that were it not for the work and higher ends of life I had little Reason to be much in love with it or to be loath to leave it And had not God put into our Nature itself a necessary unavoidable sensitive Love of the Body and of Life as he puts into the Mother and into every Bruit a love of their young Ones how unclean and impotent and troublesome soever for the propagation and continuance of Man on Earth Had God but left it to meer Reason without this necessary pre-engagement of our Natures it would have been a matter of more doubt and difficulty than it is whether this life should be loved and desired and no small number would daily wish that they had never been Born A wish which I have had much a do to forbear even when I have known that it is sinful and when the work and pleasure of my life have been such to overcome the evils of it as few have had 6. Yea to depart from such a Body is but to be removed from a very foul uncleanly and sordid Habitation I know that the Body of Man and Bruits is the curious wonderful work of God and not to be despised nor injuriously dishonoured but admired and well used But yet it is a wonder to our Reason that so noble a Spirit should be so meanly housed And we may call it Our vile Body as the Apostle doth Phil. 3. 21. It is made up of the Airy Watery and Earthly parts of our daily food subacted and actuated by the fiery part as the instrument of the Soul The greater part of the same food which with great cost and pomp and pleasure is first upon our Tables and then in our Mouths to day is to morrow a fetid loathsom excrement and cast out into the draught that the sight and smell of that annoy us not which yesterday was the sumptuous fruit of our abundance the glory of that which is called great housekeeping and the pleasure of our Eyes and Taste And is not the rest that turneth into Blood and Flesh of the same general kind with that which is turned into loathsom filth The difference is that it is fitter for the Soul by the fiery Spirits yet longer to operate on and keep from corruption Our blood and flesh are as stinking and loathsom a substance as our filthiest excrements save that they are longer kept from putrefaction Why then should it more grieve me that one part of my food which turned into flesh should rot and stink in the Grave than that all the rest should daily stink in the draught Yea while it is within me were it not covered from my sight what a loathsom mass would my Intestines appear If I saw what is in the Guts the Mesentery the Ventricles of the Brain what filth what bilious or mucous matter and perhaps crawling Worms there are in the most proud or comely Person I should think that the cover of a cleaner Skin and the borrowed Ornaments of Apparel make no great difference between such a Body and a Carkass which may be also covered with an adorned Coffin and Monument to deceive such Spectators that see but out-sides the change is not so great of corruptible Flesh repleat with such fetid Excrements into corrupted Flesh as some Fools imagine 7. Yet more to Depart from such a Body is but to be loosed from the Bondage of Corruption and from a Clog and Prison of the Soul I say not that God put a pre-existent Soul into this Prison Penally for former faults I must say no more than I can prove or than I know But that Body which was an apt Servant to Man's Soul is become as a Prison to him now What alteration sin made upon the Nature of the Body as whether it be more terrene and gross than else it would have been I have no reason to assert Of Earth or Dust it was at first and to Dust it is sentenced to return But no doubt but it hath its part in that dispositive depravation which is the fruit of sin we find that the Soul as sensitive is so imprisoned or shut up in Flesh that sometimes it is more than one Door that must be opened before the Object and the Faculty can meet In the Eye indeed the Soul seemeth to have a Window to look out at and to be almost itself viâ—ible to others And yet there are many interposing tunicles and a suffusion or winking can make the clearest sight to be as useless for the time as if it were none And if sense be thus shut up from its Object no wonder if Reason also be under difficulties from coporeal impediments and if the Soul that is yoaked with such a Body can go no faster than its heavy pace 8. Yet further To Depart from such a Body is but to be separated from an accidental Enemy and one of our greatest and most hurtful Enemies Though still we say That it is not by any default in the work of our Creator but by the effects of sin that it is such What could Satan or any other Enemy of our Souls have done against us without our flesh What is it but the Interest of this Body that standeth in competition against the Interest of our Souls and God What else do the prophane sell their heavenly Inheritance for as Esau his Birthright No Man loveth evil as evil but as some way a real or seeming good And what good is it but that which seemeth good for the Body What else is the Bait of Ambition Covetousness and Sensuality but the Interest and Pleasure of this Flesh What taketh up the Thoughts and Care which we should lay out upon things Spiritual and Heavenly but this Body and its Life What Pleasures be they that steal away mens Hearts from the heavenly Pleasures of Faith Hope and Love but the Pleasures of this Flesh This draweth us to sin This hindereth us from and in our duty This Body hath its interest which must be minded and its inordinate Appetite which must be pleased or else what murmurings and disquiet must we expect Were it not for Bodily Interest and its Temptations how much more innocently and holily might I live I should have nothing to care for but to please God and to be pleased in him were it not for the care of this Bodily life What Employment should my Will and Love have but to Delight in God and Love Him and his Interest were it not for the Love of the Body and its concerns By this the mind is darkened and the Thoughts diverted By this our wills are perverted and corrupted and by Loving things Corporeal contract a strangâ—ness and aversation from things Spiritual By this Heaâ—â— and Time are alienated from God our Guilt is increased and our heavenly desire and hopes destroyed Life made unholy and uncomfortable and Death made terrible God and our Souls separated and Life eternal set by and in danger of being utterly lost
and to enter the Holy Celestial Society should be no more joyfully affected with these hopes And that I should make any great matter of the pain and langishing and perishing of the Flesh when it is the common way to such an end O hateful sin that hath so darkned and corrupted Souls as to estrange and undispose them to the only state of their hoped happiness Alas what did Man when he forsook the Love and Obedience of his God How just it is that this Flesh and World should become our Prison which we would make our home and would not use as our Lord appointed us as our Servant and way to our better state Though our way must not be our home our Father would not have been so strange to us in the way if we had not unthankfully turned away from his Grace and Love § 9. It is to us that know not the Mysteries of Infinite Wisdom the saddest thought that ever doth possess our Minds to consider that there is no more Grace and Holiness knowledge of God and communion with him in this World That so few are Saints and those few so lamentably defective and imperfect That when the Sun shineth on all the Earth the Sun of Righteousness shineth on so small a part of it and so few live in the Love of God and the joyful hopes of future Blessedness and those few have so low a measure of it and are corrupted and troubled with so many contrary affections Infinite goodness is not undisposed to do good He that made us capable of Holy and Heavenly affections gave us not that Capacity in vain And yet alas how little of God and Glory taketh up the Hearts of men But Man hath no cause to grudge at God! The Devils before their fall were not made indefectible Divine Wisdom is delighted in the diversity of his Works and maketh them not all of equal excellency Free will was to act its part Hell is not to be as good as Heaven And sin hath made Earth to be next to Hell So much Sin so much Hell What is sin but a willful forsaking of God And can we forsake him and yet love him and enjoy his love God's Kingdom is not to be judged of by his Jail or Gibbets We willfully forsook the Light and made the World a Dungeon to our selves And when recovering Light doth shine unto us how unthankfully do we usually entertain it We cannot have the conduct and comfort of it while we shut our Eyes and turn away And what though God give not to all men an overcoming measure nor to the best so much as they desire The Earth is but a spot or point of God's Creation not so much as an Ant hillock to a Kingdom or perhaps to all the Earth And who is scandalized because the World hath an heap of Ants in it yea or a Nest of Snakes that are not men The vast unmeasurable Worlds of Light which be above us are possessed by Inhabitants suitable to their Glory A Casement or Crevise of Light or a Candle in this darksom World is an unspeakable Mercy yea that we may but hear of a better World and may seek it in Hope we must not grudge that in our Prison we have not that presence of our King and pleasures of the Kingdom as innocent and free Subjects have hope of Pardon of a speedy deliverance are great Mercies to Malefactors § 10. And if my want of the Knowledge and Love of God and joyful communion with the heavenly Society by my Prison and as the Suburbs of Hell should it not make me long for the Day of my Redemption and the glorious liberty of the Sons of God My true desires of deliverance and of Holiness and Perfection are my Evidences that I shall obtain them As the Will is the Sinner so it is the obstinate continuance of a Will to sin which is the bondage and the cause of continued sin And a continued Hell is continued sin as to the first part at least Therefore they that continue in Hell do continue in a sinning Will and so continue in a Love and willingness of so much of Hell So far as God maketh us willing to be delivered from sin so far we are delivered And our initial imperfect deliverance is the way to more If pains then make me groan for ease and sickness make me wish for Health why should not my remnants of Ignorance Unbelief and Strangeness to God occasion me to long for the Day of my Salvation This is the greatest of all my troubles And should it not then be the greatest wearying burden from which I should earnestly desire to be eased As Grace never doth hurt efficiently and yet may be ill used and do hurt objectively as to them that are proud of it so sin never doth good efficiently and of itself and yet objectively may do good For sin may be the Object of Grace and so to use it is not sin My unbelief and darkness and disaffection and inordinate love of this life do of themselves most hinder my desires of deliverance and of a better life but objectively what more fit to make me a weary of such a grievous state Were my unbelief and earthly mind predominant they would chain my affections to this World or if I were constrainedly weary of a miserable life I should have no comfortable hopes of a better But as it is the Nature of my sin to draw down my Heart from God and Glory it is the nature of my Faith and Hope and Love to carry it upward and to desire the heavenly Perfection Not to love Death but to love that which is beyond it And have I been so many years in the School of Christ learning both how to live and die begging and studying for this Grace and exercising it against this sinful Flesh and shall I now after all find Flesh more powerful to draw me downward than Faith Hope and Love to carry my desires up to God! § 11. O God forbid O thou that freely gavest me thy Grace maintain it to the last against its Enemies and make it finally victorious It came from thee it hath been preserved by thee it is on thy side and wholly for thee O let it not now fail and be conquered by blind and base Carnality or by the temptations of a hellish conquered Enemy without it I had lived as a Beast and without it I should die more miserably than a Beast It is thine Image which thou lovest it is a Divine Nature and heavenly Beam what will a Soul be without it but a Dungeon of Darkness a Devil for malignity and dead to Holiness and Heaven without it who shall plead thy Cause against the Devil World and Flesh without thy Glory Earth is but Earth without thy Natural Efficacy it would be nothing without thy wise and potent Ordination it would be but a Chaos and without thy Grace it would be a Hell O rather deny
by his life Having loved his own to the end he loveth them and without end His Gifts and Calling are without Repentance When Satan and thy Flesh would hide God's love look to Christ and read the golden words of Love in the Sacred Gospel and peruse thy many recorded experiences and remember the convictions which secret and open Mercies have many a time afforded thee But especially draw nearer to the Lord of Love and be not seldom and slight in thy contemplations of his Love and Loveliness Dwell in the Sun-shine and thou wâ—lt know that it is light and warm and comfortable Distance and strangeness cherish thy doubts Acquaint thy self with him and be at peace Yet look up and oft and earnestly look up after thy ascended glorified Head who said Tell my Brethren I ascend to my Father and your Father to my God and your God! Think where and what he is and what he is now doing for all his own and how humbled abased suffering Love is now Triumphant regnant glorified Love and therefore no less than in all its tender expressions upon Earth As Love is no where perfectly revealed but in Heaven so I can no where so fully discern it as by looking up by Faith to my Father and Saviour which is in Heaven and conversing more believingly with the heavenly Society Had I done this more and better and as I have persuaded others to do it I had lived in more convincing delights of God's Love which would have turned the fears of Death into joyfuller hopes and more earnest desires to be with Christ in the Arms in the World in the life of Love as far better than to be here in a dark a doubting fearing World But O my Father Infinite LOVE though my Arguments be many and strong my Heart is bad and my strength is weakness and I am insufficient to plead the cause of thy Love and Loveliness to my self or others O plead thy own cause and what Heart can resist Let it not be my word only but Thine that thou lovest me even me a Sinner speak it as Christ said to Lazarus Arise If not as thou tellest me that the Sun is warm yet as thou hast told me that my Parents and my dearest Friends did love me and much more powerfully than so Tell it me as thou tellest me that thou hast given me life by the consciousness and works of life That while I can say Thou that knowest all things Knowest that I love Thee it may include therefore I know that I am beloved of thee and therefore come to thee in the confidence of thy Love and long to be nearer in the clearer sight the fuller sense and joyfuller exercise of Love for ever Father into thy Hand I commend my Spirit Lord Jesus receive my Spirit Amen AN APPENDIX A Breviate of the Helps of Faith Hope and Love A Breviate of the proof of Supernatural Revelation and the Truth of Christianity 1 TIM 3. 16. Without Controversie great is the Mystery of Godliness God was manifested in the Flesh justified in the Spirit seen of Angels preached to the Gentiles believed on in the World received up into Glory THese are the Creed or Six Articles of the Gospel which the Apostles preached § 1. I. God manifested in the Flesh of Jesus is the first and great Article Believe this and believe all No wonder that believing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God is so often made in Scripture the description of saving Faith the Title to Baptism and Pardon and Salvation the Evidence of the Spirit c. He that truly and practically believeth that God came in Flesh to Man and that Christ is the Fathers Messenger from Heaven must needs believe that God hath a great value for the Souls of men and for his Church that he despiseth not even our Flesh that his Word is true and fully to be trusted that he who so wonderfully came to Man will certainly take up Man to him Who can doubt of the Immortality of Souls or that Christ will receive the departing Souls of the Faithful to himself who believeth that he took Man's Nature and hath glorified it now in Heaven in union with the Divine Who can ever have low Thoughts of God's love and Mercy who believeth this And who can prostitute his Soul and Flesh to wickedness who firmly believeth that he took the Soul and Flesh of Man to sanctifie and glorifie it § 2. II. The holy Spirit is the Justification of the Truth of Jesus Christ He is Christ's Advocate and Witness to the World He proveth the Gospel by these five ways of Evidence I. By all the Prophesies Types and Promises of Christ in the Old Testament before Christs coming II. By the Inherent impress of God's Image on the Person and Doctrine of Christ VVhich Propria luce sheweth itself to be Divine III. By the concomitant Miracles of Christ Read the History of the Gospel for this use and observe each History IV. By the subsequent gift of the Spirit to the Apostles and other Christians by Languages wonders and multitudes of Miracles to convince the VVorld V. By the undeniable and excellent work of Sanctification on all true Believers through all the VVorld in all generations to this day These five are the Spirits VVitness which fully justifieth the certain Truth that Jesus Christ is the Son of God § 3. Quest But how are we sure who our selves never saw the Person Miracles Resurrection Ascension of Christ that the History of them is true Answ 1. We may be sure that the Spectators were not deceived II. And that they did not deceive them to whom they reported it III. And that we are not deceived by any miscarriage in the historical Tradition to us § 4. I. It was not possible that men that were not mad that had Eyes and Ears could for three Years and a half believe that they saw the Lame the Blind the Deaf and all Diseases healed the Dead raised Thousands miraculously fed c. and this among crouds of People that still followed Christ if the things had not been true One Man's Senses may be deceived at some one instance by some deceitful accident But that the Eyes and Ears of Multitudes should be so oft deceived many years in the open Light is as much as to say No Man knoweth any thing that he seeth and heareth § 5. II. That the Disciples who received the Apostles and Evangelists report of Christ were not deceived by the Reporters is most evident For 1. They received it not by hearsay at the second hand but from the Eye and Ear Witnesses themselves who must needs know what they said 2. They heard this report from Men of the same Time and Age and Countrey where it was easy to examine the case and confute it had it been false 3. The Apostles appealed to crouds and Thousands of Witnesses as to many of Christ's Miracles who would have made it odious had it not been
blessed to be under the Love of Christ p. 881. Excitations Desires p. 182. 3. Communion with Angels and Saints by reception p. 188 More of the good of Vnion and Communion as distinct from singular Propriety p. 190. 5. The constitutive Reasons from our heavenly Practice p. 195. Better works for us there than here proved What they are in general What particularly I. Concordant praising God Excitations and Petitions p. 169. II. The blessed probably used for the good of men and things below p. 198. Their Opinion rejected that assert the cessation of sense proof Objection from Bruits answered The concluding Application p. 202. A Breviate of the helps of Faith Hope and Love for a dying Man I. The Gospel Evidence on 1 Tim. 3. 16. p. 260. II. A Breviate of the proof of supernatural Revelation and the Truth of Christianity p. 262. III. The difference between the World which I am leaving and the World which I am going to With Reasons of my comfortable hope p. 283. IV. More Reasons and Helps of my Faith and Hope p. 289. V. A discourse of the sensible manifestation of the Kingdom of Christ at his Transfiguration which is expounded and applied for the help of Faith and Patience p. 300. VI. Short Meditations on Rom. 5. 1 2 3 4 5. Of the shedding abroad of God's Love on the Heart that we may rejoice in hope of the Glory of God p. 360. THe exercise of Three sorts of LOVE to God to Others and to my Self afford me a Threefold satisfaction conjunct to be vvilling to depart I. I am sure my departure vvill be the fulfilling of that Will vvhich is Love it self vvhich I am bouâ—d above all things to Love and Please and vvhâ—â—â— is the beginning rule Antonineâ—ould â—ould hence fetch good Thoughts of Death II. The World dieth not vvith me vvhen I die nor the Church nor the Praise and Glory of God vvhich he vvill have in and from this World unto the end And if I love others as my self their Lives and Comforts vvill novv be to my Thoughts as if I vvere to live my self in them God vvill be praised and honoured by Posterity vvhen I am dead and gone Were I to be annihilated this vvould comfort me novv if I lived and died in perfect Love III. But a better and glorious World is before me into vvhich I hope by Death to be translated vvhither all these Three sorts of Love should rap up the desires of my ascending Soul even the Love of my self that I may be fully happy the Love of the triumphant Church Christ Angels and glorified Man and the Glory of all the Universe vvhich I shall see and above all the Love of the most Glorious God Infinite Life and Light and Love the ultimate Amiable Object of Man's Love in vvhom to beperfectly pleased and delighted and to vvhom to be perfectly pleasing for ever is the chief and ultimate end of me and of the highest vvisest and best of Creatures Amen THE INTRODUCTION PHIL. 1. 23. For I am in a streight between two c. I Write for my self and therefore supposing the sense of the Text shall only observe what is useful to my Heart and Practice It was a happy state into which Grace had brought this Apostle who saw so much not only tolerable but greatly desirable both in living and dying To live to him was Christ that is Christ's interest or work To die would be gain that is His own interest and reward His streight was not whether it would be good to live or good to depart Both were good But which was more desirable was the doubt I. Quest But was there any doubt to be made between Christ's interest and his own Ans No if it had been a full and fixed competition But by Christ or Christ's interest he meaneth his work for his Churches interest in this World But he knew that Christ also had an interest in his Saints above and that he could raise up more to serve him here Yet because he was to judge by what appeared and he saw a defect of such on Earth this did turn the Scales in his Choice and for the work of of Christ and his Churches good he more inclined to the delay of his reward by self-denial Yet knowing that the delay would tend to its increase It 's useful to me here to note That even in this World short of Death there is some good so much to be regarded as may justly prevail with Believers to prefer it before the present hastning of their reward I the rather note this that no temptation carry me into that extream of taking nothing but Heaven to be worthy of our minding or regard and so to cast off the World in a sinful sort on pretence of mortification and a heavenly mind and life I. As to the sense the meaning is not that any thing on Earth is better than Heaven or simply and in itself to be preferred before it The end is better than the means as such And perfection better than imperfection But the present use of the means may be preferred somtimes before the present possession of the end And the use of means for a higher end may be preferred before the present possession of a lower end And every thing hath its season Planting and Sowing and Building are not so good as Reaping and Fruit gathering and Dwelling But in their season they must be first done II. Quest But what is there so desirable in this Life Ans 1. While it continueth it is the fulfilling of the will of God who will have us here And that 's best which God willeth II. The life to come dependeth upon this As the life of Man in the World upon his Generation in the Womb Or as the reward upon the work or the Runners or Souldiers Prize upon his Race or Fighting Or as the Merchants gain upon his Voyage Heaven is won or lost on Earth The possession is there but the preparation is here Christ will judge all men according to their works on Earth Well done good and faithful Servant must go before Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord I have fought a good Fight I have finished my Course goeth before the Crown of Righteousness which God the righteous Judge will give All that ever must be done for Salvation by us must here be donc It waron Earth that Christ himself wrought the work of 〈◊〉 Redemption fulfilled all Righteousness became our Ransom And paid the Price of our Salvation And it 's here that our part is to be done And the bestowing of the reward of God's work who we are sure will never fail There is no place for the least suspicion or fear of his misdoing or failing in any of his undertaken work But the danger and fear is of our own miscarrying lest we be not found capable of receiving what God will certainly give to all that are disposed Receivers To distrust God is heinous sin and
offer him He hath the Witness in himself that there is in Believers a sanctifying Spirit calling up their Minds to God and Glory and warring victoriously against the Flesh so that to will is present with them and they love and delight in a Holy conformity to their Rule and it is never so well and pleasant with them as when they can trust and love God most and in their worst and weakest condition they would fain be Perfect This Spirit and its renewing work so greatly different from the temper and desires of worldly men is given by Christ to all sound believers § 10. It is true that some that know not of an Incarnate Saviour have much in them that is very laudable whether it be real saâ—ing Holiness and whether Abraham were erroneous in thinking that even the Sodom's of the World were likely to have had fifty righteous Persens in them I am not now to enquire But it is sure 1. That the World had really a Saviour about Four thousand Years before Christ's Incarnation even the God of pardoning Mercy who promised and undertook what after was performed and shall be to the end 2. And that the Spirit of this Saviour did Sanctifie God's Elect from the beginning and gave them the same holy and heavenly dispositions in some degree before Christ's Incarnation as is given since yea it is called The Spirit of Christ which was before given 1 Pet. 1. 11. 3. That this Spirit was then given to more than the Jews 4. That Christ hath put that part of the World that hear not of his Incarnation into no worse a Condition than he found them in That as the Jews Covenant of Peculiarity was no repeal of the Universal Law of Grace made by God with fallen Mankind in Adam and Noah so the Covenant of Grace of the Second Edition made with Christ's peculiar People is no repeal of the foresaid Law in the first Edition to them that hear not of the second 5. That all that wisdom and Goodness that is in any without the Christian Church is the work of the Spirit of the Redeemer as the light which goeth before Sun rising and after Sun setting and in a cloudy day is of the same Sun which others see even to them that see not the Sun itself 6. That the liker any without the Church are to the Sanctified Believers the better they are and the more unlike the worse so that all these six things being undeniable it appeareth that it is the same Spirit of Christ which now giveth all men what real goodness is any where to be found But it is notorious that no part of the World is in Heavenliness and Virtue comparable to true and serious Christians § 11. 7. And let it be added that Christ who promised the greatest measures of the Spirit which he accordingly hath given did expresly promise this as a Means and Pledge First-Fruits and Earnest of the Heavenly Glory And therefore it is a certain proof that such a Glory we shall have He that can and doth give us a Spiritual change or renovation which in its Nature and tendency is Heavenly and sets our Hopes and Hearts on Heaven and turneth the endeavours of our lives to the seeking of a future Blessedness and told us before hand that he would give us this preparatory Grace as the Earnest of that felicity may well be trusted to perform his Word in our actual glorification § 12. And now O weak and fearful Soul Why shouldst thou draw back as if the case were yet left doubtful Is not thy Foundation firm Is not the way of Life through the Valley of Death made safe by him that conquered Death Art thou not yet delivered from the Bondage of thy fears when the Jaylor and Executioner who had the power of Death hath by Christ been put out of his power as to thee Is not all this Evidence true and sure Hast thou not the Witness in thy self Hast thou not found the motions the effectual Operations the renewing changes of this Spirit in thee long ago and is he not still the Agent and Witness of Christ residing and Operating in thee Whence else are thy groanings after God Thy desires to be nearer to his glory To know him better To Love him more Whence came all the pleasure thou hast had in his Sacred Truth and Ways and Service Who else overcame thy Folly and Pride and vain desires so far as they are overcome Who made it thy choice to sit at the Feet of Christ and hear his Word as the better part and to despise the Honours and Preferments of the World and to account them all as Dung and Dross Who breathed in thee all those Requests that thou hast sent up to God Overvalue not corrupted Nature it bringeth not forth such Fruits as these If thou doubt of that remember what thou wast in the Hour of Temptation even of poor and weak Temptations And how small a matter hath drawn thee to sin when God did but leave thee to thy self Forget not the Days of youthful Vanity Over-look not the case of the miserable World Even of thy sinful Neighbours who in the midst of Light still live in darkness And hear not the loudest Calls of God Look about on Thousands that in the same Land and under the same teaching and after the greatest judgments and deliverance run on to all excess of riot and as past feeling are greedily vicious and unclean Is it no work of Christ's Spirit that hath made thee to differ Thou hast nothing to boast of and much to be humbled for but thou hast also much to be thankful for Thy Holy desires are alas too weak but they are Holy Thy Love hath been too cold but it is Holiness and the Most Holy God that thou hast loved Thy Hopes in God have been too low but it is God thou hast hoped in and his Love and Glory that thou hast hoped for Thy prayers have been too dull and interrupted but it is Holiness and Heaven that thou hast most prayed for Thy labours and endeavours have been too sloathful but it is God and Glory and the Good of Mankind that thou hast laboured for Though thy motion were too weak and slow it hath been Godward and therefore it was from God O bless the Lord that hath not only given thee a Word that beareth the Image of God and is sealed by uncontrolled Miracles to be the matter of thy Belief but hath also fulfilled his Promises so oft and notably to thee in the answer of Prayers and in great and convincing deliverances of thy self and many others And hath by wonders oft assisted thy Faith bless that God of Light and Love who besides the universal attestations of his Word long ago given to all the Church hath given thee the internal Seal the nearer indwelling attestation the effects of Power Light and Love imprinted on thy Nature Mind and Will the Witness in thy self
Patience a better and sweeter life than rest and joy § 14. But alas how deaf is Flesh to Reason Faith hath the Reason which easily may shame all contrary Reasoning but sense is unreasonable and especially this inordinate tenacious Love of present Life I have Reason enough to be willing to depart even much more willing than I am O that I could be as willing as I am convinced that I have Reason to be Could I Love God as much as I know that I should Love him then I should desire to depart and to be with Christ as much as I know that I should desire it But God in Nature hath here laid upon me some necessity of aversation though the inordinateness came from sin Else Christ had not so feared and deprecated the Cup Death must be a penalty even where it is a gain and therefore it must meet with some unwillingness Because we willingly sinned we must unwillingly suffer The Gain is not the pain or dissolution in itself but the happy consequents of it All the Faith and Reason in the World will not make Death to be no penalty and therefore will not take away all unwillingness No Man ever yet Reasoned or Believed himself into a Love of Pain and Death as such But seeing that the gain is unspeakably Greater than the Pain and Loss Faith and Holy Reason may make our willingness to be Greater than our unwillingness and our Hope and Joy than our Fear and Sorrow And it is the deep and effectual notice of Goodness which is God's way in Nature and Grace to change and draw the Will of Man Come then my Soul and Think believingly what is BEST for thee And wilt thou not Love and Desire most that which is certainly the BEST To Depart and to be with Christ is far better or rather to be chosen § 1. TO say and hear that it is far better to be with Christ is not enough to make us willing Words and Notions are such instruments as God useth to work on Souls but the convincing satisfying powerful Light and the inclining Love are other things The Soul now operateth ut forma hominis on and with the Corporeal Spirit and Organs and it perceiveth now its own perceptions but it is a stranger to the Mode of its future Action when it is separated from the Body and can have no formal conception of such conceptions as yet it never had And therefore its Thoughts of its future â—â—ate must be Analogical and General and partly â—range But General notices when certain may be very powerful and satisfie us in so much as is needful to our â—onsent and to such a measure of Joy as is suitable to this earthly state And such notices we have from the Nature of the Soul with the Nature of God the course of Providence and Government of Mankind the internal and external conflicts which we perceive about Mens Souls the Testimony and Promises of the Word of God the Testimony of Conscience with the Witness of the sanctifying Spirit of Christ and in it the Earnest and the foretast of Glory and the beginnings of Life eternal here of all which I have before considered § 2. The Socinians who would interpret this of the state of Resurrection only against plain evidence violate the Text Seeing Paul expresly speaketh of his Gain by Death which will be his abode with Christ and this upon his departure hence which in 2 Cor. 5. 7 8. he calleth his being absent from the Body and present with Lord And Christ to the penitent Thief calleth his being with him in Paradise And Luke 16. in the Parable of the Steward Christ intimateth to us that wise preparers when they go hence are received into the Everlasting habitations as he there further tells us Lazarus was in Abrahams bosom § 3. Goodness is primaria mensurans vel secundaria mensurata The first is God's perfect Essence and Will The second is either properly and simply Good or Analogical The former is the Creatures conformity to the Will of God or its Pleasingness to his will The later is 1. The Greater which is the wellfare or perfection of the Universe 2. The Lesser which is the Perfection of the several parts of the Universe either 1. In the nobler respect as they are Parts contributing to the Perfection of the whole or 2. In the lower respect as they are Perfect or Happy in themselves or 3. In the lowest respect of all as they are good to their fellow Creatures which are below themselves § 4. Accordingly It is far better to be with Christ I. Properly and simply as it is the fulfilling of God's will II. Analogically as it tendeth to the Perfection of the Universe and the Church III. And as it will be our own good or felicity IV. And as it will be Good to our inferiour fellow Creatures though this last be most questionable and seemeth not included in the meaning of this Text Somewhat of these in order § 5. I. It is an odious effect of Idolatrous SELFISHNESS to acknowledge no Goodness above our own FELICITY and accordingly to make the Goodness of God to be but formally his Usefulness Benovolence and Beneficence to his Creatures which is by making the Creature the ultimate End and God but the Means to make the Creature to be God and deny God indeed while we honour his Name As also it is to acknowledge no higher goodness formally in the Creature than its own felicity as such As if neither the pleasing of God's will nor the Perfection of the Church and World were better than we are We are not of our selves and therefore we are not chiefly for our selves and therefore we have a higher Good to Love That is simply Best which God willeth Therefore to Live here is Best whilest I do live here and to depart is best when the time of my departure cometh That is Best which is which is the work of God The World cannot be Better at this Instant than it is nor any thing Better which is of God because it is as he willeth it to be But when God hath changed them it will then be Best that they are changed Were there no other Good in my departure hence but this simple Good the fulfilling of God's will my Reason telleth me that I should be fully satisfied in it But there is also a subordinate sort of Good § 6. II. For my change will tend to the perfection of the Universe even that Material Good or Perfection which is its Aptitude for the use to which God hath created and doth preserve it As all the parts the modes the situation the motions of a Clock a Watch or other such Engine do to the ends of the Artificer Though God hath not told me particularly Why every Thing and Mode and Motion is as it is I know it is all done in perfect Wisdom and suited to its proper use and end If the Hen or Bird knoweth
