for the Head yet we are more for Christ as a means to his glory then he for us I mean he is the more excellent principal end For to this end Christ both dyed rose and revived that he might be Lord both of the dead and living Rom. 14. 9. who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God but made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow both of things in heaven and things in earth and under the earth and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father Phil. 2. 6. to 12. Rev. 5. 8 9 10 11 12. And I beheld and I heard the voice of many Angels round about the Throne and the beasts and the elders and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands saying with a loud voice Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing And every creature which is in Heaven and on Earth and under the Earth and such as are in the sea and all that are in them heard I saying Blessing honour glory and power be unto him that sitteth on the Throne and unto the Lamb for ever and ever So Rev. 15. 3 4. 20. 6. Rev. 21. 23. The City had no need of the Sun neither of the Moon to shine in it for the glory of God doth lighten it and the Lamb is the light thereof Rev. 22. 3 4. The Throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it and his servants shall serve him And they shall see his face and his name shall be in their foreheads These and many other Scriptures shew us that God will be for ever Glorified in the person of the Redeemer more then in either men or Angels and consequently that it was the principal part of his Intention in the design of mans Redemption 2. I will be briefer in the rest In the way of Redemption man will be saved with greater humiliation and self-denyal then he should have been in the way of Creation If we had been saved in a way of Innocency we should have had more to ascribe to our selves And it is meet that all Creatures be humbled and abased and nothing in themselves before the Lord. 3. By the way of Redemption sin will be more dishonoured and Holiness more advanced then if sin had never been known in the world Contraries illustrate one another Health would not be so much valued if there were no sickness nor Life if there were no Death nor Day if there were no Night nor Knowledge if there were no Ignorance nor Good if man had not known Evil. The Holiness of God would never have appeared in execution of vindictive Justice against sin if there had never been any sin and therefore he hath permitted it and will recover us from it when he could have prevented our falling into it 4. By this way also Holiness and Recovering Grace shall be more triumphant against the Devil and all its enemies By the many conquests that Christ will make over Satan the World and the Flesh and Death there will very much of God be seen to us that innocency would not thus have manifested 5. Redemption brings God nearer unto man The mysterie of Incarnation giveth us wonderful advantages to have more familiar thoughts of God and to see him in a clearer glass then ever we should else have seen him in on earth and to have access with boldness to the throne of grace The pure Deity is at so vast a distance from us while we are here in flesh that if it had not appeared in the flesh unto us we should have been at a greater loss But now without controversie great is the mysterie of godliness God was manifested in the flesh justified in the spirit seen of Angels preached to the Gentiles believed on in the world and received up into glory 1 Tim. 3. 16. 6. In the way of Redemption man is brought to more earnest and frequent addresses unto God and dependance on him Necessity driveth him And he hath use for more of God or for God in more of the wayes of his mercy then else he would have had 7. Principally in this way of saving miserable man by a Redeemer there is opportunity for the more abundant exercise of Gods mercy and consequently for the more glorious discovery of his Love and Goodness to the sons of men then if they had fallen into no such Necessities Misery prepareth men for the sense of mercy In the Redeemer there is so wonderful a discovery of Love and Mercy as is the astonishment of men and Angels 1 Joh. 3. 1. Behold what manner of Love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God! Eph. 2. 4 5. God who is rich in Mercy for his great Love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sins hath quickened us together with Christ by grace yee are saved and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus that in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us by Christ Jesus for by grace yee are saved through faith and that not of your selves it is the gift of God Not of works lest any man should boast Tit. 3 3 4. For we our selves were sometimes foolish disobedient deceived serving divers lusts and pleasures c. But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to his Mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost Never was there such a discovery of God as he is Love in a way of Mercy to man on earth as in the Redeemer and his benefits 8. In the way of Redemption the soul of man is formed to the most sweet and excellent temper and his obedience cast into the happiest mold The glorious demonstration of Love doth animate us with Love to God and the shedding abroad of his Love in our hearts by the spirit of the Redeemer doth draw out our hearts in Love to him again And the sense of his wonderful Love and Mercy filleth us with Thankfulness so that Love is hereby made the nature of the new man and Thankfulness is the life of all our obedience For all floweth from these principles and expresseth them so that Love is the compendium of all Holiness in one word and Thankfulness of all Evangelical obedience And
his Love He hath readify forgiven the sins which I thought would have made my soul the fuel of Hell He hath entertained me with joy with musick and a feast when I better deserved to have been among the Dogs without his doors He hath embraced me in his sustaining consolatory arms when he might have spurned my guilty soul to Hell and said Depart from me thou worker of iniquity I know thee not O little did I think that he could ever have forgotten the vanity and villany of my youth yea so easily have forgotten my most aggravated sins When I had sinned against light when I had resisted conscience when I had frequently and wilfully injured Love I thought he would never have forgotten it But the greatness of his Love and Mercy and the blood and intercession of his Son hath cancelled all O how many mercies have I tasted since I thought I had sinned away all mercies How patiently hath he born with me since I thought he would never have put up more And yet besides my sins and the withdrawings of my own heart there hath been nothing to interrupt our converse Though he be God and I a worm yet that would not have kept me out Though he be in Heaven yet he is near to succour me on Earth in all that I call upon him for Though he have the Praise of Angels he disdaineth not my tears and groans Though he have the perfect Love of perfect soulâ— he knoweth the little spark in my breast and despiseth not my weak and languid Love Though I injure and dishonour him by Loving him no more though I oft forget him and have been out of the way when he he hath come or called me though I have disobediently turned away mine ears and unkindly refused the entertainments of his Love and unfaithfully plaid with those whose company he forbad me he hath not divorced me nor turned me out of doors O wonderful that Heaven will be familiar with Earth and God with man the Highest with a worm and the most Holy with an unconstant sinner Man refuseth me when God will entertaine me Man that is no wiser or better than my self Those that I never wronged or deserved ill of reject me with reproach And God whom I have unspeakably injured doth invite me and intreat me and condescendeth to me as if he were beholden to me to be saved Men that I have deserved well of do abhorre me And God that I have deserved Hell of doth accept me The best of them are bryars and as a thorny hedge and he is Love and Rest and Joy And yet I can be more welcome to him though I have offended him than I can to them whom I have obliged I have freer leave to cast my self into my Fathers arms than to tumble in those bryars or wallow in the dirt I upbraid my self with my sins but he doth not upbraid me with them I condemn my self for them but he condemns me not He forgiveth me sooner than I can forgive my self I have peace with him before I can have peace of conscience O therefore my soul draw near to him that is so willing of thy company That frowneth thee not away unless it be when thou hast fallen into the dirt that thou mayest wash thee from thy filthiness and be fitter for his converse Draw near to him that will not wrong thee by believing misreports of enemies or laying to thy charge the things thou knewest not but will forgive the wrongs thou hast done to him and justifie thee from the sins that conscience layeth to thy charge Come to him that by his Word and Spirit his Ministers and Mercies calleth thee to come and hath promised that those that come to him he will in no wise shut out O walk with him that will bear thee up and lead thee as by the right hand Psal. 73. 23. and carry his Infants when they cannot go O speak to him that teacheth thee to speak and understandeth and accepts thy stammering and helpeth thine infirmities when thou knowest not what to pray for as thou oughtest and giveth thee groans when thou hast not words and knoweth the meaning of his spirit in thy groans that cannot be contained in the Heaven of Heavens and yet hath respect to the contrite soul that trembleth at his word and feareth his displeasure that pittieth the tears and despiseth not the sighing of a broken heart nor the desires of the sorrowful O walk with him that is never weary of the converse of an upright soul that is never angry with thee but for flying from him or for drawing back or being too strange and refusing the kindness and felicity of his presence The day is coming when the proudest of the sons of men would be glad of a good look from him that thou hast leave to walk with Even they that would not look on thee and they that injured and abused thee and they that inferiours could have no access to O how glad would they be then of a smile or a word of hope and mercy from thy Father Draw near then to him on whom the whole Creation doth depend whose favour at last the proudest and the worst would purchase with the loudest cryes when all their pomp and pleasure is gone and can purchase nothing O walk with him that is Love it self and think him not unwilling or unlovely and let not the deceiver by hideous misrepresentations drive thee from him when thou hast felt a while the storms abroad methinks thou shouldest say How goâ—d how safe how sweet is it to draw near to God! 1. With whom should I so desirously converse as with him whom I must Live with for ever If I take pleasure in my house or land or country my walks my books or friends themselves as clothed with flesh I must possess this pleasure but a little while Henceforth know we no man after the flesh Had we known Christ himself after the flesh we must know him so no more for ever Though his Glorified spiritual Body we shall know Do you converse with Father or Mother with Wives or Children with Pastors and Teachers Though you may converse with these as Glorified Saints when you come to Christ yet in these Relations that they stand in to you now you shall converse with them but a little while For the Time is short It remaineth that both they that have wives be as though they had none and they that weep as though they wept not and they that rejoyce as though they rejoyced not and they that buy as though they possessed not and they that use this world as not abusing it or as though they used it not for the fashion of this world doth pass away 1 Cor. 7. 29 30 31. Why then should I so much regard a converse of so short continuance why should I be so familiar in my Inne and so in love wiâ—h that familiarity as to grieve when I must but think of
and dead to morrow They are our delight to day and our sorrow or horrour to morrow But our God is Immortal Our houses may be burned Our goods may be consumed or stolne our cloaths will be worn out our treasure here may be corrupted But our God is unchangeable the same for ever Our Laws and Customes may be changed our Governours and Priviledges changed our company and employments and habitation changed but our God is never changed Our estates may change from Riches to poverty and our names that were honoured may incur disgrace Our health may quickly turn to sickness and our ease to pain But still our God is unchangeable for ever Our friends are unconstant and may turn our enemies Our Peace may be changed into war and our liberty into slavery but our God doth never change Time will change customes families and all things here but it changeth not our God The Creatures are all but earthen mettal and quickly dasht in peices our comforts are changeable our selves are changeable and mortal but so is not our God 3. And it should teach us to draw as near to God as we are capable by unchangeable fixed Resolutions and constancy of endeavours and to be still the same as we are at the best 4. It should move us also to be more desirous of passing into the state of immortality and to long for our unchangeable habitation and our immortal incorruptible Bodies and to possess the Kingdom that cannot be moved Heb. 12. 28. And let not the mutability of things below much trouble us while our Rock our Portion is unmoveable God waxeth not old Heaven doth not decay by duration the Glory of the blessed shall not wither nor their sun set upon them nor their day have any night nor any mutations or commotions disturb their quiet possessions O Love and Long for Immortality and Incorruption CHAP. VII 6. HAving spoken of the effects of the Attributes of Gods Essence as such we must next speak of the Effects of his three great Attributes which some call Subsistential that is his Omnipotency Understanding and Will or his Infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness By which it hath been the way of the Schoolmen and other Divines to denominate the three Persons not without some countenance from Scripture Phrase The Father they call the Infinite Power of the God head and the Son the Wisdom and Word of God and of the Father and the Holy Ghost the Love and Goodness of God of the Father and Son But that these Attributes of Power Understanding and Will or Power Wisdome and Goodness are of the same importance with the termes of Personality Father Son and Holy Ghost we presume not to affirm It sufficeth us 1. That God hath assumed these Attributes to himself in Scripture 2. And that man who beareth the Natural Image of God hath Power Understanding and Will and as he beareth the Holy Moral Image of God he hath a Power to execute that which is Good and Wisdome to direct and Goodness of Will to determine for the execution And so while God is seen of us in this Glass of Man we must conceive of him after the Image that in man appeareth to us and speak of him in the language of man as he doth of himself And first The Almightiness of God must make these impressions on our souls 1. It must possess the soul with very awful Reverent thoughts of God and fill us continually with his holy Fear Infinite Greatness and Power must have no common careless thoughts lest we Blaspheme him in our Minds and be guilty of Contempt The Dread of the Heavenly Majesty should be still upon us and we must be in his fear all the day long Prov. 23. 17. Not under that slavish Fear that is void of Love as men fear an Enemy or hurtful Creature or that which is Evil For we have not such a spirit from the Lord nor stand in a Relation of enmity and bondage to him But Reverence is necessary and from thence a Fear of sinning and displeasing so Great a God The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdome Prov. 1. 7. and 9. 10. Psal. 111. 10. By it men depart from evil Prov. 16. 6. Sin is for want of the Fear of God Luk. 23. 40. Pro. 3. 7. Jer. 5. 24. I. ev 25. 36. The Fear of God is often put for the whole new man or all the work of Grace within us even the Principle of new life Jer. 2. 19. and 32. 40. And it is often put for the whole work of Religion or Service of God Psal. 34. 11. Prov. 1. 29. Psal. 130. 4. and 34. 9. And therefore the Godly are usually denominated such as Fear God Psal. 15. 4. and 22. 23. and 115. 11 13. and 135. 20. and 34. 7 9. c. The godly are devoted to the Fear of God Psal. 119. 38. It is our Sanctifying the Lord in our hearts that he be our fear and dread Isa. 8. 13. If we Fear him not we take him not for our Master Mal. 1. 6. Evangelical Grace excludeth not this Fear Luk. 12. 5. Though we receive a Kingdom that cannot be moved yet must our acceptable service of God be with Reverence and godly fear Heb. 12. 28. With fear and trembling we must work out our salvation Phil. 2. 12. In fear we must pass the time of â—â—journing here 1 Pet. 1. 17. In it we must converse together Eph. 5. 4. Yea Holiness is to be perfected in the fear of God 2 Cor. 7. 1. and that because we have the Promises The most prosperous Churches walk in this fear Acts 9. 31. It s a necessary means of preventing destruction Heb. 11. 7. and of attaining salvation when we have the promises Heb. 4. 1. God puts this fear in the hearts of those that shall not depart from him Jer. 32. 40. See therefore that the Greatness of the Almighty God possess thy soul continually with his Fear 2. Gods Almightiness should also possess us with holy Admiration of him and cause us in heart and voice to Magnifie him Oh what a Power is that which made the world of nothing which upholdeth the earth without any foundation but his Will which placed and maintaineth all things in their Order in Heaven and Earth which causeth so great and glorious a creature as the Sun that is so much bigger then all the earth to move so many thousand miles in a few moments and constantly to keep its time and course that giveth its instinct to every brute and causeth every part of nature to do its office By his Power it is that every motion of the Creature is performed and that order is kept in the Kingdoms of the world Jer. 32. 17 18 19. He made the Heaven and the Earth by his Great Power and stretched out arm and nothing is too hard for him The Great the Mighty God the Lord of Hosts is his Name great in counsel and mighty in works Neh. 9.
