and have reserved something peculiar to be given as a testimony of it over and above what I have done my self And that was their speaking with all tongues on a sudden and their prophesying whereby they were inabled to preach to all Nations as he had done to the Jews alone and work the same wonders among the heathen which he had wrought onely in that Country A marvellous evidence this was of the power and glory of Christ to give eternall life in that being absent he did those things by his Apostles which were not performed whilst he was present with them And therefore 8. upon this account the HOLY GHOST thus given to the Apostles and those that believed by their word is called the earnest of the inheritance in their hearts untill the redemption of the purchased possession 2 Cor. i. 22. i. Eph. 14. It was something given them in hand before his second appearing for full redemption to assure them they should as certainly receive all that was behind as they had already received this pawn and pledge of his mighty love And indeed we have all much reason to think that he will doe very great things for us when he appears in his own person as the Holy Ghost assures us he will iii. Act. 19 20. since he hath done so much good to the world by the Apostles his Deputies who were men like to our selves If his Servants brought such blessings to men then what will the Lord himself bring with him at his coming If his Ministers restored dead men to life again the Master sure will bestow a life as much excelling that which they restored as he excells his Officers In short if the people lookt so earnestly on two poor Fisher-men when they had cured a man lame from his mother's womb iii. Act. 12. much more will the Lord of glory draw the eyes of the world to him by doing astonishing things for his people when he shall come as the Apostle speaks 2 Thess i. 10. to be glorified in his Saints and to be admired in all them that believe He will give such a glory to us as will be much for his own credit and reflect glory on himself He will not so much consult what is fit for us to receive as what is fit for such a Prince as he to give He will cloath us with such honour and glory that it will be an honour to him to have his followers appear in such rich and shining liveries It will set men into admiration to behold the bounty of his royall favour to them and much advance the greatness of this Prince to see such subjects attend him the meanest of which are Kings Nor do we strain our fancies and exalt our hopes above what we can reasonably expect when we look for such high dignities for that we shall be admitted into his heavenly Court and be thus sumptuously apparell'd and magnificently entertained by Angels to wait upon us and carry us to him we are assured by the testimony of the HOLY GHOST which cloathed poor men here with a power greater then the most absolute Monarch on earth ever enjoyed and enabled them to deal greater and richer gifts to men yea to scatter them abroad every day as they past along the streets or did but spred their shadow over them then Kings and Emperours could doe at their Coronation or Conquerours at their most magnificent Triumphs III. And as a farther proof of this we must observe once more that the HOLY GHOST gave its testimony of the Life that is in Jesus and shall be given to us when it fell down upon the common sort of believers as it had done upon the Apostles who were not desirous to keep the miraculous gifts of it to themselves alone but readily communicated them to others It was a great wonder to hear the Apostles speak with tongues and prophesy to see them cure the lame and restore the blind to their sight nay raise the dead to life onely by bidding them live and be well in the Name of Jesus things which no Potentates on Earth as I said before could bestow though they were forward to take to themselves the name of Gods and affected Divine honours But it was a greater wonder to see other illiterate Christians receive the same gifts by the laying on of their hands and invocation of the Name of the Lord Jesus who presently filled them with the HOLY GHOST This was a thing so strange that they could not but look upon it as a token of the most extraordinary Love of God to mankind from whence they might expect as much happiness as the word ETERNALL LIFE I told you imports For 1. nothing ever discovered the capacity of humane Souls so much as this effusion of the HOLY GHOST which shew'd how large and wide they are and how much they can contain and to what degree of excellence they may be improved and raised and that on a sudden by the power of God This gave them a strong tast of what was to come and both made them relish immortall life above all other things and also put them in hope to attain it by the favour of that person who had promoted them to such a sight of it in this vast measure of wisedom and love wherewith they were indued For 2. it could argue nothing less they might very well think then that they who wore such eminent marks of his favour as to have a Crown of life and glory set upon their heads in this world should be raised to far greater honours in the next when they should be more capable of his kindness and nearer to himself And indeed 3. since hereby he dwelt in them and they became the Temples of the Holy Ghost they might be confident he would not suffer so holy a place to be pulled down but in order to the building of it better And since the Holy Ghost also 4. wonderfully inlarged their hearts and made them exceeding desirous as well as instrumentall in conveying such exceeding great benefits to others they could not but look upon it as an undeniable argument of the most bounteous goodness of God who is far more inclinable to doe good then Men can be and more ready to reward our services then we can be to doe our work And considering moreover 5. the promise he had made of ETERNALL LIFE the gift of the Holy Ghost was a marvellous earnest of it and a kind of beginning of it in their Souls What shall an ignorant Sea-man be made a Prophet and speak with all tongues a poor Tent-maker unlock Mysteries and indite spirituall Songs and Hymns a man that yesterday could mend nothing but his Nets now cure a man of a bloudy-flux or mend a lame leg a rude Souldier command Devils and storm his strong holds more easily then a town without walls Lord what light is this might they justly say which shines in our dungeon what power is this wherewith we see frail
the heir of all things He is called by the same name that they were If there were no other reason for it his office would give him a title to it because he is the Lords Christ anointed by God to the highest dignity and government under him not only over that Country but over all Nations on the Earth who by believing on him were all to be made a chosen generation a royal Priesthood an holy Nation a peculiar people 1 Pet. ii 9. But to show his most excellent greatness he is called the Son of God with two marks of his preeminence above all other who have had that name First he is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Son that eminent King the King of Kings like to whom none ever was For secondly whereas those sons of the highest spoken of before were to die like other men Psal 82.7 and to fall like one of the Princes in other Countries He is called the Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of that God who liveth xvi Matth. 16. that is of the immortal eternal God And by consequence is like his Father an everlasting King of whose Kingdom as the Angel told his Mother i. Luke 33. there shall be no end Thus the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews who understood this language well enough hath discoursed in the First Chapter Where he proves that Jesus is the Son of God in a more eminent sence than any Angel in Heaven according to those ancient prophecies before named concerning David and Solomon as you read ver 4 5. From whence the Jews learns to call the Messiah who they confess is in those places mystically spoken of by that name of the Son of God Which the Apostle there shows is the greatest name of excellence and signifies the highest honour and dignity such as God hath conferred upon no other And then he proceeds to show that according to other prophecies which speak of his supereminence his Throne is for ever and ever ver 8. For God who is his God in a peculiar manner loving and rewarding him hath anointed him with the oil of gladness preferred him that is above all that partake of Kingly dignity ver 9. He hath made him indeed his first-born the Prince of all the Kings of the Earth as S. John speaks i. Revel 5. to whom we are to submit our selves with the greatest devotion of spirit and from whom we may then expect Protection Blessing and the noblest Rewards For he is the long expected Son of God who excells all other that were ever called by that name the King of inconceivable Majesty whose splendor could not so much as be fore-shadowed by Solomon in all his glory Thus Nathanael I observe puts these two expressions together in his confession of our Saviour out of a vehement affection redoubling his words Thou art that Son of God thou art that King of Israel i. John 49. This is the business upon which we are to examine these Witnesses we are to consider what they say to this point that the Lord Jesus was sent from God as Moses had formerly been only Moses as a Servant but he as a Son according to what you read iii. Heb. 5 6. with a fulness of authority with all the power of God so that we may confidently rely on every thing that he hath said as the very mind and sence of God This if we can hear them speak they are witnesses so beyond all exception that we cannot chuse but reverence him and receive him and obey him and put our trust in him and rejoyce in his royal favour and love evermore For the first three are no less persons than the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost Whose gracious assistance let us humbly implore that this and all other our works may be begun continued and ended to the glorifying of his holy Name A PRAYER O Father of lights from whom cometâ— every good and every perfect gift illuminate my mind in these Meditations that I may be able to enlighten others anâ— lead them into a good understanding in aâ—â— things Guide and direct my thoughts thaâ— I may reason and discourse aright Shine intâ— all our Souls by the light of the glorious Gospâ—â— of Christ John 6.40 that we seeing the Son may believe on him and being made thy childreâ— by adoption and grace may be daily more anâ— more renewed by thy holy Spirit Settle iâ— our Souls that mighty faith whereby we may have power and strength to have victory and to triumph over the Devil the World and the Flesh Strengthen it every day by constant Meditation on those things which thou O Father Son and Holy Ghost hast so many ways declared to us that it may grow still more victorious and we may feel the happy fruit of it in greater joy and triumph of spirit in assured expectation of the Crown of righteousness which thou hast promised to all faithful Souls O that none of the inticing allurements of this world may ever more deceive us and steal away our hearts from our true happiness nor any of the troublesome passages of this life ever hereafter dishearten us and divert us from the pursuit of it But the Faith of Christ may so intirely possess our hearts as to keep us stedfast and upright in the midst of all the temptations of what kind soever they be that assault us And looking up unto Jesus the author and finisher of our Faith we may still say with true resolution of spirit Thou art the Son of God most high thou art the King of incomprehensible Majesty thou art the Lord of all We will constantly adhere to thee as thy faithful subjects We will follow thee in faith and love and patient obedience to the very death And hope that as we feel by thy power in us we are the children of God so we shall be heirs heirs of God joynt-heirs with thee O blessed Lord to whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be glory and dominion for ever Amen CHAP. II. Concerning the Witnesses in general and the Testimony of the FATHER in particular IF any man urge us to receive a thing which is new and strange we either turn away our ears if we take him for a frivolous person or else require him to show us good evidence for what he says if he seem to be wise and serious And the more importunate he is to be believed the more earnest we are to know what he hath to show for himself and to call for his proofs in which if he fail or they come not home to the purpose he is so far from gaining any credit with those who examine them that they prove a very considerable argument against him Especially when he pretends to come from God and to bring us messages from Heaven we all expect the clearer and diviner demonstrations before we can resign our mind unto him For that which is to make all things credible must have very
of God And there is none can continue in this unworthy slavery but he must lay aside these thoughts also that the WORD was made flesh and the Image of the invisible God hath taken up his abode in our Nature By this he hath called us to the greatest sanctity He remembers us what excellent Creatures we are and how Glorious he is desirous to make us And who is there that need despair of recovering himself by the grace of God though he be sunk never so much below himself now that God is come on purpose to lift him up He hath sent Salvation to us by one that is mighty to save He hath revealed himself so graciously and made such discoveries of his Love and Power and Glory to all mankind that they may confidently hope if they will not cast away all care of themselves to be restored to the image and likeness of God again But this Discourse will come in more seasonably when we have joyned the strength of the other three Witnesses to these and heard them all together some from Heaven others from Earth proclaiming this in our ears Behold the Son of God Jesus is your Lord for he is the Lord of all things And we shall be the more ready for a surrender to him when we see withall how much we are beholden to God Almighty for his marvellous inconceiveable love in calling us so many ways by so many arguments to Repentance Faith Obedience and Everlasting Salvation That which I have now explained deserves to be remembred with the most affectionate acknowledgments and we shall be better disposed to hearken to the rest if we give him hearty thanks for what we understand already and say A PRAYER ADored be thy inestimable love O thou Holy Spirit of Grace and Truth the mighty Power of God who hast given such gifts unto men even to the rebellious also that the LORD God might DWELL among them Blessed be thy Goodness who didst anoint our Lord with that oil of gladness which hath run down to the meannest of his subjects Great and wonderful was that Heavenly Power and Love which appeared in such visible Majesty upon him and filled him with the Holy Ghest so that he went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the Devil And much more marvellous was that Almighty Goodness which promoted him to the throne of Glory in the Heavens that he might fill all things Praised be that astonishing Love which first filled the Apostles minds with such Heavenly light and inflamed their wills with such fervent heat that they boldly preached the Gospel to all the world For ever magnified be that diffusive Grace which afterwards spread it self in such variety of gifts wrought by one and the self same Spirit dividing to every man severally as he pleased Let the whole Church be giving continual thanks to thee O Lord for stretching forth thy hand in such signs and wonders to glorifie thy holy child Jesus for giving by the Spirit to some a gift of wisdom to others a gift of healing to others divers kind of tongues to others prophecy and for making some Apostles some Prophets some Evangelists some Pastors and Teachers that every knee might bow to Jesus and every tongue confess that he is the Lord. I confess him with all my Soul I honour him as my Dearest Lord. I see thy Glory O blessed Jesus by the light of the Holy Ghost which hath shone so oft from Heaven upon us I see the Power thou hast at Gods right hand I see the royal bounty of thy love Now I know that thou knowest all things and believe that thou art the faithful and the true whose words shall never fail O how much ought I and every Christian Soul to rejoyce in the consolations of the Holy Ghost which hath brought us new assurances from Heaven that our Saviour lives and reigns and sits inthroned at the right hand of God in incomparable majesty and glory Inspire all our minds and hearts O thou quickning Spirit inspire them O Lord and Giver of Life with such ardent love and devotion towards him that we may hope to reign with him and then shall we rejoyce before-hand in this hope with joy unspeakable and full of glory Do not wholly absent they self from us O thou Guide and Comforter of our Souls though we have not been so grateful to thee nor followed thy directions and counsels as we ought but still let thy gracious presence fill every part of the Christian Church Though we have not that UNCTION from above which endued them heretofore with the gifts of tongues and prophecy and healing and working of miracles Yet pour down every where much of the spirit of knowledge and love and devotion and purity and fortitude and undaunted resolution and fervent Zeal which may be ever glorifying the great God and our Saviour Christ Jesus O thou who didst open the eyes of the blind and loose the tongue of the dumb enlighten our minds to see more of those wonders which may inflame our love and incourage our hope and open our lips that our mouths may shew forth thy Praise Still let there be hearts full of Faith in the blessed Jesus full of love to all mankind full of ardent desire to see his Kingdom come full of wisdom to open the mysteries of Salvation to instruct men in the truth as it is in Jesus and to convince them mightily and perswade them to be obedient to it That so by the same Heavenly power whereby the Faith of Christ was planted in the world it may be graciously preserved and promoted and we may see it go forward and advance more and more till every Nation now on Earth speak in their own tongues the wonderful works of God Let all the people praise thee O God Let all the people praise thee Kindle in them such devout affections as may offer up continually the sacrifice of praise to thee Let them praise thee with pure minds and upright hearts and unspotted lives and in perfect unity and godly love say every where Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be world without end Amen CHAP. V. Concerning the Witnesses on Earth and first of the WATER HAVING given a brief account of the Testimony of the first Three Witnesses and finding much satisfaction in their perfect agreement we have the greater encouragement to go to the other Three who are also nearer to us than the former and take that evidence which they are willing to afford us for our further confirmation in this belief that Jesus is the Son of God These three you read in the eighth Verse are such as bear witness on EARTH whereby we may be the better acquainted with them and they are the more undeniable and furthest off from all question or exception For should any be so bold as to dispute that there might
