So things are reckon'd upon several accounts either as they are more rare and unfrequent which is the vulgar way of estimating wonders or as their causes are of more difficult investigation or if they are moral wonders as they are more unreasonable or causeless upon this last account Christ marvelled at the Jews unbelief And so is this hatred justly marvellous as being altogether without a cause But thence to infer there is no such thing were to dispute against the Sun No truth hath more of light and evidence in it though none more of â—â—rrâ—ur and prodigie To how many thousand objects is the mind of man indifferent can turn it self to this or that run with facility all points of the Compass among the whole universe of beings but assay only to draw it to God and it recoiles Thoughts and affections revolt and decline all converse with that blessed object Toward other objects it freely opens and dilates it self as under the benign beams of a warm Sun there are placid complacential emotions amicable sprightly converses and imbraces Towards God only it is presently contracted and shut up Life retires and it becomes as a stone cold â—rigid and impenetrable The quite contrary to what is required which also those very precepts do plainly imply 't is alive to sin to the world to vanity but crucified mortified dead to God and Jesus Christ. The natures of many men that are harsh fierce and savage admit of various cultivations and refinings and by moral precept the exercise and improvement of reason with a severe animadversion and observance of themselves they become mild tractable gentle meek The story of the Physiognamists guess at the temper of Socrates is known but of all other the disaffected soul is least inclinable ever to become good natur'd towards God wherein grace or holiness doth consist Here 't is most unperswadable never facile to this change One would have thought no affection should have been so natural so deeply inwrought into the spirit of man as an affection towards the Father of Spirits but here he most of all discovers himself to be without natural â—ffection surely here is a sad proof that such affection doth not ascend The whole duty of man as to the principle of it resolves into love That is the fulfilling of the Law As to its object the two Tables devide it between God and our neighbour And accordingly divide that love Upon those two Branches whereof love to God and love to our neighbour hang all the Law and the Prophets The wickedness of the world hath kil'd this love at the very root and indisposed the nature of man to all exercises of it either way whether towards God or his neighbour It hath not only rendred man unmeet for holy communion with God but in a great measure for civil society with one another It hath destroyed good nature made men false envious barbarous turn'd the world especially the dark places of the Earth where the light of the Gospel shines not into habitations of cruelty But who sees not the enmity and disaffection of mens hearts towards God is the more deeply rooted and less superable evil The beloved Apostle gives us a plain and sad intimation how the case is as to this when he reasons thus He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen how can he love God whom he hath not seen He argues from the less to the greater and this is the ground upon which his argument is built That the loving of God is a matter of greater difficulty and from which the Spirit of mâ—n is more remote then the loving of his neighbour And he withall insinuates an account why it is so Gods remoteness from our sense which is indeed a cause but no excuse For is our so gross sensuality no sin that nothing should affect our hearts but what we can see with our eyes as if our sense were the onely measure or judg of excellencies We are not all flesh what have we done with our souls if we cannot see God with our eyes why do we not with our minds at least so much of him we might as to discern his excellency above all things else How come our souls to lose their dominion and to be so slavishly subject to a ruling sense But the reason less concerns our present purpose that whereof it is the reason that implyed assertion that men are in a less disposition to the love of God then their neighbour is the sad truth we are now considering There are certain homilitical vertues that much adorn and polish the nature of man Urbanity Fidelity Justice Patience of Injuries Compassion towards the Miserable c. and indeed without these the world would break up and all civil societies disband if at least they did not in some degree obtain But in the mean time men are at the greatest distance imaginable from any disposition to society with God They have some love for one another but none for him And yet it must be remembred that love to our neighbour and all the consequent exertions of it becoming dutie by the Divine Law ought to be performed as acts of obedience to God and therefore ought to grow from the stock and root of a Divine Love I mean love to God They are otherwise but Spurious Vertues Bastard Fruits men gather not Grapes of Thorns c. they grow from a Tree of another kind and what ever semblance they may have of the true they want their constituent form their life and soul. Though love to the brethren is made a character of the regenerate state of having past from death to life 'T is yet but a more remote and is it self brought to trial by this higher and more immediate one and which is more intimately connatural to the new creature even the Love of God By this we know we love the children of God when we love God and keep his Commandments A respect to God specifies every Vertue and Duty What ever is loved and served and not in him and for him servato ordine finiâ— as the School-phrase is becomes an Idol and that love and service is Idolatry And what a discovery is here of disaffection to God that in the exercise of such the above mentioned vertues one single act shall be torn from it self from its specifying moral â—orm onely to leave out him A promise shall be kept but without any respect to God for even the promises made to him are broken without any scruple That which is anothers shall be rendred to him but God shall not be regarded in the business An alms given for the Lords sake left out That which concerns my neighbour often done but what concerns God therein as it were studiously omitted This is what he that runs may read that though the hearts of men are not to one another as they should they are much more â—verse towards God Men are easier of acquaintance
glory of God Your hearts being bent thitherward and made willing to run through whatsoever difficulties of life or death to attain it Do not think that Christ came into the world and dyed to procure the pardon of your sins and so translate you to heaven while your hearts should still remain cleaving to the earth He came and returned to prepare a way for you and then call not drag you thither That by his Precepts and Promises and Example and Spirit he might form and fashion your Souls to that glorious state And make you willing to abandon all things for it And low now the God of all grace is calling you by Jesus Christ unto his eternal Glory Direct then your eyes and hearts to that marke the Prise of the High calling of God in Christ Jesus 'T is ignominious by the common suffrage of the civiliz'd world not to intend the proper business of our Callings To your Calling to forsake this world and mind the other make hast then to quit your selves of your entanglements of all earthly dispositions and affections Learn to live in this world as those that are not of it that expect every day and wish to leave it whose hearts are gone already 'T is dreadful to dye with pain and regret To be forced out of the Body To dye a violent death and go away with an unwilling refluctant heart The wicked is driven away in his wickedness Fain he would stay longer but cannot He hath not power over the Spirit to retain the Spirit nor hath he power in death He must away whether he will or no. And indeed much against his will So it cannot but be where there is not a previous knowledge and love of a better state where the Soul understands it not and is not effectually attempered and framed to it O get then the lovely Image of the future glory into your minds keep it ever before your eyes Make it familiar to your thoughts Imprint daily there these words I shall behold thy face I shall be satisfied with thy likeness And see that your souls be inrich't with that righteousness Have inwrought into them that holy rectitude that may dispose them to that blessed state Then will you dye with your own consent and go away not driven but allur'd and drawn You will go as the redeemed of the Lord with everlasting joy upon their heads As those that know whether you go even to a state infinitely worthy of your desires and choice and where 't is best for you to be You will part with your souls not by a forcible separation but a joyful surrender and resignation They will dislodge from this earthly Tabernnacle rather as putting it off then having it rent and torn away Loosen your selves from this body by degrees as we do any thing we would remove from a place where it sticks fast Gather up your spirits into themselves Teach them to look upon themselves as distinct thing Inure them to the thoughts of a dissolution Be continually as taking leave Cross and disprove the common maxime and let your hearts which they use to say are wont to dye last dye first Prevent death and be mortifi'd towards every earthly thing beforehand that death mave have nothing to kill but your body And that you may not die a double death in one hour and suffer the death of your body and of your love to it both at once Much less that this should survive to your greater and even incurable misery Shake off your Bands and Fetters