and more properly than they that watch for the morning they may be said rather to be weary of the long and cold and troublesome night than properly covetous of the day but he out of a pure and spiritual sense of his estrangement from God longs to appear before him and be wrapt up in him Heal the Godly man of all his afflâ—ctioâ—s grievances adversities in the world that he may have nothing to trouble him nor put him to pain yet he is not quiet he is in pain because of the distance whereat he stands from God give him the whole world and all the glory of it yet he has not enough he still cryes and craves give give because he is not entirely swallowed up in God he openeth his month wide as the Psalmist speaks and all the Silver and Gold peace health liberty preâ—erment that you cast into it cannot fill it because they are not God he cannot look upon them as his chiefest good In a word A godly man doth not so much say in the sense either of sin or affliction Oh that one would give me the wings of a Dove that I may fly away and be at rest as in the sense of his dissimilitude to and distance from God Oh that one would give me the wings of an Eagle that I might fly away towards Heaven CHAP. V. An expostulation with Christians concerning their remiss and sluggish temper an essay to convince them of it by some considerations which are first The activity of worldly men secondly The restless appetites of the body thirdly The strong propensions of every creature towards its own centre An enquiry into the slothfulness and inactivity of Christian souls two things premised and so an answer is given to the enquiry in five particulars The grace of faith is vindicated from the slander of being meerly passive A short essay to awaken Christians unto a greater vigour and activity WE have seen in what respects Religion is an Active principle in the soul where it is seated give me leave to enlarge a little here for Conviction or Reprehension By this property of true Religion we shall be able to discover much that is false and counterseit in the world If Religion be no lazy languid sluggish passive thing but lift love the spirit of power and Freedom a fire burning a well of water springing up as we have sufficiently seen what shall we say then of that heavy sluggish spiritless kind of Religion that most men take up with Shall we call it a spirit of life with the Apostle and yet allow of a Religion that is cold and dead shall we call it a spirit of love and power with the same Apostle and yet allow of it though it be indifferent low and impotent or will such pass for currant with the wise and holy God it we should pass a favourable censure upon it And why should it ever pass with men if it will not for ever pass with God But indeed how can this inactivity and sluggishness pass for Religion amongst men who can think you are in pursuit of the infinite and supream good that sees you so slow in your motions towards it who can think that your treasure is in Heaven that sees your heart so far from thence The more any thing partakes of God and the nearer it comes to him who is the fountain of life and power and vertue the more active powerful and lively will it be We read of an Atheistical generation in Zeph. 1. 12. who fancied to themselves an idle and slothful God that minded not the affairs of the world at all saying the Lord will not do good neither will he do evil which was also the false and gross conceit of many of the Heathen as Cicero confesses of some of the Philosophers themselves qui Deum nihil habere negotii dicunt nihil exhibere alteri And indeed though it be not so blasphemous yet it is almost as absurd to fancy an idle Saint as an idle Deity Sure I am if it be not altogether impossible yet it is altogether a shamesull and deformed sight a holy soul in a lethargy a godly soul that is not in pursuit of God Moses indeed bids Israel stand still and see the salvation of the Lord but there is no such divinity in the holy Scriptures as this stand still and see the salvation of the soul though some have violently prest those words Exod. 14. 13. to serve under their slothful standard No no the Scripture speaks to us at another rate Phil. 2. 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 work out your own salvation and indeed the spirit of God doth everywhere describe Religion by the activity industry vigour and quietness of it as I hinted in the very beginning of this discourse and could abundantly confirm and explain if there were need of it But that I may more powerfully convince and awaken the lazy and heavy spirit and temper of many professors I will briefly touch upon a few particulars which I will next propound to their serious consideration 1. The children of this world earthly and sensual men are not so slothful so lazy so indifferent in the pursuit of earthly and sensual objects You say you have laid up your treasure in Heaven we know they have laid up their treasure in the earth now who is it that behaves himself most suitably and seemly towards his treasure you or they you say you have a treasure in Heaven and are content to be able to say so but make no haste to be fully and seelingly possest of it to enjoy the benefit and sweetness of it But they rise up early and sit up late and either pine themselves or eat the bread of sorrow to obtain earthly and perishing inheritances they circuit the world travel farr sell all to purchase that part which is of so great price with them And when they have accomplisht it oh how do they set their heart upon it bind up their very souls in the same bags with their money and seale up their affections together with it yea and so they are not at rest neither but find a gnawing hunger upâ—n their hearts after more still to add house to house and land to land and one bagg to another the covetous miser is ready to sit down and wring his hands because he hath no more hands to scrape with the voluptuous Epicure is angry that he hath not the neck of a Crane the better to taste his dainties and ambitious Alexander when he domineeâ—s over the known world is ready to sit down and whine because there are no more worlds to conquer What Christian can choose but be ashamed of himself when he reads the description which Plautus the Comoedian makes of a covetous worldling under the person of Euclio how he hid his pot of Gold heeded it waâ—cht it visited it almost every hour would not go from it in the day could not sleep for it in the night suspected
he hath appointed called qualified instructed for the opening explaining interpreting applying of them so that they are called Scribes instructed unto the Kingdom of God and stewards of the Mysteries Stewards over the houshold of God to give unto every one his portion These Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors Teachers God hath given for the perfecting of the Saints for the edifying of the Body of Christ Ephes 4. 11 12. These things hath God done for us from without us he hath set up a light chalk'd out our way and appointed us Guides To which I might adde the many inticements and motives which we call Mercies or Comforts of this Life and the many affâ—ightments of Judgements and Afflictions which God hath added to the Promises Threatnings of his Word to bring us into the way of Life But all these are too little too weak of themselves to bring back a stragling Soul or to produce a living Principle of true Religion in it Therefore 2. God is the Author of Religion from within He doth not only reveal himself and his Son to the Soul but in it he doth not only make discoveries â—o it but lâ—vely impressions upon it he doth not only appoint and point out the way of Life but breathes in the breath of Life He hath not only provided a Saviour a Redeemer but he also draws the Soul unto him John 6. 44. He hath not only appointed Pastors and Teachers but he himself impregnates their Word and cloaths their Doctrine with his own Power using their Ministry as an Instrument whereby to teach so that the Children of God are said to be all taught of God John 6. 45. Ministers can only discover and as it were enlighten the Object but God enlightens the faculty he gives the seeing Eye and does actually enable it to discern Therefore the work of converting a Soul is still ascribed to God in Scripture he begets us again 1 Pet. 1. 3. he draws the Soul before it can run after him Cant. 1. 4. Christ apprehends the Soul lays powerful bold of it Phil. 3. 12. God gives a heart of flesh a new heart he causes men to walk in his statutes Ezek. 36. 26 27. He puts his Law into their inward parts and writes it in their hearts Jer. 31. 33. To which I might adde many more Quotations of the same value But yet methinks we are not come to a perfect discovery of Religions being the Off-spring of God in the minds of men For it is God who enlightneth the faculty as to the learning of all other things also he teacheth the Grammar and the Rhetorick as well as the Divinity he instructeth even the Husbandman to discretion in his affairs of Husbandry and teaches him to plow and sow and thresh c. Isa 28. 26. Not only the gift of Divine Knowledge but indeed every good gift cometh from the Father of Lights Jam. 1. 17. God doth from within give that capacity illumination of the faculty ingenuity whereby we comprehend the mysteries of Nature as well as of Grace John 1. 9. Therefore we may conceive of the Original of Religion in a more inward and spiritual manner still It is not so much given of God as it self is something of God in the Soul as the Soul is not so properly said to give as to be the Life of Man As the conjunction of the Soul with the Body is the Life of the Body so verily the Life of the Soul stands in its conjunction with God by a spiritual union of Will and Affections God doth not enlighten mens minds as the Sun enlightens the World by shining unto them and round about them but by shining into them by enlightning the faculty as I said before yea which seems to be somewhat more by shining in their hearts as the Apostle phraseth it 2 Cor. 4. 6. He sets up a Candle which is his own Light within the Soul so that the Soul sees God in his own Light and loves him with the Love that he hath shed abroad in it and Religion is no other than a reflection of that Divine Image Life and Light and Love which from God are stamped and imprinted upon the Souls of true Christians God is said to enlighten the Soul but it is not as the Sun enlightens you see so he draws the Soul too but not ab extra only as one man draweth another with a Cord as Jupiter in Homer draws men up to Heaven by a Chain and Mahomet his Disciples by a Lock of Hair but he draws the Soul as the Sun draws up Earthly Vapours by infusing its vertue and power into them or as the Loadstone draws the Iron by the powerful insinuations of his grace God doth not so much communicate himself to the Soul by way of Disâ—overy as by way of Impression as I said before and indeed not so much by impression neither as by a mystical and wonderful way of implantation Religion is not so much something from God as something of God in the Minds of good Men for so the Scripture allows us to speak It is therefore called his Image Col. 3. 10. and good men are said to live according to God in the Spirit 1 Pet. 4. 6. But as if that were not high enough it is not only called his Image but even a participation of his Divine Nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. something of Christ in the Soul an infant-Christ as one calls it alluding to the Apostle Gal. 4. 19. where the saving knowledge of Christ is called Christ himself Vntil Christ be formed in you True Religion is as it were God dwelling in the Soul and Christ dwelling in the Soul as the Apostles St. John and St. Paul do express it yea God himself is pleased thus to express his relation to the godly Soul â—sa 57. 15. I dwell in the high and holy place with him also that is of a humble spirit And again 2 Cor. 6. 16. As God hath said I will dwell in them and walk in them Pure Religion is a beam of the Father of Lights Lumen de Lumine it is a drop of that eternal Fountain of Goodness and Holiness the Breath of the Power of God a pure Influence flowing from the Glory of the Almighâ—y the Brightness of the everlasting Light the unspotted Mirrour of the power of God and the Image of his Goodness more beautiful than the Sun and above all the Orders of Stars being compared with the Light she is found before it as the Author of the Book of Wisdom speaks Chap. 7. What is spoken of the eâ—ernal Son of God Heb. 1. 3. may in a sense be truly affirmed of Religion in the abstract That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the effulgency or beaming forth of Divine Glory For there is more of the Divine Glory and Beauty shining forth in one godly Soul than in all things in the World beside The glorious Light of the Sun is but a dark
man till he consider with himself that one part of these mens uncleanness is that very blindness which keeps them from discerning it I speak principally of the defilement of the Soul though indeed the same do pollute the whole Conversation Every action springing from such an unclean Heart thereby becomes filthy even as Moses his hand put into his bosome became leprous Exod. 4. or rather as one that is unclean by a dead body defileth all that he toucheth Hag. 2. 13. Now Religion is the cleansing of this unclean spirit and conversation so that though the Soul were formerly as filthy odious as Augeus his Stable when once those living Waters flow into it and thorow it from the pure Fountain of Grace and Holiness the Spirit of our God one may say of it as the Apostle of his Corinthians 1 Cor. 6. 11. Such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are sanctified c. The Soul that before was white as leprosie is now white as Wool Isa 1. 18. the Soul that before was like Moses his hand leprous as snow is now like David's Heart white as snow yea and whiter too Psal 51. 7. Oh what a beauty and glory is upon that godly Soul that shines with the image and brightness of God upon it Solomon in all his glory was not beautiful like such a Soul nay I dare say the splendor of the Sun in its greatest strength and altitude is a miserable glimmering if it be compared with the Day-Star of Religion that even in this Life arises in the heart or if you will in the Prophets stile the Sun of Righteousness which ariseth with healing in his wings upon them that fear the Name of God To speak without a Metaphor the godly Soul having entertained into its self the pure effluxes of Divine Light and Love breathes after nothing more than to see more familiarly and love more ardently its inclinations are pure and holy its motions spiritual and powerful its delights high and heavenly it may be said to rest in its love and yet it may be said that love will not suffer it to rest but is still carrying it out into a more intimate union with its beloved object What is said of the Oyntment of Christs Name Cant. 1. 3. is true of the Water of his Spirit it is poured forth therefore do the Virgins love him Religion begets a chaste and virgin-love in the Soul towards that blessed God that begot it it bathes it self in the Fountain that produc'd it and suns it self perpetually in the warm beams that first hatch'd it Religion issues from God himself and is ever issuing out towards God alone passionately breathing with the holy Psalmist Whom have I in Heaven but thee In Earth there is none that I desire beside thee The Soul that formerly may be said to have lain among the Pots by reason of its filthiness is now as the wings of a Dove covered with silver and her Feathers with yellow gold the Soul that formerly may be said to have sitten down by the flesh pots of Egypt in regard of its sensual and earthly Loves being redeemed by the almighty grace of God is upon its way to the holy Land hastning to a Country not earthly but heavenly Heb. 11. This pure Principle being put into the Soul puts it upon holy Studies indites holy Meditations directs it to high and noble ends and makes all its embraces to be pure and chaste labouring to compass God himself which before were adulterous idolatrous free for sin and self and the world to lodge and lie down in In a word this Off-spring of Heaven this Kings Daughter the godly Soul is all glorious within yea and outwardly too she is cloathed with wrought gold Psal 45. 13. Her faith within is more precious than gold 1 Pet. 1. 7. and her Conversation curiously made up of an Embroidery of good Works some of Pâ—ety some of Charity some of Sobriety but all of Purity shineth with more noble and excellent splendor than the high Priests Garments and Brest-plate spangled with such variety of precious Stones This precious Oyntment this holy Vnction as the Apostle calls it 1 John 2. 20. is as diffusive of it self and ten thousand times more fragrant than that of Aaron so much commended in Psal 133. that ran down from his head upon his beard and from thence upon the skirts of his garment Not my feet only but my hands and my head Lord said Peter John 13. Not well knowing what he said but the Soul that is truly sensible of the excellent purity which is caused by Divine Washings longs to have the whole man the whole Life also made partaker of it and cries Lord not my head only not my heart only but my hands and my feet also make me wholly pure as God is pure In a word then true Religion is the cleansing of the Soul and all the powers of it so that whereas Murderers sometimes lodged in it now Righteousness the Den of Thieves thievish Lusts and Loves and Interests and Ends which formerly stole away the Soul from God its right Owner is now become a Temple fit for the great King to dwell and live and reign in And the whole Conversation is turned from its wonted vanity worldliness and iniquity and is continually employed about things that are true honest just pure lovely and of good report Phil. 4. 8. 2. By the phrase Water the Quenching nature of Religion is commended to us God hath indued the immortal Soul with a restless appetite and raging thirst after some chief Good which the heart of every man is continually groping after and catching at though indeed few find it because they seek it where it is not to be found If we speak properly it is not gold or silver or popular applause which the covetous or ambitious mind doth ultimately aim at but some chief good happiness sufficiency and satisfaction in these things wherein they are more guilty of Blasphemy than Atheism for it is clear that they do not deny a supreme Good for that which men do chiefly and ultimately aim at is their God be it what it will but they do verily blaspheme the true God when they place their happiness there where it is not to be found and attribute that fulness and sufficiency to something else besides the living God Sin hath not destroyed the nature and capacity of the rational Soul but hath diverted the mind from its adequate object and hath sunk it into the Creature where it wanders hither and thither like a banished man from one Den and Cave to another but is secure no where A wicked man who is loosed from his centre by sin and departed from the Fountain of his Life flies low in his affections and flutters perpetually about the Earth and earthly Objects but can find no more rest for the foot of his Soul than Noah's Dove could find for the sole of her foot Now Religion
of the Sun and turning itself every way towards it wellcoming its warm and refreshing beams Elijah passing by Elisha as he was at plough and catching him with his mantle is but a scant resemblâ—nce of the blessed God passing by a carnal mind and wrapping it in the mantle of his love and thereby causing it to run yea to flye swiftly after him If divine grace do but once touch the soul the soul presently sticks to it as the needle to the Loadstone They that heard Christ Jesus chiding the winds and the waves cryed out what manner of man is this that even the winds and the sea obey him But if one had been present when he called James and John from their nets Matthew from the Custome-house and Zaâ—heus from the tree and by calling made them willing to come would have cryed oâ—t sure what manner of God is this that by his bare word makes poor men leave their trades and livelyhood and rich men their gainfull exactions usuries oppressions to follow him and shews them no reason why What a mighty vertue is there in the oyntment of Christs name that as soon as it is poured out the Virgins fall in love with him Cant. 1. 3 Micah cryed out when he was in pursuit of his Gods and should they ask him what ailed him And will ye wonder that a holy Soul in pursuit of the holy God should be â—arnest that he should run and cry as he runs as I have seen a fond child whom the father or mother have endeavoured to leave behind them God breathing into the Soul makes the Soul breath after him and in a mixture of holy disdâ—in and anger to thrust away from itself all distracting companions occasions and concernments saying with Ephraim to her Idols Get ye hence The Soul thus inspired is so far from prostituting it self to any â—arthly sensual selfish lusts and loves that it cannot brook any thing that would weaken it in the prosecution of the highest good it is impatient of every thing that would either stop or slacken its motions after God The godly man desires still to be doing something for God indeed but if the case so fall out that he cannot spend his life for God as he desires yet he will be spending his soul upon him though he cannot perpetually abide upon the knee of prayer yet he would be continually upon the wing of faith and love when his tongue cleaves to the roof of his mouth that he cannot speak for God yet his Soul shall cleave unto him and complain because it can speak no longer For faith and love are kniâ—â—ing graces and do long to make the soul as much one with their object as is possible for the creature to be with its Creator Religion puts a restless appetiâ—e into the soul after a higher good and makes it to throw itself into his arms and wind itself into his embraces longing to be in a more intimate conjunction with him or rather entirely wrapt up in him Itself is an unsatiable and covetous principle in the soul much like to the daughter of the horseleech crying continually Give Give what the Prophet speaks rhetorically of Hell Isa 50. is also true concerning this off-spring of Heaven in the Soul it enlargeth it self and openeth its mouth without measure The spirit of true godliness seems to be altogether such that it cannot rest in any measures of grace or be fully contented with any of its attainments in this life but ardently longs to receive the more plentiful communications of love the more deep and legible impressions of grace the more clear and ample experiences of divine assistance the more sensible evidences of divine favour the more powerfull and ravishing illapses and incoms of divine consolation into itself let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth Cant. 1. 2. such is the spirit of true godliness that the weakest that is indued with it longs to be as David and the Davids to be as God as the Angel of the Lord according to that promise Zach. 12. 8. The godly soul that is in his right senses under the powerfull apprehensions of the loveliness of God and the beauty of holiness cannot be content to live by any lower instance than that of David whose soul even broke for the longing that it had unto the Lord Psal 119. 20 or that of the spouse who was even sick of love Cant. 2. 5. You have read of the Mother of Sisera looking out at the window waiting for his coming and crying through the lattess why is his Chariot so long in coming why tarry the wheels of his Chariots But this is not to be compared to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the earnest expectation of the creature the new creature waiting sort he manifestation of God which the Apostle elegantly expresseth and yet seems â—o labour for words as if he could not sufficiently express it neither Rom. 8. 23. you have read of the Israelites marching up towards the promised land and murmuring that they were held so long in the wilderness But the true Israelitish Soul makes more hast with less discontent marches as under the conduct of the Angel of Gods presence and longs to arrive at its rest But alas it is held in the wilderness too and therefore cannot be fully quiet in itself but sends forth spyes to view the land the scouts of Faith and Hope like Caleb and Joshua those men of another spirit and these go and walk through the holy land and return home to the soul and come back not as Noahs dove with an Olive leaf in her mouth but with some clusters in their hands they bring the soul a taste of the good things of the Kingdom of the glories of her eternal state yea the soul self marches up to possess the land goes out with the spouse in the Canticles to meet the Lord to seek him whom her soul loveth Religion is a sacred fire kept burning in the temple of the soul continually which being once kindled from Heaven never goes out but burns up Heaven-wards as the nature of fire is this fire is kept alive in the soul to all eternity though sometimes through the ashes of earthly cares and concernments cast into it or the Sun of earthly prosperity shining upon it it may sometimes burn more dimly and seem almost as if it were quite smothered this fire is for sacrifice too though sacrifice be not alwayes offered upon it the same fire of faith and love which offered up the morning Sacrifice is kept alive all the day long and is ready to kindle the evening Sacrifice too when the appointed time of it shall come In this chariot of fire it is that the soul is continually carryed out towards God and accomplisheth a kind of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or glorification daily and when it finds iâ— self firmly seated and swiftly carryed herein it no longer envies the translation of Elias The spirit of sanctification is
acts and carcase-services and to think it is nothing else but a running the round of duties and ordinances and a keeping up a constant set and course of actions such an external legal righteousness the Apostle Paul after his conversion could not take up with but counted it all loss and dung in comparison of that Godlike righteousness which was now brought into his soul that inward and spiritual conformity to Christ which was now wrought in him Phil. 3. 9 10. I know indeed that men will be loth to confess that they place their Religion in any thing without them but I pray consider seriously wherein you excell other men save only in praying or hearing now and then or some other outward acts and judge your selves by your nature and not by your actions 2. The Active spirit of Religion where it is in the soul will not suffer men to take up their rest in a meer pardon of sin and they are but slothfull souls that could be so satisfied Blessed is the man indeed whose inquities are pardoned Psal 32 1 2. but if we could suppose a soul to be acquitted of the guilt of all sin and yet to lie bound under the dominion of lusts and passions and to live without God in the world he were yet far from true blessedness A reall hell and misery will arise out of the very bowels of sin and wickedness though there should be no reserve of fire and brimstone in the world to come It is utterly impossible that a Soul should be happy out of God though it had the greatest security imaginable that it should never suffer any thing from him The highest care and ambition indeed of a slavish and mercenary spirit is to be secured from the wrath and vengeance of God but the breathings of the ingenuous and holy soul are after a divine life and Godlike perfections This right gracious tempe you may see in David Psal 51. 9 10 11 12. which is also the temper of every truly Religious soul 3. The Active spirit of Religion where it is in the soul will not suffer men to take up their rest in meer innâ—cency freedom from sin and they are slothful souls that could count it happiness enough to be harmless I doubt men are much mistaken about holiness it is more than meer innocency or freedom from the guilt or power of sin it is not a negative thing there is something active noble divine powerfull in true Religion A soul that rightly understands its own penury and self-insufficiency and the emptiness and meanness of all creature-good cannot possibly take up its rest or place its happiness in any thing but in a real participation of God himself and therefore is continually making out towards that God from whom it came and is labouring to unite itself more and more unto him Let a low-spirited fleshly minded Pharisee take up with a negative holiness and happiness as he doth Luke 18. 11. God I thank thee that I am not so and so a noble and high-spirited Christian cannot take up his rest in any negation or freedom from sin Every godly soul is not so learned indeed as to be able to describe the nature and proper perfection of a soul and to tell you how the happiness of a soul consists not in quiete but in actu vigore not in cessation and rest as the happiness of a stone doth but in life and power and vigour as the happiness of God himself doth But yet the spirit of true Religion is so excellent and powerfull in every godly soul that it is still carrying it to the fuller enjoyment of an higher good and the soul doth find and feel within itself though it cannot discourse Philosophically of these things that though it were free from all disturbance of sin and affliction in the world yet still it wants some supream and possible good to make it compleatly happy and so bends all its power thiâ— herward This is the description which you will everywhere find made in Scripture of the true spirit of holiness which hath alwayes something positive and divine in it as Isâ— 1. 16 17. cease to do evil learn to do well and Ephes 4. 22 24. Put off the old man put on that new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness And accordingly a truly godly soul to use the Apostles words though he know nothing by himself yet doth not thereby count himself happy 4. The Active spirit of true Religion whâ—re it is in the Soul will not suffer men to take up their rest in some measures of grace received and so far as the soul doth so it is sluggish and less Active than it ought to be This indeed oft times comes to pass when the soul is under some distemper of proud selfishness earthly-mindedness or the like or is less apprehensive of its object and happiness as it seems to have been the case of the spouse Cant. 5. 3. Some such fainting fits languishings suâ—ferings in sensibleness must be allowed to be in the Godly soul during its imprisoned and imperfect state But we must not judge our selves by any present distempers or infirmities The nature of Religion when it acts the soul rightly and powerfully is to carry it after a more lively resemblance of God which is the most proper and excellent enjoyment of him A mind rightly and actually sound is most sick of love and the nature of love is not to know when it is near enough to its object but still to long after the most perfect conjunction with it This well of water if it be not violently obstructed for a time is ever springing up till it be swallowed up in the Ocean of divine love and grace The soul that is rightly acquainted with itself and its God sees something still wanting in itself and to be enjoyed in him which makes it that it cannot be at rest but is still springing up into him till it come to the measure of the stature of the fulness of its Lord. In this holy loving longing striving active temper we find the great Apostle Phil. 3. 12 13 14. And by how much the more of divine grace any soul hath drunk in the more thirsty is it after much more 5. The Active spirit of true Religion where it is powerfully seated in the minds of men will not suffer them to settle into a love of this animal life nor indeed suffer them to be content to live for ever in such a kind of body as this and that soul is in a degree lazy and slothful that doth not desire to depart and be with his Lord. The godly soul eying God as his perfect and full happiness and finding that his being in the body doth separate him from God keep him in a poor and imperfect state and hinders his blissfull communion with the highest good groans within itself that mortality were swallowed up of life with the Apostle 2 Cor. 5. 4. I
