his Happiness For what greater torment can our Mind endure than to be an everlasting Spectator of the Bliss and Happiness of one whom it hates How then will it fret and gall our meagre and envious Spirits to see that blessed Being whom we cannot endure surrounded with an infinite Happiness with a Happiness so vast as that it can admit of no Increase and yet so secure as that it can never suffer a Diminution So that 't is impossible you see for the Mind of Man to live happily upon God in the other life unless it be inspired before-hand with an hearty Love and Affection to him AND hence it is that our holy Religion doth so strictly require us to love the Lord our God with all our heart with all our soul and with all our mind Mat. xxii 37 to love him because he loved us first to delight our selves in the Lord Psal. xxxvii 4 and to rejoice in the Lord Phil. iii. 1 and to rejoice in the Lord always Phil. iv 4 i. e. to be habitually complacent or well pleased with the infinite Beauty Goodness and Perfection of the divine Nature Nay of such vast import is the Love of God in the account of the Gospel that 't is there recommended as the proper Principle of Christian Life For so Rom. xiii 10 we are told that love is the fulfilling of the law that is the adequate Principle of all Christian Obedience and Gal. v. 6 we are told that neither Circumcision nor uncircumcision availeth any thing in Christ Jesus but faith which worketh by love that is there is nothing of any account with Christ buch such a Belief of the Gospel as begets in us a hearty Love to God and doth thereby work and exert it self as by that which is the only genuine Principle of Christian Life and Action 'T is true beside this principle of Love the Gospel acts us both by our Fear and Hope exciting the one by Threatnings of the greatest Evils and animating the other with Promises of the greatest Goods but yet it is certain that neither these nor any other Principles of religious Action can be acceptable to God whilst they are totally separated from Love to him For there is no Principle of Obedience can be acceptable to God that is not a Principle of Universal Obedience but to love God being a great and main instance of Obedience that can be no principle of Universal Obedience which doth not effectually excite us to love him 'T IS true the Religion of most men begins upon the Principles of Hope and Fear and it cannot be denied but these are good Beginnings but yet till by these we are excited to love God as well as to do the other Parts of our Duty our Obedience is lame and partial and consequently unacceptable So that though Hope and Fear are good Ingredients to compound an acceptable Principle of Obedience yet without an Intermixture of Love they are by no means sufficient There may be indeed and at first there generally is much less of Love in this internal spring of our Obedience than of Hope or Fear whilst yet the whole Composition is truly pleasing and acceptable to God For the lowest degree of cordial Love intermixed with our Hope and Fear is sufficient to leaven and consecrate them into an acceptable Principle of Obedience but still the less of Love there is in it the more weak and languid and imperfect it is and in all its progresses towards Perfection its ripeness and maturity is to be measured by the degrees of Love that are in it And till our Love is arrived to that degree of Fervour and Ardency as to become the predominant Motive and Master Ingredient of this our compounded Principle of Obedience our state in Goodness is very low and imperfect So that in short the Principle that acts and moves us in Religion is still more and more perfect the more of Love there is in it and the less of Hope and Fear and when Hope and Fear are both swallowed up in Love and this is become the sole Spring of Action in us then 't is the Principle of Heaven the Soul that acts and animates the Religion of just men made perfect SO that if ever we design to grow up to their blessed State we must endeavour to kindle and blow up the Love of God in our Hearts And in order hereunto we must be frequently representing to our own Minds the infinite Reasons we have to love him and pressing our selves with the vast Obligations he hath laid upon us spreading them fairly before our Thoughts in all their endearing Circumstances We must ever and anon set our cold and frozen Souls before those melting Flames of his Love and Beauty and never leave chafing them at 'em urging and pressing them with the Consideration of them till we feel the heavenly Fire begin to kindle in our Bosoms And above all things we must take care by the constant Practice of what is agreeable to Gods Nature to reconcile our Minds and Tempers to him for till this is done we can never be habitually pleased or delighted in him but when once by the Practice of those eternal Rules of Goodness that are founded in his blessed Nature we have so far reconciled our Natures to him as that our Hearts and his stand bent the same way and are for the main alike inclined and disposed then we are prepared for and made proper and convenient Fuel to receive this heavenly Flame of Love to him and when this is once so throughly kindled in our Hearts as that we are habitually well pleased and delighted in him so as to rejoice in his Happiness acquiesce in his Will and meditate on his Beauty and Goodness with an unfeigned complacency of Soul we are then in the same State that is in Kind though not in Degree with the blessed People of Heaven And though in this Life we may not be able to raise our selves to that Height of Love as we desire and much less as that blessed Object deserves our present Knowlege being short our Thoughts unsteady and our Affections entangled in Sense and sensual things yet when we go from hence into the other World and are there admitted to a more intimate View of his Nature Works and Perfections our imperfect Love will be immediately improved into an high Seraphick Flame For now we shall not only know him better having him always in our View and continually shining full in our Eyes but we shall be removed from all other Objects that are apt to divert our Thoughts or divide our Affections from him So that now our Love being kindled and fed with the purest Light with the ever out-streaming Rays of the most perfect Beauty and Goodness will always exert its utmost Vigour and spend it self without Decay in one continued everlasting Rapture AND then how unconceivably happy will our State be when we shall always live in view of the most lovely
Conversation should be a continual Intercourse of mutual Mischiefs and Vexations especially considering how they here laid the foundation of an eternal Quarrel against one another For there all those Companions in Sin will meet who by their ill Counsels wicked Insinuations and bad Examples did mutually contribute to each others Ruine and being met in such a woful State how will the tormenting sense of those irreparable injuries they have done each other whet their Fury against and incite them to play the Devils with one another And what can be expected from such a Company of waspish Beings so implacably incensed against one another but that being shut up together in the infernal Den they should be perpetually hissing at and stinging each other But then besides those mutual plagues which these furious Spirits must be supposed to inflict upon one another they will be also nakedly exposed to the powerful Malice of the Devils those fierce Executioners of Gods righteous Vengeance who as we now find by Experience have power to suggest black and horrid Thoughts to us and to torture our Souls with such dreadful Imaginations as are far more sharp and exquisite than any bodily Torments And if now they have such Power over us when God thinks fit to let them loose what will they have hereafter when our wretched Spirits shall be wholly abandoned to their Mercy and they shall have free Scope to exercise their Fury upon us and glut their hungry Malice with our Griefs and Vexations It seems at least a mighty probable Notion that that horrid Agony of our Saviour in the Garden which caused him to shriek and grone and sweat as it were great Drops of Blood was chiefly the effect of those preternatural Terrours which the Devils with whom he was then contesting impressed upon his innocent Mind And if they had so much Power over his pure and mighty Soul that was so strongly guarded with the most perfect and unspotted Virtues what will they have over ours when we are abandoned to them and thrown as Preys into their Mouths With what an Hellish Rage will they fly upon our guilty and timorous Souls in which there is so much Tinder for their injected Sparks of Horror to take fire on SINCE therefore Rancour and Malice doth so naturally incline and hurry our Souls towards the wretched Society of Devils and damned Spirits the Gospel which so industriously consults our Happiness takes all possible Care to train us up in Charity and mutual Love and makes it a Principal as well as necessary Part of our Christian Life heartily to love one another For this as our Saviour tells us is the Darling Precept which lay next to his Heart this is my Commandment that ye love one another Joh. xv 12 And accordingly we are bid not only to follow after Charity 1 Cor. xiv 1 and to do all things with Charity 1 Cor. xvi 14 but also to put on Charity above all things Col. iii. 14 and to