a Nature to us Else they would not cease at Death But holy LOVE is our New Nature and therefore ceaseth not with this bodily life And shall accidental love make me desire the company of a frail and mutable Friend And shall not this ingrafted inseparable love make me long to be with Christ Though the love of God to all his Creatures will not prove that they are all Immortal nor oblige them to expect another life that never had Capacity or Faculties to expect it yet his love to such as in Nature and Grace are made capable of it doth warrant and oblige them to believe and hope for the full Perfection of the work of love Some comfort themselves in the love of St. Peter as having the Keys of Heaven And how many could I name that are now with Christ who loved me so faithfully on Earth that were I sure they had the Keys and Power of Heaven and were not changed in their Love I could put my departing Soul into their Hands and die with joy And is it not better in the Hand of my Redeemer and of the God of Love and Father of Spirits Is any love comparable to his Or any Friend so boldly to be trusted I should take it for ungrateful unkindness in my Friend to doubt of my love and trustiness if I had given him all that he hath and maintained him constantly by my kindness But O how odious a thing is sin Which by destroying our love to God doth make us unmeer to believe and sweetly perceive his Love And by making us doubt of the Love of God and lose the pleasant relish of it doth more increase our difficulty of loving him The Title that the Angel gave to Daniel A Man greatly beloved of God methinks should be enough to make one joyfully love and trust God both in life and death Will Almighty LOVE ever hurt me or forsake me And have not all Saints that Title in their degrees What else signifieth their Mark and Name HOLINESS TO THE LORD What is it but our separation to God as his peculiar beloved People And how are they separated but by mutual love and our forsaking all that alienateth or is contrary Let Scorners deride us as self flatterers that believe they are God's Darlings and wo to the Hypocrites that believe it on their false Presumption without such belief or grounded hopes I see not how any Man can die in true Peace He that is no otherwise beloved than Hypocrites and Unbelievers must have his portion with them And he that is no otherwise beloved than as the ungodly unholy and unregenerate shall not stand in judgment nor see God nor enter into his Kingdom Most upright Souls are to blame for groundless doubting of God's Love but not for acknowledging it rejoicing in it and in their doubts being most solicitous to make it sure Love brought me into the World and furnished me with a Thousand Mercies Love hath provided for me delivered me and preserved me till now And will it not entertain my separated Soul Is God like false or insufficient Friends that forsake us in adversity I confess that I have wronged LOVE by sin by many and great unexcusable sins But all save Christ himself were sinners which love did purifie and receive to Glory God who is rich in Mercy for the great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sins hath quickned us together with Christ by Grace we are saved and hath raised us up together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus Eph. 2. 4 5 6. O that I could love much that have so much forgiven The glorified praised him who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own Blood and made us Kings and Priests to God Rev. 1. 5 6. Our Father that hath loved us giveth us consolation and good hope through Grace 2 Thess 2. 16. I know no sin which I repent not of with self-loathing And I earnestly beg and labour that none of my sins may be to me unknown I dare not justifie even what is any way uncertain though I dare not call all that my sin which siding men of differing judgments on each side passionately call so While both sides do it on contrary accounts and not to go contrary ways is a Crime O that God would bless my accusations to my illumination that I may not be unknown to my self Though some think me much better than I am and others much worse it most concerneth me to know the Truth my self flattery would be more dangerous to me than false accusations I may safelier be ignorant of other mens sins than of my own Who can understand his errours Cleanse me Lord from secret sins and let not ignorance or errour keep me in impenitence and keep thou me back from presumptuous sins Psal 19. 12 13. I have an Advocate with the Father and thy Promise that he that confesseth and forsaketh his sins shall have Mercy Those are by some men taken for my greatest sins which my most serious Thoughts did judge to be the greatest of my outward duties and which I performed through the greatest difficulties and which cost me dearest to the Flesh and the greatest self-denial and patience in my reluctant Mind Where-ever I have erred Lord make it known to me that my confession may prevent the sin of others and where I have not erred confirm and accept me in the right And seeing an unworthy Worm hath had so many Testimonies of thy tender love let me not be like them Mal. 1. 