Holy Light is that Knowledge and Belief which kindleth Love and causeth a Holy Life Holy Love is that complacency of the Will in God and Goodness which is kindled by Holy Life and Light and operateth in Holy practice Any one of these thus described where Love is the Heart of all is an infallible mark of Holiness But all other Graces and Duties which are but the Integrals of Holiness are in all Characters and Promises to be understood with a caeteris paribus that is supposing them to be animated with Holy Love and caused by Holy Life and Light Knowledge and Belief And that God doth most certainly Love all that Love him besides the forementioned proofs from Scripture is further evident 1. The Love of God and Goodness is the Divine Nature And God cannot but Love his own Nature in us It is his Image which as in its several degrees he Loveth for himself and next to himself 2. The Love of God is the Rectitude of Man's Soul its soundness health and beauty And God Loveth the Rectitude of his creatures 3. The Love of God is the final perfect operation of the Soul even that end which it was created and redeemed for And God Loveth to have his works attain their end and to see them in their perfection 4. The Love of God is the Goodness of the Soul it self And Goodness is Amiableness and must needs be Loved by Him that is Goodness and Perfection Himself 5. The Love of God is our uniting adhesion to him And God that first draweth up the Soul to this Union will not himself reject us and avoid it 6. Love is a pregnant powerful pleasing Grace It delivereth up our selves and all that we have to God It delighteth in duty It conquereth difficulties It contemneth competitors and trampleth on temptations It accounteth nothing too much nor too dear for God. Love is the Soul's nature appetite and pondus according to which it will ordinarily act A man's Love is his Will his Heart himself And if God have our Love he hath our selves and our all So that God cannot but Love the Soul that truly Loveth him as God. But here are some Doubts to be resolved Q. 1. What if the same Soul have Love and Sin mixed or sincere Love in a degree that is sinfully defective and so is consistent with something of its contrary God must hate that Sin How then can he Love that Soul Ans Remember still that Diversity is only in us and not in God Therefore God's Will is related and denominated towards us just as its object is All that is Good in us God Loveth All that is Evil in us he hateth Where Goodness is predominant there God's Love is predominant or greatest from this Relation and Connotation Where Sin is predominant God's aversation displicency or hatred is the chief And we may well expect that the effects be answerable Obj. But we are beloved as Elect before Conversion Ans That was answered before That is God from Eternity purposed to make us Good and Amiable and Happy if you will call that as you may his Love. Obj. But we are beloved in Christ for his Righteousness and Goodness and not for our own Ans The latter is false The former is thus true For the Merits of Christ's Righteousness and Goodness God will pardon our sins and make us Good Holy and Happy and will Love us as the Holy Members of his Son that is both as Related to him and as Holy. Obj. But if God must needs Love sincere imperfect Lovers of him as such with a predominant Love which will not damn them then sin might have been pardoned without Christ's death and the sinner be loved without his Righteousness if he had but sincerely loved God. Ans The supposition is false that a sinner could have Loved God without Pardon and the Spirit purchased by the Death and Righteousness of Christ God perfectly Loveth the perfected Souls in Glory for their own holy perfection But they never attained it but by Christ And God Loveth us here according to the measure of our Love to him But no man can thus Love him till his sin be pardoned for which he was deprived of the Spirit which must kindle Love. And imperfect Love is ever joyned with imperfect Pardon whatever some falsly say to the contrary I mean that Love which is sinfully imperfect Quest 2. Doth not God's Loving us make us Happy And if so it must make us Holy. And then none that he Loveth will fall away from him Whereas the fallen Angels and Adam Loved him and yet fell from him How then were they beloved by him Ans I before told you that God's Will or Love is first Efficient causing Good and then Final being pleased in the Good that is caused God's Efficient Will or Love doth so far make men Holy and Happy as they are such even efficiently But God's Will or Love as it is our Causa finalis and the termiting Object of our Love and is pleased in us and approveth us is not the Efficient Cause of our Holiness and Happiness but the objective and perfect constitutive Cause Now you must further note that God's Benevolent Efficient Will or Love doth give men various degrees of Holiness To Adam in Innocency he gave but such a degree and upon such terms as he could lose and cast away which he did But to the blessed in Glory he giveth that which they shall never lose These degrees are from God's Efficient Love or Will which therefore causeth some to persevere when it left Adam to himself to stand or fall But it is not God's Final Love of Complacency as such that causeth our perseverance For Adam had this Love as long as he Loved God and stood and he after lost it so that it is not that Final Complacency which is the Terminus of our Holiness and Constitutive Cause of our Happiness which alone will secure the perpetuity of either of them Obj. Thus you make God mutable in his Love as Loving Adam more before his fall than after Ans I told you Loving and not Loving the Creature are no changes in God but in the Creature It is Man that is mutable and not God. It is only the Relation of God's Will to the Creature as varying in it self and the extrinsick denomination by connotation of a changed Object which is changed as to God. As the Sun is not changed when you wink and when you open your Eyes Nor a Pillar changed when your motion sets it sometimes on your right hand and sometimes on your left 5. Lastly It must be noted as included in the Text That our own Loving God is not the only or total notion of our end perfection or felicity but to be Known and Loved by God is the other part which must be taken in to make up the total notion of our end In our Love God is considered as the Object But in God's Complacential Love to us
body or the fruit of 3. This life of Love is the perfection of mans faculties as to their intended end and use As all the operations of the lower faculties Vegetative and Sensitive are subordinate to the use and operations of the Intellectual part which is the higher so all the Acts of the Intellect itself are but subservient and Dirigent to the Will or Love and Practice The understanding is but the Eye by which the Soul seeth what to love and choose or refuse and what to do or to avoid Love is the highest act of our highest faculty And complacency in the highest infinite good is the highest of all the acts of Love. This is the State of the Soul in its Ripeness and Mellow Sweetness when it is delightful embracing its most desired object and is blessed in the fruition of its ultimate end All other Graces and Duties are Servants unto this They are the parts indeed of the same new creature but the Hands and Feet are not the Heart 4. For Love is the very foretast of Heaven the beginning of that felicity which shall there be perfect In Heaven all Saints shall be as One and all united to their glorious Head as he is united to the Father disparities allowed Joh. 17.24 And what more uniteth Souls than Love Heaven is a state of Joyful Complacence and what is that but Perfect Love The Heavenly work is perfect Obedience and Praise And what are these but the actions and the breath of Love 5. Therefore they that live this life of Love are fitter to die and readier for Heaven than any others Belief is a foresight of it but Love is a foretast the first fruits and our earnest and pledge He that Loveth God and Christ and Angels and Saints and perfect Holiness and Divine Praise is ready for Heaven as the Infant in the womb is ready for birth at the fulness of his time But other Christians whose Love is true but little to their fears and damped by darkness and too much love of the body and this world do go as it were by untimely birth to Heaven and those in whom the love of the body is predominant come not thither in that state at all The God of Grace and Glory will meet that Soul with his felicitating embracements who panteth and breatheth after him by Love And as Love is a kind of Union with the Heavenly Society the Angels who love us better than we love them will be ready to convey such Souls to God. As the living dwell not in the graves among the dead and the dead are buried from among the living so holy Souls who have this life of Love cannot be among the miserable in Hell nor the dead in sin among the blessed 6. Therefore this life of holy Love doth strengthen our Belief it self Strong Reasons that are brought for the Immortality of Souls and the future Glory are usually lost upon unsanctified hearers yea with the Doctors themselves that use them When they have perswaded others that there is a Heaven for Believers and that by Arguments in themselves unanswerable they have not perswaded their own hearts but the predominant Love of Flesh and Earth doth byass their understandings and maketh them think that they can confute themselves Their gust and inclination prevaileth against Belief And therefore the greatest Scholars are not always the strongest Believers But holy Love when it is the Habit of the Soul as it naturally ascendeth so it easily believeth that God that Glory to which it doth ascend The gust and experience of such a Soul assureth it that it was made for Communion with God and that even in this life such Communion is obtained in some degree and therefore it easily believeth that it is Redeemed for it and that it shall perfectly enjoy it in Heaven for ever Though Glory be here but seminally in Grace and this world be but as the womb of that better world for which we hope yet the life that is in the Embrio and seed is a confirming Argument for the perfection which they tend to O that men knew what holy Love doth signifie and foretel As the seed or Embrio of a man becometh not a Beast or Serpent so he that hath the habitual Love of God and Heaven and Holiness is not capable of Hell no more than the Lovers of worldliness and sensuality are capable of present Communion with God and of his Glory God doth not draw mens Hearts to Himself nor kindle Heavenly desires in them in vain He that hath the Spirit of Christ hath the Witness in himself that Christ and his Promises of Life are true 1 John 5.10 11 12. And what is this Spirit but the Habit of Divine and Heavenly Love and its concomitants May I but feel my Soul inflamed with the fervent Love of the Heavenly Perfection surely it will do more to put me quite out of doubt of the certainty of that blessed state than all Arguments without that Love can do 7. And holy Love will be the surest Evidence of our Sincerity which many old Writers meant that called it The Form of Faith and other graces As means as means are informed by their aptitudinal respect unto the End so Love as it is the Final Act upon God the Final Object thus informeth all subordinate Graces and Duties as they are means And as all Morality is subjected in the Will as the proper primary seat and is in the Intellect executive power and senses only by participation so far as their acts are imperate by the Will so Love and Volition being really the same thing it may accordingly be said that nothing is any further acceptable to God than it is Good and nothing is morally Good any further than it is voluntary or willed and to be willed as Good as End or as Means and to be Loved are words that signifie the same No preaching praying fasting c. no fear of punishment no belief of the Truth c. will prove us sincere and justified any further than we can prove that all this either cometh from or is accompanied with Love that is with a Consenting Will. With the heart man believeth unto righteousness Rom. 10. And If thou believe with all thy heart thou mayest be baptized saith Philip to the Eunuch Acts 8. My Son give me thy heart is Wisdom's invitation All 's nothing without the heart that is without willingness or Love. They that love most are sureliest forgiven and have most holiness or grace how unskifull soever they may be in their expressions The sealing Spirit of Adoption is the Spirit of Love and the Abba Father and the unexpressed groans of filial Love are understood and acceptable to God. A Loving Desire after God and Holiness is a better Evidence than the most taking Tongue or largest Knowledge 8. This life of Holy Love will make all our Religion and Obedience easy to us It will give us an alacrity to the performance and a
even good men may think and speak evil of us as Bernard and others of the Waldenses and many Fathers of many Godly Men that were called Hereticks and many called Hereticks of such Fathers But to us it is a small thing to be judged of man that is not our final judge and knoweth not our cause and is ready to be judged with us We have one that judgeth us and them even the omniscient God who knoweth every Circumstance of our cause 3. Our very Friends know us not No not they that dwell with us In some things they judge us better than we are and in some things worse For they know not our hearts And interests and cross dispositions may deceive them and even our bosom Friends may slander us and think they speak the truth And when they entirely Love us their Love may hurt us while they know not what is for our good But God knoweth us perfectly and knoweth how to Counsel us Conduct us and Dispose of us He seeth the inwards and the outwards the onwards and the upwards of our case which our dearest Friends are utter strangers to 4. We know not our selves throughly nor our own concerns We oft take our selves to be better or worse than indeed we are We are oft mistaken in our own hearts and our own actions and in our interest We oft take that to be good for us that is bad and that to be bad which is good and necessary We long for that which would undo us and fear and fly from that which would save us We oft rejoyce when we are going to the slaughter or are at least in greatest danger and we lament and cry when God is saving us because we know not what he is doing Paul saith I know nothing by my self yet I judge not my own self that is though I have a good Conscience yet that is not my final judge It must go with me as God judgeth of me and not as others or my self Is it not then an unspeakable comfort in all these cases that we are known of God Desiring to know inordinately for our selves was our first sin And this sin is our danger and our constant trouble But to be to God as a Child to his Father who taketh care to Love him and obey him and in all things trusteth his Fathers Love as knowing that he careth for him this is our duty our interest and our only peace Remember then with comfort O my Soul 1. Thy Father knoweth what it is fittest for thee to do His precepts are wise and just and good Thou knowest not but by his word Love therefore and submit to all his Laws The strictest of them are for thy good Thy Guide and not thou must lead the way Go not before him nor without him nor stay behind him In this night and wilderness if thou have not his Light and Presence how forlorn Erroneous and Comfortless wilt thou be He knoweth thy heart and knoweth thy Enemies Temptations and Dangers and therefore best knoweth how to guide thee and what to put into his Laws and into thy duty 2. He knoweth what place what state of Life of Health of Wealth of Friends is best for thee None of these are known to thee He knoweth whether ease or pain be best The flesh is no fit judge nor an ignorant mind That is best which will prove best at last Which he that foreknoweth all events knoweth That therefore is best which infinite Wisdom and Love doth choose Ease and Pain will have their end It is the end that must teach us how to estimate them And who but God can foretell thee the end He knoweth whether Liberty or Imprisonment be best Liberty is a Prison if sin prevail and God be not there A Prison is a Pallace if God by his Love will dwell there with us There is no thraldom but sin and Gods displeasure and no true liberty but his Love. 3. He knoweth whether Honour or Dishonour be best for thee If the esteem of men may facilitate their reception of the saving truth of God which is preached to them God will procure it if he have work to do by it If not how little is it to be regarded What doth it add to me to be highly esteemed or applauded by men who are hasting to the dust where their thoughts of me and all the world are at an end When I see the Skulls of the dead who perhaps once knew me how little doth it now concern me what thoughts of me were once within that Skull And as for the immortal Soul if it be in the world of light it judgeth as God judgeth by his Light If in hell I have no more cause to be troubled at their malice than at the devils And I have little cause to rejoyce that those damned Souls did once applaud me Oh miserable men that have no better than the Hypocrites reward to be seen and honoured of men Gods approbation is the felicitating honour He will own all in me that is his own and all that he owneth is everlastingly honoured The Lord knoweth the way of the Righteous Psal 1.6 For it is his way The way which he prescribed them and in which he did Conduct them Good and evil are now so mixed in me that it is hard for me fully to discern them But the all-seeing God doth discern them and will separate them 4. Thy Heavenly Father knoweth whether it be best for thee to abound or want And with what measure of worldly things it is fittest for thee to be entrusted Abundance hath abundant snares and cares and troubling employments which divert our thoughts from things of real and perpetual worth Provision is desirable according to its usefulness to our work and end It is far better to need little and have little than to have much and need it all For it cannot be got or kept or used without some troublesome and hurtful effects of its vanity and vexation Let the foolish desire to be tired and burdened with Provision and lose the prize by turning their helps into a snare and miss of the end by over-loving the way My Father knoweth what I want and he is always able to supply me with a word It doth not impoverish him to maintain all the World. His store is not diminished by Communication The Lord is my Shepherd what then can I need Psal 23.1 How oft have I found that he careth for me and that it is better to be at his finding and provision than to have been my own Carver and to have cared for my self Blessed be my bounteous Father who hath brought me so near to the end of my Race with very little care for provision in my way and with lesser want Necessaries I never wanted and superfluities are not wanted Blessed be that wise and gracious Lord that hath not given me up to greedy desires nor ensnared and burdened me with needless plenty How safe how easie
they that have much unholy Knowledge Ch. 5. The first Inference By what measures to estimate Knowledge Ch. 6. The second Inference To abate our censures and contempt of the less-learned Christians and Churches Ch. 7. The third Inference How to judge of the Knowledge necessary to Church Communion Ch. 8. The fourth Inference The aptness of the Teaching of Christ to ingenerate the Love of God and Holiness Ch. 9. The fifth Inference What great cause of thankfulness men have for the Constitution of the Christian Religion And how unexcusable they are that will not learn so short and sweet and safe a Lesson Ch. 10. The sixth Inference How little reason ungodly men have to be proud of their Learning or any of their Knowledge Ch. 11. The seventh Inference Why the ungodly World hateth Holiness and not Knowledge Ch. 12. The eighth Inference What is the work of a faithful Preacher and how it is to be done Ch. 13. The ninth Inference Those that know God so far as to Love him truely may have comfort notwithstanding their remaining ignorance Ch. 14. Questions and Objections Answered Qu. 1. If so much Knowledge will save Men as causeth them To Love God may not Heathens be saved who know God to be good and therefore may Love him Qu. 2. May not a Papist or Heretick Love God and be saved Qu. 3. At least you make Ignorant Persons happy that can but Love God though they know not their Catechism Qu. 4. How are Infants saved that have neither Knowledge nor Love Qu. 5. If this hold true Universities and most humane Learning should be cast out as the Turks and Moscovites do and the Armenians Abassines Greeks and Ignorant sort of Papists are the wisest Because multitudes of other Notions must needs divert mens thoughts from God. Ch. 15. Use Exhort I. Deceive not your selves by over-valuing an unholy sort of Knowledge or common Gifts Ch. 16. Exhort II. Love best those Christians that Love God best and live in Love and Peace with others Ch. 17. Exhort III Pretend not your Knowledge against the Love of God or Man or against the Interest of the Church and Souls Ch. 18. Exhort IV. Bend all your Studies to a life of Increased and Exercised Love. How the Love of God must be Exercised and Increased The benefit hereof Ch. 19. Exhort V. Place your Comfort in Health and Sickness in Mutual Divine Love. 1. See that you Love God. How known Doubts Answered Ch. 20.2 But let it be the chief part of your Comfort that you are known of God. What comfort this affordeth What frame of Soul it bespeaketh in us in Life and at our Death PART I. 1 Cor. 8.2 3. And if any man think that he knoweth any thing he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know But if any man Love God the same is known of Him. Chap. I. The Scope and Text opened what Philosophy or worldly Wisdom Paul depresseth and why THE Calamitous Divisions of the Churches of Christ and the Miscarriages and Contentions of too many particular Brethren having been sad upon my thoughts above forty years by this time without imputation of hastiness and rash judging I may take leave to tell the World what I have discovered to be the principal cause which is falsly PRETENDED KNOWLEDGE or IGNORANCE OF IGNORANCE or a proud unhumbled understanding confident that it knoweth that which it knoweth not And consequently what must be the cure if our calamity be here cureable viz. To know as much as we can but withal to know how little we know and to take on us to know no more than we do know nor to be certain of our uncertainties The Text which I have chosen to be the ground of my discourse is so plain notwithstanding some little difficulties that did not the nature of the Disease resist the clearest Remedy so many good people had never here often read their sin described as insensibly as if they read it not The Chapter hath so much difficulty as will not stand with my intended brevity to open it I refer you to Expositors for that whether they were the Nicolaitans or any other sort of Hereticks that the Apostle dealeth with I determine not It is plain that they were Licentious Professors of Christianity who thought that it was the ignorance of others that made them judge it unlawful to eat things offered to Idols and that their own greater knowledge set them above that scruple A mixture of Platonick Philosophy with Christianity made up most of the Primitive Hereticks and for want of a due digestion of each too much corrupted many of the Greek Doctors of the Church The unlearned sort of Christians were so much despised by some of the Philosophical Hereticks that they were not thought worthy of their Communion for as Jude saith they separated themselves being sensual having not the Spirit but more affected Philosophical fancies which made Paul warn men to take heed lest any seduced them by vain Philosophy not using the name of Philosophy for that solid knowledge of Gods works which is desireable but for the Systemes of vain Conceits and Precepts which the Word was then used to signifie as every Sect derived them from their Masters And so the Apostle taketh knowledge in this Text not for solid knowledge indeed but for Gnosticism or Philosophical presumptions such as even yet most Philosophers are guilty of who take a multitude of Precepts some useful some useless some true and some false and all but notionally or to little purpose and joining these do call them Philosophy And Paul tells them that opinionative and notional knowledge were it true like the Devils Faith is of no such excellency as to cause them to shelter their sins under the confidence and honour of it and despise unlearned conscionable Christians for such knowledge by inflation oft destroyeth the Possessors or becomes the Fuel of the Devilish sin of Pride when Love buildeth up our selves and others to Salvation And to conceit that a man is wise because of such knowledge and so to over-value his own understanding is a certain sign that he is destitute of that knowledge in which true wisdom doth consist and knoweth nothing with a wise and saving knowledge as every thing should be known And indeed a mans excellency is so far from lying in vain Philosophical Speculations that the use of all true knowledge is but to bring us up to the Love of God as the highest felicity to be approved and beloved by God And those unlearned Christians that have the Spirit of Sanctification without your vain Philosophy have knowledge enough to bring them to this Love of God which is a thing that passeth all your knowledge or rather to be known of God as his own and loved by him For our felicity lyeth in receiving from God and in his loving us more than in our loving him but both set together to love God and so to be loved of him are the
