it follow that he sees none If cunning Serpents are too subtle for us do we think that they can overwit the Lord what had become of us long ago if God had not known what ever is plotted at Rome or Spain or Hell against us If he knoweth not of all the consultations of the conclave and of all the contrivances of Jesuits and Fryers and of all the juglings of the masked Emissaries If God had not known of Vaux and his Powder mine it might have blown up all our hopes But while we know that God is in their Councils and heareth every word they say and knoweth every secret of their hearts and every mischief which they enterprise let us do our duty and rest in the wisdom of our great Protector who will prove all his adversaries to have plaid the fools For as sure as his Omnipstency shall be glorified by overtopping all opposing powers so sure shall his Infinite wisdom be glorified by conquering and befooling the wisdom that is against him 7. Lstly if God be Infinite in Knowledge it must resolve us all to live accordingly O Remember what ever thou Thinkest that God is acquainted with all thy Thoughts And wilt thou feed on lustful or covetous or malicious or unbelieving Thoughts in the eye of God Remember in thy prayers and every duty that he knows the very frame of all thy affections and the manner as well as the matter of thy services And wilt thou be cold and careless in the sight of God O Remember in thy secretst sins and thy works of darkness that nothing is unknown to God and that before him thou art in the open light And fearest thou not the face of the Almighty Wilt thou do that when he knoweth it that thou wouldst not do if man did know He knows whether thou deceive thy neighbour or deal uprightly Defraud not therefore for the Lord is the avenger 1 Thes. 4. 6. Do nothing that thou wouldst not have God to know For certainly he knoweth all things Shall he not see that made and illuminateth the eye and shall he not hear that made both tongue and ears and shall he not know that giveth us understanding and by whom we know Psal. 94. 8 9 10. And let this be thy comfort in thy secret duties He that knoweth thy Heart will not overlook the desires of thy Heart though thou hadst not words as thou desirest to express them And he that knoweth thy uprightness will justifie thee if all the world condemn thee He that seeth thee in thy secret Alms or Prayers or Tears will openly reward thee Mat. 6. 4 6. Let this also comfort thee under all the slanders of malicious or misinformed men He that must be thy Judge and theirs is acquainted with the truth who will certainly bring forth thy righteousness as the light and thy judgement as the noone day Psal. 37. 6. O how many souls are justified with the Omniscient God that are condemned by the malignant world And how many blots will be wiped off before the world at the day of Judgement that here did lie upon the names of faithful upright men O how many Hypocrites shall be then disclosed And what a cutting thought should it be to the dissembler that his secret falshood is known to God! And when he hath the Reputation that he sought with men he hath his reward Mat. 6. 2. For its a sadder reward that God will give him CHAP. IX 8. THE next of Gods Attributes that must make its Impress on the soul is Hit Infinite Goodness The Denomination of Goodness as all other his Attributes is fetcht from and suited to the capacity or affections of the soul of man That which is truly Amiable is called Good Not as if there were no Goodness but what is a means to mans felicity as some most sottishly have affirmed For our End and Felicity it self and God as he is Perfect and Excellent in himself is more amiable then all means In three respects therefore it is that God is called Good or Amiable to man 1. In that he is Infinitely Excellent and perfect in Himself For the Love of Friendship is a higher Love then that of Desire And the most perfect sort of Love is that which wholly carrieth the Lover from himself to the perfect object of his Love The soul Delighteth to contemplate excellency when the excellency it self and not the delight is the ultimate end of that desire and contemplation 2. God is called Good as he is the Pattern and Fountain of all Moral Good As he maketh us Righteous Holy Laws commanding Moral Good and forbidding and condemning evil And thus his Goodness is his Holiness and Righteousness his Faithfulness and Truth 3. God is called Good as he is the Fountain of all the Creatures happiness and as he is bountiful and gracious and ready to do good and as he is the felicitating end and object of the soul. And this Infinite goodness must have these effects upon us 1. It must possess us with a superlative Love to God This blessed Attribute is it that makes us Saints indeed and maketh that Impression on us which is as the Heart of the New Creature It is Goodness that produceth Love And Love is that Grace that closeth with God as our Happiness and End and is the felicitating enjoying Grace Without it we are but as sounding brass or tinkling Cymbals whatever our gifts and parts may be 1 Cor. 13. Love is the very excellency of the soul as it closeth with the infinite excellency of God It is the very felicity of the soul as it enjoyeth him that is our felicity Most certainly the prevailing Love of God is the surest evidence of true sanctification He that hath most Love hath most Grace and is the best and strongest Christian and he that hath least Love is the worst or weakest Knowledge and faith are but to work our hearts to Love and when Love is perfect they have done their work 1 Cor. 12. 31. and 13. 8 9 10 13. Teaching and distant Revelations will not be for ever and therefore such Knowledge and Faith as we have now will not be for ever But God will be for ever Amiable to us and therefore Love will endure for ever The goodness of God is called Love and as God is Love so he that dwelleth in Love doth dwell in God and God in him 1 Joh. 4. 16. The knowledge of Divine goodness makes us good because it maketh us Love him that is good It is Love that acteth most purely for God Fear is selfish and hath somewhat of aversation Though there be no evil in God for us to fear yet is there such good in him that will bring the evil of punishment upon the evil and this they fear But Love doth resign the soul to God and that in the most congruous acceptable manner Make it therefore your daily work to possess your souls with the Love of God Love him once and
according unto Godliness but doth subserve our carnal ends 6. In the next form we grow to study more the pure and wonderful Love of God in Christ and to rellish and admire that Love and to be taken up with the Goodness and tender mercies of the Lord and to be kindling the flames of holy Love to him that hath thus Loved us and to keep our souls in the exercise of that Love And withall to live in Joy and Thanks and Praise to him that hath redeemed us and Loved us And also by Faith to converse in Heaven and to live in holy contemplation beholding the Glory of the Father and the Redeemer in the Glass which is fitted to our present use till we come to see him face to face Those that are the highest in this form do so walk with God and burn in Love and are so much above inferiour vanities and are so conversant by Faith in Heaven that their hearts even dwell there and there they long to be for ever 7. And in the highest form in the School of Christ we are exercising this confirmed Faith and Love in sufferings especially for Christ In following him with our Cross and being conformed to him and glorifying God in the fullest exercise and discovery of his Graces in us and in an actual trampling upon all that standeth up against him for our hearts and in bearing the fullest witness to his Truth and Cause by constant enduring though to the death Not but that the weakest that are sincere must suffer for Christ if he call them to it Martyrdome it self is not proper to the strong Believers Whoever forsaketh not all that he hath for Christ cannot be his Disciple Luke 14. 33. But to suffer with that Faith and Love forementioned and in that manner is proper to the strong And usually God doth not try and exercise his young and weak ones with the tryals of the strong nor set his Infants on so hard a service nor put them in the front or hottest of the battel as he doth the ripe confirmed Christians The sufferings of their inward doubts and fears doth take up such It is the strong that ordinarily are called to sufferings for Christ at least in any high degree I have digrest thus far to make it plain to you that our Conformity to Christ and fellowship with him in his sufferings in any notable degree is the lot of his best confirmed servants and the highest forme in his School among his Disciples and therefore not to be inordinately feared or abhorred nor to be the matter of impatiency but of holy joy and in such infirmities we may glory And if it be so of sufferings in the general for Christ then is it so of this particular sort of suffering even to be forsaken of all our best and nearest dearest friends when we come to be most abused by the enemies For my own part I must confess that as I am much wanting in other parts of my conformity to Christ so I take my self to be yet much short of what I expect he should advance me to as long as my friends no more forsake me It is not long since I found my self in a low if not a doubting case because I had so few enemies and so little sufferings for the cause of Christ though I had much of other sorts And now that doubt is removed by the multitude of furies which God hath let loose against me But yet methinks while my friends themselves are so friendly to me I am much short of what I think I must at last attain to BUt let us look further into the Text and see what is the cause of the failing and forsaking Christ in the Disciples and what it is that they betake themselves to when they leave him Ye shall be scattered every man to his Own Self-denyal was not perfect in them selfishness therefore in this hour of temptation did prevail They had before forsaken all to follow Christ they had left their Parents their Families their Estates their Trades to be his Disciples But though they believed him to be the Christ yet they dreamt of a visible Kingdome and did all this with too carnal expectations of being great men on earth when Christ should begin his reign And therefore when they saw his apprehension and ignominious suffering and thought now they were frustrate of their hopes they seem to repent that they had followed him though not by apostasie and an habitual or plenary change of mind yet by a sudden passionate frightful apprehension which vanished when grace performed its part They now began to think that they had lives of their Own to save and families of their Own to mind and business of their Own to do They had before forsaken their private interests and affairs and gathered themselves to Jesus Christ and lived in communion with him and one another But now they return to their trades and callings and are scattered every man to his own Selfishness is the great enemy of all societies of all fidelity and friendship There is no trusting that person in whom it is predominant And the remnants of it where it doth not reign do make men walk unevenly and unsteadfastly towards God and men They will certainly deny both God and their friends in a time of tryal who are not able to deny themselves Or rather he never was a real friend to any that is predominantly selfish They have alway some interest of their own which their friend must needs contradict or is insufficient to satisfie Their houses their lands their monies their children their honour or something which they call their Own will be frequently the matter of contention and are so near them that they can for the sake of these cast off the nearest friend Contract no special friendship with a selfish man nor put no confidence in him whatever friendship he may profess He is so confined to himself that he hath no true love to spare for others If he seem to love a friend it is not as a friend but as a servant or at best as a benefactour He loveth you for himself as he loveth his money or horse or house because you may be serviceable to him Or as a horse or dog doth love his keeper for feeding him And therefore when your provender is gone his love is gone when you have done feeding him he hath done loving you When you have no more for him he hath no more for you Object But some will say it is not the falseness of my friend that I lament but the separation or the loss of one that was most faithful I have found the deceitfulness of ordinary friends and therefore the more highly prize those few that are sincere I had but one true friend among abundance of self-seekers and that one is dead or taken from me and I am left as in a wilderness having no mortal man that I can trust or take much comfort in Answ.
all that he saith and doth will be more acceptable to you and all that you say or do in Love will be more acceptable unto him Love him and you will be loth to offend him you will be desirous to please him you will be satisfied in his Love Love him and you may be sure that he Loveth you Love is the fulfilling of his Law Rom. 13. 10. And that you may Love him this must be your work to Believe and Contemplate his goodness Consider daily of the Infinite goodness or Amiableness of his Nature and of his excellency appearing in his works and of the perfect Holiness of his Laws But especially see him in the face of Christ and behold his Love in the design of our Redemption in the person of the Redeemer and in the promises of Grace and in all the benefits of Redemption Yea look by Faith to Heaven it self and think how you must for ever live in the perfect blessed Love of infinite enjoyed goodness As it is the knowledge and sight of gold or beauty or any other earthly vanity that kindleth the Love of them in the minds of men so is it the knowledge and serious contemplation of the goodness of God that must make us Love him if ever we will Love him 2. The goodness of God must also encourage the soul to trust him For Infinite good will not deceive us Nor can we fear any hurt from him but what we wilfully bring upon our selves If I knew but which were the best and most Loving man in the world I could trust him above all men and I should not fear any injury from him How many friends have I that I dare trust with my estate and life because I know that they have Love and goodness in their low degree And shall I not trust the Blessed God that is Love it self and Infinitely good what ever he will be in Justice to the ungodly I am sure he delighteth not in the death of sinners but rather that they turn and live and that he will not cast off the soul that Loveth him and would fain be fully conformed to his will It cannot be that he should spurn at them that are humbled at his feet and long and pray and seek and mourn after nothing more then his grace and love Think not of God as if he were scanter of love and goodness then the Creature is If you have high and confident thoughts of the goodness and fidelity of any man on earth and dare quietly trust him with your life and all see that you have much higher thoughts of God and trust him with greater confidence left you set him below the silly creature in the Attributes of his goodness which his Glory and your Happiness require you to know 3. The Infinite goodness of God must call off our hearts from the inordinate Love of all created good whatever Who would stoop so low as earth that may converse with God And who would feed on such poor delights that hath tasted the graciousness of the Lord Nothing more sure then that the Love of God doth not reign in that soul where the Love of the world or of fleshly lust or pleasure reigneth 1 John 2. 15. Had worldlings or sensual or ambitious men but truly known the goodness of the Lord they could never have so fallen in Love with those deceitful vanities If we could but open their eyes to see the Loveliness of their Redeemer they would soon be weaned from other Loves Would you conquer the Love of Riches or Honour or any thing else that corrupteth your affections O try this sure and powerful way Draw nigh to God and take the fullest view thou canst in thy most serious Meditation of his Infinite goodness and all things else will be vile in thy esteem and thy heart will soon contemn them and forget them and thou wilt never dote upon them more 4. The Infinite goodness of God should increase Repentance and win the soul to a more resolute chearful service of the Lord. O what a heart is that which can offend and wilfully offend so good a God! This is the odiousness of sin that it is an abuse of an Infinite good This is the most hainous damning aggravation of it that Infinite goodness could not prevail with wretched souls against the empty flattering world but that they suffered a dream and shadow to weigh down Infinite goodness in their esteem And is it possible for worse then this to be found in man He that had rather the sun were out of the firmament then a hair were taken off his head were unworthy to see the light of the Sun And surely he that will turn away from God himself to enjoy the pleasures of his flesh is unworthy to enjoy the Lord. It s bad enough that Augustine in one of his Epistles saith of sottish worldly men that they had rather there were two stars fewer in the firmament then one Cow fewer in their Pastures or one tree fewer in their woods or grounds But it is ten thousand times a greater evil that every wicked man is guilty of that will rather forsake the Living God and lose his part in Infinite goodness then he will let go his filthy and unprofitable sins O Sinners as you love your souls despise not the riches of the goodness and forbearance and long suffering of the Lord but know that his goodness should lead you to Repentance Rom. 2. 4. Would you spit at the Sun Would you revile the stars Would you curse the holy Angels If not O do not ten thousand fold worse by your wilful sinning against the Infinite Goodness it self But for you Christians that have seen the Amiableness of the Lord and tasted of his perfect Goodness let this be enough to melt your hearts that ever you have wilfully sin'd against him O what a Good did you contemn in the dayes of your unregeneracy and in the hour of your sin Be not so ingrateful and disingenuous as to do so again Remember when ever a Temptation comes that it would entice you from the Infinite Good Ask the tempter man or Devil Whether he hath more then an Infinite Good to offer you and whether he can outbid the Lord for your affection And now for the time that is before you how cheerfully should you address your selves unto his service and how delightfully should you follow it on from day to day What manner of persons should the servants of this God be that are called to nothing but what is Good How Good a Master how good a work and how good company encouragements and helps and how good an End All is good because it is the Infinite Good that we serve and seek And shall we be loitering unprofitable servants 5. Moreover this Infinite Goodness should be the matter of our daily Praises He that cannot cheerfully magnifie this Attribute of God so suitable to the nature of the Will is surely a stranger to the
for the Head yet we are more for Christ as a means to his glory then he for us I mean he is the more excellent principal end For to this end Christ both dyed rose and revived that he might be Lord both of the dead and living Rom. 14. 9. who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God but made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow both of things in heaven and things in earth and under the earth and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father Phil. 2. 6. to 12. Rev. 5. 8 9 10 11 12. And I beheld and I heard the voice of many Angels round about the Throne and the beasts and the elders and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands saying with a loud voice Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing And every creature which is in Heaven and on Earth and under the Earth and such as are in the sea and all that are in them heard I saying Blessing honour glory and power be unto him that sitteth on the Throne and unto the Lamb for ever and ever So Rev. 15. 3 4. 20. 6. Rev. 21. 23. The City had no need of the Sun neither of the Moon to shine in it for the glory of God doth lighten it and the Lamb is the light thereof Rev. 22. 3 4. The Throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it and his servants shall serve him And they shall see his face and his name shall be in their foreheads These and many other Scriptures shew us that God will be for ever Glorified in the person of the Redeemer more then in either men or Angels and consequently that it was the principal part of his Intention in the design of mans Redemption 2. I will be briefer in the rest In the way of Redemption man will be saved with greater humiliation and self-denyal then he should have been in the way of Creation If we had been saved in a way of Innocency we should have had more to ascribe to our selves And it is meet that all Creatures be humbled and abased and nothing in themselves before the Lord. 3. By the way of Redemption sin will be more dishonoured and Holiness more advanced then if sin had never been known in the world Contraries illustrate one another Health would not be so much valued if there were no sickness nor Life if there were no Death nor Day if there were no Night nor Knowledge if there were no Ignorance nor Good if man had not known Evil. The Holiness of God would never have appeared in execution of vindictive Justice against sin if there had never been any sin and therefore he hath permitted it and will recover us from it when he could have prevented our falling into it 4. By this way also Holiness and Recovering Grace shall be more triumphant against the Devil and all its enemies By the many conquests that Christ will make over Satan the World and the Flesh and Death there will very much of God be seen to us that innocency would not thus have manifested 5. Redemption brings God nearer unto man The mysterie of Incarnation giveth us wonderful advantages to have more familiar thoughts of God and to see him in a clearer glass then ever we should else have seen him in on earth and to have access with boldness to the throne of grace The pure Deity is at so vast a distance from us while we are here in flesh that if it had not appeared in the flesh unto us we should have been at a greater loss But now without controversie great is the mysterie of godliness God was manifested in the flesh justified in the spirit seen of Angels preached to the Gentiles believed on in the world and received up into glory 1 Tim. 3. 16. 6. In the way of Redemption man is brought to more earnest and frequent addresses unto God and dependance on him Necessity driveth him And he hath use for more of God or for God in more of the wayes of his mercy then else he would have had 7. Principally in this way of saving miserable man by a Redeemer there is opportunity for the more abundant exercise of Gods mercy and consequently for the more glorious discovery of his Love and Goodness to the sons of men then if they had fallen into no such Necessities Misery prepareth men for the sense of mercy In the Redeemer there is so wonderful a discovery of Love and Mercy as is the astonishment of men and Angels 1 Joh. 3. 1. Behold what manner of Love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God! Eph. 2. 4 5. God who is rich in Mercy for his great Love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sins hath quickened us together with Christ by grace yee are saved and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus that in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us by Christ Jesus for by grace yee are saved through faith and that not of your selves it is the gift of God Not of works lest any man should boast Tit. 3 3 4. For we our selves were sometimes foolish disobedient deceived serving divers lusts and pleasures c. But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to his Mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost Never was there such a discovery of God as he is Love in a way of Mercy to man on earth as in the Redeemer and his benefits 8. In the way of Redemption the soul of man is formed to the most sweet and excellent temper and his obedience cast into the happiest mold The glorious demonstration of Love doth animate us with Love to God and the shedding abroad of his Love in our hearts by the spirit of the Redeemer doth draw out our hearts in Love to him again And the sense of his wonderful Love and Mercy filleth us with Thankfulness so that Love is hereby made the nature of the new man and Thankfulness is the life of all our obedience For all floweth from these principles and expresseth them so that Love is the compendium of all Holiness in one word and Thankfulness of all Evangelical obedience And
14. To conclude Vindictive Justice will be doubly honoured upon them that are final rejecters of this grace Though conscience would have had matter enough to work upon for the torment of the sinner and the justifying of God upon the meer violation of the Law of nature or works yet nothing to what it now will have on them that are the despisers of this great salvation For of how much sorer punishment suppose yee shall he be thought worthy that hath trodden under foot the Son of God when it is willful impenitency against most excellent means and mercies that is to be charged upon sinners and when they perish because they would not be saved Justice will be most fully glorified before all and in the conscience of the sinner himself All this considered you may see that besides what reasons of the counsel of God are unknown to us there is abundant reason open to our sight from the great advantages of this way why God would rather save us by a Redeemer then in a way of Innocency as our meer Creator But for the answering of all objections against this I must desire you to observe these two things following 1. That we here suppose man a terrestrial inhabitant cloathed with flesh otherwise it is confessed that if he were perfect in heaven where he had the Beatifical Vision to confirm him many of these forementioned advantages to him would be none 2. And it is supposed that God will work on man by Moral means and where he never so infallibly produceth the good of man he doth it in a way agreeable to his nature and present state and that his work of Grace is Sapiential magnifying the contrivance and conduct of his Wisdom as well as his Power otherwise indeed God might have done all without these or any other means 3. The knowledge of God in Christ as our Redeemer must imprint upon the soul those Holy Affections which the design and nature of our Redemption do bespeak and which answer these forementioned ends As 1. It must keep the soul in a sense of the odiousness of sin that must have such a remedy to pardon and destroy it 2. It must raise us to most high and honourable thoughts of our Redeemer the Captain of our Salvation that bringeth back lâ—st sinners unto God and we must study to advance the Glory of our Lord whom the Father hath advanced and set over all 3. It must drive us out of our selves and bring us to be nothing in our own eyes and cause us to have humble penitent self condemning thoughts as men that have been our own undoers and deserved so ill of God and man 4. It must drive us to a full and constant dependance on Christ our Redeemer and on the Father by him As our life is now in the Son as its root and fountain so in him must be our faith and confidence and to him we must daily have recourse and seek to him and to the Father in his Name for all that we need for daily pardon strength protection provision and consolation 5. It must cause us the more to admire the Holiness of God which is so admirably declared in our Redemption and still be sensible how he hateth sin and loveth Purity 6. It must invite and encourage us to draw near to God who hath condescended to come so near to us and as sons we must cry Abba Father and though with reverence yet with holy confidence must set our selves continually before him 7. It must cause us to make it our daily imployment to study the Riches of the Love of God and his abundant mercy manifested in Christ so that above all books in the world we should most diligently and delightfully peruse the Son of God incarnate and in him behold the Power and Wisdom and Goodness of the Father And with Paul we should desire to know nothing but Christ crucified and all things should be counted but loss and dung for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord Phil. 3. 8. That we may be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the bredth and length and depth and heighth and to know the Love of Christ which passeth knowledge that we may be filled with all the fulness of God 8. Above all if we know God as our Redeemer we must Live in the Power of holy Love and Gratitude His Manifested Love must prevail with us so far that unfeigned Love to him may be the predominant affection of our souls And being free from the spirit of bondage and slavish fear we must make Love and Thankfulness the sum of our Religion and think not any thing will prove us Christians without prevailing Love to Christ nor that any duty is accepted that proceedeth not from it 9. Redemption must teach us to apply our selves to the holy Laws and Example of our Redeemer for the forming and ordering of our hearts and lives 10. And it must quicken us to Love the Lord with a redoubled vigour and to obey with double resolution and diligence because we are under a double obligation What should a people so Redeemed esteem too much or too dear for God 11. Redemption must make us a more Heavenly people as being Redeemed to the incorruptible inheritance in Heaven The blessed God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible undefiled and that fadeth not away reserved in Heaven for us who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation 1 Pet. 1. 3. 12. Lastly Redemption must cause us to walk the more carefully and with a greater care to avoid all sin and to avoid the threatned wrath of God because sin against such unspeakable Mercy is unspeakably great and condemnation by a Redeemer for despising his grace will be a double condemnation Joh. 3. 19. 36. CHAP. XII 11. THE third Relation in which God is to be Known by us is as he is our Sanctifier and Comforter which is specially ascribed to the Holy Ghost And doubtless as the Dispensation of the Holy Ghost is the Perfecting dispensation without which Creation and Redemption would not attain their ends and as the sin against the Holy Ghost is the great and dangerous sin so our Belief in the Holy Ghost and Knowledge of God as our Sanctifier by the Spirit is not the least or lowest act of our faith or Knowledge And it implieth or containeth these things following 1. We must hence take notice of the certainty of our common original sin The necessity of sanctification proveth the corruption as the necessity of a Redeemer proveth the guilt It is not one but all that are Baptized that must be Baptized into the Name of the Son and Holy Ghost as well as of the Father which is an entering into Covenant with the Son as our Redeemer and with the
