upon heaps and cryes out like one that feels the weight of his own words Childhood and youth are vanity or alas how soon is the desire of ones eyes taken away with a stroke Another sees his goods carryed away before his face and his house on fire before his eyes and then cryes out that he hath a real proof of the yanity of those things which Solomon had long ago observed Prov. 23. 5. Riches take themselves wings and fly away as an Eagle towards Heaven Whilst we see the creatures stand we will not believe but they are stable whilst we see them fair and flourishing we cannot rightly lay to heart the withering nature of them but when we see them cut down we do then conclude they were but flowers when we see them flitting we conclude they are shadows when God pours them our upon the ground we are then convinced that they were unstable as waters To shew us what the best of our creature enjoyments are God is forced to take them quite away that they be no more Now then in such a case at such a time converse with the Infinite self-sufficient Fulness of God Oh now it is seasonable now it is your duty nay now it will be your greatest policy If that chanel that creature-chanel be stopt in which your affections were wont to run too freely turn the stream of them into their proper chanel in which they may run freely and neither ever meet with obstruction nor ever overflow Let your soul grow up into acquaintance and union with God by creature-breaches and disappointments More particularly converse with the self-sufficient Fulness of God 1. By the act of Creature-denyal The eying of an infinite absolute uncreated Fulness in a right manner takes off the soul from all created objects earthly things even as the beholding of the Sun in its glory dazles the eye to all things below God becomes so great in the eye of the soul that it cannot see the poor motes of worldly comforts Give a soul a feeling taste of the infinite sweetness and fulness of the fountain and its thirst after the poor puddles of the world is presently abated if not perfectly quenched according to that of our Saviour Joh. 4. 14. Whosoever shall drink of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst that is not after any other thing Like unto which is that Gospel promise Isa 49. 10. they shall not thirst who do enjoy these springs of water When this fountain is opened in the eye of the soul and the soul begins to taste of it it longs to drink deeper of that indeed but as for all other waters waters of the Cistern the soul looks upon them as not being or at least as being bitter waters of Marah in comparison we do then truly converse with the infinite self-sufficient Fulness of God when we look upon all created good with a noble disdain are content to part with it or if we do still enjoy it are resolved to enjoy it only in God and so look upon it and love it only as a beam from the Fâ—â—her of Lights as a drop of the infinite Fountain of all Perfections Tell me Is it not a poor and low thing that many Professors do who acknowledge and magnifie the uncreated Goodness the Fulness of God and yet at the same time do covet and court the creature with all eagerness and their worldliness is apparently too hard for their Religion Methinks I hear God speaking to such seeming friends as Dalilah to Sampson Judg. 16. 15. How can ye say you love me when your heart is not with me To these mens hearts methinks our Saviours Doctrine should strike cold Mat. 6. 21. Where your treasure is there will your heart be also And those words of his beloved Apostle 1 Joh. 2. 15. If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him Let a man pretend and profess what he will and in words magnifie the Fulness and Sufficiency of God as much as he will if in the mean time his soul be bound up in the creature such a mans Religion is vain nay indeed his profession of God becomes a real reproaching of him and a blasphemy against Reason it self Let your low estem of all created good in comparison of the supreme good your readiness to quit your title to every creature comfort and in the mean time your care to live beside it witness the true and honourable esteem the true and feeling sense that you have in your hearts of the infinite and self-sufficient Fulness of God For however men may make a shift to cheat themselves God is not truly great in the soul till all other things become as nothing neither doth the soul rightly converse with his Infinite Fulness so long as any thing stands in opposition to it or competition with it 2. Converse with the self-sufficient Fulness of God by the grace of Faith I mean by that act of it whereby we do interest our selves and as it were wrap up our own souls in this Fulness and make it our own And herein there is no danger of a humble souls being too bold or venturous For the Proclamation is full and the Invitation free Isa 55. 1. Joh. 7. 37. Rev. 22. 17. Whosoever will let him take the water of life freely What Seneca sayes of the soul in regard of the divine original of it may sure be better said of a godly soul in respect of the Divine Nature and qualities of it illum divina delectant nec ut alienis interest sed ut suis it doth not converse with things divine as with an others but as its own And indeed we cannot truly and comfortably converse with the Infinite Perfection and Fulness of God if we have no title to it but then we converse with God when we converse with our own God not anothers when the soul is able to say All this Fulness of Power Wisdom Goodness is all mine in my head Christ Jesus for in him all this Fulness dwels Col. 2. 9. and he dwelleth in me in him are hid all these treasures Col. 2. 3. and my life also is hid with Christ in God as theirs was in Col. 3. 3. You see then that a soul cannot converse with the Infinite Fulness and Self-sufficiency of God but by Christ for it is in and by him that we receive of Divine Fulness Joh. 1. 16. Hence was that of the devout Father Tolle meum tolle Deum to which I may add Tolle Jesum tollis meum The fulness of a fountain is nothing to me except it be mine There is bread enough in my Fathers house sayes the poor Prodigal but for all that I perish with hunger so is there living waters evermore in this uncreated life this infinite Spring of all Perfection yet many souls are choakt with thirst because the fountain is not theirs it is a fountain sealed as Solomon speaks in another case
â—â—te upon a Child than upon a Kingdom But Christian Divinity doth abundantly demonstrate all creaturefondness unreasonable and intolerable The next thing that I will record shall be the dâ—fficult taâ—k that I found to maintain a right humble and a right cheerful frame at the same time oh how oft and how long did I labour under this difficulty That sense of sin which was called in to promote tenderness of heart being overmuch indulged was ready at length â—o destroy that largeness and cheerfulness of soul which was so much my duty and interest to maintâ—in and on the other hand the sense of Divine Wisdom Grace and Love in Christ Jesus being called in to keep up the soul from sinking was ready to bear it up so high as that it almost forgot that it was in thâ— waters Beware Christians and watch diligently that Godly sorrow do not settle into an ungodly despondency and inconsolable heaviness the soul not being able to bear up under its own burden and that a holy chearfulness and serenâ—ty do not evaporate into an unholy frotâ—â—ness and fargetfulness of your infiâ—mities the soul not being able to manage its own metal and motions I know you would willingly understand something of the frame of my heart at that day respective to my departure out of this world you will best read my heart in the ensuâ—ng discourse upon 2 Cor. 5. 6. which I think was fetcht from thence I shall therefore say no more as to this matter only acquaint you with one eminent Experience relating hereunto My mind or fancy or appetite I know not wâ—ll what to call it was somâ—times enâ—ting in me some desires to live yet longer I â—ntred the lists with this temptation and when I had fairly and calmly debated the ground and reason of such inclination after many shifts and pretences it came to this I would fain perswade my self I was not yet holy enough this I did immediately consent to knewing it to be â— certain truth But that therefore I should desire to prolong my dayes upon earth this was a fallacious Inferencâ— Me thought I pleased my self a while whilst I could say I desired only to live to be better But after a time I apprehended a fallacy in this pretence for the way to be perfected in holiness is not living but indeed dying Christians if indeed your souls be sincerely and powerfully affected towards perfect holiness then sing not so much with David Spare me that I may recover Psa 39. 13. c. as with good old Simeon who having seen God in the flesh desired to go out of the flesh that he might see him more fully and beatifically Now Luk. 2. 29. leâ—test thou thy servant depart c. I cannot inlarge upon this Observation I suppose I have hinted enough to shew those pretences of many men viz. that they would fain live to be more fit to dye to be for the most part but a kind of mockery and self decâ—it Lastly that I be not over-tedious I do solemnly and sincerely profess before God and Angels and Men that I was never so much as inclined to think hardly of God or his good and holy wayes because of this dispensation but did then constantly and freely proclaim to all that came to visit me that sin particularly self will and sensual loves are the worst of plagues and holiness the only happiness of man yea â—ffâ—â—cted holiness infinitely to be preferred before prosperous wiâ—kedness 3. Suffer me as a conclusion of this Preface and as a result from all that I have seen and suffered to commend unto you a few excellent and necessary duties I have much adâ—â— to forbear being large here but I have already transgrest therefore I will wave those common Themes of remembring your Creator bâ—times of hear kening to the voice of his Word before his Rod speak of living in continual preparation for death of repenting and renewing repeâ—tance c. and only commend two or three things which seem to me of most excellent and necessary imporâ—ance petimuâ—que daâ—uâ—que vicâ—ssim 1. Love and eâ—joy all things in God Admire Divine Goodneâ—s in every created excellency and taste a Divine Sweetness in every created comfort O how is the noble soul of man debased pinâ—hed confined by low and sensual loves whilst many men love the creature in opposition to the Creator most men in competition with him and almost all men in a way of separation from him Oh base and degenerate affâ—ctions Let God be All things in your eye so that you shall see nor know nor love nor taste nothing but him in the world Dâ—liver your selves oh immortal souls to whom I write from all those and straitning and stâ—rving creature-loves and long and labour to be filled with pure and holy and spiritual delights such as the â—ngelâ— of God have such as the Son of God had whâ—n he made it his meat and drink to do the Joh. 4. 34. will of his Father But this you will find more largely prosecuted and prest in the last of these following Discourses Therefore 2. Live purely at the pleasure of God and maintain an universal and hearty compliance with his holy and perfect will Believe it you will never enjoy a firm and steady peace till you have committed all your wâ—lls and wayes to him and wrapt up all your interests and ends in him till your hearts be conformed to the heart of God and your wills molded into his will It is a difference of wills and ends and a distinction of interests that beget all those ragings and stormings in the hearts of men against God Mine and Thine do not only divide the world amongst men but divide men against God Earth against Heaven Take this for a certain and undoubted Aphorism that the grand interâ—st of a soul is to comply with and be one with God Communion of hearts and wills and interests and ends is that glorious fellowship which a creature hath with its Creator it is indeed the interest and bonour the duty and dignity yea the Heaven and hâ—p iness of the reasonable creature But something to this purpose you will find in the first Discourse 3. I beseech you Christians be not content to say you have chosen God for your chiefest good but puriue after him as luch without grudging and without ceasing longing to be as much one with hâ—m in a participation of divine perfections as our created natures are capable Maintain a holy and secret striving of soul towards this blessed object continually as a thing moves towards its center as a soul ought to endeavour to accomplish its own perfections stand not gazing upon a Heaven to come but labour to draw dâ—wn all that peace joy love purity which Heaven is into your own souls by growing up into the life of God daily Râ—â—kon that you are never in a right temper except you be in Davids temper when he waited for God more than they