you must be damned by the Censures of many And if you can bear it from all the Sects save one why not from that one also 4. But I pray you ask these damning Sectaries Is it believing your Word and being of your Opinion that will save me Or must I also know by scientifical Evidence that you say true and that God himself hath said what you say If he say that believing him and his party though he call it the Church is enough to save you you have then less reason to believe him For unless he can undertake himself to save you he cannot undertake that believing him shall save you If he say God hath promised to save you if you believe me believe that when he hath proved it to you But if it be Knowledge and Divine Faith which he saith must save you it is not your believing his Word or Opinion that will help you to that I would tell such a man Help me to Knowledge and Faith by Cogent or Certifying Evidence and I will learn and thank you with all my Heart But till I have it it is but mocking my self and you to say that I have it Obj. But the Papists herein differ from all other Sects For they will say That if I believe the Church concerning Divine Revelations and take all for Divine Revelation which the Church saith is so and so believe it then I have a Divine Faith. Ans 1. And is this to you a Certifying Evidence that indeed God revealed it because their Church saith so If their Church agree with Greeks Armenians Syrians Copties Abassines Protestants and all other Christian Churches then it will be no part of the contest in question and it is a stronger Foundation of the two to believe it because all say it than because they say it But if they differ from the rest know their proof that their Church can tell Gods mind and not the rest of the Christian World. And that about a third part of the Christians in the World have such a promise which all the rest have not 2. And how doth their Church know that it is Gods Word Is it by any certifying Evidence or by Prophetical Inspiration If by Evidence let it be produced Is it not revealed to others as well as to them Must not we have a Faith of the same kind as the Church hath If so we must believe by the same Evidence as that Church believeth And what is that It is not their own words Doth a Pope believe himself only or a Council believe themselves only Or hath God said You shall be saved if you will believe your selves and believe that I have said all that you say I have said Where is there such a promise But if Pope and Council be not saved for believing themselves how shall I know that I shall be saved for believing them and that one kind of Faith saveth me and another them I ask it of each particular Bishop in that Council Is he saved for believing himself or the rest If no man be saved for believing himself why should another be saved for believing him And the Faith of the Council is but the Faith of the Individual Members set together Obj. But they are saved for believing themselves as consenters and not singly Ans All Consenters know nothing as Consenters but what they know as Individuals And what is the Evidence by which they know and are brought to consent Must not that Evidence convince us also Obj. But the present Church are saved for believing not themselves but the former Church Ans Then so must we It is not the present Church then that I must believe by a saving Faith But why then was the last Age saved and so the former and so on to the first Is any thing more evident than that all men must be saved for Believing God And that his Word must be known to be his Word by the same Evidence by one man and another And that Evidence I have proved in several Treatises to be another kind of thing than the Decree of a Pope and his Council But if it be not Evidence but Prophetical Inspiration and Revelation by which the Council or Church knoweth Gods Word I will believe them when by Miracles or otherwise they prove themselves to be true Prophets till then I shall take them for Phanaticks and hear them as I do the Quakers Should I here stay to bid you ask them as before How you shall be sure that their Council was truly General and more Authentick and Infallible than the second at Ephesus or that at Ariminum or that at Constance and Basil c. And whether the more General Dissent of all the other Christians from them be not of as great Authority as they that are the smaller part and how you shall be sure of that And also how but on the word of a Priest you can know all that the Church hath determined with abundance such Questions of the Meaning of each Council the ambiguity of words the Errour of Printers the forgery of Publishers c. I should help you to see that saying as a Priest saith Is not Knowing the thing nor Believing God. Stop therefore till you have Evidence Follow no Party as a Party in the dark Or if probability incline you more to them than to others call not this Certainty Religion Divine Faith. Thus your Faith will be Faith indeed and you will escape all that would corrupt and frustrate it The business is great God requireth you to refuse no Light But withal he chargeth you to believe no falshood nor put darkness for light Much less to father mens Lies or Errours or Conceits on God and to lay your Salvation on it that they are all God's Word How dreadful a thing is this if it prove false Is it not blaspheming God No man in his wits then but a partial designer can look that you should make haste or go any further than you have assuring or convincing Evidence If you Know that any Sect doth Err you need no Preservative If you do not tell them I am ignorant of this matter I will learn as fast as I can not neglecting greater matters and I will be neither for you nor against you further than I can know And as to the former Objection of being still Infants I further answer that as feigned knowledge is no knowledge so Manhood consisteth not in being of many uncertain Opinions no not so much in knowing many little controverted things as in getting a clearer more affecting powerful practical Knowledge and belief of our Christianity and the great and sure things which we know already and in Love and Obedience practising of them He is the strongest Christian who loveth God best and hath most Holiness and he knoweth God better than any others do By this much you may see that the world is full of counterfeit Faith and Knowledge and Religion even fancy and belief of
contexture of many proofs or on any long operous work of Reason men have a natural consciousness of the uncertainty of it Yea though our Doctrines of the Immortality of our own Souls and of the Life of Retribution after this and the Truth of the Gospel have so much certain Evidence as they have yet a Lively certain Faith is the more rare and difficult because men are so conscious of the fallibility of their own understandings that about things unseen unsensible they are still apt to doubt whether they be not deceived in their apprehensions of the Evidence By these twenty instances it is too plain that there is little solid wisdom in the world that wise men are few and those few are but a little wise And should not this suffice to make all men but especially the unlearned half-learned the young and unexperienced to abate their ungrounded confidence and to have humble and suspicious thoughts of their own apprehensions Chap. 17. Inference 5. That it is not the dishonour but the Praise of Christ his Apostles and the Gospel that they speak in a plain manner of the Certain Necessary things without the Vonity of School-uncertainties and feigned unprofitable nations I Have been my self oft Scandalized at the Fathers of the 4th Carthage Council who forbad Bishops the reading of the Heathens Books and at some good old unlearned Christian Bishops who spake to the same purpose and oft reproach Apollinaris Aetius and other Hereticks for their Secular or gentile Learning Logick c. And I wondered that Julian and they should prohibit the same thing But one that is so far distant from the action is not a competent Judge of the reasons of it Perhaps there were some Christian Authors then who were sufficient for such literature as was best for the Church Perhaps they saw that the danger of reading the Heathens Philosophy was like to be greater than the benefit Both because it was them that they lived among and were to gather the Churches out of and if they put an honour upon Logick and Philosophy they might find it more difficult to draw men from that party which excelled in it to the belief of the Scriptures which seemed to have so little of it And they had seen also how a mixture of Platonick notions with Christianity had not only been the Original of many heresies but had sadly blemished many great Doctors of the Churches Whatever the cause was it appeareth that in those days it was the deepest insight into the Sacred Scriptures which was reckoned for the most solid Learning Philosophy was so confounded by Differences Sects Uncertainties and Falshoods that made it the more despicable by how much the less pure And Logick had so many precarious Rules and Notions as made it fitter to wrangle and play with than to further grave men in their deep and serious enquiry in the great things of God and mysteries of Salvation But yet it cannot be denied but that true Learning of the Subservient Arts and Sciences is of so great use to the accomplishing of mans mind with wisdom that it is one of the greatest offences that ever was taken against Christ and the holy Scriptures that so little of this Learning is found in them in comparison of what is in Plato Aristotle Demosthenes or Cicero But to remove the danger of this offence let these things following be well considered I. Every means is to be judged of by its aptitude to its proper use and end Morality is the subject and business of the Scriptures It is not the work of it to teach men Logick and Philosophy any more than to teach them Languages Who will be offended with Christ for not teaching men Latine Greek or Hebrew Architecture Navigation or Mechanick Arts And why should they be more offended with him for not teaching them Astronomy Geometry Physicks Metaphysicks Logick c. It was none of his work II. Nature is presupposed to Grace and God in Nature had before given man sufficient helps to the attainment of so much of the knowledge of Nature as was convenient for him Philosophy is the knowledge of Gods works of Creation It was not this at least chiefly that man lost by his fall It was from God and not from the Creature that he turned And it was to the knowledge of God rather than of the Creature that he was to be restored What need one be sent from Heaven to teach men the order and rules of speaking Or to teach men those Arts and Sciences which they can otherwise learn themselves As it is presupposed that men have reason so that they have among them the common helps and crutches of reason III. The truth is it is much to be suspected lest as an inordinate desire of Creature-knowledge was a great part of our first Parents sin so it hath accordingly corrupted our nature with an answerable vicious inclination thereunto Not that the thing in it self is evil to know Gods works but good and desireable in its place and measure But it is such a good as by inordinacy may become a dangerous evil Why should we not judge of this desire of knowing the Creatures as we do of other Creature-affections It is lawful and meet to love all Gods Creatures His works are good and therefore amiable And yet I think no man is damned but by the inordinate loving of the Creature turning his Heart from the love of God. And as our Appetites are lawful and necessary in themselves and yet Natures pravity consisteth much in the prevalency of them against reason which is by reasons infirmity and the inordinacy of the sensitive Appetite even so a desire to know Gods works is natural and good but its inordinateness is our pravity and a sinful Lust Doubtless the mind and phantasie may find a kind of pleasure in knowing which is according to the nature and use of the thing known When it is vain or low and base the pleasure is vain and low and base When the object is ensnaring and diverting from higher things it doth this principally by delight Verily this inordinate desire of Creature-knowledge is a Lust a vicious Lust I have been guilty of it in some measure my self since I had the use of reason I have lived a Life of constant pleasure gratifying my Intellect and Phantasie with seeking to know as much as I could know And if I could not say truly that I referred it as a means to the knowledge and love of God I should say that it was all sin But because I have loved it too much for it self and not referred it to God more purely and intirely I must confess that it was never blameless And the corruption of the noblest faculty is the worst The delights of Eating Drinking Venery are the matter of common Sensuality when they are inordinately desired And is not the inordinate desire of Creature-knowledge if it be desired from the like principle and to the like ends
Love to the blessed God who is Love it self O happy exchange did I part with all the pleasures of the world for one flame one spark more of the Love of God I hate not my self for my ignorance in the common Arts and Sciences But my God knoweth that I even abhor and loath my self because I love and delight in him no more O what a Hell is this dead and disaffected heart O what a foretast of Heaven would it be could I but feel the fervours of Divine Love Well may that be called the First-fruits of Heaven and the Divine Nature and Life which so uniteth Souls to God and causeth them to live in the pleasures of his Goodness I dare not beg hard for more common knowledge But my Soul melteth with grief for want of Love and forceth out tears and sighs and cries O when will Heaven take acquaintance with my heart and shine into it and warm and revive it that I may truly experience the delightful life of holy Love I cannot think them loathsom and unlovely that are unlearned and want the ornaments of Art. But I abhor and curse those hateful sins which have raised the clouds and shut the windows and hindred me from the more lively Knowledge and Love of God. Would God but number me with his zealous Lovers I would presume to say that he had made me wise and initially happy But alas such high and excellent things will not be gotten with a lazy wish nor will holy Love dwell with iniquity in unholy and defiled Souls But if Wisdom were justified of none but her Children how confidently durst I call my self a Son of Wisdom For all my Reason is fully satisfied that the learned ungodly Doctors are meer fools and the Lovers of God are only wise And O that my Lot may be with such however I be esteemed by the dreaming world Chap. VI. The second Inference To abate our Censures and Contempt of the less Learned Christians and Churches upon Earth I Must confess that Ignorance is the great Enemy of Holiness in the world and the Prince of Darkness in his Kingdom of Darkness oppugneth the Light and promoteth the works of Darkness by it And it is found that where Vision ceaseth the People perish even for lack of knowledge And the ignorantest Countreys are the most ungodly But I must recant some former apprehensions I have thought the Armenians the Syrians the Georgians the Copties the Abassines the Greeks more miserable for want of Polite Literature than now I judge them Though I contemn it not as the Turks do and the Moscovites yet I perceive that had men but the knowledge of the holy Scriptures yea of the summaries of true Religion they might be good and happy men without much more If there be but some few among them skill'd in all the Learning of the world and expert in using the Adversaries weapons against themselves as Champions of the Truth the rest might do well with the bare Knowledge of God and a Crucified Christ It is the malice of assaulting Enemies that maketh all other Learning needful in some for our defence But the New Creature liveth not on such food but on the bread of life and living waters and the sincere Milk of the sacred Word The old Albigenses and Waldenses in Piedmont and other Countreys did many Ages keep up the life and comfort of true Religion even through murders and unparallel'd cruelties of the worldly Learned Church when they had little of the Arts and common Sciences But necessary Knowledge was propagated by the industry of Parents and Pastors Their Children could say over their Catechisms and could give account of the Principles of Religion and recite many practical parts of Scripture And they had much Love and Righteousness and little Division or Contention among them which made the moderate Emperor Maximilian profess to Crato that he thought the Picards of all men on Earth were likest the Apostolick Primitive Churches And Brocardus who dwelt among them in Judea tells us that the Christians there that by the Papists are accounted Hereticks as Nestorians or Eutychians were indeed good harmless simple men and lived in Piety and mortifying Austerities even beyond the very Religious sort the Monks and Fryars of the Church of Rome and shamed the wickedness of our Learned part of the World. And though there be sad mixtures of such Superstitions and Traditions as ignorance useth to breed and cherish yet the great devotion and strictness of many of the Abassines Armenians and other of those ruder sort of Christians is predicated by many Historians and Travellers And who knoweth but there may be among their vulgar more love to God and Heaven and Holiness than among the contentious Learned Nations where the Pastors strive who shall be the greatest and Preach up that Doctrine and Practice which is conformable to their own Wills and worldly Interests and where the people by the oppositions of their Leaders are drawn into several Sides and Factions which as Armies Militate against each other Is not the love of God like to be least where Contentions and Controversies divert the peoples minds from God and necessary saving Truths And where men least love one another And where mutual Hatred Cruelty and Persecution proclaim them much void of that love which is the Christian Badge I will not cease praying for the further Illumination and Reformation of those Churches But I will repent of my hard thoughts of the Providence of God as if he had cast them almost off and had few holy Souls among them For ought I know they may be better than most of Europe And the like I say of many unlearned Christians among our selves we know not what love to God and goodness doth dwell in many that we have a very mean esteem of The Breathings of poor Souls towards God by Christ and their desires after greater holiness is known to God that kindleth it in them but not to us Chap. VII The third Inference By what measures to judge of the Knowledge necessary to Church Communion I Know that there are some that would make Christ two Churches one Political and Congregate as they phrase it and the other Regenerate Or one Visible and the other Invisible And accordingly they say that professed Faith is the qualification of a Member of the Church-Congregate and Obedience to the Pope say the Papists and real love is the qualification of the Church-Regenerate But as there is but one Catholick Church of Christ so is there but one Faith and one Baptism by which men are stated as Members in that Church But as Heart-consent and Tongue-consent are two things but the latter required only as the Expression and Profession of the former so Heart-consenters and Tongue-consenters should be the same men as Body and Soul make not two men but one But if the Tongue speak that consent which is not in the Heart that Person is an Hypocrite and is but