to come and follow him was there no prevailing inward power that made them leave all and follow him And was it not the power of the Holy Ghost that Converted three thousand Jewes at a Sermon of them that by wicked hands had Crucified and slain the Lord Jesus Act. 2. 23 41. When the Preaching and Miracles of Christ Converted so few his Brethren and they that saw his Miracles believed not on him Joh. 12. 37. 5. 38. 6. 36. 7. 5. but when the Holy Ghost was given after his Ascension in that plenty which answered the Gospel and promise his words were fulfilled Joh. 12. 32. And I if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all men unto me I pass by abundance more such evidence Quest. 9. Doth it not tend to bring sin into credit which holiness is contrary to and to bring the love of God into discredit and to hinder mens Conversion and keep them from a holy life when holiness is taken for so low and natural or common a thing Quest. 10. And consequently doth it not tend to the vilifying of the Attribute of Holiness in God when the Image and effect of it is so extenuated Quest. 11. And doth it not tend to the contempt of Heaven it self whose state of felicity consisteth much in perfect Holiness And if Sanctification be but some common motion which Cain and Judas had as well as Paul sure it is less Divine and more inconsiderable then we thought Quest. 12. Doth it not speak very dangerous suspicion of a soul that never felt the special work of grace that can make light of it and ascribe it most to his own will And would not sound Humiliation do more then Arguments to cure this great mistake I never yet came neer a throughly-humbled soul but I found them too low and vile in their own eyes to have such undervaluing thoughts of grace or to think it best for them to leave all the efficacy of grace to their own wills A broken heart abhors such thoughts Quest. 13. Dare any wise and sober man desire such a thing of God or dare you say that you will expect no other Grace but what shall leave it to your selves to make it effectual or frustrate it I think he is no friend to his soul that would take up with this Quest. 14. Do not the constant Prayers of all that have but a shew of godliness contradict the doctrine which I am contradicting Do you not beg of God to melt and soften and bow your hearts and to make them more holy and fill them with light and faith and Love and hold you close to God and duty In a word do you not daily pray for effectual grace that shall infallibly procure your desired ends I scarce ever heard a prayer from a sober man but was orthodox in such points though their speeches would be heterodox Quest. 15. Do you not know that there is an enmity in every unrenewed heart against sanctification till God remove it Are we not greater enemies to our selves and greater resisters of the Holy Ghost and of our own conversion and sanctification and salvation then all the world besides is woe to him that feeleth not this by himself And is it likely that we that are enemies to holiness should do more to our own Sanctification then the Holy Ghost Woe to us if he conquer not our enmity Quest. 16. Is it probable that so great a work as the destroying of our dearest sins the setting our hearts and all our hopes on an Invisible glory and delighting in the Lord and forsaking all for him c. should come rather from the choice of a will that loveth those sins and hateth that holy heavenly life then from the spirit of Christ sure this is much above us Quest. 17. Whence is it that so often one man that hath been a notorious sinner is Converted by a Sermon when a civiler man of better nature and life is never changed though he have that and ten times more perswasions Quest. 18. Doth not experience tell impartial observers that the high esteemers of the sanctifying work of the Holy Ghost are ordinarily of more holy heavenly lives then they that use to ascribe the differencing work to their free wills In my observation it is so Quest. 19. Should not every gracious humble soul be more enclined to magnifie God then himself and to give him the Glory then to give it to our selves especially in a case where Scripture and experience telleth us that we are more unlikely then God to deserve the praise Our destruction is of our selves but in him is our help Hos. 13. 9. When we see an effect and know it and the causes that are in question it is easie to conjecture from the quality which is the true cause If I see a Serpent brought forth I will sooner think that it was generated by a Serpent then a Dove If I see sin in the world I shall easily believe it is the spawn of this corrupted will that is so prone to it But if I find a divine nature in me or see a holy heavenly life in any I must needs think that this is liker to be the work of the blessed God then of such a naughty heart as mans that hath already been a self-destroyer Quest. 20. What motive hath any man to exalt himself and sin again the Holy Ghost by such an extenuation of his saving grace It is a causeless fruitless sin The only reason that ever I could hear for it was lest the doctrine of differencing grace should make God a respecter of persons or the author of sin of which there is no reason of a suspicion We all agree that no man perisheth or is denyed Grace but such as deserve it And when all deserve it it is no more respect of persons in God to sanctifie some only of those ill deservers then it is that he makes not all men Kings nor every dog or toad a man nor every star a Sun or every man or Angel To clear all objections concerning this would be but to digress 3. Lastly Our knowledge of the Holy Ghost must raise us to an high estimation of his works and a ready reception of his graces and cheerful obedience to his motions He Sanctified our Head that had no sin by preventing sin in his conception and he annointed him to his office and came upon him at his Baptism He Sanctified and anointed the Prophets and Apostles to their offices and by them endited the holy Scripture He illuminateth converteth sanctifieth and guideth all that are to be the heirs of life This is his work Honour that part of it that is done on Christ on the Prophets Apostles and the Scriptures and value and seek after that which belongeth to your selves Think not to be Holy without the Sanctifier nor to do any thing well without the spirit of Jesus Christ who is Christs internal invisible Agent here on earth as
for sin 2. The Fatherly Love and Benefits of God do call for our best returns of Love The Benefits of Creation oblige all to Love him with all their Heart and Soul and Might Much more the Benefits of Redemption and especially as applyed by sanctifying Grace to them that shall be heirs of life it obligeth them by multiplied strongest obligations The Worst are obliged to as much Love of God as the Best for none can be obliged to more than to Love him with all their Heart c. but they are not as much obliged to that Love We have new and special obligations and therefore must return a Hearty Love or we are doubly guilty Mercies are Loves Messengers sent from Heaven to win up our Hearts to Love again and entice us thither All mercies therefore should be used to this end That mercy that doth not encrease or excite and help our Love is abused and lost as seed that is buried when it 's sowed and never more appeareth Earthly Mercies point to Heaven and tell us whence they come and for what Like the Flowers of the Spring they tell us of the reviving approaches of the Sun But like foolish children because they are near us we Love the Flowers better than the Sun forgetting that the Winter is drawing on But Spiritual Mercies are as the Sun-shine that more immediately dependeth on and floweth from the Sun it self And he that will not see and value the Sun by its Light will never see it These beams come down to invite our Minds and Hearts to God and if we shut the windows or play till night and they return without us we shall be left to utter darkness The Mercies of God must imprint upon our minds the fullest and deepest conceptions of him as the most perfect suitable Lovely Objects to the soul of man when all our Good is Originally in him and all flows from him that hath the Goodness of a Means and finally himself is all not to Love God then is not to Love Goodness it self and there is nothing but Good that 's suited to our Love Night and day therefore should the Believer be drawing and deriving from God by the views and tasts of his precious Mercies a sweetness of nature and increase of holy Love to God as the Bee sucks Honey from the flowers We should not now and then for a recreation light upon a flower and meditate on some Mercy of the Lord but make this our work from day to day and keep continually upon our souls the lively tasts and deep impressions of the Infinite Goodness and Amiableness of God When we Love God most we are at the best most pleasing to God and our lives are sweetest to our selves And when we steep our minds in the believing thoughts of the abundant Fatherly Mercies of the Lord we shall most abundantly Love him Every Mercy is a Suiter to us from God! The contents of them all is this My Son Give mee thy Heart Love him that thus loveth thee Love him or you reject him O wonderful Love that God will regard the Love of man that he will enter into a Covenant of Love that he will be Related to us in a Relation of Love and that he will deal with us on terms of Love that he will give us leave to Love him that are so base and have so Loved Earth and Sin yea and that he will be so earnest a suiter for our Love as if he needed it when it is only we that need But the paths of Love are mysterious and incomprehensible 3. As God is in special a Benefactor and Father to us we must be the readiest and most diligent in obedience to him Childlike duty is the most willing and unwearied kind of duty Where Love is the principle we shall not be eye-servants but delight to do the Will of God and wish O that I could please him more It is a singular delight to a Gracious soul to be upon any acceptable duty and the more he can do good and please the Lord the more he is pleased As Fatherly Love and Benefits are the fullest and the surest so will filial duty be The Heart is no fit soil for Mercies if they grow not up to holy fruits The more you love the more chearfully will you obey 4. From hence we must well learn both How God is mans End and what are the chief Means that lead us to him 1. God is not the End of Reason nakedly considered but he is Finis Amantis the End which Love inclineth us to and which by Love is attained and by love enjoyed The understanding of which would resolve many great perplexing difficulties that à natura finis do step into our way in Theological studies I will name no more now but only that it teacheth us How both God and our own Felicity in the fruition of him may be said to be our Ultimate End without any contradiction yet so that it be Eminently and Chiefly God For it is a Union such as our Natures are capable of that is desired in which the soul doth long to be swallowed up in God Understand but what a filial or friendly Love is and you may understand what a regular Intention is and how God must be the Christians End 2. And withall it shews us that the most direct and excellent means of our felicity and to our End are those that are most suited to the work of Love Others are means more Remotely and necessary in their places but these directly And therefore the Promises and Narratives of the Love and Mercy of the Lord are the most direct and powerful part of the Gospel conducing to our End and the Threatnings the remoter means And therefore as Grace was advanced in the world the Promissory part of Gods Covenant or Law grew more illustrious and the Gospel consisted so much of Promises that it is called Glad tydings of great joy And therefore the most full demonstration of Gods Goodness and Loveliness to our hearers is the most excellent part of all our Preaching though it is not all And therefore the meditation of Redemption is more powerful than the bare meditation of Creation because it is Redemption that most eminently revealeth Love And therefore Christ is the Principal Means of Life because he is the Principal Messenger and Demonstration of the Fathers Love and by the wonders of Love which he revealeth and exhibiteth in his wondrous Grace he wins the soul to the Love of God For God will have external objective means and internal effective means concur because he will work on man agreeably to the nature of man Though there was never given out such prevalent invincible measures of the Spirit as Christ hath given for the Renewing of those that he will save yet shall not that Spirit do it without as excellent objective means And though Christ and the Riches of his Grace revealed in the Gospel be the most wonderful
heaven with the blessed God then may we with the holy Apostle be in the spirit on the Lords day Rev. 1. 10. and if we turn away our foot from the Sabbath from doing our pleasure on that holy day and call the Sabbath a delight the holy of the Lord honourable and shall honour him not doing our own wayes nor finding our own pleasure nor speaking our own words then shall we delight our selves in the Lord Isa. 58. 13 14. and understand how great a priviledge it is to have the liberty of those holy dayes and duties for our sweet and heavenly converse with God 4. Our walking with God must be a matter of industry and diligence It is not an occasional idle converse but a life of observance obedience and imployment that this phrase importeth The sluggish idle wishes of the hypocrite whose hands refuse to labour are not this walking with God nor the sacrifice of fools who are hasty to utter the overflowings of their fantasie before the Lord while they keep not their foot nor hearken to the Law nor consider that they do evil Eccles. 5. 1 2 3. He that cometh to God and will walk with him must believe that he is and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him God is with you while you are with him but if you forsake him he will forsake you 2 Chron. 15. 2. Up and be doing and the Lord will be with you 1 Chron. 22. 16. If you would meet with God in the way of Mercy take diligent heed to do the Commandment and Law to love the Lord your God and to walk in all his Wayes and to cleave unto him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul Josh. 22. 5. 5. Our walking with God is a matter of some Constancy It signifieth our course and trade of life and not some accidental action on the by A man may walk with a stranger for a Visit or in Complement or upon some unusual occasion But this walk with God is the act of those that dwell with him in his Family and do his work It is not only to step and speak with him or cry to him for mercy in some great extremity or to go to Church for company or custome or think or talk of him sometime heartlesly on the by as a man will talk of news or matters that are done in a forein Land or of persons that we think we have little to do with But it is to be alwaies with him Luk. 15. 31. To seek first his Kingdom and Righteousness Matth. 6. 33. Not to labour comparatively for the food that perisheth but for that which endureth to everlasting life Joh. 6. 27. To delight in the Law of the Lord and meditate in it day and night Psal. 1. 2. That his words be in our hearts and that we teach them diligently to our Children and talk of them sitting in the house and walking by the way lying down and rising up c. Deut. 6. 6 7 8. That we pray continually 1 Thes. 5. 17. And in all things give thanks But will the hypocrite delight himself in the Almighty or will he alwaies call upon God Job 27. 10. His goodness is as the morning Cloud and as the early Dew it goeth away Hos. 6. 4. So much of the description of this walking with God CHAP. II. Use. WE are next to consider how far this doctrine doth concern our selves and what use we have to make of it upon our hearts and lives And first it acquainteth us with the abundance of Atheism that is in the world even among those that profess the knowledge of God It is Atheism not only to say There is no God but to say so in the heart Psal. 14. 1. While the heart is no more affected towards him observant of him or consident in him or submissive to him than if indeed there were no God When there is nothing of God upon the Heart no Love no Fear no Trust no Subjection then is Heart-Atheism When men that have some kind of knowledge of God yet glorifie him not as God nor are thankful to him but become vain in their imaginations and their foolish hearts are darkened these men are Heart-Atheists and professing themselves wise they become fools and are given up to vile affections And as they do not like to retain God in their knowledge however they may discourse of him so God oft giveth them over to a reprobate mind to do those things that are not convenient being filled with all unrighteousness fornication wickedness covetousness maliciousness envy murther debate deceit malignity c. Rom. 1. 21 22 26 28 29 30. Swarms of such Atheists go up and down under the self-deceiving name of Christians being indeed unbelieving and defiled so void of Purity that they deride it and nothing is Pure to them but even their mind and conscience is defiled They profess that they know God but they deny him in their works being abominable and disobedient and to every good work reprobate Tit. 1. 15 16. What is he but an Atheist when God is not in all his thoughts Psal. 10. 4. unless it be in their impious or blaspheming thoughts or in their sleight contemptuous thoughts To take God for God indeed and for our God essentially includeth the taking him to be the most powerful wist and good the most just and holy the Creator Preserver and Governour of the world whom we and all men are obliged absolutely to obey and fear to love and desire whose Will is our Beginning Rule and End He that taketh not God for such as here described taketh him not for God and therefore is indeed an Atheist What name soever he assumeth to himself this is the name that God will call him by even a fool that hath said in his heart there is no God while they are corrupt and do abominably they understand not and seek not after God they are all gone aside and are altogether become filthy there is none of them that doth good they are workers of iniquity that have no knowledge and eat up the people of God as bread and call not upon the Lord Psal. 14. 1 2 3 4. Ungodliness is but the English for Atheism The Atheist or Ungodly in Opinion is he that thinks that there is no God or that he is One that we need not Love and Serve and that is but the same viz. to be no God The Atheist or Ungodly in Heart or Will is he that consenteth not that God shall be his God to be loved feared and obeyed before all The Atheist in Life or outward practice is he that liveth as without God in the world that seeketh him not as his chiefest good and obeyeth him not as his highest absolute Lord so that indeed Atheism is the summe of all iniquity as Godliness is the summe of all Religion and moral good If you see by the description which I have given you
no if grace do not now set open your hearts and procure him better entertainment But perhaps you will think that you walk with God because you think of him sometimes ineffectually and as on the by But is he esteemed as your God if he have not the Command and if he have not the precedency of his creatures Can you dream that indeed you walk with God when your hearts were never grieved for offending him nor never much solicitous how to be reconciled to him nor much inquisitive whether your state or way be pleasing or displeasing to him when all the business of an unspeakable importance which you have to do with God before you pass to judgement is forgotten and undone as if you knew not of any such work that you had to do when you make no serious preparation for death when you call not upon God in secret or in your families unless with a little heartless lip labour and when you love not the spirituality of his worship but only delude your souls with the mockage of hypocritical outside complement Do you walk with God while you are plotting for preferment and gaping after worldly greatness while you are gratifying all the desires of your flesh and making provision for the future satisfying of its lusts Rom. 13. 13. Are you walking with God when you are hating him in his Holiness his Justice his Word and Waies and hating all that seriously love and seek him when you are doing your worst to dispatch the work of your damnation and put your salvation past all hope and draw as many to Hell with you as you can If this be a walking with God you may take further comfort that you shall also dwell with God according to the sense of such a walk you shall dwell with him as a devouring fire and as just whom you thus walked with in the contempt oâ— his mercies and the provocation of his Justice I tell you if you walkt with God indeed his authority would rule you his Greatness would much take up your minds and leave less room for little things You would trust his promises and fear his threatnings and be awed by his presence and the Idols of your hearts would fall before him He would over power your lusts and call you off from your ambitious and covetous designs and obscure all the creatures Glory Believing serious effectual thoughts of God are very much different from the common doubtful dreaming uneffectual cogitations of the ungodly world Object But perhaps some will say This seemeth to be the work of Preachers and not of every Christian to be alwaies meditating of God Poor people must think of other matters They have their business to do and their families to provide for And ignorant people are weak-headed and are not able either to manage or endure a contemplative life so much thinking of God will make them melancholy and mad as experience tells us it hath done by many and therefore this is no exercise for them To this I answer 1. Every Christian hath a God to serve and a Soul to save and a Christ to believe in and obey and an endless happiness to secure and enjoy as well as Preachers Pastors must study to instruct their flock and to save themselves and those that hear them The people must study to understand and receive the mercy offered them and to make their own calling and election sure It is not said of Pastors only but of every blessed man that His delight is in the Law of the Lord and therein doth he meditate day and night Psal. 1. 2. 2. And the due meditation of the soul upon God is so far from taking you off from your necessary business in the world that it is the only way to your orderly and successful management of it 3. And it is not a distracting thoughtfulness that I perswade you to or which is included in a Christians walk with God but it is a directing quickening exalting comforting course of meditation Many a hundred have grown melancholy and mad with careful discontentful thoughts of the world it doth not follow therefore that no man must think of the world at all for fear of being mad or melancholy but only that they should think of it more regularly and correct the errour of their thoughts and passions so is it about God and heavenly things Our thoughts are to be well ordered and the errour of them cured and not the use of them forborn Atheism and Impiety and forgetting God are unhappy means to prevent melancholy There are wiser means for avoiding madness than by renouncing all our Reason and living by sense like the beasts that perish and forgetting that we have an everlasting life to live But yet because I am sensible that some do here mistake on the other hand and I would not lead you into any extream I shall fully remove the scruple contained in this Objection by shewing you in those following Propositions in what sense and how far your thoughts must be taken up with God supposing what was said in the beginning where I described to you the duty of Walking with God Prop. 1. When we tell you that your Thoughts must be on God it is not a course of idle musing or meer thinking that we call you to but it is a necessary practical thinking of that which you have to do and of him that you must love obey and enjoy You will not forget your Parents or Husband or Wife or Friend and yet you will not spend your time in sitting still and thinking of them with a musing unprofitable thoughtfulness But you will have such thoughts of them and so many as are necessary to the Ends even to the Love and Service which you owe them and to the Delight that your hearts should have in the fruition of them You cannot love or obey or take pleasure in those that you will not think of You will follow your trades or your Masters service but unhappily if you will not think on them Thinking is not the work that we must take up with It is but a subservient instrumental duty to promote some greater higher duty Therefore we must Think of God that we may Love him and do his Service and Trust him and Fear him and Hope in him and make him our Delight And all this is it that we call you to when we are perswading you to Think on God 2. An hypocrite or a wicked enemy of God may Think of him speculatively and perhaps be more frequent in such thoughts than many practical believers A Learned man may study about God as he doth about other matters and names and notions and propositions and decisions concerning God may be a principal part of his Learning A Preacher may study about God and the matters of God as a Physician or a Lawyer do about the matters of their own profession either for the pleasure which knowledge as knowledge brings to humane nature or for
Being of a Holy state as that God be so much in our thoughts as to be preferred before all things else and principally beloved and obeyed and to be the end of our lives and the byas of our wills And there are some thoughts of God that are necessary only to acting and increase of grace 7. So great is the weakness of our Habits so many and great are the temptations to be overcome so many difficulties are in our way and the occasions so various for the exercise of each grace that it behoveth a Christian to exercise as much thoughtfulness about his end and work as hath any tendency to promote his work and to attain his end But such a thoughtfulness as hindereth us in our work by stopping or distracting or diverting us is no way pleasing unto God So excellent is our end that we can never encourage and delight the mind too much in the forethoughts of it So sluggish are our hearts and so loose and unconstant are our apprehensions and resolutions that we have need to be most frequently quickening them and lifting at them and renewing our desires and suppressing the contrary desires by the serious thoughts of God and Immortality Our Thoughts are the bellows that must kindle the flames of Love desire hope and zeal Our thoughts are the spur that must put on a sluggish tired heart And so far as they conduce to any such works and ends as these they are desireable and good But what Master loveth to see his servant sit down and Think when he should be at work Or to use his Thoughts only to grieve and vex himself for his faults but not to mend them to sit down lamenting that he is so bad and unprofitable a servant when he should be up and doing his Masters business as well as he is able Such Thoughts are sins as hinder us from duty or discourage or unfit us for it however they may go under a better name 8. The Godly themselves are very much wanting in the holiness of their thoughts and the liveliness of their affections Sense leadeth away the thoughts too easily after these present sensible things while faith being infirm the Thoughts of God and heaven are much disadvantaged by their invisibility Many a gracious soul cryeth out O that I could think as easily and as affectionately and as unweariedly about the Lord and the life to come as I can do about my friends my health my habitation my business and other concernments of this life But alas such thoughts of God and Heaven have far more enemies and resistance then the thoughts of earthly matters have 9. It is not distracting vexatious thoughts of God that the holy Scriptures call us to but it is to such thoughts as tend to the healing and peace and felicity of the soul and therefore it is not to a melancholy but a joyful life If God be better then the world it must needs be better to think of him If he be more beloved then any friend the thoughts of him should be sweeter to us If he be the everlasting hope and happiness of the soul it should be a foretast of happiness to find him nearest to our hearts The nature and use of holy thoughts and of all Religion is but to exalt and sanctifie and delight the soul and bring it up to everlasting Rest And is this the way to melancholy or madness Or is it not liker to make men melancholy to think of nothing but a vain deceitful and vexatious world that hath much to disquiet us but nothing to satisfie us and can give the soul no hopes of any durable delight 10. Yet as God is not equally related unto all so is he not the same to all mens thoughts If a wicked enemy of God and godliness be forced and frightened into some thoughts of God you cannot expect that they should be as sweet and comfortable thoughts as those of his most obedient children are While a man is under the guilt and power of his reigning sin and under the wrath and curse of God unpardoned unjustified a child of the devil it is not this mans duty to think of God as if he were fully reconciled to him and took pleasure in him as in his own Nor is it any wonder if such a man think of God with fear and think of his sin with grief and shame Nor is it any wonder if the justified themselves do think of God with fear and grief when they have provoked him by some sinful and unkind behaviour or are cast into doubts of their sincerity and interest in Christ and when he hides his face or assaulteth them with his terrors To doubt whether a man shall live for ever in Heaven or Hell may rationally trouble the thoughts of the wisest man in the world and it were but sottishness not to be troubled at it David himself could say In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord my sore ran in the night and ceased not my soul refused to be comforted I remembred God and was troubled I complained and my spirit was overwhelmed Thou holdest mine eyes waking I am so troubled that I cannot speak Will the Lord cast off for ever Psal. 77. 2 3 4 5 7. Yet all the sorrowful thoughts of God which are the duty of either the godly or the wicked are but the necessary preparatives of their joy It is not to melancholy distraction or despair that God calleth any even the worst But it is that the wicked would Seek the Lord while he may be found and call upon him while he is near that he would forsake his way and the unrighteous man his Thoughts and return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God and he will abundantly pardon Isa. 55. 6 7. Despair is sin and the thoughts that tend to it are sinful thoughts even in the wicked If worldly crosses or the sense of danger to the soul had cast any into melancholy or overwhelmed them with fears you can name nothing in the world that in reason should be so powerful a remedy to recover them as the Thoughts of God his Goodness and Mercy and readiness to receive and pardon those that turn unto him his Covenant and Promises and Grace through Christ and the everlasting happiness which all may have that will accept and seek it in the time of grace and prefer it before the deceitful transitory pleasures of the world If the Thoughts of God and of the Heavenly everlasting joyes will not comfort the soul and cure a sad despairing mind I know not what can rationally do it Though yet its true that a presumptuous sinner must needs be in a trembling state till he find himself at peace with God And mistaken Christians that are cast into causeless doubts and fears by the malice of Satan are unlikely to walk comfortably with God till they are resolved and recovered from their mistakes and fears CHAP. V. Obj.