who have offended them to pass by injuries and to do good for evil and especially to be kindly affectioned one to another in the love of the Brethren in honour preventing one another For which end endue us all with true humility of Spirit with very contented minds and moderate desires Let no covetousness no ambition or love of any pleasure betray us to dishonour thee hurt our neighbours or abuse our selves Help us to possess our bodies in sanctification and honour to preserve our hearts chaste and pure to be temperate in all things to mortifie our members that are on the Earth to put away all foolish talking and corrupt communication out of our mouth and to abstain from all appearance of evil Finally whatsoever things are sincere and true whatsoever things are grave and honest whatsoever things are just and equal whatsoever things are pure and modest whatsoever things are amiable and endearing whatsoever things are of good fame and well spoken of if there be any occasion to exercise a vertue if there be any thing laudable dispose us to have these things always in our mind and to be readily prepared for them That so we may be good in every relation Governours and Subjects Priests and People Husbands and Wives Parents and Children Masters and Servants doing their duties faithfully and to their mutual comfort joy and satisfaction And if thy wise Providence call any of us to part with any thing for thy names sake O that our Love may give an eminent proof of its sincerity by resolved and patient suffering with an humble meek and chearful submission to thy holy will Then shall our Souls rejoyce and triumph in thee when we not only call thee Lord and Master but do those things that thou sayest It will be our exceeding joy to think that thou lovest us as thy children and delightest to behold thine own Image in us We shall rejoyce that thou reignest and rejoyce again in hope that we shall reign with thee Blessing honour glory and praise shall we be for ever giving unto thee who hast washed us from our sins in thy own bloud and redeemed us from all iniquity that we should be holy and unblameable before God in love looking for thy mercy unto eternal life Amen and Amen CHAP. VI. Concerning the Second Witness upon Earth the BLOVD COME we now to hear what the next Witness says which we shall find to give in an Evidence as strong as the former and that is the BLOUD By this word every body presently understands the Sufferings and DEATH of Jesus when his Bloud you know was shed upon the Cross in a most ignominious manner For that envy which began to rise in the Pharisees hearts as I observed in the end of the foregoing Chapter from iv John 1. when they saw him baptize so many disciples never ceased boiling till it turned into perfect Gall and the rankest hatred and malice in the World which was never satisfied till they had baptized him as S. Luke speaks xii 50. with his own bloud For the present indeed as you read there and in many other places he avoided their snares and went out of their way when he thought they intended to apprehend him because he would preserve himself till he had preached all the Country over But when that was done he suffered them to take him at a publick feast and delivering up himself into their hands let them do with him just as their murderous malice inclined them Now this voluntary Oblation and Sacrifice of himself to suffer what they pleased to inflict was such an evidence that in truth he was the Son of God as he had made his disciples believe that there is a particular mark set upon it to this purpose both by himself and by his Apostles He himself in his discourse with Pontius Pilate just before his crucifixion and when he stood before him condemned by the Jews for saying he was the Son of God expresly affirms that for this end he was born and therefore he came into the world that he might bear witness to the truth xviii John 37. Which was as much as to declare that he had rather die than lose the end for which he had lived thus long which was to speak the Truth and particularly this Truth that he was indeed a KING as you there read the very Son of God This was the thing he would justifie whatsoever he suffered for it God had appointed him to seal this with his death and to attest it in the most solemn manner even before his Judge here on Earth and when he was going to be judged by God and therefore he would not for all the world deny it or not confess it We ordinarily say when we would affirm any thing very strongly that if it was the last thing that ever we should speak we would not stick to maintain it And just so did our Saviour I came says he into the world for this end to bear witness to the truth and here I take it upon my death that I do not swerve from it in the least when I say that I am the Son of God S. Paul also as I have noted already takes particular notice of this when he remembers Timothy 1 vi 13. how Jesus did WITNESS a good confession before Pontius Pilate That is asserted this Truth that he was a KING though not of this world by confessing it before him who sate in judgment upon him with the apparent danger of his life He durst not retract any thing which he knew to be a truth though he knew withall it would prove so costly that he must defend it with his bloud He stood in this to the very last that he was the CHRIST and durst not to save such a precious life speak one word otherwise for then he knew that he should have been a lyar like the Jews who denied it This that hath been thus premised to the following discourse is very serviceable to the demonstrating what a Witness his BLOUD was because it calls to mind that which is necessary to be here again considered how he lost his life for nothing else but merely because he confessed that he was their CHRIST the Son of the Blessed Many causes of death were industriously sought for and sundry false witnesses boldly rose up against him and yet none of their testimonies when they came to be scan'd were found to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. Mark 's expression is xiv 56 59. equal to the endictment or charge that was brought against him and to the intended judgment which was to pass upon him There was nothing ponderous enough of sufficient weight to justifie such a sentence as that of death which they were desirous to pronounce upon him and therefore they despaired of attaining their end unless they could have such words out of his own mouth as in their opinion would prove him a blasphemer for which they might justly condemn him
Verse why they gave themselves as whole burnt offerings to Christ but that by the example of their Faith and Martyrdom they might instruct many more to be Martyrs Nay their BLOUD did not only water many young plants and made them grow to their perfection but He tells us a little after in his exposition of the same Psalm Plures scimus c. We know many who were wholly ignorant of the Divine Sacraments i. e. the Christian Religion that by the example of the Martyrs run to Martyrdom No wonder then that these above all others have been called the WITNESSES of Jesus for that 's the interpretation of the word MARTYR and that Christians were forward even to kiss their wounds and to embrace their dead bodies as the remains of those who had done most eminent service to our Lord. Who himself therefore witnessed to them after they were dead and declared that their bloud was very dear and precious in his sight and that it had sealed nothing but the truth For there can no other reason be given but this why at the Monuments of these MARTYRS or WITNESSES our Saviour was pleased to have so many miracles wrought afterward and before such a number of people that Porphyry himself as we learn both from S. Cyril and S. Hierom though an avowed enemy of our Religion could not but acknowledge them They still spake and bare Witness to Jesus by these wonderful works when they were dead or rather Jesus spake for them as I said and declared from Heaven that these were his faithful Witnesses whose word ought to be believed whereby they had declared him to be the Lord. A PRAYER WHO would not believe on thee O Lord who would not magnifie thy Name For great and marvellous are thy works just and true are thy ways thou King of Saints All Nations ought to come and worship before thee whose Majesty and Glory is so many ways made manifest Thou hast raised poor and ignorant men to be mighty Ministers of thy Grace and Witnesses of thy Resurrection and co-workers with thee for the illumination and conversion of the world Blessed be thy name for all the glorious Lights which have been in thy Church in every Age by whom thy holy Faith hath been preserved and propagated to our days Blessed be thy name for all the Martyrs who sealed it with their Bloud and for all the Confessors who freely acknowledged thee with the danger of their lives Great was thy glory which shone in their most exemplary holiness fortitude patience love unseigned both to friends and enemies and in that mighty power whereby they approved themselves as the Ministers of God Thanks be to thee O God the Lord of Heaven and Earth for the comfort of thy holy Scriptures wherein we read the story of our Saviours wondrous love and of that most miraculous power which appeared in him to testifie unto him and at last raised him from the dead and advanced him to the throne of Glory From whence he sent the Holy Ghost to endue his Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors and Teachers with power from on high that they might be his Witnesses and commit that which they had received to faithful men who should be able to teach others also O God I cannot but again adore thy incomprehensible love which can never be sufficiently praised Who can understand the exceeding riches of thy grace that thou whose naked glory is too bright for our weak minds to fix their eyes upon wouldest be pleased in most admirable condescending love to manifest thy self and visit us in our flesh Thou art infinitely above the greatest of us who are far less worthy to approach thee than the lowest creature in this world is fit for our friendship and society So much the more marvellous is thy unheard of love that thou wouldest admit us to such a near relation unto thee So much the greater is our happiness that in Christ Jesus thou hast made thy self our portion and designed us to be eternally blessed with thee Great was his care and kindness all the days of his flesh towards the most miserable wretches who received the greatest tokens of his love I rejoyce now to think with what tenderness he received the poor fed the hungry visited the sick cured the diseased and when he had left the world communicated the same power unto others that they might exercise the same charity that he had done I see both the power and goodness of our Lord in all those works of wonder which he did I see that his mercy endureth for ever which hath preserved a faithful record of these things that we through patience and comfort of the holy Scriptures might have hope Now the God of all grace inspire me and all other Christian Souls with the same faith love and ardent zeal which was in those burning and shining Lights the Witnesses of Christ. That we may be followers of them as they were of him and acknowledging the same Lord being members of the same body partaking of the same Sacraments and living upon the same Heavenly food we may lead the same holy lives in hope to shine one day with them in the same celestial glory Help us to continue in the things which we have learnt and have been assured of knowing of whom we have learnt them that we may not at any time let them slip For how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him thou O God also bearing them witness both with signs and wonders and with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost according to thine own will May we always carefully lay up and preserve these sacred truths in our heart which were in so glorious a manner delivered to us May they work there perpetually with great power and be reverenced as the holy Oracles of God! May they be the spring of all our motions throughout the whole course of our life That with an even steddy pace whatsoever dangers come in our way we may walk on towards that happy place where those holy ones rejoyce for ever with our Lord. To whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be given by us and by those glorified Spirits and by all the Angels in Heaven everlasting Praises Amen CHAP. IX The Vse we are to make of their Testimony IT is time now to bring this Discourse to an issue and having examined all these Divine Witnesses taken their proofs and depositions and found their testimony upon due enquiry to be good and legal to consider with our selves what we have to do and what judgment we will pass now that we have heard their evidence God the Father of all says that Jesus is his Son the Word himself appeared oft to justifie this Truth the Holy Ghost came down from Heaven to attest it the Prophet of the Highest proclaimed it the holy life of our
study and labour with these the Devil baits his hooks to catch Souls and they who do not bite at one will be nibling at another They that are not tempted by the first to gluttony and drunkenness fornication and such like filthiness feel the second perhaps incline them to covetousness and the sordid love of Money with a thirst and greediness of another kind Or if they can escape and despise these they may notwithstanding be in danger to be carried away with the humor of prodigality and affectation of vain-glory or ambition of Dignities which is attended with emulation envy and other dangerous Vices As the African Beast which some write of is caught with Musick and suffers its feet to be fettered while it listens to the Lessons that are play'd to it So do the generality of Mankind let their Souls be insnared and led into a miserable captivity by the inchanting voice of pleasure riches or glory Whilst they hearken to the bewitching melody which some of these court them withall they are taken in the mighty Hunter's net and become a prey to him that lurks for Souls and seek whom he may devour And it has not been in the power of the wisest Charmers that ever were in the World to open the eares of the most of men and to convey the sense of better things into them All the Philosophy and Learning that was so famous in former Ages could never obtain such numerous chearful and obedient Auditors as the Syren Songs which these three sing in Mens cares have always sound When the World therefore by that wisdome knew not God it pleased God says S. Paul 1 Cor. i. 21. by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe The faith of Christ directs and disposes us to avoid all those dangerous rocks on which they split themselves who listen to those deceitful Songs Now that the Son of God is come He pulls our feet out of the net and by his far more powerful charms so stops our ears to those inchantments that there is no entrance for them any more It seemed a foolish thing indeed to the World to believe that the crucified Jesus was the Son of God but where this simple faith prevailed it did more than all the wisdome of the World was able to effect before For it gave them a new understanding and saved them from perishing by making them account it the greatest pleasure and glory and treasures to follow Jesus and do the will of God as he did The World they saw passeth away and the lust thereof if they do not leave us we must at last leave them but he that doth the will of God abideth for ever So those three Heavenly witnesses the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost assure us whose voice as it is most sweet and melodious so it is most powerful to disinchant us and to preserve those who receive their testimony from all the bewitching temptations of those other three the lust of the flesh the lust of the eye and the pride of life Nay here are two Threes of infinitely greater vertue and efficacy to prevail with us than all that the WORLD'S Trinity can offer to us if we will but open our ears and diligently listen to their voice And how can we choose but listen when the Father of Heaven calls to us so graciously when the Word opens his secrets to us and the holy-Holy-Ghost proclaims such an abundant love of God towards us The Water the Bloud the Spirit they also with one consent conspire with those and all together sing this New Song THE SON OF GOD IS COME the Son of God is come This one note of theirs more ravishes than all the pleasures and satisfactions which the WORLD infatuates its followers withall Heaven and Earth cannot speak any thing more moving in our ears than this which again and again salutes them with new joy For what would you have them say would it please you to hear that Infinite Goodness loves us that the Heavens stand open to us and show us their glory that God is willing to receive us up thither that he will make us Heirs of a Kingdom equal with the Angels to hear their Songs and joyn with that Celestial Quire Behold they are all included in this one sentence THE SON OF GOD IS COME GOD HATH GIVEN US HIS SON This is the sweetest Aire that can touch our eares this we can never be weary to hear this strikes our souls if we understand it so gratefully that we cannot but say let us hear that again And therefore after the Father the Word and the Holy-Ghost have blest our ears with this joyful sound here are three more that take it up and repeat it to us with the strongest assurances that we hear the Voice of God himself And the oftner we listen to them and lend them our attention the more frequently I mean we think upon the reasons we have to believe in Jesus the more deaf shall we grow to all the sinful allurements of this World how inviting soever before they have been For my part I think there is more real satisfaction in the very understanding of this one place of Holy Scripture than in all the delights of worldly men What is there I beseech you consider in all their sensualities comparable to the rational gust of what is contained in that one voice of the Father THIS IS MY WELL BELOVED SON IN WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED What Riches are there to be equalled with this treasure of Divine knowledge that God hath bestowed his own Son upon us What honour like to this to be preferred to be the Friends yea the Sons of God Can you hear any thing so delicious as that voice of the WORD To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life in the midst of the Paradise of God ii Rev. 7. Were there ever any Jewels so precious as the inestimable gifts wherewithall the Holy Ghost hath inriched the Church what Musick is there fit to bear a part with those Hymns and Psalms and spiritual Songs that it inspired the hearts of Christians withall Doth it not even ravish the heart of a pious man to think of them though he do not hear the like in these days What is there in all the broken Cisterns of this World that tastes like the Rivers of living Water that Jesus hath poured out unto us What peace does it speak to us like that which by the Bloud of Jesus is purchased for us Or what power is there in any of this Worlds temptation that can stand before the voice of that SPIRIT which says COME and whosoever will let him take the water of life freely xxii Rev. 17. Certainly in the strength of such a faith so fortified so incouraged by all these Witnesses we may easily tread the WORLD under our feet and make its most mighty temptations crouch to us whereas now for want of this solid faith we
Age. Increase of wickedness not only in themselves but others hath made some so impudent as to scoff at Religion and blaspheme Christ While they see those who acknowledge him do no better than themselves they are inclined to think that their belief makes them no more worth than those who have none at all Nay since they concur with them in their wicked practises they imagine that their fear of Hell and hope of Heaven is no part of their belief but only of their profession The hands of Infidels are strengthened in their impieties by the perfidiousness of ungodly believers They joyn with them to pull down Christian belief and make that be thought nothing which doth nothing above what infidelity doth And therefore let all those who love the memory of our Saviour who love their posterity and would not have them in danger to be drown'd in a deluge of infidelity put a stop to it by holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience 1 Tim. iii. 9. Let every one that nameth the Name of Christ depart from iniquity and endeavour all he can to support the honour of his Name and of his Religion by a strict observance of all his holy commands They who believe not or mind not what they believe may think it strange that you run not with them to the same excess of riot speaking evil of you 1 Pet. iv 4. But ye beloved building up your selves on your most holy faith praying in the Holy Ghost keep your selves in love of God looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life Jude 20.21 And that now is the next thing which flows from hence If we believe the Record or Witness which God hath given of his Son it contains in it the greatest joy in the World For this is the record that God hath given to us eternal life and this life is in his Son But I must refer that to another Discourse alone by it self Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy-Ghost GLory in the highest Let the Holy and undivided Trinity be for ever glorified by all Mankind especially by all Christian People who are made partakers of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ the love of God and the communion of the Holy Ghost Eye hath not seen nor ear heard neither have entred into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him But God hath revealed them unto us by his spirit Blessed be God I most thankfully receive the manifold testimony which he hath given of his well beloved Son and humbly bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ of whom the whole family of Heaven and Earth is named that he would grant me according to the riches of his glory to be strengthned with might by the same spirit in the inner man that Christ may dwell in my heart by faith that being rooted and grounded in love I may be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the bredth and length and depth and height and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge that I may be filled with all the fulness of God And God forbid that any Soul who hears the voice of these Witnesses of God should refuse and turn away from him that speaketh from Heaven and hath declared to us the unsearchable riches of God's grace and the whole counsel of his will O that all they upon whom the glorious Gospel of Christ hath shined may most heartily believe in his Name Let them all be knit together in love unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God and of the Father and of Christ in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdome and knowledge And God forbid that any of them should hold the truth in unrighteousness But as they have received Christ Jesus the Lord so let them walk in him rooted and built up in him and established in the faith as they have been taught abounding therein with thanksgiving And quicken that faith O thou author and finisher of it that it may work with great power in all Christian hearts and mightily bow their wills to forgo any of their own desires rather than displease thee and forfeit thy love and favour Let it inable them to overcome the World that they may be no longer slaves to the lusts of the flesh the lust of the eye and the pride of life but conquering all these may yield themselves unto God to be the servants of righteousness and obey from the heart that form of doctrine which is delivered unto them And may the powerful working of faith and love and hope make all our duty easie to us that we may ever render thee cheerful as well as constant service May thy testimonies be our daily delight and the rejoycing of our heart May we love them above gold yea above fine gold May they be dearer unto us than thousands of gold and silver May we daily renew our strength and run and not be weary and walk and not faint May the holiness of our lives bear witness to the sincerity of our faith that others may glorifie thee our God for our professed subjection to the Gospel of Christ And we obtaining a good report by faith and carrying this testimony out of the world with us that we have pleased thee thou mayst receive us to thy self to be glorified with thee and to rejoyce in thy love towards us for ever Amen THE END Our Lords Ascension Acts. 1 9. And when he had spoken these things while they be held he was taken up a Cloud receiued him out of their sight to And while they stedfastly looked toward heaven behold two men stood by them in white apparell H. Which also said this same le sus shall so come as you haue seen him go into heaven THE WITNESSES TO CHRISTIANITY OR The Certainty of our FAITH and HOPE In a Discourse upon 1 S. JOHN V. 11. PART II. By SYMON PATRICK D.D. Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty LONDON Printed by E. Flesher for R. Royston Bookseller to His most Sacred Majesty MDCLXXVII TO The most Reverend Father in God GILBERT By Divine Providence Lord Archbishop of CANTERBURY Primate of all England and Metropolitan and one of His Majestie 's most Honourable Privy Council c. May it please Your Grace TO cast your eye upon the Second Part of that Work the First Part of which I took the confidence to address unto your Grace the last year It is concerning that ETERNALL LIFE which was with the Father as St. John speaks and now is manifested to us by his Son Jesus Christ who hath published the most gracious Purposes of God the Father towards us The thoughts of which as they cannot but be at all times exceeding welcome to Devout Christians especially to those who are faithfull Ministers in Christ's Kingdom so never more then when they