our Enemies conquered our fears removed our wants supplied our Bodies and all that is ours under the protection of Almighty love and we are secured by Promise that all our Sufferings shall work together for our good And what will cause love if all this will not When we perceive with what love the Father hath loved us that of Enemies we should be made the Sons of God and of condemned Sinners we should be made the Heirs of endless Glory and this so freely and by so strange a means we may conclude that this is the Doctrine of Love which is taught us from Heaven by love it self 3. And especially this work of love is promoted by opening the Kingdom of Heaven to the foresight of our Faith and shewing us what we shall enjoy for ever and assuring us of the Fruition of our Creators Everlasting Love yea by making us fore-know that Heaven consisteth in perfect mutual endless love This will both of it self draw up our Hearts and engage all our Reason and Endeavours in beginning that work which we must do for ever and to learn on Earth to love in Heaven 4. And besides all these objective helps Christ giveth to Believers the Spirit of Love and maketh it become as a nature in us which no other Teacher in the World could do Others can speak reason to our Ears but it is Christ that sendeth the warming Beams of holy Love into our Hearts If the love of God and holiness were no better than common Philosophical Speculations then Aristotle or Plato or such other Masters of names and notions might compare with Christ and his Apostles and Athens with the Primitive Church and the Schoolmen might be thought the best Improvers of Theology But if thousands of dreaming Disputers wrangle the World into misery and themselves into Hell and are ingenious Artificers of their own damnation and if the love of God and Goodness be the healthful constitution of the Soul its natural content and pleasure the business and end of life and all its helps and blessings the Soder of just Societies the Union of Man with God in Christ and with all the Blessed and the Fore-taste and First-fruits of endless Glory then Christ the Messenger of Love the Teacher of Love the Giver of Love the Lord and Commander of Love is the best Promoter of Knowledge in the World. And as Nicodemus knew that he was a Teacher come from God because no man could do such works unless God were with him so may we conclude the same because no man could so reveal so cause and communicate Love the holy Love of God and Goodness unless the God of Love had sent him Love is the very end and work of Christ and of his Word and Spirit Chap. IX The fifth Inference What great cause men have to be thankful to God for the Constitution of the Christian Religion And how unexcusable they are that will not learn so short and sweet and safe a Lesson SO excellent and every way suitable to our case is the Religion taught and instituted by Christ as should render it very acceptable to Mankind And that on several accounts 1. The brevity and plainness of Christian Precepts greatly accommodateth the necessity of Mankind I say his necessity lest you think it is but his sloth Ars longa Vita brevis is the true and sad complaint of Students Had our Salvation been laid upon our Learning a Body of true Philosophy how desperate would our case have been For 1. Mans great Intellectual weakness 2. His want of leisure would not have allowed him a knowledge that requireth a subtile wit and tedious studies 1. Most men have wits of the duller sort Such quickness subtilty and solidity as is necessary to great and difficult studies are very rare So rare as that few such are found even amongst the Preachers of the Gospel Of a multitude who by hard Studies and honest Hearts are fit to Preach the Doctrine of Salvation scarce one or two are found of so fine and exact a wit as to be fit judiciously to manage the curious Controversies of the Schools What a case then had Mankind been in if none could have been wise and happy indeed but these few of extraordinary capacity The most publick and common good is the best God is more merciful than to confine Salvation to subtilty of wit Nor indeed is it a thing it self so pleasing to him as a Holy Heavenly Heart and Life 2. And we have Bodies that must have Provision and Employment We have Families and Kindred that must be maintained We live in Neighbourhoods and publick Societies which call for much Duty and take up much time And our sufferings and crosses will take up some thoughts Were it but Poverty alone how much of our time will it alienate from contemplation whilst great necessities call for great care and continual labour Can our common poor Labourers especially Husbandmen have leisure to inform their minds with Philosophy or curious Speculations Nay we see by experience that the more subtile and most vacant wits that wholly addict themselves to Philosophy can bring it to no considerable certainty and consistency to this day except in the few Rudiments or common Principles that all are agreed in Insomuch that those do now take themselves to be the chief or only wits who are pulling down that which through so many Ages from the beginning of the World hath with so great wit and study been concluded on before them and are now themselves no higher than new Experimenters who are beginning all anew again to try whether they can retrieve the errours of Mankind and make any thing of that which they think the World hath been so long unacquainted with And they are yet but beginning at the Skin or Superficies of the World and are got no further with all their wit than Matter and Motion with Figure Site Contexture c. But if they could live as long as Methusalem it is hoped they might come to know that besides Matter and Motion there are Essential Virtues called substantial Forms or active Natures and that there is a Vis Motiva which is the cause of Motion and a Virtus Intellectiva and Wisdom which is the cause of the Order of Motion and a Vital Will and Love which is the perfection and end of all In a word they may live to know that there is such a thing in the World as Life and such a thing as Active Nature and such a thing as Sense and Soul besides Corporeal Matter and Motion and consequently that man is indeed man. But alas they must die sooner perhaps before they attain so far and their Successors must begin all anew again as if none of all these great attempts had been made by their Predecessours and so by their method we shall never reach deeper than the Skin nor learn more than our A B C And would we have such a task made necessary to the Common
in unskilful men consist with a Sound Belief of the Things which must necessarily be believed And that Christ and Grace may be thankfully received by many that have false Names and Notions and Sayings about Christ and Grace And I know the great Power of Education and Converse and what advantage an opinion hath even with the upright which is commonly extolled by Learned Godly Religious men especially if by almost all Therefore I make no doubt but God hath many among the Papists and the Antinomians to name no others who are truly Godly though they Logically or Notionally hold such errours as if Practically held would be their damnation and if the consequents were known and held Much more when thousands of the Common People hold not the errours of the Church which they abide in And it shall not be my way of perswading my own Soul or others to Love God by first perswading them that he Loveth but few besides them And when such have narrowed Gods Love and mercy to all save their own party and made themselves easily believe that he will damn the rest of the world even such as are desirous to please God as they are they have but prepared a Snare for their own Consciences which may perhaps when it is awakened as easily believe that he will damn themselves Let us give all diligence to make our own calling and election sure and leave others to the righteous God to whose Judgment they and we must stand or fall Who art thou that judgest anothers Servant As the Covenant of Peculiarity was made only with the Israelites though the Common Law of grace made to Adam and Noe was in force to other Nations of the World So the more excellent Covenant of Peculiarity is since Christs Incarnation made only with the Christian Church though the foresaid Common Law of Grace be not repealed to all others Nor can it be said that they sin not against a Law of Grace or mercy leading to repentance And as the Covenant of Peculiarity was not repealed to the ten tribes though the benefitâ—s were much forfeited by their violation but God had still Thousands among them in Elias time that bowed not the knee to Baal and such as Obadiah to hide the Prophets though yet the Jews were the more Orthodox Even so though the Reformed Churches as the two Tribes stick closer to the truth the Kingdoms where Popery prevaileth have yet many thousands that God will save and notwithstanding their errours and corrupt additions they have the same Articles of Faith and Baptismal Covenant as we And if any man think himself the wiser or the happier man than I for holding the contrary and thinking so many are hated of God more than I do and consequently rendering him less lovely to them I envy not such the honour nor comfort of their wisdom Obj. III. You will thus confirm our Ignorant people in their presumption that tell Professors of Godliness I Love God above all and my Neighbour as my self though I do not know and talk and pray so much as you do Ans Either they do so Love God and Man or they do not If they do they are good and happy men though you call them ignorant Yea he is far from being an Ignorant man that knoweth God and Christ and Heaven and Holiness so well as to be unfeignedly in Love with them But if he do not what say I to his encouragement in presumption But you must take another course to cure him than by calling him to a barren sort of Knowledge You must shew him that the Love of God is an operative principle and where it is will have dominion and be highest in the Soul and that telling God that we Love him while we love not his Law his Service or his Children yea while we love our Appetite our Wealth our Credit and every beastly lust above him and while we cannot abide much to think or hear talk of him this is but odious Hypocrisie which deceiveth the sinner and maketh him more abominable to God. But if really you see a poor Neighbour whom you count ignorant live as one that loveth God and Goodness take heed that you proudly despise not Christs little ones but Love and Cherish those sparks that are kindled and Loved by Christ The least are called by Christ his Brethren and their interest made as his own Mat. 25. And the least have their Angels which see the face of God in Heaven Qu. IV. How then are Infants saved that neither have knowledge nor Love. Ans 1. While they have no Wills of their own which are capable of holy duties they are as members of their Parents whose Wills are theirs and who know God and Love him for themselves and their Infants As the Hand and Foot doth not know or Love God in itself and yet is holy in that it is the Hand or Foot of one that doth know and Love him 2. Sanctified Infants have that Grace which is the seed of holy Love though they have not yet the Act nor proper habit of Love. I call it as seed because it is a holy disposition of the Soul by which it is not only Physically as all are but Morally able to Love God when they come to the use of reason or at least mediately to do that which shall conduce to holy Love. 3. And in this state being Loved of God and known of him as the Children of his Grace and Promise they are happy in his Love to them For he will give their natures their due capacity in his way which we are not yet fit to be fully acquainted with and he will fill up that Capacity with his Love and Glory Obj. V. If this hold away with universities and all our Volumes and Studies of Physicks Mathematicks and other Sciences for they must needs divert our thoughts from the Love of God! And then Turks Muscovites and other contemners of Learning are in the right Ans There is a right and a wrong use of all these As there is of Arts and business of the world One man so followeth his trade and worldly business as to divert distract or corrupt his mind and drown all holy thoughts and Love and leave no due place for holy diligence And another man so followeth his calling as that Heaven hath still his heart and hope and his labour is made but part of his obedience to God and his way to life eternal and all is Sanctified by holy Principles End and Manner And so it is about common Learning Sciences or Arts And I have proved to you that among too many called great Scholars in the world many books and much reading and acquaintance with all the arts of speaking with Grammar Logick Oratory Metaphysicks Physicks History Laws c. is but one of Satans Last and Subtlest means of wasting precious time deceiving Souls and keeping such persons from pursuing the ends of their excellent wit and of life itself that
all those to be wicked Hypocrites Hereticks Schismaticks Factious or Liars that are against them and dare print to the world that most notorious truths in matters of fact are lies and lies are truths and corrupt all History where they are but concerned So that experience hath taught me to give little credit to any History written by men in whom I can perceive this double Character 1. That they are worldly and unconscionable 2. And concerned by a personal Interest especially when they revile their Adversaries And money friends or honour will make any Cause true and just with them and can confute all evidences of truth and innocency Learned Judges are too oft corrupt 9. And in cases of great Temptation how insufficient is Learning to repel the Tempter when it 's easily done by the holy Love of God and Goodness How easily is a man's Judgment tempted to think well of that which he loveth and ill of that which his heart is against Many such Instances I might give you but these fully shew the misery and folly of ungodly Scholars that are but blinded by dead notions and words of Art to think they know something when they know nothing as they ought to know and to hate truth and goodness and speak evil of the things they know not while for want of holy Love these tinkling Cymbals do but deceive themselves and ascertain their own damnation II. I should next have said as much of the vanity and snare of the Knowledge of such Gnosticks as in an over-valuing of their own Religious skill and gifts cry out as the Pharisees This people that know not the Law are cursed But what is said is applicable to them Chap. XVI Love best the Christians that have most Love to God and Man. IF God Love those most that have most Love and not those that have most barren Knowledge then so must we even all that take God's Wisdom as infallible Of whom can we know better whom to Love and Value than of him that is Wisdom and Love it self There is more savoury worth in the experience affections and heavenly tendency of holy Souls than in all the subtilties of Learned Wits When a man cometh to die who savoureth not more Wisdom in the Sacred Scripture and in holy Treatises than in all Aristotle's Learned works And who had not then rather hear the talk and prayers of a holy person than the most accurate Logick or Mathematicks Alas what are these but trifles to a dying man And what they will be to a dying man they should be much to us all our life unless we would never be wise till it is too late And among men seeming Religious it is not the Religious wrangler or disputer nor the Zealous reviler of his Brethren that can hotly cry down on one side These men are Heretical or on the other These are Antichristian that are the Lovely persons Not they that on one side cry out Away with these from the Ministry and Church as disobedient to us Or on the other Away with these from our Communion as not holy enough to join with us It is not they that proudliest persecute to prove their Zeal nor they that proudliest separate from others to prove it but it is they that live in the love of God and Man that are beloved of God and Man. Nature teacheth all men to love those that love them And the Divine Nature teacheth us to love those much more that love God and goodness Though love be an act of obedience as commanded yet hath it a Nature also above meer obedience and bare commanding will not cause it No man loveth God or man only because he is commanded so to do but because he perceiveth them to be good and amiable And the most loving are the most lovely so be it their love be rightly guided Doth it not kindle love in you to others more to hear their Breathings after God and Grace and Glory and to see them loving and kind to all and delighting to do all the good they can and covering tenderly the infirmities of others and practising 1 Cor. 13. and living at peace among themselves and as much as is possible with all men and loving their Enemies and blessing those that curse them and patiently bearing and forgiving wrongs than to come into one Congregation and hear a Priest teach the people to hate their Brethren as Schismaticks or Hereticks or in another and hear a man teach his Followers to hate others as Antichristian or Ceremonious Or to hear silly Men and Women talk against things that are quite beyond their reach and shaking the Head to talk against Dissenters and say Such a one is an erroneous or dangerous man take heed of hearing him Such a one is for or against Reprobation Free Will Universal Redemption Mans Power and such like which they little understand In a word the proudly Tyrannical and the proudly Schismatical with all their pretence of Learning on one side or of the Spirit and Holiness and Gifts on the other are no whit so amiable as the single-hearted honest peaceable Christian who preacheth love and prayeth love and liveth and breatheth and practiseth love Paul saith that all the Law is fulfilled in love and fulfilling is more than knowing it And Christ himself did not in vain sum up all the Commandments in the love of God and Man Nor in vain ask Peter thrice Lovest thou me nor in vain so often charge it on them as his new that is his last Commandment that they love one another Nor doth his beloved Apostle John in vain so earnestly write for love Chap. XVII Exhort Plead not against Love or works of Love upon pretence of a cross Interest of Learning Knowledge Gifts Church-order Discipline c. or any other thing IF LOVE be that which is most amiable in us to the God of Love then as nothing in the World can excuse him that is without it nor render him lovely indeed to God and Man so nothing must be made a pretence against it And no pretence will excuse that man or that Society that is against it Even corrections and severities when they must be used must come from love and be wholly ordered to the ends and interest of love And when necessity calls for destructive Executions which tend not to the good of him that is Executed yet must they tend to the good of the Community or of many and come from a greater love than is due to one or else that which otherwise would be laudable Justice is but Cruelty For the punishment of Offenders is good and just because tending to the common good Debentur Reipublicae the Community have Jus a Right to them as a means to their good So that it is Love that is the Amiableness of Justice it self If any think that Gods Justice is a cross instance let him consider 1. That though the most publick or common good be our end next the ultimate
Love of God You say if such and such men be suffered this and that disorder and inconvenience will follow But is it a greater thing than Love that you would maintain Is it a greater evil than the destruction of Love that you would avoid Did not Christ prefer mercy before Sabbath rest and before the avoiding familiarity with sinners Pretend nothing against Love that is not better than Love. Obj. But what is this to the Love of God which the Text speaketh of Ans As God is here seen as in a Glass so is he loved He that Loveth not his Brother whom he seeth daily how shall he Love God whom he never saw He that saith he loveth God and hateth his Brother is a Liar What you do to his Brethren you do as to Christ If you can find as full a promise of Salvation to those that observe your Canons Ceremonies Orders or are of your Opinion and Sect as I can shew you for them that Love Christ and his Servants then prefer the former before Love. I know that the Love and Good of Church and State and of many must be preferred before the love and good of few But take heed of their hypocrisie that make these also inconsistent when they are not and make publick good and peace a meer pretence for their Persecutions on one side or their Schisms on the other Love is so amiable to nature itself that few of its Enemies oppose it but under pretence of its own interest and name It is as in love to the Church to mens Souls that the Inquisition hath murdered so many and the Laws de Hereticis comburendis have been made and Executed But this Burning Hanging Tormenting and undoing kind of Love needeth very clear proof to make good its name and pretences before impartial men will take it for love indeed Whatever good you seem to do by the detriment of Love to God and Man you will find it will not bear your charges Chap. 18. Exh. Bend all your Studies and Labours to the exercise and increase of Love both of God and Man and all good works THE greatest best and sweetest work should have the greatest diligence This great Commandment must be obeyed with the greatest care The work of love must be the work of our whole life If you cannot learn to pray and preach no nor to follow a worldly trade without study and much Exercise how think you to be proficients in the love of God without them Do this well and all is done O happy Souls that are habituated and daily exercised in this work Whose new nature and life and study and business is holy Love. 1. How Divine how High and Noble is this life To live in a humble friendship with God and all his holy ones All animals naturally Love their like and converse according to their Love And men as men have as much sociable Love to men as the love of sin and inordinate self-love will allow them And they that truly love God and Holiness and Saints do shew that they have some connatural suitableness to these excellent Objects of their love Nothing more aptly denominateth any man Divine and Holy than Divine and Holy Love. How else should Souls have Communion with God His common Influx all creatures receive In him all live and move and have their being But when his Love kindleth in us a reflecting Love this is felicity itself Yea it is much nobler than our felicity For though our felicity consist in Loving God and being Beloved of him yet it is a far more excellent thing by reason that God is the Object of our love than by reason that it is our felicity Gods interest advanceth it more than ours And though they are not separable yet being distinguishable we should love God far more as God and perfect goodness in himself than as he or this love is our own felicity 2. This life of love is the true improvement of all Gods Doctrines Ordinances Mercies Afflictions and other Providences whatsoever For the use of them all is to lead us up to Holy Love and to help us in the daily exercise of it What is the Bible else written for but to teach us to Love and to exercise the fruits of Love What came Christ from Heaven for but to demonstrate and reveal Gods love and loveliness to man and by reconciling us to God and freely pardoning all our sins and promising us both Grace and Glory to shew us those motives which should kindle Love and to shew us that God is most suitable and worthy of our Love and to fill us with the Spirit of love which may give us that which he commandeth us What is it that we read books for and hear Sermons for but to kindle and exercise holy Love What joyn we for in the Sacred worship of the assemblies but that in an united flame of holy love we might all mount up in praise to Jehovah What is the Lords day separated to but the tidings of love the Sufferings Victories and Triumphs of our Saviours love the Tasts and Prospects of Gods love to us and the lively and joyful exercise of ours to him and to each other What use are the Sacraments of but that being entertained at the most wonderful Feast of Love we should tast its sweetness and pour out the grateful sense of it in holy Thanksgiving and Praise and the exercise of uniting love to one another What are Church Societies or Combinations for but the loving Communion of Saints Which the primitive Christians expressed by selling all and living in a Community of love and stedfastly continuing in the Apostles Doctrine and Fellowship and breaking of bread and Prayer What are all Gods mercies for but that as by Love tokens we should tast that he is Love and Good and should by that tast be inclined to returns of Love Nay what are Civil Societies but loving Communions if used according to their natures Did they not love each other so many Bees would never hive and work together nor so many Pigeons dwell peaceably in one Dove-house nor fly together in so great flocks What is the whole Christian Faith for but the doctrine of holy love believed for the kindling and exercise of our love what is faith itself but the bellows of love What is the excellency of all good works and gifts and endowments but to be the exercises of love to God and man and the incentives of our brethrens Love Without love all these are dead Carkasses and as nothing and without it we our selves are as nothing yea though we give all that we have to the poor or give our bodies like martyrs to be burnt or could speak with the tongue the Orthodoxness and Elegancy of Angels we were but as sounding brass and as a tinkling Cymbal James knew what he said when he said that Faith without works is dead because without love it is dead which those works are but the
