Fortior est qui se quam qui fortissima vincit Moenia He is the greatest Conqueror that can subdue his own passions and keep his body in subjection as St. Paul did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he I chastise my body from whence Friars draw their authority of chastising themselves though without cause and so take the word to be such a chastisement as School-masters use to boys We ought all of us against the grain of our flesh to mould and fashion our selves to repentance that so we may obtain a Trinity of Graces to save us Faith Hope and Charity and this Trinity of Grace will deliver us from a Trinity of Evils Blindness Error and Unbelief and if we be delivered from these we shall be freed from the predominancy of the World the Flesh and the Devil and if we be preserv'd from these we shall undoubtedly be crowned by the blessed Trinity God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost to whom be Glory Honour and Praise World without end Amen GOD AND MAN Mutually Embracing In the first Epistle of St. John the 4 Chap. and the 19 vers it is thus written We love him because he first loved us LOve is the punctum or centre SERM. III. about which the circumference of our thoughts doth move and the primus motor that induceth us to fix our spirits upon an object Love is to our souls as weight is to ponderous bodies for as the gravity of a body forceth it downward that it may enjoy a sweet repose in its centre so Love moves our souls to an object that promiseth repose and contentment therefore from hence it follows that as ponderous bodies move in a straight line toward their centre so if we will obtain a true rest our Love must be regular and proceed in a direct line by a divinely-composed motion This Text Beloved that I come from reading to you is the Epitome of Christian Religion or the great Folio of Christian duty reduced into a Decimo-sexto or pocket-volume In this Text there are two parts and these two parts are the two pillars of the Church and the whole Christian World 1. Our love toward God in these words We love him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. Gods love toward us which is but the reason or rather efficient cause of our love toward him because he first loved us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not to stand upon the nice and fine-spun distinctions that the School-men make of Love we shall only divide it into two sorts Divinum and Humanum amorem into Love Divine and Humane the divine is couched down by the holy Spirit of God in the latter part of the verse because he loved us and the humane in the former We love him We will begin with the latter humane love or the love of man to God Spiritual or true love gives repose and contentment to the soul when as carnal or false love is an irregular agitation and an inconsiderate motion without a Terminus ad quem it is ever repleat with inquietude and distraction and never ceaseth or resteth till it despairs or is quite tired out which is not properly a rest but an impotency and inability of motion and the desire is strong when the power is weak like a horse that tied to a manger gnaweth his bridle asunder such are most persons their desires are strong their power but weak they desire most what they can least perform The cause of this disturbance is this Our Love selecteth out Reasons why we love not God perfectly 1 Cause and fixeth upon false objects and such that cannot satiate the desire for if you survey all sublunary things that deserve the name of beautiful you shall find in them no true quiet or rest but a concatenation of cares interwoven with perpetual trouble The greatest delicacies are consited in bitterness The acquisition of honour and preferment is painful and many break their necks in riding upon the airy stilts of Fame The possession of riches is uncertain and the loss certain if they leave not us by some accident Death Natures Bayliff will arrest us and force us to leave them To aim at such things is but ventum prosequi To pursue the wind an action as ridiculous as can be Grant they be good yet they are incertain therefore we must seek after our repose somewhere else since the earth cannot afford it and turn the compass of our Love toward Heaven For as the lower region of the Air is the habitation of winds tempests and earth-quakes but that part that is near the Heaven is serene and quiet so our Love so long as it adheres to sublunary objects will be full of trouble but 't will find rest and quiet if it lift it self up to Heaven and lay hold of the promises of God and then the soul though in the midst of the confusions and afflictions of this world be they never so thorny will have the fruition of an assured tranquillity like the Needle of the Compass that remains firm upon one point notwithstanding the violence of the scolding surges of a Tempestuous Sea and all because it is guided by the motion of the Heavens God is the sole object or at least ought to be of our Love and hath only a power to render us amiable by loving us He that only can nay that will give them felicity and that unutterable too that love him As the Apostle St. Paul writeth in the first to the Corinth the 2 Chap. and the 9 vers Eye hath not seen nor ear heard neither hath entred into the heart of man to conceive the things that God hath prepared for them that love him He promiseth also in St. John chap. 14. vers 23. to come unto him that loveth him and make his abode with him O unparallelled Love that makes a Palace of our souls for the King of Glory and a Sanctuary of the Holy Ghost 2. 2 Cause Philosophy it self hath this down for a maxime that Natura Deus nihil fecerunt frustra that God and Nature made nothing in vain Now that infinite and insatiable desire or appetite that is in man were in vain if there were nothing to satisfie and content it Which since it is impossible to find out upon this Terraqueous Globe we must search after it in Heaven of God that is bonum infinitum an infinite good 3 Cause 3. Besides God created the world for the use of man and therefore without doubt he created man for something better then the world viz. God himself 4 Cause 4. God created man inter omnia animalia only secundum imaginem according to his own image with a straight body and an upright countenance according to mellifluous Naso Os homini sublime dedit coelumque tueri Jussit erectos ad sydera tollere vultus that so he might behold him whom he represented and that the But and White of all his actions and thoughts