the terrene affections that so closely confine you to the house of your bondage And lift up your heads in expectation of the approaching Jubilee the day of your redemption when you are to go out free and enter into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God When you shall serve and groan and complain no longer Let it be your continual song and the matter of your daily praise that the time of your happy deliverance is hastening on that ete long you shall be absent from the body and present with the Lord. That he hath not doom'd you to an everlasting imprisonment within those closs and clayie walls wherein you have been so long shut up from the beholding of his sight and glory In the thoughts of this while the outward man is sensibly perishing let the inward revive and be renewed day by day What Prisoner would be sorry to see the walls of his Prison House so an Heathen speaks mouldering down and the hopes arriving to him of being delivered out of that darkness that had buried him of recovering his liberty and injoying the free air and light What Champion inur'd to hardship would stick to throw off rotten rags rather expose a naked placid free body to naked placid free air The truly generous soul to be a little above never leaves the body against its will Rejoyce that it is the gracious pleasure of thy good God thou shalt not always inhabit a Dungeon nor lie amid'st so impure and disconsolate darkness that he will shortly exchange thy filthy Garments for those of Salvation and Praise The end approaches As you turn over these leaves so are your days turned over And as you are now arrived to the end of this Book God will shortly write Finis to the Book of your Life on Earth and shew you your names written in Heaven in the Book of that Life which shall never end FINIS Senec. * Pruritus disputandi scobies Ecclesia * Ut ulcera quaedam nocituras manus apoetunt tactu gaudent faedam corporum scabiem delectat quicquid â—xâ—sperâ—t Non alitè◠dixerim his mâ—ntibus in quas voluptates velut mala ulcera crupê unt voluptati esse laborem vexâ—tionemque Sâ—n. de tranquillitate anâ—â—â— Sen de Brev. vit * Nihil est Deo similius aut gratius quam vir animo perfectè bonus c. Apul. de Deo Soâ—â—atis * Inter bonos viros ac Deum amicitia est conciliante virtute amicitiam dico etiam necessitudâ— similitudâ— c. Sca de prov * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plato in Minâ—e 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Dyonys Halicar Antiq. Rom. lib. 8. Rom. 2 6 7 8 9. * Rom. 16 18. Phil. 3. 19. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sept. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The vâ—lgar Latine Eâ—oautem 〈…〉 appaâ—câ—o â—oâ—spectui 〈◊〉 satiabo◠〈◊〉 â—â—pâ—â—uâ—riâ— gloâ—ia tua Exactly following the Seventy as doth the Ethiopique the Chaldee Paraphrase disagrees little the Arabique lesse the Syâ—iâ—ck mistook it seem◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so read that word saith which we read likenesse Hieronymus juxta Hebr. reads the words exactly as we do Ego in justiâ—iâ viâ—â—bo faciâ—m tuam implebor cum evigilavero similitudine tua 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Seems best to be rendered here by or through righteousness as by the condition
was I am all Spirit and life I feel my self disburthened and unclogg'd of all the heavy oppressive weights that hung upon me No body of death doth now incumber me no deadness of heart no coldness of love no drowsie sloth no aversness from God no earthly mind no sensual inclinations or affections no sinful devisions oâ— heart between God and Creatures He hath now the whole of me I injoy and delight in none but him O blessed change O happy day 2. If in contemplating it self cloathed with this likeness it respect the state of damned souls What transporâ—s must that occasion What ravishing resentments When it compares humane nature in its highest perfection with the same nature in its utmost depravation An unspeakably more unequal comparison than that would be of the most amiable lovely person flourishing in the prime of youthful strength and beauty with a putrified rotten carcasse deformed by the corruption of a loathsome grave When glorified Spirits shall make such a reflection as this Lo here we shine in the glorious brightness of the divine Image and behold yonder deformed accursed souls They were as capable of this glory as we Had the same nature with us the same reason the same intellectual faculties and powers but what monsters are they now become They eternally hate the eternal excellency Sin and death are finished upon them They have each of them an hell of horror and wickedness in it self Whence is this amazing difference Though this cannot but be an awful wonder it cannot also but be temper'd with pleasure and joy 3. We may suppose this likeness to be considered in reference to its pattern and in comparison therewith which will then be another way of heightning the pleasure that shall arise thence Such a frame and constitution of Spirit is full of delights in it self but when it shall be refer'd to its original and the correspondency between the one and the other be observ'd and view'd how exactly they accord and answer each other as face doth face in the water this cannot still but add pleasure to pleasure one delight to another When the blessed soul shall interchangeably turn its eye to God and it self and consider the agreement of glory to glory the several derived excellencies to the original He is wise and so am I holy and so am I. I am now made perfect as my heavenly Father is this gives a new relish to the former pleasure How will this likeness please under that notion as it is his a likeness to him O the accent that will be put upon those appropriative words to be made partakers of His holiness and of the divine nature Personal excellencies in themselves considered cannot be reflected on but with some pleasure but to the ingenuity of a child how especially grateful will it be to observe in it self such and such graceful deportments wherein it naturally imitates its father So he was wont to speak and act and demean himself how natural is it unto love to affect and aim at the imitation of the person loved So natural it must be to take complacency therein when we have hit our mark and atchiev'd our design The pursuits and attainments of love are proportionable and correspondent each to other And what heart can compass the greatness of this thought to be made like God! Lord was there no lower pattern than thy self thy glorious blessed self according to which to form a worm This cannot want its due resentments in a glorified state 4. This transformation of the blessed soul into the likeness of God may be viewed by it in reference to the way of accomplishment as an end brought about by so amazing stupendous means which will certainly be a pleasing contemplation When it reflects on the method and course insisted on for bringing this matter to pass views over the work of redemption in its tendency to this end The restoring Gods Image in souls Considers Christ manifested to us in order to his being revealed and formed in us That God was made in the likeness man to make men after the likeness of God That he partook with us of the humane nature that we might with him partake of the divine that he assumed our flesh in order to impart to us his Spirit When it shall be considered for this end had we so many great and precious promises for this end did the glory of the Lord shine upon us through the glass of the Gospel that we might be made partakers c. That we might be changed c. Yea when it shall be called to mind though it be far from following hence that this is the only or principal way wherein the life and death of Christ have influence in order to our eternal happiness that our Lord Jesus lived for this end that we might learn so to walk as he also walked that he dyed that we mught be conformed to his death that he rose again that we might with him attain the resurrection of the dead that he was in us the hope of glory that he might be in us that is that same Image that bears his Name our final consummate glory it self also With what pleasure will these harmonious congruities these apt correspondencies be look'd into at last Now may the glorified Saint say I here see the end the Lord Jesus came into the world for I see for what he was lift up made a spectacle that he might be a transforming one What the effusions of his Spirit were for why it so earnestly strove with my way-ward heart I now behold in my own soul the fruit of the travel of his Soul This was the project of redeeming love the design of all-powerful Gospel grace Glorious atchievement blessed end of that great and notable undertaking happy issue of that high desin 5. With reference to all their own expectations and indeavours When it shall be considered by a Saint in glory the attainment of this perfect likeness to God was the utmost mark of all my designs and aims the term of all my hopes and desires This is that I long'd and laboured for that which I pray'd and waited for which I so earnestly breath'd after and restlestly pursu'd It was but to recover the defaced image of God To be again made like him as once I was Now I have attained my end I have the fruit of all my labour and travels I see now the truth of those often incouraging words Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled Be not weary of well doing for ye shall reap if ye faint not What would I once have given for a steady abiding frame of holiness for an heart constantly bent and biassed toward God constantly serious constantly tender lively watchful heavenly spiritual meek humble chearful self-denying How have I cryed and striven for this to get such an heart such a temper of spirit how have I pleaded with God and my own