pleasure in the practice of it and so our obedience will be hearty willing and universal Who is averse to that which he Loveth unless for something in it which he hateth All men go willingly and readily to that which they truly Love. Therefore it is said that the Law is not made for a Righteous man that is a man that Loveth Piety Temperance and Justice and their several works so far hath no need of Threatning Laws and Penalties to constrain him to it And he that hateth sin so far hath no need of Legal Penalties to restrain him from it Thus is the Law said to be written in our Hearts not as it is meerly in our knowledge and memory but as the matter commanded is truly Loved by us and the sin forbidden truly hated Even our Horses will carry us cheerfully that way which they Love to go and go heavily where they go against their Wills. Win mens Love and the life and lips and all according to power will follow it 9. And such persons therefore are likest to persevere men go unweariedly if they be but able where they go with Love. Especially such a Love which groweth stronger as it draweth nearer the state of perfection which it loveth and groweth by daily renewed experiences and mercies as Rivers grow bigger as they draw nearer to the Sea. We easily hold on in that we Love But that which men loath and their hearts are against they are quickly weary of And the weary person will easily be perswaded to lie down The root of a Apostasie is already in those persons who Love not the end which they pretend to seek nor the work which they pretend to do 10. Lastly holy Love is a pregnant spreading fruitful grace It kindleth a desire to do good to others and to draw men to Love the same God and Heaven and Holiness which we love It made Gods word to be to Jeremy as a burning Fire shut up in his Bones he was weary of forbearing Jer. 20.9 As fire kindleth fire and is the active principle of vegetation as I suppose so Love kindleth Love and is a kind of generative principle of Grace Gods Love is the first cause but Mans Love maketh them meet Instruments of Gods Love For Love will be oft praising the God and Holiness which is loved and earnestly desireth that all others may Love and praise the same The Soul is not indeed converted till its Love is won to God and Goodness A man may be terrified into some austerities superstitions or reformations but he is not further holy than his Heart is won And as every thing that generateth is apt to produce its like so is Love and the words and works of Love. And as Love is the Heart of Holiness so must it be of all fruitful Preaching and conversation whatever the Words or Actions are they are like no farther to win Souls than they demonstrate the Love of God and of Holiness and of the hearers or spectators As among amorous and vain persons strong Love appearing though by a look or word doth kindle the like more than all complements that are known to be but feigned and affected words so usually Souls are won to God as by the Preachers words and works of Love the love and loveliness of God in Christ are fulliest made known Quest But how should we reach this excellent Life of holy Love which doth so far excel all knowledge Ans I have said so much of this in the first part of my Christian Directory and other writings that I must here say but little of it lest I be overmuch guilty of repetitions Briefly Direct I. Believe Gods Goodness to be equal to his Greatness Gods three great primary Attributes are coequal viz. His Power his Wisdom and his Goodness And then look up to the Heavens and think how Great and Powerful is that God that made and continueth such a frame as that Sun and those Stars and those Glorious unmeasureable Regions where they are Think what a World of Creatures God maintaineth in life on this little lower Orb of Earth both in the Seas and on the Land. And then think O what is the Goodness which is equal to all this Power Direct 2. Consider how communicative this Infinite Goodness is Why else is he called LOVE it self Why else made he all the World And why did he make the Sun so Glorious Why else did he animate and beautify the Universe with the Life and Ornaments of Created Goodness All his works shine by the splendor of that excellency which he hath put upon them all are not equal but all are Good and their inequality belongeth to the Goodness of the Universe The Communicative Nature with which God hath endowed all active Beings and the most Noble most is an Impress of the Infinite communicative LOVE Fire would communicate its Light Heat and Motion to all passive objects which are capable of receiving it How pregnant and fertile is the very Earth with plants flowers and fruits of wonderful variety usefulness and beauty What plant is not natured to the propagation of its kind yea to a plenteous multiplication How many Seeds which are Virtual Plants doth each of them bring forth at once and yet the same plant with all its off-spring perhaps liveth many years for further multiplication so that did not the far greatest part of Seeds yearly perish there must be very many such Earths to receive and propagate them This Earth hath not room for the hundredth part To shew us that the Active natures even of Vegetatives do quite exceed in their pregnant communicative activity the receptive capacity of all passive matter which teacheth us to observe that all created Patients are unconceiveably too narrow to receive such Communicative Influences as Infinite pregnant LOVE can communicate were there subjects to receive them It is wonderful to observe in all sorts of Animals the same multiplying communicative inclination and what use the God of nature maketh even of sensual LOVE to all Generation Uniting and Communicative LOVE is in all Creatures the incentive Principle of Procreation And what a multitude of young ones will some one Creature Procreate especially Fishes to admiration So that if other Fishes with Men and other Creatures did not devour them all the Waters on Earth could not contain them Yea our Moral Communicativeness also hath the same indication He that knoweth much would fain have others know the same secret knowledge kept to our selves only hath its excellent use but it satisfieth not the mind nisi te scire hoc sciat alter unless others know that you have such knowledge and unless you can make them know what you know Holy Souls therefore have a fervent but a regular desire and endeavour by communicative Teaching to make others wise But proud Heretical Persons that overvalue their conceits have an irregular Fornicating Lust of Teaching and adulterously invade the charge of others presuming that none can do
it so wisely and so well as they Men will compass Sea and Land to make a Proselyte and Tares and Weeds are as much inclined to propagation as the Wheat There is a marvellous desire in the Nature of man to make others of their own Opinion and when it is governed by Gods Laws it is greatly beneficial to the World. And even in Affections as well as Knowledge it is so We would have others love those that we love and hate what we hate Though where by the insufficiency of the narrow Creature Men must lose and want that themselves which they Communicate to others selfishness forbiddeth such Communication And doubtless all the Creatures in their several Ranks have some such Impresses from the Creator by which his transcendent perfections may be somewhat observed That God is now so Communicative as to give to all Creatures in the World whatever Being Motion Life Order Beauty Harmony Reason Grace Glory any of them possess is past all question to considering sober reason Which tempted Aristotle to think that the World was Eternal and some Christians to think that though this present Heaven and Earth were Created as in Gen. 1. is said yet that from Eternity some Intellectual World at least if not also Corporeal did flow from the Creator as an Eternal Effect of an Eternal Cause or an Eternal Accident of the Deity Because they could not receive it that a God so unspeakably Communicative now who hath made the Sun to be an Emblem of his Communicativeness should from all Eternity be solitary and not communicative when yet to all Eternity he will be so But these are questions which uncapable Mortals were far better let alone than meddle with unless we desire rather to be lost than to be blessed in the Abyss of Eternity and the thoughts of infinite pregnant LOVE But it is so natural for man and every Animal to love that love and goodness which is beneficent not only to us but to all rather than a meer self-lover that doth no good to others that it must needs conduce much to our love of God to consider that he is good to all and his mercy is over all his works and that as there is no light in the Air but from the Sun so there is no goodness but from God in all the World who is more to the Creation than the Sun is to this lower World. And a Sun that lighteth all the Earth is much more precious than my Candle A Nilus which watereth the Land of Egypt is more precious than a private Well It is the Excellency of Kings and publick Persons that if they are good they are good to many And O what innumerable Animals in Sea and Land besides the far greater Worlds of nobler Wights do continually live by one God of Love Study this Universal Infinite Love. Direct 3. Especially study Divine LOVE and Goodness in the Face of our Redeemer Jesus Christ and all the Grace which he hath purchased and conferreth As we may see that magnitude of the Stars in a Telescope which without it no Eye can discern so may we see that glory of the love of God by the Gospel of Jesus which all common natural helps are insufficient to discover to such minds as ours LOVE is the great Attribute which Christ came principally to manifest as was afore-said Joh. 3.16 1 Joh. 3.1 c. And love is the great Lesson which he came to teach us and love is the new nature which by his Spirit he giveth us And love is the great duty which by Law and Gospel he requireth of us Love hath wrought its Miracles in Christ to the posing of the understandings of Men and Angels There we may see God in the nearest condescending Unity with Man In Christ we may see the divine wisdom and word incorporate in such Flesh as ours conceived in a Virgin by the power of the Spirit of Love by which Spirit this Incorporate Word did Live Preach Converse familiarly with Man work Miracles heal Diseases suffer reproachful Calumnies and Death Rising Triumphing Ascending Interceeding sending the Embassies of Love to the World calling Home the greatest sinners unto God reconciling Enemies and making them the Adopted Sons of God forgiving all sin to penitent Believers quickening dead Souls illuminating the Blind and sanctifying the Wicked by the Spirit of Life and Light and Love and making it his Office his Work his Delight and Glory to rescue the miserable Captives of the Devil and to make Heirs of Heaven of those that were condemned to Hell and had forsaken Life in forsaking God. As this is shining burning love so it is approaching and self-applying love which cometh so near us in ways and benefits so necessary to us and so exceeding congruous to our case as that it is easier for us to perceive and feel it than we can do things of greater distance The clearer the Eye of Faith is by which we look into this mysterious Glass the more the wonders of Love will be perceived in it He never knew Christ nor understood the Gospel that wondered not at Redeeming saving love nor did he ever learn of Christ indeed that hath not learned the Lesson Work and Life of love Direct 4. Keep as full Records as you can of the particular Mercies of God to your selves and frequently peruse them and plead them with your frozen Hearts These are not the chiefest reasons of Christian love because we are such poor inconsiderable Worms that to do good to one of us is a far smaller matter than many things else that we have to think of for that end But yet when love doth chuse a particular Person for its object and there bestow its obliging Gifts it helpeth that Person far more than others to returns of thankfulness and love It 's that place that Glass which the Sun doth shine upon doth reflect its Beams rather than those that are shut up in darkness Self-love may and must be regulated and sanctified to the furthering of higher love It is not unmeet to say with David Psal 116.1 I love the Lord because he hath heard the voice of my supplication We should say as heartily I love the Lord because he hath prospered recovered comforted my Neighbour But this is not all so easie as the other And where God by personal application maketh our greatest duty easie we should use his helps Obj. But if it be selfishness as some tell us to love one that loveth us better than another of equal worth who doth not love us is it not selfishness to love God on so low an account as loving us God may say well I love those that love me Prov. 8.17 because to love him is the highest virtue but to love us is as inconsiderable as we are Ans 1. You may love another the more for loving you on several accounts 1. As it is a duty which God requireth him to perform but so you must love him equally
for loving others also 2. As he rendereth himself more congruous and obliging to you by chusing you for the special object of his love by which he taketh the advantage of your natural self-love to make your love to him both due and easie as is said of the reflection of the Sun-beams before 2. But two things you must take heed of 1. That you under-value not your Neighbours good but love another for loving your Neighbours also and doing them good and he that arriveth at that impartial Unity as to make the smallest difference between his Neighbour and himself doth seem to me to be arrived at the state that is likest to theirs that are One in Heaven 2. And you must not over-love any man by a fond partiality for his love to you as if that made a bad man good or fitter for your love They that can love the worst that love them and cannot love the best that set light by them deservedly or upon mistake do shew that self-love overcometh the love of God. But God cannot be loved too much though he may be loved too selfishly and carnally His greatest Amiableness is his Essential Goodness and Infinite Perfection The next is his Glory shining in the Universe and so in the Heavenly Society especially Christ and all his Holy Ones and so in the publick blessings of the World and all Societies And next his goodness to your selves not only as parts of the said Societies but as Persons whose Natures are formed by God himself to a capacity of Receiving and Reflecting Love. Who findeth not by Experience that God is most loved when we are most sensible of his former love to us in the thankful review of all his Mercies and most assured or perswaded of his future love in our Salvation Therefore make the renewed Commemoration of Gods Mercies the incentives of your love Direct 5. But yet could you get a greater Union and Communion not only with Saints as Saints but with Mankind as Men it would greatly help you in your Love to God For when you love your neighbours as your selves you would love God for your neighbours mercies as well as for your own And if you feel that God's Love and special mercies to one person even your selves can do so much in causing your Love what would your Love amount to if thousand thousands of persons to whom God sheweth mercy were every one to you as your selves and all their mercies as your own Thus graces mutually help each other We love Man because we love God and we love God the more for our love to Man. Direct 6. Especially dwell by Faith in Heaven where Love is perfect and there you will learn more of the work of Love. To think believingly that Mutual Love is Heaven it self and that this is our Union with God and Christ and all the holy ones and that Love will be an everlasting employment pleasure and felicity this will breed in us a desire to begin that happy life on Earth And as he that heareth excellent Musick will long to draw near and joyn in the consort or the pleasure so he that by Faith doth dwell much in Heaven and hear how Angels and blessed Souls do there praise God in the highest fervours of rejoycing Love will be inclined to imitate them and long to partake of their felicity Direct 7. Exercise that measure of Love which you have in the constant Praises of the God of Love. For exercise exciteth and naturally tendeth to increase and Praise is the duty in which pure Love to God above our selves and all even as good and perfect in himself is exercised As Love is the Highest Grace or Inward Duty so praise is the Highest Outward Duty when God is praised both by Tongue and Life And as Soul and Body make one Man of whose existence Generation is the cause so Love and Praise of Mouth and Works do make one Saint who is Regenerated such by Believing in the Redeemer who hath power to give the Spirit of Holiness to whom he pleaseth But of this more afterwards Direct 8. Exercise your Love to Man especially to Saints in doing them all the good you can and that for what of God is in them For as this is the fruit of the Love of God and the evidence of it so doth it tend to the increase of its cause Partly as it is an exercise of it and partly as it is a duty which God hath promised to the reward As it is the Spirit of Christ even of Adoption which worketh both the lovâ— of our Father and our Brethren in us so God will bless those that exercise Love especially at the dearest rates and with the fullest devotedness of all to God with the larger measures of the same Spirit Chap. XIX Exh. V. Place your Comforts in health and sickness in Mutual Divine Love. 2. See that you sincerely love God. How known Doubts answered IT is of greatest importance to all Mankind to know what is best for them and in what they should place and seek their comforts To place them most with the Proud in the applauding thoughts or words of others that magnifie them for their wit their beauty their wealth or their pomp and power in the world is to chuse somewhat less than a shadow for felicity and to live on the Air even an unconstant Air And will such a life be long or happy Should not a man in misery rather take it for a stinging deriding mockery or abuse to be honoured and praised for that which he hath not or for that which is his snare or consisteth with his calamity Would not a Malefactor at the Gallows take it for his reproach to hear an Oration of his happiness Will it comfort them in Hell to be praised on Earth This common reason may easily call An empty Vanity To place our Comforts in the delights of Sensuality had somewhat a fairer shew of Reason if Reason were made for nothing better and if these were the noble sort of pleasures that advanced man above the brutes and if they would continue for ever and the end of such mirth were not heaviness and repentance and they did not deprave and deceive mens Souls and leave behind them disappointment and a sting But he is unworthy the honour and pleasures of Humanity who preferreth the pleasures of a beast when he may have better To place our Comforts in those Riches which do but serve this Sensuality with provisions and leave posterity in as vain and dangerous a state as their progenitors were is but the foresaid folly aggravated To place them in Domination and having our Wills on others and being able to do hurt and exercise revenge is but to account the Devils happier than men and to desire to be as the Wolf among the Sheep or as the Kite among the Chickens or as the great Dogs among the little ones To place them in much Knowledge of Arts and Sciences as they
love of Children which prepareth men for all the Calamity that followeth their miscarriages in Soul and Body Their unnatural ingratitude their Lewdness and Debauchery and Prodigality their Folly and Impiety would nothing so much torment us were they no more loved than other men And our dearest Friends do usually cost us much dearer than our sharpest enemies But the love of God and Satisfying everlasting good is our very life our pleasure our Heaven on Earth As it is Purest and Highest above all other because of the Object so is it yet more pleasant and contenting because it includeth the hopes of more even of those greater delights of heavenly everlasting love which as a pledge and earnest it doth presignify As in nature conception and the stirring the Child in the womb do signify that same life is begun which must shortly appear and be exercised in the open world So the stirrings of holy love desires towards God do signify the beginning of the heavenly life Humility and Patience and diligent obedience do comfort us by way of Evidence and as removing many hinderances of our comfort and somewhat further they go But Faith Hope and Love do comfort us by way of direct efficiency Faith seeth the matter of our Joy love first tasteth it so far as to stir up desires after it Then Hope giveth some pleasure to us in expecting it And lastly complacential love delightfully embraceth it and is our very Joy itself and is that blessed union with God and holy Souls the amiable Objects of true love which is our felicity it self To work out our comforts by the view of Evidences and Signs is a necessary thing indeed but it requireth a considerate search by an understanding and composed mind and it 's often much hindered and interrupted by mens ignorance of themselves and weakness of grace and darkness or smalness of Evidence and divers passions especially fear which in some is so Tyrannical that it will not suffer to believe or feel any thing that is comfortable But love taketh in the sweetness of that good which is its object by a nearer and effectual way even by immediate taste As we feel in the exercise of our Love to a dear Friend or any thing that is amiable and enjoyed The readiest and surest way therefore to a contented and comfortable life is to keep clear indeed our evidence especially sincere Obedience but especially to bend all our Studies and Religious endeavours to the kindling and exercise of holy love and to avoid all though it may come on religious pretence of humiliation or fear which tendeth to quench or hinder it I. In Health and Prosperity as you live upon Gods love be sure that you do not atheistically overlook it but take all as from it and savouring of it The hand of divine love perfumeth each mercy with the pleasant odour of itself which it reacheth to us Every bit that we eat is a love token and every hour or minute that we live All our health wealth Friends and Peace are the Streams which still flow from the Spring of unexhausted love Love shineth upon us by the Sun love maketh our Land fruitful or Cattel useful our Habitations convenient for us our Garments warm our Food pleasant and nourishing Love keepeth us from a thousand unknown dangers night and day It giveth us the comforts of our Callings our Company our Books our lawful Recreations It blesseth means of Knowledge to our understandings and means of Holiness to our Wills and means of Health and Strength to our bodies Mercies are Sanctified to us when we tast Gods love in them and love him for them and are led up by them to himself and so love him ultimately for himself even for his Infinite Essential Goodness As God is the efficient life of our mercies and all the world without his Love could never give us what we have so is Gods love the Objective life of all our mercies and we have but the Corps or Carkass of them and love them but as such if we love not in them the Love that giveth them II. And even in adversity and pain and sickness whilst Gods love is unchanged and is but changing the way of doing good our thoughts of it should be unchanged also We must not think that the Sun is lost when it is set or clouded we live by its influence in the night though we see not its light unless as reflected from the Moon Our Mother 's brought us into the World in sorrow and yet they justly accounted it a mercy that we were born Our lives are spent in the midst of sorrows yet it is a mercy that we live and though we die by dolour all is still mercy to believers which faith perceiveth contrary to sense And here is the greatest and final victory which Faith obtaineth against the flesh to believe even the ruine of it to be for our good Even Antonine the Emperor could say that it was the same good God who is the cause of our birth and of our death one as well as the other is his work and therefore good It was not a Tyrant that made us and it is not a Tyrant that dissolveth us And that is the best man and the best will which is most pleased with the Will of God because it is his Will. Yet just self-love is here a true coadjutor of our joy for it is the will of God that the Justified be Glorified And Infinite love is saving us when it seemeth to destroy us To live upon the comforts of Divine love in sickness and when death approacheth is a sign that it is not the welfare of the body that we most esteem and that we rejoice not in God only as the preserver and prosperer of our flesh but for himself and the blessings of immortality It is a mercy indeed which a dying man must with thankfulness acknowledge if God have given him a clear understanding of the excellent mysteries of Salvation knowledge as it kindleth and promoteth love is a precious gift of grace and is with pleasure exercised and may with pleasure be acknowledged But all other knowledge is like the Vanities of this World which approaching death doth take down our esteem of and causeth us to number it with other forsaking and forsaken things All the unsanctified learning and knowledge in the World will afford no solid peace at death but rather aggravate natures sorrows to think that this also must be left But love and its comforts if not hindered by ignorance or some strong temptation do then shew their immortal nature And even here we feel the words of the Apostle verified of the vanishing nature of Knowledge and the perpetuity of holy love whilst all our learning and knowledge will not give so much comfort to a dying man as one act of true love to God and Holiness kindled in us by the communication of his love Make it therefore the work of
