Practical Atheism is a Living as without God in the world Ephes. 2. 12. Godliness is contrary to practical Atheism and is a Living as with and to God in the world and in the Church and is here called a Walking with God And it containeth in it these particulars 1. To walk with God includeth the Practical acknowledge ment that is made by the Will as well as the Understanding of the grand Attributes of God and his Relations to Man that he is Infinite in his Being that is Immense and Eternal as also in his Power Wisdome and Goodness that he is the Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier that he is our Absolute Lord or Owner our most Righteous Governour and most bountiful Benefactor or Father that Of Him and Through Him and To Him are all things that in him we Live and move and have our being that he is the fountain or first cause from which all proper Being Truth and Goodness in the Creature is but a derived stream To have the soul unfeignedly resign it self to Him as his Own and subject it self to Him as our Governour walking in the awe of his soveraign Power sensible of the strong obligation of his Laws which Reason Justice and Necessity do all command us to obey To live as in full dependence on him To have the first and greatest respect unto him A more observant respect to Him than to our Rulers A more obedient respect to Him than to our Masters A more dependent tender and honourable respect to Him than to Parents or our nearest friends Thus he that cometh to God as God and so as to be accepted of him must believe that He is his Essential Attributes and what he is in his Relations to man especially that as our Governour and Benefactor he is the Rewarder of them that diligent seek him Heb. 11. 6. The impress of a Deity in his Essential and Relative Attributes must be upon the Heart of him that walks with God Yea the Being of God must be much more remarkable to him than the Being of all Creatures and his presence more regarded than the presence of the Creature and all things must be to us in comparison of God as a Candle is in comparison of the Sun His Greatness and transcendent Excellencies must so over-power them all as to make them less observed and regarded by his taking up our chief observation and regard 2. Our walking with God includeth our Reconciliation to him and that we are not in our natural state of Enmity but made his Children and friends in Christ. Can two walk tother unless they be agreed Amos 3. 3. Enmity is against Unity Disaffection causeth Aversion and flying from each other Yea the fears of a guilty Child may make him flye from his Fathers presence till there be a particular Reconciliation besides the general state of Reconciliation A provoking faulty Child doth Dwell with God his Father though under the continual terror of his frowns But to walk with him in the full sense is more than to be related to him and to dwell with him In a large sense indeed all Gods Children may be said to walk with him as it signifieth only a conversation ordered in godliness sincerity and simplicity But in this sublimer sense as it signifieth a lively exercise of Faith and Love and heavenly-mindedness and a course of complacential contemplation and holy converse with God so it is proper only to some of the â—ounder and more vigilant industrious believers And hereto it is necessary not only that we be Justified and Reconciled to God from our state of Enmity but also that we be pardoned justified and reconciled from our particular wounding falls which are more than the ordinary infirmities of Believers And also it is necessary that we have grateful friendly thoughts of God that we have so much sense of his excellency goodness and kindness to our selves as may give us a complacency in conversing with him and may make the thoughts and mention of him to be desirable and pleasing to us Walking with God doth import though not the full assurance of his special Love and Grace to us yet such an apprehension of his Love and Goodness as may draw the heart to think of him with desire if not with delight A lothness to draw near him to think of him or to mention him a weariness of his special service are contrary to this special walking with God 3. Our Walking with God doth include our esteeming and intending Him as the Ultimate End and felicity of our souls He is not to be sought or loved or conversed with as a means to any greater good for there is no greater nor as inferiour or meerly equal unto any His Goodness must be the most powerful attractive of our Love His favour must be valued as our happiness and the Pleasing of him must be our most industrious imployment To walk with him is to live in the warming reviving sunshine of his Goodness and to feel a delighting satisfying virtue in his Love and gracious presence To live as those that are not their own and that have their lives and faculties and provisions and helps for their Masters service As a Horse or Dog is of so much worth as he is of Use to him that owneth him and that is the best that is the most serviceable to his Master Yet with this very great difference that man being a more noble and capacious creature is admitted not only into a state of Service but of Sonship and Friendship and Communion with God and is allowed and appointed to share more in the pleasure and fruits of his services and to put in his own felicity and delight into his End not only because Self-love is natural and necessary to the Creature but also because he is under the Promise of a Reward and more than either because he is a Lover and not only a Servant and his work is principally a work of Love and therefore his End is finis amantis the end of a Lover which â—a Mutual Complacency in the exercises of Love He thâ—â— seeketh not first the Kingdome and Righteousness of God and 〈…〉 h not other things to Him but seeks first the Câ—â—â—â—â—râ— and God only for it doth but deny God in his hâ—aâ—â— and basely subject him to the works of his own hands and doth not walk with God but vilifie and reject him If you Live not to God even to obey and please and honour him you do not walk with him but walk contrary to him by living to his Enemies the Flesh the World and the Devil and therefore God will walk contrary to you Levit. 26. 21 23 24 27 28. You were both Created and Redeemed though for your own felicity yet principally for the Glory and Pleasure of your Creator and Redeemer and for no felicity of your own but what consisteth in Pleasing him Glorifying him and Enjoying him Whether therefore we eat or drink or whatever we do
though all your carnal friends and superiors be against it though the devil will do all that he can against it yet all this must be done or you are lost for ever And all this must be done by the Spirit of God for it is his work to make you New and Holy And can you think then that the business is not great which you have with God when you have tryed how hard every part of this work is to be begun and carryed on you will finde you have more to do with God than with all the world 9. Moreover in order to this it is necessary that you read and hear and understand the Gospel which must be the means of bringing you to God by Christ This must be the instrument of God by which he will bring you to Repent and Believe and by which he will renew your Natures and imprint his Image on you and bring you to Love him and obey his will The Word of God must be your Counsellor and your delight and you must set your heart to it and meditate in it day and night Knowledge must be the means to reclaim your perverse misguided Wills and to reform your careless crooked Lives and to bring you out of the Kingdom of darkness into the State of Light and Life And such Knowledge cannot be expected without a diligent attending unto Christ the Teacher of your souls and a due consideration of the truth By that time you have learnt what is needful to be learnt for a true Conversion a sound Repentance a saving Faith and a holy Life you will finde that you have far greater business with God than with all the world 10. Moreover for the attaining of all this Mercy you have many a prayer to put up to God You must daily pray for the forgiveness of your sins and deliverance from temptations and even for your daily bread or necessary provisions for the work which you have to do You must daily pray for all the supplies of Grace which you want and for the gradual mortification of the flesh and for help in all the duties which you must perform and for strength against all the spiritual enemies which will assault you and preservation from the manifest evils which attend you And these prayers must be put up with unwearied constancy fervency and Faith Keep up this course of fervent prayer and beg for Christ and Grace and Pardon and Salvation in any measure as they deserve and according to thy own necessity and then tell mee whether thy business with God be small and to be put off as lightly as it is by the ungodly 11. Moreover you are made for the Glory of your Creator and must apply your selves wholly to glorifie him in the world You must make his service the trade and business of your lives and not put him off with something on the by You are good for nothing else but to serve him as a knife is made to cut and as your cloaths are made to cover you and your meat to seed you and your horse to labour for you so you are made and redeemed and maintained for this to Love and Please your great Creator And can you think that it is but little business that you have with him when he is the End and Master of your lives and all you are or have is for him 12. And for the due performance of his service you have all his Talents to employ To this end it is that he hath entrusted you with reason and health and strength with time and parts and interest and wealth and all his mercies and all his ordinances and means of Grace and to this end must you use them or you lose them And you must give him an account of all at last whether you have improved them all to your Masters use And can you look within you without you about you and see how much you are trusted with and must be accountable to him for and yet not see how great your business is with God 13. Moreover you have all the graces which you shall receive to exercise and every grace doth carry you to God and is exercised upon him or for him It is God that you must study and know and love and desire and trust and hope in and obey It is God that you must seek after and delight in so far as you enjoy him It is his absence or displeasure that must be your fear and sorrow Therefore the soul is said to be sanctified when it is renewed because it is both disposed and devoted unto God And therefore Grace is called Holiness because it all disposeth and carryeth the soul to God and useth it upon and for him And can you think your business with God is small when you must live upon him and all the powers of your soul must be addicted to him and be in serious motion towards him and when he must be much more to you than the Air which you breath in or the Earth you live upon or than the Sun that gives you light and heat yea than the soul is to your bodies 14. Lastly you have abundance of temptations and impediments to watch and strive against which would hinder you in the doing of all this work and a corrupt and treacherous heart to watch and keep in order which will be looking back and shrinking from the service Lay all this together and then consider whether you have not more and greater business with God than with all the creatures in the world And if this be so as undeniably it is so is there any cloak for that mans sin who is all day taken up with creatures and thinks of God as seldome and as carelesly as if he had no business with him And yet alas if you take a survey of high and low of Court and City and Country you shall find that this is the case of no small number yea of many that observe it not to be their case it is the case of the prophane that pray in jeast and swear and curse and rail in earnest It is the case of the malignant enemies of holiness that hate them at the heart that are most acquainted with this converse with God and count it but hypocrisie pride or fancy and would not suffer them to live upon the Earth who are most sincerely conversant in Heaven It is the case of Phariseâ—s and Hypocrites who take up with ceremonious observances as touch not taste not handle not and such like traditions of their forefathers instead of a spiritual rational service and a holy serious walking with the Lord. It is the case of all ambitious men and covetous worldlings who make more ado to climb up a little higher than their brethren and to hold the reins and have their wills and be admired and adored in the world or to get a large estate for themselves and their posterity than to please their Maker or to save their souls It is
BUt it may be the objector will be ready to think that If it be indeed our duty to walk with God yet Thoughts are no considerable part of it what more uncertain or mutable then our Thoughts It is Deeds and not Thoughts that God regardeth To do no harm to any but to do good to all this is indeed to walk with God You set a man upon a troublesome and impossible work while you set him upon so strict a guard and so much exercise of his thoughts what cares the Almighty for my thoughts Answ. 1 If God know better then you and be to be believed then Thoughts are not so inconsiderable as you suppose Doth he not say that the Toughts of the wicked are an abomination to the Lord Prov. 15. 26. It is the work of the Gospel by its power to pull down strong holds casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth it self against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ 2 Cor. 10. 4 5. The unrighteous mans forsaking his thoughts is part of his necessary conversion Isa. 55. 7. It was the description of the deplorate state of the old world Gen. 6. 5. God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually and it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him at his heart Judge by this whether Thoughts be so little regarded by God as you imagine David saith of himself I hate vain thoughts Psal. 119. 113. Solomon saith The thoughts of the righteous are right Prov. 12. 5. Paul saith that Charity thinketh not evil 1 Cor. 13. 5. 2. Thoughts are the issue of a rational soul. And if its operations be contemptible its essence is contemptible If its essence be noble its operations are considerable If the soul be more excellent then the body its operations must be more excellent To neglect our Thoughts and not employ them upon God and for God is to vilisie our noblest faculties and deny God who is a spirit that spiritual service which he requireth 3. Our Thoughts are commonly our most cordial voluntary acts and shew the temper and inclination of the heart And therefore are regardable to God that searcheth the heart and calleth first for the service of the heart 4. Our Thoughts are radical and instrumental acts such as they are such are the actions of our lives Christ telleth us that out of the heart proceed evil thoughts murders adulteries fornications thefts false witness blasphemies which defile the man Matth. 15. 19. 5. Our Thoughts are under a Law as well as words and deeds Prov. 24. 9. The thought of foolishness is sin And Matth. 5. 28 c. Christ extendeth the Law even to the thoughts and desires of the heart And under the Law it is said Deut. 15. 9. Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart c. viz. of unmercifulness towards thy brother 6. Thoughts can reach higher much then sense and may be employed upon the most excellent and invisible objects and therefore are fit instruments to elevate the soul that would converse with God Though God be infinitely above us our Thoughts may be exercised on him Our persons never were in Heaven and yet our Conversation must be in Heaven Phil. 3. 20. And how is that but by our thoughts Though we see not Christ yet by the exercise of believing thoughts on him we love him and rejoyce with joy unspeakable and full of glory Though God be invisible yet our Meditation of him may be sweet and we may delight in the Lord Psal. 104. 34. Say not that all this is but fantastical and delusory as long as Thoughts of things unseen are meeter to actuate and elevate the love desires and delights of the soul and to move and guide us in a regular and holy life then the sense of lesser present good The Thoughts are not vain or delusory unless the object of them be false and vain and delusory Where the object is great and sure and excellent the thoughts of such things are excellent operations of the soul. If thoughts of vainglory wealth and pleasure can delight the ambitious covetous and sensual no wonder if the Thoughts of God and life eternal afford us solid high delights 7. The Thoughts are not so lyable to be counterfeit and hypocritical as are the words and outward deeds And therefore they shew more what the man is and what is in his heart For as Solomon saith Prov. 23. 7. as he thinketh in his heart so is he 8. Our Thoughts may exercise the highest graces of God in man and also shew those graces as being their effects How is our Faith and Love and Desire and Trust and Joy and Hope to be exercised but by our cogitations If Grace were not necessary and excellent it would not be wrought by the spirit of God and called the Divine nature and the image of God And if Grace be excellent the use and exercise of it is excellent And therefore our Thoughts by which it is exercised must needs have their excellency too 9. Our Thoughts must be the instruments of our improving all holy Truth in Scripture and all the mercies which we receive and all the afflictions which we undergo What good will Reading a Chapter in the Bible do to any one that never Thinketh on it Our delight in the Law of God must engage us to meditate in it day and night Psal. 1. 2. What good shall he get by hearing a Sermon that exerciseth not his Thoughts for the receiving and digesting it Our considering what is said is the way in which we may expect that God should give us understanding in all things 2 Tim. 2. 7. What the better will he be for any of the merciful providences of God who never bethinks him whence they come or what is the use and end that they are given for what good will he get by any affliction that never bethinks him who it is that chastiseth him and for what and how he must get them removed and sanctified to his good A man is but like one of the pillars in the Church or like the corps which he treadeth on or at best but like the dog that followeth him thither for company if he use not his Thoughts about the work which he hath in hand and cannot say as Psal. 48. 9. We have thought of thy loving kindness O God in the midst of thy Temple He that bideth you Hear doth also bid you Take heed how you hear Luk. 8. 18. And you are commanded to lay up the word in your heart and soul Deut. 11. 18 19. And to set your hearts to all the words which are testified among you for it is not a vain thing for you because it is your life 10. Our Thoughts are so considerable a part of Gods service that they are
so hardly perswaded that it would be forgiven you and now do you make so small a matter of it Did you then so much wonder at your folly that could so long let out your thoughts and affections upon the creature while you neglected God and Heaven and do you begin to look that way again Do you now grow familiar with a life so like to that whirh was once your state of death and bear that easily that once was the breaking of your heart O Christians turn not away from that God again who once fetcht you home with so much smart and so much grace with such a twist of Love and Fatherly severity Methinks when you remember how you were once awakened you should not easily fall asleep again And when you remember the thoughts which then were in your hearts and the tears that were in your eyes and the earnest prayers which you then put up that God would receive you and take you for his own you should not now forget him and live as if you could live without him Remember that so far as you withdraw your hearts from God and let them follow inferiour things so far you contradict his works upon your hearts so far you violate your Covenant with him or sin against it so far you are revolters and go against the principal part of your profest Religion Yea so far you are ungodly as you thus withdraw your hearts from God Cleave to him and prosecute your Covenant if you will have the saving benefits of his Love and Covenant 3. MOreover the servants of God are doubly obliged to walk with him because they have had that experience of the goodness the safety and the sweetness of it which strangers have not Do you not remember how glad you were when you first believed that he pardoned and accepted you And how much you rejoyced in his Love and entertainment And how much better you found your Fathers house than ever you had found your sinful state And how much sweeter his service was than you did before believe It 's like you can remember something like that which is described in Luk. 15. 20 22 23 24. And he arose and came to his Father But when he was yet a great way off his Father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him And the Son said unto him Father I have sinned against Heaven and in thy sight and am no more worthy to be called thy Son But the Father said to his servants Bring forth the best Robe and put it on him and put a Ring on his hand and Shooes on his feet and bring hither the fatted Calf and kill it and let us eat and be merry for this my Son was dead and is alive again he was lost and is found What would you have thought or said of this Prodigal if after all this he should have been weary of his Fathers house and company and have taken more pleasure in his former company Would you not have said he was a forgetful and unthankful wretch and worthy never more to be received I do not speak to you now as to Apostates that are turned ungodly and have quite forsaken God and Holiness But I beseech you consider what it is after such experiences and obligations as these so much as to abate your love and grow remiss and mindless and indifferent as if you were aweary of God and were inclined to neglect him and look again to the world for your hope and satisfaction and delight As you love your souls and as you would avoid the sorrows which are greater than any that ever you felt take heed of fleighting the Love that hath done such wonders for you and of dealing so unthankfully with the everliving God and of turning thus away from him that hath received you Remember whilst you live the Love of your espousals Was God so good to you at the first and holiness so desirable and is it not so still And I am sure that your own experience will bear witness that since that time in all your lives it never was so well with you as when you walked most faithfully with God If you have received any falls and hurts it hath been when you have stragled from him If ever you had safety peace or joy it hath been when you have been nearest to him your wounds and grief and death hath been the fruit of your own waies and of your forsaking him Your recovery and health and life have been the fruit of his waies and of your adhering to him Many and many a time you have confessed this and have said It is good for me to draw near to God He hath helped you when none else could help you and comforted you when none else could comfort you How far are you above the worldlings happiness when you are nigh to God One lively thought of his Greatness and Excellency and of his Love to you in Jesus Christ will make the name of wealth and honour and favour and preferment and sensual pleasures to seem to you as words of no signification How indifferent will you be as to your prosperity in the world when you feel what it is to walk with God If you are lively experimental Christians you have found this to be true Have you not found that it is the very Health and Ease and proper employment of your souls to walk with God and keep close to him And that all goes well with you while you can do thus however the world doth esteem or use you And that when you grow strange or disobedient to God and mindless of his Goodness his presence and his authority you are like the stomach that is sick and like a bone that is out of joynt that can have no ease till it be healed and restored to its proper place No meats or drinks no company nor recreation no wealth or greatness will serve to make a sick man well or ease the dislocated bones Nothing will serve a faithful holy soul but God This is the cause of the dolour of his heart and of the secret groans and complainings of his life because in this life of distance and imperfection he finds himself so far from God and when he hath done all that he can he is still so dark and strange and cold in his affections when persecution driveth him from the Ordinances and publick Worship or when sin hath set him at a greater distance from his God he bemoaneth his soul as David in his banishment from the Tabernacle Psal. 42. 1 2 c. As the Hart panteth after the water-brooks so panteth my soul after thee O God My soul thirsteth for God for the living God When shall I come and appear before God My tears have been my meat day and night while they continually say unto me Where is thy God And it is no wonder if with his greatest joy he be yet clouded with these sorrows because he yet
unresistibly procureth our Love to them And when we Love them it is wonderful to observe how easily we are brought to think well of almost all they do and highly to value their judgements graces parts and works when greater excellencies in another perhaps are scarce observed or regarded but as a common thing And therefrre the destruction or want of Love is apparent in the vilifying thoughts and speeches that most men have of one another and in the low esteem of the judgements and performances and lives of other men much more in their contempt reproaches and cruel persecutions Now though God will have us encrease in our Love of Christ in his members and in our pure Love of Christians as such and in our common charity to all yea and in our just fidelity to our friend yet would he have us suspect and moderate our selfish and excessive Love and inordinate partial esteem of one above another when it is but for our selves and on our own account And therefore as he will make us know that we our selves are no such excellent persons as that it should make another so laudable or advance his worth because he Loveth us so he will make us know that our friends whom we overvalue are but like other men If we exalt them too highly in our esteem it is a sign that God must cast them down And as their Love to us was it that made us so exalt them so their unkindness or unfaithfulness to us is the fittest means to bring them lower in our estimation and affection God is very jealous of our hearts as to our overvaluing and overloving any of his Creatures what we give inordinately and excessively to them is some way or other taken from him and given them to his injury and therefore to his offence Though I know that to be void of natural friendly or social affections is an odious extream on the other side yet God will rebuke us if we are guilty of excess And it 's the greater and more inexcusable fault to over-love the Creature because our Love to God is so cold and hardly kindled and kept alive He cannot take it well to see us dote upon dust and frailty like our selves at the same time when all his wondrous kindness and attractive goodness do cause but such a faint and languid Love to him which we our selves can scarcely feel If therefore he cure us by permitting our friends to shew us truly what they are and how little they deserve such excessive Love when God hath so little it is no more wonder than it is that he is tender of his glory and merciful to his servants souls 5. By the failing and unfaithfulness of our friends the wonderful Patience of God will be observed and honoured as it is shewed both to them and us When they forsake us in our distress especially when we suffer for the cause of Christ it is God that they injure more than us And therefore if he bear with them and forgive their weakness upon repentance why should not we do so that are much less injured The worlds persidiousness should make us think How great and wonderful is the patience of God that beareth with and beareth up so vile ungrateful treacherous men that abuse him to whom they are infinitely obliged And it should make us consider when men deal treacherously with us How great is that mercy that hath born with and pardoned greater wrongs which I my self have done to God than these can be which men have done to me It was the remembranâ—e of David's sin that had provoked God to raise up his own Son against him of whom he had been too fond which made him so easily bear the curses and reproach of Shimei It will make us bear abuse from others to remember how ill we have dealt with God and how ill we have deserved at his hands our selves 6. And I have observed another of the Reasons of Gods permitting the failing of our friends in the season and success It is that the Love of our friends may not hinder us when we are called to suffer or dye When we over-love them it teareth our very hearts to leave them And therefore it is a strong temptation to draw us from our duty and to be unfaithful to the cause of Christ lest we should be taken from our too-dear friends or lest our suffering cause their too-much grief It is so hard a thing to dye with willingness and peace that it must needs be a mercy to be saved from the impediments which make us backward And the excessive Love of friends and relations is not the least of these impediments O how loth is many a one to dye when they think of parting with wife or husband or children or dear and faithful friends Now I have oft observed that a little before their death or sickness it is ordinary with God to permit some unkindness between such too-dear friends to arise by which he moderated and abated their affections and made them a great deal the willinger to dye Then we are ready to say It is time for me to leave the world when not only the rest of the world but my dearest friends have first forsaken me This helpeth us to remember our dearest everlasting friend and to be grieved at the heart that we have been no truer our selves to him who would not have forsaken us in our extremity And sometime it maketh us even aweary of the world and to say as Elias Lord take away my life c. 1 King 19. 4 10 14. when we must say I thought I had one friend left and behold even he forsaketh me in my distress As the Love of friends intangleth our affections to this world so to be weaned by their unkindnesses from our friends is a great help to loosen us from the world and proveth oft a very great mercy to a soul that is ready to depart And as the friends that Love us most and have most interest in our esteem and Love may do more than others in tempting us to be unfaithful to our Lord to entertain any errour to commit any sin or to flinch in suffering so when God hath permitted them to forsake us and to lose their too great interest in us we are fortified against all such temptations from them I have known where a former intimate friend hath grown strange and broken former friendship and quickly after turned to such dangerous wayes and errours as convinced the other of the mercifulness of God in weakning his temptation by his friends desertion who might else have drawn him along with him into sin And I have often observed that when the husbands have turned from Religion to Infidelity Familism or some dangerous heresie that God hath permitted them to hate and abuse their wives so inhumanely as that it preserved the poor women from the temptation of following them in their Apostasie or sin When as some other women with
