hands must handle the word of life that I may express it in S. John's words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Soul it self hath its sense as well as the Body and therefore David when he would teach us how to know what the Divine Goodness is calls not for Speculation but Sensation Tast and see how good the Lord is That is not the best truest knowledge of God which is wrought out by the labour and sweat of the Brain but that which is kindled within us by an heavenly warmth in our Hearts As in the natural Body it is the Heart that sends up good Blood and warm Spirits into the Head whereby it is best enabled to its several functions so that which enables us to know and understand aright in the things of God must be a living principle of Holiness within us When the Tree of Knowledge is not planted by the Tree of Life and sucks not up sap from thence it may be as well fruitful with evil as with good and bring forth bitter fruit as well as sweet If we would indeed have our Knowledge thrive and flourish we must water the tender plants of it with Holiness When Zoroaster's Scholars asked him what they should doe to get winged Souls such as might soar aloft in the bright beams of Divine Truth he bids them bathe themselves in the waters of Life they asking what they were he tells them the four Cardinal Vertues which are the four Rivers of Paradise It is but a thin aiery knowledge that is got by meer Speculation which is usher'd in by Syllogisms and
these and wall it about with their own Self-flattery and then sit in it as Gods as Cosroes the Persian king was sometime laughed at for enshrining himself in a Temple of his own And therefore if this Knowledge be not attended with Humility and a deep sense of Self-penury and Self-emptiness we may easily fall short of that True Knowledge of God which we seem to aspire after We may carry such an Image and Species of our Selves constantly before us as will make us lose the clear sight of the Divinity and be too apt to rest in a meer Logical life it's Simplicius his expression without any true participation of the Divine life if we doe not as many doe if not all who rise no higher relapse and slide back by vain-glory popularity or such like vices into some mundane and externall Vanity or other The fourth is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The true Metaphysical and Contemplative man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who running and shooting up above his own Logical or Self-rational life pierceth into the Highest life Such a one who by Universal Love and Holy affection abstracting himself from himselfe endeavours the nearest Union with the Divine Essence that may be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Plotinus speaks knitting his owne centre if he have any unto the centre of Divine Being To such an one the Platonists are wont to attribute 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a true Divine wisedome powerfully displaying it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in an Intellectual life as they phrase it Such a Knowledge they say is alwaies pregnant with Divine Vertue which ariseth out of an happy Union of Souls with God and is nothing else but a living Imitation of a Godlike prefection drawn out by a strong servent love of it This Divine Knowledge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. as Plotinus speaks makes us amorous of Divine beauty beautifull and lovely and this Divine Love and Purity reciprocally exalts Divine Knowledge both of them growing up together like that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Pausanias sometimes speaks of Though by the Platonists leave such a Life and Knowledge as this is peculiarly belongs to the true and sober Christian who lives in Him who is Life it self and is enlightned by Him who is the Truth it self and is made partaker of the Divine Unction and knoweth all things as S. John speaks This Life is nothing else but God's own breath within him and an Infant-Christ if I may use the expression formed in his Soul who is in a sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the shining forth of the Father's glory But yet we must not mistake this Knowledge is but here in its Infancy there is an higher knowledge or an higher degree of this knowledge that doth not that cannot descend upon us in these earthly habitations We cannot here see 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Speculo lucido here we can see but in a glass and that darkly too Our own Imaginative Powers which are perpetually attending the highest acts of our Souls will be breathing a grosse dew upon the pure Glasse of our Understandings and so fully and besmear it that we cannot see the Image of the Divinity sincerely in it But yet this Knowledge being a true heavenly fire kindled from God's own Altar begets an undaunted Courage in the Souls of Good men enables them to cast a holy Scorn upon the poor petty trash of this Life in comparison with Divine things and to pitty those poor brutish Epicureans that have nothing but the meer husks of fleshly pleasure to feed themselves with This Sight of God makes pious Souls breath after that blessed time when Mortality shall be swallowed up of Life when they shall no more behold the Divinity through those dark Mediums that eclipse the blessed Sight of it A SHORT DISCOURSE OF SUPERSTITION Clem. Alexandr in Admon ad Graec. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hierocles in Pythag. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lactantius de Vero cultu Hic verus est cultus in quo mens colentis seipsam Deo immaculatam victimam sistit Ibid. Nihil Sancta singularis illa Majestas aliud ab homine desiderat quam solam innocentiam quam siquis obtulerit Deo satis piè satis religiosè litavit The Contents of the ensuing Discourse The true Notion of Superstition well express'd by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. an over-timorous and dreadful apprehension of the Deity A false Opinion of the Deity the true Cause and Rise of Superstition Superstition is most incident to such as Converse not with the Goodness of God or are conscious to themselves of their own unlikeness to him Right apprehensions of God beget in man a Nobleness and Freedome of Soul Superstition though it looks upon God as an angry Deity yet it counts him easily pleas'd with flattering Worship Apprehensions of a Deity and Guilt meeting together are apt to excite Fear Hypocrites to spare their Sins seek out waies to compound with God Servile and Superstitious Fear is encreased by Ignorance of the certain Causes of Terrible Effects in Nature c. as also by frightful Apparitions of Ghosts and Spectres A further Consideration of Superstition as a Composition of Fear and Flattery A fuller Definition of Superstition according to the Sense of the Ancients Superstition doth not alwaies appear in the same Form but passes from one Form to another and sometimes shrouds it self under Forms seemingly Spiritual and more refined Of SUPERSTITION HAving now done with what we propounded as a Preface to our following Discourses we should now come to treat of the main Heads and Principles of Religion But before we doe that perhaps it may not be amiss to inquire into some of those Anti-Deities that are set up against it the chief whereof are ATHEISM and SUPERSTITION which indeed may seeme to comprehend in them all kind of Apostasy and Praevarication from Religion We shall not be over-curious to pry into such foule and rotten carkasses as these are too narrowly or to make any subtile Anatomy of them but rather enquire a litle into the Original and Immediate Causes of them because it may be they may be nearer of kin then we ordinarily are aware of while we see their Complexions to be so vastly different the one from the other And first of all for SUPERSTITION to lay aside our Vulgar notion of it which much mistakes it it is the same with that Temper of Mind which the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for so Tully frequently translates that word though not so fitly and emphatically as he hath done some others It imports an overtimorous and dreadfull apprehension of the Deity and therefore with Hesychius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are all one and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is by him expounded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Idolater and also one that is very prompt to worship the Gods but withall fearfull of them And
well observ'd Every nature in this world hath some proper Centre which it is always hastening to Sin and Wickedness does not hover a little over the bottomeless pit of Hell and onely flutter about it but it 's continually sinking lower and lower into it Neither does true Grace make some feeble assaies toward Heaven but by a mighty Energy within it self it 's always soaring up higher and higher into heaven A good Christian does not onely court his Happiness and cast now and then a smile upon it or satisfy himself merely to be contracted to it but with the greatest ardours of Love and Desire he pursues the solemnity of the just Nuptialls that he may be wedded to it and made one with it It is not an aiery speculation of Heaven as a thing though never so undoubtedly to come that can satisfy his hungry desires but the reall possession of it even in this life Such an Happiness would be less in the esteem of Good men that were onely good to be enjoyed at the end of this life when all other enjoyments fail him I wish there be not among some such a light and poor esteem of Heaven as makes them more to seek after Assurance of Heaven onely in the Idea of it as a thing to come then after Heaven it self which indeed we can never well be assured of untill we find it rising up within our selves and glorifying our own Souls When true Assurance comes Heaven it self will appear upon the Horizon of our Souls like a morning light chasing away all our dark and gloomy doubtings before it We shall not need then to light up our Candles to seek for it in corners no it will display its own lustre and brightness so before us that we may see it in its own light and our selves the true possessours of it We may be too nice and vain in seeking for signes and tokens of Christ's Spiritual appearances in the Souls of men as well as the Scribes and Pharisees were in seeking for them at his First appearance in the World When he comes into us let us expect till the works that he shall doe within us may testify of him and be not over-credulous till we find that he doth those works there which none other could doe As for a true well-grounded Assurance say not so much Who shall ascend up into heaven to fetch it down from thence or who shall descend into the deep to fetch it up from beneath for in the Growth of true internal Goodness and in the Progress of true Religion it will freely unfold it self within us Stay till the grain of Mustard-seed it self breaks forth from among the clods that buried it till through the descent of the heavenly dew it sprouts up and discovers it self openly This holy Assurance is indeed the budding and blossoming of Felicity in our own Souls it is the inward sense and feeling of the true life spirit sweetness and beauty of Grace powerfully expressing its own Energy within us Briefly True Religion in the Progresse of it transforms those Minds in which it reigns from glory to glory it goes on and prospers in bringing all enemies in subjection under their feet in reconciling the Minds of men fully to God and it instates them in a firm possession of the Supreme Good This is the Seed of God within holy Souls which is always warring against the Seed of the Serpent till it prevail over it through the Divine strength and influence Though Hell may open her mouth wide and without measure yet a true Christian in whom the seed of God remaineth is in a good and safe condition he finds himself born up by an Almighty arm and carried upwards as upon Eagles wings and the Evil one hath no power over him or as S. John expresseth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Evil one toucheth him not 1 Ep. chap. 5. v. 18. CHAP. XI 5. The Excellency of Religion in regard of its Term End viz. Perfect Blessednesse How unable we are in this state to comprehend and describe the Full and Perfect state of Happiness and Glory to come The more Godlike a Christian is the better may he understand that State Holiness and Happiness not two distinct things but two several Notions of one and the same thing Heaven cannot so well be defined by any thing without us as by something within us The great nearness and affinity between Sin and Hell The Conclusion of this Treatise containing a Serious Exhortation to a diligent minding of Religion with a Discovery of the Vanity of those Pretenses which keep men off from minding Religion WE come now to the Fifth and Last Particular viz. The Excellency of Religion in the Terme and End of it which is nothing else but Blessedness it self in its full maturity Which yet I may not here undertake to explain for it is altogether 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor can it descend so low as to accommodate it self to any humane style Accordingly S. John tells us it does not yet appear what we shall be and yet that he may give us some glimpse of it he points us out to God and tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is Indeed the best way to get a discovery of it is to endeavour as much as may be to be Godlike to live in a feeling converse with God and in a powerful exercise and expression of all Godlike dispositions So shall our inner man be best enabled to know the breadth and length the depth and height of that Love and Goodness which yet passeth all knowledg There is a State of Perfection in the life to come so far transcendent to any in this life as that we are not able from hence to take the just proportions of it or to form a full and comprehensive notion of it We are unable to comprehend the vastness and fullness of that Happiness which the most purifyed Souls may be raised to or to apprehend how far the mighty power and strength of the Divinity deriving it self into created Being may communicate a more Transcendent life and blessedness to it We know not what latent powers our Souls may here contain within themselves which then may begin to open and dilate themselves to let in the full streams of the Divine Goodness when they come nearly and intimately to converse with it or how Blessedness may act upon those Faculties of our Minds which we now have We know not what illapses and irradiations there may be from God upon Souls in Glory that may raise them into a state of Perfection surpassing all our imaginations As for Corporeal Happiness there cannot be any thing further added to the Pleasure of our Bodies or Animal part then a restoring it from disturbing Passion and Pain to its just and natural constitution and therefore some Philosophers have well disputed against the opinion of the Epicureans that make Happiness to