freedom from worldly business as some other things are but is equally incumbent upon Prince and Peasant upon him that sits in his closet and upon him that ploughs in the field yea they that go down unto the Sea in ships ought to go up unto heaven in their hearts and not only to converse with the clouds which they often do but above them too A hand full of earth and a heart full of heaven may well stand together For as this duty justles out no honest business so neither should it self be justled out by any And as this high excellent duty agrees to all ages and times and persons so it agrees to all conditions too poor men do think that rich men may well do it and rich men think that poor men had need to do it prosperity thinks it hath better things to mind than a God and adversity knows it hath worse things but it must mind them plenty is too full to entertain him and poverty hath enough to do to bear up under its own burden learning knows how but will not ignorance sayes it would but knows not how but notwithstanding all this shuffling the obligation to this duty ceases not None so high as to be above it none so mean as to be below it For rich and poor high and low learned and unlearned Prince and peasant though they are divided amongst themselves by punctilioes and lesser differences yet they are united in one universal Being meet in one and the same center agree in the common capacity of reasonable creatures As religion hath an interest and a concernment in the whole of the conversation according to that of the Apostle Phi. 3. 20. our conversation is in heaven so also hath it a room in the conversation of every man in every capacity No Relation Condition Action Change is exempted from the powerful influence thereof so the Apostle describes himself by his living in all good conscience before God all along Act. 23. 1. and by his exercising himself in this thing to have alwayes a conscience void of offence towards God and towards men Act. 24. 16. Now the fifth step in order would be that It is more especially the duty of Gods people to study to converse with him aright in the way of his judgements which is the Doctrine it self which I must not come to confirm till I have shewed according to my promise in the second place what it is for the soul to converse with God and how it comes to converse with him Not to name those too low and improper notions that men ordinarily have of this high and spiritual matter conversing with God to speak properly of it is a compiex Act of the soul whereby it entertains God into it self and renders it self back again to him receives impressions from him and gives up it self again to him is first filled with him and then empties it self into him You may conceive of it after the similitude of a Plant that is influenc't by the benign beams of the Sun and in those beams spreads it self and in the virtue and power of them grows up towards Heaven or after the similitude of a River that is continually filled with the Ocean and is continually emptying it self into the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This seems to be our Saviours elegant allusion Job 4. 14. where he compares a divine and godly principle in the soul to a well of water springing out from God and continually boyling and bubling up towards him springing up into eternal life Or you may conceive of it after the similitude of a Glass which receives the image of him that looks into it and reflects the self same image that it receives For indeed the brightness and beanty of holiness wherewith a godly soul doth shine as a light in the world is nothing but a reflection of that light and brightness wherewith the Father of lights shineth into it And so the best of men have nothing of their own to glory in for they behold God but it is in his own light they love him with a love which he hath shed abroad in their hearts they are therefore like him because he hath stampt his own image upon them And so they must needs acknowledge concerning all their acts of love and communion and delight as David did in another case Of thine own we offer unto thee This is indeed the true and noble converse and communion with God wherein the life of a godly man is infinitely advanced above the life of all other men and indeed doth nearly resemble the life of Angels Their life is described in the Holy Scriptures by a seeing of God a beholding of him face to face which we must not understand of a naked idle speculation but of a real assimilation arising from the divine impressions made upon them a beholding of him so as to be changed into his image And such is a godly mans life spiritual life his life of converse with God consisting in a participation of God and of his Grace and a holy recipâ—ocation or reflection of affections to him which are indeed two distinct acts though originally springing from the same fountain for the love wherewith the soul loves God is it self an efflux from him For by loving us he inspires a love into us and by influences from God we become God-like But this converse with God is not only by the impressions of goodness from God and the reflections of love and delight towards him but is also seen in the various acts of the soul according to the various impressions which God maketh upon the soul and suitable to the various occasions of life so we converse with God by acts of fear reverence joy confidence self-resignation and the like Now because we are in the body and so cannot converse with God so purely spiritually and immediately as the Angels in Heaven do therefore it hath pleased God to appoint unto man wayes and means of conversing with him wherein he haâ—h promised to communicate himself to the soul and so to draw forth reciprocal acts of communion acts of love fear reverence confidence resignation dependance and delight out of the same soul towards himself Now these wayes or means may be reduced to three heads Duties Ordinances and Providences though indeed the two first might be contracted into one First I will speak a word or two of Ordinances such as the Word and Sacraments for I shall name no more but those two The Preaching of the Word is a way in which God doth usually meet the soul to communicate Life 1 Pet. 1. 23. Light Psal 19. 8. Warmth Luke 23. 32. Growth 1 Pet. 2. 2. And the soul doth answer these impressions as in the water face answereth face by the acts of the acts of Faith Love Joy Meekness and holy Resolution So also the administration of the Sacraments is a way wherein God meetech the soul and communicateth his Love Sweetness Fulnâ—ss Goodness
upon created-comforts and that unchaste love which you bestow upon things below I mean not only the bleatings of the Sheep and the lowings of the Oxen I speak not of the grosser sort of earthly-mindedness sensuality or covetousness but of that more refined and hidden creature-love a loving of friends relations health liberty life and that not in God but with a love distinct from that love wherewith we love God To love all these in God and for his sake and as flowing from him and partaking of him and with the same love wherewith we love God himself is allowed us But to love them with a particular love as things distinct from God to delight in them meerly as creatures and to follow them as if some good or happiness or pleasure were to be found in them distinct from what is in God this is a branch of spiritual Adultery I had almost said Idolatry To taste a sweetness in the creature and to see a beauty and goodness in it is our duty but then it must be the sweetness of God in it and the goodness of God which we ought alone to taste and see in it As we say Vxor splendeâ— radiis mariti the wise shines with the rayes of her husband so more truly every creature shines but by a borrowed light and commends unto us the goodness and sweetness and â—ulness of the blessed Creator You have heard that the glorified souls shall live upon God alone entirely wholly eternally and should not the less glorious souls I mean gracious souls do so too in some degree yea even we who are upon earth and do yet use creatures should behold all the scattered beams of goodness sweetness perfection that are in these creatures all united and gathered up in God and so feed upon them only in God and upon God in all them It is the character of wicked and godless men that they set up and drive a trade for themselves live in a way distinct from God as though they had no dependence upon him they love the world with a predominant love they enjoy creature-comforts in a gross unspiritual manner they dwell upon the dark side of their mercies they treasure up riches not only in their chests but in their hearts they feed upon the creature not only with their bodyes but their very souls do feed upon them and thus in a word they live without God in the world All this is no wonder for that which is of the earth must needs be earthly Joh. 3. 31. is it not a monstrous thing that a heavenly soul should feed upon earthly trash I speak without any Hyperbole the famous King of Babylon forsaking the society of men and herding himself with the beasts of the earth and eating grass with the Oxen was not so absurd a thing nor half so monstrous or unseemly as the children of the Most High God forsaking the true bread of souls and feeding upon the low fare of carnal men even created sweetness worldly goods Nay a glorious starr falling from its own sphere and choaking it self in the dust would not be such an eminent piece of baseness For what is said of the true God in one sense Joh. 3. 31. is true of the truly godly in this sense He that cometh from Heaven is above all i. e. above all things that are below God himself 3. Shall this life of Angels be also the life of Saints This may then serve as a powerful consideration to mortifie in us the love of this animal life to make us weary of this low kind of living and quicken us to long after so blessed a change Well might the Apostle say indeed that to dye was gain Phil. 1. 