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
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
unresistibly procureth our Love to them And when we Love them it is wonderful to observe how easily we are brought to think well of almost all they do and highly to value their judgements graces parts and works when greater excellencies in another perhaps are scarce observed or regarded but as a common thing And therefrre the destruction or want of Love is apparent in the vilifying thoughts and speeches that most men have of one another and in the low esteem of the judgements and performances and lives of other men much more in their contempt reproaches and cruel persecutions Now though God will have us encrease in our Love of Christ in his members and in our pure Love of Christians as such and in our common charity to all yea and in our just fidelity to our friend yet would he have us suspect and moderate our selfish and excessive Love and inordinate partial esteem of one above another when it is but for our selves and on our own account And therefore as he will make us know that we our selves are no such excellent persons as that it should make another so laudable or advance his worth because he Loveth us so he will make us know that our friends whom we overvalue are but like other men If we exalt them too highly in our esteem it is a sign that God must cast them down And as their Love to us was it that made us so exalt them so their unkindness or unfaithfulness to us is the fittest means to bring them lower in our estimation and affection God is very jealous of our hearts as to our overvaluing and overloving any of his Creatures what we give inordinately and excessively to them is some way or other taken from him and given them to his injury and therefore to his offence Though I know that to be void of natural friendly or social affections is an odious extream on the other side yet God will rebuke us if we are guilty of excess And it 's the greater and more inexcusable fault to over-love the Creature because our Love to God is so cold and hardly kindled and kept alive He cannot take it well to see us dote upon dust and frailty like our selves at the same time when all his wondrous kindness and attractive goodness do cause but such a faint and languid Love to him which we our selves can scarcely feel If therefore he cure us by permitting our friends to shew us truly what they are and how little they deserve such excessive Love when God hath so little it is no more wonder than it is that he is tender of his glory and merciful to his servants souls 5. By the failing and unfaithfulness of our friends the wonderful Patience of God will be observed and honoured as it is shewed both to them and us When they forsake us in our distress especially when we suffer for the cause of Christ it is God that they injure more than us And therefore if he bear with them and forgive their weakness upon repentance why should not we do so that are much less injured The worlds persidiousness should make us think How great and wonderful is the patience of God that beareth with and beareth up so vile ungrateful treacherous men that abuse him to whom they are infinitely obliged And it should make us consider when men deal treacherously with us How great is that mercy that hath born with and pardoned greater wrongs which I my self have done to God than these can be which men have done to me It was the remembranâ—e of David's sin that had provoked God to raise up his own Son against him of whom he had been too fond which made him so easily bear the curses and reproach of Shimei It will make us bear abuse from others to remember how ill we have dealt with God and how ill we have deserved at his hands our selves 6. And I have observed another of the Reasons of Gods permitting the failing of our friends in the season and success It is that the Love of our friends may not hinder us when we are called to suffer or dye When we over-love them it teareth our very hearts to leave them And therefore it is a strong temptation to draw us from our duty and to be unfaithful to the cause of Christ lest we should be taken from our too-dear friends or lest our suffering cause their too-much grief It is so hard a thing to dye with willingness and peace that it must needs be a mercy to be saved from the impediments which make us backward And the excessive Love of friends and relations is not the least of these impediments O how loth is many a one to dye when they think of parting with wife or husband or children or dear and faithful friends Now I have oft observed that a little before their death or sickness it is ordinary with God to permit some unkindness between such too-dear friends to arise by which he moderated and abated their affections and made them a great deal the willinger to dye Then we are ready to say It is time for me to leave the world when not only the rest of the world but my dearest friends have first forsaken me This helpeth us to remember our dearest everlasting friend and to be grieved at the heart that we have been no truer our selves to him who would not have forsaken us in our extremity And sometime it maketh us even aweary of the world and to say as Elias Lord take away my life c. 1 King 19. 4 10 14. when we must say I thought I had one friend left and behold even he forsaketh me in my distress As the Love of friends intangleth our affections to this world so to be weaned by their unkindnesses from our friends is a great help to loosen us from the world and proveth oft a very great mercy to a soul that is ready to depart And as the friends that Love us most and have most interest in our esteem and Love may do more than others in tempting us to be unfaithful to our Lord to entertain any errour to commit any sin or to flinch in suffering so when God hath permitted them to forsake us and to lose their too great interest in us we are fortified against all such temptations from them I have known where a former intimate friend hath grown strange and broken former friendship and quickly after turned to such dangerous wayes and errours as convinced the other of the mercifulness of God in weakning his temptation by his friends desertion who might else have drawn him along with him into sin And I have often observed that when the husbands have turned from Religion to Infidelity Familism or some dangerous heresie that God hath permitted them to hate and abuse their wives so inhumanely as that it preserved the poor women from the temptation of following them in their Apostasie or sin When as some other women with
of sin and wickedness is not desirable to a Saint And is not God One and his Church One and hath he not commanded all his servants to be One and is not Love the new and great commandment by which they must be known to all men to be his Disciples Which then is the stricter servant of the Lord he that Loveth much or he that Loveth little he that Loveth all Christians or he that Loveth but a few with the special Love He that Loveth a Christian as a Christian or he that Loveth him but as one of his party or opinion He that is One in the Catholike Body Or he that disowneth Communion with the far greatest part of the body Will you say that Christ was loose and Pharises strict because Christ eat and drank with Publicans and Sinners and the Pharises condemned him for it It was Christ that was stricter in holiness then they for he abounded more in Love and Good works but they were stricter then he in a proud self-conceeted morosity and separation Certainly he that is highest in Love is highest in Grace and not he that confineth his Love to few Was it not the weak Christian that was the stricter in point of meats and drinks and dayes Rom. 14. 15. But the stronger that were censured by them did more strictly keep the commandment of God Christian Reader let the Unity of God have this effect upon thy soul 1. To draw thee from the distracting multitude of Creatures and make thee long to be all in God That thy soul may be still working toward him till thou â—nd nothing but God alone within thee In the multitude of thy thoughts within thee let his comforts delight thy soul Psal. 94. 19. The multitude distracteth thee Retire into Unity that thy soul may be composed quieted and delighted 2. And let it make thee long for the Unity of the Saints and endeavour it to the utmost of thy power that the Church in Unity may be more like the Head 3. And let it cause thee to admire the Happiness of the Saints that are freeed from the bondage of the distracting Creature and have but One to Love and Fear and Trust and Serve and Seek and Know One thing is needful which should be chosen but it s many that we are troubled about Luk. 11. 42. CHAP. IV. 3. THe Immensity of God which is the next Attribute to be considered must have this Effect upon thy soul 1. The Infinite God that is everywhere comprehending all places and things and comprehended by none must raise admiring reverent thoughts in the soul of the believer We wonder at the Magnitude of the Sun and the Heavens and of the whole Creation But when we begin to think what is beyond the Heavens and all created Being we are at a kind of loss Why it is God that is in all and above all and beyond all and beneath all and where there is no place because no Creature there is God And if thy thoughts should imagine millions of millions of miles beyond all place and measure all is but God and go as far as thou canst in thy thoughts and thou canst not go beyond him Reverently admire the Immensity of God The world and all the Creatures in it are not to God so much as a sand or atome is to all the world The point of a needle is more to all the world then the world to God For between that which is Finite and that which is Infinite there is no comparison Isa. 40. 12 15 17. Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and meated out Heaven with the span and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a ballance Behold the Nations are as a drop of a bucket and are counted as the small dust of the ballanceâ— behold he taketh up the Iles as a very little thing All Nations before him are as nothing and they are counted to him less then Nothing and Vanity 2. From this Greatness and Immensity of God also thy soul must reverently stay all its busie bold enquiries and know that God is to us and to every creature Imcomprehensible If thou couldst fathome or measure him and know his Greatness by a comprehensive knowledge he were not God A Creature can comprehend nothing but a Creature You may know God but not comprehend him As your foot treadeth on the earth but doth not cover all the earth The Sea is not the Sea if you can hold it in a spoon Thou canst not comprehend the Sun which thou seest and by which thou seest all things else nor the sea or earth no nor a worm or pile of grass Thy understanding knoweth not all that God hath put into any the least of these Thou art a stranger to thy self and to somewhat in every part of thy self both body and soul. And thinkest thou to comprehend God that perfectly comprehendest nothing Stop then thy overbold enquiries and remember that thou art a shallow finite worm and God is Infinite First reach to comprehend the Heaven and Earth and whole Creation before thou think of Comprehending him to whom the world is nothing or vanity or so small a dust or drop or point Job 37. 1 5. saith Elihu At this my heart trembleth and is moved out of his place Hear attentively the Noise of his Voice God thundereth marvelously with his Voice great things doth he which we cannot comprehend How then should we comprehend himself When God pleadeth his cause with Job himself what doth he but convince him of his Infiniteness and absoluteness even from the greatness of his works which are beyond our reach and yet are as nothing to himself Should he take the busie enquirer in hand but as he did begin with Job 38. 1 2. c. Who is this that darkeneth Counsel by words without knowledge Gird up thy loins like a man for I will demand of thee and answer thou me c. alas how soon would he non-plus and confound us and make us say as Job 40. 4. Behold I am vile what shall I answer thee I will lay my hand upon my mouth Once have I spoken but I will not answer yea twice but I will proceed no further Indeed there is mentioned Eph. 3. 11. The Saints comprehending the dimensions of the Love of Christ but as the next verse saith it passeth knowledge so comprehending there signifieth no more but a knowing according to our Measure an attainment of what we are capable to attain nay nor all that neither but such a prevalent knowledge of the Love of Christ as is common to all the Saints As there is nothing more visible then the Sun and yet no visible being less comprehended by the sight so is there nothing more Intelligible then God for he is All in all things and yet nothing so Incomprehensible to the mind that knoweth him It satisfieth me not to be
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
were the Alpha or first efficient and yet the Creature the Omega or finis ultimus and all the Goodness in God were to be estimated and denominated by its respect to the felicity of man And so the creature hath the best part of the Deity Such notions evidently shew us that lapsed man is predominantly selfish and is become his own Idol and is lost in himself while he hath lost himself by his loss of God when we see how powerful his self-interest is both with his intellect and will even men of great ingenuity till Sanctification hath restored them to God and taught them better to know Him and themselves are ready to measure all Good or Evil by their own interest when yet common reason would have told them if they had not perverted it by pride and partial studies that short of God even among the Creatures there are many things to be preferred before themselves and their own felicity He is irrationally enslaved by self love that cannot see that the happiness of the world or of his Country or of multitudes is more to be desired then his happiness alone And that he ought rather to choose to be annihilated or to be miserable if it were made a matter of his deliberation and choice then to have the Sun taken out of the firmament or the world or his Country to be annihilated or miserable And God is infinitely above the Creature Obj. But they say He needeth nothing to make him happy having no defect of happiness Answ. And what of that Must it needs therefore follow that he made not all things for himself but for the creature finally He is perfectly happy in himself and his will is himself This will was fulfilled when the world was not made for it was his will that it should not be made till it was made and it is fulfilled when it is made and fulfilled by all that comes to pass And as the absolute simple Goodness and Perfection of Gods essence is the Greatest Good the eternal immutable Good so the fulfilling of his will is the ultimate end of all obedience He hath expressed himself to take pleasure in his works and in the holiness obedience and happiness of his chosen And though Pleasure be not the same thing in God as it is in man no more then will or understanding is yet it is not nothing which God expresseth by such terms but something which we have no fitter expression for This Pleasing of the will of God being the end of all even of our felicity is better then our felicity it self They that will maintain that God who is naturally and necessarily Good hath no other Goodness but his Benignity or aptness to do good to his creatures must needs also maintain that God being for the Creature and not the Creature for God the Creature is better then God as being the ultimate end of God himself and the highest use of all his Goodness being but for the felicity of the Creature As also that God doth do all the Good that he is able For natural necessary agents work ad ultimum posse And that all men shall be saved and all Devils and every worm and toad be equal to the highest Angel or else that God is not able to do it And that he did thus make happy all his Creatures from eternity for natural necessary agents work alwayes if they be not forcibly hindered and that there never was such a thing as pain or misery in man or brute or else that God was not able to prevent it But abundance of such odious consequences must needs follow from the denying of the Highest Good which is God himself and confesting none but his efficient Goodness But some will be offended with me for being so serious in confuting such an irrational Atheistical conceit who know not how far it prevaileth with an Atheistical generation Be it known to you careless sinners that though the Sun will shine on you whether you think on it or not or love it or thank it or not and the fire will warm you whether you think on it and love it or not yet God will not justifie or save you whether you love him or think on him or not God doth not operate brutishly in your salvation but Governeth you wisely as rational Creatures are to be governed and therefore will give you Happiness as a reward and therefore will not deal alike with those that love him and that love him not that seek him and that seek him not with the labourers and the loiterers the faithful and the slothful servant Would you have us believe that you know better then God himself what pleaseth him or on what terms he will give his benefits and save mens souls or do you know his nature better then he knoweth it that you dare presume to say because he needeth not our love or duty therefore they are not pleasing to him Then what hath God to do in governing the world if he be pleased and displeased with nothing that men do or with good and evil actions equally Though you cannot hurt him you shall find that he will hurt you if you disobey him And though you cannot make him happy by your holiness you shall find that he will not make you happy without it And if he did work as necessarily as the Sun doth shine according to your similitude yet 1. Even the shining of the Sun doth not illuminate the blind nor doth it make the seeds of thorns and nettles to bring forth vines or roses nor the gendering of frogs to bring forth men but it actuateth all things according to the several natures of their powers And therefore how can you expect that an ignorant unbelieving and unholy soul should enjoy felicity in God when in that state they are uncapable of it 2. And if the Sun do necessarily illuminate any one he must necessarily be illuminated and if it necessarily warm or quicken any thing it must be necessarily warmed and quickened else you would assert contradictions So if God did necessarily save you and make you happy you would necessarily be saved and made happy And that containeth essentially your Holiness your Loving desiring and seeking after God To be saved or happy without enjoying God by Love or to Love him and not Desire him seek him or obey him are as great contradictions as to be illuminated without light or quickened without life What way soever it be that God conveyeth his sanctifying spirit I am sure that if any man have not the spirit of Christ the same is none of his Rom. 8. 9. and that without Holiness none shall see God Heb. 12. 14. and that if you will have the Kingdom of God you must seek it first preferring it before all earthly things Matth. 6. 33. Joh. 6. 27. Col. 4. 1 2 3. And then if all the question that remaineth undecided be whether God do you wrong or not in damning you or whether