Evil to our selves is none of the sinful or imperfect selfishness to be renounced or laid by but part of our very Natures and as inseparable from us as we are from our selves Much more were it not digressive might be said on this subject but I shall only add that as God doth draw us to every holy duty by shewing us the excellency of that duty and as perpetuity is not the smallest excellency so he hath purposely mentioned that Love endureth for ever when he had described the Love of one another as a principal motive to kindle and encrease this Love And therefore those that think they shall have no personal Knowledge of one another nor personal Love to one another for we cannot Love personally if we know not personally do take a most effectual course to destroy in their souls all holy special Love to Saints by casting away that principal or very great motive given them by the Holy Ghost I am not able to Love much where I foreknow that I shall not Love long I cannot Love a comely Inne so well as a nearer dwelling of my own because I must be gone to morrow Therefore must I love my Bible better than my Law books or Physick books c. because it leadeth to Eternity And therefore I must Love Holiness in my self and others better than meat and drink and wealth and honour and beauty and pleasure because it must be Loved for ever when the Love of these must needs be transitory as they are transitory I must profess from the very experience of my soul that it is the belief that I shall Love my friends in Heaven that principally kindleth my Love to them on Earth And if I thought I should never know them after death and consequently never love them more when this life is ended I should in reason number them with temporal things and Love them comparatively but a little even as I Love other transitory things allowing for the excellency in the nature of Grace But now I converse with some delight with my Godly friends as believing I shall converse with them for ever and take comfort in the very Dead and Absent as believing we shall shortly meet in Heaven and I Love them I hope with a Love that is of a Heavenly Nature while I Love them as the Heirs of Heaven with a Love which I expect shall there be perfected and more fully and for ever exercised 12. The last Reason that I give you to move you to bear the Loss or Absence of your friends is that it gives you the loudest call to retire from all the world and to converse with God himself and to long for Heaven where you shall be separated from your friends no more And your forsaken state will somewhat assist you to that solitary converse with God which it calls you to But this brings us up to the third part of the Text. AND yet I am not alone because the Father is with me Doct. When all forsake us and leave us as to them alone we are far from being simply alone because God is with us He is not without company that is with the King though twenty others have turned him off He is not without Light that hath the shining Sun though all his Candles be put out If God be our God he is our All and is enough for us And if he be our All we shall not much find the want of creatures while he is with us For 1. He is with us who is Everywhere and therefore is never from us and knoweth all the waies and projects of our enemies being with them in wrath as he is with us in mercy 2. He is with us who is Almighty sufficient to preserve us conquerable by none and therefore while he is with us we need not fear what man can do unto us For they can do nothing but what he will No danger no sickness no trouble or want can be so great as to make it any difficulty to God to deliver us when and how he please 3. He is with us who is Infinitely wise and therefore we need not fear the subtilty of enemies nor shall any of his undertaken works for his Church or us miscarry for want of foresight or through any oversight We shall be preserved even from our own Folly as well as from our Enemies subtilty For it is not our own wisdome that our greatest concernments do principally rest upon nor that our safety and peace are chiefly secured by but it is the Wisdome of our great Preserver He knoweth what to do with us and what paths to lead us in and what is best for us in all conditions And he hath promised to Teach us and will be our sure infallible Guide 4. He is with us who is Infinitely Good and therefore is only sit to be a continual delight and satisfaction to our souls that hath nothing in him to disaffect us or discourage us whom we may love without fear of overloving and need not set any bounds to our Love the object of it being infinite 5. He is with us who is most nearly related to us and most dearly loveth us and therefore will never be wanting to us in any thing that is fit for us to have This is he that is with us when all have left us and as to man we are alone and therefore we may well say that we are not alone Of this I shall say more anon in the application Quest. But how is he with us Answ. 1. He is with us not only in his Essential presence as he is everywhere but as by his Gracious Fatherly presence We are in his Family attending on him even as the eye of a servant is to the hand of his Master We are alwaies with him and as he phraseth it himself in the Parable Luke 15. all that he hath in ours that is all that is fit to be communicated to us and all the provisions of his bounty for his children When we awake we should be still with him When we go abroad we should be alwaies as before him Our life and works should be a Walking with God 2. He is alwaies with us efficiently to do us Good Though we have none else that careth for us yet will he never cast us out of his care but biddeth us cast our care on him as promising that he will care for us Though we have none else to provide for us he is alwiaes with us and our Father knoweth what we want and will make the best provision for us Mat. 6. 32 33. Though we have none else to defend us against the power of our enemies he is alwaies with us to be our sure defence He is the Rock to which we fly and upon which we are surely built He gathereth us to himself as the Hen gathereth her Chickens under her wings Mat. 23. 37. And sure while Love is thus protecting us we may well say that the Father himself
and makes them as no mercies at all Creation and our Being is a mercy but it is in order to our Eternal end Redemption by Christ is an unspeakable mercy but its denyed by the Infidel and rejected by the Ungodly what is Christ worth and all his mediation if there be no life for man but this Peace and Liberty health and life friends and neighbours food and rayment are all mercyes to us as a ship and sails are to the Mariner or a fair way or Horse or Inn to a Traveller But if by denying our Eternal end you make our voyage or our journey vain these mercies then are little worth no more then a ship on the land or a plow in the sea or a horse to him that hath no use for him And O what an ungrateful wretch is that who will deny all the mercies of God to himself and to all others For once deny the use and the Eternal end and you deny the mercy 3. He that believeth not or seeks not after an Eternal end destroyeth all the Doctrine Law and Government of God For all is but to lead us to this end All the holy Scriptures the precepts of Christ and his holy example the Covenant of Grace the gifts and miracles of the Holy Ghost the light and law of Nature it self are all to bring us to our Eternal end And therefore he that denyeth that end doth cancel them all and cast them by as useless things 4. And he denyeth all the Graces of the Spirit For what use is there for Faith if the object of it be a falshood what use for Hope if there be no life to be Hoped for what use for holy desires and love if God be not to be enjoyed Grace is but the delusion and deformity of the soul if the Infidel and ungodly be in the right 5. They destroy also All the means of our Salvation if they deny Salvation which is the End To what purpose should men study or read or hear or pray or use either Sacraments or any other means for an End that is not to be had To what end should men obey or suffer for any such end that 's not attainable 6. Yea they do let loose the soul to sin and take off all essectual restraint If there be no Eternal end and no Reward or Punishment but here what can effectually hinder the men of this opinion from stealing whoredome or any villany when it may be done with secrecy what should hinder the revengeful man from poisoning or secret murdering his enemy or setting his house on fire in the night If I know a man or woman that believes no life to come I take it for granted they are revengeful thieves deceivers fornicators or any thing that is bad if they have but temptation and secret opportunity For what hath he to seek but the pleasing of his flesh that thinks he hath no God to seek or please or no future reward or punishment to expect He that confesseth himself an Infidel to me doth confess himself to be in all things else as bad as ever he can or dare Honesty is renounced by that man or woman that profess themselves to be Atheists or Infidels Methinks in congruency with their profession they should take it for a wrong to be called or reputed honest If you tell me that Heathens had a kind of Honesty I must tell you again that most Heathens believed the Immortality of the soul and that kind of seeming Honesty which they had was only in those of them that thus expected a life to come But those that believe not another life where man is to have his punishment and reward have nothing like to Honesty in them but live like greedy ravenous beasts where they are from under the Laws and Government of them that look for another life The Cannibals that eat mens flesh and some such savages as they are the Nations that expect no life but this It is believed so commonly by all the civil Infidels and Turks as shews it to be a principle that nature doth reveal 7. Yea the whole Creation that is within the sight of man is destroyed opinionatively by the Infidels that look for no Immortal life For all things were made to further our Salvation the Heavens to declare the Glory of God and the sirmament to shew his handy work and all Creatures to be our Glass in which we must behold the Lord and our Book in which we must read and learn his nature and his will The sun is to light us and maintain our Life and the Life of other lower Creatures while we prepare for Immortality The earth is to bear us and to bear fruit for us and the Trees and Plants and every Creature to accommodate and serve us while we serve the Lord and pass on to Eternity And therefore the Atheist that denyeth us our Eternity denyeth the usefulness of all the world what were all the Creatures here good for if there were no men the earth would be a wilderness and the beasts would for the most part perish for want of sustenance and all would be like a forsaken Cottage that no man dwelleth in and doth no good And if man be not the Heir of Immortality they can do him no good All Creatures are but our provision in the way to this Eternity And therefore if there were no Eternity what should we do with them what should we do with wayes and pavements or with Inns for Travellers or with horses or other provision for our journey if there were no travelling that way And who will travel to a place that is not or a City that is nowhere but in his brains besides a mad man It s evident therefore that as all the tools in a workmans shop are made useless to him if he be forbidden to use his trade and all the books in my Library are useless if I may not read them to get knowledge so all Creatures under Heaven are made useless and destroyed doctrinally by the Atheist that thinks there is no Eternal life for which they should be used I must seriously profess if I believed this being in other things of the mind I am I knew not what to do with any thing What should I do with my Books but to learn the way to this Eternity what should I do with my money if there be no treasure to be laid up in Heaven nor friends to be made with the Mammon abused commonly to unrighteousness what should I do with my Tongue my Hands my Time my Life my Self or any thing if there were no Eternity I think I should dig my grave and lay me down in it and die and perish to scape the sorrows of a longer life that must be my companions Remember then Christians and still remember it that Eternity is the matter of your Faeith and Hope Eternity is your portion and felicity Eternity is the End of all your desires and labours and
it follow that he sees none If cunning Serpents are too subtle for us do we think that they can overwit the Lord what had become of us long ago if God had not known what ever is plotted at Rome or Spain or Hell against us If he knoweth not of all the consultations of the conclave and of all the contrivances of Jesuits and Fryers and of all the juglings of the masked Emissaries If God had not known of Vaux and his Powder mine it might have blown up all our hopes But while we know that God is in their Councils and heareth every word they say and knoweth every secret of their hearts and every mischief which they enterprise let us do our duty and rest in the wisdom of our great Protector who will prove all his adversaries to have plaid the fools For as sure as his Omnipstency shall be glorified by overtopping all opposing powers so sure shall his Infinite wisdom be glorified by conquering and befooling the wisdom that is against him 7. Lstly if God be Infinite in Knowledge it must resolve us all to live accordingly O Remember what ever thou Thinkest that God is acquainted with all thy Thoughts And wilt thou feed on lustful or covetous or malicious or unbelieving Thoughts in the eye of God Remember in thy prayers and every duty that he knows the very frame of all thy affections and the manner as well as the matter of thy services And wilt thou be cold and careless in the sight of God O Remember in thy secretst sins and thy works of darkness that nothing is unknown to God and that before him thou art in the open light And fearest thou not the face of the Almighty Wilt thou do that when he knoweth it that thou wouldst not do if man did know He knows whether thou deceive thy neighbour or deal uprightly Defraud not therefore for the Lord is the avenger 1 Thes. 4. 6. Do nothing that thou wouldst not have God to know For certainly he knoweth all things Shall he not see that made and illuminateth the eye and shall he not hear that made both tongue and ears and shall he not know that giveth us understanding and by whom we know Psal. 94. 8 9 10. And let this be thy comfort in thy secret duties He that knoweth thy Heart will not overlook the desires of thy Heart though thou hadst not words as thou desirest to express them And he that knoweth thy uprightness will justifie thee if all the world condemn thee He that seeth thee in thy secret Alms or Prayers or Tears will openly reward thee Mat. 6. 4 6. Let this also comfort thee under all the slanders of malicious or misinformed men He that must be thy Judge and theirs is acquainted with the truth who will certainly bring forth thy righteousness as the light and thy judgement as the noone day Psal. 37. 6. O how many souls are justified with the Omniscient God that are condemned by the malignant world And how many blots will be wiped off before the world at the day of Judgement that here did lie upon the names of faithful upright men O how many Hypocrites shall be then disclosed And what a cutting thought should it be to the dissembler that his secret falshood is known to God! And when he hath the Reputation that he sought with men he hath his reward Mat. 6. 2. For its a sadder reward that God will give him CHAP. IX 8. THE next of Gods Attributes that must make its Impress on the soul is Hit Infinite Goodness The Denomination of Goodness as all other his Attributes is fetcht from and suited to the capacity or affections of the soul of man That which is truly Amiable is called Good Not as if there were no Goodness but what is a means to mans felicity as some most sottishly have affirmed For our End and Felicity it self and God as he is Perfect and Excellent in himself is more amiable then all means In three respects therefore it is that God is called Good or Amiable to man 1. In that he is Infinitely Excellent and perfect in Himself For the Love of Friendship is a higher Love then that of Desire And the most perfect sort of Love is that which wholly carrieth the Lover from himself to the perfect object of his Love The soul Delighteth to contemplate excellency when the excellency it self and not the delight is the ultimate end of that desire and contemplation 2. God is called Good as he is the Pattern and Fountain of all Moral Good As he maketh us Righteous Holy Laws commanding Moral Good and forbidding and condemning evil And thus his Goodness is his Holiness and Righteousness his Faithfulness and Truth 3. God is called Good as he is the Fountain of all the Creatures happiness and as he is bountiful and gracious and ready to do good and as he is the felicitating end and object of the soul. And this Infinite goodness must have these effects upon us 1. It must possess us with a superlative Love to God This blessed Attribute is it that makes us Saints indeed and maketh that Impression on us which is as the Heart of the New Creature It is Goodness that produceth Love And Love is that Grace that closeth with God as our Happiness and End and is the felicitating enjoying Grace Without it we are but as sounding brass or tinkling Cymbals whatever our gifts and parts may be 1 Cor. 13. Love is the very excellency of the soul as it closeth with the infinite excellency of God It is the very felicity of the soul as it enjoyeth him that is our felicity Most certainly the prevailing Love of God is the surest evidence of true sanctification He that hath most Love hath most Grace and is the best and strongest Christian and he that hath least Love is the worst or weakest Knowledge and faith are but to work our hearts to Love and when Love is perfect they have done their work 1 Cor. 12. 31. and 13. 8 9 10 13. Teaching and distant Revelations will not be for ever and therefore such Knowledge and Faith as we have now will not be for ever But God will be for ever Amiable to us and therefore Love will endure for ever The goodness of God is called Love and as God is Love so he that dwelleth in Love doth dwell in God and God in him 1 Joh. 4. 16. The knowledge of Divine goodness makes us good because it maketh us Love him that is good It is Love that acteth most purely for God Fear is selfish and hath somewhat of aversation Though there be no evil in God for us to fear yet is there such good in him that will bring the evil of punishment upon the evil and this they fear But Love doth resign the soul to God and that in the most congruous acceptable manner Make it therefore your daily work to possess your souls with the Love of God Love him once and
all that he saith and doth will be more acceptable to you and all that you say or do in Love will be more acceptable unto him Love him and you will be loth to offend him you will be desirous to please him you will be satisfied in his Love Love him and you may be sure that he Loveth you Love is the fulfilling of his Law Rom. 13. 10. And that you may Love him this must be your work to Believe and Contemplate his goodness Consider daily of the Infinite goodness or Amiableness of his Nature and of his excellency appearing in his works and of the perfect Holiness of his Laws But especially see him in the face of Christ and behold his Love in the design of our Redemption in the person of the Redeemer and in the promises of Grace and in all the benefits of Redemption Yea look by Faith to Heaven it self and think how you must for ever live in the perfect blessed Love of infinite enjoyed goodness As it is the knowledge and sight of gold or beauty or any other earthly vanity that kindleth the Love of them in the minds of men so is it the knowledge and serious contemplation of the goodness of God that must make us Love him if ever we will Love him 2. The goodness of God must also encourage the soul to trust him For Infinite good will not deceive us Nor can we fear any hurt from him but what we wilfully bring upon our selves If I knew but which were the best and most Loving man in the world I could trust him above all men and I should not fear any injury from him How many friends have I that I dare trust with my estate and life because I know that they have Love and goodness in their low degree And shall I not trust the Blessed God that is Love it self and Infinitely good what ever he will be in Justice to the ungodly I am sure he delighteth not in the death of sinners but rather that they turn and live and that he will not cast off the soul that Loveth him and would fain be fully conformed to his will It cannot be that he should spurn at them that are humbled at his feet and long and pray and seek and mourn after nothing more then his grace and love Think not of God as if he were scanter of love and goodness then the Creature is If you have high and confident thoughts of the goodness and fidelity of any man on earth and dare quietly trust him with your life and all see that you have much higher thoughts of God and trust him with greater confidence left you set him below the silly creature in the Attributes of his goodness which his Glory and your Happiness require you to know 3. The Infinite goodness of God must call off our hearts from the inordinate Love of all created good whatever Who would stoop so low as earth that may converse with God And who would feed on such poor delights that hath tasted the graciousness of the Lord Nothing more sure then that the Love of God doth not reign in that soul where the Love of the world or of fleshly lust or pleasure reigneth 1 John 2. 15. Had worldlings or sensual or ambitious men but truly known the goodness of the Lord they could never have so fallen in Love with those deceitful vanities If we could but open their eyes to see the Loveliness of their Redeemer they would soon be weaned from other Loves Would you conquer the Love of Riches or Honour or any thing else that corrupteth your affections O try this sure and powerful way Draw nigh to God and take the fullest view thou canst in thy most serious Meditation of his Infinite goodness and all things else will be vile in thy esteem and thy heart will soon contemn them and forget them and thou wilt never dote upon them more 4. The Infinite goodness of God should increase Repentance and win the soul to a more resolute chearful service of the Lord. O what a heart is that which can offend and wilfully offend so good a God! This is the odiousness of sin that it is an abuse of an Infinite good This is the most hainous damning aggravation of it that Infinite goodness could not prevail with wretched souls against the empty flattering world but that they suffered a dream and shadow to weigh down Infinite goodness in their esteem And is it possible for worse then this to be found in man He that had rather the sun were out of the firmament then a hair were taken off his head were unworthy to see the light of the Sun And surely he that will turn away from God himself to enjoy the pleasures of his flesh is unworthy to enjoy the Lord. It s bad enough that Augustine in one of his Epistles saith of sottish worldly men that they had rather there were two stars fewer in the firmament then one Cow fewer in their Pastures or one tree fewer in their woods or grounds But it is ten thousand times a greater evil that every wicked man is guilty of that will rather forsake the Living God and lose his part in Infinite goodness then he will let go his filthy and unprofitable sins O Sinners as you love your souls despise not the riches of the goodness and forbearance and long suffering of the Lord but know that his goodness should lead you to Repentance Rom. 2. 4. Would you spit at the Sun Would you revile the stars Would you curse the holy Angels If not O do not ten thousand fold worse by your wilful sinning against the Infinite Goodness it self But for you Christians that have seen the Amiableness of the Lord and tasted of his perfect Goodness let this be enough to melt your hearts that ever you have wilfully sin'd against him O what a Good did you contemn in the dayes of your unregeneracy and in the hour of your sin Be not so ingrateful and disingenuous as to do so again Remember when ever a Temptation comes that it would entice you from the Infinite Good Ask the tempter man or Devil Whether he hath more then an Infinite Good to offer you and whether he can outbid the Lord for your affection And now for the time that is before you how cheerfully should you address your selves unto his service and how delightfully should you follow it on from day to day What manner of persons should the servants of this God be that are called to nothing but what is Good How Good a Master how good a work and how good company encouragements and helps and how good an End All is good because it is the Infinite Good that we serve and seek And shall we be loitering unprofitable servants 5. Moreover this Infinite Goodness should be the matter of our daily Praises He that cannot cheerfully magnifie this Attribute of God so suitable to the nature of the Will is surely a stranger to the
for sin 2. The Fatherly Love and Benefits of God do call for our best returns of Love The Benefits of Creation oblige all to Love him with all their Heart and Soul and Might Much more the Benefits of Redemption and especially as applyed by sanctifying Grace to them that shall be heirs of life it obligeth them by multiplied strongest obligations The Worst are obliged to as much Love of God as the Best for none can be obliged to more than to Love him with all their Heart c. but they are not as much obliged to that Love We have new and special obligations and therefore must return a Hearty Love or we are doubly guilty Mercies are Loves Messengers sent from Heaven to win up our Hearts to Love again and entice us thither All mercies therefore should be used to this end That mercy that doth not encrease or excite and help our Love is abused and lost as seed that is buried when it 's sowed and never more appeareth Earthly Mercies point to Heaven and tell us whence they come and for what Like the Flowers of the Spring they tell us of the reviving approaches of the Sun But like foolish children because they are near us we Love the Flowers better than the Sun forgetting that the Winter is drawing on But Spiritual Mercies are as the Sun-shine that more immediately dependeth on and floweth from the Sun it self And he that will not see and value the Sun by its Light will never see it These beams come down to invite our Minds and Hearts to God and if we shut the windows or play till night and they return without us we shall be left to utter darkness The Mercies of God must imprint upon our minds the fullest and deepest conceptions of him as the most perfect suitable Lovely Objects to the soul of man when all our Good is Originally in him and all flows from him that hath the Goodness of a Means and finally himself is all not to Love God then is not to Love Goodness it self and there is nothing but Good that 's suited to our Love Night and day therefore should the Believer be drawing and deriving from God by the views and tasts of his precious Mercies a sweetness of nature and increase of holy Love to God as the Bee sucks Honey from the flowers We should not now and then for a recreation light upon a flower and meditate on some Mercy of the Lord but make this our work from day to day and keep continually upon our souls the lively tasts and deep impressions of the Infinite Goodness and Amiableness of God When we Love God most we are at the best most pleasing to God and our lives are sweetest to our selves And when we steep our minds in the believing thoughts of the abundant Fatherly Mercies of the Lord we shall most abundantly Love him Every Mercy is a Suiter to us from God! The contents of them all is this My Son Give mee thy Heart Love him that thus loveth thee Love him or you reject him O wonderful Love that God will regard the Love of man that he will enter into a Covenant of Love that he will be Related to us in a Relation of Love and that he will deal with us on terms of Love that he will give us leave to Love him that are so base and have so Loved Earth and Sin yea and that he will be so earnest a suiter for our Love as if he needed it when it is only we that need But the paths of Love are mysterious and incomprehensible 3. As God is in special a Benefactor and Father to us we must be the readiest and most diligent in obedience to him Childlike duty is the most willing and unwearied kind of duty Where Love is the principle we shall not be eye-servants but delight to do the Will of God and wish O that I could please him more It is a singular delight to a Gracious soul to be upon any acceptable duty and the more he can do good and please the Lord the more he is pleased As Fatherly Love and Benefits are the fullest and the surest so will filial duty be The Heart is no fit soil for Mercies if they grow not up to holy fruits The more you love the more chearfully will you obey 4. From hence we must well learn both How God is mans End and what are the chief Means that lead us to him 1. God is not the End of Reason nakedly considered but he is Finis Amantis the End which Love inclineth us to and which by Love is attained and by love enjoyed The understanding of which would resolve many great perplexing difficulties that à natura finis do step into our way in Theological studies I will name no more now but only that it teacheth us How both God and our own Felicity in the fruition of him may be said to be our Ultimate End without any contradiction yet so that it be Eminently and Chiefly God For it is a Union such as our Natures are capable of that is desired in which the soul doth long to be swallowed up in God Understand but what a filial or friendly Love is and you may understand what a regular Intention is and how God must be the Christians End 2. And withall it shews us that the most direct and excellent means of our felicity and to our End are those that are most suited to the work of Love Others are means more Remotely and necessary in their places but these directly And therefore the Promises and Narratives of the Love and Mercy of the Lord are the most direct and powerful part of the Gospel conducing to our End and the Threatnings the remoter means And therefore as Grace was advanced in the world the Promissory part of Gods Covenant or Law grew more illustrious and the Gospel consisted so much of Promises that it is called Glad tydings of great joy And therefore the most full demonstration of Gods Goodness and Loveliness to our hearers is the most excellent part of all our Preaching though it is not all And therefore the meditation of Redemption is more powerful than the bare meditation of Creation because it is Redemption that most eminently revealeth Love And therefore Christ is the Principal Means of Life because he is the Principal Messenger and Demonstration of the Fathers Love and by the wonders of Love which he revealeth and exhibiteth in his wondrous Grace he wins the soul to the Love of God For God will have external objective means and internal effective means concur because he will work on man agreeably to the nature of man Though there was never given out such prevalent invincible measures of the Spirit as Christ hath given for the Renewing of those that he will save yet shall not that Spirit do it without as excellent objective means And though Christ and the Riches of his Grace revealed in the Gospel be the most wonderful