dwell in Love which the Apostle tells us is to dwell in God who is Love 1 Joh. iv 16 The intent of all which is to oblige us to bear an universal good Will to all and to take an hearty Complacency in all that are truly lovely to be ready to contribute to and rejoice in every ones Good and Welfare and in a word to live in the continual exercise of all those charitable Offices which our present State and Condition requires and calls for To be courteous and affable and to treat all those we converse with with an obliging Look a gentile Deportment and endearing Language To be long-suffering mild and easie to be entreated not to break forth into Rage and Storm upon every petty Provocation and when we are justly provoked not to suffer our Displeasure to fester into Malice and Rancour but to be forward and easie to be reconciled To be of a compassionate and sympathizing Temper and to rejoice with those that rejoice and weep with those that weep To be candid Interpreters of Men and their Actions to be ready to mitigate and excuse their Faults and put fair Comments on their Actions and to be so far from making malicious Glosses on their innocent Meaning from proclaiming their Miscarriages and rejoicing in their Falls as not to believe ill of them but upon undeniable Evidence and when we are forced to do so to pity and lament them and endeavour and pray and hope for their Reformation In short to be benign and bountiful to the necessitous and distressed and to endeavour according to our Ability to allay their Sorrows remove their Oppressions support them under their Calamities and counsel them in their Doubts to be ready to every good Work and like Fields of Spices to be scattering our Perfumes through all the Neighbourhood and all this out of an honest and sincere purpose to promote their Good and not meerly to acquire to our selves a popular Vogue and Reputation All which are essential Parts of that Charity which the Gospel enjoins us to exercise towards one another For so the Apostle assures us 1 Cor. xiii 4 5 6 7. Charity suffereth long and is kind charity envieth not charity vaunteth not it self is not puffed up doth not behave it self unseemly seeketh not her own is not easily provoked thinketh no evil rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth beareth all things believeth all things hopeth all things endureth all things NOW though there be several Acts of Charity that will cease for ever in Heaven such as long-suffering giving of Alms and forgiving of Injuries and the like because among the People of Heaven there will be none of the Faults or Miseries about which these Acts are conversant yet even the Practice of these is indispensably necessary to temper and dispose our Minds to heavenly Charity which till we are disposed to by universal Love we shall never be capable of exercising but since all virtuous Dispositions are acquired by Acts it is impossible we should acquire the Disposition of universal Love unless we universally practise it 'T is by giving Alms that that we must acquire cordial Charity to the poor and needy and by forgiving Injuries that we must dispose our selves to love those that offend us For these Acts are Causes as well as Signs of a charitable Temper and are necessary not only to signifie it where it is but also to produce it where it is not When therfore by acting all those Parts of Charity which are proper to this as well as the other State we have acquired this blessed Disposition of universal Charity our Minds are fairly framed and tempered for the Society of Heaven And though in the perpetual Justle and Tumult of this World some little Piques and Displeasures should now and then arise in our Minds yet if in the cool and standing Temper of our Souls we are hearty Well-wishers to all Men and hearty Lovers of all that do in any measure love and resemble
Nature but still it hangs upon me and sinks and weighs down my Soul as oft as 't is aspiring towards thee O my God have pity upon me deliver me from this Body of Sin ease my weary and heavy laden Soul of this grievous Burthen under which it labours and groans and suffer not this spark of divine Life which thou hast kindled in me to be opprest and extinguisht by it but so cherish it I beseech thee with the continual Influences of thy Grace as that it may at length it may break through all this Rubbish that suppresses it and finally rise into a glorious Flame Then shall I always approach thee with Joy and breath up my Soul to thee in every Prayer then shall my Heart be firmly united to thee in a devout and chearful Affection and my Prayers shall come up as incense before thee and breathe a sweet-smelling savour into thy Nostrils Hear me therefore O my God I beseech thee and strengthen me with all might in the inward man that for the future I may contend more vigorously and successfully against these vile Inclinations of my Nature which do so miserably hamper and depress my soul that so at last I may be a conqueror and more than a conquerer through Jesus Christ our Lord Amen If through any bodily Infirmity such as Melancholy Weariness Drousiness or Sickness you find your self indisposed to divine Offices indeavour to quicken your sluggish Mind with the Consideration of some one of the most moving Arguments of your Religion such as the Love of God and of your Saviour the Majesty of Gods Presence in which you are or the blessed Immortality you hope for and then address your self to God in this following Prayer O Blessed God thou art a most pure and active Spirit who doest always move with an uncontrolable Freedom and art never hindred or wearied in thy Operations have pity upon me I beseech thee thy poor infirm Creature who am cumbred with this Body of death and so deprest by its manifold Frailties that I cannot lift up my Heart unto thee Thou knowest O Lord my spirit is willing though my flesh is weak my labouring Soul aspires towards thee it stretches forth the Wings of its Desires toward thee and would fain mount up above all earthly things and unite it self with thee in eternal Love but alas its Fervours are dampt and its Endeavours tired by this clog of Flesh that hangs upon it and perpetually sinks and weighs it down again O my God draw near unto me and touch my Mind with such a powerful sense of thee as in despight of these my bodily Indispositions may attract and draw up my Soul unto thee And if it be thy blessed will release me from these fleshly Incumbrances and fit my Body to my Mind that I may serve thee as I desire to do with a fervent and a chearful Spirit But if it shall seem good in thine Eyes to leave me strugling under these bodily Oppressions Lord give me Patience and Submission to thy heavenly Will that so when I cannot approach thee with that Pleasure and Satisfaction I desire I may be heartily content to serve thee upon any Terms and that what I want of Vigour and Chearfulness in my Religion I may make up in Truth and in Reality And O let the Sense of these my present Indispositions cause me more vehemently to long after that free and blessed State wherein with fixt and steady Thoughts with flagrant Love and an entire Devotion of Soul I shall for ever worship praise and glorifie thy name Amen If through present Worldly-mindedness or Vanity of Spirit you find your self cold and apt to be distracted in your Religious Offices indeavour to stir up your Affections by representing to your self the Greatness and Urgency of your spiritual Wants the Vanity of all outward things and the Reality and Fulness of heavenly Enjoyments And do what you can to recollect your wandring Thoughts by setting your self in the Presence of the great God to whose All-seeing Eye every Thought and Motion of your Soul is open and naked And when by thus doing you have composed your Mind into a more serious Frame present this following Prayer O Thou ever blessed Majesty who fillest Heaven and Earth with thy Presence and art always listening to the Supplications of a world of Creatures that hang upon thee open I beseech thee thine Ears of Mercy to me who am unfit and unworthy to approach thee who by setting my Affections upon things below and plunging my self into the Cares and Pleasures of this Life have estrang'd and alienated my Mind from thee and lost that delightful Relish of thee with which I was wont to draw near unto thee And now that I am retired from the World to converse with thee and spread my wants and my desires before thee those worldly Cares and Delights with which I have been too too conversant are importunately thrusting themselves upon me to divert my Thoughts distract my Intentions and carry away my Affections from thee by reason whereof my Mind wanders my Hope droops and my Desires are frozen and whilst I am drawing near thee with my lips my heart is running away from thee O my God have pity upon me pluck my Soul out of this deep mire quicken raise and spiritualize these my groveling Affections Possess this Heart which opens it self to thy gracious Influences with such a strong and vigorous Love to thee as may lift me up above all earthly things and continually carry forth my Soul in vehement Desires after thee that so I may always approach thee with a joyful Heart being glad to leave the company of all other things to go to thee my God my exceeding Joy Give me a sober diligent and collected spirit that is neither choaked with Cares nor scattered with Levity nor discomposed with Passion nor estranged from thee with sinful Prejudice or Inadvertency but fix it fast to thy self with the Indissoluble Bands of an active Love and pregnant Devotion that so when-ever I prostrate my self before thee I may presently be born away far above all these sensible Goods in a high Admiration of thee and a passionate Longing after thee And now O Lord while I am addressing to thee gather in I beseech thee my wandering Thoughts and fix and stay them upon thy self And O do thou touch my cold and earthy Desires with an out-stretched Ray from thy self and cause them to rise and flame up to thee in Fervours answerable to my pressing Wants that I may so ask as that I may receive so seek as that I may find so knock as that it may be opened unto me through Jesus Christ my blessed Lord and Redeemer Amen If after this you find your Heart is very much enlarged and your Mind and Affections vigorously disposed towards God and heavenly things fix your Mind a little while upon the Beauty and Excellency of his Nature or upon some of the most