know not how much but I think he hath not very much of God neither fight of him nor love of him that could be content to abide for ever in this imperfect mixed low state and never be perfected in the full enjoyment of him And it seems that they in whom the love of God is rightly predominant potent flourishing do also look earnestly for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life Jude 2. without doubt they ought to do 2 Pe◠3. 12. What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God! Let this suffice by way of general Reprehension 2. More particularly the consideration of the Active nature of true Religion may well serve to correct a mistake about that noble grace of faith How dishonourably do some speak of this excellent and powerfull grace when they make it to be a slothfull passive thing an idle kind of waiting or a Melancholick sitting still which indeed and in truth is Life and power Be not mistaken in so high and eminent a grace True faith doth not only accept the imputed righteousness of Christ for justification but by a lively dependance upon God drinks in divine influences and eagerly sucks in grace and vertue and life from the fountain of grace for its more perfect sanctification And for this cause I think a purifying vertue is ascribed to it Act. 15. 9. Faith is not a lazy languid thing content to wait for salvation till the world to come but it is even now gasping after it and accomplishing it too in a way of mortification self-denyall and growing up in God it is not content to be a candidate waiting for life and happiness but is actually drawing down Heaven into the soul attracting God to itself sucking in participations of divine grace and image into the soul Its motto is that of the famous painter nulla dies sine lineâ it longs to find some divine lineament some line of Gods image drawn upon the soul daily Faith is a giving grace as well as receiving it gives up the whole soul to God and is troubled that it can give him no more it binds over the soul afresh to God every day and is troubled that it can bind it no faster nor closer to him The believing soul is wearyed because of muderers murdering loves lusts cares earthly pleasures and calls mightily upon Christ to come and take vengeance upon them it is wearyed because of those robbers that are daily stealing away precious time and affections from God which are due unto him and calls upon Christ to come and scourge these thieves these buyers and sellers out of his own Temple In a word the godly soul is Active and faith is the very life and Action of the soul itself Lastly Let me exhort all Christians from hence to be zealous to be fervent in spirit serving the Lord and longing after him Stir up the grace of God that is in you Quench not i. e. blow up enflame the spirit of God in you Awake Christian soul out of thy Lethargy and rejoyce as the Sun to run the race that is set before thee and as a mighty man refreshed with Wine to fight thy spiritual battels against the armies of uncircumcised prophane and earthly concupiscences love and passions Eye God as your centre the enjoyment of him as the Happiness and full conformity to him as the perfection of your souls and then say Awake Arise O my Soul and hide not thy hand in thy bosome but throw thy self into the very heart and bosome of God lay hold upon eternal life Again observe how all things in the world pursue their several perfections with unwearied and impatient longings and say come my soul and do thou likewise Converse not with God so much under the notion of a Law giver but as with love itself nor with his commands as having authority in them but as having goodness and life and sweetness in them Again consider your poverty as creatures and how utterly impossible it is for you to be happy in your selves and say Arise O my soul from off this weak and tottering foundation and build thy self up in God cease pinching thy self within the straits of self-sufficiencies and come stretch thy self upon infinite Goodness and Fulness Again pore not upon your attainments do not sit brooding upon your present accomplishments but forget the things that are behind and say Awake O my soul there is yet infinitely much more in God pursue after him for it till thou have gotten as much as a created Being is capable to receive of the divine nature In a word take heed you live not by the lowest examples which thing keeps many in a dwindling state all their dayes but by the highest Read over the Spouse her temper sick of Love Davids temper waiting for God more than they that watch for the morning breaking in heart for the longing that he had to the Lord and say Arise O my Soul and live as high as the highest it is no fault to desire to be as Good as holy as happy as an Angel of God And thus O my soul open thy mouth wide and God hath promised to fill thee CHAP. VI. That Religion is a lasting and persevering principle in the soules of men proved by several Scriptures The grounds of this perseverance assigned first negatively It doth not arise from the absolute inamissability of grace in the creature nor from the strength of mans Free-will Secondly Affirmatively the grace of election cannot fail The grace of Justification is neither suspended nor violated The Covenant of grace is everlasting The Mediator of this Covenant lives for ever The promises of it immutable The righteousness brought in by the Messiab everlasting An objection answered concerning a regenerate mans willing his own apostasie An Objection answered drawn from the falls of Saints in Scripture as also from those Scriptures that seem to imply a mans falling away A discovery of counterfeit Religion and the shamefull apostasie of false professors An encouragement to all holy diligence from the consideration of this doctrine the rather that we may stop the mouths of those that falsly affirm that the same is prejudicial to true godliness I Come now to the third property of true Religion contained in these words and that is the perseverance of it And here the foundation of my following discourse shall be this proposition True Religion is a lasting and persevering principle in the Souls of good men It is said of the hypocritical Jews that their goodness was as the early dew that soon passeth away Hos 6. 4. But that principle of true goodness which God planteth in the souls of his people is compared to a well of water evermore sending forth fresh streams and incessantly springing up towards God himself our Saviour compares hypocritical professors to seed sown upon stony ground that springs up
Covenent-holiness and ouâ—wâ—rd communion God doth many times disinherit and reject them that were so his people but as to true godliness participation of the divine image internal and spiritual communion we may confidently say with the Apostle to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 1. 9. God is faithfull by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord or with the â—ame Apostle to the Thessalonians I Thes 5. 24. faithfull is he that calleth you who also will do it Do what why that which he was speaking of and praying for in ver 23. v z preserve spirit and soul and body blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ I conclude then that Grace in the Creaâ—ure is a particâ—pation of him who is essential and perfect grace and goodness a communication made by him of his holy nature which becomes a living principle in the souls of men a â—ountain sending forth a continued 〈◊〉 of holy dispositions and affections without intercision or cessation Though these streams run sometimes higher sometimes lâ—wer sometimes swiâ—â—er sometimes slower yet they are never wholly dryed up as the brooks of Tema were For where God hath once opened a fountain in the soul he feeds it 〈◊〉 supplyes from himself as a 〈◊〉 itself would dry up if it 〈◊〉 not nourished by the supplyes oâ— subterraneous waters The perseverance of grace depends purely upon the supports and supplyes of uncreaâ—â—d essential life and goodness But how do we know that God will certainly afford these supplies We build upon his goodness and love in Christ towards his elect which is infinite and unspeakable and upon his faithfulness in accomplishing his promise viz. that be will never leave nor sorsake them Heb. 13. 5. that he will keep them by his power unto salvation 1 Pâ—â— 1. 5. They that are of the number of Gods holy and chosen ones shall no doubt continue of that number according to that in 1 Joâ— 2. 19. they that are truly in Christ shall abide in him 1 Joh. 2. 27. the seed of God remaineth in the godly and they cannot sin because they are born of God 1 Joh. 3. 9. he that is begotten of God keepeth himself and that wicked one toucheth him not 1 Joh. 5. 18. What can be more express and ample than that consolatory promise of our Lord made to his poor frail sheep Joh. 10. 28. I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish neither shall any one pluck them out of my hand But some one may say perhaps what if man will apostatize what if the saints themselves will forsake God will he not then say of them as the Apostle of the unbelieving husband If they will depart let them depart Will not God forsake them that forsake him Answ Yes God will forsake them that forsake him But they never shall forsake him They being rightly renewed after the image of God and perfectly overpowered by his grace shall never will any such departure I will betroth thee unto me for ever Hos 2. 19. It is certain saith Dr. Arrowsmith that God will condemn all impenitent sinners but it is as certain that all justified and regenerate sinners shall repent semper fit procurante spiritu It seems unreasonable to demand what if man himself will apostatize seeing he is by the grace of God so renewed in his will and put into such a condition that he cannot will any such thing God doth not give unto his Saints saith Austin only such help without which they could not persevere if they would which was that which he gave Adam but he also worketh in them the will that because they shall not persevere except they both can and will his bountifull grace bestoweth upon them both the can and the will For their will is so enflamed by the spirit of God that they therefore can because they so will they therefore so will because God worketh in them to Will Neither is it any disparagement or injury to the freedom of mans will that it should be overpowered by divine grace and determined only to that which is good The indiâ—â—erency and flâ—ctuation of the will of man is indeed the imperfection of it and the more God reveals himself to the soul as the chiefest good the more this indifferency of the will is destroyed and the faculty is determined not by being constrained but indeed perfected Oh unhappy liberty for a soul to be indifferently affected towards its own happiness and to be free to choose its own misery The noblest freedom in the world is when a soul being delivered from its hesitancies and healed of its indifferencies is carryed like a ship with spread sales and powerfull winds in a most speedy cheerful and steady course into its own harbour into the arms and embraces of its own object The grace of God doth never so overpower the will of man as to reduce it to a condition of slavery so as that man should not have a proper dominion over his own acts but I think we do generally conclude that in the world to come in the future state the wills of all glorified Saints shall be so advanced and perfected in their freedome as not in the least to verge towards any thing that is evil but shall in the most gladsome and steady manner be eternally carryed towards their full and glorious object which the glorified understanding shall then represent in a most true clear and ample manner And this we take to be the souls truest liberty in the highest elevation of it Now although it be not altogether thus with us in this present world for by reason of the weakness and muddiness of our understandings which do here represent God unto us so faintly and disadvantagiously it comes to pass that the will cannot so freely and fervently with so ardent and generous motions pursue its excellent object as it shall do hereafter yet I believe that the more God reveals himself to any soul the more the fluctuations and aequilibriousness of it are healed and a true liberty of will encreased and that he doth so far reveal himself to every truly godly soul as to establâ—sh this noble freedome in him in such a degree as will keep him from willing a final departure from him and carry him certainly how remisly and faintly soever towards the supream and soveraign good till he come to be perfectly swallowed up in it A will thus truly and divinely free thought it be not the proper efficient cause yet certainly is an inseparable concomitant of final perseverance So then the more God communicateth himself to any soul the more powerfully it willeth a nearer conjunction with him and no soul I conceive to whom God communicateth himself savingly can at any time will an utter separation from him As for the foulest falls of Scripture-saints that are any where recorded I know not what more can rationally be inferred from them but that grace in the creature admits of ebbs and
do also understand that they must accomplish it in a way of dutifull diligence and watchfull willingness and if any grow prophane and licentious and apostatize from the way of righteousness which they have known it is an evident argument to them that they are no Saints and then what will the doctrine of the perseverance of Saints avail them CHAP. VII Religion considered in the consequent of Not thirsting the phrase explained two wayes both resulting into the same general truth viz. that divine grace gives a solid satisfaction to the soul This Aphorisme confirmed by some Scriptures and largely explained in six propositions The first that there is a raging thirst in every soul of man after some ultimate and satisfactory good The second that every natural man thirsteth principally after happiness in the creature The third that no man can find that soul-filling satisfaction in any creature enjoyment which every natural man principally seeketh therein this prosecuted in two particulars The fourth that grace takes not away the souls thirst after happiness but much enflames it the reason assigned The fifth that the godly soul thirsteth no more after Rest in any worldly thing but in God alone this prosecuted in both the branches of it in the former more largely where enquiry is made how far a godly man may be said to thirst after the creature and answered in four particulars the latter briefly toucht upon The sixth that in the enjoyment of God the soul is at Rest and this in a double sense viz. so as that it is perfectly matcht with its object two things noted for the clearing of this Secondly so satisfied as to have joy and pleasure in him a double account given of that joy The chapter expires in a passionate lamentation taken up over the levity and earthliness of Christian minds John 4. 14. Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst c. HItherto we have taken a view of true Religion as it stands described in this pregnant text by its original nature and properties we are now to consider it in the certain and genuine consequent of it and that is in one word Affirmatively satisfaction or if you will negatively not thirsting for so it is in our Saviours phrase whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst Whilest I address my self to the explication of this phrase I suppose I need not be so exact and curious as to tell you in order with a certain kind of Scholastical gravity first what is nor and then what is meant by it For I presume no body will dream of a corporeal or gross kind of thirsting to be meant here Grace doth no more quench the thirst of the body than elementary water can relieve the panting of the soul Nay he himself was subject to this gross kind of thirst who gave to others the water whereof if they drank they should never thirst more If it be understood of a spiritual thirst yet I suppose I need not to tell you neither that then it must not be understood absolutely For it cannot possibly be that the thirst of a Soul should be perfectly allayed till all its faculties be filled up to the brim of their respective capacities which will never be untill it be swallowed up in the infinite and unbounded Ocean of the supream good But I conceive we may fairly come to the meaning of this phrase never thirst either by adding or distinguishing First Then let us supply the sentence thus whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst after any other water There is no worldly liquor can be so accommodated or attempered to the Palate as to give it an universal satisfaction so as that a man should be perfectly mortified to all variety But this Heavenly water which our Saviour treats of here is so fitted to the Palate of spirits and brings such satisfaction along with it that the soul that is made to drink of it do's supercede its chase of all other delights counts all other waters but a filthy and stinking puddle thirsts no more after any other thing neither through necessity nor for variety The more the soul drinks of this water indeed the more it thirsteth after fuller measures and larger potions of the same and do's not only suck in divine vertue and influences but even longs to be itself suckt up in the divinity as we shall see further in the procedure of this discourse But its thirst after all created good all the waters of the Cistern are hereby extinguished or at least mastered and mortified Or Secondly By distinguishing upon thirst the sense of the phrase will be clearly this whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never be at a loss more never be to seek any more never be uncertain or unsatisfied as to his main happiness or supream object be shall not rove and range up and down the world in an unfixedness and suspense any more shall not run up and down to seek satisfaction and rest any more From an internal unsatisfiedness of the body spring violent and restless motions and runnings up and down by which thirst is contracted so that by a Metonymy thirst comes to be used for unsatisfiedness which is the remote cause of it and by a metaphor the same phrase comes to be applyed to the soul I suppose I am warranted by the sacred style thus to interpret especially by the use and explication of the phrase in Jer. 2. 25. where the Prophet intimates that by thirst is to be meant a restless and discontented running up and down to seek satisfaction withhold thy foot from being unshod and thy throat from thirst which two phrases are of the same importance and signifie no more than cease from gadding after your Idols and that this is the meaning of that thirsting appears by the answer that the wilfull and desperate people make in the sequel of the verse For instead of saying no but we will thirst they cry no but after them will I goe To thirst then is in an unsatisfiedness and spiritual disquiet to range up and down seeking something wherein ultimately to acquiesce And in this sense it is most true what our Lord here pronounceth that whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst Of which thirst that famous Proclamation of our Saviours is to be understood Joh. 7. 37. If any man thirst let him come unto me and drink in which place also we must necessrily understand what is here exprest that then he shall never thirst more It matters not much by which of these two wayes we explain the phrase here of not thirsting for according to either of them it will result into this theological maxime viz. that Divine grace or true Christian Religion gives a real and solid satisfaction to the soul that is principled with it This will appear plain though we apply
withered the choicest flowers in natures Garden that they have now no more form nor comeliness beauty or fragrancy as to deserve to be desired she hath tasted the pure and perfect sweetness of the fountain which hath so imbittered all cistern-waters that she finds no more thirstings in her self after them which is chat which our Saviour promiseth here shall never christ A godly soul cannot posfibly be put off with any thing short of God give him his God or he dies Give him never so much fair usage in the world never so much of earthly accommodations they are not accommodated to his wants and thirsts if they have not that God in them out of whom all worldly pleasures are even irksome and unpleasant and all fleshly case is tedious and painsul Creature-employments are but a weatisome Crudgery to a soul that is acquainted with the work of Angels and creature-enjoyments in themselves considered are very insignificant if not burdensome to a mind that is feelingly possest of the chiefest good But here it will be seasonable to take into consideration a grand enquiry viz. whether a godly man may not be said in some sense to desire the creature and how far such a person may be said to thirst after it This I shall speak to as briefly and yet as clearly as I can in these four following particulars 1. All godly souls are not equally mortified to worldly loves nor equally zealous and importunate lovers of God This is so evident de facto that I need not insist upon it Abraham seems to have been as much higher and nobler in spirit than his Brother Lot as Lot was more excellent than one of the ordinary Sons of Adam I had almost said than one of the Sodomites amongst whom he dwelled The one leaves all the pleasant and plentiful accommodations of his native Country at the very first call going out not knowing whither he went only relying upon the gracious guidance of him whom he followed he seems to reckon all soils alike for his sojourning and the whole habitable world as his own City and home as appears by his readâ—ness to break up house and quit his present habitation rather than interfere with the conveniences of his Nephew Gen. 13. 9. The other preferred a fruitful soil before a faithful society and so in some sense his body before his soul and yet as if it had not been enough to make so unadvised a choice he rests in it too yea though he was so severely reproved by the captivity that befell him there whereby he was not so much call'd as indeed carried away thence yet this will not loosen him from his earthly conveniences but he returns to Sodom and from thence he will not part till he be fired out nay and then also it is with much lingring and loathness Gen. 19. 16. It is evident I say de facto both from this and many other instances which I purposely omit that it is so that all godly souls are not equally careless of these earthly things not carried out with equal ardour and intemperance as I may call it towards the supreme and most glorious object of which I can assign no fitter reason than this because they are not all equally godly For 2. So far as grace prevails and Religion in the power of is acteth the soul in which it is planted so far earthly loves decay and wither For these two cannot stand together mutuo se pellunt the love of the world is inconsistent with the love of God 1 Joh. 1. 15. If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him So far as any soul is sanctified so far is it mortified also to all creature-enjoyments to all things that are only fuel for the animal life honour ease victory plenty liberty relations recreations all the entertainments and delights in this lower life yea and this very life it self Earthly and heavenly loves are to each other as the two ends of a pair of ballances save that they are never found equally poizing as the one rises the other falls just so much advantage as this gets that loses The more the sensual and self-central life thrives and prospers and the creature is exalted the more Religion and the divine life fainteth and flogeth in the soul And so certainly on the other hand the more divine grace prevails and the divine life flourisheth in the soul the more all earthly objects wither away and lose their beauty and the soul cooleth and languisheth as to its love and desire of them So far as a regenerate soul is unregenerate so far she will be bufling after other Lovers which regeneration will not I conceive be throughly perfected and therefore these lustings not utterly extinguished till this mortal put on immortality or as the Apostle speaks elsewhere till mortality be swallowed up of life 3. For the preventing of rash and uncharitable judging I do affirm that divine and holy souls are oft mistaken by them that behold their ordinary converse and actions in the body They are thought sometimes to take pleasure in the creature and to gratifie the flesh when indeed it is no such matter but they take pleasure in the stamp of God or the evidence of his fatherly love which they contemplate therein and do perhaps most of all serve a spiritual end and an eternal design in those very actions which others may think are calculated for the gratification of the animal life and the service of the flesh Let not the purblind world nor the self-befriending hypocrite be judge and it will appear that the truly godly soul counts nothing savoury to it self but what represents teaches exhibits something of God nothing pleasant but what hath a tendency to him Such a soul doth not feel himself in his highest raptures doth not tast himself in his noblest accomplishments doth not seek himself in his most excellent performances be nor mistaken he doth not so much thirst after long life riches friends liberties as indeed after God in them all these all signifie nothing to him if they bring him not nearer to his God and conduce to his real and spiritual happiness Yea possibly in his most suspicable actions and those that seem most alien from Religion and most designed to please the flesh he may be highly spiritual and pure So was our blessed Saviour we know even in his conversing with scandalous sinners eating and drinking with Publicans and notorious oâ—fenders however he was traduced by a proud and hypocritical generation and so I doubt not is many a good Christian according to his measure pure as Christ was pure When a painted Hypocrite who can guess aâ— the temper of others no other way but by what he finds in himself and by what he should be and do if he were under the same circumstances comes to be Judge of the actions or disposition of one who is transformed into the Image of the divine freedom and benignity