world to come are so overmastered by the powers of this present world and objects of sense so much outweigh those of Faith And is not this apparently the case with the Christians of the present age Do not your thoughts run the same course with theirs that meditated nothing but sitting on the right and left hand of Christ in an earthly dominion while they never dream't of drinking of his Cup or being baptized with his Baptism How many vain dreamers have we of golden mountains and I know not what earthly felicity whose pretended Prophesies about a supposed near approaching prosperity to the Church on earth gain easier belief or are more savory and taking with too many then all that the Sacred Oracles discover about its glorious state in heaven Hence are our shoulders so unfitted to Christs yoke like the unaccustomed Heifer and the business of suffering will not enter into our hearts Methinks the belief and expectation of such a state hereafter should make us even regardless of what we see or suffer here and render the good or evil things of time as indifferent to us Yet neither plead I for an absolute Stoical Apathy but for patience A great follower of that Sect acknowledges It is not a vertue to bear what we feel not or have no sense of Stupidity under Providence is not a Christian temper as that Moralist sayes of the wise man 'T is not the hardness of stone or iron that is to be ascribed to him But least any should run into that more dangerous mistake to think that by the patience we have been all this while perswading to in the expectation of the blessedness yet to come is meant a love of this present world and a complacential adherence of heart to the earth which extream the terrene temper of many souls may much encline them to It will be necessary upon that account to adde in reference also to the yet future expected season of this blessedness this further and concluding instruction viz. That however we are not to repine at our being held so long in this world in an expecting state yet we let not our souls cleave too close to their terrestrial stations nor be too much in love with the body and this present low state of life on earth For evident it is that notwithstanding all the miseries of this expecting state the most are yet loath to leave the world and have hearts sordidly hankering after present things And surely there is much difference between being patient of an abode on earth and being fond of it Therefore since the true blessedness of Saints consists in such things as we have shewn and cannot be enjoy'd till we awake not within the compass of time and this lower world It will be very requisite to insist here a while in the prosecution of this last Rule And what I shall say to it shall be by way of Caution Inforcement 1. For Cautionâ—s that we misapprehend not that temper and disposition of Spirit we are in this thing to endeavour and aim at And it especially concerns us to be cautious about the Inducements Degree Of that desire of leaving this world or concontempt of this present life which we either aspire to or allow our selves in First Inducements Some are desirous others at least content to quit the world upon very insufficient or indeed wicked considerations 1. There are who desire it meerly to be out of the way of present troubles whereof they have either too impatient a sense or an unworthy and impotent fear Many times the urgency and anguish of incumbent trouble impresses such a sense and utters it self in such a language as that Now O Lord take I beseech thee my life from me for it is better for me to die then to live Or that My soul chuseth strangling and death rather then life Makes men long for death and dig for it as for hid treasures rejoyce and be exceeding glad when they can find the grave Yea and the very fear of troubles that are but impendent and threatning make some wish the Grave a Sanctuary and render the Clods of the Valley sweet unto their thoughts They lay possibly so humoursom and phansiful stress upon the meer circumstances of dying that they are earnest to dye out of hand to avoid dying so and so as the Poet would fain perswade himself it was not Death he feared but Shipwrack It would not trouble them to dye but to dye by a violent hand or to be made a publick spectacle they cannot endure the thoughts of dying so Here is nothing commendable or worthy of a Christian in all this It were a piece of Christian bravery to dare to live in such a case even when there is a visible likelihood of dying a sacrifice in the midst of flames How much this glory was affected in the earlier days of Christianity is sufficiently known Though I confess there were excesses in that kind altogether unimitable But if God call a man forth to be his Champion and witness to lay down a life in it self little desirable in a truly worthy cause The call of his Providence should be as the sound of the Trumpet to a truly Martial Spirit it should fill his soul with a joyful courage and sense of honour and be comply'd with cheerfully with that apprehension and resentment a stout Souldier would have of his Generals putting him upon some very hazardous piece of service viz. he would say My General hath not as the Morallist expresses his sense for him deserved ill of me but it appears he judged well It should be counted all joy to fall into such tryals that is when they become our lot by a providential disposition not by a rash precipitation of our selves And as it is a wickedness inconsistent with Christianity to be of that habitual temper to chuse to desert such a cause for the saving of life so it is a weakness very reproachful to it to lay down ones life in such a case with regret as unwilling in this kind to glorifie him who laid down his for us we are no more to dye to our selves then to live to our selves Our Lord Jesus hath purchased to himself a Dominion over both states of the living and dead and whether we live we must live to him or dye we must dye to him T is the glory of a Christian to live so much above the world that nothing in it may make him either fond of life or weary of it 2. There are others who are at least indifferent and careless how soon they dye out of either a worse than paganish infidelity disbelieving the concernments of another world or a bruitish stupidity not apprehending them or a gross conceited ignorance misunderdanding the terms of the Gospel and thinking themselves to be in a good condition as to eternity when the case is much otherwise with them Take heed thy willingness to dye
visions of this Makers face that chuses thus to entertain it self on earth rather then partake the effusions of Divine glory above That had rather creep with Worms then soar with Angels associate with Bruits then with the Spirits of just men made perfect who can solve the Phaenomenon or give a rational account why there should be such a Creature as man upon the Earth abstructing from the hopes of another world who can think it the effect of an infinite wisdom or account it a more worthy design then the representing of such a Scene of actions and affairs by Puppets on a Stage for my part upon the strictest enquiry I see nothing in the life of man upon earth that should render it for it self more the matter of a rational election supposing the free option given him in the first moment of his being then presently again to cease to be the next moment Yea and is there not enough obvious in every mans experience to incline him rather to the contrary choice and supposing a future blessedness in another world to make him passionately desirous with submission to the Divine pleasure of a speedy dismission into it Do not the burdens that press us in this earthly taâ—ernacle teach our very sense and urge opprest nature into involuntary groans while as yet our consideration doth intervene And if we do consider is not every thought a sting making a much deeper impression then what only toucheth our flesh and bones Who can reflect upon his present state and not presently be in pangs The troubles that follow humanity are many and great those that follow Christianity more numerous and grievous The sickness pains losses disappointments and whatsoever afflictions that are in the Apostles language humane or common to men as are all the external sufferings of Christians in nature and kind though they are liable to them upon an account peculiar to themselves which there the Apostle intimates are none of our greatest evils yet even upon the account of them have we any reason to be so much in love with so unkind â— world Is it not strange our very Bridewel should be such a Heaven to us But these things are little considerable in comparison of the more Spiritual grievances of Christians as such that is those that afflict our Souls while we are under the conduct of Christ designing for a blessed eternity if we indeed make that our business and do seriously intend our spirits in order thereto The darkness of our beclouded minds The glimmering ineffectual apprehension we have of the most important things the inconsistency of our shattered thoughts when we would apply them to Spiritual Objects The great difficulty of working off an ill frame of heart and the no less difficulty of retaining a good our being so frequently tost as between Heaven and Hell when we sometimes think our selves to have even attained and hope to descend no more and are all on a suddain plung'd in the Ditch so as that our own Clothes might abhor us fall so low into an earthly temper that we can like nothing Heavenly or Divine and because we cannot are enforced justly most of all to dislike our selves Are these things little with us How can we forbear to cry out of the depths to the Father of our Spirits that he would pity and relieve his own Off-spring yea are we not weary of our crying and yet more weary of holding in How do repell'd Temptations return again and vanquished