because he places it in the midst of those two Virtues which border nearest upon Prudence NOW that the Practice of this Virtue is a most proper and effectual Means of our Everlasting Happiness is evident from hence Because the Practice of it is a constant Exercise of Reason For to act prudently in Religion is to follow the best Reason to aim at Heaven which is the best End and direct our Actions thither by the best Rules 'T is to consult what is best for our selves and how it may be most effectually obtained In a word it is to intend the chiefest Good above All and to level our Lives and Actions most directly towards it This is Religious Prudence in the General and as for those Particulars of it which we are obliged to exercise in the several States Relations and Circumstances wherein we are placed they all consist in doing what is most fit and reasonable with respect to that Great and Blessed End FOR by living in the continual Practice of Religious Prudence we shall by degrees habituate our selves to a Life of Reason and shake off that drowsie Charm of Sense and Passion which hangs upon our Minds and renders our Faculties so dull and unactive And having disused our selves a while to obey their blind and imperious Dictates our Reason will reassume its Throne in us and direct all our Aims and Endeavours to what is Fittest and most Reasonable For we being finite and limited Beings cannot operate divers ways with equal vigour at once and our Faculties are made in such a regular and aequilibrious order that proportionably as the one does increase in Activity the others always decay And so accordingly as we abate in the strength of our Brutish we we shall improve in the vigour of our Rational Faculties But to act suitably to their Natures being the End of all our Faculties and Powers of Action the God of Nature to excite them thereto has founded all their Pleasure in the vigorous Exercise of them upon suitable Objects Since therefore our Reason is the best and noblest of all Powers of Action to be sure the greatest Pleasure we are capable of must spring out of the Exercise of our Reason Wherefore since Prudence consists in the Vse of our Reason the Practice thereof must needs effectually contribute to our Pleasure and Happiness For Vse and Exercise will mightily strengthen and improve our Reason and render it not only more apprehensive of what is fit and reasonable but also more persuasive and prevalent and when once it is improved into a prevailing Principle of Action and hath acquired not only Skill enough to prescribe what is Right to us but also Power enough to persuade us to comply with its prescriptions to chuse and refuse to love and hate to hope and fear desire and delight and regulate all our Actions by its Laws and Dictates then are we entring upon our Heaven and Happiness FOR that which makes us unhappy is that our sinful and ureasonable Affections do so hamper and intangle us that we cannot freely exercise our Faculties upon such Objects as are most suitable to them that our Minds and Wills are so fettered by our vicious Inclinations that we cannot exert them upon that which is most worthy to be Known and Chosen without a great deal of Difficulty and Distraction But now under the Conduct of our Reason our Faculties will by Degrees recover their Freedom and disengage themselves from those vicious Encumbrances which do so clog and interrupt them in all their Rational Motions And when this is throughly effected we are in full Possession of the Heavenly State which as I have shewed consists in the free and vigorous Exercise of our Rational Faculties upon the best and worthiest Objects For when once our Passions and Appetites are perfectly subdued to our Reason all our Rational Faculties will be free and every one will move towards its proper Object without any Lett or Hindrance our Vnderstanding will be swallowed up in a fixt Contemplation of the sublimest Truth our Wills intirely resigned to the Choice and Embraces of the truest Good our Affections unalterably devoted to the Love and Fruition of the most excellent Beauty and Perfection and in this consists the Happy State of Heaven So that to live prudently or which is the same to govern our selves by our best Reason is both a necessary and effectual means of attaining to the Heavenly State II. ANOTHER Virtue which appertains to a Man considered meerly as a Rational Animal is MODERATION which consists in proportioning our Concupiscible Affections to the just worth and value of Things so as neither to spend our Affections too prodigally upon Trifles nor yet be over-sparing or niggardly of them to real and substantial Goods But to love desire and expect things more or less according to the Estimate which our best and most impartial Reason makes of their Worth and Goodness For he that affects things more than in the Esteem of Reason they deserve affects them irrationally and regulates his Passion by his wild and extravagant Imagination and not by his Reason and Judgment And while men do thus neglect their Reason and accustome themselves to desire and love and affect without it they necessarily disable themselves to enjoy a Rational Happiness For besides that their Rational Faculties being thus laid by and unemployed will naturally contract Rust and grow every day more weak and restive Besides that their unexercised Reason will melt away in Sloth and Idleness and all its vital Powers freeze for want of motion and like standing water stagnate and gather mire and by degrees corrupt and putrefie till at last it will be impossible to revive them to the vigorous Exercise and Motion wherein their Pleasure and Happiness consists Besides this I say by habituating our selves to affect things irrationally i. e. to love the least Goods most and the greatest least we shall disable our selves from enjoying any Goods but only such as cannot make us happy For he that loves any Good more than it is worth can never be happy in the enjoyment of it because he thinks there is more in it than he finds and so is always disappointed in the Fruition of it And the Grief of being disappointed of what he expects does commonly countervail the Pleasure of what he finds and enjoys While he is in the pursuit of any Good which he inordinately dotes upon he is wild and imaginative he swells with Phantastick Joys and juggles himself into Expectations that are as large and boundless as his Desires But when once he is seized of it and finds how vastly the Enjoyment falls short of his Expectation his Pleasure is presently lost in his Disappointment and so he remains as unsatisfied as ever And thus if he were to spend an Eternity in such Pursuits and Enjoyments his Life would be nothing but an Everlasting Succession of Expectations and Disappointments So that all inordinate Affection destroys its own
Satisfaction and necessarily renders us by so many Degrees miserable as it exceeds the real worth and value of Things BESIDES which also it is to be considered that all these lesser Goods which are the Objects of our Extravagant Affections are things which we must ere long be for ever deprived of For the lesser Goods are those which are only good for the worser Part of us that is for our Body and Animal Life the proper Goods whereof are the Outward Sensitive Enjoyments of this World All which when we leave this world we must leave for ever and go away into Eternity with nothing about us but only the Good or Bad Dispositions of our Souls So that if our Soul be carnalized through our immoderate Affection to the things of this World we shall carry that Affection with us but leave the things which we thus vehemently affect behind us for ever For that which is the prevailing Temper of Souls in this Life will doubtless be so in the other too and so far is that of the Poet true Quae gratia currûm Armorúmque fuit vivis quae cura nitentes Pascere equos eadem sequitur tellure repostos For though the coming into the other world will questionless improve those Souls which are really good before yet it is not to be imagined how it should create those good who are habitually bad and if we retain in the other world that Prevailing Affection to these sensitive Goods which we contracted in this it must necessarily render us unspeakably miserable there For every Lust the Soul carries into the other world will by being eternally separated from its