might be Heaven 5. 5 Cause The perfection of our spirits cannot be but in the union of or with the first of spirits who communicateth his bona or good things to us his Creatures as the Sun darts his rays upon us that is he gives them so he bestows them on us yet so that they depend on him after he hath disposed of them 6. 6 Cause True Love is that transformeth the amantem the Lover in amatum into the thing or party loved Now if a deformed person be never so highly enamoured with the captivitating beauty of a red white complexion he will never be able by this love to correct his deformity On the contrary in loving God we become sibi similes like unto him and as the holy Apostle saith in the second to the Corinth the third Chap. and the last verse Beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord with open face are changed into the same image 7. And lastly Beauty 7 Cause being the first incitation to Love or the Tinder of the affections we shall soon be able to discern when the scales of ignorance are fallen from our eyes that this beauty as we term it that is here below is but a superficial colour or a cover to a bundle of filthiness but that the Lumen or true Light is the true beauty God therefore being the true Light and the Father of Lights is the chief beauty and the object on whom we all ought to fix our affections Natural Philosophy here is diametrically opposite to the Divine and jars with it much in this case for Philosophy affirms that Natural motion is better then that is against Nature On the contrary quoad amorem the Word of God that is our Divine Philosophy instructeth and perswadeth us that Love contrary to Nature is better then Love natural For since that Satan in seducing our first Parents hath defaced the image of God in Man our desires have had their constant course towards the World and as I may say our Love hath been precipitated from Heaven to the Earth The affection of the flesh is enmity against God Romans the 8. and the 7 verse If one love that love flows not from him naturally but it is a free gift of God And the Apostle St. Paul drawing us out of the mud and freeing us from the bait of all alluring delights of this World commands us to seek the things above Coloss 3. vers 1 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be skilful in the things above be wise in heavenly matters for according to the words in my Text We love God because he first loved us Our love therefore it appears manifestly is an effect of Gods Love to us nor is there any thing that we ought with more devotion or zeal to crave of God then Love for it is a pledg unto the faithful of Gods Love to him It is the first fruit the primitiae of Faith 't is the most exact and curious extract of the Image of God It is the most perspicuous mark of a child of God Love is the summe of Christianity This Love is the soul of our soul the life of virtue the rule by which we square or at least ought to do all our actions the summary or compendium of the Law 'T is the pillar or sustentaculum of Martyrs the Jacobs Ladder by which you may ascend the Heavens and true peace of conscience nay with holy reverence be it spoken it is a praelibamen or earnest-penny of that Sacred union and communion that we expect all to enjoy with God in Heaven world without end Our meditation could not pitch upon a more sublime subject for what is there that dare stand in competition with God either for his greatness or the sweetness and candor of his Love The profit of this Love of God is no way inferior to the delight for men are termed good or evil not for what they believe but what they love Let us all therefore labour for this and become proficients in the School of Christ and beseech the spirit so to mould our hearts that they may be wrought to a true and perfect Love of God lest we be abused and fooled into error with the sound of this word Love and mistake the spiritual for a carnal love an importunate or fretting corrosion of the heart an aguish alteration the last of vices for the first and best of vertues a brutish malady for an Angelical distemper 'T is true he that disposeth and conformeth himself to the Love of God must expect the hatred and bespattering calumnies of the world but God will cause the very discommodities that the world afflicts us with to be converted into commodity and profit for saith the blessed Apostle Rom. the 8. and the 28. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God to them who are the called according to his purpose Their corporeal afflictions are but spiritual exercises their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nocumenta documenta The malady of their body is a remedy for their soul for God alone is the true Aesculapius so divine a Chymist that he will convert poysons into Antidotes for his childrens health and security His wounds are balm saith the Divine Harper Psalm 14. vers 5. In all our sufferings for Gods sake there is not only matter of patience but occasion for glory they are scars of credit in the forehead conformities unto our blessed Saviour Jesus Christ and the livery of all Christian Souldiers And all this by the sustentation and support of this Love the sweetness whereof qualifies and abates the bitterness of all sublunary crosses Object But here some may object and say that the Love of God is pro confesso an excellent vertue but we must know him before we love him and we cannot compass any other but a lame and decrepit insufficient notion of him 'T is true but notwithstanding all this we ought still dare operam to it and make exact search after it and when we have it embrace it for ignorance must not be a Cloak or tegument to our negligence since we cannot gain so little of the true knowledge of God but some profit will accrue to us thereby and that will blow up the embers of the love of God in us to an acceptable degree of heat and pious zeal One ray of the love of God will outbalance and overvalue all the splendor of the Meridian Sun A dark obscure knowledge of God surpasseth the most acute and sharp insight into all natural things If one beam of the Sun chance to peep into a Dungeon the prisoner by this recollects the beauty and excellency of Light so that small and imperfect knowledg that we obtain of God is sufficient for a taste of the excellency of his Love and able to inflame us therewith besides 't is sufficient for salvation We love God because he loved us first We are so incapable of the Love