of prayer Faith can pray without words but the most elegant words the phrase of Angels is not worthy to be called prayer without faith I speak not so much of faith inditing a prayer or giving life to it as of its being vertually prayer if not something more for indeed faith is a real bringing down of that God and sucking in of those influences into the soul which prayer only looks up for Communion with God is a continual fast it is that spiritual and most excellent way of fasting whereby the soul emptying it self of it self and all self-fullness self-sufficiency self-confidence receives of the fulness of God alone and is filled therewith A soul communing rightly with God is a soul emptied of and as it were fasting from it self which is the most excellent way of fasting It is a continual thanksgiving and indeed the best way of thanksgiving in the world To render up our selves to God purely and entirely to reflect the glory of God in an holy and godlike temper is a real and living thank-offering This is that Hallelujah so much spoke of which the Angels and Saints in glory do sing perpetually what other adjunct of it there may be I will not here dispute This communion of hearts and wills is a constant and most excellent celebration of Sacraments The Soul that is really Baptized into the spirit of the Lord Jesus and feeds upon God and is one with him keeps a continual Sacrament without which the Sacramental eating and drinking is but a jejune and dry devotion In a word it is not possible for any thing that is extrinsecal to the soul to make it happy but the soul that is advanced into the noble state of communion with God is made partaker of a new nature and is truly happy Nay further I will add that this communion with God is not only better than all duties and ordinances but even better than all revelations evidences discoveries that can be made or given to the soul ab extra all that are from without a manifestation of God i. e. of a divine life in the soul is much better than such a manifestation as Moses had of his glory in the cleft of the Rock Exod. 34. Many think oh if they might but be assured of the love of God of the pardon of fin of an interest in Christ they should be happy why I will tell you if you had a voice from Heaven saying that ye were the beloved Children of God as Christ had an Angel sent from God to tell you that ye were beloved and highly favoured of God as his Mother Mary had yet were communion with God to be preferred before these For these things could not make a soul happy without real communion with God but communion with God can and doth make a soul happy without these And to this purpose I suppose I may apply that famous speech of our Saviour's by way of allusion It is more blessed to give than to receive to give up ones self ones heart will interests and affections to God than to receive any external discoveries and manifestations from him Why do we so earnestly seek after signs from without us of Gods presence with us as if there were any thing better or more desirable to the soul than Emanuel God with us or as the Apostle speaks Christ in us the hope of glory He that desires any other evidence of grace but more grace dos not only light up a candle to see the Sun by but indeed he acts like one that thinks there is something better than God himself though I do not say that all do think so who are covetous of such manifestations But this I will say and you may do well to chew upon it that holy longings after a true and spiritual communion with God do certainly spring from a divine principle in the soul whereas a thirst after assurance of Gods love and reconciliation of our persons with him may be only the fruit of self-love and interest Let me dye the death of the Righteous you know whose wish it was 7. Though communion with God do concern the whole soul and all the faculties affections and motions of it it is Gods spreading his influences and exercising his Soveraignty over all the powers of the soul and their mutual spending of themselves upon him and conforming to him yet the great Acts of the soul whereby it chiefly holds communion with God are loving and Believing Love is the joyning and knitting of the soul to God Faith is the souls labouring after more intimate conjunction with him a sucking in influences from him and participations of him into the Soul We may say that faith fetches in supplies from Heaven and Love enjoyes them faith sucks in sweetness and vertue from Christ and love feeds upon it Certainly these two eminent graces grow and live and thrive together and are inseparable companions It is somewhat difficult to distinguish them or to assign to each his proper place and work in the soul they seem mutually to act and to be mutually acted by each other perhaps the Apostle might have respect to this mystery when he speaks so doubtfully Gal. 5. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which words may be translated either Faith acting by love or faith acted by love We know indeed that in the state of perfect communion which we call glory love shall abide and flourish more abundantly and there shall be no room for faith there not as to the principal act of it but whether hath the greater part in maintaining our communion with God in this world is not easie nor indeed needfull to determine The godly soul is the most proper Temple wherein God dwelleth according to that 2 Cor. 6. 16. Ye are the Temple of the living God Faith and Love are the Jachin and Boaz the two great Pillars which keep up the Soul as a Temple take away these and it remains a soul indeed but the soul dos not remain a Temple to the Lord. In a word these two are the souls principal handmaids which she useth about this blessed guest Faith goes out and brings him in and Love entertains him by faith she finds him whom she seeks and by love she kisses him whom she finds as the spouse is described Cant. 8. 1. 8. The communion that is between God and the godly Soul is altogether different from that communion that is between creatures Here I might shew you how it exceeds and excells that in many respects but I shall not insist upon any of those particulars nor indeed upon any of those many differences that are between them save only upon this one The communion that is between creature and creature is perfect in its kind and so consequently gives mutual satisfaction I mean it terminates the expectations so that nothing remains to be enjoyed in them more than what is enjoyed The creature is shallow and soon fathomed we soon come to the bottom of it A
God why it renders up its whole self unto him Faith is a giving grace as well as a receiving it gives up the soul back to Christ as well as take Christ into the soul it sucks in strength and grace from God and reciprocally spends the same and the whole powers of the soul upon him The happiness of a godly soul doth not consist in cessation and rest the soul it self being a powerful and Active Being the happiness of it the very rest of it must also be active and vigorous Where there is communion there must needs be quick and lively returns reciprocations reflections and correspondencies the drawings of God are answered with the souls running Cant. 1. 41. The motion of Christs fingers begets a motion in the Christians soul Cant. 5. 4. My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door and my bowels were moved for him These are the divine and harmoneous responses which are made and maintained in the godly soul the Temple of the living God Oh shake of that lazy and drowsie spirit which hath so benummed many in this cold and stupid age of the world work out your Salvation with all care and diligence If your Religion be nothing but a spiritual kind of sleep youâ— Heaven will prove to be nothing but a pleasant kind of dream Communion with God speaks something divine active vigorous The life of a Christian doth not consist only in cessation from evil reformation of sin or dying thereunto Mortification is but one part of Regeneration It is the conceit and I doubt the deceit of many nominal Christians that if they can but keep up an indifferent even spirit and conversation free from gross and scandalous sins from day to day they are happy enough their utmost ambition is to be innocent and harmless This indeed is necessary and praise worthy but surely the happiness of a soul lyes higher Thus happy are all the Creatures that keep in the station and keep up the order prescribed them of God Thus happy is the Sun in the Firmament running his race continually and never departing from the office which is assigned to it But the soul of man is capable of a higher kind of happiness viz. communion with God which is when the faculties thereof being awakened refined and acted by the spirit of God do reciprocally act and spend themselves upon him longing to be perfectly swallowed up in him and to be all that which God himself is as far as the Creature is capable to drink in the perfections of the Creator and become one with his Maker This is that truly noble and divine life which is here called communion with God which the high-spirited and generous soul labours yet more and more to be growing up into and perfected in Keep your selves with David from your iniquities it is something to be freed from the guilt and power of sin but there is somewhat higher than this a more excellent attainment a more divine accomplishment go on therefore with the same David and aspire after this pure and blissful state this Heaven upon earth waiting for the more ample and glorious manifestations of God to you and in you more than they that watch for the morning as he did Psal 130. 6. This inference was only of instruction but the sweetness and needfulness of the subject almost prevails with me to turn it into an earnest exhortation but that I would not prevent my self Therefore I proceed to the next way of improving this doctrine which shall be by way of conviction or Reprehension 1. Our fellowship is It reproves them that can take up with a shall be a Heaven to come I am now speaking not to the worst of men whose very souls are swallowed up in sensual enjoyments and imprisoned in their senses For these men either think of no Heaven at all or else they place their Heaven and happiness in the enjoyment of themselves or of the creature Nor yet do I speak to those men who being perswaded of a future state do indeed wish for a Heaven to come but then it is a poor kind of low and earthly Heaven consisting in case rest safety freedom from troubles or torments which is the best happiness which most men understand the highest Heaven that any carnal mind can see or soar up to But I am speaking to a better and finer sort of souls than these that are verily possest with a sense of a pure and spiritual Heaven in the world to come yea they are so over-powered with the foresight of it as that they do earnestly expect and wish for it yea the hopes of it do sustain and strengthen their hearts under the manifold temptations and persecutions of this present world they are so verily perswaded of the truth of it and of their own title to it too that they are content to abide this long and disconsolate night of dimness and anguish and frightfulness meerly in expectation of the dawning of that day that clear and bright day of their glorious and everlasting Redemption And herein I am far from blaming them nay I must needs commend their magnanimous faith and self-denyal But in the mean time they dwell too much upon Heaven as a future state and comfort themselves only in a happiness to come not longing and labouring to find a Heaven opened within themselves a beginning of eternal bliss brought into themselves they are too well content with a certain reversion and do not eagerly enough endeavour a present possession to be actually enstated in so much of the inheritance of souls as may fall to their share even in this lower world This slothful temper and inactivity I do condemn wherever it is found yea though it be in my own soul Every thing in the world by a natural principle thirsts after its proper rest and a happiness suitable to the nature of it no creature can be content though it may be constrained to be at a distance from its centre but is still carryed out towards its own perfection And why then should a godly soul who is Gods only new creature in the world be content with a state of imperfections why should not he as eagerly coveâ— and as earnestly pursue the most intimate and close communion and conjunction with his God as they do with their respective centers Can any earthly sensual man be content with an inheritance in reversion so as to suspend his minding and following of the world till hereafter Can any ambitious spirit who places his main happiness and contentment in popular estimation and worldly greatness be content to stand gazing at preferments will he be willing to sit still and wait till this drop into his mouth No no there is a raging thirst in the soul which will not suffer it to be at rest but is still awakening and provoking all the powers of the whole man till they arise and fetch in water to quench it And therefore we read of men
life into which true Religion daily springs up and will at length infallibly conduct the Christian soul unto This work thus undertaken and in a great measure then carryed on I have since perfected and do here present to the perusal of my dear Countrey having made it publick for no private end but if it might be to serve the interest of Gods glory in the world which I do verily reckon that I shall do if by his blessing I may be instrumental to undeceive any soul mistaken in so high and concerning a matter as Religion is or any way to awaken and quicken any Religious soul not sufficiently ravisht with the unspeakable glory nor cheerfully enough springing up into the full fruition of Eternal life What a certain and undefeatable tendency true Religion hath towards the eternal happiness and salvation of mens souls will I hope evidently appear out of the body of this small Treatise But that 's not all though indeed that were enough to commend it to any rational soul that is any whit free and ingenuous and is not so perfectly debauched as to utterly from right reason For it is also the sincerest pollicy imaginable and the most unerring expedient in the world for the uniting and establishing of a divided and tottering Kingdom or Common-wealth To demonstrate which was the very design of this Preface It is well known Oh that it were but as well and effectually believed that godliness is profitable to all things and that it 1 Tom. 4. 8. hath the promises and blessings of the life that now is and of that which is to come that the right seeking of the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness hath no less than all things Mat. 6. 33. annext to it How unmeasurable is the body and bulk of that blessedness to which all the comforts of this life are to be as an Appendix to a volume But men are apt to shuffle off generals therefore I will descend to instances and shew in a few Particulars what a mighty influence Religion in the power of it would certainly have for the political happiness and flourishing state of a Nation Wherein I doubt not but to make it appear that not Religion as some slanderously report but indeed the wâ—nt of it is the immediate trouhler of every Nation and individual society yea and soul too according to that golden saying of the holy Apostle From whence come Jam. 4. 1. wars and fightings Come they not hence even of your lusts that war in your members Here let me desire one thing of the Reader and that is to bear in his mind all along where he finds the word Religion that I have principally a respect to the description given of it in the Text and that I mean thereby a divine principle implanted in the soul springing up into everlasting life And now I should briefly touch those faults both in governours towards their subjects subjects towards their governours and towards each other which do destroy the peacefull state and the sound and happy constitution of a body politick And indeed I fear it will run upon some inconvenience if not confusion to wave this method But out of a pure desire to avoid whatever may be interpretable to ill will curiosity presumption or any other bad disposition and that it may appear to any ingenuous eye that I am more desirous to bind up than to rake into sores I will expresly shew how Religion would heale the distempers of any Nation without taking any more than an implicite notice of the distempers themselves First Then it is undoubtedly true that Religion deeply radicated in the nature of Princes and governours would most effectually qualifie them for the most happy way of reigning Every body knows well enough what an excellent Eucrasie and lovely constitution the Jewish polity was in under the influences of holy David wise Solomon devout Hezekiah zealous Josiah and others of the same spirit so that I need not spend my self in that enquiry and so consequently not upon that argument Now there are many wayes by which it is easie to conceive that Religion would rectifie and well temper the spirits of Princes This principle will verily constitute the most noble heroical and royal soul in as much as it will not suffer men to find any unhallowed satisfaction in a divine authority but will be springing up into a Godlike nature as their greatest and most perfective glory It will certainly correct and limit the over-eager affectation of unweildy greatness and unbounded Dominion by teaching them that the most honourable victory in the world is self-conquest and that the propagation of the image and Kingdom of God in their own souls is infinitely preferrible to the advancement or enlargement of any temporal jurisdiction The same holy principle being the most genuine off-spring of divine Love and Benignity will also polish their rough and over-severe natures instruct them in the most sweet and obliging methods of government by assimulating them to the nature of God 1 Cor. 7. 22. 2 Cor. 3. 17. who is infinitely abhorrent from all appearance of oppression and hath most admirably provided that his servants should not be slaves by making his service perfect freedome The pure and impartial nature of God cannot endure superstitious flatterers or hypocritical professors and the Princes of the Earth that are regenerate into his Image will also estimate men according to God I mean according to his example who loves nothing but the communications of himself and according Lâ—v. 2. 11. to their participation of his Image which is only amiable and advanceable in the world What God rejected in his fire-offerings Religion will teach Princes to disgust in the devotions as they call them of their Courtiers I mean not only the leaven of superstitious pride and dogged morosity but also the honey of mercenary prostrations and fawning adulations In a word this Religious principle which makes God its pattern and end springs from him and is alwayes springing up into him would soveraignty heal the distempers of ruling by humour self-interest and arbitrariness and teach men to seek the good of the publick before self-gratifications For so God rules the world who however some men slander him I dare say hath made nothing the duty of his creature but what is really the good of it neither doth he give his people Laws on purpose that he might shew his Soveraignty in making them or his justice in punishing the breach of them much less doth he give them any such statutes as which himself would as willingly they broke as kept so he might but the penalty What I have briefly said concerning political governours the judicious Reader may view over again and apply to the Ecclesiastical For I do verily reckon that if the hearts of these men were in that right Religious temper and holy order which I have been speaking of it would plentifully contribute towards the happy and
blessfull state of any Kingdom I will speak freely let it light where it will that principle that springs up into popular applause secular greatness worldly pomp and bravery flesh-pleasing or any kind of selfexaâ—tation which is manifold is really contradistinct from that Divine principle that Religious nature that springs up into everlasting life And certainly notwithstanding all the recrâ—minations and self-justifications which are on all hands used to shuffle of the guilt these governours must lay aside their fullen pride as well as the people their proud fullenness before the Church of God be healed in its breaches purged of Antichristianism or can probably arrive at any sound constitution or perfect stature But I suppose Religion will not have its full and desirable effect upon a Nation by healing the sickly heads of it except it be like the holy oyle powred upon the sacrificer's head which ran down also upon the skirts of his Psal 133. 2. garment Therefore Secondly It is indispensably requisite for the through healing and right constituting of any political body that the subjects therein be thus Divinely principled This will not fail to dispose them rightly towards their governâ—urs and towards one another 1. Towards their Governours There are many evil and perverse dispositions in subjects towards their Rulers all which Religion is the most excellent expedient to rectifie The first and fundamental distemper here seems to be a want of due Reverence toward these vicegerents of God upon earth which easily grows up into something positive and becomes a secret wishing of evil to them This fault as light as some esteem it was 2 Sam. 6. 16. Prov. 30. 16. 1 Joh. 3. 15. severely punished in Queen Michal who despised her Lord King David in her heart and her barren womb went down to its Sister the grave under great reproach And if an ordinary hatred be so fouly interpreted by the holy Apostle Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer surely disloyal and malignant dispositions towards governours must needs have a fouler face and we may say by a parity of reason whosoever hateth his Prince is a Rebel and a Regicide Now this distemper as fundamental and epidemical as it is the spirit of true Religion will heal and I think I may say that only For I know nothing in the world that hath nay I know that nothing in the world hath that Soveraignty and dominion over the dispositions and affections of the soul as this principle throughly ingrafted in the soul doth challenge to itself This alone can frame the heart of man into that beautifull temper and complexion of love and loyalty that he will not curse the King no not in his conscience no Eccles 10. 20. not though he were well assured that there were no winged â—eâ—â—enger to tell the matter An other distemper in Subjects respective to their Governours is Impatience of bearing a yoke Which is an evil so natural to the proud and imperious spirit of man that I believe it were safe to affirm that every irreligious subject could be well content to be a Prince however there may be many who utterly despairing of such event may with the Fox in the Fable profess they care not for it From this principle of pride and impatience of subjection I suspect it is that the rigid Chiliasts do so scornfully declaim against and so loudly decry the carnal ordinances of Magistracy and Ministry not that they do verily seek the advancement of Christs Kingdom which indeed every disorderly tumultuous proud impatient soul doth ipso facto deny and destroy but of themselves To whom one might justly apply the censure which Pharaoh injuriously paâ—â—es upon the children of Israel with a little alteration Ye are proud therefore ye say let Exod. 5. 17. us go and do Sacrifice to the Lord. This distemper the power of Religion would excellently heal by mortifying ambitious inclinations and quieting the impatient turbulencies of the fretfull and envious soul by fashioning the heart to a right humble frame and cheerful submission to every ordination of God You will see in this Treatise that a right Religious soul powerfully springing up into everlasting life hath no list nor leisure to attend to such poor attainments and sorry acquests as the Lording it over other men being feelingly acquainted with a life far more excellent than the most Princely and being overpowred with a supream and Soveraign good which charms all its inordinate ragings and laying hold upon all its faculties draws them forth by a pleasing violence unto a most zealous pursuit of itself A principle of humility makes men good subjects and they that are indeed probationers for another world may very well behave themselves with a noble disdain towards all the glories and preferments of this The last distemper that I shall name in Subjects toward their Governours is Diseontents about conceited misgovernment and mal-administration which commonly spring from an evil and finister interpretation of the Rulers actions and are attended with an evil and tumultuous zeal for relaxation Now this distemper as great as it is and destructive to the well-being of a body politick true Religion would heal both root and branch Were that noble part and branch of Christian Religion universal Charity rightly seated in the soul it would not suffer the Son of the bond-woman to inherit with it it would cast out those irefull jealousies sowre suspicions harsh surmises and imbittered thoughts which lodge in unhallowed minds and display itself in a most amicable sweetness and gentleness of disposition in fair glosses upon doubtfull actions friendly censures or none at all kind extenuations of greater faults and covering of lesser For this is the proper genius of this divine principle to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or very unbelieving of evil and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or easily entertaining of good reports gladly interpreting all things to a good meaning that will possibly admit of such construction or if you will in the Apostles phrase Charity is not easily provoked thinketh no 1 Cor. 13. 5. evil And as Charity doth put up this root of discontents so will faith allay and destroy those discontents themselves which are about misgovernment and ill administration This noble principle administers ease and satisfaction to the soul if she happen to be provoked For it will not suffer her long to stand gazing upon second causes but carries her up in a seasonable contemplation to the supream cause without whom no disorder could ever befall the world and there commands her to repose her self to wit in the bosome of infinite wisdome and grace waiting for a comfortable issue He may well be vext indeed that has so much reason as to observe the many monstrous disorders which are in the world and not so much faith as to eye the inscrutable providence of a benign and all-wise God who permitteth the same with respect to the most beautifull end and blessed order imaginable
Though faith abhors the blasphâ—my of laying blame upon God yet it so fixes the soul upon him and causes her so to eye his hand and end in all mal-administrations of men that she hath no leisure to fall out with men or quarrel with instruments These Discontents I said were frequently attended with an evil and seditious zeal for relaxation discovering itself in secret treacherous conspiracies and many times in boisterous and daring attempts These are at the first sight so directly contrary to the character given of Religious men viz. the Psal 35. 20. Gal. 5. 22 23. Col. 3. 12 13 14 15 16. quiet of the Land and the genius of Religion which is wholly made up of love peace long-suffering gentleness goodness faithfulness meekness temperance mercy kindness humbleness of mind forbearance forgiveness charity thankfulness wisdom that it is easie to conceive that Religion in the power of it would certainly heal this evil disease also There are many pretenders to Religion whose complaint is still concerning oppression and persecution their cry is all for liberty and deliverance but to make it the more passable and plausible they stile it the advancement of the Kingdom of Christ This pretence is so fair but withall so deceitfull that I count it worth my time to speak a little more liberally to it And here I do from the very bottom of my soul protest that I account the advancement of the glory of God and the Kingdom of Christ to be the most desirable thing in the World and that it is highly becoming the greatest spirits upon earth to employ the very utmost zeal and diligence to assist the accomplishment thereof yea so utterly do I abhor irreligion and Atheism that as the Apostle speaks in somewhat a like case I do verily Phil. 1. 18. rejoyce that Christ is professed though it be but pretended and that truth is owned though it be not owned in truth I will further add that the oppressing and obstructing of the external progress and propagation of the Gospel is hated of Christ and to be lamented of all true Christians Yea I will further allow men a due sensibleness of their personal oppressions and injuries and a natural warrantable desire to be redeemed from them And now having thus purged my self I entreat the Christian Reader patiently and without prejudice to suffer me to speak somewhat closely to this matter Yea I do verily assure my self that I shall be accepted or at least indulged by all free and ingenuous spirits who are rightly acquainted with the genius of Christian Religion and do preferr truth before interest And first For the complaint that is mostly concerning oppression and persecution certainly Religion if it did rightly prevail in our hearts would very much heal this distemper if not by a perfect silencing of these complaints yet surely by putting them into another tune I reckon that Religion quite silences these complaints when it engages the soul so entirely in serving the end of God in afflictions and in a right improvement of them for religious purposes that she list not to spend her self in fruitless murmurings and unchristian indignations As fire seizeth upon every thing that is combustible and makes it fewel for itself and a predominant humour in the body converts into its own substance whatever is convertible and makes it nourishment to itself so doubtless this spirit of burning this divine principle if it were rightly predominant in the soul would nourish itself by all things that lye in its way though they seem never so heterogeneous and hard to be digested and rather than want meat it would with Sampson fetch it out of the very eater himself But if Religion should not utterly silence these complainings by rendring the soul thus forgetful of the body and regardless of its smart in comparison of the happy advantage that may be made of it yet methinks it should draw the main stream of these tears into an other channel and put these complaints into an other tune It is very natural to the Religious soul to make God all things unto itself to lay to heart the interest of truth and holiness more than any particular interest of its own and to bewail the disservice done to God more than any self-incommodation Must not he needs be a good subject to his Prince who can more heartily mourn that Gods Laws are not kept than that he himself is kept under that can be more grieved that men are cruel than that they kill him that can be more troubled because there are oppressions in the world than because he himself is oppressed such subjects Religion alone can make As for the Cry that is made for liberty and deliverance I confess I do not easily apprehend what is more or more naturally desirable than true liberty yea I believe there are many devout and Religious souls that from a right noble and generous principle and out of a sincere respect to the Author and End of their creation are almost intemperately studiouâ— of it do prefer it above all prefermeâ—◠〈◊〉 hing that may be properly 〈◊〉 â—â—sual and would purchase it with any thing that they can possibly part with But yet that I may a little moderate if not quite stifle this cry I must freely profess that I do apprehend too much of sensuality generally in it because this liberty is commonly abstracted from the proper end of it and desired meerly as a naturally convenient good and not under a right religious consideration Self-love is the very heart and centre of the animal life and doubtless this natural principle is as truly covetous of self-preservation and freedom from all inconveniences grievances and confinements as any Religious principle can be And therefore I may well allude to our Saviours words and say If you love and desire Mat. 5. 47. deliverance only under the notion of a natural good what do you more than others Do not even Publicans the same But were this divine principle rightly exercising its Soveraignty in the soul it would value all things and all estates and conditions only as they have a tendency to the advancement and nourishment of itself With what an ordinary not to say disdainfull eye would the Religious soul look upon the fairest self-accommodations in the world and be ready to say within itself What is a meer abstract deliverance from afflictions worth Wherein is a naked freedom from afflictions to be accounted of Will this make me a blessed man Was not profane and impudent Ham delivered from the deluge of Water as well as his brethren Were not the filthy shameless daughters of Lot delivered from the deluge of Fire as well as their Father And yet we are so far from rising up and calling these people blessed that the heart of every chast and modest Christian is ready to rise against the very mention of their names when he remembers how both the one and the other though in a different sense