how to make her nest to lay her Eggs secretly together when and how to sit on them till they are hatched and how to feed them and preserve them and when to forsake them as sufficient for themselves without her help c. If the Bâ—c know when and whence and how to gather her Honey and Wax and how to form the repository Combs and how to lay it up and all the rest of her marvellous Oeconomy shall I think that God doth he knoweth not what or what is not absolutely the best Doth he want either Shill or Will or Power And should the Stone grudge to be hewed the Brick to be burnt the Trees to be cut down and sawed and framed the Lead and Iron to be melted c. when it is but to form an useful Edifice and to adapt and compose every part to the perfecting of the whole Shall the Waters grudge that they must glide away and the Plants that they must die and half die every Winter and the Fruit and Flowers that they must fall or the Moon that it must have its changing motions or the Sun that it must set and rise so oft c. when all is but the action and order which maketh up that harmony and perfection which was designed by the Creator and is pleasing to his will § 7. III. But lawful self-love is yet further herein gratified The Goodness expressed in the Text is that Analogical subordinate Good which is mihi Bonum my own Felicity and that which tendeth thereunto It is most Reasonable to Love God best and that next which is likest him if known And why should it not be the easiest and the sweetest But experience findeth it so easie to Love our selves that certainly if I firmly Believe that it is best for me I shall Desire to depart and be with Christ And have I not reason to believe it § 8. The Reasons of it I will consider in this order I. The general Reason from the Efficients and the Means II. The Final Reasons III. The constitutive Reasons from the state of my Intellect and its Action and Fruition there IV. The constitutive Reasons from the state of my Will V. The constitutive Reasons from my practice there leaving out those which the Resurrection will give me because I am speaking but of my present departure unto Christ § 9. And 1. That is best for me which Love itself my heavenly Father designeth and chooseth for my good I hope I shall never dare to think or say that he is mistaken or that he wanted Skill or Love Or that I could have chosen better for my self than he doth if he had left all to my choice Many a time the wise and good-will of God hath crossed my foolish rebellious will on Earth And afterward I have still perceived that it was best usually for my self but always for a higher good than mine It is not an Enemy nor a Tyrant that made me that hath preserved me and that calls me hence He hath not used me as an Enemy The more I have tried him the better I have found him Had I better obeyed his Ruling will how happy had I been And is not his disposing and rewarding will as good Man's work is like Man and evil corrupteth it but God's work is like God and uncorrupted If I should not die till my dearest Friend would have it much more till I my self would choose it not constrained by misery I should rejoyce and think my life were safe O foolish sinful Soul if I take it not to be far better to be at God's choice than at my own or any Mans And if I had not rather that he choose the time than I. Be of good cheer then O my Soul it is thy Fathers voice that calls thee hence His voice that called thee into the World and bid thee live that called thee out of a state of sin and death and bid thee live hereafter unto him That called thee so oft from the Grave and forgiving thy sins renewed thy strength restored thee to the comforts of his House and Service and hath so graciously led thee through this howling Wilderness and brought thee almost to the sight of the promised Land And wilt thou not willingly go when infinite fatherly Love doth call thee Art thou not desirous of his presence Art thou afraid to go to him who is the only cure of thy fears What was it but this Glory to which he did finally Elect thee Where dost thou read that he Elected thee to the Riches and Honours of this World or to the pleasures of the Flesh But he Elected us in Christ to the heavenly Inheritance Eph. 1. 3 4 c. Indeed he Elected thee also to bear the Cross and to manifold sufferings here But is it that which thou preferrest before the Crown That was but as a Means unto the Kingdom that thou mightest be conformed to Christ and reign with him when thou hast suffered with him If God choose thee to blessedness refuse it not thy self nor behave thy self like a refuser § 10. 2. And surely that state is my Best which my Saviour purchased and promised me as best As he bought me not with Silver and Gold so neither to Silver and Gold Did he live and die to make me Rich or advanced in the World Surely his Incarnation Merits Sacrifice and Intercession had a low design if that were all And who hath more of these than they that have least of Christ But he purchased us to an incorruptible Crown to an Inheritance undefiled that fadeth notaway reserved in Heaven for us that are kept by God's Power through Faith unto Salvation 1 Pet. 1. And is it Heaven that cost so dear a price for me and is the End of so wonderful a design of Grace and shall I be unwilling now to receive the gift § 11. 3. That sure is Best for me for which God's Holy Spirit is preparing me That for which he is given to believers And that which is the End of all his holy Operations on my Soul But it is not to Love this World that he is persuading me from Day to Day but to come off from such Love and to set my Heart on the things above Is it to love this life and fleshly interest this Vanity and Vexation or rather to love the invisible Perfection that this blessed Spirit hath done so much to work my Heart And would I now undo all or Cross and frustrate all his Operations Hath Grace been so long preparing me for Glory and shall I be loath to take possession of it If I am not willing I am not yet sufficiently prepared § 12. 4. If Heaven be not better for me than Earth God's Word and Ordinances have been all in vain Surely that is my Best which is the Gift of the Better Covenant and which is secured to me by so many sealed Promises and which I am directed to by so many sacred Precepts
study it without Love What sounding Brass and tinkling Cymbals a lifeless Voice are they that preach of God and Christ and heavenly Glory without Love But gazing upon the face of Love in Christ and tasting of its gifts and looking up to its glorious reign is the way to kindle the Sacred Fire in thee Look upwards if thou wouldst see the Light that must lead thee upwards It is not for nothing that Christ hath taught us to begin our Prayers with Our Father which art in Heaven It is Fatherly Love that must win our Hearts and that must comfort them And it is in Heaven where this is gloriously manifested As I said before as the Soul is in all the Body but yet understandeth not in the Hand as it doth in the Head nor rejoiceth not in the Foot as it doth in the Heart so God that is every where doth not every where glorifie his Love as he doth it in Heaven Thither therefore the Mind and Eye are even by Nature taught to look up as to God as we look a Man in the Face when we speak to him rather than to his Feet though his Soul be also there My sinful Heart hath needed sorrow My careless rash presumptuous Soul hath needed fears and I have had some part of these Mercy saw it good for me as necessary to prevent my more dangerous deceits and lapses And O that in the hour of sensual temptations I had feared more and departed from evil But it is HOLY LOVE that must be my life Or else I am dead notwithstanding fear O come then and study the life of Love It is more of a Holy Nature than of Art but yet study must do much to prepare thee to receive it This is the great use of a heavenly Conversation It is the contemplation belief and hope of the glorious state of Love hereafter that must make us like it and kindle it in us here The burning Glass must be turned directly to the Sun if you will have it set any thing on fire There is a carnal or common love to God which is kindled in men by carnal pleasures But a Holy love like that in Heaven must be studiously fetcht from Heaven and kindled by the fore sight of what is there what we shall be there for ever Faith must ascend and look within the vail thou must not live as a stranger to thy home to thy God and Saviour and thy hopes The fire that must warm thee is in Heaven and thou must come near it or open thy self to its influence if thou wilt feel its powerful efficacy It is night and winter with carnal minds when it is day and summer with those that set their Faces Heavenward § 21. II. But though all my Receivings will be from God they will not be from him alone We must live in perfect Union also with one another and with all the heavenly Society and therefore as we must love them all so shall we be beloved by them all And this will be a subordinate part of our blessedness God there will make use of second causes even in communicating his Love and Glory § 22. 1. The Lord Jesus Christ will not only be the Object of our delightful love but will also love us with an effectual operative love for ever His love will be as the Vital Heat and Motion of the Heart to all the Members the Root of our Life and Joy The Love of our Redeemer will flow out into us all as the Vital Spirits and his Face of Glory will be the Sun of the heavenly Jerusalem and will shine upon us and shew us God And in his light we shall have light Did his tears for a dead Lazarus make men say Behold how he loved him O then what will the reviving Beams of heavenly life make us say of that love which filleth us with the pleasures of his presence and turneth our Souls into JOY it self He comforteth us now by the teaching of his Word but surely the fruition of Salvation will be more gladding then the tidings of it When he that told us of Glory in his Gospel shall give it us we shall not only believe but feel that he loveth us § 23. Believe O my Soul thy Saviours Love that thou maist foretast it and be fit to feel it We were uncapable in sinful Flesh of seeing him otherwise than as cloathed with Flesh and his consolations were administred by a word of Promise suitable to his appearance But when he withdrew his bodily presence the Comforter was sent with a fuller Consolation But all that was but the earnest and the first fruits of what he will be to us for ever Be not seldom not unbelieving nor slight in the thoughts of thy Saviours love for it is he that is the way to the Infinite love Let thy believing be so much of thy daily work that thou maist say that he dwelleth in thy Heart by Faith Eph. 3. 17. and that while thou livest here it is Christ that liveth in thee and that thy life in the Flesh is not a fleshly life but by the Faith of the Son of God that hath loved thee and given himself for thee Gal. 2. 20. And that though thou see him not yet believing thou lovest him also with unspeakable Joy as believing the unspeakable perfect Joy which his Love-will communicate to thee for ever Look upon the Sun and think thus with thy self How wonderful is the Emanation of this Sun Its motion light and heat communicated to so many Millions of Câ—eatures all over the Earth and in the Seas What if all these beams of light and heat were proportionable beams of perfect Knowledge Love and Joy and that all Creatures that are under the Sun had from its influx as much Wisdom Love and Joy as they have Light Heat and Motion Would not then this Earth be as a World of Angels and a Heaven O what a blessed World would it be And what a benefactor would the Sun be to the World Why even such will Jesus Christ be to the Celestial World He is the Sun of Glory His Influence will send forth LIFE and LIGHT and JOYFUL LOVE upon all the blessed from the Face of the God as the Sun sends forth from God its Motion Light and Heat upon this World Now therefore begin and live upon him live upon the influence of his Grace his Teaching Love-kindling and Quickning Grace that thou maist have his Name and Mark and he may find in thee something of himself or of his own when thou comest to his Righteous ryal His Grace is not in my power not at my command It is not meet it should be so But he hath not bid me seek and beg in vain If he had never told me that he will give it me it is equal to a promise if he do but bid me seek and ask But I have more He teacheth me to pray He maketh my Prayers He writeth me
entrance of the Inheritance of Saints And yet alas Darkness Darkness is still my misery There is Light round about me in thy word and works but darkness is within me And if my Eye be dark the Sun will be no Sun to me Alas my Lord it is noâ— all the Learning in the World no not of Theology that consisteth in the knowledge of Words and Methods which I can take for the satisfactory heavenly Light To know what thou hast written in the Sacred Book is nor enough to make me know my glorified Saviour my Father and my home It must be a Light from Heaven that must shew me Heaven and a Light accompanied with Vital heat that must turn to Love and Joy within me O Let me not have only dreaming knowledge of Words and Signs but quickning Light to shew the Things which these words do signifie to my Mâ—nd and Heart Surely the Faith By which we must live must be a lâ—ving Faith And must reach further than to Words how true soever Can Faith live in the Dark What is it but an effect of thine Illumination What is my Unbelief but the Darkness of my Soul Lord Iesus scatter all these mists Make thy way O thou Son of Righteousness into this benighred mind O send thine Advocate to silence every temptation that is against thy truth and thee and thine Agent to prosecute thy cause against thine Enemies and mine and to be the resident Witness of thy Verity and my Sonship and Salvation Hearing of thee is not satisfactory to me It must be the Presence and Operation of thy Light and Love shed abroad by thy Spirit on my Heart that must quiet and content my Soul I confess with shame that I have sinned against Heaven and before thee and am unworthy to have any glimpse or taste of Heaven But so did many that are now entertained and feasted by thy Love in Glory My Lord I know that Heaven is not far from me It is not I believe one Days or Hours journey to a separated Soul How quick is the communion of my Eyes with the Sun that seems far off And couldst thou not shew it me in a moment Is not Faith a seeing Grace It can see the invisible God and the unseen World the new Jerusalem the innumerable Angels and the Spirits of the perfected Just if it be animated by thine influx Without which it can do nothing and is nothing Thou that oft healedst the Blind here in the Flesh didst tell us that it is much more thy work to illuminate Souls It is but forgiving all my sins and removing this film that sin hath gathered and my illuminated Soul will see thy Glory I know that the vail of Flesh must be also rent before I shall see thee with open Face and know my fellow Citizens above as I am known It is not Heaven on Earth that I am begging for But that I may see it from Mount Nebo and have the bunch of Grapes the Pledge and the first Fruits that Faith and Hope which may kindle Love and Desire and make me run my Race in Patience and live and die in the Joy which beseemeth an Heir of Heaven But if my part on Earth must be no greater than yet it is let it make me the wearier of this Dungeon and groan more fervently to be with thee and long for the day when all my longing shall be satisfied and my Soul be filled with thy light and love § 24. And doubtless as I shall love the Angels and Saints in Heaven so I shall some way in subordination to Christ be a Receiver from them Our love will be mutual And which way soever I owe duty I shall expect some answerable return of benefit The Sun shineth upon the Stars as well as on the Earth and the Stars on one another If Angels are greatly useful to me here it 's like they will be much more there where I shall be a more capable receiver It will be no diminution to Christ's honour that he there maketh use of my fellow Creatures to my joy no more than it is here The whole Creation will be still one compaginated frame and the heavenly Society will for ever retain their Relation to each other and their aptitude and disposition to the duties and benefits of those Relations And as we shall be far sitter for them than here we are so shall we have far more comfort in them How gloriously will God shine in the glory of the Blessed How delightful will it be to see their Perfection in Wisdom Holiness Love and Concord What Voices they use or what Communication instead of Voices we shall shortly know But surely there is a blessed harmony of Minds and Wills and Practice All are not equal but all accord to love and praise their glorious God and readily to obey him and perfectly to love each other There is no jarring or discordant Spirit that is out of tune no separation or opposition to each other As God's love in Christ is our full and final happiness so Nature which hath made us sociable teacheth us to desire to be loved of each other but especially by wise and worthy Persons Saints and Angels in Heaven will love incomparably better than our dearest Friends on Earth can do and better than they did themselves when we were on Earth For they will love that best which is best and where there is most of God appearing Else it were not intellectual love And therefore they will love us as much better when we come to Heaven as we shall be better If we go from loving friends on Earth we shall go to them that love us far more The love of these here doth but pitty us in our pains and go weeping with our Carkasses to the Grave But the love of those above will joyfully convoy or welcome out Souls to their triumphing Society All the holy Friends that we thought we had lost that went before us we shall find rejoicing there with Christ And O what a glorious state will be that common uniting and united love If two or three Candles joined together make a greater flame and light what would Ten thousand Stars united do When all the LOVE of Angels and Saints in full Perfection shall be so united as to make ONE LOVE to God that is One and to one another who are there all one in Christ O what a glorious LOVE will that be That LOVE and JOY will be the same thing And that One universal LOVE will be One universal JOY Little know we how great a Mercy it is to be here commanded to love our Neighbours as our selves and much more to be effectually taught of God so to love one another And did we all here live in such unfeigned Love we should be like to Heaven as bearing the Image of the God of Love But alas our Societies here are small our Goodness which is our Amiableness wofully imperfect and mixt with loathsom
Trust and quietly Trust that Infinite Wisdom Love and Power whom I have so long trusted and found so good Nature teacheth Man to love best those Animals that are tame and tractable that trust us and love us that will come to our hands and love our Company that will be familiar with us and follow us be it Horse or Dog Beasts or Birds But those that are wild and live in Woods and fly from the Face of Man are taken to be the Game and Preys of any one that can catch and kill them And shall my foolish Soul thus wildly fly from the Face of God Shall his Children be like the fearful Hare Or like a guilty Cain Or like an unbelieving Sadduce that either believeth not or hopeth not for the forgiveness of sin and the life Everlasting Doth not the Spirit of Adoption incline us to love our Fathers presence and to be loth to be long from home To distrust all Creatures even thy self is not unreasonable but to distrust God hath no just excuse Fly from Sin from Satan from Temptations from the World from sinful Flesh and Idol-self But fly not from him that is Goodness Love and Joy itself Fear thine Enemy but Trust thy Father If thy Heart be reconciled to Him and his Service by the Spirit he is certainly reconciled to thee through Christ And if he be for thee and justifie and love thee who shall be against thee or condemn thee or separate thee from his Love If thy unreconciled will do make thee doubt of his reconciliation it 's time to abhor and lay by thy Enmity Consent and be sure that he consenteth Be willing to be his and in Holiness to serve him and to be united in joyful Glory to him and then be sure that he is willing to accept thee and receive thee to that Glory O dark and sinful Soul how little dost thou know thy Friend thy Self or God if thou canst more easily and quietly trust thy Life thy Soul and Hopes to the will of thy Friend or of thy self if thou hadst power than to the will of God Every Dog would be at home and with his Master much more every ingenuous Child with his Father And tho Enemies distrust us Wife and Children will not do so while they bâ—lieve us just And hath God ever shewed himself either unfaithful or unmerciful to me To thee O Lord as to a faithful Creator I commit my Soul 1 Pet. 4. 19. I know that thou art the faithful God who keepest Covenant and Mercy with them that love thee and keep thy Commandments Deut. 7. 9. Thou art faithful who hast called me to the communion of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord 1 Cor. 1. 9. Thy faithfulness hath saved me in and from temptation 1 Cor. 10. 13. It hath stablished me and kept me from prevailing evil 2 Thess 3. 3. And if will keep my Spirit Soul and Body to the coming of Christ 1 Thess 5. 23 24. It is in faithfulness that thou hast afflicted me Ps 119. 75. and shall not I trust thee then to save me It is thy faithful Word that all thine Elect shall obtain the Salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal Glory and if we be dead with him shall live with him and if we suffer we shall also reign with him 2 Tim. 2. 10 11 12. To thee O my Saviour I commit my Soul it is thine own by Redemption it is thine own by Covenant It is marked and Sealed by thy Spirit as thine own and thou hast promised not to lose it Joh. 6. 39. Thou wast made like us thy Brethren that thou mightest be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God to make reconciliation for our Sins By thy Blood we have boldness to enter into the Holiest even by the new and living consecrated way Cause me to draw near with a sincere Heart in full assurance of Faith by thee that art the High Priest over the House of God For he is faithful that has promised life through thee Heb. 10. 19 20 21 22 23. Thy Name is Faithful and True Rev. 19. 11. and Faithful and True are all thy Promises Rev. 22. 6. 21. 5. Thou hast promised Rest to weary Souls that come to thee Matth. 11. 28. 2 Thess 1. 7. I am weary of suffering and weary of sin weary of my flesh and weary of my darkness and dulness and distance and of this wicked blind unrighteous and confounded World And whither should I look for Rest but home to my heavenly Father and to Thee I am but a bruised Reed but thou wilt not break me I am but a smoaking Flax but thou wilt not quench what thy Grace hath kindled but thou in whose Name the Nations trust wilt bring forth judgment unto Victory Matth. 12. 20 21. The Lord redeemeth the Souls of his Servants and none of them that trust in thee shall be desolate Psa 34. 22. Therefore will I wait on thy Name for it is good and will trust in the Mercy of God for ever Psal 52. 8 9. The Lord is Good a strong-hold in the day of trouble and he knoweth them that trust in him Nah. 1. 7. sinful fear is a snare but he that putteth his trust in the Lord shall be set on high Prov. 29. 25. Blessed is the Man that maketh the Lord his trust and respecteth not the Proud and such as turn aside to lies Psal 40. 4. Thou art my hope O Lord God thou art my trust from my youthâ— By thee have I been holden up from the Womb my praise shall be continually of thee Cast me not off now in the time of Age forsake me not when my strength faileth O God thou hast taught me from my youth and hitherto have I declared thy wondrous works Now also when I am old and gray O God forsake me not Psal 17. 5 6 9 17 18. Leave not my Soul destitute for mine Eyes are toward thee my trust is in thee Psa 14. 8. I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the Land of the Living Even where they that live shall die no more The Sun may cease to shine on Man and the Earth to bear us but God will never cease to be Love nor to be faithful in his Promises Blessed be the Lord who hath commanded me so safe and quietting a duty as to trust him and cast all my cares on him as on one that hath promised to care for me 11. And blessed be God who hath made it my Duty to HOPE for his Salvation HOPE is the Ease yea the life of our Hearts that else would break yea die within us Despair is no small part of Hell God cherisheth Hope as he is the lover of Souls Satan our Enemy cherisheth Despair when his way of blind Presumption faileth As Fear is a foretast of Evil before it is felt so Hope doth anticipate and foretast Salvation before it is
Will And wilt thou cast away a Soul that hopeth in thee by thine own Command and Operation Had Wealth and Honour or continuance on Earth or the favour of Man been my reward hope my hope I had died together Were this our best how vain were Man But the Lord liveth and my Redeemer is glorified and interceedeth for me And the same Spirit is in Heaven who is in my Heart As the same Sun is in the Firmament which is in my House And the Promise is sure to all Christ's Seed And Millions are now in Heaven that once did live and die in hope they were Sinners once as now I am They had no other Saviour no other Sanctifier no other Promise than I now have confessing that they were Strangers here they looked for a better Countrey and for a City that had Foundations even a heavenly where now they are And shall I not follow them in hope that have sped so well Hope then O my Soul unto the end 1 Pet. 1. 13. From henceforth and for ever hope in the Lord Psal 131. 13. I will hope continually and will yet praise thee more and more my Mouth shall shew forth thy Righteousness and Salvation Psal 71. 14 15. The Lord is at my right Hand I shall not be moved My Heart therefore is glad and my glory rejoiceth my Flesh also shall dwell confidently and rest in hope for God hath shewed me the path of Life in his presence is fulness of joy and at his right Hand are pleasures for evermore Psal 16. 8 9 10 11. III. What then remaineth O my Soul but that in TRUST and HOPE thou LOVE thy God thy Saviour thy Comforter the Glorious Society thy own Perfection in Glorious Endless Heavenly Life and Light and Love and the Joyful Praises of Jehovah better then this burden of painful and corruptible Flesh and this howling Wilderness the Habitation of Serpents and untamed Bruits where unbelief and murmuring Lust and Folly Injustice and Uncharitableness Tyranny and Divisions Pride and Contention have long provoked God and wearied thee Where the Vintage and Harvest is Thorns and Thistles Sin and Sorrows Cares and Crosses manured by manifold Temptations How odious is that darkness and unbelief that unholiness and disaffection that deadness and stupidity which maketh such a work as this so reasonable necessary and pleasant a work to seem unsuitable or hard Is it unsuitable or hard to the Eye to see the Sun and Light Or by it to see the beautified World Or for a Man to love his Life or Health his Father or his Friend What should be easier to a Nature that hath rational LOVE than to Love him that is Essential LOVE itself He that loveth all and giveth to all the Loving faculty should be loved by all And he that hath specially loved me should be specially loved by me Love is the Perfection of all thy Preparations It desireth to Please God and therefore to be in the most pleasing state and freed from all that is displeasing to him which is not to be hoped for on Earth It desireth all suitable nearness acquaintance union and communion It is weary of distance estrangedness and alien society and affairs It taketh advantage of every notice intimation or mention of God to renew and exercise these desires Every Message and Mercy from him is fewel for Love and while we are short of Perfection stir up our desires after more When Love tasteth of the Grapes it would have the Vine When it tasteth of the Fruits it would dwell where they grow and possess the Land Its thoughts of Proximity and fruition are sweet No other Person or Thing can satisfie it The Soul is where it loveth If our Friend dwell in our Hearts by Love and if fleshly Pleasure Riches and Honour do dwell in the Heart of the Voluptuous the Covetous and the Proud surely God and our Redeemer the heavenly Society Holiness and Glory do dwell in the Heart which loveth them with a fervent Love And if Heaven dwell in my Heart shall I not desire to dwell in Heaven Light and Light Fire and Fire are not more inclined to union then Love and Love Gracious Love and Glorious Love Would Divine Original Universal LOVE communicate and pour out itself more plentifully upon my Heart how easy would it be to leave this Flesh and World And to hear the Sentence of my departure to my God Death and the Grave would be but a Triumph for victorious Love It would be easier to die in Peace and Joy than to rest at Night or to come home from my Travel to my beloved Friends or to go when I am hungry to a Feast A Little Love hath made me study willingly and preach willingly and write willingly yea and suffer somwhat willingly and would not more make me go more willingly to God Shall the imagination of House Gardens Walks Libraries Prospects Meadows Orchards Hills and Rivers allure the desires of deceived Minds And shall not the Thoughts of the heavenly Mansions Society and Delights much more allure and draw up my desires The reading of a known Fiction of a Civitas Solis an Utopia an Atlantis c. hath pleased many But if I did believingly hear of such a Countrey in the World where men did never die nor were sick or weak or sad where the Prince were perfectly just and pious wise and peaceable devoted to God and the publick good and the Teachers were all wise judicious men of Universal certain knowledge perfectly acquainted with the Matter and Method of Natural and Theological Truths and all their duty and all of one Mind and of one Heart and Tongue and Practice loving each other and the People as themselves and leading the Flocks heavenward through all temptations with triumphant hopes and joy where all the People perfectly obeyed God their Commanders and their Teachers and lived in perfect Love Unity and Peace and were daily employed in the joyful praises of God and hopes of Glory and in doing all possible good to one another contending with none through ignorance uncharitableness or pride nor ever reproaching injuring or hurting one another c. I say if I knew or heard of such a Countrey should I not love it before I ever see it and earnestly desire to be there Nay do I not over-love this distracted World where Tyranny sheddeth streams of Blood and layeth desolate Cities and Countries and exposeth the miserable Inhabitants to lamentable Distress and Famine where the same Tyranny sets up the Wicked reproacheth and oppresseth the Just and Innocent keepeth out the Gospel and keepeth up Idolatry Infidelity and Wickedness in the far greatest part of all the Earth where Satan chooseth Pastors too often for the Churches of Christ even such as by Ignorance Pride Sensuality Worldliness and Malignity become Thorns and Thistles yea devouring Wolves to those whom they should feed and comfort where no two Persons are in all things of a Mind where Evil
others groping for it in the dark wandring and lost in the clearest Light where the illuminated can but pitty the Blind but cannot make them willing to be delivered What is Heaven to me but GOD GOD who is LIFE and LIGHT and LOVE communicating himself to blessed Spirits perfecting them in the Reception Possession and Exercise of LIFE and LIGHT and LOVE FOR EVER These are not the Accidents but the Essence of that God who is Heaven and All to me should I fear that Death which passeth me to Infinite Essential Life Should I fear a darksom passage into a World of perfect LIGHT Should I fear to go to LOVE itself Think O my Soul what the Suns quickening Light and Heat is to this lower corporeal World Much more is GOD even Infinite LIFE and LIGHT and LOVE to the blessed World above Doth it not draw out thy desires to think of going into a World of LOVE When LOVE will be our Region our Company our Life More to us than the Air is for our Breath than the Light is for our sight than our Food is for our Life than our Friends are for our Solace And more to us than we are to our selves and we more for it as our ultimate end than for our selves O excellent Grace of Faith which doth foresee and blessed Word of Faith that doth foreshew this World of LOVE Shall I fear to enter where there is no WRATH no fear no strangeness nor suspicion nor selfish separation but LOVE will make every holy Spirit as dear and lovely to me as my self and me to them as lovely as themselves and God to us all more amiable than our selves and all Where LOVE will have no defects or distances no damps or discouragements no discontinuance or mixed disaffection but as LIFE will be without Death and LIGHT without Darkness a perfect everlasting Day of Glory so will LOVE be without any hatred unkindness or allay As many Coals make one Fire and many Candles conjoined make one Light so will many living Spirits make one Life and many illuminated Glorious Spirits one Light and Glory and many Spirits innaturalized into LOVE will make one Perfect LOVE of GOD and be LOVED as One by God for ever For all the Body of Christ is One even here it is One in initial Union of the Spirit and Relation to One God and Head and Life 1 Cor. 12. throughout Eph. 4. 1. to 17. and shall be presented as beloved and spotless to God when the great Marriage Day of the Lamb shall come Eph. 5. 24 25 c. Rev. 21. 22. Had thou not given me O Lord the LIFE of Nature I should have had no conceptions of a Glorious everlasting Life But if thou give me not the Life of Grace I shall have no sufficient delightful inclination and desire after it Hadst thou not given me Sight and Reason the Light of Nature I should not have thought how desirable it is to live in the Glorious Light and Vision but if thou give me not the Spiritual Illumination of a seeing Faith I shall not yet long for the Glorious Light and beatifical Vision Hadst thou not given me a Will and Love which is part of my very Nature itself I could not have tasted how desirable it is to live in a World of Universal perfect endless LOVE But unless thou also shed abroad thy LOVE upon my Heart by the Spirit of Jesus the Great Medium of LOVE and turn my very Nature or Inclination into Divine and Holy LOVE I shall not long for the World of LOVE Appetite followeth Nature O give me not only the Image and the Art of Godliness the approaches towards it nor only some forced or unconstant acts but give me the Divine Nature which is Holy Love and then my Soul will hasten towards thee and cry How long O Lord How long O come come quickly make no delay Surely the fear of dying intimateth some contrary Love that inclineth the Soul another way and some shameful unbelief and great unapprehensiveness of the Attractive Glory of the World of LOVE Otherwise no frozen Person so longeth for the Fire none in a Dungeon so desireth Light as we should long for the heavenly Light and Love God's Infinite Essential SELF-LOVE in which he is Eternally delighted in himself is the most Amiable Object and Heaven itself to Saints and Angels And next to that His Love to all his Works to the World and to the Church in Heaven speaketh much more of his Loveliness than his Love to me But yet due Self-love in me is his work and part of his natural Image and when this by sin is grown up to excess through the withdrawing of a contracted narrow Soul from the Union and due Love to my fellow Creatures and to God I must also I cannot but enquire after God's Love to me and by this my desires must much be moved For I am not so capable of ascending above Self-interest and self-Self-love as in the state of Glorious Union I shall be I am glad to perceive that others do love God and I love those most that I find most love him But it is not other mens love to God that will be accepted by him instead of mine Nor is it God's Love to others which yet rejoiceth me that will satisfie me without his love to me But when all these are still before me God's Essential Self-love and Delight his Love to his Creatures especially the Glorified and his Love to me also even to me a vile unworthy Sinner what then should stay my ascending Love or discourage my desires to be with God And dost thou doubt canst thou doubt O my Soul whether thou art going to a God that loveth thee If the Jews discerned the great love of Christ to Lazarus by his Tears canst not thou discern his Love to thee in his Blood It is never the less but the more obliging and amiable that it was not shed for thee alone but for many May I not say as Paul Gal. 2 20. I live by the Faith of the Son of God that hath loved Me and given himself for me Yea it is not so much I that live as Christ Liveth in me And will he forsake the Habitation which his love hath chosen And which he hath so dearly bought O read often that triumphing Chapter Rom. 8. and conclude What shall separate us from the Love of God If Life have not done it Death shall not do it If leaning on his Breast at Meat was a token of Christ's special love to John is not his dwelling in me by my Faith and his living in me by his Spirit a sure token of his love to me And if a dark saying If he tarry till I come what is that to thee raised a report that the beloved Disciple should not die why should not plain Promises assure me that I shall live with him that loveth me for ever Be not so unthankful O my Soul as to question