be alwaies actually upon God but he that doth manage his calling in Holiness doth all in obedience to Gods commands and sees that his work be the work of God and he intendeth all to the glory of God or the pleasing of his blessed will and he oft reneweth these actual intentions and oft interposeth thoughts of the presence or power or love or interest of him whom he is serving He often lifteth up his soul in some holy desire or ejaculatory request to God He oft taketh occasion from what he seeth or heareth or is doing for some more spiritual meditation or discourse so that still it is God that his mind is principally employed on or for even in his ordinary work while he liveth as a Christian And it is not enough to think of God but we must think of him as God with such respect and reverence and love and trust and submission in our measure as is due from the Creature to his Creator For as some kind of speaking of him is but a taking his Name in vain so some kind of thinking of him is but a dishonouring of him by contemptuous or false unworthy thoughts Most of our walking with God consisteth in such affectionate apprehensions of him as are suitable to his blessed Attributes and Relations All the day long our thoughts should be working either on God or for God either upon some work of obedience which he hath imposed on us and in which we desire to please and honour him or else directly upon himself Our hearts must be taken up in contemplating and admiring him in magnifying his Name his Word and Works and in pleasant contentful thoughts of his benignity and of his Glory and the Glory which he conferreth on his Saints He that is unskilful or unable to manage his own thoughts with some activity seriousness and order will be a stranger to much of the holy converse which believers have with God They that have given up the Government of their thoughts and turned them loose to go which way phantasie pleaseth and present sensitive objects do invite them and to run up and down the world as masterless unruly vagrants can hardly expect to keep them in any constant attendance upon God or readiness for any sacred work And the sudden thoughts which they have of God will be rude and stupid savouring more of prophane contempt than of holiness when they should be reverent serious affectionate and practical and such as conduce to a holy composure of their hearts and lives And as we must walk with God 1. In our communion with his servants 2. And in our affectionate Meditations so also 3 In all the ordinances which he hath appointed for our Edification and his Worship 1. The Reading of the Word of God and the explication and application of it in good Books is a means to possess the mind with sound and orderly and working apprehensions of God and of his holy Truths So that in such Reading our understandings are oft illustrated with a heavenly Light and our hearts are touched with a special delightful rellish of that truth and they are secretly attracted and engaged unto God and all the powers of our souls are excited and animated to a holy obedient life 2. The same Word preached with a lively voice with clearness and affection hath a greater advantage for the same illumination and excitation of the soul. When a Minister of Christ that is truly a Divine being filled with the Knowledge and Love of God shall copiously and affectionately open to his hearers the excellencies which he hath seen and the happiness which he hath foreseen and tasted of himself it frequently through the co-operation of the Spirit of Christ doth wrap up the hearers hearts to God and bring them into a more lively knowledge of him actuating their graces and enflaming their hearts with a heavenly Love and such desires as God hath promised to satisfie Christ doth not only send his Ministers furnished with Authority from him but also furnished with his Spirit to speak of spiritual things in a spiritual manner so that in both respects he might say He that heareth you heareth mee and also by the same Spirit doth open and excite the hearts of the hearers so that it is God himself that a serious Christian is principally employed with in the hearing of his heavenly transforming Word And therefore he is affected with reverence and holy fear with some taste of heavenly delight with obediential subjection and resignation of himself to God The Word of God is powerful not only in pulling down all high exalting thoughts that rise up against God but also in lifting up depressed souls that are unable to rise unto heavenly knowledge or communion with God If some Christians could but alwaies finde as much of God upon their hearts at other times as they finde sometimes under a spiritual powerful Ministry they would not so complain that they seem forsaken and strangers to all communion with God as many of them do While God by his Messengers and Spirit is speaking and man is hearing him while God is treating with man about his reconciliation and everlasting happiness and man is seriously attending to the treaty and motions of his Lord surely this is a very considerable part of our walking and converse with God 3. Also in the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ we are called to a familiar converse with God He there appeareth to us by a wonderful condescension in the representing communicating signs of the flesh and blood of his Son in which he hath most conspicuously revealed his Love and Goodness to Believers There Christ himself with his Covenant-gifts are all delivered to us by these Investing signs of his own institution even as Knighthood is given by a sword and as a House is delivered by a Key or Land by a Twig and Turf Nowhere is God so near to man as in Jesus Christ and nowhere is Christ so familiarly represented to us as in this holy Sacrament Here we are called to sit with him at his Table as his invited welcome guests to commemorate his sacrifice to feed upon his very flesh and blood that is with our mouths upon his Representative flesh and blood and with our applying Faith upon his real flesh and blood by such a feeding as belongs to Faith The Marriage-Covenant betwixt God â—ncarnate and his espoused ones is there publickly sealed celebrated and solemnized There we are entertained by God as friends and not as servants only and that at the most precious costly feast If ever a believer may on earth expect his kindest entertainment and near access and a humble intimacy with his Lord it is in the participation of this sacrifice-feast which is called The Communion because it is appointed as well for our special Communion with Christ as with one another It is here that we have the fullest intimation expression and communication of the wondrous Love of God
and therefore it is here that we have the loudest call and best assistance to make a large return of Love And where there is the most of this Love between God and man there is most Communion and most of Heaven that can be had on Earth But it much concerneth the members of Christ that they deprive not themselves of this Communion with God in this Holy Sacrament through their miscarriage which is too frequently done by one of these extreams Either by rushing upon holy things with a presumptuous careless common frame of heart as if they knew not that they go to feast with Christ and discerned not his body or else by an excess of fear drawing back and questioning the good will of God and thinking diminutively of his love and mercy By this means Satan depriveth many of the comfortable part of their communion with God both in this Sacrament and in other waies of grace and maketh them avoid him as an enemy and be loth to come into his special presence and even to be afraid to think of him to pray to him or to have any holy converse with him When the just belief and observation of his Love would stablish them and revive their souls with joy and give them experience of the sweet delights which are opened to them in the Gospel and which believers finde in the Love of God and the foretast of the everlasting pleasures 4. In holy faithful servent Prayer a Christian hath very much of his converse with God For Prayer is our approach to God and calling to mind his presence and his attributes and exercising all his graces in a holy motion towards him and an exciting all the powers of our souls to seek him attend him reverently to worship him It is our treating with him about the most important businesses in all the world a beâ—ging of the greatest mercies and a deprecating his most grievous judgments and all this with the nearest familiarity that man in flesh can have with God In prayer the Spirit of God is working up our hearts unto him with desires exprest in sighs and groans It is a work of God as well as of man He bloweth the fire though it be our hearts that burn and boil In Prayer we lay hold on Jesus Christ and plead his merits and intercession with the Father He taketh us as it wereby the hand and leadeth us unto God and hideth our sins and procureth our acceptance and presenteth us amiable to his Father having justified and sanctified us and cleansed us from those pollutions which rendered us loathsome and abominable To speak to God in serious prayer is a work so high and of so great moment that it calleth off our minds from all things else and giveth no creature room or leave to look into the soul or once to be observed The mind is so taken up with God and employed with him that creatures are forgotten and we take no notice of them unless when through the diversions of the flesh our prayers are interrupted and corrupted and so far degenerate and are no prayer so far I say as we thus turn away from God So that the soul that is most and best at Prayer is most and best at walking with God and hath most communion with him in the Spirit And to withdraw from Prayer is to withdraw from God And to be unwilling to pray is to be unwilling to draw near to God Meditation or Contemplation is a duty in which God is much enjoyed But Prayer hath Meditation in it and much more All that is upon the mind in Meditation is upon the mind in Prayer and that with great advantage as being presented before God and pleaded with him and so animated by the apprehensions of his observing presence and actuated by the desires and pleadings of the soul. When we are commanded to Pray it includeth a command to Repent and Believe and Fear the Lord and Desire his Grace For Faith and Repentance and Fear and Desire are altogether in action in a serious prayer And as it were naturally each one takes his place and there is a holy order in the acting of these graces in a Christians prayers and a harmony which he doth seldome himself observe He that in Meditation knoweth not how to be regular and methodical when he is studiously contriving and endeavouring it yet in Prayer before he is aware hath Repentance and Faith and Fear and Desire and every grace fall in its proper place and order and contribute its part to the performance of the work The new nature of a Christian is more immediately and vigorously operative in Prayer than in many other duties And therefore every Infant in the family of God can pray with groaning desires and ordered graces if not with well-ordered words When Paul began to live to Christ he began aright to pray Behold he prayeth saith God to Ananias Act. 9. 11. And because they are Sons God sends the Spirit of his Son into the hearts of his Elect even the Spirit of Adoption by which they cry Abba Father Gal. 4. 6. as children naturally cry to their Parents for relief And Nature is more regular in its works than Art or humane contrivance is Necessity teacheth many a beggar to pray better for relief to men than many learned men that feel not their necessities can pray to God The Spirit of God is a better Methodist than we are And though I know that we are bound to use our utmost care and skill for the orderly actuating of each holy affection in our Prayers and not pretend the sufficiency of the Spirit for the patronage of our negligence or sloth for the Spirit makes use of our understandings for the actuating of our wills and affections yet withall it cannot be denied but that it was upon a special reason that the Spirit that is promised to Believers is called a Spirit of Grace and Supplication Zech. 12. 10. And that it is given us to help our infirmities even the infirmities of our understanding when we know not what to pray for as we ought Rom. 8. 26. And that the Spirit it self is said to make intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered It is not the Spirit without that is here meant such intercession is nowhere ascribed to that How then is the Prayer of the Spirit within us distinguished from our Prayer Not as different effects of different causes as different prayers by these different parties But as the same prayer proceeding from different causes having a special force for quality and degree as from one cause the Spirit which it hath not from the other cause from our selves except as received from the Spirit The Spirit is as a New Nature or fixed inclination in the Saints For their very self-love and will to good is sanctified in them which works so readily though voluntarily as that it is in a sort by the way of Nature though not excluding Reason and
with that pardon particularized and applied to themselves But where the heart is not truly penitent and converted that person is not pardoned by the Gospel as being not in the Covenant or a child of promise and therefore the pardon of a Minister being upon mistake or tâ— an unqualified person can reach no further than to admit him into the esteem of men and to the Communion and outward priviledges of the Church which is a poor comfort to a soul that must lye in Hell But it can never admit him into the Kingdom of Heaven God indeed may approve the act of his Ministers if they go according to his rule and deal in Church administrations with those that make A CREDIBLE PROFESSION of FAITH and HOLINESSE as if they had true faith and holiness but yet he will not therefore make such Ministerial acts effectual to the saving of unbelieving or unholy souls Nay because I have found many sensual ungodly people inclining to turn Papists because with them they can have a quick and easie pardon of their sins by the Pope or by the Absolution of the Priest let me tell such that if they understand what they do even this cheat is too thin to quiet their defiled consciences For even the Papists School-doctors do conclude that when the Priest absolveth an impenitent sinner or one that is not qualified for pardon such a one is not loosed or pardoned in Heaven Leg. Martin de Ripalda exposit Liber Magist. li. 4. dist 18. p. 654 655. p. 663 664. dist 20. Aquin. Dist. 20. q 1. a. 5. Suar. Tom. 4. in 3. p. disp 52. Greg. Valent. Tom. 4. disp 7. q. 20. p. 5. Tolet. lib. 6. cap. 27 Navar. Notab 17. 18. Cordub de indulg li. 5. q. 23. they deny not the truth of those words of Origen Hom. 14. ad cap. 24. Levit. Exit quis à fide perexit de castris Ecclesiae etiamsi Episcopi Voce non abjiciatur sicut contru interdum fit ut aliquis non recto judicio eorum qui praesunt Ecclesiae for as mittatur sed si non egit ut mereretur exire nihil laeditur interdum enim quod for as mittitur intus est qui foris est intus videtur retineri And what he saith of Excommunication is true of Absolution An erring Key doth neither lock out of Heaven nor let into Heaven A Godly Believer shall be saved though the Priest condemn him and an unbeliever or ungodly person shall be condemned by God though he be absolved by the Priest Nay if you have not walked with God in the spirit but walked after the flesh though your repentance should be sound and true at the last it will yet very hardly serve to comfort you though it may serve to your salvation because you will very hardly get any assurance that it is sincere It is dangerous lest it should prove but the effect of fear which will not save when it cometh not till death do fright you to it As Augustine saith Nullus expectet quando peccare non potest arbitrii enim libertatem quaerit Deus ut deleri possint commissa non necessitatem sed charitatem non tantum timorem quia non in solo timore vivit homo Therefore the same Augustine saith Siquis positus in ultima necessitate voluerit accipere poenitentiam accipit fateor vobis non illi negamus quod petit sed non praesumimus quod bene hinc exit si securus hinc exierit ego nescio Poenitentiam dare possumus securitatem non possumus You see then how much it is needful to the peace of conscience at the hour of death that you walk with God in the time of life 6. Moreover to walk with God is an excellent preparation for sufferings and death because it tendeth to acquaint the soul with God and to embolden it both to go to him in Prayer and to Trust on him and expect salvation from him He that walketh with God is so much used to holy Prayer that he is a man of Prayer and is skilled in it and hath tryed what prayer can do with God so that in the hour of his extremity he is not to seek either for a God to pray to or a Mediator to intercede for him or a Spirit of Adoption to enable him as a child to fly for help to his reconciled Father And having not only been frequently with God but frequently entertained and accepted by him and had his prayers heard and granted it is a great encouragement to an afflicted soul in the hour of distresse to go to such a God for help And it is a dreadful thing when a soul is ready to go out of the world to have â—â— comfortable knowledge of God or skill to pray to him or encouragement to expect acceptance with him To think that he must presently appear before a God whom he never knew nor heartily loved being never acquainted with that communion with him in the way of Grace which is the way to communion in Glory O what a terrible thought is this But how comfortable is it when the soul can say I know whom I have believed The God that afflicteth me is he that loveth me and hath manifested his love to me by his daily attractive assisting and accepting Grace I am going by death to see him intuitively whom I have often seen by the eye of Faith and to live with him in Heaven with whom I lived here on earth From whom and Through whom and To whom was my life I go not to any enemy nor an utter stranger but to that God who was the Spring the Ruler the Guide the Strength and the Comfort of my life He hath heard me so oft that I cannot think he will now reject me He hath so often comforted my soul that I will not believe he will now thrust me into Hell He hath mercifully received me so oft that I cannot believe he will now refuse me Those that come to him in the way of Grace I have found he will in no wise cast out As strangeness to God doth fill the soul with distrustful fears so walking with him doth breed that humble confidence which is a wonderful comfort in the hour of distress and a happy preparations to sufferings and death 7. Lastly to walk with God doth encrease that Love of God in the soul which is the heavenly tincture and inclineth it to loâ—k upward and being weary of a sinful flesh and world to desire to be perfected with God How happy a preparation for death is this when it is but the passage to that God with whom we desire to be and to that place where we fain would dwell for ever To love the state and place that we are going to being made connatural and suitable thereto will much overcome the fears of death But for a soul that is acquainted with nothing but this life and favoureth nothing but Earth and Flesh and hath
remember Where it is that he is to be fully and perpetually enjoyed and then it is good for thee that thou wast afflicted for all thy sufferings have their end This last Consideration will be further prosecuted in the following Part And the Directions for Walking with God which I should here give you I have reserved for a peculiar Treatise intitled A Christian Directory THE CHRISTIANS Converse with God OR The Insufficiency and Uncertainty OF HUMANE FRIENDSHIP AND THE Improvement of Solitude IN Converse with God With some of the Authors breathings after him By RICHARD BAXTER LONDON Printed for Francis Tyton at the three Daggers in Fleet-street and Nevil Simmons Bookseller in Kederminster 1664. THE CONTENTS THe Context opened p. 298 Why Christ was forsaken by his Disciples p. 300 Use 1. Expect by the forsaking of your friends to be conformed unto Christ Reasons for your Expectation p. 302 The Aggravations of their forsaking you p. 313 Some quieting Considerations p. 315 The order of forms in the School of Christ. p. 322 The Disciples scattered every man to his own p. 324 Selfishness contrary to friendly fidelity p. 325 Considerations to quiet us in the death of faithful friends p. 326 Whether we shall know them in Heaven p. 331 Whether creatures be any matter of our Comfort in Heaven p. 332 Quest. Shall I have any more comfort in present friends than in others p. 334 Doct. 3. When all forsake us and leave us as to them alone we are far from being simply alone because God is with us p. 336 The Advantages of having God with us ibid. Quest. How he is with us p. 337 Use 1. Imitate Christ Live upon God alone though men forsake you yet thrust not your selves into Solitude uncalled p. 341 In what cases Solitude is lawful and good p. 342 Reasons against unnecessary Solitude p. 343 The comfort of Converse with God in necessary Solitude The Benefits of Solitude The Reasons from God Improved largely in some Meditations p. 347 351 Directions for conversing with God in Solitude p. 370 Concluded in further Meditation p. 375 A Caution p. 378 Joh. 16. 32. Behold the hour cometh yea is come that ye shall be scattered every man to his own and shall leave me alone And yet I am not alone because the Father is with me HAving treated of our Conformity to Christ in sufferings in General I since came distinctly to treat of his particular sufferings in which we must be conformed to him And having gone over many of those particulars I am this day to handle the instance of Christs being forsaken by his friends and followers He thought meet to foretell them how they should manifest their infirmity and untrustiness in this temporary forsaking of him that so he might fullyer convince them that he knew what was in man and that he knew future contingencies or things to come which seem most dependent on the will of man and that he voluntarily submitted to his deserted state and expected no support from creatures but that man should then do least for Christ when Christ was doing most for man that man by an unthankful forsaking Christ should then manifest his forsaken deplorate state when Christ was to make atonement for his Reconciliation to God and was preparing the most costly remedy for his recovery He foretold them of the fruit which their infirmity would produce to humble them that were apt to think too highly of themselves for the late free confession they had made of Christ when they had newly said Now we are sure that thou knowest all things by this we are sure that thou comest forth from God ver 30 He answereth them Do ye now believe Behold the hour cometh c. Not that Christ would not have his servants know his graces in them but he would also have them know the corruption that is latent and the infirmity consistent with their grace We are very apt to judge of all that is in us and of all that we shall do hereafter by what we feel at the present upon our hearts As when we feel the stirring of some corruption we are apt to think that there is nothing else and hardly perceive the contrary grace and are apt to think it will never be better with us so when we feel the exercise of faith desire or love we are apt to overlook the contrary corruptions and to think that we shall never feel them more But Christ would keep us both humble and vigilant by acquainting us with the mutability and unconstancy of our minds When it goes well with us we forget that the time is coming when it may go worse As Christ said to his Disciples here in the case of Believing we may say to our selves in that and other cases Do we now Believe It is well but the time may be coming in which we may be brought to shake with the stirrings of our remaining unbelief and shrewdly tempted to question the truth of Christianity it self and of the holy Scriptures and of the life to come Do we now rejoyce in the perswasions of the Love of God The time may be coming when we may think our selves forsaken and undone and think he will esteem and use us as his enemies Do we now pray with ferveur and pour out our souls enlargedly to God It is well but the time may be coming when we shall seem to be as dumb and prayerless and say we cannot pray or else we find no audience and acceptance of our prayers Christ knoweth that in us which we little know by our selves and therefore may foreknow that we will commit such sins or fall into such dangers as we little fear What Christ here prophesieth to them did afterwards all come to pass As soon as ever danger and trouble did appear they began to flag and to shew how ill they could adhere unto him or suffer with him without his special corroborating grace In the garden when he was sweating blood in prayer they were sleeping Though the spirit was willing the flesh was weak They could not watch with him one hour Matth. 26 40 41. When he was apprehended they shifted each man for himself Matth. 26. 56. Then all the Disciples forsook him and fled And as this is said to be that the Scriptures might be fulfilled Matth. 26. 54 56. so it might be said to be that this prediction of Christ himself might be fulfilled Not that Scripture Prophesies did cause the sin by which they were fulfilled nor that God caused the sin to fulfill his own predictions but that God cannot be deceived who foretold in Scriptures long before that thus it would come to pass when it is said that thus it must be that the Scripture may be fulfilled the meaning is not that thus God will make it be or thus he causeth men to do that he may fulfill the Scriptures It is not necessitas consequentis vel causata that is inferred from predictions but only
world his God so doth it savour of the same hainous sin to lament our loss of Creatures more than the displeasure of God If God be my enemy or I am fallen under his indignation I have then so much greater matters to lament than the loss or absence or frowns of man as should almost make me forget that there is such a thing as man to be regarded But if God be my Father and my friend in Christ I have then so much to think of with delight and to recreate and content my soul as will proclaim it most incongruous and absurd to lament inordinately the absence of a worm while I have his Love and presence who is All in All. If God cannot content me and be not enough for me how is he then my God or how shall he be my Heaven and everlasting Happiness 2. If God be with me he is with me to whom I am absolutely devoted I am wholly his and have acknowledged his interest in me and long ago disclaimed all usurpers and repented of alienations and unreservedly resigned my self to him And where should I dwell but with him that is my owner and with whom I have made the solemnest Covenant that ever I made â— never gave my self to any other but in subordination to him and with a salvo for his highest inviolable right Where should my goods be but in my own house with whom should a Servant dwell but with his Master and a Wife but with her Husband and Children but with their Father I am nearlier related to my God and to my Saviour than I am to any of my Relations in this world I owe more to him than to all the world I have renounced all the world as they stand in any competition or comparison with him And can I want their company then while I am with him How shall I hate Father and Mother and Wife and Children and Brother and Sister for his sake if I cannot spare them or be without them to enjoy him To hate them is but to use them as men do hated things that is to cast them away with contempt as they would alâ—enate me from Christ and to cleave to him and be satisfied in him alone I am now married to Christ and therefore must chearfully leave Father and Mother and my native place and all to cleave to him And with whom should I now delight to dwell but with him who hath taken me into so near relation to be as it were one flesh with him O my dear Lord hide not thou thy face from an unkind an unworthy sinner Let me but dwell with thee and see thy face and feel the gracious embracements of thy Love and then let me be cast off by all the world if thou see it meetest for me or let all other friends be where they will so that my soul may be with thee I have agreed for thy sake to forsake all even the dearest that shall stand against thee and I resolve by thy grace to stand to this agreement 3. If God be with me I am not alone for he is with me that Loveth me best The Love of all the friends on earth is nothing to his Love O how plainly hath he declared that he loveth me in the strange condescention the sufferings death and intercession of his Son What Love hath he declared in the communications of his Spirit and the operations of his Grace and the near relations into which he brought me What Love hath he declared in in the course of his providences in many and wonderful preservations and deliverances in the conduct of his wisdome and in a life of mercies What Love appeareth in his precious promises and the glorious provisions he hath made for me with himself to all eternity O my Lord I am ashamed that thy Love is so much lost that it hath no better return from an unkind unthankful heart that I am not more delighted in thee and swallowed up in the contemplation of thy Love I can contentedly let go the society and converse of all others for the converse of some one bosome friend that is dearer to me than they all as Jonathan to David And can I not much more be satisfied in thee alone and let go all if I may continue with thee My very Dog will gladly for sake all the Town and all persons in the world to follow me alone And have I not yet found so much Love and Goodness in thee my dear and blessed God as to be willing to converse alone with thee All men delight most in the company of those that Love them best They choose not to converse with the Multitude when they look for solace and content but with their dearest friends And should any be so dear to me as God O were not thy Love unworthily neglected by an unthankful heart I should never be so unsatisfied in thee but should take up or seek my comforts in thee I should then say Whom have I in Heaven but thee and there is none on earth that I desire besides thee Though not only my friends but my flesh and heart themselves should fail me it is thou that will still be the strength of my heart and my portion for ever it is good therefore for me to draw near to thee how far soever I am from man O let me there dwell where thou wilt not be strange for thy loving kindness is better than life instead of the multitude of my turmoiling thoughts let me be taken up in the believing views of thy reconciled face and in the glad attendance upon thy Grace or at least in the multitude of my thoughts within me let thy celestial comforts delight my soul. Let me dwell as in thy family and when I awake let me be still with thee Let me go no whither but where I am still following thee Let me do nothing but thy work nor serve any other but when I may truly call it a serving thee Let me hear nothing but thy voice and let me know thy voice by whatever instrument thou shalt speak Let me never see any thing but thy self and the glass that representeth thee and the books in which I may read thy name And let me never play with the outside and gaze on words and letters as insignificant and not observe thy name which is the sense Whether it be in company or in solitude let me be continually with thee and do thou vouchsafe to hold me by my right hand And guide me with thy counsel and afterwards receive me unto thy glory Psal. 73. 23 24 25 26 28. Psal. 63. 3. 4. If God be with me I am not alone for I shall be with him whose Love is of greater use and benefit to me than the Love of all my friends in the world Their Love may perhaps be some little comfort as it floweth from His But it is His Love by which and upon which I Live It is His Love that gives