of Heaven and Earth the Fountain of all that is good and amiable in this world who here entertains us with so many pleasures that by them we may guess what he is able and willing to doe for them who have no greater care then above all things to please him They shall be fixed in a stedfast sight that is enjoyment of him to their infinite satisfaction IV. And if we mark the words of S. John who speaks this more fully and tells us in the place before named we shall see him AS HE IS which he makes the reason and cause of our being like him they will imbolden us still to seek into a farther meaning of this phrase And since we can enjoy nothing without a knowledg of it preceding we are to understand that to see God as he is will be to have our minds filled with a knowledg of him so clear so distinct and strong that it will even turn us into his own Nature Life and Bliss We shall not behold that is know him as we do now by similitudes resemblances and expressions borrowed from other things which is all our natures are here able to bear but by a clear notion of him formed in our minds wherein our hearts will be infinitely pleased and feel his happiness come flowing into them My meaning may be thus explained As it is an imperfect sight of a man which we have in a Picture though drawn by the most curious hand and strongest fancy and the man himself if he stand before a Looking-glass will in a moment draw an Image more like him then the skilfullest Artist can delineate all his life long especially if he never saw the person but onely had a description of him in a book or by report just such is the sight or knowledg that we have of God in this world either by his Word or by his Works or by the Idea's of our own mind a very imperfect thing and much like the picture of a person which we never yet had before our eyes But hereafter when he will be pleased to appear to give us a more immediate sight of him without these helps and present himself to our mind as the face to a glass this will be to know him indeed and to see him as he is Now as the sight of a Friend when he presents himself to the eye doth marvellously refresh and comfort us and there is a sense of pleasure imparted to us in the very beholding a rare beauty which we are not like perhaps to see any more so this Seeing God is no barren thing but instantly infuses the highest satisfaction and delight into pure hearts who by knowing his blessed Nature will find it imprinting it self as it were upon them and making every one of them to be the blessed Image of it Look what God is that they by the sight of him shall be He will dwell in them as the image of a thing does in the glass And they shall be possessed of him of his life of his joys by having a sensible perception of the Wisedom the Goodness the Purity and all the other Perfections that shine in himself V. Or if this be too hard to be understood let us content our selves to know that to SEE GOD as he is is to enjoy him as he is in heaven that is according to that manner and measure wherein he shews and manifests himself in those celestiall places Pious Souls shall really perceive all the effects of his Bounty Wisedom and Power which are known and communicated in that other world Which as it is higher then this so hath more of God to be seen in it then can be discovered here All that the holy Angels see and enjoy of him all that Good which he lets forth out of himself in that glorious place wherein above all other he is said to be shall be the portion of those happy Souls who may be said therefore to see him AS HE IS They shall not enjoy him in so low a manner as the highest and the most highly beloved persons have enjoyed him in this world where there is but little of him but in the noblest manner that he can be enjoyed so as the heavenly Ministers yea our ever-Blessed Lord are made partakers of him For when our Lord prays that his Disciples may behold or see his glory which the Father had given him xvii Joh. 24. his meaning is according to what I have said of the word Seeing that they might have their share at last with him in his Happiness and be admitted to take a part with him in that supreme Dignity to which he was ready to be advanced And thus when St. John invites others into the Christian Society telling them that their fellowship was with the Father and his Son jesus Christ 1 Joh. i. 3. it is as much as to say that they could no-where be so happy because it is the singular priviledge of Christian people to be admitted unto a partnership with God and our Saviour in their most happy life and to have hopes and expectation to partake with them in their eternall Bliss VI. Which may very well give me occasion to adde that since Grace Mercy and Peace come to us now from God the Father Son and Holy Ghost we may hope in this Vision of God to have as well a clear Knowledg of that ever-Blessed Trinity as a full communication from their ineffable Love We shall understand that Holy Mystery which now the sense of our weakness forbids us to pry into and be able perhaps to unfold how the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost is one God without any diversity or separation of nature Epist cxii ad Paulinam cap. 19. Homil. de Martyre Mamante as St. Austin expresses this Mystery which I durst not in my former Treatise adventure to explain For St. Basil had taught me to mark this in those words of our Saviour x. Joh. 27. My sheep hear my voice that he says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they hear not question or dispute They believe he is the Word of God but do not ask how nor say if he was alway then he was not begotten or if he was begotten then he was not alway These are not the words of the Sheep of Christ who receive his voice and enquire no farther And I had learnt also from a great Divine of our own Nation D◠Jackson Pres to Cathol Church to whose grave judgment I thought there was a greater veneration due then to the little forward Censurers of this Age that the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity is an Argument more fit for Meditation in Prayers and Soliloquies then for Controversie or Scholastick Discourse We believe one Divine Nature in three Persons and that the Divine Nature in the Person of the Father required Satisfaction for the Transgressions of men against his Holy Laws and that the same Divine Nature in the Person of the Son undertook to make
from the Messiah should begin to raise the dead when he went to take possession of his throne A plain sign that he is the Resurrection and the Life from whom we may confidently look for bodies not onely bright as the Moon but that shall shine according to his faithfull promise like the Sun in the Kingdom of the Father Concerning which things if the Apostles had written false and there had not been many able to bear record of the rising of these holy persons and coming into Jerusalem as well as of the rising of Lazarus there would have been pens enough in those days imployed to confute them and proclaim the forgery And these Jews would have been as carefull preservers of such confutations as of any their most beloved Traditions which can never doe them so much service as those volumes would have done VI. Nor is there the least shadow of reason to question the Testimony of those who saw him ascend into heaven and as a token of his being inthroned there received from him ten days after the gift of the Holy Ghost Which compleated the demonstration of his power and purpose to give Eternall Life to all his followers For 1. His very Ascension into heaven as it breeds in us a belief of a glorious state in the other World so it evidently shews that it is possible such as we may be translated thither And though our Bodies now be but lumps of living clay yet they may one day be snatched as he was from this dull globe to shine among the Stars And the Angels also appearing both at his resurrection and ascension and waiting upon him unto heaven shew that its gates are no longer barred against us but set open again to give us a free admission into it For they who were set to watch the way to Paradise and guard it so that none should enter voluntarily lent their assistence to transport Him thither after they had brought the joyfull news of his being risen from the dead 2. But this is the least comfort we receive from thence for his glorification at God's right hand when he came thither advances our hope to a greater height and shews that it is not onely possible but certain we shall be taken up above to be with him His Kingdom it is apparent now by his sending the Holy Ghost is supereminent over all and nothing can be out of the reach of his power For it is a power over all Creatures in heaven and earth and under the earth who doe obeisance to him and cannot resist him ii Phil. 10. 1 Pet. iii. ult And a power to doe all things for God hath put all things under his feet 1 Cor. xv 27. A power of conferring all dignities and honours iii. Phil. 21. and of removing all impediments to our preferment He having the keys of hell and death i. Rev. 18. In short a perfect power to doe all things to make us glorious For in that he put all in subjection under him he left nothing that is not put under him as the Apostle argues ii Heb. 8. And though he hath not yet exercised his whole unlimited power as it there follows yet we are sure he hath it because we see by manifest arguments Jesus crowned with glory and honour for the suffering of death By which the all-wise God thought fit to consecrate this Captain of Salvation who he designed should bring many Sons unto glory together with himself 3. Which He will not fail to doe we may be sure being thus perfected and compleatly furnished for the very purpose because this Royall power wherewith he is invested is a kind of Trust and he hath received it as St. Paul plainly supposes 1 Cor. xv 24 25 c. where he speaks of his Kingdom not onely for himself but for the good of all those whom he rules and governs For the Apostle concludes that he having a Kingdom which must at last be resigned into the hands of God the Father will first put down all rule all authority and power and leave no enemy unconquered no not Death which will onely be the last that shall be subdued but subdued and destroyed it must be ver 26 27. Nay our Lord himself acknowledges his Kingdome to be a trust when he says xvii Joh. 2. Thou hast given him power over all flesh that he should give eternall life to as many as thou hast given him Whence it is that he often protests it is his Father's will that of all he hath given him he should lose nothing but should raise it up again at the last day c. vi Joh. 39 40. For as the living Father hath sent me and I live by the Father so he that eateth me even he shall live by me ver 57. And in express terms he saith as I have shewn before that he went away to prepare a place for us And therefore is bound by his office we may conclude to promote us to that glory and honour in the heavens which it is his Father's will he knows should be bestowed on us 4. And who can doubt at all of his fidelity in this who was so faithfull in all other things most punctually for instance making good his promise of sending the Holy Ghost as an earnest I have often said of this immortall inheritance None can imagine he will now prove negligent in that which by his place he stands ingaged to perform when upon Earth he did the will of him that sent him with such exactness that he rewarded him for it with that high dignity which he now enjoys in the heavens Therefore his greatest care was to assert and prove his power to give Eternall Life Of his will he thought there need not much be said for none could doubt of it after they saw him die for them and then express such love after his resurrection as to send the Holy Ghost upon them 5. This is abundantly sufficient to secure all considering persons of so desirable a Good Which the Apostles began confidently to expect as soon as ever they were satisfied of the resurrection of our Lord from the dead Before he ascended to heaven their thoughts ran thither and they began to see that he was the Lord of life and glory For as soon as St. Thomas was convinced by a palpable demonstration that he was risen he cried out My Lord and my God xx Joh. 28. This is the first time that any of his Apostles gave him the title of their GOD when they were fully satisfied as Grotius observes by his Resurrection that he would give Eternall Life to them And then it was also you may note that he first gave them the title of his Brethren who should share with him in the glory to which he was going xx Joh. 17. xxviii Matth. 10. Go tell my Brethren that they go into Galilee c. In which words he alludes as Eusebius observes to those xxii Psal 22. I will declare thy name unto my
evidences which He produced while he was on Earth to justifie his high Authority which is comprehended under the Name of the Son of God but enquire after those only which He hath given of it since He went to Heaven and ascended to the Throne of his glory From whence this Word of God hath been pleased to speak or in some very remarkable manner to assert this Truth upon no less than three several occasions I. First of all He showed himself to his first Martyr S. Steven in a sensible Majesty standing at the right hand of God in the splendor of the Divine glory Read but the vii Acts 55 56. and there you will find He made himself so plainly appear to be the Son of God and that with power as S. Paul you have heard speaks in 1. Rom. 4. that is the King of Heaven and Earth next to the most supreme Majesty of God the Father Almighty that nothing can be said against it unless any man will be so audacious as to fancy that this holy and glorious Martyr was strongly deluded But there is a clear demonstration against that from the whole story of his Life and Death For He was a man of great note and eminency in the Church who held the very first place among the seven Deacons vi Acts 5. that were chosen to attend the daily ministration to the poor The feeding of whose bodies He did not think the only thing belonging to his charge but such was his zeal he likewise broke and dispensed the Bread of life to all his neighbours He justified the Christian Faith of which he was full vi Acts 5 8 10. against all opposers with singular wisdom great fervour and mighty demonstrations by the power of the holy Ghost He confounded all those whom he disputed withall though he could not overcome them He stopt their mouths by the wisdom and spirit wherewith he spake which made them wish they could stop his though there was no other way they saw to silence him but by taking away his life They suborned therefore false witnesses against him whom they knew not how to confute They brought him before their Great Council to be tried Where all his Judges fixing their eyes upon him saw he was so far from being at all daunted that there was a sparkling Majesty in his countenance like that of an Angel when he appeared to their forefathers vi Acts 15. They could never devise or fancy any thing greater to say of them or of their most eminent Doctors than now they beheld in this illustrious person The face of the Patriarch Isaac they tell us was so changed when the holy Spirit rested on him that a Divine light or splendor came from his face And they would have us believe that Phineas his countenance did burn and flame like a Torch by the inhabitation of the holy Ghost in him Nay Maimonides himself to omit the other Authors in which I find these reports will have the Prophets to be Angels So he interprets more than once the first and the fourth verses of the second Chapter of the Book of Judges Where by the Angel of the Lord he understands a Prophet whom God sent to them to bring them to repentance And expresly says * More Nevoch part 2. cap. 42. that their wise men have told them This was Phineas for at that time when the Majesty of God dwelt upon him He was like to an Angel of the Lord. And it is the opinion of some of them whose Names are not worth mentioning that in the Prophetical visions the form of a man vanished and the appearance of an Angel came in the room thereof till such time as the Vision ceased The light which shone within was so great that it broke through their bodies and externally appeared if we could believe these Doctors who would fain adorn their wise men with that glory which they really beheld in this man of God S. Steven Who was so full of the holy Ghost and had such glorious illuminations in his mind that there was indeed an amazing lustre in his face and he lookt more like an Angel than a man This emboldened him to speak to that grave Senate with all the assurance in the world and to reprove them for resisting the holy Ghost Which so cut them to the heart that it enraged them to the highest degree of fury and they lookt upon him as if they would eat him up But he still full of the holy Ghost and nothing fearing what he saw he must suffer from an exasperated multitude cast up his eyes above and fastned them stedfastly upon the Heavens from whence cometh our help Where He bade them all take notice vii Acts 54 55 56. that he saw the glory of God and Jesus shining at his right hand in a far greater glory than they had seen in his face That was only a glimpse of the Majesty of Jesus whom he preached to them and now feared not to affirm that he saw in his royal splendour and greatness incomparably above all the Angels in Heaven And is it not a great deal more reasonable to believe that He indeed saw Jesus there than to think that he would obtrude thus boldly a mere imagination upon them with the certain loss of his own life If he had not been sure that he beheld him whom they crucified now most highly glorified a person of his wisdom and spirit would have been more cautious than to follow him in that bloudy path to which this assertion led him when if he would have held his tongue there lay a fairer and smoother way before him But so visible was the royal Majesty of our Saviour that he could not but proclaim it aloud and speak as S. Peter said the things which he had seen though he knew they would call it blasphemy and punish him for it with present death He was willing to suffer that for the honour of his Master and to testifie his love to him who told him his Faith was no fancy as he might see by the glory wherein he appeared Which abundantly satisfied him that he was the Son of the Highest able to reward all his faithful servants with immortal glory It is true we read of never a word that our Lord spake to this Saint but the splendour of his appearance in such glory and Majesty at God's right hand was as significant as any words could be and bid him be assured of the truth of what S. John is here proving that indeed he is the Christ the anointed of God anointed with the oil of gladness above all his fellows made the Lord of all things inferior to none but only him who hath put all things in subjection under his feet If any one ask me how he could see the glory of God and how he knew this to be Jesus who appeared at Gods right hand I Answer to the first enquiry that He saw God's glory in the same sence that