doubtingly whether thy heavenly Father and thy Lord doth love thee Canst thou forget the sealed Testimonies of it Did I not even now repeat so many as should shame thy doubts A multitude of thy Friends have loved thee so entirely that thou canst not doubt of it And did any of them signifie their love with the convincing evidence that God hath done Have they done for thee what he hath done Are they Love itself Is their love so full so firm and so unchangeable as his I think the sweetlier of Heaven because abundance of my ancient Lovely and Loving Holy Friends are there and am the willinger by Death to follow them And should I not think of it more pleasedly because my God and Father my Saviour and my Comforter is there And not alone but with all the Society of Love Was not Lazarus in the Bosom of God himself yet it is said that he was in Abraham's Bosom as the Promise runs that we shall sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of God And what maketh the Society of Saints so sweet as holy Love It is comfortable to read that To love the Lord our God with all our Heart and Soul and might is the First and great Commandment and the Second is like to it To Love our Neighbours as our selves For God's Commands proceed from that Will which is his Nature or Essence and they tend to the same as their Objective end Therefore he that hath made Love the Great Command doth tell us that LOVE is the Great conception of his own Essence the spring of that Command and that this commanded imperfect Love doth tend to perfect heavenly Love even to our communion with Essential Infinite Love It were strange that the Love and Goodness which is equal to the Power that made the World and the Wisdom that ordereth it should be scant and backward to do good and to be suspected more than the Love of Friends The remembrance of the holiness humility love and faithfulness of my dearest Friends of every Rank with whom I have conversed on Earth in every place where I have lived is so sweet to me that I am oft ready to recreate my self with the naming of such as are now with Christ But in Heaven they will love me better than they did on Earth and my love to them will be more pleasant But all these Sparks are little to the Sun Every place that I have lived in was a place of Divine Love which there set up its obliging Monuments Every Year and Hour of my life hath been a time of Love Every Friend and every Neigbour yea every Enemy have been the Messengers and Instruments of Love Every state and change of my life notwithstanding my sin hath opened to me Treasures and Mysteries of Love And after such a life of Love shall I doubt whether the same God do love me Is he the God of the Mountains and not of the Valleys Did he love me in my youth and health And doth he not love me in my Age and Pain and Sickness Did he love all the Faithful better in their life than at their Death If our hope be not chiefly in this life neither is our state of Love which is principally the heavenly endless Grace My groans grieve my Friends but abate not their love Did he love me for my strength my weakness might be my fear as they that love for Beauty loath them that are deformed and they that love for Riches despise the Poor But God loved me when I was his Enemy to make me a Friend and when I was bad to make me better What ever he taketh pleasure in is his own gift Who made me to differ And what have I that I have not received And God will finish the Work the Building the Warfare that is his own O the multitude of Mercies to my Soul and Body in Peace and War in Youth and Age to my self and friends the many great and gracious deliverances which have testified to me the Love of God! Have I lived in the experience of it and shall I die in the doubts of it Had it been Love only to my Body it would have died with me and not have accompanied my departing Soul I am not much in doubt of the truth of my Love to him Though I have not seen him save as in a Glass as in a Glass seen I love him I love my Brethren whom I have seen and those most that are most in Love with him I love his Word and Works and Ways and fain I would be nearer him and love him more and I loath my self for loving him no better And shall Peter say more confidently Thou knowest that I love thee than I know that thou lovest me Yes he may because though God's Love is greater and stedfaster than ours yet our knowledge of his great love is less than his knowledge of our little love and as we are defective in our own Love so are we in our certainty of its sincerity And without the knowledge of our Love to God we can never be sure of his special love to us But yet I am not utterly a stranger to my self I know for what I have lived and laboured in the World And who it is that I have desired to please The God whose I am and whom I serve hath loved me in my youth and he will love me in my aged weakness My Flesh and my Heart fail my pains seem grievous to the Flesh But it is LOVE that chooseth them that useth them for my good that moderateth them and will shortly end them Why then should I doubt of my Fathers Love Shall pain or dying make me doubt Did God love none from the beginning of the World but Henoch and Elias And what am I better than my fore-Fathers What is in me that I should expect exemption from the common lot of all Mankind Is not a competent time of great Mercy on Earth in order to the unseen felicity all that the best of men can hope for O for a clearer stronger Faith to shew me the World that more excelleth this than this excelleth the Womb where I was conceived Then should I not fear my third Birth day what pangs soever go before it nor be unwilling of my change The Grave indeed is a Bed that Nature doth abhor Yet there the weary be at rest But Souls new born have a double Nature that is Immortal and go to the place that is agreeable to their Nature even to the Region of Spirits and the Region of Holy Love Even passive Matter that hath no other Natural motion hath a Natural Inclination to uniting aggregative motion And God maketh all Natures suitable to their proper ends and use How can it be that a Spirit should not incline to be with Spirits And Souls that have the Divine Nature in holy Love desire to be with the God of Love Arts and Sciences and Tongues become not
This Nature and its faculties and powers are not made in vain II. Reason assureth me that all men are bound by Nature to prefer the least probability of a Life of Everlasting Joy before all the Prosperity of this World and to suffer the loss of all this short Vanity to escape the least possibility of endless misery And Nature hath such notices of Rewards and Punishments after Death that no Man can say that he is sure there is no such thing From whence it followeth that all men are bound by the very Law of Nature to be Religious and to seek first and most their Salvation in the Life to come And if so It 's certain that there is such a thing to be obtained Else God had made the very Nature of Man to be deceived by itself and to spend the chief part yea all his life through labour and suffering for that which is not and so made his greatest duty to be his greatest deceit and misery And the worst men should be least deceived But all this is not to be imputed to our wise and good Creator III. The universal sense of Moral Good and Evil in all Mankind is a great evidence of another life The vilest Atheist cannot abide to be accounted a Knave a Lyer a bad Man nor will equal a vicious Servant with another All would be thought good who will not be good And doth not God make a greater difference than Man And will he not shew it IV. The World is actually ruled much by the hopes and fears of another life and cannot well be ruled without it according to the Nature of Man But the Almighty most Wise and most Holy God needs not and will not rule the World by meer deceit V. The Gospel of Christ hath brought Life and Immortality into a clearer Light than that of Nature And it must be by believing in Christ that we must have our full satisfaction O what hath God done in the Wonders of Redemption to make us sure And against the doubts that are apt to rise from some hard particular Text of Scripture it must be considered I. That Christ and his Apostles did put the ascertaining Seal of the many uncontrolled Miracles to the Gospel Doctrin primarily which Doctrin 1. Was delivered and sealed Eight years before any of the New Testament was written and almost Seventy before the last 2. And Christ did not speak in the Language that the Gospel is written to us so that being but a Translation as to his own Words the Matter is the thing first sealed II. And that it was the two Legislator-Mediators Moses and Christ who came with the great stream of uncontrolled Miracles It being necessary that men should have full proof that a Law or Doctrin is of God before they believe it But the Priests and Prophets after Moses and the Preachers and Pastors of the Christian Church who were not Commissioned to bring men any New Laws or Gospel but to proclaim and teach that which they received needed no such New Testimony of Miracles III. The Belief of every particular Priest or Prophet after Moses or every Pastor after Christ and his Apostles was not of the same degree of necessity to Salvation as the belief of the Law and Gospel itself Therefore though all the Holy Scripture be true the Law and the Gospel must be much differenced from the rest IV. The History of the Law and Gospel have full ascertaining historical Evidence or else there is none such in the World Therefore the Doctrin must be true V. The Prophesies fulfilled prove the Gospel true VI. And the Divine Impress on the whole VII And the sanctifying work of the Spirit wrought by it in all Nations and Ages on serious Believers is a constant Divine attestation VIII And as my Faith hath so sure a Foundation it confirmeth my Faith and Hope that it hath been so long and great a work of God by his Word and Spirit on my Soul to raise it to believe and love and desire that Holy state of Perfection and Fruition which I hope for That which hath made me so much better than I else had been and turned my Heart and Life though imperfectly to things above the Pleasures of the Flesh must needs be of God And God would never send his Grace to work my Heart to Deceit and Lies and give me such Graces as shall all be frustrate His Spirit is the Earnest and first Fruits of Glory IX And all the course of Religious and Moral duty which he hath commanded me and in which he hath employed my life were never imposed to deceive me I am sure by Nature and Scripture that it is my Duty to love God and my Neighbour to desire Perfection and to serve God and do good with all my time and power and to trust God for my reward believing that all this shall not be in vain nor that which is best be made my loss O blessed be God for Commands and Holy Duty For they are equal to Promises Who can fear that he shall lose by seeking God X. As God hath sealed the Truth of his Word as aforesaid so he hath by an instituted Office and Ordinance sealed and delivered to my self his Covenant with the gift of Christ and Life in Baptism and the Lord's Supper XI He hath given me such a love to Holy Things and Persons that I greatly long to see his Church in perfect Light and Love and Concord Oh how sweet would it be to see all men Wise and Holy and Joyfully praising God Every Christian longs for this And therefore such a state will be XII I have found here the great benefit of the Love and Ministry of Angels such as is described in Psal 91. They have kept me Night and Day which confirmeth my hope that I shall dwell with them for I love them better than men because they love and serve God better XIII That low communion which I have here with God by Christ and the Spirit in his answer to my Prayers Supports Comforts Experiences tends to more XIV The pleasure which I have by Love in thinking of the happiness of my many many many holy departed Friends and of the Glory of Christ and the heavenly Jerusalem is sure some hopeful approach towards their state XV. When I see the Fire mount upward and think that Spirits are of a more sublime and excellent Nature than Fire And when I see that all that is done in this World is done by Spiritual unseen powers which move this gross and drossie Matter it puts me past doubt that my Soul being a Spirit hath a vast and glorious World of Spirits to ascend to God hath by Nature put into all things an aggregative uniting inclination Earth hath no other natural motion The ascent of Fire tells us its Element is above And Spiritâ— naturally incline to Spirits and holy Spirits peculiarly are inclined to the Holy XVI I am sure 1. By understanding
his saving Grace nor the presence of his Spirit as oft as it loseth heavenly delight Desire sheweth Love to him and to his Holiness And he never forsaketh those that love him As long as the Soul breatheth after Christ and after more communion with God and conscious of its imperfection would fain be perfect and resolveth to continue waiting for increase of Faith and Holiness in the use of the means which Christ hath appointed it is not forsaken Christ by his Spirit dwelleth and worketh in that Soul It may enter into a Cloud and Christ may be unseen and seem quite lost but the Cloud will vanish and he will appear and he will first find us that we may seek and find him If he appear to us but as in his humiliation and as crucified and thereby humble us and crucifie to us the World and the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts thereof and cause us but to seek first his Kingdom and Righteousness he will raise us higher and shew us his Glory when Grace and Conquest and Perseverance have prepared us We are in a cloudy World and Body and our sins are yet a thicker Cloud between God's glorious Face and us But as God is God and Heaven is Heaven so Christ is Christ and Grace is Grace when we see it not but fear that we are undone and entring into outer darkness And at Sun rising all our darkness all our doubts fears will vanish § 32. Luke 9. 15. There came a Voice out of the Cloud This is my beloved Son hear him Had I heard such a Testimony from Heaven would it not have set my Faith above all doubts and unbelief For the Voice that thus owned Christ and his Word might embolden me fully to trust all his Promises as it bindeth me to obey his Precepts God's Love is effective and communicative and as his Life and Light cause Life and Light so his Love causeth Love and Christ that is called his Beloved Son is likest him in Love None loveth us so much as God our Father and his Beloved Son who is also as God Essential Love And shall I think with cold or little Love of such a God and such a Saviour It is as unreasonable to fly from God or Christ as fearing that he wanteth Love to a capable Soul as to fly from the Sun as wanting heat or light O what an unruly froward thing is the corrupted Soul of Man When we think of God's judgment and how we are in his hands as to all our hopes for Soul Body we fear and are uncomfortable lest he have not so much Love and Mercy as should cause us confidently to trust him We could trust some Friends with Life and Soul were we in their power but infinite love itself and a loving Saviour we can hardly trust so far as to quiet us in Pain or Death And yet when Christ to cure this distrust hath manifested his Love by the greatest Miracles that ever God shewed to mortal men even by Christ's Incarnation his Life his Works his Death Resurrection Intercession and the advancement of humane Nature in him above Angels the greatness of this Incomprehensible Love occasioneth the difficulty of our believing it as if it were too great and wonderful to be credible Thus dark and guilty Sinners hardly believe our Fathers Love whether it be exprest by ordinary or by the most wonderful effects § 33. As Christ is called the Son of God so also are all his Members We have so far the same title that we might partake of the same comforts He is God's only Son by Eternal Generation and the hypostatical union upon his miraculous conception But through him we are Sons by Regeneration and Adoption And shall not the love of such a Father be trusted and the presence and pleasing of such a Father be desired If Manoah's Wife could say If he would have killed us Re would not have accepted a Sacrifice of us I may say If he would have damned me or forsaken my departing Soul he would not have Adopted me nor made and called me his Son Christ was made his Incarnate Son that we might be made his Adopted Sons And we are made his Adopted Sons for the sake and by the Grace of Christ his Natural Son § 34. The Command Hear him is Relative as to Moses and Elias 1. Hear him whom the Law and the Prophets typified and foretold and were his Servants and Preparatory Instructors to lead us to him 2. Hear him before Moses and the Prophets where his Coming and Covenant abrogateth the Law of Moses and as a greater Light he obscureth the less He hath revealed more than they revealed and the same more clearly Life and Immortality is more fully brought to light by him His Gospel is as the Heart of the Holy Bible We use the Old Testament Books especially as the Witnesses of Christ § 35. And whom should we hear so willingly so obediently as Christ Abraham sent not Dives's Brethren to the King or to the High-priest to know what Religion he should choose or what he should do to escape Hell torments But it was Moses and the Prophets that they must hear But God from Heaven hath sent us yet a better Teacher and commanded us to hear Him Moses was faithful in God's House as a Servant but Christ as a Son His Authority is above Kings and High-priests and they have no Power now but from him and therefore none against him or his Laws All commands are null to Conscience which contradict him The examples in Da. 3. 6. and of the Apostles tell us whether God or Man should be first obeyed Therefore it is that the Bible is more necâ—ssary to be searcht and learned than the Statute Book or Canons Were Man to be heard before Christ or against him or as necessarily as he why have we not Law Preachers every Lord's day to expound the Statutes and Canons to all the People And why are they not Catechized out of the Book of Canons or Law as well as out of the Bible And sure if we must hear Christ and his Gospel before Priests or Princes or before our dearest friends much more before our fleshly Lusts and Appetites and before a profane and foolish Scorner and before the temptations of the Devil O had we heard Christ warning us when we hearkned to the Tempter and to the Flesh how safely had we lived and how comfortably might we have died § 36. But this word Hear him is as comfortable as obligatory Hear him Sinner when he calls thee to repent and turn to God Hear him when he calleth thee to himself to take him for thy Lord and Saviour to believe and trust him for Pardon and Salvation Hear him he when calleth Come to me all ye that are weaty and heavy laden Ho every every one that thirsteth come whoever will let him drink of the Water of Life freely Hear him when he commandeth and hear
so much under suffering and so little study and exercise Patience and no more rejoice in the exercise thereof IX And Patience Experience It is manifold and profitable Experience which patient suffering brings It giveth us experience as of Natures weakness and the great need of Faith So of the Truth of God's Promises the love and tenderness of Christ the acceptance of our Prayers and the power of the Spirits aid and grace O what abundance of experiences of God and our selves and the vanity of Creatures had we wanted if we had not waited in a suffering state Alas how many Experiences have I forgotten X. And Experience Hope A bare Promise should give us Hope But we are still distrustful of our selves and of all the clearest Evidences till experience help us and set all Home O what an advantage hath a Christian of great and long experience for his hope and joy And yet when notable experiences of God's Providence are past and gone an unbelieving Heart is ready to question whether the things came not by meer natural course and like the Israelites in the Wilderness dangers and fears bear down even long and great experiences This is my sin XI And Hope maketh not ashamed That is true Hope of what God hath promised shall never be disappointed They that trust on deceitful Creatures are deceived and ashamed of their Hope For all men are Lyars that is untrusty but God is true and ever faithful O what a comfort is it that God commandeth me to trust him Sure such a command is a virtual Promise from him that cannot fail that trust which he commandeth Lord help me to trust thee in greatest dangers and there to rest XII Because the Love of God is shed abroad upon our Hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us It is the Love of God shed abroad on our Hearts by the Holy Ghost which must make us rejoice in hope of the Glory of God even in Tribulation Here I must consider I. What is meant by the Love of God II. Why and how it is shed abroad on the Heart by the Holy Ghost I. By the Love of God is meant the Effects of his Love 1. His special Grace 2. The pleasant gust or sense of it II. God's Love thus shed on the Heart pre-supposeth it exprest in the Gospel and Providence and contains all these particulars 1. The sanctifying of the Soul by renewing Grace This is the giving of the Spirit as he is given all true Christians 2. Herein the Holy Ghost makes us perceive the exceeding desirableness of the Love of God and maketh us most desire it 3. He giveth the Soul some easing Hope of the Love of God 4. He quieteth the doubts and fears and troubles of the Soul 5. He raiseth our Hopes by degrees to confident assurance 6. Then the thoughts of God's love are pleasant to the Soul and give it such delight as we feel in the love and fruition of our most valued and beloved friends 7. The Soul in this state is as unapt to be jealous of God or to question his Love as a good Child or Wife to question the Love of a Parent or Husband or to hear any that speak evil of them 8. This then becomes the habitual state of the Soul in all changes to live in the delightful sense of the love of God as we do live in pleasure with our dearest Friends O blessed state and first fruits of Heaven and happy are they that do attain it And though lower degrees have their degree of happiness yet how far short are such in goodness amiableness and comfort of those that are thus rich in grace This presupposeth 1. Knowledge of God and the Gospel 2. True belief and hope 3. A sincere and fruitful life 4. Mortification as to Idol worldly vanities 5. A conviction of our sincerity in all this 6. A conclusion that God doth love us But yet it is somewhat above all this A Man may have all this in his Mind and Mouth and yet want this gust of effused Love upon his Heart These are the way to it but not itself This is the greatest good on this side Heaven to which all Wealth and Honour all fleshly Pleasure and long Life all Learning and Knowledge are unworthy to be once compared Briefly 1. It is the flower and highest part of God's Image on Man 2. It is the Souls true communion with God and fruition of him which carnal men deride Even as our Eye hath communion with the Sun and the flourishing Earth enjoys its reviving heats 3. It is that which all lower grace doth tend to as Childhood doth to Manhood And what is a world of Infants comparatively good for 4. It is that which most properly answereth the design of Redemption and the wonders of God's love therein And all the tenor of the Gospel 5. It is that which is most fully called The Spirit of God or Christ in us He hath lower works but this is his great work by which he possesseth us as God's most pleasant Habitation For we have not received the Spirit of Bondage again to fear but the Spirit of Power and Love and a sound mind 2 Tim. 1. 7. 6. It is only that which all men in general desire I mean the only satisfying content and pleasure that Man is capable of on Earth All men would have quieting and constant Pleasure and it is to be found in nothing else but the effused love of God 7. It is that which will make every burden light and all affliction easy When the sense of God's love is still upon the Soul all pain and crosses will be but as Blood-letting by the kindest Physician to save the Patients life God will not be suspected or grudged at in suffering his love will sweeten all 8. It will overcome abundance of Temptations which no mens Wit or Learning or knowledge of the words of Scripture will overcome No Arguments will draw a loving Child or Wife from the Parents or Husband that they know doth love them Love is the most powerful Disputant 9. It puts a mellow pleasant sweetness into all our duties When we hear the Word or receive the Sacrament it is to such a Soul as pleasant Food to the most healthful Man When we pray or praise God it comes from a comforted Heart and excites and increaseth the comfort it comes from O who can be backward to draw near to God in Prayer or Meditation who tasteth the sweetness of his Love This is Religion indeed and tells us what its life and use and glory is This is the true walking with God in the best degree When the Soul liveth in the taste of his Love the Heart will be still with him and that will be its Pleasure And God most delights in such a Soul 10. This is it that putteth the sweetest relish on all our Mercies Deny God's love and you deny them all If you tast not his love in them you
art begging more VII Hearken not too much to pained Flesh and look not too much into the Grave but look out at thy Prison Windows to the Jerusalem above and the heavenly Society that triumph in Glory VIII Let all thy sure notices of a future life and of the communion we have here with those above draw thee to think that the great number of Holy Souls that are gone before thee must needs be better than they were here and that they had the same Mind and Heart and Way the same Saviour Sanctifyer and Promise that thou hast and therefore they are as Pledges of Felicity to thee Thou hast joyfully lived with many of them here and is it not better be with them there It is only the state of Glory foreseen by Faith which most fully sheweth us the greatness of God's Love IX Exercise thy self in Psalms of Praise and daily magnifying the Love of God that the due mention of it may warm and raise thy love to him X. Receive all temptations against Divine Love with hatred and repulse Especially temptations to unbelief And as thou wouldst abhor a temptation to murder or perjury or any other heinous sin as much abhor all temptations which would hide God's Goodness or represent him to thee as an enemy or unlovely Thus God hath set the Glass before us in which we may see his amiable Face But alas Souls in flesh are in great obscurity and conscious of their own weakness are still distrustful of themselves and doubt of all their apprehensions till over-powering Objects and Influences satisfie and fix them For this my Soul with daily longings doth seek to thee my God and Father O pardon the sin that forseits Grace I am ready to say Draw nearer to me but its meeter to say Open thou my Eyes and Heart and remove all impediments and undisposedness that I may believe and feel how near thou art and hast been to me while I perceived it not XIII It is God's Love shed abroad on the Heart by the Holy Ghost which must make us Rejoice in hope of the Glory of God This will do it and without this it will not be done This would turn the fears of Death into joyful hopes of future life If my God will thus warm my Heart with his Love it will have these following effects in this matter I. Love longeth for union or nearness and fruition And it would make my Soul long after God in glorious presence II. This would make it much easier to me to believe that there is certainly a future blessed life for Souls while I even tasted how God loveth them It 's no hard thing to believe that the Sun will give light and heat and revive the frozen Earth Nor that a Father will shew kindness to his Son or give him an inheritance Why should it be hard to believe that God will glorifie the Souls whom he loveth And that he will take them near himself And that thus it shall be done to those whom he delights to honour III. This effusion of Divine Love would answer my doubts of the pardon of sin I should not find it hard to believe that love itself which hath given us a Saviour will forgive a Soul that truly repenteth and hates his sin and giveth up himself to Christ for Justification It 's hard to believe that a Tyrant will forgive but not that a Father will pardon a returning prodigal Son IV. This effusion of Divine Love will answer my fears which arise from meer weakness of Grace and Duty Indeed it will give no other comfort to an unconverted Soul but that he may be accepted if he come to God by Christ with true Faith and Repentance and that this is possible But it should be easie to believe that a tender Father will not kill or cast out a Child for weakness crying or uncleanness Divine Love will accept and cherish even weak Faith weak Prayer and weak obedience and patience which are sincere V. This effused Love would confute temptations that are drawn from thy afflictions and make thee believe that they are not so bad as flesh repesenteth them It would understand that every Son that God loveth he chasteneth that he may not be condemned with the World and that he may be partaker of his Holiness and the end may be the quiet fruit of Righteousness it would teach us to believe that God in very faithfulness doth afflict us and that it is a good sign that the God of Love intendeth a better life for his beloved when he trieth them with so many tribulations here And though Lazarus be not saved for his suffering it signified that God who loved him had a life of comfort for him when he had his evil things on Earth When pangs are greatest the Birth is nearest VI. Were Love thus shed on the Heart by the Holy Ghost it would give me a livelier apprehension of the state of Blessedness which all the faithful now enjoy I should delightfully think of them as living in the joyful Love of God and ever fully replenished therewith It pleaseth us to see the Earth flourish in the Spring and to see how pleasantly the Lambs and other young things will skip and play Much more to see Societies of Holy Christians loving each other and provoking one another to delight in God O then what a pleasant thought should it be to think how all our deceased godly Friends and all that have so died since the Creation are now together in a World of Divine perfect Love How they are all continually wrap't up in the Love of God and live in the delight of perfect Love to one another O my Soul when thou art with them thou wilt dwell in Love and feast on Love and rest in Love for thou wilt more fully dwell in God and God in thee And thou wilt dwell with none but perfect Lovers They would not silence thee from praising God in their Assembly Tyrants Malignants and Persecutors are more strange there or far from thence than Toads and Snakes and Crocodiles are from the Bed or Bed-chamber of the King Love is the Air the Region the World they live in Love is their Nature their Pulse their Breath their Constitution their Complexion and their work It is their life and even themselves and all Full loth would one of those Spirits be to dwell again among blind Sodomites and mad self-damning Malignants upon Earth VII Yea this effused Love will teach us to gather the Glory of the Blessed from the common Mercies of this life Doth God give his distracted malignant Enemies Health Wealth Plenty Pleasure yea Lordships Dominions Crowns and Kingdoms and hath he not much better for beloved holy Souls Yea doth he give the Bruits Life Sense Delight and Beauty and hath he not better things for men for Saints There are some so blind as to think that Man shall have no better hereafter because Bruits have not but perish But they know
Man be and so vain his Life were it not for the hopes of a more durable Life which this referreth to But those Hopes and the Means do not only difference a Believer from an Infidel but a Man from a Beast When Solomon describeth the difference in respect to the Time and Things of this Life only he truly tells us that one end here befalling both doth shew that both are here but Vanity but Man's Vexation is greater than the Beasts And Paul truly saith of Christians that if our hope were only in this life that is in the Time and Things of this life and world we were of all men most miserable Though even in this life as related to a better and as we are exercised about things of a higher nature than the concerns of temporal life we are far happier than any worldlings § 2. Being to speak to my self I shall pass by all the rest of the matter of this Text and suppose its due Explication and spread before my Soul only the Doctrine and Uses of these two Propositions contained in it I. That the Souls of Believers when departed hence shall be with Christ II. That so to be with Christ is far better for them than to be here in the body § 3. I. Concerning the first my Thoughts shall keep this order I. I shall consider the Necessity of Believing it II. Whether it be best believing it without consideration of the Proofs or Difficulties III. The certainty of it manifested for the exercise of Faith § 4. I. Whether the words signifie that we shall be in the same place with Christ which Grotius groundlesly denieth or only in his Hand and Care and Love I will not stay to dispute Many other Texts concurring do assure us that we shall be with him where he is Joh. 12. 26. Joh. 17. 24 c. At least with him can mean no less than a state of communion and a participation of felicity And to believe such a state of happiness for departed Souls is of manifold necessity or use § 5. I. If this be not soundly believed a man must live besides or below the End of Life He must have a false End or be uncertain what should be his End I know it may be objected that if I make it my End to please God by obeying him and doing all the good I can and trust him with my Soul and future Estate as one that is utterly uncertain what he will do with me I have an End intended which will make me godly charitable and just and happy so far as I am made for happiness For the pleasing of God is the right End of all But 1. Must I desire to please him no better than I do in this imperfect state in which I have and do so much which is displeasing to him He that must desire to please him must desire to please him perfectly And our desires of our ultimate End must have no bounds or check Am I capable of pleasing God no better than by such a sinful life as this 2. God hath made the desire of our own felicity so necessary to the Soul of Man that it cannot be expected that our desire to please him should be separated from this 3. Therefore both in respect of God as the End and of our felicity as our second End we must believe that he is the beatifying rewarder of them that diligently seek him For 1. If we make such an ill description of God as that he will turn our pleasing him to our loss or will not turn it to our gain and welfare or that we know not whether he will do so or not it will hinder our Love and Trust and Joy in him by which we must please him and consequently hinder the alacrity and soundness and constancy of our obedience 2. And it will much dismiss that self-love which must excite us and it will take off part of our necessary End And I think the Objecters will confess that if they have no certainty what God will do with them they must have some Probability and Hope before they can be sincerely devoted here to please him § 6. And 1. If a man be but uncertain what he should make the End of his Life or what he should live for how can he pitch upon an uncertain End And if he waver so as to have no End he can use no Means And if End and Means be all laid by the Man liveth not as a Man but as a Brute And what a torment must it be to a considering mind to be uncertain what to Intend and Do in all the tenour and actions of his life Like a man going out at his door not knowing whither or what to do or which way to go Either he will stand still or move as Brutes do by present sense or a Windmill or Weathercok as he is moved § 7. 2. But if he pitch upon a wrong End it may yet be worse than none for he will but do hurt or make work for Repentance And all the actions of his life must be formally wrong how good soever materially if the End of them be wrong § 8. 2. And if I fetch them not from this End and believe not in God as a Rewarder of his Servants in a better Life what Motives shall I have which in our present difficulties will be sufficient to cause me to live a holy yea or a truly honest life All piety and honesty indeed is good and Goodness is desirable for it self But the goodness of a Means is its aptitude for the End and we have here abundance of impediments competitors diversions and temptations and difficulties of many sorts and all these must be overcome by him that will live in piety or honesty And our Natures we find are diseased and greatly indisposed to unquestionable duties and will they ever discharge them and conquer all these difficulties and temptations if the necessary Motive be not believed Duty to God and Man is accidentally hard and costly to the flesh though amiable in it self It may cost us our Estates our Liberties our Lives The world is not so happy as commonly to know good men from bad nor to encourage Piety and Virtue or to forbear opposing them And who will let go his present welfare without some hope of better as a reward Men use not to serve God for nought nor that think it will be their loss to serve him § 9. A life of sin will not be avoided upon lower Ends and Motives Nay those lower Ends when alone will be a constant sin themselves A preferring Vanity to Glory the Creature to God and a setting our heart on that which will never make us happy And when lust and appetite incline men strongly and constantly to their several objects what shall sufficiently restrain them except the greater and more durable delights or motives fetcht from preponderating things Lust and Appetite distinguish not between lawful and unlawful We may
