he would much less have made a difficultie to concede such bodies also to humane souls after they had lost their terrestial ones as his sectators do not who hold they then presently become Daemons In the mean time 't is evident enough the doctrine of the separate souls present blessedness is not destitute of the patronage and suffrage of Philosophers And 't is indeed the known opinion of as many of them as ever held its immortality which all of all Ages and nations have done a very few excepted for in as much as they knew nothing of the resurrection of the bodie they could not dream of a slâ—epiâ—g interval And 't is at least a shrewd presumption that nothing in reason lies against it when no one instance can be given among them that professedly gave up themselves to its only guidance of any one that granting the immortality of the soul and its separableness fâ—om its terrestrial body ever denied the immediate blessedness of good souls in that state of separation Nor if we look into the thing it self is it at all more unapprehensible that the soul should be independent on the body in its operations then in its exist 〈◊〉 If it be possible enough to form an unexceptionable notion of a spiritual being distinct and separable from any corporeal substance which the learned Doctor More hath sufficiently demonstrated in his Treatise of the immortalitie of the Soul with its proper attributes and powers peculiar to it self what can reasonablely with-hold me from assenting that being separate from the body it may as well operate alone I mean exert such operations as are pâ—oper to such a being as exist alone That we find it here de facto in its present state acting only with dependence on a bodie will no more infer that it can act no otherwise then its present existence in a body will that it can never exist out of it neither whereof amounts to more then the trifling exploded argument à non esse ad non posse and would be as good sense as to say such a one walks in his clothes therefore out of them he cannot move a foot Yea and the very use it self which the soul now makes of corporeal organs and instruments plainlie â—vinces that it doth exert some action wherein they assist it not For it supposes an operation upon them antecedent to any operation by them Nothing can be the instrument which is not first the subject of my action as when I use a pen I act upon in order to my acting by it i. e. I impress a motion upon it in order whereunto I use not that or any other such instrument And though I cannot produce the designed effect leave such characters so and so figured without it my hand can yet without it perform its own action proper to it self and produce many nobler effects When therefore the soul makes use of a bodily organ its action upon it must needs at last â—e without the ministry of any organ unless you multiply to it bodie upon bodie in infiniâ—um And if possibly it perform not some meaner and grosser pieces of drudgerie when out of the body wherein it made use of its help and service before that is no moâ—e a disparagement or dimunution then it s to the Magistrate that law and decency permit him not to apprehend or execute a Malefactor with his own hand It may yet perform those operations which are proper to it self that is such as are more noble and excellent and immediately conducive to its own felicitie Which sort of actions as Cogitation for instance and Dilection though being done in the body there is conjunct with them an agitation of the Spirits in the brain and heart It yet seems to me more reasonable that as to those acts the Spirits are rather subjects then instruments at all of them that the whole essence of these Acts is antecedent to the motion of the Spirits and that motion certainly but accidentally consequent only by reason of the present but soluble union the soul hath with the body And that the purity and refinedness of those Spirits doth only remove what would hinder such acts rather than contribute positively thereto And so little is the alliance between a thought and any bodily thing even those very finest Spirits themselves that I dare say whoever sets himself closely and strictly to consider and debate the matter with his own faculties will find it much more easily apprehensible how the acts of intellection and volition may be performed without those very corporeal Spirits then by them However suppose them never so indispensably necessarie to those more noble operations of the soul it may easilie be furnisht with them and in greater plentie and puritie from the ambient aire or aether than from a dull torpid body with some part of which air if we suppose it to contract a vital union I know no rational principle that is wronged by the supposition though neither do I know any that can necessarily infer it As therefore the doctrine of the souls activitie out of this earthly body hath favour and friendship enough from Philosophers so I doubt not but upon the most strict and rigid disquisition it would be as mâ—ch befriended or rather righted by Philosophie it self And that their reason would afford it as direct and more considerable defence then their Authority In the mean time it deserves to be considered with some resentment that this Doctrine should find the generality of Learned Pagans more forward Advocates then some learned and worthy Patrons of the Christian Faith which is only imputable to the undue measure and excess of an otherwise jâ—st zeal in thâ—se latter for the resurrection of the body so far transporting them that they became willing to let go one Truth that they might hold 〈◊〉 the â—â—ster and to ransome this at the too deare and unnecessary expence of the former Accounting they could never make sure enough the resurrection of the bodie without making the souls dependence on it so absolute and necessarie that it should be able to do nothing but sleep in the mean while Whereas it seems a great deal more unconceiveable how such a being as the soul is once quit of the entanglements and encumbrances of the body should sleep at all then how it should act without the body * See Dr. Hammonds annot in loc Dan 12 2 Joh. 14 12. 2 Cor. 15. 2 Thes. 4. c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil 3. 20 21. 1 Thes. 4. 14 15 16. Chap. 14. 14. 1 Cor. 15. 2 Thes 1. 1 Cor. 15. Use. Dissoluti est hominis in rebus sâ—riis quaerere voluptatem Arnob. â—cientiam qui â—idicit faâ—enda viâ—nda percepit â—â—dum sapiens 〈◊〉 nisi in ea quae â—dicit transfiâ—ratus est aniâ—â—s Sen. Ep. â—4 Non prodest cibus nec corpori accedit qui statim sumptus emittitur Sen Epist. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epitlet Psal. 49. *
not uncapable of them or that hath its powers bound up by a stupifying sleep It s the rest of hope perfected in fruition not lost in despair of satisfied not defeated expectation Despair may occasion rest to a mans body but not to his mind or a cessation from further endeavours when they are constantly found vain but not from trouble and disquiet It may suspend from action but never satisfie This satisfaction therefore speaks both the realitie and nature of the souls rest in glory that it rests and with what kind of rest CHAP. V. The relative consideration of these three ingredients of the Saints blessedness Where it is propounded to shew particularly 1. What relation Vision hath to Assimilation 2. What both these have to Satisfaction The relation between the two former inquired into an entrance upon the much larger Discourse what relation and influence the two former have towards the third What Vision of Gods Face or glory contributes towards Satisfaction Estimated from the consideration 1. Of the Object the glory to be beheld as 't is divine entire permanent appropriate THUS far have we view'd the parts or necessary concurrents of which the blessedness of the Saints must be composed absolutely and severally each from other We proceed Secondly to consider them relatively viz. in the mutual respects they bear one to another as they actually compose this blessed state wherein we shall shew particularly 1. The relation by way of inâ—luence and dependence between Vision and Assimilatioâ— 2. Between both these and the satisfaction that insues Which latter I intend more to dwell upon and only to touch the former as a more speculative and lesse improvable subject of Discourse in my way to this 1. First It may be considered what relation there may be between vision of God and assimilation or being made like to him and it must be acknowledged according to what is commonly observed of the mutual action of the understanding and will that the sight of God and likeness to him do mutually contribute each towards other The sight of God assimilates makes the soul like unto him that likeness more disposes it for a continued renewed vision It could never have attained the beatifical vision of God had it not been prepared thereto by a gradual previous likeness to him For righteousness which we have shewn qualifies for this blessedness consists in a likeness to God and it could never have been so prepared had not some knowledge of God introduced that conformity and yielding bent of heart towards him For the entire frame of the new man made after the image of God is renewed in knowledge But as notwithstanding the circular action of the understanding and will upon one another there must be a beginning of this course some-where and the understanding is usually reckon'd the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first mover the leading faculty So notwithstanding the mutual inâ—luence of these two upon each other seeing hath a natural precedency and must lead the way unto being like Which is sufficiently intimated in the Text I shall behold thy face and then I shall be satisfied with thy likeness and more fully in that parallel Scripture We shall â—e like him for we shall see him c. From whence also and from the very nature of the thing we may fitly state the relation of the first of these to the second to be that of a cause to its effect Sight begets likeness is antecedent to it and productive of it That is the face or glory of God seen that glory in conjunction with our vision of it for the vision operates not but according to the efficaciousness of the thing seen nor can that glory have any such operation but by the intervention of vision T is therefore the glory of God seen as seen that assimilates and impresses its likeness upon the beholding Soul and so its causality it is that of an objective cause which whether it belong to the efficient or final I shall not here dispute that operates onely as it is apprehended so introducing its own form and similitude into the subject it works upon Such a kind of cause were Jacobs streaked rods of the productions that ensued and such a cause is any thing whatever that begets an impression upon an apprehensive subject by the mediation and ministry whether of the phancy or understanding This kind of causality the word hath in its renewing transforming work and the Sacraments wherein they are 〈◊〉 of real physical mutations on the Subjects of them So much of the Image of God as is here imprest upon souls by Gospel dispensations so much is imprest of his glory The work of grace is glory begun And now as glory initial and progressive in this life enters at the eye beholding as in a glasse the glory of the Lord we are changed so doth perfect and consumate glory in the other life For we have no reason to imagine to our selves any alteration in the natural order the powers of the soul have towards each other by its passing into a state of glory The Object seen is unspeakably efficacious the Act of intuition is full of lively vigour the Subject was prepared and in a disposition before and what should hinder but this glorious effect should immediately ensue as the Sun no sooner puts up its head above the Hemisphere but all the vast space whether it can diffuse its beams is presently transformed into its likenesse and turned into a Region of light What more can be wanting to cause all the darkness of Atheism carnality and every sting of sin for ever to vanish out of the awaking soul and an intire frame of holiness to succeed but one such transforming sight of the face of God one sight of his glorioâ—â— Majesty presently subdues and works it to 〈◊〉 full subjection one sight of his purity makes 〈◊〉 pure one sight of his lovelinesse turns it into 〈◊〉 and such a sight alwayes remaining the impress remains alwayes actually besides that it is in it self most habitual and permament in the souls now confirmed state fresh and lively The Object hath quite another aspect upon a wicked soul when it awakes and the act of seeing is of another kind therefore no such effect follows besides the subject is otherwise disposed and therefore as the Sun inlightens not the inward parts of an impervious dung-hill but it inlightens air so the sight of God transforms and assimilates at last not a wicked but it doth a godly soul. That which here makes the greatest difference in the temper of the subject is Love I look upon the face of a stranger and it moves me not but upon a friend and his face presently transforms mine into a lively cheerful aspect As iron sharpens iron so doth the face of a man his friend puts a sharpness and a quickness into his looks The soul that loves God opens it self to him admits his influences and impressions
or lose the disposition by which it is contempered and made proportionable thereto Hence no weariness can ensue What a soul in which the love of God is perfected grow weary of beholding him The Sun will sooner grow weary of shining The touch'd Needle of turning its self to its wonted point every thing will sooner grow weary of its centre and the most fundamental Laws of Nature be sooner antiquated and made void for ever The eye of the fool Solomon tells us is in the ends of the earth his only is a rolling wandring eye that knows not where to fix wisdom guides and fixes the eye of the holy soul determines it unto God only I will bless the Lord who hath given me counsel my reines â—â—so instruct me I have set the Lord alwayes â—efore me Surely heaven will not render it less capable of dijudication of passing a right judgment of the excellency worth of things And here a rational judgment will find no want an irrational will find no place Therefore as permanent glory will certainly infer a perpetual vision perpetuated vision will as certainly perpetuate thesouls satisfaction and blessedness 4. 'T will be a possessive intuition as 't is an appropriate glory which it pitches upon 'T will be the language of every look this glory is mine The Soul looks not upon it shily as if it had nothing to do with it or with slight and careless glances but the very posture of its eye speaks its interest and proclaimes the pretentions it hath to this glory With how different an aspect doth a stranger passing by and the owner look upon the same house the same lands A mans eye layes his claim for him and avowes his right A grateful object that one can say is his own he arrests it with his eye So do Saints with appropriative looks behold their God and the Divine Glory Even with such an eye as he was wont to behold them To this man will I look c. that is as the place of my rest mentioned before he designes him with his eye which is the import of that expression The Lord knows who are his His eye markes them out owns them as his own As concerning others whom he disowns the phrase is I know you not And how vastly different is such an intuition from that when I look upon a thing with an hungry lingring eye which I must never enjoy or never expect to be the better for This vision is fruitive unites the soul with the blessed object Which kind of sight is meant when actual blessedness is so often exprest by seeing God We see then what vision the sight of Gods face contributes to the satisfaction of blessed souls CHAP. VII Wherein assimilation the likeness or glory of God imprest contributes unto satisfaction Where is particularly propounded to be shewn what pleasure it involves what it disposes to What it involves in the esse of it what in the cognosci 1. The pleasure of being like God discovered 1. Shewing concerning the Image of God generally considered that it is the souls health and soundness restored that it is a vital an intimate a connatural a perfect image OUr next business is to discover what assimilation or the impressed likeness of God may further add to this satisfied state or what satisfying pleasure the blessed soul finds in this that it is like God And here we are distinctly to enquire into The pleasure which such an assimilation to God involves in it self tends and disposes to 1. The pleasure it involves in it self or which is taken in it abstractly considered which we may more particularly unfold by shewing The pleasure involved 1. In being like God 2. In knowing or reflecting upon the same The Esse Cognosci Of this assimulation 1. The pleasure in being like God which may be discovered both by a general consideration hereof and by instancing in some particulars wherein blessed souls shall be like him 1. It is obvious to suppose an inexpressible pleasure in the very feeling the inward sensation the holy soul will have of that happy frame in general whereinto it is now brought That joyful harmony that intire rectitude it finds within it self You may as soon separate light from a Sun-beam as pleasure from such a state This likeness or conformity to God is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a perfect temperament an athletique health ness a strong sound constitution of soul Do but imagine what it is to a mans body after a wasting sickness to find himself well Frame a notion of the pleasure of health and soundness when both all the parts and members of the body are in their proper places and proportions a lively active vigour a sprightly strength possesses every part and actuates the whole how pleasant is this temper If we were all body there could be no greater felicity than this But by how much the more noble any creature is so is it capable of more exquisite paines or pleasures Sin is the sickness and disease of the soul infeebles all its powers exhausts its vigour wasts its strength You know the restless tossings the weary rollings to fro of a diseased languishing body such is the case of a sinful soul. Let it but seriously bethink it self and then speak its own sense but here is the malignity of the disease it cannot be serious it always raves what will it be O I can take no rest The way of wickedness is called a way of pain Sinners would find it so if the violence of the disease had not bereft them of sense Nothing savors with me I can take comfort in nothing The wicked is as a troubled Sea as their name imports that cannot rest Whose waters c. The Image of God renewed in holiness nad righteousness is health restored after such a consuming sickness which when we awake when all the drowsiness that attends our disease is shaken off we find to be perfect The fear of the Lord an ordinary paraphrase of holiness or piety is said to be health to the navel and marrow to the bones Our Lord Jesus invites wearied sinners to come to him to take his yâ—ke on them to learn of him that is to imitate him to be like him and promises they shall finde rest to their souls How often do we find grace and peace in conjunction in the Apostles salutations and benedictions We are told that the wayes of divine wisdom i. e. which it prescribeth are all pleasâ—ntness and peace That in keeping the Commandments of God is great reward That they are not grievous i. e. for there seems to be a Meiosis in the expression are joyous pleasant And what are his Commandments but those expresses of himself wherein we are to be like him and conform to his will The Kingdom of God that holy order which he settles in the spirits of men his Law transcribed and imprest upon
in the name of the same person and particularly of the winged stati of the good soul when apart from the body carried in its triumphant flying Chariot of which he gives a large description somewhat resembling Solomons rapturous Metaphor Before I was aware my soul made me as the Chariots of Aminnadib But being in the body 't is with it as with a Bird that hath lost its wings it falls a sluggish weight to the earth Which indeed is the state even of the best in a degree within this Tabernacle A sleepy torpose stops their flight They can fall but not ascend the remaines of such a drowsiness do still hang even about Saints themselves The Apostle therefore calls upon such to awake out of sleep from that consideration as we know men are not wont to sleep so intensely towards morning that now their salvation was nearer then when they believed i. e. as some judicious Interpreters understand that place for that they were nearer death and eternity than when they first became Christians though this passage be also otherwise and not improbably interpreted However 2. The holy souls release and dismission from its earthly body which is that we propounded next to be considered will excusse and shake off this drowsie sleep Now is the happy Season of its awaking into the heavenly vital light of God The blessed morning of that long desired day is now dawned upon it the cumbersome night-vail is laid aside and the garments of salvation and immortal glory are now put on It hath past through the trouble darkness of a wearisome night and now is joy arrived with the morning as we may be permitted to allude to those words of the Psalmist though that be not supposed to be the peculiar sense I conceive my self here not concern'd operously to insist in proving that the souls of Saints sleep not in the interval between death and the general resurrection but enjoy present blessedness It being besides the design of a practical discourse which rather intends the propounding and improvement of things acknowledg'd and agree'd for the advantage and benefit of them with whom they are so then the discussing of things dubious and controversible And what I here propound in order to a consequent improvement and application should methinks pass for an acknowledg'd truth among them that professedly believe and seriously read and consider the Bible For meer Philosophers that do not come into this account 't were impertinent to discourse with them from a Text of Scripture and where my design only obliges me to intend the handling of that and to deliver it from what may fitly be supposed to have its ground there unless their allegations did carry with them the Species of demonstrating the simple impossibility of what is asserted thence to the power of that God whose word we take it to be which I have not found any thing they say to amount to That we have reason to presume it an acknowledged thing among them that will be concluded by Scripture That the Soul doth not sleep when it ceases to animate its earthly body many plain Texts do evince which are amassed together by the reverend Mr. Baxter some of the principal whereof I would invite any that waver in this matter seriously to consider As the words of our Saviour to the Thief on the Cross. This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise That of the Apostle We are willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord. And that I am in a straight having a desire to depart and to be with Christ. That passage The Spirits of just men made perfect c. Which are expressions so clear that it is hard for an industrious Caviller to find what to except to them and indeed the very exceptions that are put in are so frivolous that they carry a plain confession there is nothing colourable to be said Yea and most evident it is from those Texts not only that holy souls sleep not in that state of separation but that they are awaked by it as out of a former sleep into a much more lively and vigorous activity than they enjoyed before And translated into a state as much better then their former as the tortures of a Cross are more ungrateful then the pleasures of a Paradise these joyes fuller of vitalitie then those sickly dying faintings As the immediate presence and close imbraces of the Lord of life are more delectable then a mournful disconsolate absence from him which the Apostle therefore tells us he desired as far better and with an Emphasis which our English too faintly expresses for he uses a double comparative 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by much more better and as a perfected i. e a crowned triumphant Spirit that hath attained the end of its race as the words import in the agonistical notion is now in a more vivid joyous state then when lately toyling in a tiresome way it languished under many imperfections And it is observable that in the three former Scriptures that phrase of being with Christ or being present with him is the same which is used by the Apostle 1 Thes. 4. 17. to express the state of blessedness after the resurrection intimating plainly the sameness of the blessedness before and after And though this phrase be also used to signiâ—ie the present injoyment saints have of Gods gracious presence in this life which is also in nature and kind the same yet it is plainly used in these Scriptures the two latter more especially to set out to us such a degree of that blessedness that in comparison thereof our present being with Christ is a not being with him our presence with him now an absence from him While we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord and I am in a strait betwixt two desiring to depart or having a desire unto desolution and to be with Christ c. How strangely mistaken and disappointed had the blessed Apostle been had his absence from the body his dissolution his release set him further off from Christ or made him less capable of converse with him then before he was And how absurd would it be to say the spirits of the just are perfected by being cast into a stupifying sleep yea or being put into any state not better then they were in before But their state is evidently far better The body of death is now laid aside and the wights of sin that did so easily beset are shaken off flesh and sin are laid down together the soul is rid of its burdensome bands and shackles hath quitted its filthy darksome prison the usual place of lasiness and sloth is come forth of it's drowsie dormitory and the glory of God is risen upon it 'T is now come into the world of realities where things appear as they are no longer as in a drean or vision of the night
satisfaction and blessedness of the expecting soul. And wherein it may do so is not altogether unapprehensible Admit that a Spirit had it never been imbodied might be as well without a body or that it might be as well provided of a body out of other materials 't is no unreasonable supposition that a connate aptitude to a body should render humane souls more happy in a body sufficiently attempered to their most noble operations And how much doth relation and propriety endear things otherwise mean and inconsiderable or why should it be thought strange that a soul connaturallized tâ— matter should be more particularly inclined to a particular portion thereof So as that it should appropriate such a part and say 't is mine And will it not be a pleasure to have a vitalitâ— diffused through what even more remotely appertains to me to have every thing belonging to the Supposition perfectly vindicated from the Tyrannous dominion of death The returnâ—ing of the Spirits into a benumb'd or sleeping toe or finger adds a contentment to a maâ— which he wanted before Nor is it hence neâ—cessary the Soul should covet a re-union wiâ—â— every effluvious particle of its former body A desire implanted by God in a reasonable soul will aim at what is convenient not whâ— shall be cumbersome or monstrous And how pleasant will it be to comtemplatâ— and admire the wisdom and power of thâ— great Creatour in this so glorious a change when I shall find a Clod of Earth an Heaâ— of Dâ—st refined into a Celestial purity anâ— brightness when what was sown in corruptiâ—â— shall be raised in incorruption what was sown 〈◊〉 dishonour is raised in glory what was sown in weakness is raised in power what was sown a natural body is raised a Spiritual body When this corruptible shall have put on incorruption and this mortal an immortality and death be wholly swallowed up in victory So that this awaking may well be understood to carry that in it which may bespeak it the proper season of the Saints consummate satisfaction and blessedness But besides what it carries in it self there are other more extrinsical concurrents that do further signalize this season and import a great increase of blessedness then to Gods holy ones The body of Christ is now compleated the fulness of him that filleth all in all and all the so nearly related parts cannot but partake in perfection and reflected glory of the whole There is joy in Heaven at the conversion of one sinner though he have a troublesome Scene yet to pass over afterwards in a tempting wicked unquiet world how much more when the many sons shall be all brought to glory together The designes are all now accomplished and wound up into the most glorious result and issue whereof the Divine Providence had been as in travel for so many thousand years 'T is now seen how exquisite wisdom govern'd the world and how steady a tendency the most intricate and perplexed Methods of Providence had to one stated and most worthy end Specially the constitution administration and ends of the Mediatours Kingdom are now beheld in the exact aptitudes order and conspicuous glory when so blessed an issue and success shall commend and crown the whole undertaking The Divine Authority is now universally acknowledged and adored his Justice is vindicated and satisfied his Grace demonstrated and magnified to the uttermost The whole assembly of Saints solemnly acquitted by publique sentence presented spotless and without blemish to God and adjudged to eternal blessedness 'T is the day of solemn triumph and jubilation upon the finishing of all Gods works from the creation of the world wherein the Lord Jesus appears to be glorified in his Saints and admired in all that believe Upon which ensues the resignation of the Mediatours Kingdome all the ends being now attained that the Father â—imself may be immediately all in all How aptly then are the fuller manifestations of God the more glorious display of all his Attributes the larger and more abundant Effusions of himself reserv'd as the best Wine to the last unto this joyful day Created perfections couldnot have been before so absolute but they might admit of improvement Their capacities not so large but they might be extended further and then who can doubt but that divine communications may also have a proportionable increase and that upon the concourse of so many great occasions they shall have so CHAP. XI An Introduction to the use of the Doctrine hitherto proposed The Use divided into Inferences of Truth Rules of Duty 1. Inference That Blessedness consists not in any sensual injoyment 2. Inference The Spirit of man since 't is capable of so high a Blessedness a Being of high excellency AND now is our greatest work yet behind the improvement of so momentous a truth to the affecting and transforming of hearts That if the Lord shall so far vouchsafe his assistance and blessing they may taste the sweetness feel the power and bear the impresse and image of it This is the work both of greatest necessity difficulty and excellency and unto which all that hath been done hitherto is but subservient and introductive Give me leave therefore Reader to stop thee here and demand of thee ere thou go further hast thou any design in turning over these leaves of bettering thy Spirit of getting a more refined heavenly temper of soul art thou weary of thy dross and earth and longing for the first fruits the beginnings of glory dost thou wish for a soul meet for the blessedness hitherto described What is here written is designed for thy help and furtherance But if thou art looking on these pages with a wanton rolling eye hunting for novelties or what may gratifie a prurient wit a coy and squeamish fancy Go read a Romance or some piece of Drollery know here 's nothing for thy turn and dread to meddle with matters of everlasting concernment without a serious Spirit read not another line till thou have sighed out this request Lord keep me from trifling with the things of Eternity Charge thy soul to consider that what thou art now reading must be added to thy account against the great day 'T is amazing to think with what vanity of mind the most weighty things of Religion are entertained amongst Christians Things that should swallow up our souls drink up our Spirits are heard as a tale that is told disregarded by most scorned by too many What can be spoken so important or of so tremendous consequence or of so confessed truth or with so awful solemnity and premised mention of the sacred name of the Lord as not to find either a very slight entertainment or contemptuous rejection and this by persons avowing themselves Christians We seem to have little or no advantage in urging men upon their own principles and with things they most readily and professedly assent to Their hearts are as much untouch't and void of impression by the