had been less with the dearest of my friends How much more sweet then would my life have been How much more blameless regular and pure How much more fruitful and answerable to my obligations and professions How much more comfortable to my review How many falls and hurts and wounds and griefs and groans might I have escaped O how much more pleasing is it now to my Rememberance to think of the hours in which I have lain at the feet of God though it were in tears and groans than to think of the time which I have spent in any common converse with the greatest or the learnedest or the dearest of my acquaintance And as my Greatest business is with God so my daily business is also with him He purposely leaveth me under wants and suffers necessities daily to return and enemies to assault me and affliction to surprize me that I may be daily driven to him He loveth to hear from me He would have me be no stranger with him I have business with him every hour I need not want employment for all the faculties of my soul if I know what it is to converse in Heaven Even prayer and every holy thought of God hath an Object so great and excellent as should wholly take me up Nothing must he thought or spoken lightly about the Lord. His name must not be taken in vain Nothing that is common beseemeth his worshippers He will be sanctified of all that shall draw near him He must be Loved with all the Heart and Might His servants need not be wearied for want of employment nor through the lightness or unprofitableness of their employment If I had Cities to build or Kingdoms to govern I might better complain for want of employment for the faculties of my soul than I can when I am to converse in Heaven In other studies the delight abateth when I have reached my desire and know all that I can know But in God there is infinitely more to be known when I know the most I am never satiated with the easiness of knowing nor are my desires abated by any unusefulness or unworthiness in the Object but I am drawn to it by its highest excellencies and drawn on to desire more and more by the infiniteness of the Light which I have not yet beheld and the infiniteness of the Good which yet I have not enjoyed If I be idle or seem to want employment when I am to contemplate all the Artributes relations mercies works and revealed perfections of the Lord its sure for want of eyes to see or a Heart enclined to my business if God be not enough to employ my soul then all the persons and things on earth are not enough And when I have Infinite Goodness to delight in where my soul may freely let out it self and never need to fear excess of Love how sweet should this employment be As Knowledge so Love is never stinted here by the narrowness of the Object We can never Love him in any proportion either to his Goodness and amiableness in himself or to his Love to us What need have I then of any other company or business when I have infinite Goodness to delight in and to Love further than they subserve this greatest work Come home then O my soul to God Converse in Heaven Turn away thine eyes from beholding vanity Let not thy affections kindle upon straw or bryars that go out when they have made a flash or noise and leave thee to thy cold and darkness But come and dwell upon celestial beauties and make it thy daily and most diligent work to kindle thy affections on the infinite everlasting Good and then they will never be extinguished or decay for want of fewel but the further they go and the longer they burn the greater will be the flame Though thou find it hard while Love is but a spark to make it burn and complain that thy cold and backward heart is hardly warmed with the Love of God yet when the whole pile hath taken fire and the flame ascendeth fire will breed fire Love will cause Love and all the malice of Hell it self shall never be able to suppress or quench it unto all eternity 6. And it is a great encouragement to my converse with God that no misunderstanding no malice of enemies no former sin or present frailty no nor the infinite distance of the most Holy Glorious God can hinder my access to him or turn away his Ear or Love or interrupt my leave and liberty of converse If I converse with the poor their wants afflict me being greater than I can supply Their complaints and expectations which I cannot satisfie are my trouble If I would converse with Great ones it is not easie to get access and less easie to have their favout unless I would purchase it at too dear a rate How strangely and contemptuously do they look at their inferiours Great friends must be made for a word or smile And if you be not quickly gone they are aweary of you And if you seek any thing of them or would put them to any cost or trouble you are as welcome to them as so many vermine or noisome creatures They please them best that drive you away With how much labour and difficulty must you clime if you will see the top of one of these mountains And when you are there you are but in a place of barrenness and have nothing to satisfie you for your pains but a larger prospect and vertiginous despect of the lower grounds which are not your own it is seldome that these Great ones are to be spoken with And perhaps their speech is but a denyal of your requests if not some snappish and contemptuous rejection that makes you glad when you are got far enough from them and makes you the better like and love the accessible calm and fruitful plains But O how much greater encouragements hath my soul to converse with God! Company never hindereth him from hearkening to my suit He is infinite and Omnipotent and as sufficient for every individual soul as if he had no other to look after in the world when he is taken up with the attendance and praises of his Heavenly Host he is as free and ready to attend and answer the groans and prayers of a contrite soul as if he had no nobler creatures nor no higher service to regard I am oft unready but God is never unready I am unready to pray but he is not unready to hear I am unready to come to God to walk with him and to solace my soul with him but he is never unready to entertain me Many a time my conscience would have driven me away when he hath called me to him and rebuked my accusing fearful conscience Many a time I have called my self a prodigal a companion of Swine a miserable hard-hearted sinner unworthy to be called his Son when he hath called me Child and chid me for my questioning
the living And so it containeth all the former in their highest perfection that is both Natural Life and Moral-Spiritual Life and the holy exercise thereof together with the full attainment and fruition of God in Glory the End of all ETERNAL That is simply eternal objectively as to God the principal object and Eternal ex parte post subjectively that is Everlasting THIS IS LIFE ETERNAL Not Natural life in it self considered as the Devils and wicked men shall have it But 1. It is the same Moral-Spiritual Life which shall have no End but endure to Eternity It is a Living to God in Love But only initial and very imperfect here in comparison of what it will be in Heaven 2. It is the Eternal felicity 1. Seminally for Grace is as it were a seed of Glory 2. As it is the Necessary way or means of attaining it and that preparation which infallibly procureth it The Perfect Holiness of the Saints in Heaven will be one part of their perfect happiness And this Holiness imperfect they have here in this life It is the same God that we know and love here and there and with a Knowledge and Love that is of the same nature seminally As the egg is of the nature of the Bird Whether it may be properly said to be formally and specifically the same quoad actum as well as quoad objectum yea whether the Objectum clare visum and the objectum in speculo vel aenigmate visum make not the act specifically differ I shall not trouble you to dispute And this imperfect Holiness hath the promise of Perfect Holiness and Happiness in the full fruition of God hereafter So it is the Seed and Prognostick of Life Eternal TO KNOW Non semper ubique eodem modo vel gradu Not to know God here and hereafter in the same manner or degree But to know him here as in a glass and hereafter in his Glory as face to face To know him by an Affective Practical knowledge There is no Text of Scripture of which the rule is more clearly true and necessary than of this that Words of Knowledge do imply affection It is the closure of the whole soul with God which is here called the knowing of God And because it is not meet to name every particular act of the soul when ever this duty is mentioned it is all denominated from Knowledge as the first Act which inferreth all the rest 1. Knowledge of God in the Habit is Spiritual Life as a Principle 2. Knowledge of God in the exercise is Spiritaal Life as an employment 3. The Knowledge of God in perfection with its effects is Life Eternal as it signifieth full felicity What it containeth I shall further shew anon THEE That is The Father called by some Divines Fons vel fundamentum Trinitatis the fountain or foundation of the Trinity and oft used in the same sense as the word GOD to signifie the pure Deity THE ONLY He that believeth that there is more Gods than One believeth not in any For though he may give many the Name yet the description of the true God can agree to none of them He is not God indeed if he be not One only This doth not at all exclude Jesus Christ as the second person in Trinity but only distinguisheth the pure Deity or the Only true God as such from Jesus Christ as Mediator between God and man TRUE There are many that falsly and Metaphorically are called Gods If we think of God but as one of these it is not to know him but deny him GOD The word GOD doth not only signifie the Divine perfections in himself but also his Relation to the Creatures To be a God to us is to be one to whom we must ascribe all that we are or have and one whom we must Love and obey and honour with all the powers of soul and body and one on whom we totally depend and from whom we expect our judgement and reward in whom alone we can be perfectly blessed AND JESUS CHRIST That is As Mediator in his Natures God and man and in his Office and Grace WHOM THOU HAST SENT That is whom thy Love and Wisdom designed and commissioned to this undertaking and performance The Knowledge of the Holy Ghost seemeth here left out as if it were no part of life Eternal But 1. At that time the Holy Ghost in that Eminent sort as sent by the Father and Son on the Apostles after the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ was not yet so manifested as afterwards and therefore not so necessarily to be distinctly known and believed in as after The having of the Spirit being of more necessity than the distinct knowledge of him Certain it is that the Disciples were at first very dark in this article of faith And Scripture more fully revealeth the necessity to salvation of believing in the Father and Son than in the Holy Ghost distinctly yet telling us that if any man have not the spirit of Christ the same is none of his Rom. 8. 9. 2. But presently after when the Spirit was to be sent the necessity of believing in him is expressed especially in the Apostles Commission to Baptize all Nations that were made Disciples in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost Doct. THe Knowledge of the only true God and of Jesus Christ the Mediator is the Life of Grace and the necessary way to the life of Glory As James distinguisheth between such a dead faith as Devils and wicked men had and such a living and working faith as was proper to the justified so must we here of the Knowledge of God Many profess that they know God but in works they deny him being abominable and disobedient and to every good work reprobate Tit. 1. 16. There is a form of knowledge which the unbelievers had Rom. 2. 22. and a knowledge which puffeth up and is void of Love which hypocrites have 1 Cor. 8. 1. 13. But no man spiritually knoweth the things of God but by the spirit And they that rightly know his name will put their trust in him Psal. 9 10. Thus he giveth the regenerate a heart to know him Jer. 24. 7. and the new creature is renewed in knowledge Col. 3. 10. And vengeance shall be poured out on them that know not God 2 Thes. 1. 8. This saving Knowledge of God which is Eternal Life containeth and implyeth in it all these acts 1. The understandings apprehesion of God according to the necessary articles of faith 2. A Belief of the truth of these articles that God is and is such as he is therein described 3. An high estimation of God accordingly 4. A Volition complacency or Love to him as God the chiefest Good 5. A Desiring after him 6. A Choosing him with the rejection of all competitors 7. A Consent that he be our God and a giving up our selves to him as his people 8. An intending him as our Ultimate End in
we must say that in this Blessed Deity in the Unity of Essence there is a Trinity of Essential properties and Attributes that is Power Wisdom and Goodness Life Light and Love The measure of which is to have no measure but to be Infinite And therefore this Being is Eternal and not measured by Time being without Beginning or end He is Immense as being not measured by Place but containeth all places and is contained in none He is Perfect as not Measured by Parts or by Degrees but quite above Degrees and Parts This Infiniteness of his Being doth communicate it self or also consist in the Infiniteness of his Essential properties His Power is Omipotency that is Infinite Power His Knowledge or wisdom is Omniscience that is Infinite Wisdom His Goodness is Felicity it self or Infinite Goodness The first seal to our Cognisance on which he engraved this his Image was the Creation that is 1. The whole world in General 2. The Intellectual Nature or Man in special In the Being of the Creation and every particular Creature his Infinite Being is revealed so wretched a Fool is the Atheist that by denying God he denyeth all things Could he prove that there is no God I would quickly prove that there is no world no man no creature If he know that he is himself or that the world or any Creature is he may know that God is For God is the Original Being And all Being that is not Eternal must have some Original And that which hath no Original is God being Eternal Infinite and without cause The Power of God is revealed in the Being and Powers of the Creation His Wisdom is revealed in their Nature Order Offices Effects c. His Goodness is revealed in the Creatures Goodness its beauty usefulness and accomplishments But though all his Image thus appear upon the Creation yet is it his Omnipotency that principally there appears The beholding and consideration of the wonderful greatness activity and excellency of the Sun the Moon the Stars the fire and other creatures doth first and chiefly possess us with apprehensions of the Infinite Greatness or Power of the Creator In the Holy Word or Laws of God which is the second glass or seal more clear and legible to us than the former there appeareth also all his Image His power in the narratives predictions c. His Wisdom in the prophesies precepts and in all His Goodness in the promises and institutions in a special manner But yet it is his second property his Wisdom that most eminently appeareth on this second seal and is seen in the glass of the holy Law The discovery of such mysteries the revelation of so many Truths the suitableness of all the instituted means and the admirable fitness of all the holy contrivances of God and all his precepts promises and threatnings for the Government of Mankind and carrying him on for the attainment of his end in a way agreeable to his nature these shew that wisdom that is most Eminently here revealed though Power and Goodness be revealed with it so in the face of Jesus Christ who is the third and most perfect seal and glass there is the Image of the Power and Wisdom and Goodness of the Godhead But yet it is the Love or Goodness of the Father that is most Eminently revealed in the son His Power appeared in the incarnation the conquests over Satan and the world the Miracles the Resurrection and the Ascension of Christ. His wisdom appeareth in the admirable mysterie of Redemption and in all the parts of the office works and laws of Christ and in the means appointed in subordination to him But Love and Goodness shineth most clearly and amiably through the whole it being the very end of Christ in this blessed work to reveal God to man in the Richoâ— of his Love as giving us the greatest mercies by the most precious means in the meetest season and manner for our good Reconciling us to himself and treating us as Children with Fatherly compassions and bringing us nearer him and opening to us the everlasting treasure having brought life and immortality to light in the Gospel God being thus revealed to man from without in the three Glasses or Seals of the Creation Law and Son himself he is also revealed to us in our selves man being as it were a little world In the Nature of man is revealed as in a Seal or Glass the nature of the blessed God in some measure In Unity of Essence we have a Trinity of Faculties of soul even the Vegetative Sensitive and Rational as our bodies have both parts and spirits Natural Vital and Animal the Rational Power in Unity hath also its Trinity of faculties even Power for Execution Understanding for Direction and Will for Command The measure of Power is Naturally sufficient to its use and end the understanding is a faculty to reason discern and discourse The will hath that Freedom which beseemeth an undetermined self-determining creature here in the way Besides this Physical Image of God that is inseparable from our Nature we have also his Law written in our hearts and are our selves objectively part of the Law of nature that is the signifiers of the will of God Had we not by sin obliterated somewhat of this Image it would have shewed it self more clearly and we should have been more capable of understanding it And then when we are Regenerate and Renewed by the Grace and Spirit of Christ and planted into him as living members of his body we have then the third impression upon our souls and are made like our Head in Wisdom Holiness and in effectual strength Considered as Creatures endued with Power understanding and will we have the Impress of all the foresaid Attributes of God But Eminently of his Power Considered as we were at first possessed with the light and law of works or Nature of which we yet retain some part so we have the Impress of all these Attributes of God But most Eminently of his Wisdom Considered as Regenerate by the Spirit and planted into Christ so we have the impress of all his said Attributes But most eminently of his Love and Goodness shining in the Moral accomplishments or graces of the soul. Man being thus made at first the Natural and Sapiential image of God with much of the Image of his Love the Lord did presently by necessary Resultancy and voluntary consent stand Related to us in such variety of Relations as answer the foresaid Properties and Attributes And these Relations of God to us are next to be known as flowing from his Attributes and Works As we have our derived Being from God who is the Primitive Eternal Being so from our Being given by Creation God is Related to us as our Maker From this Relation of a Creator in Unity there ariseth a Trinity of Relations This Trintty is in that Unity and that Unity in this Trinty First God having made us of nothing is necessarily
of sin and wickedness is not desirable to a Saint And is not God One and his Church One and hath he not commanded all his servants to be One and is not Love the new and great commandment by which they must be known to all men to be his Disciples Which then is the stricter servant of the Lord he that Loveth much or he that Loveth little he that Loveth all Christians or he that Loveth but a few with the special Love He that Loveth a Christian as a Christian or he that Loveth him but as one of his party or opinion He that is One in the Catholike Body Or he that disowneth Communion with the far greatest part of the body Will you say that Christ was loose and Pharises strict because Christ eat and drank with Publicans and Sinners and the Pharises condemned him for it It was Christ that was stricter in holiness then they for he abounded more in Love and Good works but they were stricter then he in a proud self-conceeted morosity and separation Certainly he that is highest in Love is highest in Grace and not he that confineth his Love to few Was it not the weak Christian that was the stricter in point of meats and drinks and dayes Rom. 14. 15. But the stronger that were censured by them did more strictly keep the commandment of God Christian Reader let the Unity of God have this effect upon thy soul 1. To draw thee from the distracting multitude of Creatures and make thee long to be all in God That thy soul may be still working toward him till thou â—nd nothing but God alone within thee In the multitude of thy thoughts within thee let his comforts delight thy soul Psal. 94. 19. The multitude distracteth thee Retire into Unity that thy soul may be composed quieted and delighted 2. And let it make thee long for the Unity of the Saints and endeavour it to the utmost of thy power that the Church in Unity may be more like the Head 3. And let it cause thee to admire the Happiness of the Saints that are freeed from the bondage of the distracting Creature and have but One to Love and Fear and Trust and Serve and Seek and Know One thing is needful which should be chosen but it s many that we are troubled about Luk. 11. 42. CHAP. IV. 3. THe Immensity of God which is the next Attribute to be considered must have this Effect upon thy soul 1. The Infinite God that is everywhere comprehending all places and things and comprehended by none must raise admiring reverent thoughts in the soul of the believer We wonder at the Magnitude of the Sun and the Heavens and of the whole Creation But when we begin to think what is beyond the Heavens and all created Being we are at a kind of loss Why it is God that is in all and above all and beyond all and beneath all and where there is no place because no Creature there is God And if thy thoughts should imagine millions of millions of miles beyond all place and measure all is but God and go as far as thou canst in thy thoughts and thou canst not go beyond him Reverently admire the Immensity of God The world and all the Creatures in it are not to God so much as a sand or atome is to all the world The point of a needle is more to all the world then the world to God For between that which is Finite and that which is Infinite there is no comparison Isa. 40. 12 15 17. Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and meated out Heaven with the span and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a ballance Behold the Nations are as a drop of a bucket and are counted as the small dust of the ballanceâ— behold he taketh up the Iles as a very little thing All Nations before him are as nothing and they are counted to him less then Nothing and Vanity 2. From this Greatness and Immensity of God also thy soul must reverently stay all its busie bold enquiries and know that God is to us and to every creature Imcomprehensible If thou couldst fathome or measure him and know his Greatness by a comprehensive knowledge he were not God A Creature can comprehend nothing but a Creature You may know God but not comprehend him As your foot treadeth on the earth but doth not cover all the earth The Sea is not the Sea if you can hold it in a spoon Thou canst not comprehend the Sun which thou seest and by which thou seest all things else nor the sea or earth no nor a worm or pile of grass Thy understanding knoweth not all that God hath put into any the least of these Thou art a stranger to thy self and to somewhat in every part of thy self both body and soul. And thinkest thou to comprehend God that perfectly comprehendest nothing Stop then thy overbold enquiries and remember that thou art a shallow finite worm and God is Infinite First reach to comprehend the Heaven and Earth and whole Creation before thou think of Comprehending him to whom the world is nothing or vanity or so small a dust or drop or point Job 37. 1 5. saith Elihu At this my heart trembleth and is moved out of his place Hear attentively the Noise of his Voice God thundereth marvelously with his Voice great things doth he which we cannot comprehend How then should we comprehend himself When God pleadeth his cause with Job himself what doth he but convince him of his Infiniteness and absoluteness even from the greatness of his works which are beyond our reach and yet are as nothing to himself Should he take the busie enquirer in hand but as he did begin with Job 38. 1 2. c. Who is this that darkeneth Counsel by words without knowledge Gird up thy loins like a man for I will demand of thee and answer thou me c. alas how soon would he non-plus and confound us and make us say as Job 40. 4. Behold I am vile what shall I answer thee I will lay my hand upon my mouth Once have I spoken but I will not answer yea twice but I will proceed no further Indeed there is mentioned Eph. 3. 11. The Saints comprehending the dimensions of the Love of Christ but as the next verse saith it passeth knowledge so comprehending there signifieth no more but a knowing according to our Measure an attainment of what we are capable to attain nay nor all that neither but such a prevalent knowledge of the Love of Christ as is common to all the Saints As there is nothing more visible then the Sun and yet no visible being less comprehended by the sight so is there nothing more Intelligible then God for he is All in all things and yet nothing so Incomprehensible to the mind that knoweth him It satisfieth me not to be
or life to them We should know what is Gods prerogative and that we should keep entirely for him A subordinate esteem and love and desire the Creature may have as it revealeth God to us or leadeth to him or helpeth us in his work But it should not have the least of his part in our esteem or love or desire This is the Chastity the Purity the Integrity of the soul. It is the mixture impurity corruption and consusion of our souls when any thing is taken in with God See therefore Christian that in thy heart thou have no God but ONE and that he have all thy heart and soul and strength as far as thou canst attain it And because there will be still in imperfect souls some sinful mixture of the Creatures interest with Gods let it be the work of thy life to be watching against it and casting it out and cleansing thy heart of it as thou wouldst do thy food if it fall into the dirt For whatever is added to God in thy Affections doth make no better an increase there then the adding of earth unto thy gold or of dung unto thy meat or of corrupted humours and sickness to thy body Mixture will make no better work It may be thy Rejoycing if thou have the testimony of a good conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity and not in fleshly wisdome but by the grace of God thou hast had thy conversation in the world 2 Cor. 1. 12. It is the state of Hypocrisie when One God is openly professed and worshipped and yet the creature lyeth deepest and nearest to the heart 2. The Invisibility of God also must have its due effects upon us And 1. It must warn us that we picture not God to our eye sight or in our fancies in any bodily shape Saith the Prophet Isa. 40. 18. To whom will you liken God or what likeness will ye compare unto him so 25. No man hath seen God at any time the only begotten Son which is in the bosome of his Father he hath declared him Joh. 1. 18. and therefore we must conceive of him but as he is declared Joh. 6. 46. Not that any man hath seen the Father save he which is of God he hath seen the Father If you ask me How then you should conceive of God if not in any Bodily shape I answer Get all these Attributes and Relations of God to make their proper Impress upon thy soul as now I am teaching you and then you will have the true Conceiving of God This Question therefore is to be answered at the end of this Discourse when you have seen all the Attributes of God together and heard what impression they must make upon you 2. This must teach us to think most highly of the things that are Invisible and meanlier of these visible things Let it be the property of a Beast and not of a man to know nothing but what he seeth or hath seen Let it be the mark of the bruitish Insidels and not of Christians to doubt of the invisible things because they are invisible or to think that things visible are more excellent or sure As the senses are more ignoble then the Intellect a beast having as perfect senses as a man and yet no reasonable understanding so the objects of sense must proportionably be below the Objects of the understanding as such The grossest and most palpable objects are the basest It is the subtle part that 's called the Spirits which being drawn out of plants or other vegetables is most powerful and excellent and valued when the earthly dregs are cast away as little worth It is that subtle part in our blood that 's called the Spirits that hath more of the virtue of life and doth more of the works then the feculent gross and earthly part The aire and wind have as true a Being as the Earth and a more excellent nature though it be more gross and they invisible The Body is not so excellent as the invisible soul. Invisible things are as real as visible and as suitable to our more noble invisible part as visible things to our fleshly baser part 3. The invisibility of God must teach us to Live a life of Faith and to get above a sensual life And it must teach us to value the faith of the Saints as knowing its excellency and necessity Invisible objects have the most perfect excellent Reality and therefore Faith hath the preheminence above sense Natural Reason can live upon things not seen if they have been seen or can be known by natural evidence subjects obey a Prince that they see not and fear a punishment which they see not and the nature of man is afraid of the Devils though we see them not But Faith liveth upon such invisible things as mortal eye did never see nor natural ordinary evidence demonstrate but are revealed only by the Word of God though about many of its invisible objects Faith hath the consent of Reason for its encouragement Value not sight and sense too much Think not all to be meer uncertainties and notions that are not the objects of sense We should not have heard that God is a spirit if Corporal substances had not a baser kind of Being then Spirits Intellection is a more noble operation then sense If there be any thing properly called sense in Heaven it will be as far below the pure Intellective Intuition of the Lord as the glorified Body will be below the glorified soul. But what that difference will be we cannot now understand Fix not your minds on sensible things Remember that your God your home your portion are unseen And therefore live in hearty Affections to them and serious prosecution of them as if you saw them Pray as if you saw God and Heaven and Hell Hear as if you saw him that sends his Messenger to speak to you Resist all the Temptations to lust and sensuality and every sin as you would do if you saw God stand by Love him and Fear him and Trust him and Serve him as you would do if you beheld him Faith is the evidence of things not seen Heb. 11. 1. Believing must be to you in stead of seeing and make you as serious about things unseen as sensual men are about things sensible In every thing that you see remember it is he that is unseen that appeareth in them He lighteth you by the sun he warmeth you by the fire he beareth you by the earth See him in all these by the eye of Faith 3. The Immortality Incorruptibility and Immutability of God must 1. Teach the soul to rise up from these Mortal Corruptible Mutable things and to fix upon that God who is the immortal incorruptible portion of his Saints 2. It must comfort and encourage all Believers in the consideration of their felicity and support them under the failings of all mortal corruptible things Our Parents and Children and Friends are mortal They are ours to day
in with all his care and power as long as he here liveth Yet this must be done and the soul that hath obtained true self denyal and is dead to the world and devoted and alive to God is able in some good measure to perform it To love the world for it self and make the creature our chief delight and live to it as our End and Idol this is the common damning course To cast away our possessions and put our talents into our fellow servants hands and to withdraw our selves as it were out of the world into solitude as Monks or Hermeâ—s do this is too like the hideing of our talents and a dangerous course of unfaithfulness and unprofitableness unless in some extraordinary case and is at best the too easie way of weaklings that will be souldiers only out of the Army or where there is but little danger of the Enemy But to keep our Stations and take Honours and Riches as our Masters talents as a burden that we must honour him by bearing and the instruments by which we must laboriously do him service and to see and Love him in every creature and study him in it and sanctifie it to his use and to see that our lust get no advantage by it and feed not on it but that we tame our Bodies and have all that we have for God and not for our flesh this is the hard but the excellent most acceptable course of living in this world And it is not only other creatures but our selves also that we must thus admire and love and use for God while we abase our selves as to our selves and deny our selves and use not our selves for our selves but as we stand in due subordination to him Abase your selves as sinful and abhor that which is your own and not the Lords But vilifie not your nature in it self â—or any thing in you that is the work of God Pretend not humility for the dishonouring of your Maker Reason and Natural freedom of the Will are Gods work and not yours and therefore must be honoured and not scorned and reviled But the blindness and errour of your Reason and the bad inclinations and actions of your free-wills these are your own and therefore vilifie them and hate them and spare not And when you lament the smalness of your Graces deny them not and sleight not but magnifie the preciousness of that little that you have while you mourn for the imperfection And when men offend you or prove your enemies forget not to value and love that of God that yet is in them All is Good that is of God 4. If all things be of God as the Creator and Conserver we must hence remember on whom it is that our selves and all things else depend In him we live and move and have our being Act. 17. 28. He upholdeth all things by the word of his power Heb. 1. 3. The earth standeth upon his will and word The Nations are in his hands so are the lives of our friends and enemies and so are our selves And therefore our eye must be upon him and our care must be to please him and our trust and quietness must be in him and blessed is he that maketh sure of an Interest in his special Love 5. Hence also we must observe the vanity of all Creature confidence and our hearts must be withdrawn from resting in any means or instruments They are nothing to us and can do nothing for us but what they have or do from him that made and preserveth us 6. And lastly hence also we may see the patience and goodness of the Lord that as he refused not to make those men that he foreknew would live ungodlily so he denyeth not to uphold their Being even while they sin against him All the while that they are abusing his creatures they are substained by him and have those Creatures from him From him the drunkard hath his drink and the glutton his meat and the voluptuous youth their abused health and strength and all men have from him the Powers or faculties of soul and Body by which they sin And shall any be so ungrateful as to say therefore that God doth cause their sin It s true he can easily stop thy breath while thou art swearing and lying and speaking against the service of God that made thee And wouldst thou have him do so He can easily take away the meat and drink and riches and health and life which thou abusest And wouldst thou have him do it He can easily keep thee from sinning any more on earth by cutting off thy life and sending thee to pay for what thou hast done And art thou content with this Must he be taken to be a partaker in thy sin because he doth not strike thee dead or lame or speechless or disable thee from sinning Provoke him not by thy Blasphemies lest he clear himself in a way that thou desirest not But O wonder at his patience that holds thee in his hand and keepeth thee from falling into the grave and Hell while thou art sinning against him While a curse or oath is in thy mouth he could let thee fall into utter misery How oft hast thou provoked him to take thee in thy lust in thy rage or in thy neglect of God and give thee thy desert Would any of you support your enemy as God doth you CHAP. XI 10. AS we must know God as our Creatour so also as our Redeemer Of which I shall say but little now because I have mentioned it more fully in the Directions for sound Conversion It is life Eternal to know the Father and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent Job 17. 3. The Father Redeemeth us by the Son whom he sent and whose Sacrifice he accepted and in whom he is well pleased And this must have these effects upon our souls 1. We must be hence convinced that we are not now in a state of innocency nor to be saved as innocents or on the terms of the Law of our Creation Bue Salvation is now by a Redeemer and therefore consisteth in our recovery and restauration The objects of it are only lapsed sinful miserable men Name the Creature if you can since Adam that stood before God here in the flesh in a state of personal perfect innocency except the immaculate Lamb of God If God as Creator should now save any without respect to a Redemption it must be on the terms of the Law of Creation upon which it is certain that no man hath or shall be saved that is upon perfect personal persevering obedience You cannot exempt Infants themselves from sin and misery without exempting them from Christ the Redeemer and the remedy Rom. 3. 10 19 20 22 23. There is none Righteous in himself without a Redeemer no not one They are all gone out of the way That every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God And if all the world be guilty none are