sting O grave where is thy victory The sting of Death is sin and the strength of sin is the Law But thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ Though these things buz about his ears like bees provoked or irritated yet they have lost their sting If the old serpent bruise his heel yet his head is broken if the Devil give us a false alarm by persecutions yet we are souldiers fighting under Christs Banner listed and registred into the Book of Life at our Baptism he hath bought and redeemed us by his most precious blood and no one can ravish us from him What soul can be so sordid as to fear the arm of flesh when he is guarded by the spirit of Christ that doth not only intercede for sinners but of sinners makes them become just That is not only Advocate of a bad cause but also renders it good That doth both pray and pay for us so that his pardoning of us is not onely a work of his mercy but also an effect of his justice Besides these obligations we have an infinite number of incitations to the love of Christ if we will but recollect our selves and seriously consider how often he hath delivered us from imminent danger caused inexpected overtures of evil intended to us that we might avoid them for according to the old Proverb Praemoniti praemuniti forewarned forearmed and afflicted us here that he might save us hereafter Now 't was the wish of that famous pillar of the Latin Church St. Augustin Hic ure hic tunde hic seca modo in aeternum parcas Cut saw burn my body here so thou savest my soul hereafter Now for shame let it not be said that God hath showred down his blessings on the sand Let us not be so bestial as to drink of the stream and ne'er think of the fountain without elevating our thoughts unto God the source of all benedictions But when we say God doth good unto us to the end that we may love him not that he stands in need of our Love but he will have us love him in regard that we cannot be saved if we hate him Nay farther that we love him proceeds from him as a gift for 't is he that kindles in us his love He doth not only bestow and confer his bona upon us but he gives us a hand to receive them grace to use them and vertue to glorifie for them so that Deus primo dat quod jubet and then jubet quod vult first he gives what he commands viz. Love Love is the gift of God and then he commands what is most agreable to his will and pleasure This first degree or step of Love though it be holy and useful yet 't is but principium amoris divini 't is but the prologue to the Love of God for he that loves God only for profit is like an infant or child that prays only for his break-fast and to speak properly such persons love not God but themselves Such love is but mercenary and injurious to God a palpable affront put upon the Deity Therefore he must know that hath gained this first degree he must proceed for non progredi est regredi to be at a stand is to be retrograde he must therefore I say ascend the second step The second degree of our Love toward God is to Love him 2 Degree not only for our profit but also for himself i. e. laying aside all consideration of his benefits that he is daily pleased to confer on us and though we expected no profit from him yet to love him supra omnia Holy David spake of this Love in the 69 Psalm Let all those that love thee rejoyce in thy name He counsels us to love God for his name because he is the supream Wise in his counsel just in his actions true in his promises whose habitation is in glory inaccessible enjoying a Soveraign perfection God whose life was without beginning and his duration without end his eternity without alteration his greatness without measure and his power irresistible That created the World by his Word governs it by his vertue and will reduce it to a Chaos of ruine when it is his pleasure Who in one sole vertue and perfection which is his Essence encompasseth all other vertues that are infused into all other creatures All other vertues do concentre in this punctum and the more they deviate from him the more eccentrique they are God therefore is to be loved for these preceding considerations more then for the good that he is pleased to confer upon us Our Saviour instructeth us the same in that most absolute pattern that he himself hath set before us in which he commands to beg the sanctification of his Holy Name and the advancement of his Kingdom before we put up a petition for our daily bread We naturally are enamoured with beauty now Light is the first of beauties without which there is no distinction between beauty and deformity God therefore being the primum lumen it follows necessarily that he be also the prime beauty He is the Father of Lights Pater Luminum saith St. James and holy David the Psalmist in the 36 Psalm 9. For with thee is the Fountain of Life in thy light shall we see light Wherefore in laying his hand to the stately Fabrick of the World when he reduced the Chaos of confusion into a beautiful and harmonious order he began first with the light as that by which his nature is best represented He is the Sun of Righteousness a Sun that never comes to the West never sets nor casts a shadow all things are naked unto him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all things are bare-neckt unto him 't is in the Original being a metaphor taken from the mode in the Eastern Countreys where they go bare-neckt such a Sun as doth not only clarifie the sight but gives it also And judge you what a splendid sight-offending lustre this is that the Seraphims assisting at his Throne cover their faces with their wings as Isaiah saith 6 Chap. 2 vers not being able to endure so glorious a splendor And if at the coming and appearance of the humanity of Christ the Sun shall be benegroed in darkness as a petty light at the coming of a greater how if you cast an eye upon the life of God! The life of God ours is but a shadow if compared to it nay a nihil for our life is a flux or succession of parts But God possesseth and hath full and entire fruition of his eadem instanti and all together And his only begotten Son was willing to lay down his life for the redemption of us miserable and wretched sinners That Son that Isaiah calls Chap. the 9. Father of eternity was content to assume this frail flesh of ours He became Son of Man that we might become the sons of God He was born in a stable that we might
