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A27365 Essays about the poor, manufactures, trade, plantations, & immorality and of the excellency and divinity of inward light, demonstrated from the attributes of God and the nature of mans soul, as well as from the testimony of the Holy Scriptures / by John Bellers. Bellers, John, 1654-1725. 1699 (1699) Wing B1828; ESTC R19644 23,851 33

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Men for less when there is a Market for it And what Secrets is that Man's Breast fit for which Wine or Lude Women have the Command of Or what good Counsel can he give to others who will not refrain from a vain Oath to save or gain a Profitable Place to himself Now for such who will not be Reformed neither by the Laws of God nor by the Laws of Men the Laws of Nature will conquer them for Vicious Distempers will shorten the Days of some and Extravagancies will expel others out of their Ancestors Estates whilst Vertue and Industry will introduce new Purchasers into them And I wish such Purchasers by a Prudent Education would secure Vertue as well as an Estate to their Posterity and then Debauchery would soon be extinguished out of the World by it s not having Riches to support nor Countenance it For 't is an old Maxim Sine Cecere 〈◊〉 Baccho friget Venus Prov. 14 v. 34. Righteousness exalteth a Nation But Sin is a Reproach to any People 28. 2. For the Transgression of a Land many are the Princes thereof but by a Man or Men of Understanding and Knowledge the State thereof shall be prolonged Some Reasons against puting of Fellons to Death I Having made some Essay to supply the Wants and abate the Profaneness of the Age I would say something of Fellons most of whom rise from them two Miserable Fountains and of the stain their untimely Death is to Religion and of the loss it is unto the Kingdom There are several sorts of Distractions which all Men pities and takes care of preserving from doing themselves or others harm but Pellons are some of the worst sort of mad Men whom Charity therefore would oblige us to take some care to prevent their mischievous way of Living and deplorable Deaths The Idle and Profane Education of some and the Necessities of others brings Habits almost invincible for such to conquer of themselves without the State take them into their prudent management But to put them into Bridewell or Newgate for a Month or two and then turn them loose at their own Discressions who have none no more reclaims them than baiting a Horse well with Provender makes him less able to Travel they learn but more Skill in their Trade under the Tutors they meet with there The Scriptures saith Watch for the Devil your Adversary goes about like a roaring Lion seeking which of you be may devour What Consideration and Compassion then should be had of those unthinking unwatchful People whose Pride Lust or Necessities with the Devils incitements of them is their sole Guide If a Man had a Child or near Relation that should fall into a capital Crime he would use all his interest to preserve his Life how much soever he abhor'd his Fact in hopes he might live to grow better especially if he could have such a power of Confinement upon him as might prevent his acting such Enormities for the future And this Child and near Relation is every one to the Publick whilst the cutting off by untimely Death of one able Man may be reckoned 200 Pound loss out of the value of the Kingdom for besides their Persons they are commonly prevented of the Posterity which they might have which is loss to all Generations and if but one in a Succession they may be valued at 10 l. a Year which at 20 Years Purchase is 200 Hundred Pound How sincerely can we say the Lord's Prayer Forgive us our Trespasses as we forgive them which Trespass against us when for the loss possible of less than 20 Shillings we Prosecute a Man to Death Would it not be more natural and agreeable with our Prayers to God to have Compassion on our deluded Fellow Creatures We are but Men whom they offend but God is Infinitely above us whom we have offended And therefore as we should by a timely and industrious Education have the greater care to prevent such Enormities it would also very well agree with our State before God when any fall into such Crimes compassionately to keep them from further Mischiefs and save such to Repentance rather than to destroy them by sudden Death Mat. 18. 33. Shouldst not thou also have had Compassion on thy fellow Servant even as I had pity on thee The Life of a Man is of greater value with God than many Pounds and ought to be so with Men For tho he that spills Man's Blood by Man was his Blood to be spilt yet the Thief was to restore but four or five fold by the Ancient Law of God To make no difference between the Punishment of Theft and Murder seem a great deficiency in our present Law and often times must melt the Heart of a Compassionate Judge to hear their Shreiks and Cries when he as the Mouth of the Law pronounceth the Sentence of Death upon such forlorn Creatures The Goals wants regulating For whilst the Keepers are allowed to sell strong Liquors it provokes their Prisoners to great Expence and they often live high to be the more in the Goalers favour a Lord sometimes for cost and variety may Dine at some of their Tables Which hath two Evil Consequences First It forceth their Companions abroard to rob more frequent to keep the Prisoners so high in Goal to keep themselves from being discovered Secondly It keeps the Prisoners Blood always boiling and their Brains hot and without Sense of their Unhappiness in this World they live so voluptuous and without sense of the other World because they are so strongly diverted from thinking of it Also the Licencing too many Ale-houses gives Thieves the more cover which with ill Women c. makes their necessities the more pressing Now upon the whole there is reason to believe that few of them are so incourageable but that restraint by Confinement with suitable Imployment and Marriage or Exportations to our Plantations in time would alter their evil habits to a more honest one which as it would save their Bodies and Posterities to the Common-Wealth it might be a means to save their Souls from Eternal Ruin To this Discourse of Charity Industry Vertue and Mercy I will add a few Lines of that Religious Guide and Power by which good Actions may be performed The Excellency and Divinity of inward Light demonstrated from the Attributes of God and the Nature of Man's Soul As well as from the Testimony of the holy Scriptures Of God 1 st GOD is from Eternity to Eternity without Beginning of Time or End of Life 2 dly He is infinite and omnipresent whose Being is every where and boundless 3 dly He is omnipotent in Power being able to do all things 4 thly He is omniscient and therefore he knows the least and privatest Thoughts as well as the greatest and most publick Actions 5 thly His Being is invisible immaterial Life and Spirit Light and Glory and therefore he is not to be apprehended by any visible Creatures tho all things were created
