that no man without a special Revelation can have a special assurance of his Salvation but we have that which is as good to secure us against despair and to ground an holy and comfortable hope upon That we are redeemed by the Bloud of Christ and devoted to him in Holy Baptism and that God is our confidence and refuge always ready to help them that call upon him and to forgive them that beg for pardon with tears and contrition and a serious purpose of amendment And many more great and precious assurances we have that God hath given us eternal life and that this life is in his Son so that all his Providences are to fit us for it if we do not wilfully frustrate all his saving methods and purposes Only he would have our Election to be hid and secret that security may not breed in us pride and negligence and that he that thinketh he standeth should take heed lest he fall 2. Now therefore because the chosen are few let every true Christian live a Holy Life with the few that he may make his Calling and Election sure and be counted worthy at last to receive the Crown of Life with the few Streight is the way and narrow is the gate that leadeth unto life and few there be that find it saith our Blessed Saviour Mat. 7.13 Therefore we must walk in that narrow way and that always with care and fear even when we seem to run with most speed because no man in respect of himself is absolutely sure of perseverance Yet our fear must not proceed so far as to make us faint but only to make us wary and make us put our trust and confidence in God and with a chearful submission cast our selves upon him both for time and eternity If any one objects that he knows not how Gods will is affected towards him I answer that Gods promises are sincere and must be received as they are generally set forth in Holy Scripture to all that will obey Gods revealed will and moreover that his own will is much more uncertain so that it is much more safe to trust Gods for God we are certain is infinitely good He is extremely proud and unhappy withal that relies on himself more than upon God but happy is he that confides in that gracious Lord whose mercies and promises are sure for ever and in whom whosoever trusted was never confounded CHAP. XXXIII That Love is the Spirit of Christian Religion 1. THough it be by vertue of our Baptism and profession of the Christian Faith that we are and are called Christians yet the Life or Soul of our Religion is Charity or the Love of God whereby we are enabled to live godly as becomes Christians For as God by his great love wherewith he loved us sent his dear Son into the world to die for us that we might live through him so are we to love God most affectionately with all our heart and strength and our Neighbour as our selves for his sake In this is love not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins Love therefore is the first and great Commandment on which depends the Law and the Prophets Love is the foundation and excellency of our Faith to know the love of God which passeth knowledge that when we were enemies we were reconciled to him by the death of his Son Love is that fire which our Blessed Redeemer came to send in the Earth Luke 12.49 which cost him much to kindle and which burns up mens dross and impurities and cannot be put out but where iniquity doth abound And Love is the spirit of Primitive Christians who had one heart and one mind and is even the Soul of the whole Church whereby it is united and lives 2. Christ left and appointed Love as the mark whereby his followers should be known Joh. 13.35 By this shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if ye love one another And so in the love of God consists our union with him and it is the highest perfection of the Christian life Now perfection is the work of Grace therefore we must not relie upon our own strength but we must beg of God daily and devoutly that by his good Spirit he would kindle in our hearts the fire of an holy Charity that by it we may be guided quickned and at last perfected Neither yet must we lose heart if we sometimes fall as if all our hope were in our own strength but we must acknowledge our own infirmity and rise quickly and pray more fervently and afterwards fight more couragiously Still pursuing after perfection not only in words or ineffective wishes but in hearty desires and serious indeavours manifesting our love by daily mortifying our sins and attaining to new and higher degrees of vertue And then shall a Christian be most perfect and happy when his heart shall be empty of himself and free from the love of the world but purified and burning with the love of God CHAP. XXXIV Of the right Placing and Ordering of Love 1. HE is a just and holy man who rightly values things according to their worth and also loves them proportionably for sin is duly by wise men defin'd to be a disorderly Love and vertue to be a regular and well placed Love And though there be other natural affections yet they all proceed from and depend upon love and if this be well placed and governed as it should the rest cannot be unruly It is vertue to love what deserves to be lov'd and wisdome to make choise of it and constancy to pursue it through all dangers and sufferings and to be drawn from it by no inticements is temperance and to prefer nothing to it is justice and the order of Love must follow the order of things and so God is to be lov'd infinitely more than any creature because he is infinitely better more perfect and lovely We become good and pure by loving him who is the fountain of all goodness and purity for our manners follow our affections we become either vertuous or vicious according to the nature of what we most love 2. The true object of Love is God our Neighbour and our selves God in the first place to whom all love is due and from whom it must pass to other creatures according as they are more or less like him By this we must love our Neighbour because he is or that he may be just and we must love our selves in that we are or else that we may be holy taking from God the measure of our Love to all other things that our Love may be regular and we may be happy Let no man therefore love sin for thereby he hates and destroys his Soul and let no man love himself for his own sake but upon Gods account who is the chiefest Good in whom alone we can be intirely happy For God who alone is the Author of our being