Pleasures convert into an Hopeless Desire and upon that account grow more furious and impatient For of all the Torments of the mind I know none that is comparable to that of an outragious Desire joined with Despair of Satisfaction which is just the case of sensual and worldly minded Souls in the other Life where they are full of sharp and unrebated Desires and like starving men that are shut up between two Dead Walls are tormented with a fierce but hopeless Hunger which having nothing else to feed on preys and quarries on themselves and in this desolate condition they are forced to wander to and fro tormented with a restless Rage an Hungry and Unsatisfied Desire craving food but neither finding nor expecting any and so in unexpressible Anguish they pine away a long Eternity And though they might find content and satisfaction could they but divert their Affections another way and reconcile them to the Heavenly Enjoyments yet being irrecoverably preingaged to sensual Goods they have no Savour or Relish of any thing else but are like Feaverish Tongues that disgust and nauseate the most grateful Liquors by reason of their own overflowing Gall. So impossible is it for men to be happy either here or hereafter so long as their Affections to the lesser Goods of this World do so immoderately exceed the worth and value of them ONE Essential Part therefore of the Christian Life which is the Great Means of our Happiness is the Virtue of Moderation the peculiar Office whereof is to bound our Concupiscible Affections and proportion them to the Intrinsic Worth of those outward Goods which we affect and desire For though the word Moderation according to our present Acceptation of it be no where to be found in the New Testament yet the Virtue expressed by it is frequently enjoined as particularly where we are forbid to set our Affections upon the Things of the Earth Col. iii. 2 To love the World or the Things that are in the World 1 John ii 15 Which Phrases are not to be so understood as if we were not to love the Enjoyments of the World at all for they are the Blessings of God and such as he has proposed to us in his Promises as the Rewards and Encouragements of our Obedience and to be sure he would never encourage us to obey him by the Hope of such Rewards as are unlawful for us to desire and love The meaning therefore of these Prohibitions is that we should so moderate our Affections to the world as not to permit them to exceed the Real Worth and Value of its Enjoyments For it is not simply our loving it but our loving it to such a Degree as is inconsistent with our Love of God that is here forbidden For he that loveth the world saith St. John the Love of the Father is not in him i. e. he that loves it to such a Degree as to prefer the Riches Honours and Pleasures of it before God and his Duty to him hath no real Love to God i. e. He loves not God as God as the Chiefest Good and Supream Beauty and Perfection And hence Covetousness which is an immoderate Desire of the world is called Idolatry Col. iii. 5 because it sets the world in the place of God and gives it that supream Degree of Affection which is only due to him And this the Apostle there calls Inordinate Affection because it extravagantly exceeds the Intrinsic Worth and Value of its Objects Wherefore we are strictly enjoined to take heed and beware of Covetousness Luke xii 15 And to let our Conversation be without Covetousness Heb. xiii 5 By all which and sundry other Commands and Prohibitions of the Gospel the Moderation of our Concupiscible Affections is made a necessary part of the Christian Life NOW that this also mightily contributes to our Acquisition of the Heavenly Happiness is evident not only from what hath been already said but also from hence that till our Affections are thus moderated we can have no Savour or Relish of the Heavenly Enjoyments For in this corrupt State of our Nature we generally understand by our Affections which like coloured Glass represent all Objects to us in their own Hue and Complexion When therefore a mans Affections are immoderately carried out towards worldly things they will be sure by Degrees to corrupt and deprave his Judgment and render him as unfit to judge of divine and spiritual Enjoyments as a Plowman is to be a Moderatour in the Schools For when a mans thoughts have been employed another way and the Delights of Sense have for a long while preoccupied his Vnderstanding he will judge things to be Good or Evil according as they disgust or gratifie his lower Appetites And this being the Standard by which he measures things 't is impossible he should have any Savour of those Spiritual Goods in which the Happiness of Heaven consists For though in his Nature there is a Tendency to Rational Pleasures yet this he may and very frequently does stifle and extinguish by addicting himself wholly to the Delights and Gratifications of his Sense which by degrees will so melt down his Rational Inclinations into his Sensual and confound and mingle them with his Carnal Appetites that his Soul will wholly sympathize with his Body and have all Likes and Dislikes in common with
and Pleasures and in every act of our celestial Behaviour we should have some Foretast of the celestial Happiness So that now we shall no longer need external Arguments to convince us of the Truth and Reality of that blessed State for we shall feel it within our selves and be able to penetrate into its blessed Mysteries by the light of an infallible Experience Now we shall have no Occasion to search the Records of Heaven to assure our selves of our Interest in it for by a most sensible Earnest of Heaven within us we shall be as fully satisfied of our Title to it as if one of the winged Messengers of Heaven should come down from thence and tell us that he saw our Names inrolled in the Book of Life And with this sweet Experience of Heaven within us we shall go on to Heaven with unspeakable Triumph and Alacrity being tolled all along from step to step with the alluring Relishes of its Joys and Pleasures and in every vigorous Exercise of every Virtue of the Heavenly Life we shall have such lively tasts and sensations of Heaven as will continually excite us to exercise them still more vigorously and still the more vigorously we exert them the more of Heaven we shall tast in them and so the Vigour of our Virtue shall increase the Pleasure of it and the Pleasure of it shall increase its Vigour till both are perfected and grown up into the blessed State of Heaven Wherefore as we do love Pleasure which is the great Invitation to Action let us be persuaded once for all to make a through Experiment of the heavenly Life and if upon a sufficient Trial you do not find it the most pleasant kind of Life that ever you led if you do not experience a far more noble Satisfaction in it than ever you did in all your studied and artificial Luxuries I give you leave to brand me for an Impostor V. CONSIDER the great Repose and Ease of a Heavenly Life and Conversation In every sensual and devilish Course of Life we find by Experience there is a great deal of Vneasiness and Disquiet For the Mind is disturbed the Conscience galled the Affections divided into opposite Factions and the whole Soul in a most diseased and restless Posture And indeed it is no Wonder it should be so since 't is in an unnatural State and Condition For whilst 't is in any unreasonable Course of Action the very Frame and Constitution of it as it is a rational Being suffers an unnatural Violence and is all unjointed and disordered And therefore as a Body when its Bones are out is never at Rest till they are set again so a rational Soul when its Faculties and Powers are dislocated and put out of their natural i. e. rational Course of Action is continually restless and disturbed and always tossing to and fro shifting from one Posture to another turning it self from this to t'other Object and Enjoyment but finding no ease or satisfaction in any till 't is restored again to its own rational Course of Motion and that is to act and move towards God for whom it was made and in whom alone it can be happy And if its Reason were not strangely dozed and stupified with Sense and sensitive Pleasure it would doubtless be a thousand times more restless and dissatisfied in this its preternatural State than it is it would feel much more Distraction of Mind Anguish of Conscience and Tumult of Affections than 't is now capable of amidst the numerous Enjoyments and Diversions of this World For as a musical Instrument were it a living thing would doubtless be sensible of Harmony as its proper State as a great Author of our own ingeniously discourses and abhor Discord and Dissonancy as a thing preternatural to it even so were our Reason but alive and awake within us our Souls which according to their natural Frame were made Vnison with God would be exquisitely sensible of those divine Virtues wherein its Consonancy consists as of that which is its proper State and native Complection and complain as sadly of the vicious Distempers of its Faculties as the Body doth of Wounds and Diseases 't would be perfectly sick of every unreasonable Motion and never be able to rest till its disjointed Faculties were rectified and all its disordered Strings set in tune again Which being once effected as it will quickly be in a continued Course of heavenly Action we shall presently find our Souls disburthened of all those