it follow that he sees none If cunning Serpents are too subtle for us do we think that they can overwit the Lord what had become of us long ago if God had not known what ever is plotted at Rome or Spain or Hell against us If he knoweth not of all the consultations of the conclave and of all the contrivances of Jesuits and Fryers and of all the juglings of the masked Emissaries If God had not known of Vaux and his Powder mine it might have blown up all our hopes But while we know that God is in their Councils and heareth every word they say and knoweth every secret of their hearts and every mischief which they enterprise let us do our duty and rest in the wisdom of our great Protector who will prove all his adversaries to have plaid the fools For as sure as his Omnipstency shall be glorified by overtopping all opposing powers so sure shall his Infinite wisdom be glorified by conquering and befooling the wisdom that is against him 7. Lstly if God be Infinite in Knowledge it must resolve us all to live accordingly O Remember what ever thou Thinkest that God is acquainted with all thy Thoughts And wilt thou feed on lustful or covetous or malicious or unbelieving Thoughts in the eye of God Remember in thy prayers and every duty that he knows the very frame of all thy affections and the manner as well as the matter of thy services And wilt thou be cold and careless in the sight of God O Remember in thy secretst sins and thy works of darkness that nothing is unknown to God and that before him thou art in the open light And fearest thou not the face of the Almighty Wilt thou do that when he knoweth it that thou wouldst not do if man did know He knows whether thou deceive thy neighbour or deal uprightly Defraud not therefore for the Lord is the avenger 1 Thes. 4. 6. Do nothing that thou wouldst not have God to know For certainly he knoweth all things Shall he not see that made and illuminateth the eye and shall he not hear that made both tongue and ears and shall he not know that giveth us understanding and by whom we know Psal. 94. 8 9 10. And let this be thy comfort in thy secret duties He that knoweth thy Heart will not overlook the desires of thy Heart though thou hadst not words as thou desirest to express them And he that knoweth thy uprightness will justifie thee if all the world condemn thee He that seeth thee in thy secret Alms or Prayers or Tears will openly reward thee Mat. 6. 4 6. Let this also comfort thee under all the slanders of malicious or misinformed men He that must be thy Judge and theirs is acquainted with the truth who will certainly bring forth thy righteousness as the light and thy judgement as the noone day Psal. 37. 6. O how many souls are justified with the Omniscient God that are condemned by the malignant world And how many blots will be wiped off before the world at the day of Judgement that here did lie upon the names of faithful upright men O how many Hypocrites shall be then disclosed And what a cutting thought should it be to the dissembler that his secret falshood is known to God! And when he hath the Reputation that he sought with men he hath his reward Mat. 6. 2. For its a sadder reward that God will give him CHAP. IX 8. THE next of Gods Attributes that must make its Impress on the soul is Hit Infinite Goodness The Denomination of Goodness as all other his Attributes is fetcht from and suited to the capacity or affections of the soul of man That which is truly Amiable is called Good Not as if there were no Goodness but what is a means to mans felicity as some most sottishly have affirmed For our End and Felicity it self and God as he is Perfect and Excellent in himself is more amiable then all means In three respects therefore it is that God is called Good or Amiable to man 1. In that he is Infinitely Excellent and perfect in Himself For the Love of Friendship is a higher Love then that of Desire And the most perfect sort of Love is that which wholly carrieth the Lover from himself to the perfect object of his Love The soul Delighteth to contemplate excellency when the excellency it self and not the delight is the ultimate end of that desire and contemplation 2. God is called Good as he is the Pattern and Fountain of all Moral Good As he maketh us Righteous Holy Laws commanding Moral Good and forbidding and condemning evil And thus his Goodness is his Holiness and Righteousness his Faithfulness and Truth 3. God is called Good as he is the Fountain of all the Creatures happiness and as he is bountiful and gracious and ready to do good and as he is the felicitating end and object of the soul. And this Infinite goodness must have these effects upon us 1. It must possess us with a superlative Love to God This blessed Attribute is it that makes us Saints indeed and maketh that Impression on us which is as the Heart of the New Creature It is Goodness that produceth Love And Love is that Grace that closeth with God as our Happiness and End and is the felicitating enjoying Grace Without it we are but as sounding brass or tinkling Cymbals whatever our gifts and parts may be 1 Cor. 13. Love is the very excellency of the soul as it closeth with the infinite excellency of God It is the very felicity of the soul as it enjoyeth him that is our felicity Most certainly the prevailing Love of God is the surest evidence of true sanctification He that hath most Love hath most Grace and is the best and strongest Christian and he that hath least Love is the worst or weakest Knowledge and faith are but to work our hearts to Love and when Love is perfect they have done their work 1 Cor. 12. 31. and 13. 8 9 10 13. Teaching and distant Revelations will not be for ever and therefore such Knowledge and Faith as we have now will not be for ever But God will be for ever Amiable to us and therefore Love will endure for ever The goodness of God is called Love and as God is Love so he that dwelleth in Love doth dwell in God and God in him 1 Joh. 4. 16. The knowledge of Divine goodness makes us good because it maketh us Love him that is good It is Love that acteth most purely for God Fear is selfish and hath somewhat of aversation Though there be no evil in God for us to fear yet is there such good in him that will bring the evil of punishment upon the evil and this they fear But Love doth resign the soul to God and that in the most congruous acceptable manner Make it therefore your daily work to possess your souls with the Love of God Love him once and
for sin 2. The Fatherly Love and Benefits of God do call for our best returns of Love The Benefits of Creation oblige all to Love him with all their Heart and Soul and Might Much more the Benefits of Redemption and especially as applyed by sanctifying Grace to them that shall be heirs of life it obligeth them by multiplied strongest obligations The Worst are obliged to as much Love of God as the Best for none can be obliged to more than to Love him with all their Heart c. but they are not as much obliged to that Love We have new and special obligations and therefore must return a Hearty Love or we are doubly guilty Mercies are Loves Messengers sent from Heaven to win up our Hearts to Love again and entice us thither All mercies therefore should be used to this end That mercy that doth not encrease or excite and help our Love is abused and lost as seed that is buried when it 's sowed and never more appeareth Earthly Mercies point to Heaven and tell us whence they come and for what Like the Flowers of the Spring they tell us of the reviving approaches of the Sun But like foolish children because they are near us we Love the Flowers better than the Sun forgetting that the Winter is drawing on But Spiritual Mercies are as the Sun-shine that more immediately dependeth on and floweth from the Sun it self And he that will not see and value the Sun by its Light will never see it These beams come down to invite our Minds and Hearts to God and if we shut the windows or play till night and they return without us we shall be left to utter darkness The Mercies of God must imprint upon our minds the fullest and deepest conceptions of him as the most perfect suitable Lovely Objects to the soul of man when all our Good is Originally in him and all flows from him that hath the Goodness of a Means and finally himself is all not to Love God then is not to Love Goodness it self and there is nothing but Good that 's suited to our Love Night and day therefore should the Believer be drawing and deriving from God by the views and tasts of his precious Mercies a sweetness of nature and increase of holy Love to God as the Bee sucks Honey from the flowers We should not now and then for a recreation light upon a flower and meditate on some Mercy of the Lord but make this our work from day to day and keep continually upon our souls the lively tasts and deep impressions of the Infinite Goodness and Amiableness of God When we Love God most we are at the best most pleasing to God and our lives are sweetest to our selves And when we steep our minds in the believing thoughts of the abundant Fatherly Mercies of the Lord we shall most abundantly Love him Every Mercy is a Suiter to us from God! The contents of them all is this My Son Give mee thy Heart Love him that thus loveth thee Love him or you reject him O wonderful Love that God will regard the Love of man that he will enter into a Covenant of Love that he will be Related to us in a Relation of Love and that he will deal with us on terms of Love that he will give us leave to Love him that are so base and have so Loved Earth and Sin yea and that he will be so earnest a suiter for our Love as if he needed it when it is only we that need But the paths of Love are mysterious and incomprehensible 3. As God is in special a Benefactor and Father to us we must be the readiest and most diligent in obedience to him Childlike duty is the most willing and unwearied kind of duty Where Love is the principle we shall not be eye-servants but delight to do the Will of God and wish O that I could please him more It is a singular delight to a Gracious soul to be upon any acceptable duty and the more he can do good and please the Lord the more he is pleased As Fatherly Love and Benefits are the fullest and the surest so will filial duty be The Heart is no fit soil for Mercies if they grow not up to holy fruits The more you love the more chearfully will you obey 4. From hence we must well learn both How God is mans End and what are the chief Means that lead us to him 1. God is not the End of Reason nakedly considered but he is Finis Amantis the End which Love inclineth us to and which by Love is attained and by love enjoyed The understanding of which would resolve many great perplexing difficulties that à natura finis do step into our way in Theological studies I will name no more now but only that it teacheth us How both God and our own Felicity in the fruition of him may be said to be our Ultimate End without any contradiction yet so that it be Eminently and Chiefly God For it is a Union such as our Natures are capable of that is desired in which the soul doth long to be swallowed up in God Understand but what a filial or friendly Love is and you may understand what a regular Intention is and how God must be the Christians End 2. And withall it shews us that the most direct and excellent means of our felicity and to our End are those that are most suited to the work of Love Others are means more Remotely and necessary in their places but these directly And therefore the Promises and Narratives of the Love and Mercy of the Lord are the most direct and powerful part of the Gospel conducing to our End and the Threatnings the remoter means And therefore as Grace was advanced in the world the Promissory part of Gods Covenant or Law grew more illustrious and the Gospel consisted so much of Promises that it is called Glad tydings of great joy And therefore the most full demonstration of Gods Goodness and Loveliness to our hearers is the most excellent part of all our Preaching though it is not all And therefore the meditation of Redemption is more powerful than the bare meditation of Creation because it is Redemption that most eminently revealeth Love And therefore Christ is the Principal Means of Life because he is the Principal Messenger and Demonstration of the Fathers Love and by the wonders of Love which he revealeth and exhibiteth in his wondrous Grace he wins the soul to the Love of God For God will have external objective means and internal effective means concur because he will work on man agreeably to the nature of man Though there was never given out such prevalent invincible measures of the Spirit as Christ hath given for the Renewing of those that he will save yet shall not that Spirit do it without as excellent objective means And though Christ and the Riches of his Grace revealed in the Gospel be the most wonderful
no if grace do not now set open your hearts and procure him better entertainment But perhaps you will think that you walk with God because you think of him sometimes ineffectually and as on the by But is he esteemed as your God if he have not the Command and if he have not the precedency of his creatures Can you dream that indeed you walk with God when your hearts were never grieved for offending him nor never much solicitous how to be reconciled to him nor much inquisitive whether your state or way be pleasing or displeasing to him when all the business of an unspeakable importance which you have to do with God before you pass to judgement is forgotten and undone as if you knew not of any such work that you had to do when you make no serious preparation for death when you call not upon God in secret or in your families unless with a little heartless lip labour and when you love not the spirituality of his worship but only delude your souls with the mockage of hypocritical outside complement Do you walk with God while you are plotting for preferment and gaping after worldly greatness while you are gratifying all the desires of your flesh and making provision for the future satisfying of its lusts Rom. 13. 13. Are you walking with God when you are hating him in his Holiness his Justice his Word and Waies and hating all that seriously love and seek him when you are doing your worst to dispatch the work of your damnation and put your salvation past all hope and draw as many to Hell with you as you can If this be a walking with God you may take further comfort that you shall also dwell with God according to the sense of such a walk you shall dwell with him as a devouring fire and as just whom you thus walked with in the contempt oâ— his mercies and the provocation of his Justice I tell you if you walkt with God indeed his authority would rule you his Greatness would much take up your minds and leave less room for little things You would trust his promises and fear his threatnings and be awed by his presence and the Idols of your hearts would fall before him He would over power your lusts and call you off from your ambitious and covetous designs and obscure all the creatures Glory Believing serious effectual thoughts of God are very much different from the common doubtful dreaming uneffectual cogitations of the ungodly world Object But perhaps some will say This seemeth to be the work of Preachers and not of every Christian to be alwaies meditating of God Poor people must think of other matters They have their business to do and their families to provide for And ignorant people are weak-headed and are not able either to manage or endure a contemplative life so much thinking of God will make them melancholy and mad as experience tells us it hath done by many and therefore this is no exercise for them To this I answer 1. Every Christian hath a God to serve and a Soul to save and a Christ to believe in and obey and an endless happiness to secure and enjoy as well as Preachers Pastors must study to instruct their flock and to save themselves and those that hear them The people must study to understand and receive the mercy offered them and to make their own calling and election sure It is not said of Pastors only but of every blessed man that His delight is in the Law of the Lord and therein doth he meditate day and night Psal. 1. 2. 2. And the due meditation of the soul upon God is so far from taking you off from your necessary business in the world that it is the only way to your orderly and successful management of it 3. And it is not a distracting thoughtfulness that I perswade you to or which is included in a Christians walk with God but it is a directing quickening exalting comforting course of meditation Many a hundred have grown melancholy and mad with careful discontentful thoughts of the world it doth not follow therefore that no man must think of the world at all for fear of being mad or melancholy but only that they should think of it more regularly and correct the errour of their thoughts and passions so is it about God and heavenly things Our thoughts are to be well ordered and the errour of them cured and not the use of them forborn Atheism and Impiety and forgetting God are unhappy means to prevent melancholy There are wiser means for avoiding madness than by renouncing all our Reason and living by sense like the beasts that perish and forgetting that we have an everlasting life to live But yet because I am sensible that some do here mistake on the other hand and I would not lead you into any extream I shall fully remove the scruple contained in this Objection by shewing you in those following Propositions in what sense and how far your thoughts must be taken up with God supposing what was said in the beginning where I described to you the duty of Walking with God Prop. 1. When we tell you that your Thoughts must be on God it is not a course of idle musing or meer thinking that we call you to but it is a necessary practical thinking of that which you have to do and of him that you must love obey and enjoy You will not forget your Parents or Husband or Wife or Friend and yet you will not spend your time in sitting still and thinking of them with a musing unprofitable thoughtfulness But you will have such thoughts of them and so many as are necessary to the Ends even to the Love and Service which you owe them and to the Delight that your hearts should have in the fruition of them You cannot love or obey or take pleasure in those that you will not think of You will follow your trades or your Masters service but unhappily if you will not think on them Thinking is not the work that we must take up with It is but a subservient instrumental duty to promote some greater higher duty Therefore we must Think of God that we may Love him and do his Service and Trust him and Fear him and Hope in him and make him our Delight And all this is it that we call you to when we are perswading you to Think on God 2. An hypocrite or a wicked enemy of God may Think of him speculatively and perhaps be more frequent in such thoughts than many practical believers A Learned man may study about God as he doth about other matters and names and notions and propositions and decisions concerning God may be a principal part of his Learning A Preacher may study about God and the matters of God as a Physician or a Lawyer do about the matters of their own profession either for the pleasure which knowledge as knowledge brings to humane nature or for