1 2. that when thou saidst I have loved you unthankfully asked Wherein hast thou loved us Heaven is not more spangled with Stars than thy Word and Works with the refulgent Signatures of Love Thy well beloved Son the Son of thy Love undertaking the Office Message and Work of the greatest Love was full of that Spirit which is Love which he sheds abroad in the Hearts of thine Elect that the Love of the Father the Grace of the Son and the communion of the Spirit may be their hope and life His Works his Sufferings his Gifts as well as his comfortable Word did say to his Disciples Joh. 15. 9. As the Father loved me so have I loved you continue ye in my love And how Lord shall we continue in it but by the thankful belief of thy love and loveliness desiring still to love thee more and in all things to know and please thy Will Which thou knowest is my Souls desire Behold then O my Soul with what Love the Father Son and Holy Spirit have loved thee that thou should be made and called a Son of God redeemed regenerate adopted into that Covenant-state of Grace in which thou standest Rejoice therefore in hope of the Gâ—ory of God Rom. 5. 1 2. being justified by Faith having Peace with God and access by Faith and Hope that maketh not ashamed that being reconciled when an Enemy by the Death of Christ I shall be saved
honest tender Souls from the damning part of unbelief and by their fears preserveth them from being bold with sin When many bold and impudent Sinners turn Infidels or Atheists by forfeiting the helps of Grace § 23. And indeed Irrational fears have so much power to raise Doubts that they are seldom separated insomuch that many scarce know or observe the difference between Doubts and Fears And many say they not only fear but doubt when they can scarce tell why as if it were no intellectual act which they meant but an irrational Passion § 24. If therefore my Soul see undeniable Evidence of Immortality and if it be able by irrefragable Argument to prove the future blessedness expected and if it be convinced that God's promises are true and sufficiently sealed and attested by him to warrant the most confident belief and if I trust my Soul and all my hopes upon this word and evidences of Truth it is not then our aversness to die nor the sensible fears of a Soul that looketh into Eternity that invalidate any of the Reasons of my Hope nor prove the unsoundness of my Faith § 25. But yet these Fears do prove its weakness and were they prevalent against the Choice Obedience Resolutions and Endeavours of Faith they would be prevalent against the Truth of Faith or prove its nullity for Faith is Trust and Trust is a securing quieting thing Why are ye fearful O ye of little Faith was a just reproof of Christ to his Disciples when sensible dangers raised up their fears For the established will hath a political or imperfect though not a despotical and absolute Power over our Passions And therefore our fears do shew us our unbelief and stronger Faith is the best means of conquering even irrational fears Why art thou cast down O my Soul and why art thou so disquieted in me Trust in God c. Psal 42. is a needful way of chiding a timorous Heart § 26. And though many say that Faith hath not evidence and think that it is an Assent of the Mind meerly commanded by the Empire of the Will without a knowledg of the Verity of the Testimony yet certainly the same Assent is ordinarily in the Scriptures called indifferently Knowing and Believing And as a bare Command will not cause Love unless we perceive an Amiableness in the Object so a bare Command of the Law or of the Will cannot alone cause Belief unless we perceive a truth in the Testimony believed For it is a Contradiction or an act without its Object And Truth is perceived only so far as it is some way Evident For Evidence is nothing but the objective perceptibility of Truth or that which is Metaphorically called Light So that we must say that Faith hath not sensible Evidence of the invisible things believed but Faith is nothing else but the willing Perception of the Evidence of Truth in the word of the Assertor and a Trust therein We have and must have Evidence that Scripture is God's Word and that his Word is true before by any Command of the Word or Will we can believe it § 27. I do therefore neither despise Evidence as unnecessary nor trust to it alone as the sufficient total cause of my belief For if God's Grace do not open mine Eyes and come down in power upon my Will and insinuate into it a sweet acquaintance with the things unseen and a tast of their Goodness to delight my Soul no Reasons will serve to stablish and comfort me how undeniable soever Reason is fain first to make use of notions words or signs and to know Terms Propositions and Arguments which are but Means to the knowledg of Things is its first employment and that alas which Multitudes of Learned men do take up with But it 's the Illumination of God that must give us an effectual acquaintance with the Things Spiritual and Invisible which these Notions signifie and to which our Organical Knowledg is but a Means § 28. To sum up all That our Hopes of Heaven have a certain ground appeareth I. From Nature II. From Grace III. From other works of Gracious Providence 1. From the Nature