of prayer Faith can pray without words but the most elegant words the phrase of Angels is not worthy to be called prayer without faith I speak not so much of faith inditing a prayer or giving life to it as of its being vertually prayer if not something more for indeed faith is a real bringing down of that God and sucking in of those influences into the soul which prayer only looks up for Communion with God is a continual fast it is that spiritual and most excellent way of fasting whereby the soul emptying it self of it self and all self-fullness self-sufficiency self-confidence receives of the fulness of God alone and is filled therewith A soul communing rightly with God is a soul emptied of and as it were fasting from it self which is the most excellent way of fasting It is a continual thanksgiving and indeed the best way of thanksgiving in the world To render up our selves to God purely and entirely to reflect the glory of God in an holy and godlike temper is a real and living thank-offering This is that Hallelujah so much spoke of which the Angels and Saints in glory do sing perpetually what other adjunct of it there may be I will not here dispute This communion of hearts and wills is a constant and most excellent celebration of Sacraments The Soul that is really Baptized into the spirit of the Lord Jesus and feeds upon God and is one with him keeps a continual Sacrament without which the Sacramental eating and drinking is but a jejune and dry devotion In a word it is not possible for any thing that is extrinsecal to the soul to make it happy but the soul that is advanced into the noble state of communion with God is made partaker of a new nature and is truly happy Nay further I will add that this communion with God is not only better than all duties and ordinances but even better than all revelations evidences discoveries that can be made or given to the soul ab extra all that are from without a manifestation of God i. e. of a divine life in the soul is much better than such a manifestation as Moses had of his glory in the cleft of the Rock Exod. 34. Many think oh if they might but be assured of the love of God of the pardon of fin of an interest in Christ they should be happy why I will tell you if you had a voice from Heaven saying that ye were the beloved Children of God as Christ had an Angel sent from God to tell you that ye were beloved and highly favoured of God as his Mother Mary had yet were communion with God to be preferred before these For these things could not make a soul happy without real communion with God but communion with God can and doth make a soul happy without these And to this purpose I suppose I may apply that famous speech of our Saviour's by way of allusion It is more blessed to give than to receive to give up ones self ones heart will interests and affections to God than to receive any external discoveries and manifestations from him Why do we so earnestly seek after signs from without us of Gods presence with us as if there were any thing better or more desirable to the soul than Emanuel God with us or as the Apostle speaks Christ in us the hope of glory He that desires any other evidence of grace but more grace dos not only light up a candle to see the Sun by but indeed he acts like one that thinks there is something better than God himself though I do not say that all do think so who are covetous of such manifestations But this I will say and you may do well to chew upon it that holy longings after a true and spiritual communion with God do certainly spring from a divine principle in the soul whereas a thirst after assurance of Gods love and reconciliation of our persons with him may be only the fruit of self-self-love and interest Let me dye the death of the Righteous you know whose wish it was 7. Though communion with God do concern the whole soul and all the faculties affections and motions of it it is Gods spreading his influences and exercising his Soveraignty over all the powers of the soul and their mutual spending of themselves upon him and conforming to him yet the great Acts of the soul whereby it chiefly holds communion with God are loving and Believing Love is the joyning and knitting of the soul to God Faith is the souls labouring after more intimate conjunction with him a sucking in influences from him and participations of him into the Soul We may say that faith fetches in supplies from Heaven and Love enjoyes them faith sucks in sweetness and vertue from Christ and love feeds upon it Certainly these two eminent graces grow and live and thrive together and are inseparable companions It is somewhat difficult to distinguish them or to assign to each his proper place and work in the soul they seem mutually to act and to be mutually acted by each other perhaps the Apostle might have respect to this mystery when he speaks so doubtfully Gal. 5. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which words may be translated either Faith acting by love or faith acted by love We know indeed that in the state of perfect communion which we call glory love shall abide and flourish more abundantly and there shall be no room for faith there not as to the principal act of it but whether hath the greater part in maintaining our communion with God in this world is not easie nor indeed needfull to determine The godly soul is the most proper Temple wherein God dwelleth according to that 2 Cor. 6. 16. Ye are the Temple of the living God Faith and Love are the Jachin and Boaz the two great Pillars which keep up the Soul as a Temple take away these and it remains a soul indeed but the soul dos not remain a Temple to the Lord. In a word these two are the souls principal handmaids which she useth about this blessed guest Faith goes out and brings him in and Love entertains him by faith she finds him whom she seeks and by love she kisses him whom she finds as the spouse is described Cant. 8. 1. 8. The communion that is between God and the godly Soul is altogether different from that communion that is between creatures Here I might shew you how it exceeds and excells that in many respects but I shall not insist upon any of those particulars nor indeed upon any of those many differences that are between them save only upon this one The communion that is between creature and creature is perfect in its kind and so consequently gives mutual satisfaction I mean it terminates the expectations so that nothing remains to be enjoyed in them more than what is enjoyed The creature is shallow and soon fathomed we soon come to the bottom of it A
complaint and the most dreadfull charge which the Protestants bring against the Papists is their immanity and most unchristian cruelty exercised against all whom they can but make a shift to esteem Hereticks and they on the other hand alledge that the interest of Religion and the Catholick faith doth require it and that they do not so properly murder men as sacrâ—fice John 16. 2. them to the honour of God It will be proper to spend a little time at least to clear Religion of this blame that as wisdom is at all times justified of and in her children so she may be sometimes justified by them especially when the aspertions are so monstrous foul And indeed she hath sufficiently instructed us how to justifie her from all such imputations having so fairly pourtrayed Jam. 3. 14 15 16 17. her self by the pen of the Apostle James both negatively and affirmatively She is void of strise envyings bitterness and every evil work but she is pure peaceable gentle easie to be entreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisie This is the proper description of heavenly wisdom or pure Religion And oh that all Christians would estimate themselves to be wise according to their consonancy and conformity thereunto Then I would easily believe that none would be Papists in practice whatever they might be in opinion What Sirs is the God of Christians become like unto a Devil that he should delight in cruelty and drink the blood of men Is the butchering of reasonable creatures that reasonable service which he requires Is the Rom. 12. 1. 2 Cor. 6. 15. living sacrifice of your own bodies turned into the dead sacrifice of other mens It was wont to be said What communion hath Christ with Belial And is the Prince of Peace now become very Sathan the author of enmity malignity confusion and every evil work Did he shed his blood for his enemies to teach us that goodly lesson of shedding the blood of ours Did he come to seek and to Luke 9. 56. save that which was lost to set us an example that we might seek to destroy and that only to repair our own losses Be it so that the Protestant Churches have apostatized from you this I hope is not a greater crime than the apostasie of mankind from God which yet he expiated not with the blood of the Apostates but with his own Religion was formerly a principle springing uâ— into eternal life How is the world changed that it should now be a principle springing up into Massacres and temporal death or is Religion now become a principle springing up into secular power worldly dominion temporal greatness and all manner of flâ—shly accommodations This was of old the description of sensuality and a heathenish genius Mat. â— 6. 32. For after all these things do the Gentiles seek Are there so many mighty engines in the Gospel to engage the hearts of men to believe profess and obey it And must they all now give place to Fire and Sword Are these the only Gospel-methods of winning men to the Catholick faith What are we wiser for Christ or more zealous than he himself was Did he forbid fire from heaven Luke 9. 55. and will you fetch it even from hell to consume dissenters Did he sheath the sword that was drawn in his own defence and set a dreadfull seal upon it too 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mat. 26. 52. all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword And will you adventure to draw it in a way of revenge and persecution and count it meritorious too as if you should therefore never perish because you take it Is it not written in your Bibles as well as ours that no murderer shall enter into the Gal. 5 21 1 Joâ— 3. 15 Kingdom of God And do you think by murders to propagate this Kingdom upon earth and have a more abundant entrance into it your selves hereafter Can hell dwell with Heaven shall bloody cruelty ever come to lodge in the bosome or lye down in the sacred arms of eternal love Be not deceived Sirs with a false Heaven but take this for an indubitable and self-evidencing Aphorism of truth No soul of man hath any more of Heaven no nor ever shall have than he â—e hath of God and of his pure placable patient benign and gracious nature And this is that everlasting life which a Religious principle is alwayes springing up into so that hereby it appears plainly that Religion in the power of it would heale these feaverish distempers also and so restore a most excellent constitution both personal and political It may seem possibly that I have toyl'd too much in these discoveries and happily my pains may prove ungrateful to many but may it please Almighty God that they may prove vindicative of Religion reâ—â—aurative of the sickly and lapsed Ecclesiastical or political state yea or medicinal and profitable to any single soul of man I shall venture to estimate it against an age of pains And if it should prove that by all this toyl I have caught nothing as the Luk. 5. 5. weary Disciples complained of old nevertheless being well assured that I have a word of God for my encouragement I will let down the Net once again and so finish these Epistolary pains with an earnest hortatory address to all that shall peruse them Let nothing satisfie your souls Christians let nothing administer rest or settlement to your hearts that is common to the natural man or competible to the meer animal life There are a great many high strains of zeal and seeming devotion by which many men judge themselves to be some great ones and concerning which they are ready to say These things are the great power of God which if they be well rifled into will be found to grow upon no better root than natural self and to spring from no higher principle than this animal life It is impossible for me to give an exact Catalogue of all these many of them I have occasionally recorded in the latter end of this ensuing Treatise to which yet many more might be added if I had a fair opportunity But at present let me in general commend to you this description made by our Saviour of true Religion as the Rule whereby I do earnestly entreat you faithfully to examine your selves your actions affections zeal confidence professions performances Let me speak freely All pomp of worship all speculative knowledge though never so Orthodox is as dear to the animal life as the divine and all external modells of devotion submiss confessions devout hymns pathetical prayers raptures of joy much zeal to reform indecencies in worship or superstitions a fierce raging against the political Antichrist do as well agree to a natural man as a spiritual and may be as fairly acted over to see to by a meer selfish carnal principle as by that which is truly divine When Diogenes
clear and spiritual discerning of God They did as it is storied of one of the Persian Kings enshrine themselves in a Temple of their own But what speak I of Heathen Philosophers Is there not the same unclean spirit of self-adoration to be found amongst many Christians yea and Teachers of Christianity too witness that whole brood those men who whilest they hang the grace of God upon mans free-will do rob him of his glory Some of these have impudently given a short but unsavoury answer to the Apostles questâ—on in 1 Cor. 4. 7. Who maketh you to differ from an other Ego me ipsum discerno I make my self to differ These men whilest they pretend to high attainments do discover a low and most ignoble spirit To fasten and feed upon any thing in the Creature is the part of a low and degenerate spirit on the other hand it is the greatest perfection of the Creature not to be its own not to be any thing in it self or any way distinct from the blessed God the father and fountain of light and grace Holy Paul is all along in a different strain as in 1 Cor. 15. 10. I yet not I but the grace of God which was with me I told you before what a fair and honourable character the Holy Ghost hath given of holy David a man after Gods own heart now you may also find a description of these men too in Scripture not much differing from the other in phrase but very much in sense it is the same that is given of the proud Prince of Tyrus Ezek. 28. 2. They set their heart as the heart of God But we if we do indeed partake of the Divine Nature shall not dare to take any part of the Divine Glory if we conform to Gods Image we shall not set up our own This self-glorying in the predominancy of it is utterly inconsistent with true Religion as Fire is with Water For Religion is nothing else but the shinings forth of God into the Soul the reflection of a beauty and glory which God hath put upon it Give all therefore unto God for whatsoever is kept back is sacrilegiously purloined from him Glory we in the fulness of God alone and in selfpenury and nothingness The whole of Religion is of God Do we see and discern the great things of God It is by that light that God hath set up in us according to that of the Apostle 1 Cor. 2. 11. The things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God That love whereby we love him he first shed abroad in our hearts If our Souls be beautiful it is with his brightness the beauty and glory of essential Holiness according to that of the Apostle Heb. 12. Partakers of his holiness If we be really and truly full we receive it of his fulness according to that of the Apostle Ephes 3. 19. filled with all the fulness of God In a word if we be in any God-like dispositions like unto him it is by his spreading of his image in us and over us By all which it appears to be a thing not only wicked and unwarrantable but utterly impossible for a godly Soul to exalt himself against God for grace to advance it self against divine glory for grace is nothing else but a communication of divine glory and God is then glorified when the Soul in holy and gracious dispositions becomes like unto him How is it possible that grace should be a shadow to obscure divine glory when it self is nothing else as it comes from God but a Beam of glory and as it is found in the Creature may properly be called a reflection of it To conclude then Be ye perswaded that a man hath so much of God as he hath of Humility and Self denial and Self-nothingness and no more He is so far of God as he loves Him honours Him imitates Hâ—m and lives to Him and no further 3. By this discovery of the Original of Religion we come to understand the Original of Sin and Wickedness And here according to the method wherein I spoke of the Original of Religion I might shew you how the original of Sin from without is of the Devil that first usher'd it into the World and ceaseth not to tempt men to it continually as also of men who are his instruments and that it does in a sense spring from many occasions without But these things are more improperly said to be the causes of Sin The inward cause is the corrupt heart of man that unclean spirit that devillish nature which is indeed the worst and most pernicious Devil in the world to Man It is an old saying Homo homini Daemon One Man is a Devil to another which though it be in some sense true yet it is more proper to say Homo sibi Daemon Man is a Devil to himself taking the spirit and principle of Apostacy that rebellious nature for the Devil which indeed doth best deserve that name But yet if we enquire more strictly into the original and nature of this Monster we shall best know what to say of it and how to describe it by what we have heard of Religion Sin then to speak properly is nothing else but a degeneration from a holy state an apostacy from a holy God Religion is a participation of God and sin is a stragling off from him Therefore it is wont to be defined by Negatives a departure from God a forsaking of him a living in the World without him c. The Souls falling off from God does describe the general nature of Sâ—n but then as it sinks into it self or settles upon the World and fastens upon the Creature or any thing therein so it becomes specified and is called Pride Covetousness Ambition and by many other names All Souls are the Off-spring of God were originally formed into his image and likeness and when they express the purity and holiness of the Divine Nature in being perfect as God is perfect then are they called the Children of God But those impure Spirits that do lapse and slide from God may be said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to implant themselves into a other stock by their own low and earthly lives and are no more owned for the Children of God but are of their father the Devil John 10. 44. By which you may understand the low and base original of Sin Nothing can be so vile as that which to speak properly is nothing else but a perfect falling off from glory it self By this you may also by the way take notice of the miserable condition of unholy Souls We need not call for Fire and Brimstone to paint out the wretched state of sinful Souls Sin it self is Hell and Death and Misery to the Soul as being a departure from Goodness and Holiness it self I mean from God in conjunction with whom the Happiness and Blessedness and Heaven of a Soul doth consist Avoid it therefore as you would avoid being miserable
their rest in them Neither is it the pursuing of any interest that will denominate them religious but the grand interest of their Souls 2. A godly Soul in his more inward and spiritual acts hath not his motive without him For a man may be somewhat more inward in his motions and yet as outward in his motives as the former Religions acts and gracious motions are not originally and primarily caused by some weights hung upon the Soul either by God or men neither by the worldly Blessings which God gives nor the heavy afflictions which he sends The Wings by which the godly Soul flies out towards God are not waxt to him as the Poets feign Icarus's to have been but they grow out of himself as the wings of an Eagle that flies swiftly towards Heaven On the other side a Soul may be press down unto humiliation under the heavy weight of Gods Judgements that has no mind to stoop no self-denying or self-debasing disposition in it Thus you may see Jehu flying upon the Wings of Ambition and Revenge born up by successes in his Government and his Predecessor Ahab bowing down mournfully under an heavy Sentence The Laws and Penalties and Encouragements and Observations of men do sometimes put a weight upon the Soul too but they beget a more sluggish uneven and unkindly motion in it You may expect that under this head I should speak something of Heaven and Hell and truly so I may very pertinently for I think they do belong to this place If you take Heaven properly for a sull and glorious union to God and fruition of him and Hell for an eternal separation and stragling from the Divinity and suppose that the love of God and the fear of living without him be well drunk into the Soul then verily these are pure and religious Principles But if we view them as things meerly without us and reserved for us and under those common carnal notions of delectableness and dreadfulness they are no higher nor better motives to us than the carnal Jews had in the Wilderness when they turned their Backs upon Egypt where they had been in bondage and set their Faces towards Canaan where they hoped to find Milk and Honey Peace Plenty and Liberty A Soul is not carried to Heaven as a Body is carried to the Grave upon mens Shoulders it is not born up by Props whether humane or divine nor carried to God in a Charior as a man is carried to see his Friend The holy fire of ardenâ— Love wherein the Soul of Elijah had been long carried up towards God was something more excellent and indeed more desirable than the Fiery Chariot by which his Body and Soul were translated together Religion is a spring of motion which God hath put into the Soul it self And aâ— all things that are external whether actions or motives are excluded in this Examination which we make of Religion So neither 2. Must we allow of every thing that is internal to be Religion And therefore 1. It is not a fit a start a sudden passion of the mind caused by the power and strength of some present Conviction in the Soul which in a hot mood will needs make out after God in all haste This may fitly be compared to the rash and rude motion of the Host of Israel who being chidden for their slothfulness over night rose up early in the morning and gat them up into the top of the Mountain saying Lo we be here and will go up unto the place which the Lord hath promised for we have sinned Numb 14. 40. And indeed it â—ares with these men oftentimes as it did with those both as to the undertaking and as to the success their motion is as sinful as their station and their success is answerable they are driven back and discomfited in their enterprize Nay though this passion might arise so high as to be called an extasie or a rapture yet it deserves not the name of Religion For Religion is as one speaks elegantly like the natural heaâ— that is radicated in the hearts of living Creatures which hath the dominion of the whole body and sends forth warm Blood and Spirits and vital nourishment into every part and Member it regulateâ— and orders the motions of it in a due and even manner But these extatical Soulâ— though they may blaze like a Comet and swell like a torrent or land-flood for a time and shoot forth fresh and high for a little season are soon extinguished emptied and dried up because they have not a Principle a stock to spend upon or as our Saviour speaks no root in themselves These mens motions and actions bear no more proportion to Religion than a Land-flood that swells high and runs swiftly but it is only during the rain or in the Scripture-phrase no more than a morning-dew that soon passes away Hos 6. 4. is like a Well or Fountain of Water 2. If Religion be a Principle a new Nature in the Soul then it is not a meeâ— Mechanismâ— â— piece of Art Art imitates Nature nothing more ordinary I doubt than for Religion it self that new Nature to go into an Art I need not tell you how all the external acts and shootings forth of Religion may be dissembled and imitated by Art and be acted over by a mimical apish Pharisâ—â— who finds nothing at all of the gentle and mighty heaâ— not the divine and noble life of it in his own Soul whereby he may fairly deceive the creduâ—ous World as I have partly hinted already But it is possible I wish it be not common for men that are somewhat more convinced enlightened and affected to imitate the very power and spirit of Religion and to deceive themselves too as if they possest some true living Principle and herein they exceed the most exquisite Painters Now this may be done by the power of a quick and raised Fancy men hearing such glorious things spoken of Heaven the City of the great King the New Jerusalem may be carried out by the power of self-self-Love to wish themselves there being mightily taken with a conceit of the place But how shall they come at it Why they have seen in Books and heard in discourses of certain signs of Grace and evidences of Salvation and now they set their fancies on work to find or make some such things in themselves Fancy is well acquainted with the several Affections of Love Fear Joy Grief which are in the Soul and having a great command over the animal Spirits it can send them forth to raise up these Affections even almost when it listeth and when it hath raised them it is but putting to some thoughts of God and Heaven and then these look like a handsome platform of true Religion drawn in the Soul which they presently view and fall in love with and think they do even taste of the powers of the world to come when indeed it is nothing but a self-fulness and sufficiency