supreme desire till it attain to the fulness thereof We have here a plainly-implyed description of the posture and tendencies of such a soul even of a sanctified holy Soul which had therefore undergone this blessed change towards this state of blessedness I shall saith he be satisfied with thy likeness q. d. I cannot be satisfied otherwise We have seen how great a change is necessary to dispose the Soul to this blessedness which being once wrought nothing else can now satisfie it Such a thing is this blessedness I speak now of so much of it as is previous and conducing to satisfaction or of blessedness materially considered the Divine Glory to be beheld and participated 'T is of that nature it makes the Soul restless it lets it not be quiet after it hath got some apprehension of it till it attain the full enjoyment The whole life of such a one is a continual seeking Gods face So attractive is this glory of a subject rightly disposed to it While others crave Corn and Wine this is the summe of the holy Souls desires Lord lift thou up the light of thy countenance c. The same thing is the object of its present desires that shall be of its eternal satisfaction and enjoyment This is now it s one thing the request insisted on to behold the beauty of the Lord c. and while in any measure it doth so yet 't is still looking for this blessed hope still hoping to be like him see him as he is the expectation of satisfaction in this state implies the restless working of desire till then for what is this satisfaction but the fulfilling of our desires the perfecting of the souls motions in a complacential rest Motion and rest do exactly correspond each to other Nothing can naturally rest in any place to which it was not before naturally inclin'd to move and the rest is proportionably more compos'd and steady according as the motion was stronger and more vigorous By how much the heavier any body is so much the stronger and less resistible is its motion downward and then accordingly it is less moveable when it hath attained its resting place 'T is therefore a vanity and contradiction to speak of the Souls being satisfied in that which it was not before desirous of And that state which it shall ultimately and eternally acquiesse in with a rest that must therefore be understood to be most composed and sedate towards it must it needs move with the strongest and most unsatisfied desire a desire that is supreme prevalent and triumphant over all other desires and over all obstructions to it self least capable of diversion or of pitching upon any thing short of the terme aimed at Ask therefore the holy Soul What is thy Supreme desire and so far as it understands it self it must answer to see and partake the divine glory to behold the blessed face of God till his likeness be transfused through all my powers and his entire image be perfectly formed in me present to my view what else you will I can be satisfied in nothing else but this Therefore this leaves a black note upon those wretched souls that are wholly strangers to such desires that would be better satisfied to dwell always in dust that shun the blessed face of God as Hell it self and to whom the most despicable vanity is a more desirable sight then that of divine glory Miserable souls consider your state can that be your blessedness which you desire not or do you think God will receive any into his blessed presence to whom it shall be a burden methinks upon the reading of this you should presently doom your selves and see your sentence written in your breasts compare your hearts with his holy mans See if there be any thing like this in the temper of your Spirits and never think well of your selves till you find it so 5. The knowledge of God and conformity to him are in their own nature apt to satisfie the desires of the soul and even noâ— actually do so in the measure wherein they are attained Some things are not of a satisfying nature there is nothing tending to satisfaction in them And then the continual heaping together of such things doth no more towards satisfaction then the accumulating of Mathematical Points would towards the compacting of a solid body or the multiplication of Ciphers only to the making of a summe But what shall one day satisfi hath in it self a Power and aptitude thereto The act when ever it is supposes the power Therefore the hungry craving soul that would sain be hâ—ppy but knows not how needs not spend its dayes in making uncertain guesses and fruitless attempts and trials It ma◠〈◊〉 â—ts hovering thoughts and upon afâ—â—â—◠〈◊〉 given say I have now found at 〈…〉 satisfaction may be had and have 〈◊〉 this to do to bend all my powers hither and intend this one thing the possessing my self of this blessed rest earnestly to inâ—e 〈◊〉 and patiently to wait for it Happy discovery welcome tidings I now know which waâ— to turn my eye and direct my pursuit I shall no longer spend my â—â—if in dubious toilsome wandrings in anxious vaâ—n inquiries I have found I have found blessedness is here If I can but get a lively efficacious sight of God I have enough Shew me the Father and it suffices Let the weary wandring soul bethink it self and retire to God he will not mock thee with shadows as the world hath done This is eternal life to know him the onely true God and Jesâ—â— Christ whom he hath sent A part from Christ thou canst not know nor see him with fruit and comfort but the Gospel revelation which is the Revelation of God in Christ gives thee a lovely prospect of him His Glory shines in the face of Jesus Christ and when by beholding it thou art changed into the same likeness and findest thy self gradually changing more and more from glory to glory thou wilt find thy self accordingly in a gradual tendency towards satisfaction and blessedness That is do but seriously set thy self to study and contemplate the Being and Attributes of God and then look upon him as through the Mediatour he is willing to be reconcil'd to thee and become thy God and so long let thine eye fix and dwell here till it affect thy heart and the proper impress of the Gospel be by the Spirit of the Lord instamp't upon it till thou find thy self wrought to a compliance with his holy will and his image formed in thee and thou hast soon experience thou art entring into his est and wilt relish a more satisfying 〈◊〉 in this blessed change then all thy 〈◊〉 sensual injoyments did ever afford thee before Surely if the perfect vision and perception of his glorious likeness will yield a compleat satisfaction at last the initial and progressive tendencies towards the former will proportionably infer the latter 'T is obvious hence to
immediately meets it presenting its self to him It onely views him instead of it self and would not now change its state for any thing not if one could give it the whole heaven in exchange And else where discussing whether life in the body be good and desirable yea or no he concludes it to be good not as it is an union of the soul and body but as it may have that vertue annex't to it by which what is really evil may be kept off But yet that that death is a greater good That life in the body is in it self evil but the soul is by vertue stated in goodness not as enlivening the body with which it is compounded but as it severs and so joyns it self from it meaning so as to have as little communion as possible it can with it To which purpose is the expression of another That the soul of an happy man so collects and gathers up it self out from all things into it self that it hath as it were separated it self from the body while it is yet contained in it And that it was possest of that fortitude as not to dread its departure from it Another gives this character of a good man that as he liv'd in simplicity tranquility purity not being offended at any that they believed him not to live so he also comes to the end of his life pure quiet and easie to be dissolved disposing himself without any constraint to his lot Another is brought in speaking thus If God should grant me to become a Child again to send forth my renewed infant-cries from my Cradle and having even run out my race to begin it again I should most earnestly refuse it for what profit hath this life and how much toil Yet I do not repent that I have lived because I hope I have not liv'd in vain And I now go out of this life not as out of my dwelling house but my Inn. O blessed day when I shall enter into that Council and Assembly of souls and depart from this rude and disorderly rout and crew c. I shall adde another of a not much unlike strain and rank that discoursing who is the Heir of Divine things as being either not an open or no constant friend to Christianity Saith he cannot be who is in love with this animal sensitive life but only that purest mind that is inspired from above that partake of an Heavenly and Divine portion that onely despises the body c. with much more of like import Yea so have some been transported with the desire of immortality that being wholly ignorant of the sin of self-murder they could not forbear doing violence to themselves Among the Indians two thousand years ago were a sort of wise men as they were called that held it a reproach to dye of age or a disease and were wont to burn themselves alive thinking the flames were polluted if they came amidst them dead The story of Cleombrotus is famous who hearing Plato discourse of the immortality of the soul by the Sea side leapt from him into the Sea that he might presently be in that state And 't is storied that Nero refused to put Apollonius to death though he were very much incenst against him only upon the apprehension he had that he was very desirous to dye because he would not so far gratifie him I onely make this improvement of all this Christian Principles Rule do neither hurry nor misguide men but the end as we have it revealed should much more powerfully and constantly attract us Nothing is more unsuitable to Christianity our way nor to that blessedness the end of it then a terrene Spirit They have nothing of the true light and impress of the Gospel now nor are they ever like to attain the Vision of the blessed face of God and the impress of his likeness hereafter that desire it not above all things and are not willing to quit all things else for it And is it not a just exprobration of our earthliness and carnality if meer Philosophers and Pagans shall give better proof then we of a spirit erected above the world and alienated from what is temporary and terrene Shall their Gentilism outvy our Christianity Methinks a generous indignation of this reproach should inflame our souls and contribute somewhat to the refining of them to a better and more Spiritual temper Now therefore O all you that name your selves by that worthy name of Christians that profess the Religion taught by him that was not of the earth earthly but the Lord from heaven you that are partakers of the heavenly calling Consider the great Apostle and High-priest of your profession who only took our flesh that we might partake of his Spirit bare our earthly that we might bare his heavenly Image descended that he might cause us to ascend Seriously bethink your selves of the Scope and end of his Apostleship and Priesthood He was sent out from God to invite and conduct you to him to bring you into the Communion of his glory and blessedness He came upon a Message and Treaty of peace To discover his Fathers love and win yours To let you know how kind thoughts the God of love had conceived to you-wards And that however you had hated him without cause and were bent to do so without end he was not so affected towards you To settle a friendship and to admit you to the participation of his eternal glory Yea he came to give an instance and exemplifie to the world in his own Person how much of heaven he could make to dwell in mortal flesh how possible he could render it to live in this world as unrelated to it How gloriously the divine life could triumph over all the infirmities of frail humanity And so leave men a certain proof and pledge to what perfections humane nature should be improv'd by his grace and Spirit in all them that should resign themselves to his conduct and follow his steps That heaven and earth were not so far asunder but he knew how to settle a commerce and intercourse between them That an heavenly life was possible to be transacted here and certain to be gloriously rewarded hereafter And having testifi'd these things he seals the Testimony and opens the way for the accomplishment of all by his death Your heavenly Apostle becomes a Priest and a Sacrifice at once That no doubt might remain among men of his sincerity in what even dying he ceased not to profess and avow And that by his own propitiatory bloud a mutual reconciliation might be wrought between God and you that your hearts might be won to him and possest with an ingenuous shame of your ever having been his enemies And that his displeasure might for ever cease towards you and be turned into everlasting friendship and love That eternal redemption being obtained heaven might be opened to you and you finally be received to the
and he that peâ—ceiveth the operations of a strong effectual Lovâ— hath an acquaintance with God and Heaven whiâ—â— is above that of believing Faith seeth the Feaâ—â— but Love is the tasting of it And therefore it that the Holiest souls sticks closest unto God because though their reâ—soning faculty may be dâ—fective they know him by the highest and mâ— Tenacious kind of knowledge which this Worâ—â—ffâ—rdeth as I have lately shewed elsewhere â— Here you have described to you the true witness the spirit Not that of supposed Internal Voiceâ— which they are usually most taken up with whâ— have the smallest knowledge and Faith and Love and the greatest self esteem or spiritual pride with the strongest phantasies and pâ—ssiâ—ns But the objective and the sealing Testimony the Divinâ— Nature the renewed Image of God whose Children are known by being like to their Heavenly Father even by being Holy as he is Holy This is the Spirit of Adoption by which we are inclined by Holy Love to God and confidence in him to cry Abba Father and to flie unto him The Spirit of Sanctification is thereby in us the Spirit of Adoption For both signifie but the giving us that Love to God which is the filial nature and our â—athers Image And this Treatise doth happily direct thee to â—â—at faithful beholding God in Righteousness which â—ust here begin this blessed Assimilation which full â—tuition will for ever perfect It is a happy sign that God is about to repair our â—ins and divisions when he stirreth up his serâ—ants to speak so much of Heaven and to call â— the minds of impatient complainers and conâ—tious censurers and ignorant self conceited diâ—ders and of worldly unskilful and unmerciful â—stors to look to that state where all the godly shall one and to turn those thoughts to the furtherance Holiness to provoke one another to Love and to â—od works which two many lay out upon their hay â—â—d stubble And to call men from judging and â—spising each other and worse then both those out their Meats and Drinks and Dayes to study â—â—ghteousness and Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost â—r he that in these things serveth Christ in which â— Kingdom doth consist is acceptable to God and proved of men that are wise and good Let us â—â—erefore follow after the things which make for â—ace and things wherewith one may edifie anoâ—â—er whilest the contentious for meat will destroy â—e work of God Rom. 14. 17 18 19 20. The â—ion between Peace and Holiness is so strict that he â—o truly promoteth one promoteth both Heb. 12. â—4 Jam. 3. 17. The true way of our Union is exâ—lently described Eph. 4. 11 12 13 14 15 â—6 If any plain unlearned Readers shall blame the â—curateness of the stile they must remember that those persons have not the least need to hear of Heâ—ven and to be drawn up from the vanities of earâ—â— who cannot digest a looser stile As God hath endued the worthy Authour with more thâ—n ordinary measure of judiciousness 〈◊〉 soundness and accurateness of understanding 〈◊〉 seriousness spirituality and a heavenly mind we have for our common benefit the effects of these happy qualifications in this judicious heâ—venly discourse And if my recommendations mâ— in any measure further your acceptance in provement and practising of so edifying a Treatâ—â— it will answer the ends of him who waiteth with 〈◊〉 in hope for the same Salvation Rich. Baxter Acton May 30. 1668 THE BLESSEDNESSE OF THE RIGHTEOUS A Proemial Discourse to the intended Subject THe continual mixture of Good and Evil in this present state of things with its uncertain fluctuations and subjection to perpetual changes do naturally prompt a considering mind to the belief and hope of another that may be both more perfect and more permanent For certainly it could never be a design adequate or any way agreeable to the Divine Wisdom and goodness that the blessed God should raise such a thing as this lower Creation out of nothing Only to give himself the temporary pleasure of beholding the alternate Joys and Sorrows of the best part thereof his reasonable creature seated in it Nor a delight at all proportionable to an eternal happy being when he hath connaturalliz'd such a creature to this sensible world onely to take notice how variously the passions he hath planted in him may be mov'd and stir'd by this variety of occasions which he shal thence be presented with And what suddain and contrary impressions may be made upon his easie passive senses by the interchanged strokes and touches of contrary objects How quickly he can raise him into a transport of high contentment and pleasure and then how soon he can again reduce him to a very Paroxism of anguish and despair It would discover us to have very vile and low thoughts of God if we did not judge it altogether unanswerable to his perfections to design no further thing in creating this world and placing such a creature as man in it then onely to please himself for a while with such a spectacle and then at last clear the Stage and shut up all again in an eternal Silent darkness If we could suppose a man furnished with such power he would surely adde little to the reputation of his being wise or good beyond other men by a design so to use it Much less can we think it worthy of God to perpetuate such a state of things as this and continue a succession of such persons and actions as we now behold in the world through eternal generations onely to perpetuate to himself the same pleasure in the exercise of his immense power upon created natures over which he hath so infinite advantage And indeed nothing can be more unconceivable then that the great Creatour and Authour of all things should frame a Creature of so vast comprehension as the Spirit of man put into it a capacity of knowing and conversing with himself give it some prospect of his own glory and blessedness raise thereby in many boundless unsatisfied desires after him and an unexpressible pleasure in the preconceived hope of being received into the communion of that glory and blessedness and yet defeat and blast so great an expectation by the unsuspected reducement of the very subject of it again to nothing Yea and that he should deal herein as in that case he must the most hardly with the best And that such souls whose meer love and devotedness to him had made them abandon the pleasures of this life and run thorough whatsoever difficulties for his sake should fare worse then the very worst were beyond all the rest most utterly unimaginable and a thought which Pagan-reason hath not known how to digest or entertain If saith one and he speaks the sense of many another as well as his own with the dissolution of our bodies the essence of the Souls whatsoever that be should be dissolved too and for ever cease to be any thing I know not how
and deportments towards God and man Christ formed in the soul or put on the new creature in its being and operations the truth learned as it is in Jesus to the putting off the old man and the putting on the new More distinctly we may yet see wherein it lyes upon a premised view of some few things necessary to be foreknown in order thereunto As That this righteousness is a renewing righteousness or the righteousness of one formerly a sinner a lapsed perishing wretch who is by it restored into such a state towards God as he was in before that lapse in respect of certain great essentials though as yet his state be not so perfectly good while he is in his tendency and motion And shall by certain additionals be unspeakably better when he hath attained the end and rest he is tending to That a reasonable creature yet untainted with sin could not but have a temper of mind â—uteable to such apprehensions as these Viz. That as it was not the Author of being to it self so it ought not principally to study the pleasing and serving of it self but him who gave it being that it can no more continue and perfect it self unto blessedness than it could create it self and can therefore have no expectation hereof but from the same Author of its being And hence that it must respect and eye the great God its Creator and Maker as The Soveraign Authority whom it was to fear and obey Soveraign Good whom it was to love and enjoy But because it can perform no duty to him without knowing what he will have it do nor have any particular expectation of savours from him without knowing what he will please to bestow and is therefore obliged to attend to the revelations of his Will concerning both these It is therefore necessary that he eye him under a notion introductive and subservient to all the operations that are to be exerted towards him under the two former notions i. e. as the Eternal never failing Truth safely to be depended on as intending nothing of deceit in any the revelations whether of his righteous Will concerning matter of duty to be done or of his good Will concerning matter of benefit to be expected and enjoyed That Man did apostatize and revolt from God as considered under these severall notions And returns to him when an holy rectitude is recovered and he again becomes righteous considered under the same That it was not agreeable to Gods wisedom truth and legal justice to treat with Man a Sinner in order to his recovery but through a Mediator and that therefore he was pleased in wonderfull mercy to constitute and appoint his own Son Jesus Christ God-man unto that Office and Undertaking that through him man might return and be reconciled to himself whom he causlessely forsook designing that man shall now become so affected towards himself through the Mediator and firstly therefore towards the Mediators own person as he was before and ought to have been towards himself immediately Therefore whereas God was considerable in relation to Man both in his innocency and Apostacy under that forementioned two fold notion of the supream Authority Goodness He hath also set up and exalted our Lord Jesus Christ and represented him to Sinners under an answerable two fold notion of a Prince Saviour i. e. a mediating Prince and Saviour to give repentance first to bow and stoop the hearts of sinners and reduce them to a subject posture again and then remission of sins to restore them to favour and save them from the wrath to come Him hath the Father cloth'd with his own authority and fill'd with his grace requiring sinners to submit themselves to his ruling power and commit themselves to his saving mercy now both lodg'd in this his Son to pay him immediately all homage and obedience and through him ultimately to himself from him immediately to expect Salvation and blessedness and through him ultimately from himself That whereas the Spirits of men are not to be wrought to this temper but by the intervention of a discovery and revelation of the divine Will to this purpose Our Lord Jesus Christ is further appointed by the Father to reveal all this his counsel to Sinners And is eminently spoken of in Scripture upon this account under the notion of the Truth in which capacity he more effectually recommends to Sinners both his authority and his grace So that his three fold so much celebrated Office of King Priest Prophet the distinct parts of his general Office as Mediator which he manages in order to the reducement of lost Sinners exactly correspond if you consider the more eminent acts and properties of each Office to that threefold notion under which the Spirit of Man must alwayes have eyed and been acted towards God had he never fallen and hence this righteousness which consists in conformity to the Gospel is the former righteousness which was lâ—st with such an accession as is necessary upon consideration that it was lost and was only to be recovered by a Mediator Therefore you may now take this short and as compendious an account as I can give of it in what follows It includes so firm and understanding an assent to the truth of the whole Gospel Revelation as that the soul is thereby brought through the power of the Holy Ghost sensibly to apprehend its former disobedience to God and distance from him the reasonableness of subjection to him and desirableness of blessedness in him the necessity of a Redeemer to reconcile and recover it to God the accomplishments and designation of the Lord Jesus Christ to that purpose And hence a penitent and complacential return to God as the supream Authority and soveraign Good an humble and joyful acceptance of our Lord Jesus Christ as its Prince and Saviour with submission to his Authorâ—y and reliance on his grace the exercise of both which are founded in his blood looking and pitching upon him as the only medium through which he and his duties can please God or God and his mercies approach him and through which he hath the confidence to venture upon a Covenant-acceptance of God and surrender himself to him afterward pursued to his uttermost by a continued course of living in his fear and love in obedience to him and communion with him through the Mediator alwayes while he is passing the time of his pilgrimage in this world groaning under remaining sin and pressing after perfect holiness with an earnest expectation animating him to a persevering patience through all difficulties of a blessed eternity in the other world That such a conformity to the Gospel should be expressed by the name of righteousness cannot seem strange to such as acquaint themselves with the language of the Scripture That graoious frame which the Gospel made essential impresses upon the soul is the Kingdom of God in the passive notion of it his Kingdom received and now actually come with power upon our Spirits
blessedness Yet as this is the most noble comprehensive quick and sprightly sense so is the Act of it more considerable in the matter of blessedness than any other of the outward man and the most perfect imitation of the act of the mind whence also this so often borrows the name of the other and is called seeing 'T is an act indeed very proper and pertinent to a state of glory By how much more any sensible object is glorious supposing the sensorium to be duely disposed and fortified as must be here supposed so much is it the fitter object of Sight hence when we would express a glorious object we call it conspicuous and the lesse glorious or more obscure any thing is the less visible and approaches the nearer to invisibility whence that saying in the common Philosophy To see blackness is to see nothing Whatsoever a glorified eye replenished with a heavenly vitality and vigor can fetch in from the many glorified objects that encompasse it we must suppose to concurr to this blessedness Now is the eye satisfied with seeing which before never could But 't is intellectual sight we are chiefly to consider here that whereby we see him that is invisible and approach the inaccessible Light The word here used some Criticks tell us more usually signifies the sight of the mind And then not a casual superficial glancing at a thing but contemplation a studious designed viewing of a thing when we solemnly compose and aplly our selves thereto or the vision of Prophets or such as have things discovered to them by divine Revelation thence called Chozim Seers which imports though not a previous design yet no lesse intention of mind in the act it self And so it more fitly expresses that knowledge which we have not by discourse and reasoning out of one thing from another but by immediate intuition of what is nakedly and at once offered to our view which is the more proper knowledge of the blessed in heaven They shall have the glory of God so presented and their minds so enlarged as to comprehend much at one view in which respect they may be said in a great degree to know as they are known in as much as the blessed God comprehends all things at once in one simple act of knowing Yet that is not to be understood as if the state of glory should exclude all ratiocination more than our present state doth all intuition for first and indemonstrable principles we see by their own light without illation or argument nor can it be inconvenient to admit that while the knowledge the blessed have of God is not insinite there may be use of their discursive faculty with great fruit and pleasure Pure intuition of God without any mixture of reasoning is acknowledged by such as are apt enough to be over-ascribing to the creature peculiar to God alone But as the blessed God shall continually afford if we may speak of continuity in Eternity which yet we cannot otherwise apprehend a clear discovery of himself so shall the principall exercise and felicity of the blessed soul consist in that less labouring and more pleasant way of knowing a meer admitting or entertaining of those free beams of voluntary light by a grateful intuition which way of knowing the expression of sight or beholding doth most incline to and that is we are sure the ordinary language of Scripture about this matter CHAP. IV. The second ingredient into this Blessedness considered assimilation to God or his glory imprest Wherein it consists discovered in sundry Propositions The third ingredient The satisfaction and pleasure which results stated and opened AND now upon this Vision of the blessed face of God next follows in the order of discourse The souls perfect assimilation unto that revealed glory or its participation thereof touching the order the things themselves have to one another there will be consideration had in its proper place and this also must be considered as a distinct and necessary ingredient into the state of blessedness we are treating of Distinct it is for though the vision now spoken of doth include a certain kind of assimilation in it as all vision doth being only a reception of the species or likeness of the Object seen This assimilation we are to speak of is of a very different kind That is such as affects only the visive or cognitive power and that not with a real change but intentional onely nor for longer continuance than the act of seeing lasts but this is total real and permanent And surely it is of equal necessity to the souls blessedness to partake the glory of God as to behold it as well to have the divine-likeness imprest upon it as represented to it After so contagious and over-spreading a depravation as sin hath diffus'd through all its powers it can never be happy without a change of its very crasis and temper throughout A diseased ulcerous body would take little felicity in gay and glorious sights no more would all the glory of heaven signifie to a sick deformed self-loathing soul. It must therefore be all glorious within have the Divine nature more perfectly communicated the likeness of God transfus'd and wrought into it This is the blessed work begun in Regeneration but how far it is from being perfected we may soon find by considering how far short we are of being satisfied in our present state even in the contemplation of the highest and most excellent Objects How tasteless to our souls are the thoughts of God! How little pleasure do we take in viewing over his glorious Attributes the most acknowledged and adorable excellencies of his Being And whereto can we impute it but to this that our spirits are not yet sufficiently connaturallized to them Their likeness is not enough deeply instamped on our souls nor will this be till we awake when we see better we shall become better When he appears we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is But do we indeed pretend to such an expectation Can we think what God is and what we are in our present state and not confesse these words to carry with them an amazing sound we shall be like him How great an hope is this How strange an errand hath the Gospel into the world How admired a design to transform men and make them like God! Were the dust of the earth turned into stars in the firmament were the most stupendous poetical transformations assured realities what could equal the greatness and the wonder of this mighty change Yea and doth not the expectation of it seem as presumptious as the issue it self would be strange Is it not an over bold desire too daring a thought a thing unlawful to be affected as it seems impossible to be attained It must be acknowledged there is an appearance of high arrogance in aspiring to this to be like God And the very wish or thought of being so in all respects were not
