They are all everlasting and bear up themselves consolidate by Eternity Man by his Soul is set in this heavenly world and can no more remove himself out of it then he can his body out of the material one let his mind be never so high in its own elevation it cannot keep the impressions of matter off from his earthy part much less can he by sensuality untye his relation to spirituality to which his Soul knits him so fast God having given a touch and feeling a sense and judgment though it be not improved Whatever a Soul doth or doth not that is wherein it refuses or through neglect minds not to act becomes most momentany for all partakes the spirituality of its nature and receives beauty or deformity purity or defilement from the powers of that Law within it A man cannot be a beast though he degenerate like one Sin then receiving force from the Soul that commits it mounts the spiritual Creation and rests it self in the world of Righteousness as a defilement in it adheres to it as death deformity sickness emptiness darkness do to the solid parts of the Creation and thereby challenge a place in this world which yet in themselves are nothing but the want of the due perfection of the subject to which they adjoyn Thus have we considered these two worlds as distinct yet is there in this world an Ordo ad Spiritualia through which it is inclasped under the Government of the higher having a capacity to be sublimated to ends above it self which is as a cement betwixt them both whence it comes to pass that sin descends upon the lower by neglect or inversion of the order wherein it stands the first of which is to depress the works of God below his intention and aim at his own Holiness in them and is to disanul it the latter is to debauch the Creatures of God to lust blotting out his superscription and setting that of sin in the room and both are to build up evil grounded in matter to the third Heaven Thus though meats cannot defile the man yet the man may defile himself by meats and defile the meats as on the other side meats commend him not to God yet he may by a holy use by the Word and prayer commend himself and sanctifie them he is able by his Soul to touch them into gold or to taint them with his own impurity And this very innate power though a man never considers it nor behaves himself worthily by his judgment and caution of it is yet the same as to the substance as if he had a Soul never so greatned and inlarged by improvement When there is a defilement among spiritual things every thing in the whole spiritual Nature keeps it extant and puts a seal upon it the certainty and unchangeableness of those holy Laws the all-seeing Eye of God an infinite mind and understanding an infinite purity an everlasting Justice and Judge the consent of the whole world of spirits with him the immortality of the Soul from which the defilement immediately rises and recoiling rests From whence it comes to pass that what men do with their Souls they never lose but live in the midst of all their actions whether good or evil For God keeping in force these Laws retains and binds the Soul sinning under the sense of what it hath done and sends down the charges of his wrath into the conscience and dispatches punishments as he pleases ever preserving inviolable records of every transgression laid up within his own Justice and registred in the guilty breast which sucks in the air it hath breathed out and if evil is setled into a defilement so great that nothing is pure to it Let us then compute things and when we find so many men in the world whose actions are going out by hundreds and thousands having no ballance of righteousness upon them nor sifted by any examination but rolling down that great precipice and declivity of humane Nature all corrupted not only with their own violence but by the force of that power of darkness that concurs with them what must the amount of the impurity then be That an Eternal Judgment countervails all this evil in number weight and measure shall be hereafter discoursed But how Judgments take off the foulness of sin at present is now to be considered which may better be conceived by applying their efficacies to every of the particulars of its defilement in these following observations 1. That prime and eternal Holiness which with its Glory governs the spiritual order and beauty of things in a conform Holiness Righteousness and Purity as their first constitution when offended by the sin of any of the proper subjects of it is secondarily repaired by punishment upon the sinner We may consider this as abstracted into its own most spiritual Nature or formed into Laws and either way punishment repairs it 1. If in its own spiritual Nature we look upon it there is a splendour in punitive Justice which is another mode of that Eternal Holiness shewing it self it is the zeal and earnest intention of it meeting with any thing aliene and receded from it The wrath of God is the flame or light-fire of his infinite purity in contest with iniquity which gives such a lustre that all the Earth is filled with this glory and is an accidental illumination of the superior state of things For which had there been no place undoubtedly all entrances of sin had been precluded The Apostle speaks of God that he willing to shew his wrath and make his power known endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction Knowing how to give reparations to himself he permits to sin and sinners a scope in their own actions There is yet no communion betwixt light and darkness only another kind of efficacy of light For that which endures not the approach of the least evil but by its own vigour and perfection throws it off with abhorrence and disdain can never be defiled but hath occasion from evil to manifest its own intenseness and supremacy and preserve in another way the same lustre and greatness of the whole state under it 2. If we consider this Holiness as it is formed into Laws wherein the state of it is more plain the first honour of a Law is obedience if that be not paid the second is punishment which keeps up the Majesty and greatness of it and even establisheth its authority those Laws being only weakned and infringed by transgression which go unrevenged for then the power passes out of the Law and settles in the transgression which from thence assumes an authentickness and damnes the Law to an obsoletion But if the Law hath the offender in its hand to deal severely with and to condemn the power is apparently with it it can terrifie into its observation those whom it cannot allure by its direction equity and rewards which makes evil a feeble and weak
Soul that had so well commanded a body should have a glorious one to shine in and that out of the ashes of that body in which such a Soul dwelt and taught it virtue another more perfect should rise In the mean time would not just cause of complaint arise if Fortune or a blind course of things should have any dispose of but the outside of such a man Who would not desire there should be a God who with skill first exercises virtue into a lustre and then rewards it Who that hath any love to virtue would not bewail it if there were no other difference between virtue and vice then what is seen here and rejoyce in an Eternal Judgment that would illustrate and crown it Who would not wish virtue ennobled with the love of so blessed a Being as God and that it should be made more considerable by pleasing him that it should be enriched by the knowledge of Jesus Christ so great an Exemplar of it in our nature that it should be assisted by the blessed Spirit of Grace without which it cannot sustain it self And who that behaves himself thus in the world as we have described can but think the Principles of Christianity would best fit his purpose and manner of life and therefore be willing to espouse them For though this we have insisted upon be all a man can do and that he must do to retain any thing oâ— the honour of a man it is yet but poor and unhappy if separated from the hopes and promises of immortality very jejune and cold when alone virtue without Christianity is but like the temporary and perishing things of the world that make a blaze and then go out Though that of virtue be the purest yet it is as soon quenched by death and while it is it wants much of the true alloy and reason For so great an object of goodness whom continually to love and adore so great a Spectator and Judge so gracious a Father of Spirits and their excellent endowments as God makes as great a difference in these things as the light of the Sun doth in the world compared with the light of the Moon and as the influences of the one surpass those of the other so do the virtues falling from the knowledge of God and Jesus Christ excel those chiller irradiations of Moral Disciplines when separated from Diviner Fire But we have thus far argued from the sentiments of Morality upon Sense that we might from thence conclude Seeing there is no security for man in his compounded state of Body and Soul and that yet the appetite of man contends towards happiness with so much earnestness he must either be a beast stifling all motions but of sense and the just present satisfaction so that he may enjoy himself when things are well and suffer as a beast when evil falls upon him without any agitation of a mind or else he must be an Angel removing his chief interests out of the body This wise men without any suspition of subordination from Christianity confessed and therefore the ground on which true Religion states all things must needs be to Morality that is not sullen and prejudiced the most acceptable For sagest Ethicks guided by Christ indeed as Cyrus by God though they knew him not acknowledged this conclusion of the matter That there must be some higher end of men then the body and that all his condition must be resigned to that and hereupon waded as far as they could into those deeper Doctrines of the Immortality of the Soul a Judgment a future state besides that which was much opener to them the acknowledgment of the First Being God Now he that upon these grounds dyes to his flesh to live in his Soul is not far from the Kingdom of God and Christ which teaches a man to deny himself and sow his present life to let it dye as a grain of wheat which except it dye abides alone that is can never be any more then it is but loses it self at last whilst that which submits it self to a short death in expectation of a better resurrection propagates it self to Eternity The assurances of Everlasting life at the end and in the mean time that no imaginable thing either height or depth life or death what