to bribe Gods justice or engage mens charity to purchase favour with God or man or his own clamarous conscience but he prays because he wants and loves and believes he wants the fuller presence of that God whom he loves he loves the presence which he wants he believes that he that loves him will not suffer him to want any good thing that he prays for And therefore he do's not bind up himself severely and limit himself penuriously to a morning and evening Sacrifice and solemnity as unto certain rent-seasons wherein to pay a homage of dry devotion but his loving and longing Soul disdaining to be confin'd within Canâ—nical hours is frequently soaring in some heavenly raptures or other and sallying forth in holy ejaculations He is not content with some weak assays towards Heaven in set and formal Prayer once or twice a day but labours also to be all the day long sucking in those Divine influences and streams of grace by the mouth of faith which he beg'd in the morning by the tongue of prayer which hath made me sometimes to think it a proper speech to say the faith of Prayer as well as the prayer of faith for believing and hanging upon Divine grace doth really drink in what Prayer opens its mouth for and is in effect a powerful kind of praying in silence By believing we pray as well as in praying we do believe A truly godly man hath not his hands tyed up meerly by the force of a National Law no nor yet by the authority of the fourth commandment to keep one in seven a day of rest As he is not content with meer resting upon the Sabboth knowing that neither working nor ceasing from work doth of itself commend a Soul to God but doth press after intimacy with God in the duties of his worship so neither can he be content with one Sabboth in a week nor think himself absolved from holy and heavenly meditations any day in the week but labours to make every day a Sabboth as to the keeping of his heart up unto God in a holy frame and to find every day to be a Sabboth as to the communications of God unto his Soul Though the necessities of his body will not allow him it may be though indeed God hath granted this to some men to keep every day as a Sabboth of Rest yet the necessities of his Soul do call upon him to make every day as far as may be a Sabboth of communion with the blessed God If you speak of Fasting he keeps not Fasts meerly by vertue of a civil no nor a divine institution but from a principle of godly sorrow afflicts his â—oul for sio and daily endeavours more and more to be emptied of himself which is the most excellent Fasting in the world If you speak of Thansgiving he do's not give thanks by laws and ordinances but having in himself a law of thanksulness and an ordinance of love engraven upon and deeply radicated in his Soul delights to live unto God and to make his heart and life a living descant upon the goodness and love of God which is the most divine way of thank offering in the world it is the hallâ—lujah which the Angels sing continually In a word wherever God hath a tongue to command true godliness will find an hand to perform whatever yoke Christ Jesus shall put upon the Soul religion will enable to bear it yea and to count it easie too the mouth of Christ hath pronounâ—'d it easie Mat. 11. 30. and the spirit of Christ makes it easie Let the commandment be what it will it will not le grievous 1 Joh. 5. 3. The same spirit doth in some measure dwell in every Christian which without measure dwelt in Christ who counted it his meat and drink to do the will of his Father Joh. 4. 34. 2. And more especially the true Christian is free from any constâ—aint as to the inward acts which he performeth Holy love to God is one principal Act of the gracioâ—s soul whereby it is carryed out freely and with an ardent lust towards the object that is truly and infinitely lovely and satisfâ—ctory and to the enjoyment of iâ— I know indeed that this springs from self indigency and is commanded by the soveraignty of the supream good the object that the Soul eyes but it is properly free from any constraint Love is an affection that cannot be excorted as sear is nor sorâ—â—d by any external power nor indeed internal neither the revenues of the King of Persia or the treasuâ—es oâ— Aegypt cannot commit a rape upon â—â— Heb. 11. 26. neither indeed can the soul it self raise and lay this spirit at pleasure which made the Poet complain of himself as if he were not sole Emperour at home Non amo te Sabidi nec possum dicere quare c. Though the outward bodily Acts of Religion are ordinarily forced yet this pure chast virgin-affection cannot be ravished it seems to be a kind of a peculiar in the soul though under the jurisdiction of the understanding By this property of it it is elegantly described by the spirit of God Cant. 8. 7. if a man would give all the substance of his house for love it would utterly be contemned It cannot be bought with money or money-worth cannot be purchased with gifts or arts and if any should offer to bribe it it would give him a sharp and scornful check in the language of Peter to Simon Thy money perish with thee love is no hireling no base born mercenary affection but noble free and generous Neither is it low-spirited and slavish as Fear is therefore when it comes to full age it will not suffer this Son of the Bond woman to divide the inheritance the dominions of the Soul with it when it comes to be perfect it casteth out fear sayes the Apostle 1 Joh. 4. 18. Neither indeed is it directly under the authority of any law whether humane or Divine it is not begotten by the influence of a divine law as a law but as holy just and good as we shall see more anon quis legem dat amantibus ipse Est sibi lex amor the Law of Love or if you will in the Apostles phrase the spirit of love and of power in opposition to the spirit of fear 2 Tim. 1. 7. doth more influence the godly man in his pursuit of God than any law without him this is as a wing to the Soul whereas outward commandments are but as guides in his way or at most but as spurs in his sides The same I may say of holy delight in God which is indeed the flower of love or love grown up to its full age and stature which hath no torment in it and consequently no force upon it Like unto which are holy confidence Faith and Hope ingenuous and natural Acts of the Religious Soul whereby it hastens into the Divine embraces as the Eagle hastneth to the prey swiftly and speedily
meditation reading administration of our callings as the Apostle intimates in the body of that forequoted Epistle But perhaps there will a question arise concerning some other things which may seem to lay a constraint upon the spirits of men I deny not but that the seemingly religious motions of many men are meerly violent and their devotion is purely forc'd as we shall see by and by but I affirm and I think have confirmed it that true and sincere Religion is perfectly free and unconstrain'd This being premised now if you ask me what I think of afflictions I confess God doth ordinarily use them as means to make good men better and it may be sometimes to make bad men good these may be as weights to hasten and speed the Souls motions towards God but they do not principally beget such motions If you ask me of temporal prosperity commonly called mercies and blessings of promises and Rewards propounded I confess they may be as oyle to the wheels and ought to quicken and encourage to the study of true and powerful godliness but they are not the spring of the souls motions they ought to be unto us as dew upon the grass to refresh and fructifie the Soul but it is the root which properly gives life and growth Secondly It may be granted that there is a kind of constraint and necessity lying upon the godly Soul in its holy and most excellent motions according to that of the Apostle 2 Cor. 5. 14. The love of Christ constraineth us and again 1 Cor. 9. 16. Necessity is laid upon me to preach the Gospel But yet it holds good that grace is a most free principle in the Soul and that where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty For the constraint that the Apostle speaks of is not opposed to freedom of Soul but to not acting Now although the Soul so principled and spirited cannot but act yet it acts freely Those things that are according to nature though they be done necessarily yet are they done with the greatest freedom imaginable The water flows and the fire burns necessarily yet freely Religion is a new nature in the soul and the religious Soul being toucht effectually wiâ—h the sense and imprest with the influences of divine goodness fulness and perfection is carryed indeed necessarily towards God as its proper centre and yet its motions are pure free generous and with the greatest delight and pleasure conceivable The necessity that lay upon Paul to preach the Gospel is not to be understood of any external violence that was done to him much less of â—odily necessity by reason of which many men serve their own bellyes in that great function more than the Lord Jesus for though he preacht the Gospel necessarily yet did he preach freely and willingly as he oft professeth The godly Soul cannot but love God as his chiefest good yet he delights in this necessity under which he lyeth and is exceeding glad that he finds his heart framed and enlarged to love him I say enlarged because God is such an object as do's not contract and pinch and straiten the soul as all created object do but ennoble ampliate and enlarge it The sinful soul the more it lets out and lays out and spends itself upon the creature the more it is straitned and contracted and the native freedom of it is enslaved debased and destroyed but grace do's establish and ennoble the freedom of the Soul and restore it to iâ—s primitive perfection so that a godly soul is never more large more at rest more at I berty thâ—â— when it finds itself delivered from all self confining creature-loves and lusts and under the most powerful influences and constraint of infinite love and goodness By this that hath been said of the free and generous spirit of true Religion we may learn what to think of the forc'd devotion of many prest Souldiers of Christ in his Church militant that there is a vast difference and distance between the prest and the imprest Christian Though indeed the freedom of the will cannot be destroyed yet in opposition to a principle many mens devotion may be said to be wrung out of them and their obedience may be said to be constraiâ—ed I shall explain it briefly in two or three particulars 1. Men force themselves many times to some things in Religion that are besides yea and against their nature and genius I need not instance in an overly conformity to the letter of the law and some external duties which they force themselves to perform as to hear pray give almes or the like in all which the violent and unnatural obedience of a pharisee may be more popular and specious than the true and genuine obedience of a free-born disciple of Jesus Christ If going on hunting and catching of Venison might denominate a good and dutiful Son Esau may indeed be as acceptable to his father as Jacob but God is not such a father as Isaac whose affections were bribed with fat morsels he feeds not upon the pains of his children nor drink the sweat of their browâ— I doubt not but that an unprincipled Christian that hath the heart of a slave may also force himself to imitate the more spiritual part of Religion and as it were to act over the very temper and disposition of a son of God Therefore we read of a semblance of joy and zeal which was found in some whom yet our Saviour reckons no better than stony ground Mark 4. 16. and of great exâ—asies in some whom yet the Apostle supposes may come to nothing Heb. 6. 5. and what appearance of the most excellent and divine graces of patience and contempt of the world many of the sowrer sort of Monastical Papists and our mâ—ngrel breed of Papists the Quakers do make at this day all men know nay some of these last sort do seem to themselves I believe to act over the temper and experiences of the chiefest Apostles rejoycing with Peter and the rest that they are counted worthy to suffer shame Act. 5. 41. and keeping a catalogue of their stripes with Paul 2 Cor. 11. 24. and in these things I am confident to use the Apostles words that they think themselves not a whit behind the very chiefest Apostles nay they are not ashamed to lay claim to that grace of graces self-denyal which they have forced themselves to act over so artificially that even a wise man might almost be deceived into a favourable opinion of them but that we know that whilest they profess it they destroy it for it is contrary to the nature of self-denyal to magnifie and boast itself And indeed it is very evident to a wise observer that these men by a pretence of voluntary humility and counterfeit self-denyal do in truth endeavour most of all to establish their own righteousness and erect an idol of self-supremacy in themselves and do really fall in love with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or self-sufficiency
in the soul as a burning fire shut up in the bones which makes the soul weary with forbearing and so powerfull in longings that it cannot stay as the spirit of prophesie is described Jer. 20. it is more true of the spirit of God than of the spirit of Elihâ— the spirit within constraineth and even dresseth the soul so that it is ready to swoun and faint away for very vehemence of longing Sâ—e the amâ—rous spouse falling into one of these fainting fiâ—s Cant. 2. 5. and crying out mainly for some cordial from Heaven to keep up her sinking spirits Stay me with flaggons straw me with apples for I am sick of love Oh beautifull and blessed fight a soul working towards God gasping and longing and labouring after its proper happiness and perfection Well the sinking soul is relieved Christ Jesus reacheth forth his left hand to her head and his right hand embraceth her and now she recovers her hanging hands lift up themselves and the 〈◊〉 of her â—ading complex on 〈◊〉 restored now she sits down under his shadow with great delight and his fruit is sweet unto her taste See here the fairest sight on this side Heaven a soul resting and glorying and spreading itself in the arms of God growing up in him growing great in him growing full in his fulness and perfectly ravished with his pure love O my soul be not content to live by any lower instance did not our hearts burn within us said the two Disciples one to the other whilest he talked with us But the soul in which the sacred fire of love is powerfully kindled doth not only burn towards God whilest he is more familiarly present with it and as it were blows upon it but if he seem to withdraw from it it burns after him still my beloved had withdrawn himself and was gone I sought him I called him Cant. 5. 6. And if the fire begin to languish and seem as if it would go out the holy soul is startled presently and labours 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle speaks to revive it and blow it up again calls upon itself to awake to arise and pursue to mend its pace and to speed its heavy and sluggish motions This divine active principle in the soul maintains a continual striving a holy strugling and streâ—ching forth of the soul towards God a bold and ardent contention after the supreâ—m good 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Religien hath the strength of the Divinity in it its motions towards its object are quick and potent That elegant description which the Prophet makes of the wicked heart with some change may be brought livâ—â—ly to express this excellent temper of the godly soul it is like the working Sea which cannot â—est and although its waters do not cast up mire and dirt yet in a holy impatience they rise and swell and cast up a froth and some towards Heaven In a word that I may comprize many things in few expressions no man so ambitious as the humble none so covetous as the heavenly-minded none so voluptuous as the self-denying Religion gives a largeness and wideness to the soul which sin and self and the world had straightned and confined But his Ambition is only to be great in God his Covetousness is only to be filled with all the fulness of God and his voluptuousness is only to drink of the rivers of his pure pleasures He desires to taste the God whom he sees and to be satisfied with the God whom he tastes Oh now how are all the faculties of the soul awakened to attendance upon the Lord of life It hearkens for the sound of his feet coming the noise of his hands knocking at the door it stands upon its watch tower waiting for his appearing waiting more earnestly than they that watch for the morning and rejoyces to meet him at his coming and having met him runs into his arms kisses him holds him and will not let him goe but brings him into the house and entertains him in the guest-chamber The soul complains that itself is not large enough that there is not room enough to entertain so glorious a guest no not though it have given him all the room that it hath It entertains him with the widest arms and the sweetest smiles and if he depart and withdraw fetches him again with the deepest groans Return Return O Prince of Peace and make me an everlasting habitation of righteousness unto thy self It will not be amiss here briefly to touch upon the Reason of the godly souls so ardent pantings after God And here I might shew first negatively that it springs not from any carnal ambition of being better and higher than others not from any â—arnal hope of impunity and safety nor meerly from the bitter sense of pressing and tormenting afflictions in this life But I shall rather insist upon it affirmatively These earnest breathings 〈◊〉 God spring from the feeling apprehensions of self-indigency and insufficiency and â—â—e powerful sense of divine goodness and fulness they are begotten of the divine Bounty and self sufficiency manifesting itself to the spirits of men and conceived and brought forth by a deep sense of selfpoverty one might almost apply the Apostles words to this purpose we receive the sentence of death in our selves that we should not trust in our selves but in him I shall not discourse upon these two heads disjunctly but frame them into one notion and so you may take it thus these holy longings of the godly soul after God do arise from the sense of its distance from God To be so far distant from God who is life and love itself and the proper and full happiness of the soul is grievous to the soul that is rightly affected towards him and hence it is that the soul cannot be at rest but still longs to be more intimately joyned to him and more perfectly filled with him and the clearer the souls apprehensions are of its object and the deeper its sense is of its own unlikeness to him and distance from him the more strong and impatient are its breathings insomuch that not only fear as the Apostle speaks but even love itself sometimes seems to itself to have a kind of agony and torment in itself which made the spouse cry she was sick of love that is sick of every thing that kept her from her love sick of that distance at which she stood from her beloved Lord. The godly soul being ravisht with the infinite sweetness and goodness of God longs to be that rather than what itself iâ— and beholding how it is estranged from him by many sensual loves selfish passions corporal clogs and distractions bewails its distance and cryes out within itself Oh when shall I come and appear before God! Oh when will God come and appear gloriously to me and in me who will deliver me from this body of death Oh that mortality were swallowed up of life Davids soul did wait for God as earnestly
