own happiness This is the best temper and composedness of the Soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Plotinus speaks when by a Conjunction with One Chief Good and Last End it is drawn up into an Unity and Consent with it self when all the Faculties of the Soul with their several issues and motions though never so many in themselves like so many lines meet together in one and the same Centre It is not one and the same Goodness that alwaies acts the Faculties of a Wicked man but as many several images and pictures of Goodness as a quick and working Fancy can represent to him which so divide his affections that he is no One thing within himself but tossed hither and thither by the most independent Principles Imaginations that may be But a Good man hath singled out the Supreme Goodness which by an Omnipotent sweetness draws all his affections after it and so makes them all with the greatest complacency conspire together in the pursuit and embraces of it Were there not some Infinite and Self-sufficient Goodness and that perfectly One 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Simplicius doth phrase it Man would be a most miserably-distracted creature As the restless appetite within Man after some Infinite and Soveraign Good without the enjoyment of which it could never be satisfied does commend unto us the Notion of a Deity so the perpetnal distractions and divisions that would arise in the Soul upon a Plurality of Deities may seem no less to evince the Unity of that Deity Were not this Chief Good perfectly One were there any other equal to it man's Soul would hang in aequilibrio equally poised equally desiring the enjoyment of both but moving to neither like a piece of Iron between two Loadstones of equal virtue But when Religion enters into the Soul it charms all its restless rage and violent appetite by discovering to it the Universal Fountain-fulness of One Supreme Almighty Goodness and leading it out of it self into a conjunction therewith it lulls it into the most undisturbed rest and quietness in the lap of Divine enjoyment where it meets with full contentment and rests adequately satisfied in the fruition of the Infinite Uniform and Essential Goodness and Loveliness the true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a noble Philosopher doth well express it The Peace which a Religious Soul is possessed of is such a Peace as passeth all understanding the Joy that it meets with in the ways of Holiness is unspeakable and full of Glory The Delights and Sweetnesses that accompany a Religious life are of a purer and more excellent Nature then the Pleasures of Worldly men The Spirit of a Good man is a more pure and refined thing then to delight it self in the thick mire of Earthly and Sensual pleasures which Carnal men rowle and tumble themselves in with so much greediness Non admittit ad volatum Accipitrem suum in terra pulverulenta as the Arabick Proverb hath it It speaks the degeneration of any Soul whatsoever that it should desire to incorporate it self with any of the gross dreggy sensual delights here below But a Soul purified Religion from all Earthly dreggs delights to mingle it self only with things that are most Divine and Spiritual There is nothing that can beget any pleasure or sweetness but in some harmonical Faculty which hath some kindred and acquaintance with it As it is in the Senses so in every other Faculty there is such a Natural kind of Science as whereby it can single out its own proper Object from every thing else and is better able to define it to it self then the exactest Artist in the world can and when once it hath found it out it presently feels it self so perfectly fitted and matched by it that it dissolves into secret joy and pleasure in the entertainment of it True Delight and Joy is begotten by the conjunction of some discerning Faculty with its proper Object The proper Object for a Mind and Spirit are Divine and Immaterial things with which it hath the greatest affinity and therefore triumphs most in its converse with them as it is well observed by Seneca Hoc habet argumentum divinitatis suae quòd illum divina delectant nec ut alienis interest sed ut suis and when it converseth most with these high and noble Objects it behaves it self most gracefully and lives most becoming it self and it lives also most deliciously nor can it any where else be better provided for or indeed fare so well A Good man disdains to be beholding to the Wit or Art or Industry of any Creature to find him out and bring him in a constant revenue and maintenance for his Joy and Pleasure the language of his Heart is that of the Psalmist Lord lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon me Religion alwaies carries a sufficient Provision of Joy and Sweetness along with it to maintain it self withall All the ways of Wisdom are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace Religion is no sullen Stoicisme or oppressing Melancholie it is no enthralling tyranny exercised over those noble and vivacious affections of Love and Delight as those men that were never acquainted with the life of it may imagine but it is full of a vigorous and masculine delight and joy such as advanceth and ennobles the Soul and does not weaken or dispirit the life and power of it as Sensual and Earthly joys doe when the Soul unacquainted with Religion is enforc'd to give entertainment to these gross earthly things for the want of enjoyment of some better Good The Spirit of a Good man may justly behave it self with a noble disdain to all Terrene pleasures because it knows where to mend its fare it is the same Almighty and Eternal Goodness which is the Happiness of God and of all Good men The truly-religious Soul affects nothing primarily and fundamentally but God himself his contentment even in the midst of his Worldly employments is in the Sun of the Divine favour that shines upon him this is as the Manna that lies upon the top of all outward blessings which his Spirit gathers up and feeds upon with delight Religion consists not in a toilesome drudgery about some Bodily exercises and External performances nor is it onely the spending of our selves in such attendances upon God and services to him as are onely accommodated to this life though every employment for God is both amiable and honourable But there is something of our Religion that interests us in a present possession of that joy which is unspeakable and glorious which leads us into the Porch of heaven and to the confines of Eternity It sometimes carries up the Soul into a mount of Transfiguration or to the top of Pisgah where it may take a prospect of the promised land and gives it a Map or Scheme of its future inheritance it gives it sometimes some anticipations of
out of slavish Fear void of inward Life and Love and a Complacency in the Law of God of which temper our Author discourses at large For concerning such cheap and little strictnesses as these it may be enquired What doe you more then others Do not even Publicans and Pharisees the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what excellent and extraordinary thing doe you what hard or difficult thing do you perform such as may deserve to be thought a worthy Instance and real Manifestation of the Power of Godliness except such things are to be accounted hard or extraordinary which are common to the real and to the formal Christian and are performable by unregenerate and natural men and are no peculiar Characters of Regeneration No these and the like performances by which such Religionists would set off themselves are but poor and inconsiderable things if compared with the mighty acts and noble atchievements of the more excellent though less ostentatious Christians who through Faith in the Goodness and Power of God have been enabled to doe all things through Christ knowing both how to abound and how to be abased c. Phil. 4. enabled to overcome the World without them and the Love of the World within them enabled to overcome themselves and for a man to rule his own Spirit is a greater instance of power and valour then to take a City as Solomon judgeth Prov. 16. enabled to resist the powers of darkness and to quit themselves like men and good Souldiers of Jesus Christ giving many signal overthrows to those Lusts that war against their Souls and to the mightiest and strongest of them the Sons of Anak and by engaging in the hardest Services of this Spiritual warfare wherein the Pharisaick boasters dare not follow them they shew that there is a Spirit of power in them and that they can doe more then others These are some of the Exploits of strong and healthful Christians and for the encouraging of them in these Conflicts which shall end in glorious Conquests and joyous Triumphs the Author hath in the Tenth and last Discourse suggested what is worthy our Consideration But I must not forget that there remains something to be observed concerning some other Treatises and having been so large in the last Observation which was not unnecessary the world abounding ever having abounded with spiritual Pharisees I shall be shorter in the rest And now to proceed to the next which is of Atheism This Discourse being but Preparatory to the ensuing Tracts is short yet I would mind the Reader that what is more briefly handled here may be supplied and further clear'd out of the Fifth Discourse viz. Of the Existence and Nature of God of which if the former part seem more Speculative Subtile and Metaphysical yet the Latter and Greater part containing several Deductions and Inferences from the Consideration of the Divine Nature and Attributes is less obscure and more Practical as it clearly directs us to the best though not much observed way of glorifying God and being made happy and blessed by a Participation and Resemblance of him as it plainly directs a man to such Apprehensions of God as are apt and powerful to beget in him the Noblest and dearest Love to God the sweetest Delight and the most peaceful Confidence in him One thing more I would observe to the Reader concerning the Discourse Of Atheism and the same I would desire to be observed also concerning the next that large Treatise Of the Immortality of the Soul especially of the former part thereof and it is shortly this That the Author in these Treatises pursues his discourse with a particular reflexion on the Dogmata and Notions of Epicurus and his followers especially that great admirer of him Lucretius whose Principles are here particularly examined and refuted These were the men whose Opinions our Author had to combat with He lived not to see Atheism so closely and craftily insinuated nor lived he to see Sadduceism and Epicurism so boldly owned and industriously propagated as they have been of late by some who being heartily desirous That there were no God no Providence no Reward nor Punishment after this life take upon them to deride the Notion of Spirit or Incorporeal Substance the Existence of Separate Souls and the Life to come and by infusing into mens Minds Opinions contrary to these Fundamental Principles of Religion they have done that which manifestly tends to the overthrow of all Religion the destruction of Morality and Vertuous living the debauching of Mankind the consuming and eating out of any good Principle left in the Conscience which doth testifie for God and Goodness and against Sin and Wickedness and to the defacing and expunging of the Law written in mens hearts and so the holy Apostle judges of the Epicurean Notions and discourses a taste of which he gives in that passage 1 Cor. 15. Let us eat and drink for to morrow we die and then ther 's an End of all no other life or state and he expresseth his judgment concerning the evil and dangerousness of these doctrines and their teachers partly in a Verse out of Menander 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Evil communications corrupt good manners and in what he subjoins v. 34. besides many other passages in this Chapter in opposition to the doctrine of the Sadducees and Epicureans and to the same purpose he speaks in 2. Tim. 2. 16 17 18. concerning those that denied the Doctrine of the Resurrection or any Future State and the Life to come The sum and substance of the Apostles judgment concerning these Epicurean principles is plainly this That these Principles properly and powerfully tend to the corrupting of mens Minds and Lives to the advancement of Irreligion and Immorality in the world That they are no benigne Principles to Piety and a Good life 'T is true that some of the more wary and considerate modern Epicureans may express some care to live inoffensively and to keep out of danger and to maintain a reputation in the world as to their converse with others and herein they mind their worldly interests and the advantages of this present life the only life which they have in their eye they may also express a care in avoiding what is prejudicial to health and a long life in this world But all this is short of a true and noble Love of Goodness and if in these men there be any appearance of what is Good and praise-worthy they would have been really better if they had been of other Principles and had believed in their Hearts That there is a Providence a Future state and Life to come and had lived agreeably to the Truths of the Christian Philosophy which do more ennoble and accomplish and every way better a man then the Principles of the Epicurean Sect. But to return We have before observed That our Author in these Two Treatises pursued his design in opposition to the Master-Notions and chief Principles of Epicurus
we have a distinct Notion of the most Perfect Mind and Understanding we own our deficiency therein And as that Idea of Understanding which we have within us points not out to us This or That Particular but something which is neither This nor That but Totall Understanding so neither will any elevation of it serve every way to fit and answer that Idea And therefore when we find that we cannot attain to Science but by a Discursive deduction of one thing from another that our knowledge is confined and is not fully adequate and commensurate to the largest Spheare of Being it not running quite through it nor filling the whole area of it or that our knowledge is Chronical and successive and cannot grasp all things at once but works by intervals and runs out into Division and Multiplicity we know all this is from want of Reason and Understanding and that a Pure and Simple Mind and Intellect is free from all these restraints and imperfections and therefore can be no less then Infinite As this Idea which we have of it in our own Souls will not suffer us to rest in any conception thereof which represents it less then Infinite so neither will it suffer us to conceive of it any otherwise then as One Simple Being and could we multiply Understandings into never so vast a number yet should we be again collecting and knitting them up together in some Universal one So that if we rightly reflect upon our own Minds and the Method of their Energies we shall find them to be so framed as not to admit of any other then One Infinite source of all that Reason and Understanding which themselves partake of in which they live move and have their Being And therefore in the old Metaphysical Theology an Originall and Uncreated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Unity is made the Fountain of all Particularities and Numbers which have their Existence from the Efflux of its Almighty power And that is the next thing which our own Understandings will instruct us in concerning God viz. His Eternall Power For as we find a Will and Power within our selves to execute the Results of our own Reason and Judgment so far as we are not hindred by some more potent Cause so indeed we know it must be a mighty inward strength and force that must enable our Understandings to their proper functions and that Life Energy and Activity can never be separated from a Power of Understanding The more unbodied any thing is the more unbounded also is it in its Effective power Body and Matter being the most sluggish inert and unwieldy thing that may be having no power from it self nor over it self and therefore the Purest Mind must also needs be the most Almighty Life and Spirit and as it comprehends all things and sums them up together in its Infinite knowledge so it must also comprehend them all in its own life and power Besides when we review our own Immortal Souls and their dependency upon some Almighty Mind we know that we neither did nor could produce our selves and withall know that all that Power which lies within the compass of our selves will serve for no other purpose then to apply severall praeexistent things one to another from whence all Generations and Mutations arise which are nothing else but the Events of different applications and complications of Bodies that were existent before and therefore that which produced that Substantiall Life and Mind by which we know our selves must be something much more Mighty then we are and can be no less indeed then Omnipotent and must also be the First architect and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of all other Beings and the perpetuall Supporter of them We may also know from the same Principles That an Almighty Love every way commensurate to that most Perfect Being eternally rests in it which is as strong as that is Infinite and as full of Life and Vigour as that is of Perfection And because it finds no Beauty nor Loveliness but onely in that and the issues thereof therefore it never does nor can fasten upon any thing else And therefore the Divinity alwaies enjoies it self and its own Infinite perfections seeing it is that Eternall and stable Sun of goodness that neither rises nor sets is neither eclipsed nor can receive any encrease of light and beauty Hence the Divine Love is never attended with those turbulent passions perturbations or wrestlings within it self of Fear Desire Grief Anger or any such like whereby our Love is wont to explicate and unfold its affection towards its Object But as the Divine Love is perpetually most infinitely ardent and potent so it is alwaies calm and serene unchangeable having no such ebbings and flowings no such diversity of stations and retrogradations as that Love hath in us which ariseth from the weakness of our Understandings that doe not present things to us alwaies in the same Orient lustre and beauty neither we nor any other mundane thing all which are in a perpetual flux are alwaies the same Besides though our Love may sometimes transport us and violently rend us from our selves and from all Self-enjoyment yet the more forcible it is by so much the more it will be apt to torment us while it cannot centre it self in that which it so strongly endeavours to attract to it and when it possesseth most yet is it alwaies hungry and craving as Plotinus hath well express'd it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it may alwaies be filling it self but like a leaking vessel it will be alwaies emptying it self again Whereas the Infinite ardour of the Divine Love arising from the unbounded perfection of the Divine Being alwaies rests satisfied within it self and so may rather be defin'd by a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and is wrapt up and rests in the same Centrall Unity in which it first begins And therefore I think some men of later times have much mistaken the nature of the Divine Love in imagining that Love is to be attributed to God as all other Passions are rather secundùm effectum then affectum whereas S. John who was well acquainted with this noble Spirit of Love when he defin'd God by it and calls him LOVE meant not to signifie a bare nothing known by some Effects but that which was infinitely such as it seems to be And we might well spare our labour when we so industriously endeavour to find something in God that might produce the Effects of some other Passions in us which look rather like the Brats of Hell and Darkness then the lovely offspring of Heaven When we reflect upon all this which signifies some Perfect Essence as a Mind Wisdome Understanding Omnipotency Goodness and the like we can find no such thing as Time or Place or any Corporeall or Finite properties which arise indeed not ex plenitudine but ex inopia entitatis we may also know God to be Eternall and
Right and Equity by wholsome Laws and annexing Punishments as a mean to prevent transgression and not to manifest Severity The proper scope of Justice seems to be nothing else but the preserving and maintaining of that which is Just and Right the scope of that Justice which is in any Righteous Law is properly to provide for a righteous execution of that which is just and fit to be without intending punishment for to intend that properly and directly might rather seem Cruelty then Justice and therefore Justice takes not up Punishment but onely for a security of performance of Righteous Laws viz. either for the amendment of the person transgressing or a due example to others to keep them off from transgression For I would here suppose a Good and Righteous man who in some desolate place of the World should have the command of a 100 more and himself be Supreme under no command He prescribes Laws to this company makes it death for any one to take away another's life But now one proves a Murtherer kills one of his fellows afterwards repents heartily and is like to prove usefull among the rest of his fellows they all are so heartily affected one to another that there is no danger upon sparing this Penitent's life that any one of them should be encouraged to commit the like evil The Case being thus stated it will not seem difficult to conclude that the Justice of this Righteous and Good Commander would spare this poor Penitent for his Justice would have preserved that life which is lost and seeing there is nothing further that it can obtain in taking away this it will save this which may be saved for it affects not any blood and when it destroies it is out of necessity to take away a destructive person and to give example which in the Case stated falls not out Again Justice is the Justice of Goodness and so cannot delight to punish it aimes at nothing more then the maintaining and promoting the Laws of Goodness and hath alwaies some good end before it and therefore would never punish except some further good were in view True Justice never supplants any that it self might appear more glorious in their ruines for this would be to make Justice love something better then Righteousness and to advance and magnifie it self in something which is not it self but rather an aberration from it self and therefore God himself so earnestly contends with the Jews about the Equity of his own waies with frequent asseverations that his Justice is thirsty after no man's blood but rather that Sinners would repent turn from their evil waies and live And then Justice is most advanced when the contents of it are fulfill'd and though it does not and will not acquit the guilty without Repentance yet the design of it is to encourage Innocency and promote true Goodness CHAP. VIII The Fifth and last Deduction 5. That seeing there is such an Entercourse and Society as it were between God and Men therefore there is also some Law between them which is the Bond of all Communion The Primitive rules of God's Oeconomy in this world not the sole Results of an Absolute Will but the sacred Decrees of Reason and Goodness God could not design to make us Sinfull or Miserable Of the Law of Nature embosom'd in Man's Soul how it obliges man to love and obey God and to express a Godlike spirit and life in this world All Souls the Off-spring of God but Holy Souls manifest themselves to be and are more peculiarly the Children of God THE former Deduction leads me to another a-kin to it which shall be my last and it is that which Tully intimates in his De legibus viz. That seeing there is such an Entercourse and Society as it were between God and Men therefore there is also some Law between them which is the Bond of all Communion God himself from whom all Law takes its rise and emanation is not Exlex and without all Law nor in a sober sense above it Neither are the Primitive rules of his Oeconomy in this world the sole Results of an Absolute will but the Sacred Decrees of Reason and Goodness I cannot think God to be so unbounded in his Legislative power that he can make any thing Law both for his own Dispensations and our Observance that we may sometime imagine We cannot say indeed that God was absolutely determin'd from some Law within himself to make us but I think we may safely say when he had once determin'd to make us he could neither make us sinfull seeing he had no Idea nor shadow of Evil within himself nor lap us those dreadfull fates within our Natures or set them over us that might arcanâ inspiratione as some are pleas'd to phrase it secretly work our ruine and silently carry us on making use of our own naturall infirmity to eternall misery Neither could he design to make his creatures miserable that so he might shew himself Just. These are rather the by-waies of Cruell and Ambitious men that seek their own advantage in the mischiefs of other men and contrive their own Rise by their Ruines this is not Divine Justice but the Cruelty of degenerated men But as the Divinity could propound nothing to it self in the making of the World but the Communication of its own Love and Goodness so it can never swerve from the same Scope and End in the dispensation of it self to it Neither did God so boundlesly enlarge the appetite of Souls after some All-sufficient Good that so they might be the more unspeakably tortur'd in the missing of it but that they might more certainly return to the Originall of their Beings And such busie-working Essences as the Souls of men are could neither be made as dull and sensless of true Happiness as Stocks and Stones are neither could they contain the whole summe and perfection of it within themselves therefore they must also be inform'd with such Principles as might conduct them back again to Him from whom they first came God does not make Creatures for the meer sport of his Almighty arm to raise and ruine and toss up and down at meer pleasure No that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or good pleasure of that Will that made them is the same still it changes not though we may change and make our selves uncapable of partaking the blissfull fruits and effects of it And so we come to consider that Law embosom'd in the Souls of men which ties them again to their Creatour and this is called The Law of Nature which indeed is nothing else but a Paraphrase or Comment upon the Nature of God as it copies forth it self in the Soul of Man Because God is the First Mind and the First Good propagating an Imitation of himself in such Immortall Natures as the Souls of Men are therefore ought the Soul to renounce all mortall and mundane things and preserve its Affections chast and pure for God himself