to righteousness unto holiness as it is written Be ye holy for I am holy saith the Lord. Lev. 11.45 3. Now as Christianity checks and restrains self-love so doth self-love keep men from understanding and approving the Christian doctrines for how can he that seeks and loves himself rightly apprehend that whatever the world dotes upon is meer vanity that Estates and Honours bring great vexations and great slavery that to forgive Enemies and do good to them that hate us is the part of a noble and generous mind that 't is better to despise than to possess riches that 't is more honourable to be subject where God commands than to bear rule and to domineer that for a man to restrain his appetite and conquer himself is more glorious than to win battels and take fenced Cities These are Paradoxes hard and incredible sayings to the self-lover whose fondness of himself ties him fast to this earth to whatever can be useful and any ways pleasant to the flesh whereas the Children of God live to God being not led and govern'd by the flesh but by the spirit they live in the flesh but not after the flesh some of their actions are natural whilest they are in the body yet they proceed from a supernatural principle and are designed to a nobler end for they continually deny themselves and mortifie all sensual unruly desires Self-lovers hold a great regard should be had to the flesh 't is true but it must be such as Christ hath taught us to keep it under otherwise Saint Paul hath declar'd that to be carnally minded is death CHAP. XXXI That self-Self-love is that Babylon out of which God hath called us 1. GOD at first placed man in Paradise but Adam in whom we all sinned transported us into this world out of Paradise out of Jerusalem into Babylon out of our freedom into slavery out of integrity into corruption out of our countrey into banishment and out of life into death Thus from truth and perfection we fell into vanity we are now like unto vanity nay every man is but vanity as the Psalmist saith Psal 39.6 Man is vain in his body which ends in death and corruption vain in his soul which being inslav'd to sin is obnoxious to death eternal and vain in all his outward enjoyments which all perish or must be forsaken when he dies Yet man strangely dotes on this vanity he passionately runs after these transitory things which are all cheats and lies whereby he is drawn into thousands of pernicious errors and out of the Heavenly Jerusalem into a Hellish Babylon 2. Now these two Cities are built by two sorts of love to love God so as to despise our selves makes the City of God and to love our selves so as to despise God makes the Devils Babylon the City of this World The way to this is broad and short to that is streight difficult and long because dull and earthly as now we are we more easily fall on the earth and descend down to Hell than we can raise up our selves and ascend to Heaven Let every man therefore examine himself and find out what he chiefly loves for if he loves God so as to deny himself he is doubtless a Citizen of the Jerusalem which is from above but if he loves himself so as to prefer his own desires to God 't is plain he belongs to that Babylon out of which God hath called his Children For thus the Scripture cries aloud Go ye forth of Babylon and remove out of the midst of her Isa 48.20 Jer. 50.8 and again the Psalmist Psal 137.8 O Daughter of Babylon who art to be destroyed happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones We come out of Babylon when we leave the confusion of sin forsaking our disorderly course of life and we dash the children of Babylon against the stone when our love to Christ overcomes our ill desires and ill inclinations self-Self-love is the death of the Soul and the love of God is its life therefore he doth not truly love himself who by self-love destroys himself CHAP. XXXII How men naturally seek themselves even in their best works 1. IT may seem strange to observe that whereas mens opinions and inclinations are so various and different yet all men are agreed in this that none appears vile to himself none is willing to yield and submit to others none though never so mean but thinks himself somebody and is desirous to be taken notice of every one seeks to be higher than others every one is indulgent to himself and severe to others all men will have their will and their saying all applaud to their own inventions and conceits and censure others they count their own follies wisdome and notwithstanding their great ignorance there is nothing but what they think to know They carefully hide their own faults and pretend to those virtues they know they have not And what is most of all to be wonder'd at even good men who endeavour to please God and seem to aim at nothing but his