as the word imports He is pleased so to express his deep affection toward his Church He was held in the galleries and captivated with love to his People so that his eye was ever upon them he loved to behold them it satisfied his Soul as marrow and fatness to see them He shall see of the travel of his Soul and be satisfied 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Isai 53.11 And indeed he saith he cannot get his eyes off them Can a mother forget her child Isai 49.14 No more can I forget you And is Christ so tender in his love toward us that he ever minds us and shall our minds be so loose to him so fluttering and fleeting Shall there be no more care to bind our selves in cords of love to him that we may ever behold him who bears us in his brest before his Father always 4. This is our fault that whatsoever is done in sending bending and binding of our minds towards God yet with some at least O that it might not be true of all it 's not their course and trade Now and then they are awakened and get up into Heaven to see their Father but it is not dayly and here is their failing that it 's not their course as it was Davids Psalm 145 Every day will I praise thee And I am ever thee Psal 73. I beseech you consider it Is this now and then going to Heaven within the vail to live the life of Friends Is this to carry your selves as children to be so strange at home What now and then once a month or week seldom to be where you always should be You should ever dwell with God as the lovely Center and resting place of your Souls and you are seldom with him is this fair Is Christ and the Father of Christ objects that are not worth the looking after such mean things that a visit now and then should serve the turn What said the Queen of Sheba concerning Solomon Blessed are these thy servants that Always stand before thee and hear thy wisdom If she were so taken with Solomon remember that a greater then Solomon is here And will you deprive your selves of that blessedness which you might enjoy by standing always in the presence of your Father to hear his Wisdom and behold his Glory But if this be a fault as indeed it is what shall we say of that voluntary retention of our minds when the voyce of God within bids us go and visit Heaven but we sit still in a voluntary reluctancy to the voyce that speaks What shall we say to that voluntary diversion of mind when God sets himself in our eyes and our minds turn off from God and pitch on other things and have no content in beholding him But above all what shall we say to that voluntary effusion and vile expence of mind and strength of understanding upon vanities when we send out thoughts in whole troops towards vanities and do not spare one toward Heaven Certainly this is a crime of a very high nature You see in part what is your fault and to know that is a great advantage I have endevored to shew you it in the several degrees of it I shall now shew you the Causes of it CHAP. V. How the Soul comes to wander from God Of divine Permission in this Case Discouragements pretended The heart pleased with something else more then God 1. THe first is Divine Permission God pleaseth to leave his people much to themselves for ends best known to himself and oh what work is made when this wilde Boar is let into the Garden How doth he trample and tread down What spoil doth he make when he is got into the place where he most gladly would be How did God let him in upon Job so that his thoughts by visions in the night troubled him how was he tost in his spirit Solomon how did the Devil run away with his understanding and carry him almost into a total forgetfulness of God that no good man I think ever since the Creation did run so desperate a race as he did God was rooted out of his heart as it were he giving himself up to fulfil the lusts of his eyes and of his mind with all his might but in the end he cries out Vanity of vanities all is vanity and vexation of spirit Certainly it were better the Devil had power to run away with our estates and liberties then with our thoughts keeping them in captivity and as the steers-man of our minds ordering their motions at his pleasure Some mens understandings by the mighty workings of these principalities and powers are as swiftly carried to imaginations of evil as Eagles when they fly to dead bodies or as any creatures when they make haste to their prey You shall see a man when he is in this case all his thoughts are beneath Heaven and they roul up and down the world and pitch sometimes here sometimes there as things suit but are separated from God and he cannot get off but as Jael strook a nail into the head of Sisera and fastened him to the ground so mens thoughts and minds are fastened to something in the world that they cannot deliver themselves This is a woful day indeed when God will not be seen when God saith of a man as David of Absalom Let him not see my face Truly if this be the condition of any that their understandings are ridden by the Devil and carried away from God go to Christ confess and humble your selves seek his face who is the Father of spirits and hath command and power over Devils that as by permission he hath suffered the unclean Spirit to enter so by his commanding word he may say to them Come forth that your understandings may be free for their proper work for he only can cast down imaginations and every thing that exalteth it self against the knowledg of God and bring into captivity every thought into the obedience of Christ 2 Cor. 10.5 Many may complain as Job in another case Chap. 17.11 My days are passed my purposes are broken off even the thoughts of my heart or as it is in the Margin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the possessions of my heart are broken off as if a man should say I had thoughts of Jesus Christ I was wont to have sweet apprehensions of my Father which took me much God was wont to take up my Soul and my mind was wont to be contentfully possest with the meditation of him now these possessions are gone and broken off Pray then as David Psal 119.37 Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity or make mine eyes to pass 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they be not held to gaze upon vanity but that I may run with freedom the Race that is set before me having God still in mine eyes 2. A second cause of this great fault not having our eyes bent and fixt on God is Discouragements Indeed Discouragements
am still with Thee The mind may slip from God and sometime be taken up with other things but cannot be long kept from him because God is its Center and it 's natural for a holy mind to move toward God as for a needle touch'd with a Load-stone to point toward the North Pole Psal 16.8 I have set the Lord alway before me This was the practise of Christ our Head Acts 2. It 's applyed to him though spoken by David as the Type You and I may suspect our hearts if there be an elongation of our minds from God if our minds be scattered up and down the world If our business be not with him we have reason to look sadly upon our selves for where God hath no place with us wee have none with him A good man must be with God he hath many things puts him upon it and inclines him to it he wants much and therefore cannot forbear Can a man forget to drink that is athirst can a man forget to eat his meat that is hungry Certainly when David Psal 102.4 saith He forgot to eat his bread sorrow had taken away his stomack that he found not the want of his meat but a man that feels his want cannot forget it neither can a man forget God that lives in the sensible want of God his Soul is still breathing after God Love will send out a mans thoughts and not suffer a man to live at home but to be where it is best of all to be Can a Bridegroom forget his Bride or a Bride her attire Jerem. 3.32 Men cannot forget what they love Can a mother forget her childe Isai 49.14 and can a man forget God that loves God There 's a necessity that a man should be minding what he loves he will send his understanding on errands to Heaven that it may bring him matter of delight from the Visions of God to refresh his Soul And not onely so but Christ awakens the heart and calls it forth Indeed were it left to us should we have no more heavenly-mindedness and meditations of God then our own spirits bring forth it would be little or none but Christ calls to the spirits of his people as he called to John Come up hither and see he knocks at the door that we may open and go forth with him The King led me into his wine celler Cant. 1. She was there but how came she in the King led me Christ will not be long from his if their hearts come not up to him he will come into them and if he be there all is taken up with attending upon him as you may see abundantly by experience Though the heart stands still like a Clock when the plummets are off and the wheels move not yet when Christ comes in he puts all into motion If a Loadstone be cast among many Needles though they did he still yet now how do they all move and hang about it So all the affections run towards him and the thoughts go out like motes in the Sun the mind is at work hard The presence of Christ not only excites the mind but contracts it and makes the working of the mind more strong It 's reported of the Flower de luce That when the Sun goes down it opens and scatters it self abroad but when the Sun appears it shuts and contracts it self There is in the presence of Christ such a contracting of the heart towards himself Mary when she saw Christ though her mind were scattered before and about the Sepulchre yet now â—t concenters in Christ A man that loves God cannot live in a course of forgetfulness of God either want brings him or love constrains him or Christ draws him here cannot be a lusting alienation of mind in those that belong to God CHAP. IV. Disconformity to the forementioned Principles a great fault in Christians The Discovery of it Slumbering Eyes and wandering Hearts â— Exerâ—ise HAving spoken something to the opening of the thing I shall now endevor that you and I may lay our selves to this pattern and compare our selves with this Rule Do you thus mind God Let me ask you where your Eyes are The truth is the Eyes of the whole World are misplaced all the World either wholly dwell out of God or extreamly wander from God all sorts of men are extreamly guilty of notorious forgetfulness of God and of this God complains and that often and that not only in reference to the dead and dark part of the world who have eyes and see not but are like Images but with respect to his own My people my people have forgotten me days without number Ier. 2.32 negligently have they suffered me to be out of their minds and that for a long time My work now shall be to lay before you the Fault and the Causes of it The fault with respect to the godly and ungodly that both may see how guilty they stand and may see whence it is that their understandings are so alienated and estranged from God As for the godly their frequent excursions from God their inordinate affections to the world their sad dejections of spirit their many withdrawings and a world of these are too clear and deplorable demonstrations that their eyes are not always upon God The Fault I 'le express in these four things 1. In not sending out the understanding toward God not pointing of the mind towards its Maker The mind of man is a nimble thing nothing is of that agility it 's the swiftest creature God hath made next the Angels yet towards God it must be moved directed ordered and pointed For though the way on high was natural yet man not keeping his first state it 's now become a way hardly passable that the Soul cannot walk it of it self neither can it dwell on high more then we can live in the Ayr without the drawing and holding of divine Power I have written saith the Apostle 2 Pet. 3.1 to stir up your pure minds to awaken you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and it was but need See how David calls upon himself Psal 103. Praise the Lord O my Soul and forget not all his benefits be sure to remember God Psal 5.3 In the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee or I will set it in order I will order my self in my addresses to Thee And in Psal 57.8 Awake my glory Though his spirit was holy and set towards God yet it had need to be called on that it might be put forward in a right motion towards God and answer the voyce that calls Come up hither Awakening is a word imports rouzing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as birds that provoke their young ones by flight to make use of their wings or as men call one upon another to their business Judg. 5.12 Awake awake Deborah awake awake utter a song Men do not thus call on themselves It 's a great fault that a man loseth that watch and that
but in the water and beasts in their pastures and cannot live in the Sea And indeed there is something of the divine new nature in Christians they must live in God or they dye 2. There is the Law of Love The child loves the mother above all women though it may be there be many better the Lord hath placed the life of the child in the mother how much more the life of a Christian in himself for there is no love like that love 3. Life is cut out by the Law of Reason and Judgment by which men chuse their portion upon which they feed and upon which they make their lives This way nothing but God is eligible to a good man He saith some other things serve for other uses but not to live on Nothing but God can be made our own nothing out of God is properly our own but our sins How can a man say that is his own which he cannot command and hold Nothing can be made full enough strong enough answerable to our desires but God Hence it is that a good man lives in God because he can live no where else Though he make use of his bed to sleep on of his meat to refresh him and do as others do in the use of these things yet he would be a very dead man worse then a man layd in the grave if his life were not in God I would exhort you then Vse Exhortat that you would thus live in God it is a riddle to the world but a truth to Saints and that which their Souls can witness to The world knows no other life then friends estate and such like enjoyments the Saints know that there is no life in these they live another life which the world knows not of Live this life that is make this to be the strength reason and rule of all your walkings to be the pillar and prop of your Souls whereon you may lean and rest make this your ultimate rest that after all the troublesom turnings and tossings of this world you may take rest here in this peace of God which passeth all underestanding that you may say as David in Psal 34. He was in trouble but saith he I trusted in the Lord and said O Lord thou art my God and this was all to him against all trouble They seek my life and make me a derision but I said O Lord thou art my God Two things I premise in this Exhortation 1. That you make your Interest in God sure that you may be able to say without fear and trembling thou art my God This Interest is mutual if God be yours then you are his He is yours by gift of himself to you and you are his by gift of your selves to him Remember the day when how and by what act you did give your selves to God Have you put by your selves and all your sinful propensions dispositions and resolutions Have you layd an absolute denyal upon them never more to observe them much less to serve them And have you resolved that you will have no purposes or desires but such as are according to God Be sure if you cannot say you are his you cannot say he is yours You may please your selves indeed with fancies and vain imaginations of that which is not but know this that such a kind of Contract with God as we speak of hath evidence in it It 's not a cold and liveless acting but there is power and efficacy in it These two things will be of power in that man that hath in truth given himself to God 1. Conscience with Love Conscience without Love hath very much power in it but Conscience with Love is very potent Indeed Conscience will tell thee O man thou hast given thy self to God therefore thou shouldst walk as his And Love will take thee aside and sound the same alarum in thine ears too but more effectually 2. A second thing is the power of God in them and over them There is a power of God in such You have received saith the Apostle the spirit of power 2 Tim. 1.7 This is the difference between the relation that is between God and his people and all other relations This relation conveys the Spirit of God into men The husband and wife that are never so closely knit cannot convey their spirits one to another the husband may wish that his wife were wise and meek but he cannot give her such a spirit But the relation between God and his people always works a communication of spirit the Spirit of God is given to them Besides There is a power of God over such because he sees that there is a great power against them They are kept by the power of God through faith unto Salvation Certainly if you have not such a Conscience joyned with Love and find not such a power of God watching over you and the Spirit of God guiding you you are none of his Another thing to be premised is this That a Christians life whether we consider the life of peace or the life of holiness depends much upon his minding of his Interest in God The Apostle in Hebr. 2. tells them they had lost much of the life of Christianity how came that because they had forgotten the Exhortation that spake to them as unto Children And in Prov. 2.27 Who forsakes the guide of her youth and forgets the Covenant of her God The latter is the cause of the former because she forgets the Covenant of her God therefore she forsakes the guide of her youth You have need to seek much in God your sins are many your dangers great you know it well enough You have this encouragement Whatsoever you go for you knock at the right door whatsoever you ask you ask that which is as much your own as any thing you enjoy God hath made over himself to you in becoming yours He hath said he will be your God All particular promises are but streams from this Spring and branches from this Root Your Interest is larger then Heaven and Earth Heaven and Earth are nothing to God Therefore if God be yours you have more cause to rejoyce then if he had made you actual and sole Possessors of Heaven and Earth In the world they that have little of their own comfort themselves that they have something in their friends such a Lord such a Duke is their friend So if you have not much in this world comfort your selves in this that God is your God The Lord thought this enough to comfort his people with when they were afflicted and tossed with tempests He that takes not comfort in this either knows not what God is or denies what he professeth to know Live by Faith or as some render these words in Psal 37. Feed on Faith When you come to God you come not to ask a title but to plead a title you come not to ask any thing that was not your own before but you come to
