God Let us administer our part as God doth the whole not by immersion or spilling our Souls or Affections upon the visible Creature but collectedly into God as God is collected into himself Let not our Souls cleave unto the dust nor be spilt upon the ground as the Prophet David sometimes complains but be as the Rayes of the Sun which though they reach to the Earth sink not in the Earth but being fast fixt in their fountain or not the Sun it self do alwayes move whither he carries them Let us also acknowledge our own Original which is from above and move with God and the Lamb wheresoever they go Let us be so pure as not to drown our selves in the muddy stream of this transient World Let us be so Charitable as to wade in it that others be not drown'd Let our Love to men be such that we make not our selves unprofitable members of the World Let our Love to God be such that we keep our selves pure and unspotted from the love of the World Let our whole Conversation be such that all men may see that have eyes to discern both whence and whose we are that we serve not the Will of man nor are Vassals to our own vain Desires but are the free Servants of Christ and true Worshippers of the Living God O Lord our God thou which alone art able to speak to the Hearts and Consciences of men descend we beseech thee powerfully into us by thy Holy Spirit Guide and teach us in thy ways Open our eyes that we may see the wonders of thy Law Set up thy Truth in us and the Life of thy Son above all contentious opinions and conceits of men Take away all Pride and Prejudice and Wrathfulness and Hypocrisie and grant that the whole Christian World may agree in Meekness and that sweet Candour and Simplicity that is in Christ Iesus Shew unto us and convince us of that acceptable Service thou requirest at our hands Let bitterness and heart-burning reviling and all deceit and falseness cease from amongst us and let the Scepter of thy Son bear rule over us in Peace and Truth and Righteousness Enrich us with those precious Graces of Love and Purity And let the effectual power of thy Spirit be so felt amongst us that the least of thy Church may be as David and the House of David as the Angel of the Lord before thee Hear us O Merciful Father c. DISCOURSE XI HEB. xiii 16. To do good and communicate forget not for with such sacrifices God is well pleased THE Philosophers define good to be that which all things desire Now all Desire is founded in Life And Life is twofold There is the Life of Nature and the Life of God which in men is called the Life of Grace Now both these Lives desire good But here is the difference The Life of Nature is only carried to good as it is good to it self or if it wish good to others it s for its own sake The Life of God or Life of Grace desires good too but not only for it self but simply it desires good wheresoever it can be effected in due order and right means So that the Heart of the Divine Life is enlarged toward every capable thing and would impart its good so much as any is capable and so oft any is disposed For there is neither envy want nor niggardness in the Divine Nature So then he that is thus affected whose bowels are enlarged to his fellow-creatures to every one as they are capable He that is merciful to the beast loving to men feeds the hungry clothes the naked visits the sick directs the traveller is courteous to the stranger informs the ignorant heartens the poor-spirited sheweth the proud his folly comforts him that is in sorrow ballasts him that floats in vain joy soders up enmities and stints strife flies envy and exerciseth an universal amity to all This man is like his Heavenly Father who makes his Sun to rise on the evil and the good and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust This man will neither persecute his enemy out of hatred nor acquit his friend in his fault out of fond love But deals his doals of all kinds to every one as he is fitted for receiving slips no opportunity of doing any manner of good loseth no occasion of hindering of evil His Soul is nothing but the inward Life of Charity his Life nothing but the passing from munificency to munificency from one good deed to another Out of love to God he embraceth his Neighbour after his duty to his Neighbour faithfully perform'd he is nearer united unto God He becomes a King for his bountiful liberality and royal free mind He becomes a Priest by offering these Sacrifices so acceptable to God Nay he himself is but one intire Sacrifice whom that great High-Priest Christ Jesus offers to his Father The fire of Love and Charity is the fire that consumes and wasts continually all corruption in his Soul and loosen'd every day more and more from the body of sin and iniquity ascends in holy fume up nearer unto Heaven a sweet savour unto God and all the assistants of the Divine Majesty But for a more orderly handling of this present Text of Scripture Be pleased to observe with me these three Truths contained in the same 1. That we are not to forget to do good and communicate 2. That doing or communicating good is a Sacrifice 3. That it is a Sacrifice in which God is well pleased I. That we are to do good I think no man is so devoid of reason or goodness as to deny it no not so much as in his silent thoughts Though this Truth that he is so certainly perswaded of lies not alwayes so freshly in his mind but he may easily overslip the practice of it Yea because a mans understanding cogitations and affections are so mightily taken up for his own projects and the advancement of his own private peculiar good it were somewhat strange if he did not omit too too oft this Duty of communicating good to others his fierce and eager pursuit after his private welfare so strongly and steddily directing his eyes upon his own We being therefore so subject out of the extream love of our selves to forget the good of our Neighbour it is no wonder that the Apostles Exhortation is not delivered in a bare simple manner Do good and communicate But runs thus To do good and communicate forget not As if he should say I have delivered in this my Epistle many high and Divine Mysteries concerning the Divine Nature of Christ the Office of the Angels of the Levitical Priesthood and Ceremonies of the Old Law the Sacrifice of Christ and the excellency of Faith and many other Heavenly Theories which for their profoundness may easily invite the curious to muse upon them and for their mysteriousness made me write somewhat more largely upon them But that which I speak to you