BUt it may be the objector will be ready to think that If it be indeed our duty to walk with God yet Thoughts are no considerable part of it what more uncertain or mutable then our Thoughts It is Deeds and not Thoughts that God regardeth To do no harm to any but to do good to all this is indeed to walk with God You set a man upon a troublesome and impossible work while you set him upon so strict a guard and so much exercise of his thoughts what cares the Almighty for my thoughts Answ. 1 If God know better then you and be to be believed then Thoughts are not so inconsiderable as you suppose Doth he not say that the Toughts of the wicked are an abomination to the Lord Prov. 15. 26. It is the work of the Gospel by its power to pull down strong holds casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth it self against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ 2 Cor. 10. 4 5. The unrighteous mans forsaking his thoughts is part of his necessary conversion Isa. 55. 7. It was the description of the deplorate state of the old world Gen. 6. 5. God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually and it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him at his heart Judge by this whether Thoughts be so little regarded by God as you imagine David saith of himself I hate vain thoughts Psal. 119. 113. Solomon saith The thoughts of the righteous are right Prov. 12. 5. Paul saith that Charity thinketh not evil 1 Cor. 13. 5. 2. Thoughts are the issue of a rational soul. And if its operations be contemptible its essence is contemptible If its essence be noble its operations are considerable If the soul be more excellent then the body its operations must be more excellent To neglect our Thoughts and not employ them upon God and for God is to vilisie our noblest faculties and deny God who is a spirit that spiritual service which he requireth 3. Our Thoughts are commonly our most cordial voluntary acts and shew the temper and inclination of the heart And therefore are regardable to God that searcheth the heart and calleth first for the service of the heart 4. Our Thoughts are radical and instrumental acts such as they are such are the actions of our lives Christ telleth us that out of the heart proceed evil thoughts murders adulteries fornications thefts false witness blasphemies which defile the man Matth. 15. 19. 5. Our Thoughts are under a Law as well as words and deeds Prov. 24. 9. The thought of foolishness is sin And Matth. 5. 28 c. Christ extendeth the Law even to the thoughts and desires of the heart And under the Law it is said Deut. 15. 9. Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart c. viz. of unmercifulness towards thy brother 6. Thoughts can reach higher much then sense and may be employed upon the most excellent and invisible objects and therefore are fit instruments to elevate the soul that would converse with God Though God be infinitely above us our Thoughts may be exercised on him Our persons never were in Heaven and yet our Conversation must be in Heaven Phil. 3. 20. And how is that but by our thoughts Though we see not Christ yet by the exercise of believing thoughts on him we love him and rejoyce with joy unspeakable and full of glory Though God be invisible yet our Meditation of him may be sweet and we may delight in the Lord Psal. 104. 34. Say not that all this is but fantastical and delusory as long as Thoughts of things unseen are meeter to actuate and elevate the love desires and delights of the soul and to move and guide us in a regular and holy life then the sense of lesser present good The Thoughts are not vain or delusory unless the object of them be false and vain and delusory Where the object is great and sure and excellent the thoughts of such things are excellent operations of the soul. If thoughts of vainglory wealth and pleasure can delight the ambitious covetous and sensual no wonder if the Thoughts of God and life eternal afford us solid high delights 7. The Thoughts are not so lyable to be counterfeit and hypocritical as are the words and outward deeds And therefore they shew more what the man is and what is in his heart For as Solomon saith Prov. 23. 7. as he thinketh in his heart so is he 8. Our Thoughts may exercise the highest graces of God in man and also shew those graces as being their effects How is our Faith and Love and Desire and Trust and Joy and Hope to be exercised but by our cogitations If Grace were not necessary and excellent it would not be wrought by the spirit of God and called the Divine nature and the image of God And if Grace be excellent the use and exercise of it is excellent And therefore our Thoughts by which it is exercised must needs have their excellency too 9. Our Thoughts must be the instruments of our improving all holy Truth in Scripture and all the mercies which we receive and all the afflictions which we undergo What good will Reading a Chapter in the Bible do to any one that never Thinketh on it Our delight in the Law of God must engage us to meditate in it day and night Psal. 1. 2. What good shall he get by hearing a Sermon that exerciseth not his Thoughts for the receiving and digesting it Our considering what is said is the way in which we may expect that God should give us understanding in all things 2 Tim. 2. 7. What the better will he be for any of the merciful providences of God who never bethinks him whence they come or what is the use and end that they are given for what good will he get by any affliction that never bethinks him who it is that chastiseth him and for what and how he must get them removed and sanctified to his good A man is but like one of the pillars in the Church or like the corps which he treadeth on or at best but like the dog that followeth him thither for company if he use not his Thoughts about the work which he hath in hand and cannot say as Psal. 48. 9. We have thought of thy loving kindness O God in the midst of thy Temple He that bideth you Hear doth also bid you Take heed how you hear Luk. 8. 18. And you are commanded to lay up the word in your heart and soul Deut. 11. 18 19. And to set your hearts to all the words which are testified among you for it is not a vain thing for you because it is your life 10. Our Thoughts are so considerable a part of Gods service that they are
remember Where it is that he is to be fully and perpetually enjoyed and then it is good for thee that thou wast afflicted for all thy sufferings have their end This last Consideration will be further prosecuted in the following Part And the Directions for Walking with God which I should here give you I have reserved for a peculiar Treatise intitled A Christian Directory THE CHRISTIANS Converse with God OR The Insufficiency and Uncertainty OF HUMANE FRIENDSHIP AND THE Improvement of Solitude IN Converse with God With some of the Authors breathings after him By RICHARD BAXTER LONDON Printed for Francis Tyton at the three Daggers in Fleet-street and Nevil Simmons Bookseller in Kederminster 1664. THE CONTENTS THe Context opened p. 298 Why Christ was forsaken by his Disciples p. 300 Use 1. Expect by the forsaking of your friends to be conformed unto Christ Reasons for your Expectation p. 302 The Aggravations of their forsaking you p. 313 Some quieting Considerations p. 315 The order of forms in the School of Christ. p. 322 The Disciples scattered every man to his own p. 324 Selfishness contrary to friendly fidelity p. 325 Considerations to quiet us in the death of faithful friends p. 326 Whether we shall know them in Heaven p. 331 Whether creatures be any matter of our Comfort in Heaven p. 332 Quest. Shall I have any more comfort in present friends than in others p. 334 Doct. 3. When all forsake us and leave us as to them alone we are far from being simply alone because God is with us p. 336 The Advantages of having God with us ibid. Quest. How he is with us p. 337 Use 1. Imitate Christ Live upon God alone though men forsake you yet thrust not your selves into Solitude uncalled p. 341 In what cases Solitude is lawful and good p. 342 Reasons against unnecessary Solitude p. 343 The comfort of Converse with God in necessary Solitude The Benefits of Solitude The Reasons from God Improved largely in some Meditations p. 347 351 Directions for conversing with God in Solitude p. 370 Concluded in further Meditation p. 375 A Caution p. 378 Joh. 16. 32. Behold the hour cometh yea is come that ye shall be scattered every man to his own and shall leave me alone And yet I am not alone because the Father is with me HAving treated of our Conformity to Christ in sufferings in General I since came distinctly to treat of his particular sufferings in which we must be conformed to him And having gone over many of those particulars I am this day to handle the instance of Christs being forsaken by his friends and followers He thought meet to foretell them how they should manifest their infirmity and untrustiness in this temporary forsaking of him that so he might fullyer convince them that he knew what was in man and that he knew future contingencies or things to come which seem most dependent on the will of man and that he voluntarily submitted to his deserted state and expected no support from creatures but that man should then do least for Christ when Christ was doing most for man that man by an unthankful forsaking Christ should then manifest his forsaken deplorate state when Christ was to make atonement for his Reconciliation to God and was preparing the most costly remedy for his recovery He foretold them of the fruit which their infirmity would produce to humble them that were apt to think too highly of themselves for the late free confession they had made of Christ when they had newly said Now we are sure that thou knowest all things by this we are sure that thou comest forth from God ver 30 He answereth them Do ye now believe Behold the hour cometh c. Not that Christ would not have his servants know his graces in them but he would also have them know the corruption that is latent and the infirmity consistent with their grace We are very apt to judge of all that is in us and of all that we shall do hereafter by what we feel at the present upon our hearts As when we feel the stirring of some corruption we are apt to think that there is nothing else and hardly perceive the contrary grace and are apt to think it will never be better with us so when we feel the exercise of faith desire or love we are apt to overlook the contrary corruptions and to think that we shall never feel them more But Christ would keep us both humble and vigilant by acquainting us with the mutability and unconstancy of our minds When it goes well with us we forget that the time is coming when it may go worse As Christ said to his Disciples here in the case of Believing we may say to our selves in that and other cases Do we now Believe It is well but the time may be coming in which we may be brought to shake with the stirrings of our remaining unbelief and shrewdly tempted to question the truth of Christianity it self and of the holy Scriptures and of the life to come Do we now rejoyce in the perswasions of the Love of God The time may be coming when we may think our selves forsaken and undone and think he will esteem and use us as his enemies Do we now pray with ferveur and pour out our souls enlargedly to God It is well but the time may be coming when we shall seem to be as dumb and prayerless and say we cannot pray or else we find no audience and acceptance of our prayers Christ knoweth that in us which we little know by our selves and therefore may foreknow that we will commit such sins or fall into such dangers as we little fear What Christ here prophesieth to them did afterwards all come to pass As soon as ever danger and trouble did appear they began to flag and to shew how ill they could adhere unto him or suffer with him without his special corroborating grace In the garden when he was sweating blood in prayer they were sleeping Though the spirit was willing the flesh was weak They could not watch with him one hour Matth. 26 40 41. When he was apprehended they shifted each man for himself Matth. 26. 56. Then all the Disciples forsook him and fled And as this is said to be that the Scriptures might be fulfilled Matth. 26. 54 56. so it might be said to be that this prediction of Christ himself might be fulfilled Not that Scripture Prophesies did cause the sin by which they were fulfilled nor that God caused the sin to fulfill his own predictions but that God cannot be deceived who foretold in Scriptures long before that thus it would come to pass when it is said that thus it must be that the Scripture may be fulfilled the meaning is not that thus God will make it be or thus he causeth men to do that he may fulfill the Scriptures It is not necessitas consequentis vel causata that is inferred from predictions but only
necessitas consequentiae a Logical Necessity in ordine cognoscendi dicendi not a Natural Necessity in ordine essendi not a Necessity of the Thing it self as caused by the prediction or decree but a necessity of the truth of this conclusion in arguing such a thing will be because God hath decreed foreknown or foretold it or whatever God foretelleth must necessarily come to pass that is will certainly come to pass but this God hath foretold therefore this will come to pass Here are three observable points in the Text that are worthy our distinct consideration though for brevity â—ake I shall handle them together 1. That Christ was forsaken by his own Disciples and left alone 2. When the Disciples left Christ they were scattered every one to his own They returned to their old habitations and old acquaintance and old employment as if their hopes and hearts had been almost broken and they had lost all their labour in following Christ so long Yet the root of faith and and love that still remained caused them to enquire further of the end and to come together in secret to confer about these matters 3. When Christ was forsaken of his Disciples and left alone yet was he not forsaken of his Father nor left so alone as to be separated from him or his love We are now to consider of this not only as a part of Christs humiliation but also as a point in which we must expect to be conformed to him It may possibly seem strange to us that Christ would suffer all his Disciples to forsake him in his extreamity and I doubt it will seem strange to us when in our extreamity and our suffering for Christ and perhaps for them we shall find our selves forsaken by those that we most highly valued and had the greatest familiarity with But there are many Reasons of this permissive providence open to our observation 1. No wonder if when Christ was suffering for sin he would even then permit the power and odiousness of sin to break sorth that it might be known he suffered not in vain No wonder if he permitted his followers to desert him and to shew the latent unbelief and selfishness and unthankfulness that remained in them that so they might know that the death of Christ was as necessary for them as for others and the universality of the disease might shew the need that the remedy should be universal And it is none of Christs intent to make his servants to seem better then they are to themselves or others or to honour himself by the hiding of their faults but to magnifie his pardoning and healing grace by the means or occasion of the sins which he pardoneth and healeth 2. Hereby he will bring his followers to the fuller knowledge of themselves and shew them that which all their dayes should keep them humble and watchful and save them from presumption and trusting in themselves When we have made any full confession of Christ or done him any considerable service we are apt to say with the Disciples Matth. 19. 27. Behold we have forsaken all and followed thee What shall we have As if they had rather been Givers to Christ then Receivers from him and had highly merited at his hands But when Peter forsweareth him and the rest shift for themselves and when they come to themselves after such cowardly and ungrateful dealings then they will better understand their weakness and know on whom they must depend 3. Hereby also they shall better understand what they would have been if God had left them to themselves that so they may be thankful for grace received and may not boast themselves against the miserable world as if they had made themselves to differ and had not received all that grace by which they excel the common sort when our falls have hurt us and shamed us we shall know to whom we must be beholden to support us 4. Christ would permit his Disciples thus far to forsake him because he would have no support from man in his sufferings for man This was part of his voluntary humiliation to be deprived of all earthly comforts and to bear affliction even from those few that but lately were his faithful servants that men dealing like men and sinners while he was doing like God and as a Saviour no man might challenge to himself the honour of contributing to the Redemption of the world so much as by encouraging the Redeemer 5. Christ did permit the Faith and courage of his Disciples thus far to fail that their witness to him might be of the greater credit and authority when his actual Resurrection and the Communication of the Spirit should compel them to believe when all their doubts were dissipated they that had doubted themselves and yet were constrained to believe would be received as the most impartial witnesses by the doubting world 6. Lastly by the desertion and dissipation of his Disciples Christ would teach us whenever we are called to follow him in suffering what to expect from the best of men Even to know that of themselves they are untrusty and may fail us and therefore not to look for too much assistance or encouragement from them Paul lived in a time when Christians were more self-denying and stedfast than they are now And Paul was one that might better expect to be faithftlly accompanied in his sufferings for Christ than any of us And yet he saith 2 Tim. 4. 16. At my first answer no man stood with me but all men forsook me and prayeth that it be not laid to their charge Thus you have seen some Reasons why Christ consented to be left of all and permitted his Disciples to desert him in his sufferings Yet note here that it is but a partial temporary forsaking that Christ permitteth and not a total or final forsaking or Apostasie Though he will let them see that they are yet men yet will he not leave them to be but as other men Nor will he quite cast them off or suffer them to perish Nor is it all alike that thus forsake him Peter doth not do as Judas The sincere may manifest their infirmity but the Hypocrites will manifest their hypocrisie And accordingly in our sufferings our familiars that were false-hearted as being worldlings and carnal at the heart may perhaps betray us and set against us or forsake the cause of Christ and follow the way of gain and honour when our tempted shrinking friends that yet may have some sincerity may perhaps look strange at us and seem not to know us and may hide their heads and shew their fears and perhaps also begin to study some self deceiving arguments and distinctions and to stretch their consciences and venture on some sin because they are afraid to venture on affliction till Christ shall cast a gracious rebuking quickning aspect on them and shame them for their sinful shame fear them from their sinful fears and inflame their Love to
would have been grieved for their griefs and for ought they know might have fallen into as sad a state as they themselves are now lamenting 6. Do you think it is for the Hurt or the Good of your friend that he is removed hence It cannot be for his Hurt unless he be in Hell At least it is uncertain whether to live would have been for his Good by an increase of Grace and so for greater Glory And if he be in Hell he was no fit person for you to take much pleasure in upon earth He might be indeed a fit object for your compassion but not for your complacency Sure you are not undone for want of such company as God will not endure in his sight and you must be separated from for ever But if they be in Heaven you are scarce their friends if you would wish them thence Friendship hath as great respect to the good of our friends as of our selves And do you pretend to friendship and yet lament the removal of your friend to his greatest happiness Do you set more by your own enjoying his company then by his enjoying God in perfect blessedness This sheweth a very culpable defect either in Faith or Friendship and therefore beseemeth not Christians and friends If Love teacheth us to mourn with them that mourn and to rejoyce with them that rejoyce can it be an act of rational Love to mourn for them that are possessed of the highest everlasting joyes 7. God will not honour himself by one only but by many He knoweth best when his work is done When our friends have finished all that God intended them for when he put them into the world is it not time for them to be gone and for others to take their places and finish their work also in their time God will have a succession of his servants in the world Would you not come down and give place to him that is to follow you when your part is played and his is to begin If David had not died there had been no Solomon no Jehoshaphat no Hezekiah no Josiah to succeed him and honour God in the same throne You may as wisely grudge that one day only takes not up all the week and that the clock striketh not the same hour still but proceedeth from one to two from two to three c. as to murmur that one man only conâ—inueth not to do the work of his place excluding his successors 8. You must not have all your Mercies by one messenger or hand God will not have you consine your Love to one only of his servants And therefore he will not make one only useful to you but when one hath delivered his message and done his part perhaps God will send you other mercies by another hand And it belongeth to him to choose the messenger who gives the gift And if you will childishly dote upon the first messenger and say you will have all the rest of your mercies by his hand or you will have no more your frowardness more deserveth correction than compassion and if you be kept fasting till you can thankfully take your food from any hand that your Father sends it by it is a correction very suitable to your sin 9. Do you so highly value your friends for God or for them or for your selves in the final consideration If it was for God what reason of trouble have you that God hath disposed of them according to his wisdome and unerring will should you not then be more pleased that God hath them and employeth them in his highest service than displeased that you want them But if you value them and love them for themselves they are now more lovely when they are more perfect and they are now fitter for your content and joy when they have themselves unchangeable content and joy than they could be in their sin and sorrows But if you valued and loved them but for your selves only it is just with God to take them from you to teach you to value men to righter ends and upon better considerations and both to prefer God before your selves and better to understand the nature of true friendship and better to know that your own felicity is not in the hands of any creature but of God alone 10. Did you improve your friends while you had them or did you only Love them while you made but little use of them for your souls If you used them not it was just with God for all your Love to take them from you They were given you as your candle not only to Love it but to work by the Light of it And as your garments not only to Love them but to wear them and as your meat not only to Love it but to feed upon it Did you receive their counsel and hearken to their reproofs and pray with them and conser with them upon those holy truths that tended to elevate your minds to God and to inflame your brests with sacred Love If not be it now known to you that God gave you not such helps and mercies only to talk of or look upon and Love but also to improve for the benefit of your souls 11. Do you not seem to forget both where you are your selves and where you must shortly and for ever live Where would you have your friends but where you must be your selves Do you mouâ—n that they are taken hence Why if they had staid here a thousand years how little of that time should you have had their company when you are almost leaving the world your selves would you not send your treasure before you to the place where you must abide How quickly will you pass from hence to God where you shall find your friends that you lamented as if they had been lost and there shall dwell with them for ever O foolish mourners would you not have your friends at home at their home and your home with their Father and your Father their God and your God! Shall you not there enjoy them long enough Can you so much miss them for one day that must live with them to all eternity And is not eternity long enough for you to enjoy your friends in Obj. But I do not know whether ever I shall there have any distinct knowledge of them or love to them and whether God shall not there be so far All in All as that we shall need or fetch no comfort from the creature Answ. There is no reason for either of these doubts For 1. You cannot justly think that the knowledge of the Glorified shall be more confused or imperfect then the knowledge of natural men on earth We shall know much more but not so much less Heaven exceedeth earth in knowledge as much as it doth in joy 2. The Angels in Heaven have now a distinct particular knowledge of the least believers rejoycing particularly in their conversion and being called by Christ himself Their Angels Therefore when we shall
the living And so it containeth all the former in their highest perfection that is both Natural Life and Moral-Spiritual Life and the holy exercise thereof together with the full attainment and fruition of God in Glory the End of all ETERNAL That is simply eternal objectively as to God the principal object and Eternal ex parte post subjectively that is Everlasting THIS IS LIFE ETERNAL Not Natural life in it self considered as the Devils and wicked men shall have it But 1. It is the same Moral-Spiritual Life which shall have no End but endure to Eternity It is a Living to God in Love But only initial and very imperfect here in comparison of what it will be in Heaven 2. It is the Eternal felicity 1. Seminally for Grace is as it were a seed of Glory 2. As it is the Necessary way or means of attaining it and that preparation which infallibly procureth it The Perfect Holiness of the Saints in Heaven will be one part of their perfect happiness And this Holiness imperfect they have here in this life It is the same God that we know and love here and there and with a Knowledge and Love that is of the same nature seminally As the egg is of the nature of the Bird Whether it may be properly said to be formally and specifically the same quoad actum as well as quoad objectum yea whether the Objectum clare visum and the objectum in speculo vel aenigmate visum make not the act specifically differ I shall not trouble you to dispute And this imperfect Holiness hath the promise of Perfect Holiness and Happiness in the full fruition of God hereafter So it is the Seed and Prognostick of Life Eternal TO KNOW Non semper ubique eodem modo vel gradu Not to know God here and hereafter in the same manner or degree But to know him here as in a glass and hereafter in his Glory as face to face To know him by an Affective Practical knowledge There is no Text of Scripture of which the rule is more clearly true and necessary than of this that Words of Knowledge do imply affection It is the closure of the whole soul with God which is here called the knowing of God And because it is not meet to name every particular act of the soul when ever this duty is mentioned it is all denominated from Knowledge as the first Act which inferreth all the rest 1. Knowledge of God in the Habit is Spiritual Life as a Principle 2. Knowledge of God in the exercise is Spiritaal Life as an employment 3. The Knowledge of God in perfection with its effects is Life Eternal as it signifieth full felicity What it containeth I shall further shew anon THEE That is The Father called by some Divines Fons vel fundamentum Trinitatis the fountain or foundation of the Trinity and oft used in the same sense as the word GOD to signifie the pure Deity THE ONLY He that believeth that there is more Gods than One believeth not in any For though he may give many the Name yet the description of the true God can agree to none of them He is not God indeed if he be not One only This doth not at all exclude Jesus Christ as the second person in Trinity but only distinguisheth the pure Deity or the Only true God as such from Jesus Christ as Mediator between God and man TRUE There are many that falsly and Metaphorically are called Gods If we think of God but as one of these it is not to know him but deny him GOD The word GOD doth not only signifie the Divine perfections in himself but also his Relation to the Creatures To be a God to us is to be one to whom we must ascribe all that we are or have and one whom we must Love and obey and honour with all the powers of soul and body and one on whom we totally depend and from whom we expect our judgement and reward in whom alone we can be perfectly blessed AND JESUS CHRIST That is As Mediator in his Natures God and man and in his Office and Grace WHOM THOU HAST SENT That is whom thy Love and Wisdom designed and commissioned to this undertaking and performance The Knowledge of the Holy Ghost seemeth here left out as if it were no part of life Eternal But 1. At that time the Holy Ghost in that Eminent sort as sent by the Father and Son on the Apostles after the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ was not yet so manifested as afterwards and therefore not so necessarily to be distinctly known and believed in as after The having of the Spirit being of more necessity than the distinct knowledge of him Certain it is that the Disciples were at first very dark in this article of faith And Scripture more fully revealeth the necessity to salvation of believing in the Father and Son than in the Holy Ghost distinctly yet telling us that if any man have not the spirit of Christ the same is none of his Rom. 8. 9. 2. But presently after when the Spirit was to be sent the necessity of believing in him is expressed especially in the Apostles Commission to Baptize all Nations that were made Disciples in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost Doct. THe Knowledge of the only true God and of Jesus Christ the Mediator is the Life of Grace and the necessary way to the life of Glory As James distinguisheth between such a dead faith as Devils and wicked men had and such a living and working faith as was proper to the justified so must we here of the Knowledge of God Many profess that they know God but in works they deny him being abominable and disobedient and to every good work reprobate Tit. 1. 16. There is a form of knowledge which the unbelievers had Rom. 2. 22. and a knowledge which puffeth up and is void of Love which hypocrites have 1 Cor. 8. 1. 13. But no man spiritually knoweth the things of God but by the spirit And they that rightly know his name will put their trust in him Psal. 9 10. Thus he giveth the regenerate a heart to know him Jer. 24. 7. and the new creature is renewed in knowledge Col. 3. 10. And vengeance shall be poured out on them that know not God 2 Thes. 1. 8. This saving Knowledge of God which is Eternal Life containeth and implyeth in it all these acts 1. The understandings apprehesion of God according to the necessary articles of faith 2. A Belief of the truth of these articles that God is and is such as he is therein described 3. An high estimation of God accordingly 4. A Volition complacency or Love to him as God the chiefest Good 5. A Desiring after him 6. A Choosing him with the rejection of all competitors 7. A Consent that he be our God and a giving up our selves to him as his people 8. An intending him as our Ultimate End in
course of nature in themselves and others nor govern the world so sure is there an Infinite eternal Being that doth this Every Atheist that is not mad must confess that there is an Eternal Being that had no beginning or cause The question is only which this is which ever it is it is this that is the true God What now would the Atheist have it to be Certainly it is that Being that hath being it self from none that is the first cause of all other Beings And if it caused them it must necessarily be every way more excellent then they and contain all the good that it hath caused For none can give that which it hath not to give nor make that which is better then it self that Being that hath made so glorious a creature as the Sun must needs it self be much more glorious It could not have put strength and power into the Creatures if it had not it self more strength and power It could not have put Wisdom and Goodness into the Creature if it had not more Wisdom and Goodness then all they Whatever it is therefore that hath more Power Wisdom and Goodness then all the world besides that is it which we call God That cause that hath communicated to all things else the Being Power and all perfections which they have is the God whom we acknowledge and adore If Democritists will ascribe all this to Atomes and think that the Motes did make the Sun or if others will think that the Sun is God because it participateth of so much of his excellency let them be mad a while till judgement shall convince them So clear beyond all question to my soul is the Being of the Godhead that the Devil hath much lost the rest of his more subtil temptations when he hath foolishly and maliciously adjoyned this to draw me to question the Being of my God which is more then to question Whether there be a Sun in the Firmament But what is the Impress that the Being of God must make upon the Soul I answer From hence the holy soul discerneth that the Beginning and the End of his Religion the substance of his Hope is the Being of Beings and not a shaddow and that his faith is not a fansie The Object is as it were the matter of the act If our faith and hope and Love and Fear be exercised about the most Real Being it shews that there is a Reality in our faith and that we be not exercised in a delusory work God is to the Atheist but an empty name He feels no life or Being in him And accordingly he offereth him a shaddow of devotion and a nominal service But to the holy soul there is nothing that hath life and Being but God and that which doth receive a Being from him and leadeth to him This Real object putteth a Reality into all the devotions of a holy soul. They look upon the vanities of the world as Nothing and therefore they look on worldly men as on idle dreamers that are doing nothing This puts a seriousness and Life into the faith and holy affections of the believer He knows whom he trusteth 2 Tim. 1. 12. he knows whom he Loveth and in whom he Hopeth Atheists and all ungodly men do practically judge of God as the true Believer judgeth of the world The Atheist takes the pleasures of the world to be the only substance and God to be but as a shaddow a notion or a dream The godly take the world to be as nothing and know it is but a fancy and dream and shadow of pleasures and honour and profit and felicity that men talk of and seek so eargerly below but that God is the substantial object and portion of the soul. If you put into the mouth of a hungry man a little froth or breath or aire and bid him eat it and feed upon it he will tell you he finds no substance in it so judgeth the graceless soul of God and so judgeth the gracious soul of the creature as separate from God Let this be the Impression on thy soul from the consideration of Gods transcendent Being O look upon thy self and all things as nothing without him and as Nothing in comparison of him And therefore let thy Love to them be as nothing and thy desires after them and care for them as nothing But let the Being of thy Love desire and endeavours be let out upon the transcendent Being The creature hath its kind of being but if it would be to us instead of God it will be as nothing The Aire hath its Being but we cannot dwell in it nor rest upon it to support us as the earth doth The water hath its Being but it will not bear us if we would walk upon it The name of the great Jehovah is I am Exod. 3. 14. Try any Creature in thy need and it will say as Jacob to Rachel Gen. 30. 2. Am I in Gods stead that hath withheld thy desire from thee send to it and it will say as John Baptist that confessed I am not the Christ Joh. 1. 20. Let none of all the affections of thy soul have so much Life and Being in them as those that are exercised upon God Worms and motes are not regarded in comparison of mountains a drop is not regarded in comparison of the Ocean Let the Being of God take up thy soul and draw off thy observation from deluding vanities as if there were no such things before thee When thou remembrest that there is a God Kings and Nobles Riches and Honours and all the world should be forgotten in comparison of him And thou shouldst live as if there were no such things if God appear not to thee in them See them as if thou didst not see them as thou seest a candle before the sun or a pile of grass or single dust in comparison with the Earth Hear them as if thou didst not hear them as thou hearest the leaves of the shaken tree at the same time with a clap of thunder As greatest things obscure the least so let the Being of the Infinite God so take take up all the powers of thy soul as if there were nothing else but he when any thing would draw thee from him O if the Being of this God were seen by thee thy seducing friend would scarce be seen thy tempting baits would scarce be seen thy riches and honours would be forgotten all things would be as nothing to thee in comparison of him CHAP. III. 2. AS the Being of God should make this Impression on thee so the Attributes that speak the perfection of that Being must each one have their work as his unity or indivisibility his Immensity and Eternity And first the thought of Gods unity should contract and unite thy stragling affections and call them home from multifarious vanity It should possess thy mind with deep apprehensions of the excellency of holy Unity in the soul and in the Church and of