testimony of my self because I do but repeat the very same thing which the Father hath said before me For though alone as I have confessed heretofore my testimony of my self is worth nothing and cannot challenge belief yet added unto so high a testimony as his it ought to be duly regarded and accepted But besides this I must add another consideration of great moment Which is that the Testimony of the WORD concerning himself now that he is in the Heavens is of great validity even singly considered though it had no such authority alone when he was upon the Earth For during his stay here on Earth it could not appear by his bare saying so that he was the Son of God the King of Israel because he was in a poor mean and low condition altogether unlike a King And therefore if the Father and the Spirit had not testified so much none could have believed on him But when he was in the Heavens then what he said of himself carried great authority and power with it because he could not say those words to any one but he must appear as a King in glory There were things as well as words to speak for him At the same time that he bare witness of himself they to whom he spake must needs see the truth of his Testimony by the royal state and majesty wherein they beheld him If the question should be whether a person be alive his own appearing in Court would be the best testimony that could be given of it If whether such a one be a King his sitting upon his Throne with his Crown on his head in his royal Palace and his Ministers round about him would be the surest evidence that could be desired to put it out of doubt In this case therefore where the question is whether Jesus be the Son of God or no there cannot be expected a better resolution of it than his own witness to himself by appearing upon the Throne of his Glory There several persons of unblemished credit beheld him and had the confidence to venture their lives upon the certain knowledge they had that they were not deceived From thence he spake to them and directed them to speak and carry his messages to others that they might believe on the Name of the Son of God And let it but be remembred which I noted at the beginning that we are now examining those witnesses which speak from Heaven and not those which speak on the Earth and then you will soon discern that these testimonies of the WORD though concerning himself ought to be received with great reverence and to be judged very full and powerful to prove Jesus to be the Son of God Especially since besides his own word for it we have also the word of the Father who several times called him his Son and that before he took this honour to himself A PRAYER LET all mankind therefore honour thee O blessed Jesus even as they honour the Father Be thou adored every where upon Earth with the same reverence and love wherewith all the Angels in Heaven worship thee whom they and we acknowledge to be the LORD the WORD of God the Wisdom of the Father the bright morning Star the Light of the World the Prince of Life the Heir of all things the KING OF KINGS AND THE LORD OF LORDS God blessed for ever Thou art the King of glory O Christ Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father The Beginner and the Finisher of our Faith the Judge of the World the Author of Eternal Salvation unto all them that obey thee O how happy are they that know thee and stedfastly believe in thee and sincerely love thee and heartily obey thee and have a good hope that thou wilt bless them and imploy thy power for their promotion to that glory wherein thou reignest I rejoyce to hear thee say that thou who wast dead art alive for evermore Amen and hast the keys of Hell and of Death I thank thee for appearing so often to assure our Souls that thou sittest at the right hand of God and hast all power in Heaven and in Earth Great is the consolation which thou hast given us by the sight of that Glory wherein thy first Martyr beheld thee ready to succour all thy faithful servants Marvellous was thy work O Lord for which all thy Church will for ever praise thee in calling S. Paul to be an Apostle separated unto the Gospel of God Adored be thy glorious Majesty which appeared to him for this purpose to make him a Minister and a Witness of what he saw and heard that he might go and open the eyes of the Gentiles to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God that they might receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in thee O how full of comfort is that Revelation which thou hast made of thy self to thy servant John Who received the brightest discoveries of thy glory in Heaven when he was in the most desolate condition upon Earth who beheld thy care over thy Church and thy conquests over thine enemies thy Priestly and thy Royal power to the perpetual joy of those that love thee and the terror of all those that oppose thee O blessed Jesus far be it from any of us in the least to contradict thy will who art so highly advanced far above all principality and power and every name that is named not only in this world but also in that which is to come May every Christian Soul be so sensibly affected with the belief of thy Glory as to prostrate it self before thee and say with the same spirit that thy blessed Apostle S. Paul did when thou appearedst unto him Lord what wilt thou have me to do May that ardent love burn in every one of our breasts towards thee and towards one another which was in thy beloved Disciple who bare record of thee and testified to us these things And may none of us prove so false and unkind as to leave our first love but our work and charity and service and faith and patience may be ever commended by thee and the last be more than the first Then shall we be able with a chearful countenance to look up unto thee and to think of thy majesty and glory with exultation and triumph and not with terror and amazement of spirit We will joy in thy strength O Lord and in thy salvation how greatly shall we rejoyce We will rejoyce even in the midst of tribulation and though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death we will fear no evil but stedfastly looking up unto Heaven call upon thee O Lord Jesus and beseech thee to receive our Spirit Into thy hands be they recommended both now and ever with most earnest desires and hope that thou wilt help thy servants whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious bloud and make them to be
mouth For besides the Divinity of the matter which he spake and the mighty works which accompanied it there was a certain majesty in the manner of its delivery For he taught as one having authority vii Matth. 29. That is as one who had power to enact and ordain new Laws and those much superiour to the old and not only to explain those which were already written He plainly also discovered a power to reward the faithful and to punish the disobedient which was so astonishing that in the judgment even of those who were sent to apprehend him Never man spake like unto him vii Joh. 46. He opened to them the Kingdom of Heaven he revealed to them Immortal Life he gave them Manna of which if a Man did eat he assured them he should never dye and he promised which is the thing they chiefly refer to in that speech that Whosoever believed in him out of his belly should flow rivers of living water which he spake concerning the spirit which they that believed on him should receive v. 38 39. When this promise was fulfilled then that which Moses did but wish for was actually done All the Lords people became Prophets He made the gifts of Prophecy and wisdome and knowledge as common as ordinary discourse was before Which showed that indeed God dwelt in him else he could not have had all this wisdome much less communicated so much to others II. But it will not be fit to prosecute these things too largely therefore let us pass to the consideration of the mighty power of God manifested from the place where he was said to dwell which was an evidence that he was there And this you shall see appeared no less in our Saviour as a token that God dwelt in him and that he was become his Temple All their help you know of old is said to come from the Sanctuary where God inhabitated and he is said to strengthen them out of Sion xx Psal 2. Thence the Ark upon the Cover of which the Divine Glory sate is called The Ark of his strength cxxxii Psal 8. Nay it is often called simply by the name of his strength Psal lxix 61. He delivered his STRENGTH into captivity and his Glory into the Enemies hand And Psal cv 4. Seek the Lord and his STRENGTH that is the Lord before the Ark of his presence from whence their help and succour came For whether this went God was said to go along with them to deliver them As the Philistins themselves had learnt who hearing the Israelites had brought the Ark into the Field began to be afraid and said GOD is come into the Camp Wo be to us for there hath not been such a thing heretofore 1 Sam. iv 7 8. That is we fought with Men hitherto now with God And this is the meaning of those words lxxx Psal 2. Before Ephraim Benjamin and Manasseh stir up thy STRENGTH and come and save us Those three Tribes marching immediately after the Ark for their quarter was on the West of the Tabernacle in which part was the most holy place and the Ark in it ii Numb 17 18 c. it is as much as if he had said make thy self sensibly present now to thy People manifest thy favour towards them from thy Mercy seat shew that thou art among us and give us a sign and token of thy presence and power by overcoming and treading down our enemies Now as then he gave proof that he dwelt there by those acts of power and might so he made it manifest by all the wonderful things which Jesus did that he was the Sanctuary wherein he dwelt among men From him there were such emanations of power as never flowed from the Ark it self He stirred up his strength indeed that I may borrow the ancient Language when Jesus appeared and came and saved them in a diviner manner Whensoever he healed any desperate Disease it was an act of Salvation and deliverance which told them there was a gracious presence of God among them When he cast out a Devil it was the vanquishing of a dreadful Enemy And when he threw out a whole Legion it was a glorious victory over a more powerful Army than ever the Israelites by the STRENGTH of God among them had overcome To say nothing of his commanding the Winds and the boisterous Waves which as readily obeyed him as the red Sea fled when Judah was Gods Sanctuary cxiv Psal 2. the Divine presence not having setled it self then among them in any certain place and Jordan was driven back before the Ark of his strength By these acts it plainly appeared that all things were under his Authority not only Men and other Creatures here below but also Angels Principalities and Powers over whom he as easily triumphed as the Israelites had heretofore done by the power of God among them over the Philistins or such like adversaries Nay he gave his Apostles such a power over them that they were ready to triumph too much in these conquests He is fain to repress the joy wherewith they were transported and to bid them not rejoyce so much that the Devils were made subject to them as that they themselves were become the subjects of his Kingdom and their Names written in Heaven x. Luk. 20. And so eminent was this manifestation of the Divine power in him that he did but speak a word and any thing was done that he required In so much that the People were amazed to hear him only say to a Devil Come out and instantly he left the Man and hurt him not What a word is this for with authority and power he commandeth the unclean spirits and they come out iv Luk. 37. And upon another occasion of the like nature you read the same again that They were all amazed at the mighty power of God ix 43. And acknowledged with just admiration at such another sight that It was never so seen in Israel ix Matth. 33. Among all the marvellous works of former times even those done by Moses himself when the Divine Glory visibly appeared on several occasions to them there never was any thing like to that which our Saviour now wrought so quickly without so much as the pains of a bare touch by his Word only and in all sorts of Diseases none excepted For at his first entrance upon his office after he was anointed with the Holy-Ghost he healed all manner of sickness and all manner of disease throughout the whole Region of Galilee and the adjoyning Countries iv Matth. 23 24 25. III. Nor was the kindness and good will of God to them more plainly manifested from the Tabernacle and Temple than it is to us more abundantly declared in Jesus Christ. The Ark the place of God's presence is called the TESTIMONY xvi Exod. 34. for this reason as well as others because it was a token of God's great love to them and care over them testifying that he dwelt among them And out of SION
where the House of his Glory and the Ark of his Presence was he is said to bless his people cxxxiv. Psal 3. and to give them the blessing of life cxxxiii 4. which may be more truly said of Jesus Christ from whom now the LORD hath commanded the blessing even life for evermore iii. Act. 26. xi Joh. 25 26. In him he showed himself most propitious to Mankind and set him forth as his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or mercy seat iii. Rom. 25. from whence he will dispense his Divine favours towards us We need not doubt of it for he is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or TESTIMONY also in the most proper seasons of the greatest love and kindness that ever was 1 Tim. ii 6. This he testified indeed most of all by his Death and giving himself a ransome for us which the Apostle is there speaking of and which Polycarp calls in his Epistle to the Philippians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the testimony of the Cross But it was apparent likewise by all the actions of his life Which testified how full he was of GRACE as well as of Truth for he went about about doing good x. Act. 38. The very name that Philo gives the Tabernacle which he calls * L. 3. de vita Mosis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exactly belongs to him who was a moveable Temple a walking mercy seat an Holy place which went about and carried God's blessings to all that drew nigh unto him All the Power he had was used not to the harm of any man living but to the benefit relief and comfort of every one that came to him Whom did he ever refuse that intreated his help What suitor did he turn away that came to beg his charitable assistance He never excused himself either from the multitude of business or the distance of the place or the greatness of the thing they askt or the many courtesies he had done to them already or upon any other account whatsoever but willingly went to do them service or which is more sent his Divine influences afar off to testifie his omnipresent power for the rescuing of such as were at the point of death And as for his Doctrine you remember it was so sweetly perswasive that all the People wondred at the words of grace which proceeded out of his mouth iv Luk. 22. So full of mercy it was that he published a Jubilee as you there read v. 18. to the miserable World So rich in love that S. John could do no less than say 1. iv 9. That in this was manifested the love of God towards us because that God sent his onely begotten Son into the World that we might live through him VI. And as the Sanctuary was a place separate from all others for this purpose that God might dwell in it and from thence send them the tokens of his powerful love even so was Jesus also separated after a special manner to be the Tabernacle of GOD among Men. The place where the Divine Glory made its residence was called the Most Holy And the Hill on which it stood is called the Mountain of his HOLINESS xlviii Psal 1. And the Ark which was the peculiar seat of God in the most holy place is called the Throne of his HOLINESS xlvii 8. and the HOLY Ark 2 Chron. xxxv 3. Nay it is called by the Name of HOLINESS iv Num. 20. as all the Hebrews interpret the place and with great reason for that which in one place 1 King viii 8. is called the HOLINESS is in another where the same thing is described 2 Chron. v. 9. called the ARK The ground of all which was that these were separated by Gods special command for his uses and service alone And the Tabernacle was built by peculiar directions which he himself gave and by a Divine art and skill wherewith the workmen were inspired and no other And just thus was the Temple of our Saviour's Body likewise set apart and separated from all common flesh to be the dwelling place of God Man had no hand in the making of it but it was formed in the Womb of a pure Virgin by the power of the Holy Ghost Upon which score the Angel calls him before he was conceived 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. Luke 35. that HOLY thing we render it but it is the very Name of the Temple which had not an original like other Men being made by God alone Nor did the good Angels only acknowledge this but the Evil also call him the HOLY one of God i. Mark 24. For he was again separated from all other by a voice from Heaven and by the anointing of the Holy Ghost and by many other things not now to be mentioned which declared him to be the MOST HOLY or Holy of Holies spoken of by Daniel the Prophet ix 24. which Abenezra expounds to be meant of Christ. And the unspotted Holiness that was both in his Doctrine and in his life as you shall hear afterward and the innocency and purity likewise of his followers and attendants were no small Testimony added to the rest that God was in him For he did no sin as S. Peter speaks neither was guile found in his mouth And all they that came to him v. 4 5. as unto a living stone or Temple rejected indeed of men but chosen of God and precious 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even they themselves became living stones a spiritual house or Temple an holy Priesthood to offer up spiritual Sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ But it would be too long to note all that the holy Scriptures speak of this Therefore V. Let us briefly observe how the Omniscience of God which appeared in our Saviour declared that He dwelt in him as the punctual prediction of many things formerly declared his presence at the Tabernacle There Moses you know made his enquiries upon all occasions And from thence in after Ages God gave them answers concerning things unknown when the High-Priest stood before the most holy place with the Urim and Thummim on his breast And therefore that the World might see God had chang'd his Seat and now dwelt here in his Holy Child Jesus He declared things secret and not onely foretold a number of things both concerning himself and others but manifested that he knew even the thoughts and purposes of Mens hearts ii Joh. 23 24. And understood what was done at a distance from him i. Joh. 47 48. Which was so demonstrative a proof to the true Israelite of the presence of God in him that immediately he cries out Rabbi thou art the Son of God thou art the King of Israel But the manner of his knowing what was in man and all other things was the most admirable For whereas Moses was fain still to repair to one place and inquire at the Mercy seat before he could tell the mind of God And could not so much as resolve a difficult case about the observation of a Law
till he went to hear what the Lord would command concerning the persons who were in doubt ix Numb 8. Our Lord had no need at all to go any whither to make such enquiries but in every place even in Samaria knew the greatest secrets iv Joh. 18 19. For he himself was the Tabernacle of God He was the Tent which God had pitched among Men separated unto him as the Tabernacle and Temple were by the visible descent of the Divine Glory upon him and by its residing in him So that wheresoever he was he had an Oracle continually within himself and without any addresses to the most Holy place or any other knew all things and revealed the mind of God to Men. And all this was so conspicuous that it was far better known than the presence of the Lord upon the Ark. For that was confined to one place whereas Jesus went about doing good Which may be the meaning of that famous Prophecy iii. Jer. 16 17. Where he says they should not make mention of the Ark any more that is worship God before that as the only place But Jerusalem should be the THRONE OF THE LORD to which all Nations should be gathered that is in every part of the City and Country too he would appear as gloriously as he had done formerly in the most holy place of the Temple which could be at no other time but when Jesus appeared among them and sent by his Apostles the Law out of Zion and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem to all Nations ii Isa 3 4. The THRONE OF THE LORD I have told you already is in their Language as Maimonides teaches us Every place which God separates for the manifestation of his Divine glory So the Heaven is called his Throne lxvi Isa 1. And by that name Jeremiah calls their Sanctuary xvii Jer. 12. A glorious high Throne from the beginning is the place of our Sanctuary And so I told you the Ark is called because that was the peculiar place in the Sanctuary where he resided But at last you see all Jerusalem by which we may understand the whole Nation was to become the THRONE of the LORD As it did when Jesus appeared who in person was sent to that Nation alone in whom the Divine glory shone illustriously in all places wheresoever he came They beheld the Wisdome the Power the Love of God in him not only in the Temple where he oft appeared but in every part of the holy City In the streets nay in the high wayes in the fields in the wilderness upon the sea there was a most glorious appearance of God such as never was when the Ark alone was the THRONE of the LORD VI. Which puts me in mind and then I shall end this that the Unity of God is as much nay more discovered in our blessed Saviour as it was at the Tabernacle or Temple in former times As there was but one place where God put his Name among the Children of Israel and they were all to go to the very same Oracle whereby they were preserved in the belief and worship of one God So now God hath manifested that this is his ONLY begotten Son and that there is no name given under Heaven whereby we can be saved but only His and that we must seek to no other Mediator but this One in whom now God appears in such a glory as he never did any where else And this is also to keep us in the belief that God is one which may hence also appear by this manifestation of God in the flesh For whereas we call God by several attributes the most holy the most wise the most powerful and the like yet we see all these were in one person Christ Jesus Which may well instruct us that they all together are but One God and that it is one eternal Majesty who is so holy wise powerful and good But as I said this was better made known by our Saviour than by the Divine Majesty residing at the Temple For during all the time that the Holy Oracle of God stood at Jerusalem there were also Oracles which pretended gods maintained among the Gentiles This upheld the Opinion concerning a multitude of gods And all that Moses or the Prophets could do did not destroy this belief in the World no not root it out of Israel till God appeared in our Lord and Saviour Then these other Oracles grew mute and it was held ridiculous to believe any more Gods than One. The Devils lost all their power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after the coming of our Saviour among Men. They are the words of Eusebius who produces a sworn enemy of Christianity to avouch what he delivers Porphyry by name who makes this ingenuous confession * Lib. V. Praepar Cap. 1. that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. ever since JESUS was honoured none ever perceived any publick help and succour from the Gods Aesculapius and the rest of the Gods have withdrawn themselves from men and do not converse with them From whence Eusebius argues very rationally on this manner How come you to know those whom you worship to be gods Why did not Aesculapius and the rest of his Companions overthrow the power of Jesus and make it of none effect If he be a mortal Man as you say nay perhaps you call him a jugler and a deceiver and they indeed be Saviours and gods What is the matter that they flee before him and turn their backs of one that is so inconsiderable Why do they yield up all the World to his power and abandon all their subjects in this shameful manner If you have any sence you must conclude that he is stronger than they and that what he speaks is true For though he be but one and as one would suppose alone yet He hath driven away a vast number of gods and made them leave the World He hath abolished their worship and service and exposed them to such contempt that as they appear no longer gods so they can do just nothing They are not able so much as to show themselves as they were wont to their followers But plainly discover that they were Daemons not Gods But on the contrary the worship of this JESUS and that ONE GOD who he saith sent him into the World is every day more and more propagated and takes deeper root in the minds of all People One would have thought that these gods should have bestirred themselves at his coming more than ever They should have made combinations and joyned all their forces against him Their Oracles which were so famous should now above all other times have been frequented and spoken most loudly so that all the World might hear them against this person who came to destroy that Religion and take away all that reverence which was paid them Or if one Oracle had been dumb upon any particular cause yet all of them together one would think should not have lost their voice