of Man 1. Made capable of it 2. Obliged even by the Law of Nature to seek it before all 3. Naturally desiring Perfection 1. Habitual 2. Active 3. And Objective 2. And from the Nature of God 1. As Good and Communicative 2. As Holy and Righteous 3. As Wise making none of his works in vain § 29. II. From Grace 1. Purchasing it 2. Declaring it by a Messenger from Heaven both by Word and by Christ's own and others Resurrection 3. Promising it 4. Sealing that Promise by Miracles there 5. And by the work of Sanctification to the end of the World § 30. III. By subordinate Providence 1. God's actual Governing the World by the hopes and fears of another Life 2. The many helps which he giveth us for a heavenly Life and for attaining it which are not vain 3. Specially the Ministration of Angels and their Love to us and Communion with us 4. And by accident Devils themselves convince us 1. By the Nature of their Temptations 2. By Apparitions and haunting Houses 3. By Witches 4. By Possessions Which though it be but a Satanical Operation on the Body yet is so Extraordinary an Operation that it differeth from the more usual as if I may so compare them God's Spirit so operateth on the Saints that it is called his dwelling in them or possessing them as different from his lower Operations on others § 1. II. Having proved that Faith and Hope have a certain future Happiness to expect the Text directeth me next to consider why it is described by being with Christ viz. I. What is included in our being with Christ II. That we shall be with him III. Why we shall be with him § 2. To be with Christ includeth 1. Presence 2. Union 3. Communion or participation of Felicity with him § 3. 1. Quest Is it Christ's Godhead or his Humane Soul or his Humane Body that we shall be Present with and united to or All Answ It is all but variously § 4. 1. We shall be Present with the Divine Nature of Christ Quest But are we not always so And are not all Creatures so Answ Yes as his Essence comprehendeth all Place and Beings But not as it is Operative and Manifested in and by his Glory Christ directeth our Hearts and Tongues to pray Our Father which art in Heaven And yet he knew that all Place is in and with God Because it is in Heaven that he Gloriously operateth and shineth forth to holy Souls Even as Man's Soul is eminently said to be in the Head because it understandeth and reasoneth in the Head and not in the Foot or Hand though it be also there And as we look a Man in the Face when we talk to him so we look up to Heaven when we pray to God God who is and operateth as the Root of
more desire it V. I shall better understand all the World of God! The Matter and the Method of it Though I shall shall not have that use for it as I have now in this Life of Faith yet I shall see more of God's Wisdom and his Goodness his Love Mercy and Justice appearing in it than ever Man on Earth could do As the Creatures so the Scriptures are perfectly known only by perfect Spirits I shall then know how to solve all doubts and reconcile all seeming contradictions and to expound the hardest Prophesies That light will shew me the admirable Methods of those Sacred words where dark minds now suspect confusion How evident and clear then will every thing appear to me Like a small print when the light comes in which I could not read in the glimmering twilight How easily shall I then confute the cavils of all our present Unbelievers And how joyfully shall I praise that God and Saviour that gave his Church so clear a light to guide them through this darksom World and so sure a promise to support them till they came to life Eternal How joyfully shall I bless him that by that immortal Seed did regenerate me to the hopes of Glory And that ruled me by so Holy and Just a Law VI. In that World of Light I shall better understand God's present and past works of Providence by which he ordereth the matters of this World The Wisdom and Goodness of them is little understood in little parcels It is the union and harmony of all the parts which sheweth the beauty of them when the single Parcels seem deformed or are not understood And no one can see the whole together but God and they that see it in the light of his Celestial Glory It is a prospect of that End by which we have here any true understanding of such Parcels as we see Then I shall know clearly why or to what use God prospered the wicked and tryed the Righteous by so many afflictions I shall know why he set up the ungodly and put the humble under their Feet Why he permitted so much ignorance ungodliness pride lust oppression persecution falshood deceit and other sins in the World I shall know why the faithful are so few And why so many Kingdoms of the World are left in Heathenism Mahometanism and Infidelity The strange permissions which now so puzzle me and are the matter of my astonishment shall all be then as clear as day I shall know why God disposed of me as he did through all my life and why I suffered what I did and how many great deliverances I had which I understood not here and how they were accomplished All our mis-interpretations of God's works and permissions will be then rectified And all our Controversies about them which Satan hath