is present or to come shall separate from that love of God in Christ which makes more then a Conqueror in all are true grounds of the happiness of man and only sufficient herein All these Christianity hath the honour to reveal and yet Morality hath so great need of to impe it self with that if it were it self alone it must needs adore this Revelation however as it is blended in men with corruption of Nature and planted among those roots of bitterness that spring up and defile it it may profess an emnity yet certainly as those Heathen Princes paid a reverence to that God that had foretold their successes by his Prophets so it is impossible but all wise use of reason must needs say of the Doctrine of Christ There is a divine thing in it seeing it doth not only establish the same rules of life with that reason but advances the encouragements of them to the very Heavens CHAP. XII Of the much higher Elevation of Reason into Christianity received from the improvement of innate and revealed Principles concerning Judgments HItherto we have from evidence of sense stated things as if man finding them in a posture generally adverse to him were by his own wisdom and virtue to make the best of himself and to rise by it as much above the condition of the creatures below him as his understanding exceeds theirs and discoursing thus we have fathomed the excellencies of Christian Religion without which Morality sinks very low But we come now into a debate upon those Principles ingraffed in mans heart heightned by the Word of God even as the sensitive Soul is elevated by the presence of the rational or as the reason is advanced by the Spirit of God inhabiting it viz. That there is a God an Eternal condition that all calamities upon humane Nature are from God and his Justice for sin And who that is wise would leave so strong a sense as his Soul hath of these things unsatisfied unanswered Or why should a man be truly dealt with by his eye and ear his tast and touch and that common sense that weilds them and deceived by that inward intelligence his mind Why should it be true there are wars plagues c. and that these are grievous and destructive and not be true that God punishes by them Sense is sure of the one innate reason of the other the reports of which are as confident and earnest and if heeded most prevailing and effective For as the universality of men believe sense about its own objects so do they acknowledge these Principles even against themselves when in their evil actions they wander from them If evil practice be taken for an argument
God contemporary with the other and rich acts of his bounty which do most eminently bless whole Nations as well as persons and recommend the times current over them to posterity as prosperous and happy but all the whole world is neither acquitted from this guilt of universal corruption nor exempted from the misery so closely woven into every state of it This condition of the world hath given occasion to great inquiries how it lapsed into it some resolution of which is hereafter intended but now we observe how much even this differs from the more tumultuous and dissoluted appearance of things under Judgment when a resemblance of the Garden of Eden becomes a Wilderness and what we now call Prosperity is clouded with over-ruling adversity We come into the world and finding it as it is in its most constant estate think it was never better till by way of negation removing the evils we perceive to be such and viâ eminentiae measuring how much higher things might have been we ascend in our thoughts to the first perfection But Judgments without any such circuit or elaboration are down-right proofs of wrath and misery and that things are not as they were designed to be 2. The intention of this Discourse is especially to observe Judgments as they comprehend Nations and infold Communities For though God visits obscurest persons and Families with them yet they renown themselves by their large spread upon greater pieces of the world and the stretch of themselves upon Thrones Cities and Countries over which they draw the line of confusion and desolation in so much that their descriptions are proportionable to that general dissolution of all things at the end of the world of which they are indeed smaller Maps and preparatory introductions The Prophet foretelling these speaks in a language proper to the day of Judgment when the mountains shall tremble out of their places and the foundations of the earth discover themselves the Sun and Moon resign their light and the Stars forsake their Orbs and fall from their Heaven All which solemnities are borrowed to represent the down-fall and judgment of particular places and Kingdoms While we consider them thus they are upon a hill and fitter for general observation as being more publick and instructions from them more comprehensive though the same reasons have place and like admonitions arise from the hand of God however it plants it self or grounds its work if the motions of it fall under our view and offer themselves to our notice 3. These Evils arise sometimes from Nature turned out of its course and losing that poise God hath with greatest wisdom given it from whence come all those inequalities and intemperatures that produce Famines Pestilences Earthquakes Storms and Deluges For