this spring from a Religious principle think ye or a selfish Doth it not agree well to the animal life and natural self to be tender of its own interest and concernments to wish well to its own safety to defend it self from violence May I not allude to our Saviours words and say If ye hate them that hate you Mat. 5. 46. how can that be accounted Religious Do not even the Publicans the same I doubt we know not sufficiently what spirit we should be of The power of Religion rightly prevailing in the soul would mold us into another kind of temper it would teach us as well to love and pitty and pray for Papists Mat. 5. 44. Rev. 19. 20 21. as to hate Popery I know the Prophesie indeed that the Beast and the false Prophet shall be cast alive into the lake burning with brimstone and the remnant shall be slain with the sword of him that sate upon the horse But in as much as that sword is said to proceed out of his mouth I would Eph. 6. 17. Hos. 6. 5. gladly interpret it of the word of God which kills men unto Salvation However let the interpretation of that Text and others of the like importance be what it will I reckon it very unsafe to turn all the Prophesies and threatnings of God into Prayers lest haply we should be found to contribute to the damning of mens souls Yea when all is 2 Thes 2. 12. said concerning the reprobating decrees of God and his essential inflexible punitive justice and all those Texts that seem to speak of Gods revenging himself with delight are interpreted to the utmost harshness of meaning that the cruel wit of man can invent yet it remains a sealed and to me a sweet truth I have no pleasure in the Ezek. 18. 32. chap. 33. 11. death of him that dyeth saith the Lord God and again As I live saith the Lord God I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked Wherefore to wave all those dreadfull glosses that do rather describe the bitter and revengefull ingeny of man that makes them than interpret the pure and perfect nature of God upon whom they are made let us attend to that beautiful character that is every where given of Religion which is Exod. 32. 32. Numb 11. 29. Rom. 92 3. Luke 19. 10. Acts 10. 38. Rom. 5. 6. our highest concernment in the person of Moses of Paul and of Christ Jesus himself the Author and exemplar of it who by his incarnation life and death abundantly demonstrated the infinite Benignity and compassionate ardours of his soul towards us when we were worse than Papists as being out of a possibility of salvation without him and let that mind be in us which was in him also Though it be not directly our Saviours meaning in my Text yet I believe it is reductâ—vely that this pure and divine principle Religion springs up into everlasting life not only our own but other mens also But however Religion is described sure I am it is most unnatural to the Religious soul that is regenerated into the pure spirit of piety pitty and universal charity to be of a cruel fierce revengeful damning disposition And therefore whatever are the Ranting and Wrathful strains of some mens Devotions I beseech the Reader to endeavour with me that Charity towards mens souls may go along in conjunction with zeal and piety towards God when we present our selves before the throne of his grace And so I am confident it will if we pray sincerely to this purpose viz. That God would cause the wickedness of the wicked to come to an end that he would consume the Antichrist but Convert the Papist and make the wonderers after the beast to become followers of the Lamb I doubt there are many that think they can never be too liberal in wishing ill to the Papists nay they count it a notable argument of a good Protestant I had almost said an evidence of grace to be very raging and invective against them Alas how miserably do we bewray our selves in so doing to be nothing less than what we pretend to by doing it For are not we our selves herein Antichristian whilest we complain of their cruelties our own souls in the very act boyling over with Revengefull and scalding affections If we do indeed abhor their cruelty because it is contrary to the holy precepts of the Gospel and the true Kingdom of Christ we ought to be as jealous at the same time lest any thing like unto it should be found in our selves otherwise are we not carnal For meer nature as I have often said will abhor any thing that is contrary to it self and will not willingly suffer its delicate interest to be toucht The Apostle tells us that no man speaking by the Spirit of Christ calleth Christ accursed 1 Cor 12. 3. But I doubt it is common to curse Antichrist and yet by a spirit that is Antichristian I mean carnal selfish cruel and uncharitable For there is a spiritual Antichrist or if you will in the Apostles phrase a Spirit of Antichrist as well as a political 1 John 4. 3. Antichrist and I doubt the former prevails most in the world though it be least discerned and bann'd Men do by Antichrist as they do by the Devil defie him in words but entertain him in their hearts run away from the appearance of him and in the mean time can be well enough content to be all that in very deed which the Devil and Antichrist is All this evidently appears to be for want of the true power and spirit of Religion which I commend for so great a healer even the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of our distempers Perhaps no Papist will find in his heart to read this Epistle written by a Heretick yet possibly too some one or other may therefore I will adventure briefly to prescribe this same medicinal Divinity to them also though perhaps I might be excused upon another account all that which I have hitherto said to distempered Protestants being rightly enough mutatis mutandis applicable to them But moreover whereas they value their Church and the truth and rightness of it by its universality and prosperity the power of Religion would make men to value themselves and their adherents only by the divine impressions of piety and purity and to account such only worthy of the glorious title of Apostolical and children of God who are sincere followers of the Apostles wherein they were followers of Christ viz. in true holiness and righteousness Are they industrious and zealous for the Proselyting of the world and spreading of their interest far and near And are not all wicked men yea and the Devil himself so too The fairest and most flourishing state of a Church is nothing to God and so consequently not to a godly soul in comparison of those excellent divine beauties wherewith Religion adorneth the world But whereas the greatest
a vanity which I have observed in many pretenders to nobility and learning when men seek to demonstrate the one by their Coat of Arms and the Records of their family and the other by a gown or a title or their names standing in the Register of the university rather than by the accomplishments and behaviours of Gentlemen or Schollars A like vanity I doubt may be observed in many pretenders to religion some are searching Gods decretals to find their names written in the book of life when they should be studying to find Gods name written upon their hearts holiness to the Lord engraven upon their souls some are busie examining themselves by notes and marks without them when they should labour to find the marks and prints of God and his nature upon them some have their Religioâ— in their books and Authors which should be the Law of God unwritten in the Tables of the heart some glory in the bulk of their duties and in the multitude of their pompous performances and religious atchievments crying with Jehu come see here my zeal for the Lord whereas it were much more excellent if one could see their likeness to the Lord and the Characters of Divine beauty and holiness drawn upon their hearts and lives But we if we would judge rightly of our religious state must view our selves in God who is the Fountain of all goodness and holiness and the Rule of all perfection Value your selves by your souls and not by your bodies estates friends or any outward accomplishments as most men do But that is not enough if men rest there they may make an idoll of the fairest of Gods creatures even their own souls therefore value your souls themselves by what they have of God in them To study the blessed and glorious God in his word and to converse with him in his works is indeed an excellent and honourable employment but oh what a blessed study is it to view him in the communications of himself and the impressions of his grace upon our own souls All the thin and subtil speculations which the most raised Philosophers have of the essence and nature of God are a poor and low and beggarly employment and attainment in comparison of those blessed visions of God which a godly soul hath in it self when it finds it self partaker of a Divine Nature and liveing a Divine Life Oh labour to view God and his Divine perfections in your own souls in those copies and transcripts of them which his holy spirit draws upon the hearts of all godly men This is the most excellent discovery of God that any soul is capable of it is better and more desirable than that famous discovery that was made to Moses in the clift of the rock Exod. 34. Nay I should much either desire to see the reall impression of a God-like nature upon my own soul to see the Crucifying of my own pride and self-will the mortifying of the more sensual life and a Divine life springing up in my soul instead of it I would much rather desire to see my soul glorified in the image and beauty of God put upon it which is indeed a pledge yea and a part of Eternal glory than to have a vision from the Almighty or hear a voice witnessing from Heaven and saying Thou art my beloved Son in whom my soul is well pleased This that I am speaking of is a true foundation of Heaven it self in the soul a reall beginning of Happiness For Happiness Heaven it self is nothing else but a perfect conformity a cheerfull and eternal complyance of all the powers of the soul with the will of God so that as far as a godly soul is thus conformed to God and filled with his fulness so far is he glorified upon earth Sed heu quantum distamus ab illo 2. Let wisdom then be justified of her Children let the children of God those that are his genuine off-spring rise up and call him blessed in imiâ—ation of their Lord and Saviour that eldest son of God that first born amongst many brethren who rejoyced in spirit and said I thank thee Father Lord of Heaven and Earth that thou hast revealed these things Luk. 10. 21. or according to the style of the Apostle Peter 1 Pet. 1. 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again There is no greater contradiction in the world than a man pretending Religion and yet ascribing it to himself whereas pure Religion is purely of a Divine Original Besides Religion doth principally consist in the subduing of self-will in conformity to and complyance with the divine will in serving the interest of Gods glory in the world Then and not till then may a soul be truly called Religious when God becomes greatest of all to it and in it and the interest of God is so powerfully planted in it that no other interest no self-interest no creature-love no particular private end can grow by it no more than the Magicians could stand before Moses when he came in the power of God to work wonders So that Solomon saith of self-seeking Prov. 25. 27. For men to seek their own glory is not glory the like I may safely say upon that double ground that I have laid down self-Religion is not Religion How vainly and madly do men dream of their self religion carrying them to Heaven when Heaven it self is nothing else but the perfection of â—elf-denyal and Gods becoming all things to the Saints 1 Cor. 15. 28. Instead of advancing men towards Heaven there is nothing in the world that doth more directly make war against Heaven than that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Siracides calls it that proud and petulant spirit of self-will that rules in the children of disobedience So that when the Holy-Ghost would describe David one of the best men to the best advantage he describes him with opposition to self and self-will 1 Sam. 13. 14. a man after Gods own heart and again Acts 13. 36. he served the will of God in his generation There have been of old a great number of Philosophical men who being raised up above the speculation of their own souls which is the logical life unto a contemplation of a Deity and being purged by a lower kind of vertue and moral goodness from the pollutions that are in this world through lust did yet ultimately settle into themselves and their own self-love They were full indeed but it was not with the fulness of God as the Apostle speaks but with a self-sufficiency the leaven of self-love lying at the bottome did make them swell with pride and self-conceit Now these men though they were free from gross external enormities yet did not attain to a true knowledge of God nor any true Religion because they did set up themselves to be their own Idols and carry such an image of themselves continually before their eyes that they had no
clear and spiritual discerning of God They did as it is storied of one of the Persian Kings enshrine themselves in a Temple of their own But what speak I of Heathen Philosophers Is there not the same unclean spirit of self-adoration to be found amongst many Christians yea and Teachers of Christianity too witness that whole brood those men who whilest they hang the grace of God upon mans free-will do rob him of his glory Some of these have impudently given a short but unsavoury answer to the Apostles questâ—on in 1 Cor. 4. 7. Who maketh you to differ from an other Ego me ipsum discerno I make my self to differ These men whilest they pretend to high attainments do discover a low and most ignoble spirit To fasten and feed upon any thing in the Creature is the part of a low and degenerate spirit on the other hand it is the greatest perfection of the Creature not to be its own not to be any thing in it self or any way distinct from the blessed God the father and fountain of light and grace Holy Paul is all along in a different strain as in 1 Cor. 15. 10. I yet not I but the grace of God which was with me I told you before what a fair and honourable character the Holy Ghost hath given of holy David a man after Gods own heart now you may also find a description of these men too in Scripture not much differing from the other in phrase but very much in sense it is the same that is given of the proud Prince of Tyrus Ezek. 28. 2. They set their heart as the heart of God But we if we do indeed partake of the Divine Nature shall not dare to take any part of the Divine Glory if we conform to Gods Image we shall not set up our own This self-glorying in the predominancy of it is utterly inconsistent with true Religion as Fire is with Water For Religion is nothing else but the shinings forth of God into the Soul the reflection of a beauty and glory which God hath put upon it Give all therefore unto God for whatsoever is kept back is sacrilegiously purloined from him Glory we in the fulness of God alone and in selfpenury and nothingness The whole of Religion is of God Do we see and discern the great things of God It is by that light that God hath set up in us according to that of the Apostle 1 Cor. 2. 11. The things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God That love whereby we love him he first shed abroad in our hearts If our Souls be beautiful it is with his brightness the beauty and glory of essential Holiness according to that of the Apostle Heb. 12. Partakers of his holiness If we be really and truly full we receive it of his fulness according to that of the Apostle Ephes 3. 19. filled with all the fulness of God In a word if we be in any God-like dispositions like unto him it is by his spreading of his image in us and over us By all which it appears to be a thing not only wicked and unwarrantable but utterly impossible for a godly Soul to exalt himself against God for grace to advance it self against divine glory for grace is nothing else but a communication of divine glory and God is then glorified when the Soul in holy and gracious dispositions becomes like unto him How is it possible that grace should be a shadow to obscure divine glory when it self is nothing else as it comes from God but a Beam of glory and as it is found in the Creature may properly be called a reflection of it To conclude then Be ye perswaded that a man hath so much of God as he hath of Humility and Self denial and Self-nothingness and no more He is so far of God as he loves Him honours Him imitates Hâ—m and lives to Him and no further 3. By this discovery of the Original of Religion we come to understand the Original of Sin and Wickedness And here according to the method wherein I spoke of the Original of Religion I might shew you how the original of Sin from without is of the Devil that first usher'd it into the World and ceaseth not to tempt men to it continually as also of men who are his instruments and that it does in a sense spring from many occasions without But these things are more improperly said to be the causes of Sin The inward cause is the corrupt heart of man that unclean spirit that devillish nature which is indeed the worst and most pernicious Devil in the world to Man It is an old saying Homo homini Daemon One Man is a Devil to another which though it be in some sense true yet it is more proper to say Homo sibi Daemon Man is a Devil to himself taking the spirit and principle of Apostacy that rebellious nature for the Devil which indeed doth best deserve that name But yet if we enquire more strictly into the original and nature of this Monster we shall best know what to say of it and how to describe it by what we have heard of Religion Sin then to speak properly is nothing else but a degeneration from a holy state an apostacy from a holy God Religion is a participation of God and sin is a stragling off from him Therefore it is wont to be defined by Negatives a departure from God a forsaking of him a living in the World without him c. The Souls falling off from God does describe the general nature of Sâ—n but then as it sinks into it self or settles upon the World and fastens upon the Creature or any thing therein so it becomes specified and is called Pride Covetousness Ambition and by many other names All Souls are the Off-spring of God were originally formed into his image and likeness and when they express the purity and holiness of the Divine Nature in being perfect as God is perfect then are they called the Children of God But those impure Spirits that do lapse and slide from God may be said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to implant themselves into a other stock by their own low and earthly lives and are no more owned for the Children of God but are of their father the Devil John 10. 44. By which you may understand the low and base original of Sin Nothing can be so vile as that which to speak properly is nothing else but a perfect falling off from glory it self By this you may also by the way take notice of the miserable condition of unholy Souls We need not call for Fire and Brimstone to paint out the wretched state of sinful Souls Sin it self is Hell and Death and Misery to the Soul as being a departure from Goodness and Holiness it self I mean from God in conjunction with whom the Happiness and Blessedness and Heaven of a Soul doth consist Avoid it therefore as you would avoid being miserable
CHAP. II. True Religion described as to the nature of it by Water a Metaphor usual in the Scriptures First by reason of the cleansing vertue of it The defiling nature of Sin and the beauty of Holiness manifested Secondly by reason of the quenching vertue of it This briefly touch'd upon and the more full handling of it referred to its proper place The nature of Religion described by a Well of Water That it is a Principle in the Souls of Men proved by much Scripture An Examination of Religion by this test by which Examination are excluded all things that are meerly external external Reformations and Performances instanced in A godly man hath neither the whole of his business nor his motives lying without him In the same Examination many things internal found not to be Religion It is no sudden passion of the Mind no not though the same amount to an extasie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I Come now to speak of the Nature of True Religion which is here described by our blessed Lord by a well of Water First by Water secondly by a Well of both these but more briefly of the former 1. Pure Religion or Gospel-Grace is described by Water This is a comparison very familiar in holy Scriptures both of the Old Testament and the New By this similitude Gospel-Grace was typiâ—ied in the Ceremonial Law wherein both Persons and Things ceremonially unclean were commanded to be wash'd in Water as is abundantly to be seen in that administration Under this notion the same Grace is pray'd for by the Psalmist when he had defiled himself in the Bed of a Stranger Psal 51. 7. Wash me and I shall be whiter than Snow He had drunk Water out of a strange Cistern as his Son Solomon describâ—â— that unclean act Pro. 5. 15. and now he calls out for Water from the Fountain of Grace to undefile him He now crys out for Water from the Fountain of Grace the blessed Messiah that sprung up into the world at Bethlehem and that with more earnestness than formerly we read that he wish'd for the Water of the Well of Bethlehem which is by the gate 2 Sam. 23. In the same phrase the same grace is promised by the Ministry of the Prophets who prophesied of the grace that should come unto us Thus we read of the fair and flourishing state of the Church Isa 58. 11. Thou shalt be like a watred Garden and like a spring of Water whose Waters fail not and of the fruitful state of the Gospel-Proselytes Joel 3. 18. All the Rivers of Judah shall flow with Waters and a fountain shall come forth of the House of the Lord and shall water the Valley of Shittim Which promises that they are understood of the grace of Sanctification the Prophet Ezekiel sheweth plainly Ezek. 36 25. I will sprinkle clean Water upon you and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness and from all your Idols will I cleanse you for ordinary elementary Water cannot cleanse men from Idols The Prophet Isaiah also puts it out of doubt whose Prophecy together with the interpretation of it we find both in one verse Isa 44. 3. I will pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground I will pour my Spirit upon thy Seed and my Blessing upon thine Off-spring By the same Ceremony the Gospel-Dispensation shadows out the same Mystery in the Sacrament of Baptism and by the same phrase our Saviour offers and promises the same Grace Joh. 7. 37. If any man thirst let him come unto me and drink and his Apostles after him who in allusion to Water call this Grace the washing of Regeneration Tit. 3. 5. To which I might adde 1 Pet. 3. 21. and many other Texts if it needed Now as the grace of God is compared to Fire because of its refining nature and consuming the dross and refuse of Lust in the Soul and to other things for other reasons so is it compared to Water especially for those two properties viz. Cleansing and quenching For observe this by the way that it is a very injurious thing to the holy Ghost to press the Metaphors which he useth in Scripture further than they do naturally freely serve Neither are we to stick in the letter of the Metaphor but to attend unto the scope of it If we tenaciously adhere to the phrase wanton wits will be ready to quarrel with absurdities and so unawares run into strange blasphemies They will cry out presently How can Fire wash when they read that of the Prophet Isa 4. 4. The Lord will wash away the filth of the Daughter of Sion by the Spirit of Burning But who art thou O man that wilt teach him to speak who formed the Tongue The Spirit of God intends the vertue and property of things when he names them and that we must mainly attend to First therefore by the phrase Water is the Cleansing nature of Religion commended to us It is the undefiling of the Soul which Sin and Wickedness hath polluted Sin is oft described in Scripture by filthiness loathsomness abomination uncleanness a spot a blemish a stain a pollution which indeed is a most proper description of it The spots of Leprosie and the scurff of the fowlest scurvy are beauty spots in comparison of it Job upon the Dunghil furnished cap-a-pe with scabs and boils was not half so loathsome as goodly Absalom in whose Body there was no blemish from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head but his Soul was stained with the sanguine spots of malice and revenge and festred with the loathsome Carbuncle and Tumour of Ambition Lazarus lying at the gates full of raw and running sores was a far more lovely object in the pure Eyes of God than dame Jezabel looking out at the window adorned with spots and paints If the best of a godly man that he hath of his own even his Righteousness be as a filthy rag Isa 64. 6. Whence shall we borrow a phrase soul enough to describe the worst of a wicked man even his wickedness I need say no more of it I can say no worse of it than to tell you it is something contrary to God who is the eternal Father of Light who is Beauty and Brightness and Glory it self or to give it you in the Apostle's phrase Rom. 3. 23. a falling short of the glory of God Which hath made me many times to wonder and almost ready to cry out with the Prophet Be astonished O ye Heavens at this when I have seen poor ignorant wicked and prophane Wretches passing by a person or a family visited with some loathsome Disease in a mixture of fear and disdain stopping their Noses and hastning away when their own Souls have been more vile than the dung upon the Earth spotted with Ignorance and Atheism swollen with the risings of Pride and Self-will and contempt of God and his holy Image This might well be a matter of wonder to any
is the hand that pulls this wandring Bird into her own Ark from whence she was departed it settles the Soul upon its proper centre and quenches its burning thirst after happiness And for this reason it is called Water in Scripture as appears from Isa 58. 11. The Lord shall satisfie thy Soul in drought and of Isa 45. 3. I will pour Water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground compared with John 7. 37. Jesus stood and cried saying If any man thirst let him come unto me and drink Religion is a taste of infinite Goodness which quenches the Souls thirst after all other created and finite Good even as that taste which honest Nathaniel had of Christs Divinity took him off from the expectation of any Messiah to come and made him cry out presently Rabbi thou art the Son of God thou art the King of Israel Joh. 1. 49. And every religious Soul hath such a taste of God even in this life which though it do not perfectly fill him yet doth perfectly assure him where all fulness dwells But of this I shall have occasion to discourse more largely when I come to treat of the consequent of true Religion I proceed therefore to the second phrase whereby our Saviour describes the nature of true Religion It is a Well a Fountain in the Soul Shall be in him a Well of Water From which phrase to wave niceties I shall only observe That Religion is a Principle in the Souls of men The Water that Christ pours into the Soul is not like the Water that he pours upon our Streets that washes them and runs away but it becomes a cleansing Principle within the Soul it self every drop from God becomes a Fountain in man Not as if man had a kind of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in himself or were the first spring of his own motions towards God I find not any Will in the natural man so divinely free God hath indeed given this to his natural Son his only begotten Son to have life in himself Joh. 5. 26. but not to any of his adopted ones If you ask me concerning man in his natural capacity I am so far quickning power a principle of life in himself that I must needs assert the contrary with the Apostle That he iâ— dead in trespasses and sins Ephes 2. 1. so far from thinking that he hath in himself a Well of Water that I must call him with the Prophet Isa 44. thirsty and dry ground As for the Regenerate man I will not enter into that deep controversie concerning the co-operation of mans Will with the Spirit of God and its subordination to that in all gracious acts or what a kind of cause of them this renewed will of man may be safely called only I will affirm That Repenting and Believing are properly mans acts and yet they are performed by Gods power first Christ must give this Water ere it can be a Well of Water in the Soul Which is enough I suppose to clear me from siding with either of those parties whether those that ascribe to God that which he cannot do or those that ascribe to Free-will that which God alone can do But I fear nothing from these Controversies for that way wherein I shall discourse of this matter will nothing at all border upon them This then I affirm That Religion is a living Principle in the Souls of good men I cannot better describe the nature of Religion than to say it is a Nature for so does the Apostle speak or at least allows us to speak when he calls it a participation of a divine Nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. noâ—hing but a Nature can partake of a Nature a mans Friend may partake of his Goodness and Kindness but his Child only partakes of his Nature He that begets begets a Nature and so doth he that begets again The Sun enlightens the World outwardly but it does not give a Sun like nature to the things so enlightened and the Rain doth moysten the Earth and refresh it inwardly but it does not beget the nature of Water in the Earth But this Water that I give says our Saviour becometh a Well of Water in the Soul Religion is not any thing without a Man hanging upon him or annext to him neither is it every something that is in a man as we shall see anon but it is a Divine Principle informing and actuating the Souls of good Men a living and lively Principle a free and flowing Principle a strong and lasting Principle an inward and spiritual Principle I must not speak of all these distinctly in this place for fear of interfering in my discourse When I say Religion is a Principle a vital Form acting the Soul and all the powers of it an inward nature c. Saith not the Scripture the same here a Well or Fountain of Water And elsewhere a new man the hidden man of the heart the inward man Ephes 4. 24 1 Pet. 3. 4. As the Soul is called an inward man respective to the Body 2 Cor. 4. 16. so Religion is called an inward man respective to the Soul it self Rom. 7. 22. It is a man within man The man that is truly alive to God hath in him not only inward parts for so a dead man hath but an inward man an inward Nature and Principle Again It is called a Root Job 19. 28. or if not there yet plainly in Mark 4. 17. Where temporary Professors are said to have no root in themselves And this is by the same propriety of speech whereby a wicked principle is called A Root of bitterness Heb. 12. 15. Again it is called a Seed the Seed of God 1 Joh. 3. 9. where this Seed of God is called an a biding or remaining principle In the first Creation God made the Trees of the earth having their seed in themselves Gen. 1. 11. and in the New Creation these trees of Righteousness of Gods planting are also made with seed in themselves though not of themselves it is said to be the Seed of God indeed but remaining in the godly Soul Again it is called a Treasure in opposition to an Alms or Annuity that lasteth but for a day or an year as a Well of Water in opposition to a Dish of Water and a Treasure of the heart in opposition to all outward and earthly treasures Matth. 12. 35. It is a treasure affording continual expences not exhausted yea encreased by expences wherein it exceeds all treasures in the World By the same propriety of Speech Sin is called a treasure too but it is an evil treasure as our Saviour speaks in that same place Do you not see what â— stock of wickedness sinful men have within themselves which although they have spent upon ever since they were born yet it is not impaired nay it is much augmented thereby And shall not the second Adam bestow something as certain and permanent upon his Off-spring as the first Adam conveyed to his