world his God so doth it savour of the same hainous sin to lament our loss of Creatures more than the displeasure of God If God be my enemy or I am fallen under his indignation I have then so much greater matters to lament than the loss or absence or frowns of man as should almost make me forget that there is such a thing as man to be regarded But if God be my Father and my friend in Christ I have then so much to think of with delight and to recreate and content my soul as will proclaim it most incongruous and absurd to lament inordinately the absence of a worm while I have his Love and presence who is All in All. If God cannot content me and be not enough for me how is he then my God or how shall he be my Heaven and everlasting Happiness 2. If God be with me he is with me to whom I am absolutely devoted I am wholly his and have acknowledged his interest in me and long ago disclaimed all usurpers and repented of alienations and unreservedly resigned my self to him And where should I dwell but with him that is my owner and with whom I have made the solemnest Covenant that ever I made â— never gave my self to any other but in subordination to him and with a salvo for his highest inviolable right Where should my goods be but in my own house with whom should a Servant dwell but with his Master and a Wife but with her Husband and Children but with their Father I am nearlier related to my God and to my Saviour than I am to any of my Relations in this world I owe more to him than to all the world I have renounced all the world as they stand in any competition or comparison with him And can I want their company then while I am with him How shall I hate Father and Mother and Wife and Children and Brother and Sister for his sake if I cannot spare them or be without them to enjoy him To hate them is but to use them as men do hated things that is to cast them away with contempt as they would alâ—enate me from Christ and to cleave to him and be satisfied in him alone I am now married to Christ and therefore must chearfully leave Father and Mother and my native place and all to cleave to him And with whom should I now delight to dwell but with him who hath taken me into so near relation to be as it were one flesh with him O my dear Lord hide not thou thy face from an unkind an unworthy sinner Let me but dwell with thee and see thy face and feel the gracious embracements of thy Love and then let me be cast off by all the world if thou see it meetest for me or let all other friends be where they will so that my soul may be with thee I have agreed for thy sake to forsake all even the dearest that shall stand against thee and I resolve by thy grace to stand to this agreement 3. If God be with me I am not alone for he is with me that Loveth me best The Love of all the friends on earth is nothing to his Love O how plainly hath he declared that he loveth me in the strange condescention the sufferings death and intercession of his Son What Love hath he declared in the communications of his Spirit and the operations of his Grace and the near relations into which he brought me What Love hath he declared in in the course of his providences in many and wonderful preservations and deliverances in the conduct of his wisdome and in a life of mercies What Love appeareth in his precious promises and the glorious provisions he hath made for me with himself to all eternity O my Lord I am ashamed that thy Love is so much lost that it hath no better return from an unkind unthankful heart that I am not more delighted in thee and swallowed up in the contemplation of thy Love I can contentedly let go the society and converse of all others for the converse of some one bosome friend that is dearer to me than they all as Jonathan to David And can I not much more be satisfied in thee alone and let go all if I may continue with thee My very Dog will gladly for sake all the Town and all persons in the world to follow me alone And have I not yet found so much Love and Goodness in thee my dear and blessed God as to be willing to converse alone with thee All men delight most in the company of those that Love them best They choose not to converse with the Multitude when they look for solace and content but with their dearest friends And should any be so dear to me as God O were not thy Love unworthily neglected by an unthankful heart I should never be so unsatisfied in thee but should take up or seek my comforts in thee I should then say Whom have I in Heaven but thee and there is none on earth that I desire besides thee Though not only my friends but my flesh and heart themselves should fail me it is thou that will still be the strength of my heart and my portion for ever it is good therefore for me to draw near to thee how far soever I am from man O let me there dwell where thou wilt not be strange for thy loving kindness is better than life instead of the multitude of my turmoiling thoughts let me be taken up in the believing views of thy reconciled face and in the glad attendance upon thy Grace or at least in the multitude of my thoughts within me let thy celestial comforts delight my soul. Let me dwell as in thy family and when I awake let me be still with thee Let me go no whither but where I am still following thee Let me do nothing but thy work nor serve any other but when I may truly call it a serving thee Let me hear nothing but thy voice and let me know thy voice by whatever instrument thou shalt speak Let me never see any thing but thy self and the glass that representeth thee and the books in which I may read thy name And let me never play with the outside and gaze on words and letters as insignificant and not observe thy name which is the sense Whether it be in company or in solitude let me be continually with thee and do thou vouchsafe to hold me by my right hand And guide me with thy counsel and afterwards receive me unto thy glory Psal. 73. 23 24 25 26 28. Psal. 63. 3. 4. If God be with me I am not alone for I shall be with him whose Love is of greater use and benefit to me than the Love of all my friends in the world Their Love may perhaps be some little comfort as it floweth from His But it is His Love by which and upon which I Live It is His Love that gives
worldly trash which are made and new-made to be the dwelling place of God Desire not the company which would diminish your heavenly acquaintance and correspondency Be not unfriendly nor conceited of a self-sufficiency but yet beware lest under the honest ingenuous title of a friend a special faithful prudent faithful friend you should entertain an Idol or an enemy to your Love of God or a corrival and competitor with your highest friend For if you do it is not the specious title of a friend that will save you from the thorns and bryars of disquietment and from greater troubles than ever you found from open enemies O blessed be that High and everlasting friend who is every way suited to the upright souls To their Minds their Memories their Delight their Love c. by surest Truth by fullest Goodness by clearest Light by dearest Love by firmest Constancy c. O why hath my drowsie and dark-sighted soul been so seldome with him why hath it so often so strangely and so unthankfully passed by and not observed him nor hearkened to his kindest calls O what is all this trash and trouble that hath filled my memory and employed my mind and cheated and corrupted my affections while my dearest Lord hath been daies and nights so unworthily forgotten so contemptuously neglected and disregarded and loved as if I loved him not O that these drowsie and those waking nights those loitered lost and empty hours had been spent in the humblest converse with him which have been dreamed and doted away upon now I know not what O my God how much wiser and happier had I been had I rather chosen to mourn with thee than to rejoyce and sport with any other O that I had rather wept with thee than laughed with the creature For the time to come let that be my friend that most befriendeth my dark and dull and backward soul in its undertaken progress and heavenly conversation Or if there be none such upon earth let me here take no one for my friend O blot out every Name from my corrupted heart which hindereth the deeper engraving of thy Name Ah Lord what a stone what a blind ungrateful thing is a Heart not touched with celestial Love yet shall I not run to thee when I have none else that will know me shall I not draw near thee when all fly from me When daily experience cryeth out so loud NONE BUT CHRIST GOD OR NOTHING Ah foolish Heart that hast thought of it Where is that place that Cave or Desert where I might soonest find thee and fullest enjoy thee is it in the wilderness that thou walkest or in the croud in the Closet or in the Church where is it that I might soonest meet with God But alas I now perceive that I have a Heart to find before I am like to find my Lord O Loveless Lifeless stony heart that 's dead to him that gave it Life and to none but him Could I not Love or Think or Feel at all methinks I were less dead than now Less dead if dead than now I am alive I had almost said Lord let me never Love more till I can Love thee Nor think more on any thing till I can more willingly think of thee But I must suppress that wish for Life will act And the mercies and motions of Nature are necessary to those of Grace And therefore in the life of Nature and in the glimmerings of thy Light I will wait for more of the Celestial life My God thou hast my consent It is here attested under my hand Separate me from what and whom thou wilt so I may but be nearer thee Let me Love thee more and feel more of thy Love and then let me Love or be beloved of the world as little as thou wilt I thought self-love had been a more predominant thing But now I find that Repentance hath its Anger its Hatred and its Revenge I am truly Angry with that Heart that hath so oft and foolishly offended thee Methinks I hate that Heart that is so cold and backward in thy love and almost grudge it a dwelling in my breast Alas when Love should be the life of Prayer the life of holy meditation the life of Sermons and of holy conference and my soul in these should long to meet thee and delight to mention thee I straggle Lord I know not whither or I sit still and wish but do not rise and run and follow thee yea I do not what I seem to do All 's dead all 's dead for want of Love I often cry O where is that place where the quickening beams of Heaven are warmest that my frozen soul might seek it out But whither ever I go to City or to Solitude alas I find it is not Place that makes the difference I know that Christ is perfectly replenished with Life and Light and Love Divine And I hear him as our Head and Treasure proclaimed and offered to us in the Gospel This is thy Record that he that hath the Son hath Life O why then is my barren soul so empty I thought I had long ago consented to thy offer and then according to thy Covenant both He and Life in him are mine And yet must I still be dark and dead Ah dearest Lord I say not that I have too long waited but if I continue thus to wait wilt thou never find the time of Love and come and own thy gasping worm wilt thou never dissipate these clouds and shine upon this dead and darkened soul Hath my Night no Day Thrust me not from thee O my God! For that 's a Hell to be thrust from God But sure the cause is all at home could I find it out or rather could I cure it It is sure my face that 's turned from God when I say His face is turned from me But if my Life must here be out of sight and hidden in the Root with Christ in God and if all the rest be reserved for that better world and I must here have but these small beginnings O make me more to Love and long for the blessed day of thine appearing and not to fear the time of my deliverance nor unbelievingly to linger in this Sodom as one that had rather stay with sin then come to thee Though sin hath made me backward to the fight let it not make me backward to receive the Crown Though it hath made me a loiterer in thy work let it not make me backward to receive that wages which thy Love will give to our pardoned poor accepted services Though I have too oft drawn back when I should have come unto thee and walked with thee in thy waies of Grace yet heal that unbelief and disaffection which would make me to draw back when thou callest me to possess thy Glory Though the sickness and lameness of my soul have hindered me in my journey yet let their painfulness help me to desire to be delivered from them and to be at home where without the interposing nights of thy displeasure I shall fully feel thy fullest Love and walk with thy Glorified ones in the Light of thy Glory triumphing in thy Praise for evermore Amen BUT now I have given you these few Directions for the improvement of your solitude for converse with God lest I should occasion the hurt of those that are unfit for the Lesson I have given I must conclude with this Caution which I have formerly also published That it is not melancholly or weak-headed persons who are not able to bear such exercises for whom I have written these Directions Those that are not able to be much in serious solitary thoughtfulness without confusions and distracting suggestions and hurrying vexatious thoughts must set themselves for the most part to those duties which are to be done in company by the help of others and must be very little in solitary duties For to them whose natural faculties are so diseased or weak it is no duty as being no means to do them the desired good but while they strive to do that which they are naturally unable to endure they will but confound and distract themselves and make themselves unable for those other duties which yet they are not utterly unfit for To such persons therefore instead of ordered well-digested Meditations and much time spent in secret thoughtfulness it must suffice that they be brief in secret Prayer and take up with such occasional abrupter Meditations as they are capable of and that they be the more in reading hearing conference and praying and praising God with others untill their melancholly distempers are so far overcome as that by the direction of their Spiritual Guides they may judge themselves fit for this improvement of their Solitude FINIS * Charles Earl of Balcarres who dyed of a stone in his heart of a very strange magnitude