59.2 saith God Your sins have separated between me and you Certainly God leaves us very frequently and sometimes when the manifestation of his love is very needful In Micah 3.4 the time was an evil time and saith the Prophet Then shall they cry unto the Lord but he will not hear them he will even hide his face from them at that time A fourth Consideration is That we do not seldom or not a little reject the testimony of God and oppose the light and the clear manifestations of his Love to us The Comforter comes many times but that may be said of us that he said of himself in Psal 77. My Soul refused to be comforted would not be comforted As against the conviction of the Spirit in wicked men there is a great deal of contest a great fight as in Jer. 2.34 Also in thy skirts is found the blood of the Soul of poor Innocents I have not found it by secret search but upon all these Yet thou sayst Because I am innocent surely his anger shall turn from me I say as wicked men rise up in opposition to the conviction of the Spirit so good men likewise have their oppositions against the consolations and comforts of the Spirit not only against the counsel of it but against the comfort of it In Isai 49.13 you have an instance of this see how sweetly God speaks Behold these shall come from far Sing O Heavens and be joyful O Earth and break forth into singing O Mountains for God hath comforted his people and will have mercy upon his afflicted But what saith the Church But Sion saith The Lord hath forsaken me and my God hath forgotten me What ever God said yet she said God had forsaken and forgotten her A like instance you have in Lament 3.45 There are strong holds in our spirits against the inward comforts as there are against other operations of the Spirit and it requires the mighty power and operation of God to settle our hearts in peace as well as to convince us of our miseries and dangers The work of Conversion is quickly done because it is of greatest concernment I 'le give it you in this simile A mother finds her child among devouring Hogs or Dogs or what you will she makes haste to snatch her child out of danger but he is all bemoiled and dirted and his clothes she makes not so much haste to get him clean and to put other clothes upon him So God quickly finisheth the work of Conversion and Regeneration he makes haste to free us from danger and misery but he makes not such speed to comfort us and to establish our hearts in the assurance of our Interest in him that may be done at leasure As there is a reluctancy in us against the work of grace so there 's a reluctancy against the testimony of grace we are apt to turn all that God speaks and doth for us against our selves the reason is because dejection is most natural to us considering the state of our Apostacy and what we are judged to A slave doth naturally torment himself with fears and with sad expectations It 's easier to us to believe the sentence of condemnation then of Justification Sin is more visible then Grace The greatness of the things promised are such that they make the Soul at a stand To have pardon of sin to be adopted to be raised from the depth of misery to such a state of blessedness this makes the Soul to be like those that dream Besides there is a concurrence of forreign power to heighten all this CHAP. XI Encouragements to endevor the clearing of our Interest in God Love cannot hide it self Love will not deny what may be easily granted and is much needed A Second Argument is taken from the encouragement we have to put us on to put this out of question that God is ours Certainly there is more ease in this then we are willing to beleeve I speak it to the glory of God and our shame That the things which God hath spoken and done for our encouragement should be so great and high and yet we should lie so low in the satisfaction of our spirits about this question First Consider whatsoever excellency there is in any love that is in Gods love transcendently Love is very fruitful it brings forth much for those towards whom it is set it will not be hid it is compared to fire which is known by its heat and you shall know the warmth of love where it is A man may use the words of Solomon Prov. 27.16 which he speaks concerning the froward woman Whoso hideth her hideth the wind and the ointment of his right hand which bewrayeth it self That as the wind cannot be concealed when it is up and as a sweet ointment cannot be concealed but it will discover it self so wrath and love for there is the like reason for both they cannot be hid A friend is contented not to have his beneficence known he would do much more then his friend should know of but he would have his benevolence his love and good-will known and manifested Therefore the Apostle Ephes 3.8 10. saith He obtained this grace to shew forth among the Gentiles the unsearchable Riches of Christ Near relations live upon the manifestation of love those which are more remote need less and less is due to them The child will have but an ill life unless he have the light of his fathers countenance The husband and wife will have their life imbittered if there be not mutual love As life is visible so is love it will discover it self and the highest love will most discover it self A second Encouragement is That what may be easily done may be easily obtained of a friend What is more easie with God then to make us know that he is our God It is but one beam of light from Heaven that doth it but a word spoken Soul be of good comfort thy sins are forgiven thee Love stands not at small matters especially great Love The Love of God is the highest Pattern of Love and the most glorious Spring of Love all Love flows from it Therefore if the love of a creature can do so much how much more will the Love of God do If your child should beg of you to give him a good look could you deny him would not your love constrain you And shal not the Love of God much more Certainly it is more for him to love you then to tell you he loves you He hath put forth his love already in a strange way to give his Son for you and do you think he will be so unwilling to speak a word of peace to his people where it is duly sought Again where a thing is most needed where one stands in much need of what a friend can do for one that will be soon granted What do you need more then refreshment of spirit in the sense of the Love of God All the fears
they are separated from the love of God So I have done with the third Argument CHAP. XIV The Evil of Doubting as it is a denyal of the Truth of God a diminution of his Love and Favors and a mis-interpretation of his Dispensations The vexation of doubting to enlightened persons in an evil day A Fourth is this Doubts in this case are very sinful and grievous especially to a Soul in light and to a Soul in trouble To clear this I will shew first That they contain in them exceeding great evil against God in these things 1. They are contrary to the Truth and Faithfulness of God They are a denyal of the Truth of God manifested in the Promises and by the testimony and witness of his Spirit God hath made our way open to himself and we are apt to say most wretchedly as the Church in Lament 3.44 He covereth himself with a Cloud that our prayers should not pass through He hath left upon you perhaps some marks of his love he hath put into you some earnest of his favor what are these but the voyce of God from Heaven that God is your God and yet you say as the Church in her frowardness The Lord hath forsaken me and my God hath forgotten me Again It is not only opposite to his Truth but to his Love When a friend comes to one passionately affected in suspicion of his friendship and saith to him Sir I love you you are very dear to my heart and he will not beleeve him he takes it ill God may say to us in the matter of his Love as he said to them in the matter of obedience What could I have done more God may say I have given them the knowledg of my self I have given them a heart to love me I have given them all the pledges of my dear Love and yet they will sit down in corners and spend and waste themselves in mourning because I love them not What can I do more In Deut. 1.32 God took it ill when his Word could not be taken and when the manifestation of his Love was of no force Yet in this thing ye believed not the Lord your God who went in the way before you to search out you a place to pitch his tent in c. Surely saith God there shall not one man of this evil generation go to see that good Land that would not believe me It may be our hearts may be somewhat like Jobs in Job 9. saith he If I have called and he hath answered me yet I will not believe that he will harken to my voyce What a strange thing is this Though he hath heard me when I came to him and hath given me entertainment of a Father and I did receive pledges of his Love yet I will not believe that He loves me and that he will hear me Again They are diminutions of divine Favors He that doubts his Interest cannot so bless God in the enjoyment of wife children and estate and whatsoever carries sweetness in it but bitterness of Soul overflows and makes all things bitter and he is apt to overlook all who is not perswaded of his Interest in God In Esth 5.13 you read of the froward spirit of Haman and such a spirit is usually in him that feareth What is all this to me seeing Mordecai sits still at the gate Another evil against God is That these doubts cause mis-interpretation of all divine Actions They make a man mis-construe God in all things whatsoever he saith or doth God shall not be taken aright by that man that doubts his Interest in him O Job how wert thou mistaken and what meanest thou to speak those words Job 13.20 Wherefore hidest thou thou thy face from me and holdest me for thy enemy Why did God ever take thee for his enemy So many because God crosseth them in their desires and frustrates them in their hopes O say they God is angry with me he doth not love me I might tell you the same in other dispensations of God indeed that man cannot be pleased Now we may consider how painful and vexing doubting is in that man that is alive that is in a living state and especially in an evil day There are these three things that clear it 1. This is a matter of greatest consequence it 's a business of the greatest weight See you not a man sometimes how heavily he walks when his estate is in question but much more when his life is in question But what if his life and estate too be in question That man that knows God truly would rather endure the loss of ten thousand lives and estates then the loss of Gods favor 2. Another thing that makes it exceeding heavy is the loss of the sweetness of former experience David in Psal 42. complains of this When I remember these things I pour out my Soul in me for I had gone with the multitude I went with them to the house of God with the voyce of joy and praise with the multitude that kept holy-day And Job in Chap. 29.2 O that it were with me as in the days of old and in months past as in the days when God preserved me when his Candle shined upon mine head and when by his light I walk'd in darkness As I was in my youth when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle and when the Almighty was yet with me Thus that man that loseth the sweetness of his former experience remembers the days of old and that afflicts him Again God will have it so that where this thing is not yet driven home and the Soul hath not duly sought and so not found satisfaction concerning his Love it shall be bitterness to him I say God will have it so the Soul shall not enjoy it self He doth this partly to give a demonstration of his own Excellency and to vindicate it in the Soul that a man may surely know and find that there is none like him therefore saith he I will take away the light of my face from that man he shall have his house and land and estate and see what he will do with them what he can make of them And by this the love and favor of God appears to be excellent Besides this God loves his people he will have their love and will have his love sweetened to them therefore it shall be bitterness to them when it is lost Be perswaded then to make this your work and rest not till you know that you have Interest in God plead with David in Psal 35. Lord say unto my Soul thou art my Salvation not only be my Salvation but say thou art my Salvation And then though you may have many sad thoughts accompanying you yet this will refresh you in the midst of all as it did David in Psal 94.14 In the multitude of my thoughts thy comforts delight my Soul CHAP. XV. Interest in God more knowable then any other and yet unknown to most The