21. For is not this gain to exchange an animal life for an Angelical life a life which is in some sense common to the very beasts with us for that which in some sense may be called the life of God For as the blessed and holy God lives upon his own infinite and self-sufficient fulness without being beholden to any thing without himself so shall the Saints live upon him and upon the self-same infinite fulness and shall not need any creature contributions The Apostle indeed saith That the last enemy to be destroyed is death 1 Cor. 15. 26. which is true of enemies without us and it is true with respect to Christ who shall make a general Resurrection from the dead for that is the proper meaning of it But it is true also that the last enemy to be overcome within us is the love of life Therefore it is said That a man will part with any thing to keep his life Job 2. 4. And we do generally excuse the matter and cry Oh! life is sweet life is precious It must be confest and it may be granted I believe that there is an inclination of the soul to the body arising from that dear and unconceivable union that God himself hath made of them which is purely natural some say altogether necessary for the maintaining of man in this complex state and not in it self sinful Possibly there may not be found a man upon earth so holy and mortified in whom this is not found certainly it is the last hinderance to be removed out of the way of our perfect happiness This although in iâ— it self natural yea necessary without blame yet in the inordinateness of it ordinarily if not constantly becomes sinful I count him the most perfect man in the world who loves not his own life with an inordinate sinful love who loves it only in God and not with a creature-love distinct from God There are two wayes whereby this natural and lawful love of life becomes sinful viz. immoderateness and inordinateness Immoderateness is when men love their lives at that rate that they are filled with unreasonable and distracting fears cares and thoughts about them when the whole business of life is almost nothing else but a studiousness to preserve the Being of life Inordinateness is when men though they do not love their lives at that excessive rate yet do love life as a creature-good not in God nor in order to him but love it for it self as something out of God Every carnal man in the world is guilty of the latter and I doubt but few Saints altogether free from the guilt of it Now that this immoderate love of life ought to be subdued in Christians all men almost will grant If any will not grant it we can easily prove it from the command of God Mat. 6. 25. Take no thought for your life 1 Joh. 2. 15. Love not the world neither the things that are in the world Both which words in the favourablest interpretation that can be given of them do in the judgment of all forbid immoderation Nâ—y a meer Philosopher would enforce this from meer moral confiderations which I cannot now stand upon But this inordinate love of life as it is a more secret sticking evil a
THE Voice of one Crying IN A WILDERNESS OR The business of a Christian both Antecedaneous to Concomitant of and Consequent upon a sore and heavy Visitation Represented in several Sermons First Preacht to his own Family lying under such Visitation And now made Publike as a Thank-offering to the Lord his healer By S. S. A Servant of God in the Gospel of his Son All the Paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies Psal 25. 10. Mala poenalia non sunt veré mala quia fluunt à summo Bono nimirum Deo ducunt ad summum Bonum nimirum fruitionem Dei erant in summo bono nimirum Christo Biel. The evils of Punishment are not truly evils for they flow from the chiefest good even God they lead to the chiefest good the enjoyment of God and are found in the chiefest good even Christ Jesus LONDON Printed Anno Dom. 1666. TO THE READER Christian Readers IT is now more than seaven months since it pleased the holy and wise God together with some dear and Christian friends from London to visit my house with the Plague whereby he gently toucht and gave warning to my self and whole family consisting then of eight souls but called away bâ—nce only three members of it viz. two tâ—nder babes and one servant besides my beloved sister and a child of my precious friend that man of God Mr. G. C. since also translated who were of those Citizens that visited me You will easily believe that I can have no pleasure to rake into the ashes of the dead nor to revive the tast of that wormwood and gall which was then given me to drink and yet I see no reason but that I ought to take pleasure in the pure and holy will of God which alwayes proceeds by the eternal rules of Almighty love and goodness though the same be executed upon my dearest creature-comforts and grate never so much upon my sweetest earthly-interest yea and I see all reason in the world Why I should give God the glory of his Attributes and works before all the world and endeavour that some instruction may accompany that astonishment which from me and my house hath gone out and spread it self far and near I will not undertake to make any Physical observations upon this unaccountable disease nor to vindicate my self either from that great guilt that is charged upon me as if I were a sinner above all that dwell in this countrey or from those many false and senseless aspersions that have been cast upon my behaviour during this visitation much like that we read of Mat. 28. 13. but do freely commit my self to him that judgeth righteously and pray with the Psalmist Psal 69. â— Let not them that wait on thee O Lord God of Hosts be ashamed for my sake let not those that seek thee be confounded for my sake O God of Israel Neither do I purposely undertake in this Preface to reconcile the providences of the most wise God to his promises or to salve that seeming difference between the words of his mouth and the language of his hands between which I have only suspected some kind of jarr but have experienc't an excellent harmony In very faithfulness hast thou afflicted me Whence arise all those uncharitable censures with which the afflicted soul is apt to charge both himself and his God too Spring they not certainly from these two grand causes viz. A misapprehension of the nature of God and of the nature of Good and Evil let the studious and pious Reader search and judge If ever therefore you would be establisht in your minds in a day of affliction 1. Labour to be rightly informed concerning the nature of God Away with those low and gross apprehensions of God whereby your carnal fancies do ascribe unto God such a kind of indulgence towards his children as you bear towards yours which indeed no way agrees to his nature His good will towards his children is a solia wise and holy disposition infinitely unlike to our humane affections Soli Deo competit Amare Sapere â— Labour to be rightly informed concerning the nature of good and evil Judge not the goodness or evilness of things by their agreeableness or disagretableness to your flesh palate or carnal interest but by the relation that they have to the supream good The greatest prosperity in the world is no further good than as it tends to make us partakers of God and the greatest affliction may thus be really good also But that by the By. My design is to justifie and glorifie Infinite Wisdom Righteousness Goodness and Holiness before all men Oh blessed God! who maketh a seeming Dungeon to be indeed a Wine-celler who bringeth his poor people into a Wilderness on set purpose there to speak comfortably to them â—s 2. 14. Be of good cheer O my soul He hath taken away nothing but what he gave and in â—b 1 21. lieu of it hath given thee that which shall never be taken away the first fruits of liâ—e â—k 10. â—2 instead of those whom the first born of death hath devoured But why do I say devoured Doth not that truly live at this day which was truly lovely in those darlings Didst thou O my fond heart love Beauty Sweetness Ingenuity incarnate And canst thou not love it still in the fountain and enjoy it in a more immediate and compendious way Thy body indeed cannot taste sweetness in the abstract nor see beauty except it be subjected in matter but canst not thou O my soul taste the Vncreated goodness and sweetness except it be embodyed and have some material thing to commend it to thy palat Be shâ—med that thou being a spirit as to thy constitution art no more spiritual in thy affections and operations Dost thou with sadness reflect upon those sweet Smiles and that broken Rhetorick with which those Babes were went to entertain thee 1 Consider duly what of real contentment thou hast lost in losing those For what were those things to thy real happiness Thou hast lost nothing but what it was no solid pleasure nor true felicity to enjoy nothing but what the most sensual and brutish souls do enjoy as much as thou 2. Be ashamed rather that thou didst enjoy them in such a gross and unspiritual manner Art thou troubled because any earthly interest is violated Rather be ashamed that thou hadst and cherishedst any such interest But pardon me Courteous Readers this digressive Soliloquy and now suffer me patiently whilest I speak something by way of Admiration something by way of Observation and something by way of Exhortation 1. Let me call upon Men and Angels to help me in celebrating the Infinite and almighty grace and goodness of the Eternal and blessed God Who enabled me to abide the day of â—l 3. 2. his coming to stand when he appeared and made me willing to suffer him to sit as a
Refiner of silver in my house Who carryed me above all murmurings against I had almost said all remembrance of those instruments that conveyed the infection to me Who reconciled my heart to this Disease so that it seemed no more grievous noysome or scandalous than any other Who subdued me to I had almost said brought me in love with this passage of the Divine Will I can remember alass that I can say little more but that I do remember how my soul was overpowred yea and almost ravisht with the goodness holiness and perfection of the will of God and verily judged it my happiness and perfection as well as my duty to comply cheerfully with it and be molded into it Who gave me a most powerful and quick sense of the Plague of a carnal heart self-will and inordinate creature-loves convincing me that those were infinitely worse than the Plague in the flesh so that I did more pitty than I could be pittied by my ordinary visiters Who wonderfully preserved me from the assaults of the Devil never leâ—t him loose so much as to try his strength upon my integrity to drive me to a despondency or to any uncharitable conclusions concerning my state Who enabled me to converse with his love and mercy in the midst of his chastenings to see his shining and smiling face through this dark cloud yea kept up clear and steady perswasions in my soul that I was beloved of him though afflicted by him Who knew my soul in adversity visited Psal 3 me when I was sick and in prison refreshed strengthned comforted my inner man in a marvelous manner and measure and made me appear to my self never less Nunquâ— minus lus qâ— cum sâ— Scip. shut up then when shut up Oh would to God I might be never worse than when I was shut up of the Plague The not removing of that affliction-frame I shall count a greater