health of his Bodies sake when every such perception so heartily and feelingly taken in is either poyson or a stab to the life of the Soul But that will be more seasonably considered anon In the mean time I hope I have made it clear enough what is meant by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Fleshly Lusts as also what it is to abstain from them WE come now to consider the Second part of our Discourse the means or artifice the Apostle uses to fasten this Duty I have described upon the Hearts and Consciences of his Auditors His humble Address I beseech you and that kind and friendly compellation Dearly beloved And indeed the one implies the other Non bene conveniunt nec in unâ sede mor antur Majest as Amor While he calls them Dearly beloved it is more comely and suitable to beseech them than command them But the Prudence and Discretion of the Apostle is very conspicuous in both thus to insinuate himself into the Affections of his Auditors by such sweet and wining Rhetorick he being to convey something to them which is over bitter and distastful to Flesh and Blood and therefore he does well to besmear the brim of this cup of Wormwood with the sweetness of Honey that his Patients may the better take this wholesome Potion as Lucretius uses this Similitude though in a subiect of less moment Sea veluti pueris absynthia tetra medentes Cum dare conantur priùs oras pocula circùm Contingunt meltis dulci flavuque liquore Hard commands given with an harsh imperiousness befits not the Spirit of the Gospel And it is not so much external force at the assurance of the kindness integrity and fidelity of the Instructer that can engage the Affections and Conscience of the Auditor to the observance of such Spiritual Precepts as these Indeed the falsly-pretended Successor of Peter may by law and force keep Men from eating Flesh in Lent and engage them to observe such Commandments of Men whereby they more easily make the Commandments of God of no effect But to win upon Mens Consciences indeed to set upon the true and real mortification of our Fleshly Lusts in such a sense as I have described this is more likely to proceed from the perswasion they have of him that gives this wholesome Counsel that it is out of sincere kindness and faithfulness to them for the safety of their Souls than if they discern it proceeds out of an affectation of dominion over their Consciences and of exposing them to unnecessary faults and mulcts While the Apostle therefore layes aside all imperiousness of Command he seems to insinuate his sensibleness of the hardness of the task and to suggest that it is not out of an affectation of dominion over their Christian Liberty that he offers this Advice but out of the mere indispensableness of the Duty in order to their Salvation For as he calls them Dearly beloved so he treats them as in that endearing respect and seems to profess that it is merely out of his Brotherly Love and Tenderness towards them and faithful care of their highest and most important concerns that constrains him to offer this severer Counsel unto them Those whom we dearly love we cannot endure to hurt or grieve any way And therefore professing this tender affection to them in the midst of severer Counsel it is a plain manifestation that nothing but the indispensableness thereof could extort from him the Advice as when a tender Mother perswades her Child to endure the Searing Iron or Incision-Knife and to be content to quit some festred or gangren'd part of the securing of the whole Body This is the genuine sense of this wise and discreet insinuation of the Apostle into the affections of his Auditors that his Exhortation to Abstinence from Fleshly Lusts may take the more certain effect with them WE proceed now to the last part of our Discourse which is to consider the Apostles Argumentation whereby he would engage them to this Duty Which Argumentation as I said was fetched from a two-fold Topick First From the dignity of an Humane Soul especially Christian. Secondly From that enmity or hostility of the Fleshly Lusts against her 1. The dignity and excellency of Humane Souls is intimated in those words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The former whereof signifies such Qui sedem habent extra Patriam the latter qui extra Patriam peregrinantur as Grotius notes upon the Text. So that according to the sense of either of these expressions it is manifest that we carry something about us that is of a far higher dignity than to be accounted a Citizen or Indigena of this Terrestrial Globe If this round Hillock of Earth can lay claim to any thing of us born therein or therefrom it is only this Earthly Body At verò animis aeterna Coeli sedes quaerenda eaque propriae illorum Patria as Cicero speaks And something like this is intimated by the Author to the Hebrews who according as Philo Judaeus also somewhere insinuates touching the Souls of the Patriarchs here upon Earth does declare them Pilgrims and Strangers in this present World upon their own confession which he will also have further to imply that in thus saying they are Pilgrims and Strangers that they seek a Country which belongs more peculiarly to them that they desired a better Country that is an Heavenly and adds Wherefore God is not ashawed to be called their God for he hath prepared for them a City namely in Heaven 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We come into his World to sojourn uot to dwell here for the soul of every wise man has Heaven for its Country but this Earth for its land of Pilgrimage as Philo speaks Like that of Cato in Tully Commorandi enim Natura diversorium nobis non habitandi locum dedit And Plato in his Axiochus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Philo de Somniis does expresly make the History of the Pilgrimages of Abraham and the Patriarchs a Type or Shadow of the Peregrination of Humane Souls here upon Earth but that they have their proper Country in Heaven 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which methinks with more elegancy the Holy Apostle calls his Tabernacle which alludes to the pilgrimage of the Israelites through the Wilderness into the Promised Land that illustrious Type of Heaven in which journey they liv'd in Tabernacles or Booths Yea I think it meet as long as I am in this Tabernacle to stir you up by putting you in remembrance knowing that shortly I must put off this my Tabernacle Which Tabernacle being dissolved we have a building of God saith S. Paul an house not made with hands eternal in the Heavens That was only commorandi diversorium This an everlasting habitation to dwell in Wherefore the littleness of the concerns of this Life being proportioned to our short stay here and the Soul of Man being capable of so high and lasting
delight is with the sons of men as Solomon witnesseth of her And S. Iames bids us pray for her If any man want Wisdom let him ask it of God So that when the Prophet Baruch saith No man knoweth her way nor thinketh on her path is as much as if he should say No man by the Natural Spirit of a man can reach so far But S. Peter faith that we have precious promises of being made partakers of the Divine Nature And our Blessed Saviour argueth thus in the 11th of S. Luke If so be that men being evil know how to give good gifts to their children How much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him But what Shall therefore every one that saith Lord Lord or that can repeat their Pater noster receive the Holy Spirit of Wisdom No in no wise Only they that do the will of my Father which is in Heaven saith our Saviour If I encline to wickedness in my heart saith the Psalmist the Lord will not hear my prayer And indeed the old blind Poet could see so far into Divinity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that obeys God God hears him So that we see that the foundation or beginning of this great work of Wisdom is that which the present Text points at viz. The fear of God The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom The words are plain and without ambiguity In the English especially The Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not of so a determinate sense but that it may signifie the principal the first best or chiefest of Wisdom as well as the beginning of Wisdom But the latter I take to be the better if not the only sense For Fear hath torment saith the Apostle but perfect love casteth out fear Wherefore this Fear is not the choicest or chiefest of true Wisdom But if we compare this place with its parallel we shall yet more plainly see that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies merely a beginning or entrance Prov. 