withered the choicest flowers in natures Garden that they have now no more form nor comeliness beauty or fragrancy as to deserve to be desired she hath tasted the pure and perfect sweetness of the fountain which hath so imbittered all cistern-waters that she finds no more thirstings in her self after them which is chat which our Saviour promiseth here shall never christ A godly soul cannot posfibly be put off with any thing short of God give him his God or he dies Give him never so much fair usage in the world never so much of earthly accommodations they are not accommodated to his wants and thirsts if they have not that God in them out of whom all worldly pleasures are even irksome and unpleasant and all fleshly case is tedious and painsul Creature-employments are but a weatisome Crudgery to a soul that is acquainted with the work of Angels and creature-enjoyments in themselves considered are very insignificant if not burdensome to a mind that is feelingly possest of the chiefest good But here it will be seasonable to take into consideration a grand enquiry viz. whether a godly man may not be said in some sense to desire the creature and how far such a person may be said to thirst after it This I shall speak to as briefly and yet as clearly as I can in these four following particulars 1. All godly souls are not equally mortified to worldly loves nor equally zealous and importunate lovers of God This is so evident de facto that I need not insist upon it Abraham seems to have been as much higher and nobler in spirit than his Brother Lot as Lot was more excellent than one of the ordinary Sons of Adam I had almost said than one of the Sodomites amongst whom he dwelled The one leaves all the pleasant and plentiful accommodations of his native Country at the very first call going out not knowing whither he went only relying upon the gracious guidance of him whom he followed he seems to reckon all soils alike for his sojourning and the whole habitable world as his own City and home as appears by his readâ—ness to break up house and quit his present habitation rather than interfere with the conveniences of his Nephew Gen. 13. 9. The other preferred a fruitful soil before a faithful society and so in some sense his body before his soul and yet as if it had not been enough to make so unadvised a choice he rests in it too yea though he was so severely reproved by the captivity that befell him there whereby he was not so much call'd as indeed carried away thence yet this will not loosen him from his earthly conveniences but he returns to Sodom and from thence he will not part till he be fired out nay and then also it is with much lingring and loathness Gen. 19. 16. It is evident I say de facto both from this and many other instances which I purposely omit that it is so that all godly souls are not equally careless of these earthly things not carried out with equal ardour and intemperance as I may call it towards the supreme and most glorious object of which I can assign no fitter reason than this because they are not all equally godly For 2. So far as grace prevails and Religion in the power of is acteth the soul in which it is planted so far earthly loves decay and wither For these two cannot stand together mutuo se pellunt the love of the world is inconsistent with the love of God 1 Joh. 1. 15. If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him So far as any soul is sanctified so far is it mortified also to all creature-enjoyments to all things that are only fuel for the animal life honour ease victory plenty liberty relations recreations all the entertainments and delights in this lower life yea and this very life it self Earthly and heavenly loves are to each other as the two ends of a pair of ballances save that they are never found equally poizing as the one rises the other falls just so much advantage as this gets that loses The more the sensual and self-central life thrives and prospers and the creature is exalted the more Religion and the divine life fainteth and flogeth in the soul And so certainly on the other hand the more divine grace prevails and the divine life flourisheth in the soul the more all earthly objects wither away and lose their beauty and the soul cooleth and languisheth as to its love and desire of them So far as a regenerate soul is unregenerate so far she will be bufling after other Lovers which regeneration will not I conceive be throughly perfected and therefore these lustings not utterly extinguished till this mortal put on immortality or as the Apostle speaks elsewhere till mortality be swallowed up of life 3. For the preventing of rash and uncharitable judging I do affirm that divine and holy souls are oft mistaken by them that behold their ordinary converse and actions in the body They are thought sometimes to take pleasure in the creature and to gratifie the flesh when indeed it is no such matter but they take pleasure in the stamp of God or the evidence of his fatherly love which they contemplate therein and do perhaps most of all serve a spiritual end and an eternal design in those very actions which others may think are calculated for the gratification of the animal life and the service of the flesh Let not the purblind world nor the self-befriending hypocrite be judge and it will appear that the truly godly soul counts nothing savoury to it self but what represents teaches exhibits something of God nothing pleasant but what hath a tendency to him Such a soul doth not feel himself in his highest raptures doth not tast himself in his noblest accomplishments doth not seek himself in his most excellent performances be nor mistaken he doth not so much thirst after long life riches friends liberties as indeed after God in them all these all signifie nothing to him if they bring him not nearer to his God and conduce to his real and spiritual happiness Yea possibly in his most suspicable actions and those that seem most alien from Religion and most designed to please the flesh he may be highly spiritual and pure So was our blessed Saviour we know even in his conversing with scandalous sinners eating and drinking with Publicans and notorious oâ—fenders however he was traduced by a proud and hypocritical generation and so I doubt not is many a good Christian according to his measure pure as Christ was pure When a painted Hypocrite who can guess aâ— the temper of others no other way but by what he finds in himself and by what he should be and do if he were under the same circumstances comes to be Judge of the actions or disposition of one who is transformed into the Image of the divine freedom and benignity
making haste to be rich Prov. 28. 22. and hastning after another God Psal 16. 4. which eager and ardent passions towards earthly objects you may see livelily described in the instances of Ahab Amnon and Haman in the holy story And is there any reason to be given but why that new nature and divine principle which God putteth into regenerate souls should carry them as hastily and forcibly to a present fruition of their proper object and happiness so far as at present it may be enjoyed as that corrupt and degenerate nature doth hurry on them in whom it ruleth towards the satisfaction of their beastly lusts Divines speak sometimes of making Heaven and eternal life present to our selves and say that this is the work of faith which is an high and excellent doctrine but I doubt not thoroughly understood by ordinary Christians To make Heaven present to ones self is not only to insist upon a state of future happiness in frequent meditations to think much of it neither is this that noble employment of saving faith But the life and power of faith is most eminently exerted in sucking in participations of life and grace from Christ and in a real bringing down of God and Heaven into the Soul The truth is Heaven is a state of perfect communion with God a state of love joy peace purity freedome and as far as any soul is in such a state upon earth so far he is above the earth and may be said to be in Heaven Therefore a right active soul that truly understands his proper and spiritual Heaven and happiness so far as he is thus act ve and sensible cannot be content to stay for all his happiness till the world to come cannot be content to be unhappy no not for an hour but still growing up in God and springing up into everlasting life John 4. 14. 2. It reprehends them that make a stir about the Kingdom of Christ in the world and mens being brought into the communion of the Church but advance not his Kingdom in their own souls nor long not to have their own souls advanced into that noble state of communion with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ There is doubtless a generation of such popular Christians who being strangers to the life and power and spirit of true Religion do endeavour to put off themselves to the world and commend themselves to the charity of their brethren by a pretended zeal for the Kingdom of Christ in the world and the glorious manifestation of it as they speak I know indeed that it is worthy the cares and prayers and utmost diligence of every serious Christian to spread and propagate the knowledge of the Gospel to pour out the oyntment of Christs name far and near A more pure and spiritual administration of all Gospel ordinances throughout the world is bighly desirable yea and I think an indifferent and careless disposition towards the worship of God argues much of an earthly and atheistical mind But I fear that Kingdom of Christ and those glorious manifestations and discoveries which are so much pretended to by many if they should be throughly examined would be at length resolved into nothing else but the advancement of some one party or interest above all the rest or the exchanging of an old form and dress of Religion for a new one and that this zeal would be found little better than the blazings of self-love a fire kindled not by a coal from the Altar but by a spark of their own But be it so that this disposition of theirs is sincere and spiritual should not this charity begin at home The most proper Kingdom of Christ is that whereby he ruleth in the hearts of men the most excellent Worship is when the soul it self becomes a temple for the living God to dwell in and to receive and reflect the manifestations of his glory when a fire of Divine love is kindled in it and therein it doth offer up not bulls and goots no nor 10 much prayers and meditations as indeed it self unto God which is a reasonable service as the Apostle speaks far more glorions than the Mosaical or Evangelical dispensation either if you consider it in the letter only Whatever men may pretend no man can be truly and rightly studious of the advancement of the Kingdom of God in the world that hath not first felt the mighty power and blessed effects of it in his own soul Communion with the Church is only so far to be valued as it lyes in order to a real and spiritual communion with God which communion with God if we do indeed sincerely wish to others we shall more abundantly labour to promote in our selves I cannot believe that he doth heartily seek the happiness of others who himself sits still and is content to be miscrable especially when their happiness and his is one and the same 3. It condemns them for no Christians whose fellowship is only with their fellow creatures We have seen that it is the character the distinguishâ—ng character of a godly man to have fellowship with God it must needs follow then that those degenerate souls that rise no higher than the world that converse only with self or any other creature are verily strangers to true Christianity whatever their confidence or presumption may be Christians tell not me what you profess of Christ what you believe of the Gospel what orthodox opinions you hold what an honest party you side with how many and specious duties you perform no nor what hopes or wishes you have of going to Heaven But tell me where is your principal communion what do you mainly mind follow converse with what pattern do you conform to what rule do you live by what object do you ultimately aim at The whole world of worldly men doth hasten after another God as the Psalmists Phrase is though not all after the same God they spend their souls indeed upon various objects and use different methods to obtain rest but yet all their happiness and contentment is ultimately resolved into creature-communion That dreadful sentence that the Apostle delivers universally concerning all men is to be limited to all wicked men only and of them it is undoubtedly true Phil. 2. 21. All seek their own and none the things of Jesus Christ And of All these it is that the Psalmists Many is to be understood Psal 4. 6. There be many that say who will shew us any good i. e. any creature-good as the words following do explain it All unregenerate souls are bound up in the creature some creature or other and therefore the noblest of them whatever brags they may make is low and ignoble their main converse is but with their fellow-creatures and indeed creatures much inferiour to themselves corn and wine sayes the Psalmist earthly things sayes the Apostle Phil. 3. 19. Who mind earthly things In a word though it be true what the Apostle sayes in one place
trampled upon Plato's stately bed saying calco Platonis fastum it was answered him very sharply sed majore fastu he was prouder in treading upon it than Plato was in lying upon it I doubt it may be applyed too truly to a great deal of that cynical and scornful zeal that is in the world at this day men declaim against the pride and pomp and grandieur of Antichristian Prelates with a pride no whit inferiour to theirs whom they thus decry However it is plain that those things which are imitable by a sensual heart and indeed performable by the meer magick of an exalted fancy are not to be rested in by a sincere Christian Read over therefore I beseech you the fruits of the spirit Gal. 5. 22. c. 2 Pet. 1. 5 6 7. recorded by the Apostle Paul and the Apostle Peter and estimate your selves by them These things are utterly incompetible to the meer animal man All the natural men and Devils in the world cannot be humble meek self-denying patient charitable lovers of God more than of themselves or of their enemies as themselves Would you judge rightly of the goodness of any opinion then value it by the tendency that is in it to advance the life of God particularly judge of the millenarian opinion which begins to be so much hugged in the world Concerning which I will only say thus much at present that in the common notion of it as it promises a state of much ease liberty power prosperity and freedom from all persecutions and oppressions it is as gratefull to the fleshly palate and will be as gladly embraced by the meer animal man as by the greatest Saint upon earth And therefore supposing it to be true yet I cannot but wonder how it comes to administer so much satisfaction and afford such a marvellous rellish to minds divinely princâ—pled as many seem to taste in it By this same tendency to advance the divine life in your souls judge also of all your enjoyments riches honours liberties friends health children c. and value them if it be possible only under this consideration But to hasten to an end I will endeavour to set on this general exhortation by two or three weighty considerations First It is utterly impossible that any speculation opinion profession enjoyment ornament performance or any other thing but the transformation of the mind into the very image and nature of God should ever be able to perfect our souls or commend us unto God They cannot perfect our souls as being most of them exteriour and all of them inferiour to it They cannot commend a man to God who loves us and whom we so far know and love as we partake of his nature and resemble him This is the love of God this is the worship of God and this is really the souls acquaintance with him and nothing but this Secondly The advancement of the divine life is that which God mainly designs in the world I need instance but in two things first the sending of his own son into the 1 John 3. 5. 8. world for this very end and purpose that he might take away our sins sayes the Apostle John and again that he might destroy the works of the devil and again sayes the Apostle Paul That he might redeem us from all iniquity Tit. 2. 14. and purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Secondly It appears that this is the grand design of God in the world in as much as he doth not deliver his faithfull servants out of their afflictions and tribulations which he would not fail to do did he not intend them a greater good thereby and design to lead them on and raise them up to a higher life Now what can more ennoble these souls of ours than to live upon the same design with God himself And now Reader I commend thee to the blessing of God in the perusal of this small tract which I have composed and now exposed under a sense of that common obligation that lyes upon every person to be active in his sphear for the interest of the name and honour of God and to render his life as usefull as he may more particularly under a sense of my own deficiency in several accomplishments whereby others are better fitted to serve their generation and especially under a sense of the peculiar engagement that lyeth upon me to dedicate my life entirely to his service from whom I have so lately and that so signally received the same afresh In imitation of whom I hope thou wilt be indulgent towards my infirmities To whom I heartily commend thee and to the precious influences of his Eternal Spirit and Rest Thy Servant in his Work and for his Sake S. S. Courteous Reader be pleased to correct these gross mistakes which with many other lesser hapned in the Printing IN the Title Page for 1 John 4. 14. r. John 4. 14. in the inscription of the preface for treating r. healing In the preface p. 2. l. 12. for more r. now p. 4. l. 16. for excellently r. exceedingly p. 6. l. 11. for apostate r. apostatise p. 7. l. 9. after run put in me p. 9. l. antepenult for exalt r. exact p. 14. l. 8. for put read out In the body of the Book page 17. line 2. for part r. peart l. 17. after same put in sense p. 20. l. ult for translated r. transacted p. 23. l. 19. for either r. rather and l. 23. for more r. mere p. 25. l. 24. before Solomon put in what p. 48. after the last line insert these words from thinking that he hath an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or self p. 56. l. 21. for foul r. business p. 70. l. 16. for proselite r. propertie p. 104. l. 3. for performance r. perseverance p. 120. for actively r. activity p. 179. l. penult for indisputable r. indissoluble p. 196. l. 19. for fully r. fitly p. 199. l. 18. for external r. eternal p. 204. l. 7. for soul r. Saul p. 220. l. 19. for piety r. Deity p. 227. l. 3. for more r. mere and l. 7. r. declame p. 273. l. 12. blot out with p. 315. l. 10. for notion r. motion p. 356. l. 16. for but still r. but is still CHAP. I. The occasion of the words of the Text the principal contents of it The original of true Religion All Souls the Off-spring of God and a more especial Portraicture of Him but godly Souls yet more especially God the Author of Religion from without in several respects God the Author of it from within enlightning the faculty Religion something of God in the Soul A discovery of religious Men by the affinity that they have to God God alone to be acknowledged in all holy Accomplishments The original of Sin from hence discovered John 4. 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But whosoever drinketh of the Water that I shall give him shall never thirst but the water that I shall give him shall
he hath appointed called qualified instructed for the opening explaining interpreting applying of them so that they are called Scribes instructed unto the Kingdom of God and stewards of the Mysteries Stewards over the houshold of God to give unto every one his portion These Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors Teachers God hath given for the perfecting of the Saints for the edifying of the Body of Christ Ephes 4. 11 12. These things hath God done for us from without us he hath set up a light chalk'd out our way and appointed us Guides To which I might adde the many inticements and motives which we call Mercies or Comforts of this Life and the many affâ—ightments of Judgements and Afflictions which God hath added to the Promises Threatnings of his Word to bring us into the way of Life But all these are too little too weak of themselves to bring back a stragling Soul or to produce a living Principle of true Religion in it Therefore 2. God is the Author of Religion from within He doth not only reveal himself and his Son to the Soul but in it he doth not only make discoveries â—o it but lâ—vely impressions upon it he doth not only appoint and point out the way of Life but breathes in the breath of Life He hath not only provided a Saviour a Redeemer but he also draws the Soul unto him John 6. 44. He hath not only appointed Pastors and Teachers but he himself impregnates their Word and cloaths their Doctrine with his own Power using their Ministry as an Instrument whereby to teach so that the Children of God are said to be all taught of God John 6. 45. Ministers can only discover and as it were enlighten the Object but God enlightens the faculty he gives the seeing Eye and does actually enable it to discern Therefore the work of converting a Soul is still ascribed to God in Scripture he begets us again 1 Pet. 1. 3. he draws the Soul before it can run after him Cant. 1. 4. Christ apprehends the Soul lays powerful bold of it Phil. 3. 12. God gives a heart of flesh a new heart he causes men to walk in his statutes Ezek. 36. 26 27. He puts his Law into their inward parts and writes it in their hearts Jer. 31. 33. To which I might adde many more Quotations of the same value But yet methinks we are not come to a perfect discovery of Religions being the Off-spring of God in the minds of men For it is God who enlightneth the faculty as to the learning of all other things also he teacheth the Grammar and the Rhetorick as well as the Divinity he instructeth even the Husbandman to discretion in his affairs of Husbandry and teaches him to plow and sow and thresh c. Isa 28. 26. Not only the gift of Divine Knowledge but indeed every good gift cometh from the Father of Lights Jam. 1. 17. God doth from within give that capacity illumination of the faculty ingenuity whereby we comprehend the mysteries of Nature as well as of Grace John 1. 9. Therefore we may conceive of the Original of Religion in a more inward and spiritual manner still It is not so much given of God as it self is something of God in the Soul as the Soul is not so properly said to give as to be the Life of Man As the conjunction of the Soul with the Body is the Life of the Body so verily the Life of the Soul stands in its conjunction with God by a spiritual union of Will and Affections God doth not enlighten mens minds as the Sun enlightens the World by shining unto them and round about them but by shining into them by enlightning the faculty as I said before yea which seems to be somewhat more by shining in their hearts as the Apostle phraseth it 2 Cor. 4. 6. He sets up a Candle which is his own Light within the Soul so that the Soul sees God in his own Light and loves him with the Love that he hath shed abroad in it and Religion is no other than a reflection of that Divine Image Life and Light and Love which from God are stamped and imprinted upon the Souls of true Christians God is said to enlighten the Soul but it is not as the Sun enlightens you see so he draws the Soul too but not ab extra only as one man draweth another with a Cord as Jupiter in Homer draws men up to Heaven by a Chain and Mahomet his Disciples by a Lock of Hair but he draws the Soul as the Sun draws up Earthly Vapours by infusing its vertue and power into them or as the Loadstone draws the Iron by the powerful insinuations of his grace God doth not so much communicate himself to the Soul by way of Disâ—overy as by way of Impression as I said before and indeed not so much by impression neither as by a mystical and wonderful way of implantation Religion is not so much something from God as something of God in the Minds of good Men for so the Scripture allows us to speak It is therefore called his Image Col. 3. 10. and good men are said to live according to God in the Spirit 1 Pet. 4. 6. But as if that were not high enough it is not only called his Image but even a participation of his Divine Nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. something of Christ in the Soul an infant-Christ as one calls it alluding to the Apostle Gal. 4. 19. where the saving knowledge of Christ is called Christ himself Vntil Christ be formed in you True Religion is as it were God dwelling in the Soul and Christ dwelling in the Soul as the Apostles St. John and St. Paul do express it yea God himself is pleased thus to express his relation to the godly Soul â—sa 57. 15. I dwell in the high and holy place with him also that is of a humble spirit And again 2 Cor. 6. 16. As God hath said I will dwell in them and walk in them Pure Religion is a beam of the Father of Lights Lumen de Lumine it is a drop of that eternal Fountain of Goodness and Holiness the Breath of the Power of God a pure Influence flowing from the Glory of the Almighâ—y the Brightness of the everlasting Light the unspotted Mirrour of the power of God and the Image of his Goodness more beautiful than the Sun and above all the Orders of Stars being compared with the Light she is found before it as the Author of the Book of Wisdom speaks Chap. 7. What is spoken of the eâ—ernal Son of God Heb. 1. 3. may in a sense be truly affirmed of Religion in the abstract That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the effulgency or beaming forth of Divine Glory For there is more of the Divine Glory and Beauty shining forth in one godly Soul than in all things in the World beside The glorious Light of the Sun is but a dark