Corruptions recover strength We know not when our work is done We are miserable that we need to be always watching and more miserable that we cannot watch but are so often surprized and overcome of evil We say sometimes with our selves we will seek relief in retirement but we cannot retire from our selves or in converse with Godly friends but they sometimes prove snares to us and we to them Or we hear but our own miseries repeated in their complaints would we pray How faint is the breath we utter How long is it ere we can get our Souls possest with any becoming apprehensions of God or lively sense of our own concernments Would we meditate We sometimes go about to compose our thoughts but we may as well assay to hold the Windes in our fist If we venture forth into the world how do our Senses betray us How are we mockt with their impostures Their neerer objects become with us the onely realities and eternal things are all vanisht into airie shadowes Reason and Faith are laid asleep and our Sense dictates to us what we are to believe and do as if it were our only guide and Lord. And what are we not yet wearie Is it reasonable to continue in this State of our own choice Is misery become so natural to us so much our element that we cannot affect to live out of it Is the darkness and dirt of a dungeon more grateful to us then a free open air and sun Is this Flesh of ours so lovely a thing that we had rather suffer so many deaths in it then one in putting it off and mortality with it While we carry it about us our Souls impart a kind of life to it and it gives them death in exchange Why do we not cry out more feelingly O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this Body of Death Is it not grievous to us to have so cumbersome a yoke-fellow to be tied as Mezentius is said to have done the living and the dead together Do not we find the Distempers of our Spirits are mostly from these bodies we are so in love with either as the proper Springs or as the occasion of them From what cause is our drowsy sloth our eager passions our aversion to Spiritual objects but from this impure Flesh or what else is the Subject about which our vexatious cares or torturing fears our bitter griefs are taken up day by day And why do we not consider that 't is onely our love to it that gives strength and vigour to the most of our temptations as wherein it is more immediately concern'd and which makes them so often victorious thence to become our after-afflictions He that hath learn'd to mortifie the inordinate love of the Body will he make it the business of his life to purvey for it Will he offer violence to his own Soul to secure it from violence will he comply with mens Lusts and humors for its advantage and accommodation or yeild himself to the tyranny of his own avarice for its future or of his more-sensual Lusts for it s present content Will it not rather be pleasing to him that his outward man be exposed to perish while his inward man is renewed day by day He to whom the thoughts are grateful of laying it down will not though he neglect not duty towards it spend his days in its continual Service and make his Soul an hell by a continual provision for the flesh and
and deportments towards God and man Christ formed in the soul or put on the new creature in its being and operations the truth learned as it is in Jesus to the putting off the old man and the putting on the new More distinctly we may yet see wherein it lyes upon a premised view of some few things necessary to be foreknown in order thereunto As That this righteousness is a renewing righteousness or the righteousness of one formerly a sinner a lapsed perishing wretch who is by it restored into such a state towards God as he was in before that lapse in respect of certain great essentials though as yet his state be not so perfectly good while he is in his tendency and motion And shall by certain additionals be unspeakably better when he hath attained the end and rest he is tending to That a reasonable creature yet untainted with sin could not but have a temper of mind â—uteable to such apprehensions as these Viz. That as it was not the Author of being to it self so it ought not principally to study the pleasing and serving of it self but him who gave it being that it can no more continue and perfect it self unto blessedness than it could create it self and can therefore have no expectation hereof but from the same Author of its being And hence that it must respect and eye the great God its Creator and Maker as The Soveraign Authority whom it was to fear and obey Soveraign Good whom it was to love and enjoy But because it can perform no duty to him without knowing what he will have it do nor have any particular expectation of savours from him without knowing what he will please to bestow and is therefore obliged to attend to the revelations of his Will concerning both these It is therefore necessary that he eye him under a notion introductive and subservient to all the operations that are to be exerted towards him under the two former notions i. e. as the Eternal never failing Truth safely to be depended on as intending nothing of deceit in any the revelations whether of his righteous Will concerning matter of duty to be done or of his good Will concerning matter of benefit to be expected and enjoyed That Man did apostatize and revolt from God as considered under these severall notions And returns to him when an holy rectitude is recovered and he again becomes righteous considered under the same That it was not agreeable to Gods wisedom truth and legal justice to treat with Man a Sinner in order to his recovery but through a Mediator and that therefore he was pleased in wonderfull mercy to constitute and appoint his own Son Jesus Christ God-man unto that Office and Undertaking that through him man might return and be reconciled to himself whom he causlessely forsook designing that man shall now become so affected towards himself through the Mediator and firstly therefore towards the Mediators own person as he was before and ought to have been towards himself immediately Therefore whereas God was considerable in relation to Man both in his innocency and Apostacy under that forementioned two fold notion of the supream Authority Goodness He hath also set up and exalted our Lord Jesus Christ and represented him to Sinners under an answerable two fold notion of a Prince Saviour i. e. a mediating Prince and Saviour to give repentance first to bow and stoop the hearts of sinners and reduce them to a subject posture again and then remission of sins to restore them to favour and save them from the wrath to come Him hath the Father cloth'd with his own authority and fill'd with his grace requiring sinners to submit themselves to his ruling power and commit themselves to his saving mercy now both lodg'd in this his Son to pay him immediately all homage and obedience and through him ultimately to himself from him immediately to expect Salvation and blessedness and through him ultimately from himself That whereas the Spirits of men are not to be wrought to this temper but by the intervention of a discovery and revelation of the divine Will to this purpose Our Lord Jesus Christ is further appointed by the Father to reveal all this his counsel to Sinners And is eminently spoken of in Scripture upon this account under the notion of the Truth in which capacity he more effectually recommends to Sinners both his authority and his grace So that his three fold so much celebrated Office of King Priest Prophet the distinct parts of his general Office as Mediator which he manages in order to the reducement of lost Sinners exactly correspond if you consider the more eminent acts and properties of each Office to that threefold notion under which the Spirit of Man must alwayes have eyed and been acted towards God had he never fallen and hence this righteousness which consists in conformity to the Gospel is the former righteousness which was lâ—st with such an accession as is necessary upon consideration that it was lost and was only to be recovered by a Mediator Therefore you may now take this short and as compendious an account as I can give of it in what follows It includes so firm and understanding an assent to the truth of the whole Gospel Revelation as that the soul is thereby brought through the power of the Holy Ghost sensibly to apprehend its former disobedience to God and distance from him the reasonableness of subjection to him and desirableness of blessedness in him the necessity of a Redeemer to reconcile and recover it to God the accomplishments and designation of the Lord Jesus Christ to that purpose And hence a penitent and complacential return to God as the supream Authority and soveraign Good an humble and joyful acceptance of our Lord Jesus Christ as its Prince and Saviour with submission to his Authorâ—y and reliance on his grace the exercise of both which are founded in his blood looking and pitching upon him as the only medium through which he and his duties can please God or God and his mercies approach him and through which he hath the confidence to venture upon a Covenant-acceptance of God and surrender himself to him afterward pursued to his uttermost by a continued course of living in his fear and love in obedience to him and communion with him through the Mediator alwayes while he is passing the time of his pilgrimage in this world groaning under remaining sin and pressing after perfect holiness with an earnest expectation animating him to a persevering patience through all difficulties of a blessed eternity in the other world That such a conformity to the Gospel should be expressed by the name of righteousness cannot seem strange to such as acquaint themselves with the language of the Scripture That graoious frame which the Gospel made essential impresses upon the soul is the Kingdom of God in the passive notion of it his Kingdom received and now actually come with power upon our Spirits