for the Head yet we are more for Christ as a means to his glory then he for us I mean he is the more excellent principal end For to this end Christ both dyed rose and revived that he might be Lord both of the dead and living Rom. 14. 9. who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God but made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow both of things in heaven and things in earth and under the earth and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father Phil. 2. 6. to 12. Rev. 5. 8 9 10 11 12. And I beheld and I heard the voice of many Angels round about the Throne and the beasts and the elders and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands saying with a loud voice Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing And every creature which is in Heaven and on Earth and under the Earth and such as are in the sea and all that are in them heard I saying Blessing honour glory and power be unto him that sitteth on the Throne and unto the Lamb for ever and ever So Rev. 15. 3 4. 20. 6. Rev. 21. 23. The City had no need of the Sun neither of the Moon to shine in it for the glory of God doth lighten it and the Lamb is the light thereof Rev. 22. 3 4. The Throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it and his servants shall serve him And they shall see his face and his name shall be in their foreheads These and many other Scriptures shew us that God will be for ever Glorified in the person of the Redeemer more then in either men or Angels and consequently that it was the principal part of his Intention in the design of mans Redemption 2. I will be briefer in the rest In the way of Redemption man will be saved with greater humiliation and self-denyal then he should have been in the way of Creation If we had been saved in a way of Innocency we should have had more to ascribe to our selves And it is meet that all Creatures be humbled and abased and nothing in themselves before the Lord. 3. By the way of Redemption sin will be more dishonoured and Holiness more advanced then if sin had never been known in the world Contraries illustrate one another Health would not be so much valued if there were no sickness nor Life if there were no Death nor Day if there were no Night nor Knowledge if there were no Ignorance nor Good if man had not known Evil. The Holiness of God would never have appeared in execution of vindictive Justice against sin if there had never been any sin and therefore he hath permitted it and will recover us from it when he could have prevented our falling into it 4. By this way also Holiness and Recovering Grace shall be more triumphant against the Devil and all its enemies By the many conquests that Christ will make over Satan the World and the Flesh and Death there will very much of God be seen to us that innocency would not thus have manifested 5. Redemption brings God nearer unto man The mysterie of Incarnation giveth us wonderful advantages to have more familiar thoughts of God and to see him in a clearer glass then ever we should else have seen him in on earth and to have access with boldness to the throne of grace The pure Deity is at so vast a distance from us while we are here in flesh that if it had not appeared in the flesh unto us we should have been at a greater loss But now without controversie great is the mysterie of godliness God was manifested in the flesh justified in the spirit seen of Angels preached to the Gentiles believed on in the world and received up into glory 1 Tim. 3. 16. 6. In the way of Redemption man is brought to more earnest and frequent addresses unto God and dependance on him Necessity driveth him And he hath use for more of God or for God in more of the wayes of his mercy then else he would have had 7. Principally in this way of saving miserable man by a Redeemer there is opportunity for the more abundant exercise of Gods mercy and consequently for the more glorious discovery of his Love and Goodness to the sons of men then if they had fallen into no such Necessities Misery prepareth men for the sense of mercy In the Redeemer there is so wonderful a discovery of Love and Mercy as is the astonishment of men and Angels 1 Joh. 3. 1. Behold what manner of Love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God! Eph. 2. 4 5. God who is rich in Mercy for his great Love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sins hath quickened us together with Christ by grace yee are saved and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus that in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us by Christ Jesus for by grace yee are saved through faith and that not of your selves it is the gift of God Not of works lest any man should boast Tit. 3 3 4. For we our selves were sometimes foolish disobedient deceived serving divers lusts and pleasures c. But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to his Mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost Never was there such a discovery of God as he is Love in a way of Mercy to man on earth as in the Redeemer and his benefits 8. In the way of Redemption the soul of man is formed to the most sweet and excellent temper and his obedience cast into the happiest mold The glorious demonstration of Love doth animate us with Love to God and the shedding abroad of his Love in our hearts by the spirit of the Redeemer doth draw out our hearts in Love to him again And the sense of his wonderful Love and Mercy filleth us with Thankfulness so that Love is hereby made the nature of the new man and Thankfulness is the life of all our obedience For all floweth from these principles and expresseth them so that Love is the compendium of all Holiness in one word and Thankfulness of all Evangelical obedience And
14. To conclude Vindictive Justice will be doubly honoured upon them that are final rejecters of this grace Though conscience would have had matter enough to work upon for the torment of the sinner and the justifying of God upon the meer violation of the Law of nature or works yet nothing to what it now will have on them that are the despisers of this great salvation For of how much sorer punishment suppose yee shall he be thought worthy that hath trodden under foot the Son of God when it is willful impenitency against most excellent means and mercies that is to be charged upon sinners and when they perish because they would not be saved Justice will be most fully glorified before all and in the conscience of the sinner himself All this considered you may see that besides what reasons of the counsel of God are unknown to us there is abundant reason open to our sight from the great advantages of this way why God would rather save us by a Redeemer then in a way of Innocency as our meer Creator But for the answering of all objections against this I must desire you to observe these two things following 1. That we here suppose man a terrestrial inhabitant cloathed with flesh otherwise it is confessed that if he were perfect in heaven where he had the Beatifical Vision to confirm him many of these forementioned advantages to him would be none 2. And it is supposed that God will work on man by Moral means and where he never so infallibly produceth the good of man he doth it in a way agreeable to his nature and present state and that his work of Grace is Sapiential magnifying the contrivance and conduct of his Wisdom as well as his Power otherwise indeed God might have done all without these or any other means 3. The knowledge of God in Christ as our Redeemer must imprint upon the soul those Holy Affections which the design and nature of our Redemption do bespeak and which answer these forementioned ends As 1. It must keep the soul in a sense of the odiousness of sin that must have such a remedy to pardon and destroy it 2. It must raise us to most high and honourable thoughts of our Redeemer the Captain of our Salvation that bringeth back lâ—st sinners unto God and we must study to advance the Glory of our Lord whom the Father hath advanced and set over all 3. It must drive us out of our selves and bring us to be nothing in our own eyes and cause us to have humble penitent self condemning thoughts as men that have been our own undoers and deserved so ill of God and man 4. It must drive us to a full and constant dependance on Christ our Redeemer and on the Father by him As our life is now in the Son as its root and fountain so in him must be our faith and confidence and to him we must daily have recourse and seek to him and to the Father in his Name for all that we need for daily pardon strength protection provision and consolation 5. It must cause us the more to admire the Holiness of God which is so admirably declared in our Redemption and still be sensible how he hateth sin and loveth Purity 6. It must invite and encourage us to draw near to God who hath condescended to come so near to us and as sons we must cry Abba Father and though with reverence yet with holy confidence must set our selves continually before him 7. It must cause us to make it our daily imployment to study the Riches of the Love of God and his abundant mercy manifested in Christ so that above all books in the world we should most diligently and delightfully peruse the Son of God incarnate and in him behold the Power and Wisdom and Goodness of the Father And with Paul we should desire to know nothing but Christ crucified and all things should be counted but loss and dung for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord Phil. 3. 8. That we may be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the bredth and length and depth and heighth and to know the Love of Christ which passeth knowledge that we may be filled with all the fulness of God 8. Above all if we know God as our Redeemer we must Live in the Power of holy Love and Gratitude His Manifested Love must prevail with us so far that unfeigned Love to him may be the predominant affection of our souls And being free from the spirit of bondage and slavish fear we must make Love and Thankfulness the sum of our Religion and think not any thing will prove us Christians without prevailing Love to Christ nor that any duty is accepted that proceedeth not from it 9. Redemption must teach us to apply our selves to the holy Laws and Example of our Redeemer for the forming and ordering of our hearts and lives 10. And it must quicken us to Love the Lord with a redoubled vigour and to obey with double resolution and diligence because we are under a double obligation What should a people so Redeemed esteem too much or too dear for God 11. Redemption must make us a more Heavenly people as being Redeemed to the incorruptible inheritance in Heaven The blessed God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible undefiled and that fadeth not away reserved in Heaven for us who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation 1 Pet. 1. 3. 12. Lastly Redemption must cause us to walk the more carefully and with a greater care to avoid all sin and to avoid the threatned wrath of God because sin against such unspeakable Mercy is unspeakably great and condemnation by a Redeemer for despising his grace will be a double condemnation Joh. 3. 19. 36. CHAP. XII 11. THE third Relation in which God is to be Known by us is as he is our Sanctifier and Comforter which is specially ascribed to the Holy Ghost And doubtless as the Dispensation of the Holy Ghost is the Perfecting dispensation without which Creation and Redemption would not attain their ends and as the sin against the Holy Ghost is the great and dangerous sin so our Belief in the Holy Ghost and Knowledge of God as our Sanctifier by the Spirit is not the least or lowest act of our faith or Knowledge And it implieth or containeth these things following 1. We must hence take notice of the certainty of our common original sin The necessity of sanctification proveth the corruption as the necessity of a Redeemer proveth the guilt It is not one but all that are Baptized that must be Baptized into the Name of the Son and Holy Ghost as well as of the Father which is an entering into Covenant with the Son as our Redeemer and with the
think of the Heathen and Infidel parts of the world and to see the Rebellion of the Prophane among us and that the Laws of God are unknown or despised by the most of men Alas what abundance are ruled by their lusts and self-conceitedness and corrupted wills and the customs of the world or the wills of men but how few are Ruled by the Laws of God! O how should it grieve an honest heart to see Gods Kingdom hindered by Infidelity and weakned divided and disturbed by Popery and Heresie and dishonoured by scandal and impiety as it is And to see the multitude and the violence and industry of corrupters dividers and destroyers and the fewness the coldness and remisness of the builders the healers and restorers All you that are loyal subjects to your Lord lament these waies of Rebellion and Disobedience and the diminutions and distempers of the subjects of his Kingdom and the unfaithfulness and negligence of his Ministers and bend your cares desires and prayers to the promoting of Gods Kingdom in you and in the world and befriend not any thing that hindereth its prosperity CHAP. XV. 14. THE third of these Relations and the next point in the Knowledge of God to be spoken of is that he is Our must Loving Father or Bountiful Benefactor As he is Good so he doth Good Psal. 119. 68. And as he is the chiefest Good so he bestoweth the greatest Benefits and therefore is thence by a Necessary Resultancy our Most Bountiful Benefactor The term Father comprehendeth in it all his three great Relations to us 1. A Father gives Being to his Children and therefore hath some Propriety in them and God is the first cause oâ— our whole Being and therefore we are his Own 2. A Father is the Governour of his Children and God is our Chief Governour 3. A Father tenderly Loveth his Children that are childlike loving and obedient to him and seeketh their felicity and so doth God Love and will make Happy his loving and obedient children who have not only their Being from him as their Maker but their New being or Holy nature from him as their Sanctifier And this last being the end and perfection of the rest doth communicate its nature to the rest as the Means And so 1. The new nature that God thus giveth us in our Regeneration is not from his common Love but is an act of special Grace proceeding from his special Fatherly Love 2. The Government that he exerciseth over them as his Regenerate children is not a Common Government such as is that of the meer Law of Nature or of works but it is a special Government by a Law of Grace a Justifying Remedying Saving Law or Covenant together with an internal illuminating quickning guiding spirit with Church-state and Officers and Ordinance all suited to this way of Grace Even as his Dominion or Propriety by Redemption and our Sanctification and Resignation is not a Common Propriety but a gracious Relation to us as Our Own Father who have the endeared Relation to him of being his Own Children All is from Love and in a way of Love and for the exercise and demonstration of Love so that when I call God Our Benefactor I precisely distinguish this last part of his Relations to us from the rest But when I call him a Father I mean the same thing or Relation which a Benefactor signifieth but with fuller aspect on the foregoing Relations and connotation of them as they are perfected all in this And here I. I shall briefly name the Benefits on which this Relation of God is founded And 1. Even in Creating us he acted as a Benefactor giving us the Fundamental Good of Being and the excellency of manhood 2. By setting us in a well furnished world and putting all things under our feet and giving us the use of Creatures 3. By entering into the Relation of a Governour to us and consequently engaging himself to terms of Justice in his dealing with us and to protect us and reward us if we did obey and making us capable of an everlasting happiness as our end and appointing us sufficient means thereto These Benefits denominated God the Great Benefactor or Father unto man in the state of his Creation But then moreover he is a Common Benefactor also 4. By so loving the world as to give his only begotten Son to be their Redeemer a sufficient sacrifice for sin 5. By giving out his Promise or Covenant of Grace and making a Common Deed of Gift of pardon Reconciliation and Eternal Life to all that will accept it in and with Christ to Gospel ends 6. By sending forth the Messengers of this Grace commanding them to Preach to every creature the Gospel or word of Reconciliation committed to them and to beseech men in Christs stead as his Embassadours as if God himself did intreat by them to be reconciled to God Matth. 28. 18 19. Mar. 16. 16. 2 Cor. 5. 19 20. 7. By affording some common mercies without and motions of his spirit within to second these invitations But though by this much God hath a Title to their dearest Love yet they have no Title to his highest Benefits nor are in the nearest Relation of Children or Beneficiaries to him But 8. When he begetteth us again to a lively Hope by his incorruptible seed and giveth us both to will and to do and when the Father effectually draweth us to the Son and reneweth us according to his Image and taketh away our old and stony hearts and giveth us new and tender hearts and giveth us to Know him and Love him as a Father then is he our Father in the dearest and most comfortable sense and we are his children that have interest in his dearest Love 9. And therefore we have his spirit and pardon Justification and Reconciliation with him 10. And also we have special Communion with him in Prayer Praises Sacraments and all holy Ordinances and Conversation 11. And we and our services are pleasing to him and so we are in the light of his countenance and under a special promise of his protection and provision and that all things shall work together for our good 12. And we have the promise of perfection in everlasting Glory II. And now as you see how God is our Benefactor or most Gracious and Loving Father let us next see what this must work on us And 1. Goodness and Bounty should shame men from their sin and lead them to Repentance Rom. 2. 4 5. Love is not to be abused and requited with unkindness and provocation He that can turn grace into wantonness and do evil because grace hath abounded or that it may abound shall be forced to confess that his damnation is just He that will not hate his sin when he seeth such exceeding Benefits stand by and heareth mercy and wonderful mercy plead against it and upbraid the sinner with ingratitude is like to die a double death and shall have no more sacrifice
objective means yet shall not these do it without the internal effectual means But when Love doth shine to us so resplendently without us in the face of the Glorious Sun of Love and is also â—et into us by the Spirits Illumination that sheds abroad this Love in our hearts then will the holy fire burn which comes from Heaven and leads to Heaven and will never rest till it have reacht its center and brought us to the face and arms of God 5. And from the Fatherly Relation and Love of God we must learn to Trust him and Rest our souls in his securing Love Shall we distrust a Father an Omnipotent Father Therefore is this Relation prefixed to the Petitions of the Lords Prayer and we begin with Our Father which art in Heaven that when we remember his Love and our Interest in him and his Alsufficiency we may be encouraged to Trust him and make our addresses to him If a Father and such a Father smite mee I will submit and kiss the Rod for I know it is the healing fruit of Love If a Father and such a Father afflict mee wound mee deal strangely wiâ—h mee and grieve my flesh let mee not murmure or distrust him for he well understandeth what he doth and nothing that shall hurt mee finally can come from Omnipotent Paternal Love If a Father and such a Father kill mee yet let mee Trust in him and let not my soul repine at his proceedings nor tremble at the separating stroak of death A Beast knows not when we strive with him what we intend whether to Cure or to Kill him but a Child need not fear a killing blow nor a Loving soul a damning death from such a Father If he be a Father where is his Love and Trust 6. If God be our Father and so wonderful a Benefactor to us then Thanks and Praise must be our most constant work and must be studied above all the rest of Duty and most diligently performed If the tongue of man which is called his Glory be made for any thing and good for any thing it is to give the Lord his Glory in the Thankful acknowledgement of his Love and Mercies and the daily chearful Praises of his Name Let this then be the Christians work 7. The Children of such a Father should live a contented chearful life Diligence becometh them but not contrivances for worldly greatness nor carking cares for that which their Father hath promised them to care for Humility and Reverence beseemeth them but not dejection and despondency of mind and a still complaining fearful troubled disconsolate soul. If the Children of such a Father shall not be bold and confident and chearful let joy and confidence then be banished from the earth and be renounced by all the Sons of men CHAP. XVI 15. THere are yet divers subordinate Attributes of God that being comprized in the forementioned may be passed over with the briefer touch And the next that I shall speak of is his Freedome And God is Free in more senses than one but for brevity I shall speak of all together 1. And first God hath a Natural Freedome of Will being Determined to Will by nothing without him nor liable to any Necessity but what is consistent with perfect Blessedness and Liberty His own Being and Blessedness and Perfections are not the objects of his Election and therefore not of that which we call Free Will But all his works without as Creation Providence Redemption c. are the effects of his Free Will Not but that his Will concerning all these hath a Necessity of existence For God did from Eternity Will the Creation and all that is done in time and therefore from Eternity that will existing had a Necessity of existence But yet it was Free because it proceedeth not Necessarily from the very Nature of God God was God before he made the world or Redeemed it or did the things that are daily done And therefore one part of the Schoolmen maintain not only that there is Contingency from God but that there could be no Contingency in the Creature if it had not its Original in God the Liberty of God being the fountain of Contingency 2. There is also an Eminency both of Dominion and Soveraignty in God according to which he may be called Free His Absoluteness of Propriety freeth him from the restraint of any Obligation but what floweth from his own Free Will from Disposing of his own as he pleases And his Absolute Soveraignty freeth him from the Obligation of his own Laws as Laws though he will still be true to his Promises and Predictions Let man therefore take heed how he questioneth his Maker or censureth his Laws or Works or Waies CHAP. XVII 16. ANother Attribute of God is his Justice With submission I conceive that this is not to be said to be from 〈◊〉 any otherwise than all Gods Relations are as Creator 〈◊〉 c. because here is no time with God For though 〈◊〉 Blessed Nature denominated Just is from Eternity yet not 〈◊〉 â—â—râ—ality or Denomination of Justice For Justice is an Attribute of God as he is Governour only And he was not Governour till he had Creatures to Govern And he could not be a Just Governour when he was no Governour The Denomination â—â—â— not arise till the Creation had laid the Foundation Many Questions may be resolved hence which I will not trouble you to reâ—â—â—e Justice in God is the Perfection of his Nature as it giveth every his his due oâ— Governeth the world in the most perfect Orders â—or the Ends of Government Because he is Just he will Reward the Righteous and difference between the Godly and the Wicked For that Governor that useth all alike is not Just. The Crown of Righteousness is given by him as a Righteous Judge 2 Tâ—m 4. 8. 1. The Justice of God is substantially in men we call it an Inclination â—â—â— Nature and so it is Eternal 2. It is 〈◊〉 formally in his Relation of Governour 3. It is expressively first in his Laws For as a Just Governour he made them suited to the Subjects Objects and Ends. 4 It is expressively secondarily in his Judgments and Executions which is when they are according to his Law oâ— in the Cares of Penalty where he may dispense at least according to the state of the subject and sitted to the Ends of Government 1. The Justice of God is the Consolation of the Just He will Justifie them whom his Gospel Justifieth because he is Just. The Justice of God in many places of Scripture is taken for his Fidelity in vindicating his people and his Judging for them and procuring them the happy fruits of his Government and so is taken in a Consolatory sense Psal. 89. 14. Justice and Judgement are the habitations of thy Throne Mercy and Truth shall go before thy face 2 Thes. 1. 5 6. It is a Righteous thing with God to recompence tribulation to them that trouble
us and Rest to the troubled 2. The Justice of God is the terrour of the ungodly As he would not make unrighteous Laws for the pleasure of unrighteous men so neither will he pass unrighteous judgement But look what a man soweth that shall he also reap All his peremptory threatnings shall be made good and his wrath poured out for ever upon impenitent souls because he is the Righteous God CHAP. XVIII 17. ANother of Gods Attributes is his Holiness He is called Holy 1. As he is Transcendently above and separated from all the Creatures in comparison of whom the Heâ—vens are not clean and from whom all things stand at an Infinite distance 2. As the Perfection of his nature is the Fountain of all Moral Good 1. In the Holiness of his Law the Rule of Holiness 2. In the Holiness of the soul and 3. In his holy Judgements And consequently as this Perfect Nature is contrary to all the Moral Pollution of the Creature loathing iniquity forbiding and condemning it That Perfect Goodness of the will of God from whence floweth holy Laws and motions and the Holiness of the soul of man is it that Scripture meaneth usually by Gods Holiness rather then the foresaid distance from the Creatures And therefore his Holiness is usually given as the Reason of his Laws and Judgements and of his enmity to sin And our Holiness is called his Image who imitate not his Transcendency and we are commanded to be Holy as he is Holy 1 Pet. 1. 16. The nature of the Image will best tell us what Holiness is in God Holiness in us is called The Divine Nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. and therefore is radically a right inclination and disposition of the soul which hath its rise from a Transcendent Holiness in God even as our Wisdome from his Transcendent Wisdome and our Being from his Being Holiness therefore being indeed the same with the Transcendently Moral Goodness of God which I have spoken of before I shall say but little of it now Thus must the Holiness of God be known 1. It must cause us to have a most high and honourable esteem of Holiness in the Creature because it is the Image of the Holiness of God Three sorts of Creatures have a Derivative Holiness The first is The Law which is the meer signification of the Wise and Holy Will of God concerning mans Duty with Rewards and Penalties for the Holy Governing of the world This is the nearest Image of God engraven upon that Seal which must be the Instrument of imprinting it on our souls Now the Holiness of the Word is not the meer product of the Will of God considered as a Will but of the Will of God considered as Holy that is as the Infinite Transcendent Moral Goodness in the Architype or Original For all events that proceed from God are the products of his Will which is Holy but not as Holy as the creating preserving disposing of every fly or fish in the sea or worm in the earth c. There is somewhat therefore in the Nature of God which is the Perfection of his Will and is called Holiness which â—he Holiness of the Law doth flow from and express This Holy Word is the Immortal seed that begetteth Holiness in the soul which is the second subject of derived Holiness And this our Holiness is a conformity of the soul to the Law as the Product of the Holy Will of God and not a meer conformity to his predictions and decreeing Will as such It is a separation to God but not every separation Pharaoh was set apart to be the Passive monument of the Honour of Gods Name and Cyrus was his servant to restore his people and yet not thus Holy But it is a separation from common and unclean uses and a Purgation from polluting vice and a renovation by reception of the Image of Gods Holiness whose Nature is to encline the soul to God and devote it wholly to him both in Justice because we are his own and in Love because he is most Holy and perfectly Good The third subject of Holiness is those creatures that are but separated to Holy uses and these have but a Relative Holiness and secundum quid As the Temple the holy utensils the Bible as to the materials the Minister as an Officer the people as visible members c. All these must be reverenced and honoured by us according to the proportion of their Holiness 1. Our principal Reverence must be to the Holy Word of God For Holiness is more perfect there then in our souls The Holiness of the Word which is it that the ungodly hate or quarrel at is the Glory of it in the eyes of Holy men We may much discern a Holy and an unholy soul by their Loving or not loving a Holy Law especially as it is a Rule to themselves A distast of the Holiness of Scripture and of the Holiness of the writings of Divines and of the Holiness of their preaching or conference discovereth an unholy soul. A Love to holy Doctrine sheweth that there is somewhat suitable to it in the soul that Loveth it It is the elogy of the Scriptures the Promises the Covenant the Prophets and Apostles that they are all Holy Rom. 1. 2. Psal. 105. 42. Luk. 1. 70 72. Rev. 18. 20. 2 Tim. 3. 15. Rom. 7. 12. The Holiness of the Scripture doth make it as suitable and savoury to a Holy soul as Light is suitable to the eye-sight and sweetness to the tast and therefore it is to them as the hony comb But to the unholy it is a mystery and as foolishness and that which is contrary to their disposition and they have an enmity to it which makes a wonderful difference in their judging of the evidences of Scripture Verity and much facilitateth the work of Faith in one sort and strengtheneth unbelief in the other Holy doctrine is the Glass that sheweth us the Holy face of God himself and therefore must needs be most excellent to the Saints 2. And we must honour and love also the Holiness of the Saints For they also bear the Image of the Lord. Their Holy Affections Prayers Discourses and Conversations must be beautiful in our eyes And we must take heed of those temptations that either from personal injuries received from any or from their blots or imperfections or from their meanness in the world or from the contempt and reproach and slanders of the ungodly would draw us to think dishononrably of their Holiness He that honoureth the Holy God will honour his Image in his Holy people In his eyes a vile person will be contemned but he will honour them that fear the Lord Psal. 15. 4. The Saints on earth are the excellent in his eyes and his delight is in them Psal. 16. 2 3. The breathings of Divine Love in the holy Prayers Praises and Speeches of the Saints and their Reverent and Holy mention of his Name are things that a holy soul