Reasons of both BEfore I propound the Directions how they who are sincere and ingenious toward God and indeed have him for their God may know that they have a sure Interest and Propriety in him I will premise two things of moment First That our Interest in God is more knowable then any other Interest in the world There is no Interest that a man hath which is so discernable Whatsoever it is that belongs to an Interest in any thing or any friend and doth discover it is much more here Examine it in a few particulars 1. Where there is an Interest with men there is a mutual closing of their spirits by which they know one another and come to rest secure in each others good intentions and hearty wishes Here also is this mutual closing and in a far more high and excellent degree then is or can be with any creature For that affection and love which God discovers to his people and which he doth act upon them is a Love that is transcendent that is not only beyond all other love but beyond all understanding That entire closing that is between a Beleever and God in Jesus Christ is above all that which can be found in any other his whole Soul runs this way In Psal 119.10 I have sought thee saith David with my whole heart That is the proportion which God hath cut out for himself Deut. 6.5 Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart with all thy Soul and with all thy might Christ challenges the same proportion and indeed it should not be less less would not fulfil his end which is the solid peace and satisfaction of his people in the enjoyment of him and also the subjecting and subduing of their spirits to his government No proportion of love loss then the greatest could work these things But besides this there is such a through change by reason of this Interest as no Interest in the world doth work though the closest and the nearest For the habit and disposition of the spirit of a man is altered in closing with God and he becomes a new creature he is not what he was It is true that in all friendship that is with men there is a kind of change on both sides because there must be a due and necessary application of themselves to each others spirits but that change is unspeakably inferior to this in those who have been wrought upon to beleeve and have obtained this mercy to close with God for they are changed to the proportion of as great a distance as death is distant from life and darkness from light for they are brought off from the love of all that on which their hearts were set even to a hatred of it and are subjected subordinate and conformed to the Will of God There is another thing in this Interest which belongs to the nature of it and so discovers it and that is a mutual conversing with each other with contentment Jonathan and David had much pleasure in their mutual conversings with each other and in drawing forth their spirits one to another This is much more strong in Beleevers then can be in any relation between husband and wife or between the father and child This must needs be so For first The love wherewith they love God is the highest love Therefore many will not go for Christians that pretend to be such because their hearts are not brought up to this The highest Love acts highest it takes the highest delight and contentment in its Object In Cant. 2.3 As the Apple trees among the trees of the Forrest so is my Beloved among the sons I sat down under his shadow with great delight c. In Psal 73. saith David It is good for me to draw near to God That look as others find contentment in the things they love and draw near to them so the Saints find much more contentment with God and therefore draw near to him Again Friends cannot always enjoy these Converses Oftentimes they are parted and so cannot have this felicity of expressing mutual love but God is ever with them In Psal 73. Thou art my strong habitation to whom I may have a continual resort I may always come to thee 3. There is a third thing in Interest and that is mutual Communication Love is a spring which flows forth it doth enjoy what it hath rather for its friend then for it self Gods Love hath this excellency more abundantly and transcendently Take the dearest friends that live at the highest rate of love they cannot maintain a constant Communication partly because there is not always an equal necessity and capacity partly because there is not always the same power to give forth But our necessities are always very great and vast and Gods power is always the same so that here is always a perfect Communication of Love that ceaseth not but flows forth as beams of light from the Sun Now as effects discover their causes so then especially when they are most full and perfect As you may better know any tree by its fruit then when it is in the bud and blossoms and you may better know it when the fruit is in its fulness and in more abundance then when there are but a few if there be but one or two upon a tree they may be hid but when there are many the testimony is the more abundant Abundant are the testimonies of the fruits of Gods Love in what he hath done for his So that upon this account no Interest is more knowable then that of a Beleever in his God Secondly A second thing to be propounded is this That though no Interest be more knowable yet ordinarily no Interest is less known then this This we need not prove I think it 's a Question out of question with us all The unevenness of the holiness of Beleevers in their walkings the inconstancy of their rejoycing are two strong demonstrations of this that they do know but little of their Interest in God It springs from such unhappy Causes as these That abiding Unbelief that bitter root that hath taken such strong hold of the nature of man that till the whole house be pull'd down it will not be wholly eradicated and destroyed This is that weight the Apostle speaks of in Heb. 12. that hangs on us so fast as is manifest by the Apostle's scope who perswading unto faith and the workings of faith this is that saith he that so suppresseth and bears us down from those heights of heavenly joy from that sweet contentment and rest of spirit whereto we are called Beleeving is the first stone that is layd in a Christian He that comes to God must beleeve that he is and that he is a Rewarder of those that seek him Hebr. 12. And as there is a spirit in all Beleevers that tends to the setling of them upon a sure foundation that they may stedfastly beleeve so there is a spirit that works
given Pag. 190 Chap. 17. What it is to live upon God as our God No other life appointed for Saints The fulness beauty and satisfaction of this life How Christians offer violence to their relation Pag. 199 Chap. 18. Heavenly life nearest at hand Christians are to live up to the height of it and to maintain it in every condition Pag. 208 Chap. 19. Further Considerations to promote the forementioned life of its incomparable worth Those that will not live the life of Faith shall not A firm belief of the Gospel the foundation of this Life Pag. 214 Chap. 20. Our Apostacy hath made us unapt for divine Life and Converse with God through a Mediator and willing to conform to the lowest Patterns Pag. 222 Chap. 21. Several Questions concerning the forementioned Doctrine answered Saints not always equally strong Some afflictions sweetened more then others Sometimes God will have his Rod smart Pag. 230 Chap. 22. How it comes to pass that deformities creep into the Conversation of Christians since they have so high a principle of life Whence it is that those which enjoy not God seem to go through afflictions with strength Pag. 239 Chap. 23. A Comparison of Interest and Enjoyment and the excellency of Enjoyment evinced from Interest What is requisite to make full Enjoyment An affectionate Close to all the foregoing Discourses Pag. 251 III. Treatise on PSALM 119. vers 4. Chap. 1. Gods Interest in man natural and acquired this latter twofold Of holy Resignation Of true and false Mourning Pag. 1 Chap. 2. The Will of God is the Bounds and Rule of a Resigned Spirit Pag. 21 Chap. 3. Resignation necessary in Prayer Prayer without it hath no truth in it is non-sence and imposeth upon God absurdly The true Advantage of a spirit of Resignation as to Prayer Pag. 34 Chap. 4. Wicked mens prayers not to be dreaded The sins of those that pray greatest Some out-live the contests of the Spirit Three things to be still done by those who have resigned themselves to God Pag. 41 Chap. 5. The knowledg of Interest in God doth much further our approaches to God It begets propensions carries the spirit in a due frame fits it for all divine determinations Pag. 67 Chap. 6. How the knowledg of divine Interest doth promote Holiness sets Judgment and Nature against Sin keeps the heart from inordinate reaching after and holding fast present things Faith binds the Soul and keeps it bound makes all a Christians ways easie Assurance gives a double advantage to our great meeting with God Pag. 82 THE FIXED EYE OR THE Mindful Heart PSAL. 25.15 Mine Eyes are Ever towards the Lord. CHAP. I. Eyes of Saints set upon God In what sence Ever and how many ways THis Psalm is a Psalm of speciall excellency and hath this mark on it that as some others its form'd in Verses of it according to the Hebrew Alphabet David was a man of a heavenly spirit and truly he breaths much life in every word This Psalm is a Prayer David complains of Enemies good men shal never want them but this is their advantage that as the world wil be sure to be their enemie so God wil be more sure to be their friend He had one to go to and could tel him how it was with him and how men dealt with him and that 's but a bad business to the world but it s a great relief to the Spirits of the Saints that they can go to God and speak their hearts And in his Prayer observe his spirit He doth not after the manner of the world breathe out Affections moved meerly from the smart of the stroke without sense of the cause but cries out more of his sin then of his suffering and speaks more against himself then against his enemies and begs more that he might walk in the sight of Gods countenance and have his favor then to be delivered from his enemies And as all Prayer the more spiritual the more argumentative it is Prayer that is full of Affection is full of Arguments so this But while David was drawing down mercy upon himself he was catcht up Love fires in Prayer His Faith is quickened in Prayer and then Love 's inflam'd In the midst of his Prayer he breaks out and tells God in the words of the Text that his eyes were ever towards him While he was begging the eye of God toward him he tells God Mine eyes are ever towards the Lord. Ever You cannot understand that actually and uncessantly his thoughts and heart were towards God and his mind taken up with him for by the necessity of this life and the Law of it he was sometimes to be taken up with other things But when he says Mine eyes are ever towards the Lord he means these three things 1. That the disposition of his Soul was such that he could be always looking upon God he could wish that when he is departed out of himself and got up that he might never come down more and never have any other work in the world but this to behold God Thus always is taken in the Scriptures In Acts 10.2 Cornelius is said to pray always that is he had a disposition his heart was ready to pray always Acts 7.51 It 's said of the Jews They were stiff-necked and hard-hearted always to resist the Holy Ghost this was their temper like a stone that resists the hand of the workman takes in no impression but is wholly shut up to it self 2. When he saith Mine eyes are always towards the Lord he means this That upon all occasions in every condition in all places his eyes were towards God In Luke 18.1 Christ teacheth to watch and pray always that is upon all occasions when ever Prayer is called for watch to see the season and have your hearts open Making mention of you Always in my prayer saith the Apostle Rom. 1.9 and not seldom elsewhere that is as I have occasion I do intercede for you as I pray for my self it s my dayly work So in Psal 88.9 Every day will I praise thee Psal 145.2 Every day will I bless thee So here Mine eyes are ever towards the Lord that is it 's my every days work 3. Mine eyes are ever toward the Lord that is continually it is not only my ordinary work and dayly course but it 's a work that shall last while I live a work for life 2 Sam. 9.10 David saith concerning Mephibosheth He shall Always eat bread at my table that is while he lives he shall sit at my table And in Psal 146.2 While I live he speaks in the sence of the Text I will praise thee So that now here you have the temper and practise of a godly man his eyes are Ever toward the Lord. The Text holds forth these three things to us 1. What it is upon which the eyes of Saints are set upon what they are terminated upon God 2. Their great diligence and assiduity in this work
be sure you mind it and have this in your hearts to be ready to it Revel 12. They loved not their lives to the death Animarum suarum pro. digi Beza they did with their lives as with things they hate not at all regard them So when it 's said they liked not to retain the knowledg of God in their thoughts the meaning is they hated that God should have any room in them or that there should be any knowledg of God in their hearts Though the worst of men cannot but sometimes have God in their eyes yet because they like it not God counts it is not done and takes it as if they gave him no attendance or never lookt after him The Apostle Rom. 7.17 upon this account reckons It 's no more I but sin that dwelleth in me because the propention of my spirit my better part is all towards God it is no more I In this sence when a wicked man thinks of God it 's not the man that doth it but his conscience or the power of God upon him he doth what he would not do As in another case Quae quia non potuit non facit illa facit when a man would do a thing though he cannot do it it goes for done with God as it 's said of Abraham concerning his son and David concerning the temple So that whether it be good or evil it 's not reckoned if the will be not in it Let no man deceive himself though he cast his eyes toward Heaven all the day long if he love not this work he doth nothing 3. That which is not done according to the Rule God reckons it as not done If a Master set his servant about a work if he do it not according to the pattern and rule which is set him nothing is done it may be worse then nothing This is not to eat the Lords Supper 1 Cor. 11.20 Yet they did eat it but because it was not done after its due manner he saith this is not to eat it And mark it what God faith in this case Isai 43.22 Thou hast not called on me O Jacob but hast been weary of me O Israel Thou hast not brought me the small cattel of thy burnt-offerings neither hast thou honored me with thy sacrifices I have not caused thee to serve with an offering nor wearied thee with incense Thou hast bought me no sweet cane with money neither hast thou filled me with the fat of thy sacrifices c. Yet they did these things and God acknowledgeth it Jer. 6.20 To what purpose cometh there to me Incense from Sheba and the sweet Cane from a far Country Your burnt-offerings are not acceptable nor your sacrifices sweet to me He looks on the thing as not done because 't is not done as it should be Men think of God but their thoughts are not holy awful and subjecting the spirit they think of God but their thoughts are no way proportionable to the Majesty of God they look loosly carelesly and carnally upon God they peep upon that glory with an unholy and undaunted spirit and so it s against the Rule and God reckons it not done nay it will be worse to them God will recompence upon their heads even their thoughts of him this he will punish severely People think they do well when they have good thoughts and think well they are deceived for if their thoughts be not as they should be though they be for number as motes in the Sun they do no good but bring many sufferings and punishments upon them 4. That which is a mans course and trade denominates a man and not any particular action A man may come to a Carpenters house and take up his tools and do something at his work but this makes him not a Carpenter it doth not denominate him because that is not his trade The best Saints sin yet because it 's not their trade and course they are said not to sin and are called blameless and holy c. And David is said to be a man after Gods own heart notwithstanding his many failings because the habit of his spirit was so Now the course of the world is a course of habitual and voluntary forgetfulness of God endeavoring to shut God out of their thoughts and if their thoughts do run towards him it 's but as water out of its proper channel not in its place their way is altogether out of God that we may say of God in reference to these as Job of places not frequented They are forgotten of the foot Job 28.4 So the minds and spirits of these men converse not with God but he is forgotten of the foot of their Souls This is a dangerous state when they are not with God where are they In the night tares are sown and when is night but when God appears not as the non-appearance of the Sun makes darkness and then the night takes place and now all evil is to be found in that man Judg. 3.7 They did evil and forgot God Those two are joyned together as the cause and the effect they forgot God and therefore did evil Forgetfulness and unmindfulness of Gods is the womb of all sin where every unclean spirit nests A man that lives in forgetfulness of God is free to righteousness as the Apostle speaks Rom. 6.20 He is in no bonds to God he feels no obliging power in any thing upon his spirit toward God Non entis non appaâ—entis eadem est ratio As things that are not so things that are unknown and not minded are worth nothing It 's all one to me whether things be not or be forgotten The spirits of those men are in a woful case that live without God they are as Sheep without a Shepherd and like a Ship among Rocks nothing but a divine hand can rescue them from everlasting Shipwrack All affections of love joy fear and hope flow from sight of God therefore where there is no sight and knowledg of God men are free to all evil If thou forgettest God thou clearly pronouncest and the express language of thy course is that there is no God this very thing strips him of all loveliness and beauty one not worthy to be minded What is more contemptible then that which no man will look on Forgetfulness is the state of death Psal 31.12 That I be not as one forgotten among the dead When God is not remembered by thee he is to thee a dead thing And what is thy mind but as a grave a place of darkness and forgetfulness where is nothing but pollution and corruption and whatsoever is loathsom in it self and destructive to thee It 's the speech of Bildad in Job 8.11 12 13 14. Can the rush grow without mire or the flag without water Whilest it is yet in his greenness and not cut down it withereth before any other herb So are the paths of all that forget God and the hypocrites hope shall