man till he consider with himself that one part of these mens uncleanness is that very blindness which keeps them from discerning it I speak principally of the defilement of the Soul though indeed the same do pollute the whole Conversation Every action springing from such an unclean Heart thereby becomes filthy even as Moses his hand put into his bosome became leprous Exod. 4. or rather as one that is unclean by a dead body defileth all that he toucheth Hag. 2. 13. Now Religion is the cleansing of this unclean spirit and conversation so that though the Soul were formerly as filthy odious as Augeus his Stable when once those living Waters flow into it and thorow it from the pure Fountain of Grace and Holiness the Spirit of our God one may say of it as the Apostle of his Corinthians 1 Cor. 6. 11. Such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are sanctified c. The Soul that before was white as leprosie is now white as Wool Isa 1. 18. the Soul that before was like Moses his hand leprous as snow is now like David's Heart white as snow yea and whiter too Psal 51. 7. Oh what a beauty and glory is upon that godly Soul that shines with the image and brightness of God upon it Solomon in all his glory was not beautiful like such a Soul nay I dare say the splendor of the Sun in its greatest strength and altitude is a miserable glimmering if it be compared with the Day-Star of Religion that even in this Life arises in the heart or if you will in the Prophets stile the Sun of Righteousness which ariseth with healing in his wings upon them that fear the Name of God To speak without a Metaphor the godly Soul having entertained into its self the pure effluxes of Divine Light and Love breathes after nothing more than to see more familiarly and love more ardently its inclinations are pure and holy its motions spiritual and powerful its delights high and heavenly it may be said to rest in its love and yet it may be said that love will not suffer it to rest but is still carrying it out into a more intimate union with its beloved object What is said of the Oyntment of Christs Name Cant. 1. 3. is true of the Water of his Spirit it is poured forth therefore do the Virgins love him Religion begets a chaste and virgin-virgin-love in the Soul towards that blessed God that begot it it bathes it self in the Fountain that produc'd it and suns it self perpetually in the warm beams that first hatch'd it Religion issues from God himself and is ever issuing out towards God alone passionately breathing with the holy Psalmist Whom have I in Heaven but thee In Earth there is none that I desire beside thee The Soul that formerly may be said to have lain among the Pots by reason of its filthiness is now as the wings of a Dove covered with silver and her Feathers with yellow gold the Soul that formerly may be said to have sitten down by the flesh pots of Egypt in regard of its sensual and earthly Loves being redeemed by the almighty grace of God is upon its way to the holy Land hastning to a Country not earthly but heavenly Heb. 11. This pure Principle being put into the Soul puts it upon holy Studies indites holy Meditations directs it to high and noble ends and makes all its embraces to be pure and chaste labouring to compass God himself which before were adulterous idolatrous free for sin and self and the world to lodge and lie down in In a word this Off-spring of Heaven this Kings Daughter the godly Soul is all glorious within yea and outwardly too she is cloathed with wrought gold Psal 45. 13. Her faith within is more precious than gold 1 Pet. 1. 7. and her Conversation curiously made up of an Embroidery of good Works some of Pâ—ety some of Charity some of Sobriety but all of Purity shineth with more noble and excellent splendor than the high Priests Garments and Brest-plate spangled with such variety of precious Stones This precious Oyntment this holy Vnction as the Apostle calls it 1 John 2. 20. is as diffusive of it self and ten thousand times more fragrant than that of Aaron so much commended in Psal 133. that ran down from his head upon his beard and from thence upon the skirts of his garment Not my feet only but my hands and my head Lord said Peter John 13. Not well knowing what he said but the Soul that is truly sensible of the excellent purity which is caused by Divine Washings longs to have the whole man the whole Life also made partaker of it and cries Lord not my head only not my heart only but my hands and my feet also make me wholly pure as God is pure In a word then true Religion is the cleansing of the Soul and all the powers of it so that whereas Murderers sometimes lodged in it now Righteousness the Den of Thieves thievish Lusts and Loves and Interests and Ends which formerly stole away the Soul from God its right Owner is now become a Temple fit for the great King to dwell and live and reign in And the whole Conversation is turned from its wonted vanity worldliness and iniquity and is continually employed about things that are true honest just pure lovely and of good report Phil. 4. 8. 2. By the phrase Water the Quenching nature of Religion is commended to us God hath indued the immortal Soul with a restless appetite and raging thirst after some chief Good which the heart of every man is continually groping after and catching at though indeed few find it because they seek it where it is not to be found If we speak properly it is not gold or silver or popular applause which the covetous or ambitious mind doth ultimately aim at but some chief good happiness sufficiency and satisfaction in these things wherein they are more guilty of Blasphemy than Atheism for it is clear that they do not deny a supreme Good for that which men do chiefly and ultimately aim at is their God be it what it will but they do verily blaspheme the true God when they place their happiness there where it is not to be found and attribute that fulness and sufficiency to something else besides the living God Sin hath not destroyed the nature and capacity of the rational Soul but hath diverted the mind from its adequate object and hath sunk it into the Creature where it wanders hither and thither like a banished man from one Den and Cave to another but is secure no where A wicked man who is loosed from his centre by sin and departed from the Fountain of his Life flies low in his affections and flutters perpetually about the Earth and earthly Objects but can find no more rest for the foot of his Soul than Noah's Dove could find for the sole of her foot Now Religion
that they feed upon Now you may know this artificial Religion by this These men can vary it alter it enlarge it straiten it and new mold it at pleasure according to what they see in others or according to what themselves like best one while acting over the Joy and Confidence of some Christians anon the Humiliation and Brokenness of others But this fanciful Religion proceeding indeed from nothing but low and carnal conceits of God and Heaven is of a flitting and vanishing nature But true Christians are genâ—â—y yet powerfully moved by the natural force of true Goodness and the beauty of God and do move on stedily and constantly in their way to him and pursuit of him The Spirit of Regeneration in good men spreads it self upon the understanding and sweetly derives it self through the will and affections which makes true Religion to be a consistent and thriving principle in the Soul as not being acted upon the stage of imagination but upon the highest powers of the Soul it self and may be discerned by the evenness of its motions and the immortality of its nature for a good man though indeed he cannot go on alwayes with like speed and cheerfulness in his way yet is not willing at any time to be quite out of it By this same nature of true Religion you may examine all those spurious and counterfeit Religions that spring from a natural belief of a Deity from convictions observations fleshly and low apprehensions of Heaven book-learning and the precepts of men as the Prophet calls them and the rest which are seated in the fancie and swim in the brain whose effect is but to gild the outward man or at best but to move the soul by an external force in an unnâ—tural inconstant and transient manner In a word All these pretenders to Religion may seem to have water but they have no well as there are others deep men principled indeed with learning policy ingenuity c. but not with true goodness whom the Apostle calls Wells but without Water 2 Pet. 2. 7. But the truly godly and Godlike soul hath in it self a principle of pure Religion The water that I shall give him shall be a well of water springing up into Eternal Life CHAP. III. Containing the first property mentioned of true Religion viz. The Freeness and unconstrainedness of it This discovered in several outward Acts of morality and worship as also in the more inward Acts of the Soul This Freedom considered as to its Author in which is considered how far the command of God may be said to act a godly soul Secondly considered as to its object Two cautionary concessions First that some things without the soul may be said to be motives how far afflictions and temporal prosperity may be said to be so Secondly That there is a constraint lying upon the godly soul which yet takes not away its freedom An enquiry into forc't devotion and first into the causes of it viz. Men themselves and that upon a threefold account other men or the providences of God Secondly into the properties of it proving that it is for the most part dry and spiritless needy and penurious uneven and not permanent I proceed now from the nature of Religion to speak of the proâ—erties of it as many of them as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ed under this phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 springing up into everlasting life Not to squeeze the phrase any further than it will naturally afford discourse I shall only take notice of these three properties of true religion contained in the word springing up viz. the Freeness Activity and permanency or perseverance of it The first proselyte of it coucht under this phrase is that is is Free and unconstrained Religion is a principle and it flows and acts freely in the soul after the manner of a fountain and in the day of its mighty power makes the people a willing people Psal 110. 3. and the soul in whom it is truly seated to become a freewill offering unto God Alexander the great subdued the World with force of arms and made men rather his tributaries and servants than his lovers and friends But the great God the King of souls obtains an amicable conquest over the hearts of his elect and over-powers them in such a manner that they love to be his servants and do willingly and readily obey him without dissimulation or constraint without mercinariness or morosity In which they are unlike to the subjects of the Kingdoms of this world who are kept in their duties by fear and force not from a pure kindness and benevolence of mind to whom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the present yoke is alwayes grievous Hence it is that the propagation of this people is called their flowing unto the Lord Isa 2. 2. the mountain of the Lords house shall be established and all nations shall flow unto it and again Jer. 31. 12. they shall flow together to the goodness of the Lord. And the disposition of this people is described to be a hearty and willing frame Eph. 6. 6 7. and elsewhere often Now this willingness or freeness of godly souls might be explained and confirmed by the consideration both of their outward and inward acts 1. As to the outward acts of service which the true Christian doth perform he is freely carryed out towards them without any constraint or force If he keep himself from the evils of the place and age and company wherein he lives and converses it is not by a restraint which is upon him meerly from without him but by a principle of holy temperance planted in his soul it is the seed of God abiding in him that preserves him from the commission of sin 1 Joh. 3. 9. He is not kept back from sin as a horse by a bridle but by an inward and spiritual change made in his nature On the other hand if he imploy himself in any external acts of moral or instituted duty he do's it freely not as of necessity or by constraint If you speak of acts of charity the godly man gives from a principle of love to God and kindness to his brother and so cheerfully not grudgingly or of necessity 2 Cor. 9. 7. An almes may be wrung out of a Miser but it proceeds from the liberal soul as a stream from its fountain therefore he is called a deviser of liberal things and one that standeth upon liberalities as those last words of Isa 32. 8. are rendred by the Dutch translators If you speak of righteousness oâ— temperance he is not overruled by power or compelled by Laws but indeed acted by the power of that law which is written and engraven upon his mind If you speak of acts of worship whether moral or instituted in all these he is also free as to any constraint Prayer is not his task or a piece of penance but it is the natural cry of the new born soul neither do's he take it up as a piece of policy
instead of the infinite fulness of God Now there seem to be three things in a formal hypocrite that do especially force a kind of devotion and shew of religion from him viz. Conscience of guilt self-love and False apprehensions of God First There is in all men a natural conscience of guilt arising from that imperfect and glimmering light that they have of God and of their duty towards him which though it be in some men more quick and stinging in others more remiss and languid yet I think is not utterly choaked and extinguished no not in the worst and most disâ—olâ—â—e men but that it doth sometimes beget a bitter sadness in the midst of their sweetest merriments and doth disturb their most supine and secure rest by fastning its stings in their very souls at some time or other and filling them with agonies and anguish and haunting them with dreadful apparitions which they cannot be perfectly rid of no more than they can run away from themselves This foundation of hell is laid in the bowels of sin itself as a preface to eternal horrour Now although some more profligate and desperate wretches do â—uriously bluster through these briars yet others are so cought in them that they cannot escape these pangs and throws except they make a composition and enter into terms to live more honestly or at least less scandalously In which undertaking they are carryed on in the next place by the power of self-love or a natural desire of self-preservation For the worst of men hath so much Reason left him that he could wish that himself were happy though he have not so much light as to discover nor so much true freedom of will as to choose the right way of happiness Conscience having discovered the certain reward and wages of sin self-love will easily prompt men to do something or other to escape it But now what shall they do why Religion is the only expedient that can be found out and therefore they begin to think how they may become friends with God they will up and be doing But how come they to run into so great mistake about religion why their false and gross apprehensions of God do drive them from him in the way of superstition and â—ypocrisie instead of leading them in the way of sincere love and self-resignation to him Self being the great Diana of every natural man and the only standard by which he measures all things he knows not how to judge of God himself but by this and so he comes to fancy God in a dreadful manner as an austere passionate surly revengeful Majesty and so something must be done to appease him but yet he fancies this angry Deity to be of an impotent mercenaâ—y temper like himself and not hard to be appeaâ—ed neither and so imagines that some cheap services specious oblations external courtesies will engage him and make him a friend a sheep or a goat or a bullock under the old Testament a prayer or a Sacrament or an Almes under the new For it is reconciliation to an angry God that he aims at not union with a good God he seeks to be reconciled to God not united to him though indeed these two can never be divided Thus we see how a man void of the life and spirit of Religion yet forces himself to do God a kind of worship and pay him a kind of homage 2. Sometimes men may be said in a sense to be forced by other men to put on a vizard of holiness a dress of Religion And this constraint men may lay upon men by their tongues hands and eyes By their tongues in the business of education often and ardent exhortation and inculcation of things divine and heavenly and thus an unjust like the unjust Judge in the Gospel though he fear not God sincerely yet may be overcome by the importunity of his father friend minister tutor to do some righteous acts This seems to have been the case of Joash King of Judah the spring head of whose religion was no higher than the instructions of his tutor and guardian Jehojada the high-priest 2 King 12. 2. By their hands that is either by the enacting and executing of penal laws upon them or by the holy example which they continually â—et before them exempla trahunt By their eyes that is by continual observing and watching their behaviour when many eyes are upon men they must do something to satisfie expectations of others and purchase a reputation to themselves It may be said that sometimes God doth lay an external force upon men as particularly by his severe judgements or threatnings of judgements awakening them humbling them and constrâ—ining them to some kind of worship and religion Such a forc'd devotion as this was the humillation of Ahaâ— 1 King 21. and the supplication of Saul 1 Sam. 13. 11 12. For God himself acting upon men only from without them is far from producing a living principle of free and noble Religion in the Soul Now the better to discern this forc'd and violent Religion I will briefly describe it by three or four of its properties with which I will shut up this point 1. This forc'd Religion is for the most part dry and spiritless I know indeed thaâ— Fancy may be screw'd up to a high pitch of joy and frolickness so as to raise the mind into a kind of a rapture as I have formerly hinted in my discâ—orse upon these words A meer artificial and counterâ—â—it Christian may be so strongly acted by imagination and the power of self love that he may seem to himself to be fuller of God than the sober and constant soul You may see how the hypocritical phatisâ—â—â— swâ—llâ—â— with â—â—â—conceit gloryed over the poor man that had been blind but now saw more than all they Joh. 9. 34. Thou wast altogether born in sin and dost thou teach us and indeed over the whole people Joh. 7. 49. This people that knoweth not the law is cursed A counterfeit Christian may rise high as a Meteor and blaze much as a Comet which is yet drawn up by meer force from the surface of the earth or water And as to the external and visible acts and duties of Religion which depend much upon the temper and constitution of the body it may easily be conceived and accounted how the mimical and mechanical Christian may rise higher in these and be more zealous watchful and cheerful than many truly religious and godly men as having greater power and quickness of fancy and a greater number of animal spirits upon which the motions and actions of the body do mainly depend The animal spirits may so nimbly serve the soul in these corporal acts that the whole transaction may be a fair imitation of the motions of the divine spirit and one would verily think there were a gracious principle in the soul itself This seems to be notably exemplified in capâ—ain Jehu whose religious actions as he would fain have them
indeed then neither nor can it be until he come to the measure of the stature of his Lord and be grown up into him in all things who is the head even Christ Ephes 4. 15. He delights and glories in God beholding his spices growing in his soul but that does not satisfie him except he may see them flowing out also Cant. 4. 16. He is neither barren nor unfruitful as the Apostle Peter speaks but that is not enough he desires to be fat and fruitful also as a watered Garden as the Prophet phraseth it even as the Garden of God The spirit lusteth against the flesh and struggles with it in the same womb of the soul as Jacob with Esau until he had cast him out The seed of God warreth continually against the seed of the Serpent raging and restless like Jehu shooting and stabbing and strangling all he meets with till none at all remain of the family of that Ahab who had formerly been his Master Oh how do's the godly and devout soul long to have Christ's victory carried on in it self to have Christ going on in him conquering and to conquer till at length the very last enemy be subdued that the Prince of Peace may ride triumphantly thorow all the Coasts and Regions of his heart and life and not so much as a Dog move his tongue against him â— This holy principle which is of God in the soul is actually industrious too it doth not fold the arms together hide its hand in its bosome faintly wishing to obtain a final conquest over its enemies but advances it self with a noble stoutness ness against lusts and passions even as the Sun glorieth against the darkness of the night until it have chased it all away The godly soul puts it self under the banner of Christ fights under the conduct of the Angel of God's presence and so marches up undauntedly against the children of Anak those earthly loves lusts sensual affections which are indeed taller and stronger than all other enemies that do encounter it in this wilderness state and the gracious God is not wanting to such endeavours he remembring his promise helpeth his servants even that promise Isa 49. 31. That they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength A true Israelitish soul impregnated with this noble and heroick principle is not like those slothful Israelites that were content with what they had got of the holy Land and either could not or cared not to enlarge their border Judg. 1. But he makes war upon the remainder of the Canaanites and is never at rest till be have with Sarah cast out the bond woman and her Son too You may see an emblem of such a soul in Moses holding up his hands all the day long till Amalek was quite discomfited Exo. 17. As oft as the floods of temptation springing from the Devil the world or the flesh do offer to come in upon him he opposeth them in the strength of Christ or if you will in the Prophets phrase Isa 59. 19. The Spirit of the Lord lifteth up a standard against them so that he is not carried down by them or at least not overwhelmed with them In the beginning of my discourse upon this head I hinted to you the reason why the godly soul continually studies conformity of God even because he is the perfect and absolute good and the soul reckons that its happiness consists only in being like unto him in partaking of a divine nature But I might also here take occasion speak of three things which I will but briefly name and so past on First A godly man reckons with himself that conformity to the image and nature of God is the most proper conversing with God in the world The great and indeed only imployment of an immortal soul is to converse with its Creator for this end it was made and made so capacious as we see it Now to partake of a divine nature to be indutd with a God-like disposition is most properly to converse with God this is a real powerful practical and feeling converse with him infinitely to be preferred before all notions professions performances or speculations Secondly A godly man reckons that the image of God is the glory and ornament of the soul it is the lustre and brightness and beauty of the soul as the soul is of the body Holiness is not only the duty but the highest honour and dignity that any created nature is capable of And therefore the godly soul who hath his senses exercised to discern good and evil pursues after it as after his sull and proper perfection Thirdly A godly man reckons that conformity to the divine image participation of the divine nature is the sureft and most comfortable evidence of divine love which is a matter of so great enquity in the world By growing up daily in Christ Jesus we are infallibly assured of our implantation into him The Spirit of God descending upon the soul in the impressions of meekness kindness uprightness which is a Dove-like disposition is a better and more desirable evidence of our Sonship and God's favour towards us than if we had the Spirit descending upon our heads in a Dove-like shape as it did upon our blessed Saviour These things may pass for a kind of reasons why the religious Christian above all things labours to become God-like to be formed more and more into a resemblance of the supreme good and to drink in divine perfections into the very inmost of his soul 2. The active and industrious nature of true Godliness or Religion manifests its self in a good man's continual care and study to do good to serve the interest of the holy and blessed God in the world A good man being mastered with the sense of the infinite goodness of God and the great end of his life cannot think it worth while to spend himself for any inferiour good or bestow his time and strength for any lower end than that it and therefore as it is the main happiness of his life to enjoy God so he makes it the main business of his life to serve him to be doing for him to lay out himself for him and to display and propagate his glory in the world And as he is ravished with the apprehensions of the supreme goodness which doth infinitely deserve and may justly challenge all that he can do or expend for him so he doth indeed really partake of the active and communicative nature of that blessed Being and himself becomes active and communicative too A godly soul sluggish and unactive is as if one should say a godly soul altogether unlike to God a pure contradiction I cannot dwell upon any of those particular desigus of serving the interest of God's glory which a good man is still driving on in the world Only this in general whether be pray or preach or read or celebrate Sabbaths or administer private reproof or instruction or indeed plow or sow eat or
