been sweeten'd and made delicious by nothing else but the Foretasts of Life Eternal Were Life Eternal nothing better than a kind of perpetual Youth an unmovable station upon the point of One-and-twenty we may guess how much admir'd and how much coveted it would be by the Care which People take of their Embonpoint How many use their Thrid of Life as prudent Penelope did her Web when being wound up to a Real Age they unravel it again to a seeming Youth So very willing they are to live and yet so very unwilling to outlive Beauty that they will needs court Eternity by a Nursery of Colours So that when fifty or threescore years begin to be legible in their Faces characters there dug by the Plough of Time A Dash or two of their Pencil will strike off Twenty And therefore the years which they have liv'd though scarce the Childhood of Life Eternal may yet assist them in its Discovery as far as a little imperfect Guess They who fain would never dye can tell me best how sweet is life And They who fain would ne're be old can best inform me of Eternity § 17. But I must not here make a Panegyrick of Life Eternal as well because I insisted on it in considering the nature of the young man's Inquiry as because I must hasten to make Advantage of what already hath been deliver'd Since therefore Christ is so much a Master as to beget our greatest Reverence And yet a Master so full of goodness as to merit our greatest Love a Master to challenge our obedience and a Good Master to invite it A Master to keep us from Contempt and yet withal a good Master whereby to give us Familiarity A Master to set us on work and a good Master to reward us Since I say he is so good as to be willing to Allure what he is so much a Master as to be able to compel Since our Imployment is not only very proportionable to our strength but very conformable to our Nature not only tending to our Interest but even agreeable to our Desires Since our Master is Goodness it self our Service Freedom as well as Pleasure and our Wages Eternal Life Let us not serve him only for fear but let us fear him only for love Rather as a Good Master who will Reward than as a Master who can punish Let not our obedience be meerly servile and only paid to the Law of a Carnal Commandment Heb. 7. 16. But filial rather and ingenuous to the Law that is Spiritual Rom. 7. 14. Iob was objected against by Satan that he serv'd God for something and that the source of his obedience was but a mercenary Devotion Now though we cannot but have something for serving God yet that Hell may not upbraid us let us serve him for nothing more than the honour and happiness to serve him Shall we serve our Good Master from the same base Principle from which the very worst Servants will serve an ill one For shame let us not serve him as vanquish't People do serve their Tyrants or as some poor Indians do serve the Devil only to the end that he may not hurt us Will he accept of our Service think ye when we do make him our shelter but not our choice a kind of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a meer Plank after a shipwrack He is little beholding to such a Proselyte whom only his Enemy hath made his Friend and may rather thank Hell for our Obedience when we come to him but in a Fright I would not with the Woman who was met in the way by Bishop Ivo with a Firebrand in one hand and a Bucket of Water in the other either burn up the Joys of Heaven or extinguish the Fire of Hell But so much I am of that Woman's mind that if I might have mine own wish I would have all Christian Servants to love This Master a great deal more than the Ioys of Heaven And I would have them fear his Anger a great deal more than the Pains of Hell If He did empty himself of Glory and as it were go out of Himself to give us Grace How should we empty our selves of all that is dear unto us and even go out of our selves too by Self-denials to advance his Glory O let us therefore be such generous and disinteressed Servants as to vye Obedience with his Commands In an humble kind of Contention let us indeavour to out-do and if occasion ever serve to out-suffer what he commands us Since Heaven it self is the Merchandize which in the Parable of our Lord must be sold for sweat let us more out-bid the Pharisees than the Pharisees did the Law And that our Master may say to us in his Kingdom of Glory Well done good Servants Say we to him in this of Grace Good Master what shall we do Let us not admit of Ignobler Motives for the present exciting us to our Duties than the bare doing them in this world and an Inheritance in the next A good life here and hereafter an Eternal Now the Earnest of our Service and then the Wages The very Earnest of such an Estimate but so inestimable the Wages that 't is not so fit to be describ'd as to be press'd and urg'd home on a Congregation For the Knowledge of This unlike That of other things dwells in the Heart not in the Head The way to understand the Joys of Heaven with St. Paul is with St. Paul to be rapt up thither Rapt up in zeal and affection not in fancy and speculation In the yerning of the Bowels not in the working of the Brains Let the Scepticks therefore dispute themselves to Heaven whilst we in silence are walking thither Let the Schoolmen take it in subtilty and we in deed Let the Pelagians or Socinians try to purchase Eternal Life whilst we inherit it Let the