made so great advantage of by a pretended zeal for some Truths of God will then be reconciled and at an end And all the works of Divine Providence from the beginning of the World will then appear a most delectable beauteous frame VII And among all these works I shall specially know more the nature and excellency of Gods mercies and gifts of Love which here we too unthankfully undervalued and made light of The special works of Love should be the matter of our most constant sweet and serious Thoughts and the fuel of our constant Love and Gratitude The lively sense of Love and Mercy maketh lively Christians abounding in Love to God and Mercy to others But the Enemy of God and Man most laboureth to obscure diminish and disgrace God's Love and Mercys to us or to put us out of relish to them that they be unfruitful as to their excellent ends and uses Little do most Christians know how much they wrong God and themselves and how much they lose by the diminutive poor Thoughts which they have of God's Mercies Ingratitude is a grievous misery to the Sinner as gratitude is a very pleasant work Many a Thousand Mercies we now receive which we greatly undervalue But when I come to the state and work of perfect gratitude I shall have a more perfect knowledge of all the Mercies which ever I received in my Life and which my Neighbours and Friends and God's Church and the World did ever receive For though the thing be past the use of it is not past Mercies remembred must be the matter of our everlasting thanks And we cannot be perfectly thankful for them without a perfect knowledge of them The worth of a Christ and all his grace the work of the Gospel the worth of our Church-priviledges and all God's Ordinances the worth of our Books and Friends and Helps of our Life and Health and all conveniences will be better understood in Heaven than the most holy and thankful Christian here understandeth them VIII And it will be some addition to my future happiness that I shall then be much better acquainted with my self Both with my Nature and with my Sin and Grace I shall then better know the Nature of a Soul and its formal Faculties Three in One I shall know the nature and way of its Operations and how far its acts are simple or compound or organical I shall know how far Memory Phantasie and Sense internal and external belong to the rational Soul and whether the sensitive and rational are two or one and what Senses will perish and what not I shall know how the Soul doth act upon it self and what acts it hath that are not felt in sleep in Apoplexies and in the Womb I shall know whether the vegetative nature be any thing else than Fire and whether it be of the same Essence with the Soul sensitive or rational and whether Fire eminenter be a common fundamental substance of all Spirits diversly specified by the Forms mental sensitive and vegetative or whether it be as a Body or Vehicle to Spirits or rather a nature made for the Copulation of Spirits and Bodies and the Operation of the former on the latter as between both And whether Fire and of what sort be the active forma telluris and of other Globes I shall know how far Souls are One and yet Many and how they are Individuate And whether their Quantitas discreta in being numerically many do prove that they have any Quantitatem continuam and whether they are a purer sort of Bodies as the Greek Fathers Tertullian and others Thought and what Immateriality signifieth and what substantiality of Spirits and how substantia materia differ and how far they are penetrable and indivisible and whether a Soul be properly pars and whether individual Souls are parts of any common Soul and how far the individuation doth continue And whether separated from the Body they operate in and by any other Vehicle or without and how and whether they take with them any of the fiery Nature as a Vehicle or as a constitutive part I shall know how God produceth Souls And how
than long ago Am I at the highest 〈◊〉 Man on Earth can reach and that when I am so dark and low Is there no growth of these apprehensions more to be expected Doth the Soul cease its increase in vigorous Perception when the Body ceaseth its increase or vigor of sensation Must I sit down in so low a measure while I am drawing nearer to the things believed and am almost there where belief must pass into sight and love or must I take up with the passive silence and inactivity which some Fryars persuade us is nearer to Perfection and under pretence of Annihilation and Receptivity let my fluggish Heart alone and say that in this neglect I wait for thy Operations O let not a Soul that is driven from this World and weary of Vanity and can think of little else but immortality that seeks and crys both Night and Day for the heavenly Light and fain would have some foretast of Glory and some more of the first Fruits of the promised joys let not such a Soul either long or cry or strive in vain Punish not my former grieving of thy Spirit by deserting a Soul that cryeth for thy Grace so near its great and unconceivable change Let me not languish in vain desires at the Door of Hope nor pass with doubtful Thoughts and Fears from this Vale of Misery Which should be the Season of Triumphant