God must needs be a very great Refreshing and Consolation CHAP. II. Interest in God of a perfect extent to all in God Gods love lasts is not broke off by offences is not hindered by distance Interest in God effectual to all good ends Divine friendship not burdensom THe Propriety that the Saints have in God is perfect I mean it extends throughout to all that God is Among friends and acquaintance this is the Law their friendship reacheth to some things not to all but the Interest of the wife and children reacheth to the full compass of the husbands estate Much more our Propriety in God reacheth to all that God is As the Law of Communion between the Father and the Son was this John 17.10 All mine are thine and thine are mine So is the Law of the Interest between Christ and his people 1 Cor. 3. ult All things are yours because all is Christs If there be enough in God for the spirits of just men made perfect whose capacities are greater then ours if there be enough in God for Angels whose capacities are greater then theirs if there be enough in God for Jesus Christ whose capacity is yet far wider if there be enough in God for God himself then there must needs be satisfaction to a man If he can say that God is his God he needs no more this will content and fill his spirit Fourthly This Propriety is that which will hold out All our interest in men and things is very fleeting experience shews it the Anchor comes home again because the ground was not firm All friends are but like flowers in the hand they are mine now anon they are good for nothing and are no bodies You have this given as a reason why we should not trust in Princes in Psal 146. Because they pass away and their thoughts perish What ever they intended and had contrived for your good all dye with them The Israelites that found favor in Egypt for Josephs sake suffered when another Pharaoh arose that knew not Joseph But if our friends live nothing is more common then to have an eclipse and a damp brought upon the love of friends But Christ loves to the end and if he loved his people when he was in this world how much more doth his love continue now he is in the other world Because here his love met with many difficulties but there he hath nothing hard to do his work lies plain and easie before him The affections of men are subject to a natural I may call it an unnatural mutability which is not only a torment to others but to themselves for that man that changeth his heart suffers as well as he from whom his heart is changed and this is help'd on by many things 1. By offences that ripen and quicken that fickle mutability of this poor frail mortal changeable creature Man You shall have him now like the Sun in his full shining and anon some cloud of offence darkens all his love We were the unhappiest creatures that could be if God should be so to us but he hath expressed himself in Isai 55.7 that he will abundantly pardon and that he will multiply pardons 2. Distance many times takes off the edg of love and friendship among friends friends oftentimes dye one to another while they live The child sometimes is forgotten of his Father and the wife of her husband But the eye of God is ever upon us and we cannot but be satisfied in his love whose eye is ever fixt upon us as you have his promise in the last of Matthew Lo I am with you always to the end of the world 3. There is a love that is fastened only by a short relation as between the Master and the servant and those that are in a Brotherhood for a time when the term of years is out that relation ceaseth But it is not so between Christ and the Saints In the fifth place This Propriety that the people of God have in him is most effectual because there is neither want of love nor power in God In Isai 48.14 All ye assemble your selves and hear which among them hath declared these things the Lord hath loved him he will do his pleasure on Babylon and his arm shall be on the Caldeans Whether we understand it of his love to his people or of his love to Cyrus it is not much material as to the setting forth the efficacy of this Propriety If we understand it of his love to Cyrus who perhaps was yet a stranger to God that notwithstanding this he would do so great things as he had spoken for him how much more effectual will his love be to those to whom he is engaged by relation He will stick at nothing because his love is so great no offences shall hinder because he hath engaged to pardon You are sure to speed when you come to God they that see this their Propriety in him therefore must needs rejoyce Sixthly This Propriety in God is not onerous and burdensom Indeed our relations to men and our propriety in them is oftentimes costly and not without charge can we either preserve or act our friendship toward them We usually lose by receiving A man accepts a benefit and loseth his liberty as a wise Heathen once said A man by his engagement is put oftentimes upon hard services he is made to do every thing that receives every thing the more you take from a friend the more he is discharged and he things he owes you the less and that you owe him the more But indeed whatsoever God doth is an engagement upon him to do more for you Expressions of friendship from friends come many times mingled with much bitterness harshness and rigidness But when God dischargeth the part of a Father and a Friend he doth it like himself it comes pure like water out of a pure fountain no sadness no bitterness mingled with it He doth it with all his heart as in Jer. 32.41 I 'le rejoyce over them to do them good and with my whole Heart and with my whole Soul Oh when kindness comes so it comes sweetly What refreshing is it then to Beleevers in all their conditions to look upon divine Love that 's sweet and clear and pure All these joyn'd together make but one head of Arguments from that Excellency that is in God CHAP. III. Saints engaged to live upon God by the Law of Nature Love and Judgment Spiritual Relation is mutual True Resignation hath Conscience with Love A divine Power in and over Saints The grace and peace of Saints furthered as they mind their Interest in God ANother Argument is this We have nothing else to live upon we must either live here or no where If we live not upon what we have in God we are dead men for God is our life The life of every creature is maintain'd proportionably by a threefold Law 1. Some by the Law of Nature so fishes live not
more open to him then to any creature One may wish good-will to another and may want skill to make his mind known but you cannot have an ingenuous and hearty wish in your Souls O that God were my God! but he hears it and knows it He hears spirits and reads spirits as we do words In Psal 138.9 My groanings are not hid from Thee If thou lovest God and thine heart be towards him he needs no Interpreter or Spokes-man to tell him what thine heart is The Apostle saith He knows the meaning of the spirit When it can but sob and sigh within it self O that God were my God! he knows the meaning of that language Rom. 8.22 When Christ asked Peter Lovest thou me Lord saith he thou knowest that I love thee Add to this That there cannot be that assurance of speeding upon the manifestation of our spirits to any as there is with God I may make my mind known to another for the enjoyment of his friendship yet I may fail and come short of it but now if I come to God with an ingenuous and sincere desire to have God to be my God I shall not fail in that You seek many things in vain but God never frustrates his poor people in their desires after him He crosseth them in many of their other desires but never in that If he be so good that he satisfies the desire of all things of every living creature as in Psal 146. much more will he satisfie desires after himself for these are from his best love they spring from his own bosom and he 'l be sure to bless them they shall attain their end Other desires may be satisfied with other things if you cannot have one thing another thing may serve you in its stead if a man cannot have this friend he may have another But we must either have Gods love and his friendship or we dye for ever He hath engaged himself that those that thirst after him shall never go without him the word stands upon record the Lord Jesus Christ spake it from his Father Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be satisfied in Mat. 5. And let him that thirsteth come in Revel 22. Indeed these desires are given not only to be as a byass or principle of motion in our Souls after God but are planted in our Souls as indubitable pledges of his love and of his habitation there Other things are first desired and then obtained but God is first ours before he be desired Divine love works downward it begins in Heaven and that Communion that is wrought between God and us begins in himself and from himself He loves first and speaks first and our love is but the answer of his love If we can say to God Lord I am thine this is but the eccho of what he hath said first I am thine So in Zech. 13. latter end I will say saith God Thou art my people and they shall say Thou art my Father Oh this assurance of obtaining mercy with God for poor thirsty Creatures it is the honey and milk of our Souls our greatest joy and the satisfaction of our spirits in this life They that seek God shall glorifie him If they seek once the next thing is praise their hearts shall live for ever The manifestation of this grace mercy and goodness that is in God is the life of such as seek him In Isai 38.15 16. What shall I say he hath spoken to me and himself hath done it I shall walk softly all my years in the bitterness of my Soul O Lord by these things men live and in all these things is the life of my spirit so wilt Thou recover me and make me to live He speaks of Gods goodness appearing to him in that act which was not a single but a compound act and it was not a meer natural good but a spiritual and inward communication of himself it took him much What shall I say I shall be at rest as one quieted and satisfied in spirit after my bitterness I have had sorrow but now I have seen the love of God towards me I rejoyce I was tumultuous before and unquiet and unsatisfied but now I shall be satisfied Hitherto you have been looking upon the feasibleness of this Interest that no Interest is so attainable as Interest in God And if you will look once more consider how many bars there are to our Interests with men and you shall see how these things that are such impediments with us are of no force with God Many times a poor man a begger one in rags knows it would be his happiness to have an Interest in such a Prince but how shall he come at it In Prov. 14.20 Solomon tells us The poor man is hated of his neighbor he is afraid if he should ask something of him he should burden him Nay he is hated of his Brother and though he speak with intreaties yet he is answered roughly What thou a Begger and come so boldly to ask of me And yet we that are but poor beggers and in our rags may have free access to God In Prov. 19.7 it is said All the brethren of the poor do hate him how much more will his friends depart far from him But God turns not back our prayers though we be poor and miserable yet our Lord Jesus Christ is not ashamed to call us Brethren Heb. 11.6 Strangers have a bar in their way Come to a great one I know you not saith he I never saw you before what have you to do to come to me Therefore Ruth was much taken with the kindness of Boaz because she was a stranger to him What are we but strangers and aliens afar off and yet he rejects us not when we come near him God will not say to men I know you not though they have been strangers except when they come too late In Luke 13.25 saith Christ Strive to enter in at the strait gate for many I say unto you shall seek to enter and shall not be able that is they seek too late When once the Master of the house is risen up and hath shut the door if then you come and say Lord Lord open to us he will say I know you not But seek him while the door is open while he may be found and he will be ready to receive you Impotent persons that are fit for nothing how shall they get an Interest in great ones What can he do say they though it be but for a servants place What would become of us if God should put that question to us He receives us when we are good for nothing fit for us Nay when we were Enemies then he was reconciled to us Rom. 5. Now then you see that God hath received such persons indeed be never receives any other So that upon all accompts an Interest in God is more attainable then any other Interest That 's a second Argument I
appointed his going forth as the morning that is as the Sun riseth and fails not as the Sun goes forth in its light and grows so will Gods appearance to his people be And as the rain comes upon the thirsty Earth and causeth all things to spring afresh so shall the manifestation of Gods love be to those that seek him without ceasing What if God appear not presently and you have not that full answer to your desires Though he come slowly yet he will be sure to come his staying is not a denyal and his not shewing himself is not an hiding himself He is uncovering himself and making way for the appearance of that which you would fain have a sight of He stays a while to make his love the more visible afterward by his absence he raiseth the mind and enlargeth the heart to desire and long after his presence and then his manifestation will be fullest God is as ready nay more ready to open then you are to knock he loves that thirst in you which is after himself he loves to be loved let him be pleased as well as you It may be seeking Christians are not so ingenuous as they should be We are not to seek him only but to please him Psal 119.2 Blessed are they that keep his Testimonies and that seek him with their whole heart That seek him and his Love and keep his Law Or it may be offences have been but not bewailed Impotency is the continuation of sin You are ever doing that evil which you have not been humbled for nothing nulls it but repentance and humbling your selves in the sight of God With what face can you say to God Let thy love O Lord be upon me when as you cannot say to God Lord I love thee That man cannot say he loves God that desires not to please him Can he say his heart is with God who suffers his heart to go out after other things Why should he desire so to impose upon God that God should love him whom he desires not to love and please it is unreasonable What father would be so dealt with that the child walking in stubborn courses would have his father shew nothing but clearness of countenance and love to him David all the while he was under clouds of guilt and sorrow wished that God would shew forth the light of his countenance to him but he suffered many wrackings in his Soul till he confessed his sins Psal 32. What God hath said he will have fulfilled Heaven and Earth shall pass away but not one tittle of his Promise If he hear not it is not because he is not a God hearing prayer but because you hear not him Isai 45.19 I said not unto the seed of Jacob Seek ye me in vain I the Lord speak righteousness I declare things that are right I speak as I mean my words and my heart agree in one What ever our offences have been if we be ingenuous in our approaches to God God will not look upon our offences but upon our persons In 2 Chron. 