Nature hath its aptitude as Rational to be employed for its Maker so that he is not a New Creature in a Natural sense An actual or habitual willingness to this Holy employment a promptitude to it and a due understanding of it is the New Creature Morally so called which is given in our sanctification But the Natural aptitude that is in our faculties as Rational to this holy life is essential to us as men or as Rational even to have the Potentiam naturalem which must yet have further help or moral life to actuate it And Adam had both these The one he retained or else he had not continued a man The other he lost or else he had not had need of Renovation 6. If Adams Nature had not been Disposed to God as to his End and Soveraign then the Law of Nature to adhere to God and obey and serve him was not written in his heart And then it would not have been his duty to adhere to God and to obey and serve him which is so false that even in lapsed unrenewed Nature there is left so much aptitude hereto as will prove him to be still under the obligations of this Law of Nature even actually to adhere to God and to obey him which a dead man a mad man or an Infant is not immediately By all this you see that though the blindness and disease of Reason is contrary to faith and holiness yet Reason it self is so much for it as that Faith it self is but the act of elevated well informed Reason and supernatural Revelation is but the means to inform our Reason about things which have not a natural evidence discernable by us And sanctification actively taken is but the healing of our Reason and Rational appetite And Holiness is but the health or soundness of them The errour of Reason must be renounced by Believers but not the use of Reason The sufficiency of Reason and Natural Light without supernatural Light and Help we must all deny But to set Reason as Reason in opposition to Faith or Holiness or Divine Revelation is as gross a piece of foolery as to set the visive faculty in opposition to the Light of the Sun or to its objects It is the unreasonableness of sinners that is to be cured by Illuminating Grace They are wise to do evil but to do good they have no knowledge Their Reason is wounded depraved and corrupted about the matters of God They have Reason to serve the flesh but not to Master it God doth renew men by giving them wisdome and bringing them to a sound mind As Logick helpeth Reason in discourse and arguing so Theology informeth Reason about the matters of God and our salvation and the Spirit of God doth make his Doctrine and Revelation effectual Make Nature sound and Reason clear then we will consent that all men be perswaded to live according to their Nature and their Reason But if a Bedlam will rave and tear himself and others and say this is according to my Nature or my Reason it is fitter that chains and whips do cure that Nature and Reason than that he be allowed to live according to his madness If a Drunkard or Whoremonger will say My Nature and Reason incline mee to please my appetite and lust it is fit that the swinish Nature be corrected and the beast which rideth and ruleth the man be taken down and when indeed his Nature is the Nature of a man and fitted to the use and ends that it was made for then let him live according to it and spare not If a malicious man will abuse or kill his neighbours and say This is according to my Nature let that Nature be used as the Nature of Wolves and Foxes and other noxious creatures are But let humane Nature be cured of its blindness carnality and cortuption and then it will need no external testimony to convince it that no employment is so natural and suitable to man as to Walk with God in Love and Confidence and reverent Worship and chearful Obedience to his Will A worldly fleshly sensual life will then appear to be below the rational nature of a man as it is below us to go to grass with horses or to live as meer companions of brutes It will then appear to be as natural for us to Love and Live to our Creatour and Redeemer and to Walk with God as for a Child to love his Parents and to live with them and serve them When I say that this is Natural I mean not that it is Necessary by Natural Necessity or that Grace doth operate per modum naturae as the irrational motion is so called There is a Brutish or Inanimate Nature and there is a Rational Voluntary Nature Grace worketh not according to the way of Inanimate or Brutish Nature but according to the way of Rational Nature in free Agents I may well say that whatever is Rational is Natural to a Rational Creature as such so far as he discerneth it Yea and Habits though they effect not necessarily but freely in a Rational nature yet they Incline Necessarily per modum naturae They contain in their being a Natural aptitude and propensity to action Obj. But thus you confound Nature and Grace Natural and supernatural operations while you make Grace Natural Answ. No such matter Though walking with God be called Natural as it is most agreeable to Nature so far as it is sound and is the felicity and meetest employment of the rational nature as such Yet 1. Diseased nature doth abhor it as a diseased stomack the pleasantest and most wholesome food as I said before 2. And this disease of Nature cannot he cured without Divine supernatural Grace So that as to the efficient cause our Holinesse is supernatural But it is unsound doctrine of those that affirm that Adam in his pure Natural state of innocency had no Natural Holiness or aptitude and promptitude to Walk with God in order to everlasting happiness but say that all this was either wanting to him and was a state specifically distinct which he fell short off by his sin or that it was given him by superadded Grace and was not in his entire Nature And yet we deny not but as to Degrees Adams nature was to grow up to more perfection and that his Natural Holiness contained not a sufficient immediate aptitude and promptitude to every duty which might afterward be required of him but this was to be obtained in the exercise of that Holiness which he had Even as a Vine or other fruit tree though it be Natural to it to bear its proper fruit yet hath it not an immediate sufficient aptitude hereto whilst it is but appearing out of the seed before it be grown up to just maturity Or as it is Natural to a man to discourse and reason but yet his nature in infancy or untaught and unexercised hath not a sufficient immediate aptitude and promptitude hereunto Or
blood and made them Kings and Priests to God Herein he hath sometime a sweet foretast of the everlasting pleasures which though it be but little as Jonathans honey on the end of his rod or as the clusters of grapes which were brought from Canaan into the wilderness yet are they more excellent then all the delights of sinners And in the beholding of this celestial Glory some beams do penetrate his breast and so irradiate his longing soul that he is changed thereby into the same image from Glory to Glory the spirit of Glory and of God doth rest upon him And O what an excellent holy frame doth this converse with God possess his soul of How reverently doth he think of him what life is there in every Name and Attribute of God which he heareth or thinketh on The mention of his Power his Wisdome his Goodness his Love his Holinesse his Truth how powerful and how pleasant are they to him when to those that know him but by the hearing of the ear all these are but like common names and notions and even to the weaker sort of Christians whose Walking with God is more uneven and low interrupted by their sins and doubts and fears this life and glory of a Christian course is lesse perceived And the sweet appropriating and applying works of faith by which the soul can own his God and finds it self owned by him are exercised most easily and happily in these near approaches unto God Our doubts are cherished by our darknesse and that is much caused by our distance The nearer the soul doth approach to God the more distinctly it heareth the voice of mercy the sweet reconciling invitations of Love and the more clearly it discerneth that goodness and amiableness in God which maketh it easier to us to believe that he loveth us or is ready to embrace us and banisheth all those false and horrid apprehensions of him which before were our discouragement and made him seem to us more terrible then amiable As the Ministers and faithful servants of Christ are ordinarily so misrepresented by the malignant Devil to those that know them not that they are ready to think them some silly fools or falsehearted hypocrites and to shun them as strange undesirable persons but when they come to through acquaintance with them by a nearer and familiar converse they see how much they were mistaken and wronged by their prejudice and belief of slanderers misreports Even so a weak believer that is under troubles in the apprehension of his sin and danger is apt to hearken to the enemy of God that would shew him nothing but his wrath and represent God as an enemy to him And in this case it is exceeding hard for a poor sinner to believe that God is reconciled to him or loveth him or intends him good but he is ready to dread and shun him as an enemy or as he would fly from a wild beast or murderer or from fire or water that would destroy him And all these injurious thoughts of God are cherished by strangeness and disacquaintance But as the soul doth fall into an understanding and serious converse with God and having been often with him doth find him more merciful than he was by Satan represented to him his experience reconcileth his mind to God and maketh it much easier to him to believe that God is reconciled unto him when he hath found much better entertainment with God than he expected and hath observed his benignity and the treasures of his bounty laid up in Christ and by him distributed to believers and hath found him ready to hear and help and found him the only full and suitable felicitating Good this banisheth his former horrid thoughts and maketh him ashamed that ever he should think so suspiciously injuriously and dshonourably of his dearest God and Father Yet I must confesse that there are many upright troubled souls that are much in reading prayer and meditation that still find it hard to be perswaded of the Love of God and that have much more disquietment and fear since they set themselves to think of God than they had before But yet for all this we may well conclude that to walk with God is the way to consolation and tendeth to acquaint us with his love As for those troubled souls whose experience is objected against this some of them are such as are yet but in their return to God from a life of former sin and misery and are yet but like the needle in the compasse that is shaken in a trembling motion towards their rest and not in any setled apprehensions of it Some of them by the straying of their imagination too high and putting themselves upon more than their heads can bear and by the violence of fears or other passions do make themselves uncapable of those sweet consolations which else they might find in their converse with God as a Lute when the strings are broken with straining is uncapable of making any melody All of them have false apprehensions of God and therefore trouble themselves by their own mistakes And if some perplex themselves by their errour doth it follow that therefore the Truth is not comfortable Is not a Fathers presence consolatory because some children are afraid of their Fathers that know them not because of some disguise And some of Gods children walk so unevenly and carelesly before him that their sins provoke him to hide his face and to seem to reject them and disown them and so to trouble them that he may bring them home But shall the comforts of our Fathers Love and Family be judged of by the fears or smart of those whom he is scourging for their disobedience or their tryal Seek God with understanding as knowing his essential properties and what he will be to them that sincerely and diligently seek him and then you will quickly have experience that nothing so much tendeth to quiet and settle a doubting troubled unstable soul as faithfully to walk with God But the soul that estrangeth it self from God may indeed for a time have the quietness of security but so far it will be strange to the assurance of his Love and to true consolation Expect not that God should follow you with his comforts in your sinfulnesse and negligence and cast them into your hearts whilest you neither seek nor mind them or that he give you the fruit of his wayes in your own wayes Will he be your joy when you forget him will he delight your souls with his goodness and amiableness while you are taken up with other matters and think not of him can you expect to find the comforts of his family among his enemies out of doors The experience of all the world can tell you that prodigals while they are stragling from their Fathers house do never tast the comfort of his embraces The strangers meddle not with his childrens joyes They grow not in the way of ambition covetousnesse vainglory or
man and the instability of the dearest friends How highly was Athanasius esteemed and yet at last deserted and banished even by the famous Constantine himself How excellent a man was Gregory Nazianzene and highly valued in the Church and yet by reproach and discouragements driven away from his Church at Constantinople whither he was chosen and envied by the Bishops round about him How worthy a man was the eloquent Chrysostome and highly valued in the Church And yet how bitterly was he prosecuted by Hierome and Epiphanius and banished and dyed in a second banishment by the provocation of factious contentious Bishops and an Empress impatient of his plain reproofs What person more generally esteemed and honoured for learning piety and peaceableness then Melanchthon and yet by the contentions of Illyricus and his party he was made aweary of his life As highly as Calvin was deservedly valued at Geneva yet once in a popular lunacy and displeasure they drove him out of their City and in contempt of him some called their dogs by the name of Calvin though after they were glad to intreat him to return How much our Grindal and Abbot were esteemed it appeareth by their advancement to the Archbishoprick of Canterbury and yet who knoweth not that their eminent piety sufficed not to keep them from dejecting frowns And if you say that it is no wonder if with Princes through interest and with people through levity it be thus I might heap up instances of the like untrustiness of particular friends But all History and the experiences of the most do so much abound with them that I think it needless Which of us must not say with David that all men are lyars Psal. 116. that is deceitful and untrusty either through unfaithfulness weakness or insufficiency that either will forsake us or cannot help us in the time of need Was Christ forsaken in his extremity by his own Disciples to teach us what to expect or bear Think it not strange then to be conformed to your Lord in this as well as in other parts of his humiliation Expect that men should prove deceitful Not that you should entertain censorious suspicions of your particular friends but remember in general that man is frail and the best too selfish and uncertain and that it is no wonder if those should prove your greatest grief from whom you had the highest expectations Are you better then Job or David or Christ and are your friends more firm and unchangeable then theirs Consider 1 That Creatures must be set at a sufficient distance from their Creator Allsufficiency Immutability and indefectible fidelity are proper to Jehovah As it is no wonder for the Sun to set or be ecclipsed as glorious a body as it is so it is no wonder for a friend a pious friend to fail us for a time in the hour of our distress There are some that will not but there is none but may if God should leave them to their weakness Man is not your Rock He hath no stability but what is derived dependant and uncertain and defectible Learn therefore to rest on God alone and lean not too hard or confidently upon any mortal might 2. And God will have the common infirmity of man to be known that so the weakest may not be utterly discouraged nor take their weakness to be gracelesness whilest they see that the strongest also have their infirmities though not so great as theirs If any of Gods servants lives in constant holiness and fidelity without any shakings or stumbling in their way it would tempt some self accusing troubled souls to think that they were altogether graceless because they are so far short of others But when we read of a Peters denying his Master in so horrid a manner with swearing and cursing that he knew not the man Matth. 26. 74. and of his dissimulation and not walking uprightly Gal. 2. and of a Davids unfriendly and unrighteous dealing with Mephihosheth the seed of Jonathan and of his most vile and treacherous dealing with Uriah a faithful and deserving subject it may both abate our wonder and offence at the unfaithfulness of our friends and teach us to compassionate their frailty when they desert us and also somewhat abate our immoderate dejectedness and trouble when we have failed God or man our selves 3. Moreover consider how the odiousness of that sin which is the root and cause of such unfaithfulness is greatly manifested by the failing of our friends God will have the odiousness of the remnants of our self-love and carnalmindedness and cowardize appear we should not discern it in the seed and root if we did not see and tast it in the fruits Seeing without tasting will not sufficiently convince us A crab looks as beautiful as an apple but when you tast it you better know the difference When you must your selves be unkindly used by your friends and forsaken by them in your distress and you have tasted the fruits of the remnants of their worldliness selfishness and carnal fears you will better know the odiousness of these vices which thus break forth against all obligations to God and you and notwithstanding the light the conscience and perhaps the grace that doth resist them 4. Are you not prone to overvalue and overlove your friends If so is not this the meetest remedy for your disease In the loving of God we are in no danger of excess and therefore have no need of any thing to quench it And in the loving of the godly purely upon the account of Christ and in loving Saints as Saints we are not apt to go too far But yet our understandings may mistake and we may think that Saints have more of sanctity then indeed they have and we are exceeding apt to mix a selfish common love with that which is spiritual and holy and at the same time when we Love a Christian as a Christian we are apt not only to Love him as we ought but to overlove him because he is our friend and Loveth us Those Christians that have no special Love to us we are apt to undervalue and neglect and Love them below their holiness and worth But those that we think entirely Love us we Love above their proper worth as they stand in the esteem of God Not but that we may Love those that Love us and add this Love to that which is purely for the sake of Christ but we should not let our own interest prevail and overtop the interest of Christ nor Love any so much for Loving us as for Loving Christ And if we do so no wonder if God shall use such remedies as he seeth meet to abate our excuse of selfish love O how highly are we apt to think of all that Good which is found in those who are the highest esteemers of us and most dearly love us when perhaps in it self it is but some ordinary good or ordinary degree of goodness which is in them Their Love to us
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.