turn my thoughts to glorious objects but I cannot The blessed soul feels it self free from all confinement nothing resists its will as its will doth never resist the will of God It knows no limits no restraints is not tyed up to this or that particular good but expatiates freely in the immense universal all comprehending goodness of God himself And this liberty is the perfect Image and likeness of the liberty of God especially in its consummate state In its progress towards it it increases as the Soul draws nearer to God which nearer approach is not in respect of place or local nearness but likeness and conformity to him in respect whereof as God is most sublime and excellent in himself so is it in him It s consummate liberty is when it is so fully transformed into the likeness of God as that he is all to it as to himself So that as he is an infinite satisfaction to himself his likeness in this respect is the very satisfaction it self of the blessed soul. 6. Tranquility This also is an eminent part of that assimilation to God wherein the blessedness of the holy Soul must be understood to lye a perfect composure a perpetual and everlasting calm an eternal vacancy from all unquietness or perturbation Nothing can be supposed more inseparably agreeing to the nature of God than this Whom Scripture witnesses to be without variablness or shadow of change There can be no commotion without mutation nor can the least mutation have place in a perfectly simple and uncompounded nature Whence even Pagan reason hath been wont to attribute the most undisturbed and unalterable tranquility to the nature of God Balaam knew it was incompatible to him to lye or repent And supposing him to speak this from a present inspiration it is their common Doctrine concerning God Any the least troubles and tempests saith one are far exiled from the tranquility of God for all the inhabitants of heaven do ever injoy the same stable tenour even an eternal quality of mind And a little after speaking of God saith he 't is neither pâ—ssible he should be moved by the force of another for nothing is stronger than God nor of his own accord for nothing is perfecter than God And whereas there is somewhat that is mutable and subject to change somewhat that is stable and fixt in which of those natures saith another shall we please God must we not in that which is more stable and fixt and free from this fluidness and mutability for what is there amâ—ng all beings that can be stable or consist if God do not by his own touch stay and sustain the nature of it Hence is it made a piece of deformity of likeness to God by another who tells his friend It is an high and great thing which thou desirest and even bordering upon a Deity not to be moved Yea so hath this Doctine been insisted on by them that while other Divine perfections have been less understood it hath occasioned the Stoical â—ssertion of fatality to be introduced on the one hand and the â—picurian nâ—gâ—tion of providence on the other least any thing should be admitted that might seem repâ—gnant to the tranquility of their Numâ—â—â— But we know that our God doth whatsoever pleaseth him both in heaven and earth and that he doth all according to the wise counsel of his holy will freely not fatally upon the eternal prevision and foresight of all circumstances and events so that nothing can occur that is new to him nothing that he knows not how to improve to good or that can therefore infer any alteration of his counsels or occasion to him the least perturbation or disquiet in reference to them Holy souls begin herein to imitate him as soon as they first give themselves up to his wise and gracious conduct 'T is enough that he is wise for himself and them Their hearts safely trust in him They commit themselves with unsollicitous confidence to his guidance knowing he cannot himself be mis-led and that he will not mis-lead them As Abraham folled him not knowing whether he went and thus by faith they enter into his rest They do now in their present state only enter into it or hover about the borders Their future assimilation to God in this gives them a stated settlement of Spirit in this rest They before did owe their tranquillity to their faith now to their actual fruition Their former acquiescency and sedate temper was hence that they believed God would deal well with them at last their present for that he hath done so Those words have now their fullest sense both as to the rest it self which they mention and the season of it Return to thy rest O my soul for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee The occasions of trouble and a passive temper of Spirit are ceased together There is now no fear without nor terror within The rage of the world is now allay'd it storms no longer Reproach and persecution have found a period There is no more dragging before Tribunals nor haling into Prisons no more running into dens and deserts or wandring to and fro in Sheep-skins and Goat-skins And with the cessation of the external occasions of trouble the inward dispositions thereto are also ceased All infirmities of Spirit tumultuating passions unmortified corruptions doubts or imperfect knowledge of the love of God are altogether vanished and done away for ever And indeed that perfect cure wrought within is the souls great security from all future disquiet A well tempered Spirit hath been wont strangely to preserve its own peace in this unquiet world Philosophy hath boasted much in this kind and Christianity performed more The Philosophical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or calmness of mind is not without its excellency and praise That stable settlement and fixedness of Spirit that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the moralist tells us it was wont to be termed among the Grecians and which he calls Tranquillity when the mind is alwayes equal and goes a smooth even course is propitious to it self and beholds the things that concern it with pleasure and interrupts not this joy but remains in a placid state never at any time exalting or depressing it self But how far doth the Christian peace surpass it that peace which passeth all understanding that amidst surrounding dangers enables the holy soul to say without a proud boast none of all these things move me The peace that immediately results from that faith which unites the soul with God and fixes it upon him as its firm basis when 't is kept in perfect peace by being stay'd upon him because it trusts in him When the heart is fixed trusting in the Lord filled full of joy and peace or of joyous peace by an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in believing And if Philosophy and which far transcends it Christianity Reason and Faith have that statique power can so
soul in order hereto How often over have I spread this desire before the Searcher and Judge of hearts Turn me out of all my worldly comforts so thou give me but such an heart Let me spend my dayes in a Prison or a Desert so I have but such a heart I refuse no reproaches no losses no tortures may I but have such a heart How hath my soul been somtimes ravisht with the very thoughts of such a temper of Spirit as hath appeared amiable in my eye but I could not attain and what a torture again hath it been that I could not What grievance in all the world in all the dayes of my vanity did I ever find comparable to this To be able to frame my self by Scripture and rational light and rules the Notion and Idea of an excellent temper of spirit and then to behold it to have it in view and not be able to reach it to possess my soul of it What indignation have I sometimes conceived against mine own soul when I have found it wandring and could not reduce it hovering and could not fix it dead and could not quicken it low and could not raise it How earnestly have I expected this blessed day when all those distempers should be perfectly healed and my Soul recover an healthy lively spiritual frame What fresh ebullitions of joy will here be when all former desires hopes indeavours are crowned with success and fruit This joy is the joy of Harvest They that have sown in tears do now reap in joy They that went out weeping bearing precious seed now with rejoycing bring their sheaves with them 6. In reference to what this imprest likeness shall for ever secure to it an everlasting amity and friendship with God that it shall never sin nor he ever frown more 1. That it shall sin no more The perfected image of God in it is its security for this for 't is holy throughout in every point conformed to his nature and will There remains in it nothing contrary to him It may therefore certainly conclude it shall never be liable to the danger of doing any thing but what is good in his sight and what solace will the blessed soul find in this If now an Angel from Heaven should assure it that from such an hour it should sin no more the world would not be big enough to hold such a soul. It hath now escaped the deadliest of dangers the worst of deaths and which even in its present state upon more deliberate calmer thoughts it accounts so the sting of death the very deadly head of death the Hell of Hell it self The deliverance is now compleat which cannot but end in delight and praise 2. That God can never frame more This 't is hence also assured of How can he but take perfect everlasting complaceny in his own perfect likeness and image and behold with pleasure his glorious workmanship now never liable to impairment or decay how pleasant a thought is this The blessed God never beholds me but with delight I shall alwayes behold his serene countenance his amiable face never covered with any clouds never darkened with any frown I shall now have cause to complain no more my God