drink all this while he lives not to himself but serves an higher interest than that of the flesh and a higher good than himself or any created Being A true Christian actively doth not only appear in those things which call duties of Worship or religious performances but in the whole frame of the heart contriving and the conversation expressing and unfolding the glory of God A holy serious heavenly humble sober righteous and self-denying course of life do's most excellently express the divine glory by imitating the nature of God and most effectually call all men to the imitation of it according as our Saviour hath nakedly stated the case Joh. 15. 8. Hereby is my Father glorified that ye bring forth much fruit By which fruits are not to be understood only preaching praying conference which are indeed high and excellent duties but also righteousness temperance self-denial which things are pure reflections of the divine image and a real glorifying of God's Name and perfections A good Christian cannot be content to be happy alone to be still drawing down Heaven into his own soul but he endeavours also both by prayer counsel and holy example to draw up the souls of other men Heaven-ward This God witnesseth of Abraham Gen. 18. 19. I know him that he will command his children and his houshold after him and they shall keep the way of the Lord And this Moses doth excelently witness of himself in that holy â—apture of his Numb 11. 29. Would God that all the Lord's people were Prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them By such examples as these a good man desires to live yea by higher presidents than either Abraham or Moses even by the example of the Father and of the Son He admires and strives to imitate that character which is given of God himself Psal 119. 68. Thou art good and dost good and that which is given of Christ Jesus the Lord of life Act. 10. 38. Who went about doing good who also witnessed elsewhere concerning himself that he came not into the world to do his own will nor seek his own glory but the will and glory of him that sent him And again Luk. 2. 49. Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business Oh how happy would the godly soul count it self if it could but live and converse in the world at the same rate and with the same devout fervent exalted spirit as Christ Jesus did whose meat and drink it was still to be doing the will and advancing the glory of his Father But alas the poor soul finds it self ensnared by passions and selfish affections from within clogg'd with an unweildy body and distracted with secular affairs from without that it cannot rise so nimbly run so swiftly nor serve the infinite and glorious God so chearfully nor liberally as it would and therefore the poor prisoner sigbs within it self and wishes that it might escape But finding a certain time determined upon it in the body which it must be content to live out it looks up and is ready to envy the Angels of God because it cannot live as they do who are alwaies upon God's errand and almost thinks much that it self is not a Ministring Spirit serving the pure and perfect will of the supreme good without grudging or ceasing The godly soul under these powerful apprehensions of the nature of God the example of Christ and the honourable office of the holy Angels is ready to grudge the body that attendance that it calls for and those offices which it is forc't to perform to it as judging them impertinent to its main happiness and most excellent employment it is ready to envy that more chearful and willing service which it finds from the heavy and drossy body with which it is united and to cry out Oh that I were that to my God which my body my eyes hands and feet are to me For I say to one of these go and he goeth and to another do this and he doeth it In a word a good man being acquainted feelingly with the highest good eying diligently the great end of his coming into the world and his short time of being in iâ— serves the Eternal and Blessed God lives upon eternal designs and by consecrating all his actions unto God gives a kind of an immortality to them which are in themselves sâ—tting and transient He counts it a reproâ—ch to any man much more to a godly man to do any thing insignificantly much more to live iâ—percinently and he reckons all things that have not a tendency to the highest good and a subserviency to the great and last end to be impertinencies yea and absurdities in an immortal soul which should continually be springing up into everlasting life 3. The active and vigorous nature of true Religion manifests it self in those powerful and incessant longings after God with which it fills that soul in which it is planted This I superadd to the two former because the godly man though he be formed into some likeness to God yet desires to be more like him and though he be somewhat serviceable to him yet desires to be more instrumental to his will though he be good yet desires to be better and though he do good yet he desires to do better or at least more And indeed I reckon that these sincere and holy hungrings after God which I am going to speak of are one of the best signs that I know in the world of spiritual health and the best 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a true Christian For in this low and animal state we are better acquainted with lovings and languishings than with fruition or satisfaction and the best enjoyment that we have of God in this world is but scant and short indeed but a kind of a longing to enjoy him Love is certainly a high and noble affection but alas our love whilst we are here in the body is in its non-age in its weak and sickly state rather a longing than a loving much unlike to what it will be when it shall be grown up unto its perfect stature in glory But this sickly kind of languishing affection is a certain symptom of a healthful constitution or as the Apostle calls it of the spirit of a sound mind Godly souls are thirsty souls alwaies gasping after the living springs of divine grace even as the parched Desart gapeth for the dew of Heaven the early and the later rain One would wonder what kind of Magick there was in Elijahs mantle that the very casting of it upon Elisha should make him leave Oxen and Plough yea Father and Mother and all to run after a stranger Elijah himself seems to wonder at it 1 King 19. 20. What have I done to thee oh but what a mighty charâ— is there in divine love which when it is once shew abroad in the soul makes the soul to spread itself in it and to it as the heliotrope attending the motions
of the Sun and turning itself every way towards it wellcoming its warm and refreshing beams Elijah passing by Elisha as he was at plough and catching him with his mantle is but a scant resemblâ—nce of the blessed God passing by a carnal mind and wrapping it in the mantle of his love and thereby causing it to run yea to flye swiftly after him If divine grace do but once touch the soul the soul presently sticks to it as the needle to the Loadstone They that heard Christ Jesus chiding the winds and the waves cryed out what manner of man is this that even the winds and the sea obey him But if one had been present when he called James and John from their nets Matthew from the Custome-house and Zaâ—heus from the tree and by calling made them willing to come would have cryed oâ—t sure what manner of God is this that by his bare word makes poor men leave their trades and livelyhood and rich men their gainfull exactions usuries oppressions to follow him and shews them no reason why What a mighty vertue is there in the oyntment of Christs name that as soon as it is poured out the Virgins fall in love with him Cant. 1. 3 Micah cryed out when he was in pursuit of his Gods and should they ask him what ailed him And will ye wonder that a holy Soul in pursuit of the holy God should be â—arnest that he should run and cry as he runs as I have seen a fond child whom the father or mother have endeavoured to leave behind them God breathing into the Soul makes the Soul breath after him and in a mixture of holy disdâ—in and anger to thrust away from itself all distracting companions occasions and concernments saying with Ephraim to her Idols Get ye hence The Soul thus inspired is so far from prostituting it self to any â—arthly sensual selfish lusts and loves that it cannot brook any thing that would weaken it in the prosecution of the highest good it is impatient of every thing that would either stop or slacken its motions after God The godly man desires still to be doing something for God indeed but if the case so fall out that he cannot spend his life for God as he desires yet he will be spending his soul upon him though he cannot perpetually abide upon the knee of prayer yet he would be continually upon the wing of faith and love when his tongue cleaves to the roof of his mouth that he cannot speak for God yet his Soul shall cleave unto him and complain because it can speak no longer For faith and love are kniâ—â—ing graces and do long to make the soul as much one with their object as is possible for the creature to be with its Creator Religion puts a restless appetiâ—e into the soul after a higher good and makes it to throw itself into his arms and wind itself into his embraces longing to be in a more intimate conjunction with him or rather entirely wrapt up in him Itself is an unsatiable and covetous principle in the soul much like to the daughter of the horseleech crying continually Give Give what the Prophet speaks rhetorically of Hell Isa 50. is also true concerning this off-spring of Heaven in the Soul it enlargeth it self and openeth its mouth without measure The spirit of true godliness seems to be altogether such that it cannot rest in any measures of grace or be fully contented with any of its attainments in this life but ardently longs to receive the more plentiful communications of love the more deep and legible impressions of grace the more clear and ample experiences of divine assistance the more sensible evidences of divine favour the more powerfull and ravishing illapses and incoms of divine consolation into itself let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth Cant. 1. 2. such is the spirit of true godliness that the weakest that is indued with it longs to be as David and the Davids to be as God as the Angel of the Lord according to that promise Zach. 12. 8. The godly soul that is in his right senses under the powerfull apprehensions of the loveliness of God and the beauty of holiness cannot be content to live by any lower instance than that of David whose soul even broke for the longing that it had unto the Lord Psal 119. 20 or that of the spouse who was even sick of love Cant. 2. 5. You have read of the Mother of Sisera looking out at the window waiting for his coming and crying through the lattess why is his Chariot so long in coming why tarry the wheels of his Chariots But this is not to be compared to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the earnest expectation of the creature the new creature waiting sort he manifestation of God which the Apostle elegantly expresseth and yet seems â—o labour for words as if he could not sufficiently express it neither Rom. 8. 23. you have read of the Israelites marching up towards the promised land and murmuring that they were held so long in the wilderness But the true Israelitish Soul makes more hast with less discontent marches as under the conduct of the Angel of Gods presence and longs to arrive at its rest But alas it is held in the wilderness too and therefore cannot be fully quiet in itself but sends forth spyes to view the land the scouts of Faith and Hope like Caleb and Joshua those men of another spirit and these go and walk through the holy land and return home to the soul and come back not as Noahs dove with an Olive leaf in her mouth but with some clusters in their hands they bring the soul a taste of the good things of the Kingdom of the glories of her eternal state yea the soul self marches up to possess the land goes out with the spouse in the Canticles to meet the Lord to seek him whom her soul loveth Religion is a sacred fire kept burning in the temple of the soul continually which being once kindled from Heaven never goes out but burns up Heaven-wards as the nature of fire is this fire is kept alive in the soul to all eternity though sometimes through the ashes of earthly cares and concernments cast into it or the Sun of earthly prosperity shining upon it it may sometimes burn more dimly and seem almost as if it were quite smothered this fire is for sacrifice too though sacrifice be not alwayes offered upon it the same fire of faith and love which offered up the morning Sacrifice is kept alive all the day long and is ready to kindle the evening Sacrifice too when the appointed time of it shall come In this chariot of fire it is that the soul is continually carryed out towards God and accomplisheth a kind of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or glorification daily and when it finds iâ— self firmly seated and swiftly carryed herein it no longer envies the translation of Elias The spirit of sanctification is
acts and carcase-services and to think it is nothing else but a running the round of duties and ordinances and a keeping up a constant set and course of actions such an external legal righteousness the Apostle Paul after his conversion could not take up with but counted it all loss and dung in comparison of that Godlike righteousness which was now brought into his soul that inward and spiritual conformity to Christ which was now wrought in him Phil. 3. 9 10. I know indeed that men will be loth to confess that they place their Religion in any thing without them but I pray consider seriously wherein you excell other men save only in praying or hearing now and then or some other outward acts and judge your selves by your nature and not by your actions 2. The Active spirit of Religion where it is in the soul will not suffer men to take up their rest in a meer pardon of sin and they are but slothfull souls that could be so satisfied Blessed is the man indeed whose inquities are pardoned Psal 32 1 2. but if we could suppose a soul to be acquitted of the guilt of all sin and yet to lie bound under the dominion of lusts and passions and to live without God in the world he were yet far from true blessedness A reall hell and misery will arise out of the very bowels of sin and wickedness though there should be no reserve of fire and brimstone in the world to come It is utterly impossible that a Soul should be happy out of God though it had the greatest security imaginable that it should never suffer any thing from him The highest care and ambition indeed of a slavish and mercenary spirit is to be secured from the wrath and vengeance of God but the breathings of the ingenuous and holy soul are after a divine life and Godlike perfections This right gracious tempe you may see in David Psal 51. 9 10 11 12. which is also the temper of every truly Religious soul 3. The Active spirit of Religion where it is in the soul will not suffer men to take up their rest in meer innâ—cency freedom from sin and they are slothful souls that could count it happiness enough to be harmless I doubt men are much mistaken about holiness it is more than meer innocency or freedom from the guilt or power of sin it is not a negative thing there is something active noble divine powerfull in true Religion A soul that rightly understands its own penury and self-insufficiency and the emptiness and meanness of all creature-good cannot possibly take up its rest or place its happiness in any thing but in a real participation of God himself and therefore is continually making out towards that God from whom it came and is labouring to unite itself more and more unto him Let a low-spirited fleshly minded Pharisee take up with a negative holiness and happiness as he doth Luke 18. 11. God I thank thee that I am not so and so a noble and high-spirited Christian cannot take up his rest in any negation or freedom from sin Every godly soul is not so learned indeed as to be able to describe the nature and proper perfection of a soul and to tell you how the happiness of a soul consists not in quiete but in actu vigore not in cessation and rest as the happiness of a stone doth but in life and power and vigour as the happiness of God himself doth But yet the spirit of true Religion is so excellent and powerfull in every godly soul that it is still carrying it to the fuller enjoyment of an higher good and the soul doth find and feel within itself though it cannot discourse Philosophically of these things that though it were free from all disturbance of sin and affliction in the world yet still it wants some supream and possible good to make it compleatly happy and so bends all its power thiâ— herward This is the description which you will everywhere find made in Scripture of the true spirit of holiness which hath alwayes something positive and divine in it as Isâ— 1. 16 17. cease to do evil learn to do well and Ephes 4. 22 24. Put off the old man put on that new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness And accordingly a truly godly soul to use the Apostles words though he know nothing by himself yet doth not thereby count himself happy 4. The Active spirit of true Religion whâ—re it is in the Soul will not suffer men to take up their rest in some measures of grace received and so far as the soul doth so it is sluggish and less Active than it ought to be This indeed oft times comes to pass when the soul is under some distemper of proud selfishness earthly-mindedness or the like or is less apprehensive of its object and happiness as it seems to have been the case of the spouse Cant. 5. 3. Some such fainting fits languishings suâ—ferings in sensibleness must be allowed to be in the Godly soul during its imprisoned and imperfect state But we must not judge our selves by any present distempers or infirmities The nature of Religion when it acts the soul rightly and powerfully is to carry it after a more lively resemblance of God which is the most proper and excellent enjoyment of him A mind rightly and actually sound is most sick of love and the nature of love is not to know when it is near enough to its object but still to long after the most perfect conjunction with it This well of water if it be not violently obstructed for a time is ever springing up till it be swallowed up in the Ocean of divine love and grace The soul that is rightly acquainted with itself and its God sees something still wanting in itself and to be enjoyed in him which makes it that it cannot be at rest but is still springing up into him till it come to the measure of the stature of the fulness of its Lord. In this holy loving longing striving active temper we find the great Apostle Phil. 3. 12 13 14. And by how much the more of divine grace any soul hath drunk in the more thirsty is it after much more 5. The Active spirit of true Religion where it is powerfully seated in the minds of men will not suffer them to settle into a love of this animal life nor indeed suffer them to be content to live for ever in such a kind of body as this and that soul is in a degree lazy and slothful that doth not desire to depart and be with his Lord. The godly soul eying God as his perfect and full happiness and finding that his being in the body doth separate him from God keep him in a poor and imperfect state and hinders his blissfull communion with the highest good groans within itself that mortality were swallowed up of life with the Apostle 2 Cor. 5. 4. I