live with them in unity and godly love to sympathize with them in their several conditions rejoycing with those that do rejoyce and weeping with those that weep Nor hath he failed to tell us by his holy Apostles with what kindness and indulgent affection Husbands should treat their Wives and how they again should so affectionately observe their Husbands that they may together make up a lively Image of that Dearest Love which is between Christ and his Church And he hath instructed us all how to behave our selves towards Magistrates Bishops Presbyters Masters and Parents whom he hath also taught how to bring up their children to use their servants to feed and govern their flocks and to rule their people committed to their charge so that no man can say he goes without that Lesson which is proper for his condition And then if we proceed to those things which we call SOBRIETY his Doctrine is so holy and pure that it requires the greatest Moderation in all things It favours nothing that relishes of Covetousness or Ambition or Voluptuousness or any other violent and inordinate passion whatsoever But quite contrary commands us not to labour with too much eagerness and solicitude for the meat that perishes to lay up our treasures in Heaven to be humble and lowly like little children to be temperate in all things to be watchful and vigilant lest we be overtaken with surfeiting and drunkenness or the cares of this life to be chaste and pure in heart to mortifie our members that are on the Earth fornication uncleanness inordinate affection and evil concupiscence to abstain from lasciviousness foolish talking wanton and unseemly jesting to cut off our right hand and pluck out our right eye if it prove an offence to us to take just measures of our selves as well as others to be content with our portion to do those things which are venerable grave and beseeming our condition and employment which if it be not according to our desires not to repine or be dejected at it if it be not to be transported with vain joy much less with pride and contempt of our neighbours And after all these and such like incomparable Lessons He teaches us to suffer any thing for well doing to bear all worldly troubles valiantly and with a magnanimous heart to despise reproaches nay to rejoyce when our names are cast out as evil for his name sake in patience to possess our Souls and not to be weary in well doing nor faint in our minds but to endure chastening to persevere and suffer with long patience to stand fast in the faith to quit our selves like men and to be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might To all which duties he urges us likewise by the purest the most spiritual the noblest and most Divine Arguments He does not press us with such low and poor motives as the hope of Riches though he promise us things convenient or of Greatness or of Fame and Glory either while we live or when we are dead but propounds his own example to us and the example of all the Saints that are gone before us and quickens us with the hope of Immortality when we depart this life and assures us at present of the friendly protection of Angels and of the joys of the Holy Ghost which none of those shall fail to receive who are not inticed nor affrighted from their duty but resolutely hold out in their Christian warfare and overcome And if any man say that several Philosophers taught excellent things and gave Rules of a vertuous life and yet it does not prove the best of them to be so great as these Witnesses are brought to demonstrate our Saviour was The Answer is that none of them delivered such a complete Rule of holy living as our Lord hath done none of them touched the heart with such powerful reasons and Divine motives nor did any of them write without some mixture of folly or themselves exactly perform that which they taught others Besides that none of them ever had the confidence to pretend to that quality wherein our Saviour came which you shall see presently is of great force to prove such an Holy Person as he was to be indeed what he pretended the Son of God II. But first let us a little consider the second sort of PURITY that of the Life in which our Lord Jesus far out-stript all others He did not only preach after that manner I have now related but so he lived and became a complete pattern of that which he taught He was a LIVING LAW as Lactantius calls him * Lib. 4. Instit C. 25 to all his Disciples whom he taught by Himself and not merely by his Lectures of Piety Other Teachers had conceived in their minds and painted in their Orations a vertue that was no where to be seen for they were not able as the same Author else-where speaks to confirm by present Examples that which they asserted in their Doctrine Their Auditors might still say that no body could live according to their prescriptions because no body ever did Behold therefore our Saviour comes to do and not only to preach the will of God And so holy pure and free from all blame were all the Actions of his life that his greatest Enemies could lay nothing to his charge but only certain words and those such as contained most perfect truth as he proved by his actions and many other ways He was the Lamb of God without spot and without blemish as S. Peter speaks 1 Pet. i. 19. He offered himself by the eternal Spirit without spot unto God ix Hebr. 14. His whole life was such a fair example of that Piety Humility Charity Gentleness Forgiveness Peaceableness Patience and all other vertues which he taught that God restored him to life again after they had crucified him and put him to death because there was no fault in him He was frequent in Prayer to God and sometimes continued therein a whole night together Upon all occasions he gave him thanks He loved his Glory and the Good of mankind more than his life He went about doing good And he taught his Family to be as kind and tender-hearted as himself He was meek and lowly in heart When he was abused He was dumb as a Lamb before the shearers so opened he not his mouth He was full of respect towards Magistrates and Governours very sweet and affable towards the poorest people exceeding kind and compassionate towards his envenomed enemies and perfectly contented in the lowest condition When Foxes had holes and Birds had nests but He not where to lay his head none could be found more chearful thankful and well pleased than he was And as for his Fortitude Courage Constancy Resignation and all other suffering vertues there never was any thing comparable to them For he endured the Cross and despised the shame and contentedly took the contradiction of sinners saying Father not my will
remember that your Baptism engages you to learn of him and to become like him Express that Honour towards God that Fear and that Love of him which he requires Imploy your selves carefully in all actions of Justice Charity and Sobriety Yea be prepared chearfully to follow him in suffering as well as in doing his blessed will This will be an infallible testimony that you are the children of God as on the contrary if you want this Witness all other evidence of it will fail you There is no reason to distrust this but the stronger your confidence is without it the more grosly you deceive your selves if you conclude your selves to be dear to him You find both these strongly asserted in this Epistle For the Affirmative read ii 29. If ye know that he is righteous know ye that every one that doth righteousness is born of him And iii. 7. Little children let no man deceive you he that doth righteousness is righteous even as he is righteous For the Negative read the following words ver 8 9 10. He that committeth sin is of the Devil for the Devil sinneth from the beginning For this purpose the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the Devil Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God In this the children of God are manifest and the children of the Devil whosoever doth not righteousness is not of God neither he that loveth not his Brother And for your encouragement to purifie your Souls remember that the purity and holiness of Christ's Life and Doctrine secures you of the truth of all his gracious promises We may say with a greater assurance than the Psalmist did in his days xii Psal 6. The words of the Lord i. e. his promises are pure words as silver tried in a furnace of Earth purified seven times Which should make us value them more than thousands of Gold and Silver though never so perfectly refined and to say as he does in another place cxix 140. Thy word is very pure therefore thy servant loveth it Those Metals are not freer from Dross after they have passed never so oft through the Fining-pot than his promises are from all mixture of deceit We may rely upon them with the greatest confidence and be secure they will never fail us It is as certainly true that God will take us to be his Sons and Daughters that he will dwell in us and give us everlasting life as it is that Jesus is the Son of God He that says the one says the other too and he may be alike believed in both But then having these promises we must cleanse our selves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of God 2 Cor. vii 1. For the Son of God was manifested you heard for this purpose And this was the end for which he gave himself i. e. to die for us that he might sanctifie and cleanse his Church with the washing of Water by the Word v. Ephes 26. and redeeming us from all iniquity purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works i. Tit. 14. Which if we study sincerely then this WATER here spoken of is part of the Waters of Life and this Testimony gives us assurance that we shall have our share in those Eternal good things which he hath promised in his holy Gospel For he is the Truth and in him there is no Lye But of this more hereafter when we have heard the following Witnesses and given glory to Jesus and made our acknowledgments to him in some such words as these A PRAYER I Believe O Lord not only that thou art a Teacher come from God and speakest the words of God but that thou art above all the very WORD of God it self into whose hands the Father hath given all things I admire the holiness of all thy Precepts and rejoyce in the purity of thy exceeding great and precious promises Thou art the Truth the Holy one of God without spot or blemish in whose mouth was found no guile There is all reason that we should receive thy testimony which thou hast given of thy self and all that thou hast testified to us to be the will of God and believe that without holiness no man shall see the Lord. Good Lord increase my Faith that as I see still further demonstrations of thy power and glory and cannot but acknowledge the perfect sanctity equity and goodness of all thy Laws and be in love with the beauty of thy most holy life so I may feel my heart inclined more and more to submit it self to be governed by thee to obey thy will and to imitate thy example Happy are those holy Souls who have learnt of thee to live soberly righteously and godly in this present world and whose hearts by that means are full of the blessed hope of immortality hereafter and of thy tender care of them while they are here There is nothing so desirable as to be holy even as thou who hast called us art holy in all manner of conversation It is the perfection of our Nature the end of our Being and the true satisfaction of our hearts to have thy image formed in us in righteousness and sincere holiness Imprint this sense deeper O blessed God in mine and every Christian heart That it may be our perpetual delight as well as our study to give thee the honour that is due unto thy Name to love thee with all our heart and soul and strength to preserve an holy fear of thee in our mind to trust in thee and cast our care upon thee to hope in thy never-failing mercies and to rejoyce evermore in thy love and that good hope which are better than life it self O that we may never cease to testifie our true love and honour and fear of thee with all other religious affections by praying without ceasing and offering the sacrifice of praise continually and in every thing giving thanks especially for the oblation which our Lord made of himself to thee which love may it be published with perpetual praise and thanks every where to the end of the world And give us the grace to add unto our love of thee a sincere and unfeigned love of all men That we may do to them whatsoever we desire that they should do to us Let this be the constant Rule of all our designs desires words and actions Let it ever be before our eyes to make us duly honour and observe our superiours pity succour relieve and comfort all those who are below us and be just faithful and friendly to all others O that every man would speak the truth with his neighbour and be charitable in their judgments one of another meek and gentle in all their words and behaviour ready to distribute and to do good studious of the things that make for peace forward to be reconciled to those
Lord art high above all the Earth thou art exalted far above all Gods Blessed is the people that know this joyful sound they shall walk O Lord in the light of thy countenance In thy name shall they rejoyce all the day and in thy righteousness shall they be exalted For thou art the glory of their strength and by thy favour shall we be highly honoured For thou hast a mighty arm strong is thy hand and high is thy right hand I know that thou canst do every thing and that no thought of thine can be hindred Thou canst break the chains of death and raise our dust and ashes to immortal life Thou canst tread Satan under our feet and send thy Angels for our security and defence By thee we shall run through the greatest dangers and surmount all the difficulties that are in our way to thee Who shall separate us from thy love O Christ who diedst for us yea rather art risen again who art even at the right hand of God who also makest intercession for us O live thou for ever in my mind and heart and be the daily delightful subject of my thoughts Direct and guide me in all my ways and lead me safe unto thy self Still let my meditations of thee be sweet and my joy exceeding great in thy salvation Still fix mine eyes on things above where thou art at Gods right hand Lord still increase my Faith that it growing in strength may work by a more vigorous love Let me feel the power of thy holy Spirit perpetually in my heart that being led by the Spirit and mortifying thereby the deeds of the body He that raised thee up from the dead may also quicken my mortal body by his Spirit that dwelleth in me Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that wrought such wonders unto him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages world without end Amen CHAP. VIII Concerning the Witness of the Holy APOSTLES of our Lord. I Know not what remains to be done for the full explication of these words of the Apostle unless it be sit to note that our Saviour is said to COME not only in his own Person but likewise in his Apostles and Evangelists I need name but one place to prove this ii Ephes 17. And CAME and preached peace to you which were afar off and to them that were nigh It is well known that Jesus of whom he there speaks was not SENT save to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and therefore in his own Person was not to go to those who were afar off such Gentiles as these Ephesians were to whom notwithstanding he is said here to COME He came unto his own saith this very Disciple and though his own received him not yet he kept himself within the confines of their Country and charged his Disciples during his life not to go into any City of the Samaritans to whom he never went but only in his passage from one part of the Jews Country to another We can give no account then of his COMING to them that were afar off as well as unto the Jews who were nigh but only this that by the Apostles whom he sent and who were his Embassadors to preach the glad tidings of Salvation he was made known to the Gentiles even as the Father is said to come to the Jews and to speak to them when he sent him his Son to declare his mind and will among them Now it is possible that S. John might have some respect to his sending them as the Father sent him to prove him to be the Son of God when he saith that Jesus CAME by WATER and by BLOUD and by the SPIRIT and that these three were his WITNESSES on Earth For first the Apostles were his WITNESSES as they are called in many places both by him and by themselves Ye shall be WITNESSES unto me both in Jerusalem and in Judaea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost parts of the Earth says our Saviour just before his Ascension i. Act. 8. The same he said to S. Paul to whom he appeared afterward xxvi 16. xxii 15. And in the same stile S. Peter speaks of himself I exhort you who am an Elder and a WITNESS of the sufferings of Christ i. Pet. v. 1. And as they were witnesses of his sufferings so they were of all that he did as you shall hear presently and of all that was done for him to prove that he was the Son of God and the King of Glory That is they were witnesses that there appeared such witnesses both in Heaven and Earth for him as we have examined And 2. witnesses they were of very great credit worthy of all belief For they were WITNESSES chosen of God x. Act. 41. select Men pickt out by Heaven some of them in an extraordinary manner for this purpose And they spake nothing by hear-say but upon their own certain knowledge being eye-witnesses of his Majesty as ye have heard before from S. Peter 2. i. 16. And S. John says the same in this Epistle iv 14. We have seen and do testifie that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the World First they saw and then bare witness Or as he expresses himself more largely in the beginning of the Epistle That which they had heard and seen with their eyes and looked upon and which their hands had handled of the Word of life for it was manifest and they saw it and bare WITNESS that he repeats it again which they had seen and heard they declared unto the World Why should not such witnesses be believed who spake nothing but what all their senses that could be imployed in this case gave them full assurance was undoubtedly true They were Men sure of common capacity and they had opportunity also to see and hear and feel and examine every thing which Jesus did or was done in honour of him For therefore our Saviour chose them to be his witnesses because they were thus qualified xv Joh. 26 27. When the Comforter is come even the Spirit of Truth which proceedeth from the Father He shall testify of me And ye also shall bear WITNESS because ye have been with me from the BEGINNING That is because you are abundantly informed how all things have passed from my very first entring into the World to preach the Gospel therefore you shall be imployed to testifie all things that you have seen and heard and felt as the fittest persons to be believed For which reason when they wanted one of their Number by the apostasie of Judas they were very careful according to this Rule of their Master to chuse such an one to succeed him as had been a constant follower of Jesus and had taken notice of every thing they were to witness i. Act. 21 22. Wherefore saith S. Peter of those men which have companied with us all