blessing and a more proper mercy than the removing of that afflicted state Who cleared up my interest in his son strengthened my evidences of his love satisfied and assured my soul of its happy state more than at any time more then at all times formerly I had clearer and surer evidences of Divine gracè in that patient self denying self submitting frame of spirit than in all the duties that ever I performed The valley of tears brought me more sight of my God more insight into my self then ever the valley of visions all duties and ordinances had done When the Sun of righteousness arose upon my soul and chased away all the mists and foggs of self-will and creature loves then also did all black and dismal fears all gloomy doubtings most sensibly flee before him Who supplyed my Family from compassionate friends with all things needful for Food Physick c. The Lord return it sevenfold into their bosoms Who maintained my health in the midst of sickness in the midst of so great a death I do not remember that either sorrow of mind or sickness of body ever prevailed so much upon me during three months seclusion as to hinder me of my ordinary study repast devotions or my necessary attendance upon my several infected rooms and administring to the necessities of my sick These ensuing Discourses were then composed which doth at least argue that through grace this mind was not altogether discomposed nor body neither Who preserved me and gave me not up to death For I judge that I was personally visited with the Plague though not with the Sickness Who hath given me a sincere and setled resolution and vehement desire to live entirely on and to Himself which I account to be the only life of a soul and only worthy to be called a living Grant me this prayer O most blessed and gracious God for the sake of my only and dear Redeemer Thou O Lord God who art witness to all my thoughts and words and works knowest that in truth and soberness I publish these things to the world not to advance the reputation of my own silly name or to be admired of my fellow creatures but for the glory of thy holy name to beget a good liking of so gracious a Creator in all thy poor creatures who are prejudiced against thee and thy holy Service and to strengthen the hearts of thy servants to a most firm and lasting adherence to thee even in the greatâ—st extremities that thou mayest be admired in thy Saints and glorified for gâ—ving such power and grace and comfort â— 9. 8. unto men And oh thaâ— men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful â—l 107. 8. works in and to the children of men 2. Suffer me to make a short Observation of some few memorable Passages out of mâ—ny possibly they may be for the future though they should not be for your present advantage The Lord direct you to make a right application of them according to the â—mergencies of life First I do thankfully record the gracious design of the holy and wise God in that he had secretly prepared my heart though at that time I knew not particularly for what I remember that for some few weeks before I had found a more than ordinary largeness and readiness of soul particularly that I had been studying the exceâ—lent mysterie and sâ—â—king out the streng thning marrow of that famous Text 1 Joh. 4. 8. God is love from whence I had imâ—ortunately prist upon my self the reasonableness of â—â— complying sweetly cheerfully universally with the will of God little dreaming then of the Plague which was almost an hundred miles off me Oh blessed and merciful God who of old didst make Abraham and yet makest his and thy children Heb. 1â— to follow thee though they know not well whither In the next place I count it most worthy of my observation not unworthy of your consideration that it pleased God to seize upon my Family in the beginning of harvest a harvest which I had too earnestly expected too carefully provided for and promised my self too liberally from which folly and vanity of mind this Visitation thus tim'd did as clearly convince me of me thought as if I had seen an hand-writing upon the wall I am ashamed yet I will not stick to confess before all the world God grant it may be for the seasonable and effectual warning of any that my vainer mind was over-pleasantly not to say eagerly drawn out towards secular and worlaly however necessary employments and concernments And thus I was rebuked Vpon examination I find that verily I have been guilty concerning my Children I do not remember that ever any man reproved me for immoderate loving of them or could for any indulgence that could be by humane eyes discerned But oh I see and feel it as a sword at my heart that I loved them not so purely spiritually and properly in God as I ought to have done Philosophy will easily prove it to be a more tolerable vanity to
Strength and Vigour to the soul and it reflects upon him in the acts of holy complacency and delight chearfulness thankfulness and dependence Secondly Duties these are also wayes of converse with God such as Confession Petition Thankigiving Conference Singing Meditation Observation In all which God impresseth something of himself upon the soul and draws answerable affections of the soul unto himself as might appear in the particular explication of them but that would be too much a digression Only I will here note by the way the mistake of many low-spirited Christians who know no other converse with God than the bare performance of these things this they count the very top-stone of a Christians perfections the very flower of the spiritual life But alas this is a gross mistake There is sure something more sweet savoury satisfactory in the spiritual life than the dry duty there is marrow in the bone or else a holy soul could not cover it with so much servour Converse with God in duties is a spiritual favoury filling enjoyment distinct from the duties themselves This must needs be except we will allow to wicked and hypocritical men the same dainties that the most sanctified souls do feed upon and say That the childrens bread is common to the Dogs as well as them The soul doth not converse with God in duties barely when it prayes or meditates for even godly souls themselves do many times find little converse with God in these viz. when he suspends the influences of his graces or their hearts are â—logg'd or cloy'd with earthly objects or otherwise indisposed and shut up against him It is not speaking to God that brings the soul really nigh unto him nor bare thinking of God that advances the soul into the excellent state of feeling converse with him Even prayer it self may prove many times an empty sound vox praeterea â—ihil and meditation that most excellent and genuine off-spring of the soul may prove a poor dry and sapless speculation It is not enough to set up the sayls but there must also be wind to fill them But then doth the soul converse with God in duties when the dark places thereof become filled with his divine light and the empty places thereof filled with his divine love and the low and languishing affections thereof are ravished and revived with the powerful insinuations of his Almighty Grace when God draws and the soul runs he puts in his finger by the hole of the door and the very bowels of the soul are moved for him as it is described Cant. 5. 4. Then doth the soul converse with God in meditation and prayer when the Spirit of God moves upon the face of the waters when he kisses it with the kisses of his mouth and the shaking soul finds it self marvelously settled the doubting soul established the frozen heart thawed the benumm'd affections warmed the scant and contracted capacity of it enlarged and wonderfully widened and its slow and sluggish motions quickened into a lively and chearful compliance with and pursuit of the supreme and self sufficient good when the soul finds its leggs to run after that glorious object which is presented to it lifts up its hands to lay hold upon the strength the fulness the faithfulness the Christ of God and bearing up it self upon the wings of faith and love flyes out to seek its rest and happiness and no longer envyes the birds of the Altar for it self enters into the Holy of Holies and thorough the arms of its Mediator throws it self into the very heart of God In a word and that shall be the Word of God then doth a soul converse with God in duties when with open face beholding the glory of God it doth not only admire it but it self is changed into the same image from glory to glory i. e. from grace to grace 2 Cor. 3. ult Thirdly Providences These are another way wherein the soul converses with God Now by Providences we mean in general the whole work of God in governing the world and all things therein And so indeed a religious enlarged soul a mind freed from particular pinching Cares low and selfish ends converses with God in beholding and observing Gods setled course of governing the world The whole Heavens Earth and Sea and the admirable order kept up in them do teach the knowledge of God and draw up the contemplative soul into an observation and admiration of him in them and the pious soul longs to find some impressions made upon it self by all these and to be affected with God therein It is not content with a bare speculation but its meditation of God in these is sweet to it as Davids were Psal 104. 34. Particularly Gods Providence towards mankind as it doth most livelily express his infinite love justice and wisdom so we ought to converse with him therein and in all the changes of any kind that befall man in the world that befall all the Kingdoms of the world the four great Monarchies of it and all other subordinate Dominions more especially in all the mutations that befall the Church of God in the world and all men of all sects and sorts therein but most especially our selves Labour to converâ—e with that infinite mind wisdom and understanding that ordains and orders all the changes that befall your selves Nâ—w our conveâ—sing with God in the several changes that befall us in the world is in general by endeavouring to serve the Providence of God in every change The Providence of God serves it self even upon wicked men and upon all creatures that do least understand it but a godly man only knows how to serve the Providence of God in the things that befall him He hath no private selfish interest of his own but counts it his interest chearfully and faithfully to serve the will of God to be what God would have him be to be without that which God would have him to want and to do what God would have him do Every wicked soul in the world sets up some trade for himself and drives on some particular self-interest distinct from God But a godly soul counts it his greatest honour and happiness to be nothing in himself nor for himself but is wholly at the beck of his Creator and looking upon all his interest as being bound up in God is sollicitous for nothing else but to serve the will of God in his generation So the life of holy David is described Act. 13. 36. David in his generation having served the will of God i. e. the Providence of God say the Dutch Annotat. translating the words in this order A good man eying nothing but the great and blessed God in the world and knowing that he was not made for himself but for a higher good is only ambitious to be subservient to that Infinite and Soveraign Being herein imitating his Blessed Saviour who lived not to do his own will but the will of him that sent him Joh.