they love him not also as he is the Wise and Holy and Righteous Ruler of Mankind and as he requireth us to be holy and would make us holy and love not to please his Governing will they love him not as God with a saving love I have elsewhere mentioned the saying of Adrian after Pope in his Quodlib that an unholy person may not only love God as he is the glorious cause of the World and natural good but may rather choose to be himself annihilated and be no man than that there should be no God were it a thing that could be made the matter of his choice And indeed I dare not say that every man is holy who had rather be annihilated than one Kingdom should be annihilated when many Heathens would die to save their Countrey or their Prince much less dare I say that all shall be saved that had rather be annihilated than there should be no world or be no God But saith the foresaid Schoolman it is the love of God as our holy Governour and a love of his holy will and of our conformity thereto that is saving love II. And I fear that no small number do deceive themselves in thinking that they love Holiness as the Image of God in themselves and others when they understand not truly what Holiness is but take something for it that is not it Holiness is this Uniting love to God and Man and a desire of more perfect Union To love Holiness is to love this love it self to love all of God that is in the World and to desire that all men may be united in holy love to God and one another and live in his praise and the obedience of his will. But I fear too many take up some opinions that are stricter than other mens and call some things Sin which others do not and get a high esteem of some particular Church order and form of manner of worshiping God which is not of the essence or holiness and then they take themselves for a holy people and other men for prophane and loose and so they love their own Societies for this which they mistake for holiness and instead of that uniteing love which is holiness indeed they grow into a factious enmity to others reproaching them as rejoicing in their hurt as taking them for the enemies of God. 2. And as God must be loved in his Image on his servants so must he in his Image on his word Do you love the holy Laws of God as they express that holy Wisdom and Love which is his perfection Do you love them as they would rule the World in Holiness and bring mankind to true wisdom and mutual love Do you love this word as it would make you Wise and Holy and therefore love it most when you use it most in reading hearing meditation and practice surely to love the Wisdom and Holiness of Gods Laws and Promises is to love God in his Image there imprinted even in that Glass where he hath purposely shewed us that of himself which we must love 3. But no where is Gods Image so refulgent to us as in his Son our Saviour Jesus Christ In him therefore must God be loved Though we never saw him yet what he was even the holy Son of God separate from sinners the Gospel doth make known to us as also what wonderous love he hath manifested to lost mankind In him are all the treasures of Wisdom and Goodness both an example and a doctrine and law of wisdom holiness and peace he hath given to the World In this Gospel Faith seeth him yea seeth him as now Glorified in Heaven and made Head over all things to the Church the King of love the great high Priest of love the Teacher of love and the express Image of the Fathers person Are the thoughts of this glorious Image of God now pleasing to you and is the wisdom holiness and love of Christ now amiable to you in believing If so you Love God in his blessed Son. And as he that hath seen the Son hath seen the Father so he that loveth the Son loveth the Father also 4. Yet further the glory of God will shine most clearly in the Celestial glorified Church containing Christ and all the blessed Angels and Saints who shall for ever see the glory of God and Love obey and praise him in perfect Unity Harmony and Fervency You see not this heavenly Society and Glory but the Gospel revealeth it and Faith believeth it Doth not this blessed Society and their holy work seem to you the most lovely in all the world Is it not pleasing to you to think in what perfect joy and concord they love and magnify God without all sinful ignorance disaffection dullness discord or any other culpable imperfection I ask not only whether your opinion will make you say that this Society and State is best but whether you do not so really esteem it as that it hath the pleasing desires of your Souls Would you not fain be one of them and be united to them and joyn in their perfect Love and Praise If so this is to Love God in that most glorious appearance where he will shew forth himself to man to be beloved But here true believers may be stopt with doubting because they are unwilling to die and till we die this glory is not seen But it 's one thing to love Heaven and God there manifested and another thing to love death which standeth in the way Nature teacheth us to loath death as death and to desire if it might be that this Cup might pass by us Though faith make it less dreadful because of the blessed State that followeth But he that loveth not blood-letting or Physick may love health It is not death but God and the heavenly perfection in glory which we are called to Love. What if you could come to this glory without dying as Henoch and Elias did would you not be willing to go thither 5. And he that loveth God in all these his appearances to man in his works and Image on his Saints in the wisdom holiness and goodness of his word in the wisdom love and holiness of his Son and in the perfection of his glory in the heavenly Society doth certainly also love him in the highest respect even as he is himself that blessed essence that perfect greatness Wisdom and Goodness or Life Light and Love which is the beginning and end of all things and the most amiable object of all illuminated minds and of every Sanctified will and of all our harmonious praise for ever For whatever become of that dispute whether we shall see Gods essence in itself as distinct from all created glory the word seeing being here ambiguous it is sure that we can even now have abstracting thoughts of the Essence of God as distinct from all creatures and our knowledge of him then will be far more perfect It should be most pleasant to every
drowsy knowledge or belief that God and Holiness are best may not be ordinarily kept out of act and consist with a prevailing habit of sensuality or love of forbidden pleasure in the will and with a privation of prevalent habitual love to God and Holiness I suppose with most such sinners this is the true case the understanding said lately It is best for thee to love God and live to him and deny thy lust And it oft forgetteth this while it still saith with sense that fleshly pleasure is desireable and at other times it saith Though God be best thou maist venture at the present on this pleasure and so le ts loose the corrupted will reserving a purpose to repent hereafter as apprehending most strongly at the present that just now sensual delight may be chosen though holiness will be best hereafter Obj. But if a habit will not prove that we sincerely love and prefer God how shall any man know that he loveth and preferreth him when the best oft sin and in the act of sin God is not actually preferred Ans 1. I told you that a habit of true love will prove sincerity though not a habit of true opinion or belief which is not brought into lively and ordinary act uneffectual faith may be habitual Yea such an uneffectual counterfeit half love which I before described to you may be habitual and yet neither act nor habit saving 2. The Sins of godly men are not prevalent absolutely against the being operation or effects of the love of God and Holiness For even when they sin these live and are predominant in all other things and in the main bent and course of life but only they prevail against some Degree of holy love perhaps both in the act and habit for such sins are not ungodliness but imperfection of godliness and the effects of that imperfection 3. When godly men fall into a great extraordinary sin it is not to be expected that they should comfortably discern the sincerity of their love to God either by that sin or in that sin but they may discern it 1. By the course of a godly life where the prevalency of the habit appeareth in the power and stream of acts and 2. By their Repentance for and abhorring and forsaking of that sin which stopt and darkened their love to God. And these two together viz A resolved course of living unto God and Repentance and Hatred of every sin which is against it and especially of greater sins will shew the sincerity and power of holy love Obj. But then one that sinneth daily e. g. by passion or too much love to the World or creatures and by omissions c. shall never be sure that he sincerely loveth God because this is a course of sin and he cannot have such assurance till he forsake it Ans One that ordinarily committeth gross and wilful sin that is such sin as he had rather keep than leave and as he would leave if he were but sincerely willing hath no predominant love of God at least in act and therefore can have no assurance of it But one that is ordinarily guilty of meer infirmities may at the same time know that the love of God doth rule both in his heart and life The Passion of fear or of anger or of sorrow may be inordinate and yet God loved best because the will hath so weak a power over them that a man that is guilty of them may truly say I would fain be delivered from them And some inordinate love of life health wealth friends honour may stand with a more prevailing love of God and the prevalency be well perceived But what greater actual sin as Noahs or Lots Drunkenness Davids Adultery and Murder Peters denial of Christ are or are not consistent with true love to God is a case that I have elsewhere largely handled and is unmeet for a short decision here Obj. But when I feel my heart desires and delights all cold to God and Holiness and too hot after fleshly worldly things may I not conclude that I love these better Ans Sensible near things may have much more of the passionate part of our love our desires and delights and yet not be best loved by us For God and Things Spiritual being out of the reach of sense are not so apt or like to move our sense and passion immediately to and by themselves As I said before that is best loved which hath 1. The highest esteem of the understanding 2. The most resolved prevalent choice of the will 3. And the most faithful endeavours of our life And many a Christian mistaketh his affection to the thing it self because of his strangeness to the place and to the change that death will make If the weakest Christian could have without dying the clear knowledge of God the communion of Faith and Love by his Spirit could he love God but as much as he would love him and answerably tast his love in every prayer in every promise in every Sacrament in every mercy could his Soul keep a continual sabbath of delight in God and in his Saints and Holy worship this seemeth to him more desireable and pleasing than all the treasures of the World. And he that desireth this communion with God desireth Heaven in reality though he fear the change that death will make because of the weakness of faith and our strangeness to the state of separated Souls Chap. XX. The second part of the Exhortation Rest in this that you are known with Love to God. 2. TO be KNOWN OF GOD here signifieth to be approved and Loved of him and consequently that all our concerns are perfectly known to him and regarded by him This is the full and final comfort of a believer Our Knowledge and Love of God in which we are agents are 1. The evidence that we are known with Love to God and so our comfort as is said by way of Evidence 2. And they are our comfort in their very exercise But the chief part of our comfort is from God not only as the Object of our Love but as the Lover of us and all his Saints even in our passive receiving of the blessed effects of his Love for ever When a Christian therefore hath any discerning of his interest in this Love of God by finding that he Loveth God and Goodness here he must finally Anchor his Soul and quietly rest in all Temptations Difficulties and Tribulations 1. Our enemies know us not but judge of us by blinding interest and the biass of their false opinions and by an easy belief of false reports or by their own ungrounded suspicions And therefore we are odious to them and abused slandered and persecuted by them But God knoweth us and will justify our righteousness and bring all our innocency into light and stop the mouth of all iniquity 2. Strangers know us not but receive such Characters of us as are brought to them with the greatest advantage And
on his truth and mercies But God will not lose his knowledge of me nor turn away his mercy from me The foundation of God standeth sure having this seal the Lord knoweth them that are his and let him that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity 2 Tim. 2.19 He can call me his Child when I doubt whether I may call him Father He doubteth not of his right to me nor of his graces in me when I doubt of my sincerity and part in him Known unto God are all his works Act. 15.18 What meaneth Paul thus to describe a state of grace Gal. 4.9 Now after ye have known God or rather are known of of God but to notify to us that though our knowledge of God be his grace in us and our evidence of his love and the beginning of life eternal Joh. 17.3 yet that we are loved and known of him is the first and last the foundation and the perfection of our security and felicity He knoweth his Sheep and none shall take them out of his hand When I cannot through pain or distemper remember him or not with renewed Joy or Pleasure he will remember me and delight to do me good and to be my Salvation 8. And though the belief of the unseen World be the principle by which I conquer this yet are my conceptions of it lamentably dark A Soul in flesh which acteth as the form of a body is not furnished with such images helps or light by which it can have clear conceptions of the state and operations of separated Souls But I am known of God when my knowledge of him is dark and small And he knoweth whither it is that he will take me what my state and work shall be He that is preparing a place for me with himself is well acquainted with it and me All Souls are his and therefore all are known to him He that is now the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob as being living with him while they are dead to us will receive my departing Soul to them and to himself to be with Christ which he hath instructed me to commend into his hands and to desire him to receive He that is now making us living Stones for the new Jerusalem and his heavenly temple doth know where every one of us shall be placed And his knowledge must now be my satisfaction and my peace Let unbelievers say How doth God know Psal 73.11 But shall I doubt whether he that made the Sun be Father of lights and whether he know his dwelling and his continued works Be still O my Soul and know that he is God Psal 40.10 and when he hath guided thee by his counsel he will take thee to Glory and in his Light thou shalt have Light And though now it appear not to sight but to Faith only what we shall be yet we known that we shall see him as he is and we shall appear with him in glory And to be KNOWN of God undoubtedly includeth his PRACTICAL LOVE which secureth our Salvation and all that tendeth thereunto It is not meant of such a knowledge only as he hath of all things or of such as he hath of the ungodly And why should it be hard to thee O my Soul to be perswaded of the love of God Is it strange that he should love thee who is Essential Infinite love Any more than that the Sun should shine upon thee which shineth upon all capable recipient objects though not upon the uncapable which through interposing things cannot receive it To believe that Satan or wicked men or deadly Enemies should love me is hard But to believe that the God of love doth love me should in reason be much easier than to believe that my Father or Mother or dearest friend in the World doth love me If I do not make and continue my self uncapable of his complacence by my wilful continued refusing of his grace it is not possible that I should be deprived of it Prov. 8.17 I love them that love me Psal 146.8 The Lord loveth the righteous John 16.27 2. Why should it be hard to thee to believe that he loveth thee who doth good so universally to the World and by his love doth preserve the whole Creation and give all Creatures all the good which they possess When his mercy is over all his works and his Goodness is equal to his wisdom and his power and all the World is beautified by it shall I not easily believe that it will extend to me The Lord is good to all Psal 145.9 Luk. 18.19 None is good essentially absolutely and transcendently but he alone Psal 33.5 The Earth is full of the goodness of the Lord Psal 52.1 The goodness of God endureth continually He is good and doth good Psal 119.68 And shall I not expect good from so good a God the cause of all the good that is in the World 3. Why should I not believe that he will love me who so far loved the World yea his Enemies as to give his only begotten Son that whoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life Joh. 3.16 Having given me so precious a gift as his Son will he think any thing too good to give me Rom. 8.32 yea still he followeth his Enemies with his mercies not leaving himself without witness to them but filling their hearts with food and gladness and causing his Sun to shine on them and his Rain to fall on them and by his goodness leading them to repentance 4. Why should I not easily believe his love which he hath sealed by that certain gift of love the Spirit of Christ which he hath given The giving of the Holy Ghost is the shedding abroad of his love upon the heart Rom. 5. I had never known desired loved or served him sincerely but by that Spirit And will he deny his name his mark his seal his Pledge and Earnest of Eternal life Could I ever have truly loved Him his Word his Ways and Servants but by the reflection of his love shall I question whether he love those whom he hath caused to love him When our love is the surest gift and token of his love shall I think that I can love him more than he loveth me or be more willing to serve him than he is willing and ready to reward his Servants Heb. 11.6 1 Joh. 3.24 and 4.13 5. Shall I not easily hope for good from him who hath made such a covenant of Grace with me in Christ Who giveth me what his Son hath purchased who accepteth me in his most beloved as a member of his Son Who hath bid me ask and I shall have And hath made to Godliness the promise of this life and that to come and will with-hold no good thing from them that walk uprightly Will not such a Gospel such a Covenant such promises of love secure me that he loveth me while I consent unto his covenant terms 6. Shall I not easily believe
their writings And for want of other words to supply our needs what abundance of distinctions of Actus and Potentiae are the Scotists and other Schoolmen fain to use What abundance of disputes are kept up by the ambiguity of the word Cause while it is applyed to things so different as Efficience Constitution and Finality The like may be said of many more And then when it cometh to a dispute of the Divine Nature of the Soul of the most weighty things these confounding notions must over-rule the Case We must not have an argument for the Souls Immortality but what these notions check or vitiate no nor scarce for an Attribute of God. XXV And it is so hard a thing to bring men to that self-denial and labour as at Age throughly and impartially to revise their juvenile conceptions and for them that learnt words before things to proceed to learn things now as appearing in their proper evidence and to come back and cancel all their old notions which were not found and to build up a new frame that not one of a multitude is ever Master of so much virtue as to attempt it and go through with it Was it not labour enough to study so many years to know what others say but they must now undo much of it and begin a new and harder labour who will do it XXVI And indeed none but men of extraordinary Acuteness and Love of truth and Self-denial and Patience are fit to do it For 1. The Common dullards will fall into the ditch when they leave their Crutches And will multiply Sects in Philosophy and Religion while they are unable to see the truth in itself And indeed this hath made the Protestant Churches so liable to the derision and reproach of their adversaries And how can it be avoided while all men must pretend to know and judge what indeed they are unable to understand 2. Yea the half-witted men that think themselves acute and wise fall into the same Calamity 3. And the proud will not endure to be thought to err when they plague the world with error 4. And the Impatient will not endure so long and difficult studies 5. And when all is done as Seneca saith they must be content with a very few approvers and must bear the scorn of the ignorant-learned crowd Who have no way to maintain the reputation of their own Wisdom Orthodoxness and Goodness but by calling him Proud or Self-conceited or Erroneous that differeth from them by knowing more than they And who but the truly self-denying can be at so much cost and labour for such reproach when they foreknow that he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow XXVII By these means mens minds that should be taken up with God and his Service are abused and vilified and filled with the dust and smoak of vain and false and confused notions And mans life is spent as David saith in a vain shew And men dream waking with as great industry as if they were about a serious work Alas how pitifully is much of the learned world employed XXVIII By this means also mens precious time is lost And he that had time little enough to learn and do things necessary for the common good and his own salvation doth waste half of it on he knoweth not what And Satan that findeth him more ingenious than to play it away at Cards and Dice or than to Drink and Revel it away doth cast another bait before him and get him learnedly to dream it away about unprofitable words and notions XXIX And by this means the Practice of goodness is hindred in the world yea and Holy Affections quenched While these arbitrary Notions and Speculations being mans own are his more pleasant game And Studies and Pulpits must be thus employed and heart and life thus stoln from God. Yea it 's well if Godliness grow not to be taken by such dreamers for a low a dull and an unlearned thing yea if they be not tempted by it to Infidelity and to think not only the zealous Ministers and Christians but even Christ and his Apostles to be unlearned men below their estimation XXX And by the same means the devilish sin of Pride will be kept up even among the Learned yea and the Preachers of Humility For what is that in the world almost that men are prouder of than that Learning which consisteth in such notions and words as are afore described And the proudest man I think is the worst XXXI And by this means the sacred Chairs and Pulpits will be possessed by such men whose spirits are most contrary to a Crucified Christ and to that Cross and Doctrine which they must preach And when Christ's greatest Enemies are the Pastors of his Churches all things will be ordered and managed accordingly and the faithful hated and abused accordingly Though I must add that it is not this Cause alone but many more concurring to constitute a worldly wicked mind which use to procure these effects XXXII And by false and vain Learning Contentions are bred and propagated in the Churches None are instruments so apt and none have been so successful as all Church History recordeth and the Voluminous contentions of many such learned parties testify XXXIII And this is an increasing malady for new Books are yearly written containing the said arbitrary notions of the several Authors And whereas real and organical Learning should be orderly and conjunctly propagated and Things studied for themselves and Words for Things the systems of of Arts and Sciences grow more and more corrupted our Logicks are too full of unapt notions our Metaphysicks are a meer confused mixture of Pneumatology and Logick and What part hath totally escaped XXXIV And the number of such Books doth grow so great that they become a great impediment and snare and how many years precious time must be lost to know what men say and who saith amiss or how they differ XXXV And the great diversity of Writers and Sects increaseth the danger trouble especially in Physicks by that time a man hath well studied the several sects the Epicureans and Somatists the Cartesians with the by-parties Regius Berigardus c. the Platonists the Peripateticks the Hermeticks Lullius Patricius Telesius Campanella White Digby Glisson and other Novelists and hath read the most learned improvers of the curranter sort of Philosophy Scheggius Wendeline Sennertus Hoffman Honorat Faber Got c. how much of his life will be thus spent And perhaps he will be as far to seek in all points saving those common evident certainties which he might have learned more cheaply in a shorter time than he was before he read them And will wish that Antonine Epictetus or Plutarch had served instead of the greater part of them And will perceive that Physicks are much fuller of uncertainties and emptier of satisfying usefulness than Morality and true Theology XXXVI By such false methods and notions men are often led to utter Scepticism and when they