to be entertained without horror 'T is a matter therefore that requires some disquisition and explication wherein that impressed likeness of God consists which must concur to the Saints blessedness In order here unto then take the following Propositions 1. There is a sense wherein to be like God is altogether impossible and the very desire of it the most horrid wickedness The prophet in the name of God charges the proud Prince of Tyre with this as an inexpiable arrogance that he did set his heart as the heart of God and upon this score challenges and enters the lists with him Come you that would sain be taken for a God I le make a sorry God of thee e're I have done because thou hast set thy heart as the heart of God I 'le set those upon thee that shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisedom and that shall defile thy brightness And what Wilt thou yet say in the hand of him that slayeth thee I am a God Thou shalt be a man and no God in the hand of him that slayeth thee I have spoken it saith the Lord God He will endure no such imitation of him as to be rival'd in the point of his Godhead This is the matter of his jealousie They have moved me to jealousie with not-God so 't is shortly and more smartly spoken in the Original Text And see how he displayes his threats and terrours hereupon in the following verses This was the design and inducement of the first transgression to be as Gods And indeed all sin may be reduced hither what else is sin in the most comprehensive notion but an undue imitation of God an exalting of the Creatures Will into a supreamacy and opposing it as such to the divine To sin is to take upon us as if we were supream and that there were no Lord over us 'T is to assume to our selves a Deity as if we were under no law or rule as he is not under any but what he is to himself herein to be like God is the very core and malignity of sin 2. There is a just and laudable imitation of God a likenesse to him that is matter of command praise and promise as wherein both the duty excellency and blessednesse of the reasonable creature doth consist and which is in some respect inseperable from the nature of man We are required to be followers of God as dear Children imitaters the word is David is commended as a man after Gods own heart though but now we saw in another with what disdain and indignation it was resented that he did set his heart as the heart of God The new Creature the new Man the first fruits as he is called the flower of the Creation is made after God Saints expect upon the assurance of his word to be more fully like him as we see in the text and parallel places Yea man was made at first with a concreate similitude to God which we know was the counsel of Heaven and the result and issue of that counsel Gen. 1. 26 27. This is evident enough in it self and needs no more words But to make a further step in this businesse observe next 3. There can be no allowable imitation of any one but with an exception as to some peculiarities that may belong to his special station relations and other circumstances of the condition in which he is or with limitation to such things as are of common concernment unto both 'T is commonly observed how naturally a people form their manners and fashions to the example of the Prince and there is no well disposed ruler but would take it well to be imitated in things that are of common concernment to him and his subjects that is that concern him not as he is a King but as he is a man or a Christian. To behold the transforming power of his own example where it is such as begets a fair and unreproachful impress * how his virtues circulate his justice temperance love of religion and produce their likeness among his people t will be a glory and cannot but be resented with some delight We cast an honor upon them whom we imitate for we acknowledg an excellency in them which is all that honoring imports in the first notion of it and that naturally is received with pleasure But now should subjects aspire to a likeness to their Prince in the proper appendages and acts of soveraignty and because he is a glorious King they will be such too and assume the peculiar cognisances of regality ascend the Throne sway the Scepter wear the Crown enact Lawes c. There cannot be more of dutifulnesse and observance in the former imitation than there is of disloyalty and treason in this A Father is pleased to have his Son imitate him within such limits before-mentioned but if he will govern the Family and fill up his room in all relations this will never be indured 4. There are some things to be found in the blessed God not so incommunicable and appropriate but that his Creatures may be said to have some participation thereof with him and so far to be truely like him This participation cannot be univocal as the nature of a living creature in general is equaly in Men and Brutes So it is a self evident principle that Nothing can be câ—mmon to God and an inferiour being Nor is it onely aequivocal a participation but of the same name when the natures signified thereby are altogether diverse but analogical in as much as the things spoken under the same names of God and the creature have a real likenesse and conveniency in nature with one another and they are in God primarily in the creature by dependance and derivation in him essentially as being his very Essence in them but as accidents many of them adventitious to their beings and so while they cannot be said to be the same things in them as in him are fitly said to be his likeness 5. This likenesse as it is principally found in man among all the terrestrial creatures so hath it man for its seat and subject his Soul or spiritual part The effects of divine wisdom power goodnesse are every where visible throughout the whole Creation and as there is no effect but hath some thing in it corresponding to its cause wherein it was its cause so every creature doth some way or other represent God Some in virtues some in life some in being only the material world represents him as an house the builder But spiritual beings as a child the father Other Creatures as one fitly expresses it carrie his footsteps these his image that not as drawn with a pencil which can onely express figure and colour but as represented in a glasse which intimates action and motion To give the preheminence therefore in this point to the body of man was a
conceit so gross that one would wonder how it should obtain at least in the Christian world Yet we find it expressely charged by Saint Angustine upon the Antropomorphites of old or Melitonians as he calls them from one Melito the Father of them not onely that they imagined God in a humane shape which was their known conceit but that they stated Gods image in Man in his body not his soul. Nor are Van Helmonts phansies about corporal likeness capable of excuse by any thing but that they were a dream as they are fitly stil'd and not likely to impose upon the waking reason of any man 6. This image or likenesse of God in the Spirit of Man representing what is communicable in him is either Natural or Moral There is first a natural image of God in the soul of man which is inseperable from it and which it can never divest it self of It s very spiritual immortal nature it self is a representation of his It s intellective and elective powers are the image of what we are constrained to conceive under the notion of the same powers in him Yea the same understanding with the memory and will in one soul are thought a lively resemblance of the Triune Deity But there is further a similitude of him in respect of moral virtues or perfections answering to what we conceive in him under that notion His wisedom so far as it hath the nature of a moral virtue his mercy truth righteousness holiness c. These two kinds or parts as they may be called of the divine impresse upon the Spirits of men are distinguisht by some I see not how properly by the distinct names of Image denoting the former and similitude the latter answering as is thought to two Hebrew words of the like import but the things themselves are evidently enough distinct viz. what perfects the nature of man in genère physico as he is such a particular being in the Universe and what perfects him in genere morali as he is considerable in reference to a Law or rule guiding him to blessednesse as his end 7. 'T is a likenesse to God in respect of those moral excellencies or perfections that is especially considerable by us in reference to our present purpose as more immediately relating to the souls blessednesse in God By the former it hath a potentiality by the latter an habitude in reference thereunto Or to use termes more liable to common apprehension by the former it hath a remoter capacity by the latter a present fitnesse or as the Apostle expresses it is made meet to be partaker of the inheritance of the Saints in Light i. e. considering this likenesse as begun in the soul. 8. Besides what is thus in the sense before exprest communicable between God and man there are some things so peculiarly appropriate to God as that in respect of them there can be no formal likenesse in the creature and it would be impious boldness to aspire thereto Many things of this kind might be mentioned I shall only instance in two wherein there is a manifest competition of the Apostate world with him and which are therefore more relative to practice His Soveraign authority and his Independency In these while men affect to imitate they wickedly â—ffront him And here is the great controversie between the glorious God and the degenerous Children of Men. Every man would catch at a God-head and either assume it to himself or cast it many times upon other creatures viler and more ignoble than himself Snatch the reins of Government out of Gods hand and exalt their own wills into an absoluteness as liable to controul from none place and settle their dependence on their own wit power fortitude industry or if that be a more hopeless course for they often find an entire Godhead too much for one creature and are therefore constrained to parcell it out among many place their confidences and expectations in something else without them do often that ridiculous thing so worthy to be hooted at make the congested dirt of the earth their trust the righteous shall laugh at him and say Lo this is the man that trusted in riches their wealth their strong Tower which onely the name of the Lord is to his Righteous ones Yet all the while self is the center and end in which all must meet and terminate This at last carries away the assumed fictious Deity And this thing that is thus now made like God is an Idol which indeed signifies so much and this imitation of him wicked Idolatry than which nothing more debases a reasonable soul or devests man of himself that â—ill they redress this they give no proof of their being men This assimilation of our selves to God is very remote then from being a perfection it is a most reproachfull deformity as we know imitations if they be visibly affected and strained too far are alwayes thought ridiculous by Wise men 9. Though in respect of these incommunâ—cable things there cannot be a proper formal immediate similitude to God Yet there ought to be a correspondency which must be measured and estimated by the consideration of his state and ours whence it will appear that what so properly appertains to him and what ought to correspond thereto in us do agree to each upon one and the same intervening reason For instance is he absolutely Supream in as much as he is the first Being the correspondent impression with us and upon the same reason must be a most profound humble self-subjection disposing our souls to constant obedience to him Again is he simply independent as being self-sufficient and all in all the impression with us must be a nothingness and self-emptiness ingaging us to quit our selves and live in him This is the only conformity to God which with respect to his incommunicable excellencies our creature state can admit It may be also stil'd a likeness to him being a real conformity to his Will concerning us and his very nature as it respects us We may conceive of it as of the likeness between a Seal and the stamp made by it Especially supposing the inequality of parts in the Seal to be by the protuberancy of what must form the signature In that case there would be a likeness aliquatenus that is an exact correspondency but what would then be convexe or bulching out in the Seal would be as we know concave or hallow in the impression Such is the proportion between Soveraignty and Subjection between self-fulness and self-emptiness Whereas a similitude to God in respect of his communicable perfections is as that between the face and its picture where no such difference is wont to appear 10. Assimilation or conformity to God in both these respects composes that excellent frame of moral perfection which the divine glory beheld impresses upon the soul and which immediately conduces to its satisfaction and blessedness I say moral perfection because
intermingled frowns the light of that pleasing countenance be obscured by no intervening cloud when goodness which is love issuing into benefaction or doing good grace which adds freeness unto goodness mercy which is grace towards the miserable shall conspire in their distinct and variegated appearances to set off each other and enhance the pleasure of the admiring soul when the wonted doubts shall all cease and the difficulty vanish of reconciling once necessary fatherly severity with Love When the full sense shall be unfolded to the life of that description of the divine nature God is Love and the soul be no longer put to read the love of God in his name as Moses was when the sight of his face could not yet be obtained shall not need to spell it by letters and syllables but behold it in His very nature it self and see how intimately Essential it is to the divine Being How glorious will this appearance of God be we now hear something of the glory of his grace and how satisfying the intuition of that glory Now is the proper season for the full exercise and discovery of Love This day hath been long expected and lo now 't is dawned upon the awaking soul It 's now called forth its senses unbound all its powers inspirited on purpose for love visions and enjoyments 't is now to take its fill of loves The Apostles extatical prayer is now answered to the highest degree possible with respect to such a one He is now according to the riches of divine glory strengthened with might by the Spirit in the inner man to comprehend with all Saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height to know the love that passeth knowledge c. He shall now no longer stand amazed spending his ghesses What manner of love this should be and expecting fuller discoveries further effects of it that did not yet appear but sees the utmost all that his soul can bear or wish to see He hath now traced home the rivulets to their fountain the beams to the very Sun of Love He hath got the prospect at last into that heart where where the great thoughts of love were lodg'd from everlasting where all its counsels and designs were formed He sees what made God become a man what cloathed a Deity with humane flesh what made Eternity become the birth of time when come to its parturient fulness what mov'd the heart of the Son of God to pitch his Tabernacle among men what ingaged him to the enterprize of redeeming sinners what mov'd him so earnestly to contest with a perishing world led him at last to the Cross made him content to become a sacrifice to God a spectacle to Angels and men in a bitter reproachful death inflicted by the Sacrilegious hands of those whom he was all this while designing to save The amazed soul now sees into the bottom of this design understands why it self was not made a prey to Divine revenge whence it was that it perish't not in its enmity against God that he was not provoked by the obstinacy of its disobedience and malice of its unbelief beyond the possibility of an atonement why he so long suffered its injurious neglects of him and unkind repulses of a merciful Saviour and perswaded till at last he overcame made the averse heart yield the careless disaffected soul cry out Where is my God now a Christ or I perish All this is now resolved into love And the adoring soul sees how well the effects agree to their cause and are owned by it Nothing but heaven it self that gives the sense can give the notion of this pleasure 4. Nor will the glory of holiness be less resplendent that great Attribute which even in a remote descent from its original is frequently mentioned with the adjunct of beauties What loveliness will those beauties add to this blessed face Not here to insist which is besides my purpose upon the various notions of holiness Real holiness Scripture states in purity an alienation from sin 't is set in opposition to all filthiness to all moral impurity and in that notion it best agrees to God and comprehends his righteousness and veracity and indeed whatever we can conceive in him under the notion of a moral excellency This may therefore be styl'd a transcendental attribute that as it were runs through the rest and casts a glory upon every one 'T is an attribute of attributes Those are fit predications holy power holy truth holy love c. And so it is the very lustre and glory of his other perfections He is glorious in holiness Hence in matters of greatest moment he is sometimes brought in Swearing by his holiness which he is not wont to do by any one single attribute as though it were a fuller expression of himself an adaequalior conceptus than any of the rest What is of so great account with him will not be of least account with his holy ones when they appear in his glorious presence Their own holiness is a conformity to his the likeness of it And as their beholding it forms them into that likeness so that likeness makes them capable of beholding it with pleasure Divine holiness doth now more ravish than affright This hath been the language of sinful dust Who can stand before this holy God when holiness hath appeared arm'd with terrors guarded with flames and the Divine Majesty been represented as a consuming fire Such apprehensions sin and guilt naturally beget The sinners of Sion were afraid But so far as the new man is put on created after God and they who were darkness are made light in the Lord he is not under any notion more acceptable to them than as he is the holy one They love his Law because holy and love each other because holy and hate themselves because they are no more so Holiness hath still a pleasing aspect when they find it in an Ordinance meet it in a Sabbath every glimpse of it is lovely But with what triumphs hath the holiness of God himself been celebrated even by Saints on earth Who is a God like unto thee glorious in holiness There is none holy as the Lord for there is none besides thee Sing unto the Lord all ye Saints of his and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness What thoughts will they have of it when their eyes can behold that glory when they immediately look on the archetypal holiness of which their own is but the image and can view that glorious pattern they were so long in framing to How joyfully will they then fall in with the rest of the heavenly hoast and joyn in the same adoration and praise in the same acclamation and triumphant song holy holy holy Lord God of Sabaoth How unconceiveable is the pleasure of this sight when the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first pulchritude the original beauty offers it self to view
in no suspence puzled with no doubts whether such consequencies withhold such conclusions be rightly infer'd anâ— so are not retarded from giving a present unwavering assent Here are no perplexing intricacies no dubious hallucinations or uncertain guesses we see things as they are by â— simple and undeceiving light with both subjective and objective certainty being secure both from doubt and error 2. Faith How magnificent things doth Scripture speak of this grace which the experience also of such as have been wont to liâ—â— by it i. e. to make it the governing principle of their lives doth abundantly confirm Hoâ— clear are its apprehensions 't is the evidence â— things not seen how sweet its enjoyments whom not seeing ye love and though now you 〈◊〉 him not yet believing ye rejoyce with joy unspeakable and full of glory Even the Heathen Theology hath magnifie it above knowledge What is it saith one that unites us with the self-goodness and 〈◊〉 joyns us thereto that it quiets or gives reâ—â— to all our action and motion I will expressâ— it in one word 't is faith it self which unâ—speakably and after a hidden manner doâ— unite and conjoyn happy souls with the selâ— good For saith he it concerns us neither in a way of Science or with any iâ— perfection to enquire after the good but 〈◊〉 behold our selves in the divine light and 〈◊〉 shutting our eyes to be placed in thâ— unknown and secret unity of beings And a latter writer gives us this as a conclusion from that former Author That as Faith which is credulity is below Science so that Faith which is truly so called is super-substantially above Science and intelligence immediately uniting us to God But 't is evident intuitive knowledge far exceeds even faith also 1. 'T is more distinct and clear Faith is taking a thing upon report Who hath believed â—ur report And they are more general languid apprehensions we have of things this way Faith enters at the â—ar it comes by hearing And if we comâ—â—re the perceptions of these two external 〈◊〉 that of hearing and sight the latter is unspeakably more clear and satisfying He that hath knowledge of a forreign Country only by report of another hath very indistinct apprehensions of it in comparison of him who hath travell'd it himself While the Queen of Sheba only heard of Solomons glory she could not satisfie her self without an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—â—ght of her own eye and when she saw it 〈◊〉 â—aith the one half was not told her of whâ—â— she now beheld The Ear more slowly and gradually receives and the Tongue more defectively expresses to another an account of things than ones ocular inspection would take it in But as to the excellency of this 〈…〉 above Faith the comparison 〈…〉 knowing by the ministry of a more 〈◊〉 sense and a less noble but knowing by dependance on a less noble and without dependence upon any at all When God hath been pleased to afford discoveries in that way of Vision to men in the body his Prophets c. he hath usually bound up all their senses by sleep or trances sense hath had no part or lot in this matter unto believing it must necessarily concurr 2. More affective What we see even with our external eye much more powerfully moves our heart than what we onely give credit to upon hearsay The Queen of Sheba much admired no doubt Solomons famed splendor and magnificence while she only heard of it but when she saw it it puts her into an extasie it ravish'd away her soul she had no more spirit c. What would the sight of the Divine glory do if God did not strengthen with all might were there not as well glorious power to support as powerful glory to transform Job had heard of God by the hearing of the ear but when once his eye saw him whether that were by the appearance of any sensible glory which is probable enough for 't is said the Lord answered him out of the whirlewind or whether by a more immediate revelation 't is less-material what work did it make in his soul The Devils believe and tremble so impressive are the pre-apprehensions of Judgment to come and the consequents thereof with them yet their present torment thence is no torment in comparison art thou come to torment us before the time of what they expect Let wicked men consider this they will have their intuitions in hell too were your belief and terror thereupon with reference to the eternal Judgment and the impendent wrath of God equal to what the Devils themselves have upon the same account actual sensation will make you more exceed your selves in point of misery than the Devils do now exceed you There is no doubt a proportionable difference between the impressions of present faith and future vision with holy souls Now not seeing yet believing they rejoyce with joy unspeakable their present joy cannot be spoken their future then cannot be thought Experience daily tells us how greatly sensible present objects have the advantage upon us beyond those that are spiritual and distant though infinitely more excellent and important When the tables are turned the now sensible things disappear a new scene of things invisible and eternal is immediately presented to our view the excellency of the objects the disposedness of the subjects the nature of the act shall all multiply the advantages on this part How affective will this vision be beyond what we have ever found the faint apprehensions of our so much disadvantaged faith to amount to A kind message from an indulgent Father to his far-distant Son informing of his welfare and yet continuing love will much affect but the sight of his Fathers face will even transport and overcome him with joy But further consider this intuition a little more particularly and absolutely in it self So you may take this somewhat distincter account of it in some few particulars corresponding to those by which the object the glory to be beheld was lately characterized 1. It will be a vigorous efficacious intuition as that which it beholds is the most excellent even the divine glory such an object cannot be beheld but with an eye full of lively vigour a sparkling a radient eye A weak eye would be struck blind would fail and be closed up at the first glance We must suppose then this Vision to be accompanied with the highest vitality the strongest energy A mighty plenitude of Spirit and Power no lesse than the divine nothing but the divine power can sufficiently fortifie the soul to behold divine glory When the Apostle speaks only of his desire of glory he that hath wrought us to this self same thing saith he is God he that hath moulded us suitably framed us for this thing as the word signifieth is God 't is the work of a Deity to make a Soul desire Glory certainly then 't is his work to give the
power of beholding it and by how much the more of power so much the more of pleasure in this Vision Weak sight would afford but languid joy But when the whole soul animated with divine power and life shall seat it self in the eye when it shall be as it were all eye as one said of God whom now it perfectly imitates and be wholly intent upon Vision apply it self thereto with all its might as its only business what satisfying joyes doth it now taste renewed by every repeated view How doth it now as it were prey upon glory as the eye of the Eagle upon the beams of the Sun we meet with the expression of aures bibulae here will be oculi bibuli thirsty eyes A soul ready to drink in glory at the eye If vision be by intermission what attractive eyes are here drawing in glory feeding upon glory If by extramission what piercing darting eyes sending forth the soul at every look to embrace the glorious object There is a great power that now attends reallizing thoughts of God whether it appear in the consequent working of the soul directly towards God or by way of reflection upon it self If directly towards God how mightily is he admired who is a God like unto thee If by reflection upon our own sin and vileness how deeply doth it humble Now mine eye seeth thee therefore I abhor myseâ—f Wo is me I am undone mine eyes have seen the Lord of glory If by way of reflection upon our interest in him or relation to him how mightily doth it support and comfort I will look to the Lord my God will hear me How full of rich sense is that Scripture They looked to him and were lightned one look cloath'd them with light cast a glory upon their souls fill'd them with life and joy 't was but a thought the cast of an eye and they were as full as hearts could hold O the power then of these heavenly visions when we dwell in the views of that transforming glory 2. This will be a comprehensive intuâ—tion as its object is entire glory I mean comparatively not absolutely comprehensive More of the divine glory will be comprehended unspeakably than before 'T is called we know by the Schoolmen the knowledge of comprehensors in contradistinction to that of viators we shall better be able to discern the divine excellencies together have much more adequate conceptions a fuller and more compleat notion of God We shall see him as he is 'T is too much observable how in our present state we are prejudiced by our partial conceptions of him and what an inequality they cause in the temper of our Spirits For wicked men the very notion they have of God proves fatal to their souls or is of a most destructive tendency because they comprehend not together what God hath revealed of himself Most usually they confine those few thoughts of God they have only to his mercy and that exclusively as to his holiness and justice hence their vain and mad presumption The notion of an unholy or a not-holy and not-just God what wickedness would it not induce Thou thought'st I was altogether such a one as thy self A God after their own hearts then the reigns are let loose More rarely when the conscience of guilt hath arrested the self-condemned wretch God is thought of under no other notion than of an irreconcileable enemy and avenger as one thirsting after the blood of Souls and that will admit of no atonement so without all pretence and so slatly contrary to all his discoveries of himself do men dare to affix to him black and horrid characters forged only out the radicated and inveterate hatred of their own hearts against him That never takes up good thoughts of any one only because they have no mind to acquaint themselves with him and that they may have some colour for their affected distance and so perhaps never return but perish under an horrid wilful despair And even the people of God themselves are too apt sometimes so wholly to fix their eye upon love and grace that they grow into an unbecoming uncreaturely familiarity while the thoughts of Infinite Majesty adorable greatness and glory are asleep sometimes possibly apprehend vindicative justice the indignation and jealousie of God against sin precluding meanwhile the consideration of his indulgent compassions towards truly humble and penitent souls to that degree of affrightment and dread that they grow into an unchildlike strangness towards him and take little pleasure in drawing nigh to him But when now our eye shall take in the discovery of divine glory equally how sweet and satisfying a pleasure will arise from that grateful mixture of reverent love humble joy modest confidence meek courage a prostrate magnanimity a triumphant veneration a soul shrinking before the divine glory into nothing yet not contenting it self with any less enjoyment than of him who is all in all There 's nothing here in this complexion or temper of Soul but hath its warrant in the various aspect of the face of God comprehensively beheld nothing but what is even by its suitableness highly grateful and pleasing 3. 'T will be fixed steady intuition as its object is permanent glory The vision of God can neither infer nor admit weariness The eye cannot divert its act is eternally delectable and affords an unvariable undecaying pleasure Sensual delights soon end in loathing quickly bring a glutting surfet and degenerate into torments when they are continued unintermittent A Philosopher in an Epistle which he writes to a friend from the Court of Dionysius where he was forceably detained thus bemoans himself We are unhappy O Antisthenes beyond measure and how can we but be unhappy that are burdened by the Tyrant every day with the most sumptuous feasts plentiful compotations precious ointments gorgeous apparel and I knew as soon as I came into this Island and City how unhappy my life would be This is the nature and common condition of even the most pleasing sensible objects They first tempt then please a little then disappoint and lastly vex The eye that beholds them blast's them quickly risles and deâ—lowers their glory and views them with no more delight at first than disdain afterwards Creature enjoyments have a bottom are soon drained drawn dry hence there must be frequent diversions Other pleasures must be sought out and are chosen not because they are better but because they are new This demonstrates the emptiness and vanity of the Creature Affectation of variety only proceeds from sense of want and is a confession upon trial that there is not in such an enjoyment what was expected Proportionably in the state of glory a constant indesicient fulness renders the blessed soul undesirous of any change There is no need of varieties or diversions what did once please can never cease to do so This glory cannot fade or lose any thing of its attractive power The faculty cannot languish