for which we should bewail it and hate it and so consequently that there is something better than God for which we should love him Alas how apt are we to run into a practical blasphemy before we be aware In a word then to decide this controversie Our afflictions losses distresses in the world may possibly be as a Bucket to draw up this water of godly sorrow but they must not be the Cistern to receive and hold it Serious and spiritual Humiliation is a real conversing with the Righteousness of God To meet God is indeed to fall down before him and to converse with him is to lie down under him The truth of which temper is best evidenced by that excellent Commentator the Life of a Christian This doth best declare the nature and interpret the meaning of heart-Humiliation He that breaks off his sins doth best make it appear that his heart is broken for them If you would know whether there have been Rain in the night look upon the ground and that will discover Oh my frieâ—ds if the dust be layd if all earthly joys contentments pleasures concernments be layd you may conclude your sorrow was a shower sent into your souls from Heaven If you see a Boy both sobbing and minding his Book you may conclude he hath some right sense of his Masters severity Conversion to God is the most proper and real conversing with him in the way of his Judgments so he himself interprets in that complaint made Isa 9. 13. The people turneth not to him that smiteth them c. That which happened to Moses when he had been in the Mount with God Exod. 34. 29. should also be the condition of every good Israelite when he hath been with God in the valley the vale of tears an afflicted state his face should shine his conversation should witness that he hath been with God the smell of this fire should pass upon his garments his whole outward man The spirit of mourning should be demonstrated by the spirit of burning If God from Heaven set fire on the standing Corn of our worldly comforts we must answer him from within and set fire on the stubble of our worldly lusts and corruptions Let me change our Saviours words therefore a little Mat. 6. 18. and exhort you earnestly Thou Christian when thou fastest when thou humblest thy soul for sin wash thy face also cleanse thy outward conversation from all sinful pollution that thou mayest appear to be humbled indeed And this shall be accounted as a true and real conversing with the Righteousness of God in the time of affliction 3. Converse with the Faithfulness of God This attribute of God hath respect to his promises and therefore it may be you will think strange that I should speak of this in a discourse of afflictions as not having place there at all Every one will readily acknowledge that Gods Soveraignty and Righteousness do clearly appear in his Judgments but how his Faithfulness can be exercised therein they see not What faithful in punishing in plaguing in visiting in afflicting distressing his creature how can that be Many will be ready to think rather that God is not faithful at such a time when he denyes what he had promised to give takes away what he had promised to continue when he plagues David every morning when he had promised him that the Plague should not come nigh his dwelling when he brings Abijah to the grave whom he had promised that his dayes should be long upon the Land and Job to the dunghill to whom all the promises were made both of the life that now is and of that which is to come Is this faithfulness Doth God fulfil his promises by frustrating them Notwithstanding all this it seems that the faithfulness of God hath place in the afflictions of his people For so saith David expresly Psal 119.75 I know that in faithfulness thou hast afflicted me if indeed faithfulness be taken properly in that place Neither indeed need it seem so strange as some men make it for God hath promised his covenant-people to visit their iniquity with a Rod Psal 89. 32. The Rod The Rod of a man a fatherly chastisement as it is explained 2 Sam. 7. 14. where this seems to be made a branch of the Covenant and is understood by many as a promise But if that be not a plain promise I am sure there is one in Psal 84. 11. No good thing will he with hold from them that walk uprightly And if no good thing then no correction neither for that is often good and profitable for the people of God in this world for many excellent ends which considering the nature of man cannot well be accomplished without it as might appear in many particulars but it is not needful to run out into them God will take more care of his own people than of the rest of the world and will rather correct them than not reduce them It is their main bappiness that he takes care for and he will in kindness take out of the way whatever hinders it and give whatever may promote it Gods thoughts are not as our thoughts he judges otherwise of health riches liberty friends c. than we do We are apt to measure God by ourselves and our own affections which is the ground of our mistake in this business We mind the things that please our flesh our senses our appetite our fancy but God minds the things that concern our souls and their true happiness The Saints are much dearer to God and much more beloved of him than they are to themselves and therefore he will not give them what 's sweet but what 's meet he will give them what makes for their real and eternal happiness whether they would have it or no. He loves them with a strong and powerful love and will not deny them any thing that is truly good for them though they cry out under it nor allow them any thing that is really hurtful though they cry after it So will a wise Father upon Earth do by his children to the best of his skill and power much more will God then qui plusquam patrium amorem gerit in suos whose bowels are infinitely larger and stronger than those of a Father Now then labour to converse with the Faithfulness of God in the time of afflictions which is by studying the Covenant and the promises of it and your present condition and comparing them together and observing how consonant and agreeable they are each interpreting other As also by perswading your hearts of the consistency of afflictions with divine love and favour and by studying to reconcile the hand and heart of God together But especially converse with it practically by a holy establishment and settlement of heart under all afflictions For whereas afflictions in themselves are apt to beget a fearfulness despondency or at least fluctuation in the soul the lively sense of Gods Faithfulness in
water Isa 35 7. as you find both elegantly joyned together Psal 107. 33 35. He turneth water springs into dry grounds sic vicissim Say not therefore with the captive Jews Ezek. 37. 11. Our bones are dryed and our bope is lost c. For God can cause even those dry bones to live Say not with that low-spirited Courtier 2 King 7. 19. If the Lord should make windows in Heaven might such plenty be in a Samaria For he did accomplish it and yet not rain it from Heaven neither But say with Job rather Though he kill me yet will I trust in him Job 13. 15. And with the three Worthies Our God whom me serve is able to deliver us out of thine hand O King Dan. 3. 17. So he is able to deliver us out of thine band O Enemy O Prison O Sickness yea out of thine hand O grave If we despond and be dejected both in mind and body at the same time then is our condition indeed sad and shameful Nay we do more reproach God by such a temper in our affliction than be reproacheth us in afflicting us Make it appear Christians that though God have cast you down yet you do believe that he hath not cast you off and that you although you be sorely shaken by him yet are not shaken off from him Thus you shall gâ—orifie the Almighty Power of God in the day of your Visitation 6. Converse wâ—th the Infinite and unsearchable Wisdom of God especially with the Wisdom of God in reserence to his Judgments and our affâ—ctions He is infinitly wise in reference to our affiictions For 1. He knows what and what manner and what measure of correction we stand in need of 2. When and how best to deliver us 3. How to make the best use of all for our good First He knows what and what manner and what measure of correction we stand in need of He is that wise Physician that kâ—ows what humor is most predominant in the souls of his servanâ—s and what is the most proper Medicine to purge it out where the most corrupt blood is set led and at what vein to let it out He is infinitely knowing of the various tempers and distempers of his servants and can apply himself suitably to them all And as to the measure and degree he is also infinitely wise and exact He doth weigh out the afflâ—ctions of his people to a grain for quantity and measure them to a day and hour for duration He did not miss of his time no not one day in four hundred and thirty years Exod. 12. 41. So many years of bondage were determined upon the people and after those years were expired the very next day the hosts of the Lord went up out of Egypt And as for measure he observes a certain proportion as you may see in that full Tex Isa 28. 27 28. As the Husbandman uses dissering wayes of purging and cleansing different sorts of grain beating the Fitches with a Staff and Cummin with a Rod because they are a weaker sort of grain and will not endure hard usage but bruising the Bread Corn because threshing will not susfice and he is loth to break it all to pieces with turning his Cart-wheels upon it An elegant similitude whereby God insinuateth his different waies of correcting his people and observing a suitableness to their strength and temper when less would not do and more would overdo He must correct so far as to bruise but will be sure not to break and spoil He that saith unto the proud waves of the swelling Sea Hitherto shall ye come and no further Job 38. 11. hath the same command over these Meâ—aphorical waves those floods of afflâ—ction which he lets loose upon his people and they cannot go an such further thâ—n he hath appointed He saith Hitherto shall this Sickness this Mortality this Persecution go and no further and even these storms and this Sea obey him Now we converse with this Instance of Divine Wisdom not only when we observe it and acknowledge it but 1. When it begets in us a friendly and charitable temper towards second causes When we are at peace with the whole Creation even with enemies themselves and in perfect charity with those very Plagues and Sicknesses that do arrest us rather admiring and delâ—ghting in their subserviency to God than at all maligning their severe influences upon us A good man is so much in love with the pure and holy and perfect will of God that he desnes also to fall in love with at least he is at peace with every thing that executes it that serves the will of his heavenly Father He sees no reason in the world to fall out with and fret against any man or any thing that is a meaâ—s to afflict him but views them all as instruments in the hand of God readily serving his will and doing his pleasure and under this notion is charitably affected towards them all Observe a little and admire how David was reconciled to the Rod because it was in the hand of his Father and seems to kiss it for the relation that it had to the Divine Will 2 Sam. 16. 11. Let him alone and let him curse for the Lord hath bidden him This gracious soul is so wonderfully in love with the Will of God that he could almost find in his heart to be reconciled to sin it self if it do accomplish it and to be friends with the wrath of man if it work the righteousness of God And if Dvvid can be so charitably affected towards a cursing Shimei viewing him as an instrument in the hand of God methinks we may be almost in love with any thing under that notion and much rather say concerning a poor harmless Sickness Let it alone so let it put us to pain for God hath sent it To this sense may a devout soul draw the words of his Saviour concerning the Woman in Mat. 26. 10 Why trouble ye the Woman she hath wrought a good work upon me Why do ye interrupt and disturb this disease Why do ye fret against this Persecutor Why do ye repine at this Prison it executes the will of my God upon me What though these men pour out their venom in such ahundance What though this disease spend its influences upon my body so plentifully There 's no waste in all this there 's need of just so much God doth not lavish out his Arrows in vain nor shoot at roveâ—s as Jonathan did who couzened his Lad making him believe he shot at a mark when he shot at none A soul over powered with the sense of Gods Infinite Wisdom in appointing measuring timing all afflictions will easily be reconciled to a poor harmless creature which is set on and taken off at his pleasure 2. When it begets in us a holy Acquiescency and resting in God which is opposed to a larger and disorderly hastening towards deliverance Then do we indeed own and honour the