Self-love be by a kind of Sensation and Intuition rather than by Discursive Reason I doubt not but some late Philosophers make snares to themselves and others by too much vilifying sense and sensitive Souls as if sense were but some loseable Accident of contempered Atoms But Sensation though diversified by Organs and Uses and so far mutable is the Act of a noble Spiritual Form and Virtue And as Chambre and some others make Brutes a lower rank of Rationals and Man another higher species as having his nobler Reason for higher Ends so for Man to be the noblest Order here of Sensitives and to have an Intellect to Order and Govern Sensations and connex them and improve them were a noble work if we had no higher And if Intellection and Volition were but a higher species of Internal Sensation than Imagination and the Phantasie and Memory are it might yet be a height that should set Man specifically above the Brutes And I am daily more and more persuaded that Intellectual Souls are essentially sensitive and more and that their Sensation never ceaseth 4. And still I say that it is to Nature it self a thing unlikely that the God of Nature will long continue a Soul that hath formally or naturally an Intellective Power in a state in which it shall have no use of it Let others that will enquire whether it shall have a Vehicle or none to act in and whether aereal or igneous and ethereal and whether it be really an Intellectual sort of Fire as material as the solar Fire whose not compounding but inadequate-conceptus objectivi are an Igneous substance and a Formal Virtue of Life Sense and Intellection with other such puzzling doubts it satisfieth me that God will not continue its noblest Powers in vain and how they shall be exercised is known to him And that God's Word tells us more than Nature And withal LIFE INTUITION and LOVE or Volition are Acts so natural to the Soul as Motion Light and Heat quoad actum to Fire that I cannot conceive how its Separation should hinder them but rather that its Incorporation hindereth the two latter by hiding Objects whatever be said of abstractive knowledge and memory § 33. VII But the greatest difficulty to Natural Knowledge is Whether Souls shall continue their individuation or rather fall into one common Soul or return so to God that gave them as to be no more divers or many individuals as now as extinguished Candles are united to the illuminated Air or to the Sun beams But of this I have elsewhere said much for others and for my self I find I need but this 1. That as I said before either Souls are partible substances or not If not partible how are they unible If Many may be made One by conjunction of substances then that One may by God be made Many again by partition Either All or Many Souls are now but One individuate only by Matter as many gulfs in the Sea or many Candles lighted by the Sun or not If they are not One now in several bodies what reason have we to think that they will be One hereafter any more than now Augustine de Anim. was put on the question 1. Whether Souls are One and not Many and that he utterly denieth 2. Whether they are Many and not One and that it seemeth he could not digest 3. Whether they were at once both One and Many which he thought would seem to some ridiculous but he seemeth most to incline to And as God is the God of Nature so Nature even of the Devils themselves dependeth on him as I said more than the Leaves or Fruit do on the Tree And we are all his Off-spring and Live and Move and Are in Him Acts 17. But we are certain for all this 1. That we are not God 2. That we are yet many Individuals and not all One Soul or Man I◠our Union should be as near as the Leaves and Fruit on the same Tree yet those Leaves and Fruit are numerous and individual Leaves and Fruits though parts of the Tree And were this proved of our present or our future state it would not alter our Hopes or Fears For as Now though we all Live Move and Be in God and as some dream are parts of a common Soul yet it is certain that some are Better and Happier than others some wise and good and some foolish and evil some in pain and misery and some at ease and in pleasure and as I said it is now no ease to the miserable to be told that radically all Souls are One no more will it be hereafter nor can men reasonably hope for or fear such an Union as shall make their state the same We see in Nature as I have elsewhere said that if you graff many sorts of Sciens some sweet some bitter some Crabs on the same Stock they will be One Tree and yet have diversity of fruit If Souls be not Unible nor Partible substances there is no place for this doubt If they be they will be still what they are notwithstanding any such Union with a common Soul As a drop of Water in the Sea is a separable part and still it self and as a Crab upon the foresaid Stock or Tree And the good or bad quality ceaseth not by any Union with others Sure we are that all Creatures are in God by close dependance and yet that the good are good and the bad are bad and that God is Good and hath no Evil and that when Man is tormented or miserable God suffereth nothing by it as the whole Man doth when but a Tooth doth ake For he would not hurt himself were he passive Therefore to dream of any such cessation of our Individuation by any Union with a Creature as shall make the Good less Good or happy or the Bad less Bad or miserable is a groundless folly § 34. Yet it is very probable that there will be a Nearer Union of holy Souls with God and Christ and one another than we can here conceive of But this 〈◊〉 so far from being to be feared that it is the highest of our hopes 1. God himself though equally every where in his Essence doth operate very variously on his Creatures On the wicked he operateth as the first Cause of Nature as his Sun shineth on them On some he operateth by common Grace To some he giveth Faith to prepare them for the Indwelling of his Spirit In Believers he dwelleth by Love and they in him And if we may use such a comparison as Satan acteth on some only by suggestions but on others so despotically as that it 's called His Possessing them so God's Spirit worketh on holy Souls so powerfully and constantly as is called his Possessing them And yet on the Humane Nature of Christ the Divine Nature of the Second Person hath such a further extraordinary Operation as is justly called a Personal Union which is not by a more Essential Presence for
that is every where but by a peculiar operation and relation And so holy Souls being under a more felicitating operation of God may well be said to have a Nearer Union with him than now they have § 35. 〈◊〉 And I observe that as is aforesaid all things have naturally a strong inclination to Union and Communion with their like Every clod and stone inclineth to the Earth Water would go to Water Air to Air Fire to Fire Birds and Beasts associate with their like And the noblest natures are most strongly thus inclined And therefore I have natural reason to think that it will be so with holy Souls § 36. 3. And I find that the inordinate Contraction of Man to himself and to the interest of this Individual-Person with the defect of Love to all about us according to every creatures goodness and specially to God the Infinite good whom we should love above our selves is the very sum of all the pravity of man And all the injustice and injury to others and all the neglect of good works in the world and all our daily terrours and self-distracting self-tormenting cares and griefs and fears proceed from this inordinate Love and Adhesion to our selves Therefore I have reason to think that in our better state we shall perfectly Love others as our selves and the selfish Love will turn into a common and a Divine Love which must be by our preferring the common and the Divine Good and Interest § 37. And I am so sensible of the power and Plague of selfishness and how it now corrupteth tempteth and disquieteth me that when I feel any fears lest individuation cease and my Soul fall into one common Soul as the Stoicks thought all Souls did at death I find great cause to suspect that this ariseth from the power of this corrupting selfishness For Reason seeth no cause at all to fear it were it so § 38. 4. For I find also that the nature of Love is to desire as near a Union as is possible And the strongest Love doth strongliest desire it Fervent Lovers think they can scarce be too much One. And Love is our Perfection and therefore so is Union § 39. 5. And I find that when Christians had the first and full pourings out of the Spirit they had the ferventest Love and the nearest Union and the least desire of propriety and distance § 40. 6. And I find that Christs prayer for the felicity of his disciples is a prayer for their Unity Joh. 17. 22 23. And in this he placeth much of their Persection § 41. 7. And I find also that man is a sociable nature and that all men find by experience that conjunction in societies is needful to their Safety strength and Pleasure § 42. 8. And I find that my Soul would fain be nearer God and that darkness and distance is my misery and near communion is it that would answer all the tendencies of my Soul Why then should I fear too near a Union § 43. I think it utterly improbable that my Soul should become more nearly united to any creature than to God though it be of the same kind with other Souls and infinitely below God For God is as near me as I am to my self I still depend on him as the effect upon its total constant cause And that not as the fruit upon the Tree which borroweth all from the Earth Water Air and Fire which it communicateth to its fruit but as a creature on its Creator who hath no Being but what it receiveth totally from God by constant communication Hence Autonine Seneca and the rest of the Stoicks thought that all the World was God or one Great Animal consisting of Divine Spirit and Matter as Man of Soul and body Sometime calling the supposed Soul of the World GOD and sometime calling the whole World God But still meaning that the Universe was but one Spirit and Body united and that we all are parts of God or of the Body of God or Accidents at least § 44. And even the Popish Mystical Divines in their pretensions to the highest Perfection say the same in sense such as Benedict Anglus in his Regula Perfectionis approved by many Doctors who placeth much of his Supereminent Life in our Believing verily that there is nothing but God and Living accordingly Maintaining that all creatures are nothing distinct from God but are to God as the Beams are to the Sun and as the Heat is to the Fire which really is it self And so teaching us to rest in all things as Good as being nothing but Gods essential will which is himself resolving even our sins and Imperfections accordingly into God so that they are Gods or None § 45. And all these men have as fair a pretence for their conceits of such a Union with God now as for such an Union after death For their Reason is 1. That God being Infinite there can be no more Beings than his own But God and the smallest Being distinct would be more Entity than God alone But Infinity can have no addition 2. Because Ens Bonum Convertuntur But God only is good And if we are notwithstanding all this distinct Beings from God now we shall be so then For we shall not be Annihilated and we shall not be so advanced as to be deified and of creatures or distinct Beings turned into a Being infinitely above us If we be not Parts of God now we shall not be so then But if they could prove that we are so now we should quickly prove to them 1. That then God hath material divisible parts as the Stoicks thought 2. And that we are no such parts as are not distinct from one another but some are tormented and some happy And 3. That as is said it will be no abatement of the misery of the tormented nor of the felicity of the blessed to tell them that they are all parts of God For though the manner of our Union with him and dependance on him be past our comprehension yet that we are distinct and distant from each other and have each one a joy or misery of his own is past all doubt Therefore there is no Union with God to be feared by holy Souls but the utmost possible to be highliest desired § 46. And if our Union with God shall not cease our Individuation or resolve us into a Principle to be feared we may say so also of our Union with any common Soul or many If we be Unible we are Partible and so have a distinct though not a divided substance which will have its proper Accidents All Plants are parts of the Earth really united to it and radicated in it and live and are nourished by it And yet a Vine is a Vine and an Apple is an Apple and a Rose is a Rose and a Nettle is a Nettle And few men would be toiled Horses or Toads if it were proved that they are animated by a common Soul § 47.
them that have been piously inclined from their Childhood it is harder to discern the difference unless they mark the Case of others If Man be worth any thing it is for the use that his Faculties were made And if he be not good for the Knowledg Love and Service of his Creator what is he good for And certainly the generality of ungodly Worldlings are undisposed to all such works as this till the Spirit of Christ effectually change them Men are Slaves to sin till Christ thus make them free Joh. 8. 32 33 36. Rom. 6. 18. Act. 26. 18. Rom. 8. 2. But where the Spirit of the Lord is there is Liberty 2 Cor. 3. 17. If the Divine Nature and Image and the Love of God shed abroad on the Heart be not our Excellency Health and Beauty what is And that which is Born of the Flesh is Flesh but that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit Joh. 3. 6. Without Christ and his Spirit we can do nothing Our dead Notions and Reason when we see the Truth have not power to overcome Temptations nor to raise up Man's Soul to its Original and End nor to possess us with the love and joyful hopes of future Blessedness It were better for us to have no Souls than that those Souls should be void of the Spirit of God § 4. 2. And that HEAVEN is the Sum and End of all the Spirits Operations appeareth in all that â—â—e truly Conscious of them in themselves and to them and others by all God's Precepts which the Spirit causeth us to obey and the Doctrine which it causeth us to believe and by the description of all God's graces which he worketh in us What is our Knowledge and Faith but our knowledge and belief of Heaven as consisting in the Glory and Love of God there manifested and as purchased by Christ and given by his Covenant What is our Hope but the Hope of Glory See Heb. 11. 1. and throughout 1 Pet. 1. 3. 21. Heb. 6 11 18 19. 3. 6 Tit. 2 13. 3. 7. Col. 1. 5 23 27. And through the Spirit we wait for all this Hope Gal. 5. 5. What is our Love but a desire of Communion with the blessed God initially here and perfectly hereafter As the Sum of Christ's Gospel was Take up the Cross forsake all here and follow me and thou shalt have a Reward in Heaven Luke 14. 26 33. 18. 22 23. and the Consolation of his Gospel is Rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in Heaven Matt. 5. 11 12. So the same is the Sum of his Spirits Operations For what he teacheth and commandeth that he worketh For he worketh by that Word and the impress must be like the Signet what arm soever set it on He sendeth not his Spirit to make men craftier than others for this World but to make them wiser for Salvation and to make them more Heavenly and Holy For the Children of this World are wiser in their Generation than the Children of Light Heavenliness is the Spirits special work § 5. 3. And in working this it conquereth the inward undisposedness and aversness of a fleshly worldly mind and will and the customs of a Carnal life and the outward Temptations of Satan and all the allurements of the World Christ first overcame the World and teacheth and causeth us to overcome it even its flatteries and its frowns Our Faith is our Vâ—ctory Whether this Victory be easie and any honour to the Spirit of Christ let our experience of the wickedness of the ungodly World and of our own weakness and of our falls when the Spirit of God forsaketh us be our informer § 6. 4. And that None but God can do this work on the Soul of Man both the knowledge of Causes and Experience prove The most learned wise and holy Teachers cannot as they confess and shew The wisest and most loving Parents cannot and therefore must pray to him that can The greatest Princes cannot Evil Angels neither can nor will What Good Angels can do on the Heart we know not but we know that they do nothing but as the obedient Ministers of God And though we have some power on our selves yet that we our selves cannot do it that we cannot Quicken Illuminate or Sanctifie our selves and that we have nothing but what we have received Conscience and Experience fully tell us § 7. 5. And that Christ promised this Spirit in a special measure to all true Believers that it should be in them his Advocate Agent Seal and Mark is yet visible in the Gospel yea and in the former Prophets Isa 44. 34. Ezek. 36. 26. 37. 14. Joel 2. 28 29. Ezek. 11. 19. 18. 31. Eph. 1. 13. Joh. 3. 5. 4. 23 24. 6. 63. 7. 39. Joh. 1. 33. 14. 16 26. Act. 1. 5 8. Joh. 15. 26. 16. 7 8 9 c. Indeed the Spirit here and Heaven hereafter are the chief of all the Promises of Christ § 8. 6. And that this Spirit is given not to Hypocrites that abuse Christ and do not seriously believe him nor to meer pretending nominal Christians but to all that sincerely believe the Gospel is evident not only to themselves in certainty if they are in a condition to know themselves but to others in part by the effects They have other Ends other affections other lives than the rest of Mankind have Though their heavenly Nature and Design be the less discerned and honoured in the World because their chiefest difference is out of the sight of Man in the Heart and in their secret actions and because their imperfections blemish them and because the Malignant World is by Strangeness and Enmity an incompetent judge yet it is discernable to others that they live upon the hopes of a better life and their heavenly Interest is it that over-ruleth all the adverse Interests of this World and that in order thereunto they live under the conduct of Divine Authority and that God's will is highest and most prevalent with them and that to obey and please him so far as they know it is the greatest business of their lives though ignorance and adverse Flesh do make their Holiness and Obedience imperfect The universal noise and opposition of the World against them doth shew that men discern a very great difference which Error and cross Interests and Carnal inclinations render displeasing to those who find themselves condemned by their heavenly Designs and Conversations § 9. But whether others discern it or deny it or detest it the true Believer is conscious of it in himself Even when he groaneth to be better to believe and trust and love God more and to have more of the heavenly life and comforts those very desires signifie another Appetite and Mind than Worldlings have and even when his frailties and weaknesses make him doubt of his own sincerity he would not change his Governour Rule or Hopes for all that the World can
than long ago Am I at the highest 〈◊〉 Man on Earth can reach and that when I am so dark and low Is there no growth of these apprehensions more to be expected Doth the Soul cease its increase in vigorous Perception when the Body ceaseth its increase or vigor of sensation Must I sit down in so low a measure while I am drawing nearer to the things believed and am almost there where belief must pass into sight and love or must I take up with the passive silence and inactivity which some Fryars persuade us is nearer to Perfection and under pretence of Annihilation and Receptivity let my fluggish Heart alone and say that in this neglect I wait for thy Operations O let not a Soul that is driven from this World and weary of Vanity and can think of little else but immortality that seeks and crys both Night and Day for the heavenly Light and fain would have some foretast of Glory and some more of the first Fruits of the promised joys let not such a Soul either long or cry or strive in vain Punish not my former grieving of thy Spirit by deserting a Soul that cryeth for thy Grace so near its great and unconceivable change Let me not languish in vain desires at the Door of Hope nor pass with doubtful Thoughts and Fears from this Vale of Misery Which should be the Season of Triumphant Faith and Hope and Joy if not when I am entering on the World of Joy O thou that hast left us so many consolatory words of Promise that our joy may be full send O send the promised Comforter without whose approaches and heavenly Beams when all is said and a thousand Thoughts and strivings have been assayed it will still be Night and Winter with the Soul § 19. But have I not expected more particular and more sensitive Conceptions of Heaven and the State of blessed Souls than I should have done and â—emained less satisfied because I expected such distinct Perceptions to my satisfaction which God doth not ordinarily give to Souls in Flesh I fear it hath been too much so A distrust of God and a distrustful desire to know much Good and Evil for our selves as necessary to our quiet and satisfaction was that sin which hath deeply corrupted Man's Nature and is more of our common pravity than is commonly observed I find that this Distrust of God and my Redeemer hath had too great a hand in my desires of a distincter and more sensible Knowledg I know that I should implicitely and absolutely and quietly trust my Soul into my Redeemers Hands of which I must speak more anon And it is not only for the Body but also for the Soul that a distrustful care is our great sin and Misery But yet we must desire that our Knowledge and Belief may be as distinct and particular as God's Revelations are and we can Love no further than we know and the more we know of God and Glory the more we shall love desire and trust him It is a known and not meerly an unknown God and happiness that the Soul doth joyfully desire And if I may not be ambitious of too sensible and distinct Perceptions here of the things unseen yet must I desire and beg the most fervent and sensible Love to them that I am capable of I am willing in part to take up with that unavoidable ignorance and that low degree of such Knowledge which God confineth us to in the Flesh so be it he will give me but such Consolatory foretasts in Love and Joy which such a General imperfect Knowledge may consist with that my Soul may not pass with distrust and terrour but with suitable triumphant Hopes to the Everlasting pleasures O Father of Lights who givest Wisdom to them that ask it of thee shut not up this sinful Soul in darkness Leave me not to grope in unsatisfied doubts at the Door of the Celestial Light Or if my Knowledg must be General let it be clear and powerful and deny me not now the lively exercise of FAITH HOPE and LOVE which are the stirrings of the New Creature and the dawnings of the everlasting Light and the Earnest of the promised Inheritance § 20. But we are oft ready to say with Cicero when he had been reading such as Plato that while the Book is in our Hands we seem confident of our Immortality and when we lay it by our doubts return so our Arguments seem clear and cogent and yet when we think not of them with the best advantage we are oft surprized with Fear lest we should be mistaken and our Hopes be vain and hereupon and from the common fear of Death that even good men too often manifest the Infidels gather that we do but force our Selves into such a Hope as we desire to be true against the tendency of mans Nature and that we were not made for a better World § 21. But this fallacy ariseth from mens not distinguishing 1. sensitive fears from Rational uncertainty or doubts 2. And the mind that is in the darkness of unbelief from that which hath the Light of Faith I find in my self too much of fear when I look into Eternity interrupting and weakening my Desires and Joy But I find that it is very much an irrational sensitive Fear which the Darkness of Man's mind the Greatness of the Change the dreadful Majesty of God and Man's Natural aversness to die do in some degree necessitate even when Reason is fully satisfied that such fears are consistent with certain safety If I were bound with the strongest Chains or stood on the surest Battlements on the top of a Castle or Steeple I could not possibly look down without fear and such as would go near to overcome me and yet I should be rationally sure that I am there fast and safe and cannot fall So is it with our Prospect into the Life to come Fear is oft a necessitated Passion When a Man is certain of his safe Foundation it will violently rob him of the comfort of that Certainty Yea it is a passion that irrationally doth much to corrupt our Reason it self and would make us doubt because we fear though we know not why And a fearful Man doth hardly trust his own apprehensions of his safety but among other Fears is still ready to fear lest he be deceived Like timorous Melancholy Persons about their Bodies who are ready still to think that every little Distemper is a mortal Symptom and that worse is still near them than they feel and they hardly believe any words of hope § 22. And Satan knowing the power of these passions and having easier access to the Sensitive than to the Intellective Faculties doth labour to get in at this back Door and to frighten poor Souls into doubts and unbelief and in timorous Natures he doth it with too great success as to the Consolatory acts of Faith Though yet God's Mercy is wonderfully seen in preserving many
though I still love and honour the fullest Knowledge and am not of Dr. Collets mind who as Erasmus saith most slighted Augustine yet I less censure even that Carthage Council which forbad the reading of the Heathens Books of Learning and Arts than formerly I have done And I would have men savour most that Learning in their Health which they will or should savour most in Sickness and near to Death 3. And alas how dear a Vanity is this Knowledge That which is but Theorical and Notional is but a tickling delectation of the Phantasie or Mind little differing from a pleasant dream But how many Hours what gazing of the wearied Eye what stretching Thoughts of the impatient Brain must it cost us if we will attain to any Excellency Well saith Solomon Much reading is a weariness to the Flesh and He that increaseth Knowledge increaseth sorrow How many hundred studious Days and Weeks and how many hard and tearing Thoughts hath my little very little knowledg cost me And how much infirmity and painfulness to my Flesh increase of painful Diseases and loss of Bodily ease and health How much pleasure to my self of other kinds and how much acceptance with men have I lost by it which I might easily have had in a more Conversant and plausible way of life And when all is done if I reach to know any more than others of my place and order I must differ so much usually from them And if I manifest not that difference but keep all that knowledge to my self I sin against Conscience and Nature it self The Love of Man and the Love of Truth oblige me to be soberly Communicative Were I so indifferent to Truth and Knowledg as easily to forbear their propagation I must also be so indifferent to them as not to think them worth so dear a Price as they have cost me Though they are the free Gifts of God As Nature is universally inclined to the propagation of the kind by Generation so is the Intellectual Nature to the Communication of Knowledge which yet hath its Lust and inordinacy in proud ignorant hasty Teachers and Disputers as the Generating faculty hath in Fornicators and Adulterers But if I obey Nature and Conscience in Communicating that Knowledge which containeth my difference aforesaid the Dissenters too often take themselves disparaged by it how peaceably soever I manage it And as bad men take the Piety of the godly to be an accusation of their impiety so many Teachers take themselves to be accused of Ignorance by such as condemn their Errours by the light of Truth And if you meddle not with any Person yet take they their Opinions to be so much their Interest as that all that is said against them they take as said against themselves And then alas what envyings what whispering disparagements and what backbitings if not malicious slanders and underminings do we meet with from the Carnal Clergy And O that it were all from them alone and that among the Zealous and Suffering Party of faithful Preachers there were not much of such iniquity and that none of them preached Christ in strife and envy It is sad that Errour should find so much shelter under the selfishness and pride of pious men and that the Friends of Truth should be tempted to reject and abuse so much of it in their ignorance as they do But the matter of fact is too evident to be hid But especially if we meet with a Clergy that are high and have a great deal of Worldly interest at the stake Or if they be in Councils and Synods and have got the Major Vote they too easily believe that either their Grandure Reverence Names or Numbers must give them the reputation of being Orthodox and in the right and will Warrant them to account and defame him as Erroneous Heretical Schismatical Singular Factious or Proud that presumeth to contradict them and to know more than they Of which not onely the case of Nazianzene Martin Chrysostome are sad proofs but also the proceedings of too many General and Provincial Councils And so our hard studies and darling Truth must make us as Owls or reproached Persons among those Reverend Brethren who are ignorant at easier rates and who find it a far softer kind of life to think and say as the most or best esteemed do than to purchase reproach and obloquy so dearly And the religious People of the several parts will say as they hear their Teachers do and be the Militant followers of their too Militant Leaders And it will be their House talk their Shop talk their Street talk if not their Church talk that such a one is an Erroneous dangerous Man because he is not as Ignorant and Erroneous as they especially if they be the followers of a Teacher much exasperated by confutation and engaged in the Controversie and also if it should be suffering Confessors that are contradicted or men most highly esteemed for extraordinary degrees of Piety Then what cruel censures must he expect who never so tenderly would suppress their Errours O what sad Instances of this are 1. The Case of the Confessors in Cyprians Days who as many of his Epistles shew became the great disturbers of that Church 2. And the Egyptian Monks at Alexandria in the Days of Theophilus who turned Anthropomorphites and raised abominable Tumults with woful scandal and odious bloodshed 3. And O that this Age had not yet greater Instances to prove the matter than any of these And now should a Man be loth to die for fears of leaving such troublesome costly Learning and Knowledge as the wisest men can here attain 4. But the chief Answer is yet behind No Knowledge is lost but perfected and changed for much nobler sweeter greater Knowledg Let men be never so uncertain in particular de modo Whether acquired Habits of Intellect and Memory die with us as being dependant on the Body Yet by what Manner soever that a far clearer Knowledge we shall have than is here attainable is not to be doubted of And the cessation of our present Mode of knowing is but the cessation of our ignorance and imperfection As our wakening endeth a dreaming Knowledge and our Maturity endeth the trifling Knowledge of a Child For so saith the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 13. 8 9 10 11 12. Love never faileth and we can Love no more than we know But whether there be Prophesies they shall fail that is Cease Whether there be Tongues they shall cease Whether there be Knowledge Notional and Abstractive such as we have now it shall vanish away When I was a Child I spake as a Child understood as a Child I thought as a Child but when I became a Man I put away childish things For now we see through a Glass per species darkly as men understand a thing by a Metaphor Parable or Riddle but then Face to Face even Creatures intuitively as in themselves naked and open to our sight Now I know in
that a great Book is a great Evil while it containeth so great a number of uncertain words which become the matter of great contentions 2. And when the Mind of the Speaker or Writer is no better informed by such Notions but his conceptions of Things are some false some confused and undigested what wonder if his words do no otherwise express his mind to others When even men of clearest understanding find it difficult to have words still ready to communicate their conceptions with truth and clearness To form true sentiments of Things into apt significant words is a matter of meer Art and requireth an apt Teacher a serious Learner and long use And too many take their Art of Speaking in Prayer Conference or Preaching to have more in it of Wisdom and Piety than it hath and some too much Condemn the unaccustomed that want it 3. And if we could fit our words well to the Matter and to our Minds with that double verity yet still it is hard to fit them to the Reader or Hearer For want of which they are lost as to him And his information being our End they are therefore so far lost to us And that which is spoken most congruously to the Matter is seldom fitted to the capacity of the receiver And recipitur ad modum recipient is pro captu Lectoris c. Some Readers or Hearers yea almost all are so used to unapt Words and Notions obtruded on Mankind by the Masters of Words that they cannot understand us if we change their terms and offer them fitter and yet least understand those which they think that they best understand And all men must have long time to learn the Art of Words before they can understand them as well as before they can readily use them And the duller any Man is and of less understanding the more Words are necessary to make him understand And yet his Memory is the less capable of retaining many This is our difficulty not only in Catechizing but in all our Writings and Teaching a short Catechism or a short Style the ignorant understand not and a long one they remember not And he that will accommodate one judicious Reader or Hearer with profound matter or an accurate Style must incommodate Multitudes that are uncapable of it And therefore such must be content with few approvers and leave the Applause of the Multitude to the more popular unless he be one that can seasonably suit himself to both A Man that resolveth not to be deceived by ambiguous words and maketh it his first work in all his Reading and disputings to difference between Words and Sense and Things and strictly to examine each disputed term till the Speakers meaning be distinctly known will see the lamentable case of the Church and all Mankind and what shaddows of knowledg deceive the World and in what useless dreams the greatest part of men yea of Learned men do spend their days Much of that which some men unweariedly study and take to be the honour of their understandings and their lives and much of that which Multitudes place their Piety and Hopes of Salvation in being a meer game at words and useless Notions and as truly to be called Vanity and Vexation as is the rest of the Vain shew that most men walk in My sad and bitter Thoughts of the Heathen Infidel Mahomet World and of the common corruptions of Rulers and Teachers Cities and Countries Senates and Councils I will not here open to others lest they offend nor cry out as Seneca Omnes mali sumus or stultorum plena sunt omnia nor describe the furious Spirits of the Clergy and their ignorance and unrighteous Calumnies and Schisms as Gregory Nazianzene and others do nor voluminously lament the seeming hopeless case of Earth by the boldness blindness and fury of men that make use of such sad considerations to loosen my love from such a World and make me willing to be with Christ 9. And if other mens Words and Writings are ble mished with so much imperfection why should think that my own are blameless I must for ever be thankful for the holy Instructions and Writings of others notwithstanding humane frailty and contentious mens abuse of words And so I must be thankful that God hath made any use of my own for the good of Souls and his Churches Edification But with how many allays are such comforts here mixed We are not the Teachers of a well ruled School where Learners are ranked into several Forms that every one may have the teaching which is agreeable to his capacity But we must set open the Door to all that will crowd in and publish our Writings to all sorts of Readers And there being as various degrees of Capacity as there are Men and Women and consequently great variety and contrariety of apprehensions it 's easie ab antecedente to know what various reception we must expect We cast out our Doctrine almost as a Foot-ball is turned out among Boys in the Street in some Congregations Few understand it but every one censureth it Few come as Learners or teachable Disciples but most come to sit as Judges on their Teachers words and yet have neither the Skill or the Patience or the diligence which is necessary in a just Tryal to a righteous judgment But as our words agree or disagree with the former conceptions of every Hearer so are they judged to be wise or foolish sound or unsound true or false fit or unfit Few Sermons that I preach but one extolleth them and wisheth they were printed and another accuseth them of some hainous fault Some men are pleased with clearness and accuratness of Doctrine and others account it too high and say we shoot over the hearers Heads and like nothing but the fervent Application of what they knew before most Hearers are displeased with that which they most need If they err they reproach that Doctrin as erroneous that would cure them If they are guilty of any prevailing Distemper and sin they take that Application to be injurious to them which would convince them and save them from that guilt Most are much pleased with plain and zealous reproof of sin but it must be other mens sins and not their own The poor love to hear of the evil of oppression and unmercifulness of Pride Fulness and Idleness and all the sins of the Rich Subjects love to hear of their Rulers faults and say O this Man is no flatterer he dares tell the greatest of their sins But if they hear of their own they take for it an injury Rulers like a Sermon for submission and obedience but how few love to hear of the evil of injustice and oppression or pride and sensuality or to read Luke 16. or 12. or James 5. or to hear of the necessity of Holiness Justice and temperance and of Death and Judgment and the Life to come Every Sectary and Dogmatist delighteth to have his own Opinion