would have been grieved for their griefs and for ought they know might have fallen into as sad a state as they themselves are now lamenting 6. Do you think it is for the Hurt or the Good of your friend that he is removed hence It cannot be for his Hurt unless he be in Hell At least it is uncertain whether to live would have been for his Good by an increase of Grace and so for greater Glory And if he be in Hell he was no fit person for you to take much pleasure in upon earth He might be indeed a fit object for your compassion but not for your complacency Sure you are not undone for want of such company as God will not endure in his sight and you must be separated from for ever But if they be in Heaven you are scarce their friends if you would wish them thence Friendship hath as great respect to the good of our friends as of our selves And do you pretend to friendship and yet lament the removal of your friend to his greatest happiness Do you set more by your own enjoying his company then by his enjoying God in perfect blessedness This sheweth a very culpable defect either in Faith or Friendship and therefore beseemeth not Christians and friends If Love teacheth us to mourn with them that mourn and to rejoyce with them that rejoyce can it be an act of rational Love to mourn for them that are possessed of the highest everlasting joyes 7. God will not honour himself by one only but by many He knoweth best when his work is done When our friends have finished all that God intended them for when he put them into the world is it not time for them to be gone and for others to take their places and finish their work also in their time God will have a succession of his servants in the world Would you not come down and give place to him that is to follow you when your part is played and his is to begin If David had not died there had been no Solomon no Jehoshaphat no Hezekiah no Josiah to succeed him and honour God in the same throne You may as wisely grudge that one day only takes not up all the week and that the clock striketh not the same hour still but proceedeth from one to two from two to three c. as to murmur that one man only conâ—inueth not to do the work of his place excluding his successors 8. You must not have all your Mercies by one messenger or hand God will not have you consine your Love to one only of his servants And therefore he will not make one only useful to you but when one hath delivered his message and done his part perhaps God will send you other mercies by another hand And it belongeth to him to choose the messenger who gives the gift And if you will childishly dote upon the first messenger and say you will have all the rest of your mercies by his hand or you will have no more your frowardness more deserveth correction than compassion and if you be kept fasting till you can thankfully take your food from any hand that your Father sends it by it is a correction very suitable to your sin 9. Do you so highly value your friends for God or for them or for your selves in the final consideration If it was for God what reason of trouble have you that God hath disposed of them according to his wisdome and unerring will should you not then be more pleased that God hath them and employeth them in his highest service than displeased that you want them But if you value them and love them for themselves they are now more lovely when they are more perfect and they are now fitter for your content and joy when they have themselves unchangeable content and joy than they could be in their sin and sorrows But if you valued and loved them but for your selves only it is just with God to take them from you to teach you to value men to righter ends and upon better considerations and both to prefer God before your selves and better to understand the nature of true friendship and better to know that your own felicity is not in the hands of any creature but of God alone 10. Did you improve your friends while you had them or did you only Love them while you made but little use of them for your souls If you used them not it was just with God for all your Love to take them from you They were given you as your candle not only to Love it but to work by the Light of it And as your garments not only to Love them but to wear them and as your meat not only to Love it but to feed upon it Did you receive their counsel and hearken to their reproofs and pray with them and conser with them upon those holy truths that tended to elevate your minds to God and to inflame your brests with sacred Love If not be it now known to you that God gave you not such helps and mercies only to talk of or look upon and Love but also to improve for the benefit of your souls 11. Do you not seem to forget both where you are your selves and where you must shortly and for ever live Where would you have your friends but where you must be your selves Do you mouâ—n that they are taken hence Why if they had staid here a thousand years how little of that time should you have had their company when you are almost leaving the world your selves would you not send your treasure before you to the place where you must abide How quickly will you pass from hence to God where you shall find your friends that you lamented as if they had been lost and there shall dwell with them for ever O foolish mourners would you not have your friends at home at their home and your home with their Father and your Father their God and your God! Shall you not there enjoy them long enough Can you so much miss them for one day that must live with them to all eternity And is not eternity long enough for you to enjoy your friends in Obj. But I do not know whether ever I shall there have any distinct knowledge of them or love to them and whether God shall not there be so far All in All as that we shall need or fetch no comfort from the creature Answ. There is no reason for either of these doubts For 1. You cannot justly think that the knowledge of the Glorified shall be more confused or imperfect then the knowledge of natural men on earth We shall know much more but not so much less Heaven exceedeth earth in knowledge as much as it doth in joy 2. The Angels in Heaven have now a distinct particular knowledge of the least believers rejoycing particularly in their conversion and being called by Christ himself Their Angels Therefore when we shall
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
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
course of nature in themselves and others nor govern the world so sure is there an Infinite eternal Being that doth this Every Atheist that is not mad must confess that there is an Eternal Being that had no beginning or cause The question is only which this is which ever it is it is this that is the true God What now would the Atheist have it to be Certainly it is that Being that hath being it self from none that is the first cause of all other Beings And if it caused them it must necessarily be every way more excellent then they and contain all the good that it hath caused For none can give that which it hath not to give nor make that which is better then it self that Being that hath made so glorious a creature as the Sun must needs it self be much more glorious It could not have put strength and power into the Creatures if it had not it self more strength and power It could not have put Wisdom and Goodness into the Creature if it had not more Wisdom and Goodness then all they Whatever it is therefore that hath more Power Wisdom and Goodness then all the world besides that is it which we call God That cause that hath communicated to all things else the Being Power and all perfections which they have is the God whom we acknowledge and adore If Democritists will ascribe all this to Atomes and think that the Motes did make the Sun or if others will think that the Sun is God because it participateth of so much of his excellency let them be mad a while till judgement shall convince them So clear beyond all question to my soul is the Being of the Godhead that the Devil hath much lost the rest of his more subtil temptations when he hath foolishly and maliciously adjoyned this to draw me to question the Being of my God which is more then to question Whether there be a Sun in the Firmament But what is the Impress that the Being of God must make upon the Soul I answer From hence the holy soul discerneth that the Beginning and the End of his Religion the substance of his Hope is the Being of Beings and not a shaddow and that his faith is not a fansie The Object is as it were the matter of the act If our faith and hope and Love and Fear be exercised about the most Real Being it shews that there is a Reality in our faith and that we be not exercised in a delusory work God is to the Atheist but an empty name He feels no life or Being in him And accordingly he offereth him a shaddow of devotion and a nominal service But to the holy soul there is nothing that hath life and Being but God and that which doth receive a Being from him and leadeth to him This Real object putteth a Reality into all the devotions of a holy soul. They look upon the vanities of the world as Nothing and therefore they look on worldly men as on idle dreamers that are doing nothing This puts a seriousness and Life into the faith and holy affections of the believer He knows whom he trusteth 2 Tim. 1. 12. he knows whom he Loveth and in whom he Hopeth Atheists and all ungodly men do practically judge of God as the true Believer judgeth of the world The Atheist takes the pleasures of the world to be the only substance and God to be but as a shaddow a notion or a dream The godly take the world to be as nothing and know it is but a fancy and dream and shadow of pleasures and honour and profit and felicity that men talk of and seek so eargerly below but that God is the substantial object and portion of the soul. If you put into the mouth of a hungry man a little froth or breath or aire and bid him eat it and feed upon it he will tell you he finds no substance in it so judgeth the graceless soul of God and so judgeth the gracious soul of the creature as separate from God Let this be the Impression on thy soul from the consideration of Gods transcendent Being O look upon thy self and all things as nothing without him and as Nothing in comparison of him And therefore let thy Love to them be as nothing and thy desires after them and care for them as nothing But let the Being of thy Love desire and endeavours be let out upon the transcendent Being The creature hath its kind of being but if it would be to us instead of God it will be as nothing The Aire hath its Being but we cannot dwell in it nor rest upon it to support us as the earth doth The water hath its Being but it will not bear us if we would walk upon it The name of the great Jehovah is I am Exod. 3. 14. Try any Creature in thy need and it will say as Jacob to Rachel Gen. 30. 2. Am I in Gods stead that hath withheld thy desire from thee send to it and it will say as John Baptist that confessed I am not the Christ Joh. 1. 20. Let none of all the affections of thy soul have so much Life and Being in them as those that are exercised upon God Worms and motes are not regarded in comparison of mountains a drop is not regarded in comparison of the Ocean Let the Being of God take up thy soul and draw off thy observation from deluding vanities as if there were no such things before thee When thou remembrest that there is a God Kings and Nobles Riches and Honours and all the world should be forgotten in comparison of him And thou shouldst live as if there were no such things if God appear not to thee in them See them as if thou didst not see them as thou seest a candle before the sun or a pile of grass or single dust in comparison with the Earth Hear them as if thou didst not hear them as thou hearest the leaves of the shaken tree at the same time with a clap of thunder As greatest things obscure the least so let the Being of the Infinite God so take take up all the powers of thy soul as if there were nothing else but he when any thing would draw thee from him O if the Being of this God were seen by thee thy seducing friend would scarce be seen thy tempting baits would scarce be seen thy riches and honours would be forgotten all things would be as nothing to thee in comparison of him CHAP. III. 2. AS the Being of God should make this Impression on thee so the Attributes that speak the perfection of that Being must each one have their work as his unity or indivisibility his Immensity and Eternity And first the thought of Gods unity should contract and unite thy stragling affections and call them home from multifarious vanity It should possess thy mind with deep apprehensions of the excellency of holy Unity in the soul and in the Church and of
their Lord had been but two dayes dead were unbelievingly saying We hoped this had been he that should have redeemed Israel O Remember Christian in all thy darkness and ignorance of the difficult passages of Scripture or of Providence that the things that are chained to Eternity cannot be perfectly understood by him that standeth in an inch of time but when Eternity comes thou shalt understand them Remember when things seems crooked in this world and the best are lowest and the worst are highest that Eternity is long enough to set all straight Remember when sinners crow and triumph that Eternity is long enough for their complaints In thy poverty and pain and longest afflictions remember that Eternity is long enough for thy relief If thy sorrow be long and thy comforts short remember that Eternity is long enough for thy Joyes Cannot we be content to take up short in this life when we believe Eternity Dost thou stagger at the length or strength of thy temptations and art thou ready to draw back and venture upon sin why what Temptation can there be that should not be lighter then a feather if Eternity be put against it in the scales In a Word if there be any man that escapeth the foolish seductions of this world and useth it as not abusing it and hath all his worldly accommodations as if he had none it is he that fixeth his eye upon Eternity and seeth that the fashion of these lower things doth pass away 1 Cor. 7. 29 30 31. No man can be ignorant of the Necessity and worth of a Holy life that discerneth that the Eternal God is the End of it The right Apprehensions of Gods Eternity supposing him our End which is further to be manifested in its place is a most powerful antidote against all sin and a most powerful composer of a distempered mind and a most powerful means to keep up all the powers of the soul in a resolute vigorous cheerful motion to the Eternal God for whom and by whom it was Created CHAP. VI. 5. THe next Attribute of God that is to make its Impress on us is that He is a spirit In this One are these three especially comprehended 1. That he is Simple and not material or compounded as bodies are 2. That he is Invisible and not to be seen as Bodies are 3. That he is Immortal and Incorruptible and not subject to death or change as Bodies are 1. As simplicity signifieth unity in opposition to Multiplicity we have spoken of it before As it is opposite to all materiality mixture or composition we are now to speak of it And the believing thoughts of Gods immateriality and simplicity should have these three effects upon the soul. 1. It should do much to win the heart to God and cause it to close with him as its felicity Because as he hath no matter or mixture so he hath nothing but pure and perfect Goodness and therefore there is nothing in him to discourage the soul. The Creatures have evil in them with their good and by contrary qualities do hurt us when they help us and displease us when they please us But in God there is nothing but Insinite goodness And should not the soul adhere to him where it is sure to find nothing but simple pure and unmixed good The Creatures are all lyable to some exceptions In one thing they help us but in another they hinder us in one thing they are suitable to us and in another thing unsuitable But God is lyable to no exceptions This will for ever confound the ungodly that gave not up themselves unto him They did even for a thing of nought forsake that God that was purely and simply good and against whom they had no exceptions Had there been any thing in God to discourage the soul or which his most malicious enemy could blame the ungodly soul had some excuse But this will stop all the mouths of the condemned that they had nothing to say against the Lord and yet they had no mind to him no hearts for him in comparison of the vain vexatious Creatures 2. The simplicity of God should make us know the imperfection and vanity of all the Creatures that are compounded things and so should help to alienate us from them Our friends have in them perhaps much holyness but mixed with much sin They may have much knowledge but mixed with much ignorance Their humility is mixt with Pride their meekness with some Passions their love with selfishness and a small matter will cause them to distast us They may be much for God but withall they may do much against him They help the Church but through their weakness they may lamentably detract or wrong it They are able to help us but in part and willing but in part and they have usually interests of their own that are inconsistent with ours We have no Commodity but hath its discommodity Our houses our families our neighbours our callings our cattle our land our Countries Churches Ministers Magistrates Laws and Judgements yea even health and plenty and peace it self all have their Mixtures of bitterness or danger and those the most dangerous commonly that have least bitterness But in God there is none of all this Mixture but Pure uncompounded Good He is light and with him is no darkness 1 Joh. 1. 5. Indeed there is somewhat in God that an ungodly man distasteth and that seemeth in the state that he is in to be against him and hurtful to him as is his Justice Holiness Truth c. But Justice is not evil because it doth condemn a Thief or Murderer Meat is not bad because the sick distast it It is the cross position of the sinful soul or his enmity to the Lord that makes the Lord to use him as an enemy Let him but become a subject fit for sweeter dealing from God and he is sure to find it Leave then the compounded self-contradicting Creature and adhere to the Pure simple Deity 3. Gods simplicity must draw the soul to a holy simplicity that it may be like to God We that seâ—ve a Pure simple God must do â—â— with simple Pure affections and not with hypocrisie or a double heart His interest in us should be maintained with a holy Jealousie that no other Interest mix it self therewith The soul should attain to a holy simplicity by closing with the simple infinite God and suffering nothing to be a shâ—â—er with him in our superlative affections All Creatures must keep their places in our hearts and that is only in a due subordination and subserviency to the Lord But nothing should take up the least of that estimation affections or endeavours that are his own peculiar God will not accept of haâ—â— a heart A double minded double hearted double faced or double tongued person is coâ—trary to the holy simplicity of a Saint As we would not bow the knee to any gods but one so neither should we bow the heart