the evil of Division and misery of distracting multiplicity The Lord our God is One God 1 Cor. 8 6. Perfection hath unity and simplicity We fell into Divisions and miserable distraction when we departed from God unto the Creature For the Creatures are Many and of contrary qualities dispositions and affections And the heart that is set on such an object must needs be a Divided heart And the heart that is Divided among so many and contrary or discordant objects must needs he a distracted heart The confusions of the world confound the heart that is set upon the world He that maketh the world his God hath so many Gods and so discordant that he will never please them all and all of them together will never fully content and please him And who would have a God that can neither please us nor be pleased He that maketh Himself his God hath a compounded God and now corrupted of multifarious and now of contrary desires as hard to please as any without us There is no Rest or Happiness but in Unity And therefore none in our selves or any other creature but in God the only center of the soul. The further from the Center the further from Unity It is only in God that differing minds can be well united Therefore is the world so divided because it is departed so far from God Therefore have we so many minds and wayes and such diversity of opinions and contrariety of affections because men forsake the Center of Unity There 's no Uniting in any worldly carnal self-devised principles or practises When Holiness brings these distracted scatterd souls to God in him they will be one While they bark at Holiness and cry up Unity they shew themselves distracted men For Holiness is the only way to Unity because it is the closure of the soul with God All countreys and persons cannot meet in any one interest or Creature but each hath a several interest of his own But they might all meet in God If the Pope were God and had his perfections he would be fit for all the Church to Center in But being man and yet pretending to this Prerogative of God he is the grand divider and distracter of the Church The Proverb is too true So many men so many minds because that every man will be a God to himself having a self mind and self will and all men will not yield to be one in God God is the common interest of the Saints and therefore all that are truly Saints are truly united in him And if all the Visible Church and all the world would heartily make him their Common Interest we should quickly have a Common Unity and Peace and the Temple of double faced Janus would be shut up They that sincerely have One God have also one Lord and Saviour one spirit one faith one Baptism or holy Covenant with God even because they have one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in them all And therefore they must keep the nuity of the spirit in the bond of Peace Eph. 4. 3 4 5 6. Though yet they have different degrees of gifts vers 7. and therefore differences in opinion about abundance of inferiour things The further we go from the trunk or stock the more numerous and small we shall find the branches They are one in God that are divided in many doubtful controversies The weakest therefore in the faith must be received into this Union and Communion of the Church but not to doubtful disputations Rom. 14. 1. As the antient Baptism contained no more but our Engagement to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost so the antient Profession of saving faith was of the same extent God is sufficient for the Church to Unite in A Union in other Articles of faith is so far necessary to the Unity of the Church as it is necessary to prove our faith and Unity in God and the sincerity of this antient simple belief in God the Father Son and Spirit The Unity of God is the Attribute to be first handled and imprinted on the mind even next unto his Essence Deut. 6. 4. The Lord our God is one Lord. And the unity of the Church is its excellency and attribute that 's first and most to be esteemed and preserved next unto its Essence If it be not a Church it cannot be One Church and if we be not Saints we cannot be united Saints If we be not Members we cannot make One Body But when once we have the Essence of Saints and of a Church we must next be solicitous for its Unity Nothing below an essential point of faith will allowâ—ns to depart from the Catholike Unity love and peace that is due to Saints And because such essentials are never wanting in the Catholich Church or any true member of it therefore we are never allowed to divide from the Catholike Church or any true and visible member It is first necessary that the Church be a Church that is a People separated from the world to Christ and that the Christian be a Christian in Covenant with the Lord. But the next point of Necessity is it that the Church be One and Christians be One. And he that for the sake of lower points how True soever will break this holy bond of Unity shall find at last to his shame and sorrow that he understood not the excellency or necessity of unity The prayer of Christ for the perfection of his Saints is that they all may be One as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us that the world may believe that thou hast sent me And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them that they may be One even as we are One I in them and thou in me that they may be made perfect in One that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them as thou hast lved me Here it appeareth that the Unity of the Church or Saints is necessary to convince the world of the truth of Christianity and of the Love of God to his people and necessary to the glory and perfection of the Saints The nearer any Churches or members are to the divine perfections and the more strictly conformable to the mind of God the more they are One and replenished with Catholick Love to all Saints and desirous of Unity and Communion with them It is a most lamentable delusion of some Christians that think their ascending to higher degrees of Holiness doth partly consist in their withdrawing from the Catholike Church or from the Communion of most of the Saints on Earth upon the account of some smaller differing opinions And they think that they should become more loose and leave their strictness if they should hold a Catholike Communion and leave their state of separation and division Is there any strictness amiable or desirable except a strict Conformity to God Surely a strict way
of sin and wickedness is not desirable to a Saint And is not God One and his Church One and hath he not commanded all his servants to be One and is not Love the new and great commandment by which they must be known to all men to be his Disciples Which then is the stricter servant of the Lord he that Loveth much or he that Loveth little he that Loveth all Christians or he that Loveth but a few with the special Love He that Loveth a Christian as a Christian or he that Loveth him but as one of his party or opinion He that is One in the Catholike Body Or he that disowneth Communion with the far greatest part of the body Will you say that Christ was loose and Pharises strict because Christ eat and drank with Publicans and Sinners and the Pharises condemned him for it It was Christ that was stricter in holiness then they for he abounded more in Love and Good works but they were stricter then he in a proud self-conceeted morosity and separation Certainly he that is highest in Love is highest in Grace and not he that confineth his Love to few Was it not the weak Christian that was the stricter in point of meats and drinks and dayes Rom. 14. 15. But the stronger that were censured by them did more strictly keep the commandment of God Christian Reader let the Unity of God have this effect upon thy soul 1. To draw thee from the distracting multitude of Creatures and make thee long to be all in God That thy soul may be still working toward him till thou â—nd nothing but God alone within thee In the multitude of thy thoughts within thee let his comforts delight thy soul Psal. 94. 19. The multitude distracteth thee Retire into Unity that thy soul may be composed quieted and delighted 2. And let it make thee long for the Unity of the Saints and endeavour it to the utmost of thy power that the Church in Unity may be more like the Head 3. And let it cause thee to admire the Happiness of the Saints that are freeed from the bondage of the distracting Creature and have but One to Love and Fear and Trust and Serve and Seek and Know One thing is needful which should be chosen but it s many that we are troubled about Luk. 11. 42. CHAP. IV. 3. THe Immensity of God which is the next Attribute to be considered must have this Effect upon thy soul 1. The Infinite God that is everywhere comprehending all places and things and comprehended by none must raise admiring reverent thoughts in the soul of the believer We wonder at the Magnitude of the Sun and the Heavens and of the whole Creation But when we begin to think what is beyond the Heavens and all created Being we are at a kind of loss Why it is God that is in all and above all and beyond all and beneath all and where there is no place because no Creature there is God And if thy thoughts should imagine millions of millions of miles beyond all place and measure all is but God and go as far as thou canst in thy thoughts and thou canst not go beyond him Reverently admire the Immensity of God The world and all the Creatures in it are not to God so much as a sand or atome is to all the world The point of a needle is more to all the world then the world to God For between that which is Finite and that which is Infinite there is no comparison Isa. 40. 12 15 17. Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and meated out Heaven with the span and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a ballance Behold the Nations are as a drop of a bucket and are counted as the small dust of the ballanceâ— behold he taketh up the Iles as a very little thing All Nations before him are as nothing and they are counted to him less then Nothing and Vanity 2. From this Greatness and Immensity of God also thy soul must reverently stay all its busie bold enquiries and know that God is to us and to every creature Imcomprehensible If thou couldst fathome or measure him and know his Greatness by a comprehensive knowledge he were not God A Creature can comprehend nothing but a Creature You may know God but not comprehend him As your foot treadeth on the earth but doth not cover all the earth The Sea is not the Sea if you can hold it in a spoon Thou canst not comprehend the Sun which thou seest and by which thou seest all things else nor the sea or earth no nor a worm or pile of grass Thy understanding knoweth not all that God hath put into any the least of these Thou art a stranger to thy self and to somewhat in every part of thy self both body and soul. And thinkest thou to comprehend God that perfectly comprehendest nothing Stop then thy overbold enquiries and remember that thou art a shallow finite worm and God is Infinite First reach to comprehend the Heaven and Earth and whole Creation before thou think of Comprehending him to whom the world is nothing or vanity or so small a dust or drop or point Job 37. 1 5. saith Elihu At this my heart trembleth and is moved out of his place Hear attentively the Noise of his Voice God thundereth marvelously with his Voice great things doth he which we cannot comprehend How then should we comprehend himself When God pleadeth his cause with Job himself what doth he but convince him of his Infiniteness and absoluteness even from the greatness of his works which are beyond our reach and yet are as nothing to himself Should he take the busie enquirer in hand but as he did begin with Job 38. 1 2. c. Who is this that darkeneth Counsel by words without knowledge Gird up thy loins like a man for I will demand of thee and answer thou me c. alas how soon would he non-plus and confound us and make us say as Job 40. 4. Behold I am vile what shall I answer thee I will lay my hand upon my mouth Once have I spoken but I will not answer yea twice but I will proceed no further Indeed there is mentioned Eph. 3. 11. The Saints comprehending the dimensions of the Love of Christ but as the next verse saith it passeth knowledge so comprehending there signifieth no more but a knowing according to our Measure an attainment of what we are capable to attain nay nor all that neither but such a prevalent knowledge of the Love of Christ as is common to all the Saints As there is nothing more visible then the Sun and yet no visible being less comprehended by the sight so is there nothing more Intelligible then God for he is All in all things and yet nothing so Incomprehensible to the mind that knoweth him It satisfieth me not to be
and makes them as no mercies at all Creation and our Being is a mercy but it is in order to our Eternal end Redemption by Christ is an unspeakable mercy but its denyed by the Infidel and rejected by the Ungodly what is Christ worth and all his mediation if there be no life for man but this Peace and Liberty health and life friends and neighbours food and rayment are all mercyes to us as a ship and sails are to the Mariner or a fair way or Horse or Inn to a Traveller But if by denying our Eternal end you make our voyage or our journey vain these mercies then are little worth no more then a ship on the land or a plow in the sea or a horse to him that hath no use for him And O what an ungrateful wretch is that who will deny all the mercies of God to himself and to all others For once deny the use and the Eternal end and you deny the mercy 3. He that believeth not or seeks not after an Eternal end destroyeth all the Doctrine Law and Government of God For all is but to lead us to this end All the holy Scriptures the precepts of Christ and his holy example the Covenant of Grace the gifts and miracles of the Holy Ghost the light and law of Nature it self are all to bring us to our Eternal end And therefore he that denyeth that end doth cancel them all and cast them by as useless things 4. And he denyeth all the Graces of the Spirit For what use is there for Faith if the object of it be a falshood what use for Hope if there be no life to be Hoped for what use for holy desires and love if God be not to be enjoyed Grace is but the delusion and deformity of the soul if the Infidel and ungodly be in the right 5. They destroy also All the means of our Salvation if they deny Salvation which is the End To what purpose should men study or read or hear or pray or use either Sacraments or any other means for an End that is not to be had To what end should men obey or suffer for any such end that 's not attainable 6. Yea they do let loose the soul to sin and take off all essectual restraint If there be no Eternal end and no Reward or Punishment but here what can effectually hinder the men of this opinion from stealing whoredome or any villany when it may be done with secrecy what should hinder the revengeful man from poisoning or secret murdering his enemy or setting his house on fire in the night If I know a man or woman that believes no life to come I take it for granted they are revengeful thieves deceivers fornicators or any thing that is bad if they have but temptation and secret opportunity For what hath he to seek but the pleasing of his flesh that thinks he hath no God to seek or please or no future reward or punishment to expect He that confesseth himself an Infidel to me doth confess himself to be in all things else as bad as ever he can or dare Honesty is renounced by that man or woman that profess themselves to be Atheists or Infidels Methinks in congruency with their profession they should take it for a wrong to be called or reputed honest If you tell me that Heathens had a kind of Honesty I must tell you again that most Heathens believed the Immortality of the soul and that kind of seeming Honesty which they had was only in those of them that thus expected a life to come But those that believe not another life where man is to have his punishment and reward have nothing like to Honesty in them but live like greedy ravenous beasts where they are from under the Laws and Government of them that look for another life The Cannibals that eat mens flesh and some such savages as they are the Nations that expect no life but this It is believed so commonly by all the civil Infidels and Turks as shews it to be a principle that nature doth reveal 7. Yea the whole Creation that is within the sight of man is destroyed opinionatively by the Infidels that look for no Immortal life For all things were made to further our Salvation the Heavens to declare the Glory of God and the sirmament to shew his handy work and all Creatures to be our Glass in which we must behold the Lord and our Book in which we must read and learn his nature and his will The sun is to light us and maintain our Life and the Life of other lower Creatures while we prepare for Immortality The earth is to bear us and to bear fruit for us and the Trees and Plants and every Creature to accommodate and serve us while we serve the Lord and pass on to Eternity And therefore the Atheist that denyeth us our Eternity denyeth the usefulness of all the world what were all the Creatures here good for if there were no men the earth would be a wilderness and the beasts would for the most part perish for want of sustenance and all would be like a forsaken Cottage that no man dwelleth in and doth no good And if man be not the Heir of Immortality they can do him no good All Creatures are but our provision in the way to this Eternity And therefore if there were no Eternity what should we do with them what should we do with wayes and pavements or with Inns for Travellers or with horses or other provision for our journey if there were no travelling that way And who will travel to a place that is not or a City that is nowhere but in his brains besides a mad man It s evident therefore that as all the tools in a workmans shop are made useless to him if he be forbidden to use his trade and all the books in my Library are useless if I may not read them to get knowledge so all Creatures under Heaven are made useless and destroyed doctrinally by the Atheist that thinks there is no Eternal life for which they should be used I must seriously profess if I believed this being in other things of the mind I am I knew not what to do with any thing What should I do with my Books but to learn the way to this Eternity what should I do with my money if there be no treasure to be laid up in Heaven nor friends to be made with the Mammon abused commonly to unrighteousness what should I do with my Tongue my Hands my Time my Life my Self or any thing if there were no Eternity I think I should dig my grave and lay me down in it and die and perish to scape the sorrows of a longer life that must be my companions Remember then Christians and still remember it that Eternity is the matter of your Faeith and Hope Eternity is your portion and felicity Eternity is the End of all your desires and labours and
it is a more sweet and excellent state of life to be the Spouse of Christ and his members and serve God as friends and children with Love and Thankfulness then to serve him meerly as the most loyal subjects or with an obedience that hath less of Love 9. In the way of Redemption Holiness is more admirably exemplified in Christ then it was or would have been in Adam Adam would never have declared it in that eminency of Charity to others submission to God contempt of the world self-denyal and conquest of Satan as Christ hath done 10. And in the way of Redemption there is a double obligation laid upon man for every duty To the obligations of Creation all the obligations of Redemption and the new Creation are superadded And this threefold cord should not so easily be broken Here are moral means more powerfully to hold the soul to God 11. And in this way there is a clearer discovery of the everlasting state of man and life and immortality are more fully brought to light by the Gospel 2 Tim. 1. 10 then for ought we find in Scripture they were to innocent man himself No man hath seen God at any time the only begotten Son that is in the bosome of the Father he hath declared him Joh. 1. 18. For no man hath ascended up into heaven but he that came down from heaven even the son of man which is in heaven Joh 3. 13. 12. Man will be advanced to the judging of the ungodly and of the conquered Angels even by the good will of the Father and a participation in the honour of Christ our head and by a participation in his Victories and by our own Victories in his strength by the right of Conquest we shall judge with Christ both Devils and men that were enemies to him and our salvation as you may see 1 Cor. 6. 2 3. And there is more in that promise then we yet well understand Rev. 2. 26 27. He that overcometh and keepeth my words unto the end to him will I give power over the Nations and he shall rule them with a rod of Iron as the vessels of a Potter shall they be broken to shivers even as I received of my Father 13. And that which Augustine so much insisteth on I think is also plain in Scripture that the Salvation of the Elect is better secured in the hands of Christ then his own or any of his posterities was in the hands of Adam We know that Adam lost that which was committed to him But we know whom we have believed and are perswaded that he is able to keep that which we commit to him against that day 1 Tim. 1. 12. Force not these Scriptures against our own Consolation and the glory of our Redeemer and then judge Joh. 7. 2. As thou hast given him power over all flesh that he should give eternal Life to as many as thou hast given him Joh. 6. 3. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out Ver. 39. And this is the Fathers will which hath sent me that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing but should raise it up again at the last day Joh. 10. 26 27 28 29. But yee believe not because yee are not of my sheep as I said unto you My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish and none shall take them out of my hands My Father which gave them me is greater then all and no man is able to pluck them out of my Fathers hands Eph. 1. 3 4. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before him in Love Having predestinated us to the adoption of his children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will to the praise of the glory of his grace wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved Being predestinated according to the purpose of him that worketh all things after the counsel of his own will Ver. 11. And if Faith and Repentance and the right disposition of the will it self be his resolved gift to his Elect and not things left meerly to our uncertain wills then the case is past all question 2 Tim. 2. 25 26. In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves if God peradventure will give them Repentance to the acknowledging of the truth and that they may recover themselves our of the snare of the Devil Eph. 2. 8. By grace yee are saved through faith and that not of your selves it is the gift of God Gal. 5. 22. The fruit of the spirit is Love Faith Phil. 1. 29. To you it is given on the behalf of Christ not only to believe on him Act. 13. 48. As many as were ordained to eternal life believed Jer. 24. 7. And I will give them an heart to know me that I am the Lord and they shall be my people and I will be their God for they shall return unto me with their whole heart Ezek. 11. 19 20. And I will give them one heart and I will put a new spirit within you and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh and will give them an heart of flesh that they may walk in my statutes and keep my ordinances and do them and they shall be my people and I will be their God Ezek. 36. 26 27. A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and give you an heart of flesh and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes See also Heb. 8. 6 7 8 9 10. where this is called the new and better Covenant I will put my Laws in their minds and write them in their hearts Jer. 31. 33. And Jer. 32. 39 40. And I will give them one heart and one way that they may fear me for ever And I will make an everlasting Covenant with them and I will not turn away from them to do them good but I will put my fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from me 1 Cor. 4. 7. Who makes thee to differ and what hast thou that thou didst not receive Much more may be produced from which it is evident that Christ is the Author and finisher of our Faith and that the certainty of the salvation of his Elect doth lie more on his undertaking and resolution infallibly to accomplish their salvation then upon our wisdom or the stability of our mutable free-wills and that thus we are better in the hands of the second Adam then we were in the hands of the first
is called a new begetting or new birth without which none can enter into heaven Joh. 3. 3 5 6. A renewing us and making us new men and new creatures so far as that old things are past away and all become new Eph. 4. 23 24. Col. 3. 10. 2 Cor. 5. 17. It is a new creating us after the Image of God Eph. 4. 24. It maketh us Holy as God is Holy 1 Pet. 1. 15 16. yea it maketh us partakers of the Divine nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. It giveth us repentance to the acknowledging of the truth that we may recover our selves out of the snare of the Devil who were taken captive by him at his will 2 Tim. 2. 25 26. It giveth us that Love by which God dwelleth in us and we in God 1 Joh. 4. 16. We are redeemed by Christ from all iniquity and therefore it is that he gave himself for us to purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Tit. 2. 14. It is an abundant shedding of the Holy Ghost on us for our renovation Tit. 3. 5 6. and by it a shedding the Love of God abroad in our hearts Rom. 5. 5. It is this Holy Spirit given to believers by which they pray and by which they mortifie the flesh Jud. 20. Rom. 8. 26. 13. By this Spirit we live and walk and rejoyce Rom. 8. 1. and 14. 17. Our joy and peace and hope is through the power of the Holy Ghost Rom 15. 13. It giveth us a spiritual mind and taketh away the carnal mind that is enmity against God and neither is nor can be subject to his law Rom. 8. 7. By this Spirit that is given to us we must know that we are Gods children 1 Joh. 3. 24. 4. 13. For if any man have not the spirit of Christ the same is none of his Rom. 8 9. All holy graces are the fruits of the spirit Gal. 5. 22 23. It would be too long to number the several excellent effects of the sanctifying work of the spirit upon the soul and to recite the Elogies of it in the Scripture Surely it is no low or needless thing which all these expressions do intend Quest. 3. If you think it a most hainous sin to vilifie the Creator and his work and the Redeemer and his work why should not you think so of the vilifying of the sanctifier and his work when God hath so magnified it and will be glorified in it and when it is the applying perfecting work that maketh the purchased benefits of Redemption to be ours and formeth our Fathers Image on us Quest. 4. Do we not Doctrinally commit too much of that sin if we undervalue the Spirits sanctifying work as a common thing which the ungodly world do manifest in practice when they speak and live in a contempt or low esteem of grace And which is more injurious to God for a prophane person to jest at the Spirits work or for a Christian or Minister deliberately to extennate it especially when the preaching of grace is a Ministers chief work sure we should much fear partaking in so great a sin Quest. 5. Why is it that the Scripture speaks so much to take men off from boasting or ascribing any thing to themselves Rom. 3. 19. That every mouth may be stopped and why doth not the Law of works exclude boasting but only the Law of faith Rom. 3. 27. Surely the actions of nature except so far as it is corrupt are as truly of God as the acts of grace And yet God will not take it well to deny him the glory of Redemption or Sanctification and tell him that we paid it him in another kind and ascribed all to him as the author of our free will by natural production For as Nature shall honour the Creatour so Grace shall also honour the Redeemer and Sanctifier And God designeth the humbling of the sinner and teaching him to deny himself and to honour God in such a way as may stand with self abasement leaving it to God to honour those by way of reward that honour him in way of duty and deny their own honour Quest. 6. Why is the Blaspheming and sinning against the Holy Ghost made so hainous and dangerous a sin if the works of the Holy Ghost were not most excellent and such as God will be most honoured by Quest. 7. Is it not exceeding ingratitude for the soul that hath been illuminated converted renewed quickened and saved by the Holy Ghost to extenuate the mercy and ascribe it most to his natural Will O what a change was it that Sanctification made what a blessed birth day was that to our souls when we entered here upon Life Eternal Joh. 17. 3. And is this the thanks we give the Lord for so great a Mercy Quest. 8. What mean those texts if they consute not this unthankful opinion Phil. 2. 13. It is God that worketh in you to Will and to do of his good pleasure Eph. 2. 7 8 9 10. God hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus that in the ages to come he might shâ—w the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us through Christ Jesus For by Grace ye are saved through faith and that not of your selves it is the gift of God Not of works lest any man should boast For we are his workmanship Created to Good works in Christ Jesus The like is in Tit. 3. 5 6. 7. Joh. 15. 16. Ye have not chosen me but I have chosen you and ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit and that your fruit should remain 1 Joh. 4. 10. Herein is Love not that we loved God but that he loved us 1 Cor. 4. 7. For who maketh thee to differ and what hast that thou that thou didst not receive Joh. 6. 44. No man can come unto me except the Father which hath sent me draw him 1 Cor. 2. 14. The natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God for they are foolishness unto him neither can be know them because they are spiritually discerned Joh. 3. 6. That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit that is plainly the fleshly birth produceth but flesh and not spirit if any man will have the spirit and so be saved it must be by a spiritual begetting and birth by the Holy Ghost Act. 16. 14. The Lord opened Lydia's heart that she attended to the things that were spoken of Paul c. Was the Conversion of Paul a murdering persecuter his own work rather then the Lords when the means and manner were such as we read of Act. 22. 14. The God of our Fathers hath chosen thee that thou shouldst know his will and see that just one and hear the voice of his mouth c. He was chosen to the Means and to faith and not only in faith to salvation When Christ called his Disciples
wisdom that knows best how to use his own If he take our friends from us he taketh but his own If he deny his saving grace to our ungodly children a heavy judgement of which we must be sensible yet when we have devoted them to God and done our own part we must be silent as Aaron was when his sons were destroyed Lev. 10. 3. and confess that the Potter hath power over his own clay to make of the same lump ae vessel to honour and another to dishonour Rom. 9. 21. All his disposals shall work to that end which is the most universal perfect good and most denominateth all the means But those that are his own by consent and Covenant may be sure that all shall work to their own good Let us die with Christ and be buried to the world and know no Lord or Owner but our great Creatour and Redeemer except in a limited subservient sense and then we may boldly argue with him to the quiet of our souls from this Relation I am thine help me Psal. 35. 23. Stir up thy self and awake to my judgement even to my cause my Lord and my God when faith and love have first said as Thomas my Lord and my God Joh. 20. 28. CHAP. XIV 13. THE next Relation to be spoken of is Gods soveraignty both by Creation and Redemption he hath the Right of Governing us as our Soveraign King and we are obliged to be his willing subjects and as such to obey his holy laws He is the Lord or Owner of all the world even of Brutes as properly as of Man But he is the Soveraign King or Governour only of the Reasonable Creature because no other are capable of that proper Moral Government which now we speak of Vulgarly indeed his Physical motions and dispositions are called his Rule or Government and so God is said to Govern Brutes and inanimate creatures but that is but a Metaphorical expression as an Artificer Metaphorically Governeth his clock or engine or a Shepheard his sheep But we now speak of proper moral Government God having made man a Rational and free agent having an immortal soul and capable of everlasting happiness his very nature and the end of his creation required that he should be conducted to that end and happiness by means agreeable to his nature that is by the Revelation of the Reward before he seeth it that he may seek it and be fitted for it and by prescribed duties that are necessary to obtain it and to his living here according to his nature and by threatned penalties to quicken him to his duty so that he is naturally a creature to be Governed both as sociable and as one to be conducted to his end He therefore that created him having alone both sufficiency and Right doth by this very Creation become his Governour His Government hath two parts the world being thus constituted the Kingdom of God The first is by Legislation or making Laws and Officers for execution The second is by the procuring the execution of these Laws To which end he doth exhort and perswade the subjects to obedience and judge them according to their works and execute his judgement His first Law was to Adam the Law of Nature obliging him to adhere to his Creator and to love him trust him fear him honour him and obey him with all his might in order to the pleasing of his Creator and the attainment of everlasting life To which was added a positive Law against the eating of the tree of Knowledge and Death was the penalty due to the sinner This Law was quickly broken by man and God delayed not his judgement but sentenced the Tempter the Woman and the Man but not according to their merits but graciously providing a Redeemer he presently stopt the execution of the far greatest part of the penalty the Son of God undertaking as our surety to become a sacrifice and ransome for us Hereupon the Covenant of Grace was made and the Law of Grace enacted with mankind but more obscurely in the beginning being cleared up by degrees in the several Promises to the Fathers the types of the Law and the Prophecies of the Prophets of several ages the Law being interposed because of transgression In the fulness of time the Messiah was incarnate and the first promises concerning him fulfilled and after his holy life and preachings and conquests of the Tempter and the world he gave himself a Ransome for us and conquering Death he Rose again ascended into Heaven being possessed in his manhood of the fulness of his power and all things being delivered into his hands so that he was made the General Administrator and Lord of all And thus he more clearly revealing his Covenant of Grace and bringing life and immortality to light commissioned his Ministers to preach this Gospel to all the world And thus the Primitive Soveraign is God and the Soveraign by Derivation is Jesus the Mediator in his manhood united to the second person in the Godhead and the Laws that we are governed by are the Law of Nature with the superadded Covenant of Grace the subordinate officers are Angels Magistrates and Pastors of the Church having works distinct the society it self is called the Church and Kingdom of God the Reward is everlasting glory with the mercies of this life in order to it and the Punishment is everlasting misery with the preparatory judgements especially on the soul which are here inflicted Subjection is due upon our first being and is consented to or vowed in Baptisme and is to be manifested in holy obedience to the death This is the Soveraignty and Government of God And now let us see how God as our Soveraign must be known 1. The Princes and all the Rulers of the world must understand their Place and Duty They are first Gods subjects and then his officers and can have no power but from God Rom. 13. 3 4. nor hold any but in dependance on him and subordination to him Their power extendeth no further then the Heavenly Soveraign hath signified his pleasure and by commission to them or command to us conferred it on them As they have no strength or natural power but from the Omnipotent God so can they have no Authority or Governing Power or Right but from the Absolute King of all the world They can less pretend to a Right of Governing not derived from God then a Justice or Constable may to such Power not derived from the earthly soveraigns Princes and States also must hence understand their End and Work God who is the Beginning must be the End also of their Government Their Laws must be but by Laws subservient to his Laws to further mens obedience to them The Common Good which is their lower nearer End must be measured by his Interest in the Nations and mens Relations unto him The Common possession of his favour blessing and protection is the greatest Common Good His Interest in us