Sanguin Fiduciary possess himself of Bliss whilst we contend for it Let the Philosopher injoy it as well as he can in his Contemplations we shall best contemplate it in our Injoyment Which God of his Mercy vouchsafe unto us even for the Glory of his Name and for the worthiness of his Son our great and good Master the Lord Jesus Christ. To whom with the Father in the Unity of the Spirit be Honour and Glory both now and for ever THE INHERITANCE OF ETERNITY IS God's Free Gift After all our WORKING MARK X. 17. Good Master what shall I do that I may Inherit Aeternal Life A Quaestion set forth in such happy Terms that I conceive it will be easy to resolve it out of it self For the way to inherit Eternal Life is to receive and own Christ both as a Master and as a Good Master to obey him as the first and to love him as the second and to revere him as both together and when All is done still to ask what we shall do to believe he will reward us according to our Doings and
Worldlings If the Devil shall say to us All this will I give you if falling down ye will worship me lay we back again to the Devil This we give unto the Poor because we fall down to and worship God We do not sanctifie the Day though we do never so much observe it if to all our Acts of Sacrifice in Prayer and Sermon we add not Works of Mercy too As we hope that our Prayers shall fly to Heaven we must lend them our Charity to imp their Wings For what said the Angel to Cornelius though but a Proselyte of the Gates half a Gentile and half a Jew Thy Prayers and thine Alms are come up for a memorial before the Lord. Mark the Copulative And betwixt Prayers and Alms implying the Energy of the former by help and vertue of the later Not his Prayers without his Alms. For God heareth not Sinners who draw near with their Lips when their Hearts are far from him And such are their Hearts which break not out into their Hands There are but Three Courses imaginable to be taken with our Riches in case we have them Our being liberal to our Coffers in the laying up Riches and this for no-body-knowswhom or very bountiful to our Lusts in laying them out upon our Vanities and costly Vices which we solemnly have vow'd the forsaking of or being merciful to our Saviour who takes our Charity to his Members as freely bestow'd upon Himself In so much that the Question is now but This Whether we choose to be the Children of God or Belial I make no doubt but I am speaking to an intelligent sort of People and that rightly understanding our greatest Interest we need the less to be perswaded that we will do our selves Good by making others to partake of the good we do Should any here be full as sinful as was Nebuchadnezzar I might adventure That to Them which Daniel said unto the King Let my Counsel be acceptable to you Break off your sins by righteousness and your Iniquities by shewing mercy to the Poor If we desire a good Provision against the Winter of Adversity and to find out our Bread after many days Let us cast it with Solomon upon the Waters If we will settle our Estates either in whole or in part so as to free them from Plunder or Sequestration Let us put them into Bags which wax not old into the Treasury of Heaven which faileth not where neither Moths can corrupt nor any Thieves break through and steal The poor righteous man must needs be one of God's Treasuries wherein whatsoever is laid up by us shall be repaid to us again with immense advantage Especially when the Worms which feed on the Body after Death shall give it all up at the Day of Iudgment This is a pious Frand indeed without either Ironie or Oxymoron For 't is honestly to beguile the Grand Deceiver of Mankind and to make the Devil's Malice propitious to us 'T is to extract the greatest Good out of the Evil of his Temptations to wit a Soveraign Praeservative from the great Instrument of Death as skilful Chymists are wont to draw the most healthful Medicines out of those which in themselves are the hurtfull'st Minerals Thus the skin of a Scorpion becomes an Antidote to his Teeth And thus the Block at which we stumble may be used as a step for our Rise to Heaven Thus the Ocean may be as modest in the keeping of its Bounds as the smallest Rivulet And the man of greatest Wealth as poor in Spirit as any Lazar. Thus a Ioseph and a Moses may be Favorites of God in the Court of Pharaoh And thus if the more we have of lading to press our Vessel into the Sea the more we also have of Sails to give it motion or if the larger our Revenues and Fortunes are we have the larger Elevation of Heart and Soul to Liberality and pay the larger Taxes of Charity laid upon us by a Law from the King of Kings we convert our poorest Beadsmen into our richest Benefactors and reap by far the greater good from the good we do them Yea we make our selves such Friends of our greatest Enemies which our Saviour expresses fitly by the Mammon of Unrighteousness as will receive us when we fail into eternal Habitations Whither God of his Mercy conduct us All for the Glory of his Name and for the Worthiness of his Son to whom be Glory both now and for ever AN AMULET OR PRAESERVATIVE Against the Prurigo of Ambition THE DANGER Of Seeking Great Things FOR ONES SELF JER XLV 5. And seekest Thou Great Things for thy self Seek them not § 1. BEtween the Prophecies of Ieremy in all the Chapters going before All belonging to the Iews And