or life to them We should know what is Gods prerogative and that we should keep entirely for him A subordinate esteem and love and desire the Creature may have as it revealeth God to us or leadeth to him or helpeth us in his work But it should not have the least of his part in our esteem or love or desire This is the Chastity the Purity the Integrity of the soul. It is the mixture impurity corruption and consusion of our souls when any thing is taken in with God See therefore Christian that in thy heart thou have no God but ONE and that he have all thy heart and soul and strength as far as thou canst attain it And because there will be still in imperfect souls some sinful mixture of the Creatures interest with Gods let it be the work of thy life to be watching against it and casting it out and cleansing thy heart of it as thou wouldst do thy food if it fall into the dirt For whatever is added to God in thy Affections doth make no better an increase there then the adding of earth unto thy gold or of dung unto thy meat or of corrupted humours and sickness to thy body Mixture will make no better work It may be thy Rejoycing if thou have the testimony of a good conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity and not in fleshly wisdome but by the grace of God thou hast had thy conversation in the world 2 Cor. 1. 12. It is the state of Hypocrisie when One God is openly professed and worshipped and yet the creature lyeth deepest and nearest to the heart 2. The Invisibility of God also must have its due effects upon us And 1. It must warn us that we picture not God to our eye sight or in our fancies in any bodily shape Saith the Prophet Isa. 40. 18. To whom will you liken God or what likeness will ye compare unto him so 25. No man hath seen God at any time the only begotten Son which is in the bosome of his Father he hath declared him Joh. 1. 18. and therefore we must conceive of him but as he is declared Joh. 6. 46. Not that any man hath seen the Father save he which is of God he hath seen the Father If you ask me How then you should conceive of God if not in any Bodily shape I answer Get all these Attributes and Relations of God to make their proper Impress upon thy soul as now I am teaching you and then you will have the true Conceiving of God This Question therefore is to be answered at the end of this Discourse when you have seen all the Attributes of God together and heard what impression they must make upon you 2. This must teach us to think most highly of the things that are Invisible and meanlier of these visible things Let it be the property of a Beast and not of a man to know nothing but what he seeth or hath seen Let it be the mark of the bruitish Insidels and not of Christians to doubt of the invisible things because they are invisible or to think that things visible are more excellent or sure As the senses are more ignoble then the Intellect a beast having as perfect senses as a man and yet no reasonable understanding so the objects of sense must proportionably be below the Objects of the understanding as such The grossest and most palpable objects are the basest It is the subtle part that 's called the Spirits which being drawn out of plants or other vegetables is most powerful and excellent and valued when the earthly dregs are cast away as little worth It is that subtle part in our blood that 's called the Spirits that hath more of the virtue of life and doth more of the works then the feculent gross and earthly part The aire and wind have as true a Being as the Earth and a more excellent nature though it be more gross and they invisible The Body is not so excellent as the invisible soul. Invisible things are as real as visible and as suitable to our more noble invisible part as visible things to our fleshly baser part 3. The invisibility of God must teach us to Live a life of Faith and to get above a sensual life And it must teach us to value the faith of the Saints as knowing its excellency and necessity Invisible objects have the most perfect excellent Reality and therefore Faith hath the preheminence above sense Natural Reason can live upon things not seen if they have been seen or can be known by natural evidence subjects obey a Prince that they see not and fear a punishment which they see not and the nature of man is afraid of the Devils though we see them not But Faith liveth upon such invisible things as mortal eye did never see nor natural ordinary evidence demonstrate but are revealed only by the Word of God though about many of its invisible objects Faith hath the consent of Reason for its encouragement Value not sight and sense too much Think not all to be meer uncertainties and notions that are not the objects of sense We should not have heard that God is a spirit if Corporal substances had not a baser kind of Being then Spirits Intellection is a more noble operation then sense If there be any thing properly called sense in Heaven it will be as far below the pure Intellective Intuition of the Lord as the glorified Body will be below the glorified soul. But what that difference will be we cannot now understand Fix not your minds on sensible things Remember that your God your home your portion are unseen And therefore live in hearty Affections to them and serious prosecution of them as if you saw them Pray as if you saw God and Heaven and Hell Hear as if you saw him that sends his Messenger to speak to you Resist all the Temptations to lust and sensuality and every sin as you would do if you saw God stand by Love him and Fear him and Trust him and Serve him as you would do if you beheld him Faith is the evidence of things not seen Heb. 11. 1. Believing must be to you in stead of seeing and make you as serious about things unseen as sensual men are about things sensible In every thing that you see remember it is he that is unseen that appeareth in them He lighteth you by the sun he warmeth you by the fire he beareth you by the earth See him in all these by the eye of Faith 3. The Immortality Incorruptibility and Immutability of God must 1. Teach the soul to rise up from these Mortal Corruptible Mutable things and to fix upon that God who is the immortal incorruptible portion of his Saints 2. It must comfort and encourage all Believers in the consideration of their felicity and support them under the failings of all mortal corruptible things Our Parents and Children and Friends are mortal They are ours to day
in with all his care and power as long as he here liveth Yet this must be done and the soul that hath obtained true self denyal and is dead to the world and devoted and alive to God is able in some good measure to perform it To love the world for it self and make the creature our chief delight and live to it as our End and Idol this is the common damning course To cast away our possessions and put our talents into our fellow servants hands and to withdraw our selves as it were out of the world into solitude as Monks or Hermeâ—s do this is too like the hideing of our talents and a dangerous course of unfaithfulness and unprofitableness unless in some extraordinary case and is at best the too easie way of weaklings that will be souldiers only out of the Army or where there is but little danger of the Enemy But to keep our Stations and take Honours and Riches as our Masters talents as a burden that we must honour him by bearing and the instruments by which we must laboriously do him service and to see and Love him in every creature and study him in it and sanctifie it to his use and to see that our lust get no advantage by it and feed not on it but that we tame our Bodies and have all that we have for God and not for our flesh this is the hard but the excellent most acceptable course of living in this world And it is not only other creatures but our selves also that we must thus admire and love and use for God while we abase our selves as to our selves and deny our selves and use not our selves for our selves but as we stand in due subordination to him Abase your selves as sinful and abhor that which is your own and not the Lords But vilifie not your nature in it self â—or any thing in you that is the work of God Pretend not humility for the dishonouring of your Maker Reason and Natural freedom of the Will are Gods work and not yours and therefore must be honoured and not scorned and reviled But the blindness and errour of your Reason and the bad inclinations and actions of your free-wills these are your own and therefore vilifie them and hate them and spare not And when you lament the smalness of your Graces deny them not and sleight not but magnifie the preciousness of that little that you have while you mourn for the imperfection And when men offend you or prove your enemies forget not to value and love that of God that yet is in them All is Good that is of God 4. If all things be of God as the Creator and Conserver we must hence remember on whom it is that our selves and all things else depend In him we live and move and have our being Act. 17. 28. He upholdeth all things by the word of his power Heb. 1. 3. The earth standeth upon his will and word The Nations are in his hands so are the lives of our friends and enemies and so are our selves And therefore our eye must be upon him and our care must be to please him and our trust and quietness must be in him and blessed is he that maketh sure of an Interest in his special Love 5. Hence also we must observe the vanity of all Creature confidence and our hearts must be withdrawn from resting in any means or instruments They are nothing to us and can do nothing for us but what they have or do from him that made and preserveth us 6. And lastly hence also we may see the patience and goodness of the Lord that as he refused not to make those men that he foreknew would live ungodlily so he denyeth not to uphold their Being even while they sin against him All the while that they are abusing his creatures they are substained by him and have those Creatures from him From him the drunkard hath his drink and the glutton his meat and the voluptuous youth their abused health and strength and all men have from him the Powers or faculties of soul and Body by which they sin And shall any be so ungrateful as to say therefore that God doth cause their sin It s true he can easily stop thy breath while thou art swearing and lying and speaking against the service of God that made thee And wouldst thou have him do so He can easily take away the meat and drink and riches and health and life which thou abusest And wouldst thou have him do it He can easily keep thee from sinning any more on earth by cutting off thy life and sending thee to pay for what thou hast done And art thou content with this Must he be taken to be a partaker in thy sin because he doth not strike thee dead or lame or speechless or disable thee from sinning Provoke him not by thy Blasphemies lest he clear himself in a way that thou desirest not But O wonder at his patience that holds thee in his hand and keepeth thee from falling into the grave and Hell while thou art sinning against him While a curse or oath is in thy mouth he could let thee fall into utter misery How oft hast thou provoked him to take thee in thy lust in thy rage or in thy neglect of God and give thee thy desert Would any of you support your enemy as God doth you CHAP. XI 10. AS we must know God as our Creatour so also as our Redeemer Of which I shall say but little now because I have mentioned it more fully in the Directions for sound Conversion It is life Eternal to know the Father and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent Job 17. 3. The Father Redeemeth us by the Son whom he sent and whose Sacrifice he accepted and in whom he is well pleased And this must have these effects upon our souls 1. We must be hence convinced that we are not now in a state of innocency nor to be saved as innocents or on the terms of the Law of our Creation Bue Salvation is now by a Redeemer and therefore consisteth in our recovery and restauration The objects of it are only lapsed sinful miserable men Name the Creature if you can since Adam that stood before God here in the flesh in a state of personal perfect innocency except the immaculate Lamb of God If God as Creator should now save any without respect to a Redemption it must be on the terms of the Law of Creation upon which it is certain that no man hath or shall be saved that is upon perfect personal persevering obedience You cannot exempt Infants themselves from sin and misery without exempting them from Christ the Redeemer and the remedy Rom. 3. 10 19 20 22 23. There is none Righteous in himself without a Redeemer no not one They are all gone out of the way That every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God And if all the world be guilty none are
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
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
is called a new begetting or new birth without which none can enter into heaven Joh. 3. 3 5 6. A renewing us and making us new men and new creatures so far as that old things are past away and all become new Eph. 4. 23 24. Col. 3. 10. 2 Cor. 5. 17. It is a new creating us after the Image of God Eph. 4. 24. It maketh us Holy as God is Holy 1 Pet. 1. 15 16. yea it maketh us partakers of the Divine nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. It giveth us repentance to the acknowledging of the truth that we may recover our selves out of the snare of the Devil who were taken captive by him at his will 2 Tim. 2. 25 26. It giveth us that Love by which God dwelleth in us and we in God 1 Joh. 4. 16. We are redeemed by Christ from all iniquity and therefore it is that he gave himself for us to purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Tit. 2. 14. It is an abundant shedding of the Holy Ghost on us for our renovation Tit. 3. 5 6. and by it a shedding the Love of God abroad in our hearts Rom. 5. 5. It is this Holy Spirit given to believers by which they pray and by which they mortifie the flesh Jud. 20. Rom. 8. 26. 13. By this Spirit we live and walk and rejoyce Rom. 8. 1. and 14. 17. Our joy and peace and hope is through the power of the Holy Ghost Rom 15. 13. It giveth us a spiritual mind and taketh away the carnal mind that is enmity against God and neither is nor can be subject to his law Rom. 8. 7. By this Spirit that is given to us we must know that we are Gods children 1 Joh. 3. 24. 4. 13. For if any man have not the spirit of Christ the same is none of his Rom. 8 9. All holy graces are the fruits of the spirit Gal. 5. 22 23. It would be too long to number the several excellent effects of the sanctifying work of the spirit upon the soul and to recite the Elogies of it in the Scripture Surely it is no low or needless thing which all these expressions do intend Quest. 3. If you think it a most hainous sin to vilifie the Creator and his work and the Redeemer and his work why should not you think so of the vilifying of the sanctifier and his work when God hath so magnified it and will be glorified in it and when it is the applying perfecting work that maketh the purchased benefits of Redemption to be ours and formeth our Fathers Image on us Quest. 4. Do we not Doctrinally commit too much of that sin if we undervalue the Spirits sanctifying work as a common thing which the ungodly world do manifest in practice when they speak and live in a contempt or low esteem of grace And which is more injurious to God for a prophane person to jest at the Spirits work or for a Christian or Minister deliberately to extennate it especially when the preaching of grace is a Ministers chief work sure we should much fear partaking in so great a sin Quest. 5. Why is it that the Scripture speaks so much to take men off from boasting or ascribing any thing to themselves Rom. 3. 19. That every mouth may be stopped and why doth not the Law of works exclude boasting but only the Law of faith Rom. 3. 27. Surely the actions of nature except so far as it is corrupt are as truly of God as the acts of grace And yet God will not take it well to deny him the glory of Redemption or Sanctification and tell him that we paid it him in another kind and ascribed all to him as the author of our free will by natural production For as Nature shall honour the Creatour so Grace shall also honour the Redeemer and Sanctifier And God designeth the humbling of the sinner and teaching him to deny himself and to honour God in such a way as may stand with self abasement leaving it to God to honour those by way of reward that honour him in way of duty and deny their own honour Quest. 6. Why is the Blaspheming and sinning against the Holy Ghost made so hainous and dangerous a sin if the works of the Holy Ghost were not most excellent and such as God will be most honoured by Quest. 7. Is it not exceeding ingratitude for the soul that hath been illuminated converted renewed quickened and saved by the Holy Ghost to extenuate the mercy and ascribe it most to his natural Will O what a change was it that Sanctification made what a blessed birth day was that to our souls when we entered here upon Life Eternal Joh. 17. 3. And is this the thanks we give the Lord for so great a Mercy Quest. 8. What mean those texts if they consute not this unthankful opinion Phil. 2. 13. It is God that worketh in you to Will and to do of his good pleasure Eph. 2. 7 8 9 10. God hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus that in the ages to come he might shâ—w the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us through Christ Jesus For by Grace ye are saved through faith and that not of your selves it is the gift of God Not of works lest any man should boast For we are his workmanship Created to Good works in Christ Jesus The like is in Tit. 3. 5 6. 7. Joh. 15. 16. Ye have not chosen me but I have chosen you and ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit and that your fruit should remain 1 Joh. 4. 10. Herein is Love not that we loved God but that he loved us 1 Cor. 4. 7. For who maketh thee to differ and what hast that thou that thou didst not receive Joh. 6. 44. No man can come unto me except the Father which hath sent me draw him 1 Cor. 2. 14. The natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God for they are foolishness unto him neither can be know them because they are spiritually discerned Joh. 3. 6. That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit that is plainly the fleshly birth produceth but flesh and not spirit if any man will have the spirit and so be saved it must be by a spiritual begetting and birth by the Holy Ghost Act. 16. 14. The Lord opened Lydia's heart that she attended to the things that were spoken of Paul c. Was the Conversion of Paul a murdering persecuter his own work rather then the Lords when the means and manner were such as we read of Act. 22. 14. The God of our Fathers hath chosen thee that thou shouldst know his will and see that just one and hear the voice of his mouth c. He was chosen to the Means and to faith and not only in faith to salvation When Christ called his Disciples