to those that heard him read a Mathematick Lecture in the Schools for some years may appear hereafter to the Reader if those Lectures can be recovered To conclude He was a plain-hearted both Friend and Christian one in whose Spirit and mouth there was no guile a profitable Companion nothing of vanity and trislingness in him as there was nothing of sowrness Stoicism I can very well remember when I have had private converse with him how pertinently and freely he would speak to any Matter proposed how weighty substantial and clearly expressive of his Sense his private Discourses would be and both for Matter and Language much-what of the same importance value with such Exercises as he studied for and performed in publick I have intimated some things concerning the Author much more might be added but it needs not there being as I before insinuated already drawn a fair and lively Character of him by a worthy Friend of his in the Sermon preached at his Funeral for the publishing whereof and annexing it as now it is to these Discourses he was importun'd by Letters from several hands and prevail'd with wherein if some part of the Character should seem to have in it any thing of Hyperbolism and Strangeness it must seem so to such only who either were unacquainted with him Strangers to his worth or else find it an hard thing not to be Envious and a difficulty to be Humble But those that had a more inward converse with him knew him to be one of those of whom the world was not worthy one of the Excellent ones in the Earth a person truly Exemplary in the temper and constitution of his Spirit and in the well-ordered course of his life a life unius quasi coloris sine actionum dissensione as I remember Seneca doth express it somewhere in his Epistles all of one colour everywhere like it self and Eminent in those things that are worthy of Praise and Imitation And certainly a just Representation of those Excellencies that shined in him as also a faithful Celebration of the like Accomplishments in others is a doing honour to God who is wonderful in his Saints if I may with some apply to this sense that in Psal. 68. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and it may be also of great use to others particularly for the awakening obliging them to an earnest endeavouring after those heights and eminent degrees in Grace and Vertue and every worthy Accomplishment which by such Examples they see to be possible attainable through the assistances which the Divine Goodness is ready to afford those Souls which press toward the mark and reach forth to those things that are before The Lives and Examples of men eminently Holy and Useful in their generation such as were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are ever to be valued by us as great Blessings and Favours from Heaven and to be considered as excellent Helps to the Advancement of Religion in the World and therefore there being before us these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. Basil speaks in his first Epist. and a little afterwards in the same Ep. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such living Pictures moving and active Statues fair Ideas and lively Patterns of what is most praise-worthy lovely and excellent it should be our serious care that we be not through an unworthy and lazy Self-neglect Ingentium Exemplorum parvi imitatores to use Salvian's expression it should be our holy ambition to transcribe their Vertues and Excellencies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to make their noblest and best Accomplishments our own by a constant endeavour after the greatest resemblance of them and by being followers of them as they were also of Christ who is the fair and bright Exemplar of all Purity and Holiness the highest and most absolute Pattern of whatsoever is Lovely and Excellent and makes most for the accomplishing and perfecting of Humane Nature Having observed Some things concerning This Edition and the Author of these Discourses I proceed now which was the Last thing intended in this Preface to observe something concerning the several Discourses and Treatises in this Volume And indeed some of these Observations I ought not in justice to the Author to pretermit and all of them may be for the benefit of at least some Readers The First Discourse Concerning the true Way or Method of attaining to Divine Knowledg and an Encrease therein was intended by the Author as a necessary Introduction to the ensuing Treatises and therefore is the shorter yet it contains 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to use Plutarch's Expression excellent Sense and solid Matter well beaten and compacted and lying close together in a little room many very seasonable Observations for this Age wherein there is so much of fruitless Notionality so little of the true Christian life and practice Shorter yet are the Two next Tracts Of Superstition and Atheism which were also intended by the Author to prepare the way for some of the following Discourses upon which the Author purposed to enlarge his Thoughts Yet as for that Tract Of Superstition some things that are but briefly intimated by the Author therein may receive a further Explication from his other Discourses more especially from the Eighth viz. Of the Shortness and Vanity of a Pharisaick Righteousness or An Account of the false Grounds upon which men are apt vainly to conceit themselves to be Religious And indeed what the Author writes concerning that more refined that more close and subtile Superstition by which he understands the formal and specious Sanctity and vain Religion of Pharisaick Christians who yet would seem to be very abhorrent from Superstition and are apt to call every thing Babylonish and Antichristian that is not of their way I say what he writes concerning This in both these or any other Discourses he would frequently speak of and that with Authority and Power For being possess'd of the inward life and power of true Holiness he had a very strong and clear sense of what he spake and therefore a great and just indignation as against open and gross Irreligion so also against that vain-glorious slight and empty Sanctity of the spiritual Pharisees who would as our Saviour speaks of the old Pharisees Mark 7. make void and very fairly disannul the Commandments of God the weightier things of Religion the indispensable concernments of Christianity while in stead of an inward living Righteousness and entire Obedience they would substitute some external Observances and a mere outward liveless and slight Righteousness and in the room of the New creature made after God set up some Creature of their own made after their own image a Self-framed Righteousness they being strict in some things which have a shew of Wisdom and Sanctity things less necessary and more doubtful and where the H. Scripture hath not placed the Kingdom of God but in the mean time loose and careless in their plain duty toward God and toward
and the New Covenant as it is laid down by the Apostle Paul A more General Ansiver to this enquiry together with a General observation of the Apostle's main End in opposing Faith to the Works of the Law viz. To beat down the Jewish proud conceit of Merit A more particular and Distinct answer to the Enquiry viz. That the Law or Old Covenant is considered only as an External administration a dead thing in it self a Dispensation consisting in an Outward and Written Law of Precepts but the Gospel or New Covenant is an Internal thing a Vital Form and Principle of Righteousness in the Souls of men an Inward manifestation of Divine Life and a living Impression upon the Minds and Spirits of Men. This proved from several Testimonies of Scripture pag. 308. Chap. V. Two Propositions for the better understanding of the Doctrine of Justification and Divine Acceptance 1. Prop. That the Divine judgment and estimation of every thing is according to the truth of the thing and God's acceptance or disacceptance of things is suitable to his judgment On what account S. James does attribute a kind of Justification to Good works 2. Prop. God's justifying of Sinners in pardoning their Sins carries in it a necessary reference to the sanctifying of their Natures This abundantly proved from the Nature of the thing pag. 325. Chap. VI. How the Gospel-righteousness is conveighed to us by Faith made to appear from these two Considerations 1. The Gospel lays a strong foundation of a chearfull dependance upon the Grace and Love of God and affiance in it This confirmed by several Gospel-expressions containing plainly in them the most strong Motives and Encouragements to all ingenuous addresses to God to all chearfull dependance on him and confident expectation of all assistance from him 2. A true Evangelical Faith is no lazy or languid thing but an ardent breathing and thirsting after Divine grace and righteousness it looks beyond a mere pardon of sin and mainly pursues after an inward participation of the Divine nature The mighty power of a living Faith in the Love and Goodness of God discoursed of throughout the whole Chapter pag. 332. Chap. VII An Appendix to the foregoing Discourse How the whole business and Undertaking of Christ is eminently available both to give full relief and ease to our Minds and Hearts and also to encourage us to Godliness or a God-like righteousness briefly represented in sundry Particulars pag. 343. DISCOURSE VIII OF THE SHORTNESS OF A Pharisaick Righteousness CHap. I. A General account of men's Mistakes about Religion Men are no where more lazy and sluggish and more apt to delude themselves then in matters of Religion The Religion of most men is but an Image and Resemblance of their own Fansies The Method propounded for discoursing upon those words in S. Matthew 1. To discover some of the Mistakes and False Notions about Religion 2. To discover the Reason of these Mistakes A brief Explication of the Words pag. 349. Chap. II. An Account of men's Mistakes about Religion in 4 Particulars 1. A Partial obedience to some Particular Precepts The False Spirit of Religion spends it self in some Particulars is confin'd is overswayed by some prevailing Lust. Men of this spirit may by some Book-skill and a zeal about the Externals of Religion loose the sense of their own Guiltiness and of their deficiencies in the Essentials of Godliness and fansy themselves nearly related to God Where the true Spirit of Religion is it informs and actuates the whole man it will not be confin'd but will be absolute within us and not suffer any corrupt Interest to grow by it p. 353. Chap. III. The Second Mistake about Religion viz. A meer complyance of the Outward man with the Law of God True Religion seats it self in the Centre of mens Souls and first brings the Inward man into Obedience to the Law of God the Superficiall Religion intermeddles chiefly with the Circumference and Outside of men or rests in an outward abstaining from some Sins Of Speculative and the most close and Spiritual wickedness within How apt men are to sink all Religion into Opinions and External Forms pag. 357. Chap. IV. The Third Mistake about Religion viz. A constrained and forc'd Obedience to God's Commandments The Religion of many some of whom would seem most abhorrent from Superstition is nothing else but Superstition properly so called False Religionists having no inward sense of the Divine Goodness cannot truly love God Yet their sowre and dreadfull apprehensions of God compell them to serve him A slavish spirit in Religion may be very prodigal in such kind of serving God as doth not pinch their Corruptions but in the great and weightier matters of Religion in such things as prejudice their beloved Lusts it is very needy and sparing This servile Spirit has low and mean thoughts of God but an high opinion of its Outward services as conceiting that by such cheap things God is gratified and becomes indebted to it The different Effects of Love and Slavish fear in the truly and in the falsly Religious pag. 361. Chap. V. The Fourth and last Mistake about Religion When a mere Mechanical and Artificial Religion is taken for that which is a true Impression of Heaven upon the Souls of men and which moves like a new Nature How Religion is by some made a piece of Art and how there may be specious and plausible Imitations of the Internals of Religion as well as of the Externals The Method and Power of Fansy in contriving such Artificial imitations How apt men are in these to deceive both themselves and others The Difference between those that are govern'd in their Religion by Fansy and those that are actuated by the Divine Spirit and in whom Religion is a living Form That True Religion is no Art but a new Nature Religion discovers it self best in a Serene and clear Temper of Mind in deep Humility Meekness Self-denial Universal love of God and all true Goodness p. 366. DISCOURSE IX OF THE EXCELLENCY and NOBLENESS OF RELIGION CHap. I. 1. The Nobleness of Religion in regard of its Original and Fountain it comes from Heaven and moves towards Heaven again God the First Excellency and Primitive Perfection All Perfections and Excellencies in any kind are to be measured by their approch to and Participation of the First Perfection Religion the greatest Participation of God none capable of this Divine Communication but the Highest of created Beings and consequently Religion is the greatest Excellency A twofold Fountain in God whence Religion flows viz. 1. His Nature 2. His Will Of Truth Natural and Revealed Of an Outward and Inward Revelation of God's Will pag. 380. Chap. II. 2. The Nobleness of Religion in respect of it's Nature briefly discovered in some Particulars How a man actuated by Religion 1. lives above the world 2. converses with himself and knows how to love value and reverence himself in the best sense 3. lives above himself not
Truth wrapt up one within another which cannot be discern'd but onely by divine Epoptists We must not think we have then attained to the right knowledge of Truth when we have broke through the outward Shell of words phrases that house it up or when by a Logical Analysis we have found out the dependencies and coherencies of them one with another or when like stout champions of it having well guarded it with the invincible strength of our Demonstration we dare stand out in the face of the world and challenge the field of all those that would pretend to be our Rivalls We have many Grave and Reverend Idolaters that worship Truth onely in the Image of their own Wits that could never adore it so much as they may seem to doe were it any thing else but such a Form of Belief as their own wandring speculations had at last met together in were it not that they find their own image and superscription upon it There is a knowing of the truth as it is in Jesus as it is in a Christ-like nature as it is in that sweet mild humble and loving Spirit of Jesus which spreads itself like a Morning-Sun upon the Soules of good men full of light and life It profits litle to know Christ himself after the flesh but he gives his Spirit to good men that searcheth the deep things of God There is an inward beauty life and loveliness in Divine Truth which cannot be known but onely then when it is digested into life and practice The Greek Philosopher could tell those high-soaring Gnosticks that thought themselves no less then Jovis alites that could as he speaks in the Comedy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and cried out so much 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 look upon God that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Without Vertue and real Goodness God is but a name a dry and empty Notion The profane sort of men like those old Gentile Greeks may make many ruptures in the walls of God's Temple and break into the holy ground but yet may finde God no more there then they did Divine Truth is better understood as it unfolds itself in the purity of mens hearts and lives then in all those subtil Niceties into which curious Wits may lay it forth And therefore our Saviour who is the great Master of it would not while he was here on earth draw it up into any Systeme or Body nor would his Disciples after him He would not lay it out to us in any Canons or Articles of Belief not being indeed so careful to stock and enrich the World with Opinions and Notions as with true Piety and a Godlike pattern of purity as the best way to thrive in all spiritual understanding His main scope was to promote an Holy life as the best and most compendious way to a right Belief He hangs all true acquaintance with Divinity upon the doing Gods will If any man will doe his will he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God This is that alone which will make us as S. Peter tells us that we shall not be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour There is an inward sweetness and deliciousness in divine Truth which no sensual minde can tast or rellish this is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that natural man that savours not the things of God Corrupt passions and terrene affections are apt of their own nature to disturb all serene thoughts to precipitate our Judgments and warp our Understandings It was a good Maxime of the old Jewish Writers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Holy Spirit dwells not in terrene and earthly passions