be received into the Kingdom of Heaven born among beasts that we might be the associates of Angels He that was regens sydera became sugens ubera 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 became 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that is the bread of life was pinched with hunger that we might be satisfied He that is the fountain of life became thirsty that we might have ours quenched In fine he that is life it self did undergo death that he might make us heirs of eternal life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the blessed Apostle in a holy extasie cried out O the depth of the riches of the Love of Christ These are prosundities that swallow up our spirits and there is pleasure in being lost therein for these are the graces of God that surpasse our shallow capacities but recreate our hearts that afford matter of admiration and subject of consolation Now to what end is all this if not to induce us to love God and admire the treasures and riches of his grace Our spirits are extasied with the rapture and contemplation of thy bounty Our words are a degree beneath our thoughts yet our thoughts are far beneath the truth We do but lisp forth thy praise our commendation and elogiums of thee are but an undervaluing of thee for in so doing we do but lumen soli praeferre or endeavour to delineate him in his golden tresses by the dark draught of a charcoal Therefore we must intreat the Lord that is our Father to touch our hearts with a filial affection that it would please him that bestows and infuseth his love into us to create also in us strong affections and desires after such a divine vertue that we may pant after pursue it with so much eagerness as to encounter with all obstructions for the obtaining of it All these considerations do but incite us to the love of God not for our selves but for his own sake which is perspicuous in this that our Love cannot be regulate unless it be formed and fashioned on the model of his Love that he bears to us Now God Loves us for his own sake according to the Prophet Isa Chap. 43. 'T is I 't is I that blot away thy trangressions for mine own sake And it is the prayer of holy Daniel in the 9. of his prophecy Lord hear me Lord pardon me O Lord my God tarry not for thine own sake for thy name hath been called upon by this people God considers that we bear his Image on our souls he considers that we are unworthy of his benefits but that it is a divine thing to do good to those that are unworthy of receiving it and which is more to make them worthy in doing them good He looks upon his Church as a small fold that carrieth his name and are baptized the people of God Hosea the 2. nor will he suffer it to become the prey of Satan or the triumph of their adversaries Amen GOD AND MAN Mutually Embracing In the first Epistle of St. John the 4 Chap. and the 19 vers it is thus written We love God because he first loved us WE have in one Sermon already discoursed of our Love of God SERM. IV. and informed you of the several degrees of this Love which were five two whereof we have only as yet insisted on the other three we shall auspice Christo dispatch in our subsequent love-discourse Therefore not to detain you with the reiteration or repetition of what you have formerly heard we 'll proceed at present to the third degree of our Love to God which is this viz. To Love God so far above all sublunary beings as to affect nothing 3 Degree to be enamoured with nothing but only for his sake As for instance in the vast circumference of the terrestrial Globe there is variety both of persons and things that we cannot withdraw our affections from them we cannot but love them and in reality 't were impiety not to Love them A Father loveth his Children a Wife her Husband our Parents our Kindred our Neighbours our Friends have all share in this amity So a man loves his health and labours to preserve it if it be any way lost he endeavours by all possible means to recover it The brawny Peasant is in his element when whistling to his Teem and manuring of his acres The Scholar is so ravished with his study that his very countenance smels of the candle as the Poet ingeniously expresseth it Livida nocturnam sapiebant ora lucernam Their pale countenance did relish of the candle speaking of excessive students Nay to go to disrobe a man of this love would be a doctrine inhumane and a degree below brutality He is worse than an Infidel that hath not a care of his family saith the blessed Apostle Piety doth not extirpate a mans affections but cultivates them and makes them colleagues with the Love and fear of God No otherwise than Joshuah who having subdued the Gibeonites would not put them to death but compel them to service in the House of God For then doth a father love his sons with a real paternal affection when he resolves to educate them so in their youth that they may encrease in growth and become plants that one day may fructifie to the glory of God Then doth a man love his friends as he ought when their love to God is the efficient cause of his love to them and that he perceives the Image of God shine in them Then shall we love our health lawfully and aright when we desire it not because it is more pleasant and comfortable but because it endowes our bodies with a vigour and our souls with a liberty of serving God in our vocation The same may be said of Riches Honour Learning and the like these are things that one may affect but so that their love rob us not of our love to God but rather stimulate us on and provoke us to good works And as there is no river so small but disembogues it self into the Sea so there is none of Gods benefacta though of the lowest size of the most dwarfish stature but conducts and leads our thoughts to the profound abyss of his goodness and greatness Then shall our affections to our friends be regulated and sweetly composed when they shall be branches or arms of the Sea of Gods immense Love and have a reflection upon the Image or benefits of God Set not a price or estimation upon men for that that is about them but for what is in them Love not men as you do Purses i. e. for the money they have If you honour a person for his stately attire you might as well salute the Sattin when intire in a whole piece If you reverence a man for his honour or renown you pin his dignity upon his sleeve and fix his worth on an airy title and this is the mode now adaies this is the frame of most mens spirits in the world to