us and Rest to the troubled 2. The Justice of God is the terrour of the ungodly As he would not make unrighteous Laws for the pleasure of unrighteous men so neither will he pass unrighteous judgement But look what a man soweth that shall he also reap All his peremptory threatnings shall be made good and his wrath poured out for ever upon impenitent souls because he is the Righteous God CHAP. XVIII 17. ANother of Gods Attributes is his Holiness He is called Holy 1. As he is Transcendently above and separated from all the Creatures in comparison of whom the Heâ—vens are not clean and from whom all things stand at an Infinite distance 2. As the Perfection of his nature is the Fountain of all Moral Good 1. In the Holiness of his Law the Rule of Holiness 2. In the Holiness of the soul and 3. In his holy Judgements And consequently as this Perfect Nature is contrary to all the Moral Pollution of the Creature loathing iniquity forbiding and condemning it That Perfect Goodness of the will of God from whence floweth holy Laws and motions and the Holiness of the soul of man is it that Scripture meaneth usually by Gods Holiness rather then the foresaid distance from the Creatures And therefore his Holiness is usually given as the Reason of his Laws and Judgements and of his enmity to sin And our Holiness is called his Image who imitate not his Transcendency and we are commanded to be Holy as he is Holy 1 Pet. 1. 16. The nature of the Image will best tell us what Holiness is in God Holiness in us is called The Divine Nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. and therefore is radically a right inclination and disposition of the soul which hath its rise from a Transcendent Holiness in God even as our Wisdome from his Transcendent Wisdome and our Being from his Being Holiness therefore being indeed the same with the Transcendently Moral Goodness of God which I have spoken of before I shall say but little of it now Thus must the Holiness of God be known 1. It must cause us to have a most high and honourable esteem of Holiness in the Creature because it is the Image of the Holiness of God Three sorts of Creatures have a Derivative Holiness The first is The Law which is the meer signification of the Wise and Holy Will of God concerning mans Duty with Rewards and Penalties for the Holy Governing of the world This is the nearest Image of God engraven upon that Seal which must be the Instrument of imprinting it on our souls Now the Holiness of the Word is not the meer product of the Will of God considered as a Will but of the Will of God considered as Holy that is as the Infinite Transcendent Moral Goodness in the Architype or Original For all events that proceed from God are the products of his Will which is Holy but not as Holy as the creating preserving disposing of every fly or fish in the sea or worm in the earth c. There is somewhat therefore in the Nature of God which is the Perfection of his Will and is called Holiness which â—he Holiness of the Law doth flow from and express This Holy Word is the Immortal seed that begetteth Holiness in the soul which is the second subject of derived Holiness And this our Holiness is a conformity of the soul to the Law as the Product of the Holy Will of God and not a meer conformity to his predictions and decreeing Will as such It is a separation to God but not every separation Pharaoh was set apart to be the Passive monument of the Honour of Gods Name and Cyrus was his servant to restore his people and yet not thus Holy But it is a separation from common and unclean uses and a Purgation from polluting vice and a renovation by reception of the Image of Gods Holiness whose Nature is to encline the soul to God and devote it wholly to him both in Justice because we are his own and in Love because he is most Holy and perfectly Good The third subject of Holiness is those creatures that are but separated to Holy uses and these have but a Relative Holiness and secundum quid As the Temple the holy utensils the Bible as to the materials the Minister as an Officer the people as visible members c. All these must be reverenced and honoured by us according to the proportion of their Holiness 1. Our principal Reverence must be to the Holy Word of God For Holiness is more perfect there then in our souls The Holiness of the Word which is it that the ungodly hate or quarrel at is the Glory of it in the eyes of Holy men We may much discern a Holy and an unholy soul by their Loving or not loving a Holy Law especially as it is a Rule to themselves A distast of the Holiness of Scripture and of the Holiness of the writings of Divines and of the Holiness of their preaching or conference discovereth an unholy soul. A Love to holy Doctrine sheweth that there is somewhat suitable to it in the soul that Loveth it It is the elogy of the Scriptures the Promises the Covenant the Prophets and Apostles that they are all Holy Rom. 1. 2. Psal. 105. 42. Luk. 1. 70 72. Rev. 18. 20. 2 Tim. 3. 15. Rom. 7. 12. The Holiness of the Scripture doth make it as suitable and savoury to a Holy soul as Light is suitable to the eye-sight and sweetness to the tast and therefore it is to them as the hony comb But to the unholy it is a mystery and as foolishness and that which is contrary to their disposition and they have an enmity to it which makes a wonderful difference in their judging of the evidences of Scripture Verity and much facilitateth the work of Faith in one sort and strengtheneth unbelief in the other Holy doctrine is the Glass that sheweth us the Holy face of God himself and therefore must needs be most excellent to the Saints 2. And we must honour and love also the Holiness of the Saints For they also bear the Image of the Lord. Their Holy Affections Prayers Discourses and Conversations must be beautiful in our eyes And we must take heed of those temptations that either from personal injuries received from any or from their blots or imperfections or from their meanness in the world or from the contempt and reproach and slanders of the ungodly would draw us to think dishononrably of their Holiness He that honoureth the Holy God will honour his Image in his Holy people In his eyes a vile person will be contemned but he will honour them that fear the Lord Psal. 15. 4. The Saints on earth are the excellent in his eyes and his delight is in them Psal. 16. 2 3. The breathings of Divine Love in the holy Prayers Praises and Speeches of the Saints and their Reverent and Holy mention of his Name are things that a holy soul
prevent the sinner with his Judgement but with his Grace he often doth He never punisheth before we are sinners nor never Decreed so to do as all will grant He punisheth none where his foregoing commands and warnings have had their due effect for the prevention And therefore because the Precept is the first part of his Law and the Threatning is but subservient to that and the first intent of a Governour is to procure Obedience and Punishing is but upon supposition that he misseth of the first therefore is God said not to afflict willingly because he doth it not ex voluntate antecedente but ex voluntate consequente that is for so the distinction is sound not as a Law-giver and Ruler by those Laws considered before the violation but only as a Judge of the Law-breakers But yet Gods Mercy is no security to the abusers of his Mercy Bot rather will sink them into deeper misery as the aggravation of their sin As God Afflicts not willingly and yet we feel that he afflicteth so if he do not condemn you willingly you shall finde iâ— you are impenitent that yet he will condemn you If you say God can be forced to do nothing against his will I answer you that it is not simply against his will for then it should never come to pass But it is against the Principal act of his will which floweth from him as a Law-giver or Ruler by Laws in which respect it may be said that he had rather that the wicked turn and live but yet if they will not turn they shall not live A merciful Judge had rather the Thief had saved his life by forbearing to steal but yet he had not rather that Thieves go unpunished than he should condemn them But you 'l say If God had rather men did not sin why doth he not hinder it I answer 1. He had not absolutely and simply rather that is so far as to do all that he can to prevent it nor all that without which he foreknoweth it will not be prevented But he doth much against sin as a Law-giver and nothing for it he causeth us not but perswades us from it and therefore as a Ruler he may be said to have rather that men did not sin or rather that they would turn and live 1. The Mercy of God therefore should lead sinners to Repentance and shame them from their sin and lead them up to God in Love 2. Mercy should encourage sinners to Repent as well as engage them to it For we have to do with a Merciful God that hath not shut up any among us in despair nor forbid them to come in but continueth to invite when we have oft refused and will undoubtedly pardon and welcome all that do return 3. Mercy being specially the portion of the Saints must keep them in Thankfulness Love and Comfort and all Mercies must be improved for their proper ends When a Merciful God is pleased to fill up his servants lives with such Great and Various Mercies as he doth it should breed a continual sweetness upon their hearts and cause them to study the most grateful retribution He should breath forth nothing but Thankfulness Obedience and Praise who breaths nothing but Mercies from God As the food that men live upon will be seen in their temperature 〈…〉 and strength so they that live continually upon Mâ—rcâ—â—s â—â—ould be wholly turned into Love and Thankfulness 〈…〉 ould become as it were their nature temperature 〈…〉 O how unspeakable is the Love of God that 〈…〉 eet a life for his servants even in their warfare 〈…〉 ge in this world that Mercy must be as it were 〈…〉 Air that they breath in the food which they must live upon and the remembrance improvement and thankful mention of it must be the business and imployment of their lives O with what sweet affections meditations and expressions should we live if we lived but according to the rate of those Mercies upon which we live Love and Joy and Thanks and Praise would be our very lives What sweet thoughts would Mercy breed and feed in our minds when we are alone what sweet apprehensions of the Love of God and Life Eternal should we have in Prayer Reading Saoraments and other holy ordinances Sickness and Health Poverty and Wealth Death as well as Life would be comfortable to us for all is full of Mercy to the Vessels of Mercy O Christians what a shame is it that God is so much wronged and our selves so much defrauded of our peace and joy by passing over such abundance of great unvaluable mercies without tasting their sweetness or well considering what we do receive Had we Davids heart what songs of Praise would Mercy teach us to indite How affectionately should we recount the mercies of our youth and riper age of every place and state that we have lived in to the honour of our Gracious Lord and the encouragement of those that know not how Good and Merciful he is But withall see that you contemn not or abuse not Mercy Use it well for it is Mercy that you must trust to in the hour of your distresses O do not trample upon Mercy now lest you be confounded when you should cry for Mercy in your extremity 4. The Mercifulness of God must cause his servants to imitate him in a Love of mercy Be merciful for your heavenly Father is merciful Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy Matth. 5. 7. Be merciful in your Censures Be merciful in your retributions You are none of Gods Children if you Love not your Enemies and pray not for them that curse you and do not good to them that hate and persecute you according to your power Matth. 5. 44 45. If you forgive not men their trespasses but take your Brother by the throat neither will your heavenly Father forgive you your Trespasses Matth. 6. 14 15. Mark that even while he is called your heavenly Father yet he will not forgive if you forgive not Unmerciful men are too unlike to God to claim any interest in his saving mercy in the hour of their extremest misery Men of cruelty blood and violence he abhorreth And usually they do not live out half their daies But they that bite and devour one another are devoured one of another Gal. 5. 15. The last judgement will pass much according to mens works of mercy to the members of Christ Matth. 25. He shall have judgement without mercy that hath shewed no mercy and mercy rejoyceth against judgement James 2. 13. Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this to visit the Fatherless and Widdows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted in the world James 1. 27. He that having this worlds goods seeth his Brother in need and shutteth up the bowels of his compassion from him how dwelleth the Love of God in him But above all cruelty there is none more devilish than cruelty to souls And
Practical Atheism is a Living as without God in the world Ephes. 2. 12. Godliness is contrary to practical Atheism and is a Living as with and to God in the world and in the Church and is here called a Walking with God And it containeth in it these particulars 1. To walk with God includeth the Practical acknowledge ment that is made by the Will as well as the Understanding of the grand Attributes of God and his Relations to Man that he is Infinite in his Being that is Immense and Eternal as also in his Power Wisdome and Goodness that he is the Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier that he is our Absolute Lord or Owner our most Righteous Governour and most bountiful Benefactor or Father that Of Him and Through Him and To Him are all things that in him we Live and move and have our being that he is the fountain or first cause from which all proper Being Truth and Goodness in the Creature is but a derived stream To have the soul unfeignedly resign it self to Him as his Own and subject it self to Him as our Governour walking in the awe of his soveraign Power sensible of the strong obligation of his Laws which Reason Justice and Necessity do all command us to obey To live as in full dependence on him To have the first and greatest respect unto him A more observant respect to Him than to our Rulers A more obedient respect to Him than to our Masters A more dependent tender and honourable respect to Him than to Parents or our nearest friends Thus he that cometh to God as God and so as to be accepted of him must believe that He is his Essential Attributes and what he is in his Relations to man especially that as our Governour and Benefactor he is the Rewarder of them that diligent seek him Heb. 11. 6. The impress of a Deity in his Essential and Relative Attributes must be upon the Heart of him that walks with God Yea the Being of God must be much more remarkable to him than the Being of all Creatures and his presence more regarded than the presence of the Creature and all things must be to us in comparison of God as a Candle is in comparison of the Sun His Greatness and transcendent Excellencies must so over-power them all as to make them less observed and regarded by his taking up our chief observation and regard 2. Our walking with God includeth our Reconciliation to him and that we are not in our natural state of Enmity but made his Children and friends in Christ. Can two walk tother unless they be agreed Amos 3. 3. Enmity is against Unity Disaffection causeth Aversion and flying from each other Yea the fears of a guilty Child may make him flye from his Fathers presence till there be a particular Reconciliation besides the general state of Reconciliation A provoking faulty Child doth Dwell with God his Father though under the continual terror of his frowns But to walk with him in the full sense is more than to be related to him and to dwell with him In a large sense indeed all Gods Children may be said to walk with him as it signifieth only a conversation ordered in godliness sincerity and simplicity But in this sublimer sense as it signifieth a lively exercise of Faith and Love and heavenly-mindedness and a course of complacential contemplation and holy converse with God so it is proper only to some of the â—ounder and more vigilant industrious believers And hereto it is necessary not only that we be Justified and Reconciled to God from our state of Enmity but also that we be pardoned justified and reconciled from our particular wounding falls which are more than the ordinary infirmities of Believers And also it is necessary that we have grateful friendly thoughts of God that we have so much sense of his excellency goodness and kindness to our selves as may give us a complacency in conversing with him and may make the thoughts and mention of him to be desirable and pleasing to us Walking with God doth import though not the full assurance of his special Love and Grace to us yet such an apprehension of his Love and Goodness as may draw the heart to think of him with desire if not with delight A lothness to draw near him to think of him or to mention him a weariness of his special service are contrary to this special walking with God 3. Our Walking with God doth include our esteeming and intending Him as the Ultimate End and felicity of our souls He is not to be sought or loved or conversed with as a means to any greater good for there is no greater nor as inferiour or meerly equal unto any His Goodness must be the most powerful attractive of our Love His favour must be valued as our happiness and the Pleasing of him must be our most industrious imployment To walk with him is to live in the warming reviving sunshine of his Goodness and to feel a delighting satisfying virtue in his Love and gracious presence To live as those that are not their own and that have their lives and faculties and provisions and helps for their Masters service As a Horse or Dog is of so much worth as he is of Use to him that owneth him and that is the best that is the most serviceable to his Master Yet with this very great difference that man being a more noble and capacious creature is admitted not only into a state of Service but of Sonship and Friendship and Communion with God and is allowed and appointed to share more in the pleasure and fruits of his services and to put in his own felicity and delight into his End not only because Self-love is natural and necessary to the Creature but also because he is under the Promise of a Reward and more than either because he is a Lover and not only a Servant and his work is principally a work of Love and therefore his End is finis amantis the end of a Lover which â—a Mutual Complacency in the exercises of Love He thâ—â— seeketh not first the Kingdome and Righteousness of God and 〈…〉 h not other things to Him but seeks first the Câ—â—â—â—â—râ— and God only for it doth but deny God in his hâ—aâ—â— and basely subject him to the works of his own hands and doth not walk with God but vilifie and reject him If you Live not to God even to obey and please and honour him you do not walk with him but walk contrary to him by living to his Enemies the Flesh the World and the Devil and therefore God will walk contrary to you Levit. 26. 21 23 24 27 28. You were both Created and Redeemed though for your own felicity yet principally for the Glory and Pleasure of your Creator and Redeemer and for no felicity of your own but what consisteth in Pleasing him Glorifying him and Enjoying him Whether therefore we eat or drink or whatever we do
them pleasing them and shewing them respect while they take no notice of God at all as if they believed not that he is there Hence it is that the men of God were wont to speak though reverently yet familiarly of God as children of their Father with whom they dwell as being indeed fellow-citizens with the Saints who are his houshold Abraham calleth him Gen. 24. 40. The Lord before whom I walk And Jacob Gen. 48. 15. God before whom my Fathers Abraham and Isaac walked And David resolveth Psal. 116. 9. I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living Yea God himself is pleased to use the terms of gracious condescending familiarity with them Christ dwelleth in them by faith Eph. 3. 17. His spirit dwelleth in them as his house and temple Rom. 8. 9. Yea the Father himself is said to dwell in them and they in him 1 Joh. 3. 24. He that keepeth his Commandements dwelleth in Him and He in him and 3. 12. If we love one another God dwelleth in us 13. Hereby we know that we dwell in him and He in us because he hath given us of His spirit 15. Whoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God God dwelleth in him and he in God 16. God is Love and he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God and God in him Yea God is said to walk in them as they are said to walk with Him 2 Cor. 6. 16. For ye are the Temple of the living God as God hath said I will dwell in them and walk in them and I will be their God and they shall be my people Our walking with God then is not only a sense of that common presence which he must needs afford to all but it is also a believing apprehension of his Gracious presence as our God and reconciled Father with whom we dwell being brought near unto Him by Christ and who dwelleth in us by his spirit 9. To walk with God as here we are in flesh includeth not only our believing his presence but also that we see him as the chief cause in the effects in his creatures and his daily providence that we look not on creatures as independent or separated from God but see them as the Glass and God as the represented face and see them as the letters and words and God as the sense of all the creatures that are the first Book which he appointed man to read We must behold his glory declared by the Heavens Psal. 19. 1. and see Him shining in the Sun and see his Power in the Fabrick of the world and his wisdom in the admirable order of the whole we must tast the sweetness of his Love in the sweetness of our food and in the comforts of our friends and all our accommodations we must see and Love his Image in his Holy ones and we must hear his Voice in the Ministry of his Messengers Thus every creature must become a Preacher to us and we must see the Name of God upon it and thus all things will be sanctified to us while Holiness to the Lord is written upon all Though we must not therefore make Idols of the creatures because God appeareth to us in them yet must we hear the message which they bring us and reverence in them the Name of the Creatour which they â—ear By this way of conversing with them they will not ensnare us or deceive or poyson us as they do the carnal unbelieving world but as the Fish brought money to Peter to pay his tribute so every creature would bring us a greater even a spiritual gain When we behold it we should say with pleasant admiration This is the work of God and it is wonderful in our eyes This is the true Divine Philosophy which seeketh and findeth and contemplateth and admireth the Great Creatour in his works When that which sticketh in the creature it self whatever discovery it seem to make is but a childish unprofitable trifling like learning to shape all the letters aright without learning to know their signification and sense It is God appearing in the creatures that is the life and beauty and use and excellency of all the creatures wthout him they are but carkasses deformed useless vain insignificant and very nothings 10. Our walking with God doth contain our willing and sincere attendance on him in the use of those holy duties in which he hath appointed us to expect his grace He is everywhere in his essential presence but he is not everywhere alike to be found in the communications of his grace The assemblies of his Saints that worship him in holy communion are places where he is likelyer to be found then in an Ale-house or a Play-house You are likelier to have holy converse with him among the holy that will speak of holy things to your edification then among the senseless ignorant sensualists and the scornful enemies of Holiness that are the servants of the Devil whom he useth in his daily work for the deceiving and perdition of the world Therefore the conversation of the wicked doth grieve and vex a righteous soul as it s said the Sodomites did by Lot 2 Pet. 2. 7 8. because all their conversation is ungodly far from God not savouring of any true knowledge of him or love to him but is against him by enmity and provocation If God himself do dwell and walk in all his holy ones then they that dwell and walk with them have the best opportunity to dwell and walk with God To converse with those in whom God dwelleth is to converse with him in his Image and to attend him at his dwelling And willfully to run among the wicked is to run far away from God In his Temple doth every man speak of his Glory Psal. 29. 9. when among his brutish enemies every man speaketh to the dishonour of him in his word and wayes He is otherwise present with those that are congregated in his Name and for his worship then he is with those that are assembled for wickedness or vanity or live as brutes without God in the world And we must draw as near him as we can if we would be such as walk with God We must not be strange to him in our Thoughts but make him the object of our most serious meditations It s said of the wicked that they are far from God and that God is not in all their thoughts Ps. 73. 27. Ps. 10. 4. The thoughts are the minds employment It dwells on that which it frequently thinks of It is a walk of the Mind and not of the Body which we are treating of To mind the world and fleshly things is contrary to this walk with God we are far from him when our thoughts are ordinarily far from him I know that it is lawful and meet to think of the business of our callings so far as is necessary to the prudent successful management of them and that it is not requisite that our thoughts
talents and must make it our daily study and business to do him the greatest service we are able whatever it may cost us through the malice of the enemies being sure our labour shall not be in vain and that we cannot serve him at too dear a rate It is not as idle companions but as servants as souldiers as those that put forth all their strength to do his work and reach the Crown that we are called to walk with God And all this is done though not in the same degree by all yet according to the measure of their Holiness by every one that lives by faith Having told you what it is to Walk with God as to the Matter of it I shall more briefly tell you as to the Manner The nature of God of man and of the work will tell it you 1. That our walk with God must be with the greatest reverence were we never so much assured of his special love to us and never so full of faith and joy our reverence must be never the less for this Though Love cast out that guilty fear which discourageth the sinner from hoping and seeking for the mercy which would save him and which disposeth him to hate and fly from God yet doth it not cast out that Reverence of God which we owe him as his creatures so infinitely below him as we are It cannot be that God should be known and remembred as God without some admiring and awful apprehensions of him Infiniteness Omnipotency and inaccessible Majesty and Glory must needs affect the soul that knoweth them with reverence and selfe-abasement Though we receive a Kingdome that cannot be moved yet if we will serve God acceptably we must serve him with reverence and godly fear as knowing that as he is our God so he is also a consuming fire Heb. 12. 28 29. We must so worship him as those that remember that we are worms and guilty sinners and that he is most High and Holy and will be sanctified in them that come nigh him and before all the people he will be glorified Lev. 10. 3. Unreverence sheweth a kind of Atheistical contempt of God or else a sleepiness and inconsiderateness of the soul. The sense of the Goodness and Love of God must consist with the sense of his Holiness and Omnipotency It is presumption pride or blockish stupidity which excludeth Reverence which Faith doth cause and not oppose 2. Our walking with God must be a work of humble boldness and familiarity The Reverence of his Holiness and Greatness must not overcome or exclude the sense of his Goodness and compassion nor the full assurance of faith and hope Though by sin we are enemies and strange to God and stand a far off yet in Christ we are reconciled to him and brought near Eph. 2. 13. For he is our Peace who hath taken down the partition and abolished the enmity and reconciled Jew and Gentile unto God Ver. 14 15 16. And through him we have all an access to the Father by one spirit we are now no more strangers and forraigners but fellow-Citizens of the Saints and of the houshold of God ver 18 19. In him we have boldness and access with confidence by the belief of him Eph. 3. 12. Though of our selves we are unworthy to be called his children and may well stand a far off with the Publican and not dare to lift up our faces towards heaven but smite our breasts and say O Lord be merciful to me a sinner Yet have we boldness to enter into the Holiest by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the vail that is to say his flesh And having an high Priest over the house of God we may draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith Heb. 10. 19 20 21 22. Therefore whensoever we are afraid at the sight of sin and Justice let us remember that we have a great high Priest that is passed into the heavens even Jesus the Son of God and therefore let us come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need Heb. 4. 14 15 16. He that alloweth us to walk with him doth allow us such humble familiarity as beseemeth those that walk together with him 3. Our walking with God must be a work of some holy pleasure and delight We may unwillingly be drag'd into the presence of an enemy and serve as drudges upon meer necessity or fear But walking together is the loving and delightful converse of friends When we take sweet counsel of the Lord and set him alwaies as at our right hand and are glad to hear from him and glad to speak to him and glad to withdraw our thoughts from all the things and persons in the world that we may solace our selves in the contemplations of his excellency and the admirations of his Love and Glory this is indeed to walk with God You converse with him as with a stranger an enemy or your destroyer and not as with God while you had rather be far from him and only tremble in his presence and are glad when you have done and are got away but have no delight or pleasure in him If we can take delight in our walking with a friend a friend that is truly loving and constant a friend that is learned wise and holy if their wise and heavenly discourse be better to us then our recreations meat or drink or clothes what delight then should we find in our secret converse with the most high most wise and gracious God! How glad should we be to find him willing and ready to entertain us How glad should we be that we may employ our thoughts on so high and excellent an object what cause have we to say My meditation of him shall be sweet and I will be glad in the Lord Ps. 104. 34. In the multitude of my thoughts within me my sorrowful troublesome weary thoughts thy comforts do delight my soul Ps. 94. 19. Let others take pleasure in childish vanity or sensuality but say thou as David Ps. 119. 14 15 16. I have rejoyced in the wayes of thy Commandements as much as in all riches I will meditate in thy precepts and have respect unto thy waies I will delight my self in thy statutes and will not forget thy Word Ver. 47. I will delight my self in thy commandements which I have loved Let scorners delight in scorning and fools hate knowledge Prov. 1. 22. but make me to go in the path of thy commandements for therein do I delight Psal. 119. 35. If thou wouldst experimentally know the safety and glory of a holy life delight thy self in the Lord and he shall give thee the desire of thy heart Ps. 37. 4. Especially when we draw near him in his solemn worship and when we separate our selves on his holy dayes from all our common worldly thoughts to be conversant as in
remembrancers Can we stop our ears against the voice of Heaven and Earth Can we be ignorant of him when the whole Creation is our Teacher Can we overlook that holy glorious Name which is written so legibly upon all things that ever our eyes beheld that nothing but blindness sleepiness or distraction could possibly keep us from discerning it I have many a time wondred that as the eye is dazzled so with the beholding of the greatest Light that it can scarce perceive the shining of a lesser so the Glorious transcendent Majesty of the Lord doth not even overwhelm our understandings and so transport and take us up as that we can scarce observe or remember any thing else For naturally the greatest objects of our sense are apt to make us at that time insensible of the smaller And our exceeding great business is apt to make us utterly neglect and forget those that are exceeding small And O what Nothings are the Best and Greatest of the Creatures in comparison of God! And what toyes and trifles are all our other businesses in the world in comparison of the business which we have with Him But I have been stopped in these admirations by considering that the wise Creator hath fitted and ordered all his Creatures according to the use which he designeth them to And therefore as the eye must be receptive only of so much light as is proportioned to its use and pleasure and must be so distant from the Sun that its Light may rather guide than blind us and its Heat may rather quicken than consume us so God hath made our understandings capable of no other knowledge of Him here than what is suited to the work of holiness And while we have Flesh and fleshly works to do and lawful necessary business in the world in which Gods own commands employ us our souls in this Lanthorn of the body must see him through so thick a glass as shall so far allay our apprehension as not to distract us and take us off the works which he enjoyneth us And God and our souls shall be at such a distance as that the proportionable Light of his countenance may conduct us and not overwhelm us and his Love may be so revealed as to quicken our desires and draw us on to a better state but not so as to make us utterly impatient of this world and utterly weary of our lives or to swallow us up or possess us of our most desired happiness before we arrive at the state of happiness While the soul is in the body it maketh so much use of the body the brain and spirits in all is operations that our wise and merciful Creator and Governour doth respect the body as well as the soul in his ordering disposing and representing of the objects of those operations so that when I consider that certainly all men would be distracted if their apprehensions of God were anywhit answerable to the Greatness of his Majesty and Glory the Brain being not able to bear such high operations of the soul nor the greatness of the passions which would necessarily follow it much reconcileth my wondring mind to the wise and gracious providence of God even in setting innocent nature it self at such a distance from his Glory allowing us the presence of such Grace as is necessary to bring us up to Glory Though it reconcile me not to that doleful distance which is introduced by sin and which is furthered by Satan the world and the flesh and which our Redeemer by his Spirit and Intercession must heal And it further reconcileth me to this disposure and will of the blessed God and this necessary natural distance and darkness of our minds when I consider that if God and Heaven and Hell were as near and open to our apprehensions as the things are which we see and feel this life would not be what God intended it to be a life of Tryal and preparation to another a work a race a pilgrimage a warfare what Tryal would there be of any mans Faith or Love or Obedience or Constancy or Self-denial If we saw God stand by or apprehended him as if we saw him in degree it would be no more praise-worthy or rewardable for a man to abhor all temptations to worldliness ambition gluttony drunkenness lust cruelty c. than it is for a man to be kept from sleeping that is pierced with thorns or for a man to forbear to drink a cup of melted Gold which he knoweth will burn out his bowels or to forbear to burn his flesh in the fire It were no great commendation to his Chastity that would forbear his filthiness if he saw or had the fullest apprehensions of God when he will forbear it in the presence of a mortal man It were no great commendations to the intemperate and voluptuous to have no mind of sensual delights if they had but such a knowledge of God as were equal to sight It were no thanks to the persecutor to forbear his cruelty against the servants of the Lord if he saw Christ coming with his glorious Angels to take vengeance on them that know not God and obey not the Gospel and to be admired in his Saints and glorified in them that now believe 2 Thes. 1. 7 8 9 10. I deny not but this happily necessitated Holiness is best in it self and therefore will be our state in Heaven but what is there of Tryal in it or how can it be suitable to the state of man that must have Good and Evil set before him and Life and Death left to his choice and that must conquer if he will be crowned and approve his fidelity to his Creator against competitors and must live a rewardable life before he have the reward But though in this life we may neither hope for nor desire such overwhelming sensible apprehensions of God as the rest of our faculties cannot answer nor our bodies bear yet that our apprehensions of him should be so base and small and dull and unconstant as to by born down by the noise of worldly business or by the presence of any creature or by the tempting baits of sensuality this is the more odious by how much God is more Great and Glorious than the creature and even because the use of the creature it self is but to reveal the Glory of the Lord. To have such sleight and stupid thoughts of him as will not carry us on in uprightness of obedience nor keep us in his fear nor draw out our hearts in sincere desires to please him and enjoy him and as will not raise us to a contempt of the pleasures and profits and honours of this world this is to be despisers of the Lord and to live as in a sleep and to be dead to God and alive only to the world and flesh It is no unjust dishonour or injury to â—e Creature to be accounted as Nothing in comparison of God that it may be able to do Nothing