that the will is prepared to close readily with such Methods as God shall please to use to accomplish his own ends then do we properly and feelingâ—y converse with God under the notion of the All-wise God But this of Self-resignation I spoke something to under the first head and much of that which is spoken there may be indifferently applyed hither Therefore 7. Converse with the unbounded Goodness Love and Mercy of God God is infinitely and unchangeably loving and merciful to his people he is good saith the Psalmist and he is Love saith the Apostle 1 John 4. 8. Those dreadful and terrifying apprehensions which men have of the blessed and good God as if he were some austere and surly Majesty given to passion and revenge are apt to destroy that chearful and ingenuous converse with him which the creature should maintain with its Creator at all times But then are we most prone to entertain those apprehensions and to harbour such unseemly notions of him when he appears in the way of his judgments when we take a view of him in the ruines of our comforts the blood of our friends the spoyl of our goods and in the distresses of our lives We are apt to frame notions of God according to what we find in our own disposition to fancy a God like unto our selves and therefore we cannot eye an afflicting God but we presently conclude an angry God as though the Eternal and Pure Being were subject to passions and changes as we are These apprehensions being once drunk into the soul it becomes unhinged presently and almost afraid to behold the face of love it self but flyes and hides it self as Adam in the Garden or if the soul do converse with God at all it is as a City that is besieged converses with the enemy without viz. sending out to seek peace and to obtain a cessation of Arms. And so a soul may bestow much upon God surrender up the Castle give him all that he hath almost not for any love that he bears to him but as Joash gave Hazael a present of gold and precious things to hire him to depart from him 2 King 12. 18. Oh then they will on and do any thing yea circumcise their lives as Zipporah circumcised her Son Exod. 4 25. to escape the hands of an angry God Every one will converse with God as an enemy in time of extremity hang out a flag sor peace send presents pay a homage send Embassadors to entreat his face But few know how to converse with the Goodness and Mercy of God with him as their dear and only friend in a time of afflâ—ctâ—on freely and chearfully Now there seems to be a double account to be given of mens not conversing with the Goodness and Mercy of God in the time of afflictions 1. Many cannot believe the Mercy and Kindness of God when he is in the way of his Judgments If it be so why am I thus cryes the poor soul strugling under its burden and travelling in pangs to be delivered of its griefs Thus unbelievingly argues Gideon who was otherwise famous for saith in the time of his bitter bondage under the Midianites Judg. 6. 13. when an Angel from Heaven was sent to assure him of the good will of God towards him he could not entertain the news nor believe the report because of the anguish of his soul but cryes out Oh my Lord if the Lord be with us why is all this evil befallen us No the Lord hath forsâ—ken us for he hath delivered us into the hands of the Midianites The sad soul is ready to cry concerning Christs gracious presence as the two Sisters concerning his personal presence John 11. 21 32. Lord if thou hadst been here my Brother had not dyed Lord if thou hadst been here if thou hadst loved me if thou hadst had any delight in me my Brother had not dyed my Husband my Wife my Children had not dyed I had not been thus plagued afflicted wounded tormented as I am Hence we have those many complaints of the afflicted soul up and down the Psalms Hath the Lord forgotten to be gracious Is his Mercy clean gone Hath he shut up his tender Mercies in anger and many such like The smart of our senses is apt to pervert the judgment of our minds and the sense of bodily evils is ready to destroy all sense of the Infinite and Unchangeable Goodness and Love of God Now this great evil seems to arise from these two causes viz. our measuring of God and his Divine Dispositions by our selves and humane passions and affections as I hinted before And our measuring the Love of God too much by the proportion that he gives us of worldly prosperity Woe to him in a day of distress that was wont to judge of Divine Love by the things that are before him as Solomon calls the things of this world Eccles 9 1. This I say is the temper the infirmity of many in the time of afflictions though indeed there be no reason for it For why should we conclude harshly concerning Job upon the dunghill any more than we would conclude charitably concerning Ahab on the Throne Besides the Scripture teacheâ—h expresly that the Love of God doth stand with correction Psal 89. 33. I will visit his iniquity but my loving kindness wâ—ll I not take from him Nay it seems as if it could not well stand without it Heb. 12. 6. Whom the Lord loveth be chasteneth and scourgeth every Son whom he receiveth 2. Others do indeed believe the Goodness and Mercy of God to them in a time of affliction but either they cannot or dare not or will not converse with it nor take comfort in it They remember God with the Psalmist Psal 77. 3. i. e. the Goodness Bounty Mercy of God saith Mollevus and yet at the same time are troubled their hearts are unquiet fluctuating tumultuous within them The soul is so imprest with the sense of sin which it hath contracted from the consideration of its sufferings that it dare not presume to meddle with Mercy but though this Mercy of God be its own yet is ready to think that it is a duty to forsake its own Mercies as though it heard God chiding it in the words of Jehu to Jorams scout 2 King 9. 18. What hast thou to do with peace What hast thou to do with Mercy turn ye behind me An afflicted soul hath much adoe to believe it to be a duty to converse with the Goodness and Love of God in a time of affliction It easily agrees to converse with the Justice Holiness and Power of God indeed but thinks it very improper and unseasonable if not unsafe to converse with his Mercy It is ready to cry with Solomon presently In the day of prosperity rejoyce but in the day of adversity consider or with the Apostle If any be afflicted let him pray if he be merry let him sing Psalms Conversing with the Goodness of
upon God and enjoying all happiness in him alone for ever Shall this certainly be ouâ—â— life in Heaven oh then labour to begin this life upon earth If you cannot perfectly transcribe yet at least imitate that Angelical kind of life Though you are here imprisoned in a body of earth and oft cumbred and clogg'd with bodily infirmities and called to attend upon bodily necessities yet as far as this animal state will permit live upon God Do not excuse nor vindicate that low kind of earthly life do not justifie your living below and besides God but stir up your selves to behold where your happiness lies and live not willingly below it Certainly a godly soul hath more than bare hope in this world God the blessed infinite and communicative good hath not lockt up himself so far out of fight but that he gives his people a comfortable beholding of him even whilst they are in their Pilgrimage and what Soloman saith of the life of the godly he means it of their present life Prov. 15. 24. The way of life is above to the wise Their living not only shall be but is now above it is a high way of living They are certainly a puny sort of Mechanical Christians that think and talk only of a Heaven to come and dream of an happiness without them and distinct from them The truly godly and God-like soul cannot so content himself but being spirited and principled from above is carryed out after the Infinite and Almighty Good as a thing is carryed towards its centre and hastens into his embraces as the Iron hastens to the Loadstone and longs to be in conjunction with it If therefore ye be from Heaven live above all above all earthly things If ye be risen with Christ seek the things that are above Col. 3. 1. If ye be born of God live upon God and suck not the breasts of a stranger Deny self live besides self i. e. live not to the lusts live not to the service of your senses to the lust of the flesh to the lust of the eye to the pride of life let not your souls be servants to your sins no nor to your senses that were for servants to ride on horseback and Princes to walk on foot Eccles 10. 7. Live above self i. e. let your souls quit all their own interest in themselves and entirely resign themselves to God as to all points of duty and service But that 's not all neither is that it which I press you to from these words but live above the creature and whatsoever is in it viz. delighting in God conversing and communing with him alone as the chiefest Good Desire not any creature any further than as it may help you forward to the Creator neithet delight in it any further than as it either represents some of the divine perfections witnesseth something of divine love or leadeth to some divine participation or communion Seeing we shall come to live upon God and delight in God alone without any creature let us now live upon feed upon love God alone in every creature Now to give you a more distinct knowledge of this high and noble life I will explain it in some particulars negatively and affirmatively First Negatively 1. Live not upon Self I speak not of living unto Self but live not upon Self Self-excellencies Self-sufficiencies any created accomplishments which was the life of the Stoicks those great Philosophers who placed happiness in the enjoyment of themselves which they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To enjoy ones self indeed is a high duty a noble priviledge a duty of the Gospel Luk. 21. 