us and Rest to the troubled 2. The Justice of God is the terrour of the ungodly As he would not make unrighteous Laws for the pleasure of unrighteous men so neither will he pass unrighteous judgement But look what a man soweth that shall he also reap All his peremptory threatnings shall be made good and his wrath poured out for ever upon impenitent souls because he is the Righteous God CHAP. XVIII 17. ANother of Gods Attributes is his Holiness He is called Holy 1. As he is Transcendently above and separated from all the Creatures in comparison of whom the Heâ—vens are not clean and from whom all things stand at an Infinite distance 2. As the Perfection of his nature is the Fountain of all Moral Good 1. In the Holiness of his Law the Rule of Holiness 2. In the Holiness of the soul and 3. In his holy Judgements And consequently as this Perfect Nature is contrary to all the Moral Pollution of the Creature loathing iniquity forbiding and condemning it That Perfect Goodness of the will of God from whence floweth holy Laws and motions and the Holiness of the soul of man is it that Scripture meaneth usually by Gods Holiness rather then the foresaid distance from the Creatures And therefore his Holiness is usually given as the Reason of his Laws and Judgements and of his enmity to sin And our Holiness is called his Image who imitate not his Transcendency and we are commanded to be Holy as he is Holy 1 Pet. 1. 16. The nature of the Image will best tell us what Holiness is in God Holiness in us is called The Divine Nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. and therefore is radically a right inclination and disposition of the soul which hath its rise from a Transcendent Holiness in God even as our Wisdome from his Transcendent Wisdome and our Being from his Being Holiness therefore being indeed the same with the Transcendently Moral Goodness of God which I have spoken of before I shall say but little of it now Thus must the Holiness of God be known 1. It must cause us to have a most high and honourable esteem of Holiness in the Creature because it is the Image of the Holiness of God Three sorts of Creatures have a Derivative Holiness The first is The Law which is the meer signification of the Wise and Holy Will of God concerning mans Duty with Rewards and Penalties for the Holy Governing of the world This is the nearest Image of God engraven upon that Seal which must be the Instrument of imprinting it on our souls Now the Holiness of the Word is not the meer product of the Will of God considered as a Will but of the Will of God considered as Holy that is as the Infinite Transcendent Moral Goodness in the Architype or Original For all events that proceed from God are the products of his Will which is Holy but not as Holy as the creating preserving disposing of every fly or fish in the sea or worm in the earth c. There is somewhat therefore in the Nature of God which is the Perfection of his Will and is called Holiness which â—he Holiness of the Law doth flow from and express This Holy Word is the Immortal seed that begetteth Holiness in the soul which is the second subject of derived Holiness And this our Holiness is a conformity of the soul to the Law as the Product of the Holy Will of God and not a meer conformity to his predictions and decreeing Will as such It is a separation to God but not every separation Pharaoh was set apart to be the Passive monument of the Honour of Gods Name and Cyrus was his servant to restore his people and yet not thus Holy But it is a separation from common and unclean uses and a Purgation from polluting vice and a renovation by reception of the Image of Gods Holiness whose Nature is to encline the soul to God and devote it wholly to him both in Justice because we are his own and in Love because he is most Holy and perfectly Good The third subject of Holiness is those creatures that are but separated to Holy uses and these have but a Relative Holiness and secundum quid As the Temple the holy utensils the Bible as to the materials the Minister as an Officer the people as visible members c. All these must be reverenced and honoured by us according to the proportion of their Holiness 1. Our principal Reverence must be to the Holy Word of God For Holiness is more perfect there then in our souls The Holiness of the Word which is it that the ungodly hate or quarrel at is the Glory of it in the eyes of Holy men We may much discern a Holy and an unholy soul by their Loving or not loving a Holy Law especially as it is a Rule to themselves A distast of the Holiness of Scripture and of the Holiness of the writings of Divines and of the Holiness of their preaching or conference discovereth an unholy soul. A Love to holy Doctrine sheweth that there is somewhat suitable to it in the soul that Loveth it It is the elogy of the Scriptures the Promises the Covenant the Prophets and Apostles that they are all Holy Rom. 1. 2. Psal. 105. 42. Luk. 1. 70 72. Rev. 18. 20. 2 Tim. 3. 15. Rom. 7. 12. The Holiness of the Scripture doth make it as suitable and savoury to a Holy soul as Light is suitable to the eye-sight and sweetness to the tast and therefore it is to them as the hony comb But to the unholy it is a mystery and as foolishness and that which is contrary to their disposition and they have an enmity to it which makes a wonderful difference in their judging of the evidences of Scripture Verity and much facilitateth the work of Faith in one sort and strengtheneth unbelief in the other Holy doctrine is the Glass that sheweth us the Holy face of God himself and therefore must needs be most excellent to the Saints 2. And we must honour and love also the Holiness of the Saints For they also bear the Image of the Lord. Their Holy Affections Prayers Discourses and Conversations must be beautiful in our eyes And we must take heed of those temptations that either from personal injuries received from any or from their blots or imperfections or from their meanness in the world or from the contempt and reproach and slanders of the ungodly would draw us to think dishononrably of their Holiness He that honoureth the Holy God will honour his Image in his Holy people In his eyes a vile person will be contemned but he will honour them that fear the Lord Psal. 15. 4. The Saints on earth are the excellent in his eyes and his delight is in them Psal. 16. 2 3. The breathings of Divine Love in the holy Prayers Praises and Speeches of the Saints and their Reverent and Holy mention of his Name are things that a holy soul
prevent the sinner with his Judgement but with his Grace he often doth He never punisheth before we are sinners nor never Decreed so to do as all will grant He punisheth none where his foregoing commands and warnings have had their due effect for the prevention And therefore because the Precept is the first part of his Law and the Threatning is but subservient to that and the first intent of a Governour is to procure Obedience and Punishing is but upon supposition that he misseth of the first therefore is God said not to afflict willingly because he doth it not ex voluntate antecedente but ex voluntate consequente that is for so the distinction is sound not as a Law-giver and Ruler by those Laws considered before the violation but only as a Judge of the Law-breakers But yet Gods Mercy is no security to the abusers of his Mercy Bot rather will sink them into deeper misery as the aggravation of their sin As God Afflicts not willingly and yet we feel that he afflicteth so if he do not condemn you willingly you shall finde iâ— you are impenitent that yet he will condemn you If you say God can be forced to do nothing against his will I answer you that it is not simply against his will for then it should never come to pass But it is against the Principal act of his will which floweth from him as a Law-giver or Ruler by Laws in which respect it may be said that he had rather that the wicked turn and live but yet if they will not turn they shall not live A merciful Judge had rather the Thief had saved his life by forbearing to steal but yet he had not rather that Thieves go unpunished than he should condemn them But you 'l say If God had rather men did not sin why doth he not hinder it I answer 1. He had not absolutely and simply rather that is so far as to do all that he can to prevent it nor all that without which he foreknoweth it will not be prevented But he doth much against sin as a Law-giver and nothing for it he causeth us not but perswades us from it and therefore as a Ruler he may be said to have rather that men did not sin or rather that they would turn and live 1. The Mercy of God therefore should lead sinners to Repentance and shame them from their sin and lead them up to God in Love 2. Mercy should encourage sinners to Repent as well as engage them to it For we have to do with a Merciful God that hath not shut up any among us in despair nor forbid them to come in but continueth to invite when we have oft refused and will undoubtedly pardon and welcome all that do return 3. Mercy being specially the portion of the Saints must keep them in Thankfulness Love and Comfort and all Mercies must be improved for their proper ends When a Merciful God is pleased to fill up his servants lives with such Great and Various Mercies as he doth it should breed a continual sweetness upon their hearts and cause them to study the most grateful retribution He should breath forth nothing but Thankfulness Obedience and Praise who breaths nothing but Mercies from God As the food that men live upon will be seen in their temperature 〈…〉 and strength so they that live continually upon Mâ—rcâ—â—s â—â—ould be wholly turned into Love and Thankfulness 〈…〉 ould become as it were their nature temperature 〈…〉 O how unspeakable is the Love of God that 〈…〉 eet a life for his servants even in their warfare 〈…〉 ge in this world that Mercy must be as it were 〈…〉 Air that they breath in the food which they must live upon and the remembrance improvement and thankful mention of it must be the business and imployment of their lives O with what sweet affections meditations and expressions should we live if we lived but according to the rate of those Mercies upon which we live Love and Joy and Thanks and Praise would be our very lives What sweet thoughts would Mercy breed and feed in our minds when we are alone what sweet apprehensions of the Love of God and Life Eternal should we have in Prayer Reading Saoraments and other holy ordinances Sickness and Health Poverty and Wealth Death as well as Life would be comfortable to us for all is full of Mercy to the Vessels of Mercy O Christians what a shame is it that God is so much wronged and our selves so much defrauded of our peace and joy by passing over such abundance of great unvaluable mercies without tasting their sweetness or well considering what we do receive Had we Davids heart what songs of Praise would Mercy teach us to indite How affectionately should we recount the mercies of our youth and riper age of every place and state that we have lived in to the honour of our Gracious Lord and the encouragement of those that know not how Good and Merciful he is But withall see that you contemn not or abuse not Mercy Use it well for it is Mercy that you must trust to in the hour of your distresses O do not trample upon Mercy now lest you be confounded when you should cry for Mercy in your extremity 4. The Mercifulness of God must cause his servants to imitate him in a Love of mercy Be merciful for your heavenly Father is merciful Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy Matth. 5. 7. Be merciful in your Censures Be merciful in your retributions You are none of Gods Children if you Love not your Enemies and pray not for them that curse you and do not good to them that hate and persecute you according to your power Matth. 5. 44 45. If you forgive not men their trespasses but take your Brother by the throat neither will your heavenly Father forgive you your Trespasses Matth. 6. 14 15. Mark that even while he is called your heavenly Father yet he will not forgive if you forgive not Unmerciful men are too unlike to God to claim any interest in his saving mercy in the hour of their extremest misery Men of cruelty blood and violence he abhorreth And usually they do not live out half their daies But they that bite and devour one another are devoured one of another Gal. 5. 15. The last judgement will pass much according to mens works of mercy to the members of Christ Matth. 25. He shall have judgement without mercy that hath shewed no mercy and mercy rejoyceth against judgement James 2. 13. Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this to visit the Fatherless and Widdows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted in the world James 1. 27. He that having this worlds goods seeth his Brother in need and shutteth up the bowels of his compassion from him how dwelleth the Love of God in him But above all cruelty there is none more devilish than cruelty to souls And
Practical Atheism is a Living as without God in the world Ephes. 2. 12. Godliness is contrary to practical Atheism and is a Living as with and to God in the world and in the Church and is here called a Walking with God And it containeth in it these particulars 1. To walk with God includeth the Practical acknowledge ment that is made by the Will as well as the Understanding of the grand Attributes of God and his Relations to Man that he is Infinite in his Being that is Immense and Eternal as also in his Power Wisdome and Goodness that he is the Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier that he is our Absolute Lord or Owner our most Righteous Governour and most bountiful Benefactor or Father that Of Him and Through Him and To Him are all things that in him we Live and move and have our being that he is the fountain or first cause from which all proper Being Truth and Goodness in the Creature is but a derived stream To have the soul unfeignedly resign it self to Him as his Own and subject it self to Him as our Governour walking in the awe of his soveraign Power sensible of the strong obligation of his Laws which Reason Justice and Necessity do all command us to obey To live as in full dependence on him To have the first and greatest respect unto him A more observant respect to Him than to our Rulers A more obedient respect to Him than to our Masters A more dependent tender and honourable respect to Him than to Parents or our nearest friends Thus he that cometh to God as God and so as to be accepted of him must believe that He is his Essential Attributes and what he is in his Relations to man especially that as our Governour and Benefactor he is the Rewarder of them that diligent seek him Heb. 11. 6. The impress of a Deity in his Essential and Relative Attributes must be upon the Heart of him that walks with God Yea the Being of God must be much more remarkable to him than the Being of all Creatures and his presence more regarded than the presence of the Creature and all things must be to us in comparison of God as a Candle is in comparison of the Sun His Greatness and transcendent Excellencies must so over-power them all as to make them less observed and regarded by his taking up our chief observation and regard 2. Our walking with God includeth our Reconciliation to him and that we are not in our natural state of Enmity but made his Children and friends in Christ. Can two walk tother unless they be agreed Amos 3. 3. Enmity is against Unity Disaffection causeth Aversion and flying from each other Yea the fears of a guilty Child may make him flye from his Fathers presence till there be a particular Reconciliation besides the general state of Reconciliation A provoking faulty Child doth Dwell with God his Father though under the continual terror of his frowns But to walk with him in the full sense is more than to be related to him and to dwell with him In a large sense indeed all Gods Children may be said to walk with him as it signifieth only a conversation ordered in godliness sincerity and simplicity But in this sublimer sense as it signifieth a lively exercise of Faith and Love and heavenly-mindedness and a course of complacential contemplation and holy converse with God so it is proper only to some of the â—ounder and more vigilant industrious believers And hereto it is necessary not only that we be Justified and Reconciled to God from our state of Enmity but also that we be pardoned justified and reconciled from our particular wounding falls which are more than the ordinary infirmities of Believers And also it is necessary that we have grateful friendly thoughts of God that we have so much sense of his excellency goodness and kindness to our selves as may give us a complacency in conversing with him and may make the thoughts and mention of him to be desirable and pleasing to us Walking with God doth import though not the full assurance of his special Love and Grace to us yet such an apprehension of his Love and Goodness as may draw the heart to think of him with desire if not with delight A lothness to draw near him to think of him or to mention him a weariness of his special service are contrary to this special walking with God 3. Our Walking with God doth include our esteeming and intending Him as the Ultimate End and felicity of our souls He is not to be sought or loved or conversed with as a means to any greater good for there is no greater nor as inferiour or meerly equal unto any His Goodness must be the most powerful attractive of our Love His favour must be valued as our happiness and the Pleasing of him must be our most industrious imployment To walk with him is to live in the warming reviving sunshine of his Goodness and to feel a delighting satisfying virtue in his Love and gracious presence To live as those that are not their own and that have their lives and faculties and provisions and helps for their Masters service As a Horse or Dog is of so much worth as he is of Use to him that owneth him and that is the best that is the most serviceable to his Master Yet with this very great difference that man being a more noble and capacious creature is admitted not only into a state of Service but of Sonship and Friendship and Communion with God and is allowed and appointed to share more in the pleasure and fruits of his services and to put in his own felicity and delight into his End not only because self-Self-love is natural and necessary to the Creature but also because he is under the Promise of a Reward and more than either because he is a Lover and not only a Servant and his work is principally a work of Love and therefore his End is finis amantis the end of a Lover which â—a Mutual Complacency in the exercises of Love He thâ—â— seeketh not first the Kingdome and Righteousness of God and 〈…〉 h not other things to Him but seeks first the Câ—â—â—â—â—râ— and God only for it doth but deny God in his hâ—aâ—â— and basely subject him to the works of his own hands and doth not walk with God but vilifie and reject him If you Live not to God even to obey and please and honour him you do not walk with him but walk contrary to him by living to his Enemies the Flesh the World and the Devil and therefore God will walk contrary to you Levit. 26. 21 23 24 27 28. You were both Created and Redeemed though for your own felicity yet principally for the Glory and Pleasure of your Creator and Redeemer and for no felicity of your own but what consisteth in Pleasing him Glorifying him and Enjoying him Whether therefore we eat or drink or whatever we do