honour and glory Even they sometimes in their best actions by a secret and natural instinct almost unknown to themselves seek their own comfort and complacency most of all and the more excellent are their works the more subtil and undiscernable is this snare which self-love sets to the most spiritual 2. What better than to obey God to read his Sacred Word and preach it to receive and administer his Holy Sacraments Yet these duties are commonly stain'd with some secret desire of praise and except the Christian be very watchful over his own heart he may easily lose his better reward Though I speak with the tongues of men and Angels saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 13.1 and have not Charity I am become like sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal And though a man should give all his goods to the Poor and even his Body to be burnt yet without Charity without the love of God hath purified his heart it will profit him nothing According to the saying of the Prophet Haggai 1.6 Ye eat but ye have not enough ye drink but ye are not filled with drink and he that earns wages earneth wages to put into a bag with holes for thus good works avail nothing if done out of respect to our selves and not to please God This being therefore the bent of our corrupt nature to draw us to our selves we ought carefully to examine our selves and search the hidden corners of our hearts that there lurk not in them some ill purpose of vain-glory or self-interest to mix with our best actions either first or last This is the Rule of a true Christian Life always to seek and love the things of God and never his own CHAP. XXXIII Things which every Christian is bound to know in order to obedience 1. EVery Disciple of Christ ought to know those Divine and Human Laws under which he lives and the which he is
shake off the thoughts and the comforts of Gods presence because it puts a restraint upon our appetites And when at any time Spiritual joys are denyed us we presently seek for Earthly pleasures because we open not the eyes of our Faith to see God present and we embrace him not with devout affection and we care not to converse with him This is the way to Perfection which God himself shewed to Abraham to have always a sense of the Divine presence Gen. 17.1 I am the Almighty God walk before me and be thou perfect Holy David likewise made a great use of this to be always mindful that God is with us Psal 16.8 I have set the Lord always before me because he is at my right hand I shall not be moved He can never but be happy that dwells with the Author of all happiness CHAP. XXVIII Why the imitation of Gods Saints appears difficult 1. WE think it a matter of great difficulty to follow the example of those Christian Worthies that have gone before us because we represent them to our selves as being now of another nature freed from the body inhabitants of the mansions of bliss whence anger lust and all temptations are for ever banish'd and where they enjoy peace and joy and eternal felicities But if we really desire to follow their steps and to conform our lives to theirs then are we to consider that as we are so were they mortal men cumbred with the uneasie burthen of the flesh infected with sin tempted by sinful affections and exposed to miseries and dangers but that by Faith they overcame all these subdued Kingdoms wrought Righteousness and by fighting obtain'd the Crown 2. Elias saith St. James 5.17 was a man subject to the like passions as we are and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain and it rained not on the Earth by the space of three years and six months and again he prayed and the Heaven gave rain and the Earth brought forth her fruit The same may be said of any other Saints that have done the greatest wonders they were like us made of the same clay and subject to the same passions and temptations while they were on Earth They were only above us in this that with great and assiduous pains they conquered pride and lust and escaped the snares of the Devil by diligent care and invincible resolution Why then do we draw back and make delays to them that are truly resolved and willing 't is not difficult to become Saints by the imitation of those that have gone before us if shaking off our sloth and laziness we would seriously endeavour we might by the help of Divine Grace arrive to the same height of Sanctification and bliss as they have For he hath proceeded far towards holiness that sincerely desires to be holy CHAP. XXIX How we should in all things aim at Gods Glory 1. IT is the precept of St. Paul that God should be the end of all our works that they may be good and acceptable 1 Cor. 10.31 Whether ye eat or drink or whatsoever ye do do all to the Glory of God and again Col. 3.17 Whatsoever ye do in word or deed do all in the name of the Lord Jesus giving thanks to God and the Father by him For a good work which is not done upon Gods account doth become evil it being the nature of virtue to receive its form from the end rather than from the act And if we cleave to the creatures and love them for their own sake without reference to God this is that lust or sinful love which Saint John condemns 1 Ep. 2.15 Love not the World neither the things that are in the World love them not so as to rest in them For here we are Pilgrims Travellers going home to our Fathers house to our God and so what creatures we meet in our way we may use them as conveniences to carry us forward towards him but we may not dwell with them as if we were at our journeys end God alone is to be lov'd for