when all things were setled by God in number weight and measure for the advantage of the world and welfare of the whole Creation there necessarily follows when they are disordered ruine and misery according to the degrees of the disorder both through the cessation of that benefit their right course carried with it and also through the violence of causes out of their places and those exorbitant motions which are the fury and rage of Nature Besides these there are also the terrible conflicts of the lusts and passions of men striving upon the great Sea of the world roaring like Thunder flashing like Lightning tearing more greedily then Tempests and that put all things into greater Convulsions then Earthquakes There are no greater evils upon Mankind then those of which he himself is the Engineer Blood War Rapine and Terror devouring without mercy are bred in his own bowels and executed by himself being the combates of those fiery exhalations which arise from his unruly Soul From whence come wars and fightings among you Come they not hence Even from your lusts that war in your members And these often introduce as suddenly and inevitably those Famines and Pestilences which come more kindly out of the hand of what in this case we style Nature Throughout Scripture and all History we find God in justice using man against himself and creating him the severest enemy of his own kind He prosecutes peccant Cities Nations by some others that are fitted to bring to pass his righteous ends being no less under him then the several Creatures that seem more immediately his instruments and the reins of which are acknowledged in his hand to turn them every way as he pleases 4. All these we define to be Judgments that is They come upon the world through the design and counsel of the supreme Cause of all things God himself and are neither Revolutions that arriving at such a Period must needs shew themselves like Eclipses in such a Nodus or accidental and eventual things that through long tosses of them hither and thither fall out and happen to be and by constant throwing of them hit sometimes thus sometimes otherwise But they are the most mature and sage determinations of an infinite mind and understanding that though he cuts the lines of his own motions often and labyrinths them through one another so that we can find no certain path yet will he at last adjust all he disposes to the conviction of the whole world And yet we stay not here but pursue the sense of this awful word Judgments in which the Scripture comparing spiritual and divine things with themselves so much delights They are the execution of a just and righteous Sentence of God upon the evil actions of man according to Laws of unquestionable equity wherein his own glory and the truest peace of the whole Creation lye together concerned the establishment of Order and Government requiring so necessarily the punishment of sin so that they are neither the displays of his meer pleasure or the Arcana Imperii the Cabals of his Dominion or Rule of the world but the presence of his infinite Justice and Jurisdiction over all things how much soever the administration of so great an Empire falls within it which doth certainly conspire herein as is hereafter to be shewn CHAP. III. An Endeavour to demonstrate by sound Reason That Judgments are from God THe great matter of debate we are first to take notice of in the account we have given of Judgments is That they are from the infinite Wisdom Counsel of God carrying a course of Justice in the world which is established by these following perswasions 1. By those reasons and assurances we have for the truth of the Scriptures all which must needs come home to the proof of what they do most industriously assert and teach and which they make so great a point of their Doctrine To every one that acknowledges them the Word of God it is out of all Controversie that all the evil that is in the City is to be ascribed to his directing and over-ruling hand who forms the light of prosperity and creates the darkness of adversity and that this he doth for the punishment of
in a moment go down to the dead Let us take the mirth and jollity the present time affords not fore-stalling unhappiness with preconceipts of it and when worse comes let us bear it as well as we can but throw from us all those fantomes of a mind or virtuous consideration as if they were only air and breath for their truth and of no service to man but to torture and deprive him of all enjoyment Now this doth so violently despoil a man of all he can be supposed to have an understanding given him for and turns him into the condition of a beast that it cannot seem credible man should have powers given him and possibilities of consideration above such a state and nothing at all to do with them We see in all other creatures their action and their powers are equal except we could imagine that beasts have phansies and contemplations of things of a higher state then their own But who that hath not forfeited all sober face dares owne so brutish a life who doth not detest such a debasement of reason that it should either have nothing to do or no more then sense can do in the Beasts Yet lest this should be too much to be consident upon we will only say There is a great disposition in the mind and Soul of man that