The Divine Life IN THREE TREATISES THE FIRST Of the Knowledge of God THE SECOND Of Walking with God THE THIRD Of Coversing with God In SOLITUDE By RICHARD BAXTER LONDON Printed for Francis Tyton at the three Daggers in Fleetstreet and Nevil Simmons Bookseller in Kederminster 1664. A TREATISE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. AND THE Impression which it must make upon the Heart and its necessary Effects upon our Lives Upon John 17. 3. By RICHARD BAXTER LONDON Printed for Francis Tyton at the three Daggers in Fleetstreet and Nevil Simmons Bookseller in Kederminster 1664. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE AND Exemplary Lady ANN COUNTESS OF BALCARRES MADAM IN hope of the fuller pardon of my delay I now present you with two other Treatises besides the Sermon enlarged which at your desire I preached at your departure hence I knew of many and great afflictions which you had undergone in the removal of your dearest friends which made this subject seem so suitable and seasonable to you at that time But I knew not that God was about to make so great an addition to your tryals in the same kind by taking to himself the principal branch of your Noble Family by a rare disease the embleme of the mortal malady now raigning I hope this loss also shall promote your gain by keeping you nearer to your Heavenly Lord who is so jealous of your affections and resolved to have them entirely to himself And then you will still find that you are not alone nor deprived of your dearest or most necessary friend while the Father the Son the sanctifying and comforting Spirit is with you And it should not be hard to reconcile us to the disposals of so sure a friend Nothing but good can come from God however the blind may miscall it who know no Good or Evil but what is measured by the private standard of their selfish interest and that as judged of by sense Eternal Love engaged by Covenant to make us happy will do nothing but what we shall find at last will terminate in that blessed end He envyed you not your Son as too good for you or too great a mercy who hath given you his own Son and with him the mercy of eternal life Corporal sufferings with Spiritual blessings are the ordinary lot of Believers here on earth As corporal prosperity with spiritual calamity is the lot of the ungodly And I beseech you consider that God knoweth better than you or I what an Ocean your son was ready to lanch out into and how tempestuous and terrible it might have proved and whether the world that he is saved from would have afforded him more of safety or seduction of comfort or calamity whether the protraction of the life of your Noble husband to have seen our sins and their effects and consequents would have afforded him greater joy or sorrow Undoubtedly as God had a better title to your Husband and Children and Friends than you had so it is much better to be with him than to be with you or with the best or greatest upon earth The heavenly inhabitants fear not our fears and feel not our afflictions They are past our dangers and out of the reach of all our enemies and delivered from our pains and cares and have the full possession of all those mercies which we pray and labour for Can you think your Children and Friends that are with Christ are not safer and better than those that yet remain with you Do you think that earth is better than heaven for you your self I take it for granted you cannot think so and will not say so And if it be worse for you it s worse for them The providence which by hastening their Glorification doth promote your Sanctification which helpeth them to the End and helpeth you in the Way must needs be good to them and you however it appear to flesh and unbelief O Madam when our Lord hath shewed us as he will shortly do what a state it is to which he bringeth the spirits of the just and how he doth there entertain and use them we shall then be more competent judges of all those acts of Providence to which we are now so hardly reconciled Then we shall censure our censurings of these works of God and be offended with our offences at them and call our selves blind unthankful sinners for calling them so bad as we did in our misjudging unbelief and passion We shall not wish our selves or friends again on earth among temptations and pains and among uncharitable men malicious enemies deceitful flatterers and untrusty friends When we see that face which we now long to see and know the things which we long to know and feel the Love which we long to feel and are full of the joyes which now we can scarce attain a taste of and have reacht the End which now we seek and for which we suffer we shall no more take it for a judgement to be taken from ungodly men and from a world of sin and fear and sorrow nor shall we envy the wicked nor ever desire to be partakers of their pleasures Till then let us congratulate our departed friends the felicity which they have attained and which we desire and let us rejoyce with them that rejoyce with Christ and let us prefer the least believing thought of the everlasting joyes before all the defiled transitory pleasures of the deluded dreaming miserable world And let us prefer such converse as we can here attain with God in Christ and with the Heavenly Society before all the pomp and friendship of the world We have no friend that is so able to supply all our wants so sufficient to content us so ready to relieve us so willing to entertain us so unwearied in hearing us and conversing with us as our blessed Lord. This is a friend that will never prove untrusty nor be changed by any change of interest opinion or fortune nor give us cause to suspect his Love A friend that we are sure will not forsake us nor turn our enemy nor abuse us for his own advantage nor will ever dye or be separated from us but we shall be alwaies with him and see his Glory and be filled and transported with his Love and sing his praise to all Eternity With whom then should we so delightfully converse on Earth and till we can reach that sweet delightful converse whom should we seek with more ambition or observe with greater devotedness and respect O that we were less carnal and more spiritual and lived less by Sense and more by Faith that we knew better the difference between God and Man between visible Temporals and invisible Eternals we should then have other thoughts and desires and resolutions and converse and employments and pleasures than too many have Madam it displeaseth me that it is no more elaborate a Treatise to which the present opportunity inviteth me to prefix your Name but your own Desire of the
and of its due effects p. 50 CHAP. VIII Of the Knowledge of Gods Omniscience or Infinite Wisdome with the due effects p. 57 CHAP. IX Of the Knowledge of Gods Infinite Goodness and Love and of the due impression of it on the soul. p. 65 CHAP. X. Of the Knowledge of God as the first Cause Creator and Preserver of all things All things are for God as the Ultimate End manifested How his Will is still fulfilled Whether he will de eventu that all obey him God willeth not sin Differences ended about it Whether he Decree not or will not ut evenit peccatum Whether he will de eventu that sin shall not come to pass when it doth All Gods works good None to be dishonoured no not our selves our Reason and Free-will as Natural and of God though as vitiated by us and ill disposed we must accuse it p. 76 CHAP. XI Of the Knowledge of God as our Redeemer Infants not in a state of Innocency but of Original sin fully proved The great ends of Redemption enumerated The effects it must have upon the soul. p. 86 CHAP. XII The Knowledge of God the Holy Ghost as our Sanctifier and Comforter A further proof of Original sin Twenty considerations by way of Quere's to convince them that deny or extenuate the Sanctifying works of the Holy Ghost ascribing them to Nature and themselves p. 100 CHAP. XIII Of the Knowledge of God as the Absolute Owner Proprietary or Lord of all of his Jus Dominii grounded on his Creation and Redemption and the Uses p. 109 CHAP. XIV Of the Knowledge of God as our Soveraign Governour or King His Jus Imperii The grounds The exercise The uses and effects p. 115 CHAP. XV. Of the Knowledge of God as our most bountiful Benefactor or most Loving Father The Benefits founding this Relation 1. Common 2. Special to his chosen ones The necessary effects p. 124 CHAP. XVI Of the Freedome of God p. 131 CHAP. XVII Of the Justice of God what it is the effects p. 132 CHAP. XVIII Of the Knowledge of Gods Holiness What it is The necessary effects p. 133 CHAP. XIX Of Gods Veracity or Truth and Faithfulness The Uses The Dominicans doctrine of Phyfical efficient immediate predetermination at once obliterateth all Divine faith by denying the Veracity of God which is its formal Object Lying and Perjury abhominable p. 138 CHAP. XX. Of the Knowledge of Gods Mercifulness including his Patience and long suffering and the necessary uses and effects p. 144 CHAP. XXI Of the Knowledge of Gods Dreadfulness or Terribleness and the necessary uses and effects p. 148 ERRATA PAge 20. l. 1. blot out it p. 54. l. 25. r. a fly p. 58. l. 20. r. themselves p. 78. l. 35. r. Doth he not p. 82. l. 7. r. wilfully l. 29. r. he hath l. 3â— r. workers p. 106. l. â— blot out that p. 118. l. 22. r. wheele p. 127. l. 30. r. Object p. 145. l 26 for us r. it p. 146. l. 5 r. breath 's in p. 151. l 18. r. true p. 178. l. 37 blot out of p 187. l. 20. for particular r practical p. 204. l. 26. r would not be p. 219. l. 8. r. possessor p. 229. l. 33. for presumptuous r. awakened p 243 l. 22. r. unproved p. 252. l. 27 r. straining p. 259. l. 5 for do r. no. l. 12. for Hâ— r No. l. 24. after and r. his p. 266. l. 24. for what r that p. 276. l. 10. for any r an l. 21. r. preparation p. 282. l. 22. blot out not p. 306. l. 14. r. grudge and distasts p. 307. l. 4. blot out that p 310. l. 4. for serve r. seem p. 315 l. 27. for might r. wight p. 337. l. 14. for in r is p. 357. l. 16. blot out a. p. 369. l. 20. for formâ— r. found p. 371. l. 33 r. workers p. 372. l. 16. for that r. than p. 375. l. 19 blot out faithful p. 376. l. 20. for of it r. oft p. 377. l. 31. for nor r. no. JOHN 17. 3. And this is Life Eternal that they might know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent CHAP. I. GOD is the Principal Efficient the Supream Directive and the Ultimate final Cause of man For OF him and THROUGH him and TO him are all things and to him shall be the Glory for ever Rom. 11. 36. The New life or Nature in the Saints is his Image Col. 3. 10. The Principle of it is called The Divine Nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. The exercise of that principle including the principle it self is called The life of God Eph. 4. 18. from which the Gentiles are said to be alienated by their ignorance Therefore it is called Holiness which is a separation to God from common use and Gods dwelling in us and ours in him 1 John 4. 12 13. of whom we are said to be born and regenerate 1 John 4. 7. John 3. 5. And our perfection in Glory is our living with God and enjoying him for ever GODLINES then is the comprehensive name of all true Religion Jesus Christ himself came but to restore corrupted man to the Love and Obedience and Fruition of his Creator and at last will give up the Kingdom to the Father that God may be All and in all and the Son himself shall be subject to this end 1 Cor. 15. 24 28. The End of Christs Sacrifice and Intercession is to Reconcile God and man The End of his Doctrine is to teach us to know God The end of his Government is to reduce us to the perfect obedience of our Maker It is therefore the greatest Duty of a Christian to know God as revealed by his Son and it is such a Duty about our Ultimate End as is also our greatest Mercy and Felicity Therefore doth the Lord Jesus here in the Text describe that Life Eternal which he was to give to those whom the Father had given him to consist in Knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he had sent My purpose is in this Treatise to speak only of the first part of the Text The Knowledge of God And first I shall very briefly explain the Text. THIS That is This which I am describing LIFE Life is taken sometime for the Souls abode in the Body which is the Natural Life of man or the souls continuation in its separated state which is the Natural life of the soul and sometimes for the Perfections of Natural life And that either its Natural Perfection that is Its Health and Vivacity or its moral perfection or Rectitude and that is either in the Cause and so God is our Life Christ is our Life the Holy Spirit is our Life or in it self and so Holiness is our Life in the Principle Seed or Habit. Sometime Life is taken for the Work Imployment and Exercise of Life and so a Holy Conversation is our Moral Spiritual or holy life And sometime it is taken for the Felicity of
the living And so it containeth all the former in their highest perfection that is both Natural Life and Moral-Spiritual Life and the holy exercise thereof together with the full attainment and fruition of God in Glory the End of all ETERNAL That is simply eternal objectively as to God the principal object and Eternal ex parte post subjectively that is Everlasting THIS IS LIFE ETERNAL Not Natural life in it self considered as the Devils and wicked men shall have it But 1. It is the same Moral-Spiritual Life which shall have no End but endure to Eternity It is a Living to God in Love But only initial and very imperfect here in comparison of what it will be in Heaven 2. It is the Eternal felicity 1. Seminally for Grace is as it were a seed of Glory 2. As it is the Necessary way or means of attaining it and that preparation which infallibly procureth it The Perfect Holiness of the Saints in Heaven will be one part of their perfect happiness And this Holiness imperfect they have here in this life It is the same God that we know and love here and there and with a Knowledge and Love that is of the same nature seminally As the egg is of the nature of the Bird Whether it may be properly said to be formally and specifically the same quoad actum as well as quoad objectum yea whether the Objectum clare visum and the objectum in speculo vel aenigmate visum make not the act specifically differ I shall not trouble you to dispute And this imperfect Holiness hath the promise of Perfect Holiness and Happiness in the full fruition of God hereafter So it is the Seed and Prognostick of Life Eternal TO KNOW Non semper ubique eodem modo vel gradu Not to know God here and hereafter in the same manner or degree But to know him here as in a glass and hereafter in his Glory as face to face To know him by an Affective Practical knowledge There is no Text of Scripture of which the rule is more clearly true and necessary than of this that Words of Knowledge do imply affection It is the closure of the whole soul with God which is here called the knowing of God And because it is not meet to name every particular act of the soul when ever this duty is mentioned it is all denominated from Knowledge as the first Act which inferreth all the rest 1. Knowledge of God in the Habit is Spiritual Life as a Principle 2. Knowledge of God in the exercise is Spiritaal Life as an employment 3. The Knowledge of God in perfection with its effects is Life Eternal as it signifieth full felicity What it containeth I shall further shew anon THEE That is The Father called by some Divines Fons vel fundamentum Trinitatis the fountain or foundation of the Trinity and oft used in the same sense as the word GOD to signifie the pure Deity THE ONLY He that believeth that there is more Gods than One believeth not in any For though he may give many the Name yet the description of the true God can agree to none of them He is not God indeed if he be not One only This doth not at all exclude Jesus Christ as the second person in Trinity but only distinguisheth the pure Deity or the Only true God as such from Jesus Christ as Mediator between God and man TRUE There are many that falsly and Metaphorically are called Gods If we think of God but as one of these it is not to know him but deny him GOD The word GOD doth not only signifie the Divine perfections in himself but also his Relation to the Creatures To be a God to us is to be one to whom we must ascribe all that we are or have and one whom we must Love and obey and honour with all the powers of soul and body and one on whom we totally depend and from whom we expect our judgement and reward in whom alone we can be perfectly blessed AND JESUS CHRIST That is As Mediator in his Natures God and man and in his Office and Grace WHOM THOU HAST SENT That is whom thy Love and Wisdom designed and commissioned to this undertaking and performance The Knowledge of the Holy Ghost seemeth here left out as if it were no part of life Eternal But 1. At that time the Holy Ghost in that Eminent sort as sent by the Father and Son on the Apostles after the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ was not yet so manifested as afterwards and therefore not so necessarily to be distinctly known and believed in as after The having of the Spirit being of more necessity than the distinct knowledge of him Certain it is that the Disciples were at first very dark in this article of faith And Scripture more fully revealeth the necessity to salvation of believing in the Father and Son than in the Holy Ghost distinctly yet telling us that if any man have not the spirit of Christ the same is none of his Rom. 8. 9. 2. But presently after when the Spirit was to be sent the necessity of believing in him is expressed especially in the Apostles Commission to Baptize all Nations that were made Disciples in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost Doct. THe Knowledge of the only true God and of Jesus Christ the Mediator is the Life of Grace and the necessary way to the life of Glory As James distinguisheth between such a dead faith as Devils and wicked men had and such a living and working faith as was proper to the justified so must we here of the Knowledge of God Many profess that they know God but in works they deny him being abominable and disobedient and to every good work reprobate Tit. 1. 16. There is a form of knowledge which the unbelievers had Rom. 2. 22. and a knowledge which puffeth up and is void of Love which hypocrites have 1 Cor. 8. 1. 13. But no man spiritually knoweth the things of God but by the spirit And they that rightly know his name will put their trust in him Psal. 9 10. Thus he giveth the regenerate a heart to know him Jer. 24. 7. and the new creature is renewed in knowledge Col. 3. 10. And vengeance shall be poured out on them that know not God 2 Thes. 1. 8. This saving Knowledge of God which is Eternal Life containeth and implyeth in it all these acts 1. The understandings apprehesion of God according to the necessary articles of faith 2. A Belief of the truth of these articles that God is and is such as he is therein described 3. An high estimation of God accordingly 4. A Volition complacency or Love to him as God the chiefest Good 5. A Desiring after him 6. A Choosing him with the rejection of all competitors 7. A Consent that he be our God and a giving up our selves to him as his people 8. An intending him as our Ultimate End in