conflict or combat that he may be dissolved and be with Christ 'T is a hellish disposition and suitable to the devils nature to give a blow to a man that is already reeling 't is his constant course when he finds you most afflicted with diseases and enfeebled with age then doth he redouble his force and shews you your sins in multiplying glasses that so he may if possible compel you to land the vessel of your soul upon the shoar of Despair Lust will struggle and strive for superiority and therefore ought to be suppressed and held in subjection by the power of Gods Spirit operating in and aiding of us Man is his own enemy he nourisheth a bird within him that will pick out his own eyes Homo homini lupus which made St. Augustin cry out A me libera me Domine blessed Lord free me or deliver me from my self O the wretched nature and inclinations of men that procure or at least endeavour it their own ruine O the fixed and fast rooted corruptions of man that by their mutinies will relead us or compel us to return into Aegypt that after our departure out of Sodom perswade us like Lots Wife to look back and have a kind of internal regret for the evil we have forsaken These are corruptions that interpose and disturb our best actions with wicked suggestions and bespatter them with some evil If we seriously meditate on death the flesh will suggest and say What needs all these melancholy dumps To what purpose all these sighs and erected eyes There is time enough for that hereafter If we read or near Gods judgements and menaces against infamous scarlet sinners the flesh perswades us that it belongs to others not to us If we comtemplate the Heavens 't will suggest unto us immediately that we shall arrive there soon enough If we go to extend our hand and manifest our charity out of a real Christian sympathy to a distressed member of Christ 't will whisper to your souls You know not how soon you may want your selves If we be resolved to reprove a friend that we may reduce him from the broad way of sin and uncleanness and conduct him to the narrow though blessed path that leads unto salvation then 't will retract and withdraw and make you desist from your intented purpose for fear of offending him or incurring his total displeasure every good action hath two ansae by which the world and the flesh take hold to prevent the execution of it Therefore in this case we must carefully and piously repair unto God craving his divine assistance and imitate Rebecca who had recourse unto God by prayer when two Embryones or infants strove in her womb a most exact figure or divine Hieroglyphick of the two men that are in every believer The old and the new Adam one our nature corrupted and cicatrized by sin the other our spirit regenerated which lust one against the other as the blessed Apostle St. Paul testifieth Gal. 5.17 So God answers unto Rebecca telling her that the greatest should obey the least For the old man must be brought in subjection to the new till he be perfectly reduced to the obedience of God he must be overcome totally and his forces quite routed Now we are arrived to the top of the Ladder the fifth and last degree 5 Degree which is the Love whereby we shall love God in the Kingdom of Heaven when we shall be cloathed with the Robes of Eternal Glory For our Love proceeds from our knowledge and according to our knowledge we proportion our Love Then shall we love God far more because we shall know him far better Now we see saith the blessed Apostle through a glass darkly but then face to face 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 13. very emphaticall in a riddle Our love that looks a great distance and is distracted by variety of objects shall then approach and look near and shall be totally fixed upon God And as two great rivers that have forsaken their constant chanel and meeting together cause a terrible inundation so the Love of God are two currents that shall be joyned whilest on earth but when we shall arrive and land on the shoar of eternal felicity they will meet in Heaven How unutterable will the vehemency of these affections be when they shall be joyned and swallowed up one within the other with a mutual Love For then in loving God we shall also love our selves because that God shall dwell in us and because according to the holy Apostle St. John 1 John 3.2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We shall be like unto him we shall resemble him Nor must we doubt or imagine that there is not an entire and real Love and mutual affection among the blessed Angels but it flows from the Love of God Therefore let us love nothing in our selves that prepares us not for the expectation of that Love that is mingled with the Love of God a rare and Sacred Dose composed of two incomparable Ingredients to cure the distemper of sin-sick man But because that Love with which we shall love God in Paradise hath its original from the sight and contemplation of his glorious aspect for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Love is enflamed by sight Let us endeavour to find out what this sight shall be that is the cause of our Love The eyes of the body behold all things two ways or by two means either by a reception of the image or species and so we behold and see all bodies exposed to our view or in receiving into our eyes the self-same thing that we see as we see the light which enters into our very sight God that is the primum lumen or lumen luminum will manifest himself unto us in Heaven this last manner for he dwelleth in his Saints he is to them all in all Rom. 1. But in this life we see him in his image i. e. by the contemplation of his works whereon he hath made an impression or engraven as it were his own portraicture and express and significant indicia or marks of his vertue We shall then see God as we do the light here below but that we do only see it through the windows of our bodies viz. our eyes but then we shall receive on every side the light of Gods countenance that will light us every where with the splendor of its rays and the beams of its translucent glory like a man that if it were possible could be apple of the eye all over composed of nothing else he would receive the light from all parts round about him This sight of God will transform us into his likeness or similitude so saith St. John 1 John 3.2 We shall be like unto him for we shall behold him as he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For as a looking-glass or mirrour if it be exposed to the Sun will represent the resemblance or image thereof so God entertains no body with