malignant Humours that do so perpetually disease disquet and disturb us For by relying upon God we shall totally quit and discharge our selves of all those restless Cares and Anxieties which circle and prick us like a Crown of Thorns by our hearty Submission to his heavenly Will we shall ease our Consciences of all that Horror Rage and Anguish which proceeds from the invenomed Stings of our Guilt by loving admiring and adoring him our Affections will be cured of all that Inconsistence and Inordinacy that render them so tumultuous and disquieting And these things being once accomplished the sick and restless Soul will presently find it self in perfect Health and Ease For now all her jarring Faculties being tuned to the musical Laws of Reason there will be a perfect Harmony in her Nature and she will have no disquieting Principle within her nothing but calm and gentle Thoughts soft and sweet Reflections tame and manageable Affections nothing but what abundantly contributes to her Repose and Satisfaction So that do but imagine what an Ease the Body enjoys when after a lingering Sickness it recovers a sound Constitution and feels a lively Vigour possessing every Part and actuating the Whole such and much more is the Ease and Quiet of the Soul when by the diligent Practice of the heavenly Life it feels it self recovered from the languishing Sickness of a sensual and devilish Nature Now she is no more tossed and agitated in a stormy sea of restless Thoughts and guilty Reflections no more scorched with Impatience or drowned with Grief or shook with Fear or bloated with Pride or Ambition but all her Affections are resigned to the blessed Empire of a spiritual Mind and cloathed in the Livery of her Reason Now all the War and Contest between the Law in her Members and the Law in her Mind is ended in a glorious Victory and happy Peace and those divided Streams her Will and Conscience her Passions and her Reason are united in one Channel and flow towards one and the same Ocean And being thus jointed and knit together by the Ties and Ligaments of Virtue the Soul is perfectly well and easie and enjoys a most sweet Repose within it self Wherefore as you value your own Rest and Ease and would not be endlesly turmoiled and disquieted be persuaded heartily to ingage your selves in the Course of a heavenly Conversation and then though at first you must expect to find some Difficulty in it by reason of its Contrariety to
Terrors and Allurements we should thereby disarm them of their main Strength and render them much less able to seduce us for the future And this methinks we might easily do if we would but fairly represent to our selves the present State and Posture of our Affairs For we are a sort of Beings that are every Moment travailing from hence to an eternal World where an unexpressible Happiness or Misery attends us and all that we enjoy or suffer in this Life is only the Convenience or Inconvenience of a short Journey to a long Home but can have no other Influence upon our everlasting Condition than as it is the Occasion either of our Virtue or Vice which are the only Goods and Evils that will accompany us to Eternity and make us happy or miserable there for ever But as for Poverty or Riches Pain or Pleasure Disgrace or Reputation they are things which probably within these ten or twenty Years will be as perfectly indifferent to us as our last Nights Dream was when we awoke in the Morning And this methinks duly considered were enough to render us very unconcerned at any Good or Evil that can happen to us here For what a mighty Matter is it whether I fare well or ill for twenty or thirty Years who when that is expired must be happy or miserable for Millions of Millions of Ages and what will these little Goods or Evils signifie to me when my Body is in the Grave and my Soul in Eternity When I am stript into a naked Spirit and set ashore upon the invisible World then all these things will be as if they never were and in the twinkling of an Eye I shall lose Sight of them for ever and of all that I enjoyed or suffered in this Life I shall have nothing remaining but my Virtue or Vice whose Issues will prove my eternal Happiness or Misery Doubtless would we but accustom our Minds to such Reflections as these they would effectually restrain us from the immoderate Love or Fear of the things of this World and reduce us to a constant and efficacious Persuasion that there is no Good in this World comparable to that of doing our Duty nor any Evil incident to us in this Life that is not infinitely less formidable than Sin And when once our Affection to this World and our Opinion of the Goods and Evils of it are thus moderated and rectified the Temptations to Sin will quite lose their hold of us and be no more able to fasten upon our Resolution So that now we may pass safely through them whilst they are sparkling about us there being no Tinder in our Breasts for them to catch fire and kindle upon Now they will be no longer capable to allure or affright us those bosom Orators being silenced that were wont to contend for them and to magnifie their Charms and Terrors and when we neither immoderately love nor fear them 't will be no hard matter to defend our Virtue and Innocence against all their Assaults and Importunities IV. TO our final Perseverance it is necessary that we should more curiously search into the smaller Defects and Indecencies of our Nature in order to our reforming and correcting them Hence we are commanded to hate even the garments spotted by the flesh Jude 23. i. e. to take care of the Beginnings of Sin of any thing that hath the least Spot or Infection of it and accordingly we are obliged not only to take care to rub out the greater Stains of our Nature but to be diligent that we may be found of our Lord in peace without spot and blameless 2 Pet. iii. 14 i. e. to indeavour to reform those smaller and more indiscernable Defects of our Nature which though they do not totally stain yet very much spot and blemish it that so at the coming of our Lord we may be found not only sincere and upright but as near as may be innocent and blameless For so Phil. ii 15 we are bid to be blameless harmless and without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation i. e. to endeavour so to demean our selves in this World as that we may appear not only honest for the main but so near as is possible spotless and unreproveable And indeed there is nothing doth more frequently occasion mens final Miscarriage in Religion than their not being careful and diligent in this matter When they first enter into the Christian Warfare they very industriously set themselves against that Course of wilful Sin in which they formerly lived and this were wondrous well if they did not stop here and go no farther but alas in the mean time while they are thus industriously busied in subduing their old Sins there are a great many lesser Flaws and Defects in their Nature which by a timely Care and Inspection they might easily correct but these they take no Notice of but quietly permit them to grow and increase till at last they become as hurtful dangerous to them as their old Sins were against which they have all this while so zealously contended As for Instance when they first entered upon a Resolution of Amendment they were profane it may be or sensual or vehemently adicted to Fraud and Oppression and against these they opposed themselves with great Zeal and Animosity and so far they did well but in the mean time perhaps there was Pride and Ostentation Envy and Peevishness Self-will and Censoriousness secretly budding and sprouting up in their Natures all which they might have easily cured by timely Applications but alas in the Heat of their Contest against their other Sins they never so much as minded or regarded these but e'en left them alone till they grew up into obstinate and inveterate Habits and became every whit as fatal and destructive to their Souls as those were which they have been all this while subduing and mortifying So that after all they have only changed their Sins and have been conjuring up one Devil while they have been laying another and whilst the Tide of their Wickedness hath been ebbing on this Shore it hath been flowing on the contrary and as it hath sunk in Sensuality it hath swelled into Devilishness Perhaps whilst you are zealously carrying on your Warfare against your old Sins you may find your selves too apt to be tickled with Applause and puff'd with vain Ostentation have a Care now that while you are starving one Vice you do not pamper another For if you do not correct this little Irregularity of your Nature betimes 't will soon be as dangerous and mischievous to you as ever any of those Vices were against which you are contending 't will by degrees so insinuate into your good Intentions and so sophisticate the Purity of them that at last you will intend nothing else but Applause and so your whole Religion will be converted into dead Shew and empty Pageantry and your spiritual Warfare will prove only a passage out of Profaneness