is never so little opened and unfolded by ingenuity education or observation of it self to improve it and compose it self by reason to an excellency standing in virtue and magnanimity to cast the accounts of evil publick or private and to secure it self first by moderation and withdrawment from all these outward things then by the better enrichments of self with knowledge and goodness lastly to flanck it self with patience and resolution that it may be defended on every side against whatever can befal it on the right hand or the left That men of Philosophy have flown this pitch without any tincture of Christianity or colour of the Doctrine of the Scriptures upon them is enough known That they have discoursed of greatning their spirits against all assaults of Fortune of constancy of mind raised upon the confidence of a mans native excellency and domestick riches out of the reach of all extern disorder those writings of theirs so much magnified and worn by every hand testifie Furthermore seeing every man feels within him an Impetus to pursue that first-born desire to be happy he that goes about it considerately must needs find There can be no such thing as happiness in the outward man whose condition is subject to every change The room of the body is indeed too narrow and close the receipts of it too dark and pent to entertain so great a presence as happiness but besides this the accesses are too open to pain and misery the sound and noise of all kind of disturbance is ever about it and one time or other the things crowd in upon it But happiness is even and all alike it is a consistency a perpetuity or nothing A perpetuity that at this time we date not into Eternity but allow that to be so which fills up its own measure and runs out to its own utmost length that in this case we allow to be so that is commensurate with the present life and being in the world But it is impossible to preclude the pressures of evil from this moment for no man can tell how soon a disease bred within his own walls shall wage a war against him and blast all his contentments how immediately a violence from without shall rob him of what most pleases him Whoever then will lodge any such thing as a felicity within himself must retire it into this appartment of his Soul and himself sequestred from body and dissolved from it must retreat into spirit that he may enjoy it He must forsake all things beyond the line of mind and looking upon them as the daily prey of every contingent be wholly unconcerned what becomes of them though he uses them while they are to be had yet with greatest indifferency coolness and freedom from them and even then despising them when he seems to enjoy them He must bear the strokes of evil with that part alone upon which they fall and never let them touch his mind In the mean time he must raise and ennoble his Soul and carry all kind of treasure into it that is proper for it he must fortifie and environ it on every side with courage and longanimity he must watch that it be not betrayed by lust or inordinate affection nor made weak and false by such correspondencies which do not only open an avenue to suffering but leave a guilt behind them of which though we suppose no higher Judge then himself yet the reverence he owes to his own authority and the severity he feels from himself when that is offended obliges him to innocency Thus while he hath a being in the world he maintains it in peace and greatness first not taken and decoyed out of himself by the general applause of pleasures riches and honours he hears in the world nor sunk below himself when he finds any of these gone whose service he accepted so as to be well without them though he did not morosely refuse them but either when through their own inconstancy they change their master or are compelled to leave him he is yet the same he was living in himself and supplyed in all things by himself For he hath taken the elevation of every thing in the world and of his own Being he hath set down the incertainty of these things and therefore he is not amazed at what he expected he hath taken the estimate of wisdom and vertue and finds them invaluable in their price unmoveable in their nature his business is therefore to fabricate his mind for them These are his happiness that do not feel the pain of a disease the cruelty of a sword the pinches of a famine his Soul is the Cabinet of them that nothing from without can either find or touch while it keeps it self distinct and alone from the body which it visits by a necessary charity and care of it but dares not mix with it lest it first be insecured with its lusts and after infected with its misery Thus hath Reason in the dark and unenlightned by Sacred Truth selt out happiness and having enough from sense that it could not be out of the Soul hath placed it within But if there be no better state beyond this life who feels not a compassion that such a man as hath been described must dye that so great a Soul that can protect it self while it is in motion and action must yet be suppressed by death that he whose reason and magnanimity endures the torture must yet be silenced and stupified by Fate Who doth not wish that Soul should out-live that body in a perfecter state that lived now so much above and beyond it Yea who would not desire that that