not when I die The Church dieth not The Praises of God die not the World dieth not And perhaps it shall grow better and those Prayers shall be answered which seemed lost Yea it may be some of the Seed that I have sowen shall spring up to some benefit of the dark unpeaceable World when I am dead And is not this much of the end of life is not that Life good which attaineth its End If my End was to do Good and Glorifie God if Good be done and God be Glorified when I am dead yea though I were annihilated is not my End attained Feign not thy self to be God whose Interest that is the pleasing of his Will is the End of all things And whose will is the measure of all Created good Feign not thy self to be All the World God hath not lost his work the World is not dissolved when I am dissolved O how strong and unreasonable a Disease is this inordinate SELFISHNESS Is not God's Will Infinitely better than mine And fitter to be fulfilled Choose the fulfilling of his Will and thou shalt always have thy choice If a Man be well that can always have his will let this always be thy Will that God's Will may be done and thou shalt always have it Lord let thy Servant Depart in Peace even in Thy Peace which passeth understanding and which Christ the Prince of Peace doth give and nothing in the World can take away O give me that Peace which beseemeth a Soul which is so near the Harbour even the World of endless PEACE and LOVE where perfect UNION such as I am capable of will free me from all the sins and troubles which are caused by the convulsions divulsions and confusions of this divided SELFISH World Call home this Soul by the encouraging Voice of Love that it may joyfully hear and say It is my Fathers Voice Invite it to thee by the heavenly Messenger Attract it by the tokens and the foretasts of Love The Messengers that invited me to the Feast of Grace compelled me to come in without constraint Thy effectual call did make me willing And is not Glory better than preparing Grace Shall I not come more willingly to the Celestial Feast What was thy Grace for but to make me willing of Glory and the way to it Why didst thou dart down thy Beams of Love but to make me Love thee and to call me up to the everlasting Center Was not the Feast of of Grace as a Sacrament of the Feast of Glory Did I not take it in remembrance of my Lord until he come Did not he that told me All things are ready tell me also that He is gone to prepare a place for us and it is his will that we shall be with him and see his Glory They that are Given him and Drawn to him by the Father on Earth do come to Christ Give now and Draw my Departing Soul to my Glorified Head And as I have Glorified thee on Earth in the measure that thy Grace hath prevailed in me pardon the sins by which I have offended thee and Glorifie me in the beholding and participation of the Glory of my Redeemer come Lord Jesus come quickly with fuller Life and Light and Love into this too Dead and Dark and Disaffected Soul that it may come with joyful willingness unto thee § 13. Willingly Depart O lingring Soul It is from a Sodom though in it there be righteous Lots who yet are not without their woful blemishes Hast thou so oft groaned for the general blindness and wickedness of the World and art thou loth to leave it for a better How oft wouldst thou have rejoyced to have seen but the dawning of a Day of Universal Peace and Reformation And wouldst thou not see it where it shineth forth in fullest Glory Would a light at Midnight have pleased thee so well Hast thou prayed and laboured for it so hard And would thou not see the Sun Will the things of Heaven please thee no where but on Earth where they come in the least and weakest influences and are terminated in gross terrene obscure and unkind recipients Away away the vindictive Flames are ready to consume this sinful World Sinners that blindly rage in sin must quickly rage in the effects of sin and of God's Justice The pangs of Lust prepared for these pangs They are treasuring up wrath against this Day Look not then behind thee Away from this unhappy World Press on unto the Mark Phil. 3. Looking towards and hastning to the coming of the Day of God 2 Pet. 3. 10 11 12. As this World hath used thee it would use thee still and it will use others If thou hast sped well in it no thanks to it but unto God! If thou hast had manifold deliverances and marvellous preservations and hast been sed with Angels food love not this Wilderness for it but God and his Angel which was thy Guide Protector and Deliverer And hath this troublesome Flesh been so comfortable a companion to thee that thou shouldst be so loth to leave it Have thy pains thy weariness thy languishings thy labours thy cares and fears about this Body been pleasing to thee And art thou loth that they should have an end Didst thou not find a need of patience to undergo them And of greater Patience than mâ—â—r Nature gave thee And canst thou hope now for better when Nature faileth and that an aged consumed more diseased Body should be a pleasanter habitation to thee than it was heretofore If from thy youth up it hath been both a tempting and a troubling thing to thee surely though it be less tempting it will not be less troubling when it is falling to the Dust and above ground savoureth of the Grave Had things sensible been never so pleasant in thy youth and hadst thou glutted thy self in health with that sort of delight in Age thou art to say by Nature I have no pleasure in them Doth God in great Mercy make pain and feebleness the Harbingers of Death and wilt thou not understand their business Doth he mercifully before hand take away the pleasure of all fleshly things and worldly vanities that there may be nothing to relieve a departing Soul as the shell breaketh when the Bird is hatched and the Womb relaxed when the Infant must be Born and yet shall we stay when nothing holdeth us and still be loth to come away Wouldst thou dwell with thy beloved Body in the Grave where it will rot and stink in loathsome darkness If not why should it now in its painful languor seem to thee a more pleasant habitation than the glorious presence of thy Lord In the Grave it will be at rest and not tormented as now it is nor wish at Night O that it were Morning nor say at Morning when will it be Night And is this a dwelling fit for thy delight Patience in it while God will so try thee is thy duty But is such
Doctrines and Examples and for which I have been called to hear and read and meditate and pray and Watch so long Was it the interest of the Flesh on Earth or a longer life of worldly Prosperity which the Gospel Covenant secured to me which the Sacraments and Spirit Sealed to me Which the Bible was written to direct me to which Ministers preached to me Which my Books were written for Which I prayed for and for which I served God Or was it not for his Grace on Earth and Glory in Heaven And is it not better for me to have the End of all these means than lose them all and lose my hopes Why have I used them if I would not attain their End § 13. 5. That is my Best state which all the Course of God's Fatherly Providences tend to All his sweeter Mercies and all his sharper corrections are to make me partaker of his Holiness and to Lead me to glory in the way that my Saviour and all his Saints have gone before me All things work together for the best to me by preparing me for that which is best indeed Both calms and storms are to bring me to this Harbour If I take them but for themselves and this present life I mistake them and understand them not but unthankfully vilifie them and lose their End and life and sweetness Every word and work of God every Days mercies and changes and Usages do look at Heaven and intend Eternity God leadeth me no other way If I follow him not I forsake my hope in forsaking him If I follow him shall I be unwilling to be at home and come to the End of all this way § 14. 6. Surely that is Best for me which God hath required me principally to value love and seek and that as the business of all my life referring all things else thereto That this is my Duty I am fully certain as is proved elsewhere and before Is my business in the World only for the things of this World How vain a Creature then were Man and how little were the difference between waking and sleeping Life and Death No wonder if he that believeth that there is no Life but this to seek or hope for do live in uncomfortable despair and only seek to palliate his misery with the brutish pleasures of a wicked life and if he stick at no villany which hisfleshly Lusts incline him to Especially Tyrants and Multitudes who have none but God to fear And it is my certain duty to seek Heaven with all the fervour of my Soul and diligence of my life And is it not Best to find it § 15. 7. That must needs be Best for me which all other things must be forsaken for It is folly to forsake the Better for the worse But Scripture Reason and Conscience tell me that all this World when it stands in competition or opposition should be forsaken for Heaven yea for the least hopes of it A possible everlasting Glory should be preferred before a certainly perishing Vanity I am sure this life will shortly be nothing to me and therefore it is next to nothing now And must I forsake all for my everlasting Hopes and yet be unwilling to pass unto the possession of them § 16. 8. That is like to be our Best which is our Maturest state Nature carrieth all things towards their perfection Our Apples Pears Grapes and every Fruit is best when it is ripe And though they then hasten to corruption that is through the incapacity of the corporeal materials any longer to retain the Vegetative Spirit which is not annihilated at its separation and being not made for its own felicity but for Mans its ripeness is the state in which Man useth it before it doth corrupt of itself that its corruption may be for his nutriment and the Spirits and best matter of his said food doth become his very substance And doth God cause Saints to grow up unto ripeness only to perish and drop down unto useless rottenness It is not credible Though our Bodies become but like our filthiest excrements our Souls return to God that gave them And though he need them not he useth them in their separated state and that to such heavenly uses as their heavenly Maturity and Mellowness hath disposed them to Seeing then Love hath ripened me for itself shall I not willingly drop into its hand § 17. 9. That is like to be the Best which the Wisest and Holiest in all Ages of the World have preferred before all and have most desired And which also almost all Mankind do acknowledge to be best at last It is not like that all the Best men in the World should be most deceived and be put upon fruitless labour and sufferings by this deceit and be undone by their duty and that God should by such deceits rule all or almost all Mankin And also that the common notices of humane Nature and Consciences last and closest documents should be all in vain But it is past all doubt that no men usually are worse than those that have no Belief or Hopes of any Life but this And that none are so Holy Just and Sober so charitable to others and so useful to Mankind as those that firmliest believe and hope for the state of immortality And shall I fear that state which all that were wise and holy in All Ages have preferred and desired § 18. 10. And it is not unlike that my Best state is that which my greatest Enemies are mâ—st against And how much Satan doth to keep me and other men from Heaven and how much worldly Honour and Pleasure and Wealth he could afford us to accomplish it I need not here again be copious in reciting having said so much of it elsewhere And shall I be towards my self so much of Satans mind He would not have me come to Heaven And shall I also be unwilling All these things tell me that It is Best to be with Christ II. The Final Reasons § 1. II 1. Is it not far better to dwell with GOD in Glory than with sinful men in such a World as this Though he be every where his Glory which we must behold to our Felicity and the perfecting Operations and Communications of his Love are in the glorious World and not on Earth As the Eye is made to see the Light and then to see other things by the Light so is mans mind made to see God and to Love him and other things as in by and for him He that is our beginning is our end And our End is the first Motive of all Moralaction and for It it is that all means are used And the End attained is the Rest of Souls How oft hath my Soul groaned under the sense of Distance and Darkness and Estrangeness from God! How oft hath it looked up and gasped after him and said O when shall I be nearer and better acquianted with my God As the Heart panteth after the
intuitively and as Face to Face That which is essentially Life as a Living Principle will Live And that which is essentially an Active Intellective Volitive principle force and Virtue will still be such while it is itself and is not annihilated or changed into another thing which is not to be feared And that which is such can never want an Object till all things be annihilated § 8. Reason assureth me that were my will now what it should be and fully obsequious herein to my understanding to fulfil Gods will would be the fulfilling my own will for my will should perfectly comply with His and to please him perfectly would be my perfect pleasure And it is the unreasonable adhesion to this Body and sinful selfishness which maketh any one think otherwise now I am sure that my Soul shall Live for it is Life itself and I am sure that I shall live to God and that I shall fulfil and please his blessed will and this is as such incomparably better than my Felicity as such And yet so far as I am pleased in so doing it will be my Felicity § 9. I begin now to think that the strange Love which the Soul hath to this Body so far as it is not inordinate is put into us of God partly to signifie to us the great Love which Christ hath to his Mystical Political Body and to every member of it even the least He will gather all his Elect out of the World and none that come to him shall be shut out and none that are given him shall be lost As his Flesh is to them Meat indeed and his Blood is to them Drink indeed and he nourisheth them for Life eternal His Spirit in them turning the Sacrament the Word and Christ himself in esse objectivo as Believed in into Spirit and Life to us as the Soul and our Natural Spirits turn our food into Flesh and Blood and Spirits which in a dead Body or any lifeless repository it would never be so as we delight in the ease and prosperity of our Body and each Member and have pleasure in the pleasant food that nourisheth it and other pleasant Objects which accommodate it Christ also delighteth in the welfare of his Church and of all the Faithful and is pleased when they are fed with good and pleasant Food and when hereby they prosper Christ Loveth the Church not only as a Man must love his Wife but as we Love our Bodies And no Man ever hated his own Flesh Eph. 5. 27 c. And herein I must allow my Saviour the preeminence to overgo me in powerful faithful Love He will save me better from pain and death than I can save my Body and will more inseparably hold me to himself If it please my Soul to dwell in such a House of Clay and to operate on so mean a thing as Flesh how greatly will it please my glorified Lord to dwell with his glorified Body the triumphant Church and to cherish and bless each Member of it It would be a kind of death to Christ to be separated from his Body and to have it die Whether Augustine and the rest of the Fathers were in the right or no who thought that as our Bodies do not only shed their Hairs but by sicknesses and wast lose much of their very Flesh so Christ's Militant Body doth not only lose Hypocrites but also some living justified Members yet certain it is that confirmed Members and more certain that glorified Members shall not be lost Heaven is not a place for Christ or us to suffer such loss in And will Christ love me better than I love my Body Will he be lother to lose me than I am to lose a Member or to die Will he not take incomparably greater pleasure in animating and actuating me for ever than my Soul doth in animating and actuating this Body O then let me long to be with him And though I am naturally loth to be absent from the Body let me be by his Spirit more unwilling to be absent from the Lord And though I would not be unclothed had not sin made it necessary let me groan to be clothed upon with my heavenly Habitation and to become the delight of my Redeemer and to be perfectly loved by Love itself § 10. And even this blessed Receptivity of my Soul in terminating the Love and Delight of my glorified Head must needs be a felicity to me The insensible Creatures are but Beautified by the Suns communication of its Light and Heat but the sensitives have also the Pleasure of it Shall my Soul be sensless will it be a Clod or Stone Shall that which is now the form of be then more Lifeless Sensless or uncapable than the form of Bruits is now Doubtless it will be a living perceiving sensible Recipient of the felicitating Love of God and my Redeemer I shall be loved as a living Spirit and not as a dead and senseless thing that doth not comfortably perceive it § 11. And if I must rejoice with my fellow Servants that rejoice shall I not be glad to think that my blessed Lord will rejoice in me and in all his glorified Ones Union will make his pleasure to be much mine And it will be aptly said by him to the faithful Soul Enter thou into the Joy of thy Lord Mat. 25. 21. His own active Joy will objectively be Ours as Ours will be Efficiently His or from Him Can that be an ill condition to me in which my Lord will most rejoice It is Best to Him and therefore Best to me § 12. And the heavenly Society will joyfully welcome a Holy Soul If there be now Joy in Heaven among the Angels for one Sinner that Repenteth who hath yet so little Holiness and so much Sin What joy will there be over a perfected glorified Soul Surely if Our Angels there behold our Fathers Face they will be glad in Season of our Company The Angels that carried Lazarus to Abraham's Bosom no doubt rejoiced in their work and their success And is the Joy of Angels and the heavenly Host as nothing to me Will not Love and Union make their Joy to be my own if Love here must make all my Friends and Neighbours comforts to become my own And as their Joy according to their Perfection is greater than any that I am now capable of so the participation of so great a Joy of theirs will be far better than to have my little separated apartment Surely that will be my best condition which Angels and blessed Spirits will be best pleased in and I shall rejoice most in that which they most rejoice in III. The Constitutive Reasons from the Intellective state III. § 1. Though the Tempter would persuade men because of the case of Infants in the Womb Apoplectick's c. that the understanding will be but an unactive Power when separated from these corporeal Organs I have seen before sufficient Reasons to repel this
to our clearest view O what beatifying knowledge will this be All dark Texts concerning his Person his Office and his Works will be then expounded and fully understood All those strange and difficult things which were the great exercise and honour of Faith will then be plain Difficulties will no more be Satans advantage to tempt us to unbelief or doubting The sight of the Glory of my Lord will be my Glory Joh. 17. 24. If Paul had not then attained to Perfection in the knowledge of Christ and the power of his Resurrection but was pressing forward to reach that Crown in the life to come which he calleth The Resurrection of the dead Phil. 3. 9 10 11 12. Such as I must not expect here to attain it but when that which is Perfect is come this imperfect knowledge of Faith will be done away as childish knowledge is in manly And the Glass and Riddle shall be laid aside when we shall see Face to Face and shall know as we are known 1 Cor. 13. 10 11 12. as to our sight and knowledge of Christ and his Triumphant Body For I dare not apply that Phrase to the sight and knowledg of the Divine essence nor yet deny it If now though we see not Christ yet believing we love him and rejoice in him with unspeakable glorying joy What love and joy will the Everlasting sight of our blessed head excite there in the Souls of all the glorified IV. I shall better O much better know the heavenly Jerusalem the Triumphant Church the Blessed Angels and glorified Saints And as my love to them so my knowledge of them will not be the least part of my heavenly delight As strangely as I now look upward to that World because I cannot see it with these Eyes it shall be my well known Everlasting habitation O what a sight what a joyful sight will Death shew me by drawing aside the vail Or rather the Lord of Life by turning Death to my advantage When I am there at home I shall no more think with confusion fear or doubting of that blessed place or state My fears which now come from the smalness of my Faith will end when Faith is turned into Vision As I now know the several Rooms in my House and Houses in the Street and Streets in the City so shall I then know the many Mansions which Christ hath said are in his Fathers House Words now give me so poor imperfect a conception of the World and things which I never saw as that somtimes I can scarcely tell whether the Joy of my Faith or the trouble of my dark apprehensions be the greater But when I shall see the Place the Persons the Glory which I heard of that will be the delightful satisfying and possessing kind of knowledge If Nehemiah and the godly Jews made so great a matter of seeing the Walls of Jerusalem repaired and others of the imperfect reedifying of the Temple O what a joyful sight to me will the heavenly Jerusalem then be The most glorious sight will be at the great Marriage day of the Lamb when Christ shall come to be glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that now believe But the next to that will be the Day of my particular deliverance when I shall come to Christ and see the Saints admiring him in Glory If I were of the Opinion of those Greek Fathers who thought that Stars were Angels or had intellectual Souls matters unknown to us I should love them as my Guardians and take it to be yet more of my concernment to be advanced to the fuller knowledge of them But seeing I know that Angels love us and by Office do attend and keep us and rejoice at our good and at our repentance and which is far more are more holy and excellent Creatures than we are it is therefore my comfort to think that I shall better know them and live in near and perpetual acquaintance and communion with them a more sensible and sweet communion than we can have with them here Devils are aereal and near to this dark and sinful World and ofter appear to men than Angels But the Angels affect not such descending appearances till Love and Obedience to their Lord make it pleasing to them And therefore we have but little knowledge even of those that know and love and keep us But when we come home to their nearest society and converse to know them will be sweet and joyful knowledge For they are more excellent Creatures than the most glorious that are below the Intellective Nature They are full of Light and full of Love to God and Man Had God bid me pray to them I would not have refused it but taken it for my honour But seeing he hath not I will do that which he hath bid me even Love them and rejoice in my relation to the innumerable Company of them in the City of the Living God the heavenly Jerusalem Heb. 12. 22. and long to know and love them more expecting long to bear my part in the Praises of God and of the Lamb in the same Chore where they are the Precentors And that I shall know the Spirits of the perfected Just and be of their communion will be no small addition to my joy How sweet hath one wise and holy though weak and blemished companion been to me here on Earth And how lovely have God's Graces in such though smutted appeared to me O then what a sight will it be when we shall see the Millions of Souls that shine in perfect Wisdom and Holiness with Christ To see a Garden that hath some beautiful Flowers in it is somthing But if you saw whole Fields and Countries shining with them it would be a glory though fading to the Earth A well built City is a pleasanter sight than a single House and a Navy than a Ship and an Army than one Man And if this poor low World did all consist of Wise and Just and Holy Persons O what an orderly lovely World would it be If one Kingdom consisted Prince Magistrates Pastors and People all of such what a blessed Kingdom would that be The plague of wicked mens deceits and falshoods oppressions and iniquities may help to make us sensible of this It would be a great temptation to us to be loth to die and leave such a Countrey were it not that the more the beauty of goodness appeareth the more the state of Perfection is desired It is pleasant to me to pray in hope as Christ hath commanded me that Earth may be made liker unto Heaven which now is become so like to Hell But when I shall see the Society perfected in Number in Holiness in Glory in heavenly Employment the joyful Praises of Jehovah the Glory of God and the Lamb shining on them and God rejoicing over them as his delight and my self partaking of the same that will be the truly blessed day And why doth my Soul imprisoned in Flesh no
more desire it V. I shall better understand all the World of God! The Matter and the Method of it Though I shall shall not have that use for it as I have now in this Life of Faith yet I shall see more of God's Wisdom and his Goodness his Love Mercy and Justice appearing in it than ever Man on Earth could do As the Creatures so the Scriptures are perfectly known only by perfect Spirits I shall then know how to solve all doubts and reconcile all seeming contradictions and to expound the hardest Prophesies That light will shew me the admirable Methods of those Sacred words where dark minds now suspect confusion How evident and clear then will every thing appear to me Like a small print when the light comes in which I could not read in the glimmering twilight How easily shall I then confute the cavils of all our present Unbelievers And how joyfully shall I praise that God and Saviour that gave his Church so clear a light to guide them through this darksom World and so sure a promise to support them till they came to life Eternal How joyfully shall I bless him that by that immortal Seed did regenerate me to the hopes of Glory And that ruled me by so Holy and Just a Law VI. In that World of Light I shall better understand God's present and past works of Providence by which he ordereth the matters of this World The Wisdom and Goodness of them is little understood in little parcels It is the union and harmony of all the parts which sheweth the beauty of them when the single Parcels seem deformed or are not understood And no one can see the whole together but God and they that see it in the light of his Celestial Glory It is a prospect of that End by which we have here any true understanding of such Parcels as we see Then I shall know clearly why or to what use God prospered the wicked and tryed the Righteous by so many afflictions I shall know why he set up the ungodly and put the humble under their Feet Why he permitted so much ignorance ungodliness pride lust oppression persecution falshood deceit and other sins in the World I shall know why the faithful are so few And why so many Kingdoms of the World are left in Heathenism Mahometanism and Infidelity The strange permissions which now so puzzle me and are the matter of my astonishment shall all be then as clear as day I shall know why God disposed of me as he did through all my life and why I suffered what I did and how many great deliverances I had which I understood not here and how they were accomplished All our mis-interpretations of God's works and permissions will be then rectified And all our Controversies about them which Satan hath made so great advantage of by a pretended zeal for some Truths of God will then be reconciled and at an end And all the works of Divine Providence from the beginning of the World will then appear a most delectable beauteous frame VII And among all these works I shall specially know more the nature and excellency of Gods mercies and gifts of Love which here we too unthankfully undervalued and made light of The special works of Love should be the matter of our most constant sweet and serious Thoughts and the fuel of our constant Love and Gratitude The lively sense of Love and Mercy maketh lively Christians abounding in Love to God and Mercy to others But the Enemy of God and Man most laboureth to obscure diminish and disgrace God's Love and Mercys to us or to put us out of relish to them that they be unfruitful as to their excellent ends and uses Little do most Christians know how much they wrong God and themselves and how much they lose by the diminutive poor Thoughts which they have of God's Mercies Ingratitude is a grievous misery to the Sinner as gratitude is a very pleasant work Many a Thousand Mercies we now receive which we greatly undervalue But when I come to the state and work of perfect gratitude I shall have a more perfect knowledge of all the Mercies which ever I received in my Life and which my Neighbours and Friends and God's Church and the World did ever receive For though the thing be past the use of it is not past Mercies remembred must be the matter of our everlasting thanks And we cannot be perfectly thankful for them without a perfect knowledge of them The worth of a Christ and all his grace the work of the Gospel the worth of our Church-priviledges and all God's Ordinances the worth of our Books and Friends and Helps of our Life and Health and all conveniences will be better understood in Heaven than the most holy and thankful Christian here understandeth them VIII And it will be some addition to my future happiness that I shall then be much better acquainted with my self Both with my Nature and with my Sin and Grace I shall then better know the Nature of a Soul and its formal Faculties Three in One I shall know the nature and way of its Operations and how far its acts are simple or compound or organical I shall know how far Memory Phantasie and Sense internal and external belong to the rational Soul and whether the sensitive and rational are two or one and what Senses will perish and what not I shall know how the Soul doth act upon it self and what acts it hath that are not felt in sleep in Apoplexies and in the Womb I shall know whether the vegetative nature be any thing else than Fire and whether it be of the same Essence with the Soul sensitive or rational and whether Fire eminenter be a common fundamental substance of all Spirits diversly specified by the Forms mental sensitive and vegetative or whether it be as a Body or Vehicle to Spirits or rather a nature made for the Copulation of Spirits and Bodies and the Operation of the former on the latter as between both And whether Fire and of what sort be the active forma telluris and of other Globes I shall know how far Souls are One and yet Many and how they are Individuate And whether their Quantitas discreta in being numerically many do prove that they have any Quantitatem continuam and whether they are a purer sort of Bodies as the Greek Fathers Tertullian and others Thought and what Immateriality signifieth and what substantiality of Spirits and how substantia materia differ and how far they are penetrable and indivisible and whether a Soul be properly pars and whether individual Souls are parts of any common Soul and how far the individuation doth continue And whether separated from the Body they operate in and by any other Vehicle or without and how and whether they take with them any of the fiery Nature as a Vehicle or as a constitutive part I shall know how God produceth Souls And how