is a stranger to me he conceals himself I cannot see his face lo he is incompast with Clouds and darkness or with flames and terrours These occasions are for ever ceased God sees no cause either to behold the blessed soul with displeasure or with displeasure to avert from it and turn off his eye And will not this eternally satisfie when God himself is so well pleased shall not we 2. The pleasure it disposes to Besides that the inbeing and knowledge of this likeness are so satisfying It disposes and is the souls qualification for a yet further pleasure That of closest union and most inward communion with the blessed God 1. Union Which what it is more then relation is not till now compleat Besides relation it must needs import presence not Physical or Local for so nothing can be nearer God then it is but moral and cordial by which the holy soul with will and affections guided by rectified reason and judgment closes with and imbraces him and he also upon wise forelaid counsel and with infinite delight and love imbraceth it so friends are said to be one besides their relation as friends by an union of hearts An union between God and the creature as to kind and nature higher than this and lower than Hypostatical or personal union I understand not and therefore say nothing of it But as to the union here mentioned as till the image of God be perfected it is not compleated so it cannot but be perfect then When the soul is perfectly formed according to Gods own heart and fully participates the divine likeness is perfectly like him that likeness cannot but infer the most intimate union that two such natures can admit That is for nature a love-union such as that which our Saviour mentions and prayes to the Father to perfect between themselves and all believers and among believers mutually with one another Many much trouble themselves about this Scripture but sure that can be no other then a love-union For 1. 'T is such an union as Christians are capable of among themselves for surely he would never pray that they might be one with an union whereof they are not capable 2. 'T is such an union as may be made visible to the world Whence 't is an obvious corollary that the union between the Father and the Son there spoken of as the pattern of this is not their union or oneness in essence though it be a most acknowledged thing that there is such an essential union between them for who can conceive that Saints should be one among themselves and with the Father and the Son with such an union as the Father and the Son are one themselves if the essential union between Father and Son were the union here spoken of But the exemplary or pattern-union here mentioned between Father and Son is but an union in mind in love in design and interest wherein he prayes that Saints on earth might visibly be one with them also that the world might believe c. 'T is yet a rich pleasure that springs up to glorified Saints from that love-union now perfected between the blessed God and them 'T is mentioned and shadowed in Scripture under the name and notion of marriage-union in which the greatest mutual complacency is always supposed a necessary ingredient To be thus joyned to the Lord and made as it were one Spirit with him For the eternal God to cleave in love to a nothing creature as his likeness upon it ingages him to do is this no pleasure or a mean one 2. Communion unto which that union is fundamental and introductive and which follows it upon the same ground from a natural propensity of like to like There is nothing now to
be God-like Let us therefore make this our present business much to acquaint our selves with God We count upon seeing him face to face of being alwayes in his presence beholding his glory that speaketh very intimate acquaintance indeed How shall we reach that pitch what to live now as strangers to him Is that the way The path of the righteous is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto perfect day The text shews us the righteous mans end to behold the glory of Gods face c. 't is easie to apprehend then his way must needs have in it a growing brightness as he comes still nearer this end Every nearer approach to a lucid thing infers to us an increase of light from it We should therefore be following on to know the Lord and we shall see his going forth will â—e before us as the morning He will be still visiting us with renewed increasing light for such is morning light fresh and growing light and ere long it will be perfect daâ— Labour we to improve our knowledge of God to such a degree of acquaintance as our present state can admit of To be as inward with him as we can to familiarzie our selves to him His Gospel aims at this to make those that were afar off nigh Far-distant objects we can have no distinct view of He can give us little account of a person that hath only seen him afar off so God beholds the proud afar off That is he will have no acquaintance with them Whereas with the humble he will be familiar he will dwell as in a family with them So the ungodly behold God till he brings them in and make them nigh then they are no longer strangers but of his family and houshold now throughly acquainted Several notes there are of a through acquaintance which we should endeavour may concur in our acquaintance with God in that analogy which the case will bear To know his nature or as we would speak of a man what will please and displease him so as to be able in the whole course of our daily conversation to approve our selves to him To have the skill so to manage our conversation as to continue a correspondence not interrupted by anâ— of our offensive unpleasing demeanours To walk worthy of God unto all well-pleasing It concerns us most to study and indeavour this practical knowledge of the nature of God what trust and love and fear and purity c. his faithfulness and greatness his goodness and holiness c. do challenge from us What may in our daily walking be agâ—eeable what repugnant to the several Attributes of his being To know his secrets to be as it were of the Cabinet-councel the word used by the Psalmist hath a peculiar significancy to that purpose to signifie not only counsel but a council or the concessus of persons that consult together This is his gracious vouchsafement to humble reverential souls The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him such acquaintance with him is to be sought to know the communicable secrets both of his mind and heart Of his mind his truths Gospel-mysteries that were kept secret from ages and generations We have the mind of Christ. This is great inwardness of his heart His love his good will his kind bosome-thoughts towards our souls To know his methods and the course of his dispensations towards the World his Church and specially our own Spirits This is great knowledge of God to have the skill to trace his footsteps and observe by comparing times with times that such a course he more usually holds and accordingly with great probability collect from what we have seen and observed what we may expect What order and succession there is of storms of wrath to clouds of sin and again of peaceful lucid intervals when such storms have infer'd penitential tears In what exigences and distresses humble mourners may expect Gods visits and consolations To recount in how great extremities former experience hath taught us not to despair and from such experiences still to argue our selves into fresh reviving hopes when the state of things whether publick or private outward or spiritual seems forlorn To know the proper seasons of address to him and how to behave our selves most acceptably in his presence In what dispositions and postures of Spirit we are fittest for his converse so as to be able to come to him in a good hour in a time when he may be found To know his voice This discovers acquaintance The ear trieth words as the mouth tasteth meats Gods righteous ones that are filled with the fruits of righteousness do proportionably abound in knowledge and in all sense They have quick naked unvitiated senses to discern between good and evil Yea and can have the suffrage of several senses concerning the same Object They have a kind of taste in their ear They taste the good word of God even in his previous workings on them Being-born they are intimated to have tasted in the word how gracious the Lord is As they grow up thereby they have still a more judicious sense and can more certainly distinguish when God speaks to them and when a stranger goes about to counterfeit his voice They can tell at first hearing what is grateful and nutritive what offensive and hurtful to the divine life what is harmonious and agreeable what dissonant to the Gospel already receivâ—d so that an Angel from heaven must expect no welcome if he bring another To know his inward inâ—tiâ—ns and impulses When his hand toucheth our hearts to be able to say this is the â—iâ—ge of God there is something divine in this touch My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door and my bowels were moved This speaks acquaintance when the soul can say I know his very touch the least impression from him I can distinguish it from thousands of objects that daily beat upon my heart To understand his looks to know the meaning of his aspects and glances of the various casts as it were of his eye Such things intimate friends can in a sort talk by with one another I will guide thee by mine eye that implyes an intelligent teachable subject We have now no full-ey'd appearances of God he shews himself looks in upon us through the lattess through a vail or shadow or a glass That measure of acquaintance with him to be able to discern and own him in his appearances is a great participation of heaven Utter unacquaintance with God is exprest by the denyal of these two ye have neither heard his voice nor seen his shape John 5. Finally which brings us home to the text to keep our eye intentively fixed on him not to understand his looks only as before but to return our own intimate acquaintance when such friends meet it is much exprest and improv'd by the eye by a reciprocation of