7.14 you have this promise If my people that are called by my Name shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways then will I hear from Heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their Land If thy Soul be sick and thou mournest after God that hideth himself from thee and humblest thy self and repentest of thy sins with abasedness of spirit before him he will hear CHAP. X. God hath fully made known whom he loves Christians able to know themselves Gods Spirit strengthens the testimony of our spirits Christians hindered by Slothfulness and Discouragements A Second Fault is That God doth give the manifestation of his Love and we receive it not we accept it not I will for the more full clearing of this lay down these Considerations First That God hath given to his people sufficient means for the knowledg of their Interest in him for he hath told us who they are that he loves whom he hath chosen and called out of this world and made his peculiar people If he had carried on a design of love to particular persons in his own brest no man could have known who was loved of him then we had been left in the dark for no man knows the things of a man but the spirit of a man as the Apostle speaks But as the Angel marked those in Jerusalem that were to be spared so there is a mark that God hath set upon his own by which they may be known to what fold and flock they do belong And indeed the end of the Scripture so discovering and setting forth the marks of the people of God is for this purpose that we may know our Happiness So in 1 Joh. 5.13 this was the end of writing his Epistle These things saith he have I written unto you that beleeve on the Name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life and that you may beleeve on the Name of the Son of God Wherefore was it that he had told them how many ways they might know that God dwelt in them and they in God Wherefore did he make so many descriptions of those whom God had set his love upon but that you may know saith he that you have eternal life because you are such And he hath not only done thus but hath given us understanding also by which we are able to know not only other things but our selves by which we may judg our selves and our actions and what is within us Neither hath he given us an understanding meerly natural but it is raised being illuminated with his own light that we may be able to find out the work of God in us an understanding that can reflect upon it self not only in way of simple vision and apprehension of what is within us but by way of argumentation and reasoning 1 Joh. 2.3 5. Hereby we know that we know him if we keep his Commandments And whoso keepeth his Word in him verily is the love of God perfected hereby we know that we are in him God hath given us understanding to reflect upon our selves in a way of reasoning to make certain to our selves our Interest in these things Nay he hath given us his Spirit that bears witness to our spirits that we are the sons of God Rom. 8. We must not think that was a special favor given to the Saints then but it 's common to all the people of God The Spirit of Adoption hath a double office of quickening and comforting and whosoever is a son hath the testimony of that Spirit There is a double Testimony A Testimony of the things themselves so that which is of God in us doth bear witness as the effect bears witness of the cause There 's another Testimony and that is of God himself by his Spirit and that Testimony doth help our spirits it helps the testimony of the things
to unbelief perplexity and dissettlement While unbelief works in us it must needs be that there will be a great want of that through knowledg of Interest Another Cause of this great misery of man is That Gods communications of himself to us and entertainments of us are not always in intelligible forms so that we cannot presently take them up and understand the meaning and good-will of God in them The fault is in our minds The print is good but cannot be read because the eye is dull and dark Sometimes God comes to us wrapt up in Clouds and indeed he varies his dispensations that he may attain his End His End is this that he may work his people to a strength of Faith and Love mixt with Fear that 's the proper constitution of a Christian and the truest temper of one that is marked out to eternal life Therefore God sometimes displays his greatness in the sight of his people far above all the manifestations of the sweetness of his mercy that the spirit of a poor man is overborn shakes and trembles at the presence of God So it was with Moses Heb. 12.21 The sight was so terrible though God meant no ill to Moses that Moses shakes and quakes for fear he was sore afraid Sometimes God comes with the manifestations of his fatherly displeasure and dislike and then how can it be but the Soul must dwell in bitterness mourning heaviness and trembling must needs possess us A third Cause why so little is known of this Interest that God is our God though he be so is our unhappy diversions We are oftentimes turned off from that one thing necessary and our spirits run otherways out of light into darkness Alas Solomon minded not this matter or to little purpose when he poured out his Soul after vanities and for this God pleaded with him 1 King 11.9 that he had departed from him The Lord was wrath with Solomon because his heart was turned from the Lord God of Israel who had appeared to him twice CHAP. XVI How the knowledg of blessed Interest in God may be attained Desires to have the question determined A spirit free to yield to the determination Arguments proper for the deciding of the question Those that have an Interest in God are much in holy resignation Of taking answers when they are given THese things being premised now I come to shew you how we may attain this blessed knowledg that God is ours and so quiet our hearts in this assurance that he is our Portion First Let it be the true desire of thy Soul to have this question determined and concluded that God is thy God Certainly many are careless concerning this business that never much debate the matter whether God be their God or no. Others there are that have care enough but it is a perplexed care a care sowred with unbelief there is a desire indeed raised but it 's mixed with perturbation the Soul is indeed in motion after it but it is a very disorderly motion working with fretting and such disturbing fears that they leave themselves without judgment Exod. 6.9 It is said concerning the Children of Israel that when Moses spake to them they would not hear him for their anguish of spirit and for their cruel bondage for the shortness and straitness of their spirits Fears do straiten Secondly A second Means is this Come with a spirit free to yield to the determination of truth one way or other take your answer from God as he shall give it Certainly there are a generation that know that they are very partial and foolish in this business that fly from the decision and determination of this question from a secret strong suspicion that all is not well with them and therefore they will rather flatter themselves with the uncertainty of their own estate then affright themselves with the clear knowledg of their unhappy condition As a guilty prisoner fears to think of the time of Judgment because he knows there is just cause of suspicion that it shall go ill with him Poor man what shall it profit thee to carry things thus If God be not thy God what hurt is it for thee to know it He that lives thus refuseth the judgment of God and as much as in him lies hates the judgment of God There can be no greater evidence of a right spirit then for a man to put the question home whether God be his for that man is not willing to be the Lords that is not willing to have it determined whether he be his or no. Some again are so possessed and overcome with fears so ready to self-condemnation to what ever may afflict and oppress them that they wrap themselves up in thick clouds lest any light should spring forth upon them These are like unjust Judges that are precipitant in their proceedings that hear only one party It is a dangerous thing for a man to mistake in Judgment as the Wise-man speaks concerning Civil Judgment Prov. 17.15 He that justifies the wicked and condemns the just even they both are an abomination unto God You displease God and sin against Truth and Righteousness when you bear down your selves and pronounce a sentence of death upon your own Souls when God hath passed the sentence of life and peace upon you You cross the design of Jesus Christ which is a design of love and peace You offer violence to that light reason and spirit which God hath set up in you You tempt God to say as you do and to make good your words Be therefore willing to hear what God shall say to you as they in Acts 10. said to Peter We are all here ready to hear the things that are commanded thee of God Thirdly A third Means is To proceed and argue by proper Mediums by such Arguments as are proper to the Question Some work themselves into a good opinion by false discourses concluding upon insufficient grounds that God is their God either from an empty appearance of good or else from a real presence of the life of such things as may flow from other principles then the spirit of Adoption as the fear of God mourning for sin subjection of spirit to the Commands of God which things indeed are good but may flow from another spring then the spirit of Adoption But if you would conclude in a right way of reasoning that God is your God argue then by such things as are proper to that state and relation wherein you suppose your selves to be toward God and that is in one word a spirit of true Love You shall find that working thus it will carry thy Soul in propensions towards God equal to thy consolations The Soul that loves is carried unto God with desires equal to its refreshings yea and more for when it cannot taste the comforts of the Almighty yet it is carried after him in desires and saith Lord I will love thee though thou wilt not love me This love
also will work resignation of our selves to God equal to all our enjoyments and expectations from God David was much taken with Gods love to him that tendred him in his distresses but withall saith he Lord I am thy servant Psal 106. He gave himself to God in the sense of the sweetness of that mercy he had from God Yea this will exceed also for he will give himself to God when he knows not but that God hath hid himself from him This love will work equal melting of spirit with rejoycing of spirit and fill a man equally with shame and joy True love makes a man as happy in sorrowing as in rejoycing and he never more abounds in godly sorrow then when he abounds in the manifestation of Gods love to him In Psal 32. you may see how David was taken after he found mercy with God see how he breaks forth detesting his own nature and the natures of all men he compares them to the horse and mule like Asaph in another case So brutish was I and ignorant as a beast before thee Now if you would know whether God be your God what do you find of such a spirit in you Some conclude too well in a false way by false Arguments Some indeed too who beleeve conclude too ill to their own wrong by mistakes also as because they find their feet slipping and their ways not so even therefore they conclude their spirits are crooked and there is no streightness in them whereas it is not the action but the disposition whereby we should judg our selves nor is it this or that tripping that discovers a man but the inward frame of his spirit Again They conclude Surely God is not my God because I feel my love so faint my faith so feeble whereas it is not the degree but the truth of grace that must discover our estates Fourthly A fourth Means is this Labor to be more full in closing with God and in the resignation of your selves to him and in conversing with him in all delightfulness and in whatsoever it is that shews your Interest in God For as there is a light in all these by which they bear witness of themselves and of your happy state so the fuller and stronger they are the more clear full and vigorous is their testimony A tender plant newly springing from the ground doth not so well discover what it is as when it is grown up to a full body now it is easily known This is certain things are more significant as they are more perfect A little smoak discovers fire but more smoak is more full in its discovery This the Apostle Peter intimates 2 Pet. 1.9 If these things be lacking if men be but weak in these if men be not only not sound but little in these they are dark-sighted they cannot well discern things their judgments will be very much clouded and darkened in the things that concern their peace Be frequent therefore in those works that discover your Interest be frequent in conversing with God frequent in expressions of the sincerity of your Love for it is with God as it is with us discoveries of our Love make discoveries of his Love When I say to a friend Sir I love you you are dear to me and I am wholly yours his heart opens to me and there is an eccho in his spirit to my Love When you come to God and say Father I am thine and will be thine wholly thine and always thine if your Love can make you say so to God much more the Love of God will make him say so to you Thou art mine In Zech. 13. They shall say Thou art our God and I will say Thou art my people Therefore be much in this Fifthly Be true to your Interest walk with a streight spirit make streight paths to your feet for upon such shall peace be Psal 119. Great peace have they that keep thy Laws God bears the clearest testimony where there is most excellent walking Usually his testimony is according to the measure of grace as the co-operation of the Spirit also is And as God comes with the most terrible convictions upon highest transgressors so he comes with sweetest consolations to those that walk most evenly Uneven walking carries a shew of insincerity and puts a difficulty upon beleeving David had much ado in this case to conclude himself to be Gods was a shattered man and had lost his confidence The Conscience of guilt to an Unbeleever is deadly and even to a Beleever it is a wound You put a sword into your enemies hand when you walk not uprightly You arm your unbelief against your selves that is too strong without your help This is certain that no hope conquers fear but that which conquers sin for they have both one foundation If therefore now you would know and would walk in this light that God is your God then you must walk uprightly and faithfully in your Interest Lastly Take answers of Love when they are given you and keep them treasure them up as most precious things bless Jesus Christ by whom it is that you enjoy them and suffer not the great question of thy Soul to be always in agitation Suffer not thy self to be brought to endless disputes when the cause is once heard and concluded It is as well sinful to make voyd the grounds of our Consolations as to break the bonds and cords whereby God holds us to obedience You put gold no more to the touch-stone when it hath once passed the furnace you say it is gold Suffer not your selves to be tossed in whirls of amazement when God hath said he is your God It is true indeed there will be objections and they cannot be shunned they are often injected yet these things must sometimes pass undisputed Mark the season when these things are disputed in your Souls commonly at the worst season when a man is at greatest disadvantage When Job's spirit was disturbed you know what amazement he fell into and what advantage did it take of him Another season is the season of transgression The Devil so works in our unbeleeving hearts that we oftentimes put that to the question that God before hath put out of question Offences should not work in us amazement and fear of our former bondage but they should work in us brokenness and shame Lord pardon me saith David for my sin is very great The greater our transgression is the more we should have recourse to God and his goodness but by no means fly from him Certainly Gods design is to break sin by sin and his aym is to out-shoot the Devil in his own Bow Oh! they love much to whom much is forgiven The end of this discourse is that you would be serious solemn and impartial in debating of this business for when God hath cleared the matter it is to thy hurt to bring it about to be disputed again CHAP. XVII What it is to live upon God as our God No