prevent the sinner with his Judgement but with his Grace he often doth He never punisheth before we are sinners nor never Decreed so to do as all will grant He punisheth none where his foregoing commands and warnings have had their due effect for the prevention And therefore because the Precept is the first part of his Law and the Threatning is but subservient to that and the first intent of a Governour is to procure Obedience and Punishing is but upon supposition that he misseth of the first therefore is God said not to afflict willingly because he doth it not ex voluntate antecedente but ex voluntate consequente that is for so the distinction is sound not as a Law-giver and Ruler by those Laws considered before the violation but only as a Judge of the Law-breakers But yet Gods Mercy is no security to the abusers of his Mercy Bot rather will sink them into deeper misery as the aggravation of their sin As God Afflicts not willingly and yet we feel that he afflicteth so if he do not condemn you willingly you shall finde iâ— you are impenitent that yet he will condemn you If you say God can be forced to do nothing against his will I answer you that it is not simply against his will for then it should never come to pass But it is against the Principal act of his will which floweth from him as a Law-giver or Ruler by Laws in which respect it may be said that he had rather that the wicked turn and live but yet if they will not turn they shall not live A merciful Judge had rather the Thief had saved his life by forbearing to steal but yet he had not rather that Thieves go unpunished than he should condemn them But you 'l say If God had rather men did not sin why doth he not hinder it I answer 1. He had not absolutely and simply rather that is so far as to do all that he can to prevent it nor all that without which he foreknoweth it will not be prevented But he doth much against sin as a Law-giver and nothing for it he causeth us not but perswades us from it and therefore as a Ruler he may be said to have rather that men did not sin or rather that they would turn and live 1. The Mercy of God therefore should lead sinners to Repentance and shame them from their sin and lead them up to God in Love 2. Mercy should encourage sinners to Repent as well as engage them to it For we have to do with a Merciful God that hath not shut up any among us in despair nor forbid them to come in but continueth to invite when we have oft refused and will undoubtedly pardon and welcome all that do return 3. Mercy being specially the portion of the Saints must keep them in Thankfulness Love and Comfort and all Mercies must be improved for their proper ends When a Merciful God is pleased to fill up his servants lives with such Great and Various Mercies as he doth it should breed a continual sweetness upon their hearts and cause them to study the most grateful retribution He should breath forth nothing but Thankfulness Obedience and Praise who breaths nothing but Mercies from God As the food that men live upon will be seen in their temperature 〈…〉 and strength so they that live continually upon Mâ—rcâ—â—s â—â—ould be wholly turned into Love and Thankfulness 〈…〉 ould become as it were their nature temperature 〈…〉 O how unspeakable is the Love of God that 〈…〉 eet a life for his servants even in their warfare 〈…〉 ge in this world that Mercy must be as it were 〈…〉 Air that they breath in the food which they must live upon and the remembrance improvement and thankful mention of it must be the business and imployment of their lives O with what sweet affections meditations and expressions should we live if we lived but according to the rate of those Mercies upon which we live Love and Joy and Thanks and Praise would be our very lives What sweet thoughts would Mercy breed and feed in our minds when we are alone what sweet apprehensions of the Love of God and Life Eternal should we have in Prayer Reading Saoraments and other holy ordinances Sickness and Health Poverty and Wealth Death as well as Life would be comfortable to us for all is full of Mercy to the Vessels of Mercy O Christians what a shame is it that God is so much wronged and our selves so much defrauded of our peace and joy by passing over such abundance of great unvaluable mercies without tasting their sweetness or well considering what we do receive Had we Davids heart what songs of Praise would Mercy teach us to indite How affectionately should we recount the mercies of our youth and riper age of every place and state that we have lived in to the honour of our Gracious Lord and the encouragement of those that know not how Good and Merciful he is But withall see that you contemn not or abuse not Mercy Use it well for it is Mercy that you must trust to in the hour of your distresses O do not trample upon Mercy now lest you be confounded when you should cry for Mercy in your extremity 4. The Mercifulness of God must cause his servants to imitate him in a Love of mercy Be merciful for your heavenly Father is merciful Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy Matth. 5. 7. Be merciful in your Censures Be merciful in your retributions You are none of Gods Children if you Love not your Enemies and pray not for them that curse you and do not good to them that hate and persecute you according to your power Matth. 5. 44 45. If you forgive not men their trespasses but take your Brother by the throat neither will your heavenly Father forgive you your Trespasses Matth. 6. 14 15. Mark that even while he is called your heavenly Father yet he will not forgive if you forgive not Unmerciful men are too unlike to God to claim any interest in his saving mercy in the hour of their extremest misery Men of cruelty blood and violence he abhorreth And usually they do not live out half their daies But they that bite and devour one another are devoured one of another Gal. 5. 15. The last judgement will pass much according to mens works of mercy to the members of Christ Matth. 25. He shall have judgement without mercy that hath shewed no mercy and mercy rejoyceth against judgement James 2. 13. Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this to visit the Fatherless and Widdows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted in the world James 1. 27. He that having this worlds goods seeth his Brother in need and shutteth up the bowels of his compassion from him how dwelleth the Love of God in him But above all cruelty there is none more devilish than cruelty to souls And
in those that undertake the place of Pastors cruelty to mens souls is a far greater sin than in any others To starve those that they undertake to feed and to seduce those whom they undertake to Guide and be Wolves to those whose Shepherds they pretend to be and to prefer their worldly honours and commodity and ease before the souls of many thousands to be so cruel to souls when Christ hath been so merciful to them as to come down on earth to seek and save them and to give his life a ransome for them this will one day be so heavy a charge that the man that must stand as guilty under it will a thousand times wish that a milstoâ—â— had been hanged about his neck and he had been cast into the bottome of the Sea before he had betrayed or murdered souls or offended one of the little ones of Christ. Be merciful to mens souls and bodies as ever you would find mercy with a merciful God in the hour of your necessity and distress CHAP. XXI 20. THE last of Gods Attributes which I shall now mention is his Dreadfulness or Terribleness to those that are the objects of his wrath This is the result of his other Attributes especially of his Holiness and Governing Justice and Truth in his commiâ—ations He is a Great and Dreadful God Dan. 9 4. A mighty God and terrible Deut. 7. 21. A great and terrible God Nah. 1. 5. With God is terrible Majesty Job 37. 22. The Lord most high is terrible Psal. 47. 22. 1. His Children therefore must be kept in a holy awe God is never to be approached or mentioned but with the greatest reverence We must sanctifie the Lord of Hosts himself and he must be our fear and dread Isa. 8. 13. Even they that receive the unmoveable Kingdom must have grace in their hearts to serve him acceptably with Reverence and godly fear because our God is a consuming fire Heb. 12. 28 29. When we come to worship in the holy Assemblies we should think as Jacob Gen. 28. 17. How dreadful is this place This is none other but the House of God and this is the gate of Heaven Especially when God seemeth to frown upon the soul his servants must humble themselves before him and deprecate his wrath as Jeremiah did Jer. 17. 17. Be not a terrour to mee It ill becometh the best of men to make light of the frowns and threatnings of God Also when he dealeth with us in Judgement and we feel the smart of his chastisements though we must remember that he is a Father yet withall we must consider that he sheweth himself an offended Father And therefore true and deep Humiliation hath ever been the course of afflicted Saints to turn away the wrath of a terrible God 2. But above all what cause have the Ungodly to tremble at the Dreadfulness of that God who is engaged in Justice except they be converted to use them everlastingly as his unpardoned enemies As there is no felicity like the favour of God and no joy comparable to his childrens joyes so is there no misery like the sense of his Displeasure nor any terrours to be compared to those which his wrath inflicteth everlastingly on the ungodly O wretched sinner what hast thou done to make God thine enemy what could hire thee to offend him by thy willful sin and to do that which thou knewest he forbad and condemned in his Word What madness caused thee to make a mock at sin and hell and to play with the vengeance of the Almighty what gain did hire thee to cast thy soul into the danger of damnation canst thou save by the match if thou win the world and lose thy soul Didst thou not know who it was thou hadst to do with It had been better for thee that all the world had been offended with thee even men and Angels great and small than the most Dreadful God Didst thou not believe him when he told thee how he was resolved to judge and punish the ungodly Read it 2 Thes. 2. 7 8 9 10. and 2. 10 11. Matth. 25. Jud. 15. Psal. 1. c. what caused thee to venture upon the consuming fire Didst thou not know that as he is Merciful so he is Jealous Holy Just and Terrible In the Name of God I require and intreat thee fly to his Mercy in Jesus Christ and hearken speedily to his Grace and turn at his reproof and warning To day while it is called to day harden not thy heart but hear his voice lest he resolve in his wrath that thou shalt never enter into his rest There is no enduring there is no overcoming there is no contending with an angry dreadful holy God Repent therefore and turn to him and obey the voice of Mercy that thy soul may live 3. The Dreadfulness of God doth tell both good and bad the great necessity of a Mediator What an unspeakable mercy is it that God hath given us his Son and that by Jesus Christ we may come with boldness and confidence into the presence of the Dreadful God that else would have been to us a greater terror than all the world yea than Satan himself The more we are apprehensive of our distance from God and of his Terrible Majesty and his more Terrible justice against such sinners as we have been the more we shall understand the mysterie of Redemption and highly value the Mediation of Christ. 4. Lastly let the Dreadfulness of God prevail with every believing soul to pitty the ungodly that pitty not themselves O pray for them O warn them exhort them intreat them as men that know the Terrours of the Lord 2 Cor. 5. 11. If they knew as well as you do what sin is and what it is to be children of wrath and what it is to be unpardoned unjustified and unsanctified they would pitty themselves and cry for mercy mercy mercy from day to day till they were recovered into a state of life and turned from the power of Satan unto God Alas they know not what it is to die and to see the world to come and to appear before a dreadful God They know not what it is to be in Hell fire nor what it is to be glorified in Heaven They never saw or tryed these things and they want the Faith by which they must be foreseen by those that are yet short of nearer knowledge you therefore that have Faith to foreknow these things and are enlightned by the Spirit of God O pitty and warn and help the miserable Tell them how much easier it is to escape Hell than to endure it and how much easier a Holy life on earth is than the endless wrath of the most Dreadful God Tell them that unbelief presumption and security are the certain means to bring their misery but will do nothing to keep it off though they may keep off the present knowledge and sense of it which would have droven them to seek a cure
it should all be done to the Glory of God 1 Cor. 10. 31. He that regardeth a day or regardeth it not he that eateth or that eateth not must do it to the Lord And though a Good Intention will not sanctifie a forbidden action yet sins of Ignorance and meer Frailty are forborn and pardoned of God when it is his Glory and Service that is sincerely intended though there be a mistake in the choice of means None of us liveth to himself and no man dyeth to himself For whether we live we live unto the Lord and whether we dye we dye unto the Lord Whether we live therefore or dye we are the Lords For to this end Christ â—â—th dyed rose and revived that he might be Lord both of the dead and living Rom. 14. 6 7 8 9. Our walking with God is a serious Labouring that whether present or absent we may be accepted of him 2 Cor. 5. 9 To this the Love of our Redeemer must constrain us For he dyed for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him thâ—t dyed for them and rose again Vers. 14 15. Religion therefore is called the seeking of God because the soul doth press after him and labour tu enjoy him as the Runner seeks to reach the prize or as a Suiter seeketh the Love and fruition of the person beloved And all the particular acts of Religion are oft denominated from this intention of the End and following after it and are all called a seeking the Lord. Conversion is called a seeking the Lord Isa. 55. 6. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found Hos. 3. 5. The Children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God Hos. 7. 10. They do not return to the Lord their God nor seek him Men that are called to Conversion are called to seek God Hos. 10. 12. Break up your fallow ground for it is time to seek the Lord till he come and rain Righteousness upon you The converted Children of Israel and Judah shall go weeping together to seek the Lord their God Jer. 50. 4. The wicked are described to be men that do not seek the Lord Isa. 9. 13. 31. 1. The holy Covenant 2 Chron. 15. 12 13. was to seek the Lord If therefore you would Walk with God let him be the mark the prize the treasure the happiness the Heaven it self which you aim at and sincerely seek 1 Chron. 22. 19. Now set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God Psal. 105. 3 4 Glory ye in his Holy Name Let the heart of them rejoyce that seek the Lord Seek the Lord and his strength seek his face for evermore As the life of a Covetous man is a seeking of Riches and the life of an ambitious man is a seeking of worldly honour and applause so the life of a man that liveth to God is a seeking Him to please him honour him and enjoy him And so much of this as he attaineth so much dotb he attain of satisfaction and content If you live to God and seek him as your End and All the want of any thing will be tolerable to you which is but consistent with the fruition of his Love If he be pleased mans displeasure may be borne The loss of all things if Christ be won will not undo us Mans condemnation of us signifieth but little if God the absolute Judge do justifie us He walketh not with God that Liveth not to him as his only Happiness and End 4. Moreover our Walking with God includeth our subjection to his Authority and our taking His Wisdom and Will to be our Guide and his Laws in Nature and Scripture for our Rule you must not walk with him as his Equals but as his Subjects nor give him the honour of an ordinary superior but of the universal King In our doubts he must resolve us and in our straits we must ask counsel of the Lord Lord what wouldst thou have me to do is one of the first words of a penitent soul Act. 9. 6. When sensual worldlings do first ask the flesh or those that can do it hurt or good what they would have them be or do None of Christs true Subjects do call any man Father or Master on earth but in subordination to their highest Lord Matth. 23. The Authority of God doth aw them and govern them more than the fear of the greatest upon earth Indeed they know no power but Gods and that which he committeth unto man And therefore they can obey no man against God what ever it cost them but under God they are most readily and faithfully subject to their Governours not meerly as to men that have power to hurt them if they disobey but as to the officers of the Lord whose Authority they discern and reverence in them But when they have to do with the enemies of Christ who usurp a power which he never gave them against his Kingdom and the souls of men they think it easie to resolve the question whether it be better to obey God or men As the commands of a rebellious Constable or other fellow-subject are of no authority against the Kings Commands so the commands of all the men on earth are of so small authority with them against the Laws of God that they fully approve of the ready and resolute answer of those Witnesses Dan. 3. 16 17 18. We are not careful to answer thee in this matter If it be so our God whom we serve is able to deliver us c. But if not be it known unto thee O King that we will not serve thy gods nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up Worldlings are ruled by their fleshly interest and wisdom and self-will and by the will of man so far as it doth comporte with these By these you may handle them and lead them up and down the world By these doth Satan hold them in captivity But believers feel themselves in subjection to a higher Lord and better Law which they faithfully though imperfectly observe Therefore our walking with God is called A walking in his Law Exod. 16. 4. A walking in his statutes and keeping and doing his commands Lev. 26. 3. A walking in his paths Mic. 4. 2. It is our following the Lamb which way soever he goeth To be given up to our own hearts lusts and to walk in our counsels is contrary to this holy walk with God Psal. 81. 12. and is the course of those that are departed from him And they that are far from him shall perish he destroyeth those that go a whoring from him But it is good for us to draw near to God Psal. 73. 27 28. 5. Our walking with God doth imply that as we are ruled by his Will so we fear no punishment like his threatned displeasure and that the threats of death from mortal men will not prevail with us so much as his threats of Hell Luk. 12. 4. If God
of Justice or Charity principally to please God and in true obedience to his Will and a desire to be conformed thereto doth that which is formally a Moral Good and Holy though there may be abhorred mixtures of worse respects So that there are but two states of life here One of those that walk after the flesh and the other of those that walk after the spirit However the flesh hath several materials and waies of pleasure And even the Rational actings that have a carnal end are carnal finally and morally though they are acts of Reason For they are but the errours of Reason and defectiveness of true Rationality and being but the acts of erroneous Reason as captivated by the flesh and subservient to the carnal Interest they are themselves to be denominated carnal And so even the Reasonable soul as byassed by sensuality and captivated thereto is included in the name of Flesh in Scripture How much Moral Good is in that course of Piety or Obedience to God which proceedeth only from the Fear of Gods Judgements without any Love to him I shall not now discuss because I have too far digrest already All that I have last said is to shew you the Reasonableness of Living unto God as being indeed the proper and just employment of the superiour faculties of the soul and their Government of the lower faculties For if any other called Moralists do seem to subject the Sensual life to the Rational either they do but seem to do so the sensual interest being indeed predominant and their rational operations subjected thereto or at the best it is but some poor and erroneous employment of the Rational faculties which they exercise or some weak approaches towards that high and holy life which is indeed the life which the Rational nature was created for and which is the right improvement of it 4. Moreover nothing is more beseeming the nature of man than to aspire after the highest and noblest improvement of it self and to live the most excellent life that it is capable of For every nature tendeth to its own perfection But it is most evident that to Walk with God in Holiness is a thing that humane nature is capable of and that is the highest life that we are capable of on earth And therefore it is the life most suitable to our natures 5. And what can be more Rational and beseeming a Created Nature than to live to those ends which our Creatour intended in the fabrication of our Natures It is His Ends that are principally to be served But the very composure of our faculties plainly prove that His End was that we should be fitted for His Service He gave us no powers or capacity in vain And therefore to serve him and walk with him is most suitable to our natures Obj. That is Natural which is first and born with us But our enmity to Holiness is first and not our Holiness Answ. It may be called Natural indeed because it is first and born with us And in that respect we confess that sin and not Holiness is Natural to us But Holiness is called Natural to us in a higher respect because it was the Primitive Natural constitution of man and was before sin and is the perfection or health of nature and the right employment and improvement of it and tends to its happiness An hereditary leprosie may be called Natural as it is first and before health in that person But health and soundness is Natural as being the well-being of Nature when the Leprosie is unnatural as being but its desease and tending to its destruction Obj. But Nature in its first constitution was not Holy but Innocent only and it was by a superadded gift of Grace that it became Holy as some Schoolmen think and as others think Adam had no Holiness till his restoration Answ. These are Popish improved fancies and contrary to Nature and the Word of God 1. They are nowhere written nor have no evidence in Nature and therefore are the groundless dreams of men 2. The work of our recovery to God is called in Scripture a Redemption Renovation Restoration which imply that Nature was once in that Holy estate before the fall And it is expresly said that the New man which we put on is renewed in knowledge after the Image of him that created him Col. 3. 10. And after Gods Image Adam was created 3. If it belong to the soundness and integrity of Nature to be Holy that is disposed and addicted to live to God then it is an abusive temerity for men out of their own imagination to feign that God first made Nature defective and then mended it by superadded Grace But if it belong not to the soundness and integrity of humane Nature to be Holy then why did God give him Grace to make him so Nay then it would follow that when God sanctified Adam or any since he made him specifically another thing another creature of another nature and did not only cure the diseases of his nature 4. It is yet apparent in the very Nature of mans faculties that their very usefulness and tendency is to live to God and to enjoy him And that God should make a Nature apt for such a use and give it no disposedness to its proper use is an unnatural conceit We see to this day that it is but an unreasonable abuse of Reason when it is not used Holily for God and it is a very disease of nature to be otherwise disposed Therefore Primitive Nature had such a Holy inclination 5. The contrary opinion tendeth to Infidelity and to brutifie humane Nature For if no man can believe that he must be Holy and live to God and enjoy him hereafter in Heaven but he that also believeth that Primitive Nature was never disposed or qualified for such a life and that God must first make a man another creature in specie of another nature and consequently not a man this is not only so improbable but so contrary to Scripture and Reason that few considerate persons would believe it As if we must believe that God would turn brutes into men God healeth elevateth and perfecteth Nature but doth not specificially change it at least in this life Obj. But let it be granted that he giveth not man specifically another Nature yet he may give him such higher gifts as may be like another Nature to him so far Answ. No doubt he may and doth give him such gifts as actuate and perfect Nature but some Disposition to our ultimate end is essential to our Nature and therefore to assign man another ultimate end and to give a Disposition to it of which he had no seed or part or principle before is to make him another creature I confess that in lapsed man the Holy Disposition is so far dead as that the change maketh a man a New Creature in a Moral sense as be is a New Man that changeth his mind and manners But still
blood and made them Kings and Priests to God Herein he hath sometime a sweet foretast of the everlasting pleasures which though it be but little as Jonathans honey on the end of his rod or as the clusters of grapes which were brought from Canaan into the wilderness yet are they more excellent then all the delights of sinners And in the beholding of this celestial Glory some beams do penetrate his breast and so irradiate his longing soul that he is changed thereby into the same image from Glory to Glory the spirit of Glory and of God doth rest upon him And O what an excellent holy frame doth this converse with God possess his soul of How reverently doth he think of him what life is there in every Name and Attribute of God which he heareth or thinketh on The mention of his Power his Wisdome his Goodness his Love his Holinesse his Truth how powerful and how pleasant are they to him when to those that know him but by the hearing of the ear all these are but like common names and notions and even to the weaker sort of Christians whose Walking with God is more uneven and low interrupted by their sins and doubts and fears this life and glory of a Christian course is lesse perceived And the sweet appropriating and applying works of faith by which the soul can own his God and finds it self owned by him are exercised most easily and happily in these near approaches unto God Our doubts are cherished by our darknesse and that is much caused by our distance The nearer the soul doth approach to God the more distinctly it heareth the voice of mercy the sweet reconciling invitations of Love and the more clearly it discerneth that goodness and amiableness in God which maketh it easier to us to believe that he loveth us or is ready to embrace us and banisheth all those false and horrid apprehensions of him which before were our discouragement and made him seem to us more terrible then amiable As the Ministers and faithful servants of Christ are ordinarily so misrepresented by the malignant Devil to those that know them not that they are ready to think them some silly fools or falsehearted hypocrites and to shun them as strange undesirable persons but when they come to through acquaintance with them by a nearer and familiar converse they see how much they were mistaken and wronged by their prejudice and belief of slanderers misreports Even so a weak believer that is under troubles in the apprehension of his sin and danger is apt to hearken to the enemy of God that would shew him nothing but his wrath and represent God as an enemy to him And in this case it is exceeding hard for a poor sinner to believe that God is reconciled to him or loveth him or intends him good but he is ready to dread and shun him as an enemy or as he would fly from a wild beast or murderer or from fire or water that would destroy him And all these injurious thoughts of God are cherished by strangeness and disacquaintance But as the soul doth fall into an understanding and serious converse with God and having been often with him doth find him more merciful than he was by Satan represented to him his experience reconcileth his mind to God and maketh it much easier to him to believe that God is reconciled unto him when he hath found much better entertainment with God than he expected and hath observed his benignity and the treasures of his bounty laid up in Christ and by him distributed to believers and hath found him ready to hear and help and found him the only full and suitable felicitating Good this banisheth his former horrid thoughts and maketh him ashamed that ever he should think so suspiciously injuriously and dshonourably of his dearest God and Father Yet I must confesse that there are many upright troubled souls that are much in reading prayer and meditation that still find it hard to be perswaded of the Love of God and that have much more disquietment and fear since they set themselves to think of God than they had before But yet for all this we may well conclude that to walk with God is the way to consolation and tendeth to acquaint us with his love As for those troubled souls whose experience is objected against this some of them are such as are yet but in their return to God from a life of former sin and misery and are yet but like the needle in the compasse that is shaken in a trembling motion towards their rest and not in any setled apprehensions of it Some of them by the straying of their imagination too high and putting themselves upon more than their heads can bear and by the violence of fears or other passions do make themselves uncapable of those sweet consolations which else they might find in their converse with God as a Lute when the strings are broken with straining is uncapable of making any melody All of them have false apprehensions of God and therefore trouble themselves by their own mistakes And if some perplex themselves by their errour doth it follow that therefore the Truth is not comfortable Is not a Fathers presence consolatory because some children are afraid of their Fathers that know them not because of some disguise And some of Gods children walk so unevenly and carelesly before him that their sins provoke him to hide his face and to seem to reject them and disown them and so to trouble them that he may bring them home But shall the comforts of our Fathers Love and Family be judged of by the fears or smart of those whom he is scourging for their disobedience or their tryal Seek God with understanding as knowing his essential properties and what he will be to them that sincerely and diligently seek him and then you will quickly have experience that nothing so much tendeth to quiet and settle a doubting troubled unstable soul as faithfully to walk with God But the soul that estrangeth it self from God may indeed for a time have the quietness of security but so far it will be strange to the assurance of his Love and to true consolation Expect not that God should follow you with his comforts in your sinfulnesse and negligence and cast them into your hearts whilest you neither seek nor mind them or that he give you the fruit of his wayes in your own wayes Will he be your joy when you forget him will he delight your souls with his goodness and amiableness while you are taken up with other matters and think not of him can you expect to find the comforts of his family among his enemies out of doors The experience of all the world can tell you that prodigals while they are stragling from their Fathers house do never tast the comfort of his embraces The strangers meddle not with his childrens joyes They grow not in the way of ambition covetousnesse vainglory or