Faith and Hope and Joy if not when I am entering on the World of Joy O thou that hast left us so many consolatory words of Promise that our joy may be full send O send the promised Comforter without whose approaches and heavenly Beams when all is said and a thousand Thoughts and strivings have been assayed it will still be Night and Winter with the Soul § 19. But have I not expected more particular and more sensitive Conceptions of Heaven and the State of blessed Souls than I should have done and â—emained less satisfied because I expected such distinct Perceptions to my satisfaction which God doth not ordinarily give to Souls in Flesh I fear it hath been too much so A distrust of God and a distrustful desire to know much Good and Evil for our selves as necessary to our quiet and satisfaction was that sin which hath deeply corrupted Man's Nature and is more of our common pravity than is commonly observed I find that this Distrust of God and my Redeemer hath had too great a hand in my desires of a distincter and more sensible Knowledg I know that I should implicitely and absolutely and quietly trust my Soul into my Redeemers Hands of which I must speak more anon And it is not only for the Body but also for the Soul that a distrustful care is our great sin and Misery But yet we must desire that our Knowledge and Belief may be as distinct and particular as God's Revelations are and we can Love no further than we know and the more we know of God and Glory the more we shall love desire and trust him It is a known and not meerly an unknown God and happiness that the Soul doth joyfully desire And if I may not be ambitious of too sensible and distinct Perceptions here of the things unseen yet must I desire and beg the most fervent and sensible Love to them that I am capable of I am willing in part to take up with that unavoidable ignorance and that low degree of such Knowledge which God confineth us to in the Flesh so be it he will give me but such Consolatory foretasts in Love and Joy which such a General imperfect Knowledge may consist with that my Soul may not pass with distrust and terrour but with suitable triumphant Hopes to the Everlasting pleasures O Father of Lights who givest Wisdom to them that ask it of thee shut not up this sinful Soul in darkness Leave me not to grope in unsatisfied doubts at the Door of the Celestial Light Or if my Knowledg must be General let it be clear and powerful and deny me not now the lively exercise of FAITH HOPE and LOVE which are the stirrings of the New Creature and the dawnings of the everlasting Light and the Earnest of the promised Inheritance § 20. But we are oft ready to say with Cicero when he had been reading such as Plato that while the Book is in our Hands we seem confident of our Immortality and when we lay it by our doubts return so our Arguments seem clear and cogent and yet when we think not of them with the best advantage we are oft surprized with Fear lest we should be mistaken and our Hopes be vain and hereupon and from the common fear of Death that even good men too often manifest the Infidels gather that we do but force our Selves into such a Hope as we desire to be true against the tendency of mans Nature and that we were not made for a better World § 21. But this fallacy ariseth from mens not distinguishing 1. sensitive fears from Rational uncertainty or doubts 2. And the mind that is in the darkness of unbelief from that which hath the Light of Faith I find in my self too much of fear when I look into Eternity interrupting and weakening my Desires and Joy But I find that it is very much an irrational sensitive Fear which the Darkness of Man's mind the Greatness of the Change the dreadful Majesty of God and Man's Natural aversness to die do in some degree necessitate even when Reason is fully satisfied that such fears are consistent with certain safety If I were bound with the strongest Chains or stood on the surest Battlements on the top of a Castle or Steeple I could not possibly look down without fear and such as would go near to overcome me and yet I should be rationally sure that I am there fast and safe and cannot fall So is it with our Prospect into the Life to come Fear is oft a necessitated Passion When a Man is certain of his safe Foundation it will violently rob him of the comfort of that Certainty Yea it is a passion that irrationally doth much to corrupt our Reason it self and would make us doubt because we fear though we know not why And a fearful Man doth hardly trust his own apprehensions of his safety but among other Fears is still ready to fear lest he be deceived Like timorous Melancholy Persons about their Bodies who are ready still to think that every little Distemper is a mortal Symptom and that worse is still near them than they feel and they hardly believe any words of hope § 22. And Satan knowing the power of these passions and having easier access to the Sensitive than to the Intellective Faculties doth labour to get in at this back Door and to frighten poor Souls into doubts and unbelief and in timorous Natures he doth it with too great success as to the Consolatory acts of Faith Though yet God's Mercy is wonderfully seen in preserving many