Creatures which if it be 't will hence necessarilly follow that as his Hatred must convert into Love to us when from wicked we become good so his Love must convert into Hatred of us when from good we degenerate into wicked Which Alteration of his Affection towards us proceeds not from any change in his Nature but from a change in ours he always proceeds upon steady and unchangeable Priniciples and is for ever fixt and constant to the Reasons of his Love and Hatred which he could not be if he did not alter his Affection to us when the Reason of it is altered if he did not abominate us when he sees us fallen and degenerated from that State of Goodness for teh sake of which he loved us and took pleasure in us So that by wilfully retreating from our religious Progress we do not only Extinguish all those good Effects which it had produced in our Natures not only revive those inveterate Lusts we had almost mortified and blast those tender Graces which we had therein acquired and improved but as a Consequence of this we run out of Gods Arms and Embraces and throw our selves head-long from those glorious Hopes to which we have been all this while advancing with so much Labour and Difficulty What a Madness therefore is it for men to think of retreating that have once actually ingaged in the Christian Warfare to surrender themselves back into Captivity to their Lusts after they have fought so many Combats against and obtained so many Victories over them O consider but the great Pains you have been at the many Prayers and Tears Abstinencies and Self-denials Struggles and Convertion with your selves that it hath cost you to retrieve your selves from the Dominion of Sin and the just Vengeance of God and is it not a thousand Pities that all this should prove lost Labour in the End and be rebder'd as fruitless and insignificant to us as if it had never been that after you have taken so much Pains to stem the difficult Tyde and are at last got within fight of Shore you should now faint and yield to the Fury of it and suffer your selves to be born down by it again into that Ocean of Sin and Guilt out of which you were so safely recovered Wherefore as you would not render your albour in vain in the Lord and utterly defeat your selves of all the Fruit of your Religious Endeavours be still persuaded to struggle and contend to strive and press forward to the mark of your high-calling For if now you slacken or remit your Endeavourse yield to the Current of Temptation you will soon be driven down by it again as far from the Love of God and from the Hope of HEaven as ever you were in the most degenerate State of your Natures III. CONSIDER that if by willfully sinning we retreat from our Christian Warfare we shall forfeit the Fruit of our Labour after we have undergon the greatest Difficulty of it For as I shewed above the main Difficulty of the Christian Warfare lies in the Entrance of it and this I suppose you to have already past You have already indured those sharep Pangs and Throws that are wont to accompany the Birth of a new Resolution you have undergon the hard Pennance of a deep and through Consideration the sharp Stings and Remorses of a solemn and sorrowful Repentance you have forc'd your most Importunate Inclinations and withstood the most violent Counter-struggling of a perverse and denegerate Nature you have Conquered your Will in the Height of all its Obstinacy and Resistance and Rescued it from the Arms of your Lusts when 't was most inslaved and captivated by them all this you did if you did any thing to any purpose when you first entered upon this holy Walfare And ever since you have been breaking the Strength of your evil Inclinations and conquering the Antipathies of your Nature to your Religion in which if you have made any Progress you must by this Time have broken the Heart of the Difficulty of your Warfare and have much less Opposition to contend with than ever So that now in all Probability there is nothing so difficult between you and Heaven as that which you have already ingaged with and surmounted and will you now turn your backs upon your Enemy when his main Strength is spent and you have already sustained the most violent Shocks of his Power If you had retreated at the first Onset when your Sin was seated in its Dominion and you were yet but raising your Forces and arming your Resolution against it it had been much more excusable for then you had the sharpest Part of your Conflict to undergo being to contend with a flusht and a victorious Enemy who having as yet all his Strength about him could not fail to put your Courage to a mighty Tryal But now to retreat when you are past the worst and have gotten above half Way through when you have pulled down your Lust from its Throne and Dominion and so far subdued it to your Religion and your Reason that you have henceforward no more to do but to pursue a Victory which though you got with a great deal of Toil you may finish with a great deal of Ease and Pleasure now I say to retreat in such a prosperous Juncture and give up the blessed Prize which you have been so long contending for what desperate Madness is it If you had never begun this Warfare or yielded in the first Conflict of it what a deal of Pains might you have saved How many Prayers and Tears Struglings and Contentions with your selves might you have escaped and avoided and at last been in as good a Condition if not a better than that wherein your Apostacy will certainly leave you And when a man hath been so long taking Heaven by Storm and Violence when he hath broken through so many Oppositions to come at it and in Despite of all the Darts of Temptation from without and of all the Weights and Pressures of Inclination from within he is gotten up as it were to the Top of the Scaling-Ladder has laid hands on the Battlements of Heaven and is ready to leap in and take Possession of the Joys of it what a Madness is it for him now to let go his Hold and tumble headlong down again into that Abyss of Sin and Misery out of which he had recovered himself with so much Labour and Difficulty Especially considering IV. THAT by this our Relapse we shall not only forfeit the Fruit of our past Labour but also render our Recovery more hazardous and difficult than ever For what the Apostle pronounces concerning Apostates from Christianity is in a great Measure applicable to those who having ingaged in the Christian Warfare fall off from it again to their old sinful Courses it is impossible i. e. 't is extreamly difficult for those that were once enlightned and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made
against the Dissuasions of thy Grace the Checks of my Conscience and the fairest Warnings of my Danger Had I done it Ignorantly or unawares or under a Surprize it had been pittiable but O my Guilt my Guilt 't was knowingly wilfully basely and maliciously that I did this evil in thy sight whereby I have forfeited my Soul my Innocence and thy Love and have got nothing in exchange but the Pleasure of a Minute and a lasting Shame and Repentance O vile Wretch O desperate Fool that I am what have I done whither am I fallen I have grieved thy Spirit contemn'd thy Authority trampled on thy Goodness and wounded my own Conscience and by one base Act have thrown my self headlong from all those glorious Hopes whereunto thou hadst raised me And now O God what can I say in my own behalf my Sin being so great my Folly so utterly inexcusable O I am asham'd I am asham'd of my self I lament and abhor the Madness and Wickedness of my own Choice and O that it were in my power to recall it But woe is me it is past into Act and by that Act my Innocence is already stained my Soul forfeited and it is no more in my Power to undo what I have done than to recall the Hours of yesterday What then shall I do or whether shall I turn my self 'T is against thee O Lord against thee I have sinned and now I have none but thee to flee to I have nothing of my own to plead in my own behalf my Conscience condemns me and my Sin my Sin cries aloud against me so that unless thou wilt be pleased to listen to the interceding Blood of thy Son and to consult thine own Bowels and Compassions and from thence to fetch Arguments of Mercy I am undone for ever by my own Folly Wherefore for Jesus Christ his sake for thy own Goodness and Mercies sake have pity have pity upon me heal my Soul for I have sin'd against thee be merciful to my Sin for it is great Thou hast promised to receive returning Sinners to blot out their Iniquities and to heal their Backslidings I desire O Lord to return unto thee I hate and renounce my Sin and do here abhor my self for it in Dust and Ashes before thee Wherefore for thy Praise sake O try me this once more and do not presently cast me away from thy Presence nor take thy holy Spirit from me but restrain me by his Grace from all presumptuous Sins and suffer them not to have Dominion over me And quicken me O Lord for thy Names sake that for the future I may watch more carefully resist more vigorously and walk more circumspectly than I have hitherto done And that from henceforth I may be intirely devoted to thee and serve thee without Interruption do thou so confirm me by thy Grace in my holy Resolution as that I may choose rather to die than to offend thee any more And now O Lord though by my Rebellion against thee this Day I have rendered my self most unworthy of thy fatherly Care and Protection yet I beseech thee to watch over me this Night for good and give me a safe Repose in the Arms of thy Providence that I may have yet a farther Space to repent of mine Iniquity And grant I beseech thee that when I awake in the Morning I may be warn'd by the woful Remembrance of this Days Fall to take more Care of my Steps and to shun or refuse those