he lives in an holy contentment and a glorious rest in all things that are according to God and in a hatred of all things that are in opposition to God If any thing come into the ballance with God if it be like God he loves it but if it be contrary to God he hates it having once drunk of the new wine he desires not the old harsh spiritless wine You may remember the Catalogue of Saints in Hebr. 11. when you are come to their pitch then God will be dear to you and there will be a flatness upon all things else The life of every thing is according to its compass and the thing by which it is maintained Men have a better life then beasts for they have better things to live on Princes live better lives then beggers and Angels then men because they have better things to live on Now then if your life be in God you have the best and sweetest life We judg of lives in the world by the contentment they have that live in them now in this life you find innumerable Angels the spirits of just men made perfect Jesus Christ lives this life and thinks it enough he desires no better life God himself lives this life he lives in himself Thirdly A third thing is That if you do not maintain this life you offer unspeakable violence to that blessed station and happy relation wherein God hath set you One of these two things you must needs acknowledg 1. If you live not on God God is not your portion you have not taken him for your God you have not clos'd with him and then you are undone 2. Or this must be granted If you have closed with him you wrong God and your selves extreamly because you live not on him Hath God taken you and have you taken him Hath he said to thee My Spouse and hath thy Soul said to him My Lord and my Husband And shall we live upon other things and not upon our Husband Shall the child live on strangers bread and not upon his Father Shall the son of a Prince hang as a begger upon others doors and be a stranger to his Fathers love to his Fathers house and fulness This is certain that so far as you do this you are not children but Prodigals in Luke 15. last dead and lost While you are out of God and your hearts set on other things you are in a state of dead men in an absolute indisposedness and incapacity either to the fulfilling of that which lies upon you as the Law of your relation unto God or to the enjoyment of that which is the sweetness priviledg and comfort of your relation unto God Is she a wife think you or doth she not offer violence to the Law of her Relation that refuseth bed and board with her husband You should drink water out of your own Cistern from your own Head and Spring who is that but your Lord and Head whom you have chosen God will not endure that you should wander He will hedg up your way as he speaks in Hos 2. and those hedges will teer you He is pleased with you when you lean on him and take of his Love and then his joy is fulfilled in you you do what he loves he takes contentment in it Other comforts are stoln sweet they may be in the taste but they will be bitterness in your bowels it must be so for when you live any where but in God you cross his great design which is to make himself your Center wherein your Souls should rest He hath appointed no place for thy Soul to rest in but his own bosom You despise him when you suffer the joys of your Souls to be clouded If Elkanah could say to his wife Am not I better to thee then ten sons Surely God may say much more Am not I better to thee then ten such things as these that thou art troubled at So that if your hearts go out any other way it is against all reason Christ in John 4.10 made account that the Soul hath enough that tastes of this for he saith he shall never thirst more Go no more then to the hedges and high ways thou that hast such a God and such a Friend be quiet and rest in his Love He rests in his love to you Zech. 3.17 And will not you rest in it and lie down in his arms and embracements and say It is sweet it is enough Is not he always embracing you and cheering you and holding forth the brests of his consolation to you wooing and winning you and using all means to fill your Souls with himself and to make you blessed in the enjoyment of him If then you have any fear of his displeasure if you have any sweetness and comfort of the Love of God if you have tasted and known how good the Lord is then keep fast to him and maintain your Souls in a constant living communion with him If you keep near him you shall find that there is life in him Psal 69.32 They shall live that seek the Lord. CHAP. XVIII Heavenly life nearest at hand Christians are to live up to the height of it and to maintain it in every condition A Fourth Argument is That this life we speak of is most present it is nearest at hand most attainable being wholly mental and spiritual and those works are quickest done All other life comes in by parcels and pieces If a man would live in honor what a deal ado is there what a compass must he fetch to maintain good thoughts with this man and with that man and his honor riseth by degrees The like may be said concerning pleasures and riches Nay naturally what a course doth the Soul take to bring in that meat which supplies our life in eating concocting and digesting it and carrying it to every part The labour of Nature is great But this life is maintained by a sweet and silent working of Spirit it is a life that is got kept and cherished by the sweetest actings of the Soul In Psal 63.6 saith David I shall be fill'd as with marrow and fatness when I remember thee upon my bed And in Psal 20.7 you have this exprest by the like words Some trust in Charets and some in Horses Great preparations they make but what is his trust I will remember the Name of the Lord our God This is life to remember the Name of the Lord our God It is the best exercise of the most noble part of a man towards the most excellent Object And what should we love more to look upon and to remember then God Do not you find how a few affectionate thoughts of him come down in showres of spiritual blessing and consolation Both the Goodness of God and the Love of God makes this work sweet He that seeks to live this way hath not only sweetness in his end but in the way to it Remember how successful you have found this
Child that hath the brest doth not enjoy it when he cannot draw the milk A Garden is not enjoyed by him whose it is that hath neither flowers nor fruits from it That which we have of God here though it be more then we had reason to look for and is that which the Angels wonder at yet it is very little to that which we look for in Heaven it 's called the first fruits it is but the infancy of that blessed state whereto we are adopted All the enjoyment we have of God in this world is not effectual to the removing of its contrary that is to cast out all fear and heaviness all sorrow and dejection out of the mind That enjoyment of God which Christ himself had here on Earth did not keep out all fear and sorrow Fulness is reserved for Heaven 2. A second thing is A mind enlightened and enabled to a just comprehension of the excellency of God and of the sweetness of the presence and love of God By comprehensive I mean as much as the faculty can reach and extend unto But now the mind cannot have an observation of all the emanations of divine Love more then a Child can count the drops of milk which it sucks We may as well tell the drops of rain in a showre as tell the particulars of the love of God poured forth upon us Our minds cannot extend to a just comprehension of that sweetness and love that is in God It is with us as 't is with a child that hath a Jewel put into his hand of exceeding great value for the matter of it and of greater worth for the signification being the Seal of a Crown to him but the child knows it not So the mercies of God are more in their nature and in their end then we can comprehend they are far above our reach Our minds are so straitened that we cannot have a full enjoyment of God here but if in this life we find so much sweetness in what we do enjoy what will it be when our Light shall be like the Sun at noon-day 3. There is requisite a lively sense of the presence of God The Soul hath its sense as well as the body nay more for it 's the fountain of sense to the body In Phil. 1.9 the Apostle prays that they may abound in all knowledg and sense of the things of God As the body receives its life from things by the senses so doth the Soul also receive its life in the sweetness and comfort of the presence of God by its spiritual sense Take away sense and a man is as a dead thing and all things are dead to him and the presence of God would be a dead thing to the Soul if it were not for the Souls sense of it I mean the spiritual sense which the Church speaks of Cant. 2.3 I sat under his shadow and his fruit was pleasant to my taste But now the sense of the Soul hath here a dulness upon it it 's short of that quickness to which it was appointed therefore we cannot have that full enjoyment of God here as hereafter But if what we do enjoy now be so sweet what will the enjoyment be when the Soul shall be so full of sense 4. A perfect love of God is required to a full enjoyment of God Love must be in its utmost height and heat if the Soul have a compleat and full enjoyment of God Take two persons never so qualified and furnished to make the life of both comfortable if there be not love there cannot be a happy enjoyment of these two As a man loves a thing so he enjoys it when he hath it So as a man loves God so he will cleave to him and pour out himself in a blessed fruition of him As our love is so is our life and enjoyment Though our enjoyment of God here be imperfect and weak yet it 's of that strength that it conquers and bears up the heart against all afflictions whatsoever Therefore there must needs be a far greater sweetness in the fulness of this Enjoyment Thirdly A third Consideration is this Let our enjoyment here be what it will it is mixt with many sorrows many wants many straits both within and without our life is such here that our afflictions many times seem to out-weigh our enjoyments they strike quick upon the sense and come too near the spirit Hence it is that you sometimes find good men complain more of one affliction then they mention a thousand mercies Our life here is mix'd 1 Thes 1.6 You have received the Word with much affliction and with joy they are mingled Now I say If the Consolations of God from that little enjoyment of him here in the midst of many sufferings be so sweet and precious that it bears the Soul up above all what then will the full enjoyment of God be in that Land of Rest where is light and no darkness life and no death all good and no evil Fourthly The enjoyment of God here is subject to many interruptions Sometimes by our sinful diversions from God the Soul goes out from the bosom of the Father minding other things and so our hearts are taken and brought into an estrangedness from God to a poor kind of delight in other things As a bird that wanders from her nest so is a man that is out of his place Prov. 27.8 Surely a man is never more out of his place then when he goes out from God and then he is like a bird that is gone from her nest she knows not where to rest but is troubled to find the way home again and to recover the loss that she hath brought upon her self by her foolish wandering Sometimes there is an interruption by the appointment of God God will not always have you lie at the brests of Consolation nay saith God when his people are sitting by the Well of the Water of Life This must not be all your work I 'le have you about this business and that employment Now these interruptions do lessen our life and our happiness but the time will come when we shall always live in the presence of our Father and our minds shall be encumbred with nothing else but we shall be filled and blessed with the vision of God Sometimes this interruption is caused by Gods going out from us there be recesses and retreats of God he sometimes out of his wisdom shadows his love and favour but in Heaven there will be always a full visible and clear presence Fifthly The enjoyment of God must needs be sweet because it is such as fills the whole capacity of the Soul and when there is fulness there is rest When a man hath what he can wish he can go no further At thy right hand are Rivers of pleasure and in thy presence is fulness of joy for evermore Psal 16. ult The Apostle in Acts 2.28 something alters the expression that is used in the Psalms
Thou hast made me glad with thy Countenance The sense of the good presence and favour and love of God doth fill the Soul with pleasure and when it can hold no more it hath enough Let the issue of all this Discourse be to set our hearts a longing and wishing O that I were blessed with a full enjoyment of God! O that I had as much of him as ever I shall or can have The Soul that is thus in travel travels without pain The Mind reaching after other things oftentimes out-stretcheth it self There are usually if not always pains with desires especially in desires after the Creature because that oftentimes there is a frustration of our desires or an elongation of the things the things are far off hard to come by our desires oftentimes are mute they speak not or the things that we desire know not our minds but our desires after God always speak they are open unto God he heareth their voyce All my desires are before Thee saith David Psal 38.8 and my groanings are not hid from Thee Therfore it must needs be sweet when the Soul lies thus open unto God Other desires do not assure and secure a man in the things he desires a man may wish this and wish that and go without both but the Soul that thus longs after God is instated in his wish hath a present enjoyment and certainly shall have a full enjoyment of him He will fulfil the desire of them that fear him God will hear them Psal 145.16 They that long most receive most it 's the hungry spirit that feeds best and fares best When the Church was sick of love being very much taken with what she had and much longing after what she wanted then she could say I am my Beloveds and my Beloved is mine his desire is towards me in Cant. 7.10 That refreshed her the Greek reads it his Conversion is towards me indeed God will turn to those that go out toward him In Isai 64.5 He meets those that work righteousness and seek him in his ways Again Consider this That longing after a full enjoyment is the natural effect of a known Interest in God Look through all the Orders of the Creation and you shall find that every thing seeks the enjoyment of its Interest Angels do Men do Beasts do they seek their own their own pastures their own young their own mates Can you imagine that we should be the Children of God and account him our Father and not long to enjoy him A child hears from his father and receives tokens from his father but he is not contented he would be with his father So it is truly with a Child of God so far as he hath received of that Spirit he longs to enjoy God Interest in God works by a power of its own and God works in it too God pursues his Interest in us to the utmost therefore he is working us to himself by all means all ways by good and evil by life by mortality and death by the senses by Ordinances by his Spirit He is always at work to bring us home that we may be in his possession and enjoy him And to make it the more full he hath appointed the breaking of these bodies that our spirits may come more full to him nay and he hath appointed a day of Resurrection that our bodies may come full to him and this is one great end of Christs coming again in Joh. 14. that we may be with him in his Fathers house If God so drives on his Interest to make us perfect with him let us drive on our Interest to make God fully ours in the enjoyment of him Lastly There is nothing to hinder in this Case that you should not drive on to a full and perfect enjoyment of him Are you full in this world should your full enjoyments of the world hinder your full enjoyments of God Is not God better then these things Are you scanted in this world The more need you have then of the fullest enjoyments of God Have you much of God You know the more what God is and can you chuse but desire him Have you little of God Then you need more and should drive on to get more Are you sure of your Interest Where Interest is most sure there is most love and where the Soul loves most thither it drives most Do you fear your Interest You have so much the more reason to seek after a full enjoyment of God to the satisfaction of your Souls What do you think should stand in the way You must part with the world What is this world to your Fathers house and to God himself You must dye What is death Cannot that everlasting life recompence you infinitely Therefore there is nothing to hinder you Then seeing God invites you and provokes you to seek more of him in this world though you cannot have all I conjure you by all the sweetness that is in God and that you have found in God that you obey his Word herein and drive on more diligently and strongly to a more full enjoyment of God FINIS PSAL. 119. vers 4. I am thine save me for I have sought thy Precepts CHAP. I. Gods Interest in man natural and acquired this latter twofold Of holy Resignation Of true and false Mourning I Have chosen this excellent Pattern to propose to you and to my self of an ingenuous spirit David a man after Gods own heart would be saved but not after the manner of the men of this world that would be saved to be their own and to enjoy themselves at their own wills but he in being saved would be Gods and at his disposing I am thine save me There are three things here that would be thought on 1. What David means when he saith I am thine 2. What the Reason should be that we should use such an acknowledgment of our selves to be Gods when we pray to him 3. What force there is in this argument to be pleaded with God I am thine save me Thine We are said to be Gods either by way of affection as the Church Cant. 2.16 I am my well-beloveds and my well-beloved is mine Or in respect of that Interest that God hath in us The Interest of God in man is upon a twofold Foundation and Account 1. Upon account of the Law of Nature the natural Law which doth set God as Lord over all and acknowledg him supreme Commander of every thing because he is the Original and glorious Fountain of all Being Upon that account it is that in Psal 89.11 it is said The Heavens are thine and the Earth also is thine as for the world and the fulness thereof thou hast founded them There is the ground of that Dominion which God hath over all things they are his off-spring things that himself hath made And in Psal 50.12 God owns himself in this Soveraignty The Heavens are mine and the Earth is mine and all that in them is