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The entrance or first impenetration into Wisdom is the fear of God For the word comes from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying to boar or pierce So that it is evident that the English Translation is the only sense of this place of Scripture In the handling whereof I will endeavour these two things 1. To shew somewhat more largely out of other places of Scripture the truth of this present Text That the Fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom 2. Why there is no other entrance than this into true Wisdom THE former is manifest out of many places of Scripture 1. Ecclesiastie 4. 17. For first she will walk with him by crooked wayes and bring him unto fear and dread and torment him with her discipline until she have tryed his soul and have proved him by her judgments Then will she return the streight way unto him and comfort him and shew him her secrets and heap upon him her treasures of Knowledge 2. Also Esai 66. at the beginning of the Chapter Thus saith the Lord The heaven is my throne and the earth is my foot-stool Where is that house that you will build unto me And where is that place of my rest Presently after he subjoineth To him will I look even to him that is of a poor and contrite spirit and trembleth at my words He therefore that fears the Lord shall become the Temple of God And it should seem no strange thing to us being the Apostle makes mention of the same more than once or twice Know you not that your bodies are the Temples of the Holy Ghost in the first Epistle to the Corinthians And in the same Epistle Know you not that you are the Temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you Now what Benefit accrues to us by being the Temple of God we may gather by the nature and use of these Material Temples these Temples made with hands In these we know amongst the Heathen were the Initiations into the Mysteries of whatsoever Deity the place was Consecrate to But we need not straggle We see the use of outward Temples dayly here among our selves They are for Prayers Hymns and for Instruction out of the Word of God the literal Word of God in a gross material Temple Therefore in analogy in the Temple of our Souls and Spirits shall the essential word the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Eternal Word of God or God himself teach and instruct us And who teacheth like him as is said in Iob. There was so great Vertue in the very presence of the Person of Socrates as you may see in Plato that his Scholars profited very much merely by being in the same Room with him though he spake not unto them How much more shall they profit with whom the Spirit of Christ abideth as in his own proper House and Temple With what joy and admiration shall they be taken when in the Synagogue of their Hearts he shall stand up and read as in that Synagogue at Nazareth He hath sent me that I should heal the broken-hearted that I should preach deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind When he shall begin to say This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears Then shall all the powers and faculties of a mans Soul bear him witness and wonder at the gracious words that proceed out of his mouth Such a Teacher shall all such have that truly fear God 3. Again That Wisdom is usherd in by terrour fear and horrour seems to be the subject of the 29th Psalm The voice of the Lord is upon the waters the God of glory maketh it to thunder the Lord is upon the great waters Now that Waters are an Emblem of the moveable and tumultuous flowings of the Earthly Nature that Learned Iew doth teach us when as he calls the Waters of Edom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Waters towards which the King of Egypt made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the Platonists make but a sliding passing dream of corporeal and sensible things saying of them that they do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That they slide continually from the true essence by perpetual flowing So the Soul being united cum rebus fluxis caducis dissolved as it were and incorporate after a manner into their Watery nature and lost amongst it The mighty energy of the All-powerful Voice of God or Word of God doth operate upon these Waters for the producing of Light in them as in the first Creation And according to this Analogy speaks the Apostle 2 Cor. 4. For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Iesus Christ. But to proceed further in the Psalm The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars yea the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon The voice of the Lord maketh
the wilderness to tremble the Lord maketh the wilderness of Kadesh to tremble The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to bring forth young and unbareth the thick bushes Every plant that my Heavenly Father hath not planted saith our Saviour shall be rooted out And indeed this was the end of his coming utterly to eradicate what so is evil And till he have his work in mans heart there be not a few ill Plants rather a Wilderness a Wood thick set with Trees not penetrable by any Star nothing capable of the light of Heaven But by the awful Voice of God the Hinds those fearful and timorous Creatures they bring forth the thick and shadowing Bushes are unbared And what follows In his Temple doth every man speak of his glory Now what is that Glory of God but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the glorious eradiation of the Father of Lights the Wisdom of God and the Power of God And the Hinds that is those that fear and tremble who they are and what they bring forth and how presently the thick Bushes are unbared so that they that were in darkness see a marvellous light I leave to any man to judge that is not as fraid of a Spiritual sense as of a Night-spirit But if they will in this Psalm so full of life and vigour have all Body and no Soul How shall we expound the next Verse The Lord sitteth upon the water-floods and shall sit King for ever What will you turn the God of Heaven and Earth to some Triton or Water-Nymph Or the great Pastour of Israel who feeds the Souls of his people like a Flock will you have him Proteus-like to feed Sea-monsters It is true that all things according to their several degrees have their dependance and expectancy from God Yet so narrow and straitend sense as the bare letter sutes not here I think with the Majesty and Divinity of the Spirit of David or rather the Spirit of God in David The Summe is this Fear and Honour goes before and the Light of God follows after 4. I will only add this Fourth Proof or Illustration more and so go on 1 Kings 19. And the Lord said unto Elias Go forth and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And behold the Lord passed by and a great and strong wind rent the mountains and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord but the Lord was not in the wind and after the wind came an earthquake but the Lord was not in the earthquake and after the earthquake fire but the Lord was not in the fire and after the fire a still small voice the voice of him that spake as never man spake But I would not have any mistaken as if the Fear