Snares and Temptations that lie all around me All which I do most humbly and earnestly beg of thee even for Jesus Christ his sake in whose name and words I farther pray Our Father c. Directions for the Exercise of our private Religion in the state of our Progress and Improvement in the Christian Life with Forms of private Devotion fitted for this State When you enter into your Closet in the Morning indeavour to affect your self with Gratitude and Thankfulness to God for his Grace by representing to your self the Danger and Misery of that sinful State out of which you are recovered and the great Incapacity you were in to recover without his Assistance and then make this thankful Acknowledgment to him O Most gracious and most merciful Father thou art a liberal Benefactor to thy Creation a never-failing Friend to Mankind and a most tender Lover of Souls for whose everlasting Welfare thou hast been always consulting and hast left no method of Love unattempted to rescue them from Sin and Misery O blessed for ever blessed be thy great Name for the Experience I have had of this thy fatherly Goodness I am a monument of thy Goodness a living Instance and Wonder of thy Mercy for me hast thou quickned who was dead in Trespasses and Sins and who had long ago perish'd in mine Iniquities hadst thou not been infinitely patient and long suffering I had forfeited my Soul to thee and thou mightest justly have cut me off and given me my Portion with Hypocrites and considering how I provok'd thee to it by my daily Rebellions I cannot but admire thy Forbearance towards me But that thou shouldest not only forbear me but follow me with thy Kindness and never cease importuning me to return to my Duty and Happiness till thou hadst conquered me by thy Gracious Persuasions O incomparable Love O amazing Goodness never to be sufficiently admired and adored Wherefore praised for ever praised be thy Grace which hath redeemed my Life from eternal Death and my Soul from the neathermost Hell which hath rescued me from the Snare of the Devil and the pernicious Bondage of my Lusts and implanted in my Nature these heavenly Graces and Dispositions and hitherto improv'd and advanc'd them towards my eternal Happiness This O my God all this I owe to thy free and undeserved Goodness that I that was dead am now alive that I that was lost am found that I that was a slave to my Lusts am made free from Sin and translated into the glorious Liberty of the sons of God is purely the Effect of thy free Grace and to be intirely ascribed to thy all-powerful Goodness Go on O Lord go on I beseech thee and perfect thine own Work that so the Glory of it may be for ever redounding to thee and that as I have been hitherto a signal Instance of thy Goodness so I may be an happy Instrument of thy Praise to eternal Ages And grant I beseech thee that the sense of thy unspeakble Kindness towards me may so captivate my Soul and all my Faculties as that I may be most intirely thine as that my Reason and Will my Fear and Hope and Love and Desire may from henceforth be all resign'd up to thee and for ever devoted to the Honour and Worship of thy infinite Glories and Perfections and this I most humbly beg for Jesus Christ his sake to whom with thy self and thy eternal Spirit be rendred all Honour Glory and Power from this time forth
proceeded 2. If once we totally relapse we shall thereby forfeit all the Fruit of our past Labour 3. We shall forfeit the Fruit of our Labour after we have undergone the greatest Difficulty of it 4. We shall not only forfeit the Fruit of our past Labour but also render our Recovery more hazardous and difficult than ever 5. We shall not only render our future Recovery more difficult but also plunge our selves for the present into a far more Guilty and Criminal Condition than ever 6. We shall not only render our selves for the present more guilty but as a certain Consequence of that Expose our selves if we die in our Apostacy to a Deeper and more Dreadful Ruin I. CONSIDER when once we have wilfully relapsed unless we immediately recover we shall go much faster back than ever we went forward For in the Beginning of our religious Progress we are fain to sail for a great while against Wind and Tyde against a strong Gale of Temptation from without and a rapid Stream of Inclination from within and while we do thus we must be contented to get our Ground by Inches and move forward by slow and insensible Degrees but in all our wilful Apostacies we are carried on secundo flumine with a full Drift of Temptation and Inclination So that if when once we have wilfully sinn'd we do not immediately check our selves by Repentance in all Probability we shall be driven farther back in a Day than we shall be able to get forward in a Week For your Progress in Religion lying up Hill but your Apostacy down you must expect when once you are falling to descend much faster than ever you ascended and to get far sooner to the Bottom again than you can to the Top though you should happen to fall just in the mid-way and have no farther to the one than to the other For 't is hardly to be imagin'd what Strength a bad Inclination gets by a short Repast and Gratification how when it hath been almost pined away by a long Abstinence a Taste of sinful Pleasure will raise and revive it and render it as brisk and vigorous as ever insomuch that it usually requires a great many Acts of Mortification to re-extinguish that Life and Strength it acquires in one short Gratification For as the fierce Tyger after a long Confinement will lye down tamely in his Den and by Degrees loose all his Fierceness and grow manageable and obsequious but let him take but one warm Draught of Blood and his old savage Nature immediately revives and he grows as cruel and outragious as ever just so it is with our wicked Inclinations which being reduced from their Excesses and kept under the close Confinement of a holy Resolution will by Degrees grow tame and gentle and forget the alluring Relishes of Sin but if once we suffer them to break loose again and to come at those sinful Pleasures from which they have been a long while alienated they will soon recover their natural Wildness and become as head-strong and violent as ever Wherefore it mightily concerns us to have a great Care of all wilful Apostacies for to be sure your first Slip will vehemently incline you to a second and that more vehemently to a third and so like men that are running head-long down Hill the farther you go the more you will be prest forward by your own Weight and the harder 't will be for you to stop and recover your selves So that if you do not immediately stop you will by a few Days Sin lose back all the Ground you have got by many a Years Warfare you will pull down more of your Religion by one wilful Sin than you will be able to repair again by many a vertuous Action and like some prodigal Drudges spend more in one mad Frolick than you have earn'd by many a hard Days Labour And if you do thus 't is impossible you should ever improve for what you do in a Week you will undo again in a Day and so instead of pressing forward you will dance in a Circle and always end where you begun So that unless you go on and persevere in wel-doing all your Strife and Warfare against Sin will be but like rolling of a Sisyphus his Stone which after you have been a long while raising to the Top of the Hill will in a moment tumble down again upon you so that either you must undergo the same Pains to raise it again or lye down under it and tamely suffer your selves to be crush'd into eternal Ruine by it II. CONSIDER if after we have made some Progress in Religion we totally Relapse we thereby forfeit the Fruit of all our past Labour For so God himself by the Prophet pronounces in the Case Ezek. xviii 24 When the Righteous turns away from his Righteousness and commits iniquity and doth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doth shall he live all his Righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned in the trespass that he hath trespassed and in the sin that he hath sinned in them shall he die i. e. how good soever he may have been for the Time past if he doth not persevere to the End but wilfully relapse into Folly and Wickedness all the Vertue he hath exercised and all the Good he hath done shall be quite struck off from his Accounts and never so much as mentioned to his Benefit and Advantage but in that Wickedness wherein he is faln he shall as certainly perish as if all his Life had been a continued Act or uninterrupted Course of Iniquity So also Heb. x. 38 if any shall draw back my soul shall have no pleasure in him And indeed this is a most necessary Effect of our Apostacy for by falling off from our Christian Courese we put our selves back into the same State and Condition wherein we were before we enter'd upon it and the Effect of all those good things which we did from the time we enter'd upon to the Time we deserted it will be so voided and abolish'd that there will not remain the least Trace or Footstep of it in our Natures but our Will will become as obstinate again our affections and Appetites as wild and extravagant as if we had all long permitted them to run on in an uninterrupted Course of Iniquity And having thus exinguisht all the good Effects of our past Warfare and rendered by our wilful Apostacy our Natures as corrupt and depraved as ever we shall thereby be exposed again to the Wrath and Displeasure of God For Gods Love and Hatred are unvariably determined to the same Grounds and Reasons and herein consists their Immutability not that he always loves or always hates the same persons out of a unreasonable Prejudice to the other but that he always loves and always hates them for the same Reasons and he hath expresly declared taht Goodness and Wickedness are the contrary Reasons of this his Contrary affection to his