Divinity is not so well perceiv'd by a subtile wit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as by a purified sense as Plotinus phraseth it Neither was the antient Philosophy unacquainted with this Way and Method of attaining to the knowledge of Divine things and therefore Aristotle himself thought a Young man unfit to meddle with the grave precepts of Morality till the heat and violent precipitancy of his youthful affections was cool'd and moderated And it is observed of Pythagoras that he had several waies to try the capacity of his Scholars and to prove the sedateness and Moral temper of their minds before he would entrust them with the sublimer Mysteries of his Philosophy The Platonists were herein so wary and solicitous that they thought the Mindes of men could never be purg'd enough from those earthly dregs of Sense and Passion in which they were so much steep'd before they could be capable of their divine Metaphysicks and therefore they so much solicite a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they are wont to phrase it a separation from the Body in all those that would 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Socrates speaks that is indeed sincerely understand Divine Truth for that was the scope of their Philosophy This was also intimated by them in their defining Philosophy to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Meditation of Death aiming herein at onely a Moral way of dying by loosening the Soul from the Body and this Sensitive life which they thought was necessary to a right Contemplation of Intelligible things and therefore besides those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which the Souls of men were to be separated from sensuality and purged from fleshly filth they devised a further way of Separation more accommodated to the condition of Philosophers which was their Mathemata or Mathematical Contemplations whereby the Souls of men might farther shake off their dependency upon Sense and learn to go as it were alone without the crutch of any Sensible or Material thing to support them and so be a little inur'd being once got up above the Body to converse freely with Immaterial natures without looking down again and falling back into Sense Besides many other waies they had whereby to rise out of this dark Body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they are wont to call them several steps and ascents out of this miry cave of mortality before they could set any sure footing with their Intellectual part in the land of Light and Immortal Being And thus we should pass from this Topick of our Discourse upon which we have dwelt too long already but that before we quite let it goe I hope we may fairly make this use of it farther besides what we have openly driven at all this while which is To learn not to devote or give up our selves to any private Opinions or Dictates of men in matters of Religion nor too zealously to propugne the Dogmata of any Sect. As we should not like rigid Censurers arraign condemn the Creeds of other men which we comply not with before a full mature understanding of them ripened not onely by the natural sagacity of our own Reasons but by the benign influence of holy and mortified Affection so neither should we over-hastily credere in fidem alienam subscribe to the Symbols and Articles of other men They
we shall adde but this one thing further to clear the Soul's Immortality and it is indeed that which breeds a true sense of it viz. True and reall goodness Our highest speculations of the Soul may beget a sufficient conviction thereof within us but yet it is onely True Goodness and Vertue in the Souls of men that can make them both know and love believe and delight themselves in their own Immortality Though every good man is not so Logically subtile as to be able by fit mediums to demonstrate his own Immortality yet he sees it in a higher light His Soul being purged and enlightned by true Sanctity is more capable of those Divine irradiations whereby it feels it self in conjunction with God and by a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Greeks speak the Light of divine goodness mixing it self with the light of its own Reason sees more clearly not onely that it may if it please the supreme Deity of its own nature exist eternally but also that it shall doe so it knows it shall never be deserted of that free Goodness that alwaies embraceth it it knows that Almighty Love which it lives by to be stronger then death and more powerful then the grave it will not suffer those holy ones that are partakers of it to lie in hell or their Souls to see corruption and though worms may devour their flesh and putrefaction enter into those bones that fence it yet it knows that its Redeemer lives and that it shall at last see him with a pure Intellectual eye which will then be clear and bright when all that earthly dust which converse with this mortal body filled it with shall be wiped out It knows that God will never forsake his own life which he hath quickned in it he will never deny those ardent desires of a blissfull fruition of himself which the lively sense of his own Goodness hath excited within it those breathings and gaspings after an eternal participation of him are but the Energy of his own breath within us if he had had any mind to destroy it he would never have shewn it such things as he hath done he would not raise it up to such Mounts of Vision to shew it all the glory of that heavenly Canaan flowing with eternal and unbounded pleasures and then tumble it down again into that deep and darkest Abyss of Death and Non-entity Divine goodness cannot it will not be so cruel to holy souls that are such ambitious suitors for his love The more they contemplate the blissfull Effluxes of his divine love upon themselves the more they find themselves strengthned with an undaunted confidence in him and look not upon themselves in these poor bodily relations and dependences but in their eternal alliances 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Arrianus sometimes speaks as the Sons of God who is the Father of Souls Souls that are able to live any where in this spacious Universe and better out of this dark and lonesome Cell of Bodily matter which is alwaies checking and clogging them in their noble motions then in it as knowing that when they leave this Body they shall then be received into everlasting habitations and converse freely and familiarly with that Source of Life and Spirit which they conversed with in this life in a poor disturbed and streightned manner It is indeed nothing else that makes men question the Immortality of their Souls so much as their own base and earthly loves which first makes them wish their Souls were not immortal and then to think they are not which Plotinus hath well observed and accordingly hath soberly pursued this argument I cannot omit a large recital of his Discourse which tends so much to disparage that flat and dull Philosophy which these later Ages have brought forth as also those heavy-spirited Christians that find so little divine life and activity in their own Souls as to imagine them to fall into such a dead sleep as soon as they leave this earthly tabernacle that they cannot be awakened again till that last Trumpet and the voice of an Archangel shall rouse them up Our Authors discourse is this Enn. 4. lib. 7. c. 10. having first premised this Principle That every Divine thing is immortall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Let us now consider a Soul saith he not such an one as is immerst into the Body having contracted unreasonable Concupiscence and Anger 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to which they were wont to distinguish between the Irascible and Concupiscible faculty and other Passions but such a one as hath cast away these and as little as may be communicates with the Body such a one as this will sufficiently manifest that all Vice is unnaturall to the Soul and something acquired onely from abroad and that the best Wisdome and all other Vertues lodge in a purged Soul as being allyed to it If therefore such a Soul shall reflect upon it self how shall it not appear to it self to be of such a kind of nature as Divine and Eternall Essences are For Wisdome and true Vertue being Divine Effluxes can never enter into any unhallowed and mortall thing it must therefore needs be Divine seeing it is fill'd with a Divine nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by its kindred and consanguinity therewith Whoever therefore amongst us is such a one differs but little in his Soul from Angelicall essences and that little is the present inhabitation in the Body in which he is inferiour to them And if every man were of this raised temper or any considerable number had but such holy Souls there would be no such Infidels as would in any sort disbelieve the Soul's Immortality But now the vulgar sort of men beholding the Souls of the generality so mutilated and deform'd with Vice and Wickedness they cannot think of the Soul as of any Divine and Immortall Being though indeed they ought to judge of things as they are in their own naked essences and not with respect to that which extraessentially adheres to them which is the great prejudice of knowledge Contemplate therefore the Soul of man denuding it of all that which it self is not or let him that does this view his own Soul then he will believe it to be Immortall when he shall behold it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fixt in an Intelligible and pure nature he shall then behold his own Intellect contemplating not any Sensible thing but Eternall things with that which is Eternall that is with it self looking into the Intellectuall world being it self made all Lucid Intellectuall and shining with the Sun-beams of eternall Truth borrowed from the First Good which perpetually rayeth forth his Truth upon all Intellectuall Beings One thus qualified may seem without any arrogance to take up that saying of Empedocles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Farewell all earthly allies I am henceforth no mortall wight but an Immortall Angel ascending up into Divinity and reflecting upon that likeness of it which I find
we have a distinct Notion of the most Perfect Mind and Understanding we own our deficiency therein And as that Idea of Understanding which we have within us points not out to us This or That Particular but something which is neither This nor That but Totall Understanding so neither will any elevation of it serve every way to fit and answer that Idea And therefore when we find that we cannot attain to Science but by a Discursive deduction of one thing from another that our knowledge is confined and is not fully adequate and commensurate to the largest Spheare of Being it not running quite through it nor filling the whole area of it or that our knowledge is Chronical and successive and cannot grasp all things at once but works by intervals and runs out into Division and Multiplicity we know all this is from want of Reason and Understanding and that a Pure and Simple Mind and Intellect is free from all these restraints and imperfections and therefore can be no less then Infinite As this Idea which we have of it in our own Souls will not suffer us to rest in any conception thereof which represents it less then Infinite so neither will it suffer us to conceive of it any otherwise then as One Simple Being and could we multiply Understandings into never so vast a number yet should we be again collecting and knitting them up together in some Universal one So that if we rightly reflect upon our own Minds and the Method of their Energies we shall find them to be so framed as not to admit of any other then One Infinite source of all that Reason and Understanding which themselves partake of in which they live move and have their Being And therefore in the old Metaphysical Theology an Originall and Uncreated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Unity is made the Fountain of all Particularities and Numbers which have their Existence from the Efflux of its Almighty power And that is the next thing which our own Understandings will instruct us in concerning God viz. His Eternall Power For as we find a Will and Power within our selves to execute the Results of our own Reason and Judgment so far as we are not hindred by some more potent Cause so indeed we know it must be a mighty inward strength and force that must enable our Understandings to their proper functions and that Life Energy and Activity can never be separated from a Power of Understanding The more unbodied any thing is the more unbounded also is it in its Effective power Body and Matter being the most sluggish inert and unwieldy thing that may be having no power from it self nor over it self and therefore the Purest Mind must also needs be the most Almighty Life and Spirit and as it comprehends all things and sums them up together in its Infinite knowledge so it must also comprehend them all in its own life and power Besides when we review our own Immortal Souls and their dependency upon some Almighty Mind we know that we neither did nor could produce our selves and withall know that all that Power which lies within the compass of our selves will serve for no other purpose then to apply severall praeexistent things one to another from whence all Generations and Mutations arise which are nothing else but the Events of different applications and complications of Bodies that were existent before and therefore that which produced that Substantiall Life and Mind by which we know our selves must be something much more Mighty then we are and can be no less indeed then Omnipotent and must also be the First architect and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of all other Beings and the perpetuall Supporter of them We may also know from the same Principles That an Almighty Love every way commensurate to that most Perfect Being eternally rests in it which is as strong as that is Infinite and as full of Life and Vigour as that is of Perfection And because it finds no Beauty nor Loveliness but onely in that and the issues thereof therefore it never does nor can fasten upon any thing else And therefore the Divinity alwaies enjoies it self and its own Infinite perfections seeing it is that Eternall and stable Sun of goodness that neither rises nor sets is neither eclipsed nor can receive any encrease of light and beauty Hence the Divine Love is never attended with those turbulent passions perturbations or wrestlings within it self of Fear Desire Grief Anger or any such like whereby our Love is wont to explicate and unfold its affection towards its Object But as the Divine Love is perpetually most infinitely ardent and potent so it is alwaies calm and serene unchangeable having no such ebbings and flowings no such diversity of stations and retrogradations as that Love hath in us which ariseth from the weakness of our Understandings that doe not present things to us alwaies in the same Orient lustre and beauty neither we nor any other mundane thing all which are in a perpetual flux are alwaies the same Besides though our Love may sometimes transport us and violently rend us from our selves and from all Self-enjoyment yet the more forcible it is by so much the more it will be apt to torment us while it cannot centre it self in that which it so strongly endeavours to attract to it and when it possesseth most yet is it alwaies hungry and craving as Plotinus hath well express'd it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it may alwaies be filling it self but like a leaking vessel it will be alwaies emptying it self again Whereas the Infinite ardour of the Divine Love arising from the unbounded perfection of the Divine Being alwaies rests satisfied within it self and so may rather be defin'd by a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and is wrapt up and rests in the same Centrall Unity in which it first begins And therefore I think some men of later times have much mistaken the nature of the Divine Love in imagining that Love is to be attributed to God as all other Passions are rather secundùm effectum then affectum whereas S. John who was well acquainted with this noble Spirit of Love when he defin'd God by it and calls him LOVE meant not to signifie a bare nothing known by some Effects but that which was infinitely such as it seems to be And we might well spare our labour when we so industriously endeavour to find something in God that might produce the Effects of some other Passions in us which look rather like the Brats of Hell and Darkness then the lovely offspring of Heaven When we reflect upon all this which signifies some Perfect Essence as a Mind Wisdome Understanding Omnipotency Goodness and the like we can find no such thing as Time or Place or any Corporeall or Finite properties which arise indeed not ex plenitudine but ex inopia entitatis we may also know God to be Eternall and