none of Satans solicitations to pervert my will He will not have that advantage by my Sense and Phantasie nor that access unto me as now he hath But of this I spake before § 2. My WILL shall there be better than here I. Negatively because 1. There will be nothing in it that is displeasing to God No sinful inclination habit or act Nothing to strive against God's Spirit Nor grudge at any word or work of God No Principles of Enmity or Rebellion left 2. There will be nothing that is against the good of others No inclinations to injury or any thing that is against my Neighbours or the common good 3. There will be nothing in it that is cross to itself no more war or striving in me not a Law in my Mind and a Law in my Members that are contrary to each other No crossness between Sense and Reason nor between the sensitive Appetite and the rational All will be at unity and peace within § 3. II. Positively Christ will have finished his cure on my will The work of Sanctification will be perfect And I. My will shall there by union and communion be made conformable to the will of Christ and so unto the Fathers will This must needs be meant whatever more in the Prayer of Christ Joh. 17. 21 22. Where he prayeth that they may be One as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they may be one in us that they may be one even as we are one The will of Christ and of the Father will be my will that is I shall love and will dispositively and actually the same that God loveth and willeth in the measure of a Creature infinitely below him And if so 1. How can the will of Man have greater honour than to be the same with the will of God Assimilation to a King among us poor Mortals goeth for Honour Assimilation to Angels is much more That we shall be like or equal to the Angels is a high part of the Blesseds praise But how much more is it to be thus far like to God! Indeed God's Image and the Divine in us here can be no less than this similitude to God's will in the degree that we have it But alas that degree is so very low as that we can hardly tell whether our similitude or our dissimilitude be the more I mean whether our wills are for more that God willeth or against more O how many Thousand wishes and desires have we had which are against the will of God! But there we shall have the full impression of God's will upon our wills as Face answereth Face in a Glass or as the Wax answereth the Seal As the Finger on the outside answereth the motion of the Clock within so in all things which belong to our duty and perfection we shall answer the will of God As the Eccho answereth the Voice defectively but truly without contradiction or discord so will our wills be as the Eccho of God's will 2. And then I am sure that there will be nothing in my will but good For God willeth no evil 3 And this will be virtually all obedience For all sin is voluntary and all Moral good is primarily in the will 4. And then there can be no matter of disquiet in me but all will be in perfect Peace for all that is like God will be pleasing both to God and me No troubling crossness will remain 5. And how easy and sweet then will all my obedience be when I shall perfectly will it without any reluctancy or aversness All will be my very pleasure that I do § 4. II. And seeing my will shall be the same with the will of God it followeth that it shall never be frustrate but I shall have all whatsoever I would have and shall be and do whatsoever I would be and do For I shall desire nothing but what God willeth and God's will shall certainly be done I shall have as much Love and Joy as I would have I shall be as happy as I would be I shall desire nothing for others but it shall be done Indeed if God's will were there unknown to me I might ignorantly go against it as I do here But there before I will or desire any thing I shall know whether it be God's will or not So that I shall never wish any thing which shall not be accomplished An I as it is God's Perfection to have his will alway done though all his Laws be not obeyed so my Perfection shall consist in this likeness unto God that my will shall be still fulfilled And then Christ's promises will be perfectly performed Whatsoever ye ask the Father in my Name he will give it you Joh. 15. 16. 16. 2â—â— 14. 13 14. 15. 7. Ye shall ask what you will and it shall be done unto you While their will was the same with the will of Christ But he saith not that it shall all be given us here we ask for Perfection and we shall have it but not here § 5. III. Yea my will it self shall be my Fruition For it shall not be the will of one in need a desire of what I want for I shall want nothing Therefore it is said that we shall Thirst no more But it will be a Complacency in what I do possess And in this also my perfection will be the Image of God's perfection Not but that all Creatures still Receive from God and in that sense may be said to need in that they have nothing of themselves but all by gift and communication from him But being still and full possessours they cannot properly be said to want Complacency in that which we possess is Love and Pleasure in one act And indeed Pleasure and Love are the same thing To Love any thing is to have that thing to be Pleasing to my mind Even when it is wanted it is thought on a pleasing thing and therefore desired so that the desiring act of the Will is but a second act occasioned by want and following the first act which is Complacency or simple Love I desire it because I love it Rightly therefore is the Will itself called LOVE for in the first act Love Will and Rational Appetite are all words of the same signification My will therefore must needs be perpetually full of perfect JOY when enjoying Love and Pleasure will be my will itself Thus shall I have in me the Spring of Living Waters and the Comforter will then perfectly do his work when my constant will itself shall be Comfort well therefore is Glory said to be the â—erfection of sanctifying Grace when this Grace is the beginning of that Love and Joy which Glory is the Perfection of And Perfection is the Spirits work § 6. IV. And it will be much of my felicity that my Will shall be confirmed and fixed in this conformity to the will of God and holy LOVE will be its Nature Now both understanding and will
are so lamentably mutable that further than God promiseth to uphold us we know not one day what we shall think judge or Will the next But when Love is as a fixed Nature in us we shall be still the same adhering to amiable goodness without intermission or Cessation It will be as easy to us and more to love God and Holiness as it is to the Hungry and Thirsty to love meat and drink or to the proud to love praise or domination yea or to any Man to love his life And we shall be no more weary of Loving than the Sun is of shining or than the Hungry is of Feasting or a Friend of friendly love and converse Nay the Comparison is quite too low for all Creatures here have a fading vanity which wearieth the satiated or failing Appetite but there is no such thing in Heaven § 7. II. And as from the nature of that act so much more from the nature of the Object my love will appear to be my happiness The Objects which are as the Matter of the act will be these 1. GOD himself will be the full and everlasting Object of my Love And he that could but understand as well as those in Heaven do what this word signifieth to LOVE GOD and be BELOVED of him would say that there needs no other description of perfect happiness Perfect joyful Complacency in God is the Heaven which I desire and hope for This is my Felicity and much more As I am the Agent of Love to God and the Object of God's Love to me it is my Felicity As God is the ultimate Object of my Love and the Agent of his Love to me that is of the effects of it so it is unspeakably more high and excellent than to be my felicity Love is the closure of the Wills of God and Man And as it is God's part or interest efficiently or objectively it is infinitely more excellent than as it is my part and interest § 8. In GOD there is all that Love can desire for its full everlasting Feast 1. He is Infinitely good in himself that is most amiable And the nature of Man's will is to love Good as Good Could we love God with a Love that is adequate to the Object we should be God our selves which is impossible none but God can adequately know God or Love him In God's Love to Himself both the Act and Object are Infinite and indeed are both one there being not that formally which we know by the name of Act and Object but Act and Object are our analogical inadequate conceptions of that Act of God which is his Essence But in our Love to God the Act is finite and infinitely below the Object Yea the Object which in reality 〈◊〉 itself infinite yet proximately as the esse Cognitum is the Object of our Love is finite there It is the Conception or Idea of God in the Intellect which is the proper and nearest Object of the Will And this is as a Face in a Glass a shadow even the finite little shaddow of an infinite Being The same Infinite good is a felicity to diverâ— Persons in divers degrees according as they diversly love him and are receptive of his Love § 9. 2. God who is infinitely Good in himself will be that most suitable Good to me and meetest for the dearest embracements of my will For 1. He hath All in himself that I need or can desire There is no Room nothing above him or beyond him or without him for love to cleave to Though Below him the Creature though not being without him is loved without him by the deception of the mind § 10. 2. He is willing to be loved by me He disdaineth not my Love He might have refused to be embraced by such affections as have so oft and sinfully polluted themselves by embracing vanity and filth As Persons of state and stately cleanliness will not be touched by filthy hands much less let Dogs or dirty Swine leap on them which come from wallowing in the mire God might have driven me away from the happiness of loving him and have denyed me the leave for so high a work But he commandeth my Love and maketh it my greatest duty He inviteth and intreateth me as if he were a gainer by my happiness He seeketh to me to seek to him and as he is the first so is he the most earnest suiter He is far readier to receive my Love than I am to give it him All the compassionate invitations which I have had from him here by his Word and Mercies assure me that he will there receive me readily he that so valued my poor cold imperfect love to him on Earth will not reject my perfect love in Heaven He that made it the great work of his Spirit to Effect it will not refuse it when it is made perfect by himself § 11. 3. And he is near to me and not a distant God out of my reach and so unsuitable to my Love Blind Unbelievers may dream that he is far off but he is as near us even now as we are to our selves He is not far from any of us for in him we live and move and have our being The Light of the Sun is not so neaâ— my Eyes as God will be for ever to my Mind When he would sanctifie us to love him he bringeth us nigh to him in Christ. As we love our selves easily as being as they say the nearest to our selves So we shall as easily love God as our selves when we see â—â—at he is as near us as we are to our selves as well as that he is infinitely more Amiable in himself § 12. 4. And because of the imparity of the Creature and the Creator he hath provided such Means to demonstrate to us his nearness as are necessary to the exercise of our Love We shall see his Gâ—oâ—y and taste his Love in our glorified Mediator and in the Gâ—oâ—y of the Church and World God will condescend to shew himself to us according to our Capacities of beholding him Here we see him in his Works and Word and there we shall see him in the glory of all his perfect Works But this leadeth me to the second Object of my Love § 13. II. Under God as I shall see so I shall delightfully Love the glorious Perfection of the Universe even the Image of God in all the World as my Love will be my delight so I shall love best that which is best and most delight in it And the whole is better than any part And there is a peculiar Beauty and Excellency in the whole World as perfect compaginate harmonious which is not to be found in any part no not in Christ himself as Man nor in his Church The marvellous inclination that all things have to Union even the Inanimates might persuade me if I felt it not certainly in my self that it is most credible that Man also shall have the like
inclination and such as is agreeable to the nature of his Faculties And therefore our love and delight in all things is that uniting inclination in Man § 14. III. And I shall have a special Love to the Holy Society the triumphant Universal Church consisting of Christ Angels and Saints as they are specially amiable in the Image and Glory of God God himself loveth them more than his inferiour works that is his Essence which is Love and hath no degrees or change doth send forth fuller streams of good upon them or maketh them better and happier than the rest And my love will imitate the love of God in my Capacity And if Societies on Earth more holy and wise than others though imperfectly are very amiable what then will the heavenly Society be Of this I spake before of knowing them § 15. 1. Think here O my Soul how sweet a state unto thee it will be to Love the Lord Jesus thy glorâ—fied Head with perfect love When the glory of God which shineth in him will feast thy love with full and everlasting pleasure The highest created Perfection of Power Wisdom and Goodness refulgent in him will not give leave to thy Love to cease or intermit or abate its fervour When thou shalt see in the glorified Church the precious fruits of Christ's Redemption Grace and Love this also will feed thy love to him from whom this heavenly Glory cometh And when thou shalt feel thy self possest of perfect happiness by his Love to thee will not this also do its part Yea the remembrance of all his former Love what he did for thee and what he did in thee here on Earth how he called thee with a Holy calling how he washed thee in his Blood from all thy sins how he kindled in thee those desires which tended to that perfect Glory how he renewed thy Nature how he instructed and guided and preserved thee from thy Childhood and how many and how great sins enemies dangers and sufferings he saved thee from all this will constrain thee Everlastingly to love him Thus though he give the Kingdom to the Father as ceasing his Mediatory healing saving work of acquisition he will be to thee the Mediator of fruition God in him will be accessible and condescend to a suitable communion with us Joh. 17. 24. And as Christ is thy Life radically and efficiently as he is the giver of Grace and the Spirit of Love so he will be Objectively thy Life as he is Lovely and it will be formally thy Life to Love him and God in him for ever § 16. 2. Think also O my Soul how delectable it will be to Love as well as to know those Angels that most servently love the Lord They will be lovely to thee as they have loved thee and more as they have been Lovers and Benefactors to the Church and to Mankind but far more as they are so many refulgent Stars which continually move and shine and burn in purest love to their Creator O blessed difference between that amiable Society of holy Spirits and this dark mad distracted wicked World Here Devils tempt me within and Devils incarnate persecute me without Blaspheming of God reviling godliness deriding the Sacred Scriptures and Sacred exercises malignant slandering of the Servants of God hating persecuting silencing and saying all manner of evil falsly of them for their Righteousness sake while such Crimes are pretended as they once falsly charged on Christ himself this is the Conversation of those that I have long dwelt with in this World Atheism Infidelity Papal Church tyranny bloody Wars destroying the Righteous oppressing the Poor Adultery and Fornication Stigmatizing-Perjury Ambition Violence Covetousness deceit sottish Ignorance wilfulness in Sin hatred of Reproof revengeful Malice these and such like are the fruits of the Soil where I have long sojourned Though through the Grace of Christ among the faithful there have been better fruits And is not the Company of Holy Angels better than this With whom God is all who are even made up of shining Wisdom and holy Lovâ— and beneficent activity who are the blessed Choâ—e that melodiously sing forth the high Praises of their Maker Among whom God dwelleth as in his presence Chamber or his Temple and in whom he taketh his great delight With these I shall see or hear no evil No mixture of fools or wicked Ones do pollute or trouble their Society There will be no false Doctrine no evil Example no favouring Wickedness no accusing Goodness no hurtful Violence but holy powerful operative Love will be all and do all as their very Nature Life and Work And is it not better be a Door-keeper there than to dwell in the Pallaces of Wickedness And is not a Day with them better than a Thousand here § 17. 3. And with the holy Angels I shall love holy Souls that are made like unto them and joined with them in the same Society and it is likely with them Judge that is Rule the World All their infirmities are there put off with the Flesh they also are Spirits made up of holy Life and Light and Love There is none of their former ignorance errour imprudence selfishness contentiousness impatience or any other troubling hurtful thing When I think with what fervent love to God to Jesus Christ and to one another they will be perfectly united there alas how sad and how shameful is it that they should here be prone to disaffections and divisions and hardly agree to call each other the Servants of God or to worship God in the same Assembliâ—â— But the remnants of dividing Principles viz. Pride Errour and Uncharitableness will be all left behind Society with imperfect Saints is sweet The imperfect Image of God upon them is amiable But their frailties here are so vexatious that it is hard to live with some of them in Peace But perfect Love will make them one and O how delightful will that communion of Saints be I can never forget how sweet God hath made the course of my Pilgrimage by the fragrancy and usefulness of his Servants graces How sweet have my bosom Friends been though mutable How sweet hath the Neighbourhood of the godly been How sweet have the holy Assemblies And how many hours of comfort have I there had How profitable have their Writings their Conference and their Prayers been What then will it be to live in the union of perfect Love with perfect Saints in Heaven for ever and with them concordantly to love the God of Love § 18. III. And as the Act and the Object of LOVE will constitute my felicity so will my Reception from the Love of God and his Creatures be sweeter to me than my own activity can be For it is Mutual Love that makes it up I shall not be the Fountain of my own delights nor can I act till I am acted nor offer any thing to God but what I have first received from him And Receive I shall abundantly
and continually and from thence shall overflow to God and Receiving and Returning are now and will be the circular endless motion and our true perpetual Life and Happiness § 19. I. All my Receivings shall be from God His LOVE is not a meer Immanent Will nor a Wish which toucheth not the Object But it is what Heat is in or from the Sun or Fire It is an efflux of Goodness It is the most powerful sweet communicating Principle or Work All Love is communicative but none in comparison of Gods As there is none primitive and simply good but God How much doth Love in the affairs of men All that is pleasant in the World is it or its effects Were it not for sensual Love there would be no Generation of Man or Bruits God hath made it a generating Principle Hatred causeth not congress but fighting with or flying from one another Were it not for Natural Love Mothers would never endure the pain and trouble and care which is necessary to humane Birth and Education Were it not for Love Parents would never labour all their lives to leave their Children well instructed and well provided for when they are gone My Food would not please me did I not love it and I should neglect it to the neglect of my life Did I not love my Books and Learning itself I should never have bestowed so much of Threescore Years in poring on them and searching for Knowledge as I have done Did I not love my House my Conveniences and necessaries I should neglect them and they would be to me of small use Did I not love my Friends I should be less profitable to them and they to me Did not I love my Life I should neglect it and never have endured the labour and cost about it as I have done If a Man love not his Courtrey Posterity and the common good he will be as a burdensom Drone in the Hive or as pernicious Vermine What is done in the World that is good but by LOVE And if created Love be so necessary so active so communicative how much more will the infinite Love of the Creator be His Love is now the Life of the World His Love is the Life of Nature in the Living the life of Holiness in Saints and the life of glory in the Blessed In this infinite Love it is that I and all the Saints shall dwell for ever more And if I dwell in LOVE and LOVE in me surely I shall have its sweet and plenteous communication and shall ever drink of the Rivers of Pleasure It is pleasant to Nature to be Beloved of others Especially of the great and wise and good much more to have all the communications of Love in converse and gifts in plenty and continuance which may be still expressing it to our greatest benefit Had I a Friend now that did for me but the hundredth part of what God doth how dearly should I love him Think then think believingly seriously constantly O my Soul what a life thou shalt live for ever in the Presence the Face the Bosom of infinite Eternal Love He now shineth on me by the Sun and on my Soul by the Sun of Righteousness but it is as through a Lanthorn or the crevises of my darksom Habitation But then he will shine on me and in me openly and with the fullest streams and beams of Love § 20. God is the same God in Heaven and Earth but I shall not be the same Man Here I receive comparatively little but live in darkness doubtful and frequent sorrows because my Receptivity is less The windows of my Soul are not open to his light Sin hath raised clouds and consequently storms against my comforts The enterances to my Soul by the streights of Flesh and Sense are narrow and they are made narrower by sin than they were by Nature Alas how oft would Love have spoken comfortably to me and I was not at home to be spoken with but was abroad among a world of Vanities or was not at leisure or was asleep and not willing to be awaked How oft would LOVE have come in and dwelt with me and I have unkindly shut my doors against him How oft would he have been with me in secret where he freely would embrace me but I had some pleasing company or business which I was loth to leave How oft would he have feasted me and had made all ready but I was taken up and could not come â—ay when his Table hath been spred before me Christ Grace and Glory have been offered to me my Appetite hath been gone or dull and all hath been almost neglected by me and hath scarce seemed pleasant enough to be accepted or to call off my mind from luscious Poyson How oft would he have shined upon me and I have shut my windows or mine eyes He was jealous indeed and liked not a Partner He would have been All to me if I would have been All for him But I divided my Heart my Thoughts my Love my Desires and my Kindnesses and alas how much did go besides him yea against him to his Enemies even when I knew that all was lost and worse than lost which was not his What wonder then if so foolish and unkind a sinner had little pleasure in his Love and if so great ingratitude and neglect of Soveraign goodness were punished with such strangeness and fears and faintings as I have long with groans lamented Recipitur ad modum recipientis But in Heaven I shall have none of these obstructions All old unkindness and ingratitude will be forgiven The great reconciler in whom I am beloved will then have perfected his work I shall then be wholly separated from the vanity which here deceived me My open Soul will be prepared to receive the heavenly influx With open Face I shall behold the open Face of glorifying Love I shall joyfully attend his Voice and delightfully relish the Celestial Provisions No disease will corrupt my Appetite No sluggishness will make me guilty again of my old neglects The Love of the Father by the Grace of the Son and the Communion of the Holy Spirit will have got the victory over all my deadness folly and disaffection and my God-displeasing and self-undoâ—ng averseness and enmity will be gone for ever The perfect LOVE which God doâ—h first effect in me will be my everlasting Receptivity of the fullest Love of God Benevolent love will make me good that is a Holy lover of God and then pleased love will make me his delight and benevolence will still maintain me in my capacity Study this heavenly work of Love O my Soul these are not dead or barren studies These are not sad unpleasant studies It is only love that can relish love and understand it The will here hath its gust so like to an understanding as maketh some Philosophers say that voluntas percipit is a proper Phrase What can poor carnal Worldlings know of glorious Love who
sin and discord But there a whole Heaven fulâ— of blessed Spirits will flame for ever in perfect Love to God to Christ and one another Go then go willingly O my Soul Love joineth with LIGHT to draw up thy desires Nature inclineth all things unto Union Even the lifeless Elements have an Aggregative motion by which the parts when violently separated do hastily return to their Natural adhesion Art thou a Lover of Wisdom and wouldst thou not be united to the Wise Art thou a Lover of Holiness and of Love itself and wouldst thou not be united to the Holy who are made of Love Art thou a hater of enmity discord and divisions and a Lover of Unity here on Earth and wouldst thou not be where all the just are One It is not an unnatural Union to thy loss Nothing shall be taken from thee by it Thou shalt receive by it more than thou canst contribute It shall not be forced against thy will It is but a Union of Minds and Wills a perfect Union of Loves Let not natural or sinful selfishness cause thee to think suspiciously or hardly of it For it is thy happiness and end What got the Angels that fell to selfishness from Unity And what got Adam that followed them herein The further any man goeth from UNITY by SELFISHNESS the deeper he falleth into sin and misery from God! And what doth Grace but call us back from sin and selfishness to Gods Unity again Doâ—e not then on this dark divided World Is not thy Body while the parts by a uniting Soul are kept together and make One in a better state than when it is crumbled into lifeless dust And doth not death creep on thee by a gradual dissolution Away then from this sandy incoherent state The further from the Center the further from Unity A Unity indeed there is of all things but it is One heavenly LIFE and LIGHT and LOVE which is the true felicitating Union We dispute here whether the Aggregative Motion of separated parts as in descensu gravium be from a Motive Principle in the part or by the Attraction of the whole or by any external impulse It is like that there is somewhat of all these But sure the greatest cause is like to do most to the effect The body of the Earth hath more power to attract a Cload or Stone than the intrinsick Principle to move it downwards But intrinsick Gravity is also necessary The superior attractive Love and Loveliness must do more to draw up this mind to God than my intrinsick Holiness to move it upward But without this Holiness the Soul would not be capable of feeling that attractive influx Every Grace cometh from God to fit and lead up my Soul to God Faith therefore believeth the heavenly state and Love doth with some Delight desire it and Hope gapeth after it that I may at last attain it They that have pleaâ—ed against Propriety and would have all things common in this World have forgotten that there is a Propriety in our present Egoity and Natural Constitution which rendereth some accidental Propriety necessary to us Every Man hath his own bodily parts and inherent accidents and every Man must have his own Food his own Place Cloathing and Acquisitions his own Children and therefore his own Wife c. But that the greatest Perfection is most for Community as far as Nature is capable of it God would shew us in making the first Receivers of the extraordinary pourings out of his Spirit to sell all and voluntarily make all common none saying This or that is my own which was not done by any constraining Law but by the Law or Power of uniting Love They were first all as of one Heart and Soul Act. 4. 32. Take not then thy inordinate desire of Propriety for thy Health but for thy Sickness Cherish it not and be not afraid to lose it and measure not the heavenly felicity by it Spirits are penetrable They claim not so much as a Propriety of place as Bodies do It is thy weakness and state of Imperfection now which maketh it so desirable to thee that thy House should be Thine and nones but thine thy Land be Thine and nones but Thine thy Cloaths thy Books yea thy knowledge and grace be Thine and Nones but Thine How much more excellent a state were it if we were here capable of it if we could say that all these are as the common Light of the Sun which is mine and every ones as well as mine Why are we so desirous to speak all Languages but that we might understand all men and 〈◊〉 understood of all and so might make our sentiments as common as is possible Whence is it that men are so addicted to talkativeness but that Nature would make all our Thoughts and passions as common aâ— it can And why else are Learned men so desirous to propagate their Learning and Godly men so desirous to make all others wise and godly It seemeth one of the greatest calamities of this life that when a Man hath with the longest and hardest study attained to much knowledge he cannot bequeath it or any part of it to his Heir or any Person when he dieth but every Man must acquire it for himself And when God hath sanctified the Parents they cannot communicate their Holiness to their Children though God promise to bless them on their account Much less can any Man make his Grace or Knowledge common Nature and Grace incline us to desire it but we cannot do it For this end we Talk and Preach and Write for this end we study to be as plain and convincing and moving as we can that we may make our Knowledge and Affections as common to our Hearers and Readers as we can And O what a blessed work should we take Preaching and Writing for if we could make them all know but what we know and love what we are persuading them to love There would then be no need of Schools and Universities A few Hours would do more than they do in an Age. But alas how rare is it for a Father of excellent Learning and Piety to have one Son like himself after all his industry Is not the heavenly communion then desirable where every Man shall have his Own and yet his Own be common to all others My knowledge shall be mine own and other mens as well as mine My goodness shall be my own and theirs My glory and felicity shall be mine and theirs And theirs also shall be mine as well as theirs The Knowledge the Goodness the Glory of all the heavenly Society shall be Mine according to my Capacity Grace is the Seed of such a state which maketh us all one in Christ neither Barbarian nor Scythian Circumcision nor Uncircumcision Bond nor Free by giving us to love our Neighbours as our selves and to love both our Neighbours and our selves for Christ and Christ in all Well might Paul say All things yours But it
me the Light of the Sun than the Light of thy Countenance Less miserable had I been without Life or Being than without thy Grace Without thee and my Saviour's help I can do nothing I did not live without thee I could not pray or learn without thee I never could conquer a temptation without thee and can I die or be prepared to die without thee Alas I shall but say as Philip of Christ I know not whither my Soul is going and how then shall I know the way My Lord having loved his own in the World did love them to the end Thou lovest fidelity and perseverance in thy Servants even those that in his sufferings forsook him and fled yet are commended and rewarded by Christ for continuing with him in his temptations Luk. 22. 28. And wilt thou forsake a sinner in his extremity who consenteth to thy Covenant and would not forsake thee My God I have often sinned against thee but yet thou knowest I would fain be thine I have not served thee with the resolution fidelity and delight as such a Master should have been served but yet I would not forsake thy service nor change my Master or my Work I can say with thy Servant Paul Act. 27. 23. that thou art the GOD WHOSE I AM and WHOM I SERVE and O that I could serve thee better For to serve thee is but to Receive thy Grace and to use it for my own and others good and so to glorifie thee and please thy will which being LOVE it self is pleased best when we receive and do most good I have not loved thee as Infinite Goodness and Love it self and fatherly Bounty should have been loved but yet I would not forsake thy Family and nothing in this World is more my grief than that I love thee no more forsake not then a sinner that would not forsake thee that looketh every hour towards thee that feeleth it as a piece of Hell to be so dark and strange unto thee that gropeth and groaneth and gaspeth after thee feeling to his greatest sorrow though thou art every where that while he is present in the body he is absent from the Lord. My Lord I have nothing to do in this World but to seek and serve thee I have nothing to do with a Heart and its affections but to breath after thee I have nothing to do with my Tongue and Pe◠but to speak to thee and for thee and to publish thy Glory and thy Will What have I to do with all my Reputation and Interest in my Friends but to increase thy Church and propagate thy holy Truth and Service What have I to do with my remaining Time even these last and languishing hours but to look up unto thee and wait for thy Grace and thy Salvation O pardon all my carnal thoughts and all my unthankful neglects of thy precious Grace and Love and all my wilful sin against thy Truth and thee and let the fuller Communications of thy forfeited Grace now tell me by experience that thou dost forgive me Even under the terrible Law thou didst tell Man thy very Nature by proclaiming thy Name Exod. 34 6 7. The Lord the Lord God merciful and gracious long-suffering and abundant in goodness and Truth keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin and is not the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ revealed in the Gospel for our more abundant Faith and Consolation My God I know as I cannot Love thee according to thy Loveliness so I cannot Trust thee according to thy Faithfulness I can never be sufficiently confident of thy alsufficient Power thy Wisdom and thy Goodness When I have said as Psal 77. 7. Will the Lord cast off for ever and will he be favourable no more Is his mercy clean gone for ever doth his Promise fail to Generations hath God forgotten to be gracious hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies Conscience hath replied that This is my infirmity I never wanted comfort because thou wantedst mercy but because I wanted Faith and fitness to receive it and perceive it But hast thou not mercy also to give me even that Fitness and that Faith My God all is of thee and through thee and all is to thee and when I have the felicity the Glory of all for ever will be thine None that trusteth in thee according to thy Nature and Promise shall be ashamed If I can live and die in Trusting in thee surely I shall not be confounded § 12. Why then should it seem a difficult Question how I may willingly leave this World and my Soul depart to Christ in Peace The same Grace which regenerated me must bring me to my desired end as the same Principle of Vegetation which causeth the Bud must bring the Fruit to sweet maturity 1. BELIEVE and TRUST thy Father thy Saviour and thy Comforter II. And HOPE for the joyful entertainments of his Love and for the blessed state which he hath promised III. And long by LOVE for nearer Union and Communion with him and thus O my Soul thou mayest depart in Peace I. How sure is the Promise of God How suitable to his Love and to the Nature of our Souls and to the operations of every Grace It is initially performed here whilst our desires are turned towards him and the heavenly seed and spark is here ingenerated in a Soul that was dead and dark and disaffected Is it any strange thing for Fire to ascend yea or the fiery Principle of Vegetation in a Tree to carry up the earthy matter to a great procerity Is it strange that Rivers should hasten to the Sea Whither should Spirits go but to the Region or World of Spirits and whither should Christ's Members and holy Spirits go but to himself and the heavenly Society And is not that a more holy and glorious place and state than this below Earth is between Heaven and Hell a place of gross and passive matter where Spirits may indeed operate upon that which needeth them and where they may be detained a while in such operation or as incorporated Forms if not incarcerate Delinquents but it is not their center end or home Even sight and reason might persuade me that all the noble Invisible powers that operate on this lower World do principally belong unto a higher and what can Earth add to their Essence Dignity or Perfection § 13. But why O my Soul art thou so vainly solicitous to have formal clear distinct conceptions of the Celestial World and the individuation and operations of separated Souls any more than of the Angels While thou art the formal Principle of an animated Body thy conceptions must be but suitable to their present state and use When thou art possessed of a better state thou shalt know it as a possessor ought to do For such a knowledge as thou lookest after is part of the possession And to long to Know and Love in Clearness and Perfection is to