that are incommunicable as hath been more distinctly opened in the Propositions concerning this likeness Which being premised I shall give instances of both kinds to discover somewhat of the inexpressible pleasure of being thus conformed to God And here pretermitting the impresse of knowledge of which we have spoken under the former head of vision we shall instance 1. In a dependent frame of Spirit which is the proper impress of the divine all-sufficiency and self-fulness duly apprehended by the blessed soul. It is not easie to conceive a higher pleasure than this competible to a creature The pleasure of dependence Yea this is a higher than we can conceive Dependence which speaks the creatures 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or habitude to its principle as the subserviency which imparts its habitude to its end is twofold 1. Natural which is common and essential to all creatures Even when no such thing is thought on or considered by them The Creatures live move and have their beings in God whether they think of it or no. 2. Voluntary or rational which is de facto appropriate and de jure common to reasonable creatures as such A dependence that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Elective and with a foregoing reason which I understand by elective not a liberty of doing or not doing it and concomitâ—nt consideration of what we do and animadversion of our own act when knowingly and willingly understanding our selves in what we do we go out of our selves and live in God This is the dependence of which I speak And it cannot but be attended with transcendent pleasure in that other State when that knowledge and animadversion shall be clear and perfect Both as this dependence imports A Nullifying of self Magnifying I may call it omnifying of God a making him all in all As it imports which it doth most evidently a self-annihilation A pure nullifying of self 'T is a continual recognition of my own nothingness A momently iterated confession that my whole being is nothing but a meer puff of precarious breath a bubble rais'd from nothing by the arbitrary fict of the great Creator reducible had he so pleased any moment to nothing again These are true and just acknowledgments and to a well-tempered soul infinitely pleasant when the state of the ca is throughly understood as now it is and it hath the apprehension clear how the creation is sustained how and upon what terms its own being life and blessedness are continued to it that it is by its self nothing and that it is every moment determinable upon the constancy of the Creators Will that it is not simply nothing 'T is not possible that any thing should hinder this consideration from being eternally delightful but that diabolical uncreaturely Pride that is long since banisht Heaven and banisht its very subjects thence also Nothing can sute that temper but to be a God to be wholly independent to be its own sufficiency The thoughts of living at the will and pleasure of another are grating but they are only grating to a proud heart which here hath no place A soul naturallized to humiliations accustomed to prostrations and self-abasements trained up in acts of mortification and that was brought to glory through a continued course and series of self-denyall That ever since it first came to know it self was wont to depend for every moments breath for every glimpse of light for every fresh influence I live yet not I with what pleasure doth it now as it were vanish before the Lord what delight doth it take to diminish it self and as it were disappear to contract and shrivel up it self to shrink even into a point into a nothing in the presence of the divine glory that it may be all in all Things are now pleasant to the soul in its right-mind as they are sutable as they carry a comliness and congruity in them And nothing now appears more becoming than such a self-annihilation The distances of Creator and Creature of Infinite and Finite of a necessâ—ry and arbitrary being of a self-originated and a derived being of what was from â—verâ—â—sting and what had a beginning are now better understood than ever And the soul by how much it is now come nearer to God is more apprehensive of its distance And such a frame and posture doth hence please it best as doth most fitly correspond thereto Nothing is so pleasing to it as to be as it ought That temper is most grateful that is most proper and which best agrees with its state Dependence therefore is greatly pleasing as it is a self-nullifying thing And yet it is in this respect pleasing but as a means to a further end The pleasure that attends it is higher and more intense according as it more immediately attains that end Viz. The magnifying and exalting of God which is the most connatural thing to the holy soul. The most fundamental and deeply imprest Law of the New Creature Self gives place that God may take it becomes nothing that he may be all It vanishes that his glory may shine the brighter Dependence gives God his power glory 'T is the peculiar honour and prerogative of a Deity to have a world of Creatures hanging upon it staying themselves upon it to be the fulcrum the centre of a lapsing Creation When this dependence is voluntary and intelligent it carries in it a more explicite owning acknowledgment of God By how much more this is the distinct and actual sense of my soul Lord I cannot live but by thee So much the more openly and plainly do I speak it out Lord thou art God alone thou art the fulness of life and being the only root and spring of life The Everlasting I Am. The being of beings How unspeakably pleasant to a holy soul will such a perpetual agnition or acknowledgment of God be when the perpetuation of its being shall be nothing else than a perpetuation of this acknowledgment when every renewed aspiration every motion every pulse of the glorified soul shall be but a repetition of it when it shall find it self in the eternity of life that everlasting state of life which it now possesses to be nothing else than an everlasting testimony that God is God He is so for I am I live I act I have the power to love him none of which could otherwise â—e When amongst the innumerable myriads of the heavenly hoast this shall be the mutual alternate testimony of each to all the rest throughout eternity will not this be pleasant When each shall feel continually the fresh illapses and incomes of God the power and sweetness of divine influences the inlivening vigour of that vital breath and find in themselves thus we live and are sustained and are yet as secure touching the continuance of this state of life as if every one were a God to himself and did each one possess an intire God-head When their sensible dependence on him in their glorified state shall
be his perpetual triumph over all the imaginary Deities the phansied Numina wherewith he was heretofore provoked to jealousie And he shall now have no rival left but be acknowledged and known to be all in all How pleasant will it then be as it were to loose themselves in him and to be swallowed up in the overcoming sense of his boundless alsufficient every where flowing fulness And then add to this they do by this dependence actually make this fulness of God their own They are now met in one common principle of life and blessedness that is sufficient for them all They no longer live a life of care are perpetually exempt from solicitous thoughts which here they could not perfectly attain to in their earthly state They have nothing to do but to depend to live upon a present self-fufficient good which alone is enough to replenish all desires else it were not self-sufficient How can we divide in our most abstractive thoughts the highest pleasure the fullest satisfaction from this dependence 'T is to live at the rate of a God a God-like life A living upon immense fulness as he lives 2. Subjection which I place next to dependence as being of the same allay The product of imprest Soveraignty as the other of all-sufficient fulness Both impressions upon the creature corresponding to somewhat in God most incommunicably appropriate to him This is the souls real and practical acknowledgement of the Supream Majesty Its homage to its Maker Its self-dedication Than which nothing more suits the state of a creature or the Spirit of a Saint And as it is suit-table 't is pleasant 'T is that by which the blessed Soul becomes in its own sense a consecrated thing a devoted thing sacred to God It s very life and whole being refer'd and made over to him With what delightful relishes what sweet gusts of pleasure is this done while the soul tasts its own act approves it with a full ungainsaying judgment apprehends the condignity and fitness of it assents to its self herein and hath the ready suffrage the harmonious concurrence of all his powers When the words are no sooner spoken Worthy art thou O Lord to receive glory honour and power for thou hast created all things and for thy pleasure they are and were created but they are resounded from the penetralia the inmost bowels the most intimate receptacles and secret chambers of the Soul O Lord thou art worthy worthy that I and all things should be to thee worthy to be the Omega as thou art the Alpha the last as thou art the first the end as thou art the beginning of all things the Ocean into which all being shall slow as the Fountain from which it sprang My whole self and all my powers the excellencies now implanted in my being the priviledges of my now glorified state are all worth nothing to me but for thee please me only as they make me fitter for thee O the pleasure of these Sentiments the joy of such raptures when the soul shall have no other notion of it self than of an everlasting sacrifice always ascending to God in its own flames For this devotedness and subjection speak not barely an act but a state A Being to the praise of grace A Living to God And t is no mean pleasure that the sincere soul finds in the imperfect beginnings the first Essayes of this life the enitial breathings of such a Spirit its entrance into this blessed state when it makes the first tender and present of it self to God as the Apostle expresses it when it first begins to esteem it self an hallowed thing separate and set apart for God Its first act of unfeigned self-resignation when it tells God from the very heart I now give up my self to thee to be thine Never was marriage covenant made with such pleasure with so complacential consent This quitting claim to our selves parting with our selves upon such terms to be the Lords for ever O the peace the rest the acquiescence of Spirit that attends it When the poor soul that was weary of it self knew not what to do with it self hath now on the sudden found this way of disposing it self to such an advantage there is pleasure in this Treaty Even the previous breakings and relentings of the soul towards God are pleasant But O the pleasure of consent of yielding our selves to God as the Apostles expression is when the Soul is overcome and cryes out Lord now I resign I yield possess now thy own right I give up my self to thee That yielding is subjection self-devoting in order to future service and obedience To whom ye yield your selves servants to obey c. And never did any man enrol himself as a servant to the greatest Prince on earth with such joy What pleasure is there in the often iterated recognition of these transactious in multiplying such bonds upon a mans own soul though done faintly while the fear of breaking checks its joy in taking them on When in the uttering of these words I am thy servant O Lord thy servant the son of thine handmaid i. e. thy born servant allâ—ding to that custom and Law among the Jews Thy servant devoted to thy fear a man finds they fit his spirit and are aptly expressive of the true sense of his soul is it not a grateful thing And how pleasant is a state of life consequent and agreeable to such transactions and Covenants with God! when 't is meat and drink to do his will When his zeal eats a man up and one shall find himself secretly consuming for God! and the vigour of his soul exhaled in his service Is it not a pleasant thing so to spend and be spent when one can in a measure find that his will is one with Gods transformed into the divine will that there is but one common will and interest and end between him and us and so that in serving God we raign with him in spending our selves for him we are perfected in him Is not this a pleasant life Some Heathens have spoken at such a rate of this kind of life as might make us wonder and blush One speaking of a vertuous person saith he is as a good Souldier that bears wounds and numbers skars and at last smitten through with darts dying will love the Emperour for whom he falls he will saith he keep in mind that ancient precept follow God But they that complain cry out and groan and are compelled by force to do his commands and hurried into them against their will and what a madness is it saith he to be drawn rather than follow And presently after subjoyns we are born in a Kingdom to obey God is liberty The same person writes in a Letter to a friend If thou believe me when I most freely discover to thee the most secret fixed being of my soul in all things my mind is thus formed I obey not God so properly as
I assent to him I follow him with all my heart not because I cannot avoit it And another Lead me to whatsoever I am appointed and I will follow thee chearfully but if I refuse or be unwilling I shall follow notwithstanding A Soul cast into such a mould formed into an obediential subject frame what sweet peace doth it enjoy how pleasant rest every thing rests most composedly in its proper place A bone out of joynt knows no ease nor lets the body enjoy any The creature is not in its place but when 't is thus subject is in this subordination to God By flying out of this subordination the world of mankind is become one great disjoynted body full of weary tossings unacquainted with ease or rest That soul that is but in a degree reduc't to that blessed state temper is as it were in a new world so great and happy a change doth it now feel in it self But when this transformation shall be compleated in it and the will of God shall be no sooner known than rested in with a complacential approbation and every motion of the first and great mover shall be an efficacious law to guide and determine all our motions and the lesser-wheeles shall presently run at the first impulse of the great and master-wheel without the least rub or hesitation when the law of sin shall no longer check the law of God when all the contentions of a rebellious flesh all the counter-strivings of a perverse ungovernable heart shall cease for ever O unconceivable blessedness of this consent the pleasure of this joyful harmony this peaceful accord Obedience where 't is due but from one creature to another carries its no small advantages with it and conducibleness to a pleasant unsolicitous life To be particularly prescribed to in things about which our minds would otherwise be tost with various apprehensions anxious uncertain thoughts how great a priviledge is it I cannot forget a pertinent passage of an excellent person of recent memory And saith he for pleasure I shall profess my self so far from doting on that popular Idol liberty that I hardly think it possible for any kind of obedience to be more painful than an unrestrained liberty Were there not true bounds of Magistrates of Laws of piety of reason in the heart every man would have a fool I add a mad Tyrant to his Master that would multiply him more sorrows than bryars and thorns did to Adam when â—e was freed from the bliss at once and the restraint of Paradise and was sure greater slave in the wilderness than in the inclosure would but the Scripture permit me that kind of Idolatry the binding my faith and obedience to any one visible infallible Judg or Prince were it the Pope or the Mufti or the grand Tartar might it be reconcilible with my Creed it would be certainly with my interâ—st to get presently into that posture of obedience I should learn so much of the Barbarian Ambassadors in Appian which came on purpose to the Romans to negotiate for leave to be their servants 'T would be my policy if not my piety and may now be my wish though not my faith that I might never have the trouble to deliberate to dispute to doubt to chuse those so many profitless uneasinesses but only the favour to receive commands and the meekness to obey them How pleasurable then must obedience be to the perfect will of the blessed God when our wills shall also be perfectly attempered and conformed there unto Therefore are we taught Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven What is most perfect in its kind gives rule to the rest 3. Love This is an eminent part of the image or likeness of God in his Saints As it is that great Attribute of the divine being that is alone put to give us a notion of God God is love This is an excellency consider it whether in its original or copie made up of pleasantnesses All love hath complacency or pleasure in the nature and most formal notion of it To search for pleasure in love is the same thing as if a man should be solicitous to find water in the Sea or light in the body of the Sun Love to a friend is not without high pleasure when especially he is actually present and injoye'd Love to a Saint rises higher in nobleness and pleasure according to the more excellent qualification of its object 'T is now in its highest improvement in both these aspects of it where whatsoever tends to gratifie our nature whether as humane or holy will be in its full perfection Now doth the soul take up its stated dwelling in Love even in God who is Love and as he is Love 't is now enclosed with Love encompas'd with Love 't is conversant in the proper region and element of Love The Love of God is now perfected in it That Love which is not only participated from him but terminated in him That perfect Love casts out tormenting Fear So that here is pleasure without mixture How naturally will the blessed soul now dissolve and melt into pleasure It is new fram'd on purpose for Love-imbraces and injoyments It shall now love like God as one composed of Love It shall no longer be its complaint and burden that it cannot retaliate in this kind that being beloved it cannot love 4. Purity Herein also must the blessed soul resemble God and delight it self Every one that hath this hope viz. of being hereafter lâ—ke God and seeing him as he is purifieth himself as he is pure A God-like purity is intimately connext with the expectation of future blessedness much more with the fruition Blessed are the pure in heart besides the reason there annext for they shall see God which is to be considered under the other head the pleasure unto which this likeness disposes that proposition carries its own reason in it self It is an incomparable pleasure that purity carries in its own nature As sin hath in its very nature besides its consequent guilt and sorrow trouble and torment beyond expression Whatsoever defiles doth also disturb Nor do any but pure pleasures deserve the name An Epicurus himself will tell us there cannot be pleasure without wisdom honesty and righteousness 'T is least of all possible there should when once a person shall have a right knowledge of himself and which is moral impurity whereof we speak the filthiness of sin I doubt not but much of the torment of Hell will consist in those too-late and despairing self-loathings those sickly resentments the impure wretches will be possessed with when they see what hideous deformed monsters their own wickedness hath made them Here the gratifications of sense that attend it bribe and seduce their judgments into another estimate of sin but then it shall be no longer thought of under the more favourable notion of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they shall taste nothing but
was I am all Spirit and life I feel my self disburthened and unclogg'd of all the heavy oppressive weights that hung upon me No body of death doth now incumber me no deadness of heart no coldness of love no drowsie sloth no aversness from God no earthly mind no sensual inclinations or affections no sinful devisions oâ— heart between God and Creatures He hath now the whole of me I injoy and delight in none but him O blessed change O happy day 2. If in contemplating it self cloathed with this likeness it respect the state of damned souls What transporâ—s must that occasion What ravishing resentments When it compares humane nature in its highest perfection with the same nature in its utmost depravation An unspeakably more unequal comparison than that would be of the most amiable lovely person flourishing in the prime of youthful strength and beauty with a putrified rotten carcasse deformed by the corruption of a loathsome grave When glorified Spirits shall make such a reflection as this Lo here we shine in the glorious brightness of the divine Image and behold yonder deformed accursed souls They were as capable of this glory as we Had the same nature with us the same reason the same intellectual faculties and powers but what monsters are they now become They eternally hate the eternal excellency Sin and death are finished upon them They have each of them an hell of horror and wickedness in it self Whence is this amazing difference Though this cannot but be an awful wonder it cannot also but be temper'd with pleasure and joy 3. We may suppose this likeness to be considered in reference to its pattern and in comparison therewith which will then be another way of heightning the pleasure that shall arise thence Such a frame and constitution of Spirit is full of delights in it self but when it shall be refer'd to its original and the correspondency between the one and the other be observ'd and view'd how exactly they accord and answer each other as face doth face in the water this cannot still but add pleasure to pleasure one delight to another When the blessed soul shall interchangeably turn its eye to God and it self and consider the agreement of glory to glory the several derived excellencies to the original He is wise and so am I holy and so am I. I am now made perfect as my heavenly Father is this gives a new relish to the former pleasure How will this likeness please under that notion as it is his a likeness to him O the accent that will be put upon those appropriative words to be made partakers of His holiness and of the divine nature Personal excellencies in themselves considered cannot be reflected on but with some pleasure but to the ingenuity of a child how especially grateful will it be to observe in it self such and such graceful deportments wherein it naturally imitates its father So he was wont to speak and act and demean himself how natural is it unto love to affect and aim at the imitation of the person loved So natural it must be to take complacency therein when we have hit our mark and atchiev'd our design The pursuits and attainments of love are proportionable and correspondent each to other And what heart can compass the greatness of this thought to be made like God! Lord was there no lower pattern than thy self thy glorious blessed self according to which to form a worm This cannot want its due resentments in a glorified state 4. This transformation of the blessed soul into the likeness of God may be viewed by it in reference to the way of accomplishment as an end brought about by so amazing stupendous means which will certainly be a pleasing contemplation When it reflects on the method and course insisted on for bringing this matter to pass views over the work of redemption in its tendency to this end The restoring Gods Image in souls Considers Christ manifested to us in order to his being revealed and formed in us That God was made in the likeness man to make men after the likeness of God That he partook with us of the humane nature that we might with him partake of the divine that he assumed our flesh in order to impart to us his Spirit When it shall be considered for this end had we so many great and precious promises for this end did the glory of the Lord shine upon us through the glass of the Gospel that we might be made partakers c. That we might be changed c. Yea when it shall be called to mind though it be far from following hence that this is the only or principal way wherein the life and death of Christ have influence in order to our eternal happiness that our Lord Jesus lived for this end that we might learn so to walk as he also walked that he dyed that we mught be conformed to his death that he rose again that we might with him attain the resurrection of the dead that he was in us the hope of glory that he might be in us that is that same Image that bears his Name our final consummate glory it self also With what pleasure will these harmonious congruities these apt correspondencies be look'd into at last Now may the glorified Saint say I here see the end the Lord Jesus came into the world for I see for what he was lift up made a spectacle that he might be a transforming one What the effusions of his Spirit were for why it so earnestly strove with my way-ward heart I now behold in my own soul the fruit of the travel of his Soul This was the project of redeeming love the design of all-powerful Gospel grace Glorious atchievement blessed end of that great and notable undertaking happy issue of that high desin 5. With reference to all their own expectations and indeavours When it shall be considered by a Saint in glory the attainment of this perfect likeness to God was the utmost mark of all my designs and aims the term of all my hopes and desires This is that I long'd and laboured for that which I pray'd and waited for which I so earnestly breath'd after and restlestly pursu'd It was but to recover the defaced image of God To be again made like him as once I was Now I have attained my end I have the fruit of all my labour and travels I see now the truth of those often incouraging words Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled Be not weary of well doing for ye shall reap if ye faint not What would I once have given for a steady abiding frame of holiness for an heart constantly bent and biassed toward God constantly serious constantly tender lively watchful heavenly spiritual meek humble chearful self-denying How have I cryed and striven for this to get such an heart such a temper of spirit how have I pleaded with God and my own
here to be understood by it which indeed sleeping would more aptly signifie than awaking but what is co-incident therewith in the same period the exuscitation and revival of the soul. When the body falls asleep then doth the Spirit awake and the eye-lids of the morning even of an eternal day do now first open upon it 1. Therefore we shall not exclude from this season the introductive state of blessedness which takes its beginning from the blessed souls first entrance into the invisible state And the fitness of admitting it will appear by clearing these two things 1. That its condition in this life even at the best is in some sort but a sleep 2. That when it passes out of it into the invisible Regions 't is truly said to awake 1. It s abode in this mortal body is but a continual sleep its senses are bound up a drowsie slumber possesses and suspends all its faculties and powers Before the renovating change how frequently doth the Scripture speak of sinners as men a sleep Let not us sleep as do others Awake thou that sleepest and stand up from the dead c. They are in a dead sleep under the sleep of death They apprehend things as men asleep How slight obscure hovering notions have they of the most momentous things and which it most concerns them to have thorough real apprehensions of All their thoughts of God Christ Heaven Hell of Sin of Holiness are but uncertain wild guesses blind hallucinations incoherent phansies the absurdity and inconcinnity whereof they no more reflect upon then men asleep They know not these things but only dream of them They put darkness for light and light for darkness have no senses exercised to discern between good and evil The most substantial realities are with them meer shadowes and chemaera's Phansied and imagined dangers startle them as 't is wont to be with men in a dream real ones though never so near them they as little fear as they The creature of their own imagination the Lion in the way which they dream of in their slothful slumber affrights them but the real roaring Lion that is ready to devour them they are not afraid of And conversion doth but relax and intermit it doth not totally break of this sleep It as it were attenuates the consopiting fumes doth not utterly dispel them What a difficulty is it to watch but one hour There are some lucid and vivid intervals but of how short continuance how soon doth the awakened soul close its heavy eyes and fall asleep again how often do temptations surprize even such in their slumbring fits while no sense of their danger can prevail with them to watch and pray with due care and constancy least they enter thereinto Hither are most of the sins of our lives to be imputed and referr'd not to meer ignorance that we know not sin from duty or what will please God and what displease him but to a drowsie inadvertency that we keep not our spirits in a watchful considering posture Our eyes that should be ever towards the Lord will not be kept open and though we resolve we forget our selves before we are aware we find our selves overtaken Sleep comes on upon us like an armed man and we cannot avert it How often do we hear and read and pray and meditate as persons asleep as if we knew not what we were about How remarkable useful providences escape either our notice or due improvement amidst our secure slumbers How many Visits from heaven are lost to us when we are as it were between sleeping and waking I sleep but my heart waketh and hardly own the voice that calls upon us till our beloved hath withdrawn himself Indeed what is the whole of our life here but a dream The entire scene of this sensible world but a vision of the night where every man walks but in a vain shew where we are mockt with shadows our credulous sense abus'd by impostures and delusive appearances nor are we ever secure from the most destructive mischievous deception further than as our souls are possest with the apprehensions that this is the very truth of our case and thence instructed to consider and not to prefer the shadows of time before the great realities of eternity Nor is this sleep casual but even connatural to our present state the necessary result of so strict an union and commerce with the body which is to the in-dwelling Spirit as a dormitory or charnel-house rather than a mansion A soul drench't in sensuality a Leâ—â—e that hath too little of fiction in it and immur'd in a sloathful putid slesh sleeps as it were by fate not by chance and is only capable of full relief by suffering a Dissolution which it hath reason to welcome as a jubilee and in the instant of departure to sacrifice as he did with that easie and warrantable change to make a Heathen expression Scriptural Jehovae liberatori to adore and praise its great Deliverer At least accounts being once made up and a meetness in any measure attained for the heavenly inheritance c. hath no reason to regret or dread the approaches of the eternal day more than we do the return of the Sun after a dark and long-some night But as the sluggard doth nothing more unwillingly than forsake his bed nor bears any thing with more regret than to be awak't out of his sweet sleep though you should intice him with the pleasures of a Paradise to quit a smoky loathsome Cottage so fares it with the sluggish soul as if it were lodg'd in an inchanted Bed 't is so fast held by the charms of the body all the glory of the other world is little enough to tempt it out than which there is not a more deplorable Symptome of this sluggish slumbring state So deep an oblivion which you know is also naturally incident to sleep hath seiz'd it of its own Countrey of its alliances above its relation to the Father and world of Spirits It takes this earth for its home where 't is both in exile and captivity at once And as a Prince stoln away in his infancy and bred up in a beggers shed so little seeks that it declines a better state This is the degenerous torpid disposition of a soul lost in flesh and inwrapt in stupifying clay which hath been deeply resented by some Heathens So one brings in Socrates pathetically bewailing this oblivious dreaming temper of his soul which saith he had seen that pulchritude you must pardon him here the conceit of its pre-existence that neither humane voice could utter nor eye behold But that now in this life it had only some little remembrance thereof as in a dream being both in respect of place and condition far removed from so pleasant sights prest down into an earthly station and there encompast with all manner of dirt and filthiness c. And to the same purpose Plato often speaks