more accurate than any Logical Author doth prescribe And the Lords Prayer and Decalogue especially will prove this when truly opened And the Doctrine of of the Trinity and the Baptismal Covenant is the Foundation of all true method of Physicks and Morality in the World. What if a novice cannot Anatomize Cicero or Demosthenes doth it follow that they are immethodical Brand-miller and Flaccher upon the Scripture Text and Steph. Tzegedine Sohnius Gomarus Dudley Fenner and many others upon the Body of Theology have gone far in opening the Scripture Method But more may be yet done VI. Consider also that the Eternal Wisdom Word and Son of God our Redeemer is the Fountain and giver of all Knowledge Nature to be restored and Grace to restore it are in his hands He is that true Light that lighteneth every one that cometh into the World The Light of Nature and Arts and Sciences are from his Spirit and Teaching as well as the Gospel Whether Clemens Alexandrinus and some other Ancients were in the right or not when they taught that Philosophy is one way by which men come to Salvation it is certain that they are in the right that say it is now the gift of Christ And that as the Light which goeth before Sun-rising yea which in the night is reflected from the Moon is from the Sun as well as its more glorious Beams So the Knowledge of Socrates Plato Zeno Cicero Antonine Epictetus Seneca Plutarch were from the Wisdom and Word of God the Redeemer of the World even by a lower gift of his Spirit as well as the Gospel and higher illumination And shall Christ be thought void of what he giveth to so many in the World VII Lastly Let it be considered above all that the grand difference between the teaching of Christ and other men is that he teacheth effectively as God spake when he Created and as he said to Lazarus Arise He giveth wisdom by giving the Holy Ghost All other Teachers speak but to the Ears but he only speaketh to the Heart Were it not for this he would have no Church I should never have else believed in him my self nor would any other seriously and savingly Aristotle and Plato speak but words but Christ speaketh LIFE and LIGHT and LOVE in all Countreys through all Ages to this day This above all is his witness in the World. He will not do his work on Souls by ludicrous enticing words of the Pedantick wisdom of the World but by illuminating Minds and changing Hearts and Lives by his effectual operations on the Heart God used not more Rhetorick nor Logick than a Philosopher when he said only Let there be Light but he used more Power Indeed the first Chapter of Genesis though abused by Ignorants and Cabalists hath more true Philosophy in it than the presumptuous will understand as my worthy Friend Mr. Samuel Gott lately gone to God hath manifested in his excellent Philosophy excepting the style and some few presumptions But operations are the glorious Oratory of God and his wisdom shineth in his works and in things beseeming the Heavenly Majesty and not in childish Laces and Toys of Wit. Let us therefore cease quarrelling and learn wisdom of God instead of teaching and reprehending him Let us magnifie the mercy and wisdom of our Redeemer who hath brought Life and Immortality to light and certified us of the matters of the World above as beseemed a Messenger sent from God and hath taught us according to the matter and our capacity and not with trifling childish notions Chap. XVIII Inference VI. The true and false ways of restoring the Churches and healing our Divisions hence opened and made plain HAving opened to you our Disease it is easie were not the Disease it self against it to discern the Cure. Pretended knowledge hath corrupted and divided the Christian World. Therefore it must be CERTAIN VERITIES which must Restore us and Unite us And these must be Things PLAIN and NECESSARY and such as God hath designed to this very use or else they will never do the work One would think that it should be enough to satisfie men of this 1. To read Scripture 2. To peruse the terms of Concord in the Primitive Church 3. To peruse the sad Histories of the Churches Discord and Divisions and the Causes 4. To peruse the state of the World at this day and make use of Universal Experience 5. To know what a Christian is what Baptism is and what a Church is 6. To know what Man is and that they themselves and the Churches are but Men. But penal and sinful Infatuation hath many Ages been upon the minds of those in the Christian World who were most concerned in the Cure and our sin is our misery as I think to the damned it will be the chief part of their Hell. But this subject is so great and needful and that which the Wounds and Blood of the Christian World do cry for a skilful Cure of that I will not thrust it into this corner but design to write a Treatise of it by it self as a second part of this This Book is since Printed with some Alteration and called The true and Only way of the Concord of the Churches Chap. XIX Of the Causes of this Disease of Prefidence or Proud Pretended Knowledge in order to the Cure. THE Cure of Prefidence and pretended knowledge could it be wrought would be the Cure of Souls Families Churches and Kingdoms But alas how low are our hopes yet that may be done on some which will not be done on all or most And to know the causes and oppugn them is the chief part of the Cure so far as it may be hoped for 1. The first and grand cause is the very Nature of ignorance it self which many ways disableth men from knowing that which should abate their groundless confidence For 1. An ignorant man knoweth but little parcels and scraps of things And all the rest is unknown to him Therefore he fixeth upon that little which he knoweth and having no knowledge of the rest he cannot regulate his narrow apprehensions by any conceptions of them And all things visible to us not light it self excepted which as seen by us is Fire incorporated in Air being Compounds the very Nature or Being of them is not known where any Constitutive part is unknown And in all Compounds each part hath such relation and usefulness to others that one part which seemeth known is it self but half known for want of the knowledge of others Such a kind of knowledge is theirs that knowing only what they see do take a Clock or Watch to be only the Index moving by the Hours being ignorant of all the causal parts within Or that know no more of a Tree or other Plant than the Magnitude Site Colour Odour c. Or that take a man to be only a Body without a Soul or the Body to be only the Skin and Parts discerned by the Eye in converse
side and the other to receive and rashly tell about lies of one another that I confess I am grown to take little heed of what such say in such a case unless the report continue a year uncontrolled For it 's common for them to tell those things as unquestionable which a few months prove false And yet never to manifest any repentance but to go on with the like one month disproving what the former hatcht and vended And indeed the very wisest and best of men are guilty of so much Ignorance Temerity Suspiciousness of others partiality c. That we must believe them though far sooner than others yet still with a reservâ—â—o change our minds if we find them mistaken 〈◊〉 still on supposition that they are fallible persons and that all men are Liars VII Another great cause of pretended false Knowledge and Confidence is the unhappy prejudices which our minds contract even in our Childhood before we have time and wit and Conscience to try things by true deliberation Children and Youth must receive much upon trust or else they can learn nothing But then they have not wit to proportion their apprehensions to the Evidence whether of Credibility or Certainty And so fame and tradition and education and the Countreys Vote do become the ordinary Parents of many Lies and folly maketh us to fasten so fearlesly in our fâ—rst apprehensions that they keep open the door to abundance of more falshoods And it must be clear Teachers or great impartial studies of a self-denying mind with a great blessing of God that must deliver us from prejudice and undeceive us And therefore all the World seeth that almost all men are of the Religion of their Country or their Parents be it never so absurd Though with the Mahometans they believe the Nonsence of a very sot once reading a quarter of whose Alcoran one would think should cure a man of Common reason of any inclination to his belief And among the Japonians even the eloquent Bonzii believe in Amida and Xaca To mention the belief of the Chinenses the People of Pegu Siam and many other such yea the Americans the Brasilians Lappians c. that correspond with Devils would be a sad instance of the unhappiness of mens first apprehensions and education And what doth the foresaid instance of Popery come short herein which tells us how Prejudice and Education and Company can make men deny all mens common sence and believe common unseen Miracles pretended in the stead VIII Another cause is the mistaking of the nature of the duty of submitting our judgment to our Superiours and Teachers especially to the Multitude or the Church or Antiquity No doubt but much reverence and a humane belief is due to the Judgment of our Teachers credibly made known But this is another thing quite different 1. From knowing by Evidence 2. And from believing God of which before and after IX Another cause is base slothfulness which makes men take up with the judgment of those in most reputation for Power Wisdom or Number to save them the labour of searching after the scientifical Evidence of things or the certain Evidence of Divine Revelations X. Another frequent cause is an appearance of something in the Truth which frighteneth men from it either for want of a clear methodical advantageous representation or by some difficult objection or some miscarriage in the utterance carriage or life of them that seem most zealous for it such little things deceive dark man And when he is turned from the Truth he thinks that the contrary Errour may be embraced without fear XI Another great cause of Confidence in false Conceits is the byass of some personal Interest prevailing with a corrupted Will and the mixture of Sense and Passion in the Judgment For as interested men hardly believe what seemeth against them and easily believe that which they would have to be true so Sense and Passion or Affections usually so bear down Reason that they think it their right to possess the Throne Not but that Sense is the only discerner of its own sensible Object as such and Reason by Sense as it is intelligible But that 's not the matter in hand But the Sensualist forceth his Reason to call that Best for him which his Sense is most delighted with and that Worst which most offendeth Sense The Drunkard will easily judge that his drinking is good for him and the Glutton that his pleasant meats are lawful and the Time-waster that his Plays are lawful and the Fornicator the wrathful revenger c. that their lusts and passions are lawful because they think that they have Feeling on their side It 's hard to carry an upright Judgment against Sense and Passion XII Sometimes a strong deluded Imagination maketh men exceeding confident in Errour some by Melancholy and some by a natural weakness of Reason and strength of Phantasie and some by misapprehensions in Religion grow to think that every strong conceit which doth but come in suddenly at reading or hearing or thinking on such a Text or in time of earnest prayer especially if it deeply affect themselves is certainly some suggestion or inspiration of God's Spirit And hence many Errours have troubled poor Souls and the Church of God which afterward they have themselves retracted Hence are the confidence of some ignorant Christians in expounding difficult Scriptures Prophecies and the boldness of others in expounding dark Providences and also in foretelling by their own surmises things to come XIII And not a few run into this mischief in some extreams by seeing others run into Errour on the other side Some are so offended at the credulity of the weak that they will grow confident against plain certainties themselves As because there are many feigned Miracles Apparitions Possessions and Witchcrafts in the World divulged by the Credulity of the injudicious therefore they will more foolishly be confident that there are no such things at all And because they see some weak persons impute more of their opinions performances and affections to God's Spirit than they ought therefore they grow mad against the true operations of the Spirit and confident that there is no such thing Some deride Praying by the Spirit and Preaching by the Spirit and Living by the Spirit when as they may as well deride understanding willing working by a Reasonable Soul no holy thing being holily done without God's Spirit any more than any act of life and reason without the Soul And they may on the same grounds deride all that Live not after the flesh and that are Christians Rom. 8.5 6 7 8 9 13. or that Love God or that seek Salvation Yea some run so far from spiritual Fanaticisms that they deny the very Being of Spirits and many confidently set up a dead Image of true Religion in bitter hatred and opposition of all that hath Life and serious Holiness So mad are some made by seeing some feverish persons dote XIV Another Cause
prevailed with him without that false belief of a deceiver When it is once become a Sanctifying Belief then there is no doubt but the Man hath better Evidence than the uncertain word of man He hath the witness in himself And it is not a Glorifying Faith till it be a Sanctifying Faith. But the Question is What soundness of Reason or proof that this is God's Word is necessary to make it a Sanctifying Faith at least as most prevalent and trusted in By this you may know what I judge of the Faith of honest illiterate Papists and of illiterate Protestants for a great number of them who live in Love and Obedience to God. And yet to speak both more concisely and distinctly I. I may believe by Historical Tradition all that matter of Fact which those that saw Christ's and the Apostles Miracles and heard their words did know by sense and those that saw not believed on the credit of the reporters II. And yet I may know by reason through God's help that these Miracles and this Scripture Impress and Efficacy are God's attestation and none but God could do it And of this all Believers have some perception in various degrees III. And then we know it to be true because it is sealed by those attestations and is the Word of God. Obj. VII But would you have men take the matters of Fact for uncertain that this is a true Bible and Copy and was given the Church by the Apostles c. and so not pretend to be certain of them Ans I have oft said and elsewhere largely proved that as 1. A Humane Faith of highest probability prepareth the way so 2. These things are known by an Historical Evidence which hath a proper certainty above meer Humane Faith For Humane Faith resteth on mens Veracity or Fidelity which is uncertain But there is a History such as that there is such a City as Rome Venice c. which is evident by a surer ground than mens fidelity even from such a concurrence of consenters and circumstances as will prove a forgery impossible Obj. VIII You seem to favour the Popish Doctrine of Ignorance while you would have all our Knowledge confined to a few plain and easie things and perswade men to doubt of all the rest Ans 1. I perswade no man to doubt of that which he is certain of but not to lie and say he is certain when he is not 2. I am so far from encouraging Ignorance that it is Ignorance of your Ignorance which I reprove I would have all men know as much as possibly they can of all that God hath revealed And if the self-conceited knew more they would doubt more and as they grow wiser will grow less confident in uncertainties It is not knowing but false pretending to know that I am against Do you think that a thousand self-conceited men and women do really know ever the more for saying they know or crying down that Ignorance Doubting and Uncertainty which they have themselves How many a one yea Preachers have cryed down the Popish Doctrine of Uncertainty of Salvation who had no Certainty of their own but their neighbours thought by their lives were certainly in the way to Hell. Obj. IX But you would have men resist the Spirit that convinceth them and make so long a work in doubting and questioning and proving every thing as that Christians will come but to little knowledge in your way Ans They will have the more knowledge and not the less for trying Peremptory confidence is not knowledge The next way here is farthest about Receive all Evidence from God and Man from the Word and Spirit with all the desire and all the delight and all the speed that possibly you can Study earnestly Learn willingly Resist no Light neglect no Truth But what 's all this to foolish conceit that you know what you do not What 's this to the hasty believing of falshoods or uncertainties and troubling the Church and World with self-conceit and dreams I remember two or three of my old acquaintance who suddenly received from a Seducer the Opinion of Perfection that we might be perfectly sinless in this life And because I denied it they carryed it as if I had pleaded for sin against perfection and they presently took themselves to be perfect and sinless because they had got the Opinion that some are such I told them that I desired Perfection as well as they and that I was far from hindering or disswading any from Perfection but wisht them to let us see that they are so indeed and never to sin more in thought word or deed And ere long they forsook all Religion and by Drunkenness Fornication and Licentiousness shewed us their Perfection So here it is not a conceit that men have Faith and Knowledge and quickly saying I believe or turning to the Priest or Party that perswadeth them which maketh them ever the wiser men or true Believers Obj. X. But that may seem certain to another which seemeth uncertain or false to you Therefore every man must go according to his own Light. Ans 1. Nothing is Certain which is not true If that seem True to you which is False this is your Errour And is every man or any man bound to err and believe a falsehood Being is before Knowing If it Be not true you may Think it to be so which is that which I would cure but you cannot Know it to be so much less be Certain of it 2. If it be Certain to you it is Evidently True And if so hold it fast and spare not It is not any mans Certainty but Errour which I oppose Obj. XI But if we must write or utter nothing but Certainties you would have but a small Library Ans 1. The World might well spare a great many uncertain Writings 2. But I say not that you must think say or write nothing but Certainties There is a lawful and in some cases necessary exercise of our understandings about Probabilities and Possibilities The Husbandman when he ploweth and soweth is not certain of an increase 1. But call not that certain which is not 2. And be not as vehement and peremptory in it as if it were a Certainty 3. And separate your Certainties and Probabilities asunder that confusion fill not your minds with Errour Obj. XII While you perswade us to be so diffident of mens reports and to suspend our belief of what men say you speak against the Laws of Converse Ans I perswade you not to deny any man such a Belief as is his due But give him no more If a man profess himself a Christian and say that he sincerely believeth in Christ and consenteth to his Covenant though you may perceive no ascertaining Evidence that he saith true yet you must believe him because he is the only opener of his own mind and the Laws of God and Human Converse require it But what is this believing him Not taking it for a
man is Morally to be reputed and denominated And it is the final Grace which animateth or informeth the rest as means And thus it is true that when you will prove any Grace to be sincere and saving or any evidence certain you must prove it to participate of the love of God and goodness or you have failed and said nothing Yea you must prove it to be conjunct with predominant love which setteth God above all Creatures And if you will prove any good work to be acceptable to God Prayer Praise Alms Justice c. you must prove that it cometh from this predominant love For it is so far and no further acceptable to God. And their ignorance is but to be pitied who tell you that this is to make our love of God to be instead of Christ to us or to set up an acceptable righteousness or merit in our selves For we dream not that our love of God was a Sacrifice for our sins and the Expiatory Atonement and Satisfaction to Justice nor that Merit which procured us Love it self or purchased us the Holy Ghost Our meaning is that goodness is the only proper object of love And God loveth his Essential goodness first and Created goodness next And our Moral goodness which is his Image is holy love produced by and joined with holy wisdom and vitality And so though God love us in Christ or as Related to him it is as holy Members of him and not that he loveth complacentially the haters of God for their Relation to Christ without respect to any goodness in themselves And to say that Christ maketh us acceptable and amiable to God is all one as to say that he procureth us the pardon of Sin and the gift of the Holy Ghost and maketh us holy Lovers of God Or that he is indeed our Saviour He that commendeth health as wrought by his Physician doth not set health instead of the Physician Christ is the Physician the Holy Ghost or Holy Love in us is our health To procure and give us the Holy Ghost is Christs Office. He pardoneth our sin when he pardoneth the punishment The privation of the Holy Ghost and his operations is our principal punishment And therefore not all but the principal part of our pardon lyeth in the giving us the Holy Ghost But some will say That if God love nothing but goodness and love us no further than we are good how then did he love us first and while we were his Enemies Are not Election Creation Redemption and Conversion acts of love And is not our love the fruit of his love Ans Thus Names not opened by confounding Heads are made the matter of a thousand Controversies As our love is nothing but our will so the word love is taken strictly and properly or largely and less properly A mans will is considered as efficient or as final As it respecteth a future effect or a present existent good And so Gods will as it final and respecteth things existent either 1. In esse cognito 2. Or in esse reali is called complacence and only complacence is love in the strict and properest sense But Gods will as efficient of good may in a laxer sense be called love Gods will is the Fountain or efficient cause of all good Natural and Moral in the World. And so you may call Gods causing or making good by the name of love if you please remembring that it is but the name that is questioned But his complacency in good foreseen or existent is strictly called his love And so still God loveth nothing in either sense but good For 1. He causeth nothing but good 2. And he is pleased in nothing but good as good Quest But how then doth God love his Enemies Ans 1. He maketh us men which may be called one act of efficient love And he Redeemeth them and he giveth them all the good things which they possess And he sanctifieth some and maketh them lovers of him that is holy And thus he willeth their good while they are Nothing or Evil which is called Benevolence and Love efficient 2. And he hath true love of complacency in them 1. As they have the good of humane nature 2. And thereby are capable of grace and all the love and service which after they may perform 3. And as they are Related to Christ as his Redeemed ones 4. And as by Relation they are those that God fore-knoweth will love and serve him here and in the perfections of Eternal Glory There is all this good in some Enemies of God to be the matter of his complacency And beyond their goodness he hath no complacency in them 3. And to clear up all this still remember that though mans will is changed by or upon the various objects yet so is not the will of God. And therefore all these words signifie no variety or change in God but only how his simple immutable Essential will is variously related to and denominated from the Connotation of Effects and Objects 4. Also it must be noted as included in the Text that God loveth all that truly love him For to be known of him here meaneth to be known with approbation and love as his peculiar people As Psal 1.6 It is said The Lord knoweth the way of the righteous and so oft And of the wicked Mat. 25.12 Depart from me I know you not God owneth with love all those that love him What Parts what Quality what Degree soever men are of whatever difference else there be among them if they are true lovers of God they are certainly approved and beloved by him This being the very Heart and Essence of the new Creature and the Divine Nature in us must needs prove that man to be Amiable to God that hath it Other things are true marks of a Child of God only so far as they participate of love But love is the primary proper Character which proveth us Adopted directly of it self And here you may resolve the question that seemeth so difficult to many Whether when the Scripture either by describing the godly or by promising Life doth mention some one Grace or Duty as the Character of a Saint or the Condition of Salvation it be to be understood with a caeteris paribus if other Graces and Duties concur as supposing them separable Or absolutely as supposing that one mark infallible because it is never separated from the rest Ans The New Man hath 1. It s Essential parts and 2. Its Integrals and 3. Its Accidents The Essentials are ever infallible marks and are inseparable from each other Any one of them will prove us Holy and will prove the presence of the rest These Essentials are an united Trinity of Graces Holy Life Light and Love where each one hath the common Essence of Holiness which is their objective termination upon God and each is linked by participation to another Holy Vitality is Vital Activity towards God in mind will and practice