treats not only of those Pieces of Truth which are the Results of God's free Counsells but also of those which are most a-kin and allied to our own Understandings and that in the greatest way of Condescention that may be speaking to the weakest sort of men in the most vulgar sort of dialect which it may not be amiss to take a little notice of Divine Truth hath its Humiliation and Exinanition as well as its Exaltation Divine Truth becomes many times in Scripture incarnate debasing it self to assume our rude conceptions that so it might converse more freely with us and infuse its own Divinity into us God having been pleased herein to manifest himself not more jealous of his own Glory then he is as I may say zealous of our good Nos non habemus aures sicut Deus habet linguam If he should speak in the language of Eternity who could understand him or interpret his meaning or if he should have declared his Truth to us only in a way of the purest abstraction that Humane Souls are capable of how should then the more rude and illiterate sort of men have been able to apprehend it Truth is content when it comes into the world to wear our mantles to learn our language to conform it self as it were to our dress and fashions it affects not that State or Fastus which the disdainfull Rhetorician sets out his style withall Non Tarentinis aut Siculis haec scribimus but it speaks with the most Idiotical sort of men in the most Idiotical way and becomes all things to all men as every sonne of Truth should doe for their good Which was well observed in that old Cabbalistical Axiome among the Jewes Lumen supernum nunquam descendit sine indumento And therefore it may be the best way to understand the true sense and meaning of the Scripture is not rigidly to examine it upon Philosophical Interrogatories or to bring it under the scrutiny of School-Definitions and Distinctions It speaks not to us so much in the tongue of the learned Sophies of the world as in the plainest and most vulgar dialect that may be Which the Jews constantly observed and took notice of and therefore it was one common Rule among them for a true understanding of the Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lex loquitur linguâ filorum hominum Which Maimonides expounds thus in More Nevoch Par. 1. C. 26. Quicquid homines ab initio cogitationis suae intelligentiâ imaginatione suâ possunt assequi id in Scriptura attribuitur Creatori And therefore we find almost all Corporeal properties attributed to God in Scripture quia vulgus hominum ab initio cogitationis Entitatem non apprehendunt nisi in rebus corporeis as the same Author observes But such of them as sound Imperfection in vulgar eares as Eating and Drinking the like these saith he the Scripture no where attributes to him The reason of this plain and Idiotical style of Scripture it may be worth our farther taking notice of as it is laid down by the forenamed Author C. 33. Haec causa est propter quam Lex loquitur linguâ filiorum hominum c. For this reason the Law speaks according to the language of the sons of men because it is the most commodious and easie way of initiating and teaching Children Women and the Common people who have not ability to apprehend things according to the very nature and essence of them And in C. 34. Et si per Exempla Similitudines non deduceremur c. And if we were not led to the knowledge of things by Examples and Similitudes but were put to learn and understand all things in their Formal notions and Essential definitions and were to believe nothing but upon preceding Demonstrations then we may well think that seeing this cannot be done but after long preparations the greater part of men would be at the conclusion of their daies before they could know whether there be a God or no c. Hence is that Axiome so frequent among the Jewish Doctors Magna est virtus vel fortitudo Prophetarum qui assimilant formam cum formante eam i. e. Great is the power of the Prophets who while they looked down upon these Sensible and Conspicable things were able to furnish out the notion of Intelligible and Inconspicable Beings thereby to the rude Senses of Illiterate people The Scripture was not writ only for Sagacious and Abstracted minds or Philosophical heads for then how few are there that should have been taught the true Knowledge of God thereby Vidi filios coenaculi erant pauci was an antient Jewish proverb We are not alwaies rigidly to adhere to the very Letter of the Text. There is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Scripture as the Jewish interpreters observe We must not think that it alwaies gives us Formal Definitions of things for it speaks commonly according to Vulgar apprehension as when it tells of the Ends of the heaven which now almost every Idiot knows hath no ends at all So when it tells us Gen. 2. 7. that God breathed into man the breath of life and man became a living soul the expression is very Idiotical as may be and seems to comply with that vulgar conceit that the Soul of Man is nothing else but a kind of Vital breath or Aire and yet the Immortality thereof is evidently insinuated in setting forth a double Original of the two parts of Man his Body and his Soul the one of which is brought in as arising up out of the Dust of the earth the other as proceeding from the Breath of God himself So we find very Vulgar expressions concerning God himself besides those which attribute Sensation and Motion to him as when he is set forth as riding upon the wings of the Wind riding upon the Clouds sitting in Heaven and the like which seem to determine his indifferent Omnipresence to some peculiar place whereas indeed such passages as these are can be fetch'd from nothing else but those crass apprehensions which the generalitie of men have of God as being most there from whence the objects of dread and admiration most of all smite and insinuate themselves into their Senses as they doe from the Aire Clouds Winds or Heaven So the state of Hell and Miserie is set forth by such denominations as were most apt to strike a terror into the minds of men and accordingly it is called Coetus Gigantum the place where all those old Giants whom divine vengeance pursued in the general Deluge were assembled together as it is well observed by a late Author of our own upon Proverbs 21. 16. The man that wandreth out of the way of understanding in coetu Gigantum commorabitur And accordingly we find the state and condition of these expressed Job 26. 5. Gigantes gemunt sub aquis qui habitant cum iis Nudus est infernus
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It 's the propertie of a Diviner to be Ecstaticall to undergoe some violence to be tossed and hurried about like a mad man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But it 's otherwise with a Prophet whose understanding is awake and his mind in a sober and orderly temper and he knows every thing that he saith But here we must not mistake the business as if there were nothing but the most absolute Clearness and Serenitie of thoughts lodging in the Soul of the Prophet amidst all his Visions And therefore we shall further take notice of that Observation of the Jews which is vulgarly known by all acquainted with their Writings which is concerning those Panick fears Consternations and Affrightments and Tremblings which frequently seized upon them together with the Prophetical influx And indeed by how much stronger and more vehement those Impressions were which were made by those unwonted Visa which came in to act upon their Imaginative facultie by so much the greater was this Perturbation and Trouble and by how much the more the Prophets Imagination was exercised by the laboriousness of these Phantasms the more were his natural strength and Spirits exhausted as indeed it must needs be Therefore Daniel being wearied with the toilsome work of his Phansie about those Visions that were presented to him Chap. 10. 8. c. complains that there was no strength left in him that his comeliness was turned into corruption and he retained no strength that when he heard the voice he was in a deep sleep and his face toward the ground that his sorrows were turned upon him and no breath was left in him So Gen. 15. 12. when the Vision presented to Abraham passed into a Prophetical Dream it is said a deep sleep fell upon Abraham and a horror of great darkness fell upon him Upon which passage Maimonides in the 2 d Part 41. Ch. of his More Nevochim thus discourseth Quandoque autem Prophetia incipit in Visione Prophetica postea multiplicatur terror passio illa vehemens quae sequitur perfectionem operationum facultatis Imaginatricis tum demum venit Prophetia sicuti contigit Abrahamo In principio enim Prophetiae illius dicitur Gen. 15. 1. Et fuit verbum Domini ad Abrahamum in Visione et in fine ejusdem vers 12. Et sopor irruit in Abrahamum c. And in like manner he speaks of those Fatigations that Daniel complains of Est autem terror quidam Panicus qui occupat Prophetam inter vigilandum ficut ex Daniele patet quando ait Et vidi Visionem magnam hanc neque remansit in me ulla fortitudo vis mea mutata est in corruptionem nec retinui fortitudinem ullam Et fui lethargo oppressus super faciem meam facies mea ad terram And thus this whole business is excellently decyphered unto us by R. Albo in his Third book and tenth chapter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Behold by reason of the strength of the Imaginative facultie and the precedencie of the Influence upon that to the influence upon the Rational the Influx doth not remain upon the Prophet without Terrour and Consternation insomuch that his members shake and his joints are loosned and he seems like one that is readie to give up the ghost by reason of his great astonishment After all which perturbation the Prophetical influx settles it self upon the Rational Facultie From this Notion perhaps we may borrow some light for the clearing of Jeremie 23. 9. Mine heart within me is broken because of the prophets all my bones shake I am like a drunken man and like a man whom Wine hath overcome because of the Lord and because of the words of his Holiness The importance of which words is That the Energy of Prophetical vision wrought thus potently upon his Animal part Though I know R. Solomon seems to look at another meaning But Abarbanel is here full for our present purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When Jeremy saw those false prophets eating and drinking and faring deliciouslie he cried out and said My heart is broken within me because of the Prophets For while I behold their works my heart is rent asunder with the extremity of my Sorrow and because of the Prophetical influx residing upon me my bones are all rotten and I am like a drunken man that neither sees nor hears And all this hath befell me because of the Lord that is because of the divine influx that seized upon me and because of the words of his Holinesse which have wrought such a conturbation within me that all my senses are stupified thereby And thus I suppose is also that passage in Ezechiel 3. 14. to be expounded where the Prophet describes the Energie and dominion which the Prophetical spirit had over him when in a Prophetical Vision he was carried by way of Imagination a tedious journey to those of the Captivitie that dwelt by the river Chebar The Spirit of the Lord lifted me up and took me away and I went in bitterness and in the heat or hot chafing and anger of my spirit but the hand of the Lord was strong upon me So Habak 3. 2. O Lord I have heard thy speech and was affraid that is the Prophetical voice heard by him and represented in his Imagination was so strong that it struck a Panick fear as Maimon expresseth it into him And it may be the same thing is meant Esay 21. 3. where the Prophet describes that inward conturbation and consternation that his Vision of Babylon's ruine was accompanied withall Therefore are my loins fill'd with pain pangs have taken hold upon me as the pangs of a woman that travaileth I was bowed down at the hearing of it I was dismaied at the seeing of it Though I know there may be another meaning of that place not improper viz. that the Prophet personates Babylon in the horrour of that anguish that should come upon them whereby he sets it forth the more to the Life as Jonathan the Targumist and others would have it though yet I cannot think this the most congruous meaning But I have now done with this Particular and I hope by this time have gain'd a fair advantage of solving one Difficultie which though it be not so much observ'd by our own as it is by the Jewish writers yet it is worth our scanning viz. How the Prophets perceived when the Prophetical inspiration first seized upon them For as we have before shewed there may be such Dreams and Visions which are meerly delusive and such as the false prophets were often partakers of and besides the true Prophets might have often such Dreams as were meerly vera somnia True dreams but not Prophetical For the full Solution of this knot we have before shewed how this Pseudo-prophetical Spirit only flutters below upon the more terrene parts of mans Soul his Passions and Phansie The Prince of darkness comes not within the Sphere of Light and