their rest in them Neither is it the pursuing of any interest that will denominate them religious but the grand interest of their Souls 2. A godly Soul in his more inward and spiritual acts hath not his motive without him For a man may be somewhat more inward in his motions and yet as outward in his motives as the former Religions acts and gracious motions are not originally and primarily caused by some weights hung upon the Soul either by God or men neither by the worldly Blessings which God gives nor the heavy afflictions which he sends The Wings by which the godly Soul flies out towards God are not waxt to him as the Poets feign Icarus's to have been but they grow out of himself as the wings of an Eagle that flies swiftly towards Heaven On the other side a Soul may be press down unto humiliation under the heavy weight of Gods Judgements that has no mind to stoop no self-denying or self-debasing disposition in it Thus you may see Jehu flying upon the Wings of Ambition and Revenge born up by successes in his Government and his Predecessor Ahab bowing down mournfully under an heavy Sentence The Laws and Penalties and Encouragements and Observations of men do sometimes put a weight upon the Soul too but they beget a more sluggish uneven and unkindly motion in it You may expect that under this head I should speak something of Heaven and Hell and truly so I may very pertinently for I think they do belong to this place If you take Heaven properly for a sull and glorious union to God and fruition of him and Hell for an eternal separation and stragling from the Divinity and suppose that the love of God and the fear of living without him be well drunk into the Soul then verily these are pure and religious Principles But if we view them as things meerly without us and reserved for us and under those common carnal notions of delectableness and dreadfulness they are no higher nor better motives to us than the carnal Jews had in the Wilderness when they turned their Backs upon Egypt where they had been in bondage and set their Faces towards Canaan where they hoped to find Milk and Honey Peace Plenty and Liberty A Soul is not carried to Heaven as a Body is carried to the Grave upon mens Shoulders it is not born up by Props whether humane or divine nor carried to God in a Charior as a man is carried to see his Friend The holy fire of ardenâ— Love wherein the Soul of Elijah had been long carried up towards God was something more excellent and indeed more desirable than the Fiery Chariot by which his Body and Soul were translated together Religion is a spring of motion which God hath put into the Soul it self And aâ— all things that are external whether actions or motives are excluded in this Examination which we make of Religion So neither 2. Must we allow of every thing that is internal to be Religion And therefore 1. It is not a fit a start a sudden passion of the mind caused by the power and strength of some present Conviction in the Soul which in a hot mood will needs make out after God in all haste This may fitly be compared to the rash and rude motion of the Host of Israel who being chidden for their slothfulness over night rose up early in the morning and gat them up into the top of the Mountain saying Lo we be here and will go up unto the place which the Lord hath promised for we have sinned Numb 14. 40. And indeed it â—ares with these men oftentimes as it did with those both as to the undertaking and as to the success their motion is as sinful as their station and their success is answerable they are driven back and discomfited in their enterprize Nay though this passion might arise so high as to be called an extasie or a rapture yet it deserves not the name of Religion For Religion is as one speaks elegantly like the natural heaâ— that is radicated in the hearts of living Creatures which hath the dominion of the whole body and sends forth warm Blood and Spirits and vital nourishment into every part and Member it regulateâ— and orders the motions of it in a due and even manner But these extatical Soulâ— though they may blaze like a Comet and swell like a torrent or land-flood for a time and shoot forth fresh and high for a little season are soon extinguished emptied and dried up because they have not a Principle a stock to spend upon or as our Saviour speaks no root in themselves These mens motions and actions bear no more proportion to Religion than a Land-flood that swells high and runs swiftly but it is only during the rain or in the Scripture-phrase no more than a morning-dew that soon passes away Hos 6. 4. is like a Well or Fountain of Water 2. If Religion be a Principle a new Nature in the Soul then it is not a meeâ— Mechanismâ— â— piece of Art Art imitates Nature nothing more ordinary I doubt than for Religion it self that new Nature to go into an Art I need not tell you how all the external acts and shootings forth of Religion may be dissembled and imitated by Art and be acted over by a mimical apish Pharisâ—â— who finds nothing at all of the gentle and mighty heaâ— not the divine and noble life of it in his own Soul whereby he may fairly deceive the creduâ—ous World as I have partly hinted already But it is possible I wish it be not common for men that are somewhat more convinced enlightened and affected to imitate the very power and spirit of Religion and to deceive themselves too as if they possest some true living Principle and herein they exceed the most exquisite Painters Now this may be done by the power of a quick and raised Fancy men hearing such glorious things spoken of Heaven the City of the great King the New Jerusalem may be carried out by the power of self-Love to wish themselves there being mightily taken with a conceit of the place But how shall they come at it Why they have seen in Books and heard in discourses of certain signs of Grace and evidences of Salvation and now they set their fancies on work to find or make some such things in themselves Fancy is well acquainted with the several Affections of Love Fear Joy Grief which are in the Soul and having a great command over the animal Spirits it can send them forth to raise up these Affections even almost when it listeth and when it hath raised them it is but putting to some thoughts of God and Heaven and then these look like a handsome platform of true Religion drawn in the Soul which they presently view and fall in love with and think they do even taste of the powers of the world to come when indeed it is nothing but a self-fulness and sufficiency
to bribe Gods justice or engage mens charity to purchase favour with God or man or his own clamarous conscience but he prays because he wants and loves and believes he wants the fuller presence of that God whom he loves he loves the presence which he wants he believes that he that loves him will not suffer him to want any good thing that he prays for And therefore he do's not bind up himself severely and limit himself penuriously to a morning and evening Sacrifice and solemnity as unto certain rent-seasons wherein to pay a homage of dry devotion but his loving and longing Soul disdaining to be confin'd within Canâ—nical hours is frequently soaring in some heavenly raptures or other and sallying forth in holy ejaculations He is not content with some weak assays towards Heaven in set and formal Prayer once or twice a day but labours also to be all the day long sucking in those Divine influences and streams of grace by the mouth of faith which he beg'd in the morning by the tongue of prayer which hath made me sometimes to think it a proper speech to say the faith of Prayer as well as the prayer of faith for believing and hanging upon Divine grace doth really drink in what Prayer opens its mouth for and is in effect a powerful kind of praying in silence By believing we pray as well as in praying we do believe A truly godly man hath not his hands tyed up meerly by the force of a National Law no nor yet by the authority of the fourth commandment to keep one in seven a day of rest As he is not content with meer resting upon the Sabboth knowing that neither working nor ceasing from work doth of itself commend a Soul to God but doth press after intimacy with God in the duties of his worship so neither can he be content with one Sabboth in a week nor think himself absolved from holy and heavenly meditations any day in the week but labours to make every day a Sabboth as to the keeping of his heart up unto God in a holy frame and to find every day to be a Sabboth as to the communications of God unto his Soul Though the necessities of his body will not allow him it may be though indeed God hath granted this to some men to keep every day as a Sabboth of Rest yet the necessities of his Soul do call upon him to make every day as far as may be a Sabboth of communion with the blessed God If you speak of Fasting he keeps not Fasts meerly by vertue of a civil no nor a divine institution but from a principle of godly sorrow afflicts his â—oul for sio and daily endeavours more and more to be emptied of himself which is the most excellent Fasting in the world If you speak of Thansgiving he do's not give thanks by laws and ordinances but having in himself a law of thanksulness and an ordinance of love engraven upon and deeply radicated in his Soul delights to live unto God and to make his heart and life a living descant upon the goodness and love of God which is the most divine way of thank offering in the world it is the hallâ—lujah which the Angels sing continually In a word wherever God hath a tongue to command true godliness will find an hand to perform whatever yoke Christ Jesus shall put upon the Soul religion will enable to bear it yea and to count it easie too the mouth of Christ hath pronounâ—'d it easie Mat. 11. 30. and the spirit of Christ makes it easie Let the commandment be what it will it will not le grievous 1 Joh. 5. 3. The same spirit doth in some measure dwell in every Christian which without measure dwelt in Christ who counted it his meat and drink to do the will of his Father Joh. 4. 34. 2. And more especially the true Christian is free from any constâ—aint as to the inward acts which he performeth Holy love to God is one principal Act of the gracioâ—s soul whereby it is carryed out freely and with an ardent lust towards the object that is truly and infinitely lovely and satisfâ—ctory and to the enjoyment of iâ— I know indeed that this springs from self indigency and is commanded by the soveraignty of the supream good the object that the Soul eyes but it is properly free from any constraint Love is an affection that cannot be excorted as sear is nor sorâ—â—d by any external power nor indeed internal neither the revenues of the King of Persia or the treasuâ—es oâ— Aegypt cannot commit a rape upon â—â— Heb. 11. 26. neither indeed can the soul it self raise and lay this spirit at pleasure which made the Poet complain of himself as if he were not sole Emperour at home Non amo te Sabidi nec possum dicere quare c. Though the outward bodily Acts of Religion are ordinarily forced yet this pure chast virgin-affection cannot be ravished it seems to be a kind of a peculiar in the soul though under the jurisdiction of the understanding By this property of it it is elegantly described by the spirit of God Cant. 8. 7. if a man would give all the substance of his house for love it would utterly be contemned It cannot be bought with money or money-worth cannot be purchased with gifts or arts and if any should offer to bribe it it would give him a sharp and scornful check in the language of Peter to Simon Thy money perish with thee love is no hireling no base born mercenary affection but noble free and generous Neither is it low-spirited and slavish as Fear is therefore when it comes to full age it will not suffer this Son of the Bond woman to divide the inheritance the dominions of the Soul with it when it comes to be perfect it casteth out fear sayes the Apostle 1 Joh. 4. 18. Neither indeed is it directly under the authority of any law whether humane or Divine it is not begotten by the influence of a divine law as a law but as holy just and good as we shall see more anon quis legem dat amantibus ipse Est sibi lex amor the Law of Love or if you will in the Apostles phrase the spirit of love and of power in opposition to the spirit of fear 2 Tim. 1. 7. doth more influence the godly man in his pursuit of God than any law without him this is as a wing to the Soul whereas outward commandments are but as guides in his way or at most but as spurs in his sides The same I may say of holy delight in God which is indeed the flower of love or love grown up to its full age and stature which hath no torment in it and consequently no force upon it Like unto which are holy confidence Faith and Hope ingenuous and natural Acts of the Religious Soul whereby it hastens into the Divine embraces as the Eagle hastneth to the prey swiftly and speedily
and not by force and constraint as a fool to the correction of the stocks or a bear to the stake These are all genuine off-springs of holy religion in the Soul and they are utterly uncapable of force Violence is contrary to the nature of them for to use the Apostles words with the change of one word Hope that is forc'd is not hope Now a little further to explain this excellent property of true Religion we may a little consider the Author and the object of it The author of this noble and Free principle is God himself who hath made it a partaker of his own nature who is the Free agent himself is the fountain of his own Acts. The uncreated life and liberty hath given this priviledge to the religious Soul in some sense to have life and liberty in it self and a dominion over its own Acts. I do not know that any created Being in the world hath more of divinity in it than the Soul of man qua nihil homini dedit Deus ipse divinius as Tully speaks nor that any thing in the Soul doth more resemble the Divine essence than the noble Freedom that the soul hath in itself which freedom is never so divine and generous as when it is objected upon God himself This excellent freedom is something of God in the Soul of man and therefore may justly claim the Free spirit for its author Psal 51. 12. 2. Cor. 3. 17. or the Son of God for its original according to that in Joh. 8. 36. If the Son shall make you free then shall ye be free indeed But here it may be demanded whether the command of God do not act the godly soul and set it upon its holy motions I confess indeed that the command of God is much eyed by a godly man and is of great weight with him and do's in some sense lay a constraint upon him but yet I think not so much the authority of the Law as the reasonableness and goodness of it do's prevail principally with him The Religious Soul do's not so much eye the Law under the notion of a command as under the notion of holy just and good as the Apostle speaks and so embraces it chooses it and longs to be perfectly conformable to it I do nor think it so proper to say that a good man loves God and all righteousness and holiness and religious duties by vertue of a command to do so as by vertue of a new nature that God hath put into him which doth instruct and prompt him so to do A religious Soul being reconciled to the nature of God do's embrace all his Laws by vertue of the equitableness and perfection that he sees in them not because they are commanded but because they are in themselves to be desired as David speaks Psal 19. 10. In which Psalm the holy man gives us a full account why he did so love and esteem the laws and commandments of God viz. because they are perfect right pure clean true sweet and lovely as you will find v. 7 8 9 10. To love the Lord our God with all our heart and strength and mind is not only a duty by vertue of that first and great commandment that doth require it but indeed the highest priviledge honour and happiness of the Soul To this purpose may that profession of the Psalmists be applyed Psal 119. 173. I have chosen thy precepts and ver 30. I have chosen the way of truth Choosing is an act of judgement and understanding and respects the quality of the thing more than the authority of the command David did not stumble into the way of truth accidentally by vertue of his education or acquaintance or the like circumstance nor was he whipt or driven into it by the meer severity of a law without him but he chose the way of truth as that which was indeed most eligible pleasant and desireable What our blessed Saviour sayes concerning himself is also true of every true Christian in his measure he makes it his meat and drink to do the will of God Now we know that men do not eat and drink because Physitians prescribe it as a means to preserve life but the sensual appetite is carryed out towards food because it is good sweet suitable so is the spiritual appetite carryed out towards spiritual food not so much by the force of an external precept as by the attractive power of that higher good which it finds suitable and sufficient for it As for the object of this Free and generous spirit of Religion it is no other than God himself principally and ultimately and other things only as they are subservient to the enjoyment of him God as the supream good able to fill and perfectly satisfie all the wants and indigencies of the soul and so to make it wholly and eternally happy is the proper object of the Souls most free and chearful motions The Soul eyes God as the perfect and absolute good and God in Christ as a feasable and attainable good and so finds every way enough in this object to encourage it to pursue after him and throw it self upon him Religion fixes upon God as upon its own centre as upon its proper and adequate object it views God as the Infinite and absolute good and so is drawn to him without any external force The Godly Soul is overpowred indeed but it is only with the infinite goodness of God which exercises its Soveraignty over all the faculties of the Soul which over-powring is so far from straitning or pinching it that it makes it truly free and generous in its motions Religion wings the Soul and makes it take a flight freely and swiftly towards God and eternal life it is of God and by a sympathy that it hath with him it carryes the Soul out after him and into conjunction with him In a word the godly Soul being loosned from self-love emptyed of self-fulness beaten out of all self-satisfaction and delivered from all self-confining lusts wills interests and ends and being mightily overcome with a sense of a higher and more excellent good goes after that freely centres upon it firmly grasps after it continually and had rather be that than what itself is as seeing that the nature of that supream good is infiâ—itely more excellent and desirable than its own Thus have I briefly explain'd and confirmed the Freeness of this principle in the truly godly Soul I would now make some little improvement of it but that it seems needful I should here interweave a cautionary concession or two First It must be granted that somethings without the Soul may be motives in our common sense and encouragements to the Soul to quicken and â—asten and strengthen it in its religious acts Though grace be an internal principle and most free from any constraint yet it may be excited or stirred up as the Apostle speaks 2 Tâ—m 1. 6. by such means as God hath appointed hereunto as prayer
meditation reading administration of our callings as the Apostle intimates in the body of that forequoted Epistle But perhaps there will a question arise concerning some other things which may seem to lay a constraint upon the spirits of men I deny not but that the seemingly religious motions of many men are meerly violent and their devotion is purely forc'd as we shall see by and by but I affirm and I think have confirmed it that true and sincere Religion is perfectly free and unconstrain'd This being premised now if you ask me what I think of afflictions I confess God doth ordinarily use them as means to make good men better and it may be sometimes to make bad men good these may be as weights to hasten and speed the Souls motions towards God but they do not principally beget such motions If you ask me of temporal prosperity commonly called mercies and blessings of promises and Rewards propounded I confess they may be as oyle to the wheels and ought to quicken and encourage to the study of true and powerful godliness but they are not the spring of the souls motions they ought to be unto us as dew upon the grass to refresh and fructifie the Soul but it is the root which properly gives life and growth Secondly It may be granted that there is a kind of constraint and necessity lying upon the godly Soul in its holy and most excellent motions according to that of the Apostle 2 Cor. 5. 14. The love of Christ constraineth us and again 1 Cor. 9. 16. Necessity is laid upon me to preach the Gospel But yet it holds good that grace is a most free principle in the Soul and that where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty For the constraint that the Apostle speaks of is not opposed to freedom of Soul but to not acting Now although the Soul so principled and spirited cannot but act yet it acts freely Those things that are according to nature though they be done necessarily yet are they done with the greatest freedom imaginable The water flows and the fire burns necessarily yet freely Religion is a new nature in the soul and the religious Soul being toucht effectually wiâ—h the sense and imprest with the influences of divine goodness fulness and perfection is carryed indeed necessarily towards God as its proper centre and yet its motions are pure free generous and with the greatest delight and pleasure conceivable The necessity that lay upon Paul to preach the Gospel is not to be understood of any external violence that was done to him much less of â—odily necessity by reason of which many men serve their own bellyes in that great function more than the Lord Jesus for though he preacht the Gospel necessarily yet did he preach freely and willingly as he oft professeth The godly Soul cannot but love God as his chiefest good yet he delights in this necessity under which he lyeth and is exceeding glad that he finds his heart framed and enlarged to love him I say enlarged because God is such an object as do's not contract and pinch and straiten the soul as all created object do but ennoble ampliate and enlarge it The sinful soul the more it lets out and lays out and spends itself upon the creature the more it is straitned and contracted and the native freedom of it is enslaved debased and destroyed but grace do's establish and ennoble the freedom of the Soul and restore it to iâ—s primitive perfection so that a godly soul is never more large more at rest more at I berty thâ—â— when it finds itself delivered from all self confining creature-loves and lusts and under the most powerful influences and constraint of infinite love and goodness By this that hath been said of the free and generous spirit of true Religion we may learn what to think of the forc'd devotion of many prest Souldiers of Christ in his Church militant that there is a vast difference and distance between the prest and the imprest Christian Though indeed the freedom of the will cannot be destroyed yet in opposition to a principle many mens devotion may be said to be wrung out of them and their obedience may be said to be constraiâ—ed I shall explain it briefly in two or three particulars 1. Men force themselves many times to some things in Religion that are besides yea and against their nature and genius I need not instance in an overly conformity to the letter of the law and some external duties which they force themselves to perform as to hear pray give almes or the like in all which the violent and unnatural obedience of a pharisee may be more popular and specious than the true and genuine obedience of a free-born disciple of Jesus Christ If going on hunting and catching of Venison might denominate a good and dutiful Son Esau may indeed be as acceptable to his father as Jacob but God is not such a father as Isaac whose affections were bribed with fat morsels he feeds not upon the pains of his children nor drink the sweat of their browâ— I doubt not but that an unprincipled Christian that hath the heart of a slave may also force himself to imitate the more spiritual part of Religion and as it were to act over the very temper and disposition of a son of God Therefore we read of a semblance of joy and zeal which was found in some whom yet our Saviour reckons no better than stony ground Mark 4. 16. and of great exâ—asies in some whom yet the Apostle supposes may come to nothing Heb. 6. 5. and what appearance of the most excellent and divine graces of patience and contempt of the world many of the sowrer sort of Monastical Papists and our mâ—ngrel breed of Papists the Quakers do make at this day all men know nay some of these last sort do seem to themselves I believe to act over the temper and experiences of the chiefest Apostles rejoycing with Peter and the rest that they are counted worthy to suffer shame Act. 5. 41. and keeping a catalogue of their stripes with Paul 2 Cor. 11. 24. and in these things I am confident to use the Apostles words that they think themselves not a whit behind the very chiefest Apostles nay they are not ashamed to lay claim to that grace of graces self-denyal which they have forced themselves to act over so artificially that even a wise man might almost be deceived into a favourable opinion of them but that we know that whilest they profess it they destroy it for it is contrary to the nature of self-denyal to magnifie and boast itself And indeed it is very evident to a wise observer that these men by a pretence of voluntary humility and counterfeit self-denyal do in truth endeavour most of all to establish their own righteousness and erect an idol of self-supremacy in themselves and do really fall in love with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or self-sufficiency
instead of the infinite fulness of God Now there seem to be three things in a formal hypocrite that do especially force a kind of devotion and shew of religion from him viz. Conscience of guilt self-love and False apprehensions of God First There is in all men a natural conscience of guilt arising from that imperfect and glimmering light that they have of God and of their duty towards him which though it be in some men more quick and stinging in others more remiss and languid yet I think is not utterly choaked and extinguished no not in the worst and most disâ—olâ—â—e men but that it doth sometimes beget a bitter sadness in the midst of their sweetest merriments and doth disturb their most supine and secure rest by fastning its stings in their very souls at some time or other and filling them with agonies and anguish and haunting them with dreadful apparitions which they cannot be perfectly rid of no more than they can run away from themselves This foundation of hell is laid in the bowels of sin itself as a preface to eternal horrour Now although some more profligate and desperate wretches do â—uriously bluster through these briars yet others are so cought in them that they cannot escape these pangs and throws except they make a composition and enter into terms to live more honestly or at least less scandalously In which undertaking they are carryed on in the next place by the power of self-love or a natural desire of self-preservation For the worst of men hath so much Reason left him that he could wish that himself were happy though he have not so much light as to discover nor so much true freedom of will as to choose the right way of happiness Conscience having discovered the certain reward and wages of sin self-love will easily prompt men to do something or other to escape it But now what shall they do why Religion is the only expedient that can be found out and therefore they begin to think how they may become friends with God they will up and be doing But how come they to run into so great mistake about religion why their false and gross apprehensions of God do drive them from him in the way of superstition and â—ypocrisie instead of leading them in the way of sincere love and self-resignation to him Self being the great Diana of every natural man and the only standard by which he measures all things he knows not how to judge of God himself but by this and so he comes to fancy God in a dreadful manner as an austere passionate surly revengeful Majesty and so something must be done to appease him but yet he fancies this angry Deity to be of an impotent mercenaâ—y temper like himself and not hard to be appeaâ—ed neither and so imagines that some cheap services specious oblations external courtesies will engage him and make him a friend a sheep or a goat or a bullock under the old Testament a prayer or a Sacrament or an Almes under the new For it is reconciliation to an angry God that he aims at not union with a good God he seeks to be reconciled to God not united to him though indeed these two can never be divided Thus we see how a man void of the life and spirit of Religion yet forces himself to do God a kind of worship and pay him a kind of homage 2. Sometimes men may be said in a sense to be forced by other men to put on a vizard of holiness a dress of Religion And this constraint men may lay upon men by their tongues hands and eyes By their tongues in the business of education often and ardent exhortation and inculcation of things divine and heavenly and thus an unjust like the unjust Judge in the Gospel though he fear not God sincerely yet may be overcome by the importunity of his father friend minister tutor to do some righteous acts This seems to have been the case of Joash King of Judah the spring head of whose religion was no higher than the instructions of his tutor and guardian Jehojada the high-priest 2 King 12. 2. By their hands that is either by the enacting and executing of penal laws upon them or by the holy example which they continually â—et before them exempla trahunt By their eyes that is by continual observing and watching their behaviour when many eyes are upon men they must do something to satisfie expectations of others and purchase a reputation to themselves It may be said that sometimes God doth lay an external force upon men as particularly by his severe judgements or threatnings of judgements awakening them humbling them and constrâ—ining them to some kind of worship and religion Such a forc'd devotion as this was the humillation of Ahaâ— 1 King 21. and the supplication of Saul 1 Sam. 13. 11 12. For God himself acting upon men only from without them is far from producing a living principle of free and noble Religion in the Soul Now the better to discern this forc'd and violent Religion I will briefly describe it by three or four of its properties with which I will shut up this point 1. This forc'd Religion is for the most part dry and spiritless I know indeed thaâ— Fancy may be screw'd up to a high pitch of joy and frolickness so as to raise the mind into a kind of a rapture as I have formerly hinted in my discâ—orse upon these words A meer artificial and counterâ—â—it Christian may be so strongly acted by imagination and the power of self love that he may seem to himself to be fuller of God than the sober and constant soul You may see how the hypocritical phatisâ—â—â— swâ—llâ—â— with â—â—â—conceit gloryed over the poor man that had been blind but now saw more than all they Joh. 9. 34. Thou wast altogether born in sin and dost thou teach us and indeed over the whole people Joh. 7. 49. This people that knoweth not the law is cursed A counterfeit Christian may rise high as a Meteor and blaze much as a Comet which is yet drawn up by meer force from the surface of the earth or water And as to the external and visible acts and duties of Religion which depend much upon the temper and constitution of the body it may easily be conceived and accounted how the mimical and mechanical Christian may rise higher in these and be more zealous watchful and cheerful than many truly religious and godly men as having greater power and quickness of fancy and a greater number of animal spirits upon which the motions and actions of the body do mainly depend The animal spirits may so nimbly serve the soul in these corporal acts that the whole transaction may be a fair imitation of the motions of the divine spirit and one would verily think there were a gracious principle in the soul itself This seems to be notably exemplified in capâ—ain Jehu whose religious actions as he would fain have them