suppose we may fairly gloss upon S. Paul's Discourses which so much prefer Faith above Works We must not think in a Gyant-like pride to scale the walls of Heaven by our own Works and by force thereof to take the strong Fort of Blessedness and wrest the Crown of Glory out of God's hands whether he will or no. We must not think to commence a suit in Heaven for Happiness upon such a poor and weak plea as our own External compliance with the Old Law is We must not think to deal with God in the Method of Commutative Justice and to challenge Eternal life as the just Reward of our great Merits and the hire due to us for our labour and toil we have took in God's Vineyard No God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble it must be an humble and Self-denying address of a Soul dissolved into a deep and piercing sense of its own Nothingness and unprofitableness that can be capable of the Divine bounty he fills the hungry with good things but the rich he sends empty away They are the hungry and thirsty Souls alwaies gasping after the living springs of Divine grace as the parched ground in the desert doth for the dew of Heaven ready to drink them in by a constant dependance upon God Souls that by a living watchfull and diligent Faith spreading forth themselves in all obsequious reverence and love of him wait upon him as the Eyes of an handmaid wait on the hand of her Mistress These are they that he delights to satiate with his goodness Those that being master'd by a strong sense of their own indigency their pinching and pressing povertie and his All-sufficient fulness trust in him as an Almighty Saviour and in the most ardent manner pursue after that Perfection which his grace is leading them to those that cannot satisfie themselves in a bare performance of some External acts of righteousness or an External observance of a Law without them but with the most greedy and fervent ambition pursue after such an acquaintance with his Divine Spirit as may breath an inward life through all the powers of their Souls and beget in them a vital form and soul of Divine goodness These are the spiritual seed of faithful Abraham the sons of the Free-woman and heirs of the promises to whom all are made Yea and Amen in Christ Jesus These are they which shall abide in the house for ever when the sons of the Bond-woman those that are only Arabian proselytes shall be cast out CHAP. VII An Appendix to the foregoing Discourse How the whole business and Undertaking of Christ is eminently available both to give full relief and ease to our Minds and Hearts and also to encourage us to Godliness or a God-like righteousness briefly represented in sundry Particulars FOR the further illustration of some things especially in the latter part of this Discourse it may not be amiss in some Particulars which might easily be enlarged to shew How the Undertaking of Christ that Great Object of Faith is greatly advantageous and available to the giving full relief and ease to our Minds and Hearts and also to the encouraging us to Godliness or a true God-like righteousness In the General therefore we may consider That full and evident assurance is given hereby to the world That God doth indeed seek the saving of that which is lost and men are no longer to make any doubt or scruple of it Now what can we imagine more available to carry on a Designe of Godliness and to rouze dul and languid Souls to an effectual minding of their own Salvation then to have this News sounding in their Ears by men that at the first promulgation thereof durst tell them roundly in the Name of God that God required them every where to repent for that his Kingdome of grace was now apparent and that he was not only willing but it was his gracious designe to save recover lost Sinners who had forsaken his Goodness Particularly That the whole business of Christ is very advantageous for this purpose and highly accommodate thereto may appear thus We are fully assured that God hath this forementioned designe upon lost men because here is one viz. Christ that partakes every way of Humane Nature whom the Divinity magnifies it self in and carries through this world in Humane infirmities and Sufferings to Eternal glory a clear manifestation to the World that God had not cast off Humane Nature but had a real mind to exalt and dignifie it again The way into the Holy of holies or to Eternal happiness is laid as open as may be by Christ in his Doctrine Life and Death in all which we may see with open face what Humane Nature may attain to and how it may by Humility Self-denial and divine Love a Christ-like life rise up above all visible heavens into a state of Immortal glory and bliss Here is a manifestation of Love given enough to thaw all the iciness of mens hearts which self-Self-love had quite frozen up For here is One who in Humane Nature most heartily every where denying himself is ready to doe any thing for the good of Mankind and at last gives up his life for the same pupose and that according to the good will and pleasure of that Eternal love which so loved the World that he gave this beloved and his only-begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life Whereas every Penitent Sinner carries a sense of Guilt upon his own Conscience is apt to shrink with cold chill fears of offended Majesty and to dread the thoughts of violated Justice He is assured that Christ hath laid down his life and thereby made propitiation atonement for sin That He hath laid down his life for the Redemption of him and so in Christ we have Redemption through his bloud even the forgiveness of sins Thus may the Hearts of all Penitents troubled at first with sense of their own guilt be quieted and fully establisht in a living Faith and Hope in an Eternal goodness seeing how their Sins are remitted through the bloud of Jesus that came to die for them and save them and through his bloud they may have free access unto God Seeing Sin and Guilt are apt continually to beget a jealousie of God's Majesty and Greatness from whom the Sinner finds himself at a vast distance he is made acquainted with a Mediator through whom he may address himself to God without this jealousie or doubting for that this Mediator likewise is one of Humane Nature that is highly beloved and accepted of God he having so highly pleased God by performing his Will in all things Certainly it is very decorous and much for the Ease of a Penitent's mind as it makes also for the disparagement of Sin that our Addresses to God should be through a Mediator The Platonists wisely observ'd that between the Pure Divinity and Impure Sinners as
correspondent to his own nature The ancient superstition of the Heathens was always very nice and curious in honouring every one of their Gods with Sacrifices and Rites most agreeable to their natures I am sure there is no Incense no offering we can present God with is so sweet so acceptable to him as our Love and Delight and Confidence in him and when he comes into the Souls of men he makes these his Throne his place of rest as finding the greatest agreeableness therein to his own Essence A Good man that finds himself made partaker of the Divine nature and transform'd into the image of God infinitely takes pleasure in God as being altogether Lovely according to that in Cant. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Totus ipse est desideria and his Meditation of God is sweet unto him Ps. 104. S. John that lay in the bosome of Christ who came from the bosome of the Father and perfectly understood his Eternal Essence hath given us the fullest description that he could make of him when he tells us that God is Love and he that dwells in God dwells in love and reposing himself in the bosome of an Almighty Goodness where he finds nothing but Love and Loveliness he now displays all the strength and beauty of those his choiest and most precious affections of Love and Joy and Confidence his Soul is now at ease and rests in peace neither is there any thing to make afraid He is got beyond all those powers of darknesse which give such continual alarms in this lower world and are always troubling the Earth He is got above all fears and despairs he is in a bright clear region above Clouds and Tempests infra se despicit nubes There is no frightful terribleness in the supreme Majesty That men apprehend God at any time in such a dismayed manner it must not at all be made an argument of his nature but of our sinfulness and weakness The Sun in the heavens always was and will be a Globe of Light and brightness howsoever a purblind Eye is rather dazled then enlightned by it There is an Inward sense in Mans Soul which were it once awaken'd and excited with an inward tast and relish of the Divinity could better define God to him then all the world else It is the sincere Christian that so tasts and sees how good and sweet the Lord is as none else does The God of hope fills him with all joy and peace in believing so that he abounds in hope as the Apostle speaks Rom. 15. He quietly reposes himself in God his heart is fixed trusting in the Lord he is more for a solid peace and setled calme of spirit then for high Raptures and feelings of Joy or Extraordinary Manifestations of God to him he does not passionately desire nor importunately expect such things he rather looks after the Manifestations of the Goodness and Power of God within him in subduing all in his Soul that is unlike and contrary to God and forming him into his image and likeness Though I think it worthy of a Christian to endeavour the Assurance of his own Salvation yet perhaps it might be the safest way to moderate his curiosity of prying into God's Book of life and to stay a while untill he sees himself within the confines of Salvation it self Should a man hear a Voice from Heaven or see a Vision from the Almighty to testify unto him the Love of God towards him yet methinks it were more desireable to find a Revelation of all from within arising up from the Bottome and Centre of a mans own Soul in the Reall and Internal impressions of a Godlike nature upon his own spirit and thus to find the Foundation and Beginning of Heaven and Happiness within himself it were more desirable to see the crucifying of our own Will the mortifying of the mere Animal life and to see a Divine life rising up in the room of it as a sure Pledge and Inchoation of Immortality and Happiness the very Essence of which consists in a perfect conformity and chearfull complyance of all the Powers of our Souls with the Will of God The best way of gaining a well-grounded assurance of the Divine love is this for a man to overcome himself and his own Will To him that overcomes shall be given that white stone and in it the new name written which no man knoweth but he that receives it He that beholds the Sun of righteousness arising upon the Horizon of his Soul with healing in its wings and chasing away all that misty darkness of his own Self-will and Passions such a one desires not now the Starr-light to know whether it be Day or not nor cares he to pry into Heaven's secrets and to search into the hidden rolles of Eternity there to see the whole plot of his Salvation for he views it transacted upon the inward stage of his own Soul and reflecting upon himself he may behold a Heaven opened from within and a Throne set up in his Soul and an Almighty Saviour sitting upon it and reigning within him he now finds the Kingdome of Heaven within him and sees that it is not a thing merely reserved for him without him being already made partaker of the sweetnesse and efficacy of it What the Jewes say of the Spirit of Prophesy may not unfitly be applyed to the Holy Ghost the true Comforter dwelling in the minds of good men as a sure Earnest of their Eternal inheritance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Spirit resides not but upon a man of Fortitude one that gives proof of this Fortitude in subduing his own Self-will and his Affections We read of Elisha that he was fain to call for a Musical instrument and one to play before him to allay the heat of his Passions before he could converse with the Prophetical Spirit The Hely Spirit is too pure and gentle a thing to dwell in a Mind muddied and disturb'd by those impure dreggs those thick fogs and mists that arise from our Self-will and Passions our prevailing over these is the best way to cherish the Holy Spirit by which we may be sealed unto the day of redemption To conclude this Particular It is a venturous and rugged guess and conceit which some men have That in a perfect resignation of our Wills to the Divine will a man should be content with his own Damnation and to be the Subject of Eternal Wrath in Hell if it should so please God Which is as impossible as it is for him that infinitely thirsts after a true Participation of the Divine Nature and most earnestly endeavours a most inward Union with God in Spirit by a denial of himself and his own will to swell up in self-Self-love Pride and Arrogancy against God the one whereof is the most substantial Heaven the other the most real Hell whereas indeed by conquering our selves we are translated from Death to Life and the kingdom of God and Heaven is
can scarce be otherwise but that there should be an unknown love between such persons there being such a secret fascination in frequent converse and familiarity as entices a mans Soul and Heart out of himself Those Precepts which we imbibe from anothers mouth naturally call forth a strong affection to flow from us to him and he who inflames our Souls with love to God will certainly enkindle a subordinate love within us to himself The words of Wisdome smite an ingenuous Soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as with a dart if I may use Greg. Thaumaturgus his expression concerning Origen's Discourses and cannot but wound it both with a love to Wisdom him that shoots those piercing arrows into its Heart They bind a tractable Soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it werein indissoluble necessities so that it cannot but love those words kiss the mouth also from whence they flow unto it A teachable Mind will hang about a wise mans neck and thereby they come to cleave and cling as fast together as the Soul of Jonathan did unto the Soul of David So the aforesaid Gregory speaks of himself and Origen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. This David meaning Origen hath intangled and bound up my Soul in such necessary fetters of Love he hath so tyed and even knit me to him that if I would be disengaged I cannot quit my self No 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though we depart out of this world our love cannot die for I love him even as my own Soul and so my affection must remain for ever The words of the wise saith Solomon are as goads and as nails fastned by the Masters of the Assemblies Eccles. 12. 11. If a Master fix his Doctrine in his Scholars mind he nailes himself likewise with the same stroke quasi trabali clavo by a pin as strong as a beam to his Scholars heart They mingle Souls as they doe Notions and mutually pass into each other 2. We have here likewise the Sense which Elisha had of his great loss For these Words are Expressions of Sorrow and Lamentation as appears by the words following And he took hold of his own clothes and rent them in pieces and also from chap. 13. 14. where we find Joash weeping over this Elisha and saying these very words of my Text O my Father my Father the chariot of Israel and the Horsemen thereof And methinks I see Elisha himself here bedewing his cheeks with tears and hear these words sob'd and sighed out of his Heart having lost his dear Father one that took such special care of him whilst he was in the world Methinks I see his Heart rent as well as his Garments and there I see Elijah graven in letters as great as was his Love How could he look on himself and not lament to think that he had lost his Head how could he behold Israel unguarded and not throw off his own clothes as a token of his Sorrow It is said of Jehoiakim Jer. 22. 18. That they shall not lament for him saying Ah my Brother or ah my Sister they shall not lament for him saying Ah Lord or ah his Glory which both shews that this is a Form of speech to denote sorrow and that it is an Honour wicked men shall want that none shall bemoan their Departure But the Just shall be had in everlasting remembrance they shall die desired and those who can value them will not let them pass away in silence and with dry eyes No Tears are spent so well as for the want of God and a good Friend or a Good man especially such a one as i before described And indeed who can think of his gracious lipps his profitable and delightful converse his cordial love without a sigh and a tear without saying Ah my Father Ah his Glory No man will be sooner miss'd then such an one as he Ten thousand others may steal out of the world and no body scarce mind or inquire after them but let Elijah goe away and you shall have fifty men goe three days to seek him that if it be possible they may enjoy his company a while longer We find that Jesus himself wept for his friend Lazarus Joh. 11. 35. at which the Jews said Behold how he loved him Two Souls joined together in cordial love cannot part without a groan especially a Son and his Father a Scholar and his Master The Child cannot hold it self from crying when it wants the Breast that used to feed it nor can a Soul thirsty of knowledg but be pained when the Fountain is stop'd that used to quench it There are not so many of these men in the world but their loss will be as soon felt as the want of a stake in a rotten hedg or of a Buttress against a bowing wall He who knows one to have been a Light in the world and a Lamp unto him will surely be melancholy and sad when he sees that Light goe out and himself left in the dark without that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those chearful and beloved beams which used to shine upon him to illuminate and warm his Soul with a true knowledg and love of all real goodness 3. We may further take notice of the Honourable thoughts he had of Elijah of the Reverence Worship and Respect which he gave unto him For so we may look upon these Words as an Expression of the high Esteem he had of him and Regard he bare to him even after he was gone from this Earth and could do no more kindnesses for him Elisha who had been a minister to him when he was below and used to powre water upon his hands could not but have very reverend thoughts toward him now that the Angels came to wait upon him and in Flames of fire to carry him up above He could not but honour him as his Elder and Father as his Leader and Commander as the General of the Sons of the Prophets as the very Host and Army of Israel And indeed the Souls of those men that are as full of God as the name of Elijah is which includes Two if not Three of the Divine names in it cannot but draw our eyes toward them but then they so dazzle us with their lustre and brightness they strike us into such amazement at their Perfections that the weakness of mans nature hath been apt to give no less then Divine veneration to such persons It had not been lawful I know to have worshipped Elijah though he had been an Angel but yet methinks I see Elisha bowing down with some respect to the very Mantle which fel from his Master and taking it up as a precious Relique of so holy a man And I could very well pass some Civility upon the Gown in which this Holy man departed used for to walk out of the great honour which I bear to him There was so much of Divinity enshrined in this Excellent man's Soul that it made every thing about him
And he told me in his sickness that he hoped he had learned that for which God sent it and that he thought God kept him so long in such a case under such burdens and pressures that Patience might have its perfect work in him His sickness undoubtedly was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Nazianzen speaks a learned disease and full of true Philosophy which taught him more of real Christianity and made his Soul of a more strong able Athletick habit and temper For as S. James saith if Patience have its perfect work then is a Soul perfect and entire wanting nothing And really in his Sickness he shewed what Christianity and True Religion is able to doe what Might Power and Virtue there is in it to bear up a Soul under the greatest loads and that he could through Christ strengthening him doe all that which he so admirably discoursed of in his life But for his Humility it was that which was most apparent and conspicuous You might have beheld in him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the same Father speaks true humility in a most eminent degree and the more eminent considering how much there was within him which would have swelled and puffed up another But from his first admission into the Universitie as I am informed by those that knew him he sought not great things for himself but was contented in the condition wherein he was He made not hast to rise and climb as youths are apt to doe which we in these late times too much experience wherein Youths scarce fledg'd have soared to the highest preferments but proceeded leisurely by orderly steps not to what he could get but to what he was fit to undertake He stai'd God's time of advancement with all industry and pains following his studies as if he rather desired to deserve honour then to be honoured He shook off all Idleness and Sloth the bane of youth and so had the Blessing of God upon his endeavours who gave him great encouragement from divers persons of worth and at last brought him unto this place And I challenge any one that is impartial to say if since he came hither they ever beheld in him any Pride Vain-glory Boasting Self-conceit Desire of honour and being famous in the world No there is not the man living that had the eyes ever to discern any thing of this swoln nature but on the contrary it was easie to take notice of most profound Humility and Lowliness of mind which made him a true Disciple of Jesus Christ who took upon him the form of a servant and made himself of no reputation And I dare say our dear friend was as true as humble a servant without any complement to the good of Mankind as any person that this day lives This was his designe in his studies and if it had pleased the Lord of life to have prolonged his daies it would have been more of his work For he was resolved as he once told me very much to lay aside other studies and to travel in the salvation of mens Souls after whose good he most ardently thirsted Shall I add 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle speaks above or unto all these his Faith I say his true lively and working Faith his simple plain-hearted naked Faith in Christ It is likely that it did not busie it self about many fine Notions Subtilties and Curiosities or believing whole Volumes but be sure it was that which was firmly set and fixed in the Mercy and Goodness of God through Christ that also which brought down Christ into his Soul which draw'd down Heaven into his Heart which suck'd in life and strength continually from our Saviour which made him hearty serious and constant in all those forenamed Christian Vertues His Faith was not without a Soul but what Isidore saith of Faith and Works held true of him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 His Faith was animated quickned and actuated by these It made him God-like and he lived by Faith in the Son of God by it he came to be truly partaker of the Righteousness of Christ and had it wrought and formed in his very Soul For this indeed was the End of his life the main design which he carried on that he might become like to God So that if one should have asked him that Question in Antoninus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what is thy art and profession thy business and imploiment He would not have answered To be a great Philosopher Mathematician Historian or Hebrician all which he was in great eminency To be a Physitian Lawyer General Linguist which Names and many more his General skill deserved But he would have answered as he doth there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my Art is to be Good To be a true Divine is my care and business or in the Christian phrase To be holy as God is holy to be perfect as my heavenly Father is perfect All that remember the serious behaviour and weightie expressions he used in his Prayers cannot but call to mind how much his Heart was set upon the attainment of this true Goodness I have transgressed too much my bounds now it is so late and trespassed perhaps too much upon your patience Yet I hope I should not weary you if I should discourse upon his Ingenuity his Courtesie his Gentleness and Sweetness with many other things of the like nature And let me say thus much that he was far from that Spirit of devouting zeal that now too much rages He would rather have been consumed in the service of men then have called for fire down from heaven as Elijah did to consume them And therefore though Elijah excelled him in this that he ascended up to Heaven in a fiery chariot yet herein I may say he was above the spirit of Elijah that he called for no fire to descend from heaven upon men but the fire of Divine love that might burn up all their Hatreds Roughness and Cruelty to each other But as for Benignity of Mind and Christian kindness every body that knew him will remember that he ever had their names in his mouth and I assure them they were no less in his heart and life as knowing that without these Truth it self is in a faction and Christ is drawn into a party And this Graciousness of Spirit was the more remarkable in him because he was of a temper naturally Hot and Cholerick as the greatest Minds most commonly are He was wiser then to let any Anger rest in his bosom much less did he suffer it to burn and boil til it was turned into gall and bitterness and least of all would he endure that any Passion should lodge in him till it was become a cankered Malice and black Hatred which men in these days can scarce hide but let it appear in their countenance and in their carriage towards others If he was at any time moved unto Anger it was but a sudden flushing in his face and it