men in former times but had not such strength to enforce it Blessed be God should we all say A PRAYER BLessed be God who hath not done so for any people He hath shown us HIMSELF his WORD and the HOLY GHOST Israel hath not seen his Glory so as it shines in our eyes And as for his Power and Might they have not known them no more than the Promises and the Laws whereby he now governs us He hath given us a better Covenant founded upon a better Bloud which hath brought in also a better Hope and is confirmed by a more powerful Spirit Blessed be his Goodness that our eyes read and our ears hear those things which many Prophets and righteous men desired to see and hear but could not see nor hear them For it was revealed that not unto themselves but unto us they did minister the things which are now reported unto us by them that have preached the Gospel unto us which the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven which things the Angels desire to look into O Bless the Lord with us ye Angels of his that excel in strength praise him and magnifie him for ever O all ye Powers of the Lord bless ye the Lord praise him and magnifie him for ever O ye Spirits and Souls of the righteous bless ye the Lord praise him and magnifie him for ever Praise him all ye Apostles and Prophets praise him all ye Martyrs and Confessors praise him all ye glorious Lights who have made the Gospel of Christ to shine throughout the world Praise the Father Almighty praise his Eternal WORD praise the Holy Ghost who have made our Faith to stand not in the wisdom of men but in the mighty Power of God Praise him for the Incarnation the Life the Death the Resurrection the Ascension and the Glorification of the Lord Jesus who hath given us strong Consolation by that sure and stedfast hope which throughout all these means he hath setled in our hearts O praise him for his marvellous love to us whom he hath called after a glorious manner and by an amazing vertue to the knowledge of Christ by whom his Divine power hath given us all things that pertain unto life and godliness And make us who are so nearly concerned in this love to be very sensible how great it is which hath not only called us to his Heavenly Kingdom but made us sure and certain by so many Witnesses that Jesus is the Lord of all the King of infinite Majesty Power and Glory Let our Souls never cease to show forth and publish the vertues and powerful operations of him who hath called us into his marvellous light Let our mouths be filled with his praise all the day long who out of the riches of his mercy hath made us who were not his people to be a chosen generation an holy nation a peculiar people to himself O that our Faith may grow exceedingly and be deeply rooted and grounded in our hearts And as it stands upon the surest foundations so we may be built up in it with the most assured confidence and stand unshaken and immoveable in it unto the end And as thou hast differenced us from all other people in the clearness of that Light which lets us see that ours is the most holy Faith so help us by thy grace to distinguish our selves from all others by holding the mystery of Faith in a pure Conscience and by the upright actions of an unblameable life O that the light of Christians may so shine before men that others seeing their good works may glorifie thee our Heavenly Father O that it may disperse the darkness which over-spreads so great a part of the world That all impostures may be discovered and they that live in error may be brought to the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus O that his Dominion may reach from Sea to Sea even unto the worlds end Let them who dwell in the most desert places kneel before him and his enemies lick the dust Let all Kings of the Earth adore him and all Nations do him service Kindle in the hearts of Princes and Nobles an holy ambition to advance his Glory Inspire the hearts of all Bishops and Priests with an ardent zeal for the conversion of Souls And dispose the hearts of those who are in error that they may be apt and ready to receive thy sacred truth Plant thy Gospel where it hath not yet been and replant it where it hath been rooted out And give us grace who have long been thine own vineyard to bring forth plenty of good fruit That our lives may be as holy as our faith and we may convince Jews Turks and all other Infidels that thou art among us and that Jesus whom we worship is the Lord. To him with the Father and the Holy Ghost be Glory and Praise among all mankind and throughout all Ages world without end Amen CHAP. X. Other necessary Vses we are to make of their Testimony THere is no great skill required to see the difference between that Holy Religion which we profess and all others that are entertained in the rest of the World Some we must have and it is as palpable that this is incomparably the most excellent as it is that there is any Religion at all There is no Nation so barbarous but pays some respect and ceremony to use the phrase of Tully when he defines Religion to some Superiour and more excellent Nature which we call Divine Though they are ignorant what kind of God it becomes them to have yet they know a God must be had and must be worshipped Their own mind teaches them this as soon as they cast their eyes upon the admirable frame of the World which all naturally conclude must have had some most wise and mighty Builder But what respect and reverence that is which will be pleasing to him they are very uncertain it is manifest by the various ways they have invented to express their Devotion They all with one consent acknowledge a necessity of a Revelation to instruct them for there is no Nation but pretends to have received some things by the instinct inspiration or apparition of their Gods That which pure natural reason dictates is not to be found simple and unmixt in any Nation under Heaven For if we should stand meerly to that it hath ever resolved that the worship of God consists in the study of Wisdome Justice and all other Vertues Which as they are most eminent in God so he is best pleased with them in us And they that addict themselves to resemble him in this manner are the men that shall obtain his favour There are a number of notable sayings both in Heathen and Christian Writers to this purpose But when all this is said and acknowledged Men will offend against these Rules of Vertue and what shall they do then what will make him satisfaction and procure a reconciliation with him whom they have reason
being separable from obedience that this is essentially included in it and freely flows from it if it may be but suffered to have its course and not be crossed in its clear intention and design If you be not convinced of this by what you feel you may learn it of S. John who tells you here what the natural issue of our faith is and what duty it exacts for it is the scope of these words which I have expounded to lay such a foundation of belief as may unavoidably inforce obedience unless we forget what our belief is He begins you know this Fifth Chapter of his Epistle with this Principle that every one who believes Jesus to be the Christ is born of God and from thence infers in that and in the second Verse that such a person cannot but love God and all his Brethren which Love cannot be discerned by any thing but by keeping his Commandments FOR THIS IS THE LOVE OF GOD ver 3. THAT WE KEEP HIS COMMANDEMENTS Here is the natural fruit of Faith This is its Progress if you do not stop its motions It begets in our heart a great Love and Love is to be Obedient and that to all God's Commandments which respect either our duty to him or to our Neighbour It is in vain to say we believe in Jesus if we do not heartily love God who sent him to us And it is in vain to pretend love to God if we keep not his Commandments And it is as vain to say we have a dutiful respect to his Commandments if our neighbour have any cause to complain of us For he that loveth not his Brother whom he hath seen how can he love God whom he hath not seen And this Commandment we have from him that he who loveth God love his Brother also iv 20 21. Here now they who have less understanding of the grounds of Faith may make up what is wanting in their knowledge by the heartiness of their Devotion to God and the unfeignedness of their love to all their Brethren If they be mightily affected with what they believe and out of an honest love in their hearts to his holy Precepts be very diligent in their obedience it will supply the defect that is in their understanding of the Reasons why they believe in Jesus For if a small argument in a weak and dull understanding does the same work with a strong argument in a quick and piercing where lies the difference but only that the One can serve Religion more with his mind and discourse the other meerly with his good will and his pious life But will any man presume to be so impious as to imploy his will to find out ways to excuse his Obedience to him whom he acknowledges for his Lord He should rather consider seriously how reasonable and how necessary it is that he who knows so well what Jesus is and how he came should above all other Men do him the most faithful and zealous service For if we do but observe how many arguments here are to perswade us to this Faith in Jesus with what Authority he was sent and with what power he came to us we shall think it was for some very great work and fell it impossible while we are sensible of this not to do what he requires though now perhaps it seem impossible to be done He is not come of himself but hath the mark and stamp of the Supreme Lord upon him He evidently shows that he hath a Commission from God and brings as I may say the Broad-seal of Heaven with him to warrant what he demands though it be never so great a tribute of Obedience Here are Witnesses to him above all exception and they all bid us behave our selves submissively towards him and not deny to do any thing that he would have us Him hath God the Father sealed as he tells us vi Joh. 27. and by his Voice from Heaven commands us to HEAR HIM Which was as if he had said If you will believe him that cannot lye then Jesus is the TRUTH to every word of whose mouth we ought to hearken that is faithfully obey and observe For as God is said to hear us when he grants our desires so we hear him or his Son when we fulfill his pleasure The WORD likewise 2. when he appeared to S. Paul made him an Apostle for obedience to the faith among all Nations i. Rom. 5. And told him expresly that he appeared to him for this end that he might send him to the Gentiles to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God xxvi Act. 16 18. The HOLY GHOST likewise 3. is a Witness of this which was given to those that obeyed him v. Act. 32. But lookt upon all wickedness as an high affront to it at which it was grieved and by which it was quenched nay forced to depart as not induring to dwell in the same House with filthiness and impurity Unto which the Water 4. or the Holy life and purity of our Saviour in all his actions as well as his Doctrine was directly opposite And tells us that we must be obedient if there were no other reason for it but this alone that the Son of God himself was so in every thing Did God exact obedience of him that he might demand none of us Will he set us free from that duty and service to which his dearly beloved Son was strictly tyed He fulfilled all righteousness and observed even that Law of Ceremonies to which we have no obligation And do we think to be hereby excused from paying all those respects which are naturally due from Creatures to the author of their being and which we cannot but owe to those who are of the same kind with us What is it that hath so perverted the understanding of Christian People as to possess them with apprehensions quite contrary to common reason What ailes us that we cannot see the end of Christ's coming nay that we overlook the plain words of his holy Scriptures which tell us that he left us an example and expects that we should follow it and be made conformable to him and be renewed after his image in righteousness and true holiness without which no man shall see the Lord This the Bloud 5. speaks still more effectually For he would dye rather than disobey God He became obedient to death even the death of the Cross ii Philip. 8. which was the reason why God so highly exalted him and gave him that Name which he hath above every Name There was no other way whereby he could ascend up into Glory And therefore it is madness for us to think to leap up thither and skip over the holy life of Jesus Especially since he declares that his Bloud was shed to which perhaps we trust for redemption though we remain in our impurities that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of
infinite Perfections are his Wisedom his Goodness his Power his Purity his Unchangeableness his Immortality and Bliss and then make account there will be a lively communication between us and all these which will make us partakers of his Happiness We shall not onely enjoy such good things as flow from his greatest favour and love but in our measure and according to such capacities as he will give us be what He himself is Those glorious Perfections of his will impart something of themselves to us so that we shall be like God and bear some similitude to him in Wisedom Goodness and Bliss We shall be filled with Divine joys and pleasures by being filled with a great sense of him and a strong love to him and a lively resemblance of his blessed Nature immutably and immortally without any change and without any end Thus much we need not doubt is included in this phrase of Seeing God but confidently believe that good men shall enjoy all the effects of an holy Friendship with infinite Goodness and receive such communications from his boundless Love as shall make us really and substantially happy like as he himself is III. And I make no question likewise but hereby is signified an abundant Felicity which God from his own most blessed Nature will impart unto us a very copious participation of Himself which he will bestow upon us For when Job says xix 26 27. that in his flesh he should SEE GOD and that for himself his own eyes beholding him not another's his meaning seems to be that before he died he was sure God would deal exceeding bountifully with him not onely rescuing him from his present miseries but making him very happy so that he should not onely leave his posterity when he was gone to enjoy the blessings which God had still in store for him but be made in his own person partaker of them Which prediction of his seems to have been fulfilled when it is said the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before and that he blessed his latter end more then his beginning xlii 10 12. Then he saw God and that with his own eyes when he was thus liberally blessed by him and received such a large reward of his patience In like manner when our Lord saith that pure upright men like Job shall see God his meaning may be that they shall in the highest degree partake of his bounteous Goodness and receive as much from him above all their thoughts as Sight is above all other senses And indeed the Sense of Seeing is so much more spacious and wide then the rest that we may very well think an exceeding great happiness is onely able to fill up the whole meaning of this expression of SEEING GOD. Which may be the better understood perhaps if we briefly consider the reasons for which the Sense of Seeing seems fitter then any other to set forth our participation with God in his supreme Felicity They are such as these 1. It best agrees with those things whereby God is represented to us in the Holy Scriptures Where we reade that God is Light which is the object of Sight onely and in him is no darkness at all As Light is a thing of which we are most sensible and whereby we discern indeed all other visible things but cannot comprehend what it is such is God of whom if we attend we cannot but be most apprehensive and without whom we can enjoy nothing though we cannot declare the inconceivable purity and excellency of his Nature And 2. Sight is the noblest Sense about us the Eye being a work of more curious and exquisite contrivance then any other part of our body And 3. it is the most comprehensive Sense which takes in a vast number of things at once not onely of this lower world but also of the upper And it is a Sense 4. that can longest enjoy the same object for its object is not wasted and spent in the enjoyment nor doth it vanish and die so soon as others are apt to do And 5. it is the principall Sense of discipline and learning which conveys to us the first notices of things more abundantly then the rest and especially helps us to the knowledg we obtain by making experimentall Observations And 6. it affords us the greatest certainty and evidence of the truth of things Insomuch that we are wont to say We will believe it when we see it and it is become a Rule in Law that One Eye-witness is better then an hundred Hear-say's And again 7. it is a very affecting Sense which raises passions sooner and quicker then any other All the Rhetoricall praises in the world which are bestowed to commend a lovely object to us will not move us so much as one glance of its beauty will The Queen of Sheba you remember was led by report to come to the Court of Solomon but when she saw the splendour wherein he lived then it was that there was no more spirit in her And therefore lastly it brings in the greatest revenue of the purest and most long-liv'd pleasures by presenting us with such a vast variety of objects as other Senses who have not so large a sphere and compass to move in cannot entertain us withall From all which you may easily gather that when our Lord expresses the Happiness of pure and holy Souls by Seeing God he may well be thought to intend thereby the strong sense that God will give them of himself and the intimate familiarity we may hope to have with the first Wisedom Purity and Goodness and then the height and dignity of that state to which we shall hereby be advanced together with the vast measure of knowledg and love which he will communicate to us the exquisite and most delicious pleasures which will spring from thence and overflow our Souls the delightfull passions whereby we shall be transported and the inconceivable satisfaction which we shall have within our selves For if St. Philip said here Lord shew us the Father and it suffices what shall we think of that manifestation which he will make of himself to us when we shall be uncloathed and have nothing to interpose to hinder our clear sight of him and full converse with him We are not able to conceive how mightily it will affect our hearts We must stay till that happy day of our Lord 's appearing to be satisfied to what degree of honour and bliss he intends to promote us But sure enough he will come and not fail our expectation The Certainty of this happiness may well be included in our Saviour's promise of Seeing God Who will give us a sure possession of himself and undoubted contentment to the very height in the enjoyment of him and that in an endless life without any disquiet or disturbance without alteration or change without weariness or disgust in a never-ceasing ecstasy of joy and delight to find our selves united to him the Almighty Lord and possessour
Correspondencies And they who have neither Father nor Mother Wife nor Children near Kindred nor Relations whereon to place their affection let them consider if they have but a singular Friend what the pleasure is that two persons who sincerely and purely love take in the sweet company and conversation of each other Or if I must suppose any man to be so unkind and so unhappy as to have no love for any body but his own self let him think what contentment he hath and how he is pleased if he can arrive any thing near to a quiet enjoyment of his dear Self And such a delightfull state may be a small image of Heaven where holy Souls will love God with a far greater flame then ever they did or shall then love themselves because He will appear infinitely more lovely and to bear also a far greater love to them then it is possible for then to do to themselves Now none can tell how transporting it will be to a good Soul when it feels i◠self the Beloved of God as well as full of love to him because we cannot think how great the Love of the Almighty is unless we could know how great he is himself This is a thing that cannot fail to have a strange power over our affections and to master them so that we shall be taken quite out of our selves for we all extreamly love to be beloved If any neighbour shew us an unexpected and undeserved kindness we are apt to think he is the best person in the world And the poorest Wretch that is if we see in him the undoubted signs of an hearty love to us we cannot chuse but requite it with some expressions of kindness back again Nay if a Dog as I have said elsewhere or such a dumb creature do but fawn upon us and delight in our company and with a great deal of observance follow us wheresoever we go we cannot but be so far pleased with this inclination towards us as to make much of it and to be troubled to see any harm befall it and to love to see it play and be well pleased Judge then what a pleasure it will be to pious Souls to find themselves beloved of him who hath put these kind resentments into our nature To what an height will the sweet breathings of his Love blow up the flames of theirs Into what Ecstasies will they fall when they feel by the happy fruits what an exceeding great affection their Heavenly Father bears to them It is above our present thoughts to apprehend the joy that will then overflow them but we may conceive a little of it if we remember that GOD is Love and that by our Love He will be in us and by his Love we shall be in Him But if you please let us fall much lower then this and onely represent to our selves how great an happiness we shall account it to be beloved of the whole Family of God in Heaven Look down from the highest Angel to the smallest Infant that shall be blessed there from the noblest to the meanest in that celestiall Court and there is not one of them but will love us and be ready to shew their sincere and most affectionate kindness towards us They that are the greatest in that Glory will be the greatest Lovers they that enjoy most of God will be disposed to let us enjoy most of them For there is no Pride nor Envy in the heavenly Quire but the more any are Beloved the more they will delight in the most effectuall expressions of their Love And how can they chuse but interchange to each other unspeakable contentment who live in the comfort of such indissoluble Amity and Friendship Nothing can be thought of beyond this to set forth their happiness But we much conclude with * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 459. Philo that this i◠the best definition of immortall life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be held fast in an unfleshly and incorporeall love and friendship of God You will say perhaps that I have been now speaking of some other Love besides his which supposing our hearts so fixed on him we shall not be capable to entertain our selves withall in the other world For who can divert himself from so beloved a Good which sends also such tokens of Love to him and turn to any other object We cannot think that they who love God perfectly will be inclined to love any thing else And you may think so still if you please without any prejudice to what I have said This will but make that LIFE the more desirable and move us to wish for such an happy state where God will be in all our thoughts and we shall always love him and yet love one another too For these are not at all inconsistent but we may delight our selves in the sweet society of Angels and Saints and yet always SEE GOD because we see and love Him in every thing They will be his Beauties which we shall behold in them Those holy ones will shine in his Glory So that our affections will not incline to run to any person merely for himself but because we behold the face of God in him and see his Graces wherewith he is adorned All the Love there will be Divine And the more of God shall appear in any persons the more lovely they will be and the more we shall be ravisht with their company and rejoyce in a happy league of friendship with them Well then withdraw your thoughts a while from all the things you love here and raise them above to look at Love where it reigns and hath an uncontrolled Empire Behold it sitting on its Throne advanced to its utmost pitch of Perfection and shewing it self in its full Glory And then keep the beginnings of this Heavenly LIFE out of your Souls if you can It will be impossible you should not think there is nothing so much to be desired as to be all Love O happy Life will you say where they love as much as they are able and where they shall be able to love more then now can be conceived and where they will be beloved more then they can love and have their Love hereby heightned when they reflect upon it in an endless Circle of joy and pleasure Let us enter upon this Life with all the speed we can make Let us begin it this very moment and endeavour that no moment may pass hereafter but in the Love of God For there is no heart so stony sure and insensible that will not be dissolved into flesh and receive any impressions from God if it be once touched with the serious thoughts of this state of Love No Soul so hard frozen and icy that will not be thawed and melted to run whether God pleases when it doth but feel the least spark of this heavenly Fire fall down upon it Do but go from the reading of this with the thoughts of this Happiness burning