to comment upon those pâ—â—aâ—â—s of like importance labouring seeking striving fighting running â—â—â—stâ—ing panting longing hâ—ngring thirsting watching and many others which the Holy Ghost makes usâ— of up and down the Scriptures to express the active industriouâ— vigorous dâ—â—geâ—t and powerfull nature of this divine principle which God hath put into the souls of his elect The streams of divine grace which flow forth from the throne of God and of the Lamb into the souls of men do not cleanse them and so pass away like some violent Land-Flood that washes the fields and meadows and so leaves them to contract as much filth as ever but the same become a well of water continually springing up boâ—ling and bâ—bling and working in the soul and sending out fresh rivers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as our Saviour calls them Joh. 7. 38. Out of his billy shall flow rivers of living water But more particularly to unfold the Active nature of this divine principle in the soul we shall consider it in these three particulars viz. as it is stâ—ll conforming to God Doing for him and longing after him 1. The Active and sprightly nature of true godliness or Religion planted by God in the soul appears and shews itself in a continued carâ— and study to be good to conform more and more to the nature of the blâ—ssed God the glorious patterâ—â— of all perfection The nature of God being infinitely and absolutely perfect is the only rule of perfection to the creature If we speak of Goodness our Saviour tells us that God alone is good Luke 18. 19. of wisdom the Apostle tells us that God is only wise 1 Tim. 1. 17. of power he is omnipotent Rev. 19. 6. of mercy and kindness he is love itself 1 Joh. 4 8. men are only good by way of participation from God and in a way of assimilation to him so that though good men may be imitated and followed yet it must be with a quatinus with this limitation as far forth as they are followers of God the great Apostle durst not press his example any further 1 Cor. 11. 1. Be ye followers of me even as I also am of Christ But the nature of God being infinitely and absolutely perfect is to be â—yed and imitated singly entirely universally in all things wherein the creature is capable of following him and becoming like unto him So Christians are required to look up unto the Father of lights the fountain of all perfections and to take from him the pattern of their dispositions and conversations to eye him continually and eying him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to derive an image of him not into their eye as we do by sensible objects but into their souls to polish and frame them into the most clear and lively resemblances of him that is in the language of the Scripture to be perfect as their heavenly father is perfect Maâ— 5 44. 45 48. to be holy as God is holy 1 Per. 1. 16. And thus the genuine children of God are described by the Holy Ghost Ephes 5. 1. they are followers of God This is the shortest but the surest and clearest mark that can be given of a good man a follower of God They are not owned for the children of God who are created by him nor they who have a notional knowledge of him who profess him or exhibit some externall worship and service to him in the world but they that imitate him the true children of Abraham were not those that were descended from him or boasted of him but they that did the works of Abraham Joh. 8. 39. eveâ— so are they only the off-spring of Heaven the true and dear children of â—he living God who are followers of him be ye followers of God â—â— dear Children A godly soul having its eyes opened to behold the infinite beauty purity and perfect on of that good God whose nature is the very Fountain and must needs then be the Rule of all goodness presently comes to undervalue all created excellencies both in it self and all the world besides as to any satisfaction that is to be had in them or any perfection 〈◊〉 can be acquired by them and 〈◊〉 endure to take up with any 〈◊〉 â—od or live by any lower râ—lâ— than God himself A godly man having the unclean and rebellious spirit cast out and being once reconciled to the nature of God is daily labouring to be more intimately united thereunto and to be all that which God is as far as he is capable the nature of God being infinitely more pure and perfect and more desirable than his own Religion is a particâ—pation of life from him who is life itself and so must needs be an active principle spreading it self in the soul and causing the soul to spread it self in God And therefore the Kingdom of Heaven which in many places of the Gospel I take to be nothing else but this divine principle in the soul which is both the â—â—â—est Heaven and most properly a Kingdom for thereby God doth most powerfully reign and exercise his Soveraignty and most excellently display and manifest his glory in the world is compared to seed sown in good ground which both spâ—ingeth up into a blade and bringeth forth fruit to Mustard-seed which spâ—â—â—deth iâ—s self and groweth great so that the birds of the air may lodge in the branches thereof to Leaven spreading it self thorow the whole quantity of meal and leavening the whole and all the parts of it Mâ—tth 13. By a like similitude the path of the just is compared to a shining light whose glory â—ustre encreaseth continually shining more and more unto the perfect day Prov. 4. 18. which continuall growing up of the holy soul into God is excellently described by the Apostle in an elegant metaphor 2 Cor. 3. 18. We all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory that is from one resemblance of divine glory to another The gracious soul noâ— being contented with its present aâ—tainments and having in its eye a perfect and absolute good forgets that which is behind and labours prays strives and studies to get the perfections of God more clearly copâ—ed out upon it self and it self as much as may be swalâ—owed up in the divinâ—â—y I coveâ—s earnestly these best thâ—â—gs â—o be pâ—râ—â—ctâ—d â—â— grace and holiness to have divine characters more fair and legible divine impressionâ— more deep and lively divine life more strong and powerful and the communicable Image of the blessed God spread quite over it and through it A godly soul is not content to receive of Christ's fulness but labours to be filled with the fulness with all the fulness of God he rejoyces indeed that he hath received of Christ grace for grace as a child hath limb for limb with his Father but this his joy is not fulfilled except he find himself adding daily some cubits to his Infant-stature nor
indeed then neither nor can it be until he come to the measure of the stature of his Lord and be grown up into him in all things who is the head even Christ Ephes 4. 15. He delights and glories in God beholding his spices growing in his soul but that does not satisfie him except he may see them flowing out also Cant. 4. 16. He is neither barren nor unfruitful as the Apostle Peter speaks but that is not enough he desires to be fat and fruitful also as a watered Garden as the Prophet phraseth it even as the Garden of God The spirit lusteth against the flesh and struggles with it in the same womb of the soul as Jacob with Esau until he had cast him out The seed of God warreth continually against the seed of the Serpent raging and restless like Jehu shooting and stabbing and strangling all he meets with till none at all remain of the family of that Ahab who had formerly been his Master Oh how do's the godly and devout soul long to have Christ's victory carried on in it self to have Christ going on in him conquering and to conquer till at length the very last enemy be subdued that the Prince of Peace may ride triumphantly thorow all the Coasts and Regions of his heart and life and not so much as a Dog move his tongue against him â— This holy principle which is of God in the soul is actually industrious too it doth not fold the arms together hide its hand in its bosome faintly wishing to obtain a final conquest over its enemies but advances it self with a noble stoutness ness against lusts and passions even as the Sun glorieth against the darkness of the night until it have chased it all away The godly soul puts it self under the banner of Christ fights under the conduct of the Angel of God's presence and so marches up undauntedly against the children of Anak those earthly loves lusts sensual affections which are indeed taller and stronger than all other enemies that do encounter it in this wilderness state and the gracious God is not wanting to such endeavours he remembring his promise helpeth his servants even that promise Isa 49. 31. That they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength A true Israelitish soul impregnated with this noble and heroick principle is not like those slothful Israelites that were content with what they had got of the holy Land and either could not or cared not to enlarge their border Judg. 1. But he makes war upon the remainder of the Canaanites and is never at rest till be have with Sarah cast out the bond woman and her Son too You may see an emblem of such a soul in Moses holding up his hands all the day long till Amalek was quite discomfited Exo. 17. As oft as the floods of temptation springing from the Devil the world or the flesh do offer to come in upon him he opposeth them in the strength of Christ or if you will in the Prophets phrase Isa 59. 19. The Spirit of the Lord lifteth up a standard against them so that he is not carried down by them or at least not overwhelmed with them In the beginning of my discourse upon this head I hinted to you the reason why the godly soul continually studies conformity of God even because he is the perfect and absolute good and the soul reckons that its happiness consists only in being like unto him in partaking of a divine nature But I might also here take occasion speak of three things which I will but briefly name and so past on First A godly man reckons with himself that conformity to the image and nature of God is the most proper conversing with God in the world The great and indeed only imployment of an immortal soul is to converse with its Creator for this end it was made and made so capacious as we see it Now to partake of a divine nature to be indutd with a God-like disposition is most properly to converse with God this is a real powerful practical and feeling converse with him infinitely to be preferred before all notions professions performances or speculations Secondly A godly man reckons that the image of God is the glory and ornament of the soul it is the lustre and brightness and beauty of the soul as the soul is of the body Holiness is not only the duty but the highest honour and dignity that any created nature is capable of And therefore the godly soul who hath his senses exercised to discern good and evil pursues after it as after his sull and proper perfection Thirdly A godly man reckons that conformity to the divine image participation of the divine nature is the sureft and most comfortable evidence of divine love which is a matter of so great enquity in the world By growing up daily in Christ Jesus we are infallibly assured of our implantation into him The Spirit of God descending upon the soul in the impressions of meekness kindness uprightness which is a Dove-like disposition is a better and more desirable evidence of our Sonship and God's favour towards us than if we had the Spirit descending upon our heads in a Dove-like shape as it did upon our blessed Saviour These things may pass for a kind of reasons why the religious Christian above all things labours to become God-like to be formed more and more into a resemblance of the supreme good and to drink in divine perfections into the very inmost of his soul 2. The active and industrious nature of true Godliness or Religion manifests its self in a good man's continual care and study to do good to serve the interest of the holy and blessed God in the world A good man being mastered with the sense of the infinite goodness of God and the great end of his life cannot think it worth while to spend himself for any inferiour good or bestow his time and strength for any lower end than that it and therefore as it is the main happiness of his life to enjoy God so he makes it the main business of his life to serve him to be doing for him to lay out himself for him and to display and propagate his glory in the world And as he is ravished with the apprehensions of the supreme goodness which doth infinitely deserve and may justly challenge all that he can do or expend for him so he doth indeed really partake of the active and communicative nature of that blessed Being and himself becomes active and communicative too A godly soul sluggish and unactive is as if one should say a godly soul altogether unlike to God a pure contradiction I cannot dwell upon any of those particular desigus of serving the interest of God's glory which a good man is still driving on in the world Only this in general whether be pray or preach or read or celebrate Sabbaths or administer private reproof or instruction or indeed plow or sow eat or
drink all this while he lives not to himself but serves an higher interest than that of the flesh and a higher good than himself or any created Being A true Christian actively doth not only appear in those things which call duties of Worship or religious performances but in the whole frame of the heart contriving and the conversation expressing and unfolding the glory of God A holy serious heavenly humble sober righteous and self-denying course of life do's most excellently express the divine glory by imitating the nature of God and most effectually call all men to the imitation of it according as our Saviour hath nakedly stated the case Joh. 15. 8. Hereby is my Father glorified that ye bring forth much fruit By which fruits are not to be understood only preaching praying conference which are indeed high and excellent duties but also righteousness temperance self-denial which things are pure reflections of the divine image and a real glorifying of God's Name and perfections A good Christian cannot be content to be happy alone to be still drawing down Heaven into his own soul but he endeavours also both by prayer counsel and holy example to draw up the souls of other men Heaven-ward This God witnesseth of Abraham Gen. 18. 19. I know him that he will command his children and his houshold after him and they shall keep the way of the Lord And this Moses doth excelently witness of himself in that holy â—apture of his Numb 11. 29. Would God that all the Lord's people were Prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them By such examples as these a good man desires to live yea by higher presidents than either Abraham or Moses even by the example of the Father and of the Son He admires and strives to imitate that character which is given of God himself Psal 119. 68. Thou art good and dost good and that which is given of Christ Jesus the Lord of life Act. 10. 38. Who went about doing good who also witnessed elsewhere concerning himself that he came not into the world to do his own will nor seek his own glory but the will and glory of him that sent him And again Luk. 2. 49. Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business Oh how happy would the godly soul count it self if it could but live and converse in the world at the same rate and with the same devout fervent exalted spirit as Christ Jesus did whose meat and drink it was still to be doing the will and advancing the glory of his Father But alas the poor soul finds it self ensnared by passions and selfish affections from within clogg'd with an unweildy body and distracted with secular affairs from without that it cannot rise so nimbly run so swiftly nor serve the infinite and glorious God so chearfully nor liberally as it would and therefore the poor prisoner sigbs within it self and wishes that it might escape But finding a certain time determined upon it in the body which it must be content to live out it looks up and is ready to envy the Angels of God because it cannot live as they do who are alwaies upon God's errand and almost thinks much that it self is not a Ministring Spirit serving the pure and perfect will of the supreme good without grudging or ceasing The godly soul under these powerful apprehensions of the nature of God the example of Christ and the honourable office of the holy Angels is ready to grudge the body that attendance that it calls for and those offices which it is forc't to perform to it as judging them impertinent to its main happiness and most excellent employment it is ready to envy that more chearful and willing service which it finds from the heavy and drossy body with which it is united and to cry out Oh that I were that to my God which my body my eyes hands and feet are to me For I say to one of these go and he goeth and to another do this and he doeth it In a word a good man being acquainted feelingly with the highest good eying diligently the great end of his coming into the world and his short time of being in iâ— serves the Eternal and Blessed God lives upon eternal designs and by consecrating all his actions unto God gives a kind of an immortality to them which are in themselves sâ—tting and transient He counts it a reproâ—ch to any man much more to a godly man to do any thing insignificantly much more to live iâ—percinently and he reckons all things that have not a tendency to the highest good and a subserviency to the great and last end to be impertinencies yea and absurdities in an immortal soul which should continually be springing up into everlasting life 3. The active and vigorous nature of true Religion manifests it self in those powerful and incessant longings after God with which it fills that soul in which it is planted This I superadd to the two former because the godly man though he be formed into some likeness to God yet desires to be more like him and though he be somewhat serviceable to him yet desires to be more instrumental to his will though he be good yet desires to be better and though he do good yet he desires to do better or at least more And indeed I reckon that these sincere and holy hungrings after God which I am going to speak of are one of the best signs that I know in the world of spiritual health and the best 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a true Christian For in this low and animal state we are better acquainted with lovings and languishings than with fruition or satisfaction and the best enjoyment that we have of God in this world is but scant and short indeed but a kind of a longing to enjoy him Love is certainly a high and noble affection but alas our love whilst we are here in the body is in its non-age in its weak and sickly state rather a longing than a loving much unlike to what it will be when it shall be grown up unto its perfect stature in glory But this sickly kind of languishing affection is a certain symptom of a healthful constitution or as the Apostle calls it of the spirit of a sound mind Godly souls are thirsty souls alwaies gasping after the living springs of divine grace even as the parched Desart gapeth for the dew of Heaven the early and the later rain One would wonder what kind of Magick there was in Elijahs mantle that the very casting of it upon Elisha should make him leave Oxen and Plough yea Father and Mother and all to run after a stranger Elijah himself seems to wonder at it 1 King 19. 20. What have I done to thee oh but what a mighty charâ— is there in divine love which when it is once shew abroad in the soul makes the soul to spread itself in it and to it as the heliotrope attending the motions
in the soul as a burning fire shut up in the bones which makes the soul weary with forbearing and so powerfull in longings that it cannot stay as the spirit of prophesie is described Jer. 20. it is more true of the spirit of God than of the spirit of Elihâ— the spirit within constraineth and even dresseth the soul so that it is ready to swoun and faint away for very vehemence of longing Sâ—e the amâ—rous spouse falling into one of these fainting fiâ—s Cant. 2. 5. and crying out mainly for some cordial from Heaven to keep up her sinking spirits Stay me with flaggons straw me with apples for I am sick of love Oh beautifull and blessed fight a soul working towards God gasping and longing and labouring after its proper happiness and perfection Well the sinking soul is relieved Christ Jesus reacheth forth his left hand to her head and his right hand embraceth her and now she recovers her hanging hands lift up themselves and the 〈◊〉 of her â—ading complex on 〈◊〉 restored now she sits down under his shadow with great delight and his fruit is sweet unto her taste See here the fairest sight on this side Heaven a soul resting and glorying and spreading itself in the arms of God growing up in him growing great in him growing full in his fulness and perfectly ravished with his pure love O my soul be not content to live by any lower instance did not our hearts burn within us said the two Disciples one to the other whilest he talked with us But the soul in which the sacred fire of love is powerfully kindled doth not only burn towards God whilest he is more familiarly present with it and as it were blows upon it but if he seem to withdraw from it it burns after him still my beloved had withdrawn himself and was gone I sought him I called him Cant. 5. 6. And if the fire begin to languish and seem as if it would go out the holy soul is startled presently and labours 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle speaks to revive it and blow it up again calls upon itself to awake to arise and pursue to mend its pace and to speed its heavy and sluggish motions This divine active principle in the soul maintains a continual striving a holy strugling and streâ—ching forth of the soul towards God a bold and ardent contention after the supreâ—m good 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Religien hath the strength of the Divinity in it its motions towards its object are quick and potent That elegant description which the Prophet makes of the wicked heart with some change may be brought livâ—â—ly to express this excellent temper of the godly soul it is like the working Sea which cannot â—est and although its waters do not cast up mire and dirt yet in a holy impatience they rise and swell and cast up a froth and some towards Heaven In a word that I may comprize many things in few expressions no man so ambitious as the humble none so covetous as the heavenly-minded none so voluptuous as the self-denying Religion gives a largeness and wideness to the soul which sin and self and the world had straightned and confined But his Ambition is only to be great in God his Covetousness is only to be filled with all the fulness of God and his voluptuousness is only to drink of the rivers of his pure pleasures He desires to taste the God whom he sees and to be satisfied with the God whom he tastes Oh now how are all the faculties of the soul awakened to attendance upon the Lord of life It hearkens for the sound of his feet coming the noise of his hands knocking at the door it stands upon its watch tower waiting for his appearing waiting more earnestly than they that watch for the morning and rejoyces to meet him at his coming and having met him runs into his arms kisses him holds him and will not let him goe but brings him into the house and entertains him in the guest-chamber The soul complains that itself is not large enough that there is not room enough to entertain so glorious a guest no not though it have given him all the room that it hath It entertains him with the widest arms and the sweetest smiles and if he depart and withdraw fetches him again with the deepest groans Return Return O Prince of Peace and make me an everlasting habitation of righteousness unto thy self It will not be amiss here briefly to touch upon the Reason of the godly souls so ardent pantings after God And here I might shew first negatively that it springs not from any carnal ambition of being better and higher than others not from any â—arnal hope of impunity and safety nor meerly from the bitter sense of pressing and tormenting afflictions in this life But I shall rather insist upon it affirmatively These earnest breathings 〈◊〉 God spring from the feeling apprehensions of self-indigency and insufficiency and â—â—e powerful sense of divine goodness and fulness they are begotten of the divine Bounty and self sufficiency manifesting itself to the spirits of men and conceived and brought forth by a deep sense of selfpoverty one might almost apply the Apostles words to this purpose we receive the sentence of death in our selves that we should not trust in our selves but in him I shall not discourse upon these two heads disjunctly but frame them into one notion and so you may take it thus these holy longings of the godly soul after God do arise from the sense of its distance from God To be so far distant from God who is life and love itself and the proper and full happiness of the soul is grievous to the soul that is rightly affected towards him and hence it is that the soul cannot be at rest but still longs to be more intimately joyned to him and more perfectly filled with him and the clearer the souls apprehensions are of its object and the deeper its sense is of its own unlikeness to him and distance from him the more strong and impatient are its breathings insomuch that not only fear as the Apostle speaks but even love itself sometimes seems to itself to have a kind of agony and torment in itself which made the spouse cry she was sick of love that is sick of every thing that kept her from her love sick of that distance at which she stood from her beloved Lord. The godly soul being ravisht with the infinite sweetness and goodness of God longs to be that rather than what itself iâ— and beholding how it is estranged from him by many sensual loves selfish passions corporal clogs and distractions bewails its distance and cryes out within itself Oh when shall I come and appear before God! Oh when will God come and appear gloriously to me and in me who will deliver me from this body of death Oh that mortality were swallowed up of life Davids soul did wait for God as earnestly