apprehend how much the Righteousness of the Gospel transcends that of the Law in that it hath indeed a true command over the inward man which it acts and informs whereas the Law by all its menaces and punishments could only compell men to an External observance of it in the outward man as the Schoolmen have well observed Lex vetus ligat manum Lex nova ligat animum And herein S. Paul every where magnifies this Dispensation of the free mercy grace of God as being the only soveraign remedy against all the inward radicated maladies of sin and corruption as that Panacea or Balsamum vitae which is the universal restaurative of decayed impotent Nature So he tells us Rom. 6. Sin shall not have dominion because we are not under the law but under grace And this is that which made him so much extol his acquaintance with Christ in the Dispensation of grace and to despise all things as loss Philip. 3. where among his other Jewish privileges having reckoned up his blamelesness in all points touching the Law he undervalues them all and counts all but loss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the excellency of the knowledg of Christ Jesus In which place the Apostle doth not mean to disparage a real inward righteousness and the strict observance of the Law but his meaning is to shew how poor and worthless a thing all Outward observances of the Law are in comparison of a true Internal conformity to Christ in the renovation of the Mind and Soul according to his Image and likeness as is manifest from v. 9 10. c. in which he thus delivers his own meaning of that knowledge of Christ which he so much extoll'd very emphatically That I may be found in him not having mine own righteousness which is of the Law but that which is through the faith of Christ the righteousness which is of God by faith Where by the way we may further take notice what this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the righteousness of faith and the righteousness of God which we have already spoke much of is according to his own true meaning as he expounds himself viz. a Christ-like Nature in a mans Soul or Christ appearing in the Minds of men by the mighty power of his Divine Spirit and thereby deriving a true participation of himself to them so we have it v. 10. That I may know the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death And thus Christ and Moses are opposed as Christ is the Dispenser of Grace and Truth of Gods free and gratuitous bounty of Life and Substance whereas Moses was but the Minister of the Law of Rites and Shadows But it may perhaps be questioned whether the same Internal dispensation of God was not as well under the Law as since our Saviour's coming and so consequently that the Jews were equally partakers thereof and so it could be no new thing to them To all which I might reply That this Dispensation of grace was then a more Mystical thing and not so manifested to the world as it hath been since our Saviours coming Secondly This dispensation of Free grace was not that which properly belonged to the Nation of the Jews but only a Type and shadow of it For the fuller understanding of which and all that hath been spoken we must know That before our Saviour's coming the great Mysteries of Religion being wrapt up in Hieroglyphicks and Symbolical rites the unfolding of all which was reserved for him who is the great Interpreter of Heaven and Master of Truth God was pleased to draw forth a Scheme or Copy of all that divine Oeconomy and Method of his commerce with mankind and to make a draught of the whole artifice thereof in External matter and therefore he singled out a Company and Society of men of the same common Extraction marked out from all other sorts of men by a character of Genealogical Sanctity for so Circumcision was collected and united together by a common band of Brotherhood and this he set up as an Emblem of a divine and holy seed or society of men which are all by way of Spiritual generation descended from himself And hence it is that the Jews the whole Jewish nation universally considered who were but a mere Representative of this Spiritual fraternity congregation are called the Holy seed or the Holy people Then afterwards amongst these he erects a Government Politie rules over them in the way manner of a Political prince as hath been long since well observed by Josephus who therefore properly calls the Jewish government 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Theocracy or the Government of God himself And thus in a Scheme or Figure he shadows forth that Spiritual kingdome and government which he would establish amongst that Divine society of men in reference to which we have so much mention made of the Kingdome of heaven in the Gospel which is not generally and solely meant of the State of glory much less of any outward Church-rites but mainly of that Idea and Exemplar of which the Jewish Theocracy was an imitation Lastly as a Political Prince God draws forth a Body of laws as the Political Constitutions and Rules of this Government which he had set up chusing Mount Sinai for the Theatre whereon he would promulge those Laws by which all his Subjects should be governed And so I doubt not but that Preface by which the Law is usher'd in Exod. 20. which speaks of God's mercy in delivering them from the Egyptian thraldome may very well be allegorized and mystically expounded And all this was to signifie and set forth that Law which was to goe forth from mount Sion the promulgation whereof was to be in a Vital and Spiritual way among the Subjects of this Spiritual Kingdom To all which we may add those Temporal inheritances which he distributed to the Jewish families in imitation of that Eternal blessedness and those Immortal inheritances which he shares out amongst his Spiritual Sons and Subjects in Heaven And this I the rather add because here the Jews are much perplex'd about untying this knot namely what the Reason should be that their Law speaks so sparingly of any Eternal reward but runs out generally in promises of Mundane and Earthly blessings in the land of Canaan But by this we may see the true Reason of that which the Apostle speaks concerning them 2 Cor. 3. 14. Until this day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same vail in the reading of the Old Testament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 remaineth untaken away That Vail which was on Moses his face was an Emblem of all this great Mystery and this Vail was upon the face of the Jews in their reading the Old Testament they dwelling so much in a carnal converse with these Sacramental Symbols which were offered to them in the reading of the Law that they could not see
and ungrounded suspitions of his partiality with that Question If thou doest well shalt thou not be accepted Wheresoever God finds any stamps and impressions of Goodness he likes and approves them knowing them well to be what they indeed are nothing else but his own Image and Superscription Whereever he sees his own Image shining in the Souls of men and a conformity of life to that Eternal Idea of Goodness which is himself he loves it and takes a complacency in it as that which is from himself and is a true Imitation of himself And as his own unbounded Being Goodness is the Primary and Original object of his Immense and Almighty Love so also every thing that partakes of him partakes proportionably of his Love all Imitations of him and Participations of his Love and Goodness are perpetually adequate and commensurate the one to the other By so much the more acceptable any one is to God by how much the more he comes to resemble God It was a common Notion in the old Pythagorean and Platonick Theology 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. as Proclus phraseth it That the Divinity transformed into Love and enamour'd with it's own unlimited Perfections and spotless Beauty delighted to copy forth and shadow out it self as it were in created Beings which are perpetually embraced in the warm bosome of the same Love which they can never swerve nor apostatize from till they also prove apostate to the estate of their Creation And certainly it is true in our Christian divinity that that Divine light and goodness which flows forth from God the Original of all upon the Souls of men never goes solitary and destitute of Love Complacency and Acceptation which is alwaies lodg'd together with it in the Divine Essence And as the Divine Complacency thus dearly and tenderly entertains all those which beare a similitude of true Goodness upon them so it alwaies abandons from its embraces all Evil which never doth nor can mix it self with it The Holy Spirit can never suffer any unhallowed or defiled thing to enter into it or to unite it self with it Therefore in a sober sense I hope I may truly say There is no perfect or through-reconciliation wrought between God and the Souls of men while any defiled and impure thing dwells within the Soul which cannot truly close with God nor God with that The Divine Love according to those degrees by which it works upon the Souls of men in transforming them into its own likeness by the same it renders them more acceptable to it self mingleth it self with and uniteth it self to them as the Spirit of any thing mixeth it self more or less with any Matter it acts upon according as it works it self into it and so makes a way and passage open for it self Upon this account I suppose it may be that S. James attributes a kind of Justification to Good works which unquestionably are things that God approves and accepts and all those in whom he finds them as seeing there a true conformity to his own Goodness and Holiness Whereas on the other side he disparageth that barren sluggish and drowsie Belief that a lazy Lethargy in Religion began in his times to hugg so dearly in reference to acceptation with God I suppose I may fairly thus gloss at his whole Discourse upon this Argument God respects not a bold confident and audacious Faith that is big with nothing but its own Presumptions It is not because our Brains swim with a strong Conceit of God's Eternal love to us or because we grow big and swell into a mighty bulk with airy fancies and presumptions of our acceptance with God that makes us ere the more acceptable to him It is not all our strong Dreams of being in favour with Heaven that fills our hungry souls ere the more with it It is not a pertinacious Imagination of our Names being enrolled in the Book of life or of the Debt-books of Heaven being crossed or of Christ being ours while we find him not living within us or of the washing away of our sins in his bloud while the foul and filthy stains thereof are deeply sunk in our own Souls it is not I say a pertinacious Imagination of any of these that can make us ere the better And a mere Conceit or Opinion as it makes us never the better in reality within our selves so it cannot render us ere the more acceptable to God who judges of all things as they are No it must be a true Compliance with the Divine will which must render us such as the Divinity may take pleasure in In Christ Jesus neither Circumcision nor Uncircumcision availeth any thing nor any Fancy built upon any other External privilege but the keeping of the Commandments of God No but If any man does the will of God him will both the Father and the Son love they will come in to him and make their abode with him This is the Scope and Mark which a true Heaven-born Faith aims at and when it hath attain'd this End then is it indeed perfect and compleat in its last accomplishment And by how much the more ardency and intention Faith levels at this mark of inward goodness and divine activity by so much the more perfect and sincere it is This is that which God justifies it being just and correspondent to his own good pleasure and in whomsoever he finds this both it and they are accepted of him And so I come to the second Particular God's justifying of Sinners in pardoning and remitting their sins carries in it a necessary reference to the sanctifying of their Natures without which Justification would rather be a glorious name then a real privilege to the Souls of men While men continue in their wickedness they do but vainly dream of a device to tie the hands of an Almighty Vengeance from seizing on them No their own Sins like so many armed Gyants would first or last set upon them and rend them with inward torment There needs no angry Cherub with a flaming Sword drawn out every way to keep their unhallowed hands off from the Tree of life No their own prodigious Lusts like so many arrows in their sides would chase them their own Hellish natures would sink them low enough into eternal death and chain them up fast enough in fetters of darkness among the filthy fiends of Hell Sin will alwaies be miserable and the Sinner at last when the empty bladders of all those hopes and expectations of an aiery mundane Happiness that did here bear him up in this life shall be cut will find it like a Talent of Lead weighing him down into the bottomless gulf of Misery If all were clear towards Heaven we should find Sin raising up storms in our own Souls We cannot carry Fire in our own bosoms and yet not be burnt Though we could suppose the greatest Serenity without us if we could suppose our selves nere so much to be at
knowledge and moving on towards a state of Perfection we do but turn up and down from one kind of Form to another we are as apt still to draw it down into as low worldly and mundane Rites and Ordinances as ever it was before our Saviour made that glorious Reformation therein which took away these Material crutches made up of carnal Observances which Earthly minds lean so much upon and are fain to underprop their Religion with which else would tumble down and fall to nothing except we can cast it into such a certain Set of duties and System of Opinions that we may see it altogether from one end to another we are afraid lest it should become too abstruse a thing and vanish away from us I would not be misunderstood to speak against those Duties Ordinances which are necessary means appointed by God to promote us in the waies of Piety But I fear we are too apt to sink all our Religion into these and so to embody it that we may as it were touch and feel it because we are so little acquainted with the high and spiritual nature of it which is too subtile for gross and carnal minds to converse with I fear our vulgar sort of Christians are wont so to look upon such kind of Models of Divinity and Religious performances which were intended to help our dul minds to a more lively sense of God and true Goodness as those things that claim the whole of their Religion and therefore are too apt to think themselves absolved from it except at some solemn times of more especial addresses to God and that this wedding garment of holy Thoughts and divine Affections is not for every days wearing but only then to be put on when we come to the Marriage-feast and Festivals of Heaven as if Religion were fast lock'd and bound up in some sacred Solemnities and so incarcerated and incorporated into some divine Mysteries as the superstitious Heathen of old thought that it might not stir abroad and wander too far out of these hallowed Cloisters and grow too busie with us in our Secular imploiments We have learned to distinguish too subtily I doubt in our lives and conversations inter sacrum profanum our Religious approaches to God and our Worldly affairs I know our conversation and demeanour in this world is not nor can well be all of a piece and there will be several degrees of Sanctity in the lives of the best men as there were once in the land of Canaan but yet I think a Good man should alwaies find himself upon Holy ground and never depart so far into the affairs of this life as to be without either the call or compass of Religion he should alwaies think wheresoever he is etiam ibi Dii sunt that God and the blessed Angels are there with whom he should converse in a way of Puritie We must not think that Religion serves to paint our Faces to reform our Looks or only to inform our Heads or instruct and tune our Tongues no nor only to tie our Hands and make our Outward man more demure and bring our Bodies and bodily actions into a better decorum But its main business is to purge and reform our Hearts and all the Elicit actions and motions thereof And so I come to a Third particular wherein we are apt to misjudge our selves in matters of Religion CHAP. IV. The Third Mistake about Religion viz. A constrain'd and forc'd Obedience to God's Commandments The Religion of many some of whom would seem most abhorrent from Superstition is nothing else but Superstition properly so called False Religionists having no inward sense of the Divine Goodness cannot truly love God Yet their sowre and dreadfull apprehensions of God compell them to serve him A slavish spirit in Religion may be very prodigal in such kind of serving God as doth not pinch their Corruptions but in the great and weightier matters of Religion in such things as prejudice their beloved Lusts it is very needy and sparing This servile Spirit has low and mean thoughts of God but an high opinion of its Outward services as conceiting that by such cheap things God is gratified and becomes indebted to it The different Effects of Love and Slavish fear in the truly and in the falsly Religious ANother Particular wherein men mistake Religion is A constrained and forced obedience to God's Commandments That which many men amongst whom some would seem to be most abhorrent from Superstition call their Religion is indeed nothing else but a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that I may use the word in its ancient and proper sense as it imports such an apprehension of God as renders him grievous to men and so destroys all free and chearfull converse with him and begets in stead thereof a forc'd and dry devotion void of inward Life and Love Those Servile spirits which are not acquainted with God and his Goodnesse may be so haunted by the frightfull thoughts of a Deity as to scare and terrifie them into some worship and observance of him They are apt to look upon him as one clothed with austerity or as the Epicurean Poet hath too truly painted out their thoughts as a savus Dominus that is in the language of the unprofitable servant in the Gospel an hard Master and therefore they think something must be done to please him and to mitigate his severity towards them and though they cannot truly love him having no inward sense of his Loveliness yet they cannot but serve him so far as these rigorous apprehensions lie upon them though notwithstanding such as these are very apt to perswade themselves that they may pacifie him and purchase his favour with some cheap services as if Heaven it self could become guilty of Bribery and an Immutable Justice be flattered into Partiality and Respect of persons Because they are not acquainted with God and know him not as he is in himself therefore they are ready to paint him forth to themselves in their own shape and because they themselves are full of Peevishness and Self-will arbitrarily imposing and prescribing to others without sufficient evidence of Reason and are easily inticed by Flatteries they are apt to represent the Divinity also to themselves in the same form and think they view the true pourtraiture and draught of their own Genius in it and therefore that they might please this angry Deity of their own making they care not sometimes to be lavish in such a kind of Service of him as doth not much pinch their own corruptions nay and it may be too will seem to part with them sometimes and give them a weeping farewel if God and their own awakened Consciences seem to frown upon them though all their Obedience arise from nothing else but the Compulsions and necessities which their own sowre and dreadfull apprehensions of God lay upon them and therefore in those things which more nearly touch their own beloved Lusts they