then Fellow of Emman Col. afterwards Provost of Kings College Dr. Whichcote to whom for his Directions and Encouragements of him in his Studies his seasonable provision for his support and maintenance when he was a young Scholar as also upon other obliging Considerations our Author did ever express a great and singular regard But besides I considered him which was more as a true Servant and Friend of God and to such a one and what relates to such I thought that I owed no less care and diligence The former Title a Servant of God is very often in Scripture given to that incomparable person Moses incomparable for his Philosophical accomplishments and knowledg of Nature as also for his Political Wisdom and great abilities in the Conduct and managing of affairs and in speaking excellent sense strong and clear Reason in any business and Case that was before him for he was mighty in words and in deeds Acts 7. and of both these kinds of Knowledge wherein Moses excell'd as also in the more recondite and mysterious knowledge of the Egyptians there are several Instances and Proofs in the Pentateuch written by him incomparable as well for the loveliness of his Disposition and Temper the inward ornament and beauty of a meek and humble Spirit as for the extraordinary amiableness of his outward person and incomparable for his unexampled Self-denial in the midst of the greatest allurements and most tempting advantages of this world And from all these great Accomplishments and Perfections in Moses it appears how excellently he was qualified and enabled to answer that Title The Servant of God more frequently given to him in Scripture then unto any other The other Title a Friend of God is given to Abraham the Father of the Faithful an eminent Exemplar of Self-resignation and Obedience even in Trials of the greatest difficulty and it is given to him thrice in Scripture 2 Chron. 20. 7. Esay 41. 8. James 2. 23. and plainly implied in Genes 18. 17. Shall I hide from Abraham c. but express'd in the Jerusalem Targum there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in Philo Jud. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nor is less insinuated concerning Moses with whom God is said to have spoken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mouth to mouth and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mouth to mouth as a man speaketh unto his friend And how fitly and properly both these Titles were verified concerning our Author who was a faithful hearty and industrious Servant of God counting it his Duty and Dignity his Meat and Drink to doe the will of his Master in heaven and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from his very Soul and with good will the characters of a good Servant and who was dearly affected towards God and treated by God as a Friend may appear from that Account of him represented in the Sermon at his Funeral I might easily fill much Paper if I should particularly recount those many Excellencies that shined forth in him But I would study to be short I might truly say That he was not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both a Righteous and truly Honest man and also a Good man He was a Follower and Imitator of God in Purity and Holiness in Benignity Goodness and Love a Love enlarged as God's Love is whose Goodness overflows and spreads it self to all and his tender mercies are over all his works He was a Lover of our Lord Jesus Christ in Sincerity a Lover of his Spirit and of his Life a Lover of his Excellent Laws and Rules of holy life a serious Practiser of his Sermon in the Mount that Best Sermon that ever was preach'd and yet none more generally neglected by those that call themselves Christians though the observance of it be for the true Interest both of mens Souls and of Christian States and Common-wealths and accordingly as being the surest way to their true Settlement and Establishment it is compared to the building upon a Rock Matth. 7. 24. To be short He was a Christian not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more then a little even wholly and altogether such a Christian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inwardly and in good earnest Religious he was but without any Vaingloriousness and Ostentation not so much a talking or a disputing as a living a doing and an obeying Christian one inwardly acquainted with the Simplicity and Power of Godliness but no admirer of the Pharisaick forms and Sanctimonious shews though never so goodly and specious which cannot and do not affect the adult and strong Christians though they may and doe those that are unskillful and weak For in this weak and low state of the divided Churches in Christendom weak and slight things especially if they make a fair shew in the flesh as the Apostle speaks are most esteemed whereas in the mean time the weightier matters of the Law the most concerning and Substantial parts of Religion are passed over disregarded by them as being grievous to them no way for their turns no way for their corrupt interests fleshly ease and worldly advantages But God's thoughts are not as their thoughts The Circumcision which is of the heart and in the spirit is that whose praise is of God though not of men and that which is highly esteemed amongst men is abomination in the sight of God What I shall further observe concerning the Author is only this That he was Eminent as well in those Perfections which have most of Divine worth and excellency in them and rendred him a truly God-like man as in those other Perfections and Accomplishments of the Mind which rendred him a very Rational and Learned man and withall in the midst of all these great Accomplishments as Eminent and Exemplary in unaffected Humility and true Lowliness of Mind And herein he was like to Moses that Servant and Friend of God who was most meek and lowly in heart as our Lord is also said to be Mat. 11. in this as in all other respects greater then Moses who was vir mitissimus above all the men which were upon the face of the Earth Num. 12. And thus he excell'd others as much in Humility as he did in Knowledg in that thing which though in a lesser degree in others is apt to puff up and swell them with Pride and Self-conceit But Moses was humble though he was a Person of brave parts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Josephus speaks of him and having had the advantages of a most ingenuous Education was admirably accomplish'd in the choicest parts of Knowledg and * learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians whereby some of the Antients understood the Mysterious Hieroglyphical learning Natural Philosophy Musick Physick and Mathematicks And for this last to omit the rest how excellent this Humble man the Author was therein did appear
THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL CHap. I. The First and main Principles of Religion viz. 1. That God is 2. That God is a rewarder of them that seek him Wherein is included the Great Article of the Immortality of the Soul These two Principles acknowledged by religious and serious persons in all Ages 3. That God communicates himself to mankind by Christ. The Doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul discoursed of in the first place and why pag. 59. Chap. II. Some Considerations preparatory to the proof of the Souls Immortality pag. 63. Chap. III. The First Argument for the Immortality of the Soul That the Soul of man is not Corporeal The gross absurdities upon the Supposition that the Soul is a Complex of fluid Atomes or that it is made up by a fortuitous Concourse of Atomes which is Epicurus his Notion concerning Body The Principles and Dogmata of the Epicurean Philosophy in opposition to the Immateriall and Incorporeall nature of the Soul asserted by Lucretius but discovered to be false and insufficient That Motion cannot arise from Body or Matter Nor can the power of Sensation arise from Matter Much less can Reason That all Humane knowledge hath not its rise from Sense The proper function of Sense and that it is never deceived An Addition of Three Considerations for the enforcing of this first Argument and further clearing the Immateriality of the Soul That there is in man a Faculty which 1. controlls Sense and 2. collects and unites all the Perceptions of our several Senses 3. That Memory and Prevision are not explicable upon the supposition of Matter and Motion pag. 68. Chap. IV. The Second Argument for the Immortality of the Soul Actions either Automatical or Spontaneous That Spontaneous and Elicite Actions evidence the distinction of the Soul from the Body Lucretius his Evasion very slight and weak That the Liberty of the Will is inconsistent with the Epicurean principles That the Conflict of Reason against the Sensitive Appetite argues a Being in us superiour to Matter pag. 85. Chap. V. The Third Argument for the Immortality of the Soul That Mathematical Notions argue the Soul to be of a true Spiritual and Immaterial Nature pag. 93. Chap. VI. The Fourth Argument for the Immortality of the Soul That those clear and stable Ideas of Truth which are in Man's Mind evince an Immortal and Immaterial Substance residing in us distinct from the Body The Soul more knowable then the Body Some passages out of Plotinus and Proclus for the further confirming of this Argument pag. 96. Chap. VII What it is that beyond the Highest and most subtile Speculations whatsoever does clear and evidence to a Good man the Immortality of his Soul That True Goodness and Vertue begets the most raised Sense of this Immortality Plotinus his excellent Discourse to this purpose pag. 101. Chap. VIII An Appendix containing an Enquiry into the Sense and Opinion of Aristotle concerning the Immortality of the Soul That according to him the Rational Soul is separable from the Body and Immortal The true meaning of his Intellectus Agens and Patiens pag. 106. Chap. IX A main Difficulty concerning the Immortality of the Soul viz. The strong Sympathy of the Soul with the Body answered An Answer to another Enquiry viz. Under what account Impressions deriv'd from the Body do fall in Morality p. 112. DISCOURSE V. OF THE EXISTENCE NATURE OF GOD. CHap. I. That the Best way to know God is by an attentive reflexion upon our own Souls God more clearly and lively pictur'd upon the Souls of Men then upon any part of the Sensible World pag 123. Chap. II. How the Contemplation of our own Souls and a right Reflexion upon the Operations thereof may lead us into the knowledge of 1. The Divine Unity and Omniscience 2. God's Omnipotence 3. The Divine Love and Goodness 4. God's Eternity 5. His Omnipresence 6. The Divine Freedome and Liberty p. 126. Chap. III. How the Consideration of those restless motions of our Wills after some Supreme and Infinite Good leads us into the knowledge of a Deity pag. 135. Chap. IV. Deductions and Inferences from the Consideration of the Divine Nature and Attributes 1. That all Divine productions are the free Effluxes of Omnipotent Love and Goodness The true Notion of God's glory what it is Men very apt to mistake in this point God needs not the Happiness or Misery of his Creatures to make himself glorious by God does most glorifie himself by communicating himself we most glorifie God when we most partake of him and resemble him most pag. 140. Chap. V. A second Deduction 2. That all things are supported and govern'd by an Almighty Wisdome and Goodness An Answer to an Objection made against the Divine Providence from an unequal distribution of things here below Such quarrelling with Providence ariseth from a Paedanticall and Carnall notion of Good and Evil. pag. 144. Chap. VI. A third Deduction 3. That all true Happiness consists in a participation of God arising out of the assimilation and conformity of our Souls to him and That the most reall Misery ariseth out of the Apostasie of Souls from God No enjoyment of God without our being made like to him The Happiness and Misery of Man defin'd and stated with the Original and Foundation of both pag. 147. Chap. VII A fourth Deduction 4. The fourth Deduction acquaints us with the true Notion of the Divine Justice That the proper scope and design of it is to preserve Righteousness to promote encourage true Goodness That it does not primarily intend Punishment but only takes it up as a mean to prevent Transgression True Justice never supplants any that it self may appear glorious in their ruines How Divine Justice is most advanced pag. 151. Chap. VIII The fifth and last Deduction 5. That seeing there is such an Entercourse and Society as it were between God and Men therefore there is also some Law between them which is the Bond of all Communion The Primitive rules of God's Oeconomy in this world not the sole Results of an Absolute Will but the sacred Decrees of Reason and Goodness God could not design to make us Sinfull or Miserable Of the Law of Nature embosom'd in Man's Soul how it obliges man to love and obey God and to express a Godlike spirit and life in this world All Souls the Off-spring of God but Holy Souls manifest themselves to be and are more peculiarly the Children of God pag. 154. Chap. IX An Appendix concerning the Reason of Positive Laws pag. 158. Chap. X. The Conclusion of this Treatise concerning the Existence and Nature of God shewing how our Knowledge of God comes to be so imperfect in this State while we are here in this Terrestriall Body Two waies observed by Plotinus whereby This Body does prejudice the Soul in her Operations That the better Philosophers and more contemplative Jews did not deny the Existence of all kind of Body in the other state What
are not alwaies the Best men that blot most paper Truth is not I fear so Voluminous nor swells into such a mighty bulk as our Books doe Those mindes are not alwaies the most chast that are most parturient with these learned Discourses which too often bear upon them a foule stain of their unlawfull propagation A bitter juice of corrupt affections may sometimes be strain'd into the inke of our greatest Clerks their Doctrines may tast too sowre of the cask they come through We are not alwaies happy in meeting with that wholsome food as some are wont to call the Doctrinal-part of Religion which hath been dress'd out by the cleanest hands Some men have too bad hearts to have good heads they cannot be good at Theorie who have been so bad at the Practice as we may justly fear too many of those from whom we are apt to take the Articles of our Belief have been Whilst we plead so much our right to the patrimony of our Fathers we may take too fast a possession of their Errors as well as of their sober opinions There are Idola specûs Innate Prejudices and deceitfull Hypotheses that many times wander up and down in the Mindes of good men that may flie out from them with their graver determinations We can never be well assur'd what our Traditional Divinity is nor can we securely enough addict our selves to any Sect of men That which was the Philosopher's motto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we may a little enlarge and so fit it for an ingenuous pursuer after divine Truth He that will finde Truth must seek it with a free judgment and a sanctified minde he that thus seeks shall finde he shall live in Truth and that shall live in him it shall be like a stream of living waters issuing out of his own Soule he shall drink of the waters of his own cisterne and be satisfied he shall every morning finde this Heavenly Manna lying upon the top of his own Soule and be fed with it to eternal life he will finde satisfaction within feeling himself in conjunction with Truth though all the World should dispute against him SECTION II. AND thus I should again leave this Argument but that perhaps we may all this while have seemed to undermine what we intend to build up For if Divine Truth spring onely up from the Root of true Goodness how shall we ever endeavour to be good before we know what it is to be so or how shall we convince the gainsaying world of Truth unless we could also inspire Vertue into it To both which we shall make this Reply That there are some Radical Principles of Knowledge that are so deeply sunk into the Souls of men as that the Impression cannot easily be obliterated though it may be much darkned Sensual baseness doth not so grosly sully and bemire the Souls of all Wicked men at first as to make them with Diagoras to deny the Deity or with Protagoras to doubt of or with Diodorus to question the Immortality of Rational Souls Neither are the Common Principles of Vertue so pull'd up by the roots in all as to make them so dubious in stating the bounds of Vertue and Vice as Epicurus was though he could not but sometime take notice of them Neither is the Retentive power of Truth so weak and loose in all Scepticks as it was in him who being well scourg'd in the streets till the blood ran about him question'd when he came home whether he had been beaten or not Arrianus hath well observed That the Common Notions of God and Vertue imprest upon the Souls of men are more clear and perspicuous then any else and that if they have not more certainty yet have they more evidence and display themselves with less difficulty to our Reflexive Faculty then any Geometrical Demonstrations and these are both availeable to prescribe out waies of Vertue to mens own souls and to force an acknowledgment of Truth from those that oppose when they are well guided by a skilfull hand Truth needs not any time flie from Reason there being an Eternal amitie between them They are onely some private Dogmata that may well be suspected as spurious and adulterate that dare not abide the tryall thereof And this Reason is not every where so extinguish'd as that we may not by that enter into the Souls of men What the Magnetical virtue is in these earthly Bodies that Reason is in mens Mindes which when it is put forth draws them one to another Besides in wicked men there are sometimes Distasts of Vice and Flashes of love to Vertue which are the Motions which spring from a true Intellect and the faint struglings of an Higher life within them which they crucifie again by their wicked Sensuality As Truth doth not alwaies act in good men so neither doth Sense alwaies act in wicked men they may sometimes have their lucida intervalla their sober fits and a Divine spirit blowing and breathing upon them may then blow up some live sparks of true Understanding within them though they may soon endeavour to quench them again and to rake them up in the ashes of their own earthly thoughts All this and more that might be said upon this Argument may serve to point out the VVay of Vertue We want not so much Means of knowing what we ought to doe as Wills to doe that which we may know But yet all that Knowledge which is separated from an inward acquaintance with Vertue and Goodness is of a far different nature from that which ariseth out of a true living sense of them which is the best discerner thereof and by which alone we know the true Perfection Sweetness Energie and Loveliness of them and all that which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which can no more be known by a naked Demonstration then Colours can be perceived of a blinde man by any Definition or Description which he can hear of them And further the clearest and most distinct Notions of Truth that shine in the Souls of the common sort of men may be extreamly clouded if they be not accompanied with that answerable practice that might preserve their integrity These tender Plants may soon be spoyl'd by the continual droppings of our corrupt affections upon them they are but of a weak and feminine nature and so may be sooner deceived by that wily Serpent of Sensuality that harbours within us While the Soul is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 full of the Body while we suffer those Notions and Common Principles of Religion to lie asleep within us that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the power of an Animal life will be apt to incorporate and mingle it self with them and that Reason that is within us as Plotinus hath well express'd it becomes more and more 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it will be infected with those evil Opinions that arise from our Corporeal life The more deeply our Souls dive into our Bodies the more will
these and wall it about with their own Self-flattery and then sit in it as Gods as Cosroes the Persian king was sometime laughed at for enshrining himself in a Temple of his own And therefore if this Knowledge be not attended with Humility and a deep sense of Self-penury and Self-emptiness we may easily fall short of that True Knowledge of God which we seem to aspire after We may carry such an Image and Species of our Selves constantly before us as will make us lose the clear sight of the Divinity and be too apt to rest in a meer Logical life it's Simplicius his expression without any true participation of the Divine life if we doe not as many doe if not all who rise no higher relapse and slide back by vain-glory popularity or such like vices into some mundane and externall Vanity or other The fourth is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The true Metaphysical and Contemplative man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who running and shooting up above his own Logical or Self-rational life pierceth into the Highest life Such a one who by Universal Love and Holy affection abstracting himself from himselfe endeavours the nearest Union with the Divine Essence that may be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Plotinus speaks knitting his owne centre if he have any unto the centre of Divine Being To such an one the Platonists are wont to attribute 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a true Divine wisedome powerfully displaying it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in an Intellectual life as they phrase it Such a Knowledge they say is alwaies pregnant with Divine Vertue which ariseth out of an happy Union of Souls with God and is nothing else but a living Imitation of a Godlike prefection drawn out by a strong servent love of it This Divine Knowledge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. as Plotinus speaks makes us amorous of Divine beauty beautifull and lovely and this Divine Love and Purity reciprocally exalts Divine Knowledge both of them growing up together like that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Pausanias sometimes speaks of Though by the Platonists leave such a Life and Knowledge as this is peculiarly belongs to the true and sober Christian who lives in Him who is Life it self and is enlightned by Him who is the Truth it self and is made partaker of the Divine Unction and knoweth all things as S. John speaks This Life is nothing else but God's own breath within him and an Infant-Christ if I may use the expression formed in his Soul who is in a sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the shining forth of the Father's glory But yet we must not mistake this Knowledge is but here in its Infancy there is an higher knowledge or an higher degree of this knowledge that doth not that cannot descend upon us in these earthly habitations We cannot here see 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Speculo lucido here we can see but in a glass and that darkly too Our own Imaginative Powers which are perpetually attending the highest acts of our Souls will be breathing a grosse dew upon the pure Glasse of our Understandings and so fully and besmear it that we cannot see the Image of the Divinity sincerely in it But yet this Knowledge being a true heavenly fire kindled from God's own Altar begets an undaunted Courage in the Souls of Good men enables them to cast a holy Scorn upon the poor petty trash of this Life in comparison with Divine things and to pitty those poor brutish Epicureans that have nothing but the meer husks of fleshly pleasure to feed themselves with This Sight of God makes pious Souls breath after that blessed time when Mortality shall be swallowed up of Life when they shall no more behold the Divinity through those dark Mediums that eclipse the blessed Sight of it A SHORT DISCOURSE OF SUPERSTITION Clem. Alexandr in Admon ad Graec. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hierocles in Pythag. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lactantius de Vero cultu Hic verus est cultus in quo mens colentis seipsam Deo immaculatam victimam sistit Ibid. Nihil Sancta singularis illa Majestas aliud ab homine desiderat quam solam innocentiam quam siquis obtulerit Deo satis piè satis religiosè litavit The Contents of the ensuing Discourse The true Notion of Superstition well express'd by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. an over-timorous and dreadful apprehension of the Deity A false Opinion of the Deity the true Cause and Rise of Superstition Superstition is most incident to such as Converse not with the Goodness of God or are conscious to themselves of their own unlikeness to him Right apprehensions of God beget in man a Nobleness and Freedome of Soul Superstition though it looks upon God as an angry Deity yet it counts him easily pleas'd with flattering Worship Apprehensions of a Deity and Guilt meeting together are apt to excite Fear Hypocrites to spare their Sins seek out waies to compound with God Servile and Superstitious Fear is encreased by Ignorance of the certain Causes of Terrible Effects in Nature c. as also by frightful Apparitions of Ghosts and Spectres A further Consideration of Superstition as a Composition of Fear and Flattery A fuller Definition of Superstition according to the Sense of the Ancients Superstition doth not alwaies appear in the same Form but passes from one Form to another and sometimes shrouds it self under Forms seemingly Spiritual and more refined Of SUPERSTITION HAving now done with what we propounded as a Preface to our following Discourses we should now come to treat of the main Heads and Principles of Religion But before we doe that perhaps it may not be amiss to inquire into some of those Anti-Deities that are set up against it the chief whereof are ATHEISM and SUPERSTITION which indeed may seeme to comprehend in them all kind of Apostasy and Praevarication from Religion We shall not be over-curious to pry into such foule and rotten carkasses as these are too narrowly or to make any subtile Anatomy of them but rather enquire a litle into the Original and Immediate Causes of them because it may be they may be nearer of kin then we ordinarily are aware of while we see their Complexions to be so vastly different the one from the other And first of all for SUPERSTITION to lay aside our Vulgar notion of it which much mistakes it it is the same with that Temper of Mind which the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for so Tully frequently translates that word though not so fitly and emphatically as he hath done some others It imports an overtimorous and dreadfull apprehension of the Deity and therefore with Hesychius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are all one and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is by him expounded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Idolater and also one that is very prompt to worship the Gods but withall fearfull of them And