every body that so much as lookt towards it and by all means kept it even as his life For where is the like eager and ardent disposition to be found in a Christian towards God himself Tell me is it possible for a man that vehemently loves a Virgin to be content all his life long to Court her at a distance and not care whether ever he do actually enjoy her or no or must not such an one necessarily pursue a matrimonial and most intimate union with her let us now confess the truth and every one judge himself 2. This dull and earthly body is not so indifferently affected towards meat and drink and rest and the things that do serve its necessities and gratifie its temper Hunger will break down stone walls and thirst will give away a kingdom for a cup of water sickness will not be eased by good words nor will a drowsie brain be bribed by any entertainments of company or recreation no no the necessities of the body must and will be relieved with food and physick and sleep the restless and raging appetite will never cease calling and crying to the soul for supplies till it arise and give them Behold O my Soul consider the mighty and incessant appetites and tendencies of the body after sensual objects after its suitable good and proper perfection and be ashamed of thy more remiss and sluggish inclinations towards the highest good a God-like perfection 3. No creature in the whole world is so languid slow and indifferent in its motions towards its proper rest and centre How easie were it to call Heaven and earth to witness the free pleasant cheerfull eager addresses of every creature according to its kind towards its own centre and happiness The Sun in the Firmament rejoyces to run its race and will not stand still one moment except it be miraculously overpowred by the command of God himself the rivers seem to be in pain till by a continued flowing they have accomplisht to themselves a kind of perfection and be swallowed up in the bosome of the Ocean except they be benummed with cold or otherwise overmastered and retarded by forraign violence I need not instance in sensitives and vegetatives all which you know with a natural vigour and activity do grow up daily towards a perfect state and stature Were it not a strange and monstrous sight to see a stone setling in the ayre and not working towards its centre such a spectacle is a godly soul setling upon earth and not endeavouring a nearer and more intimate union with its God Wherefore Christians either cease to pretend that you have chosen God for your portion centre happiness or else arise and cease not â—o pursue and accomplish the closest union and the most familiar conjunction with him that your souls are capable of otherwise I call Heaven and Earth to witness against you this day and the day is comming when you will be put to shame by the whole creation Doth every even the meanest creature of God pursue its end and perfection and proper happiness with ardent and vehement longings and shall a soul the noblest of all creatures stand folding up itself in itself or choaking up its wide and divine capacity with dust and dirt shall a godly soul the noblest of all souls hang the wings suspend its motions towards the supream good or so much as once offer to faint and languish in iâ—s enterprizes for eternal life Tell it not at Athens publish it not at Rome lest the Heathen Philosophers deride and hiss us out of the world But you will ask me when a Christian may be said to be sluggish and unactive and who these lazy souls are I will premise two things and then give you a brief account of them First When I speak of a sluggish and spiritless Religion I do not speak as the hot-spirited Anabaptists or Chiliasts who being themselves acted by a strange fervour of mind miscalled zeal are wont to declaim against all men as cold and benummed in their spirits who do not call for fire from Heaven to consume all dissenters under the notion of Antichristian who are not afraid to reproach the divine holy gentle yet generous spirit of Religion calling it weak womanish cowardly low cold and I know not what These men I believe so far as I can guess at their spirit if they had lived in the dayes of our Saviour and had beheld that gentle meek humble peaceable and pacate spirit which did infinitely shine forth in him would have gone nigh to have reproved him for not carrying on his own Kingdom with sufficient vigour and activity if not have judged Christ himself to be much Antichristian I hope you see nothing in all my discoveries of the Active spirit of Religion that savours of such a fiery spirit as this is Secondly when I do so highly commend the Active spirit of true Religion and the vigorous temper of truly Religious souls I would not be understood as if I thought all such souls were alike swift or that any such soul did alwayes move with like swiftness and keep a like pace towards God I know that there are different sizes of Active souls yea and different degrees of Activity in the same soul as may be seen Cant. 5. 3. compared with the sixth verse of the same chapter and in many other places of Scripture But yet that none may flatter and deceive themselves with an opinion of their being what indeed they are not I will briefly discover the sluggishness and inactivity of Christians in a few particulars I pray take it not ill though the greatest part of Christians be found guilty for that is no other than what Christ himself hath prophesied 1. The Active spirit of Religion in the soul will not suffer men to take up their rest in a constant course of external performances and they are but slothful souls that do place their Religion in any thing without them By external performances I mean not only open and publick and solemn services but even the most private and secret performances that are in and by the body and ab extra to the soul It is not possible that a soul should be happy in any thing that is extrinsecal to itself no not in God himself if we consider him only as something without the soul The devil himself knows and sees much of God without him but having no communications of a divine nature or life being perfectly estranged from the life of God he remains perfectly miserable I doubt it is a common deceit in the world men toyle and labour in bodily acts of worship and Religion in a slavish and mercinary manner and think with those labourers in the parable that at the end they must needs receive great wages and much thanks because they have born the heat and burden of the day Alas that ever men should so grosly mistake the nature of Religion as to sink it into a few bodily
but out of each Testament of the holy Scriptures one text thereunto I think it cannot reasonably be doubted but that the Prophesie and promise made in Isa 49. 10. is to be performed unto believers in this present life for so must the foregoing verses necessarily be understood and there we have the doctrine expresly asserted They shall not hunger nor thirst c. for he that hath mercy on them shall lead them even by the springs of water shall he guide them To which those words of our Saviour are parallel Joh. 6. 35. he that believeth on me shall never thirst which doctrine of his is yet amplified and enlarged in Joh. 7. 38. he that believeth on me as the Scripture hath said out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water What greater security from thirst can be desired than that one should be led by springs of water yes one may be led by the springs of water and yet not be suffered to drink of them well therefore to put all out of fear the godly soul shall contain within himself a spring of water he shall have rivers of living waters in himself and for his fuller security these rivers shall be ever flowing too It shall suffice at present thus briefly to have establisht this conclusion And now having lapt up the meaning of the words in this short position I shall endeavour to unfold it in these six following propositions 1. There is a raging thirst in every soul of man after some ultimate and satisfactory good The God of nature hath implanted in every created nature a secret but powerful tendency towards a centre which dictates arising out of the very constitution of it it cannot disobey untill it cease so be such and utterly apostatize from the state of its Creation And the nobles any Being is the more excellent is the object assigned unto it and the more strong and potent and uncontrollable are its raptures and motions thereunto Wherefore the soul of man must needs also have its own proper centre which must be something superiour to and more excellent than itself able to fill up all its indigencies to match all its capacities to master all its cravings and give a plenary and perfect satisfaction which therefore can be no other than uncreated goodness even God himself It was not possible that God should make man of such faculties and those of that capaciousness as we see them and appoint any thing below himself to be his ultimate happiness Now although it be sadly true that the faculties of this soul are miserably maimed depraved benighted distorted yet I do not see that the soul is utterly unnatured by sin so as that any other thing should be obtruded upon it for its centre and happiness than the same infinite good that was from the beginning such or so as that its main and cardinal motions should be ultimately directed to any other than its natural and primitive object The natural understanding hath not indeed any clear or distinct sight of this blessed object but yet it retains a darker and more general apprehension of him and may be said even in all its pursuits of other things to be still groping in the dark after him neither is it without some secret and latent sense of God that the will of man chooseth or embraceth any thing for good The Apostle sticks not to affirm that the idolatrous Athenians themselves did worship God Act. 17. 23. though at that time indeed they knew not what they worshiped their worship was secretly and implicitly directed unto God and did ultimately resolve itself into him though they were not aware of it whom ye ignorantly worship Him declare I unto you now that he declared God unto them appears abundantly by the following verses what he sayes in point of worship the same methinks I may say in point of love trust delight dependance and apply it to all sorts of Idolaters as well as image-worshipers and affirm that the covetous idolater even when he most fondly huggs his bags and most firmly confideth in his riches doth ignorantly love and trust in God the proud idolater in the highest acts of self-seeking and self-pleasing doth ignorantly admire and adore God the ambitious idolater even in the hottest chase of secular glory and popular applause doth ignorantly pursue and advance God For that Rest Contentment peace happiness satisfaction which these mistaken souls do aim at what is it other than God though they attribute it to something else which cannot afford it and so commit a real blasphemy For they that do in their hearts and course of their lives ascribe a Filling and saisfying vertue to riches pleasures or honours do as truly though not so loudly blaspheme as they who cryed out concerning the Calf of Gold Exod. 32. 4. These be thy Gods O Israel c. And in this sense that I have been speaking one may safely affirm that the most profest Atheist in the world doth secretly pursue the God whom he openly denies whilest his will is catching at that which his judgement renounceth and he allows that piety in his lusts which he will not own in Heaven The Hypocrite professes to know God but in works denies him on the other hand the Atheist though in words he deny God yet in his works he professeth him so natural and necessary it is for all men to acknowledge a Deity though some are so brutish and besotted as to confine him to their own bellies of whom the Apostle speaks Phil. 3. 19. Whose God is their belly I say natural for it is not only some few men of better education and more contemplative complexions that hunt after this invisible and satisfying good but indeed â—he most vulgar souls retaining still the nature of souls are perpetually catching at an ultimate happiness and satisfaction and are secretly stung and tormented with the want of it Certainly the motions of a soul are more strong and weighty than we are ordinarily aware of and I think one may safely conclude that if there were no latent sense or natural science of God the poor man could not spend the powers of his soul so intensely for the purchasing a little food and raiment for the body nor the covetous man so insatiably thirst after houses and land and a larger heap of refined earth Did they not secretly imagine I mean some Contentment Happiness or satisfaction were to be drunk in together with these acquirements they would seem to be but dry and insipid morsels to a soul which ultimate happiness and satisfaction as I said before can be no other than God himself whom these mistaken souls do ignorantly adore and feel for in the dark Neither let any one think that this ignorant and unwary pursuit of God can pass for Religion or be acceptable in the sight of God for as it is impossible that ever any man should stumble into a happy state without foresight and free choice and be in it
world is utterly too scant for and incommensurate to the wide and deep capacity of an immortal spirit so that the same can no more satisfie than a less can fill a greater which is surely impossible Whatever is in the world out of God is described by the Prophet Isa 55. 2. to be not bread there is the unsuitableness and not to satisfie there is the insufficiency of it as to the soul of man on the other hand this soul of man is so vastly capacious that though it be also never so greedy and rapacious snatehing on the right hand and catching on the left hand as the Prophet describes the famelick people Isai 9. 20. yet still it is hungry and unsatisfied Which ravenous and insatiable appetite of the sensual soul is elegantly described by the Prophet in the similitude of an whorish Woman who prostituted her self to all comers and multiplyeth her fornications yet is unsatiable is not cannot be satisfied Ezek. 16. 28 29. The soul may indeed feed yea and surfet upon but it can never satisfie itself from itself or from any created good nothing can ultimately determine and centre the motions of a soul but something superiour to its own essence which whilest it misses of it is as it were divided against itself perpetually strugling and fluctuating and travelling in pangs with some new design or other to be at rest like the old Lioness in the parable of Ezekiel breeding up one whelp after an other to be a Lion wherein to confide but disappointed in allâ— or like the poor discontented butterflye lighting and catching everywhere but sticking nowhere adoring something for a God to day which it will be ready to flâ—ng the fire to morrow after their manner of creating Gods to themselves whom the Poet brings in saying Hodie mihi Jupiter esto Cras mihi truncus eris ficulnus inutile lignum Neither the quantity variety or duration of any created objects can possibly fill up that large and noble capacity wherewith God hath endewed the rational soul but having departed from its centre and not knowing how to return to its original it wanders up and down as it were in a wilderness and having an imperfect glimmering sight of something better than what itself as yet either is or hath but not being able to attain to it is miserably tormented even as a man in a thirst which he cannot quench yea the more he runs up and down to seek water the more is his thirst encreased whilest he misses of it so this distempered and distracted soul whilest it seeks to quench its thirst at the creature-cistern do's but inflame it and in a continual pursuit of rest becomes most restless That every unregenerate soul is in such a distressed weary restless state as I have been describing appears most evidently by those famous Gospel Proclamations one in Isa 55. 1 3. Ho every one that thirsteth come ye to the waters where by the thirâ—ters are meant those unfixed unsatisfied souls as appears by the second verse the other in Mat. 11. 28. Come unto me all ye that labour c. where the promise of giving rest do's plainly imply the restless state of the persons invited There is a certain horrour and anguish in sin and wickedness even long before it be swallowed up in hell a certain vanity and vexation folded up in all earthly enjoyments though the same do not alwayes sting and pierce the soul alike so true is that famous aphorism of the Prophet Isaiah There is no peace to the wicked 4. Grace takes not away this thirst of the soul after happiness and plenary satisfaction Love and desire and a tendency towards blessedness are so woven into the nature of the soul and inlaid in the very essence of it that she cannot possibly put them off however it is the work of grace to change and rectifie them as we shall see under the next head The soul of man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a kind of immaterial fire an inextinguishable activity alwayes necessarily catching at some object or other in conjunction with which she thinks to be happy And therefore if she be rent from her self and the world and be mortified to the love of fleshly and animal lâ—sts she will certainly cleave to some higher and more excellent object as will more clearly appear by and by Grace do's not stupifie the soul as to its sense of its own indigency and poverty but indeed makes it more abundantly sensible and importunate There are more strong motions and more powerful appetites in the godly soul towards its true and proper happiness than in the ungodly and wicked For the understanding of the regenerate soul is so enlightned as that it doth present the will with an amiable and satisfactory object which object therefore being more distinctly and perfectly apprehended doth also apprehend or lay hold upon the soul and attract her unto itself Oculi sunt in amore duces is most true of the eye of the soul I mean the understanding that first affects the heart with amorous passions The first and fundamental errour and mistake of the rational soul seems to lye here even in the understanding here lyes the very root of the degenerate souls distemper and if this were thoroughly restored and healed so as to present the will with pure and proper ideas and representations of God it might be hoped that this ductile faculty would not be long before it clave unto him entirely nay it may be doubted whether it could possibly resist the dictates of it Now in the regenerate soul this faculty is repaired yea I may say that the spirit of Regeneration first of all spreads it self upon the understanding and awakens in it a sense of self-indâ—gency and of the perfect aâ—l-sufficient suitable and satisfactory â—ulness of God in whom it sees all beauties sweetness and lovelâ—nesses in an infinitely inâ—ffable manner wrapt up and contained which will be so far from allaying the essential thâ—rst of the soul and 〈◊〉 its eager 〈◊〉 that it mâ—st needs give a mighty edge and ardour to its inclinations and put it upon a more bold and earnest contention towards this glorious object and charm the whole soul into the veâ—y arms of God Therefore â—ot thirsting in the Text must not be understood absolutely as if grace did utterly extinguish the natural activities of the soul and finish its propensions But the regenerate and gracious soul doth not thirst in such sense as thirst implies a want of a suitable good or dissatisfaction or inclues torment properly so called In this notion of thirst grace doth indeed quench it as I intimated in the beginning of this discourse and will surther appear in the procedure of it But as to this most essential thirst this natural 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or vergency of the soul after a central rest and happiness the same is so far from being extinguished or moderated either by divine grace that it is bugely
improved and mightily inflamed thereby I suppose I need not stay upon so popular a Theme and so acknowledged a subject therefore I will but present you with the instances of holy David in the Old Testament and gracious Paul in the New and so quit this head I need not I suppose magnifie the holy and divine frame of David's spirit by any balbutient Rhetorick of mine God himself hath given the amplest testimony and fairest character of him that I remember to have been at any time given of any man when he owns him for a man after his own heart And what a longing thirsting soul this was I need do no more to demonstrate than to turn you to some passages and professions of his own in his devout Psalms such as Psal 42. 12. 63. 1. 143. 6. Where he borrows the strongest inclmations that are to be found in the whole Creation to represent the devout ardots of his own soul As the Hart panteth after the water brooks so panteth my soul after thee O God O God thou art my God early will I seek thee my soul thirsteth for thee my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty Land where no water is I stretch forth my hands unto thee my soul thirsteth after thee as a thirsty Land Yea he seems like one that would swoon away for very longing Hear me speedily O Lord my spirit faileth hide not thy face from me lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit I lift my soul unto thee I flee unto thee c. The very same temper you will find in boly Paul that chosen vessel of God if you peruse his Epistles in all which you will meet with devout and strong breathings of the same kind particularly Phil. 3. 11 12 13 14. Where he seems to be so thirsty after a state of heavenly perfection that he longs after if I mistake not the meaning of the 11. verse something that yet he knows he cannot arrive at whilst he is in this world even the resurrection of the dead or such a perfect state of purity and holiness as belongs to the children of the resurrection 5. The godly soul thirsteth no more after happiness in any creature nor rests in any worldly thing but in God alone This particular consists also of two branches the former and negative part whereof seems to me to contain in it the scope and meaning of out Saviour in these words which I am now interpreting We have already seen that every unsanctified soul is restless and creaving wavering unsatisfied inconstant to it self and its choice By reason of its natural activity it is alwaies spending it self in restless and giddy motions as we observed under the first head of this discourse but by reason of its ignorance and unacquaintedness with the one Supreme and All-sufficient good and the multiplicity of lower ends and objects is miserably distracted and doth necessarily grapple with inevitable disturbances in a continual unsteadiness putting forth it self now towards one thing anon to another courting every thing but matching with nothing like a fickle Lover that is alwaies enamoured with the last feature he saw or a greedy Merchant that being equally in love with the pleasure of being at home and the profit of being abroad can stay long no where with any content but has alwaies most mind of the place where he is not as he confesses of himself in the Poet Romae Tybur amo ventosus Tybure Romam The description that our Lord gives of the unclean spirit that is gone out of a man Matth. 12. 43. seems very aptly to agree to that unclean spirit that is in man that being departed from God its proper rest and habitation walketh thorough dry and desart places I mean empty and unsatisfying creature-enjoyments seeking rest but finding none It was an accidental affliction of believers but it is the natural and necessary affliction of every unbelieveing and wicked soul to wander up and down the world distitute afflicted tormented Sinful self is so multiform and that one root the animal life has such a world of branches that it is impossible to administer due nourishment to them all and yet they are all importunate and greedy suckers too so that he must needs have a difficult task and a painful Province that is constrained to attend upon so many so different and yet all of them so 〈◊〉 and imperious Masters But I shall lose ground by thus going backward to what I spoke to under the second head except I can make this advantage of it enforce that which I was going to speak of with the greater strengeh and clearer evidence The case standing thus with the unregenerate soul as we have seen in this short review I now say that divine grace allays the multifarious thirst of the soul after other waters filthy puddles of which it could never yet drink deep or if it drunk never so deep could not be quenched it determines the soul to one object which before was rent in pieces amongst many It do's not destroy any of the natural powers nor dry up the innate vâ—gour of the soul as I made evident under the last head but it takes it off from the chase of all inferiour ends and inadequate objects setting it upon a vehement pursuit of and causing it to spend all those its powers not less vlgorously but far more rationally and satisfactorily upon that objectum par amori the infinitely-amiable and self-sufficient God When the soul hath once met with this glorious object is once mastered with this supâ—reme good is by divint grace ampliated and enlarged it cannot with any ease stretch it self upon the creature any more that is too scant and insufficient for it Certainly the soul that understands its own original nature and capacity and once comes to view it self in God will see it self too large to be bounded by the narrow confines oâ— self or any creature and too free to be bound down and chained to any earthly object whatever The world indeed may yea and will labour to take off the soul What is thy Beloved more than another Beloved that thou art so fond of him Are not Abara and Pharpar Rivers of Damasens better than all the waters of Israel Be content here is hay and provender stay with me this nâ—ght let us dally and make merry together a little longer But these Syrenian songs are sung to a deaf ear they cannot inchant the wise and devout soul that hath her senses rightly awakened and exercised to discern between good and evil Oh no I am sick of love and sick of every thing that keeps me from my Beloved and therefore however you may go about to defile me through fraud or force through surprize or violence yet I will not prostitute my self unto you The gracious foul hath now discovered the most beautiful perfect and lovely object even him whose name is Love it self which glorious vision hath so blasted and
you may easily imagine what a perverse sentence he will pass It needs not seem very strange methinks in spirituals no more than it is in corporals that the most sound and healthful constitutions should upon a lawful call adventure themselves further that the crazy and sickly and familiarly converse with and handle yea and make good work with those briars and thorns which would prove a snare or a wound or a pricking temptation to others If it were possible for any man to arrive at the purity and perfection of his Saviour and his firm and immoveable radication in true goodness he would find himself so wholly dead to sin and all temptations and motions thereunto that he would be able to dare to walk upon the most boisterous waves without fear of bring swallowed up in them and to take up in his hands the most venemous Serpent not dreading the sting of it However the apprehensions and actions of more perfect and more refined souls are not rashly to be judged for they may easily be mistaken either by the unhallowed hypocrite or the more imperfect and impotent Saint 4. To answer yet more fully I do affirm that no truly religious soul in the world doth so thirst after the creature as to place his main happiness in it or to seek satisfaction from it However all holy souls may not be alike weaned from the world nor equally loving of God however the affections and actions of some may really be and of others may seem to be too gross and fleshly yet no one of all these in whom this new and divine life is indeed found doth erect a self-supremacy in his own soul nor take his full and compleat rest and happiness to consist in any creature-communion whatsoever Surely this of not thirsting is so far a consequent of true Religion as that no religious soul in the world can be content to exchange the presence of God and acquaintance with him for any thing for all things besides or if you will plainly thus no such person could be content no not for all the world the glory of Heaven not excepted if it may be supposed to be wicked and ungodly So that by thirsting here must not be meant some weak wishings and fainter propensions of the soul towards created objects for certainly there is no soul found in a body of earth in which these are not found no not yet some more lively and stronger struglings after them how strong they may be in a good Christian and yet predominated over by grace we cannot punctually determine but by thirsting here must be meant the most quick and powerful breathings the highest and strongest ardencies the predominant and victorious motions and desires of the soul which do as it were fold up the whole soul and lead all its powers and faculties with it into a grateful captivity Thus shall be thirst no more who hath once drunk of these waters which flow forth from the presence of the Lord of life and which the blessed Rodeemer of the world is here said to give But which is the latter branch of this particular this inspâ—red soul which we have been describing thirâ—â—ech after his happiness in God alone that is in the enjoyment of him We have already seen that grace do's not destroy the natural and essential longings of the soul after a satisfactory good but rather enhance them and that the godly soul is most thirsty of all but not with a creature-thirst as is before proved it remains then that his thirsting after rest and happiness is terminated upon God alone And so indeed it appears in the instances of holy men recorded in the holy Writ which I have under the last head spoke something to and so partly prevented my self But unto those passages and professions which I quoted out of Psal 42. 1 2. c. You may add such as Psal 4. 6. which is the voice of every godly soul Lord lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us Psal 39. 6 7. Surely every man walketh in a vain show surely they are disquieted in vain he heapeth up riches c. And now Lord what wait I for my hope is in thee Where you have the different seekings and centrings of the ungodly and of the godly soul elegantly described Lastly you may in Psal 73. 25. again view the term or end of the godly man's ambition Whom have I in Heaven but thee and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee Which translation of the words doth lively sets out the godly man's end and aim and object and happiness and indeed his all or if we translate perhaps more fitly with Mollerus yet they afford us the same doctrine Who will give me to be in Heaven and with thee on earth I desire nothing And thus have we dispatcht the fifth Proposition viz. that the godly soul thirsteth no more after happiness in any creature or rest in any worldly thing and come to the sixth and last particular designed for the explication of this not thirsting of the religious soul which is this In the enjoyment of God this soul is at rest is fully satisfied I do not mean so satisfied as not so thirst after any more of him as I have often hinted but so satisfied as to be perfectly maicht with an object transcendently adequate to all its faculties and their respective capacities and so satisfied as to have peace and joy and triumph in him These two I will speak something to distinctly and so pass on Now for the better understanding of the first of these it should be noted That the reasonable soul and the faculties of it are of a vast large and noble capacity It is universally granted by all that are not Sadduces that the capacity of Angels is very great and noble and that the condition of the humane soul is not much inferiour to it may I think be gathered from the Pralmist's words Psal 8. 5. Thou hast made him a little lower than the Angels Which words although the Auchor of the Epistle to the Hebrews applies to Christ Heb. 2 9. And indeed they have a marvelous aptness to him according to the Dutch Translation which runs thus We see Jesus crowned with glory and honour who was become a little lesser than the Angels by reason of the suffering of death a that he should by the grace of God c. Yet I see â—othing hindring but that they may be well applied to the excelâ—ent condition of man by creation especially considering that many other passages of the Old Testament have a double aspect one more ordinary and obvious which was most clearly understood by the Prophet that wrote them the other more obtruse and mysterious principally intended by that spirit that inspired him and only to be understood by the revelation of the same spirit Such are those passages I conceire which are found in Isa 7. 14. Hosea 11. 1. Interpreted by the Erangelist Mat. 1. 23.