we must say that in this Blessed Deity in the Unity of Essence there is a Trinity of Essential properties and Attributes that is Power Wisdom and Goodness Life Light and Love The measure of which is to have no measure but to be Infinite And therefore this Being is Eternal and not measured by Time being without Beginning or end He is Immense as being not measured by Place but containeth all places and is contained in none He is Perfect as not Measured by Parts or by Degrees but quite above Degrees and Parts This Infiniteness of his Being doth communicate it self or also consist in the Infiniteness of his Essential properties His Power is Omipotency that is Infinite Power His Knowledge or wisdom is Omniscience that is Infinite Wisdom His Goodness is Felicity it self or Infinite Goodness The first seal to our Cognisance on which he engraved this his Image was the Creation that is 1. The whole world in General 2. The Intellectual Nature or Man in special In the Being of the Creation and every particular Creature his Infinite Being is revealed so wretched a Fool is the Atheist that by denying God he denyeth all things Could he prove that there is no God I would quickly prove that there is no world no man no creature If he know that he is himself or that the world or any Creature is he may know that God is For God is the Original Being And all Being that is not Eternal must have some Original And that which hath no Original is God being Eternal Infinite and without cause The Power of God is revealed in the Being and Powers of the Creation His Wisdom is revealed in their Nature Order Offices Effects c. His Goodness is revealed in the Creatures Goodness its beauty usefulness and accomplishments But though all his Image thus appear upon the Creation yet is it his Omnipotency that principally there appears The beholding and consideration of the wonderful greatness activity and excellency of the Sun the Moon the Stars the fire and other creatures doth first and chiefly possess us with apprehensions of the Infinite Greatness or Power of the Creator In the Holy Word or Laws of God which is the second glass or seal more clear and legible to us than the former there appeareth also all his Image His power in the narratives predictions c. His Wisdom in the prophesies precepts and in all His Goodness in the promises and institutions in a special manner But yet it is his second property his Wisdom that most eminently appeareth on this second seal and is seen in the glass of the holy Law The discovery of such mysteries the revelation of so many Truths the suitableness of all the instituted means and the admirable fitness of all the holy contrivances of God and all his precepts promises and threatnings for the Government of Mankind and carrying him on for the attainment of his end in a way agreeable to his nature these shew that wisdom that is most Eminently here revealed though Power and Goodness be revealed with it so in the face of Jesus Christ who is the third and most perfect seal and glass there is the Image of the Power and Wisdom and Goodness of the Godhead But yet it is the Love or Goodness of the Father that is most Eminently revealed in the son His Power appeared in the incarnation the conquests over Satan and the world the Miracles the Resurrection and the Ascension of Christ. His wisdom appeareth in the admirable mysterie of Redemption and in all the parts of the office works and laws of Christ and in the means appointed in subordination to him But Love and Goodness shineth most clearly and amiably through the whole it being the very end of Christ in this blessed work to reveal God to man in the Richoâ— of his Love as giving us the greatest mercies by the most precious means in the meetest season and manner for our good Reconciling us to himself and treating us as Children with Fatherly compassions and bringing us nearer him and opening to us the everlasting treasure having brought life and immortality to light in the Gospel God being thus revealed to man from without in the three Glasses or Seals of the Creation Law and Son himself he is also revealed to us in our selves man being as it were a little world In the Nature of man is revealed as in a Seal or Glass the nature of the blessed God in some measure In Unity of Essence we have a Trinity of Faculties of soul even the Vegetative Sensitive and Rational as our bodies have both parts and spirits Natural Vital and Animal the Rational Power in Unity hath also its Trinity of faculties even Power for Execution Understanding for Direction and Will for Command The measure of Power is Naturally sufficient to its use and end the understanding is a faculty to reason discern and discourse The will hath that Freedom which beseemeth an undetermined self-determining creature here in the way Besides this Physical Image of God that is inseparable from our Nature we have also his Law written in our hearts and are our selves objectively part of the Law of nature that is the signifiers of the will of God Had we not by sin obliterated somewhat of this Image it would have shewed it self more clearly and we should have been more capable of understanding it And then when we are Regenerate and Renewed by the Grace and Spirit of Christ and planted into him as living members of his body we have then the third impression upon our souls and are made like our Head in Wisdom Holiness and in effectual strength Considered as Creatures endued with Power understanding and will we have the Impress of all the foresaid Attributes of God But Eminently of his Power Considered as we were at first possessed with the light and law of works or Nature of which we yet retain some part so we have the Impress of all these Attributes of God But most Eminently of his Wisdom Considered as Regenerate by the Spirit and planted into Christ so we have the impress of all his said Attributes But most eminently of his Love and Goodness shining in the Moral accomplishments or graces of the soul. Man being thus made at first the Natural and Sapiential image of God with much of the Image of his Love the Lord did presently by necessary Resultancy and voluntary consent stand Related to us in such variety of Relations as answer the foresaid Properties and Attributes And these Relations of God to us are next to be known as flowing from his Attributes and Works As we have our derived Being from God who is the Primitive Eternal Being so from our Being given by Creation God is Related to us as our Maker From this Relation of a Creator in Unity there ariseth a Trinity of Relations This Trintty is in that Unity and that Unity in this Trinty First God having made us of nothing is necessarily
all that he saith and doth will be more acceptable to you and all that you say or do in Love will be more acceptable unto him Love him and you will be loth to offend him you will be desirous to please him you will be satisfied in his Love Love him and you may be sure that he Loveth you Love is the fulfilling of his Law Rom. 13. 10. And that you may Love him this must be your work to Believe and Contemplate his goodness Consider daily of the Infinite goodness or Amiableness of his Nature and of his excellency appearing in his works and of the perfect Holiness of his Laws But especially see him in the face of Christ and behold his Love in the design of our Redemption in the person of the Redeemer and in the promises of Grace and in all the benefits of Redemption Yea look by Faith to Heaven it self and think how you must for ever live in the perfect blessed Love of infinite enjoyed goodness As it is the knowledge and sight of gold or beauty or any other earthly vanity that kindleth the Love of them in the minds of men so is it the knowledge and serious contemplation of the goodness of God that must make us Love him if ever we will Love him 2. The goodness of God must also encourage the soul to trust him For Infinite good will not deceive us Nor can we fear any hurt from him but what we wilfully bring upon our selves If I knew but which were the best and most Loving man in the world I could trust him above all men and I should not fear any injury from him How many friends have I that I dare trust with my estate and life because I know that they have Love and goodness in their low degree And shall I not trust the Blessed God that is Love it self and Infinitely good what ever he will be in Justice to the ungodly I am sure he delighteth not in the death of sinners but rather that they turn and live and that he will not cast off the soul that Loveth him and would fain be fully conformed to his will It cannot be that he should spurn at them that are humbled at his feet and long and pray and seek and mourn after nothing more then his grace and love Think not of God as if he were scanter of love and goodness then the Creature is If you have high and confident thoughts of the goodness and fidelity of any man on earth and dare quietly trust him with your life and all see that you have much higher thoughts of God and trust him with greater confidence left you set him below the silly creature in the Attributes of his goodness which his Glory and your Happiness require you to know 3. The Infinite goodness of God must call off our hearts from the inordinate Love of all created good whatever Who would stoop so low as earth that may converse with God And who would feed on such poor delights that hath tasted the graciousness of the Lord Nothing more sure then that the Love of God doth not reign in that soul where the Love of the world or of fleshly lust or pleasure reigneth 1 John 2. 15. Had worldlings or sensual or ambitious men but truly known the goodness of the Lord they could never have so fallen in Love with those deceitful vanities If we could but open their eyes to see the Loveliness of their Redeemer they would soon be weaned from other Loves Would you conquer the Love of Riches or Honour or any thing else that corrupteth your affections O try this sure and powerful way Draw nigh to God and take the fullest view thou canst in thy most serious Meditation of his Infinite goodness and all things else will be vile in thy esteem and thy heart will soon contemn them and forget them and thou wilt never dote upon them more 4. The Infinite goodness of God should increase Repentance and win the soul to a more resolute chearful service of the Lord. O what a heart is that which can offend and wilfully offend so good a God! This is the odiousness of sin that it is an abuse of an Infinite good This is the most hainous damning aggravation of it that Infinite goodness could not prevail with wretched souls against the empty flattering world but that they suffered a dream and shadow to weigh down Infinite goodness in their esteem And is it possible for worse then this to be found in man He that had rather the sun were out of the firmament then a hair were taken off his head were unworthy to see the light of the Sun And surely he that will turn away from God himself to enjoy the pleasures of his flesh is unworthy to enjoy the Lord. It s bad enough that Augustine in one of his Epistles saith of sottish worldly men that they had rather there were two stars fewer in the firmament then one Cow fewer in their Pastures or one tree fewer in their woods or grounds But it is ten thousand times a greater evil that every wicked man is guilty of that will rather forsake the Living God and lose his part in Infinite goodness then he will let go his filthy and unprofitable sins O Sinners as you love your souls despise not the riches of the goodness and forbearance and long suffering of the Lord but know that his goodness should lead you to Repentance Rom. 2. 4. Would you spit at the Sun Would you revile the stars Would you curse the holy Angels If not O do not ten thousand fold worse by your wilful sinning against the Infinite Goodness it self But for you Christians that have seen the Amiableness of the Lord and tasted of his perfect Goodness let this be enough to melt your hearts that ever you have wilfully sin'd against him O what a Good did you contemn in the dayes of your unregeneracy and in the hour of your sin Be not so ingrateful and disingenuous as to do so again Remember when ever a Temptation comes that it would entice you from the Infinite Good Ask the tempter man or Devil Whether he hath more then an Infinite Good to offer you and whether he can outbid the Lord for your affection And now for the time that is before you how cheerfully should you address your selves unto his service and how delightfully should you follow it on from day to day What manner of persons should the servants of this God be that are called to nothing but what is Good How Good a Master how good a work and how good company encouragements and helps and how good an End All is good because it is the Infinite Good that we serve and seek And shall we be loitering unprofitable servants 5. Moreover this Infinite Goodness should be the matter of our daily Praises He that cannot cheerfully magnifie this Attribute of God so suitable to the nature of the Will is surely a stranger to the
innocent therefore by the deeds of the Law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God being justified freely by his grace through the Redemption that is in Jesus Christ Isa. 53. 6. All we like sheep have gone astray we have turned every one to his own way and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all Rom. 5. 15. Through the offence of one many are dead 16. And the judgement was by One to condemnation 17. By the offence of one death reigned by one 18. By the offence of one judgement came on all men to condemnation 19. By one mans disobedience many were made sinners Psal. 51. 4. We were shapen in iniquity and in sin did our mothers conceive us Eph. 2. 1 3. We were by nature the Children of wrath and dead in trespasses and sin 1 Cor. 15. 22. In Adam all die 2 Cor. 5. 14 We thus judge that if one dyed for all then were all dead Eph 5. 23. Christ is the Saviour of the Body v. 25 26 27. Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it that he might sanctifie and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word that he might present it to himself a glorious Church If Infants have no sin and misery then they are none of the Body the Church which Christ loved and gave himself for that he might cleanse it But what need we further proof when we have the common experience of all the world Would every man that is born of a woman without exception so early manifest sin in the life if there were no corrupt disposition at the heart And should all mankind without exception tast of the punishment of sin if they had no participation of the guilt Death is the wages of sin and by sin death entred into the world and it passeth upon all men for that all have sinned Rom. 5. 12. Infants have sickness and torments and death which are the fruits of sin And were they not presented to Christ as a Saviour when he took them in his arms and blessed them and said Of such is the Kingdom of God Certainly none that never were guilty or miserable are capable of a place in the Kingdom of the Mediator For to what end should he mediate for them or how can he Redeem them that need not a Redemption or how should he reconcile them to God that never were at enmity with him Or how can he wash them that were never unclean Or how can he be a Physicion to them that never were sick when the whole have no need of the Physicion Mat. 9. 12. He came to seek and to save that which was lost Luk. 19. 10. and to save his people from their sins Mat. 1. 21. They are none of his saved people therefore that had no sin He came to redeem those that were under the Law Gal. 4. 5. But it is most certain that Infants were under the Law as well as the adult And 〈…〉 a paâ—â— of his people Israel whom he visited and Re 〈…〉 1. 68. If ever they be admitted into Glory they 〈…〉 him that Redeemed 〈…〉 God doth first justifie those whom he Glorifieth Rom. 8. 30. And they must be born again that will enter into his Kingdom Jâ—h 3. 3 5. And there is no Regeneration or renovation but from sin Col. 3. 10. Eph. 4. 22. Nor any Justification but from sin and from what we could not be Justified from by the Law of Moses Act. 13. 30. Nor any Justification but what containeth a Remission of sin Rom. 3. 25. And where there is no sin there is none to be Remitted Nor is there any Justification but what is through the Redemption that is in Christ Jesus and his propitiation Rom. 3. 24 25. He is made of God Redemption to us 1 Cor. 1. 30. And the Redemption that we have by him is Remission of sins by his blood Col. 1. 14. Eph. 1. 7. By his own blood entered he once into the holy place having obtained eternal Redemption for us The eternal inheritance is received by means of death for the Redemption of transgressions Heb. 9. 12 15. so that all Scripture speaks this truth aloud to us that there is now no salvation promised but to the Church the Justified the Regenerate the Redeemed and that none can be capable of these but sinners and such as are lost and miserable in themselves And till our necessity be understood Redemption cannot be well understood They that believe that Christ dyed not only for this or that man in particular but for the world methinks should believe that the world are sinners and need his death He is called the Saviour of the world Joh. 4. 42. and the Saviour of all men especially of believers 1 Tim. 4. 10. 1 Joh. 4. 14. We have seen and do testifie that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world And from what doth he save them From their sins Mat. 1. 21. and from the wrath to come 1 Thes. 1. 10. For this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners Infants then are sinners or none of those that he came to save Christ hath made no man Righteous by his Obedience but such as Adam made sinners by his disobedience Rom. 5. 19. For as by one mans disobedience many were made sinners so by the obedience of one many shall be made Righteous Infants are not made Righteous by Christ if they were not sinners And sinners they cannot be by any but Original sin Rom. 5. 8 9 10. God commended his Love to us in that while we were yet sinners Christ dyed for us Much more being now Justified by his blood we shall be saved from wrath through him When we were enemies we were Reconciled to God by the death of his Son so that it is sinners that Christ dyed for and sinners that are justified by his blood and sinners that are reconciled to God Infants therefore are sinners or they are none of the Redeemed Justified or reconciled And when Jesus Christ by the grace of God did taste death for every man Heb. 2. 9. Infants are sure included There is one Mediator between God and men the man Christ Jesus who gave himself a Ransom for all 1 Tim. 2. 5 6. therefore all had sin and misery and needed that ransome He is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world And is it not plain then that the whole world are sinners I speak all this for the evincing of Original sin only because that only is denyed by such as yet pretend to Christianity For actual sin is commonly confessed and shews it self And truly so doth Original sin in our proneness to actual and in the earliness and commonness of such evil inclinations and in the remnants of it which the sanctified