other Prophecies coming after concerning Nine other Nations from hence-forwards unto the end This before us appertains unto Baruch only Baruch the Scribe of Ieremiah and a Servant of the most High one who had faithfully served Both at the utmost peril of his Life and yet at last became liable to great Exception Therefore God by Ieremiah rebukes the man for his Anxiety for the disquietness of his Spirit and discontentedness in his Condition for his distrust of God's Providence and his dissatisfaction in God's oeconomy for being querulous and complaining that Grief was added to his Sorrow and Tears to Sighing and that after all his labour when he thought to be rewarded he found no Rest for being afflicted and perplex't he could not reach to those Talents his Master had as Ioshua did to those of Moses and Elisha to those of the Great Elijah last of all God rebukes him for not sufficiently resenting the most deplorable Estate of the King and Kingdom with the Calamities then impendent on God's own House and the Publick Worship and for having no prospect beyond Himself his private Liberty and Safety his Ability like Ionas to sleep securely in a Tempest and sensless of Danger in a Shipwrack his getting a quiet Habitation in Peace and Plenty when he saw All round about him as it were upon the Borders and Brink of Ruin § 2. Now to Baruch thus flinching in Times of Trial and Temptation reserving an Angle in his Heart for secret Avarice and Ambition and a particular design on his private Interest as if he thought it not sufficient to have his Life for a Prey in all places whither he went or not an Happiness great enough to serve and suffer for his Creator to fare no worse than his Soveraign to live in Loyalty and Honour and dye in Innocence God sends his Prophet Ieremiah with a most vehement Dehortation or to speak more exactly with a most forcible Prohibition sitting close upon the Neck of a sharp Reproof And seekest Thou Baruch Great Things for thy self Seek them not An Exprobration and a Reproof enough to stab him into the Heart as being very sharply pointed in four respects In respect of the Person vext
Tormentor that the Indians in Valerius did chose to suffer the Extremities of Heat and Cold that the Brachmans and the Gymnosophists maintain'd their Paradox even to Victory Nihil jucundius esse quà m pati I say for no other reason than to demonstrate that their Souls were above the Infirmities of their Bodies Somewhat like the Brave Martyrs in the Eleventh Chapter to the Hebrews thô not from the same religious Principle who having been tortur'd would not accept of a Deliverance In the midst of all their Agonies they would not admit of a Relaxation And we know that an Army of Frogs and Lice as in Egypt may have the power to do Mischief But are utterly incapable of being Injur'd They are the Great and the Good who are most of all subject to suffer wrong Regium est Magnificum bene facere male pati We may explain it out of St. Peter If ye do well and suffer for it Happy are ye For this is thankworthy This is acceptable with God And hereunto are ye called because Christ also suffer'd for us leaving an Example that we should follow His steps God himself is most capable of insolent Usages and Affronts by the Transcendency of his Being and the Praerogative of his Omnipotence most obnoxious to Indignities by his being All Goodness and the most lyable to Dishonours by his being All Glory So next and immediately under God the most susceptive of Abuses are His Vicegerents Whose highest priviledge it is and that which makes them most like their Maker whose Lieutenants they are on Earth that All the Subjects put together are not obnoxious to the wrongs which their Soveraigns suffer In so much that we should scorn to need a more Effectual Motive to make us an Obedient and Loyal People than our resentment of the hardships they suffer for us Besides that All Crowns are so lin'd with Crosses and All Crown'd Heads so apt to ake even abstracting from all the injuries which they are ever subject to as the Butts of Envy that they deserve the Ease and Comfort of their Best Subjects good Affections if but to make them some Amends for All the Malignities of the Worst and in Requital of their Cares for the Common Safety And here I am tempted to a Digression I cannot easily forbear For if it is profitable and short too it will be pertinent enough It is but This that if the People of these Realms will either All travel abroad into Foreign Parts or at least take the pains to be taught at home how much like Princes rather than Subjects they live in the Land of their Nativity being compar'd with other Subjects throughout the habitable World they will say of our British Soveraign what No other People can say of Theirs that his Yoke is very easy and his Burden exceeding light § 17. Another Comfort the Cross affords when laid by the Guilty upon the Innocent does lye in This that the Iudge upon the Bench can but condemn a Malefactor The King himself can but reprieve him 'T is GOD only who can forgive him So that Mischievous men have This common to them with the Devil that they are able to wrong the Innocent whereas the Innocent man hath This derived to him from God alone that he is able as to himself to acquit the Guilty Here then we may demand with the Royal Psalmist Why boastest Thou thy self ô Tyrant that thou canst do