himself he alone being infinitely good and the last and best end we can propound to our selves in him alone our appetites shall rest satisfied our enjoyment shall be secure and our joys undisturb'd for ever Whosoever knows not and pursues not this end knows not why he lives nor how to live well but he that knows it knows whither to direct his intentions and whither to tend in all his actions 2. It is granted that some natural actions as to walk to eat to sleep and such like are of themselves neither good nor evil yet all Divines teach that they become sin if we do them not to some further and better end that is to live to serve God whose glory should be the ultimate design of all mens actions because as he is the beginning so should he be the end of all things The light of the Body is the Eye saith our Blessed Saviour Mat. 6.22 if therefore thine Eye be single thine whole Body shall be full of light but if thine Eye be evil thine whole Body shall be full of darkness This Eye is the intention of every man in his actions if it be not good they become works of darkness and good it cannot be except it be refer'd to God the supreme goodness Every good thing comes from God and whatever returns not to him is evil CHAP. XXX Self-love is the root of all evil 1. AFter our first Parent by preferring himself to God committed that grievous transgression whereby all mankind became obnoxious to death lust and ignorance darkness and evil propensities seiz'd upon our nature man forsook God and turn'd to seek himself and having lost all sense of spiritual comfort ran dissolutely after carnal pleasures Hence self-Self-love the greatest Enemy to virtue came to tyrannize over men who to comply with it seek nothing now but wealth honours and sensual delights And now saith the Apostle Rom. 8.7 The carnal mind is not subject to the law of God neither indeed can be for all its instincts and impulses have a tendency to sin and to sin only 2. And yet self-love which seeks so much our own ease and satisfaction is indeed its chiefest hinderance for God having created us for his glory and enjoyn'd us to design it always when by self-love we seek only our selves and our own advantage we do nothing whereby to obtain Gods favour and eternal life but rather fall into a wretched state of damnation We are debtors not to the flesh to live after the flesh saith Saint Paul Rom. 8.13 For if ye live after the flesh ye shall die but if ye through the spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live Now to this mortification we are strongly oblig'd by Christian Religion its great design is to bring us out of our selves to God that as we yielded our members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity even so now we should yield them servants
but because they will not trust God for their reward they have none at all they lose their labour and themselves Many others there be that complain that their affairs and necessary employments abroad keep them from minding what is good by depriving them of their inward peace but the things that disturb the tranquillity of the Soul are from within because we will not break with our selves because we are too sensual and too much seek our ease and advantage From hence proceeds that inward and vexatious war betwixt the Spirit and the Flesh which can never cease till Reason and Religion reign in us and the inferior appetites be brought to obedience and perfect subjection to the higher rational faculties 3. If a man had a friend so dear and intimate that he could not eat nor rest nor live one day without him and a faithful and creditable Monitor should tell him that his pretended friend is false and treacherous and designs to ruin and to murther him would not his love presently cease and be turned to hatred and thoughts of revenge Christian Reader such a friend is our flesh we gratifie and indulge it and use it with the greatest kindness and at the same time under pretence of friendship it deceives us and designs to deprive us of immortal life and to bring to Eternal death Yet this false friend sleeps in our bosome we are not to war with strangers and with far distant Enemies but with one that dwells with us at home and accompanies us wherever we go and always lies in wait to take advantage of us and do us mischief Let a man forsake himself and come out of himself and then he will find no obstacles in his way to Heaven CHAP. V. How we must fight our corrupt nature and depraved affections 1. WE must be very careful to observe what is the object of our love or fear and what of our joy or sorrow for these four affections have the absolute power of our heart and God by them is the master of it when we love and fear nothing but him and for him and when he is the cause and the measure of our joy or sorrow When these motions of our mind are disorderly and tend where they should not we become unruly like beasts but when they are ordered and directed right then they are highly serviceable and they make us holy and happy like Angels For in this consisteth the perfection and happiness of man to have his affections and desires guided by truth and reason for then his love and his joys become instruments of bliss and virtue whereas the same affections when guided by corrupt nature alone become pernicious and vexatious degenerate into wild lusts monsters which we must always fight and with our utmost strength indeavor to conquer 2. But to this purpose it will not suffice that we in general indeavour to reform and keep under our appetites and unruly passions for corrupt nature is well enough pleased