affecting Instances of his Love or upon the blessed State above and then go on with this following Prayer O Thou most excellent Being thou infinitely amiable and adorable Majesty thou Pattern of Beauty and Standard of Goodness who art glorious beyond all Praise and dost out-reach all Wonder and comprehend all perfection blessed be thy Name thou hast touch'd my soul with a lively sense of thy Glory I feel it shining through me and like an active Flame insinuating into my Heart it fires my Love cherishes my Hope wings my Devotion and diffuses a vital Warmth over all my Faculties it raises me up into a heavenly State and fills me with joy unspeakable and full of glory it captivates every thought into Obedience to thy Will and brings every Power of my soul into Subjection to thee Blessed be thy Name thou hast conquered me by thy Love and I resign my self to thee with a chearful Heart I am intirely thine I am thy Servant truly I am thy Servant and in this Title I glory more than in all the Honours of the World But though I am highly advanc'd and exalted by serving thee yet thou art so infinitely happy in the boundless perfections of thy own Nature that thou canst reap no other Advantage from it but only the pleasure of seeing thy poor Creature blessed and made happy by it What then shall I render unto thee O thou Joy of my Life thou Treasure of my Love thou supream Felicity of my Nature Alas I have nothing but my self to give thee nothing but this poor Heart that burns with Love to thee that pants and breaths after thee and desires above all things in the world to be eternally united to thee in perfect Love If I had ten thousand Hearts to love thee ten thousand Tongues to praise thee I would devote them all to thee as freely and chearfully as I do my self For whom have I in heaven but thee and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee O God thou art my God and my Portion for ever In thee I am blest and in the Light of thy Countenance I rejoice more than in all the Joys and Pleasures of the World I am ravisht with thy Beauty I admire thy Love and from the bottom of my Soul adore thy Wisdom and Goodness My heart is ready O Lord my Heart is ready I will sing and give praise Awake up my Glory awake all the Powers of my Soul I my self will awake and celebrate thy praises Praised be the God of Glory praised be the God of Love praised be the Father of Mercies praised be the best Friend of Souls for thy Goodness reaches to the heavens thy Glory shines throughout the Creation and thy Mercy is spread over all thy works Who can comprehend thine infinite Beauties who can rehearse thy noble Acts who can shew forth all thy Praise I do confess my Thoughts are infinitely too short my Affections too narrow my Expressions too scanty to comprehend and sufficiently admire and celebrate thy Glory But O my God thou knowest that I love thee and blessed be thy Name I feel infinite reasons so to do O that I could love thee more that I could love thee but as much as Angels and glorified Spirits do who yet cannot love thee as much as thou deservest because thou deservest to be belov'd infinitely But my soul thirsts for thee and longs after thee O when shall I be admitted into thy blessed Presence there to see and admire and love and adore thee for ever when shall I shake off this clog of sinful Mortality that sinks and depresses me and flee to those happy Regions of perfect Love where I shall continually feed upon thee with inexpressible Delight and be filled with a strong and everlasting Sense of thy goodness O thou that art the beginner and finisher of every good work be pleased to assist my holy Endeavours to withdraw my Mind more and more from these sensible things that it may have a clearer sight of its heavenly Country from whence it came and whither it desires to return that so having my Eye always fixt on that blessed recompence of reward I may live above this World and in despight of all its Terrors and Allurements persevere to the end in a steady and even Course of Obedience And now O Lord since thou hast been graciously pleas'd to inspire my Mind with these delightful Thoughts of thee and to enlarge my Heart with such sweet Transports of Love to thee grant I beseech thee that they may not only please but better me that they may lift me up above all the Temptations of this World and revive my Strength and quicken my Endeavours and compose my distrustful Heart into a stedfast Dependence upon thee that so I may be fruitful in all good works and my heart may be establisht unblameable in holiness before thee unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Amen Amen After you have used one or more of the foregoing Prayers according as they suit with the present Temper of your Mind take a short view of your Defects and Imperfections and especially of those that cleave most to your Nature and briefly represent to your Mind the intrinsick Evil and Vileness of them and how they clog your Religion blemish your Nature and obstruct your Happiness and then conclude with the following Prayer for Growth in Grace O God who art the most excellent Nature the Perfection of all Beauty and the Fountain of all Graces who doest infallibly understand what is best to be chosen and invariably chuse by the best and purest Reason look down I beseech thee upon me thy poor defective Creature who am ashamed of my self to see how unlike thee I am how I am laden with Imperfections and how after all my religious Endeavours my Nature is still vitiated with unreasonable Lusts and Affections how much Vanity and Impertinence there yet remains in my Mind how much Perverseness in my Will how much spiritual and carnal Iniquity in my Affections and Appetites Lord I have been long a contending with this corrupt Nature and yet upon all Occasions I find my self too too prone to be Wo is me even my fairest Graces have their Spots and Blemishes my purest Dispositions their sinful Intermixtures and my best Works their Flaws and Imperfections O my God have pity upon me who here lie sighing at thy Feet under a miserable diseased Nature and as thou hast begun the blessed Cure in me so for Christ his sake I beseech thee to compleat it that being intirely recovered and raised up unto newness of Life I may in the perfect Health and Vigour of my Soul serve and glorifie thee for ever For which end I beseech thee confirm me more and more in the Belief of those immortal Pleasures beyond the Grave which thou hast treasur'd up for those that love and obey thee that by the strength of a lively Faith and vigorous Hope my Soul may be rais'd above this World and learn to despise and trample upon all its gilded Vanities whensoever they present themselves either to allure or to terrifie me from pursuing the heavenly Enjoyments Excite in me such a vehement Thirst after those Rivers of Pleasures above as may every day render me more cool and indifferent towards earthly things more contented and satisfied under all the Events and Issues of thy Providence and more active and vigorous in my heavenly Calling And I beseech thee to inspire me with such clear and lively Apprehensions of thy essential Beauties and Perfections and of thy bountiful Love and boundless Benevolence to all thy Creatures as may every day more and more raise and improve my Love to thee that this being the great Spring and Principle of all my Actions may continually excite me to a chearful Obedience to thy Will and a vigorous Imitation of thy Perfections O cause me to love thee for thy self and Religion for thee and the Instruments of Religion in order to thy Glory and my own Happiness that so founding my Content upon thee and the blessed Interests of a virtuous Life I may grow in Grace and be rich in good Works and go on with a satisfied and triumphant Spirit from Imperfection to Strength from Acts to Habits and from Habits to Confirmation in Grace and may be still more and more confirmed in all the heavenly Graces till they are finally consummated into everlasting Glory And when by thy Grace and Assistance I have perfectly conquered the corrupt Nature within and the Temptations without me and am arrived into the State of everlasting Triumph I will lay all my Victories at thy Feet and with Palms in my hand and Halelujahs on my lips celebrate thy praises to Eternity Hear me O my God in this and whatever else thou knowest to be needful for me even for Jesus Christ his sake in whose Name and Words I further pray Our Father c. FINIS Plat. Phaed. pag. 398. Ibid. Pag. 386. Paedag. l. 2. c. 1. pag. 141. Ibid. Pag. 139. * Dr. Stillingfleets Origines Dr. Patricks Translation of Grotius Sir Charles Wolsely * Here make a particular Confession of all those sinful Courses you have lived in together with all their aggravating Circumstances of Impudence Obstinacy and Ingratitude c. * When you renew your Vow in the Sacrament add * Here name the sinful Act you have committed * Here name the particular Infirmities that stick closest to your Nature