an intent to contemplate his face but he transforms him into his own likeness or similitude by the irradiation of his splendor and perfection And if God be Charity and Love as the holy Apostle St. John affirms and all Christians are engaged to believe in the 1. of St. John 4 Chap. 8 vers it follows of necessity that the creature being by this beatifical vision made like unto God should be ravished with love and all on a flame with this spiritual fire Such a fire as hath imposed a name on the Seraphims to termed because of their ardor which is no other thing but the Love of God the fervor of their zeal and their promptitude and agility in his service This now should serve for a Use of exhortation to all good Christians Use viz. to labour after the love of God with all humility pious speed and integrity of heart that so they might be like unto God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle expresseth it And unless you be drunk with momentary and totally deprived of a sense or imagination of the super-excellency and plerophory of joy that is in Heaven you cannot but strive by a holy life and conversation to attain unto the everlasting Crown of Glory and the seat and society of the blessed Angels in Heaven where you shall chant forth in aeternum Hallelujahs to God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost and live in felicity and joy that is unutterable to the praise and glory of Gods immortal name without care sorrow grief or distraction world without end Use 2 This serves for a Use of terror and horror to all wicked persons whose whole life hath been a perpetual wilful violation of Gods Law without any repentance of or amendment and conversion from their misdemeanours and offences They shall never enter into the joy of the Lord but have that terrible doleful doom and sentence passed upon them Go ye cursed into everlasting darkness where there is nothing but weeping and wayling and gnashing of teeth totally deprived of Gods comfortable soul-vivifying presence being entombed alive in this pit of darkness ubi miseriae ubi tenebrae ubi horror aeternus ubi nulla spes boni nulla desperatio mali where you shall be surrounded with miseries benegroed in more then cimmerian and that perpetuall darkness too overwhelmed by and implunged into eternal horror where there is no hope of restitution to a blessed or redemption from an accursed estate but there must be tormented world without end Thus have I demonstrated unto you the happiness of those that fear God and their unhappiness that go a whoring after the lusts and concupiscences of the flesh we have shewn you the five Degrees of Love toward God and our meditation cannot soar any higher this is the last round of Jacobs Ladder that conveys us to Heaven We all profess I must confess to love God but few do it seriously and cordially and by this kind of external pomp and outward shew of profession we deceive ignorant man nay we put a fallacy upon our selves But there is no humane policy or sophistry that can cheat a God wherefore it is necessary for the prevention and knowledge of such counterfeit hypocritical persons to bring them to the touch and try what metal they are composed of to discern the true sincere and pure Love of God from the false and counterfeit And as there are five degrees of our Love to God so there are five marks or tokens visible enough whereby we may discern whether or no we have the true Love of God 5 Marks of Gods Love which we shall only enumerate and so conclude for the present 1 Mark The first mark or token of our Love to God is this viz. It extinguisheth all other unchaste and inordinate Love 2 Mark The second mark and effect of this Love is the peace and tranquillity of the soul and conscience The third mark is 3 Mark our Love towards our Neighbour The fourth mark is 4 Mark the delight and pleasure that we have and take in communing and conversing with God The fifth mark is 5 Mark a zeal for the glory of God that is increased or diminished according as God is honoured or dishonoured He whosoever he be that perceives these effects wrought in him may assure himself that he loves God with a true real and religious Love and though it may happen sometimes that his love may be abated the heat of his zeal be somewhat quenched the vigor of his affection somewhat debilitated though this Love be weak yet it argues it not to be false it is true for all that for as a weak faith is a good faith so a weak love is a good love The very Apostles themselves were termed by our Saviour men of little faith though it be small so it encrease indies day by day tending to perfection 't will without doubt end in happiness and eternal joy Thus have I laid down these five degrees or marks of our true love to God which I shall desist from discoursing any farther on at present but commit you to God and leave the handling of them to the next opportunity If God permit Amen THE SAINTS COMFORT in the day of death In the book of Job the 19 Chapter and the 25 verse it is thus written I know that my Redeemer liveth c. HE alwayes goes stumblingly SERM. V. that walks in the night said Jesus Christ the true light of the World Joh. 11.10 And he that walketh in darkness knows not whither he goes said his beloved disciple If there be any thing wherein this may be clearly known is is in the mistake of judgement which those make of themselves who being destitute of the celestial light of verity suffer themselves to be led away by their own natural darkness For there is nothing more frequent in their mouths then the complaint of their misfortunes nor nothing more rare then the confession of their faults they out-speak their punishments and palliate their crimes they declare themselves miserable but would not be thought wicked you shall often hear the Philosophers call man a dream of a shaddow a weather-cock of inconstancy an example of weakness a general rendezvous of dolours and misfortunes A Democritus laughing at his folly an Heraclitus bemoaning his calamities The one termes those happy that go quickly out of the world and th' other those more happy that never come into it All too much occupied in the sense of their misery but never in searching or acknowledging their sins All accusing Nature as a stepdame but no man himself as a rebellious or disobedient child He of all men seems to have best hit of mans condition who hath qualified him the miserablest and proudest of creatures for whereas all declamations upon the pitiful estate of humane nature ought to be so many lively lessons of true humility and that cloud of misfortunes that showres on their