of God which is said to be the Beginning of Wisdom were but an hours amazement or at most but a wonder of nine dayes Tam de repente Which Errour will easily be wiped out of their phansie if they observe but the description of the Fear of God in Holy Scripture The Fear of the Lord is to hate evil as pride and arrogancy and the evil way Now that which a man truly hates he will do the utmost of his endeavour to destroy or else to sever himself from it and decline it So the Prophet David in Psal. 34. where he professeth the teaching of the Fear of the Lord Eschew evil and do good saith he So that a lazy inert sluggish hatred is not sufficient See how that Victorious King uses his enemies in Psal. 18. I have pursued mine enemies and taken them and have not returned again till I had consumed them I have wounded them that they are not able to rise they are fallen under my feet I did beat them small as the dust before the wind I did tread them flat as the clay in the streets Now a mans enemies are they of his own Houshold Corruption residing in a mans own breast which he will never leave fighting against till he have the victory if he truly hate them which he will truly hate if he unfeignedly fear God So that the Fear of God is the victory over Corruption Which victory over Corruption maketh us capable of the Divine Nature as S. Peter speaks which Divine Nature is nothing else but Christ the Wisdom of God Wherefore whosoever would attain unto Wisdom the way is laid open the Old way known to those Antients of Renown Trismegist long since could point it out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Be Godly my Son for he that is Godly philosophizeth in the highest degree or most efficacious manner Which Sentence of Trismegist puts me in mind of the Septuagints Paraphrastical variation of the Text For beside 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they add 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In which variation that which is most remarkable is the substitution of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sense for Wisdom No man I believe is so devoid of Reason as to think the Prerogative of the Godly to be to have a more exquisite sense than others Though too too many gape after as a reward of obedience that which proves too oft the fewel of Sensuality sensible things What 's then meant by Sense There is a swimmering superficial Knowledge a light phantastical impression or abortive imagination engendered of aery words which many times neither the hearer nor speaker rightly understand false phantasms elicited out of misunderstood writings notional conjectures vain and temerarious efformations of that which we have not yet attained to so unlike the thing we would have it that if we did not do as the old bungling Painters did in their uuskilfully scralled pieces write on it Knowledge it would be hard to find what to call it But this false-nam'd Knowledge the Fear of God doth not begin but consume As clear Light makes all those shadows and resemblances to vanish that by the Opticks skill had been convey'd into a dark close room But the Fear of God is the beginning of Sense Which is to be understood according to that in S. Iohns Epistle That which was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the word of life this declare we unto you This is true Science quieting and setling the moveable mind This is the right 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even according to Aristotles Etymon which begets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a rest and steddy standing in the Soul and therefore is not to be found in Cains Progeny nor to be light upon in all the Land of Nod. AND thus much of the first part of my Discourse That the Fear of God is the Beginning of Wisdom I will now enter upon the Reasons Why this is the only way that God hath pointed out for the attaining to Wisdom 1. One Reason may be the Falseness of mans Spirit The Heart is deceitful above all things So that God will not trust it with
sides that Obedience and the Fear of God is the Begetter of Saving Knowledge surely the practice of a Godly Life and Conversation will notwithstanding be exceeding abundantly worth our labour though it had not the promise of this Life as well as that which is to come But if I shall shew plainly that there is a further abundant luxuriancy of the goodness of God upon an Obedient mans Understanding intimated in this word Wisdom I hope there will be nothing wanting for the inflaming of our desires to a Godly Life and Conversation Prov. cap. 8. Wisdom is said there to cry and Vnderstanding to utter her voice to speak to men from the high places and by the way of the places of the path to cry unto them beside the gates of the city to speak unto them at the entry of the doors to take all occasions to be acquainted with them She would salute them at every turn For the good Spirit of Wisdom is loving and sincere aud would fain clasp with our Souls if they were pure that she might discourse with us of the wonders of the Almighty and shew unto us his Everlasting Glory Now that this Blessed Spirit would reside with us is plain What be her operations when she doth reside will anon be as plain I wisdom dwell with prudence and I find forth knowledge and counsels I have counsel and wisdom I am understanding and I have strength I love them that love me and they that seek me early shall find me This Wisdom therefore will make a man no Idiot when it stores a man with Prudence and Counsels But it affords not this only to the Souls of Holy men but it gives them a Theory of the hidden things of God This Wisdom was at the making of the World and so can best unfold the Mysteries of the whole Creation When he prepared the Heavens I was there when he set the compass upon the deep when he established the clouds above when he confirmed the fountains of the deep when he gave his decree to the sea when he laid the foundations of the earth then was I with him as his darling I was dayly his delight rejoycing alway before him and took my solace in the compass of his earth and my delight is with the sons of mens But it is yet more evident out of the 7th of Wisdom For he hath given me saith Solomon the true knowledge of the things that are So that I know how the World was made and the powers of the Elements the beginning and the end and the middes of times how the times alter and the change of seasons the course of the year and the situation of the stars the nature of living things the furiousness of beasts the powers of the winds and the imaginations of men the diversity of plants and the vertue of roots and all things both secret and known do I know For Wisdom the worker of all things hath taught me it It is very apposite to this purpose that which is in Philo Iudeus in his Tractate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon these words of Moses And God saw all that he made and behold it was very good 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. For none else were able to discern and judge accurately of the things that were made but he that was the Maker of them Go to now saith he you seeming wife ones full-fraught with Pride Ostentation and Ignorance You that say not only you know every thing but dare so boldly and confidently avouch this or that to be the Causes of them as though you had been present at the making of the World and had seen the composure of all things as they were put together as though the Creator had consulted with you about the means and contrivements of his work A just increpation of the bold and blind attempts of those that pursue after Wisdom without the guidance of God the Giver of it Why What you will say must we think to get Wisdom as Solomon did Nay but I say rather is it to be thought that we are already wiser than Solomon that we should have found out a better way to trafick for Wisdom than he could light on Prayer and a serious seeking after God with industrious study was the way that he went to compass it And surely it is a way no whit mis-becoming any good Christian Neither ought we to be inwardly ashamed of doing of that which the Apostle openly exhorts us to Iames 1. 