were the Alpha or first efficient and yet the Creature the Omega or finis ultimus and all the Goodness in God were to be estimated and denominated by its respect to the felicity of man And so the creature hath the best part of the Deity Such notions evidently shew us that lapsed man is predominantly selfish and is become his own Idol and is lost in himself while he hath lost himself by his loss of God when we see how powerful his self-interest is both with his intellect and will even men of great ingenuity till Sanctification hath restored them to God and taught them better to know Him and themselves are ready to measure all Good or Evil by their own interest when yet common reason would have told them if they had not perverted it by pride and partial studies that short of God even among the Creatures there are many things to be preferred before themselves and their own felicity He is irrationally enslaved by self love that cannot see that the happiness of the world or of his Country or of multitudes is more to be desired then his happiness alone And that he ought rather to choose to be annihilated or to be miserable if it were made a matter of his deliberation and choice then to have the Sun taken out of the firmament or the world or his Country to be annihilated or miserable And God is infinitely above the Creature Obj. But they say He needeth nothing to make him happy having no defect of happiness Answ. And what of that Must it needs therefore follow that he made not all things for himself but for the creature finally He is perfectly happy in himself and his will is himself This will was fulfilled when the world was not made for it was his will that it should not be made till it was made and it is fulfilled when it is made and fulfilled by all that comes to pass And as the absolute simple Goodness and Perfection of Gods essence is the Greatest Good the eternal immutable Good so the fulfilling of his will is the ultimate end of all obedience He hath expressed himself to take pleasure in his works and in the holiness obedience and happiness of his chosen And though Pleasure be not the same thing in God as it is in man no more then will or understanding is yet it is not nothing which God expresseth by such terms but something which we have no fitter expression for This Pleasing of the will of God being the end of all even of our felicity is better then our felicity it self They that will maintain that God who is naturally and necessarily Good hath no other Goodness but his Benignity or aptness to do good to his creatures must needs also maintain that God being for the Creature and not the Creature for God the Creature is better then God as being the ultimate end of God himself and the highest use of all his Goodness being but for the felicity of the Creature As also that God doth do all the Good that he is able For natural necessary agents work ad ultimum posse And that all men shall be saved and all Devils and every worm and toad be equal to the highest Angel or else that God is not able to do it And that he did thus make happy all his Creatures from eternity for natural necessary agents work alwayes if they be not forcibly hindered and that there never was such a thing as pain or misery in man or brute or else that God was not able to prevent it But abundance of such odious consequences must needs follow from the denying of the Highest Good which is God himself and confesting none but his efficient Goodness But some will be offended with me for being so serious in confuting such an irrational Atheistical conceit who know not how far it prevaileth with an Atheistical generation Be it known to you careless sinners that though the Sun will shine on you whether you think on it or not or love it or thank it or not and the fire will warm you whether you think on it and love it or not yet God will not justifie or save you whether you love him or think on him or not God doth not operate brutishly in your salvation but Governeth you wisely as rational Creatures are to be governed and therefore will give you Happiness as a reward and therefore will not deal alike with those that love him and that love him not that seek him and that seek him not with the labourers and the loiterers the faithful and the slothful servant Would you have us believe that you know better then God himself what pleaseth him or on what terms he will give his benefits and save mens souls or do you know his nature better then he knoweth it that you dare presume to say because he needeth not our love or duty therefore they are not pleasing to him Then what hath God to do in governing the world if he be pleased and displeased with nothing that men do or with good and evil actions equally Though you cannot hurt him you shall find that he will hurt you if you disobey him And though you cannot make him happy by your holiness you shall find that he will not make you happy without it And if he did work as necessarily as the Sun doth shine according to your similitude yet 1. Even the shining of the Sun doth not illuminate the blind nor doth it make the seeds of thorns and nettles to bring forth vines or roses nor the gendering of frogs to bring forth men but it actuateth all things according to the several natures of their powers And therefore how can you expect that an ignorant unbelieving and unholy soul should enjoy felicity in God when in that state they are uncapable of it 2. And if the Sun do necessarily illuminate any one he must necessarily be illuminated and if it necessarily warm or quicken any thing it must be necessarily warmed and quickened else you would assert contradictions So if God did necessarily save you and make you happy you would necessarily be saved and made happy And that containeth essentially your Holiness your Loving desiring and seeking after God To be saved or happy without enjoying God by Love or to Love him and not Desire him seek him or obey him are as great contradictions as to be illuminated without light or quickened without life What way soever it be that God conveyeth his sanctifying spirit I am sure that if any man have not the spirit of Christ the same is none of his Rom. 8. 9. and that without Holiness none shall see God Heb. 12. 14. and that if you will have the Kingdom of God you must seek it first preferring it before all earthly things Matth. 6. 33. Joh. 6. 27. Col. 4. 1 2 3. And then if all the question that remaineth undecided be whether God do you wrong or not in damning you or whether
Nature hath its aptitude as Rational to be employed for its Maker so that he is not a New Creature in a Natural sense An actual or habitual willingness to this Holy employment a promptitude to it and a due understanding of it is the New Creature Morally so called which is given in our sanctification But the Natural aptitude that is in our faculties as Rational to this holy life is essential to us as men or as Rational even to have the Potentiam naturalem which must yet have further help or moral life to actuate it And Adam had both these The one he retained or else he had not continued a man The other he lost or else he had not had need of Renovation 6. If Adams Nature had not been Disposed to God as to his End and Soveraign then the Law of Nature to adhere to God and obey and serve him was not written in his heart And then it would not have been his duty to adhere to God and to obey and serve him which is so false that even in lapsed unrenewed Nature there is left so much aptitude hereto as will prove him to be still under the obligations of this Law of Nature even actually to adhere to God and to obey him which a dead man a mad man or an Infant is not immediately By all this you see that though the blindness and disease of Reason is contrary to faith and holiness yet Reason it self is so much for it as that Faith it self is but the act of elevated well informed Reason and supernatural Revelation is but the means to inform our Reason about things which have not a natural evidence discernable by us And sanctification actively taken is but the healing of our Reason and Rational appetite And Holiness is but the health or soundness of them The errour of Reason must be renounced by Believers but not the use of Reason The sufficiency of Reason and Natural Light without supernatural Light and Help we must all deny But to set Reason as Reason in opposition to Faith or Holiness or Divine Revelation is as gross a piece of foolery as to set the visive faculty in opposition to the Light of the Sun or to its objects It is the unreasonableness of sinners that is to be cured by Illuminating Grace They are wise to do evil but to do good they have no knowledge Their Reason is wounded depraved and corrupted about the matters of God They have Reason to serve the flesh but not to Master it God doth renew men by giving them wisdome and bringing them to a sound mind As Logick helpeth Reason in discourse and arguing so Theology informeth Reason about the matters of God and our salvation and the Spirit of God doth make his Doctrine and Revelation effectual Make Nature sound and Reason clear then we will consent that all men be perswaded to live according to their Nature and their Reason But if a Bedlam will rave and tear himself and others and say this is according to my Nature or my Reason it is fitter that chains and whips do cure that Nature and Reason than that he be allowed to live according to his madness If a Drunkard or Whoremonger will say My Nature and Reason incline mee to please my appetite and lust it is fit that the swinish Nature be corrected and the beast which rideth and ruleth the man be taken down and when indeed his Nature is the Nature of a man and fitted to the use and ends that it was made for then let him live according to it and spare not If a malicious man will abuse or kill his neighbours and say This is according to my Nature let that Nature be used as the Nature of Wolves and Foxes and other noxious creatures are But let humane Nature be cured of its blindness carnality and cortuption and then it will need no external testimony to convince it that no employment is so natural and suitable to man as to Walk with God in Love and Confidence and reverent Worship and chearful Obedience to his Will A worldly fleshly sensual life will then appear to be below the rational nature of a man as it is below us to go to grass with horses or to live as meer companions of brutes It will then appear to be as natural for us to Love and Live to our Creatour and Redeemer and to Walk with God as for a Child to love his Parents and to live with them and serve them When I say that this is Natural I mean not that it is Necessary by Natural Necessity or that Grace doth operate per modum naturae as the irrational motion is so called There is a Brutish or Inanimate Nature and there is a Rational Voluntary Nature Grace worketh not according to the way of Inanimate or Brutish Nature but according to the way of Rational Nature in free Agents I may well say that whatever is Rational is Natural to a Rational Creature as such so far as he discerneth it Yea and Habits though they effect not necessarily but freely in a Rational nature yet they Incline Necessarily per modum naturae They contain in their being a Natural aptitude and propensity to action Obj. But thus you confound Nature and Grace Natural and supernatural operations while you make Grace Natural Answ. No such matter Though walking with God be called Natural as it is most agreeable to Nature so far as it is sound and is the felicity and meetest employment of the rational nature as such Yet 1. Diseased nature doth abhor it as a diseased stomack the pleasantest and most wholesome food as I said before 2. And this disease of Nature cannot he cured without Divine supernatural Grace So that as to the efficient cause our Holinesse is supernatural But it is unsound doctrine of those that affirm that Adam in his pure Natural state of innocency had no Natural Holiness or aptitude and promptitude to Walk with God in order to everlasting happiness but say that all this was either wanting to him and was a state specifically distinct which he fell short off by his sin or that it was given him by superadded Grace and was not in his entire Nature And yet we deny not but as to Degrees Adams nature was to grow up to more perfection and that his Natural Holiness contained not a sufficient immediate aptitude and promptitude to every duty which might afterward be required of him but this was to be obtained in the exercise of that Holiness which he had Even as a Vine or other fruit tree though it be Natural to it to bear its proper fruit yet hath it not an immediate sufficient aptitude hereto whilst it is but appearing out of the seed before it be grown up to just maturity Or as it is Natural to a man to discourse and reason but yet his nature in infancy or untaught and unexercised hath not a sufficient immediate aptitude and promptitude hereunto Or
as Grace inclineth a renewed soul to every holy Truth and duty and yet such a soul in its infancy of Grace hath not a sufficient immediate aptitude or promptitude to the receiving of every holy truth or the doing of every holy duty but must grow up to it by degrees But the addition of these degrees is no specifical alteration of the nature of man or of that grace which was before received Having been so long upon this first Consideration that Walking with God is most agreeable to humane nature I shall be briefer in the rest that follow II. TO Walk with God and live to him is incomparably the Highest and Noblest life To converse with men only is to converse with Worms whether they be Princes or poor men they differ but as the bigger vermine from the lesser If they be Wise and Good their Converse may be profitable and delightful because they have a beam of excellency from the face of God And O how unspeakable is the distance between his Wisdom and Goodness and theirs But if they be foolish ungodly and dishonest how loathsome is their conversation What stinking breath is in their profane and filthy language in their lies and slanders of the just in their sottish jears and scorns of those that Walk with God which expose at once their folly and misery to the pitty of all that are truly understanding When they are gravely speaking evil of the things which they understand not or with a fleering confidence deriding merrily the holy commands and waies of God they are much more lamentably expressing their infatuation than any that are kept in chains in Bedlam Though indeed with the most they scape the reputation which they deserve because they are attended with persons of their own proportion of wisdom that alwayes reverence a silken coat and judge them wise that wear gold lace and have the greatest satisfaction of their wills and lusts and are able to do most mischief in the world and because good men have learnt to honour the worst of their superiours and not to call them as they are But God is bold to call them as they are and give them in his word such names and characters by which they might come to know themselves And is it not a Higher Nobler life to Walk with God then to Converse in Bedlam or with intoxicated sensualists that live in a constant deliration Yea worse then so ungodly men are children of the Devil so called by Jesus Christ himself Joh. 8. 44. because they have much of the nature of the Devil and the lusts of their father they will do yea they are taken captive by him at his will 2 Tim. 2. 26. They are the servants of sin and do the drudgery that so vile a Master sets them on Joh. 8. 34. Certainly as the spirits of the just are so like to Angels that Christ saith we shall be as they and equal to them so the wicked are nearer kin to Devils then they themselves will easily believe They are as like him as children to their Father He is a lyar and so are they He is a hater of God and godliness and godly men and so are they He is a murderer and would fain devour the holy seed and such are they He envyeth the progress of the Gospel and the prosperity of the Church and the increase of Holiness and so do they He hath a special malice against the most powerful and successful Preachers of the Word of God and against the most zealous and eminent Saints and so have they He cares not by what lyes and fictions he disgraceth them nor how cruelly he useth them No more do they or some of them at least He cherisheth licentiousness sensuality and impiety and so do they If they do seem better in their adversity and restraint yet try them but with prosperity and power and you shall see quickly how like they are to devils And shall we delight more to converse with brutes and incarnate devils than with God Is it not a more high and excellent conversation to Walk with God and live to Him then to be companions of such degenerate men that have almost forfeited the reputation of humanity Alas they are companions so deluded and ignorant and yet so wilfull so miserable and yet so confident and secure that they are to a believing eye the most lamentable sight that the whole world can shew us out of hell And how sad a life must it then needs be to converse with such were it not for the hope that we have of furthering their recovery and Salvation But to Walk with God is a word so high that I should have feared the guilt of arrogance in using it if I had not found it in the holy Scriptures It is a word that importeth so high and holy a frame of soul and expresseth such high and holy actions that the naming of it striketh my heart with reverence as if I had heard the voice to Moses Put off thy shoes from off thy feet for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground Exod. 3. 5. Methinks he that shall say to me Come see a man that walks with God doth call me to see one that is next unto an Angel or glorified soul It is a far more reverend object in mine eye then ten thousand Lords or Princes considered only in their fleshly glory It is a wiser action for people to run and crowd together to see a man that Walks with God then to see the pompous train of Princes their entertainments or their triumphs O happy man that Walks with God though neglected and contemned by all about him What blessed sights doth he daily see What ravishing tydings what pleasant melody doth he daily hear unless it be in his swoons or sickness what delectable food doth he daily tast He seeth by faith the God the Glory which the blessed Spirits see at hand by nearest intuition He seeth that in a glass and darkly which they behold with open face He seeth the glorious Majesty of his Creatour the Eternal King the Cause of Causes the composer upholder preserver and governour of all the worlds He beholdeth the wonderful methods of his providence And what he cannot reach to see he admireth and waiteth for the time when that also shall be open to his view He seeth by Faith the world of Spirits the hosts that attend the throne of God their perfect righteousnesse their full devotednesse to God their ardent love their flaming zeal their ready and chearful obedience their dignity and shining glory in which the lowest of them exceedeth that which the Disciples saw on Moses and Elias when they appeared on the holy Mount and talkt with Christ. They hear by faith the heavenly consort the high and harmonious Songs of praise the joyful triumphs of crowned Saints the sweet commemorations of the things that were done and suffered on earth with the praises of him that redeemed them by his
blood and made them Kings and Priests to God Herein he hath sometime a sweet foretast of the everlasting pleasures which though it be but little as Jonathans honey on the end of his rod or as the clusters of grapes which were brought from Canaan into the wilderness yet are they more excellent then all the delights of sinners And in the beholding of this celestial Glory some beams do penetrate his breast and so irradiate his longing soul that he is changed thereby into the same image from Glory to Glory the spirit of Glory and of God doth rest upon him And O what an excellent holy frame doth this converse with God possess his soul of How reverently doth he think of him what life is there in every Name and Attribute of God which he heareth or thinketh on The mention of his Power his Wisdome his Goodness his Love his Holinesse his Truth how powerful and how pleasant are they to him when to those that know him but by the hearing of the ear all these are but like common names and notions and even to the weaker sort of Christians whose Walking with God is more uneven and low interrupted by their sins and doubts and fears this life and glory of a Christian course is lesse perceived And the sweet appropriating and applying works of faith by which the soul can own his God and finds it self owned by him are exercised most easily and happily in these near approaches unto God Our doubts are cherished by our darknesse and that is much caused by our distance The nearer the soul doth approach to God the more distinctly it heareth the voice of mercy the sweet reconciling invitations of Love and the more clearly it discerneth that goodness and amiableness in God which maketh it easier to us to believe that he loveth us or is ready to embrace us and banisheth all those false and horrid apprehensions of him which before were our discouragement and made him seem to us more terrible then amiable As the Ministers and faithful servants of Christ are ordinarily so misrepresented by the malignant Devil to those that know them not that they are ready to think them some silly fools or falsehearted hypocrites and to shun them as strange undesirable persons but when they come to through acquaintance with them by a nearer and familiar converse they see how much they were mistaken and wronged by their prejudice and belief of slanderers misreports Even so a weak believer that is under troubles in the apprehension of his sin and danger is apt to hearken to the enemy of God that would shew him nothing but his wrath and represent God as an enemy to him And in this case it is exceeding hard for a poor sinner to believe that God is reconciled to him or loveth him or intends him good but he is ready to dread and shun him as an enemy or as he would fly from a wild beast or murderer or from fire or water that would destroy him And all these injurious thoughts of God are cherished by strangeness and disacquaintance But as the soul doth fall into an understanding and serious converse with God and having been often with him doth find him more merciful than he was by Satan represented to him his experience reconcileth his mind to God and maketh it much easier to him to believe that God is reconciled unto him when he hath found much better entertainment with God than he expected and hath observed his benignity and the treasures of his bounty laid up in Christ and by him distributed to believers and hath found him ready to hear and help and found him the only full and suitable felicitating Good this banisheth his former horrid thoughts and maketh him ashamed that ever he should think so suspiciously injuriously and dshonourably of his dearest God and Father Yet I must confesse that there are many upright troubled souls that are much in reading prayer and meditation that still find it hard to be perswaded of the Love of God and that have much more disquietment and fear since they set themselves to think of God than they had before But yet for all this we may well conclude that to walk with God is the way to consolation and tendeth to acquaint us with his love As for those troubled souls whose experience is objected against this some of them are such as are yet but in their return to God from a life of former sin and misery and are yet but like the needle in the compasse that is shaken in a trembling motion towards their rest and not in any setled apprehensions of it Some of them by the straying of their imagination too high and putting themselves upon more than their heads can bear and by the violence of fears or other passions do make themselves uncapable of those sweet consolations which else they might find in their converse with God as a Lute when the strings are broken with straining is uncapable of making any melody All of them have false apprehensions of God and therefore trouble themselves by their own mistakes And if some perplex themselves by their errour doth it follow that therefore the Truth is not comfortable Is not a Fathers presence consolatory because some children are afraid of their Fathers that know them not because of some disguise And some of Gods children walk so unevenly and carelesly before him that their sins provoke him to hide his face and to seem to reject them and disown them and so to trouble them that he may bring them home But shall the comforts of our Fathers Love and Family be judged of by the fears or smart of those whom he is scourging for their disobedience or their tryal Seek God with understanding as knowing his essential properties and what he will be to them that sincerely and diligently seek him and then you will quickly have experience that nothing so much tendeth to quiet and settle a doubting troubled unstable soul as faithfully to walk with God But the soul that estrangeth it self from God may indeed for a time have the quietness of security but so far it will be strange to the assurance of his Love and to true consolation Expect not that God should follow you with his comforts in your sinfulnesse and negligence and cast them into your hearts whilest you neither seek nor mind them or that he give you the fruit of his wayes in your own wayes Will he be your joy when you forget him will he delight your souls with his goodness and amiableness while you are taken up with other matters and think not of him can you expect to find the comforts of his family among his enemies out of doors The experience of all the world can tell you that prodigals while they are stragling from their Fathers house do never tast the comfort of his embraces The strangers meddle not with his childrens joyes They grow not in the way of ambition covetousnesse vainglory or
sensuality but in the way of holy obedience and of believing contemplations of the Divine everlasting objects of delight For lo they that are far from him shall perish he destroyeth them that go a whoring from him but it is good for us to draw nigh to God Psal. 73. 27 28. III. VVAlking with God is the only course that can prove and make men truly wise It proves them wise that make so wise and good a choice and are disposed and skilled in any measure for so high a work Practical Wisdome is the solid useful profitable wisdome And Practical Wisdome is seen in our Choice of Good and Refusal of Evil as its most immediate and excellent effect And no Choosing or Refusing doth shew the Wisdome or Folly of man so much as that which is about the Greatest matters and which everlasting life or death depends on He is not thought so wise among men that can write a Volume about the Orthography or Etymology of a word or that can guess what wood the Trojane Horse was made of or that can make a chain to tye a Flea in as he that can bring home Gold and Pearls or he that can obtain and manage Governments or he that can cure mortal maladies For as in lading we difference Bulk and Value and take not that for the best commodity which is of greatest quantity or weight but that which in most precious and of greatest use so there is a bulky knowledge extended far to a multitude of words and things which are all of no great use or value and therefore the Knowledge of them is such as they And there is a precious sort of Knowledge which fixeth upon the most precious things which being of greatest Use and Value do accordingly prove the Knowledge such Nothing will prove a man simply and properly wise but that which will prove or make him Happy He is wise indeed that is wise to his own and others good And that is indeed his Good which saveth his soul and maketh him for ever blessed Though we may admire the Cunning of those that can make the most curious engines or by deceiving others advance themselves or that can subtilly dispute the most curious niceties or criticize upon the words of several languages yet I will never call them Wise that are all that while the Devils slaves the enemies of God the refusers of Grace and are making haste to endless misery And I think there is not one of those in Hell who were once the subtile men on earth that now take themselves to have been truly wise or glory much in the remembrance of such Wisdome And as this Choice doth prove men wise so the practice of this Holy walking with God doth make them much wiser than they were As there must be some work of the Spirit to draw men to believe in Christ and yet the Spirit is promised and given in a special sort or measure to them that do Believe so must there be some special Wisdome to make men Choose to walk with God but much more is given to them in this holy course As Solomon was wiser than most of the world before he asked wisdome of God or else he would not have made so wise a Choice and preferred wisdome before the riches and honours of the world And yet it was a more notable Degree of wisdome that was afterwards given him in answer to his prayer so it is in this case There are many undenyable Evidences to prove that walking with God doth do more to make men truly wise than all other learning or policy in the world 1. He that walketh with God doth begin aright and settle upon a sure foundation And we use to say that a work is half finished that is well begun He hath engaged himself to the best and wisest Teacher He is a Disciple to Him that knoweth all things He hath taken in infallible principles and taken them in their proper place and order He hath learnt those Truths which will every one become a Teacher to him and help him to that which is yet unlearnt Whereas many that thought they were Doctors in Israel if ever they they will be wise and happy must become fools that is such as they have esteemed fools if ever they will be wise 1 Cor. 3. 18. and must be called back with Nicodemus to learn Christs Cross and to be taught that that which is born of the flesh is but flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit and that therefore they must be born again not only of water but also of the spirit if ever they will enter into the Kingdome of Heaven Joh. 3. 3 5 6. O miserable beginning and miserable progress when men that never soundly learnt the mysteries of Regeneration and Faith and Love and Self-denyal and Mortification do proceed to study names and words and to turn over a multitude of Books to fill their brains with airy notions and their Common-places with such sayings as may be provision and furniture for their pride and ostentation and ornament to their style and language and know not yet what they must do to be saved and indeed know nothing as they ought to know 1 Cor. 8. 2. As every Science hath its principles which are supposed in all the consequential verities so hath Religion as Doctrinal and Practical those Truths which must be first received before any other can be received as it ought and those things which must be first done before any other can be done so as to attain their ends And these Truths and Duties are principally about God himself and are known and done effectually by those and only those that walk with God or are devoted to him It is a lamentable thing to see men immerst in serious studies even till they grow aged and to hear them seriously disputing and discoursing about the controversies or difficulties in Theology or inferiour Sciences before ever they had any saving knowledge of God or of the work of the Holy Ghost in the converting and sanctifying of the soul or how to escape everlasting misery 2. He that walketh with God hath fixed upon a right end and is renewing his estimation and intention of it and daily prosecuting it And this is the first and greatest part of Practical Wisdome When a man once knoweth his End aright he may the better judge of the aptitude and seasonableness of all the means When we know once that Heaven containeth the only felicity of man it will direct us to Heavenly cogitations and to such spiritual means as are fitted to that End If we have the right mark in our eye we are liker to level at it than if we mistake our mark He is the wise man and only he that hath steadily fixed his eye upon that blessedness which he was created and redeemed for and maketh strait towards it and bends the powers of soul and body by faithful constant diligence to obtain it He
Satan can never come in so ill a time with his temptations and have so little hope to speed as when the soul is contemplating the attributes of God or taken up in prayer with him or any way apprehensive of his presence The soul that faithfully walks with God hath enough at hand in him to answer all temptations And the further any man is from God and the less he knoweth him the more Temptations can do upon him 3. The presence of God affordeth the most powerful motives unto Good to those that walk with him There is no grace in man but what is from God and may find in God its proper object or incentive As God is God above the creature transcendently and infinitely in all perfections so all the motives to goodness which are fetcht from him are transcendently above all that may be fetcht from any creature He that liveth alwaies by the fire or in the Sun-shine is likest to be warm He that is most with God will be most like to God in Holiness Frequent and serious converse with him doth most deeply imprint his communicable attributes on the heart and make there the clearest impression of his image Believers have learned by their own experience that one hours serious prayer or meditation in which they can get nigh to God in the Spirit doth more advance their grace then any help that the creature can afford them 4. Moreover those that walk with God have not only a Powerful but an universal incentive for the actuating and increasing of every grace Knowledge and faith and fear and love and trust and hope and obedience and zeal and all have in God their proper objects and incentives One Creature may be useful to us in one thing and another in another thing but God is the most effectual mover of all his graces and that in a holy harmony and order Indeed he hath no greater Motive to draw us to Love him and Fear him and Trust him and Obey him than himself It is life eternal to know him in his Son Joh. 17. 3. And that is not only because it entitleth us to life eternal but also because it is the beginning and incentive of that life of holiness which will be eternal 5. Moreover those that walk with God have a constant as well as a Powerful and Universal incentive to exercise and encrease their Graces Othet helps may be out of the way Their Preachers may be silenced or removed Their Friends may be scattered or taken from them Their Books may be forbidden or not at hand But God is alwaies ready and willing They have leave at all times to come to him and be welcome Whenever they are willing they may go to him by prayer or contemplation and find all in him which they can desire If they want not Hearts they shall find no want of any thing in God At what time soever fear would torment them they may draw near and put their trust in him Psal. 56. 2 3 4. 11. 1. 18. 2 30. 31. 1 6. He will be a sure and speedy refuge for them a very present help in trouble Psal. 46. 1. 62. 7 8. 91. 2 9 94. 22. Whenever coldness or lukewarmness would extinguish the work of Grace they may go to him and find those streams of flaming Love flow from him those strong attractives those wonderful mercies those terrible judgements of which while they are musing the fire may again wax hot within them Psal. 39. 3. 6. Lastly by way of encouraging reward God useth to give abundantly of his Grace to those that walk most faithfully with him He will shew most Love to those that most love him He will be nearest to them that most desirously draw nigh to him while he forsaketh those that forsake him and turneth away from those that turn away from him 2 Chro. 15. 2. Prov. 1. 32. Ezr. 8. 22. The hand of our God is for good upon all them that seek him but his power and his wrath is against all them that forsake him Thus it is apparent in all those evidences that walking with God is not only a discovery of the Goodness that men have but the only way to encrease their Grace and make them better O what a sweet humility and seriousness and spirituality appeareth in the conference or conversation or both of those that newly come from a believing close converse with God! When they that come from men and Books may have but a common mind or life And those that come from the business and pleasure of the world and flesh and from the company of foolish riotous gallants may come defiled as the Swine out of the mire V. LAstly to walk with God is the best preparation for times of suffering and for the day of death As we must be judged according to what we have done in the body so the nearer we find our selves to judgement the more we shall be constrained to judge our selves according to what we have done and shall the more perceive the effects upon our souls That this is so excellent a preparative for sufferings and death will appear by the consideration of these particulars 1. They that walk with God are safest from all destructive sufferings and shall have none but what are sanctified to their good Rom. 8. 28. They are near to God where destruction cometh not as the Chicken under the wings of the Hen. They walk with him that will not lead them to perdition that will not neglect them nor sell them for nought nor expose them to the will of men and devils though he may suffer them to be tryed for their good No one can take them out of his hands Be near to him and you are safe The destroyer cannot fetch you thence He can fetch you when the time is come from the side of your merriest companions and dearest friends from the presence of the greatest Princes from the strongest Tower or most sumptuous Pallace or from your heaps of riches in your securest health But he cannot take you from the arms of Christ nor from under the wings of your Creatours love For there is no God like him in Heaven above or on the earth beneath who keepeth Covenant and Mercy with his servants that walk before him with all their heart 1 King 8 23. 1 King 11. 38. However we are used in our Fathers presence we are sure it shall be for good in the latter end For he wanteth neither Power nor Love to deliver us if he saw deliverance to be best 2. Walking with God is the surest way to obtain a certainty of his special love and of our salvation And what an excellent preparative for sufferings or death such assurance is I need not tell any considerate beleever How easie may it be to us to suffer poverty disgrace or wrongs or the pains of sickness or death when once we are certain that we shall not suffer the pains of