them pleasing them and shewing them respect while they take no notice of God at all as if they believed not that he is there Hence it is that the men of God were wont to speak though reverently yet familiarly of God as children of their Father with whom they dwell as being indeed fellow-citizens with the Saints who are his houshold Abraham calleth him Gen. 24. 40. The Lord before whom I walk And Jacob Gen. 48. 15. God before whom my Fathers Abraham and Isaac walked And David resolveth Psal. 116. 9. I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living Yea God himself is pleased to use the terms of gracious condescending familiarity with them Christ dwelleth in them by faith Eph. 3. 17. His spirit dwelleth in them as his house and temple Rom. 8. 9. Yea the Father himself is said to dwell in them and they in him 1 Joh. 3. 24. He that keepeth his Commandements dwelleth in Him and He in him and 3. 12. If we love one another God dwelleth in us 13. Hereby we know that we dwell in him and He in us because he hath given us of His spirit 15. Whoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God God dwelleth in him and he in God 16. God is Love and he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God and God in him Yea God is said to walk in them as they are said to walk with Him 2 Cor. 6. 16. For ye are the Temple of the living God as God hath said I will dwell in them and walk in them and I will be their God and they shall be my people Our walking with God then is not only a sense of that common presence which he must needs afford to all but it is also a believing apprehension of his Gracious presence as our God and reconciled Father with whom we dwell being brought near unto Him by Christ and who dwelleth in us by his spirit 9. To walk with God as here we are in flesh includeth not only our believing his presence but also that we see him as the chief cause in the effects in his creatures and his daily providence that we look not on creatures as independent or separated from God but see them as the Glass and God as the represented face and see them as the letters and words and God as the sense of all the creatures that are the first Book which he appointed man to read We must behold his glory declared by the Heavens Psal. 19. 1. and see Him shining in the Sun and see his Power in the Fabrick of the world and his wisdom in the admirable order of the whole we must tast the sweetness of his Love in the sweetness of our food and in the comforts of our friends and all our accommodations we must see and Love his Image in his Holy ones and we must hear his Voice in the Ministry of his Messengers Thus every creature must become a Preacher to us and we must see the Name of God upon it and thus all things will be sanctified to us while Holiness to the Lord is written upon all Though we must not therefore make Idols of the creatures because God appeareth to us in them yet must we hear the message which they bring us and reverence in them the Name of the Creatour which they â—ear By this way of conversing with them they will not ensnare us or deceive or poyson us as they do the carnal unbelieving world but as the Fish brought money to Peter to pay his tribute so every creature would bring us a greater even a spiritual gain When we behold it we should say with pleasant admiration This is the work of God and it is wonderful in our eyes This is the true Divine Philosophy which seeketh and findeth and contemplateth and admireth the Great Creatour in his works When that which sticketh in the creature it self whatever discovery it seem to make is but a childish unprofitable trifling like learning to shape all the letters aright without learning to know their signification and sense It is God appearing in the creatures that is the life and beauty and use and excellency of all the creatures wthout him they are but carkasses deformed useless vain insignificant and very nothings 10. Our walking with God doth contain our willing and sincere attendance on him in the use of those holy duties in which he hath appointed us to expect his grace He is everywhere in his essential presence but he is not everywhere alike to be found in the communications of his grace The assemblies of his Saints that worship him in holy communion are places where he is likelyer to be found then in an Ale-house or a Play-house You are likelier to have holy converse with him among the holy that will speak of holy things to your edification then among the senseless ignorant sensualists and the scornful enemies of Holiness that are the servants of the Devil whom he useth in his daily work for the deceiving and perdition of the world Therefore the conversation of the wicked doth grieve and vex a righteous soul as it s said the Sodomites did by Lot 2 Pet. 2. 7 8. because all their conversation is ungodly far from God not savouring of any true knowledge of him or love to him but is against him by enmity and provocation If God himself do dwell and walk in all his holy ones then they that dwell and walk with them have the best opportunity to dwell and walk with God To converse with those in whom God dwelleth is to converse with him in his Image and to attend him at his dwelling And willfully to run among the wicked is to run far away from God In his Temple doth every man speak of his Glory Psal. 29. 9. when among his brutish enemies every man speaketh to the dishonour of him in his word and wayes He is otherwise present with those that are congregated in his Name and for his worship then he is with those that are assembled for wickedness or vanity or live as brutes without God in the world And we must draw as near him as we can if we would be such as walk with God We must not be strange to him in our Thoughts but make him the object of our most serious meditations It s said of the wicked that they are far from God and that God is not in all their thoughts Ps. 73. 27. Ps. 10. 4. The thoughts are the minds employment It dwells on that which it frequently thinks of It is a walk of the Mind and not of the Body which we are treating of To mind the world and fleshly things is contrary to this walk with God we are far from him when our thoughts are ordinarily far from him I know that it is lawful and meet to think of the business of our callings so far as is necessary to the prudent successful management of them and that it is not requisite that our thoughts
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
God be Good because he will not save you when he can I shall leave you to him to receive satisfaction who will easily silence and consound your impudence and justifie his works and laws Prepare your accusations against him if you will needs insist upon them and try whether he or you shall prevail but remember that thou art a worm and he is God and that he will be the only judge when all is done and ignorance and impiety that prate against him to their own confusion in the day of his patience shall not then usurp the throne Object 2. But how can God be fit for mortals to converse with when they see him not and are infinitely below him Answ. I hope you will not say that you have nothing to do at home with your own souls and yet you never saw your souls And it is the souls the Reason and the will of men that you daily converse with here in the world more then their bodies and yet you never saw their souls their Reason or their wills If you have no higher light to discern by then your eyesight you are not men but beasts If you are men you have Reason and if you are Christians you have faith by which you know things that you never saw You have more dependance on the things that are unseen then on those which you see and have much more to do with them And though God be infinitely above us yet he condescendeth to communicate to us according to our capacities As the Sun is far from us and yet doth not disdain to enlighten and warm and quicken a worm or fly here below If any be yet so much an Atheist as to think that Religious converse with God is but a fancy let him well answer me these few questions Quest. 1. Doth not the continued being and well-being of the Creatures tell us that there is a God on whom for being and well-being they depend and from whom they are and have whatsoever they are and whatsoever they have And therefore that passively all the Creatures have more respect to him by far then to one another Quest. 2. Seeing God communicateth to every Creature according to their several capacities is it not meet then that he deal with man as man even as a Creature Rational capable to know and love and obey his Great Creator and to be happy in the knowledge love and fruition of him That man hath such natural faculties and capacities is not to be denyed by a man that knoweth what it is to be a man And that God hath not given him these in vain will be easily believed by any that indeed believe that he is God Quest. 3. Is there any thing else that is finally worthy of the highest actions of our souls or that is fully adequate to them and fit to be our happiness If not then we are left either to certain infelicity contrary to the tendency of our natures or else we must seek our felicity in God Quest. 4. Is there any thing more certain then that by the title of Creation our Maker hath a full and absolute right to all that he hath made and consequently to all our love and obedience our time and powers For whom should they all be used but for him from whom we have them Quest. 5. Can any thing be more sure then that God is the Righteous Governour of the world and that he Governeth man as a rational creature by Laws and Judgement And can we live under his absolute Soveraignty and under his many righteous Laws and under his Promises of salvation to the Justified and under his threatnings of damnation to the unjustified and yet not have more to do with God than with all the world If indeed you think that God doth not Love and reward the holy and obedient and punish the ungodly and disobedient then either you take him not to be the Governour of the world or which is worse you take him to be an unrighteous Governour And then you must by the same reason say that Magistrates and Parents should do so too and love and reward the obedient and disobedient alike But if any mans disobedience were exercised to your hurt by slandering or beating or robbing you I dare say you would not then commend so indifferent and unjust a Governour Quest. 6. If it be not needless for man to Labour for food and rayment and necessary provision for his body how can it be needless for him to labour for the happiness of his soul If God will not give us our daily bread while we never think of it or seek it why should we expect that he will give us Heaven though we never think on it value it or seek it Quest. 7. Is it not a contradiction to be happy in the fruition of God and yet not to mind him desire him or seek him How is it that the Soul can reach its Object but by estimation desire and seeking after it And how should it enjoy it but by Loving it and taking pleasure in it Quest. 8. While you seem but to wrangle against the Duty of believers do you not plead against the comfort and happiness of believers For surely the employment of the soul on God and for him is the health and pleasure of the soul And to call away the soul from such employment is to imprison it in the dungeon of this world and to forbid us to smell to the sweetest flowers and confine us to a sink or dunghill and to forbid us to tast of the food of Angels or of men and to offer us Vineger and Gall or turn us over to feed with Swine He that pleadeth that there is no such thing as real Holiness Communion with God doth plead in effect that there is no true felicity or delight for any of the Sons of men And how welcome should ungodly Atheists be unto mankind that would for ever exclude them all from happiuess and make them believe they are all made to be remedilesly miserable And here take notice of the madness of the unthankful world that hateth and persecuteth the Preachers of the Gospel that bring them the glad tidings of pardon and hope and life eternal of solid happiness and durable delight and yet they are not offended at these Atheists and ungodly Cavillers that would take them off from all that is truly good and pleasant and make them believe that nature hath made them capable of no higher things than beasts and hath enthralled them in remediless infelicity Quest. 9. Do you not see by experience that there are a people in the world whose hearts are upon God and the life to come and that make it their chiefest care and business to seek him and to serve him How then can you say that there is no such thing or that we are not capable of it when it is the case of so many before your eyes If you say that it is but their
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
Being of a Holy state as that God be so much in our thoughts as to be preferred before all things else and principally beloved and obeyed and to be the end of our lives and the byas of our wills And there are some thoughts of God that are necessary only to acting and increase of grace 7. So great is the weakness of our Habits so many and great are the temptations to be overcome so many difficulties are in our way and the occasions so various for the exercise of each grace that it behoveth a Christian to exercise as much thoughtfulness about his end and work as hath any tendency to promote his work and to attain his end But such a thoughtfulness as hindereth us in our work by stopping or distracting or diverting us is no way pleasing unto God So excellent is our end that we can never encourage and delight the mind too much in the forethoughts of it So sluggish are our hearts and so loose and unconstant are our apprehensions and resolutions that we have need to be most frequently quickening them and lifting at them and renewing our desires and suppressing the contrary desires by the serious thoughts of God and Immortality Our Thoughts are the bellows that must kindle the flames of Love desire hope and zeal Our thoughts are the spur that must put on a sluggish tired heart And so far as they conduce to any such works and ends as these they are desireable and good But what Master loveth to see his servant sit down and Think when he should be at work Or to use his Thoughts only to grieve and vex himself for his faults but not to mend them to sit down lamenting that he is so bad and unprofitable a servant when he should be up and doing his Masters business as well as he is able Such Thoughts are sins as hinder us from duty or discourage or unfit us for it however they may go under a better name 8. The Godly themselves are very much wanting in the holiness of their thoughts and the liveliness of their affections Sense leadeth away the thoughts too easily after these present sensible things while faith being infirm the Thoughts of God and heaven are much disadvantaged by their invisibility Many a gracious soul cryeth out O that I could think as easily and as affectionately and as unweariedly about the Lord and the life to come as I can do about my friends my health my habitation my business and other concernments of this life But alas such thoughts of God and Heaven have far more enemies and resistance then the thoughts of earthly matters have 9. It is not distracting vexatious thoughts of God that the holy Scriptures call us to but it is to such thoughts as tend to the healing and peace and felicity of the soul and therefore it is not to a melancholy but a joyful life If God be better then the world it must needs be better to think of him If he be more beloved then any friend the thoughts of him should be sweeter to us If he be the everlasting hope and happiness of the soul it should be a foretast of happiness to find him nearest to our hearts The nature and use of holy thoughts and of all Religion is but to exalt and sanctifie and delight the soul and bring it up to everlasting Rest And is this the way to melancholy or madness Or is it not liker to make men melancholy to think of nothing but a vain deceitful and vexatious world that hath much to disquiet us but nothing to satisfie us and can give the soul no hopes of any durable delight 10. Yet as God is not equally related unto all so is he not the same to all mens thoughts If a wicked enemy of God and godliness be forced and frightened into some thoughts of God you cannot expect that they should be as sweet and comfortable thoughts as those of his most obedient children are While a man is under the guilt and power of his reigning sin and under the wrath and curse of God unpardoned unjustified a child of the devil it is not this mans duty to think of God as if he were fully reconciled to him and took pleasure in him as in his own Nor is it any wonder if such a man think of God with fear and think of his sin with grief and shame Nor is it any wonder if the justified themselves do think of God with fear and grief when they have provoked him by some sinful and unkind behaviour or are cast into doubts of their sincerity and interest in Christ and when he hides his face or assaulteth them with his terrors To doubt whether a man shall live for ever in Heaven or Hell may rationally trouble the thoughts of the wisest man in the world and it were but sottishness not to be troubled at it David himself could say In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord my sore ran in the night and ceased not my soul refused to be comforted I remembred God and was troubled I complained and my spirit was overwhelmed Thou holdest mine eyes waking I am so troubled that I cannot speak Will the Lord cast off for ever Psal. 77. 2 3 4 5 7. Yet all the sorrowful thoughts of God which are the duty of either the godly or the wicked are but the necessary preparatives of their joy It is not to melancholy distraction or despair that God calleth any even the worst But it is that the wicked would Seek the Lord while he may be found and call upon him while he is near that he would forsake his way and the unrighteous man his Thoughts and return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God and he will abundantly pardon Isa. 55. 6 7. Despair is sin and the thoughts that tend to it are sinful thoughts even in the wicked If worldly crosses or the sense of danger to the soul had cast any into melancholy or overwhelmed them with fears you can name nothing in the world that in reason should be so powerful a remedy to recover them as the Thoughts of God his Goodness and Mercy and readiness to receive and pardon those that turn unto him his Covenant and Promises and Grace through Christ and the everlasting happiness which all may have that will accept and seek it in the time of grace and prefer it before the deceitful transitory pleasures of the world If the Thoughts of God and of the Heavenly everlasting joyes will not comfort the soul and cure a sad despairing mind I know not what can rationally do it Though yet its true that a presumptuous sinner must needs be in a trembling state till he find himself at peace with God And mistaken Christians that are cast into causeless doubts and fears by the malice of Satan are unlikely to walk comfortably with God till they are resolved and recovered from their mistakes and fears CHAP. V. Obj.