with all the apparel and formalities of mortification self-denyal and victory over sinful passions and Philosophers grow in love with the fair Ideas of virtue in this pompous attire and many in this have deceiv'd themselves and boasted of conquest over their evil inclinations because they find not in themselves an aversion to vertue and good desires But when it comes to tryal indeed and they are no longer to fight with the notion of sin in general but with a present urging lust with a pressing uneasiness and necessity with some provocations to anger or to impatience then it appears how vain how weak and insignificant were their great thoughts and fine resolutions Better it is therefore carefully attend to every particular occasion of vanquishing our selves and restraining our depraved appetites and to do it seriously and to purpose for so by degrees we shall rectifie and amend every defect and bring all our passions and desires under the power of right reason or Christian Religion 3. But this is not to be done without an ever-watching diligence an unwearied patience a great application and a persevering courage and labour that by offering a perpetual violence to our evil propensities as they shew themselves we may go to the root of them and quite pull them up For now in our state of depravation every holy affection and the lifting up of our Soul to God is violent being against nature against the bent of our sensual appetites so that we must renew our indeavours and add new vigor to them every moment else we fall down and nature easily prevails and we soon return to our selves 4. As weeds in gardens may be pull'd up and yet not hindred from growing again of themselves so by care and by keeping a strict hand over our vicious affections we may so keep them under that we shall think they are quite destroy'd but do what we can the ground of our corrupt nature will always be apt to produce ill weeds and sin of it self will be growing again so that we must never give over fighting never cease to mortifie and purifie our selves whilst we live And yet if by God's assistance we can once do some one noble act of Christian vertue report one noted victory over our selves that alone may be sufficient to assert and enlarge our liberty and obtain us grace whereby we shall afterwards easily overcome all our aversions to vertue Some holy men have been so encouraged and strengthned by one great and difficult triumph that afterwards without fear and with little trouble or danger they have overcome all enemies and oppositions So great a thing it is to fight with fortitude and maintain once a noble contention till we have conquer'd CHAP. VI. Of the right use and moderation of our outward Senses 1. BEcause the eyes commonly are an inlet to sin we ought to turn them from tempting objects with the same care and quickness as a man would remove out of a house infected with the Plague Now human eyes wherewith created things are beheld may be said to be of three sorts The first altogether Sensual or natural when viewing the outward beauty of an object we are pleased with it and consider no farther The second may be call'd Rational or Philosophical when we making reflections upon the symmetry and other properties of things visible are moved thereby to search and to know the nature of them And the third we may say are Christian or Religious when by the beholding of creatures we raise up our Souls to the love and contemplation of the Creator With these eyes pious Souls viewing the beauties of the universe are led to the consideration of its glorious maker who is the fountain of all beauty and perfection as the author of all subsistence and being 2. Now as the life of the body depends upon its union with the Soul so doth in some manner the life of our senses depend on the presence of their proper objects as things visible to the eyes
therefore the evils men can do to us but those we do against our selves by an angry impatient and revengeful Spirit Let us but pray and labour for Christian Charity and it will make us invincible it will make us conquer and overcome all wrongs and afflictions Many waters cannot quench love neither can the flouds drown it Cant. 8.7 The waters of Calamities and Persecutions cannot put out that bright and ever-burning flame kindled by God in pious hearts CHAP. XXXIX That the love of the Supreme Good comprehends all goodness 1. GOD is our true and sovereign good him we must love with all our soul and strength and to him we must direct all our ways For the love of God comprehends all vertue and godliness it is temperance whereby we despise the pride and delights of the World that God may have our whole hearts to himself it is constancy whereby we patiently bear any cross for and from God It is justice whereby we serve and obey God alone and with due moderation command his creatures it is prudence and the highest wisdom whereby we diligently avoid the obstacles and use the means to come to God it is all that can make us good and make us happy Now God must be lov'd for himself for nothing can be better than God he is infinitely good and the beginning and end of all goodness Therefore other things must be lov'd only for his sake and in such proportion as they are more or less related to him but he must be lov'd on his own account as much as is possible without bounds or measures for his perfections are vast enough to swallow up all our affections nay they infinitely exceed them so that nothing must share our love with him it is all infinitely more than due to him 2. It much concerns us therefore to be