and are upheld by him and do declare of his great Power and Wisdom to whom we owe all Obedience Subjection Reverence Homage Thanksgiving Worship and Praise World without End Of Man's Soul THE Soul of Man is the most invisible spiritual and intellectual Part of this Creation And therefore the Soul beyond all other Creatures is most capable of apprehending the invisible and spiritual Manifestations of God Now as God is infinite and omnipresent in all Places he consequently is within the Bodies of Men as well as without them And God being the most invisible Light Spirit and Life he penetrates all Beings and Spirits more throughly than the visible Light at Noon-day doth the Air the Sun-Beams being but a Shadow to him that Light discovering Bodies only but this inward Light discovers the most hidden Thoughts And as God only who is Light can penetrate Men's Souls and beholds the most inward Thoughts and Desires thereof so he only is able and doth shew them to Men whether they are good or evil And as Men's Wills and Affections comes to be subdued to the Will of God he discovers to the Souls of Men. What is to be known of him the pure in Heart only seeing God For tho God is in all Places and fills all things yet all Beings have not the same Degree of Sence of him because they are not of the same Capacity of knowing or not equally prepared to apprehend and see so pure invisible and intellectual a Spirit And it may be said of visible Bodies as of Darkness it self that tho God shines in them they comprehend or apprehend him not for indeed they want all Sence of Apprehension as the greatest Light is unknown to the blind and the greatest Sounds to the deaf so also the Souls of Men which are given up unto the Delights of sensual Objects until they are born a new they do want their Faculties to be sufficiently spiritualized to behold the immaterial Glory of God tho his Light doth shew them their evil State and his Spirit reproves them they do not see him That Degree or Manifestation of Light which only discovers a Man's unhappy State to him appears far less glorious tho' it is divine than that which gives Peace and discovers the Glory of God as Man obeys it Yet all divine Light which appears to Men flows from the Father's Glory through the one Mediator our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ who is full of Glory in himself whilst it is the Stupidity of Men only that makes them unable to see the Glory of this Light Acts 17. v. 23. I beheld your Devotions To the unknown God whom therefore ye ignorantly worship him declare I unto you 24. God that made the World dwelleth not in Temples made with Hands 25. Neither is worshipped with Mens Hands as tho he needed any thing seeing he giveth to all Life and Breath and all things 27. That they should seek the Lord if haply they might feel after him and find him tho he be not far from every one of Us. 28. For in him we live and move and have our Being as certain also of your own Poets have said Amos. 4. v. 13. For lo he that formeth the Mountains and createth the Wind and declareth unto Man what is his Thought the Lord the God of Hosts is his Name Eph. 5. v. 13. But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the Light For whatsoever doth make manifest is Light 1 Joh. 1. v. 5. This then is the Message which we have heard of him and declare unto you That God is Light and in him is no Darkness at all Therefore for any to say that this inward Light is Man's Conscience is no better Divinity than it would be good Philosophy and Sence for them to say That the Light of the Sun is a Man's Eye when it is the Eye that is enlightned by it Of Christian Virtue REasons of State Profit Health Reputation or Danger of Punishment was part of the Motives given by the ancient Philosophers to perswade Men from Vice which as it is the least it is the first Step towards Wisdom Learning to do well through Love to Virtue being a Degree higher than ceasing to do evil for fear of Sufferings Now as none but God sees Mens Thoughts so if they do resist every Appearance of Evil when he through Christ first discovereth it to them in their Minds by his Light that is to be vertuous for God's Sake and it is a true Washing the Inside and a being truly religious at Heart By which early Opposition to Evil Men will be enabled the more easily to overcome it because a first Thought or Representation to a watchful Man hath not that Power upon his Affections as it will have after it hath been entertained And such a Watchfulness will the more effectually prevent evil Actions for whilst a Man thinks no ill to be sure he will do none This is putting on the Armour of Light and walking in it and a Warface tho not with carnal Weapons mighty through God to the pulling down of strong Holds casting down Imaginations and every high thing that exalteth it self against the Knowledge of God and bringing into Captivity every Thought to the Obedience of Christ. Of Divine Worship GOOD Morals and inward Virtue is a constant Attendant to Divine Worship for he that regards Iniquity in his Heart God will not regard or accept his Prayers Good Actions are as the outward Court to a clean Mind and a vertuous Soul is as the Temple to the inward Tabernacle where God is truly adored in which that Worship is the more acceptable which keeps out not only evil Thoughts which are always to be avoided but also such Thoughts which at other times may be useful and needful to entertain For this divine Worship is the more Spiritual as Men's Minds are more sequestred and silenced from Creatures and Imaginations not dull and sleepily but vigorous and earnestly seeking after and praying for a greater Purity of Soul and a farther Manifestation of God through the Inspiration of inward divine Light every Increase of Light being one Degree farther towards Glory Glory it self being Light uncomprehensible John 4. v. 21. Iesus saith unto her Woman believe me the Hour cometh when ye shall neither in this Mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father 23. But the Hour cometh and now is when the true Worshipers shall worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth For the Father seeketh such to worship him 24. God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in Spirit and in Truth A Cloud of Witnesses recorded in the Holy Scripture That the Three which bear Record in Heaven the Father the Word and Holy Spirit which three are One infinite immence Light Life and Glory do manifest divine Light to Men. God being in Christ reconciling the World unto himself And Christ is in us the Hope of Glory For the Grace of God that