restless appetite within our selves which craves for some Supreme and Chief good and will not be satisfied with any thing less then Infinity it self as if our own Penury and Indigency were commensurate to the Divine fulness and therefore no Question has been more canvas'd by all Philosophy then this De summo hominis bono and all the Sects thereof were antiently distinguish'd by those Opinions that they entertain'd De finibus Boni Mali as Tully phraseth it But of how weak and dilute a Nature soever some of them may have conceived that Summum Bonum yet they could not so satisfie their own inflamed thirst after it We find by Experience that our Souls cannot live upon that thin and spare diet which they are entertain'd with at their own home neither can they be satiated with those jejune and insipid morsels which this Outward world furnisheth their Table with I cannot think the most voluptuous Epicurean could ever satisfie the cravings of his Soul with Corporeal pleasure though he might endeavour to perswade himself there was no better nor the most Quintessential Stoicks find an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Self-sufficiency and Tranquillity within their own Souls arising out of the pregnancy of their own Mind and Reason though their sullen thoughts would not suffer them to be beholden to an Higher Being for their Happiness The more we endeavour to extract an Autarchy out of our own Souls the more we torment them and force them to feel and sensate their own pinching poverty Ever since our Minds became so dim-sighted as not to pierce into that Original and Primitive Blessedness which is above our Wills are too big for our Understandings and will believe their beloved prey is to be found where Reason discovers it not they will pursue it through all the vast Wilderness of this World and force our Understandings to follow the chase with them nor may we think to tame this violent appetite or allay the heat of it except we can look upward to some Eternal and Almighty goodness which is alone able to master it It is not the nimbleness and agility of our own Reason which stirs up these hungry affections within us for then the most ignorant sort of men would never feel the sting thereof but indeed some more Potent nature which hath planted a restless motion within us that might more forcibly carry us out to it self and therefore it will never suffer it self to be controll'd by any of our thin Speculations or satisfied with those aierie delights that our Fancies may offer to it it doth not it cannot rest it self any where but upon the Centre of some Almighty good some solid and substantial Happiness like the hungry childe that will not be still'd by all the mother's musick or change its sower and angry looks for her smiling countenance nothing will satisfie it but the full breasts The whole work of this World is nothing but a perpetuall contention for True Happiness and men are scatter'd up and down the world moving to and fro therein to seek it Our Souls by a Naturall Science as it were feeling their own Originall are perpetually travailing with new designs and contrivances whereby they may purchase the scope of their high ambitions Happiness is that Pearl of price which all adventure for though few find it It is not Gold or Silver that the Earthlings of this world seek after but some satisfying good which they think is there treasur'd up Neither is it a little empty breath that Ambition and Popularity soars after but some kind of Happiness that it thinks to catch and suck in with it And thus indeed when men most of all flie from God they still seek after him Wicked men pursue indeed after a Deity in their worldly lusts wherein yet they most blaspheme for God is not a meer empty Name or Title but that Self-sufficient good which brings along that Rest and Peace with it which they so much seek after though they doe most prodigiously conjoyn it with something which it is not nor can it be and in a true and reall strain of blasphemy attribute all that which God is to something else which is most unlike him and as S. Paul speaks of those infatuated Gentiles turn the glory of the uncorruptible God into the image of corruptible man of birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things God is not better defin'd to us by our Understandings then by our Wills and Affections He is not onely the Eternal Reason that Almighty Mind and Wisdome which our Understandings converse with but he is also that unstained Beauty and Supreme Good which our Wills are perpetually catching after and wheresoever we find true Beauty Love and Goodness we may say Here or there is God And as we cannot understand any thing of an Intelligible nature but by some primitive Idea we have of God whereby we are able to guess at the elevation of its Being and the pitch of its Perfection so neither doe our Wills embrace any thing without some latent sense of Him whereby they can tast and discern how near any thing comes to that Self-sufficient good they seek after and indeed without such an internal sensating Faculty as this is we should never know when our Souls are in conjunction with the Deity or be able to relish the ineffable sweetness of true Happiness Though here below we know but little what this is because we are little acquainted with fruition and enjoyment we know well what belongs to longings and languishment but we know not so well what belongs to plenty and fulness we are well acquainted with the griefs and sicknesses of this in-bred love but we know not what its health and complacencies are To conclude this particular 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Soul hath strong and weighty motions and nothing else can bear it up but something permanent and immutable Nothing can beget a constant serenity and composedness within but something Supreme to its own Essence as if having once departed from the primitive Fountain of its life it were deprived of it self perpetually contesting within it self and divided against it self and all this evidently proves to our inward sense and feeling That there is some Higher Good then our selves something that is much more amiable and desirable and therefore must be loved and preferred before our selves as Plotinus hath excellently observ'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Every thing that desires the enjoyment of the First good would rather be That then what it is because indeed the nature of that is much more desirable then its own And therefore the Platonists when they contemplate the Deity under these three notions of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and question which to place first in order of understanding resolve the preeminence to be due to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Simplicius tells us because That is first known to us
concludes That in those times of the Messiah there shall neither be Merit nor Demerit because there shall be no Free-will which is the alone Mother and Nurse of both of them But in the mean while That Good or Evil are to men that I may phrase it in the language of the Stoick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 none prejudicing or in the least degree hindering the exercise of this Liberty neither from within nor from without none either in Heaven or in Earth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And thus the same Nachmanides expounds that solemn Attestation Deut. 30. 19. wherein Heaven and Earth are called to witness That that day Life and Death were set before them as if God himself had now established such a Monarchical power in man which Heaven and Earth should be in league withall and faithfull to Hereupon R. Saadia Gaon so call'd by way of Eminency doubts not to tell us that the common sense of all the Jewish Doctors was That this Liberty to good or evil was such an Absolute kind of authority established in a mans soul that it was in a sort Independent upon God himself this being as he saith in the book call'd Sepher emunah the meaning of that old and vulgar Maxime amongst the Jews sometimes mentioned in the Talmud 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Omnia sunt in manu Coeli i. Dei excepto timore Dei I am not ignorant there is another Axiome of the Jews as common which may seem partly to cross this and what hitherto hath been spoken viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the meaning of which is this That assistence is perpetually afforded to all endeavours both of Sanctity and Impiety But Maimonides hath somewhere told us and as I remember in his Sepher Hamedang how they mince the matter and mean nothing else by it but this That when men endeavour after the performance of the Law God in a way of providence furnisheth them with External matter and means giving them peace and riches and other outward accommodations whereby they might have advantage and opportunity to perform all that good which their own Free-will determines them to whereas Wicked men find the like help of External matter and means for promoting and accomplishing their wicked and ungodly designes Thus we see how the Jews that they might lay a Foundation of Merit and build up the stately and magnificent fabrick of their Happiness upon the sandy Foundation of a dead Letter without them endeavour to strengthen it by as weak a Rampart of their own Self-sufficiency and the Power of their own Free-will able as they vainly imagined to perform all Righteousness as being adequate and commensurate to the whole Law of God in its most Extensive and Comprehensive sense and meaning rather looking upon the Fall of man as the Rise of that Giant-like Free-will whereby they were enabled to bear up themselves against Heaven it self as being a great Accessory to their happiness rather then prejudicial to it through the access of that multitude of divine Laws which were given to them as we shall see afterwards And so they reckoned upon a more Triumphant and Illustrious kind of Happiness victoriously to be atchieved by the Merit of their own works then that Beggerly kind of Happiness as they seem to look upon it which cometh like an Alms from Divine bounty Accordingly they affirm That Happiness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of Reward is farr greater and much more magnificent then that which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of Mercy CHAP. III. The Second ground of the Jewish Notion of a Legal Righteousness viz. That the Law deliver'd to them on Mount Sinai was a sufficient Dispensation from God and all that needed to be done by him to bring them to Perfection and Happiness and That the Scope of their Law was nothing but to afford them several ways and means of Merit The Opinion of the Jewish Writers concerning Merit and the Reward due to the Works of the Law Their distinguishing of men in order to Merit and Demerit into three sorts viz. Perfectly righteous Perfectly wicked and a Middle sort betwixt these The Mercenary and Low Spirit of the Jewish Religion An account of what the Cabbalists held in this Point of Legal Righteousness THE Second Ground of that Jewish Notion of a Legal Righteousness is this That the Law delivered to them upon Mount Sinai was a sufficient Dispensation from God and all that needed to be done by him for the advancing of them to a State of Perfection and Blessedness and That the proper Scope and End of their Law was nothing but to afford them several waies and means of Merit Which is expresly delivered in the Mishnah 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The meaning whereof is this That therefore the precepts of the Law were so many in number that so they might single out where they pleased and in exercising themselves therein procure Eternal life as Obadias de Bartenora expounds it That whosoever shall perform any one of the 613 Precepts of the Law for so many they make in number without any worldly respects for love of the Precept 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 behold this man shall merit thereby everlasting life For indeed they supposed a Reward due to the performance of every Precept which Reward they supposed to be encreased according to the secret estimation which God himself hath of any Precept as we find suggested in the Mishnah in the Book Pirke avoth in the words of the famous R. Jehuda 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Be carefull to observe the lesser Precept as well as the greater because thou knowest not the Reward that shall be given to the observation of the Precepts Here we must take notice that this was a great debate among the Jews which Precepts they were that had the greatest Reward due to the performance of them in which controversie Maimonides in his Comment upon this place thus resolves us That the measure of the Reward that was annex'd to the Negative Precepts might be collected from the measure of the Punishments that were consequent upon the breach of them But this knot could not be so well solved in reference to the Affirmative Precepts because the Punishments annex'd to the breach of them were more rarely defined in the Law accordingly he expresseth himself to this sense As for the Affirmative Precepts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is not express'd what Reward is due to every one of them and all for this end that we may not know which Precept is most necessary to be observed and which Precept is of less necessity and importance And a little after he tells us that for this reason their Wise men said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Qui operam dat praecepto liber est à praecepto which he expounds to this sense That whosoever shall exercise himself about any one Precept ought without haesitation or dispute to continue in the performance of it as being in the mean while
freed from minding any other For if God had declared which Precepts himself had most valued and settled the greatest revenue of happiness upon then other Precepts would have been less minded and any one that should have busied himself in a Precept of a lower nature would presently have left that when opportunity should have been offered of performing a higher And hence we have also another Talmudical Canon for the performing of Precepts of the same nature with the former quoted by our foresaid Author 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is not lawfull to skip over Precepts that is as he expounds it When a man is about to observe one Precept he may not skip over and relinquish that that so he might apply himself to the observation of another And thus as the performance of any Precept hath a certain Reward annex'd to it so the Measure of the Reward they suppose to be encreased according to the Number of those Precepts which they observe as it is defined by R. Tarphon in the foresaid Mishnah c. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If thou hast been much in the study of the Law thou shalt be rewarded much For faithfull is thy Lord Master who will render to thee a Reward proportionable to thy Work And a little before we have the same thing in the words of another of their Masters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Qui multiplicat legem multiplicat vitam And lest they should not yet be liberal enough of God's cost they are also pleased to distribute Rewards to any Israelite that shall abstain from the breach of a Precept for so we find it in the Mishnah l. Kiddushin Whosoever keeps himself from the breach of a Precept 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall receive the Reward as if he had kept the Precept But this which hath been said concerning the performance of any one Precept must be understood with this Caution That the performance of such a Precept be a continued thing so as that it may compound and collect the performance of many good works into it self otherwise the single performance of any one Precept is only available according to the sense of the Talmudical Masters to cast the scale when a mans Good works and Evil works equally balance one another as Maimonides telleth us in his Comment upon the forenamed Mishnah l. Kidd cap. 1. Sect. 10. where the words of the Jewish Doctors are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that observes any one Precept it shall be well with him and his days shall be prolonged and he shall possess the Earth But he that observes not any one Precept it shall not be well with him nor shall his days be prolonged nor shall he inherit the Earth Which words are thus expounded by Maimonides He that observes any one Precept c. that is so as that by the addition of this work to his other good works his good works over-weigh his evil works and his merits preponderate his demerits For the better understanding whereof we must know That the Jewish Doctors are wont to distinguish of Three sorts of Men which are thus ranked by them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men perfectly righteous 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men perfectly wicked and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a middle sort of men betwixt them Those they are wont to call perfectly righteous who had no transgression or demerits that might be counted fit to be put into the balance against their Merits and those they call'd simply 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 righteous whose Merits outweighed their demerits Whereas on the other side the perfectly wicked in their sense were such as had no Merits at all and those simply 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wicked whose demerits made the weightiest scale And the Middle sort were such as their good deeds and evil deeds equally balanced one another Of this First sort of Men viz. the perfectly righteous they supposed there might be many and such the Pharisees seem to have been in their own esteem in our Saviours time And according to this Notion our Saviour may seem to have shaped his answer to that Young man in the Gospel who asked him What shall I doe to inherit eternal life To which our Saviour answers Keep the Commandements which our Saviour propounds to him in so great a latitude as thereby to take him off from his self-conceit and that he might be convinced upon reflexion on himself that he had fallen short of Eternal life in failing of a due performance of the Divine law But he insisting upon his own Merit in this respect enquires of our Saviour whether there be yet any thing wanting to make him a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one perfectly righteous To this our Saviour replies If thou wilt be perfect go and sell that thou hast c. The meaning of which Reply may as I conceive be this to convince him of his imperfect Obedience to and compliance with the law of God from his over-eager love of this world But secondly for the Medii or those that were in the middle rank of men the Jewish Doctors had divers Rules as 1. In case a mans Evil works and Good were equal the addition of one either way might determine them to Eternal life or misery 2. That in case a mans Evil works should preponderate and weigh down his Good yet he may cast the scale by Repentance if he will or in the other world by chastisements and punishments he may make expiation for them These the like ways they have found out lest any of their fraternity should miscarry To all which we must take in this Caution which they are pleased to deliver to us viz. That Mens Works have their different weight some Good works being so weighty that they may weigh in the balance against many Evil works and vice versâ All which we shall find largely set down by R. Albo l. de fundament is fidei and partly by R. Saadia but especially by Maimonides in his Treatise of Repentance chap. 3. who also tells us of other Expedients provided by their Law for the securing of Merit and Happiness which I shall not here mention And indeed in fine they have found out so many artifices to entail a Legal righteousness and Eternal happiness upon all the Israelites that if it be possible none might be left out of Heaven as may partly appear by that Question captiously proposed to our Saviour Master are there few that shall be saved whereby they expected to ensnare him they themselves holding a General Salvation of all the Jews by virtue of the Law however their wickedness might abound Which we find expresly set down by Maimonides in the fore-named place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All wicked ones whose Evil deeds exceed their Good deeds shall be judged according to the Measure of their Evil deeds so exceeding and afterwards they shall have a portion in the World to come 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for that all Israelites have a
truce with Heaven and all divine displeasure laid asleep yet would our own Sins if they continue unmortified first or last make an Aetna or Vesuvius within us Nay those Sun-beams of Eternal Truth that by us are detained in unrighteousness would at last in those hellish vaults of vice and darkness that are within us kindle into an unquenchable fire It would be of small benefit to us That Christ hath triumph'd over the principalities and powers of darkness without us while Hell and Death strongly immur'd in a Fort of our own Sins and Corruptions should tyrannize within us That his Blood should speak peace in heaven if in the mean while our own Lusts were perpetually warring and fighting in and against our own Souls That he hath taken off our guilt and cancell'd that hand-writing that was against us which bound us over to Eternal condemnation if for all this we continue fast sealed up in the Hellish dungeon of our own filthy Lusts. Indeed we could not expect any relief from Heaven out of that misery under which we lie were not Gods displeasure against us first pacified and our Sins remitted But should the Divine Clemency stoop no lower to us then to a mere pardon of our sins and an abstract Justification we should never rise out of that Misery under which we lie This is the Signal and Transcendent benefit of our free Justification through the Bloud of Christ that God's offence justly conceived against us for our sins which would have been an eternal bar and restraint to the Efflux of his Grace upon us being taken off the Divine grace and bounty may freely flow forth upon us The Fountain of the Divine grace and love is now unlock'd and opened which our Sins had shut up and now the Streams of holiness and true goodness from thence freely flow forth into all gasping Souls that thirst after them The warm Sun of the Divine love whenever it breaks through and scatters the thick Cloud of our iniquities that had formerly separated between God us it immediately breaks forth upon us with healing in its wings it exerciseth the mighty force of its own light and heat upon our dark and benummed Souls begetting in them a lively sense of God and kindling into sparks of Divine goodness within us This Love when once it hath chased away the thick Mist of our Sins it will be as strong as Death upon us as potent as the Grave many Waters will not quench it nor the Floods drown it If we shut not the windows of our Souls against it it will at last enlighten all those Regions of darkness that are within us and lead our Souls to the Light of Life Blessedness and Immortality God pardons mens Sins out of an Eternal designe of destroying them and whenever the sentence of death is taken off from a Sinner it is at the same time denounced against his Sins God does not bid us be warm'd and be fill'd and deny us those necessaries which our starving and hungry Souls call for Christ having made peace through the bloud of his cross the Heavens shall be no more as Iron above us but we shall receive freely the vital dew of them the former and the later Rain in their season those Influences from above which Souls truly sensible of their own Misery and Imperfection uncessantly gaspe after that Righteousness of God which drops from above from the unsealed Spring of Free goodness which makes glad the city of God This is that Free Love and Grace which the Souls of Good men so much triumph in This is that Justification which begets in them lively Hopes of an happy Immortality in the present Anticipations thereof which spring forth from it in this life And all this is that which we have called sometimes the Righteousness of Christ sometimes the Righteousness of God and here the Righteousness which is of Faith In Heaven it is a not-imputing of sin in the Souls of men it is a reconciliation of rebellious Natures to Truth and Goodness In Heaven it is the lifting up the light of God's countenance upon us which begets a gladsome entertainment in the Souls of men holy and dear reflections and reciprocations of Love Divine Love to us as it were by a natural emanation begetting a Reflex love in us towards God which like that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spoken of by the Ancients live and thrive together CHAP. VI. How the Gospel-righteousness is conveighed to us by Faith made to appear from these two Considerations 1. The Gospel lays a strong foundation of a chearful dependance upon the Grace and Love of God affiance in it This confirmed by several Gospel-expressions containing plainly in them the most strong Motives and Encouragements to all ingenuous addresses to God to all chearfull dependance on him and confident expectation of all assistance from him 2. A true Evangelical Faith is no lazy or languid thing but an ardent breathing and thirsting after Divine grace and righteousness it looks beyond a mere pardon of sin and mainly pursues after an inward participation of the Divine nature The mighty power of a living Faith in the Love and Goddness of God discoursed of throughout the whole Chapter WE come now to the last part of our Discourse viz. To shew the Way by which this God-like and Gospel-righteousness is conveighed to us and that is by Faith This is that powerful Attractive which by a strong and divine Sympathy draws down the virtue of Heaven into the Souls of men which strongly and forcibly moves the Souls of good men into a conjunction with that Divine goodness by which it lives and grows This is that Divine Impress that invincibly draws and sucks them in by degrees into the Divinity and so unites them more and more to the Centre of Life and Love It is something in the hearts of men which feeling by an Occult and inward sensation the mighty insinuations of the Divine goodness immediately complies with it and with the greatest ardency that may be is perpetually rising up into conjunction with it and being first begotten and enlivened by the warm Beams of that Goodness it alwaies breaths and gasps after it for its constant growth and nourishment It is then fullest of life and vivacity when it partakes most freely of it and perpetually languisheth when it is in any measure deprived of that sweet and pure nourishment it derives from it But that we may the more clearly unfold this business How Gospel-righteousness comes to be communicated through Faith we shall lay it forth in 2 Particulars First The Gospel lays a strong foundation of a chearfull dependance upon the Grace and Love of God and affianee in it We have the greatest security and assurance that may be given us of God's readiness to relieve such forlorn and desolate Creatures as we are That there are no such dreadful Fates in Heaven as are continually thirsting after the bloud