14. To conclude Vindictive Justice will be doubly honoured upon them that are final rejecters of this grace Though conscience would have had matter enough to work upon for the torment of the sinner and the justifying of God upon the meer violation of the Law of nature or works yet nothing to what it now will have on them that are the despisers of this great salvation For of how much sorer punishment suppose yee shall he be thought worthy that hath trodden under foot the Son of God when it is willful impenitency against most excellent means and mercies that is to be charged upon sinners and when they perish because they would not be saved Justice will be most fully glorified before all and in the conscience of the sinner himself All this considered you may see that besides what reasons of the counsel of God are unknown to us there is abundant reason open to our sight from the great advantages of this way why God would rather save us by a Redeemer then in a way of Innocency as our meer Creator But for the answering of all objections against this I must desire you to observe these two things following 1. That we here suppose man a terrestrial inhabitant cloathed with flesh otherwise it is confessed that if he were perfect in heaven where he had the Beatifical Vision to confirm him many of these forementioned advantages to him would be none 2. And it is supposed that God will work on man by Moral means and where he never so infallibly produceth the good of man he doth it in a way agreeable to his nature and present state and that his work of Grace is Sapiential magnifying the contrivance and conduct of his Wisdom as well as his Power otherwise indeed God might have done all without these or any other means 3. The knowledge of God in Christ as our Redeemer must imprint upon the soul those Holy Affections which the design and nature of our Redemption do bespeak and which answer these forementioned ends As 1. It must keep the soul in a sense of the odiousness of sin that must have such a remedy to pardon and destroy it 2. It must raise us to most high and honourable thoughts of our Redeemer the Captain of our Salvation that bringeth back lâ—st sinners unto God and we must study to advance the Glory of our Lord whom the Father hath advanced and set over all 3. It must drive us out of our selves and bring us to be nothing in our own eyes and cause us to have humble penitent self condemning thoughts as men that have been our own undoers and deserved so ill of God and man 4. It must drive us to a full and constant dependance on Christ our Redeemer and on the Father by him As our life is now in the Son as its root and fountain so in him must be our faith and confidence and to him we must daily have recourse and seek to him and to the Father in his Name for all that we need for daily pardon strength protection provision and consolation 5. It must cause us the more to admire the Holiness of God which is so admirably declared in our Redemption and still be sensible how he hateth sin and loveth Purity 6. It must invite and encourage us to draw near to God who hath condescended to come so near to us and as sons we must cry Abba Father and though with reverence yet with holy confidence must set our selves continually before him 7. It must cause us to make it our daily imployment to study the Riches of the Love of God and his abundant mercy manifested in Christ so that above all books in the world we should most diligently and delightfully peruse the Son of God incarnate and in him behold the Power and Wisdom and Goodness of the Father And with Paul we should desire to know nothing but Christ crucified and all things should be counted but loss and dung for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord Phil. 3. 8. That we may be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the bredth and length and depth and heighth and to know the Love of Christ which passeth knowledge that we may be filled with all the fulness of God 8. Above all if we know God as our Redeemer we must Live in the Power of holy Love and Gratitude His Manifested Love must prevail with us so far that unfeigned Love to him may be the predominant affection of our souls And being free from the spirit of bondage and slavish fear we must make Love and Thankfulness the sum of our Religion and think not any thing will prove us Christians without prevailing Love to Christ nor that any duty is accepted that proceedeth not from it 9. Redemption must teach us to apply our selves to the holy Laws and Example of our Redeemer for the forming and ordering of our hearts and lives 10. And it must quicken us to Love the Lord with a redoubled vigour and to obey with double resolution and diligence because we are under a double obligation What should a people so Redeemed esteem too much or too dear for God 11. Redemption must make us a more Heavenly people as being Redeemed to the incorruptible inheritance in Heaven The blessed God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible undefiled and that fadeth not away reserved in Heaven for us who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation 1 Pet. 1. 3. 12. Lastly Redemption must cause us to walk the more carefully and with a greater care to avoid all sin and to avoid the threatned wrath of God because sin against such unspeakable Mercy is unspeakably great and condemnation by a Redeemer for despising his grace will be a double condemnation Joh. 3. 19. 36. CHAP. XII 11. THE third Relation in which God is to be Known by us is as he is our Sanctifier and Comforter which is specially ascribed to the Holy Ghost And doubtless as the Dispensation of the Holy Ghost is the Perfecting dispensation without which Creation and Redemption would not attain their ends and as the sin against the Holy Ghost is the great and dangerous sin so our Belief in the Holy Ghost and Knowledge of God as our Sanctifier by the Spirit is not the least or lowest act of our faith or Knowledge And it implieth or containeth these things following 1. We must hence take notice of the certainty of our common original sin The necessity of sanctification proveth the corruption as the necessity of a Redeemer proveth the guilt It is not one but all that are Baptized that must be Baptized into the Name of the Son and Holy Ghost as well as of the Father which is an entering into Covenant with the Son as our Redeemer and with the
objective means yet shall not these do it without the internal effectual means But when Love doth shine to us so resplendently without us in the face of the Glorious Sun of Love and is also â—et into us by the Spirits Illumination that sheds abroad this Love in our hearts then will the holy fire burn which comes from Heaven and leads to Heaven and will never rest till it have reacht its center and brought us to the face and arms of God 5. And from the Fatherly Relation and Love of God we must learn to Trust him and Rest our souls in his securing Love Shall we distrust a Father an Omnipotent Father Therefore is this Relation prefixed to the Petitions of the Lords Prayer and we begin with Our Father which art in Heaven that when we remember his Love and our Interest in him and his Alsufficiency we may be encouraged to Trust him and make our addresses to him If a Father and such a Father smite mee I will submit and kiss the Rod for I know it is the healing fruit of Love If a Father and such a Father afflict mee wound mee deal strangely wiâ—h mee and grieve my flesh let mee not murmure or distrust him for he well understandeth what he doth and nothing that shall hurt mee finally can come from Omnipotent Paternal Love If a Father and such a Father kill mee yet let mee Trust in him and let not my soul repine at his proceedings nor tremble at the separating stroak of death A Beast knows not when we strive with him what we intend whether to Cure or to Kill him but a Child need not fear a killing blow nor a Loving soul a damning death from such a Father If he be a Father where is his Love and Trust 6. If God be our Father and so wonderful a Benefactor to us then Thanks and Praise must be our most constant work and must be studied above all the rest of Duty and most diligently performed If the tongue of man which is called his Glory be made for any thing and good for any thing it is to give the Lord his Glory in the Thankful acknowledgement of his Love and Mercies and the daily chearful Praises of his Name Let this then be the Christians work 7. The Children of such a Father should live a contented chearful life Diligence becometh them but not contrivances for worldly greatness nor carking cares for that which their Father hath promised them to care for Humility and Reverence beseemeth them but not dejection and despondency of mind and a still complaining fearful troubled disconsolate soul. If the Children of such a Father shall not be bold and confident and chearful let joy and confidence then be banished from the earth and be renounced by all the Sons of men CHAP. XVI 15. THere are yet divers subordinate Attributes of God that being comprized in the forementioned may be passed over with the briefer touch And the next that I shall speak of is his Freedome And God is Free in more senses than one but for brevity I shall speak of all together 1. And first God hath a Natural Freedome of Will being Determined to Will by nothing without him nor liable to any Necessity but what is consistent with perfect Blessedness and Liberty His own Being and Blessedness and Perfections are not the objects of his Election and therefore not of that which we call Free Will But all his works without as Creation Providence Redemption c. are the effects of his Free Will Not but that his Will concerning all these hath a Necessity of existence For God did from Eternity Will the Creation and all that is done in time and therefore from Eternity that will existing had a Necessity of existence But yet it was Free because it proceedeth not Necessarily from the very Nature of God God was God before he made the world or Redeemed it or did the things that are daily done And therefore one part of the Schoolmen maintain not only that there is Contingency from God but that there could be no Contingency in the Creature if it had not its Original in God the Liberty of God being the fountain of Contingency 2. There is also an Eminency both of Dominion and Soveraignty in God according to which he may be called Free His Absoluteness of Propriety freeth him from the restraint of any Obligation but what floweth from his own Free Will from Disposing of his own as he pleases And his Absolute Soveraignty freeth him from the Obligation of his own Laws as Laws though he will still be true to his Promises and Predictions Let man therefore take heed how he questioneth his Maker or censureth his Laws or Works or Waies CHAP. XVII 16. ANother Attribute of God is his Justice With submission I conceive that this is not to be said to be from 〈◊〉 any otherwise than all Gods Relations are as Creator 〈◊〉 c. because here is no time with God For though 〈◊〉 Blessed Nature denominated Just is from Eternity yet not 〈◊〉 â—â—râ—ality or Denomination of Justice For Justice is an Attribute of God as he is Governour only And he was not Governour till he had Creatures to Govern And he could not be a Just Governour when he was no Governour The Denomination â—â—â— not arise till the Creation had laid the Foundation Many Questions may be resolved hence which I will not trouble you to reâ—â—â—e Justice in God is the Perfection of his Nature as it giveth every his his due oâ— Governeth the world in the most perfect Orders â—or the Ends of Government Because he is Just he will Reward the Righteous and difference between the Godly and the Wicked For that Governor that useth all alike is not Just. The Crown of Righteousness is given by him as a Righteous Judge 2 Tâ—m 4. 8. 1. The Justice of God is substantially in men we call it an Inclination â—â—â— Nature and so it is Eternal 2. It is 〈◊〉 formally in his Relation of Governour 3. It is expressively first in his Laws For as a Just Governour he made them suited to the Subjects Objects and Ends. 4 It is expressively secondarily in his Judgments and Executions which is when they are according to his Law oâ— in the Cares of Penalty where he may dispense at least according to the state of the subject and sitted to the Ends of Government 1. The Justice of God is the Consolation of the Just He will Justifie them whom his Gospel Justifieth because he is Just. The Justice of God in many places of Scripture is taken for his Fidelity in vindicating his people and his Judging for them and procuring them the happy fruits of his Government and so is taken in a Consolatory sense Psal. 89. 14. Justice and Judgement are the habitations of thy Throne Mercy and Truth shall go before thy face 2 Thes. 1. 5 6. It is a Righteous thing with God to recompence tribulation to them that trouble
it should all be done to the Glory of God 1 Cor. 10. 31. He that regardeth a day or regardeth it not he that eateth or that eateth not must do it to the Lord And though a Good Intention will not sanctifie a forbidden action yet sins of Ignorance and meer Frailty are forborn and pardoned of God when it is his Glory and Service that is sincerely intended though there be a mistake in the choice of means None of us liveth to himself and no man dyeth to himself For whether we live we live unto the Lord and whether we dye we dye unto the Lord Whether we live therefore or dye we are the Lords For to this end Christ â—â—th dyed rose and revived that he might be Lord both of the dead and living Rom. 14. 6 7 8 9. Our walking with God is a serious Labouring that whether present or absent we may be accepted of him 2 Cor. 5. 9 To this the Love of our Redeemer must constrain us For he dyed for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him thâ—t dyed for them and rose again Vers. 14 15. Religion therefore is called the seeking of God because the soul doth press after him and labour tu enjoy him as the Runner seeks to reach the prize or as a Suiter seeketh the Love and fruition of the person beloved And all the particular acts of Religion are oft denominated from this intention of the End and following after it and are all called a seeking the Lord. Conversion is called a seeking the Lord Isa. 55. 6. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found Hos. 3. 5. The Children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God Hos. 7. 10. They do not return to the Lord their God nor seek him Men that are called to Conversion are called to seek God Hos. 10. 12. Break up your fallow ground for it is time to seek the Lord till he come and rain Righteousness upon you The converted Children of Israel and Judah shall go weeping together to seek the Lord their God Jer. 50. 4. The wicked are described to be men that do not seek the Lord Isa. 9. 13. 31. 1. The holy Covenant 2 Chron. 15. 12 13. was to seek the Lord If therefore you would Walk with God let him be the mark the prize the treasure the happiness the Heaven it self which you aim at and sincerely seek 1 Chron. 22. 19. Now set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God Psal. 105. 3 4 Glory ye in his Holy Name Let the heart of them rejoyce that seek the Lord Seek the Lord and his strength seek his face for evermore As the life of a Covetous man is a seeking of Riches and the life of an ambitious man is a seeking of worldly honour and applause so the life of a man that liveth to God is a seeking Him to please him honour him and enjoy him And so much of this as he attaineth so much dotb he attain of satisfaction and content If you live to God and seek him as your End and All the want of any thing will be tolerable to you which is but consistent with the fruition of his Love If he be pleased mans displeasure may be borne The loss of all things if Christ be won will not undo us Mans condemnation of us signifieth but little if God the absolute Judge do justifie us He walketh not with God that Liveth not to him as his only Happiness and End 4. Moreover our Walking with God includeth our subjection to his Authority and our taking His Wisdom and Will to be our Guide and his Laws in Nature and Scripture for our Rule you must not walk with him as his Equals but as his Subjects nor give him the honour of an ordinary superior but of the universal King In our doubts he must resolve us and in our straits we must ask counsel of the Lord Lord what wouldst thou have me to do is one of the first words of a penitent soul Act. 9. 