know not how much but I think he hath not very much of God neither fight of him nor love of him that could be content to abide for ever in this imperfect mixed low state and never be perfected in the full enjoyment of him And it seems that they in whom the love of God is rightly predominant potent flourishing do also look earnestly for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life Jude 2. without doubt they ought to do 2 Pe◠3. 12. What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God! Let this suffice by way of general Reprehension 2. More particularly the consideration of the Active nature of true Religion may well serve to correct a mistake about that noble grace of faith How dishonourably do some speak of this excellent and powerfull grace when they make it to be a slothfull passive thing an idle kind of waiting or a Melancholick sitting still which indeed and in truth is Life and power Be not mistaken in so high and eminent a grace True faith doth not only accept the imputed righteousness of Christ for justification but by a lively dependance upon God drinks in divine influences and eagerly sucks in grace and vertue and life from the fountain of grace for its more perfect sanctification And for this cause I think a purifying vertue is ascribed to it Act. 15. 9. Faith is not a lazy languid thing content to wait for salvation till the world to come but it is even now gasping after it and accomplishing it too in a way of mortification self-denyall and growing up in God it is not content to be a candidate waiting for life and happiness but is actually drawing down Heaven into the soul attracting God to itself sucking in participations of divine grace and image into the soul Its motto is that of the famous painter nulla dies sine lineâ it longs to find some divine lineament some line of Gods image drawn upon the soul daily Faith is a giving grace as well as receiving it gives up the whole soul to God and is troubled that it can give him no more it binds over the soul afresh to God every day and is troubled that it can bind it no faster nor closer to him The believing soul is wearyed because of muderers murdering loves lusts cares earthly pleasures and calls mightily upon Christ to come and take vengeance upon them it is wearyed because of those robbers that are daily stealing away precious time and affections from God which are due unto him and calls upon Christ to come and scourge these thieves these buyers and sellers out of his own Temple In a word the godly soul is Active and faith is the very life and Action of the soul itself Lastly Let me exhort all Christians from hence to be zealous to be fervent in spirit serving the Lord and longing after him Stir up the grace of God that is in you Quench not i. e. blow up enflame the spirit of God in you Awake Christian soul out of thy Lethargy and rejoyce as the Sun to run the race that is set before thee and as a mighty man refreshed with Wine to fight thy spiritual battels against the armies of uncircumcised prophane and earthly concupiscences love and passions Eye God as your centre the enjoyment of him as the Happiness and full conformity to him as the perfection of your souls and then say Awake Arise O my Soul and hide not thy hand in thy bosome but throw thy self into the very heart and bosome of God lay hold upon eternal life Again observe how all things in the world pursue their several perfections with unwearied and impatient longings and say come my soul and do thou likewise Converse not with God so much under the notion of a Law giver but as with love itself nor with his commands as having authority in them but as having goodness and life and sweetness in them Again consider your poverty as creatures and how utterly impossible it is for you to be happy in your selves and say Arise O my soul from off this weak and tottering foundation and build thy self up in God cease pinching thy self within the straits of self-sufficiencies and come stretch thy self upon infinite Goodness and Fulness Again pore not upon your attainments do not sit brooding upon your present accomplishments but forget the things that are behind and say Awake O my soul there is yet infinitely much more in God pursue after him for it till thou have gotten as much as a created Being is capable to receive of the divine nature In a word take heed you live not by the lowest examples which thing keeps many in a dwindling state all their dayes but by the highest Read over the Spouse her temper sick of Love Davids temper waiting for God more than they that watch for the morning breaking in heart for the longing that he had to the Lord and say Arise O my Soul and live as high as the highest it is no fault to desire to be as Good as holy as happy as an Angel of God And thus O my soul open thy mouth wide and God hath promised to fill thee CHAP. VI. That Religion is a lasting and persevering principle in the soules of men proved by several Scriptures The grounds of this perseverance assigned first negatively It doth not arise from the absolute inamissability of grace in the creature nor from the strength of mans Free-will Secondly Affirmatively the grace of election cannot fail The grace of Justification is neither suspended nor violated The Covenant of grace is everlasting The Mediator of this Covenant lives for ever The promises of it immutable The righteousness brought in by the Messiab everlasting An objection answered concerning a regenerate mans willing his own apostasie An Objection answered drawn from the falls of Saints in Scripture as also from those Scriptures that seem to imply a mans falling away A discovery of counterfeit Religion and the shamefull apostasie of false professors An encouragement to all holy diligence from the consideration of this doctrine the rather that we may stop the mouths of those that falsly affirm that the same is prejudicial to true godliness I Come now to the third property of true Religion contained in these words and that is the perseverance of it And here the foundation of my following discourse shall be this proposition True Religion is a lasting and persevering principle in the Souls of good men It is said of the hypocritical Jews that their goodness was as the early dew that soon passeth away Hos 6. 4. But that principle of true goodness which God planteth in the souls of his people is compared to a well of water evermore sending forth fresh streams and incessantly springing up towards God himself our Saviour compares hypocritical professors to seed sown upon stony ground that springs up
loves nothing but the communications of himself so far as any thing partakes of the divine image so far it partakes of divine favour and complacency so that whilest a good man bears a resemblance unto God so long he shall be accepted of him and embraced in the arms of his love and that shall be for ever as we shall see under the next head Untill you have blotted out all the image and superscription of God out of a godly soul untill you have razed out all the stamps and impressions of goodness in a word untill you have rendred him wicked and ungodly you cannot abandon him from the embraces of God which thing men and devils shall never be able to do as I have partly shewed already and shall yet shew more at large It is true indeed that Adam fell from a just state though not from a justified state for that supposes sin formerly committed But this is no great wonder for he had his righteousness in himself and his happiness in his own keeping But the condition of believers is now more safe and firm as depending not upon any created power or will but upon the infinite and effectual help and strength of a Mediator which will never fail 3. The covenant of grace is everlasting It hath pleased God to enter into a covenant of grace and peace with every believing soul which I suppose I need not go about to prove all Christians acknowledging it though they do not all agree in one notion of it Now this Covenant wherein God engages himself to be their God for that is the summary Contents of it on his part is expresly called by the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the everlasting Covenant Heb. 13. 20. and again Jer. 32. 40. I will make an everlasting Covenant with them which Covenant and the everlastingness of it are fully explained in the following words I will not turn away from them to do them good The inviolable nature of this Covenant is also expresly asserted in that famous place Jer. 31 31 32. I will make a new Covenant with the house of Israel not according to the Covenant that I made with their fathers which my Covenant they brake as if he had said I will make a Covenant that shall not be subject to breaches In the former Covenant with their fathers I gave them laws to keep which they kept not but in the New Covenant I will give them also a heart to keep my laws It is not possible that Covenant should be broken one principle part of which is an heart both able and willing to keep it The similitudes which God useth in the 35 36 37. verses of that same chapter do also further confirm and illustrate this Doctrine of the everlastingness of this Covenant of grace Under this head let me glance at three things 1. The Mediator of this Covenant lives for ever and lives to make intercession for believers Heb. 7. 25. and from this the Apostle argues that they shall be saved to the uttermost or evermore as the Margin reads it From this also the Apostle argues the unchangeable state of believers as we observed before out of Rom. 8. 34. Christ Jesus is alwayes heard and accepted of the Father in all the requests that he maketh to him according to that in Joh. 11. 41 42. Jesus lift up his eyes and said Father I thank thee that thou hast heard me And I know that thou hearest me alwayes If these things be so then the perseverance of the Saints is built upon a most certain bottome is secured against the very gates of Hell for Christ hath prayed for them that they may be where he is Joh. 17. 24. and in the mean time that they may be kept from the evil ver 15. and that their faith fail not Luke 22. 32. 2. The promises of this Covenant are immutable they are in Christ Jesus yea and Amen 2 Cor. 1. 20. as if one should say in Latine Certo certiora perfectly sure and certain God who is truth itself will not can not be unto his people as a lyar or as waters that fail as the Prophets phrase is the infinite fountain of grace and truth cannot possibly become like one of the brooks which Job speaks of which seem to be full of water and are so at a certain winter season but when the poor scorched Arabian comes to look for water thence in summer he goes away ashamed because they are now vanished they are consumed out of their place Job 6. 19 20. Now the promise is concerning not only grace but the final perseverance of it If he promise pardoning grace it is in these full and satisfying expressions I will remember their sin any one of their sins no more Jer. 31. 34. If he promise purging and purifying grace it is in the like amplitude of phrase that they may fear me for ever and again they shall not depart from me Jer. 32. 39. 40. with many other places of like importance 3. righteousness brought in by this mediator is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an everlasting righteousness as it is expressly called Dan. 9. 24. by which I do not understand the righteousness of Justification which was alwayes one and the same and there was never any righteousness of that kind temporary or fading but the righteousness of real internal sanctification in opposition to that positive and temporary righteousness which depended upon the pleasure of God that did prescribe it This righteousness brought in and advanced by Christ who in a powerful and vital way dispenseth the same by his holy spirit unto the minds and souls of men is not only true and inward in opposition to the pharisaical which was an external conformity only but it is of an everlasting and unchangeable nature as being grounded upon and indeed comformable to eternal and unchangeable truth in opposition to that temporary kind of righteousness which was grounded upon positive Laws and the arbitrary commands of God if I may so call them This eternal righteousness is by Christ Jesus the Prince of lise put into the very souls of men and being a plant of his planting shall never be pluckt up We read indeed in the Prophet Ezekiel that the glory of God departed out of the Temple made with hands but this glory of God his image shall never depart out of the living Temple the souls of good men having once powerfully displayed itself there And therefore God is said to dwell in the souls of his people in opposition to a wavering man who turneth in to tarry for a night God indeed hath promised that it shall be said to them that were not his people ye are the sons of the living God Hos 1. 10. but never on the contrary he hath no where threatned them that are the sons of the living God that it shall at any time be said to them ye are not my people True indeed as to external profession Church-membership meer
without any kind of sense or feeling of it so neâ—â—her can God accept the blind for sacrifice or be pleased with any thing less than reasonable service â—râ—m a reasonable creature Aâ— the Athenians worshipping God by altars and images are counted superstitious not devout so the whole generation of gross and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 admiring loving and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after God in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—â—ages of true goodness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 blasphemers and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—â—ligious they cannot be We cannot excuse them from idolatry who direct their worship purposely to the true God by or through images much less sure can we be favourable to them who bestow their love joy confidence and delight ignorantly upon the supream and self-sufficient good by or through any created good in which they as far as they understand do terminate their devotion I do not say that all souls have a distinct discovery of the good they aime at it is evident they have not but yet the will of every man is secretly in chase of some ultimate end and happiness and indeed in its eager tendencies outflies the understanding All which mysterie seems to be wrapt up in that short but pithy enquiry which if it were a little otherwise modified would be an excellent description of the natural soul Psal 4. 6. Many say who will shew us any good The nature of the object is set out in the word good the eagerness of the motion in the form of the question who will shew us and the ignorance of the mover appears in the indeterminateness of this object which is well explained by the supply of the word any who will shew us any good And that this is the cry of every rational soul is insinuated by the word many which many is also in Meter multiplyed into the greater sort and must indeed necessarily be extended unto All. 2. Every natural man thirsteth principally after happiness and satisfaction in the creature The fall of the soul consisteth in its sinking it self into the animal life and the business of every unrenewed soul is in one kind or other still to gratifie the same life For although as I have shewn God is in the boâ—tome of these mens cares and loves and desires and implicitly in all their thirstings yet I may well say of them as God sayes of the Assyrian Monarch at what time he executed his pleasure in correcting his people Israel Isa 10. 7. howbeâ—t he meaneth not so neither doth his heart think so God is not in all theâ—â— thoughts whilest they pursue that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 creature which really none but God alone can be unto them They do ultimately direct as to their intention all their cares and covetings and thirstings to some created object all which are calculated for the animal life the gratifying and accomplishing their own base lusts This is very apparent in the idolatry of the Pagans whose lusts gave being to their Gods and so their Deities were as many as their concupiscences and filthy passions To Sacrifice to their own revenge and sensuality under the names of Mars Bacchus and Venus what was it else but to proclaim to all the world that they took the highest contentment and satisfaction in the fulfilling of such kind of lusts this was unto them their God or supream felicity The case is the same though not so expresly and professedly with all carnal Christians who although they profess the true God yet in truth make him only a pander to their own lusts and base ends though they name the name of Christ yet in very deed Deifie their own passions and sacrifice to the gratification of their animal powers The Psalmist as we have seen determines the main end of all men to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or good Psal 4. 6. but left any man should be deceived in them he presently tells us where this good was placed ver 7. viz. in Corn and Wine by which we must understand the animal life and whatsoever administers to the delight thereof And certainly this will go far for not only meats and drinks venereal pleasures gorgeous apparel sumptuous buildings splendid descent honourable preferments popular applanse inordinate recreations and an unweildy bulk of earthly riches but also orthodox opinions philosophical political yea and Scholastical learning fair professions much pompous worship yea and worship industriously void of pomp specious performances to which we may add the most seemly exercises of undaunted valour unshaken constancy unbribed justice uninterrupted temperance unspotted chastity and unlimited charity if much giving may deserve so sacred a name even all these and as many more may serve only as fewell for the rapacious fire of lust and selslove to maintain and keep alive the more animal or at most logical life and are ordinarily designed as sacrifices to that which we significantly call self in contradistinction from God I need not here declare against covetous luxurlous ambitious souls the Apostle having so expresly prevented me by his plain and punctual arraignment of such men Col. 3. 5. Phil. 3. 19. where he charges them with placing a deity in their bags and bellies otherwise I durst appeal to all the world that are not parties yea to the parties themselves whether it be God or themselves that these persons do intend to serve and please and gratifie whether it be a real assimulation unto God and the true honour of his name or some lust or humour of self-pleasing self-advancing and self-enjoying that they sacrifice their cares and pains and the main thirstings of their souls unto I am confident it will be easily acknowledged that the covetous voluptuous and ambitious do sacrifice all they are and do to the latter but alas it is not yet agreed among men who are such the hypothesis is grented but the thesis is disputed and indeed this is no wonder neither for it is as natural for the animal self-life to shift off guilt as it is to contract it and the pride of the natural man is no less conspicuous in his wrongfull endeavours to seem innocent of what he is indeed guilty than his covetousness and voluptuousness is apparent in the matter wherein his guilt consisteth It is not only these and some few of the greatest and prophanest sort of souls that are guilty in this kind which I have been describing though they indeed are grosly and most visibly guilty but verily the whole generation of meer animal men who have no principle of divine life implanted in them do spend all their dayes bestow all their pains and enjoy all their comforts in a real strain of blasphemy from first to last What a blasphemous kind of Philosophy was that which professedly placed the supream good and chiefest happiness of man in the fruition of pleasures And indeed all those kinds of Philosophy which placed it elsewhere in things below God himself and the enjoyment of him were no less prophane though they may seem somewhat less beastly For whether the
world is utterly too scant for and incommensurate to the wide and deep capacity of an immortal spirit so that the same can no more satisfie than a less can fill a greater which is surely impossible Whatever is in the world out of God is described by the Prophet Isa 55. 2. to be not bread there is the unsuitableness and not to satisfie there is the insufficiency of it as to the soul of man on the other hand this soul of man is so vastly capacious that though it be also never so greedy and rapacious snatehing on the right hand and catching on the left hand as the Prophet describes the famelick people Isai 9. 20. yet still it is hungry and unsatisfied Which ravenous and insatiable appetite of the sensual soul is elegantly described by the Prophet in the similitude of an whorish Woman who prostituted her self to all comers and multiplyeth her fornications yet is unsatiable is not cannot be satisfied Ezek. 16. 28 29. The soul may indeed feed yea and surfet upon but it can never satisfie itself from itself or from any created good nothing can ultimately determine and centre the motions of a soul but something superiour to its own essence which whilest it misses of it is as it were divided against itself perpetually strugling and fluctuating and travelling in pangs with some new design or other to be at rest like the old Lioness in the parable of Ezekiel breeding up one whelp after an other to be a Lion wherein to confide but disappointed in allâ— or like the poor discontented butterflye lighting and catching everywhere but sticking nowhere adoring something for a God to day which it will be ready to flâ—ng the fire to morrow after their manner of creating Gods to themselves whom the Poet brings in saying Hodie mihi Jupiter esto Cras mihi truncus eris ficulnus inutile lignum Neither the quantity variety or duration of any created objects can possibly fill up that large and noble capacity wherewith God hath endewed the rational soul but having departed from its centre and not knowing how to return to its original it wanders up and down as it were in a wilderness and having an imperfect glimmering sight of something better than what itself as yet either is or hath but not being able to attain to it is miserably tormented even as a man in a thirst which he cannot quench yea the more he runs up and down to seek water the more is his thirst encreased whilest he misses of it so this distempered and distracted soul whilest it seeks to quench its thirst at the creature-cistern do's but inflame it and in a continual pursuit of rest becomes most restless That every unregenerate soul is in such a distressed weary restless state as I have been describing appears most evidently by those famous Gospel Proclamations one in Isa 55. 1 3. Ho every one that thirsteth come ye to the waters where by the thirâ—ters are meant those unfixed unsatisfied souls as appears by the second verse the other in Mat. 11. 28. Come unto me all ye that labour c. where the promise of giving rest do's plainly imply the restless state of the persons invited There is a certain horrour and anguish in sin and wickedness even long before it be swallowed up in hell a certain vanity and vexation folded up in all earthly enjoyments though the same do not alwayes sting and pierce the soul alike so true is that famous aphorism of the Prophet Isaiah There is no peace to the wicked 4. Grace takes not away this thirst of the soul after happiness and plenary satisfaction Love and desire and a tendency towards blessedness are so woven into the nature of the soul and inlaid in the very essence of it that she cannot possibly put them off however it is the work of grace to change and rectifie them as we shall see under the next head The soul of man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a kind of immaterial fire an inextinguishable activity alwayes necessarily catching at some object or other in conjunction with which she thinks to be happy And therefore if she be rent from her self and the world and be mortified to the love of fleshly and animal lâ—sts she will certainly cleave to some higher and more excellent object as will more clearly appear by and by Grace do's not stupifie the soul as to its sense of its own indigency and poverty but indeed makes it more abundantly sensible and importunate There are more strong motions and more powerful appetites in the godly soul towards its true and proper happiness than in the ungodly and wicked For the understanding of the regenerate soul is so enlightned as that it doth present the will with an amiable and satisfactory object which object therefore being more distinctly and perfectly apprehended doth also apprehend or lay hold upon the soul and attract her unto itself Oculi sunt in amore duces is most true of the eye of the soul I mean the understanding that first affects the heart with amorous passions The first and fundamental errour and mistake of the rational soul seems to lye here even in the understanding here lyes the very root of the degenerate souls distemper and if this were thoroughly restored and healed so as to present the will with pure and proper ideas and representations of God it might be hoped that this ductile faculty would not be long before it clave unto him entirely nay it may be doubted whether it could possibly resist the dictates of it Now in the regenerate soul this faculty is repaired yea I may say that the spirit of Regeneration first of all spreads it self upon the understanding and awakens in it a sense of self-indâ—gency and of the perfect aâ—l-sufficient suitable and satisfactory â—ulness of God in whom it sees all beauties sweetness and lovelâ—nesses in an infinitely inâ—ffable manner wrapt up and contained which will be so far from allaying the essential thâ—rst of the soul and 〈◊〉 its eager 〈◊〉 that it mâ—st needs give a mighty edge and ardour to its inclinations and put it upon a more bold and earnest contention towards this glorious object and charm the whole soul into the veâ—y arms of God Therefore â—ot thirsting in the Text must not be understood absolutely as if grace did utterly extinguish the natural activities of the soul and finish its propensions But the regenerate and gracious soul doth not thirst in such sense as thirst implies a want of a suitable good or dissatisfaction or inclues torment properly so called In this notion of thirst grace doth indeed quench it as I intimated in the beginning of this discourse and will surther appear in the procedure of it But as to this most essential thirst this natural 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or vergency of the soul after a central rest and happiness the same is so far from being extinguished or moderated either by divine grace that it is bugely