in your breasts and preserve the fire for one hour from going out and you cannot imagine till you try to what an heavenly temper it will purifie and refine your Spirits It will make you heartily in love with the Life of Christ here which leads to such a blissfull Life in the other world You will zealously follow those holy desires and resolutions which you will necessarily feel it inspiring you withall And you will not suffer any temptation whatsoever to divert you from that earnest pursuit but still be saying as St. Austin begins and ends his Confessions Thou Lord hast made us for thee and our heart is uneasie and restless untill it repose it self in thee Who being that Good which needs no good art always at rest for thou thy self art thine own Rest But to understand this what man will give to man what Angel to Angel or what Angel to man Let it be askt of thee let it be sought in thee let it be knockt for at thee So so shall it be received so shall it be found so shall it be opened Amen III. And the more we think of it the more we must needs still desire it because our Understanding being filled with the knowledge and our Will with the love of the chiefest Good we shall sensibly perceive a Divine joy resulting from these and flowing into our heart with inexpressible pleasure For it is essentially included in every act both of that Knowledge and that Love as may be clearly discerned by what hath been already said We are now compounded of different and sometimes contrary passions which frequently disquiet us and disturb our peace by falling out with our Reason and with one another But in that blessed LIFE there will be no such troublesome mixture no fear no sorrow no hatred no anger or any the like remaining But joy alone advanced to the greatest height of glory will be left in the possession of the whole Soul and have the sole Dominion of it to it self The reason is because we shall for ever have the presence of the greatest Good which will exclude the presence of any evil to give us the least fear of losing what we love That 's the originall of all our Passions As we are glad when we enjoy any thing that we love so we are troubled when we want it or when we lose it and we are full of care and solicitude when we eagerly pursue it and rise up in hatred and displeasure at that which opposes our desires When Love then is secure by the possession of that Supreme Good whom no evill can approach the cause of all other passions will be banished and Joy alone be left to triumph in the conquest of them For which cause this heavenly Joy must needs be the more excessive when we shall have nothing else to do but to rejoyce This will mightily increase the greatness of it that there will be no employment for the rest of our Passions which here whether we will or no take their turns together with it and consequently there will be nothing to diminish the greatness of it by any trouble or disorder that can be given it For the proof of which I need onely refer you to the foregoing discourses and desire you to reflect upon what you have read of the Knowledge and Love of God You could not but observe how joy and pleasure was so inseparably knit to them and interwoven with them that I could not well speak of them but I must touch upon this also 1. As for the first of them we all feel a certain complacency which our very Senses as well as our Understanding takes in objects conformable to them even before our appetite moves at all towards them Truly the light is sweet says the Wise man and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the Sun xi Eccles. 7. Look then how much the Divine Light excells all other and how much the Majesty and Splendour of the Authour of Nature is beyond the best of his Works the glory and brightness of the Sun and so much sweeter and more pleasant will it be for our Mind to be filled with that Light and to behold that first and Originall beauty from whence all other are derived We cannot think of God and of our Saviour now without a singular joy and therefore we shall not be able to SEE them without an excess of it 2. And secondly as for Love Joy is a no less necessary attendant on it or rather is intwined with it being nothing else but that delight and pleasure which springs up from the sense of any Good that we have taken possession of So that look how great the Good is to which the passion of Love hath carried us proportionable will be the Joy when we feel that we are owners of it And if it now please us so much to think that we are really beloved of God and of his Son Jesus what an endless pleasure will the sense of their Love yield us when it hath placed us in Heaven Do but consider now how vast the Love of the Lord Jesus is in coming down from Heaven to us and that he knows better reasons of his Love then we do and that his own pleasure is concerned in loving us and that he cannot but finish his Love to those who are purchased with his Bloud and are of his Spirit and it will give a marvellous satisfaction to your heart at present But what it will do then when he will have expressed all his Love to us and perfected his kind intentions towards us we are not able to tell We can onely consider a little farther how he hath plainly told us that they who love him will rejoyce now because he is gone to the Father xiv Joh. 28. And therefore it must needs be an additionall pleasure in the other life to see what we here believe our Dearest Lord shining in the Glory of God the Father and inthroned on the right hard of the Majesty in the Heavens It will be an exceeding high satisfaction to us to behold him who loved us so much and was so ill requited for it by men so gloriously rewarded for it by God himself But it is so easie to apply what hath been said to this purpose that I shall leave such considerations as these to your own diligence and note something that is not altogether so obvious 3. Which is that pious Souls will considerably augment their joy by the reflexions they will make upon their happiness and the strong attention of their mind to their own delight and pleasure For we are never so truly delighted as when we find that we are not deceived in the comfort and contentment which we promised our selves and when we take notice of all the pleasing motions that are in our hearts and duly mark and observe the sweetness of them Before this reflexion and self-observation our Souls are onely touched by the Objects
which they apprehend and receive such impressions as they are able to make there But by this means the Soul touches and strikes it self sealing those impressions deeper and pressing them harder upon our spirit The presence of a Friend without asking our leave excites a joy and sudden passion of pleasure in our heart upon his very first approaches But when we consider with our selves not onely that he is our Friend but how good a Friend he hath been and what joy he hath now and many other times given us we then affect our selves with his presence and sweet company and make the joy greater by minding how great it is For it is the highest kind oâ— life in this world which hath an apprehension that it lives This makes the life of a man above the life of beasts and his pleasures above those that they enjoy This is it also which makes a man in â— Lethargy to be no better then dead because he hath no perception of his own life The quicker therefore and the more lively this apprehension of our LIFE and of the happiness and contentment of it grows the more blessed and joyfull will the LIFE it self be which we shall then lead If by loving without seeing we rejoyce in this world with joy unspeakable and full of glory 1 Pet. i. 8. how glorious will the joy be there when Sight or Knowledge shall be if I may so speak in its high-noon and Love at its full sea and when there will be no declension much leâ— night nor the least ebbe any more and when we shall with the most accurate quickness instantly apprehend and observe every circumstance that adds to our unconceivable happiness We have many considerations left us now in the Gospel of Christ to refresh our minds withall from his great Love in becoming a Man for us from his Cross from his Resurrection from his Ascension and sitting at God's right hand from his promise of coming again and the hope we have of reigning with him for ever but by not attending to such blessed Truths as these we lose the comfort of them And when they are mightily urged upon us by others and the Holy Spirit of God also touches us and makes us sensible of the glad tidings that they bring us we lose still a great deal of the pleasure by not pressing them farther upon our hearts marking how they are affected with them And when all this is done we shall still feel a damp upon our spirits unless we can comfortably reflect upon our own sincere love to God and assure our selves that we are persons qualified for this supreme Joy But there will be no danger of any such defects in that happy World above where holy Souls will as readily improve as they easily discern every thing that gives them satisfaction As nothing will escape their observation which brings any joy along with it so they will please themselves in the contemplation of their own pleasures till they grow greater And so far they will be from wanting any reflexions on themselves as the persons whom God loves and delights to honour that they cannot but perceive it and be transported with the joyfull sense of it For if we should speak strictly this Joy will be so great that it will need no attention to it It s own strength will make it be most sensibly felt and as some have ventured to express so sublime a state it will by the transcendent force of its delight essentially reflect upon it self 4. But let us come down from these heights and consider again that as much as the Joy which God hath in himself exceeds all other satisfaction so much will the Joy which we shall have in him exceed all that we have or can enjoy in any other thing In his presence says the Psalmist xvi 11. is fulness of joy and pleasures everlasting which cannot fail to be the portion of those who shall be admitted into his presence and have the happiness to See him For since by our sight of him we shall be assimilated to him as was said before and made in a manner such as he is we must needs be partakers with him in his Joy as well as in other things and have such a measure of it as exceeds all the measures that our scanty apprehensions can now take of so full a Good It is too little to say that this Joy alone exceeds all worldly pleasures as far as the longest life exceeds a moment or this whole World the least mote we see in the Sun-beams rather we may say as far as God surmounts this World or Eternity Time between which there is scarce any comparison to be reasonably made 5. To all which you may subjoyn this as the highest consideration of all that such are the Perfections of the Divine Nature such is his infinite Bounty that they who are united to him in Love will meet with an infinite Satisfaction All objects of our delight here may be comprehended by our Understanding and we may see an end of all their perfection For which reason they may be slighted by our Will as less then our selves and unable to give us the contentment we desire It is at our choice whether we will love them or no or at least what portion of our love we will bestow upon them and therefore it is no great joy that they can give to one who feels how much he is above them But God now is so full so infinitely above us that he intirely satiates the heart of those that love him We cannot refuse him when we are perfectly acquainted with him nor is it at our liberty to love him but to such a measure No He will force our Soul then to love him and delight in him as much as it can yea more then naturally it could without the presence of such a Good more then it believed it should ever have been able to love And this is not a force of which the Soul grows weary as in other cases when it is strained beyond its present capacity but a plesing violence to which it opens it self and perceiving the power of that great Good would willingly be more possessed of it The pleasure that it feels sweetly dilates it and with a gratefull constraint so stretches and widens it that the extension becomes natural to it And with all this New Love created in it the joyfull Soul will for ever remain thus big embracing its most beloved Good and delighting it self in this largeness of Love This is the incomparable pleasure of the LIFE that Christ promises All other joys are but cold and dull in respect of the flames and spirits of this It is but a dream of drowzy delight which we enjoy here in comparison with that substantiall sprightly pleasure which our Souls will find in the bosom of God's Love wherein they will repose themselves with such a transport as if they would lose themselves to be all one with
to search how full it is Alas what shallow brains have we to contain a wide and deep Ocean what weak eyes to look stedfastly upon the most glorious Light of heaven How much too short and narrow are our thoughts to compass an Eternall duration When we have done all we can the best way I think to our satisfaction will be to have recourse to a passage from the mouth of God himself wherein we must rest our selves contented It is in the xxi Rev. 7. where St. John was told by him who sat upon the throne ver 5. that He that overcometh shall inherit all things and I will be his God and he shall be my Son A most marvellously-large Conveyance is here delivered to us from him who hath all that can be in his possession The Great Lord of Heaven and Earth makes us a grant in these words so exceeding full that we cannot desire it should run in more comprehensive terms For by this promise 1. He makes over to us ALL things Heart cannot wish more to make us compleatly happy then he settles upon us for there is no good thing that he will withhold from those that stedfastly adhere to him And observe 2. the tenure wherein we shall hold these vast and large possessions which is as an Inheritance We have an everlasting perpetuall estate made us in all things The terms of this writing are such as if it had run in these words By an eternall indefeasible right he shall possess all blessings For Inheritances it is well known among the Hebrews never failed nor went out of the family They could not be so alienated by sale or gift but they returned in the year of Jubilee to their first owner or his posterity Which makes the word INHERIT in the holy language to signify the enjoyment of a purchace or possession out of which the inheritour can never be thrown and which he cannot quit but shall remain settled in him to perpetuity This St. Paul calls the riches of the GLORY of his inhehitance i. Eph. 18. to signify that our celestiall Patrimony is not onely exceeding large and firmly settled on us but also most noble and brings along with it everlasting honour and renown Which is more fully explained you may note 3. and the reason of it given in the next words I will be GOD to him I will confer that is such benefits on him as are fit for the bounty of the omnipotent Goodness to bestow Look what He was to Abraham in this world to whom he promised to be a God xvii Gen. 7. that he will be to us eternally In blessing he will bless us and be our exceeding great reward The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 GOD answers to the Hebrew word Elohim which doth not respect the Essence of the Almighty but his Providence as * in Psal xiv 1. Genebrard among others hath well observed and signifies as much as the Judge the Moderatour and Governour of the World from whence it is that Judges Magistrates and Rulers are called by this name to whom it belongs to give rewards and punishments And accordingly the Hebrew writers observe that it is never said the Lord will be the God of any persons but when he expresses some singularly-great kindness and stands in a speciall relation of love to them In particular Abarbinell notes upon Deut. vi that he is never called the God of Israel till he had brought them in a wonderfull manner out of the land of Egypt the house of bondage I find indeed that he promised to be their God before when he told Abraham that he would give him and his seed the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession xvii Gen. 8. But he did not begin to be so till he began to lead them thither and in token of their being his they had kept the Passeover and received his Law from Mount Sinai Before this Moses says We were bondmen in Egypt and the LORD brought us out with a mighty hand vi Deuter 21. And the LORD shewed signs and wonders great and sore upon Egypt upon Pharaoh and upon all his houshold before our eyes ver 22. He doth not say in all these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the LORD our GOD but onely the LORD brought us out and the LORD shewed because he speaks of the time before the giving of the Law which was the greatest kindness he did them after they came out of Egypt But as soon as he had made mention of that says Abarbinel in the very next words ver 24. he alters his style and tells them The LORD commanded us to doe all these statutes to fear the LORD our GOD for our good always c. And ver 25. It shall be our righteousness if we observe to doe all these Commandments before the LORD our GOD as he hath commanded us And so he speaks vii 1. When the LORD thy GOD shall bring thee into the land c. and ver 2. When the LORD thy GOD shall deliver them before thee c. and ver 6. Thou art a holy people to the LORD thy GOD the LORD thy GOD hath chosen thee to be a speciall people to himself c. For from the time of his appearing on mount Sinai and so forward says that learned Hebrew Writer He was our God because then we took upon us his Divinity And I think I may as truly observe that till the Resurrection of our Lord from the dead which compleated that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 departure which Moses and Elias discoursed with him about and said he should accomplish at Jerusalem ix Luke 31. we never reade that the Father Almighty is called the God of those who believe in his Son Jesus Then he demonstrated beyond all contradiction that he was their Saviour and mighty Deliverer who would rescue them from the bondage of corruption the fear of death the power of the grave and give them immortall life And therefore then he bids Mary go and tell his Disciples whom he calls Brethren and say to them I ascend to my Father and your Father and to my God and your God xx Joh. 17. This is the first time he is called their God but ever after there is no language more common For as St. i. Eph. 3 17. 1 Pet. i. 3. Peter and St. Paul call him the GOD of our Lord Jesus Christ I suppose because he had raised him from the dead and highly glorified him for his obedient suffering of death so they address themselves to him as particularly related to them and ready to bestow upon them the like blessedness saying i. Rom. 8. 1 Cor. i. 4. iv Phil. 19. 1 Thess iii. 9. I thank MY GOD always c. MY GOD shall supply all your need We rejoyce before OVR GOD c. as you may reade in many places of St. Paul's Epistles Which shews that this promise in the Revelation made after our Saviour's Ascension of being the God of