5. If any of you lack wisdom let him ask it of God that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not and it shall be given him But what true Christian can with patience think upon the stupid Atheism that is so rife in these wicked ungodly dayes When as in the highest attempts of men the power of Heaven is held but for a Cypher Their Philosophy certainly hath removed God into so high and remote an Excelsis that they think him out of the call of mans voice and man out of the reach of his sight He must sit upon the primum mobile 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so speaks Aristotle Afraid forsooth that the Godhead should be defiled if his Presence should be among men on the Earth So he confines him to that fine phantastick place the Eighth Sphere O goodly and profound Mystery Like to that of Mahomet that makes God clamber back to Heaven when he had finished here his six days work O high Divinity And now who shall rule among men I know well enough who doth rule among men Verily the Devil or that Devilish Natural Spirit of man who sets it self up for a Deity attributing all to its self with detestable arrogancy Our good Natural parts are our Gods Or if they chance to fail and not answer our desire in their performance whither go we Right readily to some Temple of Bacchus to the Sacred Tavern Where we do devoutly magnifie the miraculous power of that sparkling Deity enthron'd in his Crystalline Heaven and somewhat more largely partaking of that fiery aethereal Spirit our Eyes no question are so illuminated that vve see double All things are then augmented and seem bigger as the Horizontal Sun by reason of muddy Vapours We find then our selves and our Comrades such notable Wiselins as not vve our selves nor others could ever have suspected O the deplorable vanity of misled Youth When it hath cast off the memory of God and due respect to its careful Tutors and faithful Governours Is not this Idolatry in preferring the povver of Sack before the Spirit of God a greater shame than a timely practice of true Piety and adorning our minds vvith all manner of Vertues in the highest degree Fighting manfully against all manner of Passions to the utter suppression of that Life of Darkness in our lovver Spirit that the Spirit of Truth may shine in our purged Souls as the Sun in a pure diaphanous substance And what hurt can come of this Why surely
See how they go about to vilifie the Meat rather than any way suspect the foulness and weakness of their own ill Stomachs But as all are not to stretch out their hand to every dish and intemperately and unseemlyly to seize upon that which is not meant for them Seek not out the things that are too hard for thee saith Siracides neither search the things rashly that are too mighty for thee But that which God hath commanded think upon that with reverence c. Ecclesiasticus 3. I say as we are modestly to decline that which we are not as yet fitted for receiving So no man hath excuse from receiving some or other of the variety of meats that He hath prepared who feedeth with his goodness every living thing Old men and babes young men and children they all are sustained by the Word according to every ones necessity and capability Or else how could the young ones increase Or they of full age subsist Both which is the Will of God That which Theophrastus hath in his First Book of his History of Plants belongs indifferently to all kind of Generation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nature is not content with the bestowing of a being upon things but works them up to the perfection of that being As an little Plants that in time grow to their just bulk blooming and bearing Fruit plentifully And it is said of our Saviour that he shall grow up like a plant And our Saviour saith of the Kingdom of Heaven that it is like the growth of the mustard-seed tree Now as this new Life is called a Plant for its vegetation so is it also termed a Child for its tender sense and simplicity of meaning That therefore that hath knowledge and sense having also an appetite to nourishment and that a nourishment proper to sustain its own Nature and the Word being the proper nourishment of those spiritual new-born babes then if there be no such desire in us to this Word it 's a sign there is no such Principle of life in us or if there be that it is sick or the Stomach past by over-much fasting But if this Life by not giving it its due nutriment either for measure or quality come to be extinguished we prove our selves it's an horrible thing to think of it no better than Murderers of the Innocent and Just one For Murder is not the cutting and slashing of the Visible Body but the extinguishing of Life And thus we have seen in brief That for the raising of our Souls from Death for the begetting of the Holy Life and for the conservation and increase of the same we ought to be Hearers of the Word II. WE pass on now to that other Doctrine proposed That we ought not only to be Hearers but Doers also of the Word That awing sense of God which is impressed if not upon all yet at least upon most mens Souls together with a Natural desire of security and tranquillity of mind and every pleasing good That experience and acknowledgment of our own imbecillity and insufficiency walking in the fear of darkness and knowing not as the Apostle speaks whither we go doth easily induce even our Natural and Fleshly minds out of love to our selves to lay hold upon somewhat which we conceive stronger than our selves And this we call God and that outward erected form of Religion in all Churches as Hearing and saying of Prayers and giving Attention to the Word we call Gods Worship And a Worship it is surely too too easie and so fit for the vafrous and subdolous Spirit of the Natural man to play its wily pranks in that it being well instructed by the sly and subtle counsels of that Old Serpent the Devil and Satan it turns those good constitutions which should have been introductions to further Holiness into a strong fort or castle of false satisfaction of Conscience and most pernicious diabolical delusion whiles we take our selves to be distinguished from the wicked reprobate brood by outward performances of Ear-labour and Lip-labour without the practice of that which is taught us out of Moses or Christ plainly according to the Pharisees in our Saviours time whom the Holy Baptist sharply rebukes for such kind of imaginations Bring forth fruit worthy amendment of life saith he And think not to say within your selves we have Abraham to our father For I say unto you that God is able even of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham Surely it is out of the want of that feeling Knowledge of that which is so acceptable to God and a fond over-estimation of