so hardly perswaded that it would be forgiven you and now do you make so small a matter of it Did you then so much wonder at your folly that could so long let out your thoughts and affections upon the creature while you neglected God and Heaven and do you begin to look that way again Do you now grow familiar with a life so like to that whirh was once your state of death and bear that easily that once was the breaking of your heart O Christians turn not away from that God again who once fetcht you home with so much smart and so much grace with such a twist of Love and Fatherly severity Methinks when you remember how you were once awakened you should not easily fall asleep again And when you remember the thoughts which then were in your hearts and the tears that were in your eyes and the earnest prayers which you then put up that God would receive you and take you for his own you should not now forget him and live as if you could live without him Remember that so far as you withdraw your hearts from God and let them follow inferiour things so far you contradict his works upon your hearts so far you violate your Covenant with him or sin against it so far you are revolters and go against the principal part of your profest Religion Yea so far you are ungodly as you thus withdraw your hearts from God Cleave to him and prosecute your Covenant if you will have the saving benefits of his Love and Covenant 3. MOreover the servants of God are doubly obliged to walk with him because they have had that experience of the goodness the safety and the sweetness of it which strangers have not Do you not remember how glad you were when you first believed that he pardoned and accepted you And how much you rejoyced in his Love and entertainment And how much better you found your Fathers house than ever you had found your sinful state And how much sweeter his service was than you did before believe It 's like you can remember something like that which is described in Luk. 15. 20 22 23 24. And he arose and came to his Father But when he was yet a great way off his Father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him And the Son said unto him Father I have sinned against Heaven and in thy sight and am no more worthy to be called thy Son But the Father said to his servants Bring forth the best Robe and put it on him and put a Ring on his hand and Shooes on his feet and bring hither the fatted Calf and kill it and let us eat and be merry for this my Son was dead and is alive again he was lost and is found What would you have thought or said of this Prodigal if after all this he should have been weary of his Fathers house and company and have taken more pleasure in his former company Would you not have said he was a forgetful and unthankful wretch and worthy never more to be received I do not speak to you now as to Apostates that are turned ungodly and have quite forsaken God and Holiness But I beseech you consider what it is after such experiences and obligations as these so much as to abate your love and grow remiss and mindless and indifferent as if you were aweary of God and were inclined to neglect him and look again to the world for your hope and satisfaction and delight As you love your souls and as you would avoid the sorrows which are greater than any that ever you felt take heed of fleighting the Love that hath done such wonders for you and of dealing so unthankfully with the everliving God and of turning thus away from him that hath received you Remember whilst you live the Love of your espousals Was God so good to you at the first and holiness so desirable and is it not so still And I am sure that your own experience will bear witness that since that time in all your lives it never was so well with you as when you walked most faithfully with God If you have received any falls and hurts it hath been when you have stragled from him If ever you had safety peace or joy it hath been when you have been nearest to him your wounds and grief and death hath been the fruit of your own waies and of your forsaking him Your recovery and health and life have been the fruit of his waies and of your adhering to him Many and many a time you have confessed this and have said It is good for me to draw near to God He hath helped you when none else could help you and comforted you when none else could comfort you How far are you above the worldlings happiness when you are nigh to God One lively thought of his Greatness and Excellency and of his Love to you in Jesus Christ will make the name of wealth and honour and favour and preferment and sensual pleasures to seem to you as words of no signification How indifferent will you be as to your prosperity in the world when you feel what it is to walk with God If you are lively experimental Christians you have found this to be true Have you not found that it is the very Health and Ease and proper employment of your souls to walk with God and keep close to him And that all goes well with you while you can do thus however the world doth esteem or use you And that when you grow strange or disobedient to God and mindless of his Goodness his presence and his authority you are like the stomach that is sick and like a bone that is out of joynt that can have no ease till it be healed and restored to its proper place No meats or drinks no company nor recreation no wealth or greatness will serve to make a sick man well or ease the dislocated bones Nothing will serve a faithful holy soul but God This is the cause of the dolour of his heart and of the secret groans and complainings of his life because in this life of distance and imperfection he finds himself so far from God and when he hath done all that he can he is still so dark and strange and cold in his affections when persecution driveth him from the Ordinances and publick Worship or when sin hath set him at a greater distance from his God he bemoaneth his soul as David in his banishment from the Tabernacle Psal. 42. 1 2 c. As the Hart panteth after the water-brooks so panteth my soul after thee O God My soul thirsteth for God for the living God When shall I come and appear before God My tears have been my meat day and night while they continually say unto me Where is thy God And it is no wonder if with his greatest joy he be yet clouded with these sorrows because he yet
man and the instability of the dearest friends How highly was Athanasius esteemed and yet at last deserted and banished even by the famous Constantine himself How excellent a man was Gregory Nazianzene and highly valued in the Church and yet by reproach and discouragements driven away from his Church at Constantinople whither he was chosen and envied by the Bishops round about him How worthy a man was the eloquent Chrysostome and highly valued in the Church And yet how bitterly was he prosecuted by Hierome and Epiphanius and banished and dyed in a second banishment by the provocation of factious contentious Bishops and an Empress impatient of his plain reproofs What person more generally esteemed and honoured for learning piety and peaceableness then Melanchthon and yet by the contentions of Illyricus and his party he was made aweary of his life As highly as Calvin was deservedly valued at Geneva yet once in a popular lunacy and displeasure they drove him out of their City and in contempt of him some called their dogs by the name of Calvin though after they were glad to intreat him to return How much our Grindal and Abbot were esteemed it appeareth by their advancement to the Archbishoprick of Canterbury and yet who knoweth not that their eminent piety sufficed not to keep them from dejecting frowns And if you say that it is no wonder if with Princes through interest and with people through levity it be thus I might heap up instances of the like untrustiness of particular friends But all History and the experiences of the most do so much abound with them that I think it needless Which of us must not say with David that all men are lyars Psal. 116. that is deceitful and untrusty either through unfaithfulness weakness or insufficiency that either will forsake us or cannot help us in the time of need Was Christ forsaken in his extremity by his own Disciples to teach us what to expect or bear Think it not strange then to be conformed to your Lord in this as well as in other parts of his humiliation Expect that men should prove deceitful Not that you should entertain censorious suspicions of your particular friends but remember in general that man is frail and the best too selfish and uncertain and that it is no wonder if those should prove your greatest grief from whom you had the highest expectations Are you better then Job or David or Christ and are your friends more firm and unchangeable then theirs Consider 1 That Creatures must be set at a sufficient distance from their Creator Allsufficiency Immutability and indefectible fidelity are proper to Jehovah As it is no wonder for the Sun to set or be ecclipsed as glorious a body as it is so it is no wonder for a friend a pious friend to fail us for a time in the hour of our distress There are some that will not but there is none but may if God should leave them to their weakness Man is not your Rock He hath no stability but what is derived dependant and uncertain and defectible Learn therefore to rest on God alone and lean not too hard or confidently upon any mortal might 2. And God will have the common infirmity of man to be known that so the weakest may not be utterly discouraged nor take their weakness to be gracelesness whilest they see that the strongest also have their infirmities though not so great as theirs If any of Gods servants lives in constant holiness and fidelity without any shakings or stumbling in their way it would tempt some self accusing troubled souls to think that they were altogether graceless because they are so far short of others But when we read of a Peters denying his Master in so horrid a manner with swearing and cursing that he knew not the man Matth. 26. 74. and of his dissimulation and not walking uprightly Gal. 2. and of a Davids unfriendly and unrighteous dealing with Mephihosheth the seed of Jonathan and of his most vile and treacherous dealing with Uriah a faithful and deserving subject it may both abate our wonder and offence at the unfaithfulness of our friends and teach us to compassionate their frailty when they desert us and also somewhat abate our immoderate dejectedness and trouble when we have failed God or man our selves 3. Moreover consider how the odiousness of that sin which is the root and cause of such unfaithfulness is greatly manifested by the failing of our friends God will have the odiousness of the remnants of our self-love and carnalmindedness and cowardize appear we should not discern it in the seed and root if we did not see and tast it in the fruits Seeing without tasting will not sufficiently convince us A crab looks as beautiful as an apple but when you tast it you better know the difference When you must your selves be unkindly used by your friends and forsaken by them in your distress and you have tasted the fruits of the remnants of their worldliness selfishness and carnal fears you will better know the odiousness of these vices which thus break forth against all obligations to God and you and notwithstanding the light the conscience and perhaps the grace that doth resist them 4. Are you not prone to overvalue and overlove your friends If so is not this the meetest remedy for your disease In the loving of God we are in no danger of excess and therefore have no need of any thing to quench it And in the loving of the godly purely upon the account of Christ and in loving Saints as Saints we are not apt to go too far But yet our understandings may mistake and we may think that Saints have more of sanctity then indeed they have and we are exceeding apt to mix a selfish common love with that which is spiritual and holy and at the same time when we Love a Christian as a Christian we are apt not only to Love him as we ought but to overlove him because he is our friend and Loveth us Those Christians that have no special Love to us we are apt to undervalue and neglect and Love them below their holiness and worth But those that we think entirely Love us we Love above their proper worth as they stand in the esteem of God Not but that we may Love those that Love us and add this Love to that which is purely for the sake of Christ but we should not let our own interest prevail and overtop the interest of Christ nor Love any so much for Loving us as for Loving Christ And if we do so no wonder if God shall use such remedies as he seeth meet to abate our excuse of selfish love O how highly are we apt to think of all that Good which is found in those who are the highest esteemers of us and most dearly love us when perhaps in it self it is but some ordinary good or ordinary degree of goodness which is in them Their Love to us
unresistibly procureth our Love to them And when we Love them it is wonderful to observe how easily we are brought to think well of almost all they do and highly to value their judgements graces parts and works when greater excellencies in another perhaps are scarce observed or regarded but as a common thing And therefrre the destruction or want of Love is apparent in the vilifying thoughts and speeches that most men have of one another and in the low esteem of the judgements and performances and lives of other men much more in their contempt reproaches and cruel persecutions Now though God will have us encrease in our Love of Christ in his members and in our pure Love of Christians as such and in our common charity to all yea and in our just fidelity to our friend yet would he have us suspect and moderate our selfish and excessive Love and inordinate partial esteem of one above another when it is but for our selves and on our own account And therefore as he will make us know that we our selves are no such excellent persons as that it should make another so laudable or advance his worth because he Loveth us so he will make us know that our friends whom we overvalue are but like other men If we exalt them too highly in our esteem it is a sign that God must cast them down And as their Love to us was it that made us so exalt them so their unkindness or unfaithfulness to us is the fittest means to bring them lower in our estimation and affection God is very jealous of our hearts as to our overvaluing and overloving any of his Creatures what we give inordinately and excessively to them is some way or other taken from him and given them to his injury and therefore to his offence Though I know that to be void of natural friendly or social affections is an odious extream on the other side yet God will rebuke us if we are guilty of excess And it 's the greater and more inexcusable fault to over-love the Creature because our Love to God is so cold and hardly kindled and kept alive He cannot take it well to see us dote upon dust and frailty like our selves at the same time when all his wondrous kindness and attractive goodness do cause but such a faint and languid Love to him which we our selves can scarcely feel If therefore he cure us by permitting our friends to shew us truly what they are and how little they deserve such excessive Love when God hath so little it is no more wonder than it is that he is tender of his glory and merciful to his servants souls 5. By the failing and unfaithfulness of our friends the wonderful Patience of God will be observed and honoured as it is shewed both to them and us When they forsake us in our distress especially when we suffer for the cause of Christ it is God that they injure more than us And therefore if he bear with them and forgive their weakness upon repentance why should not we do so that are much less injured The worlds persidiousness should make us think How great and wonderful is the patience of God that beareth with and beareth up so vile ungrateful treacherous men that abuse him to whom they are infinitely obliged And it should make us consider when men deal treacherously with us How great is that mercy that hath born with and pardoned greater wrongs which I my self have done to God than these can be which men have done to me It was the remembranâ—e of David's sin that had provoked God to raise up his own Son against him of whom he had been too fond which made him so easily bear the curses and reproach of Shimei It will make us bear abuse from others to remember how ill we have dealt with God and how ill we have deserved at his hands our selves 6. And I have observed another of the Reasons of Gods permitting the failing of our friends in the season and success It is that the Love of our friends may not hinder us when we are called to suffer or dye When we over-love them it teareth our very hearts to leave them And therefore it is a strong temptation to draw us from our duty and to be unfaithful to the cause of Christ lest we should be taken from our too-dear friends or lest our suffering cause their too-much grief It is so hard a thing to dye with willingness and peace that it must needs be a mercy to be saved from the impediments which make us backward And the excessive Love of friends and relations is not the least of these impediments O how loth is many a one to dye when they think of parting with wife or husband or children or dear and faithful friends Now I have oft observed that a little before their death or sickness it is ordinary with God to permit some unkindness between such too-dear friends to arise by which he moderated and abated their affections and made them a great deal the willinger to dye Then we are ready to say It is time for me to leave the world when not only the rest of the world but my dearest friends have first forsaken me This helpeth us to remember our dearest everlasting friend and to be grieved at the heart that we have been no truer our selves to him who would not have forsaken us in our extremity And sometime it maketh us even aweary of the world and to say as Elias Lord take away my life c. 1 King 19. 4 10 14. when we must say I thought I had one friend left and behold even he forsaketh me in my distress As the Love of friends intangleth our affections to this world so to be weaned by their unkindnesses from our friends is a great help to loosen us from the world and proveth oft a very great mercy to a soul that is ready to depart And as the friends that Love us most and have most interest in our esteem and Love may do more than others in tempting us to be unfaithful to our Lord to entertain any errour to commit any sin or to flinch in suffering so when God hath permitted them to forsake us and to lose their too great interest in us we are fortified against all such temptations from them I have known where a former intimate friend hath grown strange and broken former friendship and quickly after turned to such dangerous wayes and errours as convinced the other of the mercifulness of God in weakning his temptation by his friends desertion who might else have drawn him along with him into sin And I have often observed that when the husbands have turned from Religion to Infidelity Familism or some dangerous heresie that God hath permitted them to hate and abuse their wives so inhumanely as that it preserved the poor women from the temptation of following them in their Apostasie or sin When as some other women with
whom their husbands have dealt more kindly have been drawn away with them into pernicious paths Therefore still I must say we were undone if we had the disposing of our own conditions If would be long before we should have been willing our selves to be thus unkindly dealt with by our friends And yet God hath made it to many a soul a notable means of preserving them from being undone for ever Yea the unfaithfulness of all our friends and the malice and cruelty of all our enemies doth us not usually so much harm as the Love and Temptation of some one deluded erring friend whom we are ready to follow into the gulf 7. Lastly consider that it is not desirable or suitable to our state to have too much of our comfort by any creature Not only because it is most pure and sweet which is most immediately from God but also because we are very prone to overlove the Creature and if it should but seem to be very commodious to us by serving our necessities or desires it would seem the more amiable and therefore be the stronger snare The work of mortification doth much consist in the annihilation or deadness of all the Creatures as to any power to draw away our hearts from God or to entangle us and detain us from our duty And the more excellent and lovely the creature appeareth to us the less it is dead to us or we to it and the more will it be able to hinder or ensnare us When you have well considered all these things I suppose you will admire the wisdome of God in leaving you under this kind of tryal and weaning you from every creature and teaching you by his providence as well as by his word to Cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils for wherein is he to be accounted of And you will see that it 's no great wonder that corrupted souls that live in other sins should be guilty of this unfaithfulness to their friends and that he that dare unthankfully trample upon the unspeakable kindness of the Lord should deal unkindly with the best of men You make no great wonder at other kind of sins when you see the world continually commit them why then should you make a greater or a stranger matter of this than of the rest Are you better than God Must unfaithfulness to you be made more hainous than that unfaithfulness to him which yet you daily see and sleight The least wrong to God is a thousandfold more than the greatest that can be done to you as such Have you done that for your nearest friend which God hath done for him and you and all men Their obligations to you are nothing in comparison of their great and manifold obligations to God And you know that you have more wronged God your selves than any man ever wronged you And if yet for all that he bear with you have you not great reason to bear with others Yea you have not been innocent towards men your selves Did you never wrong or fail another Or rather are you not apter to see and aggravate the wrong that others do to you than that which you have done to others May you not call to mind your own neglects and say as Adonizebeck Judg. 1. 7. Threescore and ten Kings having their thumbs and their great toes cut off gathered their meat under my table As I have done so God hath requited me Many a one have I failed or wronged and no wonder if others fail and wrong me Nay you have been much more unfaithful and injurious to your selves than ever any other hath been to you No friend was so near you as your selves None had such a charge of of you None had such helps and advantages to do you good or hurt And yet all the enemies you have in the world even in Earth or Hell have not wronged and hurt you half so much as you have done your selves O methinks the man or woman that knoweth themselves and knoweth what it is to Repent that ever saw the greatness of their own sin and folly should have no great mind or leisure to aggravate the failings of their friends or the injuries of their enemies considering what they have proved to themselves Have I forfeited my own salvation and deserved everlasting wrath and sold my Saviour and my soul for so base a thing as sinful pleasure and shall I ever make a wonder of it that another man doth me some temporal hurt Was any friend so near to me as my self Or more obliged to me O sinful soul let thy own rather than thy friends deceit and treachery and neglects be the matter of thy displeasure wonder and complaints And let thy Conformity herein to Jesus Christ be thy holy ambition and delight Not as it is thy suffering nor as it is caused by mens sin but as it is thy Conformity and fellowship in the sufferings of thy Lord and caused by his Love I have already shewed you that sufferers for Christ are in in the highest form among his Disciples The order of his followers usually is this 1. At our entrance and in the lowest form we are exercised with the fears of Hell and Gods displeasure and in the works of Repentance for the sin that we have done 2. In the second form we come to think more seriously of the remedy and to enquire what we shall do to be saved and to understand better what Christ hath done and suffered and what he is and will be to us and to value him and his love and grace And here we are much enquiring how we may know our own sincerity and our interest in Christ and are labouring for some assurance and looking after signs of grace 3. In the next form or order we are searching after further knowledge and labouring better to understand the mysteries of Religion and to get above the rudiments and first principles And here if we scape turning bare Opinionists or Hereticks by the snare of controversie or curiosity it 's well 4. In the next form we set our selves to the fuller improvement of all our further degrees of knowledge and to digest it all and turn it into stronger Faith and Love and Hope and greater Humility Patience Self-denial Mortification and contempt of earthly vanities and hatred of sin and to walk more watchfully and holily and to be more in holy duty 5. In the next form we grow to be more publick-spirited to set our hearts on the Churches welfare and long more for the progress of the Gospel and for the good of others and to do all the good in the world that we are able for mens souls or bodies but especially to long and lay out our selves for the conversion and salvation of ignorant secure unconverted souls The counterfeit of this is An eager desire to proselyte others to our opinions or that Religion which we have chosen by the direction of flesh and blood or which is not of God nor
be equal to the Angels we shall certainly know our nearest friends that there dwell with us and are employed in the same attendance 3. Abraham knew the Rich man in Hell and the man knew Abraham and Lazarus Therefore we shall have as distinct a Knowledge 4. The two Disciples Knew Moses and Elias in the mount whom they had never seen before Though it is possible Christ told them who they were yet there is no such thing expressed and therefore it is as probable that they knew them by the communication of their irradiating glory Much more 〈…〉 we be then illuminated to a clearer knowledge 5. It is said expresly 1 Cor. 13. 10 11 12. that our present knowledge shall be done away only in regard of its imperfection and not of it self which shall be perfected when that which is perfect is come then that which is in part shall be done away As we put away childish thoughts and speeches when we become men The change will be from seeing in a glass to seeing face to face and from knowing in part to knowing even as we are known 2. And that we shall both Know and Love and rejoyce in creatures even in Heaven notwithstanding that God is all in all appeareth further thus 1. Christ in his glorified humanity is a Creature and yet there is no doubt but all his members will there Know and Love him in his glorified humanity without any derogation from the glory of the Deity 2. The Body of Christ will continue its unity and every member will be so nearly related even in Heaven that they cannot choose but Know and Love each other Shall we be ignorant of the members of our Body and not be concerned in their felicity with whom we are so nearly one 3. The state and felicity of the Church hereafter is frequently described in Scripture as consistent in society It is a Kingdom the City of God the Heavenly Jerusalem and it is mentioned as part of our happiness to be of that society Heb. 12. 22 23 24 c. 4. The Saints are called Kings themselves and it is said that they shall judge the world and the Angels And Judging in Scripture is frequently put for Governing Therefore whether there will be another world of moreals which they shall Govern as Angels now Govern men or whether the Misery of damned men and Angels will partly consist in as base a subjection to the glorified Saints as dogs now have to men or wicked reprobates on earth to Angels or whether in respect of both these together the Saints shall then be Kings and Rule and Judge or whether it be only the participation of the Glory of Christ that is called a Kingdom I will not here determine but it is most clear that they will have a distinct particular Knowledge of the world which they themselves must judge and some concernment in that work 5. It is put into the description of the Happiness of the Saints that they shall come from the East and from the West and shall sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of God Therefore they shall know them and take some comfort in their presence 6. Love even to the Saints as well as unto God is one of the graces that shall endure for ever 1 Cor. 13. It is exercised upon an Immortal object the Image and Children of the Most High and therefore must be one of the Immortal Graces For Grace in the Nature of it dyeth not and therefore if the Object cease not how should the Grace cease unless you will call it's perfecting a ceasing It is a state too high for such as we and I think for any meer Creature to live so Immediately and only upon God as to have no use for any fellow Creature nor no comfort in them God can make use of Glorified Creatures in such subserviency and subordination to himself as shall be no diminution to his All sufficiency or Honour nor to our glory and felicity We must take heeed of fancying even such a Heaven it self as is above the capacity of a Creature as some very wise Divines think they have done that tell us we shall immediately see Gods Essence his Glory being that which is provided for our intuition and felicity and is distinct from his Essence being not everywhere as his Essence is And as those do that tell us because that God will be All in All therefore we shall there have none of our comfort by any creature Though flesh and blood shall not enter into that Kingdom but our Bodies will then be Spiritual Bodies yet will they be really the same as now and distinct from our souls and therefore must have a felicity suitable to a Body glorified And if the soul did immediately see Gods Essence yet as no reason can conclude that it can see nothing else or that it can see even Created Good and not Love it so the Body however must have objects and felicity fit for a Body Obj. But it is said If we knew Christ after the flesh henceforth know we him no more Answ. No doubt but all the carnality in principles matter manner and ends of our knowledge will then cease as it's imperfection But that a carnal knowledge be turned into a spiritual is no more a diminution to it than it is to the glory of our Bodies to be made like the stars in the Firmament of our Father Obj. But then I shall have no more comfort in my present friends than in any other Answ. 1. If you had none in them it is no diminution to our happiness if indeed we should have all in God immediately and alone 2. But if you have as much in others that you never knew before that will not diminish any of your comfort in your antient friends 3. But it is most probable to us that as there is a twofold object for our love in the Glorified Saints one is their Holiness and the other is the Relation which they stood in between God and us being made his instruments for our conversion and salvation so that we shall Love Saints in Heaven in both respects And in the first respect which is the chiefest we shall love those most that have most of God and the greatest Glory though such as we never knew on earth And in the second respect we shall Love those most that were employed by God for our greatest good And that we shall not there lay by so much respect to our selves as to forget or disregard out benefactours is manifest 1. In that we shall for ever remember Christ and Love him and Praise him as one that formerly Redeemed us and washed us in his blood and hath made us Kings and Priests to God And therefore we may also in just subordination to Christ remember them with Love and Thankfulness that were his Instruments for the collation of these benefits 2. And this kind of Self-Love to be sensible of Good and
Evil to our selves is none of the sinful or imperfect selfishness to be renounced or laid by but part of our very Natures and as inseparable from us as we are from our selves Much more were it not digressive might be said on this subject but I shall only add that as God doth draw us to every holy duty by shewing us the excellency of that duty and as perpetuity is not the smallest excellency so he hath purposely mentioned that Love endureth for ever when he had described the Love of one another as a principal motive to kindle and encrease this Love And therefore those that think they shall have no personal Knowledge of one another nor personal Love to one another for we cannot Love personally if we know not personally do take a most effectual course to destroy in their souls all holy special Love to Saints by casting away that principal or very great motive given them by the Holy Ghost I am not able to Love much where I foreknow that I shall not Love long I cannot Love a comely Inne so well as a nearer dwelling of my own because I must be gone to morrow Therefore must I love my Bible better than my Law books or Physick books c. because it leadeth to Eternity And therefore I must Love Holiness in my self and others better than meat and drink and wealth and honour and beauty and pleasure because it must be Loved for ever when the Love of these must needs be transitory as they are transitory I must profess from the very experience of my soul that it is the belief that I shall Love my friends in Heaven that principally kindleth my Love to them on Earth And if I thought I should never know them after death and consequently never love them more when this life is ended I should in reason number them with temporal things and Love them comparatively but a little even as I Love other transitory things allowing for the excellency in the nature of Grace But now I converse with some delight with my Godly friends as believing I shall converse with them for ever and take comfort in the very Dead and Absent as believing we shall shortly meet in Heaven and I Love them I hope with a Love that is of a Heavenly Nature while I Love them as the Heirs of Heaven with a Love which I expect shall there be perfected and more fully and for ever exercised 12. The last Reason that I give you to move you to bear the Loss or Absence of your friends is that it gives you the loudest call to retire from all the world and to converse with God himself and to long for Heaven where you shall be separated from your friends no more And your forsaken state will somewhat assist you to that solitary converse with God which it calls you to But this brings us up to the third part of the Text. AND yet I am not alone because the Father is with me Doct. When all forsake us and leave us as to them alone we are far from being simply alone because God is with us He is not without company that is with the King though twenty others have turned him off He is not without Light that hath the shining Sun though all his Candles be put out If God be our God he is our All and is enough for us And if he be our All we shall not much find the want of creatures while he is with us For 1. He is with us who is Everywhere and therefore is never from us and knoweth all the waies and projects of our enemies being with them in wrath as he is with us in mercy 2. He is with us who is Almighty sufficient to preserve us conquerable by none and therefore while he is with us we need not fear what man can do unto us For they can do nothing but what he will No danger no sickness no trouble or want can be so great as to make it any difficulty to God to deliver us when and how he please 3. He is with us who is Infinitely wise and therefore we need not fear the subtilty of enemies nor shall any of his undertaken works for his Church or us miscarry for want of foresight or through any oversight We shall be preserved even from our own Folly as well as from our Enemies subtilty For it is not our own wisdome that our greatest concernments do principally rest upon nor that our safety and peace are chiefly secured by but it is the Wisdome of our great Preserver He knoweth what to do with us and what paths to lead us in and what is best for us in all conditions And he hath promised to Teach us and will be our sure infallible Guide 4. He is with us who is Infinitely Good and therefore is only sit to be a continual delight and satisfaction to our souls that hath nothing in him to disaffect us or discourage us whom we may love without fear of overloving and need not set any bounds to our Love the object of it being infinite 5. He is with us who is most nearly related to us and most dearly loveth us and therefore will never be wanting to us in any thing that is fit for us to have This is he that is with us when all have left us and as to man we are alone and therefore we may well say that we are not alone Of this I shall say more anon in the application Quest. But how is he with us Answ. 1. He is with us not only in his Essential presence as he is everywhere but as by his Gracious Fatherly presence We are in his Family attending on him even as the eye of a servant is to the hand of his Master We are alwaies with him and as he phraseth it himself in the Parable Luke 15. all that he hath in ours that is all that is fit to be communicated to us and all the provisions of his bounty for his children When we awake we should be still with him When we go abroad we should be alwaies as before him Our life and works should be a Walking with God 2. He is alwaies with us efficiently to do us Good Though we have none else that careth for us yet will he never cast us out of his care but biddeth us cast our care on him as promising that he will care for us Though we have none else to provide for us he is alwiaes with us and our Father knoweth what we want and will make the best provision for us Mat. 6. 32 33. Though we have none else to defend us against the power of our enemies he is alwaies with us to be our sure defence He is the Rock to which we fly and upon which we are surely built He gathereth us to himself as the Hen gathereth her Chickens under her wings Mat. 23. 37. And sure while Love is thus protecting us we may well say that the Father himself