but the perfecting of our freedom Take it in this Similitude A poor woman that lives in rags hath the honor and happiness of being wife to a great Prince offered her for her now to give up her self is no way to straiten her freedom or diminish her happiness for she will enjoy her self better as a Queen then as a Begger So by resigning our selves unto God we lose no liberty nor any thing that is good but enjoy our selves in greater amplitude and fulness of all happiness So that for a man to give himself to God is self-self-love in the height of it and there is no true self-self-love but this for a man to think to love himself in ways of separation from God or in opposition to God is to hate himself in the appearance of love but this is true self-love that makes me give my self to God and be subject to him 3. Resigning of our selves to God is an act of the greatest joy and the greatest grief Of the greatest joy and contentment for when once the Soul is blest with such a life from above as over-powers a man and makes him surrender himself to God now he is in his first and proper Center The whole state of men out of God is nothing but a constant course of confusion and restless motion who by reason of darkness and want of judgment by reason of hardness and want of sense may think they are well may think they are at home when they are not but are like men fallen asleep in a strange place so is every man that is out of God But when the heart is brought home to God it is in its place Do you think the Prodigal had not more rest in his Fathers house then among the Swine Now a man sees what a blessed change is wrought in his condition that he is come now into a state of Reconciliation with God and of unspeakable advancement of his nature that he is advanced to the greatest freedom to the greatest honor and riches to the best life every way and so this Resignation is an act of the greatest Joy It 's likewise such a work as is with the greatest grief These two will stand together neither can they be parted every mans grief is as his joy is Consider these two things 1. That when a man is brought to God he is put into a state of Judgment and Ingenuity so that now he sees things as they are and looks upon the wrongs he hath done against God with another eye an ingenuous spirit can no more forbear mourning then a stone can forbear falling to the Center 2. Think on this also that Gods end in bringing back the creature is such as cannot be accomplished without this mourning For his end is the Exaltation of his Grace Grace is no grace to an unbroken spirit Sermons of mercy are but empty sounds to a man that knows not what sorrow is God intends to make Christ precious but what is a salve a plaister though the best in the world to a man that is whole Christ came indeed to save the miserable but that man that is not brought to see his misery and mourn over it cares not for Christ Gods end is the engaging of the Creature to himself but that man will never think himself beholding to God that knows not what he hath done against God But when he sees what a wretch he hath been and his heart is stricken within him and he lies melting in sorrow and clothed with shame before God now he thinks body and Soul too little for God now if he had a thousand lives they should all go for God now he saith What can I render to the Lord c. Gods end is to bring his people in so that they may be fast when they are in that they may not go forth again But he that thinks himself off from sins that he never mourn'd for and thinks he hath escaped evil courses that he hath not been broken for will return again A mourning spirit makes a Christian stedfast in his course and this will be a bar between him and his lust He that knows not to mourn knows nor to stand fast Certainly where there is not a spirit of mourning that man hath not resign'd himself to God to this day For that which is the principle of such self-resignation doth by its vertue also work mourning abasement and brokenness of heart If the sight of God in all his goodness be that which moves and draws the Soul as with a cord unto God that very goodness of God which is so apprehended will also break and melt the Soul In Jer. 8.6 saith God I harkened and heard but they spake not aright no man repented of his wickedness saying What have I done Every one turned to his course as the horse rusheth into the battel This people made many promises that they would walk better with God but being not touch'd with an effectual sense of their injurious dealings with God they repented not Therefore they returned every man to his own ways c. If any one now should say I have little of this sorrow and therefore do suspect my self I answer 1. There is a passionate mourning which lies in weeping crying and howling and this every one hath not 2. There is a mental mourning where a man sees the things to be mourned for and where he hath such a spirit that carries him against his way and against himself and is full of wishes O that I had never been so against God and O that I might never do so again and makes the Soul walk humbly it cannot be proud now nor lift up it self because it remembers what it hath been and done against God Canst thou find these things in thy self 3. Again There is a mourning of pure necessity not willingly and contentfully but so as a man cannot avoyd it God presents himself angry and shews sin in its colour and then not an Ahab nor a Judas can forbear mourning but this mourning is bitterness But true mourning is sweet sweeter then all the comforts in the world A right spirit puts the sweetness of Heaven in mourning God cannot please him better with any thing then by touching his spirit and laying it low before him If then thine heart be touched of God and thou love him and feel some meltings thou rejoycest and purst not off this sorrow but bids it welcome and when God as a Father rebukes thee thou blessest him and lovest him 4. There is a mourning that is by fits not habitual The veriest hypocrite in the world you may find sometimes in his closet before God and he will be weeping and mourning and taking on heavily by fits but take him a while after and he is like the dry ground after a Land flood hard as a stone True mourning is another frame of spirit wherein the spirit in an usual course is carried with abasement and a secret lamenting within O
wretch that I am how have I lived thus and thus have I done He mingles the comforts of this world with these sorrows and will have place for this mourning in the midst of all things and cannot but oftentimes have his eye upon himself like Paul I was a Persecuter and a Blasphemer c. 5. Again There is a mourning that is afflicting but not changing Many trouble and vex themselves upon the remembrance of their ways a fire burns in their bowels that they cannot extinguish but it doth not purge them from their dross their tears be salt and brinish but not healing they hang down their heads and walk sadly but carry the same spirit still against God so Ahab so they in 1 Sam. 7.6 Upon Samuels counsel to them they gathered together at Mizpeh and drew water and poured out before the Lord and fasted and said We have sinned against the Lord. They drew water It 's conceived that this drawing of water is an expression of their mourning and their exceeding mourning and they fasted which is an addition and confessed saying We have sinned against the Lord But it came to little as you may see in the eighth Chapter Thou mournest aright when thine heart is changed and when thy mourning tends to the killing of thy sin A fourth thing concerning this Resignation is that it is but in part and yet is certainly in the whole It is in part for no man hath actually perfectly given himself to God in this very gift and holy act of Resignation there is imperfection and something wanting and much more in the execution of this engagement all along Yet notwithstanding this Resignation is whole and entire partly in Gods acceptance God is pleased to take it so to take a part for the whole as much as man can do as if all were done And it is whole and entire in mans intention and desire Though the desire be not perfect and the intent not perfect as to the degree yet both reach to the extent of of that which God calls for Less then this cannot be in a good man and a man beloved of God A man cannot say I am thine if he come not to this For consider God treating with man about this work when he comes to plead for a Resignation he treats not for part but for all Besides when man comes to plead with God he pleads not for part but for all he would be saved not in body alone but in Soul too he would be perfectly saved And take this also that God gives himself wholly unto man if he did not give him his Wisdom and Power and Love man could not love him for how could we love him if his Wisdom Power or any of his glorious Attributes were against us God gives himself to man wholly Again God cannot take less then all for to accept of a partial resignment and to indulge a man a right and power over himself to live according to his own will is to act against those very Laws of his which Nature cannot dispense with As to take that which is the first and fundamental Law Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart with all thy Soul and with all thy might If any now upon the apprehension of the truth of this should say This makes me fear and suspect my self because I do not find that this giving up of my self is so entire and compleat I would have such consider that Resignation lies not so much in doing and being all that God requires as in willingness to be and to do all It is necessary to be and to do all that God requires and we are obliged to this but this Resignation lies chiefly in this in being willing to be and to do so that is a speech methinks that falls pat with the condition of the people of God Neh. 1.11 O Lord let thine ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servants who desire to fear thy Name But let there be no mistake for when I say Resignation lies chiefly in a willingness to be and to do all that God requires mark what kind of willingness it is it must be such as is vigorous as puts on to endevors so that it sets the Soul down mourning when it finds shortness of power I add this lest any as the world oftentimes doth should hurt himself by such an excuse as this I confess I do not but I would do well my ways are not good but I like them not my heart is better The world will one day see how destructive and fallacious these pleas are Again There is a great difference between sin dwelling in us and sin entertained by us between sin remaining and sin reserved Reservation of sin is against the nature of this absolute Resignation but a man that truly resigns himself may and doth want power to cast forth of doors every sin and every degree of it No man that hath resigned himself to God doth entertain it he doth not like it nor comply with it he doth not plot conspire or devise how he may save and enjoy his sin he lives not in the purposes of it this is against the nature of resigning our selves to God 5. This work of Resignation is a work once done and yet always doing When God hath so wrought upon the heart by effectual perswasions and his mighty power God saith I am thy God and the Soul answers in truth And I am thine Now is the Resignation actually made But though this be done yet it is still always doing while we are in this world nay to Eternity for it 's a thing that consists of an iteration of multiplied acts As Wedlock is not one single act of giving of persons each to other but if they live like married persons as they should there is a dayly giving of themselves each to other their hearts go out every day with complaceney and delight rejoycing in renewing the bond and making the league yet firmer and firmer It 's so between God and us 6. This Resignation is such a thing as when 't is once done is never undone Herein this Contract of man with God differs from all others in the world for all other Contracts have a time to cease By Contract one becomes another mans servant for a time The most durable Contract is that of Marriage yet it admits of a double breach by death or by divorce But here neither of these take place there 's no divorce after marriage with God and no death comes unto that Soul which becomes his for these two things hold such a man 1. The infinite goodness of God with which the Soul is so satisfied and contented that it cannot in any constant course and stay continue and give up it self to any other thing no more then a man can be willing to leave the light of the Sun to go to live where there is no light but of a Candle or to forsake Paradise if he were