Despair Fretfulness against God pale Jealousies wrathfull and embittered Thoughts of him or any struglings or contests to get from within the verge of his Power and Omnisciency which would mantle up their Souls in black and horrid Night I mean not all this while by this holy Boldness and Confidence and Presence of Mind in a Believer's converse with the Deitie that high pitch of Assurance that wafts the Souls of good men over the Stygian lake of Death and brings them to the borders of life that here puts them into an actual possession of Bliss and reestates and reestablishes them in Paradise No That more general acquaintance which we may have with God's Philanthropy and Bounty ready to relieve with the bowells of his tender compassions all those starving Souls that call upon him for surely he will never doe less for fainting and drooping Souls then he doth for the young Ravens that cry unto him that converse which we are provoked by the Gospel to maintain with God's unconfined love if we understand it aright will awaken us out of our drowsie Lethargy and make us aske of him the way to Sion with our faces thitherward This will be digging up fresh fountains for us while we goe through the valley of Baca whereby refreshing our weary Souls we shall goe on from strength to strength until we see the face of our loving and ever-to-be-loved God in Sion And so I come to the next Particular wherein we shall further unfold how this God-like righteousness we have spoken of is conveighed to us by Faith and that is this A true Gospel-faith is no lazie or languid thing but a strong ardent breathing for and thirsting after divine Grace and Righteousness it doth not only pursue an ambitious project of raising the Soul immaturely to the condition of a darling Favourite with Heaven while it is unripe for it by procuring a mere empty Pardon of sin it desires not only to stand upon clear terms with Heaven by procuring the crossing of all the Debt-books of our sins there but it rather pursues after an Internal participation of the Divine nature We often hear of a Saving Faith and that where it is is not content to wait for Salvation till the world to come it is not patient of being an Expectant in a Probationership for it untill this Earthly body resignes up all it's worldly interest that so the Soul might then come into its room No but it is here perpetually gasping after it and effecting of it in a way of serious Mortification and Self-denial it enlarges and dilates it self as much as may be according to the vast dimensions of the Divine love that it may comprehend the height and depth the length and breadth thereof and fill the Soul where it is seated with all the fullness of God it breeds a strong and unsatiable appetite where it comes after true Goodness Were I to describe it I should doe it no otherwise then in the language of the Apostle It is that whereby we live in Christ and whereby he lives in us or in the dialect of our Saviour himself Something so powerfully sucking in the precious influences of the Divine Spirit that the Soul where it is is continually flowing with living waters issuing out of it self A truely-believing Soul by an ingenuous affiance in God and an eager thirst after him is alwaies sucking from the full breasts of the Divine love thence it will not part for there and there only is its life and nourishment it starves and faints away with grief and hunger whensoever it is pull'd away from thence it is perpetually hanging upon the arms of Immortal Goodness for there it finds its great strength lies and as much as may be armes it self with the mighty Power of God by which it goes forth like a Gyant refreshed with wine to run that race of Grace Holiness that leads to the true Elysium of Glory and that heavenly Canaan which is above And whensoever it finds it self enfeebled in its difficult Conflict with those fierce and furious Corruptions those tall sons of Anak which arising from our terrene and sensual affections doe here encounter it in the Wilderness of this world then turning it self to God and putting it self under the conduct of the Angel of his presence it finds it self presently out of weakness to become strong enabled from above to put to flight those mighty armies of the aliens True Faith if you would know its rise and pedegree it is begotten of the Divine bounty and fulness manifesting it self to the Spirits of men and it is conceived and brought forth by a deep and humble sense of Self-indigency and Poverty Faith arises out of Self-examination seating and placing it self in view of the Divine plenitude and Allsufficiency and thus that I may borrow those words of S. Paul we received the sentence of death in our selves that we should not trust in our selves but in him The more this Sensual Brutish and Self-Central life thrives and prospers the more divine Faith languisheth and the more that decays and all Self-feeling self-Self-love and Self-sufficiency pine away the more is true Faith fed and nourished it grows more vigorous and as Carnal life wasts and consumes so the more does Faith suck in a true divine and spiritual life from the true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who hath life in himself and freely bestowes it to all those that heartily seek for it When the Divinity united it self to Humane nature in the person of our Saviour he then gave mankind a pledge and earnest of what he would further doe therein in assuring of it into as near a conjunction as might be with Himself and in dispensing and communicating himself to Man in a way as far correspondent and agreeable as might be to that first Copy And therefore we are told of Christ being formed in us and the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us of our being made conformable to him of having fellowship with him of being as he was in this world of living in him and his living in us of dying and rising again and ascending with him into Heaven and the like because indeed the same Spirit that dwelt in him derives it self in its mighty Virtue and Energy through all believing Souls shaping them more and more into a just resemblance and conformitie to him as the first Copy Pattern Whence it is that we have so many waies of unfolding the Union between Christ and all Believers set forth in the Gospel And all this is done for us by degrees through the efficacy of the Eternal spirit when by a true Faith we deny our selves and our own Wills submit our seves in a deep sense of our own folly and weakness to his Wisdome and Power comply with his Will and by a holy affiance in him subordinate our selves to his pleasure for these are the Vital acts of a Gospel-Faith And according to this which hath been said I
〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to which this Quère of his seems to refer as if he had said Having kept all God's commandements sure my Good deeds cannot only over-ballance my Evil no but they rather fill both the scales of the Divine ballance I have no Evil deeds to weigh against them what therefore can I want of the end and scope of the Divine Law which is to make men perfect seeing I have guided my whole life from my youth up by the Precepts of it To which our Saviour replies If thou wilt be perfect go and sell that thou hast and give to the poor and thou shalt have treasure in heaven and come and follow me Which words I can neither think to be spoken as Consilium perfectionis in the Papal sense nor yet only as a particular and special Precept but rather by way of Conviction So that the full sense and importance of our Saviours speech seems to be this viz. A mere Conformity of the Outward man to the Law of God is not sufficient to bring a man to Eternal life but the Inward man also must deeply receive in the stamp and impression of the Divine Law so as to be made like to God True Perfection is not consistent with any Terrene loves or Worldly affections This Mundane life and spirit which acts so strongly and impetuously in this lower world must be crucified The Soul must be wholly dissolved from this Earthy body which it is so deeply immerst in while it endeavours to enlarge its sorry Tabernacle upon this material Globe and by a holy abstraction from all things that pinion it to Mortality withdraw it self and retire into a Divine solitude If thou therefore wert in a state of Perfection thou wouldest be able at the first call from God to resigne up all Interest here below to quitt all claim and to dispose of thy self and all worldly enjoyments according to his pleasure without any reluctancy and come and follow me And this I think was the true Scope of our Saviours answer which proved a real Demonstration as it appears in the sequel of the Story that this confident Pharisee had not yet attained to those mortified affections which are requisite in all the Candidates of true Blessedness but only cheated his own Soul with a bare External appearance of Religion which was not truly seated in his Heart and I doubt not but many are ready upon as slight Grounds and with as much confidence to take up his Quere What lack I yet We shall therefore in the first place according to what we promised inquire into some of those false Pretences which men are apt to make to Happiness and shew in four Particulars how Religion is mistaken CHAP. II. An Account of mens Mistakes about Religion in 4 Particulars 1. A Partial obedience to some Particular Precepts The False Spirit of Religion spends it self in some Particulars is confin'd is overswayed by some prevailing Lust. Men of this spirit may by some Book-skill and a zeal about the Externals of Religion loose the sense of their own Guiltiness and of their deficiencies in the Essentials of Godliness and fansy themselves nearly related to God Where the true Spirit of Religion is it informs and actuates the whole man it will not be confin'd but will be absolute within us and not suffer any corrupt Interest to grow by it THE First is A Partial obedience to some Particular Precepts of Gods law That arrogant Pharisee that could lift up a bold face to heaven and thank God he was no Extortioner nor unjust nor guilty of any Publican-sins found it easie to perswade himself that God justified him as much as he did himself It was a vulgar Rule given by the Jewish Doctors which I fear too many live by That men should single out some one Commandement out of Gods law and therein especially exercise themselves that so they might make God their friend by that lest in others they should too much displease him Thus men are content 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to pay God their Decimae and Septimae of their lives too if need be so that they may without fear of sacriledge or purloining as they suppose from him enjoy all the rest to themselves But they are not willing to consecrate their whole lives to him they are afraid lest Religion should incroach too much upon them and too busily invade their own rights and liberties as their Selfish Spirit calls them There are such that it may be think themselves willing that God should have his due so be it he will also let them enjoy their own without any lett or molestation but they are very jealous lest he should incroach too much upon them and are carefull to maintain a Meum and Tuum with Heaven it self and to set bounds to God's prerogative over them lest it should swell too much and grow too mighty for them to maintain their own Priviledges under it They would fain understand themselves to be free-born under the dominion of God himself and therefore ought not to be compelled to yield obedience to any such laws of his as their own private seditious Lusts and Passions will not suffer them to give their consent unto There be such who perswade themselves they are well-affected to God and willing to obey his Commandements but yet think they must not be uncivil to the World nor so base and cowardly as not to maintain their own credit and reputation with a due revenge upon those that seem to impair it or so much forget themselves as not to comply with the guise and fashion of this world so far as it may make for their own emolument or preferment Such as these that are no fast friends to Religion can easily find some Postern-dore to slip out by into this World and while they either doe some constant homage to Heaven in the exercise and performance of some Duties of Religion or abstain from such Vices as the common opinions of men brand with infamie or can fansie themselves to be marked out with some of those Characters which they have learned from Books or Pulpit-discourses to be the Notes of God's Children and justified persons they grow big with Self-conceit and can easily find out some handsome piece of Sophistry and cunning Topick to delude themselves by in indulging some beloved Lust or other They can sometimes beat down the price of other mens religion to inhance the value of their own or it may be by a burning and fiery zeal against the Opinions and deportments of others that are not of their own Sect they may loose the sense of all their own guiltiness The Disciples themselves had almost forgotten the mild and gentle Spirit of Religion in an over-hasty heat calling for Fire down from heaven upon those whom they deemed their Master's enemies Sometimes a Partial spirit in Religion that spends it self only in some Particulars mistakes the fair complexions of Good nature for the
true face of Vertue and a good Bodily temperament will serve it as a flattering glass to bestow beauty upon a deformed and mis-shapen Mind that it may seem vertuous But it is not a true Spirit of Religion whatsoever those wanton wits may call it that is thus Particular and confin'd No that is of a subtile and working nature it will be searching through the whole man and leave nothing uninformed by it self as it is with the Soul that runs through all the portions of Matter and every member of the Body Sin and Grace cannot lodge together they cannot divide and share out between them two several Dominions in one Soul What is commonly said of Truth in general we may say more especially of true Goodness magna est praevalebit it will lodge in the Souls of men like that mighty though gentle Heat which is entertained in the Heart that alwaies dispenseth warm Bloud and Spirits to all the members in the Body it will not suffer any other Interest to grow by it it will be so absolute as to swallow up all our carnal freedom and crush down all our fleshly liberty as Moses his Serpent did eate up all the Serpents of the Egyptian Magicians so will it devour all that viperous brood of iniquity which our Magical Self-will by her witchcraft and enchantments begets within us like a strong and vehement Flame within us it will not only singe the hair or scorch and blister the skin but it will go on to consume this whole Body of death it is compared by our Saviour to Leaven that will ferment the whole mass in which it is wrap'd up it will enter into us like the Refiner's fire and the Fuller's Soape like the Angel of God's presence that he promised to send along with the Israelites in their journy to Canaan it will not pardon our iniquities nor indulge any darling lust whatsoever it will narrowly pry into all our actions and be spying out all those back-waies and dores whereby Sin and Vice may enter That Religion that runs out only in Particularities and is overswayed by the prevailing power of any Lust is but only a dead carkass and not indeed that true living Religion which comes from Heaven and which will not suffer it self to be confin'd that will not indent with us or article upon our tearms and conditions but Sampson like will break all those bonds which our fleshly and harlot-like wills would tie it with and become every way absolute within us And so I pass to the Second thing wherein men are apt to delude themselves in taking an Estimate of their own Religion viz. CHAP. III. The Second Mistake about Religion viz. A meer complyance of the Outward man with the Law of God True Religion seats it self in the Centre of mens Souls and first brings the Inward man into Obedience to the Law of God the Superficial Religion intermeddles chiefly with the Circumference and Outside of men or rests in an outward abstaining from some Sins Of Speculative and the most close and Spiritual wickedness within How apt men are to sink all Religion into Opinions and External Forms A Mere compliance of the Outward man with the Law of God There is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Philosophy hath acknowledged as well as our Christian Divinity and when Religion seats it self in the Centre of mens Souls it acts there most strongly upon the Vital powers of it and first brings the Inward man into a true and chearfull obedience to the law of God before all the seditious and rebellious motives of the External or Animal man be quite subdued But a Superficial Religion many times intermeddles only with the Circumference and Outside of men it only lodges in the suburbs and storms the out-works but enters not the main Fort of mens Souls which is strongly defended by inward Pride Self-will particular and mundane Loves fretting and self-consuming Envy Popularity and Vain-glory and such other Mental vices that when they are beaten out of the visible behaviours and conversations of men by Divine threats or promises which may be too potent to be controll'd retreat and secure themselves here as in a strong Castle There may be many who dare not pursue Revenge and yet are not willing to forgive injuries who dare not murther their enemy that yet cannot love him who dare not seek for preferment by Bribery who yet are not mortified to these and many other mundane and base-born affections they are not willing that the Divine prerogative should extend it self beyond the Outward man and that Religion should be too busie with their Inward thoughts and passions if they may not by proud boasting set off their own sorry commodities upon the publick stage and there read out their own Panegyricks yet they will inwardly applaud themselves and commit wanton dalliance with their own Parts and Perfections and not feeling the mighty power of any Higher good they will endeavour to preserve an unhallowed Autaesthesie and feeling sense of themselves and by a sullen melancholy Stoicisme when Religion would deprive and bereave them of the sinfull glory and pleasures of this Outward world they then retire and shrink themselves up into a Centre of their own they collect and contract themselves into themselves Thus when this low life of mens Souls is chased out of the External vices and vanities of this World by the chastisements of their own Consciences or many times by bodily oppressions it presently retires into it self and by a Self-feeling begins more to grasp and dearly embrace it self When these External loves begin to be starved and cooled yet men may then fall into love with and courting of themselves by Arrogancy Self-confidence and dependence Self-applause and gratulations Admiration of their own perfections and so feed that dying life of theirs with this Speculative wantonness that it may as strongly express it self within them as before it did without themselves Men may by inward braving of themselves sacrilegiously steal God's glory from him and erect a Self-supremacy within exerting it self in Self-will and particular loves and so become Corrivals with God for the Crown of Blessedness and Self-sufficiency as I doubt many of the Stoicks endeavoured with a Giant-like ambition to doe But alas I doubt we generally arrive not to this pitch of Religion to deny the world and all the pomp and glory of this largely-extended train of Vanity but we easily content our selves with some External forms of Religion We are too apt to look at a garish dress and attire of Religion or to be enamoured rather with some more specious and seemingly-spiritual Forms then with the true Spirit Power of Godliness Religion it self We are more taken commonly with the several new fashions that the luxuriant Fancies of men are apt to contrive for it then with the real power and simplicity thereof and while we think our selves to be growing in our
as unstable unconstant tumultuous and perplex'd a thing as the world is On the contrary the Spirit of true Religion steering and directing the Mind and Life to God makes it an Uniform Stable and quiet thing as God himself is it is only true Goodness in the Soul of man guiding it steddily and uniformly towards God directing it and all its actions to the one Last End and Chief Good that can give it a true consistency and composedness within it self All Self-seeking and self-Self-love do but imprison the Soul and confine it to its own home the Mind of a Good man is too Noble too Big for such a Particular life he hath learn'd to despise his own Being in comparison of that Uncreated Beauty and Goodness which is so infinitely transcendent to himself or any created thing he reckons upon his choice and best affections and designes as too choice and precious a treasure to be spent upon such a poor sorry thing as himself or upon any thing else but God himself This was the life of Christ and is in some degree the life of every one that partakes of the Spirit of Christ. Such Christians seek not their own glory but the glory of him that sent them into this world they know they were brought forth into this world not to set up or drive a trade for themselves but to serve the will pleasure of him that made them to finish that work he hath appointed them It were not worth the while to have been born or to live had it been only for such a penurious End as our selves are it is most God-like and best suits with the Spirit of Religion for a Christian to live wholy to God to live the life of God having his own life hid with Christ in God and thus in a sober sense he becomes Deified This indeed is such a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Deification as is not transacted merely upon the Stage of Fancy by Arrogance and Presumption but in the highest Powers of the Soul by a living and quickning Spirit of true Religion there uniting God and the Soul together in the Unity of Affections Will and End I should now pass from this to another Particular but because many are apt to misapprehend the Notion of God's glory and flatter themselves with their pretended and imaginary aiming at the Glory of God I think it may be of good use a little further and more distinctly to unfold the Designe that a Religious mind drives on in directing it self and all its actions to God We are therefore to consider that this doth not consist in some Transient thoughts of God and his Glory as the End we propound to our selves in any Undertakings a man does not direct all his actions to the Glory of God by forming a Conception in his Mind or stirring up a strong Imagination upon any Action That that must be for the Glory of God it is not the thinking of God's glory that is glorifying of him As all other parts of Religion may be apishly acted over by Fancy and Imagination so also may the Internal parts of Religion many times be acted over with much seeming grace by our Fancy and Passions these often love to be drawing the pictures of Religion and use their best arts to render them more beautifull and pleasing But though true Practical Religion derives its force and beauty through all the Lower Powers of a mans Soul yet it hath not its rise nor throne there as Religion consists not in a Form of Words which signifie nothing so neither doth it consist in a Set of Fancies or Internal apprehensions Our Saviour hath best taught what it is to live to God's glory or to glorifie God viz. to be fruitfull in all holiness and to live so as that our lives may shine with his grace spreading it self through our whole man We rather glorifie God by entertaining the Impressions of his Glory upon us then by communicating any kind of Glory to him Then does a Good man become the Tabernacle of God wherein the Divine Shechinah does rest and which the Divine glory fills when the frame of his Mind and Life is wholy according to that Idea and Pattern which he receives from the Mount We best glorifie him when we grow most like to him and we then act most for his glory when a true Spirit of Sanctity Justice Meekness c. runs through all our actions when we so live in the World as becomes those that converse with the great Mind and Wisdom of the whole World with that Almighty Spirit that made supports and governs all things with that Being from whence all good flows and in which there is no Spot Stain or Shadow of Evil and so being captivated and overcome by the sense of the Divine loveliness and goodness endeavour to be like him and conform our selves as much as may be to him When God seeks his own Glory he does not so much endeavour any thing without himself He did not bring this stately fabrick of the Universe into Being that he might for such a Monument of his mighty Power and Beneficence gain some Panegyricks or Applause from a little of that fading breath which he had made Neither was that gracious contrivance of restoring lapsed men to himself a Plot to get himself some Eternal Hallelujahs as if he had so ardently thirsted after the layes of glorified spirits or desired a Quire of Souls to sing forth his praises Neither was it to let the World see how Magnificent he was No it is his own Internal Glory that he most loves and the Communication thereof which he seeks as Plato sometimes speaks of the Divine love it arises not out of Indigency as created love does but out of Fulness and Redundancy it is an overflowing fountain and that love which descends upon created Being is a free Efflux from the Almighty Source of love and it is well pleasing to him that those Creatures which he hath made should partake of it Though God cannot seek his own Glory so as if he might acquire any addition to himself yet he may seek it so as to communicate it out of himself It was a good Maxime of Plato 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 w ch is better stated by * S. James God giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not And by that Glory of his which he loves to impart to his Creatures I understand those stamps and impressions of Wisdom Justice Patience Mercy Love Peace Joy and other Divine gifts which he bestows freely upon the Minds of men And thus God triumphs in his own Glory and takes pleasure in the Communication of it As God's seeking his own Glory in respect of us is most properly the flowing forth of his Goodness upon us so our seeking the Glory of God is most properly our endeavouring a Participation of his Goodness and an earnest uncessant pursuing after Divine perfection When God becomes so great in our eyes
and all created things so little that we reckon upon nothing as worthy of our aims or ambitions but a serious Participation of the Divine Nature and the Exercise of divine Vertues Love Joy Peace Long-suffering Kindness Goodness and the like When the Soul beholding the Infinite beauty and loveliness of the Divinity and then looking down and beholding all created Perfection mantled over with darkness is ravish'd into love and admiration of that never-setting brightness and endeavours after the greatest resemblance of God in Justice Love and Goodness When conversing with him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by a secret feeling of the virtue sweetness and power of his Goodness we endeavour to assimilate our selves to him Then we may be said to glorifie him indeed God seeks no glory but his own and we have none of our own to give him God in all things seeks himself and his own glory as finding nothing Better then himself and when we love him above all things and endeavour to be most like him we declare plainly that we count nothing Better then He is I doubt we are too nice Logicians sometimes in distinguishing between the Glory of God and our own Salvation We cannot in a true sense seek our own Salvation more then the Glory of God which triumphs most and discovers it self most effectually in the Salvation of Souls for indeed this Salvation is nothing else but a true Participation of the Divine Nature Heaven is not a thing without us nor is Happiness any thing distinct from a true Conjunction of the Mind with God in a secret feeling of his Goodness and reciprocation of affection to him wherein the Divine Glory most unfolds it self And there is nothing that a Soul touch'd with any serious sense of God can more earnestly thirst after or seek with more strength of affection then This. Then shall we be happy when God comes to be all in all in us To love God above our selves is not indeed so properly to love him above the salvation of our Souls as if these were distinct things but it is to love him above all our own sinfull affections above our particular Beings and to conform our selves to him And as that which is Good relatively and in order to us is so much the Better by how much the more it is commensurate and conformed to us So on the other side that which is good absolutely and essentially requires that our Minds and Affections should as far as may be be commensurate and conform'd to it and herein is God most glorified and we made Happy As we cannot truly love the First and Highest Good while we serve a designe upon it and subordinate it to our selves so neither is our own Salvation consistent with any such sordid pinching and particular love We cannot be compleatly blessed till the Idea Boni or the Ipsum Bonum which is God exercise its Soveraignty over all the Faculties of our Souls rendring them as like to it self as may consist with their proper Capacity See more of this in the Discourse Of the Existence and Nature of God Chap. 4. and more largely in that Latine Discourse shortly to be printed Pietati studere ex intuitu mercedis non est illicitum CHAP. VI. The Fourth Property or Effect discovering the Excellency of Religion viz. That it begets the greatest Serenity and Composedness of Mind and brings the truest Contentment the purest and most satisfying Joy and Pleasure to every holy Soul God as being that Uniform Chief Good and the One Last End does attract and fix the Soul Wicked men distracted through a Multiplicity of Objects and Ends. How the restless appetite of our Wills after some Supreme Good leads to the knowledge as of a Deity so of the Unity of a Deity How the Joys and Delights of Good men differ from and far excell those of the Wicked The Constancy and Tranquillity of the Spirits of Good men in reference to External troubles All Perturbations of the Mind arise from an Inward rather then an Outward Cause The Stoicks Method for attaining 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and true rest examined and the Insufficiency of it discovered A further Illustration of what has been said concerning the Peacefull and Happy State of Good men from the contrary State of the Wicked THe Fourth Property Effect of True Religion wherein it expresseth its own Nobleness is this That it begets the greatest Serenity Constancy and Composedness of Mind and brings the truest Contentment the most satisfying Joy and Pleasure the purest and most divine Sweetness and Pleasure to the Spirits of Good men Every Good man in whom Religion rules is at peace and unity with himself is as a City compacted together Grace doth more and more reduce all the Faculties of the Soul into a perfect Subjection and Subordination to it self The Union and Conjunction of the Soul with God that Primitive Unity is that which is the alone Original and Fountain of all Peace and the Centre of Rest as the further any Being slides from God the more it breaks into discords within it self as not having any Centre within it self which might collect and unite all the Faculties thereof to it self and so knit them up together in a sweet confederacy amongst themselves God only is such an Almighty Goodness as can attract all the Powers in man's Soul to it self as being an Object transcendently adequate to the largest capacities of any created Being and so unite man perfectly to himself in the true enjoyment of one Uniform and Simple Good It must be one Last End and Supreme Good that can fix Man's Mind which otherwise will be tossed up and down in perpetual uncertainties and become as many several things as those poor Particularities are which it meets with A wicked man's life is so distracted by a Multiplicity of Ends and Objects that it never is nor can be consistent to it self nor continue in any composed settled frame it is the most intricate irregular and confused thing in the world no one part of it agreeing with another because the whole is not firmly knit together by the power of some One Last End running through all Whereas the life of a Good man is under the sweet command of one Supreme Goodness and Last End This alone is that living Form and Soul which running through all the Powers of the Mind and Actions of Life collects all together into one fair and beautifull System making all that Variety conspire into perfect Unity whereas else all would fall asunder like the Members of a dead Body when once the Soul is gone every little particle flitting each from other It was a good Maxim of Pythagoras quoted by Clemens Alexandrinus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Oportet etiam hominem unum fieri A divided Mind and a Multiform Life speaks the greatest disparagement that may be it is only the intermediation of One Last End that can reconcile a man perfectly to himself and his