that hath rightly and resolvedly determined of his end hath virtually resolved a thousand controversies that others are unsatisfied and erroneous in He that is resolved that his End is to Please and Glorifie God and to enjoy him for ever is easily resolved whether a holy life or a sensual and worldly be the way whether the way be to be Godly or to make a mock at Godliness whether Covetousness and Riches Ambition and Preferment Voluptuousness and Fleshly pleasures be the means to attain his End whether it will be attained rather by the studying of the Word of God and meditating on it day and night and by holy conference and fervent prayer and an obedient life or by negligence or worldliness or drunkenness or gluttony or cards and dice or beastly filthiness or injustice and deceit Know once but whither it is that we are going and its easie to know whether the Saint or the Swine or the Swaggerer be in the way But a man that doth mistake his End is out of his way at the first step and the further he goes the further he is from true felicity and the more he erreth and the further he hath to go back again if ever he return Every thing that a man doth in the world which is not for the right end the Heavenly felicity is an act of foolishness and errour how splendid soever the Matter or the Name may make it appear to ignorant men Every word that an ungodly person speaketh being not for a right End is in him but sin and folly however materially it may be an excellent and useful Truth While a miserable soul hath his back upon God and his face upon the world every step he goeth is an act of folly as tending unto his further misery It can be no act of wisdome which tendeth to a mans damnation When such a wretch begins to enquire and bethink him where he is and whither he is going and whither he should go and to think of turning back to God then and never till then he is beginning to come to himself and to be wise Luk. 15. 17. Till God and Glory be the End that he aimeth at and seriously bends his study heart and life to seek though a man were searching into the mysteries of nature though he were studying or discussing the notions of Theology though he were admired for his earning and wisdome by the world and cryed up as the Oracle of the Earth he is all the while but playing the fool and going a cleanlier way to Hell than the grosser sinners of the world For â—s he wise that knoweth not whether Heaven or Earth be better whether God or his Flesh should be obeyed whether everlasting joyes or the transitory pleasures of sin should be preferred or that seemeth to be convinced of the truth in these and such like cases and yet hath not the wit to make his choice and bend his life according to his conviction He cannot be wise that practically mistakes his End 3. He that walketh with God doth know those things with a deep effectual heart-changing knowledge which other men know but superficially by the halves and as in a dream And true wisdome consisteth in the Intensiveness of the knowledge subjectively as much as in the extensiveness of it objectively To see a few things in a narrow room perspicuously and clearly doth shew a better eye-sight than in the open Air to see many things obscurely so as scarce to discern any of them aright â—â—ke him that saw men walk like trees The clearness and 〈◊〉 of knowledge which makes it effectual to its proper use 〈…〉 greatness and excellency of it Therefore it is that unlearned men that love and fear the Lord may well be said to be incomparably more wise and knowing men than the most learned that are ungodly As he hath more riches that hath a little Gold or Jewels than he that hath many load of stones so he that hath a deep effectual knowledge of God the Father and the Redeemer and of the life to come is wiser and more knowing than he that hath only a notional knowledge of the same things and of a thousand more A wicked man hath so much knowledge as teacheth him to speak the same words of God and Christ and Heaven which a true Believer speaks but not so much as to work in him the same affections and choice nor so much as to cause him to do the same work As it is a far more excellent kind of knowledge which a man hath of any Country by travel and habitation there than that which cometh but by reading or report or which a man hath of meat of fruits of wine by eating and drinking than that which another hath by hearsay so is the inward heart-affecting knowledge of a true believer more excellent than the flashy notions of the ungodly Truth simply as Truth is not the highest and most excellent object of the mind But Good as Good must be apprehended by the Understanding and commended to the Will which entertaineth it with Complacency adhereth to it with Choice and Resolution prosecuteth it with Desire and Endeavour and Enjoyeth it with Delight And though it be the Understanding which apprehendeth it yet it is the Heart or Will that rellisheth it and tasteth the greatest sweetness in it working upon it with some mixture of internal sense which hath made some ascribe a knowledge of Good as such unto the Will. And it is the Wills intention that causeth the Understanding to be denominated Practical And therefore I may well say thâ—t it is Wisdom indeed when it reacheth to the heart No man knoweth the Truth of God so well as he that most firmly Believeth him And do man knoweth the Goodness of God so well as he that Loveth him most No man knoweth his Power and Mercy so well as he that doth most confidently Trust him And no man knoweth his Justice and Dreadfulness so well as he that feareth him No man knoweth or believeth the Glory of Heaven so well as he that most esteemeth desireth and seeketh it and hath the most Heavenly Heart and Conversation Ho man believeth in Jesus Christ so well as he that giveth up himself unto him with the greatest Love and Thankfulness and Trust and Obedience As James saith Shew mee thy Faith by thy works so say I Let me know the measure and value of my knowledge by my Heart and Life That is wisdome indeed which conformeth a man to God and saveth his soul This only will be owned as wisdome to eternity when dreaming notions will prove but folly 4. He that walketh with God hath an infallible Rule and taketh the right course to have the best acquaintance with it and skill to use it The Doctrine that informeth him is Divine It is from Heaven and not of Men And therefore if God be wiser than man he is able to make his Disciples wisest and Teaching will more certainly and
and erroneous disposition of our own hearts The will hath a very great power upon the understanding And therefore ungodly fleshly men will very hardly receive any truth which crosseth the carnal interest or disposition And will hardly let go any errour that feedeth them because their corrupted wills are a byas to their understandings and make them desperately partial in all their reading and hearing and hypocritical in their prayers and enquiries after truth Interest and corruption locketh up their hearts from their own observation Whereas a man that walketh with God that is jealous and holy and just and a searcher of the heart is driven from hypocrisie and forced to behave himself as in the open light and to do all as in the sight of all the world as knowing that the sight of God is of far greater concernment and regard The partiality corruption and byas of the heart is detected and shamed by the presence of God Therefore to walk with God is to walk in the light and as children of the light and not in darkness And he that doth Truth cometh to the light that his deeds might be manifest that they are wrought in God when every one that doth evil hateth the light neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved And this is their condemnation that light is come into the world and men love the darkness rather then the light because their deeds are evil Joh. 3. 19 20 21. It tendeth therefore exceedingly to make men wise to Walk with God because it is a walking in the light and in such a presence as most powerfully prevaileth against that hypocrisie deceitfulness and partiality of the heart which is the common cause of damning errour 10. Lastly they that walk with God are entitled by many promises to the guidance and direction of his spirit And blessed are those that have such a guide at once a light in the world without them and a light immediately from God within them For so far as he is received and worketh in them he will lead them into truth and save them from deceit and folly and having guided them by his counsel will afterward take them unto glory Psal. 73. 24. Whereas the ungodly are led by the flesh and often given up to their own hearts lusts to walk in their own counsels Rom. 8. 1 13. Psal. 81. 12. till at last the fools do say in their hearts there is no God Psal. 14. 1. and they become corrupt and abhominable eating up the people of the Lord as bread and call not on his Name ver 2. c. Deceiving and being deceived sensual having not the spirit Jud. 19. who shall receive the reward of their unrighteousness as accounting it pleasure to riot in the day time 2 Pet. 2. 13. IV. ANother benefit of Walking with God is that it maketh men good as well as wise It is the most excellent means for the advancement of mans soul to the highest degree of holiness attainable in this life If conversing with Good men doth powerfully tend to make men good conversing with God must needs be more effectual which may appear in these particulars 1. The apprehensions of the presence and attributes of God do most effectually check the stirrings of corruption and rebuke all the vicious inclinations and motions of the soul even the most secret sin of the heart is rebuked by his presence as well as the most open transgression of the life For the thoughts of the heart are open to his view All what is done before God is done as in the open light nothing of it can be hid no sin can have the encouragement of secresie to embolden it It is all committed in the presence of the Universal King and Lawgiver of the world who hath forbidden it It is done before him that most abhorreth it and will never be reconciled to it It is done before him that is the Judge of the world and will shortly pass the sentence on us according to what we have done in the body It standeth up in his presence who is of infinite Majesty and perfection and therefore most to be reverenced and honoured And therefore if the presence of a wise and grave and venerable person will restrain men from sin the presence of God apprehended seriously will do it much more It is committed before him that is our dearest friend and tender Father and chiefest benefactor And therefore ingenuity gratitude and love will all rise up against it in those that walk with God There is that in God before the eyes of those that walk with him which is most contrary to sin and most powerful against it of any thing in the world Every one will confess that if mens eyes were opened to see the Lord in Glory standing over them it would be the most powerful means to restrain them from transgressing The drunkard would not then venture upon his cups the fornicator would have a cooling for his lusts the swearer would be afraid to take his Makers name in vain the prophane would scarce presume to scorn or persecute a holy life And he that walketh with God though he see him not corporeally yet seeth him by faith and liveth as in his presence and therefore must needs be restrained from sin as having the means which is next to the sight of God If pride should begin to stir in one that walks with God O what a powerful remedy is at hand How effectually would the presence of the Great and Holy God rebuke it and constrain us to say as Job 42. 5 6. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear but now mine eye seeth thee wherefore I abhor my self and repent in dust and ashes If worldly love or carnal lust should stir â—n such a one how powerfully would the terrours of the Lord repress it and his Majesty rebuke it and his Love and Goodness overcome it If worldly cares or murmuring discontents begin to trouble such a one how effectually will the Goodness the All sufficiency and the faithfulness of God allay them and quiet and satisfie the soul and cause it to be offended at its own offence and to chide it self for its repinings and distrust If Passion arise and begin to discompose us how powerfully will the presence of God rebuke it and the reverence of his Majesty and the sense of his Authority and pardoning grace will asswage it and shame us into silent quietness who dare let out his passions upon man in the presence of his Maker that apprehendeth his presence The same I might say of all other sins 2. The presence and attributes of God apprehended by those that walk with him is the potent remedy against Temptations Who will once turn an eye to the gold and glory of the world that is offered him to allure him to sin if he see God stand by who would be tempted to lust or any sinful pleasure if he observe the presence of the Lord
Satan can never come in so ill a time with his temptations and have so little hope to speed as when the soul is contemplating the attributes of God or taken up in prayer with him or any way apprehensive of his presence The soul that faithfully walks with God hath enough at hand in him to answer all temptations And the further any man is from God and the less he knoweth him the more Temptations can do upon him 3. The presence of God affordeth the most powerful motives unto Good to those that walk with him There is no grace in man but what is from God and may find in God its proper object or incentive As God is God above the creature transcendently and infinitely in all perfections so all the motives to goodness which are fetcht from him are transcendently above all that may be fetcht from any creature He that liveth alwaies by the fire or in the Sun-shine is likest to be warm He that is most with God will be most like to God in Holiness Frequent and serious converse with him doth most deeply imprint his communicable attributes on the heart and make there the clearest impression of his image Believers have learned by their own experience that one hours serious prayer or meditation in which they can get nigh to God in the Spirit doth more advance their grace then any help that the creature can afford them 4. Moreover those that walk with God have not only a Powerful but an universal incentive for the actuating and increasing of every grace Knowledge and faith and fear and love and trust and hope and obedience and zeal and all have in God their proper objects and incentives One Creature may be useful to us in one thing and another in another thing but God is the most effectual mover of all his graces and that in a holy harmony and order Indeed he hath no greater Motive to draw us to Love him and Fear him and Trust him and Obey him than himself It is life eternal to know him in his Son Joh. 17. 3. And that is not only because it entitleth us to life eternal but also because it is the beginning and incentive of that life of holiness which will be eternal 5. Moreover those that walk with God have a constant as well as a Powerful and Universal incentive to exercise and encrease their Graces Othet helps may be out of the way Their Preachers may be silenced or removed Their Friends may be scattered or taken from them Their Books may be forbidden or not at hand But God is alwaies ready and willing They have leave at all times to come to him and be welcome Whenever they are willing they may go to him by prayer or contemplation and find all in him which they can desire If they want not Hearts they shall find no want of any thing in God At what time soever fear would torment them they may draw near and put their trust in him Psal. 56. 2 3 4. 11. 1. 18. 2 30. 31. 1 6. He will be a sure and speedy refuge for them a very present help in trouble Psal. 46. 1. 62. 7 8. 91. 2 9 94. 22. Whenever coldness or lukewarmness would extinguish the work of Grace they may go to him and find those streams of flaming Love flow from him those strong attractives those wonderful mercies those terrible judgements of which while they are musing the fire may again wax hot within them Psal. 39. 3. 6. Lastly by way of encouraging reward God useth to give abundantly of his Grace to those that walk most faithfully with him He will shew most Love to those that most love him He will be nearest to them that most desirously draw nigh to him while he forsaketh those that forsake him and turneth away from those that turn away from him 2 Chro. 15. 2. Prov. 1. 32. Ezr. 8. 22. The hand of our God is for good upon all them that seek him but his power and his wrath is against all them that forsake him Thus it is apparent in all those evidences that walking with God is not only a discovery of the Goodness that men have but the only way to encrease their Grace and make them better O what a sweet humility and seriousness and spirituality appeareth in the conference or conversation or both of those that newly come from a believing close converse with God! When they that come from men and Books may have but a common mind or life And those that come from the business and pleasure of the world and flesh and from the company of foolish riotous gallants may come defiled as the Swine out of the mire V. LAstly to walk with God is the best preparation for times of suffering and for the day of death As we must be judged according to what we have done in the body so the nearer we find our selves to judgement the more we shall be constrained to judge our selves according to what we have done and shall the more perceive the effects upon our souls That this is so excellent a preparative for sufferings and death will appear by the consideration of these particulars 1. They that walk with God are safest from all destructive sufferings and shall have none but what are sanctified to their good Rom. 8. 28. They are near to God where destruction cometh not as the Chicken under the wings of the Hen. They walk with him that will not lead them to perdition that will not neglect them nor sell them for nought nor expose them to the will of men and devils though he may suffer them to be tryed for their good No one can take them out of his hands Be near to him and you are safe The destroyer cannot fetch you thence He can fetch you when the time is come from the side of your merriest companions and dearest friends from the presence of the greatest Princes from the strongest Tower or most sumptuous Pallace or from your heaps of riches in your securest health But he cannot take you from the arms of Christ nor from under the wings of your Creatours love For there is no God like him in Heaven above or on the earth beneath who keepeth Covenant and Mercy with his servants that walk before him with all their heart 1 King 8 23. 1 King 11. 38. However we are used in our Fathers presence we are sure it shall be for good in the latter end For he wanteth neither Power nor Love to deliver us if he saw deliverance to be best 2. Walking with God is the surest way to obtain a certainty of his special love and of our salvation And what an excellent preparative for sufferings or death such assurance is I need not tell any considerate beleever How easie may it be to us to suffer poverty disgrace or wrongs or the pains of sickness or death when once we are certain that we shall not suffer the pains of
wanteth more of God than he enjoyeth and his enjoying graces Love and Joy are yet imperfect But when he hath attained his nearest approach to God he will have fulness of Delight in fulness of fruition O Christians Do I need to tell you that after all the tryals you have made in the world you have never found any state of life that was worthy your desires nor that gave you any true content but only this living upon God If you have not found such comfort here as others have done yet at least you have seen it afar off within your reach As men that in the Indies in the discovery of Plantations expect Gold Mines when they find those golden sands that promise it You have found a life which is certainly desirable and leadeth to joy in the midst of sorrow And it is no small joy to have a certain promise and prospect of everlasting joy It is therefore more excusable in those that never tasted any better than the pleasures of the flesh to neglect this sweeter Heavenly life than it is in you that have been convinced by your own experience that there is no life to be compared with it 4. YOur Walking with God is the necessary prosecution of your Choice and Hopes of life eternal It is your necessary preparation to your enjoying him in Heaven And have you fixed on those Hopes with so great reason and deliberation and will you now draw back and be slack in the prosecution of them Have you gone so far in the way to Heaven and do you now begin to look behind you as if you were about to change your mind Paul setteth you a better example Phil. 3. 8 9 10 11 12 13. Yea doubtless I account all things but loss for the excellency of the Knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but dung that I may win Christ and be found in him If by any means I might attain to the resurrection of the dead Not as though I had already attained either were already perfect But I follow after if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus Brethren I count not my self to have apprehended but this one thing I do forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before I press toward the mark for the price of the high Calling of God in Christ Jesus He compareth himself to a runner in a race that till be apprehend the price or mark doth still make forward with all his might and will not so much as mind or look at any thing behind him that would turn him back or stop him in his course The world and the flesh are the things behind us We turned our backs upon them at our conversion when we turned to God It is these that would now call back our thoughts and corrupt our affections when we should run on and reach forward to the heavenly price It is God and Heaven and the remaining duties of a holy life that are the things before us And shall we now look back what we that are running and striving for a Crown of endless glory we that if we lose it do lose our souls and hopes for ever we that have loitered in the morning of our lives and lost so much precious time as we have done we that have gone so far in our way and held out through so many difficulties and assaults Shall we now grow weary of walking with God and begin to look to the things behind us Did he not tell us at the first that Father and Mother and house and land and life and all things must be forsaken for Christ if we will be his Disciples These are the things behind us which we turned our back on when we consented to the Covenant and are they now grown better or is God grown worse that we turn our hearts from him to them when we first begun our Christian race it was upon supposition that it was for that immortal Crown which all the world is not to be compared to And have we not still the same consideration before us to move us to hold on till we attain it Hold on Christians it is for Heaven Is there not enough in that word to drive back all the cares and pleasures that importune your minds to forget your God Is there not enough in that word to quicken you up in your greatest dulness and to call you home when you are wandring from God and to make you again fall out with all that would reduce you or divert you and call it Vanity and Vexation of spirit Methinks the fore-thought of that life and work which you hope to have with God for ever should make you earnestly desire to have as much of the like on earth as is here to be attained If it will he your Heaven and Happiness then it must needs be desirable now It is not beseeming a man that saith he is seeking for perfect communion with God in Heaven and that above all things as every Christian doth to live in a daily neglect or forgetfulness of God on earth Delightfully to draw near him and exercise all our faculties upon him or for him sometime in prayer and contemplation on himself and alwaies in works of obedience to him this is the life that beseemeth those that profess to seek eternal life O therefore let us make it our daily work to keep our God and Glory in our eye and to spur on our dull affections and in the diligent attendance and following the Captain of our salvation to prosecute our expected End 5. LAstly consider that God doth purposely provide you hard entertainment in the world and cause every creature to deny you the pleasure and satisfaction which you desire that so you may have none to walk with but himself with any heart-setling comfort and content If you see not enough in him to allure you to himself you shall feel enough in the world to drive you to him If his Love and Goodness will not serve alone to make him your pleasure and hold you to him in the best and most excellent way of Love at least the storms and troubles that are abroad shall shew you a Necessity of keeping close to God and the Love of your selves shall help you to do that which was not done by the attraction of his Love alone If you will put him to it to send out his command to every creature to cross and vex you and disappoint all your expectations from it that so he may force you to remember your Father and your home deny not then but it is long of your selves that you were not saved in an easier way Would you wish God to make that condition pleasant to you which he seeth you take too much pleasure in already or seek and desire it at least When as it is the pleasantness of the
according unto Godliness but doth subserve our carnal ends 6. In the next form we grow to study more the pure and wonderful Love of God in Christ and to rellish and admire that Love and to be taken up with the Goodness and tender mercies of the Lord and to be kindling the flames of holy Love to him that hath thus Loved us and to keep our souls in the exercise of that Love And withall to live in Joy and Thanks and Praise to him that hath redeemed us and Loved us And also by Faith to converse in Heaven and to live in holy contemplation beholding the Glory of the Father and the Redeemer in the Glass which is fitted to our present use till we come to see him face to face Those that are the highest in this form do so walk with God and burn in Love and are so much above inferiour vanities and are so conversant by Faith in Heaven that their hearts even dwell there and there they long to be for ever 7. And in the highest form in the School of Christ we are exercising this confirmed Faith and Love in sufferings especially for Christ In following him with our Cross and being conformed to him and glorifying God in the fullest exercise and discovery of his Graces in us and in an actual trampling upon all that standeth up against him for our hearts and in bearing the fullest witness to his Truth and Cause by constant enduring though to the death Not but that the weakest that are sincere must suffer for Christ if he call them to it Martyrdome it self is not proper to the strong Believers Whoever forsaketh not all that he hath for Christ cannot be his Disciple Luke 14. 33. But to suffer with that Faith and Love forementioned and in that manner is proper to the strong And usually God doth not try and exercise his young and weak ones with the tryals of the strong nor set his Infants on so hard a service nor put them in the front or hottest of the battel as he doth the ripe confirmed Christians The sufferings of their inward doubts and fears doth take up such It is the strong that ordinarily are called to sufferings for Christ at least in any high degree I have digrest thus far to make it plain to you that our Conformity to Christ and fellowship with him in his sufferings in any notable degree is the lot of his best confirmed servants and the highest forme in his School among his Disciples and therefore not to be inordinately feared or abhorred nor to be the matter of impatiency but of holy joy and in such infirmities we may glory And if it be so of sufferings in the general for Christ then is it so of this particular sort of suffering even to be forsaken of all our best and nearest dearest friends when we come to be most abused by the enemies For my own part I must confess that as I am much wanting in other parts of my conformity to Christ so I take my self to be yet much short of what I expect he should advance me to as long as my friends no more forsake me It is not long since I found my self in a low if not a doubting case because I had so few enemies and so little sufferings for the cause of Christ though I had much of other sorts And now that doubt is removed by the multitude of furies which God hath let loose against me But yet methinks while my friends themselves are so friendly to me I am much short of what I think I must at last attain to BUt let us look further into the Text and see what is the cause of the failing and forsaking Christ in the Disciples and what it is that they betake themselves to when they leave him Ye shall be scattered every man to his Own Self-denyal was not perfect in them selfishness therefore in this hour of temptation did prevail They had before forsaken all to follow Christ they had left their Parents their Families their Estates their Trades to be his Disciples But though they believed him to be the Christ yet they dreamt of a visible Kingdome and did all this with too carnal expectations of being great men on earth when Christ should begin his reign And therefore when they saw his apprehension and ignominious suffering and thought now they were frustrate of their hopes they seem to repent that they had followed him though not by apostasie and an habitual or plenary change of mind yet by a sudden passionate frightful apprehension which vanished when grace performed its part They now began to think that they had lives of their Own to save and families of their Own to mind and business of their Own to do They had before forsaken their private interests and affairs and gathered themselves to Jesus Christ and lived in communion with him and one another But now they return to their trades and callings and are scattered every man to his own Selfishness is the great enemy of all societies of all fidelity and friendship There is no trusting that person in whom it is predominant And the remnants of it where it doth not reign do make men walk unevenly and unsteadfastly towards God and men They will certainly deny both God and their friends in a time of tryal who are not able to deny themselves Or rather he never was a real friend to any that is predominantly selfish They have alway some interest of their own which their friend must needs contradict or is insufficient to satisfie Their houses their lands their monies their children their honour or something which they call their Own will be frequently the matter of contention and are so near them that they can for the sake of these cast off the nearest friend Contract no special friendship with a selfish man nor put no confidence in him whatever friendship he may profess He is so confined to himself that he hath no true love to spare for others If he seem to love a friend it is not as a friend but as a servant or at best as a benefactour He loveth you for himself as he loveth his money or horse or house because you may be serviceable to him Or as a horse or dog doth love his keeper for feeding him And therefore when your provender is gone his love is gone when you have done feeding him he hath done loving you When you have no more for him he hath no more for you Object But some will say it is not the falseness of my friend that I lament but the separation or the loss of one that was most faithful I have found the deceitfulness of ordinary friends and therefore the more highly prize those few that are sincere I had but one true friend among abundance of self-seekers and that one is dead or taken from me and I am left as in a wilderness having no mortal man that I can trust or take much comfort in Answ.