and our Redeemer thy Name is upon us See what a conclusion here is made Doubtless thou art our Father and therefore we call to thee for help 3. There is this encouragement and strength that the spirit of a man receives in thus arguing with God that if he can say in truth I am thine God much more will say to the creature I am thine If we have so much love to offer our selves to God to become his much more will the love of God make him to become ours for God loves first and most and surest If mine heart rise toward God much more is the heart of God toward me because there Love is in the Fountain CHAP. IV. Wicked mens prayers not to be dreaded The sins of those that pray greatest Some out-live the contests of the Spirit Three things to be still done by those who have resigned themselves to God NOw I come to the Application Vse If there must be such a Resigning of our selves to God when we come to him then truly you need never fear the prayers of the men of this world assure your selves they wish you as much evil as it is possible and their hearts cannot love you they envy all your welfare and the constant vote of their spirits is that your day were turned into night and that in stead of light darkness should be round about you but it matters not though they put up such prayers to God they are but bruta fulmina The reason of it is because they come to God without that which is the nerves and sinews of prayer If they come to God and bow the knee before him that God would bless them and prosper them poor Creatures they speak to no purpose because they deal hypocritically with God for they bow the knee and call him Lord as if he were their Lord but they do what they list and are their own Lords Rulers and Commanders Hos 7.14 God saith the people of Israel dealt so with him They did not cry to me with their hearts when they howled upon their beds and assembled themselves for corn and for wine and rebelled against me They pray that God would do so such a good turn for them but they shut their hearts against God and had a rebellious spirit at the same time Though I have strengthened their arm yet they imagined mischief against me They are no friends of my Cause and Kingdom in this world but wish their overthrow though I have shewed them mercy In Hos 4.7 8. it 's said They have set their hearts on iniquity and it shall be like people like Priests and I 'le punish them for their ways and reward them for their doings or as the word is I will cause their doings to be turned upon them Men may think when they come to God that the sins of so many years past are forgotten that God will not reckon with them for sins so long past and so they come to God in their filth and with their hearts unwashen But saith God They are deceived I will turn their ways upon them and though they be sins of so long time backward yet I 'le remember them In Hos 8.3 Israel cryed to me My God we know thee What saith God Israel hath cast off the thing that is good the Enemy shall pursue him They have set up Kings but not by me c. They say My God we know thee No saith God I 'le not know you thou hast cast off the thing that is good Mal. 2.2 3. You have God expressing himself to this purpose If you will not hear and lay to heart to give glory to my Name A man dishonors God and puts the greatest indignity and affront upon God that can be when he refuseth to hear and obey Then I 'le curse your blessings and cast even the dung of your solemn Feasts on your faces c. That 's a strange thing but it was so their solemn Feasts were as dung to God and God saith he will cast them as dung in their faces and they shall be a dunghill which my Soul abhors You need not fear the prayers of such men as are without yoke and fear not God but the prayers of Saints are to be dreaded because they have power with God if they come to God and say Save me I am thine God will answer I am thine I will save thee 2. If when we come to God we must make a resignment of our selves to God and acknowledg we are not our own but his Then we learn secondly that the sins of a praying people are the greatest sins there be no sins that are so out of measure sinful as the sins of those that pray and pray most Hath God made thee as a Prince with himself hath God set open a door that thou mayst have access to him hath he given thee leave in the day of thy straits to pour out thy Soul hast thou in the midst of those mercies in the sense of the sweetness of those visions said to God that thou art his and hast thou departed from him hast thou given to him a withdrawing shoulder as it 's said of them This sin is of the highest nature for it is a renewed Apostacy Those that are without God and Christ in the world are Apostates but it is by one Apostacy it is a continued act wherein they are held but now thou art gone out from God after thou hadst returned to him thou hast gone from the unspeakable refreshings of the Father of mercies and hast offered violence to the many engagements which thou hast layd yea which they have layd upon thy Soul thou hast broken the bonds of them all Sins after Resignation and after the matter of difference is taken up between God and the Creature are not to be easily passed over they are the worst sins Remember your selves as many as have known Jesus Christ when you said to God that you would walk with him did you mean it And hast thou fallen from the truth into a lye The world many times come to God and say many good words that they will be his but as it 's said of them in Psal 78.36 They flattered with their lips and lyed with their tongues their hearts were not stedfast in the Covenant with their God They minded no such thing but thou didst and therefore boundst thy self more thou didst intend to be bound When thou engagedst thy self to God thou didst it upon the greatest reason through the enforcement of the highest Arguments thou feltst the power of God conquering and subduing thee and thou yieldedst thy self to be his for ever And remember how often thou hast said this to God Is not the voyce of thy Soul still in his ears Doth not he remember the language thou hast uttered And after thou hast said it again and again that thou wouldst do no more so after thou hast said Thou art and shalt be my God for thee to draw back
with a petition in one hand and with weapons of defiance in the other hand Wilt thou come to God with the face of a Petitioner and with the spirit of a Rebel What infinite boldness is this with God I have before shewed you the horridness of this kind of prayer and the horrid things that such prayers impose upon God But consider further whilest thou retainest a resolution and bent of heart set towards thy sin and yet wilt pray thou art in a necessity of sinning do thou what thou canst If thou dost not pray thou sinnest by breaking of a Law of Nature which enjoyns the creature to acknowledg his dependance upon his Maker by prayer and supplication If in the day of thy distress thou comest to ask mercy thou sinnest more So that thou art as a Ship between two Rocks that must needs perish upon one there is no escaping so is thy Soul in the midst of sin and to be in the midst of sin is to be in the midst of death And thou every day makest thy condition more unhappy that wherein thou blessest thy self and rejoycest thy prayers are so far from being any reasonable relief unto thee that they are matter of amazement and astonishment to a man that rightly understands What have I done may such a man say I have been with God and mock'd him to his face I have called him Lord but I am not his servant but serve my self and divers lusts I called my self his Subject but I am a Rebel Nay this is a blaspheming of God Men commonly are afraid of blasphemy but thou that comest to God praying but sinning that is having thy heart upon thy evil ways thou that comest praying but not yielding thou blasphemest God to his face thus to make thy self equal with God is blasphemy it was so judg'd in the heart of that people Joh. 10. but they mistook in the Case But when thou makest thy self the chiefest of thine own affections thou makest thy self equal with God whose priviledg and supremacy it is to be chiefest in the affections of his Creature and to have the highest superintendency over the spirits of his people to command them Nay thou makest thy self greater then God because thou thinkest it nothing to transgress to offend and offer violence to his Commands but thou takest all pleasure and contentment in gratifying thine own wicked spirit Thou makest that greatest to which thou most yieldest when thou then yieldest unto sin and leavest God hast not thou made thy self greater then God Very high dishonors are offered to God in such a course past expression Mark that in Mal. 2.2 If you will not hear and lay to heart to give glory to my Name I will even send a curse upon you If you will not hear and yield your selves to my Commands to give me glory As if he had said If you will not acknowledg me to be what I am but deny me if you will not submit to the Authority and Wisdom of my Commands I 'le send a Curse upon you And by this means thou dost as thou canst destroy that which doth only difference thee from Devils for the Devils are cast into that condemnation which shall come upon the world but Man hath a possibility to escape Now thou dost what thou canst to make thy Salvation impossible and to fasten and tye up thy Soul to the condemnation of those apostate Angels whilest thou refusest to turn unto God from whom thou hast departed and dost not acknowledg the grace and mercy of that open door for poor creatures to return again to the God of mercy And be sure of this If you be not the Lords the Lord will not be yours You have such a passage They are not mine break down their bulwarks I 'le take no knowledg of Jerusalem because she takes no knowledg of me What a thing is this that God stands with both hands to give out mercy to the Creature as it is said of Wisdom Prov. 3.16 Length of days is in her right hand and in her left hand riches and honour and that the Creature shall bend both his hands against God Such a passage you have in Micah 7.3 Men do evil with both hands earnestly Now then consider how much it concerns every one of you that have not yet given your selves to God to do it now What an unhappy creature art thou if God shall shut out thy prayers when straits fears and death come Thy prayers are no more then the howling of Dogs and Wolves because thou prayest to God and thy spirit is not given up in obedience to him I shall now turn to those who have given up their spirits to God You must do it still when you come to God Faith and Love which are two fundamental graces of universal influence to all the rest are to be continually used and acted Others are to be acted upon occasion but these have their constant work every day these must be acted When I say that upon our coming to God there must be a giving up of our selves to God I mean these three things 1. That there must be a willing and hearty acknowledgment that we are Gods and not our own We must see the bonds of God upon upon us and like it and own it we must hate all other freedom that is offered us we must account it true bondage and be glad that such a day is come wherein God took us out of our own hands and hath taken us into his Psal 119.106 I have sworn and will perform I confess Lord that is my hand and my bond I will not for a thousand worlds go back Certainly there should be no other spirit in you when you come to God but to acknowledg your selves to be his and under his Commands a Christian cannot but do it Partly because he sees his happiness lies in this he sees in his coming again to be the Lords there is a restitution of all that blessedness from which he fell by his Apostacy By becoming Gods he sees that God also is become his How may the Soul raise it self in joy when it can say this God is my God all he hath and is is mine he is mine to all Eternity The acknowledging of this engagement wherein he stands to God and of Gods engaging of himself to him is all his happiness from whence springs all his power and confidence in prayer I can go boldly saith he to Heaven because God is my God I can go and ask all things because he is mine and I am his Partly also because he loves him with a love of complacency the Soul hath all contentment in him Never did a spouse speak to her husband whom her Soul loved to the highest more willingly and say I am thine then the spirit of an upright man saith to God Lord I am thine And he loves him with a love of thankfulness Hast thou given thy self to me saith he and shall I then withhold
other life appointed for Saints The fulness beauty and satisfaction of this life How Christians offer violence to their relation IN this Chapter I would make Exhortation to all that have Interest in God to live upon it Only first I will shew what it is to live upon God as our God And it is First To cleave to God with joy of heart to live in the affectionate embraces of God in Christ and delightful conversings with him to have God for our life as it is said of Jacob concerning Benjamin His Soul his life was bound up in the life of the child Gen. 44.13 that is they had one lot if one lived the other lived their joys were the same they could not be severed or parted they were but as one So we should be towards God our lives should be so bound up in him we should be one with him Secondly To live upon God is to contract all our desires into God to have none but what are for him and according to him This is the way of life indeed when God is a mans all when the language of his Soul is Whom have I in Heaven but Thee Thus to have desires to God that he rests not in any thing beneath God nor seek any thing besides God that is to live in God Thirdly To live in a faithful real resignation of ones self unto God If you be his you know that he hath taken chosen and set apart the good man for himself Psal 4. And so must we live as sequestred persons as those that are his that as the holy things of the Temple were for no other use so must we be only for God In Hos 3.3 't is said Thou shalt abide with me many days thou shalt not play the harlot thou shalt not be for another man but shalt be unto me so will I also be for thee God will stand close to that spirit and be the comfort stay and life of it that reserves it self for him Fourthly It is to contract and draw all your expectations upon God to lay all your weight there If there be any thing thou promisest thine own heart let it be from the bosom of God if there be any answer that thou makest to the fears doubts and troubles of thy spirit let it be from the voyce of the Lord. Thus David in Psal 62.2 He only is my Rock and my Salvation he is my defence I shall not be greatly moved And he saith at vers 5. My Soul wait thou only upon God for my expectation is from him He tells you what God is to him and what indeed he looks for from God What God is to him He is my Rock and my Salvation in God is my Salvation and my Glory he is the Rock of my strength He tells you also what he expects from God My Refuge is from him so that if I need safety or refreshing and supply of any good mine eye is upon him and from him I look for all This is to live upon God Having expressed in a few words what it is to live upon God Now take those Considerations which perswade to live such a life as this First There is no other life for you This is appointed for you to this you are called for this you are fitted Fishes may as well live in the ayr as you live in the world You may try and weary out your selves in vain but God is your life This be sure of if you neglect this life either dulness and benumedness will fall upon you so that you will grow sensual brutish and earthly strangers to the joy activity and tenderness of holy Christians or you shall fall into a dis-rest an unsufferable unquietness of spirit while you are as a rouling thing in the wind having no consistence because you are out of your place You shall be afflicted within and this will be your great evil that you lived not in God And now because you seek life in other things you shall dig for your own death And if you have any reason it will work to your own affliction vex and torment your Souls night and day because you did not walk in the counsels of the Most high and the embracements of his Love Your sweetest enjoyments will be all sowred like the waters of Jericho bitterness will be in them not to be endured Secondly This is a life that should be most pleasing and amiable unto our spirits and certainly we are dead and alienated from God if there be not an incomparable sweetness to us in it For 1. It is the fullest life The life of all other things hath something mixed with it the life of your enjoyments your pleasures and relations is a mixt life there is death in all your comforts and you taste it and are sick of it many times you know it well It is true there is nothing that God hath made and appointed for our use but brings in some portion of life our garments give a little and our food a little and friends give something but how little do all these give But now this life is all life the life you have from other things is a short poor narrow life but this life is more compleat Take the life of a man that hath whatsoever his heart can wish his comforts strike but upon his sense or at best have but some light touch upon his spirit Alas the Souls of men cannot drink at these Cisterns Life that comes from these things hath not immortality in it such things are as far from immortality as they are from sufficiency The wisest the richest and most honorable that have the fullest life dye because the life they have by such things cannot hold pace with the Soul nor communicate a life of consistency But the life we have with God extends to the whole course and capacity of the Soul it fills up every corner and leaves no want 2. It is a life that gives perfect satisfaction he can ask no more that hath it 3. It is a life that beautifies the Soul Mens complexions usually are as their dyet is Oh he that feeds on God what a rare complexion is his Soul of It makes him like to God it reduceth a Soul from a miserable separation into a blessed and orderly union Our life being in one God one Good which is all Good he that lives this life would dye ten thousand deaths rather then part with it Thou well knewest Peter what thou saidst in Joh. 6. When Christ said to his Disciples Will ye also go away then Simon Peter answered To whom shall we go Lord Thou hast the words of eternal life Whither dost thou think we can go when we knew thee not we could indeed be without thee but now we know thee whither shall we go When Nature comes to a state of Consistency it rests it seeks no more That man is in such a state that is in God that enjoys him and his Love and rests in him