6. When sensual worldlings do first ask the flesh or those that can do it hurt or good what they would have them be or do None of Christs true Subjects do call any man Father or Master on earth but in subordination to their highest Lord Matth. 23. The Authority of God doth aw them and govern them more than the fear of the greatest upon earth Indeed they know no power but Gods and that which he committeth unto man And therefore they can obey no man against God what ever it cost them but under God they are most readily and faithfully subject to their Governours not meerly as to men that have power to hurt them if they disobey but as to the officers of the Lord whose Authority they discern and reverence in them But when they have to do with the enemies of Christ who usurp a power which he never gave them against his Kingdom and the souls of men they think it easie to resolve the question whether it be better to obey God or men As the commands of a rebellious Constable or other fellow-subject are of no authority against the Kings Commands so the commands of all the men on earth are of so small authority with them against the Laws of God that they fully approve of the ready and resolute answer of those Witnesses Dan. 3. 16 17 18. We are not careful to answer thee in this matter If it be so our God whom we serve is able to deliver us c. But if not be it known unto thee O King that we will not serve thy gods nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up Worldlings are ruled by their fleshly interest and wisdom and self-will and by the will of man so far as it doth comporte with these By these you may handle them and lead them up and down the world By these doth Satan hold them in captivity But believers feel themselves in subjection to a higher Lord and better Law which they faithfully though imperfectly observe Therefore our walking with God is called A walking in his Law Exod. 16. 4. A walking in his statutes and keeping and doing his commands Lev. 26. 3. A walking in his paths Mic. 4. 2. It is our following the Lamb which way soever he goeth To be given up to our own hearts lusts and to walk in our counsels is contrary to this holy walk with God Psal. 81. 12. and is the course of those that are departed from him And they that are far from him shall perish he destroyeth those that go a whoring from him But it is good for us to draw near to God Psal. 73. 27 28. 5. Our walking with God doth imply that as we are ruled by his Will so we fear no punishment like his threatned displeasure and that the threats of death from mortal men will not prevail with us so much as his threats of Hell Luk. 12. 4. If God
be alwaies actually upon God but he that doth manage his calling in Holiness doth all in obedience to Gods commands and sees that his work be the work of God and he intendeth all to the glory of God or the pleasing of his blessed will and he oft reneweth these actual intentions and oft interposeth thoughts of the presence or power or love or interest of him whom he is serving He often lifteth up his soul in some holy desire or ejaculatory request to God He oft taketh occasion from what he seeth or heareth or is doing for some more spiritual meditation or discourse so that still it is God that his mind is principally employed on or for even in his ordinary work while he liveth as a Christian And it is not enough to think of God but we must think of him as God with such respect and reverence and love and trust and submission in our measure as is due from the Creature to his Creator For as some kind of speaking of him is but a taking his Name in vain so some kind of thinking of him is but a dishonouring of him by contemptuous or false unworthy thoughts Most of our walking with God consisteth in such affectionate apprehensions of him as are suitable to his blessed Attributes and Relations All the day long our thoughts should be working either on God or for God either upon some work of obedience which he hath imposed on us and in which we desire to please and honour him or else directly upon himself Our hearts must be taken up in contemplating and admiring him in magnifying his Name his Word and Works and in pleasant contentful thoughts of his benignity and of his Glory and the Glory which he conferreth on his Saints He that is unskilful or unable to manage his own thoughts with some activity seriousness and order will be a stranger to much of the holy converse which believers have with God They that have given up the Government of their thoughts and turned them loose to go which way phantasie pleaseth and present sensitive objects do invite them and to run up and down the world as masterless unruly vagrants can hardly expect to keep them in any constant attendance upon God or readiness for any sacred work And the sudden thoughts which they have of God will be rude and stupid savouring more of prophane contempt than of holiness when they should be reverent serious affectionate and practical and such as conduce to a holy composure of their hearts and lives And as we must walk with God 1. In our communion with his servants 2. And in our affectionate Meditations so also 3 In all the ordinances which he hath appointed for our Edification and his Worship 1. The Reading of the Word of God and the explication and application of it in good Books is a means to possess the mind with sound and orderly and working apprehensions of God and of his holy Truths So that in such Reading our understandings are oft illustrated with a heavenly Light and our hearts are touched with a special delightful rellish of that truth and they are secretly attracted and engaged unto God and all the powers of our souls are excited and animated to a holy obedient life 2. The same Word preached with a lively voice with clearness and affection hath a greater advantage for the same illumination and excitation of the soul. When a Minister of Christ that is truly a Divine being filled with the Knowledge and Love of God shall copiously and affectionately open to his hearers the excellencies which he hath seen and the happiness which he hath foreseen and tasted of himself it frequently through the co-operation of the Spirit of Christ doth wrap up the hearers hearts to God and bring them into a more lively knowledge of him actuating their graces and enflaming their hearts with a heavenly Love and such desires as God hath promised to satisfie Christ doth not only send his Ministers furnished with Authority from him but also furnished with his Spirit to speak of spiritual things in a spiritual manner so that in both respects he might say He that heareth you heareth mee and also by the same Spirit doth open and excite the hearts of the hearers so that it is God himself that a serious Christian is principally employed with in the hearing of his heavenly transforming Word And therefore he is affected with reverence and holy fear with some taste of heavenly delight with obediential subjection and resignation of himself to God The Word of God is powerful not only in pulling down all high exalting thoughts that rise up against God but also in lifting up depressed souls that are unable to rise unto heavenly knowledge or communion with God If some Christians could but alwaies finde as much of God upon their hearts at other times as they finde sometimes under a spiritual powerful Ministry they would not so complain that they seem forsaken and strangers to all communion with God as many of them do While God by his Messengers and Spirit is speaking and man is hearing him while God is treating with man about his reconciliation and everlasting happiness and man is seriously attending to the treaty and motions of his Lord surely this is a very considerable part of our walking and converse with God 3. Also in the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ we are called to a familiar converse with God He there appeareth to us by a wonderful condescension in the representing communicating signs of the flesh and blood of his Son in which he hath most conspicuously revealed his Love and Goodness to Believers There Christ himself with his Covenant-gifts are all delivered to us by these Investing signs of his own institution even as Knighthood is given by a sword and as a House is delivered by a Key or Land by a Twig and Turf Nowhere is God so near to man as in Jesus Christ and nowhere is Christ so familiarly represented to us as in this holy Sacrament Here we are called to sit with him at his Table as his invited welcome guests to commemorate his sacrifice to feed upon his very flesh and blood that is with our mouths upon his Representative flesh and blood and with our applying Faith upon his real flesh and blood by such a feeding as belongs to Faith The Marriage-Covenant betwixt God â—ncarnate and his espoused ones is there publickly sealed celebrated and solemnized There we are entertained by God as friends and not as servants only and that at the most precious costly feast If ever a believer may on earth expect his kindest entertainment and near access and a humble intimacy with his Lord it is in the participation of this sacrifice-feast which is called The Communion because it is appointed as well for our special Communion with Christ as with one another It is here that we have the fullest intimation expression and communication of the wondrous Love of God
Will and not as the motion of the brutish appetite And that God is their felicity and the only help and comfort of their souls and so the principal Good to be desired by them is become to them a truth so certain and beyond all doubt that their understandings are convinced that Velle Bonum Velle Deum to Love Good and to Love God are words that have almost the same signification and therefore here is no room for deliberation and choice where there is omnimoda ratio boni nothing but unquestionable good A Christian so far as he is such cannot chuse but desire the favour and fruition of God in immortality even as he cannot chuse because he is a man but desire his own felicity in general And as he cannot as a man but be unwilling of destruction and cannot but fear apparent misery and that which bringeth it so as a Christian he cannot chuse but be unwilling of damnation and of the wrath of God and of sin as sin and fear the apparent dangers of his soul so that his New Nature will presently cast his Fear and Repentance and Desires into their proper course and order and set them on work on their several objects about the main unquestionable things however they may erre or need more deliberation about things doubtful The New Creature is not as a lifeless Engine as a Clock or Watch or Ship where every part must be set in order by the art and hand of man and so kept and used But it is liker to the frame of our own nature even like man who is a living Engine when every part is set in its place and order by the Creatour and hath in it self a living and harmonical principle which disposeth it to action and to regular action and is so to be kept in order and daily exercise by our selves as yet to be principally ordered and actuated by the Spirit which is the principal cause By all which you may understand how the Holy Ghost is in us a spirit of Supplication and helpeth of our infirmities and teacheth us to pray and intercedeth in us and also that Prayer is to the New Man so natural a motion of the soul towards God that much of our walking with God is exercised in this holy duty And that it is to the New Life as breathing to our Natural Life and therefore no wonder that we are commanded to pray continually 1 These 5. 17. as we must breath continually or as nature which needeth a daily supply of food for nourishment hath a daily appetite to the food which it needeth so hath the Spiritual Nature to its necessary food and nothing but sickness doth take it off And thus I have shewed you how our walking with God containeth a holy use of his appointed means II. To walk with God includeth our Dependence on him for our Receivings and taking our Mercies as from his hand To live as upon his Love and Bounty as Children with their Father that can look for nothing but from him As the eye of a Servant yea of a craving Dog is upon his Masters face and hand so must our eye be on the Lord for the gracious supply of all our wants If men give us any thing we take them but as the Messengers of God by whom he sendeth it us We will not be unthankful unto men but we thank them but for bringing us our Fathers gifts Indeed man is so much more than a meer Messenger as that his own Charity also is exercised in the gift A meer Messenger is to do no more but obedientlly to deliver what is sent us and he need not exercise any Charity of his own and we owe him thanks only for his fidelity and labour but only to his Master for the gift But God will so far honour man as that he shall be called also to use his Charity and distribute his Masters gifts with some self-denial and we owe him thanks as under God he partaketh in the Charity of the Gift and as one childe oweth thanks to another who both in obedience to the Father and Love to his Brother doth give some part of that which his Father had given him before But still it is from our Fathers Bounty as the principal cause that all proceeds Thus Jacob speaketh of God Gen. 48. 15. God before whom my Fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk the God which fed mee all my life long unto this day the Angel which redeemed mee from all evil bless the Lads c. When he had mentioned his Father Abraham and Isaac's walking with God he describeth his own by his dependence upon God and receiving from him acknowledging him the God that had fed him and delivered him all his life Carnal men that live by sense do depend upon inferiour sensible causes and though they are taught to pray to God and thank him with their tongues it is indeed their own contrivances and industry or their visible benefactors which their hearts depend upon and thank It were a shame to them to be so plain as Pharaoh and to say Who is the Lord or to speak as openly as Nebuchadnezzar and say Is not this great Babylon that I have built by the might of my power c. Dâ—n 4 30. Yet the same Atheism and Self-idolizing is in their hearts though it be more modestly and cunningly exprest Hence it is that they that walk with God have all their Receivings sanctified to them and have in all a Divine and spiritual sweetness which those that take them but as from Creatures do never feel or understand 12. Lastly it is contained in our Walking with God that the greatest business of our lives be with Him and for him It is not a walk for complement or recreation only that is here meant but it is a life of nearness converse and employment as a servant or child that dwelleth with his Master or Father in the house God should be alwayes so regarded that Man should stand by as Nothing and be scarce observed in comparison of Him We should begin the day with God and entertain Him in the first and sweetest of our thoughts we should walk abroad and do our work as in his sight we must resolve to do no work but His no not in our trades and ordinary callings we must be able to say It is the work which my Master set me to do and I do it to obey and please his Will At night we must take an account of our selves and spread open that account before him desiring his acceptance of what was well and his pardon for what we did amiss that we may thus be ready for our last account In a word though Men be our fellow-labourers and companions yet the principal business of our Care and Diligence must be our Masters service in the world And therefore we must look about us and discern the opportunities of serving him and of the best improvement of his