Christian Doctrine as if they were of another Religion How unlike is the Christian world to the Christian Doctrine The seal is fair and excellent but the impression is languid or not visible Where is that serious godliness that heavenliness that purity that spirituality that righteousness that peace unto which the Christian Religion is most aptly designed to work and form the Spirits of men we think to be saved by an empty name and glory in the shew and appearance of that the life and power whereof we hate and deride 'T is a reproach with us not to be called a Christian and a greater reproach to be one If such and such Doctrines obtain not in our professed Belief we are Hereticks or Infidels if they do in our practice we are precisians and fools To be so serious and circumspect and strict and holy to make the practice of godliness so much our business as the known and avowed principles of our Religion do plainly exact from us yea though we come as we cannot but do unspeakably short of that required measure is to make ones self a common derision and scorn Not to be professedly religious is barbarous to be so in good earnest ridiculous In other things men are wont to act and practise according to the known Rules of their several Callings and Professions and he would be reckon'd the common fool of the neighbour-hood that should not do so The Husbandman that should sow when others reap or contrive his Harvest into the depth of Winter or sow Fitches and expect to reap Wheat The Merchant that should venture abroad his most precious Commodities in a leaky bottom without Pilot or Compass or to places not likely to afford him any valuable return In Religion only it must be counted absurd to be and do according to it s known agreed Principles and he a fool that shall but practise as all about him professe to believe Lord whence is this apprehended inconsistency between the profession and practise of Religion what hath thus stupify'd and unman'd the world that seriousness in Religion should be thought the character of a fool that men must visibly make a mockery of the most Fundamental Articles of Faith onely to save their reputation and be afraid to be serious least they should be thought mad Were the Doctrine here opened believed in earnest were the due proper impresse of it upon our Spirits or as the Pagan Moralists expression is were our mind transfigured into it what manner of persons should we be in all holy conversation and godliness But 't is thought enough to have it in our Creed though never in our hearts and such as will not deride the holiness it should produce yet indeavour it not nor go about to apply and urge truths upon their own souls to any such purpose What should turn into Grace and Spirit and Life turns all into Notion and Talk and men think all is well if their head be fill'd and their tongues tipt with what should transform their souls and govern their lives How are the most awful Truths and that should have greatest power upon mens Spirits trifled with as matters only of speculation and discourse They are heard but as empty airy words and presently evaporate pass away into words again like food as Seneca speaks that comes up presently the same that it was taken in which as he saith profits not nor makes any accession to the body at all A like case as another ingeniously speaks as if sheep when they have been feeding should present their Shepherds with the very grass it self which they have cropt and shew how much they had eaten No saith he they concoct it and so yield them Wool and Milk And so saith he do not you viz. when you have been instructed presently go and utter words among the more ignorant meaning they should not do so in a way of ostentation to shew how much they knew more than others but works that follow upon the concoction of what hath been by words made known to them Let Christians be ashamed that they need this instruction from heathen Teachers Thy words were found and I did eat them saith the Prophet and thy word was to me the joy and rejoycing of my heart Divine truth is only so far at present grateful or useful for future as 't is received by faith and consideration and in the love thereof into the very heart and there turned in succum sanguinem into real nutriment to the soul So shall man live by the word of God Hence is the application of it both personal and ministerial of so great necessity If the Truths of the Gospel were of the same alloy with some parts of Philosophy whose end is attained as soon as they are known If the Scripture Doctrine the whole entire System of it were not a Doctrine after godliness if it were not designed to sanctifie and make men holy or if the hearts of men did not reluctate were easily receptive of its impressions our work were as soon done as such a Doctrine were nakedly proposed But the state of the case in these respects is known and evident The tenour and aspect of Gospel truth speaks its end and experience too plainly speaks the oppositeness of mens Spirits All therefore we read and hear is lost if it be not urgently apply'd The Lord grant it be not then too Therefore Reader let thy mind and heart concur in the following improvement of this Doctrine which will be wholly comprehended under these Two heads Inferences of Truth Rules of Duty that are consequent and connatural thereto 1. Inferences of Truth educible from it 1. True Blessedness consists not in any sensual injoyment The blessedness of a man can be but one Most onely one He can have but one highest and best good And its proper character is that it finally satisfies and gives rest to his Spirit This the face and likeness of God doth his glory beheld and participated Here then alone his full blessedness must be understood to lye Therefore as this might many other wayes be evinced to be true so it evidently appears to be the proper issue of the present truth and is plainly proved by it But alas it needs a great deal more to be pressed than proved O that it were but as much considered as it is known The experience of almost 6000. years hath one would think sufficiently testified the incompetency of every worldly thing to make men happy that the present pleasing of our senses and the gratification of our animal part is not blessedness that men are still left unsatisfied notwithstanding But the practice and course of the world is such as if this were some late and rare experiment which for curiosity every one must be trying over again Every age renews the inquiry after an earthly felicity the design is intail'd as the Spanish designs are said to be and reinforc'd with as great a confidence and vigor
from age to age as if none had been baffled or defeated in it before or that it were very likely to take at last Had this been the alone folly of the first age it had admitted some excuse but that the world should still be cheated by the same so oft-defeated impostures presents us with a sad prospect of the deplorable state of mankind This their way is their folly yet their posterity approve c. The wearied wits and wasted estates laid out upon the Philosophers stone afford but a faint defective representation of this case What Chymistry can extract heaven out of a clod of clay What art can make blessedness spring and grow out of this cold earth If all created nature be vext and tortured never so long who can expect this Elixir Yet after so many frustrated attempts so much time and strength and labour lost men are still as eagerly and vainly busie as ever Are perpetually tossed by unsatisfied desires labouring in the â—ire wearying themselves for very vanity distracted by the uncertain and often contrary motions of a ravenous appetite and a blind mind that would be happy and knows not how With what sounding bowels with what compassionate tears should the state of mankind be lamented by all that understand the worth of a soul What serious heart doth not melt and bleed for miserable men that are through a just nemesis so perpetually mockt with shadows cheated with false delusive appearances infatuated and betrayed by their own senses They walk but in a vain shew disquieting themselves in vain their dayes flee away as a shadow their strength is onely labour and sorrow while they rise up early and lye down late to seek rest in trouble and life in death They run away from blessedness while they pretend to pursue it and suffer themselves to be led down without regret to perdition as an ox to the slaughter and a fool to the correction of the stocks till a dart strike through their liver Descend patiently the chambers of death not so much as once thinking whether are we going dream of nothing but an earthly paradise till they find themselves amidst the infernal regions 2. The Spirit of man in as much as 't is capable of such a blessedness appears an excellent creature It s natural capacity is supposed for the Psalmist speaks of his own numerical person the same that then writ I shall behold shall be satisfied take away this supposition and it could not be so said or as in Jâ—b's words I shall behold him and not another for me It would certainly be another not the same Judge hence the excellency of an humane soul the principal subject of this blessedness without addition of any new natural powers 't is capable of the vision of God of partaking unto satisfaction the divine likeness And is not that an excellent creature that is capable not onely of surveying the creation of God passing through the several ranks and orders of created Beings but of ascending to the Being of beings of contemplating the divine excellencies of beholding the bright and glorious face of the blessed God himself till it have lookt it self into His very likeness and have his intire image inwrought into it The dignity then of the Spirit of man is not to be estimated by the circumstances of its present state as 't is here clad with a â—ordid flesh inwrapt in darkness and gravelling in the dust of the earth but consider the improveableness of its natural powers and faculties the high perfections it may attain and the foundations of how glorious a state are laid in its very nature And then who can tell whether its possible advancement is more to be admired or its present calamity deplor'd Might this consideration be permitted to settle and fix it self in the hearts of men could any thing be so grievious to them as their so vast distance from such an attainable blessedness or any thing so industriously avoided so earnestly abhorred as that viler dejection and abasement of themselves when they are so low already by Divine disposition to descend lower by their own wickedness When they are already fallen as low as Earth to precipitate themselves as low as Hell How generous a disdain should that thought raise in mens spirits of that vile servitude to which they have subjected themselves a servitude to brutal lusts to sensual inclinations and desires as if the highest happiness they did project to themselves were the satisfaction of these Would they not with an heroick scorn turn away their eyes from beholding vanity did they consider their own capacity of beholding the divine glory could they satisfie themselves to become like the beasts that perish did they think of being satisfied with the likeness of God And who can conceive unto what degree this aggravates the sin of man that he so little minds as it will their misery that shall fall short of this blessedness They had spirits capable of it Consider thou sensual man whose happiness lies in Colours and Tasts and Sounds as the Moralist ingeniously speaks that herd'st thy self with bruit creatures and aimest no higher then they as little lookest up and art as much a stranger to the thoughts and desires of Heaven thy Creation did not set thee so low they are where they were but thou art fall'n from thy excellency God did not make thee a brute Creature but thou thy self Thou hast yet a spirit about thee that might understand its own originals and alliance to the Father of Spirits that hath a designation in its nature to higher converses and imployments Many myriads of such spirits of no higher original excellency then thy own are now in the presence of the Highest Majesty are prying into the eternal glory contemplating the perfections of the Divine Nature beholding theâ— unvailed face of God which transfuses upon them its own satisfying likeness Thou art not so low-born but thou might'st attain this state also That Soveraign Lord and Authour of all things calls thee to it his goodness invites thee his authority enjoyns thee to turn thy thoughts and designs this way Fear not to be thought immodest or presumptuous 't is but a dutiful ambition an obedient aspiring Thou art under a Law to be thus happy nor doth it bind thee to any natural impossibility it designs instruction to thee not delusion guidance not mockery When thou art required to apply and turn thy Soul to this blessedness 't is not the same thing as if thou wert bidden to remove a Mountain to pluck down a Star or create a World Thou art here put upon nothing but what is agreeable to the primaeval nature of man and though it be to a vast heighth thou must ascend 't is by so easie and familiar Methods by so apt Gradations that thou wilt be sensible of no violence done to thy nature in all thy way Do but make some trials with thy self thou wilt soon find
Worship Some possibly can say they are sober just Charitable Peaceable and others that can boast lesse of their Vertues yet say they are sorry for their sins and pray God to forgive them And if we urge them concerning their Translation from the state of Nature to that of Grace their becoming new creatures their implantation into Christ. They say they have been Baptized and therein regenerate and what would we have more But to how little purpose is it to equivocate with God to go about to put a fallacy upon the Judge of Spirits or escape the animadversion of his fiery flaming eye or elude his determinations and pervert the true intent and meaning of his most established Constitutions and Laws Darest thou venture thy soul upon it that this is all God means by having a new heart created a right Spirit renewed in us by being made Gods workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works by becoming new creatures old things being done away all things made new by so learning the truth as it is in Jesus to the putting off the old man and putting on the new which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness by being begotten of Gods own will by the word of truth to be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the chief excellency the prime glory as certainly his new creature is his best creature the first fruits or the devoted part of all his creatures by having Christ formed in us by partaking the divine nature the incorruptible seed the seed of God by being born of God Spirit of Spirit as of earthly parents we are born flesh of flesh When my eternal blessedness lies upon it had I not need to be sure that I hit the true meaning of these Scriptures especially that at least I fall not below it and rest not in any thing short of what Scripture makes indispensably necessary to my entring into the Kingdom of God I professedly wave controversies and 't is pity so practical a business as this I am now upon and upon which Salvation so much depends should ever have been incumbred with any controversie And therefore though I shall not degress so far as to undertake a particular and distinct handling here of this work of God upon the soul yet I shall propound something in general touching the change necessarily previous to this blessedness wherein that necessity is evidenceable from the nature of this blessedness which is the business I have in hand that I hope will pass among Christians for acknowledged truth not liable to dispute though the Lord knows it be little considered My design being rather to awaken souls to the consideration of known and agreed things than to perplex them about unknown Consider therefore First that the holy Scriptures in the forementioned and other like passages do plainly hold forth the necessity of a real change to be made in the inward temper and dispositions of the soul and not a relative only respecting its state This cannot be doubted by any that acknowledge a real inherent depravation propagated in the nature of man No nor denyed by them that grant such a corruption to be general and continued among men whether by imitation only or what way soever And willing I am to meet men upon their own principles and concessions however erroneous or short of the truth they may be while they are yet improvable to their own advantage Admit that regeneration or the new birth includes a change of our relation and state God-ward doth it therefore exclude an intrinsique subjective change of the inclinations and tendencies of the Soul And if it did yet other termes are more peculiarly appropriate to and most expressly point out this very change alone As that of conversion or of turning to God of being renewed in the spirit of the mind of putting off the old man that is corrupt by c. and putting on the new man which is created in righteousness and true holiness c. of partaking the Divine nature It matters not if this or that expression be understood by some more principally in another sense the thing it self of which we speak is as clearly expressed and as urgently pressed as there was cause as any other matter whatsoever throughout the whole Book of God But men are slower of belief as to the great Article of the Christian Doctrine then to most I might say any other This Truth more directly assaults the strong holds of the Devil in the hearts of men and is of more immediate tendency to subvert his Kingdom Therefore they are most unwilling to have it true and most hardly believe it Here they are so madly bold as to give the lie to all Divine Revelations and though they are never so plainly told without holiness none shall see God they will yet maintain the contrary belief and hope till go ye cursed vindicate the Truth of God and the flames of Hell be their Eternal confutation Lord that so plain a thing will not enter into the hearts of men that so urgent inculcations will not yet make them apprehend that their Souls must be renewed or perish That they will still go dreaming on with that mad conceit that whatever the Word of God says to the contrary they may yet with unsanctified hearts get to Heaven How deplorable is the case that when men have no other hope left them but that the God of truth will prove false belie his word yea and overturn the nature of things to save them in their sins Thou that livest under the Gospel hast thou any pretence for thy seeming ignorance in this matter couldst thou ever look one quarter of an hour into the Bible and not meet with some intimation of this truth What was the ground of thy mistake What hath beguiled thee into so mischievous a delusion How could such an imagination have place in thy soul that a Child of wrath by nature could become a Child of God without receiving a new nature That so vast a change could be made in thy state without any at all in the temper of thy Spirit Secondly consider That this change is in its own nature and the design of God who works it dispositive of the soul for blessedness 'T is sufficiently evident from the consideration of the state it self of the unrenewed soul that a change is necessary for this end such a soul in which it is not wrought when once its drowsie stupifying slumber is shaken off its reflecting power awakened must needs be a perpetuall torment to it self So far it is remov'd from blessedness it is its own Hell and can flie from misery death no faster then from it self Blessedness composes the soul reduces it to a consistancie it infers or rather is a self-satisfaction a well-pleasedness and contentment with one self self in rich't and fill'd with the divinefulness Hence 't is at rest not as being pent in but contentedly
best seen what a mans belief is by his practice For when any profess to believe this or that practical truth relating to their salvation if they believe is not practically i. e. with such a belief as will command their suitable practice it matters not what belief they are of or whether they were of that judgment or no. Yea it will prove in the issue better for them they had been of another when their own professed belief shall be urged against them But let us cosider a little how in practical matters of less concernment we would estimate a mans belief You meet a Traveller upon the way who tells you the Bridge over such an unpassâ—ble River is broken down and that if you venture you perish if you believe him you return if you hold on he reasonably concludes you believe him not and will therefore be apt to say to you if you will not believe me you may make trial Your Physician tells you a disease is growing upon you that in a short time will prove incurable and mortal but if you presently use means he shall prescribe ' tâ—s capable of an easie remedie How would you your self have your belief of your Phisitian judged of in this case would you expect to be believed if you should say you do not at all distrust your Phisitians integrity and judgment but yet you resolve not to follow his directions unless you would have us believe too that you are weary of your life and would fain be rid of it There is no Riddle or Mystery in this How ridiculous would men make themselves if in matters of common concernment they should daily practice directly contrary to their professed belief how few would believe them serious or in their wits But however call this believing or what you will we contend not about the name the belief of such a thing can no further do you good you can be nothing the better for it further then as it ingages you to take a course suitable and consequent to such a belief To believe that there is a Hell and run into it that unrighteousness persisted in will damn you and yet live in it To what purpose is it to make your boasts of this Faith But since you are willing to call this believing all the foregoing reasoning is to ingage you to consider what you believe Do you believe that unrighteousness will be the death of your soul will eternally separate you from God and the presâ—nce of his glory and when you have reason'd the matter with your self you find it to be certainly so should not such a thing be more deeply pondered The bare proposal of an evident truth commands present assent but if I further bend my mind to reason out the same thing to my self I am occasioned to take notice of the grounds dependencies the habitudes of it what it rests upon whither it tends and thence more discern its importance and of what moment it is then I should have done if upon first view I had assented only and dismist it my thoughts And yet is it possible you should think this to be true and not think it a most important truth Is it a small matter in your account whither you shall be blessed or miserable for ever whether you be sav'd or perish eternally Or is it considered by you according as the weight of the matter requires that as you are found righteous or unrighteous so will it everlastingly fare with you You may possibly say you already conclude your self righteous therefore no further imploy your thoughts about it But methinks you should hardly be able how ever to put such a thing out of your thoughts while as yet the final determination is not given in the case If a man have a question yet depending concerning his life or estate though his business be never so clear he will hardly forget it the trial not being yet past And though in this matter you have no reason to suspect errour or corruption in your Judge through which many honest causes may miscarry in an humane Judicature yet have you no reason to suspect your self If the holy Spirit hath assured you it hath not stupified you but as you have then the less of fear you have the more of love and joy Therefore you will not thence mind such a concernment the less but with the more delight and therefore also most probably with the more frequency and intention What a pleasure will it be to review evidences and say â—o here are the Mediums by which I make out my title to the Eternal Inheritance Such and such characters give me the confidence to number my self among Gods righteous ones And do you lead that heavenly raised life do you live in those sweet and ravishing comforts of the Holy Ghost that may bespeak you one whom he hath sealed up to the day of redemption If you pretend not to any such certainty but rely upon your own judgment of your case are you sure you are neither mistaken in the notion of the righteousnesse required nor in the application of it to your own souls Possibly you may think your self because in your ordinary dealings you wrong no man your self being judge a very righteous person But evident it is when the Scripture uses this tearm as discriptive of Gods own people and to distinguish betweeen them that shall be saved and perish it takes it in that comprehensive sense before explained And however it requires at least much more of thee under other expressions as thou canst hardly be so ignorant but to know And do but use thy reason here a little and demand of thy self Is he to be accounted a righteous person that thinks it fit to avoid wronging a man but makes no conscience at all of wronging God More particularly Is it righteous to live all thy dayes in a willing ignorance of the Author of thy being never once to enquire where is God my Maker Is it righteous to forget him dayes without number not to have him from day to day in all thy thoughts Is it righteous to estrange thy self from him and live as without him in the world while thou liv'st mov'st and hast thy being in him not to glorifie him in whose hands thy breath is to be a lover of pleasure more then God a worshipper in thy very soul of the creature more then of the Creatour Is it righteous to harden thy heart against his fear and love to live under his power and never reverence it his goodness and never acknowledge it to affront his Authority to belie his Truth abuse his Mercy impose upon his Patience desie his Justice to exalt thy own interest against his the trifling petite interest of a silly worm against the great all comprehending interest of the common Lord of all the world to cross his will to do thy own to please thy self to the displeasing of him whence hadst thou thy measures of
foreseeth c. The righteous man so far excells in this faculty as that his eye looks thorow all the periods of time and penetrates into eternity recommends to the Soul a blessedness of that same stamp and alloy that will endure and last for ever It will not content him to be happy for an hour or for any Space that can have an end after which it shall be possible to him to look back and recount with himself how happy he was once Nor is he much solicitous what his present state be if he can but find he is upon safe tearms as to his future and eternal state As for me saith the Psalmist he herein sorts and severs himself from them whose portion was in this life I shall behold I shall be satisfied when I awake he could not say it was well with him but it shall be q. d. Let the purblind short-sighted Sensualist imbrace this present world who can see no further Let me have my portion in the world to come may my soul always lie open to the impression of the powers of the coming world and in this so use every thing as to be under the power of nothing What are the pleasures of sin that are but for a season or what the sufferings of this now this moment of affliction to the glory that shall be revealed to the exceeding and eternal glory He considers patient afflicted godliness will triumph at last when riotous raging wickedness shall lament for ever He may for a time weep and mourn while the world rejoyces he may be sorrowful but his sorrow shall be turned into joy and his joy none shall take from him Surely here is wisdom this is the wisdom that is from above and tends thither This is to be wise unto salvation The righteous man is a judicious man he hath in a measure that judgment wherein the Apostle prayes the Philippians might abound to approve the things that are excellent and accordingly to make his choice This is a sense little thought of by the Authour wherein that sober Speech of the voluptuous Philosopher is most certainly true A man cannot live happily without living wisely No man shall ever enjoy the eternal pleasures hereafter that in this acquits not himself wisely here even in this chusing the better part that shall never be taken from him In this the plain righteous man out-vies the greatest Sophies the Scribe the disputer the Politician the prudent Mamonist the facete Wit who in their several kinds all think themselves highly to have merited to be accounted wise And that this point of wisdom should escape their notice and be the principal thing with him can be resolved into nothing else but the Divine good pleasure In this contemplation our Lord Jesus Christ is said to have rejoyced in Spirit it even put his great comprehensive soul into an extasie Father I thank thee Lord of heaven and earth that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes Even so Father because it pleased thee Here was a thing fit to be reflected on as a piece of Divine Royalty a part worthy the Lord of heaven and earth And what serious spirit would it not amaze to weigh and ponder this case awhile to see men excelling in all other kinds of knowledge so far excelled by those they most contemn in the highest point of wisdom such as know how to search into the abstrusest Mysteries of Nature that can unravel or see through the most perplext intrigues of State that know how to save their own Stake and secure their private Interests in whatsoever times yet so little seen often for not many wise in the matters that concern an eternal felicity It puts me in mind of what I find observed by some the particular madness adementia quoad hoc as 't is called when persons in every thing else capable of sober rational discourse when you bring them to some one thing that in reference to which they became distempered at first they rave and are perfectly mad How many that can manage a discourse with great reason and judgment about other matters who when you come to discourse with them about the affairs of practical godliness and which most directly tend to that future state of blessedness they are 〈◊〉 at their wits end know not what to say They savour not those things These are things not understood but by such to whom it is given And surely that given wisdom is the most excellent wisdom Sometimes God doth as it were so far gratifie the world as to speak their own language and call them wise that affect to be called so and that wisdom which they would fain have go under that name Moses 't is said was skil'd in all the wisdom of Egypt c. but at other times he expresly calls those wise men fools and their wisdom folly and madness or annexes some disgraceful adject for distinction sake or applies those appellatives Ironically and in manifest derision No doubt but any such person as was represented in the parable would have thought himself to have done the part of a very wise man in entertaining such deliberation and resolvs as we find he had there with himself How strange was that to his ears Thou fool this night shall they require thy soul c. Their wisdom is sometimes said to be foolish or else called the wisdom of the flesh or fleshly wisdom said to be earthly sensual devillish they are said to be wise to do evil while to do good they have no understanding they are brought sometimes as it were upon the stage with their wisdom to be the matter of divine triumph where is the wise and that which they account foolishness is made to confound their wisdom And indeed do they deserve to be thought wise that are so busily intent upon momentary trifles and trifle with eternal concernments that prefer vanishing shadows to the everlasting glory that follow lying vanities and forsake their own mercies Yea will they not cease to be wise in their own eyes also when they see the issue and reap the fruits of their foolish choice when they find the happiness they preferred before this eternal one is quite over and nothing remains to them of it but an afflictive remembrance That the torment they were told would follow is but now beginning and without end when they hear from the mouth of their impartial Judge Remember you in your life time had your good things and my faithful servants their evil now they must be comforted and you tormented When they are told you have received the consolation you were full ye did laugh now you must pine and mourn and weep Will they not then be as ready to befool themselves and say as they be those righteous ones are they whom we sometimes had in derision and for a proverb of reproach we fools counted their life madness