juvenile delights and so live retiredly and seek no higher pleasure or felicity but only sit down with the weeping or the laughing Philosopher lamenting or deriding the Vanity of the world do yet live no other than a sensual life as an old Dog that hath no pleasure in hunting or playfulness as he had when he was a Whelp Only he is less deluded and less vain than other sensualists that find more pleasure in their course All the doubt is concerning those that place their felicity in Knowledge and those that delight in Moral Vertues or that delight in studying of God though they are no Christians Answ. The point is weighty and hath oft unhappily faln into injudicious hands I shall endeavour to resolve it as truly clearly and impartially as I can 1. It is a great errour against the Nature of man to say that Knowledge as such is fit to be any mans chief and ultimate End It may be that act which is next the Enjoying Act of the Will which is it that indeed is next the End objectively considered But it is not that Act which we call Ultimate Ultimus And this is plain 1. Because the Object of the Understanding which is Truth is not formally the nearest object or matter of full felicity or delight It is Goodness that is the nearest object 2. And therefore the office of the Intellect is but introductive and subservient to the office of the Will to apprehend the Verity of Good and present it to the will to be prosecuted or embraced or delighted in There are many Truths that are ungrateful and vexatious and which men would wish to be no truths And there is a knowledge which is troublesome useless undesirable and tormenting which even a wise man would fain avoid if he knew how Morality is but preparatively in the intellect and therefore intellectual acts as such are not morally Good or evil but only participatively as subject to the Will And therefore knowledge as such being not a Moral Good can be no other than such a Natural Good as is Bonum alicui only so far as it tendeth to some Welfare or Happiness or pleasure of the possessor or some other And this Welfare or Pleasure is either that which is suited to the Sensitive Powers or to the Rational which is to be found in the love of God alone 2. I add therefore that even those men that seem to take up their felicity in common Knowledge indeed do but make their Knowledge subservient to something else which they take for their felicity For Knowledge of Evil may Torment them It is only to know something which they take to be Good that is their Delight And it is the Complacency or Love of that Good at the Heart which sets them on work and causeth the delight of Knowing If you will say that common Knowledge as Knowledge doth immediately Delight yet will it be found but such a pleasing of the Phantasie as an Ape hath in spying marvels which if it have no end that 's higher is still but a sensitive Delight but if it be referred to a higher Delight in God doth participate of the nature of it Delight in general is the common end of Men and Brutes But in specie they are distinguished as Sensual or Rational 3. If you suppose a Philosopher to be Delighted in studying Mathematicks or any of the works of God either he hath herein an End or no End beyond the Knowledge of the Creature Either he terminateth his desires and delights in the Creature or else useth it as a means to raise him to the Creatour If he study and delight in the Creature ultimately this is indeed the Act of a rational Creature and an act of Reason as to the faculty it proceeds from and so is a Rational Contrivance for sensual ends and pleasures But it is but the errour of Reason and is no more agreeable to the Rational Nature than the deceit of the senses is to the sensitive Nor is it finally to be numbred with the operations felicitating humane nature any more than an erroneous dream of pleasure or than that man is to be numbred with the lovers of learning who taketh pleasure in the binding leaves or letters of the book while he understandeth nothing of the sense But if this Philosopher seek to know the Creatour in and by the Creatures and take delight in the Makers Power Wisdome and Goodness which appeareth in them then this is truly a Rational Delight in it self considered and beseeming a man And if he reach so far in it as to make God his Highest desire and delight overpowring the desires and delights of sensuality he shall be happy as being led by the Son unto the Father But if he make but some little approaches towards it and drown all such desires in the sensual desires and delights he is then but an unhappy sensualist and liveth brutishly in the tenor of his life though in some acts in part he operate rationally as a man The like I may say of them that are said to place their delight in Moral Vertues Indeed nothing is properly a Moral Good or vertue but that which is exercised upon God as our End or upon the Creature as a Means to this End To study and know meer notions of God or what is to be held and said of him in discourse is not to study or to know God no more than to love the language and phrase of holy writing is to Love God To study God as one that is less regardable and desirable than our sensual delights is but to blaspheme him To study seek and serve him as one that can promote or hinder our sensual felicity is but to abuse him as a means to your sensuality And for the vertues of Temperance Justice or Charity they are but Analogically and secundum quid to be found in any ungodly person Materially they may have them in an eminent degree but not as they are informed by the End which moralizeth them Jezabel's fast was not formally a vertue but an odious way of Hypocrisie to oppress the innocent He that doth works of Justice or Mercy to Evil ends only as for applause or to deceive c. and not from the true principles of Justice and Mercy doth not thereby exercise Moral Vertue but hypocrisie and other vice He that doth works of Justice and Mercy out of meer natural compassion to others and desire of their good without respect to God as obliging or rewarding or desiring it doth perform such a natural good work as a Lamb or a gentle Beast doth to his fellows which hath not the true form of Moral Vertue but the Matter only He that in such works hath some little by-respect to God but more to his carnal interest among men doth that which on the by participateth of Moral Good or is such secundum quid but not simpliciter being to be denominated from the part predominant He that doth works
Satan can never come in so ill a time with his temptations and have so little hope to speed as when the soul is contemplating the attributes of God or taken up in prayer with him or any way apprehensive of his presence The soul that faithfully walks with God hath enough at hand in him to answer all temptations And the further any man is from God and the less he knoweth him the more Temptations can do upon him 3. The presence of God affordeth the most powerful motives unto Good to those that walk with him There is no grace in man but what is from God and may find in God its proper object or incentive As God is God above the creature transcendently and infinitely in all perfections so all the motives to goodness which are fetcht from him are transcendently above all that may be fetcht from any creature He that liveth alwaies by the fire or in the Sun-shine is likest to be warm He that is most with God will be most like to God in Holiness Frequent and serious converse with him doth most deeply imprint his communicable attributes on the heart and make there the clearest impression of his image Believers have learned by their own experience that one hours serious prayer or meditation in which they can get nigh to God in the Spirit doth more advance their grace then any help that the creature can afford them 4. Moreover those that walk with God have not only a Powerful but an universal incentive for the actuating and increasing of every grace Knowledge and faith and fear and love and trust and hope and obedience and zeal and all have in God their proper objects and incentives One Creature may be useful to us in one thing and another in another thing but God is the most effectual mover of all his graces and that in a holy harmony and order Indeed he hath no greater Motive to draw us to Love him and Fear him and Trust him and Obey him than himself It is life eternal to know him in his Son Joh. 17. 3. And that is not only because it entitleth us to life eternal but also because it is the beginning and incentive of that life of holiness which will be eternal 5. Moreover those that walk with God have a constant as well as a Powerful and Universal incentive to exercise and encrease their Graces Othet helps may be out of the way Their Preachers may be silenced or removed Their Friends may be scattered or taken from them Their Books may be forbidden or not at hand But God is alwaies ready and willing They have leave at all times to come to him and be welcome Whenever they are willing they may go to him by prayer or contemplation and find all in him which they can desire If they want not Hearts they shall find no want of any thing in God At what time soever fear would torment them they may draw near and put their trust in him Psal. 56. 2 3 4. 11. 1. 18. 2 30. 31. 1 6. He will be a sure and speedy refuge for them a very present help in trouble Psal. 46. 1. 62. 7 8. 91. 2 9 94. 22. Whenever coldness or lukewarmness would extinguish the work of Grace they may go to him and find those streams of flaming Love flow from him those strong attractives those wonderful mercies those terrible judgements of which while they are musing the fire may again wax hot within them Psal. 39. 3. 6. Lastly by way of encouraging reward God useth to give abundantly of his Grace to those that walk most faithfully with him He will shew most Love to those that most love him He will be nearest to them that most desirously draw nigh to him while he forsaketh those that forsake him and turneth away from those that turn away from him 2 Chro. 15. 2. Prov. 1. 32. Ezr. 8. 22. The hand of our God is for good upon all them that seek him but his power and his wrath is against all them that forsake him Thus it is apparent in all those evidences that walking with God is not only a discovery of the Goodness that men have but the only way to encrease their Grace and make them better O what a sweet humility and seriousness and spirituality appeareth in the conference or conversation or both of those that newly come from a believing close converse with God! When they that come from men and Books may have but a common mind or life And those that come from the business and pleasure of the world and flesh and from the company of foolish riotous gallants may come defiled as the Swine out of the mire V. LAstly to walk with God is the best preparation for times of suffering and for the day of death As we must be judged according to what we have done in the body so the nearer we find our selves to judgement the more we shall be constrained to judge our selves according to what we have done and shall the more perceive the effects upon our souls That this is so excellent a preparative for sufferings and death will appear by the consideration of these particulars 1. They that walk with God are safest from all destructive sufferings and shall have none but what are sanctified to their good Rom. 8. 28. They are near to God where destruction cometh not as the Chicken under the wings of the Hen. They walk with him that will not lead them to perdition that will not neglect them nor sell them for nought nor expose them to the will of men and devils though he may suffer them to be tryed for their good No one can take them out of his hands Be near to him and you are safe The destroyer cannot fetch you thence He can fetch you when the time is come from the side of your merriest companions and dearest friends from the presence of the greatest Princes from the strongest Tower or most sumptuous Pallace or from your heaps of riches in your securest health But he cannot take you from the arms of Christ nor from under the wings of your Creatours love For there is no God like him in Heaven above or on the earth beneath who keepeth Covenant and Mercy with his servants that walk before him with all their heart 1 King 8 23. 1 King 11. 38. However we are used in our Fathers presence we are sure it shall be for good in the latter end For he wanteth neither Power nor Love to deliver us if he saw deliverance to be best 2. Walking with God is the surest way to obtain a certainty of his special love and of our salvation And what an excellent preparative for sufferings or death such assurance is I need not tell any considerate beleever How easie may it be to us to suffer poverty disgrace or wrongs or the pains of sickness or death when once we are certain that we shall not suffer the pains of
so hardly perswaded that it would be forgiven you and now do you make so small a matter of it Did you then so much wonder at your folly that could so long let out your thoughts and affections upon the creature while you neglected God and Heaven and do you begin to look that way again Do you now grow familiar with a life so like to that whirh was once your state of death and bear that easily that once was the breaking of your heart O Christians turn not away from that God again who once fetcht you home with so much smart and so much grace with such a twist of Love and Fatherly severity Methinks when you remember how you were once awakened you should not easily fall asleep again And when you remember the thoughts which then were in your hearts and the tears that were in your eyes and the earnest prayers which you then put up that God would receive you and take you for his own you should not now forget him and live as if you could live without him Remember that so far as you withdraw your hearts from God and let them follow inferiour things so far you contradict his works upon your hearts so far you violate your Covenant with him or sin against it so far you are revolters and go against the principal part of your profest Religion Yea so far you are ungodly as you thus withdraw your hearts from God Cleave to him and prosecute your Covenant if you will have the saving benefits of his Love and Covenant 3. MOreover the servants of God are doubly obliged to walk with him because they have had that experience of the goodness the safety and the sweetness of it which strangers have not Do you not remember how glad you were when you first believed that he pardoned and accepted you And how much you rejoyced in his Love and entertainment And how much better you found your Fathers house than ever you had found your sinful state And how much sweeter his service was than you did before believe It 's like you can remember something like that which is described in Luk. 15. 20 22 23 24. And he arose and came to his Father But when he was yet a great way off his Father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him And the Son said unto him Father I have sinned against Heaven and in thy sight and am no more worthy to be called thy Son But the Father said to his servants Bring forth the best Robe and put it on him and put a Ring on his hand and Shooes on his feet and bring hither the fatted Calf and kill it and let us eat and be merry for this my Son was dead and is alive again he was lost and is found What would you have thought or said of this Prodigal if after all this he should have been weary of his Fathers house and company and have taken more pleasure in his former company Would you not have said he was a forgetful and unthankful wretch and worthy never more to be received I do not speak to you now as to Apostates that are turned ungodly and have quite forsaken God and Holiness But I beseech you consider what it is after such experiences and obligations as these so much as to abate your love and grow remiss and mindless and indifferent as if you were aweary of God and were inclined to neglect him and look again to the world for your hope and satisfaction and delight As you love your souls and as you would avoid the sorrows which are greater than any that ever you felt take heed of fleighting the Love that hath done such wonders for you and of dealing so unthankfully with the everliving God and of turning thus away from him that hath received you Remember whilst you live the Love of your espousals Was God so good to you at the first and holiness so desirable and is it not so still And I am sure that your own experience will bear witness that since that time in all your lives it never was so well with you as when you walked most faithfully with God If you have received any falls and hurts it hath been when you have stragled from him If ever you had safety peace or joy it hath been when you have been nearest to him your wounds and grief and death hath been the fruit of your own waies and of your forsaking him Your recovery and health and life have been the fruit of his waies and of your adhering to him Many and many a time you have confessed this and have said It is good for me to draw near to God He hath helped you when none else could help you and comforted you when none else could comfort you How far are you above the worldlings happiness when you are nigh to God One lively thought of his Greatness and Excellency and of his Love to you in Jesus Christ will make the name of wealth and honour and favour and preferment and sensual pleasures to seem to you as words of no signification How indifferent will you be as to your prosperity in the world when you feel what it is to walk with God If you are lively experimental Christians you have found this to be true Have you not found that it is the very Health and Ease and proper employment of your souls to walk with God and keep close to him And that all goes well with you while you can do thus however the world doth esteem or use you And that when you grow strange or disobedient to God and mindless of his Goodness his presence and his authority you are like the stomach that is sick and like a bone that is out of joynt that can have no ease till it be healed and restored to its proper place No meats or drinks no company nor recreation no wealth or greatness will serve to make a sick man well or ease the dislocated bones Nothing will serve a faithful holy soul but God This is the cause of the dolour of his heart and of the secret groans and complainings of his life because in this life of distance and imperfection he finds himself so far from God and when he hath done all that he can he is still so dark and strange and cold in his affections when persecution driveth him from the Ordinances and publick Worship or when sin hath set him at a greater distance from his God he bemoaneth his soul as David in his banishment from the Tabernacle Psal. 42. 1 2 c. As the Hart panteth after the water-brooks so panteth my soul after thee O God My soul thirsteth for God for the living God When shall I come and appear before God My tears have been my meat day and night while they continually say unto me Where is thy God And it is no wonder if with his greatest joy he be yet clouded with these sorrows because he yet