would have been grieved for their griefs and for ought they know might have fallen into as sad a state as they themselves are now lamenting 6. Do you think it is for the Hurt or the Good of your friend that he is removed hence It cannot be for his Hurt unless he be in Hell At least it is uncertain whether to live would have been for his Good by an increase of Grace and so for greater Glory And if he be in Hell he was no fit person for you to take much pleasure in upon earth He might be indeed a fit object for your compassion but not for your complacency Sure you are not undone for want of such company as God will not endure in his sight and you must be separated from for ever But if they be in Heaven you are scarce their friends if you would wish them thence Friendship hath as great respect to the good of our friends as of our selves And do you pretend to friendship and yet lament the removal of your friend to his greatest happiness Do you set more by your own enjoying his company then by his enjoying God in perfect blessedness This sheweth a very culpable defect either in Faith or Friendship and therefore beseemeth not Christians and friends If Love teacheth us to mourn with them that mourn and to rejoyce with them that rejoyce can it be an act of rational Love to mourn for them that are possessed of the highest everlasting joyes 7. God will not honour himself by one only but by many He knoweth best when his work is done When our friends have finished all that God intended them for when he put them into the world is it not time for them to be gone and for others to take their places and finish their work also in their time God will have a succession of his servants in the world Would you not come down and give place to him that is to follow you when your part is played and his is to begin If David had not died there had been no Solomon no Jehoshaphat no Hezekiah no Josiah to succeed him and honour God in the same throne You may as wisely grudge that one day only takes not up all the week and that the clock striketh not the same hour still but proceedeth from one to two from two to three c. as to murmur that one man only conâ—inueth not to do the work of his place excluding his successors 8. You must not have all your Mercies by one messenger or hand God will not have you consine your Love to one only of his servants And therefore he will not make one only useful to you but when one hath delivered his message and done his part perhaps God will send you other mercies by another hand And it belongeth to him to choose the messenger who gives the gift And if you will childishly dote upon the first messenger and say you will have all the rest of your mercies by his hand or you will have no more your frowardness more deserveth correction than compassion and if you be kept fasting till you can thankfully take your food from any hand that your Father sends it by it is a correction very suitable to your sin 9. Do you so highly value your friends for God or for them or for your selves in the final consideration If it was for God what reason of trouble have you that God hath disposed of them according to his wisdome and unerring will should you not then be more pleased that God hath them and employeth them in his highest service than displeased that you want them But if you value them and love them for themselves they are now more lovely when they are more perfect and they are now fitter for your content and joy when they have themselves unchangeable content and joy than they could be in their sin and sorrows But if you valued and loved them but for your selves only it is just with God to take them from you to teach you to value men to righter ends and upon better considerations and both to prefer God before your selves and better to understand the nature of true friendship and better to know that your own felicity is not in the hands of any creature but of God alone 10. Did you improve your friends while you had them or did you only Love them while you made but little use of them for your souls If you used them not it was just with God for all your Love to take them from you They were given you as your candle not only to Love it but to work by the Light of it And as your garments not only to Love them but to wear them and as your meat not only to Love it but to feed upon it Did you receive their counsel and hearken to their reproofs and pray with them and conser with them upon those holy truths that tended to elevate your minds to God and to inflame your brests with sacred Love If not be it now known to you that God gave you not such helps and mercies only to talk of or look upon and Love but also to improve for the benefit of your souls 11. Do you not seem to forget both where you are your selves and where you must shortly and for ever live Where would you have your friends but where you must be your selves Do you mouâ—n that they are taken hence Why if they had staid here a thousand years how little of that time should you have had their company when you are almost leaving the world your selves would you not send your treasure before you to the place where you must abide How quickly will you pass from hence to God where you shall find your friends that you lamented as if they had been lost and there shall dwell with them for ever O foolish mourners would you not have your friends at home at their home and your home with their Father and your Father their God and your God! Shall you not there enjoy them long enough Can you so much miss them for one day that must live with them to all eternity And is not eternity long enough for you to enjoy your friends in Obj. But I do not know whether ever I shall there have any distinct knowledge of them or love to them and whether God shall not there be so far All in All as that we shall need or fetch no comfort from the creature Answ. There is no reason for either of these doubts For 1. You cannot justly think that the knowledge of the Glorified shall be more confused or imperfect then the knowledge of natural men on earth We shall know much more but not so much less Heaven exceedeth earth in knowledge as much as it doth in joy 2. The Angels in Heaven have now a distinct particular knowledge of the least believers rejoycing particularly in their conversion and being called by Christ himself Their Angels Therefore when we shall
me Life and Time and health and food and preservation that gives me books and giveth me understanding that giveth me provision and saveth me from turning it to pernicious fleshliness and excess that giveth me even my friends themselves and saveth me from that abuse which might make them to me worse than enemies The Sun the Earth the Air is not so useful or needful to me as his Love The Love of all my friends cannot make me well when I am sick it cannot forgive the smallest of my sins nor yet assure me of Gods forgiveness it cannot heal the maladies of my soul nor give a solid lasting peace to the conscience which is troubled if all my friends stand about me when I am dying they cannot take away the fears of death nor secure my passage to everlasting life Death will be Death still and danger will be danger when all my friends have done their best But my Almighty friend is Allsufficient He can prevent my sickness or rebuke and cure it or make it so good to me that I shall thank him for it He can blot out my transgressions and forgive all my sin and justifie me when the world and my conscience do condemn me He can teach me to believe to repent to pray to hope to suffer and to overcome He can quiet my soul in the midst of trouble and give me a well grounded everlasting peace and a joy which no man can take from me He can deliver me from all the corruptions and distempers of my froward heart and ease me and secure me in the troublesome war which is daily managed in my breast He can make it as easie a thing to dye as to lye down and take my rest when I am weary or to undress me at night and go to bed He can teach Death to lay by its terrible aspect and to speak with a mild and comfortable voice and to bring me the joyfullest rydings that ever came unto my ears and to preach to me the last and sweetest Sermon even the same that our Saviour preached on the Cross Luke 23. 43. Verily I say unto thee To day shalt thou be with Christ in Paradise And is this the difference between the Love of man and of God And yet do I lament the loss of man And yet am I so backward to converse with God and to be satisfied in his Love alone Ah my God how justly mayest thou withhold that Love which I thus undervalue and refuse that converse which I have first refused and turn me over to man to silly man to sinful man whose converse I so much desire till I have learnt by dear experience the difference between man and God and between an Earthly and an Heavenly friend Alas have I not tryed it oft enough to have known it better before this day Have I not oft enough sound what man is in a time of tryal Have I not been told it over and over and told it to the quick by deceitful friends by self-seeking friends by mutable erroneous deceived scandalous backsliding friends by proud and selfconceited friends by passionate quarrelsome vexatious friends by self-grieving troubled friends that have but brought me all their calamities and griefs to be additions to my own by tempting friends that have drawn me to sin more effectually than enemies by tender faithful but unable friends rhat have but fetcht fire from my calamities and sorrows to kindle their own not equally sharing but each one taking all my trouble entirely to himself that have been willing but insufficient to relieve me and therefore the greater was their Love the greater was their own and consequently mine affliction that would have been with me but could not that would fain have eased my pain and strengthened my languishing body but could not that would fain have removed all my troubles and comforted my cast-down mind but could not O how often have I found that humane friendship is a sweet desired addition to our woe a beloved calamity and an affliction which nature will not be without not because it Loveth evil nor because it is wholly deceived in its choice for there is Good in friendship and delight in holy Love but because the Good which is here accompanied with so much evil is the beginning of a more high and durable friendship and pointeth us up to the blessed delightful society and converse which in the heavenly Jerusalem we shall have with Christ But O how much better have I found the friendship of the Allsufficient God! His Love hath not only pittied me but relieved me He hath not only been as it were afflicted with me in my afflictions but he hath delivered me seasonably and powerfully and sweetly hath he delivered me And when he had once told me that my afflictions were his own I had no reason to doubt of a deliverance My burdened mind hath been eased by his Love which was but more burdened by the fruitless Love of all my friends Oft have I come to man for help and ease and comfort and gone away as from an empty Cistern that had no water to cool my thirst but God hath been a present help Could I but get near him I was sure of Light how great soever was my former darkness Could I but get near him I was sure of warming quickning Life how dead soever I had been before But all my misery was that I could not get near him My darkened estranged guilty soul could not get quieting and satisfying acquaintance My lumpish heart lay dead on earth and would not stir or quickly fell down again if by any celestial force it began to be drawn up and move a little towards him My carnal mind was entangled in diverting vanities And thus I have been kept from communion with my God Kept not by force or humane tyranny not by bars or bolts or distance of a place or by the lowness of my condition nor by any misrepresentations or reproach of man but alas by my self by the darkness and deadness aad sluggishness and earthliness and fleshliness and passions of a naughty heart These have been my bars and bolts and jaylors These are they that have kept me from my God Had it not been for these I might have got nearer to him I might have walkt with him and dwelt with him yea dwelt in him and he in me and then I should not have mist any friends nor felt mine enemies And is it my sinful distance from my God that hath been my loss my wilderness my woe And is it a nearer admittance to the presence of his Love that must be my recovery and my joy if ever I attain to joy O then my soul lay hold on Christ the Reconciler and in him and by him draw near to God and cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils Love God in his Saints and delightfully converse with Christ in them while thou hast opportunity But remember thou Livest not upon them or
his Love He hath readify forgiven the sins which I thought would have made my soul the fuel of Hell He hath entertained me with joy with musick and a feast when I better deserved to have been among the Dogs without his doors He hath embraced me in his sustaining consolatory arms when he might have spurned my guilty soul to Hell and said Depart from me thou worker of iniquity I know thee not O little did I think that he could ever have forgotten the vanity and villany of my youth yea so easily have forgotten my most aggravated sins When I had sinned against light when I had resisted conscience when I had frequently and wilfully injured Love I thought he would never have forgotten it But the greatness of his Love and Mercy and the blood and intercession of his Son hath cancelled all O how many mercies have I tasted since I thought I had sinned away all mercies How patiently hath he born with me since I thought he would never have put up more And yet besides my sins and the withdrawings of my own heart there hath been nothing to interrupt our converse Though he be God and I a worm yet that would not have kept me out Though he be in Heaven yet he is near to succour me on Earth in all that I call upon him for Though he have the Praise of Angels he disdaineth not my tears and groans Though he have the perfect Love of perfect soulâ— he knoweth the little spark in my breast and despiseth not my weak and languid Love Though I injure and dishonour him by Loving him no more though I oft forget him and have been out of the way when he he hath come or called me though I have disobediently turned away mine ears and unkindly refused the entertainments of his Love and unfaithfully plaid with those whose company he forbad me he hath not divorced me nor turned me out of doors O wonderful that Heaven will be familiar with Earth and God with man the Highest with a worm and the most Holy with an unconstant sinner Man refuseth me when God will entertaine me Man that is no wiser or better than my self Those that I never wronged or deserved ill of reject me with reproach And God whom I have unspeakably injured doth invite me and intreat me and condescendeth to me as if he were beholden to me to be saved Men that I have deserved well of do abhorre me And God that I have deserved Hell of doth accept me The best of them are bryars and as a thorny hedge and he is Love and Rest and Joy And yet I can be more welcome to him though I have offended him than I can to them whom I have obliged I have freer leave to cast my self into my Fathers arms than to tumble in those bryars or wallow in the dirt I upbraid my self with my sins but he doth not upbraid me with them I condemn my self for them but he condemns me not He forgiveth me sooner than I can forgive my self I have peace with him before I can have peace of conscience O therefore my soul draw near to him that is so willing of thy company That frowneth thee not away unless it be when thou hast fallen into the dirt that thou mayest wash thee from thy filthiness and be fitter for his converse Draw near to him that will not wrong thee by believing misreports of enemies or laying to thy charge the things thou knewest not but will forgive the wrongs thou hast done to him and justifie thee from the sins that conscience layeth to thy charge Come to him that by his Word and Spirit his Ministers and Mercies calleth thee to come and hath promised that those that come to him he will in no wise shut out O walk with him that will bear thee up and lead thee as by the right hand Psal. 73. 23. and carry his Infants when they cannot go O speak to him that teacheth thee to speak and understandeth and accepts thy stammering and helpeth thine infirmities when thou knowest not what to pray for as thou oughtest and giveth thee groans when thou hast not words and knoweth the meaning of his spirit in thy groans that cannot be contained in the Heaven of Heavens and yet hath respect to the contrite soul that trembleth at his word and feareth his displeasure that pittieth the tears and despiseth not the sighing of a broken heart nor the desires of the sorrowful O walk with him that is never weary of the converse of an upright soul that is never angry with thee but for flying from him or for drawing back or being too strange and refusing the kindness and felicity of his presence The day is coming when the proudest of the sons of men would be glad of a good look from him that thou hast leave to walk with Even they that would not look on thee and they that injured and abused thee and they that inferiours could have no access to O how glad would they be then of a smile or a word of hope and mercy from thy Father Draw near then to him on whom the whole Creation doth depend whose favour at last the proudest and the worst would purchase with the loudest cryes when all their pomp and pleasure is gone and can purchase nothing O walk with him that is Love it self and think him not unwilling or unlovely and let not the deceiver by hideous misrepresentations drive thee from him when thou hast felt a while the storms abroad methinks thou shouldest say How goâ—d how safe how sweet is it to draw near to God! 1. With whom should I so desirously converse as with him whom I must Live with for ever If I take pleasure in my house or land or country my walks my books or friends themselves as clothed with flesh I must possess this pleasure but a little while Henceforth know we no man after the flesh Had we known Christ himself after the flesh we must know him so no more for ever Though his Glorified spiritual Body we shall know Do you converse with Father or Mother with Wives or Children with Pastors and Teachers Though you may converse with these as Glorified Saints when you come to Christ yet in these Relations that they stand in to you now you shall converse with them but a little while For the Time is short It remaineth that both they that have wives be as though they had none and they that weep as though they wept not and they that rejoyce as though they rejoyced not and they that buy as though they possessed not and they that use this world as not abusing it or as though they used it not for the fashion of this world doth pass away 1 Cor. 7. 29 30 31. Why then should I so much regard a converse of so short continuance why should I be so familiar in my Inne and so in love wiâ—h that familiarity as to grieve when I must but think of
worldly trash which are made and new-made to be the dwelling place of God Desire not the company which would diminish your heavenly acquaintance and correspondency Be not unfriendly nor conceited of a self-sufficiency but yet beware lest under the honest ingenuous title of a friend a special faithful prudent faithful friend you should entertain an Idol or an enemy to your Love of God or a corrival and competitor with your highest friend For if you do it is not the specious title of a friend that will save you from the thorns and bryars of disquietment and from greater troubles than ever you found from open enemies O blessed be that High and everlasting friend who is every way suited to the upright souls To their Minds their Memories their Delight their Love c. by surest Truth by fullest Goodness by clearest Light by dearest Love by firmest Constancy c. O why hath my drowsie and dark-sighted soul been so seldome with him why hath it so often so strangely and so unthankfully passed by and not observed him nor hearkened to his kindest calls O what is all this trash and trouble that hath filled my memory and employed my mind and cheated and corrupted my affections while my dearest Lord hath been daies and nights so unworthily forgotten so contemptuously neglected and disregarded and loved as if I loved him not O that these drowsie and those waking nights those loitered lost and empty hours had been spent in the humblest converse with him which have been dreamed and doted away upon now I know not what O my God how much wiser and happier had I been had I rather chosen to mourn with thee than to rejoyce and sport with any other O that I had rather wept with thee than laughed with the creature For the time to come let that be my friend that most befriendeth my dark and dull and backward soul in its undertaken progress and heavenly conversation Or if there be none such upon earth let me here take no one for my friend O blot out every Name from my corrupted heart which hindereth the deeper engraving of thy Name Ah Lord what a stone what a blind ungrateful thing is a Heart not touched with celestial Love yet shall I not run to thee when I have none else that will know me shall I not draw near thee when all fly from me When daily experience cryeth out so loud NONE BUT CHRIST GOD OR NOTHING Ah foolish Heart that hast thought of it Where is that place that Cave or Desert where I might soonest find thee and fullest enjoy thee is it in the wilderness that thou walkest or in the croud in the Closet or in the Church where is it that I might soonest meet with God But alas I now perceive that I have a Heart to find before I am like to find my Lord O Loveless Lifeless stony heart that 's dead to him that gave it Life and to none but him Could I not Love or Think or Feel at all methinks I were less dead than now Less dead if dead than now I am alive I had almost said Lord let me never Love more till I can Love thee Nor think more on any thing till I can more willingly think of thee But I must suppress that wish for Life will act And the mercies and motions of Nature are necessary to those of Grace And therefore in the life of Nature and in the glimmerings of thy Light I will wait for more of the Celestial life My God thou hast my consent It is here attested under my hand Separate me from what and whom thou wilt so I may but be nearer thee Let me Love thee more and feel more of thy Love and then let me Love or be beloved of the world as little as thou wilt I thought self-love had been a more predominant thing But now I find that Repentance hath its Anger its Hatred and its Revenge I am truly Angry with that Heart that hath so oft and foolishly offended thee Methinks I hate that Heart that is so cold and backward in thy love and almost grudge it a dwelling in my breast Alas when Love should be the life of Prayer the life of holy meditation the life of Sermons and of holy conference and my soul in these should long to meet thee and delight to mention thee I straggle Lord I know not whither or I sit still and wish but do not rise and run and follow thee yea I do not what I seem to do All 's dead all 's dead for want of Love I often cry O where is that place where the quickening beams of Heaven are warmest that my frozen soul might seek it out But whither ever I go to City or to Solitude alas I find it is not Place that makes the difference I know that Christ is perfectly replenished with Life and Light and Love Divine And I hear him as our Head and Treasure proclaimed and offered to us in the Gospel This is thy Record that he that hath the Son hath Life O why then is my barren soul so empty I thought I had long ago consented to thy offer and then according to thy Covenant both He and Life in him are mine And yet must I still be dark and dead Ah dearest Lord I say not that I have too long waited but if I continue thus to wait wilt thou never find the time of Love and come and own thy gasping worm wilt thou never dissipate these clouds and shine upon this dead and darkened soul Hath my Night no Day Thrust me not from thee O my God! For that 's a Hell to be thrust from God But sure the cause is all at home could I find it out or rather could I cure it It is sure my face that 's turned from God when I say His face is turned from me But if my Life must here be out of sight and hidden in the Root with Christ in God and if all the rest be reserved for that better world and I must here have but these small beginnings O make me more to Love and long for the blessed day of thine appearing and not to fear the time of my deliverance nor unbelievingly to linger in this Sodom as one that had rather stay with sin then come to thee Though sin hath made me backward to the fight let it not make me backward to receive the Crown Though it hath made me a loiterer in thy work let it not make me backward to receive that wages which thy Love will give to our pardoned poor accepted services Though I have too oft drawn back when I should have come unto thee and walked with thee in thy waies of Grace yet heal that unbelief and disaffection which would make me to draw back when thou callest me to possess thy Glory Though the sickness and lameness of my soul have hindered me in my journey yet let their painfulness help me to desire to be delivered from them and to be at home where without the interposing nights of thy displeasure I shall fully feel thy fullest Love and walk with thy Glorified ones in the Light of thy Glory triumphing in thy Praise for evermore Amen BUT now I have given you these few Directions for the improvement of your solitude for converse with God lest I should occasion the hurt of those that are unfit for the Lesson I have given I must conclude with this Caution which I have formerly also published That it is not melancholly or weak-headed persons who are not able to bear such exercises for whom I have written these Directions Those that are not able to be much in serious solitary thoughtfulness without confusions and distracting suggestions and hurrying vexatious thoughts must set themselves for the most part to those duties which are to be done in company by the help of others and must be very little in solitary duties For to them whose natural faculties are so diseased or weak it is no duty as being no means to do them the desired good but while they strive to do that which they are naturally unable to endure they will but confound and distract themselves and make themselves unable for those other duties which yet they are not utterly unfit for To such persons therefore instead of ordered well-digested Meditations and much time spent in secret thoughtfulness it must suffice that they be brief in secret Prayer and take up with such occasional abrupter Meditations as they are capable of and that they be the more in reading hearing conference and praying and praising God with others untill their melancholly distempers are so far overcome as that by the direction of their Spiritual Guides they may judge themselves fit for this improvement of their Solitude FINIS * Charles Earl of Balcarres who dyed of a stone in his heart of a very strange magnitude