very careful that those lower sensible goods wherewith we converse in this Earth do not steal our hearts from God the giver of them For though we set the greater value upon things Spiritual and Eternal yet because now they are out of our sight and we cannot reach them our affections to them are dull and heavy and must be forc'd and listed up whereas they are brisk and swift to such things as are the object of sense and we naturally fall down to our sensual nature and without great care we cannot avoid to be by it cheated into self-love If we would therefore be replenish'd with the Holy and Beatifying Love of God we must first cast the World out of our hearts for as a full vessel cannot receive better liquor except it be emptied no more can our hearts love the Creator if they are possest by creatures Therefore saith Saint John the beloved Apostle of Jesus Love not the world neither the things that are in the world for if any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him 1 Joh. 2.15 Worldly things are made for our use and there is in them some beauty but how much more beautiful is he that made them and made us for the enjoyment of himself He that seeks for happiness out of God shall never find it but if we love him above all things then we are certainly happy for he also loves us and his favour is all CHAP. XL. Wherein consists the Love of God 1. IT consists chiefly in joyfully suffering for God for Love is a passion and he therefore loves most that is most patient as the Blessed Apostles returned from the Council rejoycing that they had been worthy to suffer shame and stripes for the name of Jesus There may be much of nature in that tenderness of devout affection and those tears that proceed from it which are observ'd in some but true vertues and solid joys do proceed from a Love practical and obediential For he that truly loves obeys in all things cheerfully for savour not for fear and if any burthen unpleasant to the flesh be laid upon him Love makes it light and acceptable too Therefore the Scripture saith that Gods Commandments are not grievous to let us know we are not yet perfect in Love when we find them grievous and difficult and that we should pray and labour for an increase of Charity The keeping of Gods Commandments is doubtless very hard to them that are acted by fear but Perfect Love casteth out Fear and as it fulfills the Law so it makes it easie and delightful to us For there is no trouble nor difficulty in that service which Love obligeth to what duties it binds on a good servant are ever thought pleasant and readily discharg'd whereas the same imposed by fear will make subjection grievous and obedience to be cavill'd at and by some means eluded 2. By this they are convinc'd to want the Love of God who complain of the strictness of Gospel-precept and count morality a needless burthen and by pretences and objections seek to loosen the yoke that they may shake it off Such are they that have itching ears and heap to themselves teachers after their own heart such as may more comply with their humor and inlarge their wanton liberty by restraining Gods Laws and the injunctions of his Church For men now adays will not be held in by duty but will range according to their will they have disputed themselves out of meekness and Charity and now that their actions are not govern'd by plain precepts but by opinions and parties they may be warranted to do in a manner whatever they lust But alass before Christs dreadful Tribunal we shall not he judged by vulgar opinions nor by the exceptions of contentious men but by truth and by divine Laws There mens fancies and relaxations and the doctrine of probability as some do teach it will be found to hare been only pernicious cheats whereby men sought to warrant their looseness and disobedience 3. But these things are not weighed nor understood but by them that sincerely love God and are therefore ready always to obey him in all things he requires For 't is by Love that the Soul gives up her self to God and by cleaving to him becomes one will and one spirit with him for God is Love saith the Scripture and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him 1 Joh. 4.16 And from this union flows an holy peace and a delicious joy when by love we are subject to our Beloved and are possest of him in whom and by whom are all things and who is the fountain of all happiness and the satisfaction of all our desires Now by this shall a man know whether he truly loves God and adheres to him if God be the last end of all his purposes and actions if his thoughts and desires always run after him and if above all things he seeks to please and to obtain him CHAP. XLI That there is more of Love in Practical Knowledge than in Speculation 1. TO desire knowledge is natural to man and still the more