profanation This was a preface as he calls it to the utter subversion and extinction of the rest of their Ordinances and their legall Worship The consequence of which was as he likewise notes that the knowledge and service of God according to the Law which had been so long circumscribed and shut up in one city and country being to be abolished that worship which by the Passion of our Saviour was revealed was to be established and spred to the uttermost parts of the Earth And therefore the rending of the veil did as good as proclaim to all the world and cry with a loud voice saying Come hither and behold the invisible things Come 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the sight of the divine Mysteries from whence you have been so long excluded Here is free leave for you all to enter who have as much right as any to that which before was inaccessible And since this most holy place was a type of Heaven God commanding Moses to make all things according to the pattern in the Mount the shutting up of this from the people and hiding the things contained in it by a veil drawn before their eyes was an acknowledgment that by the legall worship there was no entrance into the heavens but the way was unpassable by those that stuck onely to its rites and ceremonies And therefore the tearing of this veil by the death of Christ signified as plainly that the obstacle was removed and preached to the world as with the sound of a trumpet that every one of us by his BLOUD may hope to come thither For He that emptied himself for this very cause as the same Photius writes and took upon him our flesh and suffered all things for our sake Christ I mean our God hath opened a new passage into the kingdom of heaven by his life-giving death Which both dissolved that old Religion as the very same thing you see foresignified and introduced such an one as will certainly bring us into the high and holy place whether Jesus our forerunner is entred for us And that this tearing of the veil in sunder was the effect of our Saviour's passion and precious BLOUD-shedding is visible from the relation which the Evangelicall story makes of this Prodigy So I call it because you reade that it was not rent from the bottom to the top as it would have been if the Earthquake as some may be prone to suspect had been the cause of it but from the top to the bottom xxvii Matt. 51. This evidently shews it was an hand from above that made this breach which following immediately upon our Saviour's giving up the ghost was as sensible a token that it depended upon no other cause but that The most impious are not able to devise any other reason of so strange an accident Which could have no naturall cause as an Earthquake may but proceeded from a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Photius his phrase is Divine vengeance which gave the veil this stroke and cut it quite in two as an indeleble proof that it was the BLOUD of an innocent person which they now had shed And indeed the Earthquake there mentioned was so far from being the cause of this rent that it followed after it that Power from on high which first slit the veil next of all shaking the earth and cleaving the rocks in sunder To which I think it may be fit to adde that the Jews themselves tell us the gates of the Temple used after this to open of their own accord forty years before its destruction * Tzemach David ad an 3785. Which made R. Jochanan ben Zaccai cry out O Temple Temple why dost thou affright thy self I know that thou shalt be destroyed in the end for Zachariah prophesied of thee Open thy doors O Lebanon that the fire may devour thy Cedars xi 1. Which new prodigy confessed by many of their Writers together with the extinction of the Lamp that used to burn there was a witness that God was going away from that place and intended no longer to dwell in it but would shew his Glory which for many years had heretofore filled that house to all the Earth Now then if the Partition-wall was thus broken down through the BLOUD of Jesus and all laid open and common that we might enter upon the possession of the Divine promises as well as others it is certain by the Witness of this BLOUD that there is an Heavenly Inheritance for us for Earthly there is none Either we must obtain Eternall Life by him that died for us or nothing at all For there is no land of Canaan nor any thing like it given to us Gentiles who are now called to inherit the promises We have no assurance of any worldly purchaces no portion of money vine-yards olive-yards or other goods of that nature assigned to us as there was to the ancient Israelites But quite contrary they that enjoyed the very first-fruits of the Divine Love were told that every one who would live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution and take up their cross and forsake all if they would be his followers Accordingly we have examples of those who sold their lands and when they had done gave away the price of them so far were they from thinking of any temporall rewards Undoubtedly then the Blessing which Jesus purchased for us by his BLOUD whereby he laid waste all former inclosures can be nothing else but great Possessions in another World where we have the promise of an eternall Inheritance This we ought to expect with the most assured confidence for we cannot make any doubt of it unless we will look upon the BLOUD of Jesus as more ineffectuall then the bloud of bulls and goats whereby they held the Earthly Canaan VIII And now let us once more look upon the BLOUD of Jesus as the bloud of a Sacrifice whereby all Covenants were anciently sealed and without which there could be no entrance no not for the High-priest himself into the Holy place where God dwelt Those inspired persons whom as I said before our Saviour bids all men hear and reverence frequently call his Death by this name And common reason also leads us to have the same thoughts of it For if it was not the BLOUD of the most precious and acceptable Sacrifice which He offered upon the Cross how could it put an end as it hath done to all the old Sacrifices which had stood so long by God's appointment and make all the bloud that was afterward offered of no force at all for their preservation from ruine That it did so is manifest by the experience of near sixteen hundred years And the Hebrew Writers themselves confess that the scarlet tongue as they call it that is the list of that colour and figure which was hung between the Scape-goat's horns or as others will have it at the door of the Temple and always used to turn white according to that in Isaiah
in heaven binding whom it would and loosing there according to the power given him As a lion let loose among a company of foxes so did he fall upon the societies of Daemons and Philosophers and like a thunderbolt struck through all the armies of the Devill who was so afraid of him that he trembled at his shadow and ran away if he did but hear his voice He delivered the incestuous Corinthian to him being far distant from the place and again he snatcht him out of his hands being perfectly acquainted with his devices And in like manner he taught others by the same severity not to blaspheme But let us not content our selves merely to admire him let us not onely be astonisht at him let us imitate and follow him What though we cannot doe such miracles as the Apostles did and there is no hunger and other miseries to be endured the times being peaceable and quiet God be blessed yet there is their piety and the holiness of their life to be transcribed which was no less admirable And this is the noblest conflict this is the syllogism which cannot be contradicted this by our Works Should we discourse never so excellently but live no better then others we gain nothing For unbelievers do not mind what we say but what we doe saying Do thou first of all follow thine own words and then perswade others For if thou tellest us of millions of good things in the other world but art so intent upon the things of this as if there were no other we believe thy works rather then thy words For when we see thee greedy to snatch other mens goods bitterly bewailing thy friends deceased and in many other things offending how shall we believe thee that there is a Resurrection Thus unbelievers are hindred from being Christians And therefore having seen how glorious our Saviour is Id. Homil. xii in Johan being instructed in his Religion and made partakers of so great a gift let us lead a life agreeable to our principles that so we may injoy those good things which Christ hath promised For He therefore appeared not onely that his Disciples might behold his glory in this world as they say they did i. Joh. 14. but also in the world to come For I will saith he that where I am they may be and see my glory And if he appeared so illustriously here what shall we say of his glory there O happy thrice happy they more happy then can be expressed who shall be thought worthy of that glory Which if we should be so unhappy as not to see better had it been for us if we never had been born To what purpose do we live and breath what are we if we miss of that Light if we may not be permitted then to see our Lord and Master If those who enjoy not the light of the Sun lead a life more bitter then death how miserable will their condition be who are deprived of that light This loss will be punishment sufficient though this is not all they must expect For being banished from this Light they shall not onely be cast into outer darkness but there burn perpetually and miserably consume and gnash their teeth and suffer a thousand other miseries Let us awake therefore let us look about us let us use our utmost endeavours that we may enjoy the happiness Christ designs for us and be far remote from the river of fire which runs with great noise before the dreadful tribunall Into that if we fall there is no redemption And therefore let us purify our life let us make it bright and shining so that we may have boldness of access to the blessed sight of our Lord and obtain the promised good things through the grace and loving-kindness of Christ Jesus by whom and with whom to the Father and the Holy Ghost be glory world without end Amen CHAP. XIII The Vse we are to make of this RECORD I. AND in the very entrance of so pious a design to improve the great grace which Heaven hath bestowed on us it becomes us to stand amazed at the transcendent love of God our Saviour who not contenting himself to have thoughts and intentions of good towards such wretched Sinners hath been pleased to make us a gracious promise that he will bless us and to acquaint us by no less Messenger then his own Eternall Son appearing from heaven in our flesh with the secret purposes of his heart to give us the greatest Blessedness There is nothing so astonishing as this whether we consider the incomparable excellency of the Good he designs us or the favour he hath done us in revealing it to us or the glory of that person by whom he reveals it or the certainty we have that this is a true report that God hath given to us Eternall Life and this Life is in his Son O most joyfull news shall we poor mortalls live for ever and live there where Jesus is May such as we presume to expect such glory honour and immortality as he hath brought to light by his Gospell O wonderfull love which might have concealed its kindness and yet eternally obliged us It had been enough if we had got to heaven without knowing before-hand we should be so happy Why should such offenders injoy the comfort of hoping for so great a Happiness while we are here in these earthly prisons Might we not have been well contented to creep upon our hands and knees to so high a glory Had we not been fairly used if with our heads hanging down and not daring so much as to lift up our eyes to that holy place we had travelled through this world and at last found our selves beyond all expectation at rest with Jesus But O the love of God which hath bid us hold up our heads and look above and behold our Lord in his glory and hope well yea be confident that he hath seated us together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus We are indebted to him beyond all thoughts for promising us so freely out of his exceeding great love and giving us so evident a right to such glory and honour as our own unworthiness and guilt forbad us to promise our selves or to have the least expectance of And what is it that he hath so freely promised To look into that high and holy place where he is at some distance to behold his glory to have an Angel come sometimes to visit us and bring us some message from him in some of the suburbs of heaven And a great favour too I assure you A very singular kindness it ought to be esteemed if we vile wretches may be permitted to be so happy as but to come near the gates of the celestiall palace Well would it be for us to come but within the sound of those melodious hymns which the heavenly host continually sing or to live but in some of the most remote corners of that heavenly countrey and there enjoy for
many Ages the sweet society of some good Friends in pure love and innocent conversation But hark He tells us we shall live with him and see his Glory and be with his Son Jesus and reign together with him in his heavenly Kingdom and be equall to the Angels and enter into the joy of our Lord and continue with him for ever What manner of love is this that we should be called the Sons of God and being like him behold him as he is Where is our love whither is it run after what is it wandred if it be not here ready to acknowledge this kindness in making us such great such exceeding great and precious promises Ah me that we should have lost our selves so much as not to find our affections forward to meet such a love as this with the highest transport of joy When our hearts so abound with love that we have enough for every thing in the world when there is not a pretty bird or a dog but we have some to spare for it have we none at all for our Lord God for LOVE it self for that Love which hath so loved us Ah blessed Jesus that thou shouldst be pleased to doe so much for those whose hearts thou knewest to be so cold that they would scarce be warmed with the brightest beams of thine inconceivable love How shall we excuse our selves to thee that our Souls are still so frozen after thou the Sun of righteousness hast shone so long so powerfully upon us Let us consider are we fed with a mere fancy do we live onely in a pleasing dream or are we left in doubt of the truth of these things and hang in such suspence that we know not what to think of them No such matter neither He hath compleated his kindness by giving us a Certainty and full assurance of those things which are revealed to us in his Gospell Here are WITNESSES of the highest quality to attest the truth of his Love by whom we know that the Son of God is come and hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true c. This is the true God and Eternall Life And as if one or two were not sufficient here are six Witnesses come to tell us how he loves us Heaven and Earth conspire to draw our hearts to be love of him who hath not onely given us exceeding great Promises but exceeding great Certainty that they are all true and faithfull He knew very well they would seem incredible being as much beyond all our thoughts as they are beyond our deserts And therefore he took care to give us such evidences of their truth as should not merely work in us belief but a full assurance of faith By Himself by his Word by the Holy Ghost by the Water the Bloud and the Spirit we are so many ways rooted and grounded in this perswasion that we cannot but see we are doubly beholden to his infinite bounty first for such exceeding great and precious promises and then for as wonderfully great confirmation of them to our unspeakable and endless comfort And are we not yet apprehensive of his love Doth it not yet feelingly touch our hearts but leave us indifferent whether we will love him or not Ah fools that we are who must be sent to school to those brute creatures mentioned before to teach us better nature and better manners How do our very dogs as I have said elsewhere follow us and fawn upon us for a crust of bread how close do they keep to us how ready are they to defend us and our houses and all belonging to us Even when we are dead some of them have been known not to forsake their Masters for any other And what is all this service for but such things as we have no use of or make no account of our selves O blessed God! who can endure to stay so long as to hear this applied to himself before he learn to love thee I see whither this lesson tends I behold already how shamefull it is to dispose of my heart away from thee Thou hast given us thine own dear Son What a gift how great a boon Thou hast promised us eternall life How invaluable a possession Thou hast given us good hopes and strong consolation What an excessive kindness Shall we not devote our selves to thee shall we not forsake all and follow thee whithersoever thou wilt lead us We cannot refuse we must resolve to surrender our hearts intirely to thee We should be worse then Dogs should we not with all our minds and soul and strength love that transcendent goodness which by the most miraculous demonstrations hath perswaded us that we shall live eternally with himself and enjoy the everlasting fruits of his infinite love This is the most comfortable news that could possibly arrive from heaven Should we have had our own wishes nothing greater nothing so great could have entred into our hearts desire This sweetens the bitterness of all afflictions and this heightens all our joys when we hope the one shall shortly but the other shall never end Plutarch deservedly blamed Epicurus of great incogitancy who making all happiness consist in Pleasure denied the state of the future life which it is the greatest pleasure to hope for and expect Nothing casts such a damp upon all a man's enjoyments here as the cold thoughts of an endless death seizing on his heart He cannot but sigh to think that shortly there must be a finall period put to all his delights As on the contrary this gives life and spirit to them if he can think they shall be improved and perpetuated for ever And therefore how much do we owe to the love of God who hath given us assurance even of the Resurrection of our body to an immortall life and told us it shall be so far from being lost by going to the grave that like Seed it shall rise again quite another thing then it was when cast into the ground no longer weak contemptible corruptible and mortall but powerfull spirituall glorious incorruptible and immortall and consequently capable of purer more spritely and more lasting pleasures then now it injoys O how much more comfortable is this opinion then that of the Epicurean as Tertullian excellently speaks * De Testimonio animae c. iv which vindicates thee from destruction How much more seemly then the Pythagorean which doth not send thee into beasts How much more full then the Platonicall which restores even thy body as a new dowry to thee O tast and see how gracious the Lord is Bonum Deum novimus solum optimum à Christo ejus addiscimus * Id. De Resurrectione carnis cap. ix We knew God was good before but so most excellently good we learn onely from his Christ who bidding us next him to love our Neighbour doth that himself which he expects from us He loves even our body which is so many ways of kin to him II.
true that Jesus lives and is the Lord of all and will give Eternall life to his servants worth more then all the pains they can take for it but which cannot be wone by trifling and careless endeavours and yet offers it self graciously to those that will accept of it on most reasonable terms which we cannot refuse without the greatest disrespect to God and danger to our selves Consider then I beseech you what is the wisest course for him to take that believes all this and doth not think we have been all this time discoursing of a fiction Is every man that reads these things resolved to become a new creature and to say as St. Paul did after he had seen our Saviour Lord what wouldst thou have me to doe or as the Israelites who beheld no such sights as are set before our eyes All that the Lord our God speaks to us we will hear it and doe it O that there were such an heart as it there follows in every one of us that we would mind these things and no longer neglect such great Salvation For what will become of us if being thus convinced what we ought to doe we should put away this Blessedness from us and judge our selves unworthy of Eternall life God forbid that we should be so wicked and so miserable Shall such glorious things and so certain be proposed to us and few or none regard them A Kingdom a Crown of glory lie before us and we scornfully overlook it Wo be to us that the Father from heaven should speak so often and so loudly and we not hearken to his voice That the Eternall Word should appear in glory and we fools be taken more with fading beauties That the Holy Ghost should descend from heaven and the Devill still carry all before him That the Lord Jesus should shed his precious bloud for us and we not part with a vile affection What is become of our wit where do our Souls dwell or what company have they kept that they are grown so void of all reason Or do they think themselves so wise that they have found something better then God something more valuable then Eternall life and more certain too When did the World get it self made so great a Good On what day was it that it engaged hereafter to be more constant to its Friends Where are the Witnesses and the Seal to this bond Ah wretched fools that we are to let our Souls be cheated so easily of such an happiness or rather thus to impose upon our selves with such weak and childish imaginations Is any thing here grown so big that we cannot see the disproportion between it and Heaven or is this World of such grand concern to us that we cannot be at leisure to hear what our Saviour offers us Have we no greater regard to these Witnesses then to suffer them to be baffled by every fleshly reasoning though never so silly and inconsiderable Let us bethink our selves a little better Let us doe them so much right as to examine them impartially and then if they deserve not belief let the Devill and the World take all But if they declare beyond all exception that Jesus is the Lord and hath Eternall life and will bestow it on those that obey him let us not be so bold as to slight him any longer but go and humbly tender our hearts to him and give him thanks that he will accept them Is his yoke think you uneasy and his burthen too great a load What was the load then which he carried when all our sins were laid upon him what a yoke was the Cross it self and all the indignities that he suffered And yet for the joy that was set before him and which he hath now set before us he endured all with admirable patience And indeed what can be too hard for him who knows he labours for an infinite reward Do we not all part with things very desirable for a small gain we are to get by the exchange And how earnest how fierce are we to drive on such a bargain How contentedly can the tradesman lose his dinner on the market-day rather then lose a customer by whom he hopes to gain a shilling All the traffick in the world is carried on by giving one thing for another and many times upon a little advantage And therefore what makes us so unwilling to part with any thing in the world that God calls for when he offers to give us goods of inestimable value in the room of it It is not a small portion that he assures us in his love but he says we shall inherit all things and that for ever When we have served him threescore years and ten and who is there alas that serves him so much he doth not promise to settle on us an estate of so little as fourscore score or an hundred years of incomparable happiness in the next World though we count it no mean bargain here to part with a Lease of 70 years for one of 80 that is of equall value but more then so many Ages more then millions of lives even an Eternall life with himself in the heavens Is there not a vast difference Is not the disparity inconceivable between what we lay out and what we receive and between the bargains we are so greedy of here and this happy exchange which God offers us Why then is it neglected as if it were too dear at the rates on which it is proposed Are we not willing to give so much for it Or is not the security good which God gives us for those heavenly possessions Look over the Evidences again which we have examined and you will be ashamed to call them in question And if you be satisfied it will be a greater shame not to pursue this gainfull purchace with the same eagerness care and diligence that we do our severall imployments in this world We ought to account that day best spent not wherein we have got the most money but wherein we have made some considerable improvement in true wisedom and done some singular service to our Lord Jesus who is our hope And in all our externall affairs let us exercise such justice charity thankfulness and contented humility that we may be able to say if any body ask us what we are doing We work for Eternity And that we may doe so and not like Esau sell our inheritance for a mess of pottage which will not be worth the tears it will cost us in this world if ever we reflect upon our folly let us often cast our eyes upon this Happiness frequently meditate on the joy of our Lord and study seriously those holy Writings wherein these precious promises are recorded The Jews are so proud of their Law which hath no such Jewels in it neither that they fansy the Angels contended with Moses about it and would needs perswade him that it belonged to them * Pirke Elâ—â—zer Cap. XLVI I am sure St.