mischief so can a Toad so can a Spider so can a Pest or an Imposthume Why dost thou glory in thy ability of blasting thine Enemy with a Lye or of bearing False witness against thy Neighbour so can the Father of Lyes the Devil who thence is call'd by way of Eminence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Detractor and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Accuser of the Brethren Nay why dost thou pride it in thy power of being skilful to destroy either the Livelyhoods or the Lives of a world of men so can the Palmer-worm or Mildew so can a Deluge or a Drouth Which if seriously consider'd by him who suffers as well as by him who does an Injury 't will yield the First matter of Comfort and the Second matter of Terror For Qui tulit injuriam ignoscere potest Qui fecit nunquam whilst he who suffers Injury has a divine Opportunity of giving Pardon He who does it has nothing left as the Issue of it but Bitter Repentance or Condemnation Hence therefore we must learn to discriminate two Things which most commonly are confounded and apprehended to be the same For 't is one thing to Insult or to domineer And quite another to gain a Victory Just as 't is one thing to be wrong'd And quite another to be worsted The Devil and Pilate for example did Domineer over our Saviour who yet we know had the best of Both. Dives insulted over Lazarus as 't is expressed by way of Parable though Lazarus in the end had the better of him Anytus and Melitus could not hurt Socrates though they could kill him And though St. Paul could be beheaded by the Emperor Nero yet he could not be conquer'd or worsted by him The Mode or Fashion of a Victory does not detract from the Essence of it It does not cease to be a Victory because 't is got by not fighting as That against Cade by King Henry the Sixth Nor does it cease to be a Victory in case 't is purchased by Delays as that against Hannibal by Fabius Maximus Nay 't is a Victory though it be won even by flying out of the Field which was the way by which the Parthians were wont to Conquer And so 't is Victory nevertheless though obtain'd by suffering as by the noble Army of Martyrs against the whole Heathen world It being impossible that a thing should cease to be what it is through the Nature of the means by which it is so It is so far from being necessary that Conquest should consist in making Havock of an Enemy by wounds and slaughter That 't is but one sort of Conquest and that the Meanest Let us therefore set it down as a Truth unmoveable upon which we may adventure to lean with safety That to be mightily overborn whilst by Impiety must needs be either none at all or a glorious Overthrow Because 't is clear that God's Mercy is overborn by men's Impenitence And even his greatest Longanimity may be quite beaten out by our Provocations § 18. Thirdly the Burden of the Cross when 't is laid upon us by others is made exceedingly lighter to us than I have hitherto shew'd it to be by our looking up to Him who hath born it for us and before us and by our reflecting on the Reward towards which it does lead us and lift us up Eusebius tells us of some in Egypt who however groaning at once under Three sorts of Tyranny that of Poverty and Pestilence and Persecution did yet express so great a
Moses to Israel have a remarkable Importance What doth the Lord thy God require of thee but only to fear the Lord thy God Deut. 10. 12. And what is it to fear him but as it follows in the next words to walk in all his ways and to love him and to serve him with all thy heart and with all thy soul Without this Fear we shall easily fall into presumption or into carnal security We shall not strive to enter in at the strait Gate Nor give all diligence to make our Calling and Election sure We shall not give an earnest heed unto the things which we have heard Heb. 2. 1. If we do not fear lest a promise being left of entring into his Rest any of us should seem to come short of it Heb. 4. 1. we shall not labour to enter into that Rest v. 11. For who will labour to get a thing which he verily thinks he hath as good as in possession Or who will labour to keep a thing which he verily thinks he can never lose I will not here stand to shew the manifold danger of their Opinion who say they were justified from Eternity and their Sins so forgiven before committed That they cannot fall totally much less finally from Grace although my Text would bear me out in such a profitable Severity Nor dare I otherwise be severe to any difference in opinion than as I find it corruptive of Christian Practice The case is clear that our Apostle having commended his Philippians for having always obey'd the Gospel does not there make a stop as if they had done enough already or needed no more of his Admonitions but immediately adds that they must work for their Salvation and work so far as to work it out and work it out in such a manner as to do it with Fear and Trembling and that according to the threefold Importance of this Expression which having thus considered in the Gross I shall now consider in the Retail too First we must work it out with meekness and humility of mind because it is God that worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure All we have is but little and all that little is but receiv'd All the good we have received we have received as intrusted or lent unto us And