〈◊〉 as Plato speaks a defluvium pennarum those Principles of Divine truth which were first engraven upon mans Heart with the finger of God are now as the Characters of some ancient Monuments less clear and legible then at first And therefore besides the Truth of Natural inscription 2. God hath provided the Truth of Divine Revelation which issues forth from his own free Will and clearly discovers the way of our return to God from whom we are fallen And this Truth with the Effects and Productions of it in the Minds of men the Scripture is wont to set forth under the name of Grace as proceeding merely from the free bounty and overflowings of the Divine Love Of this Revealed Will is that of the Apostle to be understood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 None hath known the things of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 None neither Angel nor Man could know the Mind of God could unlock the Breast of God or search out the Counsels of his Will But God out of the infinite riches of his Compassions toward mankind is pleas'd to unbosom his Secrets and most clearly to manifest the way into the Holiest of all and bring to light life and immortality and in these last ages to send his Son who lay in his bosom from all Eternity to teach us his Will and declare his Mind to us When we look unto the Earth then behold darkness and dimness of anguish that I may use those words of the Prophet Esay But when we look towards Heaven then behold light breaking forth upon us like the Eye-lids of the Morning and spreading its wings over the Horizon of mankind sitting in darkness and the shadow of death to guide our feet into the way of peace But besides this Outward revelation of God's will to men there is also an Inward impression of it on their Minds and Spirits which is in a more special manner attributed to God We cannot see divine things but in a divine light God only who is the true light and in whom there is no darkness at all can so shine out of himself upon our glassy Understandings as to beget in them a picture of himself his own Will and Pleasure and turn the Soul as the phrase is in Job 38. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 like wax or clay to the Seal of his own light and love He that made our Souls in his own image and likeness can easily find a way into them The Word that God speaks having found a way into the Soul imprints it self there as with the point of a diamond and becomes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that I may borrow Plato's expression Men may teach the Grammar and Rhetorick but God teaches the Divinity Thus it is God alone that acquaints the Soul with the Truths of Revelation and he also it is that does strengthen and raise the Soul to better apprehensions even of Natural Truth God being that in the Intellectual world which the Sun is in the Sensible 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as some of the ancient Fathers love to speak and the ancient Philosophers too who meant God by their Intellectus Agens whose proper work they supposed to be not so much to enlighten the Object as the Faculty CHAP. II. 2. The Nobleness of Religion in respect of its Nature briefly discovered in some Particulars How a man actuated by Religion 1. lives above the world 2. converses with himself and knows how to love value and reverence himself in the best sense 3. lives above himself not being content to enjoy himself except he may enjoy God too and himself in God How he denyes himself for God To deny a mans self is not to deny Right Reason for that were to deny God in stead of denying himself for God Self-love the only Principle that acts wicked men The happy privileges of a Soul united to God WE have done with the first Head and come now to discourse with the like brevity on another our purpose being to insist most upon the third Particular viz. The Nobleness of Religion in its Properties after we have handled the Second which is The Excellency and Nobleness of Religion in regard of its Nature whether it be taken in abstracto or in concreto which we shall treat of promiscuously without any rigid tying of our selves to exact Rules of Art and so we shall glance at it in these following Notions rising as it were step by step 1. A Good man that is actuated by Religion lives above the World and all Mundane delights and excellencies The Soul is a more vigorous and puissant thing when it is once restored to the possession of its own Being then to be bounded within the narrow Sphere of Mortality or to be streightned within the narrow prison of Sensual and Corporeal delights but it will break forth with the greatest vehemency and ascend upwards towards Immortality and when it converses more intimately with Religion it can scarce look back upon its own converses though in a lawfull way with Earthly things without a being touch'd with an holy Shame fac'dness a modest Blushing and as Porphyry speaks of Plotinus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it seems to be ashamed that it should be in the Body It is only True Religion that teaches and enables men to dye to this world and to all Earthly things and to rise above that vaporous Sphere of Sensual and Earthly pleasures which darken the Mind and hinder it from enjoying the brightness of Divine light the proper motion of Religion is still upwards to its first Original Whereas on the contrary the Souls of wicked men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Plato somewhere speaks being moistned with the Exudations of their Sensual parts become heavy and sink down into Earthly things and couch as near as may be to the Centre Wicked men bury their Souls in their Bodies all their projects and designes are bounded within the compass of this Earth which they tread upon The Fleshly mind never minds any thing but Flesh and never rises above the Outward Matter but alwaies creeps up and down like Shadows upon the Surface of the Earth and if it begins at any time to make any faint assays upwards it presently finds it self laden with a weight of Sensuality which draws it down again It was the Opinion of the Academicks that the Souls of wicked men after their death could not of a long season depart from the Graves and Sepulchers where their Mates were buried but there wandred up and down in a desolate manner as not being able to leave those Bodies which they were so much wedded to in this life 2. A Good man one that is actuated by Religion lives in converse with his own Reason he lives at the height of his own Being This a great Philosopher makes the Property of a Good man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He knows how to converse with himself and truly to love and value himself he measures not himself like
and suck a Divine Sweetness out of every flower There is a Twofold meaning in every Creature as the Jews speak of their Law a Literal and a Mystical and the one is but the ground of the other and as they say of divers pieces of their Law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so a Good man sayes of every thing that his Senses offer to him it speaks to his lower part but it points out something above to his Mind and Spirit It is the drowsie and muddy spirit of Superstition which being lull'd asleep in the lap of worldly delights is fain to set some Idol at its elbow something that may jogg it and put it in mind of God Whereas true Religion never finds it self out of the Infinite Sphere of the Divinity and whereever it finds Beauty Harmony Goodness Love Ingenuity Wisdome Holiness Justice and the like it is ready to say Here and There is God wheresoever any such Perfections shine out an holy Mind climbs up by these Sun-beams and raises up it self to God And seeing God hath never thrown the World from himself but runs through all created Essence containing the Archetypal Ideas of all things in himself and from thence deriving and imparting several prints of Beauty and Excellency all the world over a Soul that is truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God-like a Mind that is enlightned from the same Fountain and hath its inward Senses affected with the sweet relishes of Divine Goodness cannot but every where behold it self in the midst of that Glorious Unbounded Being who is indivisibly every where A Good man finds every place he treads upon Holy ground to him the World is God's Temple he is ready to say with Jacob Gen. 28. How dreadfull is this place this is none other but the House of God To conclude It was a degenerous and unworthy Spirit in that Philosophy which first separated and made such distances between Metaphysical Truths the Truths of Nature whereas the First and most antient Wisdome amongst the Heathens was indeed a Philosophical Divinity or a Divine Philosophy which continued for divers ages but as men grew worse their queazy stomachs began to loath it which made the truly-wise Socrates complain of the Sophisters of that Age which began now to corrupt and debase it whereas heretofore the Spirit of Philosophy was more generous and divine and did more purifie and ennoble the Souls of men commending Intellectual things to them and taking them off from settling upon Sensible and Material things here below and still exciting them to endeavour after the nearest resemblance of God the Supreme Goodness and Loveliness and an intimate Conjunction with him which according to the strain of that Philosophy was the true Happiness of Immortal Souls CHAP. IX The Seventh and last Property or Effect discovering the Excellency of Religion viz. That it raiseth the Minds of Good men to a due observance of and attendance upon Divine Providence and enables them to serve the Will of God and to acquiesce in it For a man to serve Providence and the Will of God entirely to work with God and to bring himself and all his actions into a Compliance with God's Will his Ends and Designs is an argument of the truest Nobleness of Spirit it is the most excellent and divine life and it is most for mans advantage How the Consideration of Divine Providence is the way to inward quietness and establishment of Spirit How wicked men carry themselves unbecomingly through their impatience and fretfulness under the disposals of Providence The beauty and harmony of the various Methods of Providence THE Seventh and last Property or Effect wherein True Religion expresseth its own Nobleness and Excellency is this That it raiseth the Minds of Good men to a due observance of and attendance upon Divine Providence and enables them to serve the Will of God and to acquiesce in it Wheresoever God hath a Tongue to speak there they have Eares to hear and being attentive to God in the soft and still motions of Providence they are ready to obey his call and to say with Esay Behold here am I send me They endeavour to copy forth that Lesson which Christ hath set Christians seriously considering how that they came into this world by God's appointment not to doe their own Wills but the Will of him that sent them As this Consideration quiets the Spirit of a Good man who is no idle Spectator of Providence and keeps him in a calm and sober temper in the midst of all Storms and Tempests so it makes him most freely to engage himself in the service of Providence without any inward reluctancy or disturbance He cannot be content that Providence should serve it self of him as it doth even of those things that understand it least but it is his holy ambition to serve it 'T is nothing else but Hellish pride and Self-love that makes men serve themselves and so set up themselves as Idols against God But it is indeed an argument of true Nobleness of Spirit for a man to view himself not in the narrow Point of his own Being but in the unbounded Essence of the First Cause so as to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and to live only as an Instrument in the hands of God who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will Optarem id me esse Deo quod est mihi manus mea was the expression of an holy Soul To a Good man to serve the Will of God it is in the truest and best sense to serve himself who knows himself to be nothing without or in opposition to God Quò minùs quid sibi arrogat homo eò evadit nobilior clarior divinior This is the most divine life that can be for a man to act in the world upon Eternal designes and to be so wholy devoted to the Will of God as to serve it most faithfully and entirely This indeed bestows a kind of Immortality upon these flitting and Transient acts of ours which in themselves are but the Off-spring of a moment A Pillar or Verse is a poor sorry Monument of any Exploit which yet may well enough become the highest of the worlds bravery But Good men while they work with God and endeavour to bring themselves and all their actions to a unity with God his Ends and Designs enroll themselves in Eternity This is the proper Character of holy Souls Their Wills are so fully resolv'd into the Divine Will that they in all things subscribe to it without any murmurings or debates they rest well satisfied with and take complacency in any passages of Divine dispensation * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as being ordered and disposed by a Mind and Wisedome above according to the highest rules of Goodness The best way for a man rightly to enjoy himself is to maintain an universal ready and chearfull complyance with the Divine and Uncreated Will in all things as knowing that nothing can issue and