is commended and Truth and Goodness accused and oppressed because mens Minds are unacquainted with them or unsuitable to them And those that are the greatest pretenders to Truth do most eagerly contend against it and oppose it and almost all the World are scolding or scuffling in the Dark And where there appeareth but little hopes of a remedy I say can I love such a World as this And shall I not think more delightfully of the Inheritance of the Saints in Light and the uniting Love and joyful praises of the Church triumphant and the heavenly Chore Should I not love a Lovely and a Loving World much better than a World where there is comparatively 〈◊〉 little Loveliness or Love All that is of God is Good and Lovely But it is not here that his Glory shineth in felicitating Splendor I am taught to look upward when I pray and to say Our Father which art in Heaven God's works are amiable even in Hell and yet though I would know them I would not be there And alas how much of the works of Man are mixed here with the works of God Here is God's Wisdom manifest but here is Man's obstinate folly Here is God's Government but here is Mans Tyranny and Unruliness Here is God's Love and Mercies but here are mâ—ns Malice Wrath and Cruelty by which they are worse to one another than Wolves or Tigers depopulating Countries and filling the World with Bloodshed Famine Misery and Lamentations proud Tyrants being worse than raging Plagues which made David choose the Pestilence before his Enemies pursuit Here is much of God's beauteous order and harmony But here is also much of Man's madness deformity and confusion Here is much historical Truth and some Civil and Ecclesiastick Justice but alas with how much odious falsehood and injustice is it mixed Here is much precious Theological Verity But how dark is much of it to such blind and negligent and corrupted minds as every where abound Here are wise judicious Teachers and Companions to be found but alas how few in comparison of the most And how hardly known by those that need them Here are Sound and Orthodox Ministers of Christ But how few that most need them know which are they and how to value them or use them And how many Thousands of seduced or sensual Sinners are made believe that they are but Deceivers or as they called Paul pestilent fellows and movers of Sedition among the People And in how many parts of the World are they as the Prophets that Obadiah hid in Caves or as Micatah or Elias among the Lying Prophets or the Baalites Though such as of whom the World is not worthy And is that World then more worthy of any love than Heaven There are Worthy and Religious Families which honour God and are honoured by him But alas how few And usually by the temptations of Wealth and Worldly Interest how full even of the sins of Sodom Pride Fulness of Bread and abundance of Idleness if not also Unmercifulness to the Poor And how are they tempted to plead for their sins and snares and account it rustick Ignorance which contradicteth them And how few Pious Families are there of the greater sort that do not quickly degenerate and Posterity by false Religion Errour or Sensuality grow most contrary to the minds of their Pious Progenitors There are many that educate their Children wisely in the fear of God and have accordingly comfort in them But how many are there that having devoted them in Baptism to God do train them up in the service of the Flesh the World and the Devil which they renounced and never understood or at least intended for themselves or Children what they did profess How many Parents think that when they offer their Children to God in Baptism without a sober and due consideration of the nature and meaning of that great Covenant with God that God must accept and certainly regenerate and save them Yea too many Religious Parents forget that they themselves are Sponsors in that Covenant and undertake to use the means on their part to make their Children sit for the Grace of the son and the Communion of the Spirit as they grow up and think God should absolutely sanctifie keep and save them at Age because they are theirs and were Baptized though they keep them not from great and unnecessary temptations nor teach them plainly and seriously the meaning of the Covenant which was made for them with God as to the nature benefits or conditions of it How many send them to others to be taught in Grammar Logick Philosophy or Arts yea and Divinity before their own Parents ever taught them what they did with God in Baptism what they received And what they promised and vowed to do They send them to Trades or secular Callings or to travel in forreign Lands among a Multitude of Snares among tempting Company and tempting Baits before ever at home they were instructed armed and settled against those Temptations which they must needs encounter and which if they overcome them they are undone How ordinarily when they have first neglected this great duty of their own for their fortification do they plead a necessity of thrusting them out on these temptations though utterly unarmed from some Punctilio of Honour or Conformity to the World to avoid the Contempt of worldly men or to adorn their yet naked Souls with some of the Plumes or painted Trifles Ceremonies or Complements which will never serve instead of heavenly Wisdom Mortification and the Love of God and Man As if they were like to learn that fear of God in a croud of diverting and tempting Company Baits and Business which they never learnt under the teaching nurture and daily oversight of their religious Parents in a safer station Or as if for some little reason they might send them as to Sea without Pilot or Anchor and think that God must save them from the Waves Or as if it were better to enter them into Satans School or Army and venture them upon the notorious danger of Damnation than miss of Preferment and Wealth or of the Fashions and Favour of the Times And then when they hear that they have forsaken God and true Religion and given up themselves to Lust and Sensuality and perhaps as Enemies to God and good men destroy what their Parents laboured to build up these Parents wonder at God's Judgments and with broken Hearts lament their infelicity when it were better to lament their own misdoing and it had been best of all to have prevented it Thus Families Churches and Kingdoms run on to blindness ungodliness and confusion Self-undoing and serving the malice of Satan for fleshly Lust is the too common employment of Mankind All is wise and good and sweet which is prescribed us by God in true Nature or Supernatural revelation But folly sin and misery mistaking themselves to be Wit and Honesty and Prosperity and raging against that which nominally
they pretend to and profess are the ordinary case and course of the most of men And when we would plead them out of their deceit and misery it 's well if we are not tempted to imitate them or be not partly infected with their Disease or at least reproached and oppressed as their Enemies Such a Bedlam is most of the World become where madness goeth for the only Wisdom and he is the bravest Man that can sin and be damned with reputation and renown and successfully drive or draw the greatest number with him unto Hell To which the World hath no small likeness forsaking God and being very much forsaken by him This is the World which standeth in competition for my Love with the Spiritual blessed World Much of God's Mercies and Comforts I have here had But their sweetness was their taste of Divine Love and their tendency to heavenly Perfection What was the end and use of all the Good that ever I saw or that ever God did for my Soul or Body but to teach me to Love him and to long for more How many weaning experiences How many Thousand bitter or contemning Thoughts have I had of all the glory and pleasures of this World How many Thousand love tokens from God have called me to believe and taste his Goodness Where ever I go and which way soever I look I see VANITY and VEXATION written upon all things in this World so far as they stand in competition with God and would be the end and portion of a fleshly Mind And I see HOLINESS TO THE LORD written upon every thing so far as it declareth God and leadeth me to him as my ultimate end God hath not for nothing engaged me in a War against this World and commanded me to take and use it as mine Enemy The emptiness dangerousness and bitterness of the World and the All-sufficiency Trustiness and Goodness of God have been the Summ of all the experiences of my life And shall a worldly backward Heart overcome the teachings of Nature Scripture the Spirit of Grace and all Experience Far be it from me But O my God LOVE is thy great and special gift All Good is from thee But LOVE is the God-like Nature Life and Image It is given us from the Love of the Father the Grace of the Son and the quickning illuminating and sanctifying Operation of the Holy Spirit What can the Earth return unto the Sun but its own reflected Beams If those As how far soever Man is a Medium in Generation Nature and that Appetite which is the moving pondus in the Child is thy work so whatever is Man's part in the Mediate work of Believing and Repenting which yet is not done without thy Spirit and grace certainly it is the blessed Regenerator which must make us New Creatures by giving us this Divine Nature holy LOVE which is the holy Appetite and Pondus of the Soul Come down Lord into this Heart for it cannot come up to thee Can the Plants for Life or the Eye for Light go up unto the Sun Dwell in me by the Spirit of Love and I shall dwell by Love in Thee Reason is weak and Thoughts are various and Man will be a slippery uncertain Wight if LOVE be not his fixing Principle and do not incline his Soul to Thee Surely through thy Grace I easily feel that I love thy Word I love thy Image I love thy Work and O how heartily do I Love to Love thee And long to Know and Love thee more And if all things be of Thee and through Thee and to Thee surely this Love to the Beams of thy Glory here on Earth is eminently so It 's Thee Lord that it meaneth To Thee it looketh It 's Thee it serveth For Thee it mourns and seeks and groans In Thee it Trusteth And the Hope and Peace and Comfort which support me are in Thee When I was a returning Prodigal in rags thou sawest me afar off and mettest me with thy embracing feasting Love And shall I doubt whether he that hath better cloathed me and dwelt within me will entertain me with a Feast of greater love in the heavenly Mansions the World of Love The suitableness of things below to my fleshly Nature hath detained my affections too much on Earth And shall not the suitableness of things above to my Spiritual Nature much more draw up my Love to Heaven There is the GOD whom I have sought and served He is also here but vailed and but litâ—le known But there he shineth to heavenly Spirits in heavenly Glory There is the Saviour in whom I have believed He hath also dwelt in Flesh on Earth Bâ—t cloathed in such meanness and humbled to such a Life and Death as was to the Jews a stumbling Block and to the Gentiles matter of reproach But he Shineth and Reigneth now in Glory above the malice and contempt of Sinners And I shall there Live because he liveth and in his Light I shall have Light He loved me here with a Redeeming Regenerating and preserving Love But there he will love me with a perfecting glorifying joyful Love I had here some Raies of heavenly Light But interpositions caused Eclipses and Nights yea some long and winter Nights But there I shall dwell in the City of the Sun the City of God the heavenly Jerusalem where there is no Night Eclipse or Darkness There are the heavenly Hosts whose holy Love and Joyful Praises I would fain be a partaker of I have here had some of their Loving assistance but to me unseen being above our fleshly way of Converse But there I shall be with them of the like Nature in the same Orb and of the same Triumphant Church and Chore There are perfected Souls gathered home to Christ Not as here striving like Esau and Jacob in the Womb not yet as John when he leaped in the Womb because of his Mothers joy nor as wrangling Children that are hardly kept in the same House in Peace Not like the Servants of Abraham and Lot like Paul and Barnabas like Epiphanius and Chrysostom like Luther and Carolostadius like Ridley and Hooper or the many striving Parties now among us nor like the Disciples striving who should be the greatest Not like Noah's Family in a wicked World or Lot in a wicked City or Abraham in an Idolatrous Land nor like Elijah left alone nor like those that wandred in Sheep Skins and Goat Skins destitute afflicted and tormented hid in Dens and Caves of the Earth not like Job on the Dunghil or like Lazarus at the rich Man's Doors Not like the African Bishops whose Tongues were cut out nor like the Preachers silenced by Papist imposers in German by the Intâ—rim or elsewhere Nor like such as Tzegedine Peucer and many other worthy men whose maturest Age was spent in Prisons Not as we poor bewildred Sinners feeling evil and fearing more confounded in folly and mad contention some hating the only way of Peace and
a Nature to us Else they would not cease at Death But holy LOVE is our New Nature and therefore ceaseth not with this bodily life And shall accidental love make me desire the company of a frail and mutable Friend And shall not this ingrafted inseparable love make me long to be with Christ Though the love of God to all his Creatures will not prove that they are all Immortal nor oblige them to expect another life that never had Capacity or Faculties to expect it yet his love to such as in Nature and Grace are made capable of it doth warrant and oblige them to believe and hope for the full Perfection of the work of love Some comfort themselves in the love of St. Peter as having the Keys of Heaven And how many could I name that are now with Christ who loved me so faithfully on Earth that were I sure they had the Keys and Power of Heaven and were not changed in their Love I could put my departing Soul into their Hands and die with joy And is it not better in the Hand of my Redeemer and of the God of Love and Father of Spirits Is any love comparable to his Or any Friend so boldly to be trusted I should take it for ungrateful unkindness in my Friend to doubt of my love and trustiness if I had given him all that he hath and maintained him constantly by my kindness But O how odious a thing is sin Which by destroying our love to God doth make us unmeer to believe and sweetly perceive his Love And by making us doubt of the Love of God and lose the pleasant relish of it doth more increase our difficulty of loving him The Title that the Angel gave to Daniel A Man greatly beloved of God methinks should be enough to make one joyfully love and trust God both in life and death Will Almighty LOVE ever hurt me or forsake me And have not all Saints that Title in their degrees What else signifieth their Mark and Name HOLINESS TO THE LORD What is it but our separation to God as his peculiar beloved People And how are they separated but by mutual love and our forsaking all that alienateth or is contrary Let Scorners deride us as self flatterers that believe they are God's Darlings and wo to the Hypocrites that believe it on their false Presumption without such belief or grounded hopes I see not how any Man can die in true Peace He that is no otherwise beloved than Hypocrites and Unbelievers must have his portion with them And he that is no otherwise beloved than as the ungodly unholy and unregenerate shall not stand in judgment nor see God nor enter into his Kingdom Most upright Souls are to blame for groundless doubting of God's Love but not for acknowledging it rejoicing in it and in their doubts being most solicitous to make it sure Love brought me into the World and furnished me with a Thousand Mercies Love hath provided for me delivered me and preserved me till now And will it not entertain my separated Soul Is God like false or insufficient Friends that forsake us in adversity I confess that I have wronged LOVE by sin by many and great unexcusable sins But all save Christ himself were sinners which love did purifie and receive to Glory God who is rich in Mercy for the great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sins hath quickned us together with Christ by Grace we are saved and hath raised us up together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus Eph. 2. 4 5 6. O that I could love much that have so much forgiven The glorified praised him who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own Blood and made us Kings and Priests to God Rev. 1. 5 6. Our Father that hath loved us giveth us consolation and good hope through Grace 2 Thess 2. 16. I know no sin which I repent not of with self-loathing And I earnestly beg and labour that none of my sins may be to me unknown I dare not justifie even what is any way uncertain though I dare not call all that my sin which siding men of differing judgments on each side passionately call so While both sides do it on contrary accounts and not to go contrary ways is a Crime O that God would bless my accusations to my illumination that I may not be unknown to my self Though some think me much better than I am and others much worse it most concerneth me to know the Truth my self flattery would be more dangerous to me than false accusations I may safelier be ignorant of other mens sins than of my own Who can understand his errours Cleanse me Lord from secret sins and let not ignorance or errour keep me in impenitence and keep thou me back from presumptuous sins Psal 19. 12 13. I have an Advocate with the Father and thy Promise that he that confesseth and forsaketh his sins shall have Mercy Those are by some men taken for my greatest sins which my most serious Thoughts did judge to be the greatest of my outward duties and which I performed through the greatest difficulties and which cost me dearest to the Flesh and the greatest self-denial and patience in my reluctant Mind Where-ever I have erred Lord make it known to me that my confession may prevent the sin of others and where I have not erred confirm and accept me in the right And seeing an unworthy Worm hath had so many Testimonies of thy tender love let me not be like them Mal. 1. 1 2. that when thou saidst I have loved you unthankfully asked Wherein hast thou loved us Heaven is not more spangled with Stars than thy Word and Works with the refulgent Signatures of Love Thy well beloved Son the Son of thy Love undertaking the Office Message and Work of the greatest Love was full of that Spirit which is Love which he sheds abroad in the Hearts of thine Elect that the Love of the Father the Grace of the Son and the communion of the Spirit may be their hope and life His Works his Sufferings his Gifts as well as his comfortable Word did say to his Disciples Joh. 15. 9. As the Father loved me so have I loved you continue ye in my love And how Lord shall we continue in it but by the thankful belief of thy love and loveliness desiring still to love thee more and in all things to know and please thy Will Which thou knowest is my Souls desire Behold then O my Soul with what Love the Father Son and Holy Spirit have loved thee that thou should be made and called a Son of God redeemed regenerate adopted into that Covenant-state of Grace in which thou standest Rejoice therefore in hope of the Gâ—ory of God Rom. 5. 1 2. being justified by Faith having Peace with God and access by Faith and Hope that maketh not ashamed that being reconciled when an Enemy by the Death of Christ I shall be saved
King and Countrey and therefore maketh for men's worldly advantage and they hear little said againft it This is the case of most in the World Christians Mahometans and Heathens And it 's another to be a serious Believer who upon trial and consideration chooseth Christianity And it is notorious that such serious Christians are all Holy Sober and Just and so greatly differing from the corrupted World as fully proveth that God owneth that Gospel which he maketh so effectual to so great a change Here consider 1. What that change is 2. How hard and great a work it is 3. That it is certainly a work of God 4. That the Gospel is the means by which God doth it 1. The nature of this Holy work on all serious sincere Christians is It sets all their Hopes and Hearts on the promised Glory of the Life to come and turns the very nature of their Wills into the predominant Love of God and Man and of Heaven and Holiness It mortifieth all fleshly Lusts and Subjects Sense to Reason and Faith the Body to the Soul and all to God It sets a Mans Heart on the sincere study of doing all the good he can in the World to Friends Neighbours and Enemies especially and most publick good to live soberly righteously and godly is his delight Sin is his chief hatred and nothing more grievous to him than that he cannot reach to greater Perfection in Faith Hope Obedience Patience and in heavenly Love and Joy It causeth a Man to contemn Wealth Honour and fleshly Pleasure and Life in comparison of God's Love and Life everlasting this change God's Spirit worketh on all true Believers Those that are ungodly have but the Name of Christians they never well understood what Christianity is nor ever received it by a true belief But all that understandingly and seriously believe in Jesus Christ are sanctified by his Spirit II. And this is a greater work than Miracles in excellency and difficulty 1. It is the very Health of the Souls It is Salvation itself it maketh Man in his measure like to God and is his Image It is a heavenly nature and is the earnest and preparation for Heaven It delivereth Man from the greatest evil on Earth and giveth him the firmest peace and joy in his peace with God the pardon of his Sins and the hope of everlasting Glory 2. It 's easy to discern how great a work this is by the deep roots of all the contrary Vices in the corrupted Nature of Man Experience assureth us that Man by vitiated Nature is proud and ignorant and savoureth little but the things of the Flesh and worldly Interest and is a Slave to his Appetite and Lust His bodily Prosperity is all that really hath his Heart Yea if God restrain them not all wicked men are bitter Enemies to all that are truly wise and holy even among Heathens and Insidels if any be but better than the rest the wicked are their deadly Enemies There is so visible an Enmity between Godliness and Wickedness the Seed of Christ and of the Serpent in the World as is a great confirmation of the Scripture which describeth it And it is not the Name of Christians that altereth mens Nature We here that have Peace from all the World are under such implacable hatred of wicked men that call themselves Christians that so many Bears or Wolves would be less hurtful to us 3. And the universal spreading of this wickedness over all the Earth in all Ages and Nations doth tell us how great a work it is to cure it 4. And so doth the frustration of all other means till the Spirit of God do it by setting home the Gospel upon the Heart Children will grow up in VVickedness against all the Counsel Love Correction of their Parents no VVords no Reason will prevail with them more than with drunken men or beasts 5. VVe find it a very hard thing to cure a Man of some one rooted sin much more of all 6. The common misery of the VVorld proclaimeth Man's Vice and the difficulty of the cure How else comes the VVorld to live in self-seeking falshood fraud malice and in bloody VVars worsâ— than VVolves and Serpents against each other 7. Lastly VVhere God cureth this by true believing it 's done with the pangs of sharp repentance and a great conflict before God's Spirit overcometh III. It is evident then that this Sanctification of Souls is an eminent work of God himself 1. In that it is yet done on so many of his chosen ones in all Ages and Places 2. In that as hard as it is he usually turneth the Hearts of Sinners to himself in a very little time Somtimes by one Sermon 3. It is a work that none can do but God who hath the power of Souls 4. It is a work so good that it beareth God's own Image It is but the writing of his Law and Gospel on mens Hearts None is so much for it as God Satan apparently fighteth against it with all the power he can raise in the VVorld Mark it and you will find that most of the stir that there is in the VVorld by false Teachers and Tyrants and private Malice is but Satans VVars against Faith and Holiness and Love Certainly it is not he that promoteth them IV. And it is evident in Experience that it is the Gospel of Christ which God useth and blesseth to do this great sanctifying work on Souls Among Christians none are converted by any other means And God would not bless a word of falshood and deceit to such great and excellent effects All that are made holy and heavenly and truly conscionable among us are made so by Christ's Gospel And all the wicked are Enemies to the serious practice of it or Rebels that despise it The effects daily prove that God himself owneth it as his Word If you say There are as good men among the Heathens and Mahometans as holy heavenly and just I answer It is none of my business to depretiate other men But I can say 1. That I have lived above Sixty seven years and I never knew one serious holy Person in England that was made such by the Writings of Heathens or Mahometans 2. Many excellent things are in the Writings of some Heathens Plato Cicero Hierocles Plutarch Antonine Epictetus and many others But I miss in them the expressions of that holy and heavenly frame of mind and life and that Victory over the Flesh and World which Christianity containeth 3. Christ is like the Sun whose Beams give some light before it is seen its self at its rising and after it is set The Light of Jews and Heathens was as the dawning of the Day before Sun rising And the light among the Mahometans is like the Light of the Sun which it leaveth when it is set Doubtless the same God who hath used Mahometans to be his dreadful Scourge to wicked Christians who abused the Gospel by a false Profession
that I understand and by willing that I will c. 2. I am sure by these Acts that I have the power or faculties to do them For none doth that which it cannot do 3. And I know that it is a substance that hath these powers For nothing can do nothing My Soul then being certainly an intellective Volitive Vital substance 1. I have no reason to think that God who annihilateth not the least Sand will annihilate so noble a substance 2. Nor that he will destroy those Powers which are its Essential form and turn it into some other thing 3. Nor that such Essential powers shall lie as dead unactive and so be continued in vain 4. There remaining therefore nothing uncertain to natural Reason but the continuance of Individuation to separate Souls 1. Apparitions and Wirches cases have put that out of doubt notwithstanding many Fables and Delusions 2. Christ hath put it more out of doubt 3. While substance faculties and acts continue it is the errour of our selfish state in Flesh which maketh any fear too near a Union which shall end our individuation The greatest Union will be the greatest Perfection and no loss to Souls XVII God's wonderful Providences for the Church and single Saints on Earth are such as tell us of that love and care which will bring them afterwards to him XVIII The Nature of God taketh off the terrour of my departure much I am sure I shall die at the will and into the Hand of Infinite Essential Love and Goodness whose love should draw up my longing Soul XIX I am going to a God whose Mercies have â—ong told me that he loveth me better than my dearest Friend doth and better than I love my self and is a far better chooser of my lot XX. As he hath absolute right to dispose of his own so indeed the fulfilling of his Will is the ultimate end of all things and therefore most desirable in itself And his will shall be fulfilled on me XXI I go to a glorified Saviour who came down to fetch me up and hath conquered and sanctified Death and made it my Birth-day for Glory and taketh me for his dear bought own and interest and is in Glory ready to receive his own XXII I go to that Saviour who on the Cross commended his Spirit into his Fathers Hand and taught me with dying Stephen to say Lord Jesus receive my Spirit XXIII I go no solitary untrodden way but follow all the Faithful since the death of Abel to this day save Henoch and Elias who all went by Death into that glorious World where I shall find them XXIV I have so long groaned under a languid Body and in a blind distracted and by Man uncurable World where Satan by Lies Malice and Murder reigneth in alas how many and specially am so weary of my own darkness and sinful imperfection that I have great reason to be willing of deliverance XXV I have had so large a share of Mercies in this World already in time and manifold comforts from God that reason commandeth me to rest in God's time for my removal XXVI I shall leave some fruits not useless to serve the Church when I am gone and if good be done I have my end XXVII When I am gone God will raise up and use others to do his appointed work on Earth And a Church shall be continued to his praise And the Spirits in Heaven will rejoice therein XXVIII When I am gone I shall not wish to be again on Earth XXIX Satan by his temptations and all his instruments would never have done so much as he doth in the World to keep us from Heaven if there were not a Heaven which Conquerors obtain XXX When darkness and uncertainty of the manner of the action and fruition of separated Souls would daunt me it is enough to know explicitely so much as is explicitely revealed and implicitely to trust Christ with all the rest Our Eyes are in our Head who knoweth for us Knowledg of Glory is part of fruition And therefore we must expect here no more than is suited to a life of Faith XXXI All my part is to do my own duty and then trust God obeying his commanding will and fully and joyfully resting in his disposing and rewarding will There is no rest for Souls but in the Will of God and there with full Trust to repose our Souls in Life and at Death is the only way of a safe and comfortable departure XXXII The glorious Marriage day of the Lamb cannot now be far off when the number of the Elect shall be compleat and Christ will come with his glorious Angels and will be glorified in his Saints and admired in all Believers and there shall be a New Heaven and a New Earth wherein dwelleth Righteousness and that Kingdom shall come where that which God hath prepared for them that love him Eye hath not seen Ear hath not heard nor hath it entred into the Heart of Man to have a formal full conception of it Come Lord Jesus come quickly Amen Fear not then O my Soul to lay down this Flesh Mercy hath kept it up for my preparing work but O what a burdensom and chargeable a Companion hath it been Is it better than the dwelling place of perfect Spirits O what are my groans and all my cold and faint Petitions and my dull Thanksgiving to their harmonious joyful Praise If a Day in God's Courts be better than a Thousand what is a Day yea what is Everlastingness in the heavenly Society and Work O how hateful a thing is darkness and unbelief when the remnants of them thus stop poor Souls in their ascent And make us half unwilling to go home What! unwilling to be with my glorified Lord Unwilling to be with Saints and Angels who are all Life Light and Love Unwilling to see the Glory of Jehovah O foolish sinful Soul Hath Christ done so much to purchase the heavenly Glory for thee and now art thou unwilling to go into the possession of it Hast thou been seeking and praying and labouring and suffering so many Years for that which now thou seemest scarce willing to obtain Dost thou not judge thy self unworthy of Eternal Life when thou no more desirest to enjoy it All this is long of thy too much adherence unto SELF and SENSE Thou art still desiring sensitive satisfaction and not content to know thy part wouldst know that for thy self which Christ knoweth for thee As if thou couldst better trust thy self than him Fear not weak Soul it is our Fathers good pleasure to give thee the Kingdom Trust infinite Power Wisdom and Love Trust that faithful gracious Saviour who hath so wonderfully merited to be trusted Trust that promise which never deceived any one and which is confirmed by so many Miracles and by the Oath and by the Spirit of God Whenever thou departest from this house of Flesh the Arms of Mercy are open to embrace thee yea
Essential transcendent Love is ready to receive thee The Spirit of Love hath sealed thee to that blessed state Christ will present thee justified and accepted Most of my old holy familiar Friends are gone before me and all the rest that died since the World began And the few imperfect ones left behind are hasting after them apace and if I go before will quickly overtake me Though they weep as if it were for a long separation it is their great mistake The gate of Death stands all Day open and my sorrowful Friends are quickly following me as I am now following those for whom I sorrowed O pitty them who are left a while under the temptations dangers and fears which have so long been thy own affliction But be not afraid of the Day of thy deliverance and the bosom of everlasting Love and the Society of the wise and just and holy and of the end of all thy troubles and the entrance into the Joy of thy Lord and the place and state of all thy hope O say not notionally only as from argumentative conviction but confidently and with glad desire and hope TO DEPART AND BE WITH CHRIST IS FAR BETTER than to be here But O my God I have much more hope in speaking to thee than to my self Long may I plead with this dark and dull yet fearful Soul before I can plead it into joyful hope and heavenly desires unless thou shine on it with the light of thy Countenance and Thou whom my Soul must Trust and Love wilt give me Faith and Love themselves I thank Thee for convincing Arguments But had this been all the strength of my Faith and Hope the tempter might have proved too subtile for me in dispute I thank thee that some experience tells me that a holy Appetite to heavenly Work and a love to the heavenly Company and State doth more to make me willing to die and think with Pleasure of my change than ever bare Arguments would have done O send down the streams of thy love into my Soul and that will powerfully draw it up by longings for the near and full fruition O give me more of the divine and heavenly Nature and it will be natural and easie to me to desire to be with Thee Send more of the heavenly Joys into this Soul and it will long for Heaven the place of Joy I must not hope on Earth for any such acquaintance with the World above as is proper to the enjoying state But if the Sun can send its illuminating warming Rays to such a World as this according to the various disposition of Recipients doubtless Thou hast thy effectual though unsearchable waies of illuminating sanctifying and attractive influence on Souls And one such Beam of thy pleased Face one Taste of thy complacencial Love will kindle my love and draw up my desires and make my pains and sickness tolerable I shall then put off this cloathing with the less reluctancy and willingly leave my Flesh to the Dust and sing my Nunc dimittis when I have thus seen and tasted thy Salvation O my God Let not thy strengthning comforting grace now forsake me lest it should overwhelm me with the fears of being finally forsaken Dwell in me as the God of Love and Joy that I may long to dwell in Love and Joy with Thee for ever As Grace abounded where sin abounded let thy strengthning and comforting Mercy abound when weakness increaseth and my necessities abound My Flesh and my Heart◠faileth but Thou art the strength of my Heart and my Portion for ever This short life is almost at an end But thy loving kindness is better than life I know not with what pains thou wilt further trie me But if I love Thee thou hast promised that all things shall work together for my good The World that I am going to by Death is not apparent to my sight But my life is hid with Christ in God and because he liveth we shall live and we shall be with him where he is and when he appeareth we shall appear with him in Glory and shall enter into our Masters joy and be for ever with the Lord Amen What sensible manifestation of his Kingdom Christ gave in his Transfiguration § 1. Our Lord who brought Life and Immortalility to Light well knew the difficulty of believing so great things unseen And therefore it pleased him to give men some sensible helps by demonstration In Mat. 16. 17. 1 2. c. Mark 9. 1. Luk. 9. 28. he promised some of his Disciples a sight of his Kingdom as coming in power or such a glimpse as Moses had of the Backparts of God's Glory This he performed first in his Transfiguration as afterward in his Resurrection Ascension and sending the holy Ghost to enable them with power to preach and work Miracles and convert the Nations § 2. By the Kingdom of God is meant God's Government of his Holy ones by a heavenly communication of Life Light and Love initially on Earth by Grace and perfectly in Heaven by Glory A special Theocracy § 3. For the understanding of this we must know that when God had made Man good in his Image he conversed with him in a heavenly manner either immediately or by an Angel speaking to him and telling him his will But Man being made a free self-determining Agent he was left to choose whom he would follow And hearkening unto Satan and turning from God he became a Slave of Satan and gave him advantage to be his deceiving Ruler Not that Man's rebellion nullified God's Power or disposing Government or took Man from under Obligation to Obedience but that forsaking God he was much though not wholly forsaken by his special fatherly approving Government and left to Satan and his own will But the eternal Word interposing for Man's Reprival and Redemption undertook to break the Serpents Head and to conquer and cast out him that had deceived and captivated Man And choosing out a special Seed he made them a peculiar People and set up a heavenly Prophetical Government over them himself by heavenly Revelation making their Laws and choosing their chief Governours under him from time to time and would not leave it to blind and sinful Man to make Laws or choose Princes for themselves but would keep them in a special dependance upon Heaven But the carnal Israelites having provoked God by odious Idolatry to deny them much of the benefit of Government save when they repented and cryed to him for help they thought to amend this by choosing a King like other Nations and ending their dependance on heavenly Revelation and choice for Government And so Theocracy was turned into a more humane Regiment and God more cast off Though yet he would not quite forsake them And the rest of the World was yet more left under the power of Satan and their own corrupted mind and will So that Satan hath both an Internal Kingdom in wicked Souls and a visible