of God that we understand not what it is to love him This Tree of Knowledge grows not in our Eden This flower springs not up in our Garden 't is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a gift dropt out of Heaven proceeding from the Father who is Love and Charity as St. John saith This is a divine liquor the true Nectar that God poures into our souls guttatim drop by drop as in narrow-neckt vessels Wherefore to accommodate our selves to our native slowness we 'll endeavour to infuse into our spirits by little and little so by degrees to arrive at the highest degree and Apex of Love There are five degrees of this our Love to God 1. The first is to love God for the good he doth us and we expect to receive from him still 2. Secondly To love him propter seipsum or sui ipsius gratia for his own sake because he is most excellent and most amiable 3. Thirdly To love God above all things nay your own selves but to love nothing in the World but for his sake 4. Fourthly To detest and abhor himself for the Love of God 5. Fifthly to love him as we shall in the life to come when we shall be in glory with this love the Saints are extasied and assist at the Throne of God in secula seculorum We call these Degrees of Love and not species or kinds because the superior contain the inferior as the chiefest white differs from the other parcels of the same colour that are less clear and transparent not in specie but in gradu we must remount up these degrees or stairs and rest our selves a little upon every one of them 1. The first degree and lowest is Five degrees by which we are brought to love God To love God for the good he doth us upon this step of Love was King David when in the 116 Psalm and in the 1 verse I love the Lord because he hath heard my voice and my supplication and so in the 18 Psalm for God will have respect and love from us because he extends his bounty so liberally to us 'T is God that created us 't is God that preserves and keeps us being created that nourisheth our bodies that cherisheth our souls that redeemeth us by his Son that governs us by his holy Spirit that instructeth us by his word that hath vouchsafed to admit us as his servants nay his friends and children and which is more the same with himself Plato playing the Philosopher with the grace of God Plato blessed God for three things thanked him for three things 1. That he was created a man and not a beast 2. That he was born a Graecian and not a Barbarian and 3. That he was a Philosopher Now we that are instructed in the School of Christ a School of more strict discipline So ought we for these especially make another kind of distribution of the grace of God and return him thanks for these three things 1. That of all Creatures we were created men 2. That of all men Christians And 3. That among those that are Christians he hath made us in the number of the true elect And if you please you may add a fourth That he hath adopted us by his Son Jesus Christ before the foundation of the World having been carefull of us not onely before we had any existence but even before the world had its creation Now if God did manifest his love to us before we were how liberally will he extend it to us how bountifully will it flow from him when we invocate and call upon his Sacred Name and affect him with a filial and reverential love Now the smaller our number is the larger is our priviledge the more extensive and diffusive is his bounty and goodness to us to endow us with sight among so many blind persons as the portion of Jacob in Aegypt solely enlightned in the midst of obscurity Cimmerian darkness like the fleece of Gideon that was only bedewed with the grace of God when the rest of the earth was dry and destitute of it God hath encircled us with abundance of examples of stupendious caecity or blindness that he might raise our estimation of light and that we might make a farther progress in the way of salvation that so whilest it is called to day we may steer the ship of our souls by the Lanthorn of his Word All these vertues the constellation of all these graces depend upon one Soveraign and Prime one viz. reconciliation with God by the passion of our blessed Jesus This is the Chanel through which the graces of God stream unto us 'T is Jacobs Ladder that joyns Heaven and Earth together that rejoyns God and Man The Angels ascending this Ladder represent our prayers that we piously dart up to Heaven the Angels descending signifie the blessings of God that are distilled in answer to our prayers Jacob sleeping at the foot of the Ladder intimates unto us the quiet and tranquillity of conscience that we enjoy under the cool and comfortable shade of his intercession Before man was environed with horror and astonishment he could not cast his eye aside but he met with an object of fear If he look't upon God he discerned a consuming fire a supream Justice armed with revenge against sinners If he cast his eye upon the Law he immediately perceived the arrest of condemnation If he viewed the Heaven he concluded himself excluded thence by reason of sin If the World he saw his irreparable loss of dominion over the Creatures if himself a thousand spiritual and corporal infirmities At the signes of Heaven and the Earth-quake he was ague-struck with fear Then Satan Death Hell were his inveterate foes that either drew him to perdition or did behel and wrack him with the expectation of them But now every person that hath confidence in Christ Jesus changes his language and speaks in a more pleasing dialect If he look upon God he 'll say 'T is my Father that hath adopted me If his thoughts pitch upon the day of Judgement he 'll bespeak himself thus My Elder Brother sits there and he that is my Judge is also my Counsellor If he think on the Angels he cries out They are my guardians Psalm the 34. If he view the Heaven he terms it his habitation If he hear it thunder he 'll reply 'T is the voice of my Father If he consider the Law The Son of God saith he hath accomplisht it for me If he swim with the flowing tide of prosperity he 'll say God hath reserved better things for me If in the low ebb of adversity Jesus Christ hath endured far more for me God exerciseth or proves corrects or afflicts me making me therein conformable to his Son If he thinks on Hell the Devil or Death then he will triumph over all with the holy Apostle in the 1 to the Corinth the 15 Ch. and the 55 56 and 57 vers O Death where is thy