whatsoever God lends us he lends us purposely to Employ Of all that is lent us to be imploy'd we are every one to render a strict Accompt And this alone may serve to keep us in all humility of mind that the more we have the more we owe and for so much the more we are accomptable And for the more we are unable to render a satisfactory Accompt by so much the more we shall be appal'd at the Day of Reck'ning 'T is true indeed vvhat St. Iohn saith that by keeping the Commandments we may come to have a right to the Tree of Life And by suffering for God may be counted worthy of the Kingdom of God Affliction suffer'd in such a Case is said to work for us a weight of Glory 'T is true indeed we may be profitable Servants in God's Accompt because the unprofitable was commanded to be cast into utter Darkness Matth. 25. 30. And the Joys of Heaven are express'd by a Crown of Righteousness as if Eternity of Life were become our due But all this only by the force of God's Promise who cannot lye or by the Tenor of the Covenant which God was pleas'd to make with us Not by vertue of our Obedience as that that is equal to our Reward Which when it is in its Apogaeo at the utmost Top of its Exaltation is not worthy to be compar'd with the Glory which shall be revealed in us For however St. Paul had preach'd the Gospel and preach'd it too without charge not living of the Gospel which yet by right he might have done but making his own hands to serve and minister to his Necessities that he might not be burdensom unto any yet he professed he had nothing to glory of for so gratuitous a preaching the Word of God because a moral Necessity was laid upon him and woe had been to him if he had not preach'd it 1 Cor. 9. 16. Our blessed Saviour so puts the Case as to illustrate it with a Colour Luke 17. 7 8 9 10. Admit a Servant is very diligent in the performance of his Duty ever going when he is sent ever coming when he is call'd and ever doing as he is bid Does the Master give Thanks to that diligent Servant for doing the things that were commanded him I trow not saith our Saviour Even so ye as our Lord goes on to Application when ye shall have done all those things that are commanded you say we are unprofitable Servants we have done but our Duty and had been lyable to wrath if we had not done it Away then with those Philosophers St. Austin speaks of qui sibi vitam beatam fabricare vellent who design'd themselves a Heaven of their own skill and industry And away with those Pharisees not only of our Saviour's but of these our own Times whose custom 't is to thank God for that they are not like other men And confining Sanctity to the men of their Sect do separate from the rest of the Christian World as from Publicans and Sinners Sinners not to be approached by men of their Purity Stand farther off is their language for we are holier than you Isa. 65. 5. Conform we rather to St. Paul the special Badge of whose Saintship was the profoundness of his Humility For as the chiefest of Sinners do call themselves by an impious Antiphrasis and Hyperbole the chief of Saints so That Apostle on the contrary although Chieftain among the Saints doth call Himself by an holy M 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 osis The chief of Sinners When therefore our obedience hath led us to Christ and Christ is leading us to Heaven Let us remember the New Ierusalem though a vastly great City yet contrary to Myndus hath a very low Gate And seeing the lowness of the Gate stoop we down to enter in Let us love Good works but let us not lean too hard upon them Let us love them as things without which we cannot be saved but let us not hope to be saved by them Let us not labour with an ambition of being more meritorious but less unworthy than heretofore Claim we Heaven by a Right not of Purchace but of Donation Having added Obedience to our Faith add we Meekness to our Obedience Having done Iustice and lov'd Mercy let us walk humbly with our God And so expect our Salvation with Faith and Hope as withal to work it out with Fear and Trembling And that according to the first Importance of this Expression Again we must do it with fear and trembling in as much as that signifies the greatest anxiety and solicitude that we do not run in vain nor labour
make us sure to miss of Heaven by making us dream it is unavoidable For as God in his Iudgment is no Respecter of Persons so neither was he in his Decrees As his Rule is in Time to judge us according to our works so he decreed from all Aeternity to proceed in Time by that Rule He did determin the end of men with a special respect to their Qualifications from whence his Decree is call'd respective But he did absolutely determin that men who are thus or thus qualified should come to this or that end And I could wish that this Distinction since 't is sufficient of it self might find so much favour in all mens Eyes as to appease and reconcile dissenting Brethren That as the Decrees of the Almighty are said to be Absolute in one sense so they may candidly be granted to be Respective in Another This methinks should be the Judgment of all Mankind being so visible in it self and of so necessary Importance to the well-ordering of our Lives That God did absolutely decree a most indissoluble Connexion betwixt Repentance and Salvation as betwixt Impenitence and Condemnation Which proves the end to have