whom she had so long straggled by sin and wickedness For the God of hope filleth the godly soul with all peace and joy in believing Rom. 15. 13. Christ doth on purpose speak words to the hearts of his Disciples that their joy may be full Joh. 15. 11. But whether the most benign and gracious Father of spirits doth immediately from himself inspire the holy soul with divine joys and pleasures kindled as I may say with nothing but his own breath or whether he bring them to his holy Mountain and into his house of prayer and by that or any other the like means make them joyful and of glad heart as in the day of a solemn festival as he hath promised to do Isa 56. 7. and Isa 25. 6. However it be I say sure it is that he frequently puts a gladness into their hearts beyond that of the Harvest or the Vintage Psal 4. 7. and makes them to rejoyce with joy unspeakable and full of glory 1 Pet. 1. 8. Having now unfolded the meaning of the gracious soul 's nor thirsting any more I should pass to the last thing contained in the Text but finding my self opprest in my spirit by the consideration of this necessary consequent of true Religion when I compare the temper of Christians with it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I must crave leave to stay a little and breathe And what shall I breath but a sad and bitter complaint over that low earthly selfish greedy spirit which actuateth the world at this day yea and the generality of Professors of that sacred Religion which we call Christianity Alas what a company of thieves and murderers I mean base and sensual loves and lusts lodge in those very souls who would be taken for Temples consecrated to the name and honour and inhabitation of the eternal God the spirit of Truth and Holiness Oh what pitty is it that the precious souls of men yea and of Christians the best of men that are all capable of so glorious liberty so high and honourable a happiness should be bound down under such vile and sordid lusts feeding upon dust and gravel to whom the hidden Mannah is freely offered and God himself is ready to become a banquet And oh what a shame is it for those who profess themselves children of God Disciples of the most holy Jesus and Heirs of his pure and undefiled Kingdom of Heaven for these I say willingly and greedily to roll themselves in filthy and bruitish sensualities to set up that on high in their souls which was made to be under their bodies and so to love and live as if they studied to have no affinity at all but would be as unlike as they could to that God and Redeemer and unfit for that inheritance How often shall it be protested to the Christian world by men of the greatest devotion and seriousness that it is utterly mad and perfectly vain to dream of entring into the Kingdom of Heaven hereafter except the Kingdom of Heaven enter into our souls during their union with these bodies How long shall the Son of God who came into the world on purpose to be the most glorious example of true and divine purity exact and perfect self-denial and mortification how long shall he lye by in his word as an antiquated pattern only cut out for the Apostolical ages of the world and only suited to some few morose and melancholick men Is it not a monstrous spectacle and to be hist out of the world with the greatest indignation a covetous voluptuous ambitious sensual Saint With what face can we pretend to true Religion or a feeling acquaintance with God and the things of his personall service and Kingdome whilest the continual bleatings and lowings of our souls after created good do bewray us so manifestly and proclaim before all the world that the beast the brutish life is still powerful in us If ye seek me saith Christ to his followers as well as he did once to his persecutors then let these go let go the hold of these earthly objects let vanish these worldly joys and toys with-hold your throat from thirst and your feet from being unshod and come follow me only and ye shall have treasure in Heaven for he that will not deny all for me is not worthy of me But O curvae in terras animae c. Ah sad and dreadful fall that hath so miserably crampt this royal off-spring and made the Kings Son to be a same Mephibosheth Ah dolesul Apostasie How are the Sons of the morning become Brats of darkness and the heirs of Heaven vassals and drudges to earth How is the Kings Daughter unequally yoaked with a churlish Nabal that continually checketh her with more divine and generous motions How unhappily art thou matcht O my soul And yet alas I see it is too properly a marriage for thou hast clean forgotten thine own people and thy Fathers house Take up oh take up a lamentation thou Virgin Daughter of the God of Zion Sometimes indeed a Virgin but now alas no longer a Virgin but miserably married to an unworthy mate that can never be able to match thy faculties nor maintain thee according to the grandeur of thy birth or the necessary pomp of thy expences and way of living nay thou art become not only a miserable wife but in so being thou art also a wicked adulteress prostituting thy self to the very vilest of thy lawful Husbands servants if thou be not incestuous it is no thank to thee there being nothing in this world so near of kin to thee as to make way for incest Return return O Shulamite return return put away thine adulteries from between thy breasts and so shall the King yet again greatly desire thy beauty for so he hath promised Jer. 3. 21. that when there shall be a voice heard upon the high places weeping and supplications of the children of Israel because they have perverted their way and forgotten the Lord their God and the backsliding children shall return that then he will heal their backslidings CHAP. VIII The term or end of Religion eternal life considered in a double notion First as it signifies the essential happiness of the soul The second as it takes in many glorious appendices The former more fully described the latter more briefly The noble and genuine breathings of the godly soul after and springing up into the former in what sense she may be said to desire the latter The argument drawn from the example of Christ Moses and Paul moderated A general answer given to the Quaery It ends in a serious exhortation made to Christians to live and love more spiritually more suitably to the nature of souls redeemed souls resulting from the whole discourse I Am now come to the last thing whereby this most noble principle is described viz. the Term or End of it and that is said here in the Text to be Everlasting Life This is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or
highest pitch of perfection unto which the New Creature is continually growing up which the Apostle Paul hath exprest with as much grand eloquence as words are able to magnifie if calling it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ This is that unbounded Ocean which this living fountain by so many incessantissues and unwearied streamings perpetually endeavours to empty it self into or rather to embosom it self in Now what this is we must confess with the Apostle John and indeed we have more reason to make such a confession than he had that it doth not yet appear viz. neither fully nor distinctly But yet since I am thus cast upon the contemplation of it it will be a pertinent piece of pleasure a little to enquire into it and though it surpass the power and skill of all created comprehensions to take the just dimensions and faithfully give in the height and depth and length and breadth of it yet we may essay to walk about this heavenly Jerusalem as the Psalmist speaks of the earthly and tell the Towers thereof mark her Walls consider her Palaces that we may tell it to the generation following First Then we will consider Eternal Life in the most proper notion of it as it implies the essential happiness of the soul and so it is no other than the souls pure perfect and establisht state By a state I do designedly disparage that grosser notion of a place as that which scarce deserves to enter into the description of such a glory or at best will obtain but a very low room there By purity I do purposely explode that carnal ease rest immunity affluence of senfual delights accommodated only to the animal life which last the Mahumetans and the former too many profest Christians and the Jews almost generally do dream of and judge Heaven to be By perfection I do distinguish it from the best state which the best men upon earth can possibly be in So then I take Eternal Life in the primary and most proper notion of it to be full and perfect and everlasting enjoyment of God communion with him and a most blissful conformity of all the powers and faculties of the soul to that eternal goodness truth and love as far as it is or may become capable of the communications of the divinity This life was at the highest rate imaginable purchased by our ever blessed Lord and Saviour in the daies of his flesh and here in the Text promised to every believing soul Now in as much as we are ignorant both of the present capacity of our own faculties how large they are and much more ignorant how much more large and ample they may be made on purpose to receive the more rich and plentiful communications of the divine life and image therefore can we not comprehend neither the transcendent life happiness and glory nor that degree of sanctity and blessedness which the believing soul may be advanced unto in another world The Popish Schoolmen do nicely dispute about the sight of God and the love of God to wit in whether of these the formal blessedness of the soul consisteth ill separating those whom God hath so firmly joyned together as if it were possible that either a blind love or a jejune and unaffectionate speculation could render a soul entirely happy But it is much safer to say that the happiness and eternal life of the soul standeth in the possession or fruition of God and this doth necessarily import the proper perfection of every faculty Nothing can be the formal happiness of a spirit that is either iuferiour or extrinsecal to it it must be something divine and that wrought into the very nature and temper of it I doubt not to affirm that if the soul of man were possibly advanced so as to receive adoration or divine power yet if it were in the mean time void of divine dispositions and a god-like nature it were far from being glorified and made happy as to its capacity What health is to the body that is holiness to the soul which happily the Apostle alludes to when he speaks of the spirit of a sound mind 2 Tim. 1. 7. Secondly There is another notion of Eternal Life which some contend for by which they mean not barely the essential happiness of the soul but that with the addition of many suitable and glorious circumstances the essential happiness of the soul as it is attended with the appendixes of a glorified body the beholding of Christ the amicable society of Angels freedom from temptations the knowledge of the secrets of nature and providence and some such like To which may be also added though of a lower degree open absolution or a visible deliverance of the Saints out of the overthrow of the wicked at the conflagration of the world power over Devils eminence of place enjoyment of friends and some other like Now let us briefly consider what tendencies there are in the religious soul towards each of these And here I must crave leave to speak joyntly both of the End and of the Motion thereunto though it may be thought that the former only falls fairly under our present consideration First Then I suppose that Eternal Life in the first sense of it is intended here to wit the essential happiness of the soul or its perfect and everlasting enjoyment of God For the description is here made of Religion it self in the abstract or that principle of divine life which Christ Jesus implanteth in the soul and being so considered it is hard to conceive how that should spring up into any of these appendant circumstances or into any thing but the completion and perfection of it self though the religious soul taken in the concrete possibly may And indeed though we should allow which we shall take into consideration under the next head that many of those high scriptural phrases which are brought to describe the future condition of believing souls do principally respect the appendixes of its essential happiness as a Kingdom a house not made with hands eternal in the Heavens an inheritance reserved a place prepared and the like yet it seems very unnatural to interpret this phrase Life and Eternal Life any otherwise than of that which I call the essential happiness of the soul But if we interpret it of this the sense is very fair and easie thus this principle of divine life is continually endeavouring to grow up to its just altitude to advance it self unto a triumphant state even as all other principles of life do naturally tend towards a final accomplishment and ultimate perfection Carnal self or the animal life may be indeed said to be a well of water too poysonous water but that springs up into a sensual life popular applause self-accommodations or if you will in the Apostles phrase into the fulfilment of the lusts of the flesh This I speak only by way of illustratory opposition for to speak more
properly this corrupt principle hath in it the central force of death and Hell and is alwaies tumbling downward whereas this divine principle is alwaies climbing upward But they do both agree in this that they do both seek their own gratifications and study to acquire their respective perfections The everlasting and most glorious enjoyment of God is certainly most perfective of the soul and therefore is most properly and most deservingly said to be its Eternal Life according to that of our Saviour Joh. 17. 3. Now this Eternal Life is not a thing specifically different from Religion or the image of God or the divine life but indeed the greatest height and the most possible perfection of it self even as the Sun at noon-day is not a light really distinct from what is was in the first dawnings of the morning but a different degree and far more glorious state which seems to be the very similitude whereby the Spirit of God illustrateth the matter in hand Prov. 4. 18. Or as a man of perfect age is not a distinct species from a child but much more compleat and excellent in that species to which the Apostle refers treating of this subject 1 Cor. 13. 11. Man hath not two distinct kinds of happiness in the two distinct worlds that he is made to live in but one and the same thing is his blessedness in both which as I said before must needs be the enjoyment of God The translation made of the Text is very suitable to this notion for this divine principle is said to spring up not unto but into everlasting life q. d. it springs up till it be swallowed up into the perfect knowledge love and enjoyment of God Even as youth is swallowed up in manhood so this grace is swallowed up in glory and not so much abolished as indeed perfected By this phrase the genius of true Religion and the excellent temper of the true religious soul is most lively described This is the soul that being in some measure delivered from its unnatural bondage and freed from its unhappy confinement now spreads it self in God lifts up it self unto him stretches it self upon him is not content with a Heaven meerly to come but brings down Heaven into it self by carrying up it self unto and after the God of Heaven God is become great only great in the eye of such a Christian he is indeed become All things to him whilest this principle â—is rightly and actually predominant in him he knows no interest but to thrive and grow great in God no will but to serve the will and comply with the mind of God no end but to be united to God no business but to display and reflect the glory and perfections of God upon the Earth the main business of his life I say is to serve him the main ambition of his soul to be like unto him and his main happiness in this world to be united to him and in the world to come to be swallowed up in him in this world to know and love and rest and delight in and enjoy God more than all things and in the world to come to enjoy him more than so The gladsome growings up of the tender flowers unto the friendly Sun being once powerfully surpriz'd with his precious and benign influences and the chearful hast with which the sympathetick needle so amorously pursues the inchanting loadstone being once rightly toucht and affected with it do a little though but a little resemble and represent the motions of a spirit impregnated with this divine principle and strongly imprest with the image and stamp of God he puts in his hand by the hole of the door and the bowels of the espoused soul are presently moved yea melted for him Cant. 5. 4. He casts the skirt of his garment the mantle of his love and presently the converted soul leaves all to follow him Faith Hope and Love are knitting and springing graces and this Eternal Life is the end and perfection of them all not that any one of them I conceive shall be utterly incassated and abolished as some conclude concerning the two former though without good ground I think from the Apostles words 1 Cor. 13. 13. But Faith will be ripened into the most firm and undisturbed confidence affiance and acquiescence in God hope will be advanced into a more chearful powerful and confident expectation having for its object the perpetuation of the souls felicity and love will become much more loving and more clearly distinguishable from the imperfect longings and languishings of this present state when it shall flower up into pure delights and complacencies resting and glorying in the arms of its adequate satisfactory and eternal object The faith of the hypocrite and indeed his hope too is still springing up into self-preservation deliverance liberty a splendid and pompous state of the Church that is of his own party or some such thing as will gratifie the animal life and there iâ— terminates but the faith of the sincere and religious soul springs up into eternal life it knows no term but the salvation of the soul 1 Pet. 1. 9. As his hope knows no accomplishment but a state of god-like purity and perfection 1 Joh. 3. 3. The more natural man lives within himself within a circle of his own and cannot get out whether he eat or drink or pray or be zealous for the popular pulling down of the political Antichrist he is still in his own circle he is still sacrificing in all this to that great helluo the animal life as I have already made evident But the godly soul is disinterested of self and so is still contriving the advancement of a nobler life within it self and moving towards God as his supreme and all-sufficient good Give him all that the whole world can afford he cannot fix nor settle nor centre here God hath put into him a holy restless appetite after a higher good which he would rather be than what he is I know indeed that the soul that is thus divinely free may be hindered in its flight but it will deliver it self from the clog at length you may choak and damm up the streamings of this fountain perhaps but they will burst out again you may cast ashes upon this pure fire for a time but it will flame out again such a damp cannot arise no not from Hell it self as to extinguish it The Philistines I remember stopped the wells of water which Abraham had digged in Gerar and filled them with earth Gen. 26. 15. But this well of water which God diggeth in the holy and humble soul cannot be stopped neither by the Devil that King of Gerar that is of wandrings Job 1. 7. nor by any of his servants but it will find vent upward though you endeavour to fill it with earth which indeed is the likeliest to choak it for amor rerum terrenarum est viscus spiritualium pennarum though you cast dust and gravel of earthly