contentment without it self and so it wanders up and down from one creature to another and thus becomes distracted by a multiplicity of Objects And while it cannot find some One and Onely object upon which as being perfectly adequate to its capacities it may wholly bestow it self while it is tossed with restless and vehement motions of Desire and Love through a world of painted beauties false glozing Excellencies courting all but matching nowhere violently hurried every whither but finding nowhere objectum par amori while it converseth onely with these pinching Particularities here below and is not yet acquainted with the Universal Goodness it is certainly far from true Rest and Satisfaction from a fixt composed temper of spirit but being distracted by multiplicity of Objects and Ends there can never be any firm and stable peace or friendship at home amongst all its Powers and Faculties nor can there be a firm amity and friendship abroad betwixt wicked men themselves as Aristotle in his Ethicks does conclude because all Vice is so Multiform and inconsistent a thing and so there can be no true concatenation of Affections and Ends between them Whereas in all Good men Vertue and Goodness is one Form and Soul to them all that unites them together and there is the One Simple and Uniform Good that guides and governs them all They are not as a Ship tossed in the tumultuous Ocean of this world without any Compass at all to stear by but they direct their course by the certain guidance of the One Last End as the true Pole-starr of all their motion But while the Soul lies benighted in a thick Ignorance as it is with wicked men and beholds not some Stable and Eternal Good to move toward though it may by the strength of that Principle of Activeness within it self spend it self perpetually with swift and giddy motions yet it will be always contesting with secret disturbances and cannot act but with many reluctancies as not finding an object equall to the force and strength of its vast affections to act upon By what hath been said may appear the vast difference between the ways of Sin and of Holinesse Inward distractions and disturbances tribulation and anguish upon every Soul that doth evil But to every man that worketh good glory honour and peace inward composednesse and tranquillity of spirit pure and divine joys farr excelling all sensual pleasures in a word true Contentment of spirit and full satisfaction in God whom the pious Soul loves above all things and longs still after a nearer enjoyment of him I shall conclude this Particular with what Plotinus concludes his Book That the life of holy and divine men is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a life not touch't with these vanishing delights of Time but a flight of the Soul alone to God alone CHAP. VII The Fifth Property or Effect discovering the Excellency of Religion viz. That it advanceth the Soul to an holy boldness and humble familiarity with God and to a comfortable confidence concerning the Love of God toward it and its own Salvation Fearfulness Consternation of Mind and frightfull passions are consequent upon Sin and Guilt These together with the most dismall deportments of Trembling and Amazement are agreeable to the nature of the Devil who delights to be serv'd in this manner by his worshippers Love Joy and Hope are most agreeable to the nature of God and most pleasing to him The Right apprehensions of God are such as are apt to beget Love to God Delight and Confidence in him A true Christian is more for a solid and well-grounded Peace then for high raptures and feelings of joy How a Christian should endeavour the Assurance of his Salvation That he should not importunately expect or desire some Extraordinary manifestations of God to him but rather look after the manifestation of the life of God within him the foundation or beginning of Heaven and Salvation in his own Soul That Self-resignation and the subduing of our own Wills are greatly available to obtain Assurance The vanity and absurdity of that Opinion viz. That in a perfect resignation of our Wills to God's will a man should be content with his own Damnation and to be the subject of Eternal wrath in Hell if it should so please God THe Fifth Property or Effect whereby True Religion discovers its own Nobleness and Excellency is this That it advanceth the Soul to an holy boldness and humble familiarity with God as also to a well-grounded Hope and comfortable Confidence concerning the Love of God toward it and its own Salvation The truly religious Soul maintains an humble and sweet familiarity with God and with great alacrity of spirit without any Consternation and Servility of spirit is enabled to look upon the Glory and Majesty of the most High But Sin and Wickedness is pregnant with fearfulness and horrour That Trembling and Consternation of Mind which possesses wicked men is nothing else but a brat of darkness an Empusa begotten in corrupt and irreligious Hearts While men walk in darkness and are of the night as the Apostle speaks then it is onely that they are vext with those ugly and gastly Mormos that terrify and torment them But when once the Day breaks and true Religion opens her self upon the Soul like the Eye-lids of the Morning then all those shadows and frightfull Apparitions flee away As all Light and Love and Joy descend from above from the Father of lights so all Darkness and Fearfulness Despair are from below they arise from corrupt and earthly minds are like those gross Vapors arising from this Earthly globe that not being able to get up towards heaven spread themselves about the circumference of that Body where they were first begotten infesting it with darkness and generating into Thunder and Lightning Clouds and Tempests But the higher a Christian ascends 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 above this dark dungeon of the Body the more that Religion prevails within him the more then shall he find himself as it were in a clear heaven in a Region that is calm and serene and the more will those black and dark affections of Fear and Despair vanish away and those clear and bright affections of Love and Joy and Hope break forth in their strength and lustre The Devil who is the Prince of darkness and the great Tyrant delights to be served with gastly affections and the most dismal deportments of trembling and astonishment as having nothing at all of amiableness or excellency in him to commend himself to his worshippers Slavery and servility that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Longinus truly calls it is the badge and livery of the Devil's religion hence those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Heathens perform'd with much trembling and horror But God who is the supreme Goodness and Essentiall both Love and Loveliness takes most pleasure in those sweet and delightfull affections of the Soul viz. Love Joy and Hope which are most
already come into us CHAP. VIII The Sixth Property or Effect discovering the Excellency of Religion viz. That it Spiritualizes Material things and carries up the Souls of Good men from Sensible and Earthly things to things Intellectual and Divine There are lesser and fuller representations of God in the Creatures To converse with God in the Creation and to pass out of the Sensible World into the Intellectual is most effectually taught by Religion Wicked men converse not with God as shining out in the Creatures they converse with them in a Sensual and Unspiritual manner Religion does spiritualize the Creation to Good men it teaches them to look at any Perfections or Excellencies in themselves and others not so much as Theirs or That others but as so many Beams flowing from One and the Same Fountain of Light to love them all in God and God in all the Universal Goodness in a Particular Being A Good man enjoys and delights in whatsoever Good he sees otherwhere as if it were his own he does not fondly love and esteem either himself or others The Divine temper and strain of the antient Philosophy THE Sixth Property or Effect wherein Religion discovers its own Excellency is this That it Spiritualizes Material things and so carries up the Souls of Good men from Earthly things to things Divine from this Sensible World to the Intellectual God made the Universe and all the Creatures contained therein as so many Glasses wherein he might reflect his own Glory He hath copied forth himself in the Creation and in this Outward World we may read the lovely characters of the Divine Goodness Power and Wisdom In some Creatures there are darker representations of God there are the Prints and Footsteps of God but in others there are clearer and fuller representations of the Divinity the Face and Image of God according to that known saying of the Schoolmen Remotiores Similitudines Creaturae ad Deum dicuntur Vestigium propinquiores verò Imago But how to find God here and feelingly to converse with him and being affected with the sense of the Divine Glory shining out upon the Creation how to pass out of the Sensible World into the Intellectual is not so effectually taught by that Philosophy which profess'd it most as by true Religion that which knits and unites God and the Soul together can best teach it how to ascend and descend upon those golden links that unite as it were the World to God That Divine Wisdome that contrived and beautified this glorious Structure can best explain her own Art and carry up the Soul back again in these reflected Beams to him who is the Fountain of them Though Good men all of them are not acquainted with all those Philosophical notions touching the relation between Created and the Uncreated Being yet may they easily find every Creature pointing out to that Being whose image and superscription it bears and climb up from those darker resemblances of the Divine Wisdome and Goodness shining out in different degrees upon several Creatures 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Antients speak till they sweetly repose themselves in the bosom of the Divinity and while they are thus conversing with this lower World and are viewing the invisible things of God in the things that are made in this visible and outward Creation they find God many times secretly flowing into their Souls and leading them silently out of the Court of the Temple into the Holy Place But it is otherwise with Wicked men they dwell perpetually upon the dark side of the Creatures and converse with these things only in a gross sensual earthly and unspiritual manner they are so encompass'd with the thick and foggy mist of their own Corruptions that they cannot see God there where he is most visible the Light shineth in darkness but darkness comprehends it not their Souls are so deeply sunk into that House of Clay which they carry about with them that were there nothing of Body or bulky Matter before them they could find nothing to exercise themselves about But Religion where it is in truth and in power renews the very Spirit of our Minds and doth in a manner Spiritualize this outward Creation to us and doth in a more excellent way perform that which the Peripateticks are wont to affirm of their Intellectus agens in purging Bodily and Material things from the feculency and dregs of Matter and separating them from those circumstantiating and streightning conditions of Time and Place and the like and teaches the Soul to look at those Perfections which it finds here below not so much as the Perfections of This or That Body as they adorn This or That particular Being but as they are so many Rays issuing forth from that First and Essential Perfection in which they all meet and embrace one another in the most close friendship Every Particular Good is a Blossom of the First Goodness every created Excellency is a Beam descending from the Father of lights and should we separate all these Particularities from God all affection spent upon them would be unchast and their embraces adulterous We should love all things in God and God in all things because he is All in all the Beginning and Original of Being the perfect Idea of their Goodness and the End of their Motion It is nothing but a thick mist of Pride and Self-love that hinders mens eyes from beholding that Sun which both enlightens them and all things else But when true Religion begins once to dawn upon mens Souls and with its shining light chases away their black Night of Ignorance then they behold themselves and all things else enlightned though in a different way by one and the same Sun and all the Powers of their Souls fall down before God and ascribe all glory to him Now it is that a Good man is no more solicitous whether This or That good thing be Mine or whether My perfections exceed the measure of This or That particular Creature for whatsoever Good he beholds any where he enjoys and delights in it as much as if it were his own and whatever he beholds in himself he looks not upon it as his Property but as a Common good for all these Beams come from one and the same Fountain and Ocean of light in whom he loves them all with an Universal love when his affections run along the stream of any created excellencies whether his own or any ones else yet they stay not here but run on till they fall into the Ocean they do not settle into a fond love and admiration either of himself or any others Excellencies but he owns them as so many Pure Effluxes and Emanations from God and in a Particular Being loves the Universal Goodness Si sciretur à me Veritas sciretur etiam me illud non esse aut illud non esse meum nec à me Thus may a Good man walk up and down the World as in a Garden of Spices
well observ'd Every nature in this world hath some proper Centre which it is always hastening to Sin and Wickedness does not hover a little over the bottomeless pit of Hell and onely flutter about it but it 's continually sinking lower and lower into it Neither does true Grace make some feeble assaies toward Heaven but by a mighty Energy within it self it 's always soaring up higher and higher into heaven A good Christian does not onely court his Happiness and cast now and then a smile upon it or satisfy himself merely to be contracted to it but with the greatest ardours of Love and Desire he pursues the solemnity of the just Nuptialls that he may be wedded to it and made one with it It is not an aiery speculation of Heaven as a thing though never so undoubtedly to come that can satisfy his hungry desires but the reall possession of it even in this life Such an Happiness would be less in the esteem of Good men that were onely good to be enjoyed at the end of this life when all other enjoyments fail him I wish there be not among some such a light and poor esteem of Heaven as makes them more to seek after Assurance of Heaven onely in the Idea of it as a thing to come then after Heaven it self which indeed we can never well be assured of untill we find it rising up within our selves and glorifying our own Souls When true Assurance comes Heaven it self will appear upon the Horizon of our Souls like a morning light chasing away all our dark and gloomy doubtings before it We shall not need then to light up our Candles to seek for it in corners no it will display its own lustre and brightness so before us that we may see it in its own light and our selves the true possessours of it We may be too nice and vain in seeking for signes and tokens of Christ's Spiritual appearances in the Souls of men as well as the Scribes and Pharisees were in seeking for them at his First appearance in the World When he comes into us let us expect till the works that he shall doe within us may testify of him and be not over-credulous till we find that he doth those works there which none other could doe As for a true well-grounded Assurance say not so much Who shall ascend up into heaven to fetch it down from thence or who shall descend into the deep to fetch it up from beneath for in the Growth of true internal Goodness and in the Progress of true Religion it will freely unfold it self within us Stay till the grain of Mustard-seed it self breaks forth from among the clods that buried it till through the descent of the heavenly dew it sprouts up and discovers it self openly This holy Assurance is indeed the budding and blossoming of Felicity in our own Souls it is the inward sense and feeling of the true life spirit sweetness and beauty of Grace powerfully expressing its own Energy within us Briefly True Religion in the Progresse of it transforms those Minds in which it reigns from glory to glory it goes on and prospers in bringing all enemies in subjection under their feet in reconciling the Minds of men fully to God and it instates them in a firm possession of the Supreme Good This is the Seed of God within holy Souls which is always warring against the Seed of the Serpent till it prevail over it through the Divine strength and influence Though Hell may open her mouth wide and without measure yet a true Christian in whom the seed of God remaineth is in a good and safe condition he finds himself born up by an Almighty arm and carried upwards as upon Eagles wings and the Evil one hath no power over him or as S. John expresseth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Evil one toucheth him not 1 Ep. chap. 5. v. 18. CHAP. XI 5. The Excellency of Religion in regard of its Term End viz. Perfect Blessednesse How unable we are in this state to comprehend and describe the Full and Perfect state of Happiness and Glory to come The more Godlike a Christian is the better may he understand that State Holiness and Happiness not two distinct things but two several Notions of one and the same thing Heaven cannot so well be defined by any thing without us as by something within us The great nearness and affinity between Sin and Hell The Conclusion of this Treatise containing a Serious Exhortation to a diligent minding of Religion with a Discovery of the Vanity of those Pretenses which keep men off from minding Religion WE come now to the Fifth and Last Particular viz. The Excellency of Religion in the Terme and End of it which is nothing else but Blessedness it self in its full maturity Which yet I may not here undertake to explain for it is altogether 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor can it descend so low as to accommodate it self to any humane style Accordingly S. John tells us it does not yet appear what we shall be and yet that he may give us some glimpse of it he points us out to God and tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is Indeed the best way to get a discovery of it is to endeavour as much as may be to be Godlike to live in a feeling converse with God and in a powerful exercise and expression of all Godlike dispositions So shall our inner man be best enabled to know the breadth and length the depth and height of that Love and Goodness which yet passeth all knowledg There is a State of Perfection in the life to come so far transcendent to any in this life as that we are not able from hence to take the just proportions of it or to form a full and comprehensive notion of it We are unable to comprehend the vastness and fullness of that Happiness which the most purifyed Souls may be raised to or to apprehend how far the mighty power and strength of the Divinity deriving it self into created Being may communicate a more Transcendent life and blessedness to it We know not what latent powers our Souls may here contain within themselves which then may begin to open and dilate themselves to let in the full streams of the Divine Goodness when they come nearly and intimately to converse with it or how Blessedness may act upon those Faculties of our Minds which we now have We know not what illapses and irradiations there may be from God upon Souls in Glory that may raise them into a state of Perfection surpassing all our imaginations As for Corporeal Happiness there cannot be any thing further added to the Pleasure of our Bodies or Animal part then a restoring it from disturbing Passion and Pain to its just and natural constitution and therefore some Philosophers have well disputed against the opinion of the Epicureans that make Happiness to
some men had there not first come an Apostasy from sober Reason had there not first been a falling away and departure from Natural Truth It is to be feared our nice speculations about a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Theology have tended more to exercise mens Wits then to reform their lives and that they have too much descended into their practice and have tended rather to take men off from minding Religion then to quicken them up to a diligent seeking after it Though the Powers of Nature may now be weakned and though we cannot produce a living form of Religion in our own Souls yet we are not surely resolved so into a sluggish Passiveness as that we cannot or were not in any kind or manner of way to seek after it Certainly a man may as well read the Scriptures as study a piece of Aristotle or of Natural Philosophy or Mathematicks He that can observe any thing comely and commendable or unworthy and base in another man may also reflect upon himself and see how face answers to face as Solomon speaks Proverbs 27. 19. If men would seriously commune with their hearts their own Consciences would tell them plainly that they might avoid and omit more evil then they doe and that they might doe more good then they doe and that they doe not put forth that power which God hath given them nor faithfully use those Talents nor improve the advantages and means afforded them I fear the ground of most mens Misery will prove to be a Second fall and a Lapse upon a Lapse I doubt God will not allow that Proverb The Fathers have eaten sour grapes and the childrens teeth are set on edge as not in respect of Temporal misery much less will he allow it in respect of Eternal It will not be so much because our First parents incurred God's displeasure as because we have neglected what might have been done by us afterwards in order to the seeking of God his face and favour while he might be found Up then and be doing and the Lord will be with us He will not leave us nor forsake us if we seriously set our selves about the work Let us endeavour to acquaint our selves with our own lives and the true Rules of life with this which Solomon here calls the Way of Life let us inform our Minds as much as may be in the Excellency and Loveliness of Practical Religion that beholding it in its own beauty and amiableness we may the more sincerely close with it As there would need nothing else to deterr and affright men from Sin but its own ugliness and deformity were it presented to a naked view and seen as it is so nothing would more effectually commend Religion to the Minds of men then the displaying and unfolding the Excellencies of its Nature then the true Native beauty and inward lustre of Religion it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neither the Evening nor the Morning-Star could so sensibly commend themselves to our bodily Eyes and delight them with their shining beauties as True Religion which is an undefiled Beam of the uncreated light would to a mind capable of coÌ„versing with it Religion which is the true Wisedome is as the Author of the Book of Wisedome speaks of Wisedome a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty the brightness of the Everlasting light the unspotted mirrour of the power of God and the image of his Goodness She is more beautiful then the Sun above all the order of Stars being compared with the light she is found before it Religion is no such austere sour rigid thing as to affright men away from it No but those that are acquainted with the power of it find it to be altogether sweet and amiable An holy Soul sees so much of the glory of Religion in the lively impressions which it bears upon it self as both wooes and winns it We may truly say concerning Religion to such Souls as S. Paul spake to the Corinthians Needs it any Epistles of Commendation to you Needs it any thing to court your affections Ye are indeed its Epistle written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God Religion is not like the Prophet's roll sweet as honey when it was in his mouth but as bitter as gall in his belly Religion is no sullen Stoicisme no sour Pharisaisme it does not consist in a few Melancholy passions in some dejected looks or depressions of Mind but it consists in Freedom Love Peace Life and Power the more it comes to be digested into our lives the more sweet and lovely we shall find it to be Those spots and wrinkles which corrupt Minds think they see in the face of Religion are indeed nowhere else but in their own deformed and misshapen apprehensions It is no wonder when a defiled Fancy comes to be the Glass if you have an unlovely reflection Let us therefore labour to purge our own Souls from all worldly pollutions let us breath after the aid and assistance of the Divine Spirit that it may irradiate and inlighten our Minds that we may be able to see Divine things in a Divine light let us endeavour to live more in a real practice of those Rules of Religious and Holy living commended to us by our ever-Blessed Lord and Saviour So shall we know Religion better and knowing it love it and loving it be still more and more ambitiously pursuing after it till we come to a full attainment of it and therein of our own Perfection and Everlasting Bliss A CHRISTIANS Conflicts and Conquests OR A DISCOURSE Concerning The Devil's active Enmity and continual Hostility against Man The Warfare of a Christian life The Certainty of Success and Victory in this Spiritual Warfare The Evil and Horridness of Magical Arts and Rites Diabolical Contracts c. Siracides Cap. 2. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cap. 36. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cyprianus De Zelo Livore Exâ—ubandum est Fratres dilectissimi atque omnibus viribus elaborandum ut â—â—iâ—nico saevienti jacula sua in omnes corporis partes quibus percuti vulnerari possumus dirigenti sollicitâ plenâ vigilantiâ repugnemus Quamobrem contra omnes Diaboli vel fallaces insidias vel apertas minas stare debet instructus animus armatus tam paratus semper ad repugnandum quam est ad impugnandum semper paratus inimicus A CHRISTIANS Conflicts and Conquests Represented in a Discourse upon James 4. 7. Resist the Devil and he will flee from you CHAP. I. The Introduction Summarily treating of the perpetual Enmity between God the Principle of Good the Principle of Evil the Devil as also between Whatsoever is from God That which is from the Devil That Wicked men by destroying what there is from God within them and devesting themselves of all that which hath any alliance to God or true Goodness and transforming themselves into the Diabolical image fit themselves for