consist in Bodily pleasure 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and when the molestation is gone and the just constitution of Nature recovered Pleasure ceaseth But the highest Pleasure of Minds and Spirits does not onely consist in the relieving of them from any antecedent pains or grief or in a relaxation from some former molesting Passion neither is their Happiness a mere Stoical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Happiness of the Deity is not a mere Negative thing rendring it free from all disturbance or molestation so that it may eternally rest quiet within it self it does not so much consist in Quiete as in Actu vigore A Mind and Spirit is too full of activity and energy is too quick and potent a thing to enjoy a full and complete Happiness in a mere Cessation this were to make Happiness an heavy Spiritless thing The Philosopher hath well observ'd that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there is infinite power and strength in Divine joy pleasure and happiness commensurate to that Almighty Being and Goodness which is the Eternal source of it As Created Beings that are capable of conversing with God stand nearer to God or further off from him and as they partake more or less of his likeness so they partake more or less of that Happiness which flows forth from him and God communicates himself in different degrees to them There may be as many degrees of Sanctity and Perfection as there are of States and Conditions of Creatures and that is properly Sanctity which guides and orders all the Faculties and Actions of any Creature in a way suitable and correspondent to that rank and state which God hath placed it in and while it doth so it admits no sin or defilement to it self though yet it may be elevated and advanced higher and accordingly true Positive Sanctity comes to be advanced higher and higher as any Creature comes more to partake of the life of God and to be brought into a nearer conjunction with God and so the Sanctity and Happiness of Innocency it self might have been perfected Thus we see how True Religion carries up the Souls of Good men above the black regions of Hell and Death This indeed is the great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Souls it is Religion it self or a reall participation of God and his Holiness which is their true restitution and advancement All that Happiness which Good men shall be made partakers of as it cannot be born up upon any other foundation then true Goodness and a Godlike nature within them so neither is it distinct from it Sin and Hell are so twined and twisted up together that if the power of Sin be once dissolv'd the bonds of Death and Hell will also fall asunder Sin and Hell are of the same kind of the same linage and descent as on the other side True Holiness or Religion and True Happiness are but two severall Notions of one thing rather then distinct in themselves Religion delivers us from Hell by instating us in a possession of True Life and Blisse Hell is rather a Nature then a Place and Heaven cannot be so truly defined by any thing without us as by something that is within us Thus have we done with those Particulars wherein we considered the Excellency and Nobleness of Religion which is here exprest by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The way of life and elsewhere is stiled by Solomon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A tree of life true Religion being an inward Principle of life of a Divine life the best life that which is Life most properly so called accordingly in the Holy Scripture a life of Religion is stiled Life as a life of Sin and Wickedness is stiled Death In the ancient Academical Philosophy it was much disputed whether that Corporeal and Animal life which was always drawing down the Soul into Terrene and Material things was not more properly to be Stiled Death then Life What sense hereof the Pythagoreans had may appear by this practise of theirs They were wont to set up 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Empty coffins in the places of those that had forsaken their School and degenerated from their Philosophy and good Precepts as being Apostates from life it self and dead to Vertue and a good life which is the true life therefore fit only to be reckoned among the dead For a Conclusion of this Discourse The Use which we shall make of all shall be this To awaken and exhort every one to a serious minding of Religion as Solomon doth earnestly exhort every one to seek after true Wisedome which is the same with Religion and Holiness as Sin is with Folly Prov. 4. 5. Get Wisedome get understanding and v. 7. Get Wisedome and with all thy getting get understanding Wisedome is the principal thing This is the summe of all the Conclusion of the whole matter Fear God and keep his Commandements for this is the whole duty business and concernment of man Let us not trifle away our time and opportunities which God hath given us wherein we may lay hold upon Life and Immortality in doing nothing or else pursuing Hell and Death Let us awake out of our vain dreams Wisedome calls upon us and offers us the hidden treasures of Life and Blessedness Let us not perpetually deliver over our selves to laziness and slumbering Say not There is a lion in the way say not Though Religion be good yet it is unattainable No but let us intend all our Powers in a serious resolv'd pursuance of it and depend upon the assistance of Heaven which never fails those that soberly seek for it It is indeed the Levity of mens spirits their heedlesseness and regardlesseness of their own lives that betrays them to Sin and Death It is the general practice of men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 extempore vivere as the Satyrist speaks they ordinarily ponderate and deliberate upon every thing more then how it becomes them to live they so live as if their Bodies had swallowed up their Souls their lives are but a kind of Lottery the Principles by which they are guided are nothing else but a confused multitude of Fancies rudely jumbled together Such is the life of most men it is but a meer Casual thing acted over at peradventure without any fair and calm debates held either with Religion or with Reason which in it self as it is not distorted and depraved by corrupt men is a true Friend to Religion and directs men to God and to things good and just pure lovely and praise-worthy and the directions of this Inward guide we are not to neglect Unreasonableness or the smothering and extinguishing the Candle of the Lord within us is no piece of Religion nor advantageous to it That certainly will not raise men up to God which sinks them below men There had never been such an Apostasy from Religion nor had such a Mystery of iniquity full of deceiveableness and imposture been revealed and wrought so powerfully in the Souls of
And he told me in his sickness that he hoped he had learned that for which God sent it and that he thought God kept him so long in such a case under such burdens and pressures that Patience might have its perfect work in him His sickness undoubtedly was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Nazianzen speaks a learned disease and full of true Philosophy which taught him more of real Christianity and made his Soul of a more strong able Athletick habit and temper For as S. James saith if Patience have its perfect work then is a Soul perfect and entire wanting nothing And really in his Sickness he shewed what Christianity and True Religion is able to doe what Might Power and Virtue there is in it to bear up a Soul under the greatest loads and that he could through Christ strengthening him doe all that which he so admirably discoursed of in his life But for his Humility it was that which was most apparent and conspicuous You might have beheld in him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the same Father speaks true humility in a most eminent degree and the more eminent considering how much there was within him which would have swelled and puffed up another But from his first admission into the Universitie as I am informed by those that knew him he sought not great things for himself but was contented in the condition wherein he was He made not hast to rise and climb as youths are apt to doe which we in these late times too much experience wherein Youths scarce fledg'd have soared to the highest preferments but proceeded leisurely by orderly steps not to what he could get but to what he was fit to undertake He stai'd God's time of advancement with all industry and pains following his studies as if he rather desired to deserve honour then to be honoured He shook off all Idleness and Sloth the bane of youth and so had the Blessing of God upon his endeavours who gave him great encouragement from divers persons of worth and at last brought him unto this place And I challenge any one that is impartial to say if since he came hither they ever beheld in him any Pride Vain-glory Boasting Self-conceit Desire of honour and being famous in the world No there is not the man living that had the eyes ever to discern any thing of this swoln nature but on the contrary it was easie to take notice of most profound Humility and Lowliness of mind which made him a true Disciple of Jesus Christ who took upon him the form of a servant and made himself of no reputation And I dare say our dear friend was as true as humble a servant without any complement to the good of Mankind as any person that this day lives This was his designe in his studies and if it had pleased the Lord of life to have prolonged his daies it would have been more of his work For he was resolved as he once told me very much to lay aside other studies and to travel in the salvation of mens Souls after whose good he most ardently thirsted Shall I add 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle speaks above or unto all these his Faith I say his true lively and working Faith his simple plain-hearted naked Faith in Christ It is likely that it did not busie it self about many fine Notions Subtilties and Curiosities or believing whole Volumes but be sure it was that which was firmly set and fixed in the Mercy and Goodness of God through Christ that also which brought down Christ into his Soul which draw'd down Heaven into his Heart which suck'd in life and strength continually from our Saviour which made him hearty serious and constant in all those forenamed Christian Vertues His Faith was not without a Soul but what Isidore saith of Faith and Works held true of him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 His Faith was animated quickned and actuated by these It made him God-like and he lived by Faith in the Son of God by it he came to be truly partaker of the Righteousness of Christ and had it wrought and formed in his very Soul For this indeed was the End of his life the main design which he carried on that he might become like to God So that if one should have asked him that Question in Antoninus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what is thy art and profession thy business and imploiment He would not have answered To be a great Philosopher Mathematician Historian or Hebrician all which he was in great eminency To be a Physitian Lawyer General Linguist which Names and many more his General skill deserved But he would have answered as he doth there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my Art is to be Good To be a true Divine is my care and business or in the Christian phrase To be holy as God is holy to be perfect as my heavenly Father is perfect All that remember the serious behaviour and weightie expressions he used in his Prayers cannot but call to mind how much his Heart was set upon the attainment of this true Goodness I have transgressed too much my bounds now it is so late and trespassed perhaps too much upon your patience Yet I hope I should not weary you if I should discourse upon his Ingenuity his Courtesie his Gentleness and Sweetness with many other things of the like nature And let me say thus much that he was far from that Spirit of devouting zeal that now too much rages He would rather have been consumed in the service of men then have called for fire down from heaven as Elijah did to consume them And therefore though Elijah excelled him in this that he ascended up to Heaven in a fiery chariot yet herein I may say he was above the spirit of Elijah that he called for no fire to descend from heaven upon men but the fire of Divine love that might burn up all their Hatreds Roughness and Cruelty to each other But as for Benignity of Mind and Christian kindness every body that knew him will remember that he ever had their names in his mouth and I assure them they were no less in his heart and life as knowing that without these Truth it self is in a faction and Christ is drawn into a party And this Graciousness of Spirit was the more remarkable in him because he was of a temper naturally Hot and Cholerick as the greatest Minds most commonly are He was wiser then to let any Anger rest in his bosom much less did he suffer it to burn and boil til it was turned into gall and bitterness and least of all would he endure that any Passion should lodge in him till it was become a cankered Malice and black Hatred which men in these days can scarce hide but let it appear in their countenance and in their carriage towards others If he was at any time moved unto Anger it was but a sudden flushing in his face and it
did as soon vanish as arise and it used to arise upon no such occasions as I now speak of No whensoever he look'd upon the fierce and consuming Fires that were in mens Souls it made him sad not angry and it was his constant endeavour to inspire mens Souls with more benigne and kindly heats that they might warm but not scorch their Brethren And from this Spirit together with the rest of Christian Graces that were in him there did result a great Serenity Quiet and Tranquillity in his Soul which dwelt so much above that it was not shaken with any of those Tempests and Storms which use to unsettle more low and abject Minds He lived in a continued sweet enjoyment of God and so was not disquieted with scruples or doubts of his Salvation There was alwaies discernable in him a chearful sense of God's goodness which ceased not in the time of sickness But we most longed for to see the motions of his Soul when he drew near to the Centre of his rest He that had such a constant feeling of God within him we might conclude would have the most strong and powerful sense when he came nearer to a close conjunction with him But God was pleased to deny this to us and by a Lethargick distemper which seized on his Spirits he passed the six last daies of his life if I may call it a life in a kind of Sleep and without taking much notice of any thing he slept in the Lord. And now have I not described a Person of Worth and Eminency Have we not reason to be so sad as you see our Faces tell you that we are But alas half of that is not told you which your Eyes might have seen had you been acquainted with him I want thoughts and Words to make a lively pourtraiture of him my young Experience hath not yet seen to the height or the depth of these things which I have here given you a rude draught of and so my Conceipts and Expressions must needs fall far below that excellent degree of beauty wherein they dwelt in him Let it suffice therefore to say that I may keep to the word in the Text That he was truly a Father that he wanted Ages only to make him Reverend and that if he had lived many Generations ago left us the children of his Mind to posterity he might by this time have been numbred among the Fathers of the Church I have almost prevented my self already in the Two latter Particulars His singular Care and his great Usefulness both which must needs be concluded from the former His Care I say of others as a Tutor his Usefullness as a Fellow of this now mournful Society Let me speak a word or two of either 2. All his Pupils who are now truly Pupilli Fatherless children began to know in his sickness what it was to have and to want a loving Father a faithful Tutor and now they will know it more fully He was one that did so constantly mind their good that instilled such excellent pious Notions into their Minds gave such light in everything a man could desire to know that I could have been content though in this gown to have been his Pupil His Life taught them continual lessons of Justice Temperance Prudence Fortitude and Masculine vertue and above all he taught them true Dependance upon God and reference of themselves and all their Studies unto him with true Faith in and Imitation of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ for which end he often expounded to them out of the Holy Scriptures And for Humane learning the many good Scholars that came from under his hand do witness how dextrous he was at the training up of Youth in all good Literature Porphyry tells us of Plotin that he was such a carefull person that sundry Noble men and women with divers others when they died committed both their sons and daughters to his Tuition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as unto some Tutelar Angel or a sacred and divine Guardian Truly those that come hither are in a manner without Father and Mother but they could not be committed to a more loving Tutor a more holy and faithful Guardian that would bring them up in all true Learning and Piety If any think that he was too severe let me tell them that they are such as find fault with the Lion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because he looks not like an Ape but with a stern royal and Kingly countenance He both look'd and spake like a man that had drunk into his Soul such solid high and generous Principles as few men are acquainted with which made him very zealous not only for Righteousness Integrity and Holiness but for a Decorum in all things He had a great regard for all those things which are mentioned by the Apostle Philip. 