with the faith of the children of God to whom they rather serve as means to advance them towards that glory which they wait for rendring by a holy vigilance the hope of their vocation still more firm Yet they will say There is nothing so much recommended to us in Scripture as fear Work out your salvation with FEAR and trembling Philip. 2.12 Happy is the man that FEARETH alwayes Prov. 28.14 Be not high-minded but FEAR Rom. 11.20 Pass the time of your sojourning here in FEAR 1 Pet. 1.17 Certainly if it were necessary to oppose to these passages that recommend fear those that chase it from our hearts for one we might oppose thirty there being nothing more common in all the course of Scripture then these words which are addrest to the faithful Fear not But the Word of God never belies it self and therefore 't is necessary that there be a fear of two sorts one that is compatible with assurance a good a holy a commendable fear because it leads us to God the other that extinguishes it and makes us flye from the face of God as Adam did after his sin Gen. 3.8 and this is that which the fear of God ought to chase and banish from every faithful soul And therefore 't is no wonder if fear and assurance be met in one and the same subject in divers respects So when I consider the Law with those thunders and lightnings and threatnings and curses my soul is ready to vanish for fear but when I turn my self to the gracious promises of the Gospel she fills her self with assurance when I consider my own demerit I enter into distrust but under the merits of Christ I re-assure my self again I tremble over the pendant slippery paths of this life but I comfort my self when I see the hand of God that sustains me And thus I serve the Lord in fear and rejoyce before him in trembling Psal 2.11 This is that filial fear that makes Gods children prudent in their waies not that spirit of fear that torments the consciences of the wicked Rom. 8.15 not that which proceeds from distrust of power or despair of the good will of God but which is born out of the knowledge of dangers that environ us and from the sense of our own infirmity not that which trembles for punishment but that which is apprehensive for the sin not that which flyes from the face of God but that which hath recourse to his grace And such a one as if there were no punishment nor recompense no Hell nor Paradise would not omit her duty toward God but would take heed to displease him This goes equal steps with that assurance which is reckoned among the gifts that are shed upon the Son of God Isai 12.2 who was not able to enter into any distrust of the love of his Father But what relation to this reverence of true children to their father hath this trouble and uncertain trembling fear which the Roman Doctors cast into mens consciences Certainly among so divers fluctuations wherewith as impetuous winds our souls since sin are miserably agitated there is none more strange then this fear nor among the judgments wherewith God threatens and punishes the wicked there is none more terrible then this cry of fear which he sends into their eares Job 15.21 This trembling heart this dimness of eyes this distress of soul which makes their life so doubtful before them that at evening they say Deut. 28.67 Who shall let us see the morning and in the morn they demand Who shall let us see the evening Fear like a terrible voice wakens the soul by startings and so seizes it that it remains insensible to every thing except that stroke of astonishment that beats it and from that which is nothing makes it feel a thousand dolorous passions and whereas we feel not other evils more then they are in us and the cause remains there yet fear calls back evils that are past multiplying and engrossing those that are present and anticipating those that are not yet and perhaps that shall never be and so forges imaginary torments wherewith it makes miserable souls sensible of a thousand real sorrows The mortal enemy of all repose it ravages in an instant whatsoever is either pleasant or delightful in life and like a feaverish heat it infects and imbitters the best prepared sweetnesses bringing in a profound sadness into our hearts which so gnawes and undermines them as the rust doth steel and makes us draw a life after us more miserable then death Inconsiderate passion which continually represents to our eyes the image of the danger that attends us and is thereby so troublesome that we can neither see nor foresee for remedies neither more nor less then an abysse where waters drawn out of the deep whirl about with so much impetuosity giving us afar off the warning of ship-wrack and yet draws us in by such an astonishment that we are plunged and swallowed up in the gulf that we would so fain escape Thus it awakes in our souls a vehement desire to avoid that mischief that treads upon our heeles but it so troubles and astonishes all our senses that losing both our judgment and discourse we precipitate our selves into the danger from which our fear seems to lend us wings and then it happens to us as at other times we dream when prest by some enemies as we think or by some hideous fantosm we seek to flye away but cannot because our heavy bodies or else our trasht feet will not follow our desire or if a light seeming swiftness answer our fear and seem to skip over furlongs yet which way so ever we turn in the trouble of this affright though panting for pain this funeral-object meets us every where giving us the chase and leaving us nothing but complaint in which we would fain cry out but cannot because the apprehension stops our voice and tyes up our trembling and stammering tongue to the roof of our mouths So those that are seized with this passion apprehend every thing and fall foul upon all They are afraid of their dreams they are troubled at their fancies They give themselves to be abused by lying spirits they take all that they meet with for ill presages and sometimes come to fall into such a confusion of spirit that they throw themselves head-long into despair Histories afford us but too many examples of those who being unable to deliver themselves from this passion have yielded up themselves to death finding more sweetness in death then in the fear of dying Whosoever beholds an affrighted man may easily read in the tracts of his visage and in all the actions of his body what the trouble and confusion is that agitates his soul for to observe his scattered eyes his bleak face his pale and shaking lips his dry mouth his furred tongue his confused voice his beating heart his panting flanks his knees knocking together his stumbling feet and all the