Worse then Sin it self for which we should hate it Our assimilation to God and conformity to him instates us in a firm possession of true Happiness which is nothing else but God himself who is all Being and Blessedness and our dissimilitude to God and Apostasy from him involves us in our own Miserie and sets us at the greatest enmity to what our unsatiable desires most of all crave for which is the enjoyment of True and Satisfying Good Sins are those fiery Snakes which will eternally lash and torment all damned spirits Every mans Hell arises from the bottom of his own Soul as those stinking Mists and tempestuous Exhalations that infest the Earth have their first original from the Earth it self Those streams of fire and brimstone ordained for the torment of all damned spirits are rather the exsudations of their own filthy and corrupt nature then any external thing Hell is not so much induced as educed out of mens filthy Lusts and Passions I will not here dispute what external Appendixes there may be of Heaven or Hell but methinks I no where find a more Graphical description of the true Properties and Operations of them though under other names then in those Characters of the Flesh and Spirit in Galat. 5. ver 19 20 21 22 23. Eternal death is begotten and brought forth out of the wombe of lust and is little else but Sin consummated and in its full growth as S. James intimates chap. 1. Would wicked men dwell a little more at home and descend into the bottome of their own Hearts they should soon find Hell opening her mouth wide upon them and those secret fires of inward fury and displeasure breaking out upon them which might fully inform them of the estate of true Misery as being a short anticipation of it But in this life wicked men for the most part elude their own Misery for a time and seek to avoid the dreadfull sentence of their own Consciences by a tergiversation and flying from themselves into a converse with other things Ut nemo in sese tentat descendere else they would soon find their own home too hot for them But while mens Minds are perpetually rambling all the world over in a pursuit of worldly designes they are unacquainted with the affairs of their own Souls and know not how deeply a Self-converse and reflection upon their own prodigious deformities would pierce their Souls with anguish how vastly would they swell with Fury Rage Horrour Consternation and whatsoever is contrary to that ineffable Light and Love and Peace which is in Heaven in natures fully reconciled and united to true Goodness As true Goodness cannot borrow Beauty from any external thing to recommend it self to the Minds and Affections of Good men seeing it self is the very Idea and true life of all Beauty and Perfection the source of Bliss and Peace to all that partake of her so neither can Sin and Wickedness to an enlightned Soul appear more Ugly loathsome and hatefull in any other shape then its own CHAP. IV. The Second Observable viz. The Warfare of a Christian life True Religion consists not in a mere passive capacity and sluggish kind of doing nothing nor in a melancholy sitting still or slothfull waiting c. but it consists in inward life and power vigour and activity A discovery of the dulness and erroneousness of that Hypothesis viz. That Good men are wholy Passive and unable at any time to move without some External impetus some impression and impulse from without upon them or That all Motions in Religion are from an External Principle Of the Quality and Nature of the true Spiritual Warfare and of the Manner and Method of it That it is transacted upon the inner Stage of mens Souls and managed without Noise or pompous Observation and without any hindrance or prejudice to the most peaceful sedate and composed temper of a religious Soul This further illustrated from the consideration of the false and pretended Zeal for God and his Kingdome against the Devil which though it be impetuous and makes a great noise and a fair shew in the world is yet both impotent and ineffectual FRom these words Resist the Devil we may take notice of the Warfare of a Christian life of that Active life and valour which Good men express in this world A true Christian spirit is masculine and generous it is no such poor sluggish pusillanimous thing as some men fansie it to be but active and noble We fight not saith the Apostle against flesh and bloud but against principalities and powers and spiritual wickednesses in high places True Religion does not consist in a mere Passive capacity in a sluggish kind of doing nothing that so God himself might doe all but it consists in life power within therefore it is called by the Apostle The spirit of power of love of a sound mind it 's called the law of the spirit of life strongly enabling Good men against the law of Sin and Death True Wisdome as the Wise man hath well stiled it is the unspotted mirrour of the power of God and a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty neither can any defiled thing enter into it it goes in and out in the strength of God himself and as is the heavenly such are they also that are heavenly Every thing as it partakes more of God and comes nearer to him so it becomes more active and lively as making the nearer approaches to the Fountain of life and virtue A Good man doth not only then move when there is some powerfull impression and impulse upon him but he hath a Spring of perpetual motion within When God restores men to a new and divine life he doth not make them like so many dead Instruments stringing and fitting them which yet are able to yield no sound of themselves but he puts a living Harmony within them That is but a Mechanical religion which moves no longer then some External weights and Impulses are upon it whether those be I think I may safely say from some Worldly thing or from God himself while he acts upon men from without them and not from within them It is not a Melancholy kind of sitting still and sloathfull waiting that speaks men enlivened by the Spirit and power of God It is not Religion to stifle and smother those Active powers and principles which are within us or to dry up the Fountain of inward life and virtue How say some amongst us That there is no resurrection from the dead no spirit or life within but all our motions in Religion are merely from some assisting Form without Good men do not walk up and down the world merely like Ghosts and Shadows or like dead Bodies assumed by some Spirit which are taken up and laid down again by him at his pleasure But they are indeed living men by a real participation from him who is indeed a quickning Spirit Were our Religion
he burned it put him in a kind of fever and all this was easie to him because he had the bowels of a Father Such another was S. John who hath every where in his mouth My little children A good old Father he was who breathed forth nothing but Love to man And it need be no offence if I add there was a Socrates in Athens who had so much of this kind of Spirit in him that he stiled himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Servant of love and professed that he knew nothing but how to love He would often acknowledge himself to be an Ignoramus in all those things whereinto their wise men used to enquire and that he could say nothing in those Controversies that were agitated about the Gods and such like as Max. Tyrius expresly tells us but he durst not deny himself to have skill in that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Art of love wherein he was continually busied and imploied instructing of their Youth amending of their Manners and making them truely vertuous which thing the ungrateful wretches of the City called corrupting of their children And truly it is very often the Lot of these Fathers which I am speaking of who nourish up Youth in true piety and vertue to be esteemed by many the corrupters of the fountain Pestes rather then Patres of the places where they live But they fare no worse then Elijah did who was accounted the Troubler of Israel though he was the Chariot and Horsemen thereof a man so useful that they could not tell how to want him though they knew not how to value him And that is the third thing to which I am to proceed Only let me intreat you that you would think within yourselves in my passage Such an one was the party deceased 3. We have here observable the Usefulness of Elijah he was not only a Father but the Chariot and Horsemen of Israel the Security and Safeguard of the place where he was He calls him by this name in an allusion to the Chariot wherein he was fetched to heaven and would express by this form of speech the good service he did for Israel He was in stead of an Army to them like David worth ten thousand of the people He alone was able to fight with all their enemies and by his force to break all their Legions in pieces And indeed all Good men especially men of extraordinary Wisdome and Godliness such as I have been speaking of are the Guard and Defence of the towns where they reside yea of the Country whereof they are Members They are the Tutelar Angels of a Nation men that can doe more by their prayers and tears their vertuous and holy actions then an host of men wherein none is of less valour then Samson or the fam'd Hercules and Achilles How had it been with Israel had it not been for Moses the meekest man on earth and yet terrible as an army with banners And in what a case had Samaria often been if it had not been for this Elisha the son of Elijah who was encompassed about with Chariots and horses of fire to fight at his command What if I say of such men in the Platonists phrase That they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Keepers of the world that preserve it from being made like to Sodom and Gomorrah And if there had been but Ten of these holy Champions there they had shielded their heads from the arrows of the Almighty and kept the showers of fire and brimstone from raining upon them Good men are the Life-guard of the World next to God and good Angels they are the Walls and Bulwarks of a nation for by their strength they have power with God as it is said of Jacob. And so the Chaldee Paraphrast reads these words of my Text Thou wast better to Israel by thy prayers then Chariot and Horsemen They are the Glory of the world and without them it would be but a rude rabble a Beast with many heads and no brains a mere Chaos and Confusion And it is by reason of them that it doth not run into such disorder as a company of Children would doe without their Father or as a multitude of mad Souldiers without their skilful Leader and Commander And so I have briefly set before you what Elijah was what those who are Eminent for Godliness are what every good man ought in some measure to be and what you shall shortly hear our deceased Father was in an high degree Men of worth and great renown 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a good sense men of Name men that may be taken notice of in the world that shine by their Wisdome Justice and Goodness that chear the world by their Love and Fatherly care of all that heartily endeavour to doe good and would not for a world see men perish if they can help it in a word men that are as the Soul of the world without whom it would be a stinking and unsufferable place 2. Now let us look a while upon Elisha and see what he thought of such a man And 1. We meet with his great Affections expressed in the very Form of the Words My Father my Father Methinks I feel within my self with what pure dear and ardent love he spake these words what a glowing fire there was in his breast when he thought of his spiritual Father He burnt in love to him as if some spark had fallen from Elijah's fiery Chariot into his Heart He was all in a desire as if the Angels that fetcht his Father had lent him a waft of their wings whereby he strove to fly with him to Heaven There is not a child that can cry more after the breasts that give it suck and the arms of her that carried it in her wombe then he calls and cries after his Father O my Father my Father where shall I find my Father what will become of me without my Father A tender love and kindness there is to be in our Hearts to all men of what nature or nation soever no man ought to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a lover of himself but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a lover of mankind Yet a more singular cleaving of Souls there should be to those that are good but the most unspeakable and greatest adhaesion and union to those by whom we have profited in Wisdome and Godliness and whose lips have dropped the words of life into our Minds For as Solomon hath it There is Gold and a multitude of rubies but the lips of knowledge are a pretious Jewel We should stand affected to them as the Galatians to S. Paul who would have pull'd out their very eyes and given them unto him They ought to be to us oculis chariores as the ordinary phrase is dearer then our eyes by which speech God expresses his extraordinary love to his people Israel saying that he kept them as the apple of his eye And indeed it
to have a kind of Sacredness in it and will make his name to be alwaies as a sweet odour unto us Though we may not extoll it with Divine praises yet let it never be mentioned by us without the addition of the Hebrew manner of speech 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 His memory is blessed or of the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That most Blessed man AND so I am fallen unawares in my Meditations upon the Application of what hath been said to Him that is deceased and to our own selves Some perhaps will be angry that I should goe about to compare him with Elijah the Man of God but I have an Apology ready at hand They will give me leave I hope to doe the same that Greg. Nyssen doth who in his Oration at the Funeral of his brother Basil compares him not only with Elias but with John the Baptist the second Elias and with S. Paul himself saying that one should not erre if he should affirm that there was in him and in S. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one and the same measure of divine love Suffer me then to use some of his words concerning him of whom we are now to speak None will require of humane nature to imitate Elijah in his shutting and opening of heaven in his fasting so many daies and going up to God in a fiery chariot but in other things we will be bold to compare him with that great man in his zealous faith in his Cordial love to God in his earnest desire and thirst 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he speaks after that which truly is in an exact and exquisite life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a Conversation so studied that it was in all things consonant with it self in most unaffected gravity wonderful simplicity and a countenance proportionable to the vigour and strength of his Soul or in his own words he had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a look that was not one key below his intent and eager and sprightly Mind If you look upon his care of those things that were hoped for and neglect of these things that are seen on his equal love to poor and rich in these such like things He imitated the Wonders of Elijah But if any man will needs urge us to strain a little higher and compare something in him to his fasting fourty daies then what say you to an every-days temperance And if there must be something answerable to his going up to Heaven in a fiery Chariot then look upon the other way of ascending thither which is the best 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by an high transcendent conversation in this world whereby he made a Chariot of his Vertues that he might ascend up unto God But that I may proceed in this Argument according to our former Method 1. Let us first look upon him in his Eminency Dignity and Worth A very glorious Star he was shone brighter in our eyes then any that he ever look'd upon when he took his view of the heavenly Bodies and now he shines as the brightness of the Firmament and as the Stars for ever and ever being wise and having turned many I believe unto Righteousness I shall speak nothing of his Earthly parentage save only this That herein he was like to John the Baptist the last Elias in that he was born after his Parents had been long childless and were grown aged Some have observed that such have proved very famous for they seem to be sent on purpose by God into the world to doe good and to be scarce begotten by their Parents Such are something like Isaac who had a great blessing in him and seem to be intended by God for some great service and work in the world But let us look only at his Heavenly descent and see how he was allied to God himself for as the Poet saies of Aeneas Contingit sanguine Coelum I may say of him as Nazianzen saies of his Sister His Country was Heaven his Town or City was the Jerusalem which is above his fellow-Citizens were the Saints his Nobility was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the retaining of the Divine impressions and stamps upon his Soul and being like to God the Archetype and First pattern of all Goodness And indeed the preserving of the Heavenly Symbols that are in our Souls and especially the purging and scowring of them from the corruption of Nature he often spake of and his endeavour was that the Divine image might be fairly reflected in him and that it might shine brightly in the face of others If I should speak much of the Vastness of his Learning a thing not to be passed by it would seem to say that I knew all he was which I am not so arrogant as to assume unto my self This I will say That he could doe what he would He had such a huge wide capacity of Soul such a sharp and piercing Understanding such a deep reaching Mind that he set himself about nothing but he soon grasped it and made himself a full possessour of it And if we consider his great Industry and indefatigable pains his Herculean labours day and night from his * First coming to the University till the time of his long sickness joined with his large Parts his frequent Meditation Contemplation and Abstraction of his Mind from Sensible things it must needs be concluded that he was a Comprehensour of more then I can say or think of if I could it would be too tedious to give you an account of all There is a Discourse which Charidemus in Dion Chrysostome makes to his Friends a little before his death How that this world is God's house wherein a gallant sumptuous Feast is prepared and all men are his Guests and how that there are two waiters at the Table which fill out the wine to them that call for it the one a Man the other a Woman the one call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Mind from whose hand all Wise men drink the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Intemperance who fills the cups of the lovers of this world In this House our beloved Friend deceased staid between four and five and thirty years and I am sure drank most large draughts from the hand of the former for he was a Man he was a Mind he had nothing of that Woman in him and never in the least was known to sipp of her cups He was a most laborious searcher after Wisdom and never gave his Flesh the leisure to please it self in those entertainments and therefore we may be confident with that Charidemus that God hath taken him to be his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his Friend and Companion to drink of the rivers of his pleasure In a word he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Eunapius speaks of Longinus A living Library better then that which he hath given to our College and a walking Study that carried his Learning about with him I never got
these Three our Respect Affection and Sense of our loss His name is most worthy to be had in a more especial remembrance and highly deserves to be rank'd among our Benefactors he having indowed our Library with all the Books that he had and we wanted and I have reason to believe that if he had not been so suddenly surprised by those forgetful Lethargick fits he intended to bestow more upon us then his Books which yet were both many and choise ones being above six hundred for number and many of them large and costly and for the matter of them many Hebrew Books besides some Arabick many Mathematick Books many Books of History both Ancient and Modern as also of Philosophy and Philology both Sacred and Profane And whensoever we commemorate his Love unto us let it be with some Encomium let us mourn quòd talem amiserimus that we are deprived of such a person but let us rejoice and give thanks to God quòd talem habuerimus that we ever had such an one who hath done us so much good they are the words of S. Hierom to Nepotian with a little alteration But let me tell you in conclusion of all that herein would be shown our greatest Love and Affection which we bare to him this would be the greatest Honour of him if we would but express his life in ours that others might say when they behold us There walks at least a shadow of Mr. Smith And O that I might beg with Elisha a double portion among those that I desire should share in the gifts and graces of this Elijah This is the highest of my ambition that many might but possess the riches that lodg'd in this one They disgrace their Master who have not skill in that which they say he professed but they who tread in his steps and excell in his Art shine back again upon him from whom first they received their light Let me seriously therefore exhort every one of us to imitate this Master in Israel Imitate him in his Industry if not in his Learning shake off all laziness and sloth do not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 embody and enervate your Souls by Idleness and base neglect do not emasculate them and turn them into flesh by drowsiness or vain pleasures Imitate his Temperance his Patience his Fortitude his Candour and Ingenuity his Holiness and Righteousness his Faith and Love his Charity and Humility his Self-denial and true Self-resignation to the will of God in a word all those Christian Vertues which lived in him let them live in us for ever Let us die to the world as he did before we die let us separate our Souls from our Bodies and all bodily things before the time of our departure and separation come Let us take an especial heed lest we doe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as most men doe lest we suffer this lower and earthly world lest we be drawn forcibly into its embraces and so held from rising aloft but let us turn up our Minds continually to Heaven and earnestly desire pati Deum to suffer God to be mightily and strongly attracted by him from all Earthy and Sensible delights to an admiration and love of his Everlasting Beauty and Goodness Let us labour to be so well acquainted with Him and all things of the Higher world and so much disingaged in our Affections from this and all that is in it that when we come to go out of this world we may never look back and say O what goodly things do I leave what a brave world am I snatched from would I might but live a little longer there Let us get our Hearts so crucified to the world that it may be an easie thing to us to shake hands with and bid a farwell to our Friends the dearest things we have our Lands Houses Goods and whatsoever is valuable in our eyes Let us use the world as though we used it not let us dye daily as our dear Friend did and so it was easie to him to dye at last Dye did I say shall I use that word or rather 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he is flown away as Nazianzen speaks his Soul hath got loose and now feels her wings or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he hath changed his habitation he is gone into the other world as Abraam went out of Ur into Canaan or as the same Father saies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he hath taken his journey into another countrie a little before his Body He hath left his Body behind him awhile to take a sleep in the dust when it awakes at the Resurrection it shall follow also to the same place Then shall it be made a Spiritual body then shall it have wings given to it also and be lovingly married again to the Soul never any more to suffer any separation And at that time we shall all meet with our dear Father and Friend again who now are here remaining crying out O my Father my father c. Then shall all tears be wiped away from our eyes and there shall be no more death neither sorrow nor crying neither shall there be any more pain Then we shall not need such a Light as he was for there is no night there and they need no candle neither light of the Sun for the Lord God giveth them light and they shall reign for ever and ever Amen Of this Edition Of the Author * Act. 7. 22. * Num. 12. 3. * Heb. 11. 24 c. * Rom. 4. Heb. 11. Jam. 2. * De Verbis Resipuit Noe. * Num. 12. 8. * Exod. 33. 11. * Ephes. 6. 6 7. * Rom. 5. 7. * Ephes. 6. Mat. ch 5 6 7. * Act. 26. 29. * Rom. 2 29. * Rom. 2. 29. * Luk. 16. 15. * Acts 7. 21 22. * Hebr. 11. * Psal. 16. Of the Discourses Page 347. Matth. 23. * Heb. 5. Rom. 8. Col. 3. 2 Tim. 3. * Titus 3. 3. Gal. 4. * This was of old confess'd and boasted of by Lucretius more then once in his Poems * Matthew 17. See also Acts 3. 22. Deut. 18. 15. 1 Tim. 1. * Page 280. 1 Kings 4. 29. * Psal. 51. 12. * 1 Cor. â—4 3 9. Matthew 23. 1 Thess. 5. * Ch. 4. 13. Ver. 8 9. Plotin En. 1. l. 6. â— Pet. â— * Eth. Nicom l. 1. 1. 2. 3. 4. * For so that word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must here signifie if indeed it be not corrupted and to be read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word which some other Lexicographers use in this case * as Lusian in his De Sacrificiis speaks too truly though it may be too profanely * Lib. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Satyr 6. Lib. 1. Lib. 5. * Lib. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sic Edit Complut * Cap. 38. * Chap. 23. 8. Psal. 4. 7. * Lucret. lib. 3. * Lib. 1. Lib. â— * Lib. 4. de placitis Philosophorum * Enn. 4. l.