4. 8. for whatsoever things were true honest or rather comely and grave seemly and venerable as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth signifie for all that was just pure lovely of good fame and report if there was any praise or any vertue he was most earnest and forward in its behalf 3. And now what his Usefulness was and the Benefit we received by him all that bear any share in the government of this Society will be made to know by the want of him There is not one but will cry out with Elisha O the Chariot of this place and the horsemen thereof which words seem to express what a necessary man Elias was and to be just like that of Horace to Maecenas when sick which we may use concerning him that is now dead Grande decus columénque rerum Our great glory the pillar upon whose shoulders the weight of business of late lay O praesidium dulce decus meum as he saith in another place O thou who wast both my safe-guard and my ornament who wast a Society by thy self a College in brief what a loss have we sustained by thy departure That must not be resolved by me nor by any one single person of us but we must all lay our heads together to tell our loss To which of us was not he dear who is there that was not ingaged to him who can think himself as wise as he was when we had him And this our high and dear Esteem of him when he was with us leads me to speak of that Honour and Reverence which we all express to his Name that Affection which is in our Hearts to his Memory the sense that is in us of our great and unspeakable loss in Answer to those three foregoing Considerations about Elisha But here I must be very brief and put all together There is none that knew his Worth but honour his very dust And for my part I honour him so much that I wish we might doe as the Virgins of Israel did for Jephtah's daughter come once a year hither and lament his death and so at once we might express all
be pleniores Deo then those that are really inform'd and actuated by the Divine Spirit and do move on steddily and constantly in the way towards Heaven as the Seed that was sown in the thorny ground grew up and lengthened out its blade faster then that which was sown in the good and fruitfull soil And as the Motions of our Sense Fancy and Passions while our Souls are in this mortal condition sunk down deeply into the Body are many times more vigorous and make stronger impressions upon us then those of the Higher powers of the Soul which are more subtile and remote from these mixt and Animal perceptions that Devotion which is there seated may seem to have more Energy and life in it then that which gently and with a more delicate kind of touch spreads it self upon the Understanding and from thence mildly derives it self through our Wills Affections But howsoever the Former may be more boisterous for a time yet This is of a more consistent spermatical and thriving nature For that proceeding indeed from nothing else but a Sensual and Fleshly apprehension of God and true Happiness is but of a flitting and fading nature and as the Sensible powers and faculties grow more languid or the Sun of Divine light shines more brightly upon us these earthly devotions like our Culinary fires will abate their heat and servour But a true Celestial warmth will never be extinguish'd because it is of an Immortal nature and being once seated vitally in the Souls of men it will regulate and order all the motions of it in a due manner as the natural Heat radicated in the Hearts of living creatures hath the dominion and Oeconomy of the whole Body under it and sends forth warm Bloud and Spirits and Vital nourishment to every part and member of it True Religion is no piece of artifice it is no boiling up of our Imaginative powers nor the glowing heats of Passion though these are too often mistaken for it when in our juglings in Religion we cast a mist before our own eyes But it is a new Nature informing the Souls of men it is a God-like frame of Spirit discovering it self most of all in Serene and Clear minds in deep Humility Meekness Self-denial Universal love of God and all true Goodness without Partiality and without Hypocrisie whereby we are taught to know God and knowing him to love him and conform our selves as much as may be to all that Perfection which shines forth in him THUS far the First part of this Discourse which was designed according to the Method propounded to give a particular account of mens Mistakes about Religion The other part was intended to discover the reason of these Mistakes But whether the Author did finish that Part it appears not by any Papers of his which yet came to my hands If he did and the Papers should be in others hands for the Author was communicative if they or any other Papers of the Authors be sent to M r William Morden Bookseller in Cambridge the like care shall be taken for the publishing of them as hath been for this Collection THE EXCELLENCY and NOBLENESS OF TRUE RELIGION 1. In its Rise and Original 2. In its Nature and Essence 3. In its Properties and Operations 4 In its Progress 5. In its Term and End Psalm 16. 3. To the Saints that are in the earth and to the excellent in whom is all my delight Greg. Nazianzenus in Orat. 11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Idem in Orat. 23. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hieronymus ad Celantiam Ep. 14. Nescit Religio nostra personas accipere nec conditiones hominum sed animos inspicit singulorum Servum Nobilem de moribus pronunciat Sola apud Deum Libertas est non servire peccatis Summa apud Deum est Nobilitas clarum esse virtutibus THE EXCELLENCY and NOBLENESS OF TRUE RELIGION Proverbs 15. 24. The Way of life is above to the wise that he may depart from hell beneath The Introduction IN this whole Book of the Proverbs we find Solomon one of the Eldest Sons of Wisdom alwaies standing up and calling her blessed his Heart was both enlarged and fill'd with the pure influences of her beams and therefore was perpetually adoring that Sun which gave him light Wisdome is justified of all her Children though the brats of darkness and children of folly see no beauty nor comeliness in her that they should desire her as they said of Christ Esay 53. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That Mind which is not touch'd with an inward sense of Divine Wisdom cannot estimate the true Worth of it But when Wisdom once displays its own excellencies and glories in a purified Soul it is entertained there with the greatest love and delight and receives its own image reflected back to it self in sweetest returns of Love and Praise We have a clear manifestation of this sacred Sympathy in Solomon whom we may not unfitly call Sapientiae Organum an Instrument which Wisdom herself had tuned to play her divine Lessons upon his words were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every where full of Divine sweetness matched with strength and beauty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or as himself phraseth it like apples of gold in pictures of Silver The mind of a Proverb is to utter Wisdom in a Mystery as the Apostle sometime speaks and to wrap up Divine Truth in a kind of Aenigmatical way though in vulgar expressions Which method of delivering Divine doctrine not to mention the Writings of the ancient Philosophers we find frequently pursued in the Holy Scripture thereby both opening and hiding at once the Truth which is offered to us A Proverb or Parable being once unfolded by reason of its affinity with the Phancy the more sweetly insinuates it self into that and is from thence with the greater advantage transmitted to the Understanding In this state we are not able to behold Truth in its own Native beauty and lustre but while we are vail'd with mortality Truth must vail it self too that it may the more freely converse with us S. Austin hath well assign'd the reason why we are so much delighted with Metaphors Allegories c. because they are so much proportioned to our Senses with which our Reason hath contracted an intimacy and familiarity And therefore God to accommodate his Truth to our weak capacities does as it were embody it in Earthly expressions according to that ancient Maxim of the Cabbalists Lumen Supernum nunquam descendit fine indumento agreeable to which is that of Dionysius Areop not seldom quoted by the School-men Impossibile est nobis aliter lucere radium Divinum nisi varietate sacrorum velaminum circumvelatum His words in the Greek are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thus much by way of Preface or Introduction to these words being one of Solomon's excellent Proverbs viz. The way of life is above to the wise Without any mincing or
mangling of the Words or running out into any Critical curiosities about them I shall from these Words take occasion to set forth The Nobleness and Generous Spirit of True Religion which I suppose to be meant here by The way of life The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here rendred above may signifie that which is divine and heavenly high and excellent as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does in the New Testament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. 3. 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Col. 3. 2. S. Austin supposeth the things of Religion to be meant by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 superna for this reason quòd merito excellentiae longè superant res terrenas And in this sense I shall consider it my purpose being from hence to discourse of the Excellent and Noble spirit of true Religion whether it be taken in abstracto as it is in it self or in concreto as it becomes an inward Form and Soul to the Minds and Spirits of Good men and this in opposition to that low and base-born spirit of Irreligion which is perpetually sinking from God till it couches to the very Centre of misery 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the lowermost Hell In discoursing upon this Argument I shall observe this Method viz. I shall consider the Excellency and Nobleness of True Religion 1. In its Rise and Original 2. In its Nature and Essence 3. In its Properties and Operations 4. In its Progress 5. In its Term and End CHAP. I. 1. The Nobleness of Religion in regard of its Original and Fountain it comes from Heaven and moves towards Heaven again God the First Excellency and Primitive Perfection All Perfections and Excellencies in any kind are to be measured by their approach to and Participation of the First Perfection Religion the greatest Participation of God none capable of this Divine Communication but the Highest of created Beings and consequently Religion is the greatest Excellency A twofold Fountain in God whence Religion flowes viz. 1. His Nature 2. His Will Of Truth Natural and Revealed Of an Outward and Inward Revelation of God's Will WE begin with the First viz. True Religion is a Noble thing in its Rise and Original and in regard of its Descent True Religion derives its pedigree from Heaven is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it comes from Heaven and constantly moves toward Heaven again it 's a Beam from God as every good and perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights with whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning as S. James speaks God is the First Truth and Primitive Goodness True Religion is a vigorous Efflux and Emanation of Both upon the Spirits of men and therefore is called a participation of the divine Nature Indeed God hath copyed out himself in all created Being having no other Pattern to frame any thing by but his own Essence so that all created Being is umbratilis similitudo entis increati and is by some stamp or other of God upon it at least remotely allied to him But True Religion is such a Communication of the Divinity as none but the Highest of created Beings are capable of On the other side Sin and Wickedness is of the basest and lowest Original as being nothing else but a perfect degeneration from God and those Eternal Rules of Goodness which are derived from him Religion is an Heaven-born thing the Seed of God in the Spirits of men whereby they are formed to a similitude likeness of himself A true Christian is every way of a most noble Extraction of an heavenly and divine pedigree being born 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from above as it is express'd Joh. 3. The line of all earthly Nobility if it were followed to the beginning would lead to Adam where all the lines of descent meet in One and the Root of all Extractions would be found planted in nothing else but Adamah red Earth But a Christian derives his line from Christ who is the Only-begotten Son of God the shining forth of his glory and the Character of his person as he is stiled Heb. 1. We may truly say of Christ and Christians as Zebah and Zalmunna said of Gideon's brethren As he is so are they according to their capacity each one resembling the children of a king Titles of Worldly honour in Heavens heraldry are but only Tituli nominales but Titles of Divine dignity signify some Real thing some Real and Divine Communications to the Spirits and Minds of men All Perfections and Excellencies in any kind are to be measured by their approach to that Primitive Perfection of all God himself and therefore Participation of the Divine nature cannot but entitle a Christian to the highest degree of dignity Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the Sons of God 1 Jo. 3. 1. Thus much for a more general discovery of the Nobleness of Religion as to its Fountain and Original We may further and more particularly take notice of this in reference to that Twofold fountain in God from whence all true Religion flows and issues forth viz. 1. His Immutable Nature 2. His Will 1. The Immutable Nature of God From thence arise all those Eternal Rules of Truth and Goodness which are the Foundation of all Religion and which God at the first Creation folded up in the Soul of man These we may call the Truths of Natural inscription understanding hereby either those Fundamental principles of Truth which Reason by a naked intuition may behold in God or those necessary Corollaries and Deductions that may be drawn from thence I cannot think it so proper to say That God ought infinitely to be loved because he commands it as because he is indeed an Infinite and Unchangeable Goodness God hath stamp'd a Copy of his own Archetypal Loveliness upon the Soul that man by reflecting into himself might behold there the glory of God intra se videre Deum see within his Soul all those Ideas of Truth which concern the Nature and Essence of God by reason of its own resemblance of God and so beget within himself the most free and generous motions of Love to God Reason in man being Lumen de Lumine a Light flowing from the Fountain and Father of Lights and being as Tully phraseth it participata similitudo Rationis aternae as the Law of Nature the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Law written in mans Heart is participatio Legis aternae in Rationali creatura it was to enable Man to work out of himself all those Notions of God which are the true Ground-work of Love and Obedience to God and conformity to him and in modling the inward man into the greatest conformity to the Nature of God was the Perfection and Efficacy of the Religion of Nature But since Mans fall from God the inward virtue and vigour of Reason is much abated the Soul having suffered a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