analogically or equivocally called a Christian or Member of Christ And such among the sincere are not a distinct Church or Society if they were they should be called the Hypocritical Church and not the Political or Congregate Church But they are as Traytors in an Army or as stricken Ears in a Corn Field But the true Church being One is considered as consenting with Heart and with the Tongue As a Corn Field hath Straw Chaff and Grain and as a Man hath Soul and Body So that it is the same Church that is visible by Baptism and Profession and Invisible by Heart-consent or Sincerity But it is the same thing and not divers that is in the Hearts of the sincere and that is to be professed by the Tongue Even that voluntary practical Faith which is described in Baptism and no other The same Faith which is accepted to Salvation in the sincere and invisible Members of the Church as they are called must be professed by all that will at Age be visible Members And the Knowledge and Belief required in Baptism is so much as prevaileth with the Person to give up himself to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as his Reconciled Creator his Saviour and Sanctifier And he that hath so much knowledge as will do this hath as much as is necessary to his reception into the Church Doubtless he that is capable of Baptism is capable of Church Membership and he that is capable of Church Membership is capable de jure as to right of so much Church Communion as he is capable of by real aptitude An Infant is not naturally capable of the actions of the Adult nor half-witted Persons of the receptions and performances of the judicious some cannot understand a Sermon or Prayer or Praise the twentieth part so well as others can do and so cannot receive and do beyond their understanding Some may not so well understand the nature of the Lords Supper as to be really fit at present to receive it And some may be unfit through some extraordinary doubts opinions or lapses But still de jure a Church Member hath right to so much Church Communion as their real qualifications make them capable of For that right is part of the definition of a Church member And to be made a Church member is the work of Baptism And here we must consider of the reason why God would have Baptism to be the Profession of that Faith which maketh us Christians Sometime we are called Believers and said to be Justified by Faith as if it were Faith alone that were our Christianity And yet when it cometh to Church entrance and to the solemn profession of our faith and reception of a Sealed and Delivered pardon we must do more than profess that we believe with the understanding We must give up our selves absolutely by a Vow and Covenant to God the Father Son and Holy-Ghost renouncing the flesh the World and the Devil which is the act of a resolved Will. And to Will is rationally to Love and Choose By which Christ telleth us that as words of Knowledge in Scripture usually imply affection so the Faith that he means and requireth to our justification is not a meer assent or act of intellection but it is also the wills consent and a practical Affiance As a man Believing the Skill and Fidelity of a Physician doth Desire Will or Choose him for his Physician and Practically Trust him or cast himself upon his Fidelity and care for cure Therefore Christ joyneth both together Mark 16.16 He that Believeth and is baptized shall be saved not principally intending the washing of the flesh but the answer of a good Conscience as Peter expoundeth it that is He that so believeth as by hearty consent to devote and give up himself openly and absolutely and presently to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost shall be saved And so the Apostle saith Eph. 4.4 5. There is one Baptism as part of the uniting bond of Christians That is there is one solemn Covenant between God and Man in which we profess our Faith and give up our selves to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and are stated in a gracious Relation to him and one another And thus it is that Baptism is reckoned Heb. 6. among the principles And that the ancient Doctors unanimously conclude that Baptism washeth away all sin and certainly puts us into a present state of life That is The delivering up our selves sincerely to God in the Baptismal Covenant is the condition of our right to the benefits of that Covenant from God. From all which it is plain that the Head is but the guide of the Heart and that God looketh more to the Heart than to the Head and to the Head for the Heart And that we are not Christians indeed till Christ have our Hearts indeed Nor Christians by profession till by Baptismal Covenant and profession we deliver up the Heart to Christ Now so far as Consent and Will may be called Love fo far even Love is Essential to our Christianity and to this faith which is required to our baptism and justification And no other faith is Christianity nor will justify us But to them that are here stalled with the great difficulty How Love is that grace of the Holy Ghost which is promised to believers in the Covenant as consequent if it go before it in the Covenanters I answer at present that they must distinguish between 1. Love to Christ as a Saviour of our selves proceeding principally from the just Love of our selves and our Salvation and Love to God above our selves for his own Infinite Goodness as our ultimate end 2. Between the Act of Love and a Habit 3. Between that spark of Love which consisteth in the said consent and is contained in true Faith and that Flame of Love which it self carryeth the name as being the most eminent operation of the Soul. And if hereupon they cannot answer this question themselves I must refer them to the Appendix of the third Chapter of my Christian Directory in which I have largely opened this case with as much exactness as I could reach unto All that remaineth very difficult then as to our judging of the Knowledge of men to be admitted to Christian Church Communion is but what knowledge is necessary in the adult unto their lawful Baptism And to that I say so much as is necessary to an understanding consent to the Baptismal Covenant or to an hearty giving up themselves to God the Father Son and Holy-Ghost And here we must know that the same Covenanting words being comprehensive are understood in different degrees according to mans different Capacities even of true believers Insomuch that I do not think that any two men in the world have in all notions and degrees just the same understanding of them And therefore it is not the same distinctness and clearness of understanding which we must expect in all which is found in some or
which is desireable When one man nameth GOD he hath an orderly conception of his several Attributes in which yet all men are defective and most Divines themselves are culpably ignorant When another man conceiveth but of fewer of them and that disorderly And yet these must not be accounted Atheists or denied to believe in the same God or refused Baptism nor is it several Gods that men so differently believe in I. He that knoweth God to be a most perfect Spirit most powerful Wise and Good the Father Son and Holy Ghost the Creator of the world our Owner Governour and most Amiable Lover Benefactor and End I think knoweth as much of God as is of necessity to Baptism and Church Communion II. He that knoweth that Jesus Christ is God and man the Redeemer of the sinful world and the Mediator between God and Man who was conceived by the Holy-Ghost in the Virgin Mary fulfilled all righteousness was crucified as a Sacrifice for mans sin and being dead and buried rose again and ascended into Heaven and is the Teacher King and Intercessor of his Church and hath made the new Covenant and giveth the Holy-Ghost to sanctify believers and pardoneth their sins and will raise our Bodies at last and Judge the World in righteousness according to his Gospel and will give everlasting happiness to the Sanctified I think knoweth as much of Christ as is necessary to Baptism and Church Communion III. He that knoweth that the Holy Ghost is God proceeding from the Father and the Son the sanctifier of Souls by Holy Life and Light and Love by the Holy Gospel of which he is the Inditer and the Seal I think knoweth all that is necessary unto Baptism concerning the Holy Ghost IV. And as to the Act of Knowing this Trinity of Objects there is great difference between 1. Knowing the Notions or Words and the matter 2. Between an orderly clear and a dark and more confused Knowledge 3. And between apt significant words and such as any way notify a necessary true conception of the mind 4. Between such a Knowledge as maketh a man Willing and Consent to give up himself to this Trinity in Covenant and that which prevaileth not for such consent And so 1. It 's true that we know not the Heart immediately and therefore must judge by Words and Deeds But yet it is the Knowledge of the Things as is aforesaid that is necessary to Salvation because it is the Love of the Things is chiefly necessary But by what words to express that Love or Knowledge is not of equal necessity in itself 2. There being no man whose conceptions of God Christ the Holy Ghost the Covenant c. are not guilty of darkness and disorder a great degree of darkness and disorder of conceptions may consist with true grace in those of the lowest rank of Christians 3. The second Notions and Conceptions of things and so of God our Redeemer and Sanctifier as they are verba mentis in the mind itself are but Logical Artificial Organs and are not of that necessity to Salvation as the conception of the matter or incomplex objects 4. Many a man in his studies findeth that he hath oft a general and true Knowledge of Things in themselves before he can put names and notions on them and set those in due Order and long before he can find fit words to express his mental notions by which must cost him much study afterward And as Children are long learning to speak and by degrees come to speak orderly and composedly and aptly mostly not till many years use hath taught them So the expressive ability is as much matter of art and got by use in men at age And they must be taught yet as Children to speak of any thing new and Strange and which they learned not before As we see in learning Arithmetick Geometry and all the Arts and Sciences Even so men how holy internally soever must by study and use by the help of Gods Spirit learn how to speak of holy things in Prayer in Conference in answering such as ask an account of their Faith and Knowledge And hypocrites that are bred up in the use of such things can speak excellently in Prayer Conference or Preaching When true Christians at first that never used them nor were bred up where they heard them used cannot tell you intelligibly what is in their minds but are like men that are yet to learn the very Language in which they are to talk in I know this by true experience of my self and many others that I have examined 5. Therefore I say again if men cannot aptly answer me of the very Essentials of Religion but speak that which in its proper sense is Heresie or unsound and false Yet if when I open the questions to them my self and put the Article of Faith into the question and ask them e. g. Do you believe that there is but One God or are there many Doth God know all things or not Is he our Owner or not Doth he rule us by a Law or not c If they by Yea or Nay do speak the truth and profess to believe it I will not reject them for lack of knowledge if the rest concur I meet with few censorious Professors to say nothing of Teachers that will not answer me with some nonsense or falseness or ineptitude or gross confusion or defectiveness if I examine them of the foregoing Notions of the very baptismal Covenant As what is a Spirit what doth the word God signifie what is Power in God what Knowledge what Will what Goodness what Holiness what is a Person in the Trinity what is the difference between the three Persons How is God our End Had Christ his humane Soul from the Virgin or only his flesh Had he his Manhood from Man if not his Soul which is the chief essential part what is the Union of the Divine and Humane Nature wherein different from the Union of God and Saints or every Creature with an hundred such In which I must bear with ignorant false answers from eminent Professors that separate from others as too ignorant for their Communion And why then must I not bear with more in those that are new beginners and have not had their time and helps 6. But if a man can speak never so well and profess never so confident a belief if he Consent not to the Covenant and Vow of Baptism to give up himself presently and absolutely to Christ I must reject that man from the Communion of the Church But if these two things do but concur in any 1. The foresaid signification of a tolerable Knowledge and Belief by yea or nay Dost thou Believe in God c. as the Ancient Churches used to ask the Baptized 2. And a ready professed consent to be engaged by that holy Vow and Covenant to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost I will not deny Baptism to such if Adult nor after Church
Salvation even for all the Poor and Vulgar wits which is so much too hard for our most subtile Students 2. And Christianity is as suitable to us in the Benefit and Sweetness of it What a happy Religion is it that employeth men in nothing but receiving good to themselves and in doing good to themselves and others Whose work is only the Receiving and Improving of Gods Mercies and Loving and Delighting in all that is good rejoycing in the tasts of Gods Love on Earth and in the Hopes of perfect Felicity Love and Joy for ever Is not this a sweeter life than tiresom unprofitable Speculations O then how unexcuseable are our contemners of Religion that live in wilful Ignorance and ungodliness and think this easy and sweet Religion to be a tedious and intolerable thing What impudent Calumniators and Blasphemers are they of Christ and Holiness who deride and revile this sweet and easy way to life as if it were a slavery and an irksom toil unnecessary to our Salvation and unfit for a freeman or at least a Gentleman or a Servant of the flesh and world to practise If Christ had set you but such a task as Aristotle or Plato did to their disciples so many notions and so many Curiosities to learn If he had written for you as many Books as Chrysippus did If he had made necessary to your Salvation all the arbitrary notions of Lullius all the Fanatick conceits of Campanella and all the dreaming Hypotheses of Cartesius and all the Astronomical Cosmographical difficulties of Ptolomy Tycho-Brache Copernicus and Galilaeus and all the Chronological difficulties handled by Eusebius Scaliger Functius Capellus Petavius c. And all the curiosities in Philosophy and Theology of Cajetane Scotus Ockam Gabriel c. Then you might have had some excuse for your aversation But to accuse and refuse and reproach so Compendious so Easie so Sweet so Necessary a Doctrine and Religion as that which is brought and taught by Christ this is an ingratitude that hath no excuse unless Sensuality and Malignant enmity may pass for an excuse Doth Christ deliver you from the maze of Imaginary Curiosities and from the burdens of worldly wisdom called Philosophy and of Pharisaical Traditions and Jewish Ceremonies and make you a light burden an easy Yoak and Commandments that are not grievous and after all this must he be requited with Rejection and Reproach and your Burdens and Snares be taken for more tolerable than your deliverance You make a double forfeiture of Salvation who are so unwilling to be saved Be thankful O Christians to your heavenly Master for tracing you out so plain and sweet a way Be thankful that he hath cut short those tiresom studies by which your task-masters would confound you under pretence of making you like Gods in some more subtile and sublime Speculations than Vulgar wits can reach Now all that are willing may be Religious and be saved It is not confined to men of learning The way is so sweet as sheweth it suitable to the end It is but Believe Gods Love and Promises of Salvation by Christ till you are filled with Love and its delights and live in the pleasures of Gratitude and Holiness and in the Joyful hopes of endless Glory And is not this an easy Yoak Saith our Heavenly Poet Mr. G. Herbert in his Poem called Divinity p. 127. As men for fear the Stars should Sleep and Nod And trip at night have Spheres supply'd As if a Star were duller than a clod Which knows his way without a guide Just so the other Heaven they also serve Divinities transcendent Sky Which with the Edge of wit they Cut and Carve Reason Triumphs and Faith lies by But all his Doctrine which he taught and gave Was clear as heav'n from whence it came At least those Beams of truth which only save Surpass in Brightness any Flame Love God and Love your Neighbours watch and pray Do as you would be done unto O dark instructions even as dark as day Who can these Gordian Knots undo Chap. 10. The sixth Inference How little reason ungodly men have to be proud of their Learning or of any sort of Knowledge or Wisdom whatsoever AS the ancient Gnosticks being puffed up with their corrupt Platonick Speculations lookt down with contempt upon ordinary Christians as silly ignorants in comparison of them and yet had not wisdom enough to preserve them from the Lusts and Pollutions of the world Even so is it with abundance of the worldly Clergy and ungodly Scholars in this age They think their Learning setteth them many degrees above the Vulgar and giveth them right to be Reverenced as the Oracles or Rabbies of the World When yet poor Souls They have not learned by all their Reading Studies and Disputings to Love God and Holiness better than the Riches and Preferments of the World. And some of them not better than a Cup of strong drink or than the brutish pleasures of Sense and Flesh It is a pitiful thing to see the Pulpit made a Stage for the ostentation of this self-shaming self-condemning Pride and Folly For a man under pretence of serving God and helping other men to Heaven to make it his errand to tell the hearers that he is a very Wise and Learned man who hath not wit enough to choose a holy humble life nor to make sure of Heaven or to save his Soul nor perhaps to keep out of the Tavern or Ale-house the next week nor the same day to forbear the venting of his worldly carnal mind What is such Learning but a Game of Imagination in which the Phantasie sports it self with names and notions or worse the materials which are used in the service of sin the fuel of pride the blinder and deceiver of such as were too ignorant before being a meer shadow and name of Knowledge What good will it do a man tormented with the Gout or Stone or by miserable poverty to know the names of various herbs or to read the titles of the Apothecaries boxes or to read on a sign-post Here is a good ordinary And what good will it do a carnal unsanctified Soul that must be in Hell for ever to know the Hebrew roots or points or to discourse of Cartesius his materia subtilis globuli aetherei c. Or of Epicurus and Gassendus Atomes or to look on the Planets in Galileus Glasses while he casteth away all his hopes of Heaven by his unbelief and his preferring the pleasures of the flesh Will it comfort a man that is cast out of Gods presence and condemned to utter darkness to remember that he was once a good Mathematician or Logician or Musician or that he had wit to get riches and preferments in the world and to climb up to the heighth of honour and dominion It is a pitiful thing to hear a man boast of his wit while he is madly rejecting the only felicity forsaking God esteeming vanity and damning his Soul