heaven with the blessed God then may we with the holy Apostle be in the spirit on the Lords day Rev. 1. 10. and if we turn away our foot from the Sabbath from doing our pleasure on that holy day and call the Sabbath a delight the holy of the Lord honourable and shall honour him not doing our own wayes nor finding our own pleasure nor speaking our own words then shall we delight our selves in the Lord Isa. 58. 13 14. and understand how great a priviledge it is to have the liberty of those holy dayes and duties for our sweet and heavenly converse with God 4. Our walking with God must be a matter of industry and diligence It is not an occasional idle converse but a life of observance obedience and imployment that this phrase importeth The sluggish idle wishes of the hypocrite whose hands refuse to labour are not this walking with God nor the sacrifice of fools who are hasty to utter the overflowings of their fantasie before the Lord while they keep not their foot nor hearken to the Law nor consider that they do evil Eccles. 5. 1 2 3. He that cometh to God and will walk with him must believe that he is and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him God is with you while you are with him but if you forsake him he will forsake you 2 Chron. 15. 2. Up and be doing and the Lord will be with you 1 Chron. 22. 16. If you would meet with God in the way of Mercy take diligent heed to do the Commandment and Law to love the Lord your God and to walk in all his Wayes and to cleave unto him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul Josh. 22. 5. 5. Our walking with God is a matter of some Constancy It signifieth our course and trade of life and not some accidental action on the by A man may walk with a stranger for a Visit or in Complement or upon some unusual occasion But this walk with God is the act of those that dwell with him in his Family and do his work It is not only to step and speak with him or cry to him for mercy in some great extremity or to go to Church for company or custome or think or talk of him sometime heartlesly on the by as a man will talk of news or matters that are done in a forein Land or of persons that we think we have little to do with But it is to be alwaies with him Luk. 15. 31. To seek first his Kingdom and Righteousness Matth. 6. 33. Not to labour comparatively for the food that perisheth but for that which endureth to everlasting life Joh. 6. 27. To delight in the Law of the Lord and meditate in it day and night Psal. 1. 2. That his words be in our hearts and that we teach them diligently to our Children and talk of them sitting in the house and walking by the way lying down and rising up c. Deut. 6. 6 7 8. That we pray continually 1 Thes. 5. 17. And in all things give thanks But will the hypocrite delight himself in the Almighty or will he alwaies call upon God Job 27. 10. His goodness is as the morning Cloud and as the early Dew it goeth away Hos. 6. 4. So much of the description of this walking with God CHAP. II. Use. WE are next to consider how far this doctrine doth concern our selves and what use we have to make of it upon our hearts and lives And first it acquainteth us with the abundance of Atheism that is in the world even among those that profess the knowledge of God It is Atheism not only to say There is no God but to say so in the heart Psal. 14. 1. While the heart is no more affected towards him observant of him or consident in him or submissive to him than if indeed there were no God When there is nothing of God upon the Heart no Love no Fear no Trust no Subjection then is Heart-Atheism When men that have some kind of knowledge of God yet glorifie him not as God nor are thankful to him but become vain in their imaginations and their foolish hearts are darkened these men are Heart-Atheists and professing themselves wise they become fools and are given up to vile affections And as they do not like to retain God in their knowledge however they may discourse of him so God oft giveth them over to a reprobate mind to do those things that are not convenient being filled with all unrighteousness fornication wickedness covetousness maliciousness envy murther debate deceit malignity c. Rom. 1. 21 22 26 28 29 30. Swarms of such Atheists go up and down under the self-deceiving name of Christians being indeed unbelieving and defiled so void of Purity that they deride it and nothing is Pure to them but even their mind and conscience is defiled They profess that they know God but they deny him in their works being abominable and disobedient and to every good work reprobate Tit. 1. 15 16. What is he but an Atheist when God is not in all his thoughts Psal. 10. 4. unless it be in their impious or blaspheming thoughts or in their sleight contemptuous thoughts To take God for God indeed and for our God essentially includeth the taking him to be the most powerful wist and good the most just and holy the Creator Preserver and Governour of the world whom we and all men are obliged absolutely to obey and fear to love and desire whose Will is our Beginning Rule and End He that taketh not God for such as here described taketh him not for God and therefore is indeed an Atheist What name soever he assumeth to himself this is the name that God will call him by even a fool that hath said in his heart there is no God while they are corrupt and do abominably they understand not and seek not after God they are all gone aside and are altogether become filthy there is none of them that doth good they are workers of iniquity that have no knowledge and eat up the people of God as bread and call not upon the Lord Psal. 14. 1 2 3 4. Ungodliness is but the English for Atheism The Atheist or Ungodly in Opinion is he that thinks that there is no God or that he is One that we need not Love and Serve and that is but the same viz. to be no God The Atheist or Ungodly in Heart or Will is he that consenteth not that God shall be his God to be loved feared and obeyed before all The Atheist in Life or outward practice is he that liveth as without God in the world that seeketh him not as his chiefest good and obeyeth him not as his highest absolute Lord so that indeed Atheism is the summe of all iniquity as Godliness is the summe of all Religion and moral good If you see by the description which I have given you
according unto Godliness but doth subserve our carnal ends 6. In the next form we grow to study more the pure and wonderful Love of God in Christ and to rellish and admire that Love and to be taken up with the Goodness and tender mercies of the Lord and to be kindling the flames of holy Love to him that hath thus Loved us and to keep our souls in the exercise of that Love And withall to live in Joy and Thanks and Praise to him that hath redeemed us and Loved us And also by Faith to converse in Heaven and to live in holy contemplation beholding the Glory of the Father and the Redeemer in the Glass which is fitted to our present use till we come to see him face to face Those that are the highest in this form do so walk with God and burn in Love and are so much above inferiour vanities and are so conversant by Faith in Heaven that their hearts even dwell there and there they long to be for ever 7. And in the highest form in the School of Christ we are exercising this confirmed Faith and Love in sufferings especially for Christ In following him with our Cross and being conformed to him and glorifying God in the fullest exercise and discovery of his Graces in us and in an actual trampling upon all that standeth up against him for our hearts and in bearing the fullest witness to his Truth and Cause by constant enduring though to the death Not but that the weakest that are sincere must suffer for Christ if he call them to it Martyrdome it self is not proper to the strong Believers Whoever forsaketh not all that he hath for Christ cannot be his Disciple Luke 14. 33. But to suffer with that Faith and Love forementioned and in that manner is proper to the strong And usually God doth not try and exercise his young and weak ones with the tryals of the strong nor set his Infants on so hard a service nor put them in the front or hottest of the battel as he doth the ripe confirmed Christians The sufferings of their inward doubts and fears doth take up such It is the strong that ordinarily are called to sufferings for Christ at least in any high degree I have digrest thus far to make it plain to you that our Conformity to Christ and fellowship with him in his sufferings in any notable degree is the lot of his best confirmed servants and the highest forme in his School among his Disciples and therefore not to be inordinately feared or abhorred nor to be the matter of impatiency but of holy joy and in such infirmities we may glory And if it be so of sufferings in the general for Christ then is it so of this particular sort of suffering even to be forsaken of all our best and nearest dearest friends when we come to be most abused by the enemies For my own part I must confess that as I am much wanting in other parts of my conformity to Christ so I take my self to be yet much short of what I expect he should advance me to as long as my friends no more forsake me It is not long since I found my self in a low if not a doubting case because I had so few enemies and so little sufferings for the cause of Christ though I had much of other sorts And now that doubt is removed by the multitude of furies which God hath let loose against me But yet methinks while my friends themselves are so friendly to me I am much short of what I think I must at last attain to BUt let us look further into the Text and see what is the cause of the failing and forsaking Christ in the Disciples and what it is that they betake themselves to when they leave him Ye shall be scattered every man to his Own Self-denyal was not perfect in them selfishness therefore in this hour of temptation did prevail They had before forsaken all to follow Christ they had left their Parents their Families their Estates their Trades to be his Disciples But though they believed him to be the Christ yet they dreamt of a visible Kingdome and did all this with too carnal expectations of being great men on earth when Christ should begin his reign And therefore when they saw his apprehension and ignominious suffering and thought now they were frustrate of their hopes they seem to repent that they had followed him though not by apostasie and an habitual or plenary change of mind yet by a sudden passionate frightful apprehension which vanished when grace performed its part They now began to think that they had lives of their Own to save and families of their Own to mind and business of their Own to do They had before forsaken their private interests and affairs and gathered themselves to Jesus Christ and lived in communion with him and one another But now they return to their trades and callings and are scattered every man to his own Selfishness is the great enemy of all societies of all fidelity and friendship There is no trusting that person in whom it is predominant And the remnants of it where it doth not reign do make men walk unevenly and unsteadfastly towards God and men They will certainly deny both God and their friends in a time of tryal who are not able to deny themselves Or rather he never was a real friend to any that is predominantly selfish They have alway some interest of their own which their friend must needs contradict or is insufficient to satisfie Their houses their lands their monies their children their honour or something which they call their Own will be frequently the matter of contention and are so near them that they can for the sake of these cast off the nearest friend Contract no special friendship with a selfish man nor put no confidence in him whatever friendship he may profess He is so confined to himself that he hath no true love to spare for others If he seem to love a friend it is not as a friend but as a servant or at best as a benefactour He loveth you for himself as he loveth his money or horse or house because you may be serviceable to him Or as a horse or dog doth love his keeper for feeding him And therefore when your provender is gone his love is gone when you have done feeding him he hath done loving you When you have no more for him he hath no more for you Object But some will say it is not the falseness of my friend that I lament but the separation or the loss of one that was most faithful I have found the deceitfulness of ordinary friends and therefore the more highly prize those few that are sincere I had but one true friend among abundance of self-seekers and that one is dead or taken from me and I am left as in a wilderness having no mortal man that I can trust or take much comfort in Answ.
had been less with the dearest of my friends How much more sweet then would my life have been How much more blameless regular and pure How much more fruitful and answerable to my obligations and professions How much more comfortable to my review How many falls and hurts and wounds and griefs and groans might I have escaped O how much more pleasing is it now to my Rememberance to think of the hours in which I have lain at the feet of God though it were in tears and groans than to think of the time which I have spent in any common converse with the greatest or the learnedest or the dearest of my acquaintance And as my Greatest business is with God so my daily business is also with him He purposely leaveth me under wants and suffers necessities daily to return and enemies to assault me and affliction to surprize me that I may be daily driven to him He loveth to hear from me He would have me be no stranger with him I have business with him every hour I need not want employment for all the faculties of my soul if I know what it is to converse in Heaven Even prayer and every holy thought of God hath an Object so great and excellent as should wholly take me up Nothing must he thought or spoken lightly about the Lord. His name must not be taken in vain Nothing that is common beseemeth his worshippers He will be sanctified of all that shall draw near him He must be Loved with all the Heart and Might His servants need not be wearied for want of employment nor through the lightness or unprofitableness of their employment If I had Cities to build or Kingdoms to govern I might better complain for want of employment for the faculties of my soul than I can when I am to converse in Heaven In other studies the delight abateth when I have reached my desire and know all that I can know But in God there is infinitely more to be known when I know the most I am never satiated with the easiness of knowing nor are my desires abated by any unusefulness or unworthiness in the Object but I am drawn to it by its highest excellencies and drawn on to desire more and more by the infiniteness of the Light which I have not yet beheld and the infiniteness of the Good which yet I have not enjoyed If I be idle or seem to want employment when I am to contemplate all the Artributes relations mercies works and revealed perfections of the Lord its sure for want of eyes to see or a Heart enclined to my business if God be not enough to employ my soul then all the persons and things on earth are not enough And when I have Infinite Goodness to delight in where my soul may freely let out it self and never need to fear excess of Love how sweet should this employment be As Knowledge so Love is never stinted here by the narrowness of the Object We can never Love him in any proportion either to his Goodness and amiableness in himself or to his Love to us What need have I then of any other company or business when I have infinite Goodness to delight in and to Love further than they subserve this greatest work Come home then O my soul to God Converse in Heaven Turn away thine eyes from beholding vanity Let not thy affections kindle upon straw or bryars that go out when they have made a flash or noise and leave thee to thy cold and darkness But come and dwell upon celestial beauties and make it thy daily and most diligent work to kindle thy affections on the infinite everlasting Good and then they will never be extinguished or decay for want of fewel but the further they go and the longer they burn the greater will be the flame Though thou find it hard while Love is but a spark to make it burn and complain that thy cold and backward heart is hardly warmed with the Love of God yet when the whole pile hath taken fire and the flame ascendeth fire will breed fire Love will cause Love and all the malice of Hell it self shall never be able to suppress or quench it unto all eternity 6. And it is a great encouragement to my converse with God that no misunderstanding no malice of enemies no former sin or present frailty no nor the infinite distance of the most Holy Glorious God can hinder my access to him or turn away his Ear or Love or interrupt my leave and liberty of converse If I converse with the poor their wants afflict me being greater than I can supply Their complaints and expectations which I cannot satisfie are my trouble If I would converse with Great ones it is not easie to get access and less easie to have their favout unless I would purchase it at too dear a rate How strangely and contemptuously do they look at their inferiours Great friends must be made for a word or smile And if you be not quickly gone they are aweary of you And if you seek any thing of them or would put them to any cost or trouble you are as welcome to them as so many vermine or noisome creatures They please them best that drive you away With how much labour and difficulty must you clime if you will see the top of one of these mountains And when you are there you are but in a place of barrenness and have nothing to satisfie you for your pains but a larger prospect and vertiginous despect of the lower grounds which are not your own it is seldome that these Great ones are to be spoken with And perhaps their speech is but a denyal of your requests if not some snappish and contemptuous rejection that makes you glad when you are got far enough from them and makes you the better like and love the accessible calm and fruitful plains But O how much greater encouragements hath my soul to converse with God! Company never hindereth him from hearkening to my suit He is infinite and Omnipotent and as sufficient for every individual soul as if he had no other to look after in the world when he is taken up with the attendance and praises of his Heavenly Host he is as free and ready to attend and answer the groans and prayers of a contrite soul as if he had no nobler creatures nor no higher service to regard I am oft unready but God is never unready I am unready to pray but he is not unready to hear I am unready to come to God to walk with him and to solace my soul with him but he is never unready to entertain me Many a time my conscience would have driven me away when he hath called me to him and rebuked my accusing fearful conscience Many a time I have called my self a prodigal a companion of Swine a miserable hard-hearted sinner unworthy to be called his Son when he hath called me Child and chid me for my questioning