he knows the more that desire increaseth and then he rejoyceth in himself and is much delighted with his great learning when he thinks he knows much and hath a great insight into the profoundest of divine mysteries and so he comes to love his knowledge more than God the object of it Thus the Philosophers as St. Paul reproves them when they knew God yet they glorified him not as God but became vain in their imaginations much admiring themselves and their discoveries And thus also many Christians value more what they know and what they can discourse of God and Religion that they value both him and it They speak great things of the love of Christ and they love themselves for so speaking In that knowledge they have of God as in a mirror they view themselves especially and take little notice of the glass they admire the vision their own act more than the object which is seen But God must be lov'd and worshipt in spirit and in truth in singleness and simplicity without any respect to our selves 2. As a Country-man plain and unlearned who daily sees the Sun is more in love with the light of it than a blind Philosopher who can talk many things concerning the nature and the causes and effects of light so an honest pious man without Scholarship by an active practical Faith shews more love to God than the profound Divine by his subtleties and high speculations And as a learned man in Northern Countries where no Vines can grow may learnedly discourse of their fruit and the properties of it and yet not have such an intimate acquaintance with the nature and strength of the wine as the plain vine-dresser that drinks it daily so may a Religious illiterate man have a greater insight into divine mysteries and a more relishing apprehension of them than many a man of great fame and learning For experience goes beyond all theory and love passeth knowledge and we much sooner come to God by affection than by studious inquiries 3. We must not only therefore inform our understanding but if we desire to love God fervently we must ingage our affections and give our selves to Prayer Proficiency in goodness will make us know more of God and to better purpose than proficiency in knowledge Goodness will make us love and love will bring us into Gods secret place where we shall see more and with more delight than all notional learning can shew us What we can know of God in this our exile is but little but we may love him as much as we will he grants us that power and as our love increaseth our labour will grow less and our obedience more perfect But many had rather seek God whom they never find than love and thereby enjoy him CHAP. XLII That by Love Holiness is to be perfected 1. IT is a commandment of God both in the Law and the Gospel be ye Holy for I am Holy That is that we should be pure and without the unclean mixture of the creatures For as Lead in Silver and dirt upon white robes will debase and stain so if we ingage our Souls to the world to things beneath them we make them vile and unclean whereas if we list them up to God by a hearty love we make them pure and beautiful A heart whence all sensual and earthly things are excluded and whose affections cleave to God by the unions of love may with joy and confidence say with the Apostle Who shall separate us from the love of Christ shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famin or nakedness or peril or sword Nay in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us For I am perswaded that neither Death nor Life nor Angels nor Principalities nor Powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord Rom. 8.35 2. Fasting and Alms and Corporal Austerities the use of Sacraments and all such means are great helps towards Sanctity but they all profit nothing without Charity No not Martyrdom it self saith St. Paul 1 Cor. 13.3 The exercise of some other vertues may be sometimes dispenc'd withall as the poor from Alms-giving and weak and sickly people from fasting and rigorous discipline but to love God and our neighbour which is the end of all other precepts and the fulfilling of the Law every one is always oblig'd no man at no time can be any ways hindred or excused obstacles and difficulties may stop the progress of other vertues but they increase Love Love is within in the heart and will there God hath placed it there God looks for it and there nothing can obstruct or stifle it except we will our selves Love alone is necessary and alone sufficient to make us holy It is the first and great Commandment pleasant and easie beyond all others for what more pleasant than to love and who dares say I cannot love 3. He that heartily loves God who is one loves all things in one and one in all things for he loves not God truly that loves any thing which he loves not in God and for God There is nothing above there is nothing equal to God and if at any time we turn our affections from him they fall upon inferior objects upon earthly things whose weight doth sink and press them down and our hearts are never at rest and liberty till they return to God from whom they ungratefully departed That we may therefore be truly sanctified we must forsake our selves and all created things and return as high as to that first principle of sanctity that God from whom we had our origin and then cleaving stedfastly to him by a devout love we shall become one with him in life and holiness and felicity CHAP. XLIII That the Consideration of the fewness of the Chosen ought to make us very wary and diligent 1. NOthing can sooner startle a man out of his slumber and security and â—edge him on to amend and order his life by the Gospel Rules than the due pondering of the dreadful saying of Christ Mat. 20.16 That many are called but few are chosen For no man knows whether he be called by that secret election which intitles him to glory and justification No man knows either love or hatred by all that is before him all promises for the life to come are conditional nothing but our sincerity in fulfilling the conditions can give us any ground of assurance And yet how defective are we in this how uncertain is it that we shall persevere and who can search and see into the deep secret of his Election here the Apostle who had been once in Paradise cryes out and wonders O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out Rom. 11.33 In this great danger and