The Lord deliver us from such wit and learning Is it not enough to refuse Heaven and choose Hell in the certain causes to lose the only day of their hopes and in the midst of light to be incomparably worse than mad but they must needs be accounted wise and learned in all this self-destroying folly As if like the Physician who boasted that he killed men according to the Rules of art it were the heighth of their ambition to go learnedly to Hell and with Reverend gravity and wit to live here like brutes and hereafter with Devils for evermore Chap. 11. The seventh Inference Why the ungodly world hateth Holiness and not Learning FRom my very Child-hood when I was first sensible of the concernments of mens Souls I was possest with some admiration to find that every where the Religious godly sort of people who did but exercise a serious care of their own and other mens Salvation were made the wonder and obloquy of the world Especially of the most vitious and flagitious men so that they that professed the same Articles of faith the same Commandments of God to be their Law and the same Petitions of the Lords Prayer to be their desire and so professed the same Religion did every where revile those that did endeavour to live according to that same profession and to seem to be in good sadness in what they said I thought that this was impudent Hypocrisie in the ungodly worldly sort of men To take them for the most intolerable persons in the Land who are but serious in their own Religion and do but endeavour to perform what all their Enemies also vow'd and promised If religion be bad and our faith be not true why do these men profess it If it be true and good why do they hate and revile them that would live in the serious practice of it if they will not practise it themselves But we must not expect Reason when sin and sensuality have made men unreasonable But I must profess that since I observed the course of the world and the concord of the Word and Providences of God I took it for a notable proof of mans fall and of the verity of the Scripture and the supernatural Original of true Sanctification to find such an universal enmity between the holy and the serpentine seed and to find Cain and Abels case so ordinarily exemplified and him that is born after the Flesh to persecute him that is born after the Spirit And methinks to this day it is a great and visible help for the confirmation of our Christian Faith. But that which is much Remarkable in it is that nothing else in the world except the Crossing of mens carnal interest doth meet with any such universal enmity A man may be as learned as he can and no man hate him for it If he excel all others all men will praise him and proclaim his excellency He may be an excellent Linguist an excellent Philosopher an excellent Physician an excellent Logician an excellent Orator and all commend him Among Musicians Architects Souldiers Seamen and all Arts and Sciences men value prefer and praise the best Yea even Speculative Theology such wits as the Schoolmen and those that are called great Divines are honoured by all and meet as such with little Enmity Persecution or Obloquy in the world Though I know that even a Galilaeus a Campanella and many such have suffered by the Roman Inquisitors that was not so much in enmity to their Speculations or Opinions as through a fear lest new Philosophical notions should unsettle mens minds and open the way to new opinions in Theology and so prove injurious to the Kingdom and Interest of Rome I know also that Demosthenes Cicero Seneca Lucan and many other learned men have died by the hands or power of Tyrants But that was not for their Learning but for their opposition to those Tyrants Wills and Interests And I know that some Religious men have suffered for their Sins and Follies and some for their medling too much with secular affairs as the Councellours of Princes as Functius Justus Jonas and many others But yet no Parts no Excellency no Skill or Learning is hated commonly but honoured in the World no not Theological Learning save only this practical Godliness and Religion and the Principles of it which only rendereth men amiable to God through Christ and saveth mens Souls To know and love God and live as those that know and love him to seek first his Kingdom and the Righteousness thereof to walk circumspectly in a holy and heavenly Conversation and studiously to obey the Laws of God this which must save us this which God loveth and the Devil hateth is hated also by all his Children for the same malignity hath the same effect But methinks this should teach all considering men to perceive what Knowledge it is that is best and most desirable to all that love their happiness Sure this sort of Learning Wit and Art which the Devil and the malignant World do no more dispraise oppose and persecute though as it is sanctified to higher ends it be good yet of it self is comparatively no very excellent and amiable thing I know Satan laboureth to keep out Learning it self that is truly such from the world because he is the Prince and Promoter of darkness and the Enemy of all useful light And lower Knowledge is some help to higher and speculative Theology may prepare for practical and the most gross and brutish ignorance best serveth the Devils designs and turn And even in Heathen Rome the Arts prepared men for the Gospel and Learning in the Church Reformers hath ever been a great help and furtherance of Reformation But yet if you stop in Learning and Speculation and take it as for it self alone and not as a means to holiness of Heart and Life it is as nothing It is Paul's express resolution of the case that if we have all Knowledge without this holy Love we are nothing but as sounding Brass or a tinkling Cymbal 1 Cor. 13. But surely there is some special excellency in this holy knowledge and Love and Obedience which the Devil and the malignant World so hate in high and low in rich and poor in Kindred Neighbours Strangers or any where they meet with it It is not for nothing This is the Image of God this is it that is contrary to their carnal Minds and to their fleshly Lusts and sinful Pleasures This tells them what they must be and do or be undone for ever which they cannot abide to be or do Let us therefore be somewhat the wiser for this discovery of the mind of the Devil and all his Instruments I will love and honour all Natural Artificial acquired Excellencies in Philology Philosophy and the rest As these expose not men to the Worlds Obloquy so neither unto mine or any sober mans In their low places they are good and may be used to a greater good
But let that holy knowledge and love be mine which God most loveth and the World most hateth and costeth us dearest upon Earth but hath the blessed end of a Heavenly Reward Chap. XII The eighth Inference What is the work of a faithful Preacher and how it is to be done IF that Knowledge which kindleth in us the Love of God be the only saving Knowledge then this is it that Ministers must principally preach up and promote Could we make all our hearers never so learned that will not save their Souls But if we could make them holy and kindle in them the love of God and goodness they should certainly be saved The holy practical Preacher therefore is the best Preacher because the holy practical Christian is the best and only true Christian We work under Christ and therefore must carry on the same work on Souls which Christ came into the World to carry on All our Sermons must be fitted to change mens Hearts from Carnal into Spiritual and to kindle in them the love of God. When this is well done they have learnt what we were sent to teach them and when this is perfect they are in Heaven Those Preachers that are Enemies to the godliest of the people and would make their Hearers take them all for Hypocrites that go any further than obedience to their Pastors in Church-forms and Orders Observances and Ceremonies and a civil Life are the great Enemies of Christ his Spirit his Gospel and the Peoples Souls and the Eminent Servants of the Devil in his malignant War against them all All that Knowledge and all those Formalities which are set up instead of divine Love and holy Living are but so many cheats to deceive poor Souls till time be past and their convictions come to late I confess that ignorance is the calamity of our times and people perish for lack of Knowledge And that the Heart be without Knowledge it is not good And lamentable ignorance is too visible in a great degree among the religious sort themselves as their manifold differences and errours too openly proclaim And therefore to Build up men in Knowledge is much of the Ministerial work But what Knowledge must it be Not dead Opinions or uneffectual Notions or such Knowledge as tendeth but to teach men to talk and make them pass for men of parts But it is the Knowledge of God and our Redeemer the Knowledge of Christ Crucified by which we Crucifie the Flesh with all its Affections and Lusts And by which the World is Crucified to us and we to it If the Gospel be hid it is hid to them that are lost in whom the God of this World hath blinded their Eyes when there is no truth and mercy and knowledge of God in the Land no wonder if such a Land be clad in mourning When men have not so much Knowledge of the evil of sin and their own sin and misery and of the need and worth of Christ of the truth of Gods Word of the vanity of the World of the greatness wisdom and goodness of God and of certain most desirable Glory of Heaven as shall humble their Souls and turn them from the World to God and absolutely deliver them up to Christ and mortifie fleshly Lusts and overcome temptations and renew them unto the Love of God and goodness and set their Hearts and Hopes on Heaven This is the ignorance that is mens damnation And the contrary effectual Knowledge is it which saveth Souls Chap. XIII The ninth Inference Those that Know God so far as to Love him above all may have comfort notwithstanding their remaining ignorance A Great number of upright hearted Christians who Love God sincerely and obey him faithfully are yet under so great want of further knowledge as is indeed a great dishonour to them and a hinderance of them in their duty and comfort and to many a great discouragement And O that we knew how to cure this imperfection that Ignorance might not feed so many Errours and cause so many fractions and disturbances in the Church and so many sinful miscarriages in its members But yet we must conclude that the person that hath knowledge enough to renew his Soul to the Love of God shall be loved by him and shall never perish and therefore may have just comfort under all the imperfections of his knowledge More wisdom might make him a better and more useful Christian But while he is a Christian indeed he may rejoyce in God. I blame not such for complaining of the dulness of their Understandings the badness of their Memories their little profiting by the means of Grace I should blame them if they did not complain of these And I think their case far more dangerous to the Church and to themselves who have as much ignorance and know it not but proudly glory in the wisdom which they have not But many a thousand Christians that have little of the Notional and Organical part of Knowledge have powerful apprehensions of the Power Wisdom and Love of God and of the great Mercy of Redemption and of the Evil of Sin the Worth of Holiness and the Certainty and Weight of the Heavenly Glory And by how much these men love God and Holiness more than the more Learned that have less Grace by so much they are more beloved of God and accounted wiser by the God of wisdom and therefore may rejoice in the greatness of their felicity I would have none so weak as to under-value any real useful Learning But if Pharisees will cry out against unlearned godly Christians These people know not the Law and are accursed Remember the Thanksgiving of your Lord I thank thee Father Lord of Heaven and Earth that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them to Babes And as the reputed foolishness of God that is of Gods Evangelical Mysteries will shortly prove wiser than all the reputed wisdom of men so he that hath wisdom enough to love God and be saved shall quickly be in that World of light where he shall know more than all the Doctors and subtile disputers upon Earth and more in a moment than all the Books of men can teach him or all their Authors did ever here know Jer. 9.23 24. Thus saith the Lord Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom neither let the mighty man glory in his might let not the rich man glory in his riches But let him that glorieth glory in this that he understandeth and knoweth me that I am the Lord which exercise loving kindness and righteousness in the Earth For in these things do I delight saith the Lord. Chap. XIV Questions and Objections answered Quest 1. IF so much knowledge will save a man as helpeth him to love God as God may not Heathens or Infidels at least be saved For they know that there is one God who is Infinitely Good and Perfect and more amiable than all the World and the
yet the true ultimate end of all things is God himself And the love of God is the highest love And Gods Justice is not without that love of himself and tendeth to that good which he is capable of receiving which is but the fulfilling or complacency of his own will which is but improperly called his Receiving 2. And we little know how many in another World or in the renewed Earth are to be profited by his Justice on the damned as Angels and Men are by his Justice on the Devils 1. LOVE is the Life of Religion and of the Soul and of the Church And what can be a just pretence for any to destroy or oppose the very Life of Religion the Life of Souls and the Life of the Church of Christ Physick Blood-letting and Dismembring may be used for Life But to take away Life except necessarily for a Good that is better than that life is Murder And what is it that is better than the Life of Religion in all matters of Religion Or than the life of the Church in all Church affairs Or than the life of mens Souls in all matters of Soul concernment 2. LOVE is the great command and summary of all the Law And what can be a just pretence for breaking the greatest command yea and the whole Law 3. LOVE is Gods Image and he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God who is LOVE and God in him And what can be a pretence sufficient for destroying the Image of God which is called by his name 4. There is nothing in man that God himself loveth better than our love And therefore nothing that as better can be set against it And yet alas what enmity is used in the World against the Love of God and Man and many things alledged as pretences to justify it Let us consider of some few of them 1. The great Tyrants of the World such as in several ages have been the Plagues of their own and neighbour Nations care not what havock they make of Religion and of mens lives by Bloody Wars and Cruel Persecutions destroying many thousands and undoing far more thousands of the Country Families where their armies come and sacrificing the lives of the best of their subjects by butcheries or flames And what is the pretence for all this Perhaps they would be Lords of more of the World and would have larger Kingdoms Or more honour Perhaps some Prince hath spoken a hard word of them or done them some wrong Perhaps some subjects believe not as they bid them believe or forbear not to worship God in a manner which they forbid them Perhaps Daniel will not give over praying for a time or the Apostles will not give over preaching or the three Confessors will not fall down to the Golden Image and so Nebuchadnezzar or the other Rulers seem despised And their wills and honour are an Interest that with them seemeth to warrant all this But how long will it seem so I had rather any friend of mine had the Sins of a Thief or Drunkard or the most infamous Sinner among us to answer for than the Sins of a Bloody Alexander Caesar or Tamerlane 2. The Roman Clergy set up Inquisitions force men by cruelties to submit to their Church Keys whose very nature is to be used without force and they silence yea torment the faithful Ministers of Christ and have murdered thousands of his faithful people raised rebellions against Princes and Wars in Kingdoms and taught men to hate Gods Servants as Hereticks Schismaticks Rebels Factious and what not And what pretence must justify all this Why the Interest of the Pope and Clergy called in ignorance or craft by the name of the Holy Church Religion Unity and such other honourable name But must their Church live on Blood and holy Blood And be built or preserved by the destruction of Christs Church Must their doctrine be kept up by silencing faithful Ministers and their worship by destroying or undoing the true worshippers of Christ Are all these precious things which die with Love no better than to be sacrificed to the Clergies Pride and Worldly lusts 3. Among many Schismaticks and Sectaries that are not miscalled so but are such indeed their Discipline consisteth in separating from most other Christians as too bad and that is too unlovely to be of their Communion and their Preaching is much to make those seem bad that is unlovely that are not of their way and their worship is much such as relisheth of the same envy and strife to add affliction or reproaches to their Brethren or to draw the people from the Love of others unto them And their ordinary talk is back-biting others for things that they understand not and reporting any lie that is brought them and telling the hearers something of this Minister or that person or the other that is unlovely as if Satan had hired them to Preach down Love and prate and pray down Love and all this in the name of Christ And the third chapter of James is harder than Hebrew to them they do not understand it but though they tear it not out of the Bible they leave it out of the Law in their Hearts as much as the Papists leave the Second Commandment out of their Books And it is one of the marks of a good man among them to talk against other parties and make others odious to set up them And what are the Pretences for all this Why Truth and Holiness 1. Others have not the Truth which they have And 2. Others are not against the same Doctrines and Ceremonies and Bishops and Church Orders and ways of worship which they are against and therefore are ungodly antichristian or men of no Religion But Truth seldom dwelleth with the Enemies of Love and Peace They that are Strangers and Enemies to it indeed do often cry it up and cry down those as Enemies to it that possess it The wisdom that hath bitter envying and heart-strife is from beneath and is earthly sensual and devilish I admonish all that care for their Salvation that they set up nothing upon love killing terms If you are Christs disciples you are taught of God to love each other you are taught it as Christs last and great Commandment You are taught it by the wonderful example of his life and specially Joh. 13.14 By his washing hiâ— disciples feet You are taught it by the Holy Ghosts uniting the hearts of the disciples and making them by Charity to live as in Community Acts 3. and 4. You are taught it by the Effective operation of the Spirit on your own hearts The new nature that is in you inclineth you to it And will you now pretend the necessity of your own Interest Reputation your Canons and things indifferent your little Church orders of your own making yea or the positive institutions of Christ himself as to the present exercise against this Love Hath Christ commanded you any thing before it except the
seek that and to enjoy it the little time that it will endure how should this love make them fit for Heaven for a Life of holiness with God and Saints It is this that they love not and will not love for if they truely loved it they should have it yea it is this that they hate and will not accept or be perswaded to And what a fond conceit then is it to think that they shall have Heaven that never loved it no nor the small beginnings here of the Heavenly Nature and Life and all because they loved the pleasures of the Flesh on Earth and loved God and their Neighbours for promoting it 5. Yea I would ask the Infidel whether God will save men for rebelling against him Their love to their Flesh and to the Creature as it is inordinate and taketh Gods place and shutteth out the love of Holiness and Heaven is their great Sin and Idolatry And shall this be called a saving love of God What gross self-deceit hath sensuality taught these men 6. I grant them therefore that all men that believe that there is a God do love somewhat of God or secundum quid or in some partial respect have some kind of love to God. But it is not a love to that of God which must save felicitate and glorifie Souls Meat and Drink and fleshly Sports do not this but Heavenly Glory Wisdom Holiness and Love to God and Man for God and this they love not and therefore never shall enjoy Nay that of God which should save and felicitate them they hate and hated holiness is none of theirs nor ever can be till they are changed And so much to the Infidels Objection 7. I add therefore in the last place to help men in the tryal of their love to God that their love must have these two qualifications 1. They must love that of God which maketh man happy and is indeed the end of his Nature and Sanctification And that is not only the comforts of this transitory natural Life and Flesh but the fore described Union and Communion with God in perfect knowledge love and praise 2. This love to God must be predominant and prevail against the power of alluring objects which Satan would use to turn our Hearts from him and to keep out holy Heavenly love Damning sin consisteth in loving somewhat that is good and lovely and that is of God but it is not simply in loving it but in loving it inordinately instead of God or greater things and out of its due time and rank and measure and so as to hinder that love which is our holiness and happiness Moral Good consisteth not in meer Entity but in Order and disorderly Love even of real good is sinful Love. Therefore when all is said the old mark which I have many and many times repeated is it that must try the sincerity of your love viz. If 1. in the esteem of a believing mind 2. And in the choice and adherence of a resolved will 3. And in the careful serious endeavours of your lives you prefer the knowing loving obeying and joyful praising of God begun here and perfected in Glory as the benefit of our Redemption by Christ before all the interests of this fleshly life the pleasures profits and honours of this World that is before the pleasures of sin and sensuality for this transitory Season Or in Christs words Mat. 6.33 If you SEEK FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS and trust him to superadd all other things This is that love of God and goodness which must save us And he that loveth God even in these high respects a little and loveth his fleshly pleasure so much more as that he will not consent to the regulating of his Lusts but will rather venture or let go his Salvation than his sins hath no true saving love to God. Obj. There is scarce any Fornicator Drunkard Glutton Swearer or other rash and sensual sinner but believeth that God is better than the creature and that it were better for him to live to God in love and holiness than to live in sinful pleasures and therefore though he live in sin against this knowledge it seemeth that with the rational will he loveth God and Goodness best because he judgeth them best Ans 1. It is one thing what the judgment saith and another thing how it saith it A speculative judgment may drowsily say that God and Holiness are best when yet it saith it but as a dreaming opinion which prevaileth not with the will to choose them having at the same time so strong an apprehension of the pleasures of sin as carryeth away the will and practice 2. It is one thing therefore to love God under the notion of being best and another thing to love him best For the will can cross such a notion of the understanding at least by an omission as appeareth by the sin of Adam which began in the will or else had been necessitated The same understanding which sluggishly saith God or Holiness is better yet may more clearly and vehemently say Lust is pleasant or Pleasure of the flesh is good and being herein seconded with the strong apprehensions of sense and fantasie the will may follow this simple judgment and neglect the comparate 3. It is one thing for the understanding to say that God is more amiable to one that hath a heart to love him and a suitable disposition and another thing to say he is now more amiable to me those can say the first that cannot truly say the latter and therefore love not God as best and above all 4. It is one thing for the understanding sometimes under conviction to say God and Holiness are best for me and I ought to love them best and then to lay by the exercise of this judgment in the ordinary course of life though it be not contradicted and to live in the continual apprehension of the goodness of sensual pleasure and another thing to keep the judgment that God and Holiness are best in ordinary exercise For the will doth not always follow the judgment that we had before but that which we have at present and that which we exercise not we have not at that time in act and it is not a meer power or habit of knowledge which ruleth the will but the present act Many a man is said to know that which he doth not think of when indeed he doth not know it at that time but only would know it if he thought of it As a man in his sleep is said to know what he knew awake when indeed he knoweth it not actually till he be awake Obj. But true grace is rather to be judged of by the habit than by the present acts Ans By the habit of the Will it is that is by habitual love for that will command the most frequent acts but I propose it to the consideration of the judicious whether an ordinary habit of