of all our lamentable weakness of faith and love and heavenly mindedness and our strangeness to God and backwardness to the matters of eternal life O that I could escape these though I were in the hands of the cruellest enemies O that such a heart could be left behind How gladly would I overrun both house and land and honour and all sensual delights that I might but overrun it O where is the place where there is none of this darkness nor disaffection nor distance nor estrangedness from God! O that I knew it O that I could find it O that I might there dwell though I should never more see the face of mortals nor ever hear a humane voice nor ever tast of the delights of flesh Alas foolish soul such a place there is that hath all this and more than this but it is not in a wilderness but in Paradise not here on earth but above with Christ And yet am I so loth to die yet am I no more desirous of the blessed day when I shall be unclothed of flesh and sin O death what an enemy art thou even to my soul By affrighting me from the presence of my Lord and hindering my desires and willingness to be gone thou wrongest me much more than by laying my flesh to rot in darkness Fain I would know God and fain I would more love him and enjoy him but O this hurtful love of life O this unreasonable fear of dying detaineth my desires from pressing on to the happy place where all this may be had O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death this carnal unbelieving heart that sometime can think more delightfully of a Wilderness then of Heaven that can go seek after God in desert solitude among the birds and beasts and trees and yet is so backward to be loosed from flesh that I may find him and enjoy him in the world of glory Can I expect that heaven come down to earth and that the Lord of Glory should remove his Court and either leave the retinue of his celestial Courtiers or bring them all down into this drossy world of flesh and sin and this to satisfie my fleshly foolish mind Or can I expect the translation of Henoch or the Chariot of Elias Is it not enough that my Lord hath conquered Death and sanctified the passage and prepared the place of my perpetual abode Well! for all this though a Wilderness is not Heaven it shall be sweet and wellcome for the sake of Heaven if thence I may but have a clearer prospect of it and if by retiring from the crowd and noise of folly I may but be more composed and better disposed to converse above and to use my faith alas my too weak languid faith untill the beatifical vision and fruition come If there may be but more of God or readier access to him or more heart-quickening flames of Love or more heart-comforting intimations of his favour in a wilderness then in a City in a prison then in a Palace let that wilderness be my City and let that prison be my Palace while I must abide on earth If in solitude I may have Henochs walk with God I shall in due season have such a translation as shall bring me to the same felicity which he enjoyeth and in the mean time as well as after it is no incommodity if by mortal eyes I be seen no more If the Chariot of contemplation will in solitude raise me to more believing affectionate converse with heaven than I could expect in tumults and temptations it shall reconcile me unto solitude and make it my Paradise on earth till Angels instead of the Chariot of Elias shall convey me to the presence of my glorified Head in the Celestial Paradise Object But it is grievous to one that hath been used to much company to be alone Answ. Company may so use you that it may be more grievous to you not to be alone The society of waspes and serpents may be spared and Bees themselves have such stings as make some that have felt them think they bought the honey dear But can you say you are alone while you are with God Is his presence nothing to you Doth it not signifie more then the company of all men in the world saith Hierome Sapiâ—ns nunquam solus esse potest habet enim secum omnes qui sunt qui fuerunt boni si hominum sit inopia loquitur cum Deo viz. A wise man cannot be alone for he hath with him the good men that are or have been And if there be a want of men he speaks with God He should rather have said There can be no want of man when we may speak with God And were it not that God is here revealed to us as in a glass and that we do converse with God in man we should think humane converse little worth Object O but solitude is disconsolate to a sociable mind Answ. But the most desirable society is no solitude saith Hierome Infinita eremi vastitas te terret sed tu Paradisum mente deambula Quotiescunque cogitatione ac mente illuc conscenderis toties in eremo non eris that is Doth the infinite vastness of the wilderness terrifie thee But do thou ascend in mind and walk in Paradise As oft as thou ascendest thither in thought and mind so oft thou shalt not be in the wilderness If God be nothing to thee thou art not a Christian but an Atheist If God be God to thee he is All in all to thee and then should not his presence be instead of all O that I might get one step nearer unto God though I receded many from all the world O that I could find that place on earth where a souâ— may have nearest access unto him and fullest knowledge and enjoyment of him though I never more saw the face of friends I should chearfully say with my blessed Saviour I am not alone for the Father is with me And I should say so for these Reasons following 1. If God be with me the Maker and Ruler and Disposer of all is with me so that all things are virtually with me in him I have that in Gold and Jewels which I seem to want in Silver Lead and Dross I can want no friend if God vouchsafe to be my friend and I can enjoy no benefit by all my friends if God be my enemy I need not fear the greatest enemies if God be reconciled to me I shall not miss the light of the Candle if I have this blessed Sun The Creature is nothing but what it is from God and in God And it is worth nothing or good for nothing but what it's worth in order unto God as it declareth him and helps the soul to know him serve him or draw nearer to him As it is Idolatry in the unhappy worldling to thirst after the Creature with the neglect of God and so to make the
world his God so doth it savour of the same hainous sin to lament our loss of Creatures more than the displeasure of God If God be my enemy or I am fallen under his indignation I have then so much greater matters to lament than the loss or absence or frowns of man as should almost make me forget that there is such a thing as man to be regarded But if God be my Father and my friend in Christ I have then so much to think of with delight and to recreate and content my soul as will proclaim it most incongruous and absurd to lament inordinately the absence of a worm while I have his Love and presence who is All in All. If God cannot content me and be not enough for me how is he then my God or how shall he be my Heaven and everlasting Happiness 2. If God be with me he is with me to whom I am absolutely devoted I am wholly his and have acknowledged his interest in me and long ago disclaimed all usurpers and repented of alienations and unreservedly resigned my self to him And where should I dwell but with him that is my owner and with whom I have made the solemnest Covenant that ever I made â— never gave my self to any other but in subordination to him and with a salvo for his highest inviolable right Where should my goods be but in my own house with whom should a Servant dwell but with his Master and a Wife but with her Husband and Children but with their Father I am nearlier related to my God and to my Saviour than I am to any of my Relations in this world I owe more to him than to all the world I have renounced all the world as they stand in any competition or comparison with him And can I want their company then while I am with him How shall I hate Father and Mother and Wife and Children and Brother and Sister for his sake if I cannot spare them or be without them to enjoy him To hate them is but to use them as men do hated things that is to cast them away with contempt as they would alâ—enate me from Christ and to cleave to him and be satisfied in him alone I am now married to Christ and therefore must chearfully leave Father and Mother and my native place and all to cleave to him And with whom should I now delight to dwell but with him who hath taken me into so near relation to be as it were one flesh with him O my dear Lord hide not thou thy face from an unkind an unworthy sinner Let me but dwell with thee and see thy face and feel the gracious embracements of thy Love and then let me be cast off by all the world if thou see it meetest for me or let all other friends be where they will so that my soul may be with thee I have agreed for thy sake to forsake all even the dearest that shall stand against thee and I resolve by thy grace to stand to this agreement 3. If God be with me I am not alone for he is with me that Loveth me best The Love of all the friends on earth is nothing to his Love O how plainly hath he declared that he loveth me in the strange condescention the sufferings death and intercession of his Son What Love hath he declared in the communications of his Spirit and the operations of his Grace and the near relations into which he brought me What Love hath he declared in in the course of his providences in many and wonderful preservations and deliverances in the conduct of his wisdome and in a life of mercies What Love appeareth in his precious promises and the glorious provisions he hath made for me with himself to all eternity O my Lord I am ashamed that thy Love is so much lost that it hath no better return from an unkind unthankful heart that I am not more delighted in thee and swallowed up in the contemplation of thy Love I can contentedly let go the society and converse of all others for the converse of some one bosome friend that is dearer to me than they all as Jonathan to David And can I not much more be satisfied in thee alone and let go all if I may continue with thee My very Dog will gladly for sake all the Town and all persons in the world to follow me alone And have I not yet found so much Love and Goodness in thee my dear and blessed God as to be willing to converse alone with thee All men delight most in the company of those that Love them best They choose not to converse with the Multitude when they look for solace and content but with their dearest friends And should any be so dear to me as God O were not thy Love unworthily neglected by an unthankful heart I should never be so unsatisfied in thee but should take up or seek my comforts in thee I should then say Whom have I in Heaven but thee and there is none on earth that I desire besides thee Though not only my friends but my flesh and heart themselves should fail me it is thou that will still be the strength of my heart and my portion for ever it is good therefore for me to draw near to thee how far soever I am from man O let me there dwell where thou wilt not be strange for thy loving kindness is better than life instead of the multitude of my turmoiling thoughts let me be taken up in the believing views of thy reconciled face and in the glad attendance upon thy Grace or at least in the multitude of my thoughts within me let thy celestial comforts delight my soul. Let me dwell as in thy family and when I awake let me be still with thee Let me go no whither but where I am still following thee Let me do nothing but thy work nor serve any other but when I may truly call it a serving thee Let me hear nothing but thy voice and let me know thy voice by whatever instrument thou shalt speak Let me never see any thing but thy self and the glass that representeth thee and the books in which I may read thy name And let me never play with the outside and gaze on words and letters as insignificant and not observe thy name which is the sense Whether it be in company or in solitude let me be continually with thee and do thou vouchsafe to hold me by my right hand And guide me with thy counsel and afterwards receive me unto thy glory Psal. 73. 23 24 25 26 28. Psal. 63. 3. 4. If God be with me I am not alone for I shall be with him whose Love is of greater use and benefit to me than the Love of all my friends in the world Their Love may perhaps be some little comfort as it floweth from His But it is His Love by which and upon which I Live It is His Love that gives
had been less with the dearest of my friends How much more sweet then would my life have been How much more blameless regular and pure How much more fruitful and answerable to my obligations and professions How much more comfortable to my review How many falls and hurts and wounds and griefs and groans might I have escaped O how much more pleasing is it now to my Rememberance to think of the hours in which I have lain at the feet of God though it were in tears and groans than to think of the time which I have spent in any common converse with the greatest or the learnedest or the dearest of my acquaintance And as my Greatest business is with God so my daily business is also with him He purposely leaveth me under wants and suffers necessities daily to return and enemies to assault me and affliction to surprize me that I may be daily driven to him He loveth to hear from me He would have me be no stranger with him I have business with him every hour I need not want employment for all the faculties of my soul if I know what it is to converse in Heaven Even prayer and every holy thought of God hath an Object so great and excellent as should wholly take me up Nothing must he thought or spoken lightly about the Lord. His name must not be taken in vain Nothing that is common beseemeth his worshippers He will be sanctified of all that shall draw near him He must be Loved with all the Heart and Might His servants need not be wearied for want of employment nor through the lightness or unprofitableness of their employment If I had Cities to build or Kingdoms to govern I might better complain for want of employment for the faculties of my soul than I can when I am to converse in Heaven In other studies the delight abateth when I have reached my desire and know all that I can know But in God there is infinitely more to be known when I know the most I am never satiated with the easiness of knowing nor are my desires abated by any unusefulness or unworthiness in the Object but I am drawn to it by its highest excellencies and drawn on to desire more and more by the infiniteness of the Light which I have not yet beheld and the infiniteness of the Good which yet I have not enjoyed If I be idle or seem to want employment when I am to contemplate all the Artributes relations mercies works and revealed perfections of the Lord its sure for want of eyes to see or a Heart enclined to my business if God be not enough to employ my soul then all the persons and things on earth are not enough And when I have Infinite Goodness to delight in where my soul may freely let out it self and never need to fear excess of Love how sweet should this employment be As Knowledge so Love is never stinted here by the narrowness of the Object We can never Love him in any proportion either to his Goodness and amiableness in himself or to his Love to us What need have I then of any other company or business when I have infinite Goodness to delight in and to Love further than they subserve this greatest work Come home then O my soul to God Converse in Heaven Turn away thine eyes from beholding vanity Let not thy affections kindle upon straw or bryars that go out when they have made a flash or noise and leave thee to thy cold and darkness But come and dwell upon celestial beauties and make it thy daily and most diligent work to kindle thy affections on the infinite everlasting Good and then they will never be extinguished or decay for want of fewel but the further they go and the longer they burn the greater will be the flame Though thou find it hard while Love is but a spark to make it burn and complain that thy cold and backward heart is hardly warmed with the Love of God yet when the whole pile hath taken fire and the flame ascendeth fire will breed fire Love will cause Love and all the malice of Hell it self shall never be able to suppress or quench it unto all eternity 6. And it is a great encouragement to my converse with God that no misunderstanding no malice of enemies no former sin or present frailty no nor the infinite distance of the most Holy Glorious God can hinder my access to him or turn away his Ear or Love or interrupt my leave and liberty of converse If I converse with the poor their wants afflict me being greater than I can supply Their complaints and expectations which I cannot satisfie are my trouble If I would converse with Great ones it is not easie to get access and less easie to have their favout unless I would purchase it at too dear a rate How strangely and contemptuously do they look at their inferiours Great friends must be made for a word or smile And if you be not quickly gone they are aweary of you And if you seek any thing of them or would put them to any cost or trouble you are as welcome to them as so many vermine or noisome creatures They please them best that drive you away With how much labour and difficulty must you clime if you will see the top of one of these mountains And when you are there you are but in a place of barrenness and have nothing to satisfie you for your pains but a larger prospect and vertiginous despect of the lower grounds which are not your own it is seldome that these Great ones are to be spoken with And perhaps their speech is but a denyal of your requests if not some snappish and contemptuous rejection that makes you glad when you are got far enough from them and makes you the better like and love the accessible calm and fruitful plains But O how much greater encouragements hath my soul to converse with God! Company never hindereth him from hearkening to my suit He is infinite and Omnipotent and as sufficient for every individual soul as if he had no other to look after in the world when he is taken up with the attendance and praises of his Heavenly Host he is as free and ready to attend and answer the groans and prayers of a contrite soul as if he had no nobler creatures nor no higher service to regard I am oft unready but God is never unready I am unready to pray but he is not unready to hear I am unready to come to God to walk with him and to solace my soul with him but he is never unready to entertain me Many a time my conscience would have driven me away when he hath called me to him and rebuked my accusing fearful conscience Many a time I have called my self a prodigal a companion of Swine a miserable hard-hearted sinner unworthy to be called his Son when he hath called me Child and chid me for my questioning
his Love He hath readify forgiven the sins which I thought would have made my soul the fuel of Hell He hath entertained me with joy with musick and a feast when I better deserved to have been among the Dogs without his doors He hath embraced me in his sustaining consolatory arms when he might have spurned my guilty soul to Hell and said Depart from me thou worker of iniquity I know thee not O little did I think that he could ever have forgotten the vanity and villany of my youth yea so easily have forgotten my most aggravated sins When I had sinned against light when I had resisted conscience when I had frequently and wilfully injured Love I thought he would never have forgotten it But the greatness of his Love and Mercy and the blood and intercession of his Son hath cancelled all O how many mercies have I tasted since I thought I had sinned away all mercies How patiently hath he born with me since I thought he would never have put up more And yet besides my sins and the withdrawings of my own heart there hath been nothing to interrupt our converse Though he be God and I a worm yet that would not have kept me out Though he be in Heaven yet he is near to succour me on Earth in all that I call upon him for Though he have the Praise of Angels he disdaineth not my tears and groans Though he have the perfect Love of perfect soulâ— he knoweth the little spark in my breast and despiseth not my weak and languid Love Though I injure and dishonour him by Loving him no more though I oft forget him and have been out of the way when he he hath come or called me though I have disobediently turned away mine ears and unkindly refused the entertainments of his Love and unfaithfully plaid with those whose company he forbad me he hath not divorced me nor turned me out of doors O wonderful that Heaven will be familiar with Earth and God with man the Highest with a worm and the most Holy with an unconstant sinner Man refuseth me when God will entertaine me Man that is no wiser or better than my self Those that I never wronged or deserved ill of reject me with reproach And God whom I have unspeakably injured doth invite me and intreat me and condescendeth to me as if he were beholden to me to be saved Men that I have deserved well of do abhorre me And God that I have deserved Hell of doth accept me The best of them are bryars and as a thorny hedge and he is Love and Rest and Joy And yet I can be more welcome to him though I have offended him than I can to them whom I have obliged I have freer leave to cast my self into my Fathers arms than to tumble in those bryars or wallow in the dirt I upbraid my self with my sins but he doth not upbraid me with them I condemn my self for them but he condemns me not He forgiveth me sooner than I can forgive my self I have peace with him before I can have peace of conscience O therefore my soul draw near to him that is so willing of thy company That frowneth thee not away unless it be when thou hast fallen into the dirt that thou mayest wash thee from thy filthiness and be fitter for his converse Draw near to him that will not wrong thee by believing misreports of enemies or laying to thy charge the things thou knewest not but will forgive the wrongs thou hast done to him and justifie thee from the sins that conscience layeth to thy charge Come to him that by his Word and Spirit his Ministers and Mercies calleth thee to come and hath promised that those that come to him he will in no wise shut out O walk with him that will bear thee up and lead thee as by the right hand Psal. 73. 23. and carry his Infants when they cannot go O speak to him that teacheth thee to speak and understandeth and accepts thy stammering and helpeth thine infirmities when thou knowest not what to pray for as thou oughtest and giveth thee groans when thou hast not words and knoweth the meaning of his spirit in thy groans that cannot be contained in the Heaven of Heavens and yet hath respect to the contrite soul that trembleth at his word and feareth his displeasure that pittieth the tears and despiseth not the sighing of a broken heart nor the desires of the sorrowful O walk with him that is never weary of the converse of an upright soul that is never angry with thee but for flying from him or for drawing back or being too strange and refusing the kindness and felicity of his presence The day is coming when the proudest of the sons of men would be glad of a good look from him that thou hast leave to walk with Even they that would not look on thee and they that injured and abused thee and they that inferiours could have no access to O how glad would they be then of a smile or a word of hope and mercy from thy Father Draw near then to him on whom the whole Creation doth depend whose favour at last the proudest and the worst would purchase with the loudest cryes when all their pomp and pleasure is gone and can purchase nothing O walk with him that is Love it self and think him not unwilling or unlovely and let not the deceiver by hideous misrepresentations drive thee from him when thou hast felt a while the storms abroad methinks thou shouldest say How goâ—d how safe how sweet is it to draw near to God! 1. With whom should I so desirously converse as with him whom I must Live with for ever If I take pleasure in my house or land or country my walks my books or friends themselves as clothed with flesh I must possess this pleasure but a little while Henceforth know we no man after the flesh Had we known Christ himself after the flesh we must know him so no more for ever Though his Glorified spiritual Body we shall know Do you converse with Father or Mother with Wives or Children with Pastors and Teachers Though you may converse with these as Glorified Saints when you come to Christ yet in these Relations that they stand in to you now you shall converse with them but a little while For the Time is short It remaineth that both they that have wives be as though they had none and they that weep as though they wept not and they that rejoyce as though they rejoyced not and they that buy as though they possessed not and they that use this world as not abusing it or as though they used it not for the fashion of this world doth pass away 1 Cor. 7. 29 30 31. Why then should I so much regard a converse of so short continuance why should I be so familiar in my Inne and so in love wiâ—h that familiarity as to grieve when I must but think of
worldly trash which are made and new-made to be the dwelling place of God Desire not the company which would diminish your heavenly acquaintance and correspondency Be not unfriendly nor conceited of a self-sufficiency but yet beware lest under the honest ingenuous title of a friend a special faithful prudent faithful friend you should entertain an Idol or an enemy to your Love of God or a corrival and competitor with your highest friend For if you do it is not the specious title of a friend that will save you from the thorns and bryars of disquietment and from greater troubles than ever you found from open enemies O blessed be that High and everlasting friend who is every way suited to the upright souls To their Minds their Memories their Delight their Love c. by surest Truth by fullest Goodness by clearest Light by dearest Love by firmest Constancy c. O why hath my drowsie and dark-sighted soul been so seldome with him why hath it so often so strangely and so unthankfully passed by and not observed him nor hearkened to his kindest calls O what is all this trash and trouble that hath filled my memory and employed my mind and cheated and corrupted my affections while my dearest Lord hath been daies and nights so unworthily forgotten so contemptuously neglected and disregarded and loved as if I loved him not O that these drowsie and those waking nights those loitered lost and empty hours had been spent in the humblest converse with him which have been dreamed and doted away upon now I know not what O my God how much wiser and happier had I been had I rather chosen to mourn with thee than to rejoyce and sport with any other O that I had rather wept with thee than laughed with the creature For the time to come let that be my friend that most befriendeth my dark and dull and backward soul in its undertaken progress and heavenly conversation Or if there be none such upon earth let me here take no one for my friend O blot out every Name from my corrupted heart which hindereth the deeper engraving of thy Name Ah Lord what a stone what a blind ungrateful thing is a Heart not touched with celestial Love yet shall I not run to thee when I have none else that will know me shall I not draw near thee when all fly from me When daily experience cryeth out so loud NONE BUT CHRIST GOD OR NOTHING Ah foolish Heart that hast thought of it Where is that place that Cave or Desert where I might soonest find thee and fullest enjoy thee is it in the wilderness that thou walkest or in the croud in the Closet or in the Church where is it that I might soonest meet with God But alas I now perceive that I have a Heart to find before I am like to find my Lord O Loveless Lifeless stony heart that 's dead to him that gave it Life and to none but him Could I not Love or Think or Feel at all methinks I were less dead than now Less dead if dead than now I am alive I had almost said Lord let me never Love more till I can Love thee Nor think more on any thing till I can more willingly think of thee But I must suppress that wish for Life will act And the mercies and motions of Nature are necessary to those of Grace And therefore in the life of Nature and in the glimmerings of thy Light I will wait for more of the Celestial life My God thou hast my consent It is here attested under my hand Separate me from what and whom thou wilt so I may but be nearer thee Let me Love thee more and feel more of thy Love and then let me Love or be beloved of the world as little as thou wilt I thought self-love had been a more predominant thing But now I find that Repentance hath its Anger its Hatred and its Revenge I am truly Angry with that Heart that hath so oft and foolishly offended thee Methinks I hate that Heart that is so cold and backward in thy love and almost grudge it a dwelling in my breast Alas when Love should be the life of Prayer the life of holy meditation the life of Sermons and of holy conference and my soul in these should long to meet thee and delight to mention thee I straggle Lord I know not whither or I sit still and wish but do not rise and run and follow thee yea I do not what I seem to do All 's dead all 's dead for want of Love I often cry O where is that place where the quickening beams of Heaven are warmest that my frozen soul might seek it out But whither ever I go to City or to Solitude alas I find it is not Place that makes the difference I know that Christ is perfectly replenished with Life and Light and Love Divine And I hear him as our Head and Treasure proclaimed and offered to us in the Gospel This is thy Record that he that hath the Son hath Life O why then is my barren soul so empty I thought I had long ago consented to thy offer and then according to thy Covenant both He and Life in him are mine And yet must I still be dark and dead Ah dearest Lord I say not that I have too long waited but if I continue thus to wait wilt thou never find the time of Love and come and own thy gasping worm wilt thou never dissipate these clouds and shine upon this dead and darkened soul Hath my Night no Day Thrust me not from thee O my God! For that 's a Hell to be thrust from God But sure the cause is all at home could I find it out or rather could I cure it It is sure my face that 's turned from God when I say His face is turned from me But if my Life must here be out of sight and hidden in the Root with Christ in God and if all the rest be reserved for that better world and I must here have but these small beginnings O make me more to Love and long for the blessed day of thine appearing and not to fear the time of my deliverance nor unbelievingly to linger in this Sodom as one that had rather stay with sin then come to thee Though sin hath made me backward to the fight let it not make me backward to receive the Crown Though it hath made me a loiterer in thy work let it not make me backward to receive that wages which thy Love will give to our pardoned poor accepted services Though I have too oft drawn back when I should have come unto thee and walked with thee in thy waies of Grace yet heal that unbelief and disaffection which would make me to draw back when thou callest me to possess thy Glory Though the sickness and lameness of my soul have hindered me in my journey yet let their painfulness help me to desire to be delivered from them and to be at home where without the interposing nights of thy displeasure I shall fully feel thy fullest Love and walk with thy Glorified ones in the Light of thy Glory triumphing in thy Praise for evermore Amen BUT now I have given you these few Directions for the improvement of your solitude for converse with God lest I should occasion the hurt of those that are unfit for the Lesson I have given I must conclude with this Caution which I have formerly also published That it is not melancholly or weak-headed persons who are not able to bear such exercises for whom I have written these Directions Those that are not able to be much in serious solitary thoughtfulness without confusions and distracting suggestions and hurrying vexatious thoughts must set themselves for the most part to those duties which are to be done in company by the help of others and must be very little in solitary duties For to them whose natural faculties are so diseased or weak it is no duty as being no means to do them the desired good but while they strive to do that which they are naturally unable to endure they will but confound and distract themselves and make themselves unable for those other duties which yet they are not utterly unfit for To such persons therefore instead of ordered well-digested Meditations and much time spent in secret thoughtfulness it must suffice that they be brief in secret Prayer and take up with such occasional abrupter Meditations as they are capable of and that they be the more in reading hearing conference and praying and praising God with others untill their melancholly distempers are so far overcome as that by the direction of their Spiritual Guides they may judge themselves fit for this improvement of their Solitude FINIS * Charles Earl of Balcarres who dyed of a stone in his heart of a very strange magnitude
Mala in solitudine anxia est sollicita si honesta sunt quae facis omnes sciant si turpia quid refert neminem scire cum tu scias O te miserum si contemnis hunc testem inquit Seneca That is A good conscience will call in the croud or witnesses not caring who seeth A bad conscience is anxious and sollicitous even in solitude If they be things honest which thou dost let all men know If they be dishonest what good doth it thee that no man else knoweth it when thou knowest it thy self O miserable man if thou despise this witness Something is suspected to be amiss with those that are alwaies in their Chambers and are never seen Tell not men that you cannot bear the light It is he that doth evil that hateth the light lest his deeds should be reproved 9. Solitude is too like to Death to be desirable He liveth that doth good and he is dead that is useless Vivit is qui multis usui est Vivit is qui sentitur qui vero latitant torpent mortem suam antecesserint inquit Sen. He liveth that is profitable to many He liveth that is observed or perceived but they that lye hid and drowsie do anticipate their death And it is the most culpable death and therefore the worst to have Life and not to use it 10. A life of holy Communion is likest unto Heaven where none shall be solitary but all as members of the Heavenly Jerusalem shall in harmony Love and Praise their Maker These Reasons seem to me sufficient to satisfie you that no man should choose a Solitude without a special necessity or call nor yet should it be taken for a life of greater perfection then a faithful serving of God in publick and doing good to more I Shall now come to the Affirmative and tell you for all this that If God call us into Solitude or men forsake us we may rejoyce in this that we are not alone but the Father is with us Fear not such Solitude but be ready to improve it if you be cast upon it If God be your God reconciled to you in Christ and his Spirit be in you you are provided for Solitude and need not fear if all the world should cast you off If you be banished imprisoned or left alone it is but a Relaxation from your greatest labours which though you may not cast off your selves you may lawfully be sensible of your ease if God take off your burden It is but a cessation from your sharpest conflicts and removal from a multitude of great temptations And though you may not cowardly retreat or shift your selves from the sight and danger yet if God will dispense with you and let you live in greater peace and safety you have no cause to murmure at his dealing A fruit tree that groweth by the high-way side doth seldome keep its fruit to ripeness while so many passengers have each his stone or cudgel to cast at it Seneca could say Nunquam a turba mores quos extuli refero Aliquid ex eo quod composui turbatur aliquid ex his quae fugavi redit inimica est multorum conversatio I never bring home well from a crowd the manners which I took out with me something is disordered of that which I had set in order something of that which I had banished doth return the conversation of many I find an enemy to me O how many vain and foolish words corrupt the minds of those that converse with an ungodly world when your ears and minds who live in Solitude are free from such temptations You live not in so corrupt an Air as they You hear not the filthy ribbald speeches which fight against modesty and chastity and are the bellows of lust You hear not the discontented complaining words of the impatient nor the passionate provoking words of the offended nor the wrangling quarrelsome words of the contentious nor the censorious or slanderous or reproachful words of the malicious who think it their interest to have their brethren taken to be bad and to have others hate them because they themselves hate them and who are as zealous to quench the charity of others when it is destroyed in themselves as holy persons are zealous to provoke others to Love which dwelleth and ruleth in themselves In your Solitude with God you shall not hear the lyes and malicious revilings of the ungodly against the generation of the just nor the subtile cheating words of Hetericks who being themselves deceived would deceive others of their faith and corrupt their lives You shall not there be distracted with the noise and clamours of contending uncharitable professors of Religion endeavouring to make odious first the opinions and then the persons of one another one saying Here is the Church and another There is the Church one saying This is the true Church Government and another saying Nay but that is it One saying God will be worshipped thus and another Not so but thus or thus You shall not there be drawn to side with one against another nor to joyn with any faction or be guilty of divisions You shall not be troubled with the oaths and blasphemies of the wicked nor with the imprudent miscarriages of the weak with the persecutions of enemies or the falling out of friends You shall not see the cruelty of proud oppressors that set up lyes by armed violence and care not what they say or do nor how much other men are injured or suffer so that themselves may tyrannize and their wills and words may rule the world when they do so unhappily rule themselves In your Solitude with God you shall not see the prosperity of the wicked to move you to envy nor the adversity of the just to be your grief You shall see no worldly pomp and splendour to besool you nor adorned beauty to entice you nor wasting calamities to afflict you You shall not hear the laughter of fools nor the sick mans groans nor the wronged mans complaints nor the poor mans murmurings nor the proud mans boastings nor the angry mans abusive ragings As you lose the help of your gracious friends so you are freed from the fruits of their peevishness and passions of their differing opinions and wayes and tempers of their inequality unsuitableness and contrariety of minds or interests of their levity and unconstancy and the powerful temptations of their friendship to draw you to the errors or other sins which they are tainted with themselves In a word you are there half delivered from the VANITY and VEXATION of the world and were it not that you are yet undelivered from your selves and that you take distempered corrupted hearts with you O what a felicity would your solitude be But alas we cannot overrun our own diseases we must carry with us the remnants of our corrupted nature our deadness and dulness our selfishness and earthly minds our impatience and discontents and worst