pleasures profits or preferments into it yet it is a well of living water and will work its passage out The hungrings of the godly soul are not cannot be satisfied till it come to feed upon the hidden Manna nor its thirstings quenched till it come to be swallowed up in the unbounded Ocean of life and love But I see I cannot divide springing up from Eternal Life nor pursue the term of Religion but I must also take in the motion of the Religious soul whereby he pursues it which I have already handled in my discourse therefore I will quit this head and take a short view of the second The secondary and more improper notion of Eternal Life I told you was that which takes in the circumstances or appendices of it And here we must needs allow that the holy Scriptures do openly avonch some of these circumstances as those especially of the first rank that I named of some of which it seems to make great account and possibly the Scripture may some where or other imply all the rest even those of the inferiour rank Again we will allow that many of those phrases which the Scripture uses to describe the blessed state of the other world do principally respect these appendices of the souls essential happiness Such perhaps are the Crown of Righteousness mentioned by the Apostle 1 Tim. 4. 8. The price of the high Calling mentioned by the same Apostle Phil. 3. 14. The House which is from Heaven spoken of 2 Cor. 6. 2. A Kingdom an incorruptible Inheritance a place prepared Mansions a reward praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 1. 7. And that glory honour and peace spoken of by the Apostle Paul Rom. 2. 10. These are all Scripture descriptions of the other state and I suppose we may grant them to have a peculiar reference to this secondary and preter-essential happiness of the soul Though I know not any necessity there is to be so liberal in our concessions for it may be fairly said concerning all or most of them that the design of these phrases is not so much to establish this less proper notion or to point ouâ— to the circumstances of the glorified state as to insinuate how much more ample and glorious that state shall be than this in which we now are as a prize is looked upon as somewhat more excellent than what is done or expended to acquire it it must needs be so esteemed by runners and wrestlers a Kingdom is a more glorious state than that of subjection and an Inheritance is incomparably more ample than the pension that is allowed the heir in his minority But these things being conceded it doth not appear how far or under what notion the religious soul as such doth spring up into these additional glories and thirst after them I know there are many that speak very highly of these appendices and allow the godly soul a very high and irrespective valuation of them And this they do principally infer from the examples of Christ himself as also of Moses and Paul Give me leave therefore to suggest something not to enervate but to moderate the Argument drawn from these persons and after that I shall briefly lay down what I conceive to be most Scriptural and rational in this matter First As for the example of Christ it seems to make not much for them in this matter For however the Text is very plain that for the joy that was set before him he endured the cross and this joy seems plainly to be his session at the right hand of God Heb. 12. 2. Yet if by this joy we understand a more full and glorious possession of God and a more excellent exaltation of his humane nature to a more free fruition of the divine then it cannot be applied to any thing but the springing up of the gracious soul into its essential happiness which I have already contended for as being the proper genius of such a soul or if by this Joy and Throne we understand the power that Christ foresaw he should be vested with of leading captivity captive trampling under feet the powers of hell and darkness and procuring gifts for men which seems to me to be most likely then it belongs not at all to men neither can this example be drawn into imitation As for the instance of Moses who is said to have had respect to the recompence of the reward Heb. 11. 26. It is not yet granted that that recompence of reward relates principally to these appendants of the souls essential happiness neither can it I suppose be evinced But though I should also allow that which I encline to do yet all that can be inferred from it is but a respect that Moses had as our Translation well renders it or some account which he in his sufferings made of this recompence which was a very warrantable contemplation The Apostle Paul indeed doth openly profess that he looked for and desired the coming of Christ from Heaven upon the account of that glorious body which he would then cloath him with Phil. 3. 20 21. And so he might sure and yet not desire it principally and primarily but secondarily and with reference And this leads me to the general answer that I was preparing to give which is this Some of these circumstances which I named especially that of the glorified body may be reduced to the essential happiness of the soul or included in it so as that the soul could not otherwise be perfectly happy It is the vote of all Divines I think that a Christian is not compleatly happy till he consist of a soul and body both glorified And indeed considering the dear affection and essential aptitude that God hath planted in the humane soul for a body we cannot well conceive how she should be perfectly happy without one And this earthly body is alas an unequal yoak fellow in which she is half stifled and rather buried than conveniently lodg'd so that it seems necessary even to her essential happiness that she should have some more heavenly and glorious body wherein she may commodiously and pleasantly exert her innate powers and whereby she may express her self in a spiritual and noble manner suitable to her own natural dignity and vigour and to her infinitely-amiable and most beloved object Concerning the rest of the circumstances which cannot be thus reduced I conceive that such of them as are necessary to the essential happiness of the soul by way of subserviency may be eyed and desired and thirsted after secondarily and with reference as I said before that is under this notion only as they are subservient to that essential blessedness I confess I do not understand under what other notion a religious soul can lift up it self unto them I mean not so far forth as it is holy and religious and acts suitably to that divine principle which the Father of Spirits or rather the Father of our Lord
miserable Every thing is the product of Almighty love and goodness 2. The happiness of every creature consists in its acting agreeably to that nature that God gave it and those ends which he propounded to it and suitably to those laws which he gave them which laws were contrived with the greatest suitableness to those natures and subserviency to those ends Every creature is in its kind happy whilest it acts agreeably to that nature which the wise creator implanted in it as the Sun runs its race without ceasing and rejoyces so to do and is in some sense happy in so doing Departing from that nature it becomes miserable as the earth bringing forth briers and thorns instead of those good fruits which it was appointed to bring forth is said to be cursed Gen. 3. 17 18. 3. The happiness of the creature is higher or lower greater or lesser according as it comes nearer to God or is further off from him according as it receives more or less from him according to what communion it hath with him The life and happiness of the Sun is much lower than that of a man because it cannot enjoy such high and excellent communications from or communion with God as man doth 4. There can be no communion without likeness The Sun shines upon a stone wall as well as upon man but a stone wall ha's no communion with the Sun because it hath no eyes to see the light of it as man hath nor can receive the benign influences of its heat as the herbs do A log of wood lyeth in the water as well as the Fish but it hath no communion with the water nor receives no advantage by it as the Fish doth God is present according to his infinite essence with the Devils as well as with the Angels but they have no likeness in nature to him and so no communion with him as these have 5. God bath given a more large and excellent capacity to man than to any other of his creatures upon earth God hath endued man with reason and so made him capable of a higher life and a more excellent communion with his Maker than all the rest The rational soul of all sublunary creatures is only capable to know love serve enjoy imitate God and so to have a glorious communion with him The Sun in all its glory and brightness is not so excellent a Being as any soul of man upon this account And although man by his fall lost his actual communion with God yet be is a reasonable creature still he hath not lost his capacity of receiving influences from him and enjoying communion with him The world when it is at the darkest is yet capable of being enlightned 6. When the nature of man is by divine grace healed of its distemperedness and restored to its former rectitude to act suitably to the end for which it was made and to spend it self upon its proper object then 〈◊〉 to have a right communion with God and to be happy All ratioâ—â—â— souls are capable of holding communion with God but all do not hold communion with him but they that express the purity and holiness of the divine life that know God and live like him these are hiâ— children Mat. 5. 15. and those only do rightly and really converse with him when the spirit of God informs these rational souls and derives the strength of a divine life through them and stamps the lively impressions of Divine perfections upon them rendring our hearts will and wayes conformable to that glorious pattern that infinite good then do we enjoy a proper communion with him and are truly blessed though we are not compleatly blessed till this conformity be perfected according to what those souls are or may be capable of This is the true and proper notion of mans communion with God and relation to him which we cannot fully describe till we do more fully enjoy That soul that truly lives and feeds upon God do's taste more than it can tell and yet it can tell this that this is the most high excellent noble glorious life in the whole world This communion as also the intimateness and closeness of it are described variously in the Holy Scriptures by the similitude of members being in the body 1 Cor. 12. 27. Of branches being in the Vine Joh. 15. 1 2. By being formed according to Gods image Rom. 8. 29. Changed into his image 2 Cor. 3. 18. By Gods dwelling in the soul and the soul in him 1 Joh. 4. 16. By Christs being formed in the soul Gal. 4. 19 By the souls having Christ 1 Joh. 5. 12. By Christs supping with the soul and the soul with him Rev. 3. 20. Because nothing is more our own nor more one with us than that which we eat and drink being incorporated into us therefore is this spiritual communion between God and the godly soul oft-times in Scripture described by our eating and drinking with him Thus God was pleased to allow his people under the law when they had offered up a part of their Beasts in Sacrifice to him to sit down and feast upon the rest as a token of that familiarity and oneness that was between him and them By the like action our Saviour shadowed out the same mysterie when in the Sacrament of his supper he appointed them to sit down and eat and drink with him to intimate their feeding upon him and most close communion with him yea the state of glory which is the most perfect communion with God is thus shadowed out too Mat. 8. 11. Rev. 19. 9. And which is worth noting I think the Sacramental eating and drinking hath some reference to that most intimate communion of the Saints with God in glory our Saviour himself seems to imply as much in that speech of his Luk. 22. 30. That ye may eat and drink at my Table in my Kingdom In which words he seems plainly to allude to the Sacramental eating and drinking which he had a little before instituted viz. ver 19. Which makes some to believe that that gesture is to be retained in that ordinance which is most proper and usual to express familiarity and communion and to take away that gesture is to destroy one great end of our Saviour in appointing this Supper which was to represent that familiar communion which is between himself and every believing soul I will not here examine the validity of their argument which possibly if prest home might introduce a rudeness into the worship of God under pretence of familiarity but it seems very plain that the nature of that ordinance doth shadow out the intimate communion between God and a godly soul I have already in part prevented my self and shewed you wherein the souls communion with God consists But yet to give you a more distinct knowledge of this great mysterie I shall unfold it in these three following particulars 1. A godly soul hath communion with God in his Attributes When the
Soul of man is molded and formed into a resemblance of the divine nature then hath it a true fellowship with him Now this communion with God in his Attributes is to be seen two wayes 1. When the soul is in its measure according to the capacity of a creature all that which God is This is the communion which the Angels have with God Their beholding of the face of God is not to be understood of a meer speculation or an idle gazing upon a Deity but they see him by receiving his Image upon themselves and reflecting his glory and brightness they partake of the goodness purity holiness wisdome righteousness of God which makes them such glorious spirits and the want of this makes the other whom we call Devils to be what they are Thus godly men shall have communion with God they shall see God Mat. 5. 8. Heb. 12. 14. Yea thus they have communion with him in some measure They do not only see God in the world as the Devils do nor see him in the word as many hypocritical and wicked men do but they see him in themselves in the frame of their own souls they find themselves molded into his image and a resemblance of him drawn upon them This is a beautiful vision of God true and real though not full and complete This is set out in Scripture by being holy as God is holy 1 Pet. 1. 16. perfect as God is perfect Mat. 5. ult This our Saviour exhorts us to seek after Mat. 11. 29. take my yoke upon ye learn of me for I am meek and lowly and the Apostle Ephes 5. 1. Be ye followers of God as dear Children When the nature and perfections of God his holiness goodness righteousness wisdom c. are coppyed out upon our natures and the same Spirit is in us which was in Christ Jesus then have we a true communion with God which blessed communion when the soul becomes all that which God is by a conformity of nature 2. When the soul in its actions as a creature doth rightly answer to the Attributes of the Creator As when the soul doth answer the goodness of God with suitable affâ—ctions of love and joy and delight when the soul doth correspond to the Soveraignty and wisdom of God by the Acts of self-denyal and resignation doth converse with the righteousness of God by patience and a holy Acquiescency When the soul doth rightly exert those Acts which are proper and suitable to the nature of God then it may be said to hold communion with him in his attributes when the actions and notions of the soul do correspond to the divine nature and attributes Now this suitableness of the soul I mean especially with reference to the incommunicable attributes of God where there is no place for imitation though it hold good in the rest also 2. A godly soul hath communion with God in his word To read profess or hear the word is not to hold a real communion with God therein many do so that are strangers to God A man may read my letters and yet correspond with my enemy That Son in the Gospel that heard his Fathers command and answered I goe sir but went not had no right communion with his paternal authority But when the soul is ennobled into such a frame as this word doth require then it holds communion with God in his word e. g. when the soul puts forth those acts of humiliation holy fear and reverence godly trembling which do suit the nature of a divine threatning when the soul answers the command of God with suitable resolutions repentings reformations and real obedience when it entertains the promise with suitable acts of holy delight joy refreshment recumbency and acquiesces in the same then doth it truly converse with God in his word 3. A godly soul hath communion with God in his works And that is when the 〈◊〉 doth answer the several providences of God with suitable and pertinent affections and dispositions The godly soul doth not only eye and observe the hand of God in all things that fall out but doth comply with those providences and is molded into that frame and put upon those duties which such providences do call for Then doth the soul rightly hold communion with God in his works when it is humbled under humbling providences is refreshed strengthned and grows up under prosperous providences as they did Act. 9. 31. who having rest given them were edified comforted multiplyed c. when the soul doth rightly comport with every providence and the will is molded into the will of God then do we hold communion with him in his works This theme is large because the works of God are manifold of Creation Redemption Preservation works towards other men and towards our selves both towards our outward and inward man A godly soul hath communion with God in all these in the sense that I named even now though perhaps not equally in all yet sincerely and truly By what hath been said you understand that right fellowship with God is not a bare communion of names To have the name of God called upon us and to be called Christians or the people of God or to name the name of God to profess it to cry Lord Lord doth not make any one really and truly the better man doth not make a soul rightly happy It is not enough to cry the Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord with them in Jer. 1. 4. to make our boast in the Law with them Rom. 2. 23. to call our selves the Children of Abraham as the Jews did in John Baptists time Mat. 3. 9. These priviledges and professions are extrinsecal to the soul and do nothing to the true ennobling of it But right fellowship with God is a communion of hearts and natures of will and affections of interests and ends To have one heart and will the same interest and ends with God is to be truly godly A Godlike man is the only godly man A Christ like nature brought into the soul doth only denominâ—te a man a true Christian It is not speaking together but loving and living together that brings God and the soul into one I live yet not I but Christ that livâ—th in me Gal. 2. 20. And thus I suppose you have a fair account why the Apostle James chap. 2. do's so much preferr works before faith for indeed faith is nothing worth save only that faith which joyns the soul to the object and makes the thing believed ones own as also why the Apostlâ— Paul prefers love before a faith of miâ—acles 1 Cor. 13. 2. Though indeed a justifying saith is the most miraculous that faith that unites the soul and God together is more excellent and indeed more miraculous than the faith that removes Mountains When I consider the proper happiness and perfection of a soul and the nature of this true blissful communion with God I cannot but wonder how it is possible that men
finite can grasp a finite Being and enjoy it as I may say all at once A man may come so near to his friend that he can come no nearer enjoy him as fully as he is capable to enjoy or the other to be enjoyed Created sweetness may be exhausted to the very bottom But the souls communion with God dos not give it any such satisfaction though indeed in some sense it gives a satisfaction of a much higher and more excellent kind I told you before that the souls communion with God is imperfect in this life and therefore it must needs follow that it cannot satisfie that is not terminate and fill up the desires of it Communion with God is maintained by faith and love as you have heard which proves it to be very sweet but it also admits of Hope which proves it to be not satisfactory For where there is yet any place left for hope there is no full or satisfactory enjoyment This may serve as a certain note whereby to judge of the truth of that communion with God it is not glutting to the soul but will certainly manifest it self in incessant hungrings inter opes inops the soul is in the midst of plenty and yet cryes out as if it were ready to starve for want When I consider the temper of some perfectionists who cry down duties and ordinances as low and unprofitable rudiments and boast of their full and inaccessionable attainments and compare it with the temper of the great Apostle who did not reckon that he had attained but still followed after that he might apprehend who forgot the things that were behind and reached forth unto those things that were before pressing towards the mark c. Phil. 3. 12 13 14. I am ready to cry out Aut hic non est Apostolus aut hi non sunt Apostolici But an Apostle he was and had very intimate communion with his Lord and therefore I confess I cannot allow these men so high a place in my opinion as they have in their own God is infinite and therefore though the soul may be ever grasping yet it can never comprehend and yet the soul finds him to be infinitely good and so cannot cease grasping him neither The godly soul sees that there is yet much more to be enjoyed of God and in him and therefore though it be very near to him yet cryes out and complains of its distance from him Oh when shall I come and appear before him though it be united to him yet it longs to be yet more one with him still to be in a closer conjunction The godly soul forgets with Paul what it hath received not through disingenuity and unthankfulness but through a holy ardour and covetousness All that he has of God seems little because there is yet so much to be had Though the godly soul do drink of the fountain yet that is not enough it would lye down by it though it do lye down by it yet so it is not satisfied neither except it may bath it self and even be swallowed up therein Behold a Paradox the godly soul is most thirsty though according to Christs promise it thirst no more it is most restless though according to his promise it have rest It is proper to God alone to rest in his love for the creature cannot in this imperfect state By this we know that we are not yet in Heaven for it is a state of perfect rest not sloth or cessation but satisfaction Faith is the Feaver of the soul rendring it more thirsty by how much the more it drinks in of the Water of Life the living streams that flow forth from the Throne of God and of the Lamb. As the Waters of the Sanctuary are described by the Prophet growing deeper and deeper Ezek. 47. so hope which is the souls appetite grows larger and larger and cannot be satisfied till the souls capacity be filled up The Doctrinal part being thus briefly dispatcht it will be easie to inferr some things by way of corolary I shall content my self with three only amongst many 1. All wicked men are strangers to God We know indeed that God according to his infinite essence is present with all his creatures not only men but even devils too have their being in him he hath spread his omnipotence as the foundation whereupon the whole Creation doth stand he reared up the world in himself and in him it doth subsist at this day However Angels and men have sadly fallen from God yet they may be truly said to live in him still and although all wicked souls do straggle off from God as to their dispositions and affections ingrafting themselves into another stock by sin and wickedness yet they cannot possibly straggle from him as to their subsistence as the Apostle teaches the Athenian Philosophers Act. 17. 27. He is not far from every one of us though few feel after him or find him And it may be truly said in some sense that all the Creatures yea the very worst of them have a communion with God all partake of him no creature hath any thing of its own really distinct from him Every thing that hath a Being hath a relation to that infinite and supream Being and every living thing may be rightly said to have communion with him who is life it self And all those several excellencies that are in the Creatures are effluxes from God who hath derived various prints of his own beauty and perfection upon every thing that he hath made Gods making of a thing is no other than the communicating of himself thereunto And therefore when you look into the world do not view any creature in the narrow point of its own Being but in the unbounded essence of God and therein love and admire it But upon the immortal soul of man God hath coppyed out his Divine perfections more clearly and gloriously than upon any other Creature in this world God could not make a rational soul without communicating of his own infinite wisdom power life freedom unto it so that there is more of the Divine nature to be seen in the understanding and will of any one man than in the whole fabrick of Heaven and Earth Notwithstanding this wicked men are strangers to God They live and move in God indeed but they know it not they consider it not they act as if they had no dependance upon him no relation to him Though they have some kind of communion with God as Creatures yet this makes them not at all happy for they are departed from God in their affections and dispositions they have degenerated from that subserviency and subordination to the Divine Will which is the proper perfection of the creature and are alienated from the life of God as the Apostle speaks Eph. 4. 18. It is not the souls moving in God that makes it truly and happily nigh unto him but its moving towards God as the chief object and according to the will