to love him with a most Universall and Unbounded Love to trust in him and reverence him to converse with him in a free chearful manner as One in whom we live and move and have our Beings being perpetually encompassed by him and never moving out of him to resign all our Waies and Wills up to him with an equall and indifferent mind as knowing that he guides and governs all things in the Best way to sink our selves as low in Humility as we are in Self-nothingness And because all those scatter'd Raies of Beauty and Loveliness which we behold spread up and down all the World over are onely the Emanations of that inexhausted Light which is above therefore should we love them all in that and climb up alwaies by those Sun-beams unto the Eternall Father of Lights we should look upon him and take from him the pattern of our lives and alwaies eying of him should 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. as Hierocles speaks polish and shape our Souls into the clearest resemblance of him and in all our behaviour in this World that Great Temple of his deport our selves decently and reverently with that humility meekness and modesty that becomes his house We should endeavour more and more to be perfect as he is in all our dealing with men doing good shewing mercy and compassion advancing justice and righteousness being alwaies full of charity and good works and look upon our selves as having nothing to doe here but to display blazon the glory of our heavenly Father and frame our hearts and lives according to that Pattern which we behold in the Mount of a holy Contemplation of him Thus we should endeavour to preserve that Heavenly fire of the Divine Love and Goodness which issuing forth from God centres it self within us and is the Protoplastick virtue of our Beings alwaies alive and burning in the Temple of our Souls and to sacrifice our selves back again to him And when we fulfill this Royall Law arising out of the heart of Eternity then shall we here appear to be the Children of God when he thus lives in us as our Saviour speaks Matth. 5. And so we shall close up this Particular with that High privilege which Immortall Souls are invested with they are all the Off-spring of God for so S. Paul allows the Heathen Poet to call them they are all royally descended and have no Father but God himself being originally formed into his image and likeness and when they express the purity and holiness of the Divine Life in being perfect as God is perfect then they manifest themselves to be his Children Matth. 5. And in Matth. 7. Christ encourageth men to seek and pray for the Spirit which is the best gift that God can give to men because he is their Heavenly Father much more bountifull and tender to all helpless Souls that seek to him then any earthly parent whose Nature is degenerated from that primitive goodness can be to his children But those Apostate Spirits that know not to return to the Originall of their Beings but implant themselves into some other stock and seek to incorporate and unite themselves to another line by sin and wickedness cut themselves off from this divine priviledge and lose their own birth-right they doe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if I may borrow that phrase and lapse into another nature All this was well express'd by Proclus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All Souls are the Children of God but all of them know not their God but such as know him and live like to him are called the Children of God CHAP. IX An APPENDIX concerning the Reason of Positive Laws BUT here as an Appendix to the two former Deductions it may be of good use to enquire into the Reason of such Laws as we call Positive which God hath in all times as is commonly suppos'd enjoyn'd obedience to which are not the Eternall dictates and Decretals of the Divine Nature communicating it self to Immortall Spirits but rather deduce their Originall from the free will and pleasure of God To solve this Difficulty that of S. Paul may seem a fit Medium who tells us The Law was added because of transgression though I doubt not but he means thereby the Morall Law as well as any other The true intent and scope of these Positive laws and it may be of such an externall promulgation of the Morall seems to be nothing else but this to secure the Eternall Law of Righteousness from transgression As the Jews say of their decreta sapientum that they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an hedge to the Law so we may say of these Divine Decretals they were but cautionary and preventive of disobedience to that Higher Law and therefore Saint Paul tells us why the Morall Law was made such a Political business by an external promulgation c. 1 Tim. 1. 9. not so much because of righteous men in whom the Law of Nature lives who perform the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without any outward Law but it was given for the lawless and disobedient c. And therefore I doubt not but we may safely conclude that God gave not those Positive Laws meerly pro imperio if I may use that expression it was not meerly to manifest his Absolute Dominion Soveraignty as some think but for the good of those that were enjoyned to obey and this belief Moses endeavours almost throughout the whole Book of Deuteronomy to strengthen the Israelites in and therefore God was so ready upon all occasions to dispense with these Laws and requires the Jews to omit the observance of them when they might seem to justle with any other Law of Morall duty or Humane necessity as may be observ'd in many Instances in Scripture But for a more distinct unfolding of this point we may take notice of this difference in the notion of Good and Evil as we are to converse with them Some things are so absolutely and somethings are so onely relatively That which is absolutely good is every way Superiour to us and we ought alwaies to be commanded by it because we are made under it But that which is relatively good to us may sometime be commanded by us Eternall Truth and Righteousness are in themselves perfectly absolutely good and the more we conform our selves to them the better we are But those things that are onely good relatively and in order to us we may say of them that they are so much the better by how much the more they are conform'd to us I mean by how much the more they are accommodated and fitted to our estate and condition and may be fit means to help and promote us in our pursuit of some Higher good and such indeed is the matter of all Positive Laws and the Symbolicall or Rituall part of Religion And as we are made for the former viz. what is absolutely good to serve that so are these latter
besets us and run with patience the race that is set before us Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith who is set down at the right hand of the throne of God as a great and mighty Conquerour who will declare the perfection of his own power in our weakness if we lay hold of his strength Though we are not able to change our own natures or to rise above the source of our Animall and Selfish Beings by our own power yet let us endeavour to subdue all those External vices of Luxury and Wantonnesse of Injustice Revenge and the like let us withdraw the fewel of Pride Malice Vain-glory and whatsoever else holds us in captivity to Hell and with confidence apply our selves to him who is an Almighty Saviour and when he joyns his Almighty strength with us we need not fear any thing He shall tread down Satan under our feet and we shall one day tread upon the Lion and Adder the young Lion and the Dragon shall we trample under our feet we shall break the Serpent's head though he may bruise our heel Though God may suffer him so far to serve his own rage and the hellish malice of such as are in league with him as to pull down with violence our earthly Tabernacles yet while we so suffer by him we are conquerors over him I should now conclude all and leave you with this General application but that the present Occasion hath drawn it down for me to a particular case Did we not live in a world of professed wickedness wherein so many mens Sins goe in open view before them to judgement it might be thought needless to perswade men to resist the Devil when he appears in his own colours to make merchandise of them and comes in a formal way to bargain with them for their Souls that which humane nature however enthrall'd to Sin and Satan in a more mysterious way abhors and none admit but those who are quite degenerated from humane kind That which I shall further adde shall be by way of Caution onely to suggest two things which are the forerunners to such Diabolical contracts and put temptations into the hands of the Tempter 1. Those Hellish passions of Malice Envy and Revenge which are the black Form and Image of the Devil himself these when they are once ripened fit men for the most Formal converse with the Devil that may be That nature cannot easily abhorr him which is so perfectly conformed to him 2 ly The use of any Arts Rites or Ceremonies not understood of which we can give no Rational or Divine account this indeed is nothing else but a kind of Magick which the Devil himself owns and gives life to though he may not be corporeally present or require presently any further Covenant from the users of them The Devil no question is present to all his own Rites and Ceremonies though men discern him not and may upon the use of them secretly produce those Effects which may gain credit to them Among these Rites we may reckon Insignificant forms of words with their several modes and manner of pronunciation Astrelogical arts and whatsoever else pretends to any strange Effects which we cannot with good reason either ascribe to God or Nature As God will onely be convers'd withall in a way of Light and Understanding so the Devil loves to be convers'd with in a way of Darkness and Obscurity The End A SERMON PREACHED AT THE FUNERAL OF M r JOHN SMITH late Fellow of Queens College in Cambridge who departed this life Aug. 7. 1652. And lyes interred in the Chappel of the same College WITH A SHORT ACCOUNT of his Life and Death BY SIMON PATRICK then Fellow of Queens College Prov. 10. 7. The memory of the Just is blessed 2 KINGS 2. 12. And Elisha saw it and he cryed My Father My Father the Chariot of Israel and the Horsemen thereof WHen I saw the blessed Spirit of our Brother shall I say or our Father making hast out of that Body which lyes before us these words which I have now read came into my Mind And methought I saw the good Genius of this place which inspired us with so much sense of Learning and Goodness taking its flight and leaving this lower world At whom my Soul catch'd as I fansied Elisha to have done at Elijah and I cryed out O my Father My Father c. Desirous I was me-thought that his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might have been a little while deferr'd that I might have stai'd the wheels of that Triumphant chariot wherein he seemed to be carried that we might have kept him a little longer in this world till by his holy breathings into our Souls and the Grace of God we had been all made meet to have some share in that inheritance of the Saints in light and so he might have gone to Heaven with his Train taking all his Friends along with him as Attendants to that Glory and Honour wherewith I make no doubt he is crowned It grieved me in my thoughts that there should be so many Orphans left without a Father a Society left naked without one of her best Guardians and Chieftains her very Chariot and Horsemen unto whose instruction and brave conduct not a few of us will acknowledge that they owe much of their skill and abilities For I do not fear to say as Antoninus doth of the Best man that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Priest or Minister of God's who was very subservient to him in his great work If he was not a Prophet like Elijah yet I am sure he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Gr. Nazianzen I think speaks of S. Basil an Interpreter of the Spirit and very well acquainted with his mind a man sent down from heaven for our good and is now gone thither from whence he came leaving us behind him here a company of poor Fatherless children the Sons of this Prophet weeping and crying out O my Father my Father the Chariot of Israel and the Horsemen thereof Which sad note would have been most fitly sung just at the Ascension of his holy Soul yet give me leave to descant a while upon it now that we are come to inter his Body which was the dark Shadow where that admirable and illustrious Learning Wisdome and Godliness walk'd up and down and shone through upon the world You will easily see at the first glance that Something will here offer it self to be said of Elijah and Something of Elisha Of Elijah in that he is called Father the Chariot and Horsemen of Israel of Elisha in that he applies this relation to himself saying My Father My Father Concerning Elijah we may observe First His Superiority Eminency and Dignity Secondly His singular Care which he took of others Thirdly His great Usefulness or the Benefit which his Country enjoyed by him Concerning Elisha we may observe the Expression of Three things likewise First Of his great Affection
and Love Secondly Of the Sense he felt of his loss Thirdly Of that Honour which he gave him or that Respect and Regard which he had unto him I shall speak a little of all these and then parallel our Case as well as I can to Both. 1. Observe Elijah's Eminency Superiority Dignity and Worth which is both signified in the word Father and also in the other Expressions the Chariot and Horsemen of Israel The Talmudists say of the word Abba which is near of kin as can be to this in the Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Abba is a word of honour and glory even as Rabbi whence the Latine Abbas and our English Abbot have been derived to denote the greatest person in a Society And therefore whom he here calls Father is called verse 3 and 5. Master or Lord Know'st thou not that Jehovah will take 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thy Lord or Master from thee today Elijah was the Head in the Body of the Prophets the Dux gregis a main leading man among the rest And this was by reason of his Wisdome Experience and gray-headed Understanding expressed in the word Father He was a Sage and grave person such an Head as was full of Prudence Skill Advice wherein were molded many sober and wise Resolutions many weighty and mature Determinations profound and deep Notions holy and pious Counsels for the teaching of rawer and greener heads He was one that did imitate God the Father of all and in some sort represent him here below being an Oracle among men And such Instruments God hath alwaies in the world Men of greater height and stature then others whom he sets up as torches on an hill to give light to all the Regions round about Men of publick and universal influence like the Sun it self which illuminates all and is not sparing of its beams Men whose Souls come into the world as the Chaldee Oracle speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 clothed with a great deal of Mind more impregnated then others with Divine notions and having more teeming Wombs to inrich the world with the fruit of them Men of wide and capacious Souls that can grasp much and of inlarged open Hearts to give forth that freely unto men which the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Fatherly Mind as the same Oracle calls God hath given unto them that so in some sort they may become Fathers in the world in subordination to God The Sun of Righteousness Jesus Christ is described with seven stars in his right hand Revelat. 1. which were the Angels of the Churches Men its like who were adorn'd and beautified with more then ordinary brightness of Mind and Understanding and did sparkle with more then common heat of Love and Piety and did shine as Lights in the world in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation Elijah was such an one and so was the other Elias John the Baptist a burning and a shining light and so also shall we find our Father that is deceased to have been 2. Take notice of the Care which Elijah took of Elisha and that first as a Master of his Scholar and secondly as a Father of his Son or if you will have both in one as a Fatherly Master Elisha calls him by this name of Father because he was his Scholar and they used commonly to give this title to their Masters or Teachers whence Pirke Avoth among the Jews Capitula Patrum is a Book that contains the wise Sayings Apophthegms of their Doctors And so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the New Testament that which is received by Tradition from their Fathers signifies nothing else but what their Doctors and learned men in the Law delivered to them and therefore they are sometimes called the Traditions of the Elders Jubal is called the Father of such as handle the Harp Gen. 4. 21. which signifies the same with that which is said of his Brother verse 22. He was an Instructer of artificers in brass and Iron And hence Solomon saith so often My Son hear the instruction of a Father So that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my Father my Father in the Text is nothing else but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my Master my Master Elijah taught and instructed him out of the Law but with such a care and Fatherly affection that Elisha was truly his Son as well as his Scholar one whom he loved and tendered whom he wrap'd as a child in his Mantle when he was following the plough whom he begot into another shape and made another man in whose heart he sowed the seeds of true righteousness and godliness that he might doe more good in the world For what God doth by Men that they many times are said to doe Hence the Apostles call Christians their little children and dear children whom they had travailed in birth withall till Christ was formed in them They lay in the Apostles wombs they brought them forth Christians and so were truly their Spiritual Fathers And we may still see such noble Souls which God continues amongst men whose mouths as Solomon saies are as a well of life whose lips feed many and whose tongues are as choice Silver Men that are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 common Fathers and will embrace every body as a Son so they be but willing to be taught that have the whole World for their School and are instilling wholesom notions and rectified apprehensions into mens Minds and implanting the Truth which is after Godliness in their hearts Men that in all meekness tenderness and Fatherly affection reprove those that oppose themselves that endeavour to bring them into their wombs that if it be possible they may beget the life of God and of his Son Christ in their Souls Men who cherish and foster the least gasping panting life that is in any Soul who endeavour to free this life from any obstructions that dull and oppress it and so in every sense prove themselves to be the true Fathers of the Church Common Fathers as before I expressed it neither bound up in themselves nor addicted to any particular Sect but minding the good of all Who think that they were not born for themselves nor to be linked to this or that Body or party of men but are to be perfect as their heavenly Father is perfect who doth good to all even to the evil and unthankful A 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or natural affection there is in them which makes them think that every mans childe is their own and if they could hatch any heavenly life in them they would willingly cover them under their wings Such a person was S. Paul who went through fire and water had a pilgrimage through this world upon nothing but briers and thorns out of his great love that he bare to men The care of all the Churches lay upon him and no man could be weak but he was weak also no man was offended but