why should my heart any longer hang in doubt within me or look wishly towards future glory as if it were an uncouth thing or is it reasonable to confront my own imaginations to his discoveries Charge conscience with the duty it owes to God in such a case and let his revelations be received with the reverence and resignation which they challenge and in them study and contemplate the blessedness of awakened souls till you have agreed with your self fully how to conceive it Run over every part of it in your thoughts view the several divine excellencies which you are hereafter to see and imitate and think what every thing will contribute to the satisfaction and contentment of your Spirits This is a matter of unspeakable consequence Therefore to be as clear as is possible you may digest what is recommended to you in this Rule into these more particular directions 1. Resolve with your selves to make the divine revelation of this blessedness the prime measure â—nd reason of all your apprehensions concerning it Fix that purpose in your own hearts so to order all your conceptions about it that when you demand of your selves What do I conceive of the future blessedness and why do I conceive so the divine revelation may answer both the questions I apprehend what God hath revealed and because he hath so revealed The Lord of heaven sure best understands it and can best help us to the understanding of it If it be said of the origen of this world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it may much more be said of the stâ—â—e of the other we understand it by faith That must inform and perfect our intellectuals in this matter 2. Therefore reject and sever from the notion of this blessedness whatsoever is alien to the account Scripture gives us of it Think not that sensual pleasure that a liberty of sinning that an exemption from the divine dominion distance and estrangedness from God which by nature you wickedlâ— affect can have any ingrediency into or consistency with this state of blessedness 3. Gather up into it whatsoever you can find by the Scripture-discovery to appertain or belong thereto Let your notion of it be to your uttermost not only true but comprehensive and full and as particular and positive as Gods revelation will warrant Especially remember 't is a spiritual blessedness that consists in the refining and perfecting of your Spirits by the vision and likeness of the holy God and the satisfying of them thereby for ever 4. Get the notion of this blessedness deeply imprinted in your minds so as to abide with you that you may not be alwayes at a loss and change you apprehensions every time you come to think of it Let a once-well formed Idaea a clear full state of it be preserv'd entire and be as a lively image alwayes before your eyes which you may readily view upon all occasions 2. That having well fixed the notion of this blessedness in your minds you seriously reflect upon yourself and compare the temper of your Spirit with it that you may find out how it is affected thereto and thence judge in what likelihood you are of enjoying it The general aversion of mens Spirits to this so necessary work of self-reflection is one of the most deplorable Symptoms of lapsed degenerate humanity The wickedness that hath overspread the nature of man and a secret consciousness and misgiving hath made men afraid of themselves and studiously to decline all acquaintance with their own souls to shun themselves as Ghosts and Spectives they cannot indure to appear to themselves You can hardly impose a severer task upon a wicked man than to go retire an hour or two and commune with himself he knows not how to face his own thoughts His own soul is a Devil to him as indeed it will be in hell the most frightful tormenting Devil Yet what power is there in man more excellent more appropriate to reasonable nature than that of reflecting of turning his thoughts upon himself Sense must here confess it self out done The eye that sees other objects cannot see it self But the mind a rational Sun can not only project its beams but revert them make its thoughts turn inward It can see its own face contemplate it self And how useful an indowment is this to the nature of man If he err he might perpetuate his error and wander infinitely if he had not this self-reflecting power and if he do well never know without it the comfort of a rational self-approbation Which comfort Paganish morality hath valued so highly as to account it did associate a man with the inhabitants of heaven and make him lead his life as among the gods as their Pagan language is Though the name of this reflecting power Conscience they were less acquainted with the thing it self they reckon'd as a kind of indwelling Deity as may be seen at large in those Discourses of Maximus Tyrius and Apuleius both upon the same subject concerning the god of Socrates And another giving this precept Familiarize thy self with the gods adds and this shalt thou do if thou bear thy mind becomingly towards them being well pleased with the things they give and doing the things that may please thy Daemon or Genius whom saith he the most high God which they mean by Jupiter hath put into every man as as a derivation or extraction from himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be his president and guide viz. every ones own mind and reason And this mind or reason in that notion of it as we approve our selves to it and study to please it is the same thing we intend by the name of Conscience And how high account they had of this work of self-reflection may appear in that they entituled the Oracle to that document Know thy self esteeming it above humane discovery and that it could have no lower than a divine Original therefore consecrating and writing it up in golden Characters in their Delphick Temple as Pliny informs us for an heavenly-inspired dictate Among Christians that enjoy the benefit of the Gospel-revelation in which men may behold themselves as one may his natural face in a glass how highly should this self-knowledge be prized and how fully attained The Gospel discovers at the same time the ugly deformities of a mans soul and the means of attaining a true spiritual comliness Yea it is it self the instrument of impressing the divine image and glory upon mens Spirits which when it is in any measure done they become most sociable and conversable with themselves and when 't is but in doing it so convincingly and with so piercing energy layes open the very thoughts of mens hearts so thoroughly rips up and diffects the soul so directly turns and strictly holds a mans eye intent upon himself so powerfully urges and obliges the sinner to mind and study his own soul that where it hath affected any thing been any way operative
upon mens spirits they are certainly supposed to be in a good measure acquainted with themselves whatever others are Therefore the Apostle bids the Corinthians if they desire a proof of the power and truth of his ministery to consult themselves examine your selves and presently subjoyns know ye not your own selves intimating it was an unsupposeable thing they should be ignorant What Christians and not know your selves Can you have been under the Gospel so long and be strangers to yourselves none can think it Sure 't is a most reproachful thing a thing full of ignonimy and scandal that a man should name himself a Christian and yet be under grosse ignorance touching the temper and bent of his own soul. It signifies that such a one understands little of the design and tendency of the very religion he pretends to be of Yet he was a Christian by meer chance that he took up and continues his profession in a dream Christianity aims at nothing it gets a man nothing if it do not procure him a better Spirit 't is an empty insignificant thing it hath no design in it at all if it do not design this It pretends to nothing else It doth not offer men secular advantages emoluments honours it hath no such aim to make men in that sense rich or great or honourable but to make them holy and fit them for God He therefore loses all his labour and reward and shews himself a vain trifler in the matters of Religion that makes not this the scope and mark of his Christian profession and practice and herein he can do nothing without a constant self-inspection As it therefore highly concerns it well becomes a Christian under the Gospel to be in a continual observation and study of himself that he may know to what purpose he is a Christian and take notice what or whether any good impressions be yet made upon his Spirit whether he gain any thing by his Religion And if a man enter upon an enquirie into himself what more important question can he put then this In what posture am I as to my last and chief end how is my Spirit framed towards it This is the intendment and business of the Gospel To fit souls for blessedness and therefore if I would enquire what am I the better for the Gospel this is the sense and meaning of that very question is my soul wrought by it to any better disposition for blessedness Upon which the resolution of this depends am I ever likely to enjoy it yea or no That which may make any heart not deplorably stupid shake and tremble that such a thing should be drawn into question but the case with the most requires it and it must be so 'T is that therefore I would fain here awaken souls to and assist them in that is propound something in pursuance of the present direction which might both awaken them to move this great question and help them in discussing it Both which will be done in shewing the importance of this latter ultimate question in it self and then the subserviencie of the former subordinate one towards the deciding it These two things therefore I shall a little stay upon 1. To shew and urge the requisiteness of debating with ourselves the likelihood or hopefulnesse of our enjoying this blessednesse 2. To discover that the present habitude or disposedness of our Spirits to it is a very proper apt medium whereby to judge thereof First As to the former of these methinks our business should do it self and that the very mention of such a blessedness should naturally prompt souls to bethink themselves doth it belong to me have I any thing to do with it Methinks every one that hears of it should be beforehand with me and prevent me here Where is that stupid soul that reckons it an indifferent thing to attain this blessed state or fall short of it When thou hearest this is the common expectation of Saints to behold the face of God and be satisfi'd with his likeness when they awake Canst thou forbear to say with thy self and what shall become of me when I awake what kind of awaking shall I have shall I awake amid'st the beams of glory or flames of wrath If thou canst be perswaded to think this no matter of indifferency then stir up thy drowsie soul to a serious inquirie how 't is likely to fare with thee for ever and to that purpose put thy conscience to it to give a free sincere answer to these few Queries 1. Canst thou say thou art already certain of thy eternal blessedness Art thou so sure that thou need'st not enquire I know not who thou art that now readest these lines and therefore cannot judg of thy confidence whether it be right or wrong onely that thou may'st not answer too hastily consider a little that certainty of salvation is no common thing not among I speak you see of subjective certainty the heirs of salvation themselves How many of Gods holy ones that cannot say they are certain yea how few that can say they are That exhortation to a Church of Saints Work out your salvation with fear and trembling they of whom he expresseth such confidence Chap. 1. 6. over whom he so glories Chap. 4. 1. implyes this to be no common thing So doth Christs advice to his Disciples Strive to enter in at the strait gate and St. Peters to the scattered Jews that he saith had obtained like precious faith c. give diligence to make your calling and election sure with many more passages of like import Yea how full is the Scripture of the complaints of such crying out of broken bones of festering wounds of distraction by divine terrours Now what shall we say in this case when so eminent Saints have left us Records of the distresses and agonies of their Spirits under the apprehended displeasure of God may it not occasion us to suspend a while and consider have we much more reason to be confident then they And do we know none that lead stricter and more holy lives then we that are yet in the dark and at a losse in judging their Spiritual states I will not say that we must therefore think our selves bound to doubt because another possibly ter then we doth so Unknown accidents may much vary the cases But who would not think that reason and modesty had quite forsaken the world to hear where the odds is so vastly great the vain boasts of the loose generality compared with the humble solicitous doubts of many serious knowing Christians To see such trembling about their soul concernments who have walk't with God and served him long in prayers and tears when multitudes that have nothing whereon to bottom a confidence but Pride and Ignorance shall pretend themselves certain If drawing breath a while thou wilt suspect thou have reason not to be peremptory in thy confidence thou wilt sure think thy self concern'd to inquire further Urge
are the children of disobedience upon whom the wrath of God cometh The Faith the just live by is the substance of things hoped for c. Such believers are confessed avowed strangers on earth seekers of the better the heavenly Country whence 't is said God will not be ashamed to be called their God plainly implying that as for low terrene spirits that love to creep on the earth and imbrace Dunghills God will be ashamed of them he will for ever disdain a relation to them while and as such And if we will be determined by the express word of our great Redeemer to whom we owe all the hopes of this blessedness When he had been advising not to lay up treasure on earth but in heaven he presently adds where your treasure is there will your hearts be also If thy treasure thy great interests thy precious and most valuable good be above that will attract thy heart it will certainly be disposed thitherward Yet here it must carefully be considered that in as much as this blessednesse is thy end i. e. thy Supream good as the notion of treasure also imports Thy heart must be set upon it above any other injoyment else all is to no purpose 'T is not a faint slight overmastered inclination that will serve the turn but as all the forementioned Scriptures import such as will bespeak it a mans business to seek heaven his main work and give ground to say of him his heart is there If two lovers solicit the same person and speaking of them in comparisons she say this hath my heart is it tolerable to understand her as meaning him she loves less so absurd would it be to understand Scriptures that speak of such an intention of heart heaven-ward as if the faintest desire or coldest wish or most lazie inconstant indeavour were all they meant No 't is a steady prevalent victorious direction of heart towards the future glory in comparison whereof thou despisest all things else all temporal terrene things that must be the evidential ground of thy hope to enjoy it And therefore in this deal faithfully with thy own soul and demand of it Dost thou esteem this blessednesse above all things else Do the thoughts of it continually return upon thee and thy mind and heart as it were naturally run out to it Are thy chieâ—est solicitudes and cares taken up about it least thou should'st fall short and suffer a disappointment Dost thou savour it with pleasure hath it a sweet and grateful relish to thy Soul dost thou bend all thy powers to pursue and presse on towards it Urge thy self to give answer truly to such enquiries and to consider them seriously that thou may'st do so Such whose Spirits are either most highly raised and lift up to heaven or most deeply deprest and sunk into the earth may make the clearest judgment of themselves With them that are of a middle temper the trial will be more difficult yet not fruitless if it be managed with serious diligence though no certain conclusion or judgment be made thereupon For the true design and use of all such enquiries and reflections upon our selves which let it be duly considered is not to bring us into a state of cessation from further indeavours as if we had nothing more to do suppose we judge the best of our state that can be thought but to keep us in a wakeful temper of Spirit that we may not forget our selves in the great business we have yet before us but go on with renewed vigour through the whole course of renewed indeavours wherein we are to be still conversant till we have attained our utmost mark and end Therefore is this present enquiry directed as introductive to the further duty that in the following Rules is yet to be recommended CHAP. XVII Rule 3d. Directing such as upon enquirie find or see cause to suspect a total aversation in themselves to this blessednesse to be speedy and restlesse in their indeavours to have the temper of their Spirits altered and made suitable to it Doubts and Objections conconcerning the use of such indeavours in such a case answered Some Considerations to enforce this Direction propounded and pressed 3. THat if upon such reflection we find or suspect our selves wholly diseffected and unsuitable to this blessedness we apply our selves to speedy incessant indeavours to get the temper of our Spirits changed and fitted thereto The state of the case speaks it self that there is no sitting still here This is no condition Soul to be rested in unless thou art provided to encounter the terrours of eternal darkness and endure the torture of everlasting burnings Yet am I not unapprehensive how great a difficulty a carnal heart will make of it to bestir itself in order to any redresse of so deplorable a case And how real a difficulty it is to say any thing that will be thought regardable to such a one Our sad experience tells us that our most efficacious words are commonly wont to be entertained as neglected puffs of wind our most convictive reasonings and perswasive exhortations lost yea and though they are managed too in the name of the great God as upon the deaf and dead Which is too often apt to tempt into that resolution of speaking no more in that name And were it not that the dread of that great Majesty retains us how hard were it to forbear such expostulations Lord why are we commonly sent upon so vain an errand Why are we required to speak to them that will not hear and expose thy sacred truths and counsels to the contempt of sinful worms to labour day by day in vain and spend our strength for nought Yea we cannot forbear to complain None so labour in vain as we Of all men none so generally improsperous and unsuccessful Others are wont to see the fruit of their labours in proportion to the expence of strength in them But our strength is labour and sorrow for the most part without the return of a joyfull fruit The Husbandman ploughs in hope and sowes in hope and is commonly partaker of his hope we are sent to plough and sow among Rocks and Thorns and in the high Way how seldom fall we upon good ground where we have any increase Yea Lord how often are men the harder for all our labours with them the deader for all indeavours to quicken them Our breath kills them whom thou sendest us to speak life to and we often become to them a a deadly savour Sometime when we think somewhat is done to purpose our labour all returns and we are to begin again and when the duties we perswade to come directly to cross mens interests and carnal inclinations they revolt and start back as if we were urging them upon flames or the swords point and their own souls and the eternal glory are regarded as a thing of naught Then Heaven and Hell become with them Phancies and Dreams and all
beforehand make thee any promise of that A promise would give thee a full certainty of the issue if it were absolute out of hand if conditional assoon as thou findest the condition performed But what canst thou act upon no lower rate then a foregoing certainty a preassurance of the event My friend consider a little what thou canst not but know already that 't is HOPE built with those that are rational upon rational probabilities with many oftentimes upon none at all is the great Engine that moves the World that keeps all sorts of men in action Doth the Husbandman foreknow when he Ploughs and Sows that the Crop will answer his cost and pains Doth the Merchant foreknow when he Imbarques his goods he shall have a safe and gainful return Dost thou foreknow when thou eatest it shall refresh thee when thou takest Physick that it shall recover thy health and save thy life Yea further can the câ—â—tous man pretend a promise that his unjust practises shall inrich him the malicious that he shall prosper in his design of revenge the ambitions that he shall be great and honourable the voluptuous that his pleasures shall be always unmixt with gall and wormwood Can any say they ever had a promise to ascertain them that profaneness and sensuality would bring them to Heaven that an ungodly dissolute life would end in blessedness Here the Lord knows men can be confident and active enough without a promise and against many an expresse threatning Wilt thou not upon the hope thou hast before thee do as much for thy soul for eternal blessedness as men do for uncertain riches short pleasures an airie soon-blasted name yea as much as men desperately do to damn themselves and purchase their own swift destruction Or canst thou pretend though thou hast no preassuming promise thou hast no hope Is it nothing to have heard so much of Gods gracious Nature Is it suitable to the reports and discoveries he hath made of himself to let a poor wretch perish at his feet that lies prostrate there expecting his mercy Did'st thou ever hear he was so little a lover of souls Do his giving his Son his earnest unwearied strivings with sinners his long patience the clear beams of Gospel-light the amiable appearances of his Grace give groâ—nd for no better no kinder thoughts of him yea hath he not expresly stiled himself the God hearing prayers taken a name on purpose to encourage all flesh to come to him Wilt thou dare then to adopt those profane words what profit is it to pray to him and say 't is better sit still resolving to perish then address to him or seek his favour because he hath not by promise assured thee of the issue and that if he suspends his grace all thou dost will be in vain How would'st thou judge of the like resolution If the Husbandman should say when I have spent my pains and cost in breaking up and preparing the Earth and casting in my Seed if the Sun shine not and the rain fall not in season if the influences of Heaven be suspended if God withhold his blessing or if an evading enemy anticipate my Harvest all I do and expend is to no purpose and God hath not ascertain'd me of the contrarie by expresse promise 't is as good therefore sit still Censure and answer him and thy self both together But thou wilt yet it may be say that though all this may be possibly true yet thou canst not all this while be convinc't of any need so earnestly to â—uâ—ie thy self about this affair For God is wont to surprise soule by preventing acts of Grace to be found of them that sought him not to break in by an irristible power which he least thought of And to goal to anticipate his grace were to detract from the 〈◊〉 and so from the glory of it But art thou not in all this afraid of charging God foolishly When the merciful God in compassion to the souls oâ— men hath given his Gospel constituted and settled a standing Office to be perpetuated through all ages for the publication of it Invited the world therein to a treaty with him touching the concernments of their eternal peace required so strictly their attendance to and most serious consideration of his proposals and offers encouraged and commanded their addresses to him set up a Throne of Grace on purpose wilt thou dare to say all this is needless When God speaks to thee is it needless for thee to hear him or regard what he saith or when he commannds thee to pour forth thy soul to him wilt thou say 't is a needlesse thing Dost thou not plainly see that the peculiar appropriate aptitude of the things prest upon thee speaks them necessary as means to their designed end whence also they are sitly called means of Grace Is not the Word of God the Immortal Seed are not Souls begotten by that Word to be the first fruits of his creatures Is it not the Type the Mould or Print by which Divine Impressions are put upon the Soul The Instrument by which he sanctifies Are not the exceeding great and precious promises the Veâ—icula the conveighances of the Divine Nature And what can be the means to mollifie and melt the obdurate heart of a sinner to asswage its enmity to overcome it into the love of God to transform it into his image but the Gospel-discovery of Gods own gracious and holy nature and can it operate to this purpose without being heard or read and understood and considered and taken to heart Do but compare this means God works by with the Subject to be wrought upon and the Effect to be wrought and nothing can be conceived more adequate and sitly corresponding But in as much as there hath been an enmity between God and sinners and that therefore the whole entire means of reconciliation must be a Treaty And that a Treaty cannot be managed or conceived without mutual interlocutiâ—n therefore must the sinner have a way of expressing its own sense to God as well as he speaks his mind to it which shews the necessity of Prâ—yer too and therefore because the Peace begins on his part though the War began on ours he calls upon sinners to open themselves to him Come now let us reason together he invites and addresses Seek the Lord while he may be fâ—und and call upon him while he is nigh c. And doth not the natural relation it self betwen the Creatour and a Creature require this besides the exigencie of our present case Every Creature is a supplicant It s necessary dependence is a natural Prayer The eyes of all things look up c. 'T is the proper glory of a Deity to be depended on and addrest to Should nâ—t a people seek unto their God 't is an appeal to reason is it not a congruous thing Further dost thou not know thy Makers will