19. Possess ye your souls But how must we enjoy our selves why only in God He enjoys himself 1. Not who in a sullen melancholy retires to a solitary and monastical life as many of the sowrer sort of Papists do 2. Nor he that in a proud mood disdains the perfections of God shining forth in other men and hiding himself from them through envy contents himself to sit and admire his own personal accomplishments as many humorists do 3. Nor he who finding nothing without him nor knowing nothing above him to give his soul her full rest settles upon a foundation of his own and admires a self-sufficiency in the temper of his own spirit a little subdued by Philosophical precepts as the Stoicks did and our Quakers do But he who enjoyes himself in God i. e. who doth not view himself in the narrow point of his own Being but taking a view of himself in the unbounded essence of God loves and enjoyes and values himself and all his personal excellencies as he is in God and partakes of his perfections To live in a way of self-converse is below the end of mans creation who was made for a higher good And hereby a man shall never obtain true happiness for it is peculiar to God alone to be happy in himself In a word a soul that confines it self to its self and lives and moves and rejoyces only within the narrow cell of its own particular Being deprives it self of that Almighty and Original Goodness and Glory that sills the world and shines thorow the whole Creation 2. Live not upon any creature without your selves Self indeed is a Creature but yet for clearness in proceeding we shall distinguish them Now this is the life of the greatest sort of men they live beside God and move only within the sphere of the creature you will easily understand that I speak not of the bodyes living upon the creature for so God hath appointed that it shall live and yet as to this too I say with our Saviour Man liveth not by bread alone c. But I speak of the soul of man living upon the creature as its highest good and feeding upon it as its best fare They rise up early and sit up late and God is not in all their thoughts They are filled with domestiek and forein comforts but behold not the Father of Lights from whom all these descend They live upon the good things of the world yet live without God in the world Now by these men 1. do not mean those Heathens that in the most Idolatrous manner do in the literal sense set up the creatures for Gods 2. Nor those Christians that in a most gross manner do makeidols of the creatures and place their happiness in them 3. No nor only those earthly Professors who follow the world too eagerly and have such a deep and rooted respect for it that they can be ordinarily content to suffer creature-employments to justle God and duties out of their hearts and houses whose worldliness is apparently too hard for their Religion Who then Shall we come any nearer yes 4. Those are guilty of creature converse who do not enjoy all creatures in God who love any thing in any creature with a distinct love that do not love it only in God who love silver gold houses lands trading friends with
a particular pinching love Oh take heed of this creature-love of valuing any created thing any otherwise than in God any otherwise than as being from God partaking of him and leading to him 3. Live not upon Ordinances These are Gods institutions love them cleave to them attend upon them let no temptation cause you to leave them but live not upon them place not your Religion place not your hope your happiness in them but love them only in God attend upon them yet not so much upon them as upon God in them lie by the Pool but wait for the Angel love not no not a divine ordinance for its own sake Why who doth so Alas who almost doth not 1. Thus did they in Ezek. 33. 32. who delighted in the Prophets eloquence and in the Rhetorick of his Sermons as much as in a well tuned voice and harmonious musick and so do thousands in England who read the Bible for the style or the stories sake and love to sit under learned and elegant discourses more for accomplishment than for conversion And swarms of Priests who preach themselves more than Christ Jesus even in his own ordinances as a proud Boy rides a horse into the Market to set forth himself more than his Masters goods 2. But there are many not so gross as these who do yet use ordinances in a way very gross and unspiritual placing their devotion in them and sinking their Religion into a settled course of hearing or praying who will wait upon God as they call it at some set and solemn times New Moons and Sabbaths it may be evening and morning but Religion must not be too busie with them nor intermeddle in their ordinary affairs or worldly employments it hath no place there they do not count it a garment for every dayes wear 3. And not only these but even almost all men are too apt to seek rest in duties and ordinances or at least to be pretty well satisfied with the work done whether they have conversed with God there or no Oh if you love your souls seek you happiness higher conversing with divine ordinances I confess is honourable and amiable but it is too low a life for an immortal soul Affirmatively Let nothing satisfie you but God himself take up with no pleasure no treasure no portion no paradise nay no Heaven no happiness below the infinite supreme and self-sufficient good Let your eye be upon him and his all-filling sulness let your desire be unto him and to the remembrance of his name follow hard after to know the Lord and to enjoy the Father through his Son Jesus Christ let your fellowship be with the Father and with the Son by the spirit 1 Joh. 1. 3. O love the Lord all ye his Saints Psal 31. 23. yea love him with all your soul and all your strength Mat. 22. 37. yea and keep your selves alwayes in the love of God Jude 21. persevere and increase in the love of God Keep your selves in the love of God Oh sweet duty Oh amiable pleasant task Oh sweet and gratesul command Away ye crowd of creatures I must keep my heart for my God Away ye gawdy suitors away ye glittering toyes there is no room for you My whole soul if its capacity were ten thousand times larger than it is were too scant to entertain the supreme good to let in infinite goodhess and fulness Oh charge it upon your selves with the greatest vehemence love the Lord O my soul keep thy self in the love of God let the love of God constrain you and keep your selves under the most powerful constraints of it In a word live upon God as upon uncreated life it self drink at the fountain seed upon infinite fulness depend upon Almighty Power refer your selves to unsearchable wisdom and unbounded love see nothing but God in the creature taste nothing but God in the world delight your selves in him long for communion with him and communications from him to receive of his fulness grace for grace Then do we live most like Angels when we live most purely in God and find all the powers of our souls spending themselves upon him and our selves our life and all the comforts of it flowing from him and again swallowed up in him But because we are yet in the body I shall explain it in these following particulars 1. Converse with God in all your Selfexcellencies I bade you before not converse with these now I say converse with God in these Thus do the Angels they know nothing that they have of their own they enjoy nothing distinct from God They are excellent creaturs excellent in knowledge power holiness c. yet they enjoy all their excellencies in God and ascribe them all to him Rev. 7. 12. And so let us labour to do 1. View your selves not in your own particular Beings but in the Essence of God look upon your selves as being and subsisting in the midst of an Infinite Essence in which the whole Creation is as it were wrapt up and doth subsist 2. And what ever excellency you find in your souls or bodyes look not upon it as your own maintain not a Meum and Tuum a distinction of interests beâ—ween God and your selves but look upon all as Gods and enjoy it in him 3. When you find your selves tempted to cast a fond and unchaste look upon the beauty strength activity or temper of your own bodyes upon the ingenuity wisdom constancy courage composedness of your own souls take heed of settling into a selfish admiration of any of them but enjoy them in God and say This O my body this O my soul is no other than the portraicture of the Blessed God these created excellencies are broken beams of the infinite unspotted uncreated perfections Jer. 9. 23 24. Having once attained to this we shall no longer covet to be admired desire to be commended fret at being undervalued I mean not in a selfish manner but rather break out in a spiritual passion with the psalmist Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works in the children of men Psal 107. 8. 3. Nay let me add when you find your selves ready to put your own stamp upon Gods best coin to look upon supernatural gifts and graces with a sinful selfish admiration remember that you have them only in Christ Jesus and enjoy them in your head labour to enjoy grace it self only in Christ as the Apostle Gal. 2. 20. I yet not I but Christ in me I laboured yet not I but the grace of God 1 Cor. 15. 10. So ought we to glory I believe I love I am patient penitent humble yet not I but the grace of God that is with me Christ Jesus that dwelleth in me And indeed a godly man who thus lives at the very height of his own Being yea and above it too knows best how to reverence himself yea and to love himself too and yet without any self-love For he