be from no such inducements but a meer desire of being with God and of attaining his perfection and blessedness which he hath ingaged thee in the pursuit and expectation of And then having made sure it be right as to the rise and principle Be careful It be not under in point of degree i. e. a cold intermittent velleity is too little on the one hand And a peremptory precipitant hasting is too much on the other The middle and desirable temper here is a complacential submission to the Divine will in that affair with a preponderating inclination on our part towards our eternal home if the Lord see good For we have two things to attend in this business and by which our Spirits may be sway'd this way or that i. e. the goodnss of the object to be chosen and the will of God which must guide and over-rule our choice the former whereof we are permitted to eye in subordination to the Latter and not otherwise Now our apprehension of the desirableness and intrinsique goodness of the object ought to be such we are Infidels else if we have not that account of it that nothing we can eye under the notion of a good to us may be reckon'd so eligible as that viz. our final and compleat blessedness in the other world which because we know we cannot enjoy without dying death also must be judged more eligible then Life that is Our Blessedness must be judged eligible for it self and Death as requisite to make it present So that the entire object we are discoursing of being present Blessedness Consider it in comparison with any thing else that can be lookt upon by us as a good which we our selves are to enjâ—y it ought to be preferr'd and chosen out of hand in as much as nothing can be so great a present good to us as that And this ought to be the proper habitual inclination of our Spirits their constant frame and bent as they respect onely our own interest and welfare But considering Gods Dominion over us and interest in our Lives and Beings and that as well ingenuity as necessity binds us to be Subject to his pleasure we should herein patiently suffer our selves to be over-ruled thereby and not so abstractly mind our own interest and contentment in this matter as if we were altogether our own and had no Lord over us Plato who abounds in discourses of the desirableness of dying and of the blessed change it makes with them that are good Yet hath this apt expression of the subjection weâ—â—ght â—â—ght to be into the Divine pleasure as to this matter That the soul is in the body as souldiers in a garrison from whence they may not withdraw themselves without his order and direction who placed them there And expostulates thus If saith he a slave of yours should destroy his own Life without your consent would you not be displeas'd and if there had been any place left for revenge been apt enough to that too So he brings in Socrates discoursing and discovers himself herein to have had more Light in this matter touching that subordinate interest only men have in their own lives and the unlawfulness of self murther as he had in other things too then most heathens of the more refined Sect ever arrived to If therefore God would give us leave to dye we should upon our own account be much more enclin'd to chuse it but while he thinks fit to have it defer'd should yeild to his will with an unrepining submission Onely it ought not to rest at all on our part or that as to our selves we find any thing more grateful to us in this world that we are willing to stay a day longer in it That for our own sakes we should affect a continuance here would argue a terrene sordid Spirit But then such should be our dutiful filial Love to the Father of our Spirits that in pure devotedness to his interests we would be content to dwel if he would have it so a Methuselahs age in an earthly tabernacle for his service that is that we may help to preserve his memorial in a elapsed world over-run with Atheisme and ignorance of its Maker and win him hearts and love to our uttermost among his apostate disloyal creatures and in our capacities be helpful to the encouragement of such as he continues in the world for the same purposes This is the very temper the Apostle expresses when in that strait which way the poise of his own Spirit enclin'd him in the consideration of his own interest and what was simply more eligible to him He expresses with High Emphasis to be with Christ saith he is more desirable to me for there are two comparatives in the Greek Text and therefore he professes his own desire in order thereto to be dissolved but that private desire was not so peremptory and absolute but he could make it yeild and give place to his duty towards God and his Church as it follows So we know 't is possible that respects to a friend may oversway a mans own particular inclination and the inclination remain notwithstanding but is subdued onely otherwise had any reason or argument that did respect my self perswaded me to change it I should then follow but my own proper inclination still and so my friend hath nothing to thank me for So it ought to be with us here our inclination should preponderate towards a present change of our state onely our devotedness to his interest and pleasure whose we are should easily over-rule it This is the Lovely temper of a gracious Spirit as to this thing that to dye might be our choice and to live in the mean time submitted to as our duty As an ingenuous son whom his father hath employ'd abroad in a forrain Country though duty did bind him cheerfully therein to comply with his fathers will and the necessity of his affairs yet when his Father shall signifie to him that now he understands no necessity of his longer continuance there and therefore he may if he please return but he shall have leave to follow his own inclination T is not hard to conjecture that the desire of seeing a Fathers face would soon determine the choice of such a son that way But how remote are the generality of them that profess themselves God's Children from that pious ingenuity We have taken root in the earth and forgotten our heavenly originals and alliances We are as inhabitants here not pilgrims hardly perswaded to entertain with any patience the thoughts of leaving our places on earth which yet do we what we can shall shortly know us no more In short then that vile temper of Spirit against which I professedly bend my self in the following discourse is when men not out of any sense of duty towards God or sollicitude for their own Souls but of a meer sordid love to the body and affixedness of heart to the Earth and terrene things
the Lusts of it That is cruel Love that shall enslave a man and subject him to so vile and ignoble a servitude And it discovers a sordid temper to be so imposed upon How low are our Spirits sunk that we disdain not so base a vassalage God and nature have obliged us to live in bodies for a time but they have not obliged us to measure our selves by them to confine our desires and designs to their compass to look no further then their concernments to entertain no previous joyes in the hope of being one day delivered from them No such hard law is laid upon us But how apt are we to become herein a most oppressive Law to our selves and not only to lodge in filthy earthen cottage but to love them and confine our selves to them loath so much as to peep out T is the apt expression of a Philosopher upbraiding hat base low temper The degenerous Soul saith he buried in the Body is as a slothful creeping thing that loves its hole and is loath to come forth And methinks if we have no love for our better and more noble self we should not be altogether unapprehensive of an obligation upon us to express a dutiful love to the Author of our beings doth it consist with the love we owe to him to desire always to lurk in the dark and never come into his blessed presence Is that our love that we never care to come nigh him Do we not know that while we are present in the body we are absent from the Lord should we not therefore be willing rather to be present with the Lord and absent from the body should we not put on a confidence an holy fortitude as 't is there exprest we are confident or of good courage and thence willing c. that might carry us through the Grave to him As is the brave Speech of that last mentioned Philosopher God will call thee ere long expect his call Old age will come upon thee and shew thee the way thither and death which he that is possest with a base fear laments and dreads as it draws on but he that is a lover of God expects it with joy and with courage meets it when it comes Is our love to God so faint and weak that it dares not encounter Death nor venture upon the imaginary terrours of the Grave to go to him How unsuitable is this to the character which is given of a Saints love And how expresly are we told that he who loves his life better then Christ or that even hates it not for his sake as certainly he cannot be said to do that is not willing to part with it to enjoy him cannot be his Disciple If our love to God be not Supreme 't is none or not such as can denominate us lovers of him and will we pretend to be so when we love a putide flesh and this base earth better then him And have we not professedly as a fruit of our avowed love to him surrendred our selves Are we not his devoted ones will we be his and yet our own or pretend our selves dedicated to his holy pleasure and will yet be at our own dispose and so dispose of our selves too as that we may be most ungrateful to him and most uncapable of converse with him How doth this love of a perishing life and of a little animated clay stop all