our own poor naked and contemptible Souls or a conceit that God would want persons if we Christians be excluded to make up the number of the Inheritors of Heaven that makes us think that such superficial performances will make us allowable before God But nothing is acceptable to him but a simple humble and unfeigned obedient Spirit Nothing glorious in his eyes but his own Life the Soul inacted and quickened by Christ. All flesh is grass and all the glory thereof as the flower of the field The grass withereth the flower fadeth but the word of our God endureth for ever This is the Word and Eternal Life on whom whosoever doth believe and by true Faith in his strength is Regenerate into shall obtain Everlasting Life otherwise he abideth in the Sentence of Death and the Wrath of God is upon him 'T is true there be notable Preheminences and Priviledges given even to the Natural Fleshly Adam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Hermes The whole World subsists for Mans sake But this Prerogative howsoever hath its condition which follows 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The World for Man but Man for God And how for God To wit that his Life may be in us that his Christ may be in us Not so many verbal points of Christianity not so many notions of Divinity not so many moon-shine imaginations from the Word heard or read in Books in our Hearts in the Visible World in Heaven in Earth in Men. Christ is not dead and unprofitable phansie but the vigorous ebullition of Life Which Life if it be not in us then are we not partakers of that we were destinate to for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Man was made for a Tabernacle for God he 's Materials for his Holy Temple But if we will not be living stones as the Apostle speaks we shall have the same doom that unprofitable trees or timber They are fit for nothing but to be hewn in pieces and cast into the fire This is the end of that frustraneous brood of the Sons of Belial the off-spring of unprofitableness that fall short of the end they were intended to by their own disobedient perversness The best of them fare no better Man being in honour hath no understanding but is like to the beasts that perish I but we learned Scholasticks have Vnderstanding enough or at least as much as any As much as we have
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Are they animo Dei formi Where the Poet plainly makes the form or image of God consist in Love in Righteousness or Iustice and Courteousnes they being contrary to Injury brutish Fierceness Cruelty and Injustice The Divine Philosopher speaks out more expresly though in fewer words To be like unto God is to be holy just and wise I might multiply words here for the setting forth of the manifold Benefits and Graces that accrue to the Soul of Man from his Conversion to God and Obedience to his Holy Word But nothing more can be said than this Image of Christ doth either express or at least imply Justice Holiness and Prudence comprize all Excellence That generous Magnanimity of mind that bears it self above all the contempt that can follow the practice of that which is Good or abstinence from that which is Evil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pure Temperance Manly and awful-eyed Fortitude Gravity and Modesty gently moving in all peaceful and steady tranquillity and a God-like Vnderstanding watering with showers of Light this flourishing Paradise of Piety and Vertue This and whatsoever else we can conceive that Good is is contained in this Divine Image nay more than we can conceive before we be transformed into that likeness The Wisdom of him that is regenerate into this image and conformity with God dives into the depth of Darkness unties the knots of that Old Serpents train breaks off the bonds of Death and Hell pierceth like Lightning into the inwardness of things stands before the Throne of Immortal Glory That Holiness winds it self from all corruption of the Flesh flyes above the bewitching attraction of the Body looks upon God in unspotted purity That Iustice gives every thing it s own That which is Caesars to Caesar and that which is Gods to God But nothing to it self seeketh nothing for it self exulteth not in it self But gives all to God seeks all for God rejoyceth alwayes in God Thou art worthy O Lord to receive honour and glory and power for thou hast created all things and for thy wills sake they are and have been created Rev. 4. Thus be they nothing in their own eyes as indeed they are nothing but in profound Humility and Gratitude which is the most exquisite act of Iustice give all to the Eternal and Everlasting Majesty This is that lovely beautiful and most desirable Image of Christ the Son of the Father Who hath part here is an Inheritor of Eternity But he that by false and lazy imagination and phansie remains in the Devils deformed Nature his doom is everlasting Death and unspeakable Misery AND thus much for the Reasons Why we should be Doers of the Word I will only speak a word or two of the Proposition that is left and so end this Text. The Proposition is this III. That we are not to deceive our selves Errare falli decipi c. To err or be deceived saith Tully turpe est And that methinks should be a sufficient Argument to avoid it But to deceive ones self is a double fault He that deceives himself is both Fool and Knave as we say both the gull and the cheater the deceived and the deceiver Though to say the truth he that is deceived by another was first deceived by himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Aristotle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The same defective Principles that expose a man to be deceived of another exposeth him as well to be deceived of himself No man is discovered to be a fool by another but he was so in himself first And who made him so then But how can this be That man should be so wise as to circumvent himself and so foolish as to be circumvented by himself Certainly it implies more Natures than one in a Man The Platonists reckon up three in general there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. There is Vnderstanding that lamp of Heavenly Truths or Intellectual illumination 2. There is the Soul in the middle where Will and Reasoning is situated 3. In the last place there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Life which resides in the Body and is but a shadow of the Soul the darkened Cave of evil delusions falshood and deceit a den of all Serpentine Natures false Spectrums Magical Allurements thick Mists benumming Vapours execrable Whisperings vain Terrour false Delight bewitching Apparitions fair flitting Phantasms deceivable Suggestions besotting Attractions Here 's that damn'd cell where those three grand Impostors and Conspirators against the Soul plot their fraudulent mischiefs the Flesh the World the Devil Or rather here is a World of Devils in this Life of the Flesh where the Prince of Darkness rules Well hath Zoroastre described this place He calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a World whose light is the blackness of darkness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A World whose bottom is the depth of unfaithfulness It 's foundation is laid in Hell a Hell whose fense is pitchy clouds and thick darkness whose treasure is corruption inhabitants vanity and shadowes wisdom senslesness prudence precipitancy simplicity of heart inextricable labyrinths of deceit and hypocrisie