glances or which speaks more inwardness more fixed views when their eyes do even feed and feast upon each other This we should endeavour to be as in a continual interview with God How frequent mention have we of the fixed posture of his eye towards Saints To this man will I look I have found out q. d. that which shall be ever the delight of mine eye do not divert me Towards him I will look What he speaks of the material Temple is ultimately to be refer'd to that which is typified his Church his Saints united with his Christ mine eys and my heart shall be there perpetually and elsewhere He withdraweth not his eyes from the righteous He cannot admirable grace allow himself to look off to turn aside his eye And he seems impatient of the aversion of theirs Let me see thy countenance saith he for it is comely Is it not much more reasonable it should be thus with us towards him that we should be more delighted to behold real comelinesse than he with what is so only by his gracious vouchsafement and estimation how careful should we be that our eye may at every turn meet his that he never look towards us and find it in the ends of the earth carelesly wandring from him How well doth it become us to set the Lord alwayes before us to have our eye ever towards the Lord This you see is the initial leading thing in this blessedness of heaven So it must have also a prime ingrediency into our heaven on earth It is a part of celestial blessedness but it is not peculiar to it The present blessedness the righteous injoy here is a participation of heaven It hath something in it of every thing that is ingredient into that perfect blessedness Our present knowledge of God is often exprest by vision or sight as we have had occasion to observe in many passages of Scripture He hath given us such a visive power and made it connatural to that heavenly creature begotten of him in all the true subjects of this blessedness We know that we are of God and presently it follows he hath gâ—ven us an understanding to know him that is true This new man is not born blind The blessed God himself is become liable to the view of his regenerate intellectual eye clarify'd and fill'd with vigour and Spirit from himself He therefore that hath made that hath new formed this eye shall not he be seen by it shall not we turn it upon him Why do we not more frequently bless our eye with that sight This Object though of so high excellency and glory will not hurt but perfect and strengthen it They are refreshing vital beams that issue from it Sure we have no excuse that we eye God so little i. e. that we mind him no more Why have we so few thoughts of him in a day What to let so much time pass and not spare him a look a thought Do we intend to imploy our selves on eternity in the visions of God and is our present aversion from him and intention upon vanity our best preparation thereto This loudly calls for redress Shall God be waiting all the day as on purpose to catch our eye to intercept a look and we studiously decline him and still look another way as of choice and what is it but choice can we pretend a necessity to forget him all the day How cheap is the expence of a look how little would it cost us and yet how much of duty might it express how much of comfort and joy might it bring into us How great is our offence and loss that we live not in such more constant views of God Herein we sin and suffer both at once things both very unsuitable to heaven Mindfulness of God is the living Spring of all holy and pleasant affections and deportments towards him sets all the wheels agoing makes the soul as the Chariots of Aminadab These wheels have their eyes also are guided by a mind by an intellectual principle Knowing intelligent beings as we also are by participation and according to our measure so act mutually towards one another We cannot move towards God but with an open eye seeing him and our way towards him If we close our eyes we stand still or blindly run another course we know not whither All sin is darkness whether it be neglect of good or doing of evil It s way is a way of darkness as a course of holy motion is walking in the light Our shutting our eyes towards God creates that darkness surrounds us with a darkness comprehensive of all sin Now is every thing of enjoyned duty waved and any evil done that sinful nature prompts us to Well might it be said He that sinneth hath not seen God When we have made our selves this darkness we fall of course under Sathans Empire and are presently within his Dominions He is the Prince of darkness and can rule us now at his will Perishing lost souls are such as in them the God of this world hath blinded their minds To open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light is to turn them also from the power of Sathan unto God What an hell of wickedness are we brought into in the twinkling of an eye We are without God in the world as if a man wink though at noon-day he hath as it were put out the Sun 't is with him as if there were no such thing When we have banished God out of our sight and forgotten him 't is with us as if there were no God If such a state grow habitual to us as we know every sinful aversion of our eye from God tends thereto what wickedness is there that will not lurk in this darkness How often in Scripture is forgetting God used as a character yea as paraphrase a full though summary expression of sin in general As if the wickedness the malignity the very hell it self of sin were wholly included and not connated only here Now consider this after so dreadful an ennumeration so black a Catalogue all that forget God And as deep calleth to deep one hell to another The wicked shall be turned into hell and all the people that forget God That keep that mass of wickedness of pride of persecution cursing blasphemy deceit and mischief all meet with one that hath not God in all his thoughts But who is so hardy to look the holy God in the face and sin against him what an astonishment is it when he watches over present sin or brings forth former sins out of secret darkness and sets them in the light of his countenance Who that understands any thing of the Nature and Majesty of God dare call him for a witness of his sinning The worst of men would find themselves under some restraint could they but abtain of themselves to sit down sometimes and solemnly think of God Much more would it prove
which he manifest himself To behold Him in the posture wherein he saves souls clad with the garments of Salvation girt with power and apparell'd with love travelling in the greatness of his strength mighty to save To view Him addressing himself to allure and win to him the hearts of sinners when he discovers himself in Christ upon that reconciling design make grace that brings salvation appear teaching to deny ungodliness c. To behold Him entring into humane flesh pitching his Tabernacle among men hanging out his Ensignes of peace laying his trains spreading his nets the cords of a man the bands of love To see Him in his Christ-ascending the Cross lifted up to draw all men to him and consider that mighty love of justice and of souls both so eminently conspicuous in that stupendious sacrifice Here to fix our eyes looking to Jesus and behold him whom we have pierced To see His power and glory as they are wont tâ— be seen in his sanctuaries to observe him in the solemnities of his worship and the gracefulâ— postures wherein he holds communion with his Saints when he seats himself amidst them on the Throne of grace receives their addresses dispenses the tokens and pledges of his love Into what transports might these visions put us every day Let us then stir up our drowsie souls open our heavy eyes and turn them upon God inureâ— and habituate them to a constant view of his yet vailed face that we may not see him onely by casual glances but as those that seeâ— his face and make it our business to gain â— thorough knowledge of him But let us remember that all our present Visions of God must aim at a further Conformity to him they must design imitation not the satisfying of curiosity our looking must not therefore be an inquisitive busie prying into the unrevealed things of God Carefully abstain from such over-bold presumptuous looks But remember we are to eye God as our pattern Wherein he is to be so he hath plainly enough reveal'd and propos'd himself to us And consider this in the pattern both to which we ought and to which we shall be conformed if we make it our business so will sense of duty and hope of success concur to fix our eye and keep it steady Especially let us endeavour to manage and guide our eye aright in beholding him that our sight of him may most effectually subserve this design of being like him and herein nothing will be more conducible than that our looks be qualified with Reverence and Love 1. Let them be reverential looks We shall never be careful to imitate a despised pattern or that we think meanly of when this is the intimate sense of our souls Who is a God like unto thee glorious in holiness There is none holy as the lord this will set all our powers on work such sights will command and over-awe our souls into a conformity to him Subjects have sometimes affected to imitate the very imperfections and deformities of their adored Prince Let us greaten our thoughts of God Look to him with a submissive adoring eye Let every look import worship and subjection Who can stand before apprehended sovereign Majesty with such a temper of soul â— shall signifie an affront to it This will makâ— every thing in us unsutable to God yield anâ— vanish and render our souls susceptible of alâ— divine and holy impressions 2. Let them be friendly and as far as may consist with that reverence amorous lookâ— 'T is natural to affect and endeavour likeness tâ— them we love Let love alwayes sit in our eye and inspirit it this will represent God alwayâ— amiable will infinitely commend to us his nature and attributes and even ravish us into his liâ—eness The loving Spouse often glorieâ— to wear her beloved Husbands picture on her breast The love of God will much more makeâ— us affect to bear his image in our hearts His Law is a true representation of him and Love is the fulfilling of that Law an exemplification of it in our selves Love will never enter a quarrel nor admit of any disagreement with God His more terrible appearances will be commendable in the eye of Love It thinks no evil But so interprets and comments upon his severer aspects whether through his Law or Providence as judge all amiable and frame the soul to an answerable deportment 2. In this way then let us endeavour a growing conformity unto God It hath been much and not unnecessarily inculcated already that the blessedness of the righteous hereafter doth not consist meerly in beholding an external objective glory but in being also glorified They are happy by a participated glory by being made like God as well as seeing his glorious likeness whereby the constitution of their Spirits is changed and reduced to that excellent harmonious agreeable temper that holy composure and peaceful state from which blessedness is inseparable As far as we are capable of blessedness in this world it must be so with us here Glory without us will not make us happy in Heaven much less will any thing without us make us happy on earth 'T is an idle dream of sickly crazie minds that their blessedness consists in some external good that is separable and distant from them which therefore as they blindly guesse they uncertainly pursue never aiming to become good without which they can never know what it is to be blessed What â—elicity are men wont to imagine to themselves in this or that change of their outward condition were their state such or such then they were happy and should desire no more As the childs phansie suggests to it if it were on the top of such a Hill it could touch the Heavens but when with much toil it hath got thither it finds it self as far off as before We have a shorter and more compendious way to it would we allow our selves to understand it A right temper of mind involves blessedness in it self 't is this only change we need to endeavour We wear out our days in vanity and misery while we neglect this work and busie our selves to catch a fugitive shadow that hovers about us It can never be well till our own souls be an Heaven to us and blessedness be a domestique an home-dwelling inhabitant there 'Till we get a settled principle of holy quietude into our own breasts become the sonâ— of peace with whom the peace of God may find entrance and abode Till we have that treasure within us that may render us in sensible of any dependence on a forraign good or fear of a forraign evil Shall that be the boast and glory of â— Phylosopher onely I carry all my goods with â— where ever I go And that a vertuous good man iâ— liable to no hurt Seneca thinks they discoveâ— a low Spirit that say externals can adde any thing though but a very little to the felicity of an honest mind as if saith he meâ—
as an end Religion doth not brutify men but make them more rational It s business is to guide them to blessedness It must therefore pitch their eyes upon it as the mark and 〈◊〉 they are to aim at and hold them intent there 'T is ingenuous and honourable to God that we should expresly avow it we come to Him for satisfaction to our Spirits not knowing whether else to apply our selves We turn our eyes upon Him we lay open our souls to receive impressions from Him for this very end This is an explicit acknowledment of Him as God our highest Soveraign good 2. Actually apply and accommodate divine visions and communications to this purpose Say O my Soul now come solace thy self in this appearance of God come take thy allowed pleasure in such exertions of God as thou dost now experience in thy self Recount thy happiness think how great it is how rich thou art on purpose that thy Spirit may grow more daily into a satisfied contented frame Often bethink thy self What is the great God doing for me that he thus reveals and imparts himself to my soul O how great things do those present pledges presignisie to me That thou may'st still more and more like thy portion and account it faln in pleasant places so as never to seek satisfaction in things of another kind though thou must still continue expecting and desiring more of the same kind And remember to this purpose there cannot be a greater participation of the misery of hell before-hand than a discontented Spirit perpetually restless and weary of it self nor of the blessedness of heaven than in a well-pleased satisfied contented frame of Spirit CHAP. XIX Rule 5. Directing to raise our desires above the actual or possible attainments of this our present and terminate them upon the future consummate state of Blessedness The Rule explained and pressed by sundry considerations Rule 6. That we add to a desirous pursuit a joyful expectation of this blessedness which is pursued in certain subordinate directions 5. THat notwithstanding all our present or possible attainments in this imperfect state on earth We direct fervent vigorous desires towards the perfect and consummate state of glory it self Not designing to our selves a plenary satisfaction and rest in any thing on this side of it That is that forgetting what is behind we reach forth not only to what is immediately before us the next step to be taken but that our eye and desire aim forward at the ultimate period of our race terminate upon the eternal glory it self and that not only as a measure according to which we would some way proportion our present attainments but at the very mark which it self we would fain hit and reach home to And that this be not only the habitual bent and tendency of our Spirits but that we keep up such desires in frequent and as much as is possible continual exercise Yea and that such actual desires be not only faint and sluggish wishes but full of lively efficacy and vigour in some measure proportionable to our last end and highest good beyond and above which we neither esteem nor expect any other enjoyment Whatsoever we may possibly attain to here we should still be far from projecting to our selves a state of rest on this side consummate glory but still urge our selves to a continual ascent so as to mount above not onely all enjoyments of any other kind but all degrees of enjoyment in this kind that are beneath perfection Still it must be remembred this is not the state of our final rest The Mass of Glory is yet in reserve we are not yet so high as the highest Heavens If we gain but the top of Mount Tabor we are apt to say 't is good to be here and forget the longer journey yet before us loath to think of a further advance when were our spirits right how far so ever we may suppose our selves to have attained it would be matter of continual joy to us to think high perfections are still attainable that we are yet capable of greater things then what we have hitherto compast our souls can yet comprehend more Nature intends what is most perfect in every Creature methinks the Divine Nature in the New Creature should not design lower or cease aspiring till it have attained its ultimate perfection its culminating point till Grace turn into Glory Let us therefore Christians bestir our selves let us open and turn our eyes upon the eternal glory Le ts view it well and then demand of our own souls why are our desires so faint and slothful why do they so seldom pierce through the interveining distance and reach home to what they prefessedly level at so rarely touch this blessed mark How can we forbear to be angry with our selves that so glorious an end should not more powerfully attract that our hearts should not more sensibly find themselves drawn and all the powers of the soul beset on work by the attractive power of that glory It certainly concerns us not to sit still under so manifest a distemper But if the proposal of the object the discourse all this while of this blessed state do not move us to make some further trials with our selves see what urging and reasoning with our souls what rubbing and chasing our hearts will do And there is a two fold trial we may in this kind make upon our spirits What the sense of shame will work with us whether our hearts cannot be made sensible to suppose how vile and wretched a temper it is to be undesirous of glory And then what sense of praise can effect or what impression it may make upon us to consider the excellency and worth the high reasonableness of that temper posture of soul which I am now perswading to a continual desirousness of that blessed glorious state 1. As to the former Let us bethink our selves can we answer it to God or to our own souls that we should indulge our selves in a continual negligence of our eternal blessedness A blessedness consisting in the Vision and Participation of the Divine Glory Have we been dreaming all this while that God hath been revealing to us this glorious state and setting this lovely prospect before our eyes Did it become us not to open our eyes while he was opening Heaven to us and representing the state which he designed to bring us to or will we say we have seen it and yet desire it not Have we been deaf and dead while he hath been calling us into eternal glory have all our senses been bound up all this while Hath he been speaking all along to sensless Statues to Stocks and Stones while he expected reasonable living souls should have received the voice and have returned an obedient complying answer And what answer could be expected to such a call a call to his Glory below this We desire it Lord we would fain be there And if we say we have not
been all this while a sleep we saw the light that shone upon us we heard the voice that called to us wherewith shall we then excuse our selves that our desires were not mov'd that our Souls were not presently in a flame was it then that we thought all a meer fixion that we durst not give credit to his word when it brought us the report of the everlasting Glory will we avow this Is this that we will stand by or what else have we left to say have we a more plausible reason to alledge that the discovery of such a glory mov'd us not to desire it then that we believed it not sure this is the truth of our case We should feel this heavenly fire alwayes burning in our breasts If our Infidelity did not quench the coal If we did believe we could not but desire But doth not the thoughts of this shake our very souls and fill us with horrour and trembling We that should be turn'd into indignation and ready to burn our selves with our own flame and all about us if one should give us the lie that we should dare to put the lye upon the Eternal Truth upon him whose Word gave stability and being to the world who made and sustains all things by it That awful Word That Word that shivers Rocks and melts down Mountains that make the inanimate Creation tremble that cna in a moment blast all things and dissolve the frame of Heaven and Earth which in the mean time it upholds is that become with us fabulous lying breath Those God-breath'd Oracles those Heavenly Records which discover and describe this blessed state are they false and foolish Legends must that be pretended at last if men durst that is so totally void of all pretence what should be the gain or advantage accrewing to that Eternal All-sufficient being What accession should be made to that infinite self-fulness by deluding a Worm Were it consistent with his Nature what could be his design to put a cheat upon poor mortal dust If thou dare not impute it to him such a deception had a beginning but what Author canst thou imagine of it or what end did it proceed from a good mind or a bad could a good and honest mind form so horribly wicked a design to impose an universal delusion and lye upon the world in the name of the true and holy God or could a wicked mind frame a design so directly level'd against wickedness or is there any thing so aptly and naturally tending to form the World to sobriety holiness purity of conversation as the discovery of this future state of glory and since the belief of future felicity is known to obtain universally among men who could be the Author of so common a deception If thou had'st the mind to impose a lie upon all the world what course would'st thou take how would'st thou lay the design or why dost thou in this case imagine what thou knowest not how to imagine And dost thou not without scruple believe many things of which thou never had'st so unquestionable evidence or must that Faith which is the foundation of thy Religion and eternal hopes be the most suspected shaking thing with thee and have of all other the least stability and rootedness in thy soul If thou can'st not excuse thy infidelity be ashamed of thy so cold and sluggish desires of this glorious state And doth it not argue a low sordid Spirit not to desire and aim at the perfection thou art capable of not to desire that blessedness which alone is suitable and satisfying to a reasonable and spiritual being Bethink thy self a little how low art thou sunk into the dirt of the earth how art thou plunged into the mity Ditch that even thine own clothes might adhor thee Is the Father of Spirits thy Father Is the world of Spirits thy Country Hast thou any relation to that Heavenly Progeny Art thou ally'd to that blessed Family and yet undesirous of the same blessedness Can'st thou savour nothing but what smells of the Earth Is nothing grateful to thy Soul but what is corrupted by so vicious and impure a tincture are all thy delights centred in a Dunghill and the polluted pleasures of a filthy world better to thee then the eternal visions and enjoyments of Heaven what art thou all made of Earth Is thy soul stupifi'd into a Clod hast thou no sense with thee of any thing better and more excellent can'st thou look upon no glorious thing with a pleased eye Are things onely desirable and lovely to thee as they are deformed O consider the corrupted distempered state of thy Spirit and how vile a disposition it hath contracted to it self Thine looks too like the Mundan◠Spirit The Spirit of the World The Apostle speaks of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of distinction we have not received the Spirit of the world but the Spirit that is from God that we might know or see and no doubt 't is desire that animates that eye 't is not bare speculative intuition and no more the things freely given us of God Surely he whose desire doth not guide his eye to the beholding of those things hath received the Spirit of the world onely A Spirit that conforms him to this world makes him think onely thoughts of this world and drive the designs of this world and speak the language of this world A Spirit that connaturalizes him to the world makes him of a temper suitable to it He breathes onely worldly breath carries a worldly aspect is of a worldly conversation O poor low spirit that such a world should with-hold thee from the desire and pursuit of such glory Art thou not ashamed to think what thy desires are wont to pitch upon while they decline and wave this blessedness Methinks thy very shame should compel thee to quit the name of a Saint or a Man To forbear numbring thy self with any that pretend to immortality and go seek Pasture among the Beasts of the Field with them that live that low animal life that thou dost and expect no other And while thou so fallest in with the world how highly dost thou gratifie the pretending and usurping God of it The great fomentor of the sensual worldy genius The Spirit it self that works in the children of disobedienence and makes them follow the course of the world hold them fast bound in worldly lusts and leaves them captive at his will causes them after his own Serpentine manner to creep and crawl in the dust of the Earth He is most intimate to this apostate world informs it as it were and actuates it in every part i◠even one great soul to it The whole world lies in that wicked one as the body by best Philosophers is said to be in the Soul The world is said to be convicted when he is judged He having fall'n from a state of blessedness in God hath involv'd the world with himself
the notice and observation of the world Moreover how can it escape thy serious reflection that if thou pretend it otherwise with thee 't is but to adde one sin to another and cover thy Carnality with Hypocrisie and Dissimulation yea while thou continuest in that temper of Spirit not to desire this blessedness as thy Supreme end the whole of thy Religion is but an empty shew an artificial disguise it carries an appearance and pretence as if thou wast aiming at God and Glory while thy heart is set another way and the bent of thy soul secretly carries thee a counter-course Hath not Religion an aspect towards Blessedness what mean thy Praying thy Hearing thy Sacramental Communion if thou have not a design for Eternal Glory what makest thou in this way if thou have not thy heart set towards this end Nor is it more dishonest and unjust then it is foolish and absurd that the disposition and tendency of thy soul should be directly contrary to the only design of the Religion thou professest and doest externally practice Thy profession and practice are nothing but self-contradiction Thou art continually running counter to thy self outwardly pursuing what thou inwardly declinest Thy real end which can be no other then what thou really desirest and settest thy heart upon and thy visibly way are quite contrary So that while thou continuest the course of Religion in which thou art engaged having taken down from before thine eyes the end which thou should'st be aiming at and which alone Religion can aptly subserve Thy Religion hath no design or end at all none at least which thou would'st not be ashamed to profess and own Indeed this temper of heart I am now pleading against an undesirousness or indifferencie of Spirit towards the eternal glory renders Religion the vainest thing in the world For whereas all the other actions of our lives have their stated proper ends Religion hath in this case none at all none to which it hath any designation in its nature or any aptness to subserve This monstrous absurdity it infers and how strange is it that it should not be reflected on That whereas if you ask any man of common understanding what he doth this or that action for especially if they be stated actions done by him in an ordinary course he can readily tell you for such and such an end But ask him why he continues any practice of Religion he cannot say in this case for what For can any man imagine what other end Religion naturally serves for but to bring men to blessedness which being no other thing then what hath been here described such as are found not to desire it really and Supremely as their end can have no real attainable end of their being religious at all To drive on a continued course and series of actions in a visible pursuit of that which they desire not and have no mind to is such a piece of folly so fond and vain a trifling that as I remember Cicero reports Cato to have said concerning the South-sayers of his time he did wonder they could look in one anothers faces and not laugh being conscious to each others impostures and the vanity of their profession so one would as justly wander that the generality of carnal men who may shrewdly guess at the temper of one anothers minds do not laugh at each other that they are joyntly engaged in such exercises of Religion to the design whereof the common and agreed temper of their Spirits do so little correspond As if all were in very good earnest for Heaven when each one knows for himself and may possibly with more Truth then Charity suppose of the rest that if they might alwayes continue in their earthly stations they had rather never come there And therefore that they desire it not Supremely and so not as their end at all consider it then that thy no-desire of this blessed state quite dispirits thy Religion utterly ravishes away its Soul leaves it a dead foolish vain thing renders it an idle impertinency not a mean to a valuable end This desire is that life of Religion all duties and exercises of piety are without it but empty Formalities Solemn pieces of Pageantrie Every service done to God but the Sacrifice of a Fool if not animated by the desire of final blessedness in him and be not part of our way thither a means designed to the attainment of it Which nothing can be that we are not put upon by the vertue of the desired end Without this Religion is not it self A continuance in well doing is as it were the body of it and therein a seeking honor glory and immortality the Soul and Spirit The desire of an Heavenly Country must run through the whole course of our Earthly Pilgrimage It were otherwise a continued errour an uncertain wandring no steady tending towards our end So that thou art a meer Vagrant if this desire do not direct thy course towards thy Fathers house And methinks all this should make thee even ashamed of thy self if thou canst not find this desire to have a settled residence and a ruling power in thy Soul then 2. Sense of praise should signifie something too as the Apostle Whatsoever things are pure lovely c. if there be any vertue any praise think of these things And hath not the eternal glory those characters upon it of purity and loveliness beyond all things Is it not a laudable and praise-worthy thing to have a mind and heart set upon that The blessed God puts a note of excellency upon this temper of Spirit But they desire a better Country that is an Heavenly Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God c. This renders them a people worthy of him who hath called them to his kingdom and glory fit for him to own a relation to Had they been of low terrene Spirits he would have accounted it a shame to him to have gone under the name and cognisance of their God But in as much as they desire the Heavenly Country have learned to trample this terrestrial world cannot be contained within this lower Sphere nor satisfie themselves in earthly things they now discover a certain excellency of Spirit in respect whereof God is not ashamed to own a relation to them before all the world to be called their God to let men see what account he makes of such a Spirit Yea this is the proper genuine Spirit and temper of a Saint which agrees to him as he is such He is begotten to the eternal inheritance A disposition and therein a desire to it is in his very nature the new nature he hath received implanted there from his original He is born Spirit of Spirit and by that birth is not intituled onely but adopted and suited also to that pure and Spiritual state of blessedness That grace by the appearance whereof men are made Christians teaches also instructs unto this very thing to