the effusions of the Love of God suspends its sweet and pleasant fruits which should be always exerting themselves towards him Where is their fear obedience joy and praise who are through the fear of death all their lives subject to bondage And kept under a continual dismal expectation of an unavoidable dissolution But must the great God lose his due acknowledgements because we will not understand wherein he deals well with us Is his mercy therefore no mercy As we cannot nullify his truth by our unbelief so nor his goodness by our disesteem But yet consider doth it not better become thee to be grateful then repine that God will one day unbind thy Soul and set thee free Knock of thy Letters and deliver thee out of the house of thy bondage Couldst thou upon deliberate thoughts judge it tollerable should he doom thee to this earth forever He hath however judged otherwise as the Pagan Emperour and and Philosopher excellently speaks who is the Author both of the first composition of thy present being and now of the dissolution of it thou wert the cause of neither therefore depart and be thankful for he that dismisseth thee dealeth kindly with thee If yet thou understandest it not yet remember It is thy Father that disposes thus of thee how unworthy is it to distrust his Love What child would be afraid to compose it self to sleep in the Parents bosom It expresses nothing of the duty and ingenuity but much of the frowardness and folly of a child They sometimes cry vehemently in the undressing but should their cryes be regarded by the most indulgent Parent or are they fit to be imitated by us We have no excuse for this our frowardness The Blessed God hath told us his gracious purpose concerning us and we are capable of understanding him What if he had totally hidden from us our future state and that we know nothing but of going into an eternal silent-darkness The Authority of a Creator ought to have awed us into a silent submission But when we are told of such a glory that 't is but drawing aside this fleshly vaile and we presently behold it methinks the Blessed hour should be expected not with patience only but with ravishing joy Did we hear of a country in this world where we might live in continual felicity without toyl or sickness or grief or fear who would not wish to be there though the passage were troublesome have we not heard enough of Heaven to allure us thither Or is the eternal truth of suspected credit with us Are Gods own reports of the future glory unworthy our belief or regard How many upon the credit of his word are gone already triumphantly into glory That only seeing the promises afar off were perswaded of them and embraced them and never after owned themselves under any other notion then of Pilgrims on earth longing to be at home in their most desirable Heavenly Country We are not the first that are to open Heaven The main Body of Saints is already there 't is in comparison of their number but a scattering remnant that are now alive upon the earth How should we long to be associated to that glorious Assembly Methinks we should much more regret our being so long left behind But if we should desire still to be so why may not all others as well as we And as much expect to be gratified as we And then we should agree in desiring that our Redeemers triumph might be defer'd that his Body might yet remain incompleat that
immediately meets it presenting its self to him It onely views him instead of it self and would not now change its state for any thing not if one could give it the whole heaven in exchange And else where discussing whether life in the body be good and desirable yea or no he concludes it to be good not as it is an union of the soul and body but as it may have that vertue annex't to it by which what is really evil may be kept off But yet that that death is a greater good That life in the body is in it self evil but the soul is by vertue stated in goodness not as enlivening the body with which it is compounded but as it severs and so joyns it self from it meaning so as to have as little communion as possible it can with it To which purpose is the expression of another That the soul of an happy man so collects and gathers up it self out from all things into it self that it hath as it were separated it self from the body while it is yet contained in it And that it was possest of that fortitude as not to dread its departure from it Another gives this character of a good man that as he liv'd in simplicity tranquility purity not being offended at any that they believed him not to live so he also comes to the end of his life pure quiet and easie to be dissolved disposing himself without any constraint to his lot Another is brought in speaking thus If God should grant me to become a Child again to send forth my renewed infant-cries from my Cradle and having even run out my race to begin it again I should most earnestly refuse it for what profit hath this life and how much toil Yet I do not repent that I have lived because I hope I have not liv'd in vain And I now go out of this life not as out of my dwelling house but my Inn. O blessed day when I shall enter into that Council and Assembly of souls and depart from this rude and disorderly rout and crew c. I shall adde another of a not much unlike strain and rank that discoursing who is the Heir of Divine things as being either not an open or no constant friend to Christianity Saith he cannot be who is in love with this animal sensitive life but only that purest mind that is inspired from above that partake of an Heavenly and Divine portion that onely despises the body c. with much more of like import Yea so have some been transported with the desire of immortality that being wholly ignorant of the sin of self-murder they could not forbear doing violence to themselves Among the Indians two thousand years ago were a sort of wise men as they were called that held it a reproach to dye of age or a disease and were wont to burn themselves alive thinking the flames were polluted if they came amidst them dead The story of Cleombrotus is famous who hearing Plato discourse of the immortality of the soul by the Sea side leapt from him into the Sea that he might presently be in that state And 't is storied that Nero refused to put Apollonius to death though he were very much incenst against him only upon the apprehension he had that he was very desirous to dye because he would not so far gratifie him I onely make this improvement of all this Christian Principles Rule do neither hurry nor misguide men but the end as we have it revealed should much more powerfully and constantly attract us Nothing is more unsuitable to Christianity our way nor to that blessedness the end of it then a terrene Spirit They have nothing of the true light and impress of the Gospel now nor are they ever like to attain the Vision of the blessed face of God and the impress of his likeness hereafter that desire it not above all things and are not willing to quit all things else for it And is it not a just exprobration of our earthliness and carnality if meer Philosophers and Pagans shall give better proof then we of a spirit erected above the world and alienated from what is temporary and terrene Shall their Gentilism outvy our Christianity Methinks a generous indignation of this reproach should inflame our souls and contribute somewhat to the refining of them to a better and more Spiritual temper Now therefore O all you that name your selves by that worthy name of Christians that profess the Religion taught by him that was not of the earth earthly but the Lord from heaven you that are partakers of the heavenly calling Consider the great Apostle and High-priest of your profession who only took our flesh that we might partake of his Spirit bare our earthly that we might bare his heavenly Image descended that he might cause us to ascend Seriously bethink your selves of the Scope and end of his Apostleship and Priesthood He was sent out from God to invite and conduct you to him to bring you into the Communion of his glory and blessedness He came upon a Message and Treaty of peace To discover his Fathers love and win yours To let you know how kind thoughts the God of love had conceived to you-wards And that however you had hated him without cause and were bent to do so without end he was not so affected towards you To settle a friendship and to admit you to the participation of his eternal glory Yea he came to give an instance and exemplifie to the world in his own Person how much of heaven he could make to dwell in mortal flesh how possible he could render it to live in this world as unrelated to it How gloriously the divine life could triumph over all the infirmities of frail humanity And so leave men a certain proof and pledge to what perfections humane nature should be improv'd by his grace and Spirit in all them that should resign themselves to his conduct and follow his steps That heaven and earth were not so far asunder but he knew how to settle a commerce and intercourse between them That an heavenly life was possible to be transacted here and certain to be gloriously rewarded hereafter And having testifi'd these things he seals the Testimony and opens the way for the accomplishment of all by his death Your heavenly Apostle becomes a Priest and a Sacrifice at once That no doubt might remain among men of his sincerity in what even dying he ceased not to profess and avow And that by his own propitiatory bloud a mutual reconciliation might be wrought between God and you that your hearts might be won to him and possest with an ingenuous shame of your ever having been his enemies And that his displeasure might for ever cease towards you and be turned into everlasting friendship and love That eternal redemption being obtained heaven might be opened to you and you finally be received to the