highest pitch of perfection unto which the New Creature is continually growing up which the Apostle Paul hath exprest with as much grand eloquence as words are able to magnifie if calling it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ This is that unbounded Ocean which this living fountain by so many incessantissues and unwearied streamings perpetually endeavours to empty it self into or rather to embosom it self in Now what this is we must confess with the Apostle John and indeed we have more reason to make such a confession than he had that it doth not yet appear viz. neither fully nor distinctly But yet since I am thus cast upon the contemplation of it it will be a pertinent piece of pleasure a little to enquire into it and though it surpass the power and skill of all created comprehensions to take the just dimensions and faithfully give in the height and depth and length and breadth of it yet we may essay to walk about this heavenly Jerusalem as the Psalmist speaks of the earthly and tell the Towers thereof mark her Walls consider her Palaces that we may tell it to the generation following First Then we will consider Eternal Life in the most proper notion of it as it implies the essential happiness of the soul and so it is no other than the souls pure perfect and establisht state By a state I do designedly disparage that grosser notion of a place as that which scarce deserves to enter into the description of such a glory or at best will obtain but a very low room there By purity I do purposely explode that carnal ease rest immunity affluence of senfual delights accommodated only to the animal life which last the Mahumetans and the former too many profest Christians and the Jews almost generally do dream of and judge Heaven to be By perfection I do distinguish it from the best state which the best men upon earth can possibly be in So then I take Eternal Life in the primary and most proper notion of it to be full and perfect and everlasting enjoyment of God communion with him and a most blissful conformity of all the powers and faculties of the soul to that eternal goodness truth and love as far as it is or may become capable of the communications of the divinity This life was at the highest rate imaginable purchased by our ever blessed Lord and Saviour in the daies of his flesh and here in the Text promised to every believing soul Now in as much as we are ignorant both of the present capacity of our own faculties how large they are and much more ignorant how much more large and ample they may be made on purpose to receive the more rich and plentiful communications of the divine life and image therefore can we not comprehend neither the transcendent life happiness and glory nor that degree of sanctity and blessedness which the believing soul may be advanced unto in another world The Popish Schoolmen do nicely dispute about the sight of God and the love of God to wit in whether of these the formal blessedness of the soul consisteth ill separating those whom God hath so firmly joyned together as if it were possible that either a blind love or a jejune and unaffectionate speculation could render a soul entirely happy But it is much safer to say that the happiness and eternal life of the soul standeth in the possession or fruition of God and this doth necessarily import the proper perfection of every faculty Nothing can be the formal happiness of a spirit that is either iuferiour or extrinsecal to it it must be something divine and that wrought into the very nature and temper of it I doubt not to affirm that if the soul of man were possibly advanced so as to receive adoration or divine power yet if it were in the mean time void of divine dispositions and a god-like nature it were far from being glorified and made happy as to its capacity What health is to the body that is holiness to the soul which happily the Apostle alludes to when he speaks of the spirit of a sound mind 2 Tim. 1. 7. Secondly There is another notion of Eternal Life which some contend for by which they mean not barely the essential happiness of the soul but that with the addition of many suitable and glorious circumstances the essential happiness of the soul as it is attended with the appendixes of a glorified body the beholding of Christ the amicable society of Angels freedom from temptations the knowledge of the secrets of nature and providence and some such like To which may be also added though of a lower degree open absolution or a visible deliverance of the Saints out of the overthrow of the wicked at the conflagration of the world power over Devils eminence of place enjoyment of friends and some other like Now let us briefly consider what tendencies there are in the religious soul towards each of these And here I must crave leave to speak joyntly both of the End and of the Motion thereunto though it may be thought that the former only falls fairly under our present consideration First Then I suppose that Eternal Life in the first sense of it is intended here to wit the essential happiness of the soul or its perfect and everlasting enjoyment of God For the description is here made of Religion it self in the abstract or that principle of divine life which Christ Jesus implanteth in the soul and being so considered it is hard to conceive how that should spring up into any of these appendant circumstances or into any thing but the completion and perfection of it self though the religious soul taken in the concrete possibly may And indeed though we should allow which we shall take into consideration under the next head that many of those high scriptural phrases which are brought to describe the future condition of believing souls do principally respect the appendixes of its essential happiness as a Kingdom a house not made with hands eternal in the Heavens an inheritance reserved a place prepared and the like yet it seems very unnatural to interpret this phrase Life and Eternal Life any otherwise than of that which I call the essential happiness of the soul But if we interpret it of this the sense is very fair and easie thus this principle of divine life is continually endeavouring to grow up to its just altitude to advance it self unto a triumphant state even as all other principles of life do naturally tend towards a final accomplishment and ultimate perfection Carnal self or the animal life may be indeed said to be a well of water too poysonous water but that springs up into a sensual life popular applause self-accommodations or if you will in the Apostles phrase into the fulfilment of the lusts of the flesh This I speak only by way of illustratory opposition for to speak more
properly this corrupt principle hath in it the central force of death and Hell and is alwaies tumbling downward whereas this divine principle is alwaies climbing upward But they do both agree in this that they do both seek their own gratifications and study to acquire their respective perfections The everlasting and most glorious enjoyment of God is certainly most perfective of the soul and therefore is most properly and most deservingly said to be its Eternal Life according to that of our Saviour Joh. 17. 3. Now this Eternal Life is not a thing specifically different from Religion or the image of God or the divine life but indeed the greatest height and the most possible perfection of it self even as the Sun at noon-day is not a light really distinct from what is was in the first dawnings of the morning but a different degree and far more glorious state which seems to be the very similitude whereby the Spirit of God illustrateth the matter in hand Prov. 4. 18. Or as a man of perfect age is not a distinct species from a child but much more compleat and excellent in that species to which the Apostle refers treating of this subject 1 Cor. 13. 11. Man hath not two distinct kinds of happiness in the two distinct worlds that he is made to live in but one and the same thing is his blessedness in both which as I said before must needs be the enjoyment of God The translation made of the Text is very suitable to this notion for this divine principle is said to spring up not unto but into everlasting life q. d. it springs up till it be swallowed up into the perfect knowledge love and enjoyment of God Even as youth is swallowed up in manhood so this grace is swallowed up in glory and not so much abolished as indeed perfected By this phrase the genius of true Religion and the excellent temper of the true religious soul is most lively described This is the soul that being in some measure delivered from its unnatural bondage and freed from its unhappy confinement now spreads it self in God lifts up it self unto him stretches it self upon him is not content with a Heaven meerly to come but brings down Heaven into it self by carrying up it self unto and after the God of Heaven God is become great only great in the eye of such a Christian he is indeed become All things to him whilest this principle â—is rightly and actually predominant in him he knows no interest but to thrive and grow great in God no will but to serve the will and comply with the mind of God no end but to be united to God no business but to display and reflect the glory and perfections of God upon the Earth the main business of his life I say is to serve him the main ambition of his soul to be like unto him and his main happiness in this world to be united to him and in the world to come to be swallowed up in him in this world to know and love and rest and delight in and enjoy God more than all things and in the world to come to enjoy him more than so The gladsome growings up of the tender flowers unto the friendly Sun being once powerfully surpriz'd with his precious and benign influences and the chearful hast with which the sympathetick needle so amorously pursues the inchanting loadstone being once rightly toucht and affected with it do a little though but a little resemble and represent the motions of a spirit impregnated with this divine principle and strongly imprest with the image and stamp of God he puts in his hand by the hole of the door and the bowels of the espoused soul are presently moved yea melted for him Cant. 5. 4. He casts the skirt of his garment the mantle of his love and presently the converted soul leaves all to follow him Faith Hope and Love are knitting and springing graces and this Eternal Life is the end and perfection of them all not that any one of them I conceive shall be utterly incassated and abolished as some conclude concerning the two former though without good ground I think from the Apostles words 1 Cor. 13. 13. But Faith will be ripened into the most firm and undisturbed confidence affiance and acquiescence in God hope will be advanced into a more chearful powerful and confident expectation having for its object the perpetuation of the souls felicity and love will become much more loving and more clearly distinguishable from the imperfect longings and languishings of this present state when it shall flower up into pure delights and complacencies resting and glorying in the arms of its adequate satisfactory and eternal object The faith of the hypocrite and indeed his hope too is still springing up into self-preservation deliverance liberty a splendid and pompous state of the Church that is of his own party or some such thing as will gratifie the animal life and there iâ— terminates but the faith of the sincere and religious soul springs up into eternal life it knows no term but the salvation of the soul 1 Pet. 1. 9. As his hope knows no accomplishment but a state of god-like purity and perfection 1 Joh. 3. 3. The more natural man lives within himself within a circle of his own and cannot get out whether he eat or drink or pray or be zealous for the popular pulling down of the political Antichrist he is still in his own circle he is still sacrificing in all this to that great helluo the animal life as I have already made evident But the godly soul is disinterested of self and so is still contriving the advancement of a nobler life within it self and moving towards God as his supreme and all-sufficient good Give him all that the whole world can afford he cannot fix nor settle nor centre here God hath put into him a holy restless appetite after a higher good which he would rather be than what he is I know indeed that the soul that is thus divinely free may be hindered in its flight but it will deliver it self from the clog at length you may choak and damm up the streamings of this fountain perhaps but they will burst out again you may cast ashes upon this pure fire for a time but it will flame out again such a damp cannot arise no not from Hell it self as to extinguish it The Philistines I remember stopped the wells of water which Abraham had digged in Gerar and filled them with earth Gen. 26. 15. But this well of water which God diggeth in the holy and humble soul cannot be stopped neither by the Devil that King of Gerar that is of wandrings Job 1. 7. nor by any of his servants but it will find vent upward though you endeavour to fill it with earth which indeed is the likeliest to choak it for amor rerum terrenarum est viscus spiritualium pennarum though you cast dust and gravel of earthly
pleasures profits or preferments into it yet it is a well of living water and will work its passage out The hungrings of the godly soul are not cannot be satisfied till it come to feed upon the hidden Manna nor its thirstings quenched till it come to be swallowed up in the unbounded Ocean of life and love But I see I cannot divide springing up from Eternal Life nor pursue the term of Religion but I must also take in the motion of the Religious soul whereby he pursues it which I have already handled in my discourse therefore I will quit this head and take a short view of the second The secondary and more improper notion of Eternal Life I told you was that which takes in the circumstances or appendices of it And here we must needs allow that the holy Scriptures do openly avonch some of these circumstances as those especially of the first rank that I named of some of which it seems to make great account and possibly the Scripture may some where or other imply all the rest even those of the inferiour rank Again we will allow that many of those phrases which the Scripture uses to describe the blessed state of the other world do principally respect these appendices of the souls essential happiness Such perhaps are the Crown of Righteousness mentioned by the Apostle 1 Tim. 4. 8. The price of the high Calling mentioned by the same Apostle Phil. 3. 14. The House which is from Heaven spoken of 2 Cor. 6. 2. A Kingdom an incorruptible Inheritance a place prepared Mansions a reward praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 1. 7. And that glory honour and peace spoken of by the Apostle Paul Rom. 2. 10. These are all Scripture descriptions of the other state and I suppose we may grant them to have a peculiar reference to this secondary and preter-essential happiness of the soul Though I know not any necessity there is to be so liberal in our concessions for it may be fairly said concerning all or most of them that the design of these phrases is not so much to establish this less proper notion or to point ouâ— to the circumstances of the glorified state as to insinuate how much more ample and glorious that state shall be than this in which we now are as a prize is looked upon as somewhat more excellent than what is done or expended to acquire it it must needs be so esteemed by runners and wrestlers a Kingdom is a more glorious state than that of subjection and an Inheritance is incomparably more ample than the pension that is allowed the heir in his minority But these things being conceded it doth not appear how far or under what notion the religious soul as such doth spring up into these additional glories and thirst after them I know there are many that speak very highly of these appendices and allow the godly soul a very high and irrespective valuation of them And this they do principally infer from the examples of Christ himself as also of Moses and Paul Give me leave therefore to suggest something not to enervate but to moderate the Argument drawn from these persons and after that I shall briefly lay down what I conceive to be most Scriptural and rational in this matter First As for the example of Christ it seems to make not much for them in this matter For however the Text is very plain that for the joy that was set before him he endured the cross and this joy seems plainly to be his session at the right hand of God Heb. 12. 2. Yet if by this joy we understand a more full and glorious possession of God and a more excellent exaltation of his humane nature to a more free fruition of the divine then it cannot be applied to any thing but the springing up of the gracious soul into its essential happiness which I have already contended for as being the proper genius of such a soul or if by this Joy and Throne we understand the power that Christ foresaw he should be vested with of leading captivity captive trampling under feet the powers of hell and darkness and procuring gifts for men which seems to me to be most likely then it belongs not at all to men neither can this example be drawn into imitation As for the instance of Moses who is said to have had respect to the recompence of the reward Heb. 11. 26. It is not yet granted that that recompence of reward relates principally to these appendants of the souls essential happiness neither can it I suppose be evinced But though I should also allow that which I encline to do yet all that can be inferred from it is but a respect that Moses had as our Translation well renders it or some account which he in his sufferings made of this recompence which was a very warrantable contemplation The Apostle Paul indeed doth openly profess that he looked for and desired the coming of Christ from Heaven upon the account of that glorious body which he would then cloath him with Phil. 3. 20 21. And so he might sure and yet not desire it principally and primarily but secondarily and with reference And this leads me to the general answer that I was preparing to give which is this Some of these circumstances which I named especially that of the glorified body may be reduced to the essential happiness of the soul or included in it so as that the soul could not otherwise be perfectly happy It is the vote of all Divines I think that a Christian is not compleatly happy till he consist of a soul and body both glorified And indeed considering the dear affection and essential aptitude that God hath planted in the humane soul for a body we cannot well conceive how she should be perfectly happy without one And this earthly body is alas an unequal yoak fellow in which she is half stifled and rather buried than conveniently lodg'd so that it seems necessary even to her essential happiness that she should have some more heavenly and glorious body wherein she may commodiously and pleasantly exert her innate powers and whereby she may express her self in a spiritual and noble manner suitable to her own natural dignity and vigour and to her infinitely-amiable and most beloved object Concerning the rest of the circumstances which cannot be thus reduced I conceive that such of them as are necessary to the essential happiness of the soul by way of subserviency may be eyed and desired and thirsted after secondarily and with reference as I said before that is under this notion only as they are subservient to that essential blessedness I confess I do not understand under what other notion a religious soul can lift up it self unto them I mean not so far forth as it is holy and religious and acts suitably to that divine principle which the Father of Spirits or rather the Father of our Lord
miserable Every thing is the product of Almighty love and goodness 2. The happiness of every creature consists in its acting agreeably to that nature that God gave it and those ends which he propounded to it and suitably to those laws which he gave them which laws were contrived with the greatest suitableness to those natures and subserviency to those ends Every creature is in its kind happy whilest it acts agreeably to that nature which the wise creator implanted in it as the Sun runs its race without ceasing and rejoyces so to do and is in some sense happy in so doing Departing from that nature it becomes miserable as the earth bringing forth briers and thorns instead of those good fruits which it was appointed to bring forth is said to be cursed Gen. 3. 17 18. 3. The happiness of the creature is higher or lower greater or lesser according as it comes nearer to God or is further off from him according as it receives more or less from him according to what communion it hath with him The life and happiness of the Sun is much lower than that of a man because it cannot enjoy such high and excellent communications from or communion with God as man doth 4. There can be no communion without likeness The Sun shines upon a stone wall as well as upon man but a stone wall ha's no communion with the Sun because it hath no eyes to see the light of it as man hath nor can receive the benign influences of its heat as the herbs do A log of wood lyeth in the water as well as the Fish but it hath no communion with the water nor receives no advantage by it as the Fish doth God is present according to his infinite essence with the Devils as well as with the Angels but they have no likeness in nature to him and so no communion with him as these have 5. God bath given a more large and excellent capacity to man than to any other of his creatures upon earth God hath endued man with reason and so made him capable of a higher life and a more excellent communion with his Maker than all the rest The rational soul of all sublunary creatures is only capable to know love serve enjoy imitate God and so to have a glorious communion with him The Sun in all its glory and brightness is not so excellent a Being as any soul of man upon this account And although man by his fall lost his actual communion with God yet be is a reasonable creature still he hath not lost his capacity of receiving influences from him and enjoying communion with him The world when it is at the darkest is yet capable of being enlightned 6. When the nature of man is by divine grace healed of its distemperedness and restored to its former rectitude to act suitably to the end for which it was made and to spend it self upon its proper object then 〈◊〉 to have a right communion with God and to be happy All ratioâ—â—â— souls are capable of holding communion with God but all do not hold communion with him but they that express the purity and holiness of the divine life that know God and live like him these are hiâ— children Mat. 5. 15. and those only do rightly and really converse with him when the spirit of God informs these rational souls and derives the strength of a divine life through them and stamps the lively impressions of Divine perfections upon them rendring our hearts will and wayes conformable to that glorious pattern that infinite good then do we enjoy a proper communion with him and are truly blessed though we are not compleatly blessed till this conformity be perfected according to what those souls are or may be capable of This is the true and proper notion of mans communion with God and relation to him which we cannot fully describe till we do more fully enjoy That soul that truly lives and feeds upon God do's taste more than it can tell and yet it can tell this that this is the most high excellent noble glorious life in the whole world This communion as also the intimateness and closeness of it are described variously in the Holy Scriptures by the similitude of members being in the body 1 Cor. 12. 27. Of branches being in the Vine Joh. 15. 1 2. By being formed according to Gods image Rom. 8. 29. Changed into his image 2 Cor. 3. 18. By Gods dwelling in the soul and the soul in him 1 Joh. 4. 16. By Christs being formed in the soul Gal. 4. 19 By the souls having Christ 1 Joh. 5. 12. By Christs supping with the soul and the soul with him Rev. 3. 20. Because nothing is more our own nor more one with us than that which we eat and drink being incorporated into us therefore is this spiritual communion between God and the godly soul oft-times in Scripture described by our eating and drinking with him Thus God was pleased to allow his people under the law when they had offered up a part of their Beasts in Sacrifice to him to sit down and feast upon the rest as a token of that familiarity and oneness that was between him and them By the like action our Saviour shadowed out the same mysterie when in the Sacrament of his supper he appointed them to sit down and eat and drink with him to intimate their feeding upon him and most close communion with him yea the state of glory which is the most perfect communion with God is thus shadowed out too Mat. 8. 11. Rev. 19. 9. And which is worth noting I think the Sacramental eating and drinking hath some reference to that most intimate communion of the Saints with God in glory our Saviour himself seems to imply as much in that speech of his Luk. 22. 30. That ye may eat and drink at my Table in my Kingdom In which words he seems plainly to allude to the Sacramental eating and drinking which he had a little before instituted viz. ver 19. Which makes some to believe that that gesture is to be retained in that ordinance which is most proper and usual to express familiarity and communion and to take away that gesture is to destroy one great end of our Saviour in appointing this Supper which was to represent that familiar communion which is between himself and every believing soul I will not here examine the validity of their argument which possibly if prest home might introduce a rudeness into the worship of God under pretence of familiarity but it seems very plain that the nature of that ordinance doth shadow out the intimate communion between God and a godly soul I have already in part prevented my self and shewed you wherein the souls communion with God consists But yet to give you a more distinct knowledge of this great mysterie I shall unfold it in these three following particulars 1. A godly soul hath communion with God in his Attributes When the
that all men in the world do live in God Act. 17. 28. yet it is also true that most men as the same Apostle speaks elsewhere do live without God in the world have their hearts staked down to one creature or other and so fall short of this honourable character which the Apostle here gives of godly men our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ And now I shall wrap up the remainder of this Discourse in an humble request and earnest expostulation Reckon not upon any happiness below this communion There are many things which a Christian may take to be comforts but only one this one that he ought to take to be the Happiness of his life I design not to speak any thing to the prejudice of natural or civil ornaments or accomplishments much less to the dispaâ—â—gement of any of those endowments or employments which are in a sense spiritual commonly called gifts and duties But I must confess it is one of the great wonders of the world to me to see such a noble and intelligent Being as the soul of man is attending to and pursuing after things either extrinsecal or inferiour to it self in the mean time carelesly forgetting or wilfully rejecting its main happiness principal end and proper perfection As for those sensual persons those meer Animals whose souls are incarnate in their senses and seem to perform no higher office in the world than the souls of beasts that is to carry about their bodies who value themselves by their bodies or which is baser by the apparel that cloaths them or the estates that feed them I shall not now trouble my self about them but leave them to be chastised by Seneca or Plutarch or indeed any ordinary Philosopher I shall rather apply my self a little to a sort of higher spirited people whom by a 〈◊〉 dâ—-scension of charity we call Christians who valuing themselves by external professions priviledges performances may indeed be said to be somewhat more scrupulous and curious but no less mistaken than the former for if the grosser sort of sensualists do deny and professedly abjure their own reasons and the finer sort of hypocrites do more cunningly bribe theirs each method amounts to no more than a cheat and both parties will be alike miserable save that the latter will be somewhat more tormented in â—issing of a happiness which he lâ—â—k'd and hop'd for It is not proper to my pâ—esent discourse to speak so highly and honourably of these externals of Christianity nor to press unto them so zealously as I do at all times when I have occasion for I do verily value all ordinances of Christ and duties of Gods worship at a high rate nay I know not any serious and truly godly soul in the world but is of this same profession with me But I must confess I think it is one of the greatest and most pernicious cheats in the world for men to feed upon the dish instead of the meat to place their happiness in those things which God hath only appointed to be means to convey it This was the great destruction of the Jewish Church by this they perished Thus they are every where described in Scripture as a people resting in their priviledges and performances boasting of their Sacrifices and Temple-service they made account of a strange kind of flesh-pleasing Heaven something distinct from them and reserved for them to be given them by way of reward for the righteousness which themselves had wrought by the power of their own free-will which freewill they say is an effect of mans fall but they make it a cause of mans rise for now he can purchase and merit a happiness which happiness is also more illustrious than that given of meer grace which righteousness if we look either into their own writings or Gods writings concerning them we shall find was nothing else but a strict observance of the precepts of the law according to the letter and external dispensation of it Such a low and legal spirit was generally found amongst the Jews I wish the greatest part of us who are in profession and name evangelical be not found as truly legal in spirit and temper as they were If we cry the Gospel of Christ the Gospel of Christ with the same spirit as they cryed the Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord our confidence will as surely betray us into a final misery as theirs did True indeed Prayers Sacraments Sermons are somewhat finer words than the old obsolete ones the Law Sacrifices Ceremonies but alas they are but words at least they are not Gods no more fit to terminate our devotions and affections than these I beseech you therefore Christians be not mistaken in this matter True Christianity is not a notion but a nature that is not Religion which is lapt up in Books or laid up in mens brains but it is laid in the very constitution of the soul a new principle implanted by God in the highest powers of the soul refining and spiritualizing all the faculties thereof and rendring them as like to God himself as such a creature can resemble its Creator It is a truth as clear as the Sun is clear that nothing can make a Soul truly happy but what is wrought into the nature of it and that must be somewhat more excellent than it self and that can be nothing less than something divine even the image of the blessed God If you be Christians in deed and in truth value all the ordinances of God and the duties of Christian Religion but value not your selves by these your happiness by these Attend upon them all for the maintaining and encreasing of real fellowship with God for though these be not it yet they aâ—â— the way wherein it pleases God 〈◊〉 give it drink the sincere 〈…〉 the Word but let it be only 〈…〉 holy design of growing thereby of growing up into God and a divine life Away with those low and base thoughts of happiness the happiness of a soul is a high and excellent indeed a divine thing it is in some sense common to God and the soul God is happy in himself alone and the soul can only be happy in him What contentment what real happiness Christian can the rising of thy party in the world or the rising of thy name in the countrey bring thee if in the mean time thou thy self harbourest any carnal will self-interest that doth rise up in opposition to the pure and perfect will and nature of God How art thou happy in thy prayers if thou cast sin out at thy mouth and in the mean time a fountain of iniquity be springing up in thy heart What avails it towards a state of perfection to be of the most orthodox opinions the honestest society the fâ—irest profession the most popular and sanctimonious form or the most plansible performances either the soul being in the mean time alienated from the life of God and feeding upon some earthly trash or other which destroyes the native powers and vigour of it and keeps it under a perpetual languor even just so much as a silken stocken upon a gouty leg or a Princely Diadem upon an aking head avails towards a state of ease and foundness and â—uâ—rasie of body Let nothing limit year ambition but a state of god-like perfection let nothing set bounds to your loving and longing souls but a real fruition of God himself nay let not that bound them neither but the more you enjoy see and caste the more let your love be strengthened after the manner of fire which the more it is fed the more hungry and devouring it growes In a word let nothing satisfie you lower than the highest character that can be given of mortal maâ— to be men after Gods own heart to have God dwelling in you to be filled with his fulness to have this real and excellent Communion with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ To whom be all honour praise and glory for ever and ever FINIS
of God as the chiefest rule and therefore wicked men who pitch upon other objects and walk by other laws even the lusts and ordinances of their own flesh and fancy are properly strangers to God and miserable He is not properly said to know God who hath a notion of him formed in his head but he whose heart and will is molded into a conformity to God and a delight in him so that a wicked man though he know and believe and tremble as much as any of the Devils yet not loving nor delighting in him as his chiefest good not being conformed to his Image as the highest and purest perfection may be truly said to be estranged from God which is a state of hell and death and darkness This is the man who though not in words yet interpretatively and really saith unto God Depart from me I desire not the knowledge of thy wayes with them in Job 21. 14. These do really exempt themselves from the dominion of Christ and do really though not audibly say with them in the Gospel Luk. 19. 14. We will not have this man to reign over us However men pretend to and boast of their relation to and acquaintance with God certainly all that live a meer sensual life non-conformists to the image of God are truly said to be strangers to him and in a state of non-communion with him 1 Joh. 1. 6. 2 Cor. 6. 14. 2. The life of a true Christian is the most high and noble life in the world it exceeds the life of all other men even of the greatest of men The character that is here given of the godly man is the highest that can be given of any man or indeed of any creature It is the highest glory and excellency of the creature to partake of the life of God of the perfections of the Creator and such is the description that the spirit of God here makes of the godly man What an unreasonable and senseless reproach is that which this wicked world doth cast upon Religion calling it a low and despicable thing and upon Religious and godly men calling them low spirited puny people Can a man be better spirited than with the spirit of God Can any thing more truly ennoble a soul than a divine nature Can a man be raised any higher than unto Heaven it self So noble is the godly soul Prov. 15. 24. The way of life is above to the wise And consequently all wicked men lead a low life and are bound under chains of death and darkness The righteous man is of a high and divine original born of God born from above and therefore is more excellent than his neighbour than any of his neighbours even a King himself being judge Prov. 12. 26. What a hellish baseness is that sinful gallantry of spirit what a brutishness is that sensuality of living which the degenerate Sons of Adam do so much magnifie True goodness and excellency of spirit must be measured by the proportion that it bears to the supream good the infinite pattern of all perfection What excellent persons were those renowned Saints of old of whom the Apostle sayes that the world was not worthy Heb. 11. 38. however they were thought not worthy to live in the world What a noble and generous spirit of true Christian valour patience meekness contempt of the world and self-denyal was that which was to be seen in the blessed Apostles however they were esteemed as the filth and sweepings of the world the off-scouring of all things To which of the noble wise mighty men of the world as such did God ever say these as the men that have fellowship with me these are the men that lead a noble and divine life No no not many noble are called and when they are called they are made more noble than ever they were by birth or descent by places of preferment or command The life of every wicked man of what rank or size soever he be in the world is but a low life a life in most things common to the very beasts with him If the main of his business and delight be to eat and drink and work and sleep and enjoy sensual pleasures what doth he what enjoyeth he more than the beasts that perish But the life of the meanest soul that hath true and spiritual communion with God is a life common to him with the blessed Angels those sons of the morning the flower of the whole Creation That life which hath self for its centre must needs be a penurious and indeed a painfull life For how can the soul of man possibly feed to the full upon such spare diet such scant fare as it finds at home Nay indeed how can it choose but be in pain and torture whilest it stretcheth itself upon a self-sufficiency or creature-fulness which is not at all commensurate to it But the soul that rightly stretches and spends all its faculties upon the infinite and blessed God finds all its capacities filled up to the brim with that fountain of goodness and it self perfectly matcht with a suitable and satisfactory object This is the true and only nobleness of spirit when all the powers and faculties of this immortal soul are exalted and advanced into a true and vital sympathy and communion with the chiefest good formed according to his will conformed to his image And oh that wisdom might be more justified of her children Oh that the life of God did but clearly manifest it self and shine forth in the lives of them that call themselves godly Alas that ever God himself should suffer reproach by reason of the low-spiritedness and laziness of his servants For this cause is Religion evil spoken of The Lord awaken and ennoble us to express and shew forth the divine life with all power and vigour to live as high as the calling wherewith we are called and so roll away this reproach 3. The life of a Christian is not a heavy sluggish thing but active and vigorous as the phrase communion with God imports Religion is a communication of life and vigour from him who is life it self which makes the truly godlike soul to be quick and powerfull in its motions Every thing is by so much the swifter and stronger in its motions by how much the nearer it is to its centre as Philosophy tells us Certainly by how much the nearer any man is gotten to God who is the center of souls by so much the more do's he covet after more intimate communion with him and the more eagerly lay hold upon him Communion do's necessarily imply reaction or reflection the soul that receives of God and his fulness will certainly be emptying it self into him again Communion in the very force of the phrase implies a mutualness we cannot suppose a soul partaking of God but it must needs mutually render up it self to him again There can be no commerce nor correspondence without returns but what return can the godly soul make unto