Oh how sweet is the God that made it so Is there any thing lovely it is a picture of him whose name is Love Is any thing firm stable lasting it is a shadow of that glorious essence with whom there is no shadow of change Have you any thing strong it arises out of that God with whom is everlasting strength Doth any creature give rest ease refreshment it springs out of the All satisfying fulness of God In a word labour to climb up by every created excellency as by so many beams to the Father of lights let all the world be to you as Gods Temple and be ready to say of every place as Jacob How dreadful is this place surely this is no other than the house of God! that God who runs thorow all created Beings and from himselves derives several prints of beauty and excellency all the world over But especially take heed of your own created-comforts that they do not insensibly lead a way your hearts and ensnare you into a sinful particular distinct love of them which is a sin soon committed hardly discerned and most hardly reformed If any be freed from these inordinate affections sure they are but few and those few have come dearly by it as he said in another case with a great summ they have obtained this freedom they have payed for it not with the foreskins of the Philistines but with the lives of what they so loved there being no way to cure this evil distemper but cutting off the member infected with it the part that it fed upon As a branch of this head let me add labour to live upon God in the excellencies of other men value them and all their accomplishments only in God as he that did diligere Deum habitantem in Augustino Admire God and enjoy God in them Where ever you see wisdom goodness ingenuity holiness justice or any other accomplishment say Here and there is God And this is the honest way of making our selves Masters of whatever is another mans and enjoying it as truly as he himself doth yea as truly as if it were our own when we behold all these beams as coming from the same fountain of lights and do love them all in him with an universal love This is the rare Art of having nothing yet possessing all things of being rich though one have nothing and of being wise though one know nothing 3. The last way of living upon God in the creature is To taste and feed upon the love of God in them not only his common bounty but his special love in Christ The good will of God gives a sweet relish to every morsel as I hinted before Even in the midst of all your delightful pleasant sweet enjoyments let your souls be more affected with this than with them let this be as the Manna lying upon the top of all your outward comforts which your spirits may gather up and feed upon But this I toucht upon before therefore I shall add no more concerning it Thus I have shewed you how you may imitate the life of Angels in living upon God even whilst you live in the body To this I may add another particular or two 3. Converse with God and live upon him in all his Ordinances Let communion with God be your drift in every duty and the very life and soul and sweetness of every ordinance You never read of a soul more thirsty after ordinances than David as might appear abundantly yet if you look well into the expressions you will find that it was not so much after them as after God in them not after the dead letter but after the living God Psa 4. 2. 2. My soul thirsteth for God for the living God and Psal 84. 2. My heart and my flesh cryeth out for the living God Let the Word preacht or read be as a voyce from Heaven talking you let your conserence be a comment upon that Word let meditation be as a kind of bringing down God into your souls and prayer as a raising up of your souls into God nothing but faith and love put into phrases And so of all the rest 4. Converse with God in all his Providences prosperity adversity plenty penury health sickness peace and perplexity This is a large Theme But as to prosperity I have speken something a ready under that head of conversing with God in creature enjoyments As for adversity I have said much more in a large discourse to describe and commend the Art of conversing with God in affictions Briefly at this time converse not with losses wants afflictions but with God in them and that not only with the justice righteousness severity and soveraignty of God in them but with the goodness and mercy of God in them They are dark Providences we had not need to dwell all together on the dark side of them If all the wayes of the Lord towards his people be mercy and truth Psa 25. 10 then his roughest and most uncouth wayes are so 100 If God be wholly love 1 Joh. 4. 8. then his very corrections proceed not from hatred If it be his name to be good and to do good Psal 119. 68. where have we learnt then to call his afflicting Providences Evils and to divide evil which is but one even as God is one into culpae and paenae sin and affliction surely we speak as men And if God call them so he speaks after the manner of men as he often doth If the governing will of God be pure persect and infinitely good and righteous ought we not to converse with it in a free and chearful manner yea and to love it too In a word pore not upon creature-changes nor the uncertain wheels of motion that are turning up and down we know not how nor how oft but fix your souls upon that All-seeing eye that unbounded understanding that unsearchable and infinite goodness that derives it self thorow the whole universe and sits in all the wheels of motion governing all the strange motions of the creatures in a wonderful and powerful manner and carrying them all in their several Orbs to one last and blessed end Thus imitate the Angelical life even whilst you are in the body converse with God in self-excellencies in creature-excellences Ordinances Providences And yet labour to be more like them still to abstract your mind from all these and all material and sensible things and to converse with God without the help of any creature I mean in the spirit and by a secret feeling of his Almighty Goodness and the energy of grace and the communications of a divine life in your souls In a word if you would taste of Heaven whilst you are upon Earth labour above all things for a true conjunction of your hearts with God in a secret feeling of his goodness and a reciprocation of love to him and to find the holy and blessed God exercising his grace and power upon all the faculties of your souls and
the seeing of God The life of Angels is called a continual beholding of the face of God Mat. 18. 10. and the state of the Saints glory and happiness is also a seeing of God Mat. 5. 8. Heb. 12. 14. Rev. 22. 4. They shall see his face and his name shall be in their foreheads Now this phrase the seeing of God applyed both to the Saints and Angels doth place their happiness in God alone excluding the creature and it doth import the fulness and clearness and certainty of that their bliss Thus I have shewed you in what sense though I am not able to shew you in what degree the glorified Saints shall be like the Angels of God in Heaven Their way of living viz. upon the blessed God alone shall be the same with that of the holy Angels Application From the discovery of the future state of the Saints I find my self filled with indignation 1. Reproof Against the carnal conceits that many Christians have of Heaven Christians do I call them Nay herein they seem rather Mahumetans who place Heaven in the full and lasting enjoyment of all creature-comforts nay indeed of sinful and abominable pleasures as one may read in their Alcoran It may be few Christians are altogether so sensual but sure I am the far greater sort of Christians so called are very gross and carnal at least very low in their conceits of the state of future happiness Heaven is a word as little understood as Holiness and that I am sure is the greatest mystery in the world it would be tedious to run thorow the particular various apprehensions of men in this matter and indeed impossible to know them The common sort of people understand either just nothing by Heaven but a glorious name or at best but a freeness from bodily torment As nothing of Hell affects them but that dreadful word fire so nothing of Heaven but the comfortable word Rest or safety Others it may be think there is something positive in Heaven and they dream of an honourable easic pleasant life free from such kind of toyls labours pains persecutions reproaches penuries which men are subject to in this life This is a true notion but much below the nature of that happy state others are yet more highly affected with the words of Glory and Glorious and seem to be much ravished with them but are like men in a maze or wonderment that admire something that they understand not and are altogether confounded in their own apprehensions of it As if a man should be mightily taken with such a fine name as Arabia the happy and by a blind fervor of mind should desire to go and visit it Others rise higher yet in their apprehensions of Heaven and look upon it as a holy state but that holiness is negative viz. a perfect freedom from sin and all temptations to it And indeed this is a precious consideration and that wherein many a weary soul finds much rest But yet this amounts not to the life of Angels it is a lower consideration of Heaven than what our Saviour here presents us with The state of the glorified Saints shall not only be a state of freedom from temporal pains or eternal pains or a freedom from spiritual pains and imperfections but a state of perfect positive holiness pure light ardent love spiritual liberty holy delights when all created good shall perfectly vanish all created love shall be swallowed up the soul shall become of a most God-like disposition shining forth in the glory that he shall put upon it glorying in nothing but the blessed God Father Son and Holy Ghost in his divine Image and perfections and wrapt up entirely into his infinite fulness to all eternity Which hath made me oft-times to nauseat and indeed to blame the poor low descriptions of the Kingdom of Heaven which I have found in Books and Sermons for too drye yea and gross which do describe Heaven principally as a place and give it such circumstances of beauty firmness security light and splendor pleasant society good neighbourhood as they think will most commend an earthly habitation True indeed the Holy Ghost in Scripture is pleased to condescend so far to our weak capacities as to describe that glorious state to us by such things as we do best understand and are apt to be most taken with and do most gratifie our senses in this world as a Kingdom Paradise a glorious City a Crown an Inheritance c. But yet it is not the will of God that his enlightened people should rest in such low notions of eternal life For in other places God speaks of the state of glory according to the nature and excellency of it and not according to the weakness of our understanding and describes it at another rate calling it the Life of Angels as here the beholding of God Mat. 5. 8. a coming unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ Ephes 4. 13. Gods being All things in us 1 Cor. 15. 28. It is called a Knowing of God and of his Son Jesus Christ Joh. 17. 3. In a word which is as high as can be spoke higher indeed than can be perfectly understood it is called a Being like unto God 1 Joh. 3. 21. We shall be like unto him But this Use is not so much for Reproof as it is for Information 2. Here is matter of Roproof yea and of just indignation against the gross low sensual earthly life of Professors who yet hope to be the children of the Resurrection and to be as the Angels of God in Heaven What hope to be like them then and yet altogether unlike them now I speak not in a passion but out of a just indignation that I have conceived against my self and against the generality even of Saints themselves I am not going to speak of Covetousness commonly so called there is a sin much like to it which is not indeed a single sin but an evil and unseemly temper which is earthly-mindedness or minding of earthly things or if you will because I would not be misunderstood a living upon the creature or a loving of the creature with a distinct love Oh the insensible secrecy and insuperable power of this creature-love I cannot sufficiently exclaim against it Why do we spend noble affections upon such low and empty nothings Are we called with suâ—h a high Calling think you that our conversation should be so low Is the fulness of the fountain yours and do ye yet delight to sit down by and bathe your selves in the shallow streams Is your life hid with Christ in God Why then do you converse as if your life were bound up in the creature Have you layd up your treasure in the blessed God what do your hearts then so far from it Is your happiness in Heaven why then is not your conversation there too Do ye count it your bliss to see God what then mean those fond and wanton glances that ye cast