Creature that is your danger and which detaineth your thoughts and affections from himself If you could but learn to walk with him and to take up your pleasure in his Love appearing to you in his Creatures and to make their sweetness a means to your apprehension of the sweetness of his favour and of the everlasting joyes then you might say the Creature doth you good and then it 's like you might be permitted to possess and use it for such pleasure The jealous God will watch your hearts though you watch them not and he will make you know that he seeth which way they run out from him and what Creature it is that is minded and delighted in while he is neglected as if he were unsuitable and scarce desirable And you must never look that he should long permit you those prohibited delights or let you alone in those idolatrous inclinations If he Love you he will cure that Carnal Love and recover your Love to himself that hath deserved it If he intend not your salvation he may let you go and try again whether the Creature will prove better to you than himself But you cannot think that he will thus let go his Children that must live with him for ever Have you not perceived that this is the design and meaning of his afflicting and disappointing providences even to leave you no comfortable entertainment or converse but with himself and with his servants and with those means that lead you to himself If you begin to desire to lodge abroad in strange habitations he will uncover those houses and will not leave you a room that 's dry to put your head in or he will throw open the doors and leave all open to the lust of ravenous beasts and robbers He will have thy heart and he will have thy company because thou art his child and because he loveth thee He will allow thee neither thy carnal Delights or Hopes If he perceive thee either taking that Pleasure in thy Prosperity which thou shouldest take in him alone or Hoping at least that the world may hereafrer prove more amiable and delightful to thee the more he loveth thee the more his Providence shall conspire with his Grace to change thy mind by depriving thee of thy unwholsome dangerous delights and of all thy Hopes of such hereafter Use the world as a traveller for the ends to which it was ordained to the service of God and the furtherance of thy salvation and then thou shalt find that God will furnish thee with all that is necessary to these necessary ends But if the world must have your Love and Care and must be your chiefest business and delight and your excuse for not attending upon God murmure not nor marvel not if he dispose of it and you accordingly If you are yet too healthful to think with seriousness on your eternal state If you are too Rich to part with all for Christ or openly to own his Cause If you are too much esteemed in the world to own a scorned slandered Religion If you are so busie for Earth that you cannot have time to think of Heaven If you have so much delight in House or Land or in your employments or recreations or friends that God and Godliness can have little or none of your delight Marvel not then if God do shake your Health or waste your Riches or turn your Honour into contempt and suffer men to slander and reproach you and spit in your sace and make you of no reputation Marvel not if he turn you out of all or turn all to your grief and trouble and make the world a desert to you and the inhabitants as wolves and bears The great Lesson that Christ hath undertaken to teach you is the difference betwixt the Creatour and the Creature and the difference betwixt Heaven and Earth The great work that Christ hath undertaken to do upon you is to recover your hearts from the world to God And this Lesson he will teach you and this work he will do upon you whatever it cost you For it must be done Yet is not the world unjust enough or cruel or vexatious enough to you to teach you to come home and take up your content and rest in God It may then prove more cruel and more vexatious to you till you have better learned this necessary Lesson Yet is not your condition empty enough of carnal delusory pleasures to weâ—n you from the world and make you look to surer things Yet are you keeping up your worldly hopes that the world will again prove better to you and that you shall have happy daies hereafter It seems you are not yet brought low enough you must yet take another purge and perhapâ— a sharper than you took before You must have more blood letting till your delâ—ration cease and your feaverish thirst after creature-comorts do abate It is sad that we should be so foolish and unkind as to stay from God as long as any preferments or pleasures or profits in the world will entertain us But seeing it is so let us be thankful both to that Grace and that Providence which cureth us If you perceive it not better to dwell with God than with a flattering prospering world he will try whether you can think it better to dwell with God than with a malicious cruel persecuting world And whether it be better to have your hearts in Heaven than in poverty prison banishment or reproach If you find it not better to converse with God than with those that honour you please you or prefer you he will try whether you can think it better to converse with him than with those that hate revile belye and persecute you And are these the wise and wholsome methods of our great Physician And shall we not rather be ruled by him than by our brutish appetites and think better of his counsels than of the blind concupiscence of the flesh Let this be the issue of all our sufferings and all the cruelties and injuries of the world to drive us home to converse with God and to turn our desires and labours and expectations to the true felicity that never will forsake us and then the Will of the Lord be done Let him choose his means if this may be the end Let us kiss the Rod and not revile it if this may be the fruit of his corrections Who will not pray that God would deny us those contents which keep us from seeking our content in him And that he would deny us all those hurtful pleasures which hinder us from pleasing him or from making him and his waies our chiefest pleasure And that he would permit us no such creature-converse as hinderth our converse with him It is best living there be it in prison or at liberty where we may live best to God Come home O suffering Christian to thy God! take up thy Content and Rest in him be satisfied with him as thy Portion and
be equal to the Angels we shall certainly know our nearest friends that there dwell with us and are employed in the same attendance 3. Abraham knew the Rich man in Hell and the man knew Abraham and Lazarus Therefore we shall have as distinct a Knowledge 4. The two Disciples Knew Moses and Elias in the mount whom they had never seen before Though it is possible Christ told them who they were yet there is no such thing expressed and therefore it is as probable that they knew them by the communication of their irradiating glory Much more 〈…〉 we be then illuminated to a clearer knowledge 5. It is said expresly 1 Cor. 13. 10 11 12. that our present knowledge shall be done away only in regard of its imperfection and not of it self which shall be perfected when that which is perfect is come then that which is in part shall be done away As we put away childish thoughts and speeches when we become men The change will be from seeing in a glass to seeing face to face and from knowing in part to knowing even as we are known 2. And that we shall both Know and Love and rejoyce in creatures even in Heaven notwithstanding that God is all in all appeareth further thus 1. Christ in his glorified humanity is a Creature and yet there is no doubt but all his members will there Know and Love him in his glorified humanity without any derogation from the glory of the Deity 2. The Body of Christ will continue its unity and every member will be so nearly related even in Heaven that they cannot choose but Know and Love each other Shall we be ignorant of the members of our Body and not be concerned in their felicity with whom we are so nearly one 3. The state and felicity of the Church hereafter is frequently described in Scripture as consistent in society It is a Kingdom the City of God the Heavenly Jerusalem and it is mentioned as part of our happiness to be of that society Heb. 12. 22 23 24 c. 4. The Saints are called Kings themselves and it is said that they shall judge the world and the Angels And Judging in Scripture is frequently put for Governing Therefore whether there will be another world of moreals which they shall Govern as Angels now Govern men or whether the Misery of damned men and Angels will partly consist in as base a subjection to the glorified Saints as dogs now have to men or wicked reprobates on earth to Angels or whether in respect of both these together the Saints shall then be Kings and Rule and Judge or whether it be only the participation of the Glory of Christ that is called a Kingdom I will not here determine but it is most clear that they will have a distinct particular Knowledge of the world which they themselves must judge and some concernment in that work 5. It is put into the description of the Happiness of the Saints that they shall come from the East and from the West and shall sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of God Therefore they shall know them and take some comfort in their presence 6. Love even to the Saints as well as unto God is one of the graces that shall endure for ever 1 Cor. 13. It is exercised upon an Immortal object the Image and Children of the Most High and therefore must be one of the Immortal Graces For Grace in the Nature of it dyeth not and therefore if the Object cease not how should the Grace cease unless you will call it's perfecting a ceasing It is a state too high for such as we and I think for any meer Creature to live so Immediately and only upon God as to have no use for any fellow Creature nor no comfort in them God can make use of Glorified Creatures in such subserviency and subordination to himself as shall be no diminution to his All sufficiency or Honour nor to our glory and felicity We must take heeed of fancying even such a Heaven it self as is above the capacity of a Creature as some very wise Divines think they have done that tell us we shall immediately see Gods Essence his Glory being that which is provided for our intuition and felicity and is distinct from his Essence being not everywhere as his Essence is And as those do that tell us because that God will be All in All therefore we shall there have none of our comfort by any creature Though flesh and blood shall not enter into that Kingdom but our Bodies will then be Spiritual Bodies yet will they be really the same as now and distinct from our souls and therefore must have a felicity suitable to a Body glorified And if the soul did immediately see Gods Essence yet as no reason can conclude that it can see nothing else or that it can see even Created Good and not Love it so the Body however must have objects and felicity fit for a Body Obj. But it is said If we knew Christ after the flesh henceforth know we him no more Answ. No doubt but all the carnality in principles matter manner and ends of our knowledge will then cease as it's imperfection But that a carnal knowledge be turned into a spiritual is no more a diminution to it than it is to the glory of our Bodies to be made like the stars in the Firmament of our Father Obj. But then I shall have no more comfort in my present friends than in any other Answ. 1. If you had none in them it is no diminution to our happiness if indeed we should have all in God immediately and alone 2. But if you have as much in others that you never knew before that will not diminish any of your comfort in your antient friends 3. But it is most probable to us that as there is a twofold object for our love in the Glorified Saints one is their Holiness and the other is the Relation which they stood in between God and us being made his instruments for our conversion and salvation so that we shall Love Saints in Heaven in both respects And in the first respect which is the chiefest we shall love those most that have most of God and the greatest Glory though such as we never knew on earth And in the second respect we shall Love those most that were employed by God for our greatest good And that we shall not there lay by so much respect to our selves as to forget or disregard out benefactours is manifest 1. In that we shall for ever remember Christ and Love him and Praise him as one that formerly Redeemed us and washed us in his blood and hath made us Kings and Priests to God And therefore we may also in just subordination to Christ remember them with Love and Thankfulness that were his Instruments for the collation of these benefits 2. And this kind of Self-Love to be sensible of Good and
Evil to our selves is none of the sinful or imperfect selfishness to be renounced or laid by but part of our very Natures and as inseparable from us as we are from our selves Much more were it not digressive might be said on this subject but I shall only add that as God doth draw us to every holy duty by shewing us the excellency of that duty and as perpetuity is not the smallest excellency so he hath purposely mentioned that Love endureth for ever when he had described the Love of one another as a principal motive to kindle and encrease this Love And therefore those that think they shall have no personal Knowledge of one another nor personal Love to one another for we cannot Love personally if we know not personally do take a most effectual course to destroy in their souls all holy special Love to Saints by casting away that principal or very great motive given them by the Holy Ghost I am not able to Love much where I foreknow that I shall not Love long I cannot Love a comely Inne so well as a nearer dwelling of my own because I must be gone to morrow Therefore must I love my Bible better than my Law books or Physick books c. because it leadeth to Eternity And therefore I must Love Holiness in my self and others better than meat and drink and wealth and honour and beauty and pleasure because it must be Loved for ever when the Love of these must needs be transitory as they are transitory I must profess from the very experience of my soul that it is the belief that I shall Love my friends in Heaven that principally kindleth my Love to them on Earth And if I thought I should never know them after death and consequently never love them more when this life is ended I should in reason number them with temporal things and Love them comparatively but a little even as I Love other transitory things allowing for the excellency in the nature of Grace But now I converse with some delight with my Godly friends as believing I shall converse with them for ever and take comfort in the very Dead and Absent as believing we shall shortly meet in Heaven and I Love them I hope with a Love that is of a Heavenly Nature while I Love them as the Heirs of Heaven with a Love which I expect shall there be perfected and more fully and for ever exercised 12. The last Reason that I give you to move you to bear the Loss or Absence of your friends is that it gives you the loudest call to retire from all the world and to converse with God himself and to long for Heaven where you shall be separated from your friends no more And your forsaken state will somewhat assist you to that solitary converse with God which it calls you to But this brings us up to the third part of the Text. AND yet I am not alone because the Father is with me Doct. When all forsake us and leave us as to them alone we are far from being simply alone because God is with us He is not without company that is with the King though twenty others have turned him off He is not without Light that hath the shining Sun though all his Candles be put out If God be our God he is our All and is enough for us And if he be our All we shall not much find the want of creatures while he is with us For 1. He is with us who is Everywhere and therefore is never from us and knoweth all the waies and projects of our enemies being with them in wrath as he is with us in mercy 2. He is with us who is Almighty sufficient to preserve us conquerable by none and therefore while he is with us we need not fear what man can do unto us For they can do nothing but what he will No danger no sickness no trouble or want can be so great as to make it any difficulty to God to deliver us when and how he please 3. He is with us who is Infinitely wise and therefore we need not fear the subtilty of enemies nor shall any of his undertaken works for his Church or us miscarry for want of foresight or through any oversight We shall be preserved even from our own Folly as well as from our Enemies subtilty For it is not our own wisdome that our greatest concernments do principally rest upon nor that our safety and peace are chiefly secured by but it is the Wisdome of our great Preserver He knoweth what to do with us and what paths to lead us in and what is best for us in all conditions And he hath promised to Teach us and will be our sure infallible Guide 4. He is with us who is Infinitely Good and therefore is only sit to be a continual delight and satisfaction to our souls that hath nothing in him to disaffect us or discourage us whom we may love without fear of overloving and need not set any bounds to our Love the object of it being infinite 5. He is with us who is most nearly related to us and most dearly loveth us and therefore will never be wanting to us in any thing that is fit for us to have This is he that is with us when all have left us and as to man we are alone and therefore we may well say that we are not alone Of this I shall say more anon in the application Quest. But how is he with us Answ. 1. He is with us not only in his Essential presence as he is everywhere but as by his Gracious Fatherly presence We are in his Family attending on him even as the eye of a servant is to the hand of his Master We are alwaies with him and as he phraseth it himself in the Parable Luke 15. all that he hath in ours that is all that is fit to be communicated to us and all the provisions of his bounty for his children When we awake we should be still with him When we go abroad we should be alwaies as before him Our life and works should be a Walking with God 2. He is alwaies with us efficiently to do us Good Though we have none else that careth for us yet will he never cast us out of his care but biddeth us cast our care on him as promising that he will care for us Though we have none else to provide for us he is alwiaes with us and our Father knoweth what we want and will make the best provision for us Mat. 6. 32 33. Though we have none else to defend us against the power of our enemies he is alwaies with us to be our sure defence He is the Rock to which we fly and upon which we are surely built He gathereth us to himself as the Hen gathereth her Chickens under her wings Mat. 23. 37. And sure while Love is thus protecting us we may well say that the Father himself
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
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