Polititical Government of the wicked Kingdoms of the World ruling them by men that are ruled by him And as Christ came to cast him out of mens Hearts by his sanctifying conquering Spirit so also to cast him out of the Political Government of the Kingdoms of the World and to bring them under the Laws and Officers and Spirit of Christ and rule them by heavenly Power and Love as his own Kingdoms that he may bring them to Perfection in one Celestial Kingdom at last And in this sense we pray Thy Kingdom come § 4. To make men believe that he is the heavenly King sent from God to cast down Satans Kingdom was the great business of the preaching of the Gospel This he would demonstrate as by all his Miracles which shewed him to have the Victory of Devils and to be the Lord of Life so also by visible Apparition in Glory And as it is said 1 Joh. 5. 7 8. that there are three Witnesses in Heaven and three on Earth so here Christ would have three heavenly and three earthly Witnesses of his Transfiguration From Heaven he had the Witness 1. Of a Voice proclaiming This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased hear him 2. Of Moses the chief Lawgiver 3. And of Elias the chief Prophet to tell us that the Law and the Prophets are his prognosticating Witnesses But Hear him notifieth to us that Christ and his Gospel are to be heard above the Law and the Prophets and to teach us more than they could teach us The Law was given by Moses with its types and shadows but Grace and Truth the substance so typified are by Jesus Christ § 5. Light and Glory are often of the same signification Christ was transfigured into a lucid glorious appearance of Body He tells us by this that he would have us have some sort of Idea of his Kingdom fetcht from sense many Apparitions of Angels have been in lights Christ appeared to Saul in a visible light Act. 9. So did he to John Rev. 1 c. God and the Lamb are the Light of the New Jerusalem It is an inheritance of the Saints in Light Some seem to me to think too basely of Sense and too far to separate it from Intellectual Spirits both as to Power Act and Object And all because they find it in lower Creatures They might accordingly deny substantiality to Spirits because Bruits are substances The higher have all the Perfections of the lower either formally or eminently It is not a Spirits Perfection to be insensible or to have nothing to do with sensible things but to be eminently sensible and to be Superiour Agents on lower sensibles GOD IS LOVE And LOVE is Complacency And a high degree of Complacency is Delight or Joy So that God is Essential Infinite Joy But without that drossie quality which is proper to Souls in Flesh and all that Imperfection which belongs to Creatures Can we tell what it is to enter into our Masters Joy or Joyfully to love and praise him without any sense I rather think that as vigorous Youth maketh men capable of more delight than decrippt languid â—ainful Age and Sickness so Heaven shall by perfecting our Natures make them capable of unconceivably more joy than any on Earth is capable of And as we shall have Sense in Exaltation as to power and act so we shall have sensible Objects God himself delighteth in all his works and so shall we we must not on pretence of taking the heavenly Jerusalem to be meerly Spiritual deprive our selves of all the sensible Idea's of it which God's description offereth to uâ— Light is sensible Christ glorified there is sensible Moses and Elias were sensible to Peter James and John Lazarus and Abraham were sensible to the Man in Hell Luke 16. Stephen saw Heaven open and Christ sitting at the right Hand of God And all Eyes shall see him at his glorious return Heavenly Glory is not enjoyed only by meer THINKING and knowing nor as in a Dream but by the most eminent Intellectual sensation exalted and invigorated § 6. Say not then O my Soul that this Kingdom of Glory is so far above thee that thou canst have no Idea of it Think not that it is therefore unmeet for thy desiring and joyful hopes because thou canst not know what it is Hast thou no conception of the difference between Light and Darkness If thou hadst been but one Year kept in absolute darkness wouldst thou have no desiring thoughts of light The Blind think themselves half dead while they are alive Indeed the Faculty and Object must be suitable Light may be too great for our weak Eyes as heat may be torment in an unsuitable degree but when our Souls are perfected they will be suitable Recipients of a more glorious Light than we can here endure Moses is not there covered in a cleft of the Rock because he could see but as the back parts of God's Glory We must see here but as in a Glass but there as Face to Face Though these Organical Eyes as Spectacles shall be laid by we shall have Media more perfect suitable to our perfect state And as I can think of Heaven as a Region of glorious Light so can I think of it as a place and state of Life and Love I know somwhat of the difference of Life and Death and that a living Dog is better than a dead Lyon And I have felt what it is to love my Friends and thence to desire their near communion as my delight And can I then have no Idea of that World where Life Light and Joyful Love are the very Element of Souls as Water is to the Fishes And as I can have some Idea of that state in general so may I of the state of the perfected Spirits of the Just which are there They are con-natural to their proper Element They are Essential created Life Light and Love And they want not substance to be the Basis of those formal Powers nor Objects on which to exercise them Think not then that Heaven is so far unconceivable as not by any Idea to be thought of If we have no Conception of it we can have no desires of it and no delightful hope What can we conceive of more certainly than of Life and Light and Love of a Region and of Persons essentiated of these Do we not know what Knowledge is and see what Light is and feel what Life and Love are But it 's true that our Conceptions hereof are lamenmentably imperfect and so they must be till Possession Fruition and Exercise perfect them Who knoweth what Light or Sight is but by Seeing or what Knowledge is but by knowing Or what Love and Joy are but by loving and rejoicing And who knows what Perfect Sight Knowledg Love and Joy are but by perfect Seeing Knowing Loving and Rejoicing No Man by an intuitive or immediate perception But some abstractive Conceptions of it we may have by
his Children In all our afflictions he is said to be afflicted to signifie that he afflicts not willingingly or without our provocation Justice is good and holiness is good and it 's good for us to repent and be weaned from the Flesh and World And all good must be loved and the means as such Sharp Heart-breaking Sermons are unpleasing to Nature and yet to be loved for their use And afflictions are God's powerful Sermons The proud and hardened are forced to hear them who scorn and prosecute Preachers for speaking the same things And shall Believers under sufferings be untaught Words are but Words but stripes go by forcible sense unto the Heart Obedient submission to the greatest pains is a serious acknowledgement of God's Dominion and of his Wisdom and Love and the certain hopes of a better life Impatience hath in it somwhat of Atheism or Blasphemy God is not duely acknowledged and honoured Job's Wife would have had him thus purposly provoke God to end his misery by Death As if she had said Speak no more well of him by whom thou sufferest so much nor honour a God that will not help thee But Patience saith Mic. 7. 7. I will look unto the Lord I will wait for the God of my Salvation my God will hear me Impatience sheweth a misunderstanding of God's dealing with the afflicted but patience yieldeth because it understandeth whence all comes and what will be the fruit and end A Man that is let Blood for his life is not impatient with the Chyrurgion but a Beast will strive and a Swine or Child will cry Our burdens are heavy enough of themselves Impatience maketh them heavier and is more painful than the thing which we suffer Some have gone mad with crosses which oft to another would have been light Patience is our cordial and nepenthes yea the Health of the Soul by which it is able to bear its infirmities In our patience we possess our Souls Luk. 21. 19. whatever else we lose we lose not our selves He that keepeth his Faith and Hope and Love by patience keepeth his Soul But the impatient lose themselves as if their other losses were not enough A poor Man singeth that gets his living only by his Day-labour When a Lord or Knight would be tormented with sorrow if he were reduced to his degree Striving under our yoak and burden maketh it Gall the more And we cannot so hopefully or comfortably pray for deliverance from the pain which we make our selves as from that which God layeth on us Though also there we must pray for the Grace that must save us from our own impatience Patience preventeth many sins which impatience causeth Hard thoughts of God if not hard and unseemly Words Job sinned not nor charged God foolishly Impatience tempteth men to think that Piety and Prayer are in vain and to condemn the Generatition of the Just and to leave off Duty and say Why should I wait on God any longer yea and to venture on false and sinful means in hopes of deliverance and ease Were it to men we have much to allay our impatience But against God impatience hath no just excuse Infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness can do nothing that deserveth blame We have God's Promise that All things shall work together for our good And is he not to be trusted Or is the means of our good to be accused Impatience is unseemly for them that believe that heavenly Rest and Glory are at hand where all their pains and sorrows will end Were a Man on the Rack and were sure to have all that he desired after it he would the more easily endure it Why else did the Martyrs so patiently suffer It 's incongruous to complain of any thing that brings a Man to Heaven Christ was himself Innocent and yet accused not God for his sufferings But we suffer justly for our faults and it 's so much less than they deserve that the sins which we suffer most for are said to be forgiven us in that the everlasting punishment is forgiven Should we so often sinfully please the Flesh and yet must it not smart Shall we so often grieve the Spirit of God and not be grieved Shall we lose our time neglect our duty forget our home fall in love with the World and yield to temptations and defile our Souls with filth and vanity and must not correction tell us of our sinful folly If we suffer for our faults and bear it patiently it is not thanks worthy 1 Pet. 2. 20. Our merciful Father doth use to shame us for our impatience by the blessed end of our Afflictions The End that God made with Job shewed the reasonableness of his Patience When our afflictions are over do not all Believers see cause of thankfulness for them and say It is good for me that I was afflicted The pain is past and the benefit remaineth And if all that 's past was Mercy to us why should we much fear that which is to come Heaven will end all and shame impatience for ever Our patience is much of our perseverance What a deal of labour do those impatient men lose that learn and pray and are somwhat Religious and have not patience at the last assault to bear the trial but fail when they seemed to be near the Crown Hold out then poor desponding Soul Lift up the Hands which hang down and the feeble Knees and run with patience the Race which is set before thee looking to Jesus who for the joy that was set before him endured the Cross God will not deceive thy hopes Sin hath brought pain and death on Man but Christ hath sanctified it and is the Lord of Life Yet a little while and the heavenly Possession shall turn thy sorrows into everlasting Joy and thy moans and groans into thanks and praise and there shall be no more sickness pains or death O foolish unbelieving Hearts that cry out of suffering and fear deliverance that would fain be free from all affliction and yet fly from the only state of freedom That are impatient under their calamity and yet afraid of passing to the only rest § 12. But it is neither Pain alone nor Death alone that will sufficiently try our strength and exercise our Faith and Patience It must be Great Pain and often Long in order to a certain or expected Death These two conjunct were the Case of Christ The torment of his Agony Scourging Crucifying Piercing and Desertion and the certainty of Death that followed Great pain with hopes of recovery and ease may be born even by a worldly Man Because there is still the worldly hope of better and so there is no denial of All while Life it self is not denied We must receive the Sentence of Death in our selves if we will find that we trust in God alone and trust him as one that raiseth the Dead that is for another and better life As long as a Man hath any hope of life
misery make them intollerable to themselves But it is not because they have seen a glimpse of Heaven on Earth or tasted the sweetness of Holy society and work but because their Bodies are in Health their Purses full their Appetites pleased and their inferiours do their wills and honour them This is all the Heaven that they love and to leave all this is the Death which they abhor and fear And they will not hear God and the experience of all Mankind befooling them till near the Night that their Souls shall be required and then Whose will all their Treasure be § 28. But yet it was a greater part of Peter's dotage to think of Tabernacles for Christ Moses and Elias and of detaining of heavenly Inhabitants upon Earth If you should offer the lowest Saint in Heaven an earthly Kingdom in exchange for his Condition with what disdain would he despise the offer Christ's Kingdom was not of this World nor would Moses and Elias change their lot with Alexander or Caesar Poor trifles allure us and seem somwhat to us as toys to Children while we are dreaming in the Flesh but if once we be delivered and see what the Celestial Glory is what a change will it make upon our judgments We fear now in the dark to go unto that World of Light and are loth to put off the rags of Flesh and to depart from a known though a dirty falling habitation But if we get to Heaven we shall be loth to return to Earth again and to be so coursly cloathed When once we are there a World would not hire us to come back into this corruptible Body till God will make it Spiritual and Incorruptible Our Friends whose Death we passionately lamented would be loth now to change their company for such as we are or their abode for such a wicked World as this or their work for the best of ours on Earth No wonder that departed blessed Souls appear not to their friends on Earth Most Apparitions are of Devils or miserable Souls to whom it is no loss or condescension Were I once in Heaven could I possibly be willing to be turned again into a Bedlam World and laid under the Feet of blinded pride and raging madness and live among Sodomites called Christians whose God is their Belly and who glory in their filthiness and shame and mind nothing with love but earthly things and are bitter Enemies not only to the Cross but to the Government of Christ Would I be again among Dogs and Swine Yea Devils in Flesh who hate and persecute the Regenerate Seed and all that will not receive their mark and be as mad bad as they would I again be groaning here in pain or tired with a weary Body and more with a feeble sinful Soul weak in Faiâ—h Cold in Love of doubtful Hope and imperfect Duty Would I be here again in the prospect of a Grave with fear of dying as strange as now to the heavenly Felicity Lazarus will not come from Abraham's bosom for the rich Man's Wealth and Belly-pleasure no not to warn his sensual Brethren Had Peter seen Heaven as he saw the Glory on the Mount he would never have made so blind a motion for Christ Moses and Elias to continue there who have so much better a habitation § 29. But this glorious Apparition was but short As the Glory of God's back parts to Moses which did but pass by Presently a cloud cometh and separateth the company and ends the pleasant sight When Christians receive some extraordinary sense of the Love of God some sweet foretasts of promised happiness they must not look that this should be ordinary or always so When some fervent Prayer is extraordinarily answered and a Sacrament sweetned with unusual drops of heavenly sweetness or a holy Discourse or Meditation hath raised us higher than ever before we must not expect that this should be our constant diet and God should thus feast us all the Year The times of fasting also have their turn Moses did not dwell on Mount Horeb nor Mount Nebo or Pisgah from whence he saw the Land of Promise God's Children do not always laugh and sing while they have their sinning times they will have their suffering and crying times How suddenly doth the Lark come down to the Earth who before was soaring out of sight and singing pleasantly in the higher Air as if it had been aspiring towards the Sun A luscious diet is not best for such as we that have so many corruptions to be cured by cleansing means Cordials must not be all our Physick unwarrantable expectations of greater or more continued Joys then we are meet for is injurious both to God and to our selves Desires of more we may and must have But those desires must look up to Heaven where indeed they may be satisfied 30. The joy of these Spectators was turned into Fear saith the Text when they entered into the Cloud No wonder The change was sudden and great from a sight of the Kingdom of God in Power unto a dark Cloud Just now they seemed almost in Heaven and presently they knew not where they were From glorious Light to a kind of Prison of obscurity Such changes here we are liable to The same Soul that lately tasted of transporting joy may lie in terrour hardly resisting temptations to despair The same Person that was confident of the Love of God may be quickly not only doubting of it but sinfully denying it The same that had assuring evidence of sincerity may shortly conclude that all was but Hypocrisie The same that was triumphing in the sense of Love may cry out O miserable Man that I am And the same that magnified the Grace of Christ may say The day of Grace is pastâ— Especially if either the Tempter get the advantage of a Melancholy Body or of casting the Soul in to renewed guilt of some wounding sin or into impatient discontents with the things that befal it in the World There is a stability in the Essentials of Holiness It 's Life eternal that is here begun But alas the degrees of Grace the exercise of it the evenness and integrity of our obedience and accordingly our Comforts are lamentably liable to change Even as all worldly things are mutable to the ungodly though their harden'd Hearts are too little changeable Expecting nothing but joy from God or expecting more than we are meet for maketh our dejections the greater and more grievous None are cast lower with terrour trouble and almost despair than some that have been most transported with joy When some other Christians of an even conversation have an evenness and constancy of Holy Peace though no such joys § 31. The Cloud separated the Company Moses and Elias are seen no more no nor the Glory of Christ But yet Christ is not separated from them His ordinary presence still abideth with them Christ doth not leave the Soul when extraordinary joys do leave it It loseth not
all the rest particularly promised And we know in general that we have a heavenly City and Inheritance and shall see God and be with Christ in everlasting Happiness Loving and Praising God with Joy in the perfected glorious Church of Christ All this therefore we must explicitely believe But it 's little that we know distinctly of the consistence and operations of Spirits and separated Souls as to a formal or modal conception a great deal about the place state and mode their acting and fruition is dark to us but none of it is dark to Christ Here therefore an implicite Trust should not only bound and stop our selfish and over bold enquiries but also quiet and comfort the Soul as well as if our selves knew all O my Soul abhor and mortifie thy selfish Trust and unbelieving thirst to have that knowledge of Good and Evil thy self which is the Prerogative of thy Lord and Saviour This was the sin that first defiled humane Nature and brought calamity on the World God hath set thee enough to learn know that and thou knowest enough If more were possible it would be a perplexity and a snare and he that encreaseth such knowledge would encrease sorrow But when it is both unprofitable and impossible what a sin and folly is it to wast our time and tire and deceive our Minds in long and troublesom searches after it and then disquietly to murmur at God and the Holy Scripture and die with sad distrustful fears because we attain it not When all this while we should have understood that this part of knowledg belongs to Christ and the heavenly Society and not to sinful Mortals here and that we have without it as much as may cause us to live and die in Holiness Safety Peace and Joy if we can but Trust him who knoweth for us Christ perfectly knoweth what Spirits are and how they act and whether they have any corporeal Organ or Vehicle or none and what 's the difference between Henoch and Elias and those that left their Bodies here and what a Resurrection will add to Souls and how it will be wrought and when and what is meant by the Thousand year previous Reign and who they be that shall dwell in the New Earth and how it will be renewed All the dark passages of Scripture and Providence he can perfectly resolve He knoweth why God leaveth the far greatest part of the World in Satan's slavery darkness and wickedness and chooseth so few to real Holiness And why he maketh not men such as he commandeth them to be and why he leaveth serious Christians to so much weakness error scandal and division These and all other difficulties are fully known to Christ And it is not the Child but the Father that must know what food and cloathing he should have and the Physician that must know what are the ingredients of his Medicines and why Lord open my Eyes then to see what thou hast revealed and help me willingly to shut them to the rest and to believe and trust in Thee for both Not to stagger at thy sealed Promises nor selfishly to desire particular knowledge which belongs not to me as if I could trust my self and my own knowledge and not Thine Lord teach me to follow Thee even in the dark as quietly and confidently as in the Light having the general Light of thy Promise of Felicity I knew not the Mystery of thy Conception Incarnation or the way of the workings of thy Spirit on Souls No wonder if much of the Resurrection and unseen World be above my reach much more that thy Infinite Majesty is Incomprehensible to me How little do the Bruits that see me know of my thoughts or me I have no adequate knowledge of any one thing in the World but somewhat of it is unknown O blessed be that Love and Grace that hath given me a glorified Head in Heaven to know all for me which I know not Hear and Trust Him living and departing O my Soul who hath told thee that we shall be with him where he is and shall behold his Glory and that a Crown of Salvation is laid up for us and we shall Reign with him when we have conquered and suffered with him and hath bid us live in joyful Hope of our exceeding eternal heavenly Reward and at our Death to commend our Spirits into his hand Receive us Lord according to thy Promises Amen SHORT MEDITATIONS ON ROM 5. 1 2 3 4 5. Of the shedding abroad God's Love on the Heart by the Holy Ghost EXperience of the want of this Effusion of God's Love and some small tast of its Sweetness make me think the thoughts of this very suitable to one expecting Death The words contain a golden Chain of highest Blessings on all true Christians I. They are supposed to have Faith that is both a general Trust to God's Revelations and Grace and a special Trust in Jesus Christ as given by the Father's Love to be the Redeemer to Justifie Sanctifie and Glorifie his People I have oft proved this justifying Faith to be no less then our unfeigned taking Christ for our Saviour and becoming true Christians according to the Tenor of the Baptismal Covenant As to the Acts it is formally Trust One in three The Understandings Assenting Trust the Wills consenting Trust and the executive Powers Practical Venturing Obeying Trust II. All true Believers are justified Even all that consent to the Baptismal Covenant and choose God to be their God and Christ to be their Saviour and the Holy Ghost to be their Sanctifier and give up themselves to him by true resolution as their only Ruler Hope and Happiness though this be done with so great weakness as endeth not all doubts nor quieteth the Mind To be justified is not to be accounted such as have no sin but 1. To be made such by Pardon through Christ's Merits and by true Faith as God will take by special love and favour unto life 2. To be accounted such by God 3. To be virtually Sentenced such by the Law of Grace and Faith and to be just in Lawseâ—ce 4. At last we shall be judged such by publick Sentence 5. And be used as such Not justified by the Law of Innocency or of Moses but by Christ's Law of Grace Not justified perfectly till the time of Perfection Much punishment on Soul and Body is yet to be taken off And more sins daily to be pardoned and we before the World to be sentenced as just to life everlasting III. The justified have Peace with God They are reconciled and in a state of love and friendship It signifieth mutual Peace but with great inequality God's Love and favour to us is the stable constant part Our consent also and acceptance of his terms of Peace is constant in its truth But our sense of God's Love which is the Peace possessed by the Soul is weak and unconstant and too oft quite lost or obscured by ignorance mistake and
fâ—â—r But it must be known that this is a discased state unnatural to the Believer as such as it 's unnatural for a Woman married to a faithful Husband to lie in terrour thinking that he will kill her or doth not love her or for a Child to think the same of a loving Father Faith of its own nature tendeth to the Souls Peace and Joy in the sense of God's love And how is Christ offered to us but as a Saviour to bring us by Grace to Glory And he that accepteth him as such whereby he is justified doth sure believe that he is offered as such For none can accept what he thinks not to be offered And this implieth some hope at least that Christ will be such to us And did Faith work strongly and kindly its effect would be a constant joyful state of Soul as pleasant Health and Mirth is to our Natures All our distrustful fears and griefs and disquietments of Soul are for want of more Faith as Sickness and Pain is for want of the Vital causes of Health IV. This Peace with God is only through our Lord Jesus Christ Though it be a vain dream to think by justifying Faith is meant Christ only and not Faith Yet it is no other Faith but the foresaid Believing Trust on Christ Therefore as Faith is our part so it supposeth Christ and all the works of his Office and Righteousness on his part as its Object Christ is the purchasing cause But our Trust and Acceptance is that which is pleasing to God and chosen by him to be our part without Innocency or keeping the Jewish Law Since Man once sinned God's Justice and Man's Conscience tell us that we are unfit for God's acceptance or communion immediately but must have a suitable Mediator O blessed be God for this suitable Mediator Without him I dare not pray I cannot hope I dare not die God would else frown me away to misery All the hope of Pardon and Salvaâ—ion that I have all the access to God and the Mercies and Deliverances that I have received have been by this Author and Finisher of our Faith Into his conducting hands I give my Soul and into his preserving hands both Soul and Body and into his receiving hands I commend my departing Soul V. v. 2. By whom we have access by Faith unto this Grace wherein we stand That is into this state of blessed Christianity Peace with God and the following Blessings As it is by Marriage that a Woman hath right to her Husbands Estate and Honours and by Inheritance that a Child comes to his Father's maintenance and Land This is no diminution to God's Love To say It is all by Christ is not to take it as ever the less from God the Father it is more to give us Christ and Life in him than to have given us life without a Christ Joh. 3. 16. 1 Joh. 5. 10 11 12. As God is never the less the Giver of light to the Earth forgiving it them by the Sun Second causes diminish not the Honour of the first VI. And rejoice in hope of the Glory of God Here is 1. The beatifical Object The Glory of God 2. The beatifical Act Rejoice 3. The mediate causing Act Hope all presupposing Faith and Justification 2. The Glory of God is that glorious appearance of God to Man and Angels which maketh happy 1. The mind by beholding it 2. The will by loving it and receiving the communications of Love 3. The executive powers by joyful praise c. 2. Though some foretasts are here it is yet said to be hoped for and we hope for that which is not seen When Faith is said to be that which we are justified or saved by it includeth hope though more precisely taken they are distinct We are saved by hope The same word is oft translated Trust and Hope And Faith is Trust to Trust Christ for Salvation includeth hoping that he will save us But Hope is denominated from the Good hoped for and Faith from the Cause by which we hope to obtain it Hope doth not necessarily imply either certainty or uncertainty It may stand with both in various degrees 3. Rejoicing is made by God the very naturally desired state of the Soul It is when natural the pleasant efflorence of the Spirits or their state of Health It is Pleasure that is the Spring or Poise of all motion sensitive in the World Trahit sua quemque volisptas Appetite or Will is the Active Principle and congrucus Good or delectable is the Object The World is undone by the seduction of false deceitful Pleasure and men are blessed only in true and durable pleasure And though we that made not our selves are not so made for our selves as that our Pleasure or Felicity in God should be so high in our desire as God himself who is the ultimate Object of our Love yet seeing such an Object he is and the Love of him and received from him is our Felicity these are never to be separated What have I to rejoice in if this hoped Glory be not my joy All things else are dying to me And God himself is not my Felicity as he afflicts me nor as he giveth me the transitory gifts of Nature but as he is to be seen in Glory If this be not my joy it 's all but vanity What then should all my thoughts and labour aim at more as to my self than to hope for and foretast this Glory No sin lieth heavier on me than that my hopes of Glory raise me to no higher joy and that the great weakness of my Faith appeareth by such dull thoughts of Glory or by withdrawing fears Sure there is enough in the Glory of God soundly believed and hoped for to make a Man rejoice in pain and weakness and to make him long to be with Christ I live not according to the Nature of Christianity if I live not as in peace with God and in the joyful hopes of promised Glory VII Not only so but we glory in Tribulation Glory is so Transcendent and Tribulation so small and short that an expectant of Glory may well rejoice in bodily sufferings It is Tribulation for Christ and Righteousness sake that we are said to Glory in The rest for our sins it 's well if we can improve and patiently bear Yet in them we may rejoice in hope of Glory though we glory not of them O if all the painful languid Daies and Nights and Years that I have had as the fruit of my sin had been sufferings for that which I am now hated and hunted for even for preaching Christ when men forbid me how joyfully might I undergo it But yet even here approaching Glory should be my joy Alas my groans and moans are too great and my joy too little VIII Knowing that Tribulation worketh Patience That which worketh Patience is matter of Joy For Patience doth us more good than Tribulation can do hurt Why then do I groan
taste little more than a Beast may taste Poor Food and Rayment is sweet with the sense of the Love of God Had I more of this I should lie down and rise and walk in Pleasure and content I could bear the loss of other things And though Nature will feel pains I should have Pleasure and Peace in the midst of all my pains and groans This is the white Stone the New Name No Man well knoweth it who never felt it in himself 1. There is no dying comfortably without this experienced taste of the Love of God This will draw up the desires of the Soul Love tasted casteth out fear though God be Holy and Just and Judgment terrible and Hell intollerable and the Soul hath no distinct Idea of its future state out of the Body and though we see not whither it is that we must go the taste of God's love will make it go joyfully as trusting him as a Child will go any whither in his Father's power and hand But all the knowledge in the World without this quiets not a departing Soul A Man may write as many Books and Preach as many Sermons of Heaven as I have done and speak of it and think of almost nothing else and yet till the Soul be sweetned and comforted with the Love of God shed abroad on it by the Holy Ghost death and the next life will be rather a Man's fear than his desire And the common fear of death which we see in the far greatest part even of godly Persons doth tell us that though they may have saving desires and hopes yet this sense of God's love on the Heart is rare What wonder then if our Language our Converse our Prayers have too little savour of it and in comparison of joyful Believers duties be but like green Apples to the mellow ones My God I feel what it is that I want and I perceive what it is that is most desirable O let not guilt be so far unpardoned as to deprive my Soul of this greatest good which thou hast commended to me and commanded and which in my languishing and pains I so much need Did I beg for Wealth or Honour I might have it to the loss of others But thy Love will make me more useful to all and none will have the less for my enjoyment For thou Lord art enough for all Even as none hath the less of the Sun-light for my enjoying it The least well grounded hope of thy Love is better than all the pleasures of the Flesh But without some pleasant sense of it alas what a withered languishing thing is a Soul thy loving kindness is better than life but if I taste it not how shall I here rejoice in God or bear my heavy burdens O let me not be a dishonour to thy Family where all have so great cause to honour thy bounty by their joy and hopes Nor by a sad and fearful Heart tempt men to think that thy love is not real and satisfactory I can easily believe and admire thy Greatness and thy Knowledge Let it not be so hard to me to believe and taste thy Goodness and thy Love Which is as necessary to me If there be any thing as surely there is in which the Divine Nature and Spirit of Adoption consisteth as above all the Art and Notions of Religion which are but like to other acquired Knowledge sure it must be this holy Appetite and Habitual Inclination of the Soul to God by way of Love which is bred by an internal sense of his Loveliness and Loving inclination to Man which differenceth a Christian from other men as a Child differs towards his Father from Strangers or from common Neigbours Till the love of God be the very state or nature of the Soul working here towards his Honour Interests Word and Servants no Man can say that he is God's habitation by the Spirit And how the Heart will ever be thus habited without believing God's Love to us it 's hard to conceive Experience tells the World how strongly it constraineth Persons to love one another if they do but think that they are strongly beloved by one another In the love that tends to marriage if one that is inferior do but know that a Person of far greater worth doth fervently love them it almost puts a necessity and constraint on them for returns of Love Nature can scarce choose but love in such a case Love is the Loadstone of Love A real taste of the Love of God in saving Souls by Christ and grace is it that constraineth them to be holy that is to be devoted to that God in Love III. But this must as necessarily be the work of the Holy Ghost and can be no more done without him than the Earth can be illuminated and the Vegetables live without the Sun But all the approaches of the Holy Spirit suffice not to produce this great effect and give us the Divine holy Nature The same Sun shine hath three different effects on its Objects 1. On most things as Houses Stones Earth it causeth nothing but the Accidents of Heat Colour and Motion 2. On some things it causeth a seminal Disposition to Vegetable life but not Life itself 3. In this disposed matter it causeth Vegetable life itself So doth the Spirit of God 1. Operate on Millions but lifeless Accidents as the Sun on a stone Wall 2. On others Dispose and prepare them to Divine Life 3. On others so disposed it effecteth the Divine life itself When holy Love is turned into a habit like to Nature That none but the Holy Ghost doth make this holy change is evident For the effect cannot transcend the causes 1. Nature alone is dark and knoweth not the attractive amiableness of God till illuminated nor can give us a satisfactory notice of God's special Love to us 2. Nature is Guilty and Guilt breedeth fears of Justice and fear makes us wild and fly from God lest he will hurt us 3. Nature is under penal sufferings already and feeleth pain fear and many hurts and foreseeth Death And under this is undisposed of itself to feel the pleasure of God's Love 4. Nature is corrupted and diverted to Creature vanity and its Appetite goeth another way and cannot cure itself and make itself suitable to the amiableness of God 5. God hateth wickedness and wicked men and meer Nature cannot secure us that we are saved from that enmity Diligence may do much to get religious Knowledge and Words and all that which I call the Art of Religion And God may bless this as a preparation to holy Life and Love But till the Souls Appetite incline with desire to God and Holiness Divine things will not sweetly relish And this is a great comfort to the Thoughts of the Sanctified that certainly their holy Appetite Desire and Complacency is the work of the Holy Ghost For 1. This secureth them of the Love of God of which it is the proper token 2. And