been decreed with a special respect unto the means Let this one thing be granted as well for the Comfort of the good as for a Terror to evil Doers And I for my part shall ask no more For the Decree which is respective in sensu diviso may so be proved to be Absolute in sensu composito as to afford a Demonstration That God's Decree of the several Ends was in respect to the several Means For if in sensu composito He did absolutely decree that all who are faithful and repent should belong to Heaven and that all who are faithless and impenitent should in like manner belong to Hell Then his Decree was respective in sensu diviso of that Repentance or Impenitence by which Professors do belong to Heaven or Hell From whence it follows unavoidably that if we are faithless and impenitent be it in a greater or lesser measure we ought to be affected with fear and trembling in the literal sense of this expression and never to give our selves Rest until we be faithful and do repent But faithful and penitent we cannot be till by the power of God's Grace after our Prayers and Tears shall have given him no Rest he shall be pleas'd to work in us and with us too not only to will but to do his work That by the power of his Grace we may all endeavour and by the power of his Grace on our Endeavours we our selves may have a Power too whereby to work out our own Salvation And work for it we must with a sacred horror because of the Dreadfulness of our Doom if we work remissly For as on one side God himself cannot condemn us although our sins past have been very great if we immediately repent and amend our lives because he is faithful who hath promised and he hath promised forgiveness to all that repent and turn unto him so withal on the other side Let our Righteousness past have been what it will yet if we return from Righteousness to Sin God himself cannot save us without our Repentance and Reformation because he hath sworn that the Impenitent shall not enter into his Rest. Not that God can be overpower'd by any Quality in the Creature whether Repentance in the first Case or Impenitence in the second But because his Power in the first is suspended by his Mercy as it stands in conjunction with his Truth For in his Mercy he made a Promise to give us pardon if we repent and in his Truth he must perform it Just so his Power in the second is suspended by his Iustice as it stands in conjunction with his Truth too For in his Iustice he made an Oath to be revenged on the Impenitent and in his Truth he must make it good Now since each of these Cases concerns us All be we never so good or be we never so evil I need not shew by another Medium how the love of God's Mercy doth consist with a fear of his Indignation and how whilst we love him as a Father we ought to fear him as a Judge But to conclude with such a Caveat as may best of all become an Ingenuous People Take we heed that our Fear do not swallow up our Love for fear it swallow up us too in the Bottomless Pit of Desperation We must serve God with Fear but so as to fear him also for Love Ever saying with the Psalmist There is mercy with thee ô Lord therefore shalt thou be feared The Psalmist did not thus argue There is Mercy with Thee ô Lord Therefore shalt thou be rely'd upon Therefore we shall make the bolder with thee we shall break thy Commandments without the fear of being damn'd because we know thou art slow to anger and being angry art quickly pleas'd But because of thy mercy thou shalt be feared And there is good reason for it For by how much the kinder a Father is a well-natur'd Son will fear to offend him so much the more And the more our Father which is in Heaven does even delight to please us by heaping his Mercies and Favours on us by so much the more shall we be afraid if we are well-natur'd Children to exasperate our Father which is in Heaven What then remains but that we ponder these things and lay them up in our hearts and draw them forth into our Actions and daily repeat them in our Lives And reap the comfort of so doing in the hour of Death and the Day of Iudgment Which God of his Mercy prepare us for even for the glory of his Name and for the worthiness of his Son To whom with the Father in the Unity of the Spirit be ascribed by us and by all the World Blessing and Glory and Honour and Power and Wisdom and Thanksgiving from this time forward for evermore THE GRAND INQUIRY To be made In these Inquisitive Times Taken from the Mouth of The Frighted Iailour OF PHILIPPI THE GRAND INQUIRY To be made in These Inquisitive Times ACTS XVI 30. What must I do that I may be saved THus the Iailour at Philippi sought to his Pris'ners for a Deliverance Not his ordinary Pris'ners who at once were in Bondage to Him and Satan And were bound up in Misery as well as Iron who had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spirits so gross and so incrassat and so manacl'd to the Flesh that together with their Bodies their Souls were put into the Stocks as knowing no better Liberty than what consisted in the Freedom of Hands and Feet But the Pris'ners in the Text were Pris'ners only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Men whose Liberty did consist in the ubiquity of their Thoughts and in being made free of the New Ierusalem Men who by living the Life of Faith maintain'd an Intercourse with God and his glorious Angels And though their Carkasses