constancy or steddiness a vertiginous circuit of glowing phrensie and gross madness He that here doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which those wise Oracles forbid He that looks down indangers his sight indangers being carryed away with this rapid course and hurrying flux of tumultuous motions It 's enough to turn his Brain to change his Understanding to bereave him of his right Senses Here 's the fountain of ignorance and well-spring of all evil deceits So long as the Soul leans toward this and its loving and liking is toward this shadow of falshood it carries its deceiver about with it self and no deceit there is without but it is from this first or in vertue of this That which the Platonists call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Scripture calls Spirit Soul and Flesh. This Flesh is that whorish Woman that Solomon speaks of so oft and describes her subtil carriage But all her fair speaking is but false allurement and her flattering utter destruction For a whore is a deep ditch and a strange woman a narrow pit saith the Wise Man Nay the high way to the very pit of Hell Her house are the wayes of hell whose descent is into the chambers of death Prov. 7. Now the Soul of man betwixt these two the Spirit and the Flesh Heaven and Hell God and the Devil is so placed that accordingly as it inclines or cleaves to so is its Wisdom and Life If it continually struggle to work it self upward toward God God will put out his merciful arm to draw it out of those Infernal Waters If it cleave unto the Flesh and its deceivable Lusts the warmth of wickedness will attract it down lower and lower till Satan hath insnared it in all his nests and hath chained it in his own chains So that being made an absolute Vassal of
the Spirit of Christ. For the First Eph. 6. 12. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities against powers against the rulers of the darkness of this world against spiritual wickedness in high places Beloved The great work of Salvation is not then accomplished when we have through the power of God and the strength of Jesus Christ overcome the Lusts of the Body as Drunkenness Gluttony Whoredom and the like But we shall find a new task the taming of our proud Spirit For after our first conquest I mean the overcoming the Lusts of the Body then pride and haughtiness and contempt of our Neighbour the thinking of our selves some-body rigour and unmercifulness to our sinful Brother the magnifying of our selves in some conceited Opinions searching out and confidently concluding concerning the secrets of God censuring and contemning all men that are not of the same conceit in Divine Speculations with our selves These and many such like evil delusions the Devil will sow in our Hearts The Devil himself is neither Whoremaster nor Drunkard nor Glutton But he is Proud but he is Contemptuous but he is Hypocritical but he is a Blood-sucker a Murderer from the beginning full of self-love full of self-admiration full of cruelty under pretence of Religion full of deceit and injustice under pretence of Truth and maintenance of Godliness full of ambition and desire of rule even over the Souls and Consciences of men full of self-applause and arrogancy and strutting in his own supposed knowledge and power But true denyal of our selves and unfeigned deep humility a sensible apprehension of our nothingness as I may so say or real detestable vileness will cause such dreadful agonies in our Souls that no tongue can express nor heart conceive that hath not had experience of those bitter Sufferings With so great pain and torment are we torn and riven from our spiritual wickedness disjointed and dislimb'd as it were from our head that Prince of Pride and Father of Disobedience the Devil But I will now shew you the other kind of suffering which is the suffering in Spirit by reason of other mens wickedness When we are united to God and Christ in the union of Spirit then do those things that are contrary to the Spirit of God as all manner of sin trouble our Spirit Envious or cruel acts drunkenness deceit pride rigour fierceness folly and whatsoever else is sinful or vain our Spirit being enlivened by the Spirit of God is grieved and vext at these wickednesses or vanities Then we plainly see how Christ is cut and lash'd and hew'd and stab'd with our wicked deeds how he is crucified afresh as the Apostle speaketh Here may the true Church of God the Holy Ierusalem take up fitly that Lamentation in Ieremy Is it nothing to you all ye that pass by Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow See how the Prophet David was affected with the wickedness of men Psal. 119. Mine eyes gush out with water because men keep not thy law I beheld the transgressours and was grieved because men keep not thy word So Lot was tormented at the wickedness of Sodom 2 Pet. 2. 7. And delivered just Lot vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked For that righteous man dwelling among them in seeing and hearing vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds So God complains in the Spirit of his Prophet Amos. Behold I am pressed under you as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves Amos 2. 13. And surely there is good Reason it should be so a sure Necessity For Fire is not more contrary to Water nor Light to Darkness nor any enmity in Nature or among men so strong as that betwixt the Spirit of God and the Spirit of the Devil that is in evil wicked men according to which they live and act So then when that detestable ugliness flowes out in their words or actions it must needs offend the Children of God God being of pure eyes and not abiding to behold wickedness Hence are they driven into consuming zeal or deep inexpressible grief And this is the second kind of suffering in Spirit But Beloved take this in by the way That he that can be angry at other mens faults and not much more angry at his own is a dissembler an Hypocrite Herein let every man examine himself But he that is so stupid that he is not moved at all with the wickedness of others or of himself is perfectly dead in Sin and is in the full power of Satan and is covered with Eternal Death and Darkness THIS Second Doctrine is now sufficiently plain That they that would be Heirs of the Kingdom of Christ must suffer with Christ. I will again here stir you up to an examination and tryal of your Spiritual state whether you have any interest in the Heavenly Inheritance The Sign and infallible Seal is our suffering with Christ. But not any suffering For the fuffering in Estate if we escape it yet may we be inheritors of Heaven But to be evil spoken of for Christ is harder to efcape yet admit we escape that too we may for all that be secure of our Eternal Inheritance Nor have all that are now with God been whip'd and tortur'd and put to death or martyrdom But yet we ought to be so minded that we had rather endure all these things than depart from Christ. But all the other sufferings as abstinence from voluptuousness from the delights of the flesh from priding our selves in any thing that God hath bestowed upon us a suppressing our anger abstaining from the sweetness of revenge denying of the ever-craving appetite of covetousness keeping our tongues from the delight of defamation and evil reports our ears from hearing evil of our Neighbour These be necessary All which endeavours will surely afflict and vex the corrupt Natural Spirit of a man But he that will not undergo this suffering believe it Beloved he is none of Christs he hath neither part nor portion in the Kingdom of Christ and of God But he that doth though with great agony of Soul and affliction of Mind fight against all this corruption of Flesh and Spirit He may bless God for his good condition and with good reason lay hold of the hope of Heaven They that are troubled in Spirit for the wickedness of men the prophanation of Gods name and any manner of sin and iniquity these men may conclude that they have the Spirit of God and consequently that they are the Sons of God And if sons then heirs heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ If so be that we suffer with him Which our own Spirit together with Gods Spirit doth testifie to us that we do and that we shall be certainly glorified with him Let every man herein examine himself that he may find a true ground of his hope of Eternal Salvation For none shall be saved but they that are
we will take in a more full narration of it And Israel abode in Shittim and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab and they called the people unto the sacrifice of their Gods and Israel joined himself unto Baal-Peor Ver. 1 2 3. of that Chapter That which is here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sacrificia Deorum is in my Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sacrificia mortuorum Which makes further for that I drove at before viz. That the Gods of the Heathen are mostwhat the Souls of dead men THUS I have dispatched the two former Parts of my task viz. the Explication and Confirmation of the truth of this Text so far as was needful III. The Inferences following are these First From those words They joined themselves to Baal-Peor we may observe That it is long of a mans self when he sins Thus Ecclesiasticus 15. 11 12. Say not thou that it is through the Lord that I fell away For thou oughtest not to do the thing that he hateth Say not thou that he hath caused me to err For he hath no need of the sinful man So Iam. 1. 13 14. Let no man say when he is tempted I am tempted of God For God cannot be tempted with evil neither tempteth he any man But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed To say therefore that it is the all-swaying Providence of God that bore men to this or that evil action is to blaspheme the Sacred Name of God and contradict Reason and Scripture Or which seems more plausible to say the Devil ought us a spight is but to be gull'd by the Devil and to add a new errour to our former misdeed The Devil may suggest but not compel But to exalt the strength of the evil Spirit above the dominion and power of him that is the Prince of Spirits as tho' they were stronger than he is to cast God out of his Throne and to place Satan in his stead Surely God who hateth Sin with a perfect hatred will not let the Devil prevail against that Will in us that is conformable to his If we be against Sin God will aid us If we fall into Wickedness it is long of our selves Yea though the greatest of Wickednesses For they joined themselves to Baal-Peor c. Not forced or necessitated by the Devil against a good Will and sincere aversation of Sin for this is the Will of God and he will help his own Will Nor led on by God for God will not beget to life that which he hates to see But the truth is God who is the God of Love and Freedom would have us to serve him out of a free Principle and so neither constrains us to good nor over-sways us to evil Secondly They joined themselves also to Baal-Peor The Calf in Horeb their envying and murmuring against Moses and Aaron their lusting after the flesh-pots of Egypt all these did not satisfie but as if these were a light matter they add Whoredom and Idolatry in this business of Baal-Peor Hence we may observe That the wickedness of a mans heart knows no bounds but his evil desires are enlarged like Hell Thirdly If we compare the greatness of this transgression with the great experience they had of the Power and Love of God to them who had done great things for them in Egypt wondrous works in the Land of Ham and fearful things by the Red Sea who had given them from Mount Sinai an express Law against Idolatry in Thunder and Lightning Clouds and Vapours of Smoke to the utter dismaying of them from Sin who had given them Manna in the Wilderness and fed them with Angels food who had guided them by two mighty Pillars a Cloudy Pillar by day and a Pillar of Fire to give light by night who had made them eye-witnesses of so many Miracles of his Almighty Arm That these People should so fouly Apostatize argues plainly an excessive weakness in the Children of Adam And the best Use we can make of it is this To be vigilant over our own wayes and merciful to our Brother when he slides Fourthly and Lastly We may gather also a kind of disability in all outward stays and props of our Souls in goodness all visible helps for Piety if something stronger within do not sustain us and keep us What more forcible outward means could have been used than Israel had experience of But all the terrour upon Mount Sinai and all that tempest and dread in giving of the Law all the Miracles that were wrought by the hand of Moses and the visible presence of God or his Angel all those passed out of their minds like a dream and vanished as a vision of the night all those failed them when the present object possessed their Eyes when the beauty of the Daughters of Moab had ensnared their Hearts and captivated their Souls to the commiting of folly The Young man in Macarius who in an high Rapture beheld glorious sights 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Faces of Light and the shining Lustre of Heaven after fell into the filth of the Flesh and deplorable deformity of Life The best use we can make of this is Not to satisfie our selves with any outward or momentany Worships or Ceremonies as to rest in them but to seek an inward Principle of never failing Life Else so soon as we are departed the Church and that honour we do there to God we may be easily carried into the service of the Devil the committing any wickedness Whereas if we had the living Spring of Truth and Righteousness in us we should also have a perpetual sense of what is good or evil And as our Natural Life is tender of it self and perceives the least touch of harm that approacheth it so would that Spirit of Life and Truth be exceeding sensible of whatsoever is contrary to it or the Will of God which would always be very fresh and vivid in our Minds and Will But to attain to this Spirit of Life and Righteousness there is no way but Mortification a death to Sin and our own selves that the Life of God may alone rule in us Then shall not the Daughters of Moab inveigle us that is as Philo the Iew interpreteth it the false allurements of the bewitching Senses Nor shall we then worship Baal-Peor or partake of his Sacrifices that is according to the same Author 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. We shall not dilate all the openings of our Bodies for receiving the influx or strong impressions the unwholesome vapours of this intoxicating World and the pleasures thereof and so drown our Souls in the bottom of Corruption For so he interpreteth the name of this Idol as if it were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 intimating his power to lye in all the openings of the Body or rather outward Skin through which the influences of this sensible World if they be not kept out by due vigilancy stream