is not yet come i. e. till God shall vouchsafe to translate us from our present earthly state we compose our Spirits to a patient expectation of it Upon a twofold account the exercise of patience is very requite in the present case viz. both in respect of this very expectation it self and also in respect of the concomitant miseries of this expecting state In the former respect an absent good is the matter of our patience in the latter present and incumbent evil It falls more directly in our way to speak to the exercise of patience upon the former account yet as to the latter though it be more collateral as to our present purpose it cannot be unseasonable briefly to consider that also First Therefore the very expectation it self of this blessedness renders patience very requisite to our present state Patience hath as proper and necessary an exercise in expecting the good we want and desire as in enduring the evil that is actually upon us The direction it must be remembred intends such onely as apprehend and desire this blessedness as their greatest good whose souls are transported with earnest longings fully to enjoy what they have foretasted I am apprehensive enough that others need it not There is no use of patience in expecting what we desire not But as to those who desire it most and who therefore are most concerned in this advice It may possibly become a doubt how since there is sin in our present ignorance of God and unlikeness to him this can be the matter of any patience We must therefore know that as our knowledge of God and conformity to him are both our duty and blessedness the matter both of our endeavour and of Gods vouchsafement So our ignorance of him and unlikeness to him are both our sin and our misery which misery though God have graciously removed it in part yet also he continues it upon us in part as our sad experience tells us by his just and wise dispensation which we cannot except against Now therefore looking upon the defect of our knowledge of God and likeness to him under the former notion Though we are to reflect upon our selves with greater displeasure and indignation yet looking on them in the latter notion we are to submit to the righteous dispensation of God with a meek unrepining patience By this patience therefore I mean not a stupid succumbencie under the remaining disease and distemper of our Spirits in this our present state a sensless indifferency and oscitant cessation from continual endeavours of further redress but a silent and submissive veneration of Divine Wisdom and Justice and Goodness that are sweetly complicated in this procedure with us with a quiet peaceful expectation of the blessed issue of it This being premised I shall briely shew That we have need of patience That we have reason for it in this present case 1. That we have need of it supposing our souls are intent upon glory that we are in earnest in this pursuit will appear upon sundry accounts First The greatness of the thing we expect To behold the face of God to be satisfied with his likeness What serious heart apprehensive of its own concerns can without much patience hold out under such an expectation How do Lovers that expect the marriage day tell the hours and chide the Sun that it makes no more hast But how can that soul contain it self that expects the most intimate fruition of the Lord of glory Again consider the continued representation and frequent inculcations of this glory It s vigorous powerful beams are by often repealed pulsations continually beating upon such souls as are intent towards it Life and Immortality are brought to light in the Gospel and they are obliged by command and inclination to attend its discoveries The eye that 's once smitten looks again and again 't is not satisfied with seeing and every renewed look meets with still fresh raies of glory They have frequent foretasts and prelivations which still give life to new desires To lie under the direct stroke of the power of the world to come this requires much patience to sustain the burden of such an expectation Life it self were otherwise a bitter and a wearisome thing And the want of such foretasts for alass they are not constant makes desire sometimes more restless and expectation more bitter and grievous Moreover consider the nature and Spring of these desires that work in heavenly souls towards this glory They are of a Divine Nature and Original He that hath wrought us to this self same thing is God 2 Cor. 5. 5. Observe the tenour of this Proposition God is not the subject of predication but the predicate The action is not predicated of God as it would in this form of words God hath wrought us c. but God is predicated of this agent q. d. This is the work of a Deity none but God could be the Author of such desires That a Soul should be acted towards glory by the alone power of an Almighty hand here needs a Divine Patience to sustain it and make it strong and able to endure such a motion where there is Divine Power to act and move it forward The Frame could not hold it else it must desolve The Apostle therefore praying for the Thessalonians That God would direct their hearts into the love of himself which could not but enflame their souls with a desire of a perfect vision and injoyment presently adds and into the patient waiting for of Christ. Where we cannot by the way but reflect upon the admirable constitution and equal temper of the new Creature as to the principles that are ingredient into the composition of it fervent desire allayed with meek submission mighty love with strong patience If we consider it in actu signato or in its abstract Idea this is its temperament and of these there is a gradual participation where ever you find it actually existing God had otherwise formed a creature the prime of his creatures so as by its most intrinsecal constituent principles to be a torment to it self Lastly The tiresâ—me nature of expectation in it self is not least considerable It carries 't is true pleasure if it be hoping expectation with it but not without a great admixture of pain It brings a kind of torture to the mind as a continued exertion or stretching forth of the neck by which it is exprest doth to the body Therefore it 〈◊〉 most significantly said by the wise man Hope deferr'd makes the heart sick All these I say together discover the truth of what the Apostle tells us We have need of patience that when we c. we may inherit the Promise 2. And as we have need of it so we have also reason for it upon many accounts 'T is no piece of rigorous severity to be put upon the exercise of some patience to be kept awhile in a waiting posture for the completion of
visions of this Makers face that chuses thus to entertain it self on earth rather then partake the effusions of Divine glory above That had rather creep with Worms then soar with Angels associate with Bruits then with the Spirits of just men made perfect who can solve the Phaenomenon or give a rational account why there should be such a Creature as man upon the Earth abstructing from the hopes of another world who can think it the effect of an infinite wisdom or account it a more worthy design then the representing of such a Scene of actions and affairs by Puppets on a Stage for my part upon the strictest enquiry I see nothing in the life of man upon earth that should render it for it self more the matter of a rational election supposing the free option given him in the first moment of his being then presently again to cease to be the next moment Yea and is there not enough obvious in every mans experience to incline him rather to the contrary choice and supposing a future blessedness in another world to make him passionately desirous with submission to the Divine pleasure of a speedy dismission into it Do not the burdens that press us in this earthly taâ—ernacle teach our very sense and urge opprest nature into involuntary groans while as yet our consideration doth intervene And if we do consider is not every thought a sting making a much deeper impression then what only toucheth our flesh and bones Who can reflect upon his present state and not presently be in pangs The troubles that follow humanity are many and great those that follow Christianity more numerous and grievous The sickness pains losses disappointments and whatsoever afflictions that are in the Apostles language humane or common to men as are all the external sufferings of Christians in nature and kind though they are liable to them upon an account peculiar to themselves which there the Apostle intimates are none of our greatest evils yet even upon the account of them have we any reason to be so much in love with so unkind â— world Is it not strange our very Bridewel should be such a Heaven to us But these things are little considerable in comparison of the more Spiritual grievances of Christians as such that is those that afflict our Souls while we are under the conduct of Christ designing for a blessed eternity if we indeed make that our business and do seriously intend our spirits in order thereto The darkness of our beclouded minds The glimmering ineffectual apprehension we have of the most important things the inconsistency of our shattered thoughts when we would apply them to Spiritual Objects The great difficulty of working off an ill frame of heart and the no less difficulty of retaining a good our being so frequently tost as between Heaven and Hell when we sometimes think our selves to have even attained and hope to descend no more and are all on a suddain plung'd in the Ditch so as that our own Clothes might abhor us fall so low into an earthly temper that we can like nothing Heavenly or Divine and because we cannot are enforced justly most of all to dislike our selves Are these things little with us How can we forbear to cry out of the depths to the Father of our Spirits that he would pity and relieve his own Off-spring yea are we not weary of our crying and yet more weary of holding in How do repell'd Temptations return again and vanquished Corruptions recover strength We know not when our work is done We are miserable that we need to be always watching and more miserable that we cannot watch but are so often surprized and overcome of evil We say sometimes with our selves we will seek relief in retirement but we cannot retire from our selves or in converse with Godly friends but they sometimes prove snares to us and we to them Or we hear but our own miseries repeated in their complaints would we pray How faint is the breath we utter How long is it ere we can get our Souls possest with any becoming apprehensions of God or lively sense of our own concernments Would we meditate We sometimes go about to compose our thoughts but we may as well assay to hold the Windes in our fist If we venture forth into the world how do our Senses betray us How are we mockt with their impostures Their neerer objects become with us the onely realities and eternal things are all vanisht into airie shadowes Reason and Faith are laid asleep and our Sense dictates to us what we are to believe and do as if it were our only guide and Lord. And what are we not yet wearie Is it reasonable to continue in this State of our own choice Is misery become so natural to us so much our element that we cannot affect to live out of it Is the darkness and dirt of a dungeon more grateful to us then a free open air and sun Is this Flesh of ours so lovely a thing that we had rather suffer so many deaths in it then one in putting it off and mortality with it While we carry it about us our Souls impart a kind of life to it and it gives them death in exchange Why do we not cry out more feelingly O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this Body of Death Is it not grievous to us to have so cumbersome a yoke-fellow to be tied as Mezentius is said to have done the living and the dead together Do not we find the Distempers of our Spirits are mostly from these bodies we are so in love with either as the proper Springs or as the occasion of them From what cause is our drowsy sloth our eager passions our aversion to Spiritual objects but from this impure Flesh or what else is the Subject about which our vexatious cares or torturing fears our bitter griefs are taken up day by day And why do we not consider that 't is onely our love to it that gives strength and vigour to the most of our temptations as wherein it is more immediately concern'd and which makes them so often victorious thence to become our after-afflictions He that hath learn'd to mortifie the inordinate love of the Body will he make it the business of his life to purvey for it Will he offer violence to his own Soul to secure it from violence will he comply with mens Lusts and humors for its advantage and accommodation or yeild himself to the tyranny of his own avarice for its future or of his more-sensual Lusts for it s present content Will it not rather be pleasing to him that his outward man be exposed to perish while his inward man is renewed day by day He to whom the thoughts are grateful of laying it down will not though he neglect not duty towards it spend his days in its continual Service and make his Soul an hell by a continual provision for the flesh and
he might still be debarr'd of the long expected fruit of the travail of his Soul that the name of God might be still subjected to the blasphemy and and reproach of an Atheistical world who have long ago said with derision where is the promise of his coming Would we have all his Designs to be still unfinisht and so mighty wheeles stand still for us while we sport our selves in the dust of the earth And indulge our sensual inclination which sure this bold desire must argue to be very predominant in us and take heed it argue not its habitual prevalency At least if it discover not our present sensuality it discovers our former Sloth and Idleness It may be we may excuse our aversness to dye by our unpreparedness that is one fault with another though that be besides the case I am speaking of what then have we been doing all this while What were the affairs of thy Soul not thought of till now Take then thy repro of from a Heathen that it may convince thee the more No one saith he divides away his money from himself but yet men divide away their very life but doth it not shame thee he after adds to reserve only the reliques of thy life to thy self and to devote that time only to a good mind which thou canst employ upon no other thing How late is it to begin to live when we should make an end and deser all good thoughts to such an Age as possible few do ever reach to The truth is as he speaks we have not little time but we lose much we have time enough were it well employ'd therefore we cannot say we receive a short life but we make it so we are not indigent of time but prodigal what a pretty contradiction is it to complain of the shortness of time and yet do what we can to precipitate its course to hasten it by that we call pastime If it have been so with thee art thou to be trusted with more time But as thy case is I cannot wonder that the thoughts of death be most unwellcome to thee who art thou that thou shouldst desire the day of the Lord I can onely say to thee hasten thy preparation have recourse to Rule 2. and 3d. and accordingly guide thy self till thou find thy Spirit made more suitable to this blessedness that it become savory and grateful to thy soul and thy heart be set upon it Hence thou may'st be reconciled to the grave and the thoughts of death may cease to be a terror to thee And when thou art attained so far consider thy great advantage in being willing and desirous to dye upon this further account that thy desire shall now be pitch't upon a thing so certain Thine other desires have met with many a disappointment Thou hast set thy heart upon other things and they have deceived thy most earnest thirsty expectations Death will not do so Thou wilt now have one certain hope One thing in reference whereto thou may'st say I am sure Wait a while this peaceful sleep will shortly seize thy body and awaken thy soul. It will calmly period all thy troubles and bring thee to a blessed rest But now if onely the meer terrour and gloominess of dying trouble thy thoughts this of all other seems the most inconsiderable pretence against a willing surrender of our selves to death Reason hath overcome it natural courage yea some mens Atheism shall not Faith Are we not ashamed to consider what confidence and desire of death some Heathens have exprest some that have had no preapprehension or belief of another state though there were very few of them and so no hope of a consequent blessedness to relieve them have yet thought it unreasonable to disgust the thoughts of death What would'st thou think if thou had'st nothing but the Sophisms of such to oppose to all thy dismal thoughts I have met with one arguing thus Death which is accounted the most dreadful of all evils is nothing to us saith he because while we are in being Death is not yet present and when Death is present we are not in being so that it neither concerns us as living nor dead for while we are alive it hath not touch't us when we are dead we are not Moreover saith he the exquisite knowledge of this that Death belongs not to us makes us injoy this mortal life with comfort not by adding any thing to our uncertain time but by taking away the desire of immortality Shall they comfort themselves upon so wretched a ground with a little Sophistry and the hope of extinguishing all desire of immortality and shall not we by cherishing the blessed hope of injoying shortly an immortal glory Others of them have spoken magnificently of a certain contempt of this bodily life and a not onely not fearing but desiring to dye upon a sixed apprehension of the distinct and purer and immortal nature of the soul and the preconcieved hope of a consequent felicity I shall set down some of their words added to what have been occasionally mentioned amongst that plentiful variety wherewith one might fill a volume purposely to shame the more terrene temper of many Christians The Soul saith one of them is an invisible thing and is going into another place suitable to it self that is noble and pure and invisible even into Hades indeed to the good and wise God whether also my Soul shall shortly go if he see good But this he saith in what follows belongs only to such a Soul as goes out of the body pure that draws nothing corporal along with it did not willingly communicate with the body in life but did even fly from it and gather up it self into it self always meditating this one thing A soul so affected shall it not go to something like it self divine and what is divine is immoâ—tal and wise whether when it comes it becomes blessed free from errour ignorance fears and wild or enormous loves and all other evils incident to men One writing the life of that rare person Plotinus sayes that he seemed as if he were in some sort ashamed that he was in body which however it would less become a Christian yet in one that knew nothing of an incarnate Redeemer it discovered a refined noble Spirit The same person speaks almost the language of the Apostle concerning his being rapt up into the third heaven and tells of such an alienation of the soul from the body That when once it finds God whom he had before been speaking of under the name of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the beauty shining in upon it it now no longer feels its body or takes notice of its being in the body but even forgets its own being that it is a man or a living creature or any thing else whatsoever for it is not at leisure to mind any thing else nor doth it desire to be Yea and having sought him out he
glory of God Your hearts being bent thitherward and made willing to run through whatsoever difficulties of life or death to attain it Do not think that Christ came into the world and dyed to procure the pardon of your sins and so translate you to heaven while your hearts should still remain cleaving to the earth He came and returned to prepare a way for you and then call not drag you thither That by his Precepts and Promises and Example and Spirit he might form and fashion your Souls to that glorious state And make you willing to abandon all things for it And low now the God of all grace is calling you by Jesus Christ unto his eternal Glory Direct then your eyes and hearts to that marke the Prise of the High calling of God in Christ Jesus 'T is ignominious by the common suffrage of the civiliz'd world not to intend the proper business of our Callings To your Calling to forsake this world and mind the other make hast then to quit your selves of your entanglements of all earthly dispositions and affections Learn to live in this world as those that are not of it that expect every day and wish to leave it whose hearts are gone already 'T is dreadful to dye with pain and regret To be forced out of the Body To dye a violent death and go away with an unwilling refluctant heart The wicked is driven away in his wickedness Fain he would stay longer but cannot He hath not power over the Spirit to retain the Spirit nor hath he power in death He must away whether he will or no. And indeed much against his will So it cannot but be where there is not a previous knowledge and love of a better state where the Soul understands it not and is not effectually attempered and framed to it O get then the lovely Image of the future glory into your minds keep it ever before your eyes Make it familiar to your thoughts Imprint daily there these words I shall behold thy face I shall be satisfied with thy likeness And see that your souls be inrich't with that righteousness Have inwrought into them that holy rectitude that may dispose them to that blessed state Then will you dye with your own consent and go away not driven but allur'd and drawn You will go as the redeemed of the Lord with everlasting joy upon their heads As those that know whether you go even to a state infinitely worthy of your desires and choice and where 't is best for you to be You will part with your souls not by a forcible separation but a joyful surrender and resignation They will dislodge from this earthly Tabernnacle rather as putting it off then having it rent and torn away Loosen your selves from this body by degrees as we do any thing we would remove from a place where it sticks fast Gather up your spirits into themselves Teach them to look upon themselves as distinct thing Inure them to the thoughts of a dissolution Be continually as taking leave Cross and disprove the common maxime and let your hearts which they use to say are wont to dye last dye first Prevent death and be mortifi'd towards every earthly thing beforehand that death mave have nothing to kill but your body And that you may not die a double death in one hour and suffer the death of your body and of your love to it both at once Much less that this should survive to your greater and even incurable misery Shake off your Bands and Fetters the terrene affections that so closely confine you to the house of your bondage And lift up your heads in expectation of the approaching Jubilee the day of your redemption when you are to go out free and enter into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God When you shall serve and groan and complain no longer Let it be your continual song and the matter of your daily praise that the time of your happy deliverance is hastening on that ete long you shall be absent from the body and present with the Lord. That he hath not doom'd you to an everlasting imprisonment within those closs and clayie walls wherein you have been so long shut up from the beholding of his sight and glory In the thoughts of this while the outward man is sensibly perishing let the inward revive and be renewed day by day What Prisoner would be sorry to see the walls of his Prison House so an Heathen speaks mouldering down and the hopes arriving to him of being delivered out of that darkness that had buried him of recovering his liberty and injoying the free air and light What Champion inur'd to hardship would stick to throw off rotten rags rather expose a naked placid free body to naked placid free air The truly generous soul to be a little above never leaves the body against its will Rejoyce that it is the gracious pleasure of thy good God thou shalt not always inhabit a Dungeon nor lie amid'st so impure and disconsolate darkness that he will shortly exchange thy filthy Garments for those of Salvation and Praise The end approaches As you turn over these leaves so are your days turned over And as you are now arrived to the end of this Book God will shortly write Finis to the Book of your Life on Earth and shew you your names written in Heaven in the Book of that Life which shall never end FINIS Senec. * Pruritus disputandi scobies Ecclesia * Ut ulcera quaedam nocituras manus apoetunt tactu gaudent faedam corporum scabiem delectat quicquid â—xâ—sperâ—t Non alitè◠dixerim his mâ—ntibus in quas voluptates velut mala ulcera crupê unt voluptati esse laborem vexâ—tionemque Sâ—n. de tranquillitate anâ—â—â— Sen de Brev. vit * Nihil est Deo similius aut gratius quam vir animo perfectè bonus c. Apul. de Deo Soâ—â—atis * Inter bonos viros ac Deum amicitia est conciliante virtute amicitiam dico etiam necessitudâ— similitudâ— c. Sca de prov * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plato in Minâ—e 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Dyonys Halicar Antiq. Rom. lib. 8. Rom. 2 6 7 8 9. * Rom. 16 18. Phil. 3. 19. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sept. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The vâ—lgar Latine Eâ—oautem 〈…〉 appaâ—câ—o â—oâ—spectui 〈◊〉 satiabo◠〈◊〉 â—â—pâ—â—uâ—riâ— gloâ—ia tua Exactly following the Seventy as doth the Ethiopique the Chaldee Paraphrase disagrees little the Arabique lesse the Syâ—iâ—ck mistook it seem◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so read that word saith which we read likenesse Hieronymus juxta Hebr. reads the words exactly as we do Ego in justiâ—iâ viâ—â—bo faciâ—m tuam implebor cum evigilavero similitudine tua 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Seems best to be rendered here by or through righteousness as by the condition
multi ex scholasticis Palud in 4. dist 49. q. 1. Arâ— 3. Corel 2. Thom. de Aâ—gent q. 2. Art 1. Major q. 4. Hâ—nr quâ—â—ibet 7. Zumel 1. p. q. 12. Art 5. disp 2. câ—ncl 3. Ita O tuphr de virtute poeâ—tenti Whether there be any veâ—bum creatum the product of intellection The Thomists are themselves divided Their more common opinion is that there is none as Ledesma assures us telling us also his reason why he conceives there can be none Beati noâ— formaâ—t verbum in videndo Deo sed plus vident quam verbâ— creato dicere pâ—ssunt nam beatus per visionem beatam quamvis non viâ—eat infinitè videt tamen infinitum which is their great argument against any intelligible species he further addes sicut visio Dei quae est in ipso Deo hâ—bet pro principio specie intelligibili ipsam Divinam Essentiam protermino ipsâ—m Divinam Essentiam visio beatorum est ità supernaturalis divini ordinis participatio diviâ—ae visionis ita perfecta ut ipsa etiam habeat pro principio specie intelligâ—bili divinâ Essenâ—iaÌ„ pâ—otermino sive verbo producto ipsammet divinaÌ„ Essâ—ntiaÌ„ So that the principle and term of this vision are own'd to be nothing else but the simple Divine Essence Concerning the formal act it self it is much disputed whether the creatures intellect do at all effectively concur to it or whether God himself be not the onely efficient or agent in this vision Some stick not to aâ—â—irm the latter Marsil in 3. q. 1. Palud in 4. dist 49 q. 1. Aâ—t 2. referente Ledâ—sâ—â and say plainly that the action of the inâ—eriour agent wholly ceases and the superiour onely acts the same thing that D. M. Causabon in his Enthusiasm charges one Mâ—ximus with who in a book entituled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 writes thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tâ—at the Soul taken into immediate union 〈◊〉 Goâ— loses all us kâ—owing power though this be not distinctively spoken of the state of glory And what doth this amount to but that while they are eagerly contending about the Saints blessednesse and too curiously labouring to explicate the manner of their seeing God they unawares destroy the subject of the question and deny that they see him at all and so upon the whole dispute themselves into a worse than Pâ—ganish infidelity And even the rest that agree in the sense of the passages above recited will not be easily able to avoid the charge of as intollerable consequences which it is my businesse here onely to discover and not to determine any thing in this controversie whiles I tax the too much boldnesse of others who adventure it And here not to insist on the absurdity of what they say concerning the intelligible species in general let it be considered 1. That the Divine Essence is said to be united to the intellect of the blessed as an intelligible species 2. That the intelligible species in the businesse of intellection and the intellect become one another do not remain distinct things united but are identified 3. That hence in understanding God the intellect is deified and becomes God which naturally followes from the two former and is moreover expressely asserted in plain words What need is there to presse this Doctrine with hard consequencies or how can it look worse than it doth already with its own natural face Nor can I apprehend which way it should be made look better For should it lay claim to that favour to be understood accoâ—ding to the usual sense of the peripat 〈◊〉 mâ—xime Intellectus intelligendo sit omnia it will be found manifestly to have precluded it self That maxime is wont to be understood thus that the intellect becomes that which it understands 〈…〉 by putting on the species or likeness of its Object the representation of it For instance when I form in my mind the notion of a mountain my understanding becomes an Ideal or Spiritual mountain it becomes that species which is liable to more exception too than I shall now insist on and looks more like the language of a Poet than a Philosopher that is now formed there and not the material mountain it self But how shall this assertion The understanding by its act of understanding God becomes Goâ— be capable of that intâ—rpretation i. e. It becomes his likeness his Idâ—a his representation now formed in it when any such intervening likeness or representation is utterly denied and thâ—t supposed species is said to be the simple Divine essence it self and if the Divine essence it self be that species by which 't is understood will it not follow from that other Aristâ—tâ—â—an axiome which with them must signifie as much as a Text from Saint Paul sâ—â—bile 〈…〉 That our very knowledge of God must be God too or would they disown that maxime sure when once the faculty is supposed deiâ—ied the act immanent in it cannot be a created accident nor can that maxime understood of the 〈…〉 or the 〈…〉 denied by them And sure if the Saints kâ—owledge of God the likeness of him in their 〈◊〉 be God their holiness the likeness of him in their hâ—arts must be so too How absurd then would it be to use that Scripture language and speak of these under the names of Gods image or likeness when 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 are notionâ— so vastly disagreeing and since a Saints knowledge and holiness here and in heaven differ but in degree they can be here on earth nothing but God dwelling in them And supposing that Scotus have better defended than his adversaries impugned the real identity of the soul and its faculties that must be deified too However whâ—t could be imagined more absurd than that the substance of the soul should be a creature and its faculty God Whence then do we think that modern familists have fetch their admired non-sense Whom have they had their original instructors or who have taught them that brave magnificent language of being Godded with God and Christed with Christ but these Nor sure need they blush to be found guilty of so profoundly learned inconsistencies or to speak absurdly after such Patrons And what should occasion these men so to involve themselves I cannot find or divine more than this that they were not able to fasten upon any more tolerable sense of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 13. 12. 1 John 3. 2. but taking that in its highest pitch of significancy all their arguments are generally levelled at this mark to prove that no created species can possibly represent God sicuti est and thence infer that he cannot be seen by any created species in the glorified state where he is to be seen sicuti est But could we content our selves with a modest interpretation of these words and understand them to speak not of a parity but of a similitude only between Gods knowledge and ours nor of an absolute omni modous similitude
homini datum est quando primum creatus est rectus potuit non peccare sed potuit peccare Hoc autem novissimum eâ— potentius erit quò peccare noa potuit Aug de Civitat Dei lib. 22. c. 30. Libertas nâ—stâ—a inhaerâ—t divina ut exemplari in pâ—â—pâ—luâ ejus imitatâ—one versatur sive ortum sive pâ—â—gressum sive conâ—â—mmâ—tionem ejus intue 〈◊〉 libertas nostra in oâ—tu est capacitas Dei In progressu libertas res est longe câ—arâ—or progress â—senim atâ—â—nditur pâ—nes accessâ—m hominis ad Dâ—â—m qâ—i quidem 〈…〉 sed imitatione â—ssâ—â—latione câ—nstâ—t eâ—t utiquc imâ—â—atioâ—e assiâ—il itioâ— secuadum quam siâ—ut Deus est sablimis excelsus seipso ita homo est sublimis excelsus Deo altitudo ejus Deus est ut inquit D Augustinuâ— Consummatio denique libertatis est cum homo in Deum felicissimo gloriae coelestis statu transformatur deus omnia illi esse incipit Qui quidem postremus status co dissert à priore quippe homo tum non modo inalligatus est creaturis sed nec circaillas negotiatur etiam referendo in finem nec in creaturis se insundit nec per illas procedit ut faciâ—bat cum esset viator sed in solo Deo conquiescit effundit se placidissimè motits ejus cum sit ad presentissimum conjunctissimum bonum similior est quieti quà m mâ—tui Gib l. 2. c. 14. Omnes turbulae tempestates quae procul à Deoâ—rum coelestium tranquilitate exulant c. Apuleius de Deis Sâ—câ—atis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Max. Tyâ— disser 1. Quod desideras autâ—m magâ—â—m summum 〈◊〉 Deoque vicinum noa concuti Sâ—n. de trâ—nquil Animi Psal. 116. Sen. de tranquill anim Phil. 4. 7. Act. 20. 24. Isa. 26. 3. Psal. 112. 7. Rom. 15. 13. 2 Cor. 5. 5. 2 Cor. 4. 6. Prov. 4 18. Phil. 2 7. 2 Pet. 1. 4. 2 Cor. 3. 18. Psal 126. 6. * I would fain know what the Tertium shall be resulting from the Physical union some speak of Joh. 17. 11. ver 11. Ver. 21. 1 Cor. 6. 16. Gal. 6 7 8. Dr. Hâ—rv de Ovo * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 15. 13. Gâ—â—◠〈◊〉 in Christa â—â—â—â—â—mus homâ—â—â—â— c. Orat. 1 Matth. 5. 6. 1 Thes. 5 6. Ephes 5. 14. * So well doth the Apostles watchword suit our case awake to righteousness and sin not c. 1 Cor. 15 34. Cant. 5 2. Psal. 39 6. * Viz. 〈◊〉 Who at the time of his death sprinkled water upon the servants about him addita voâ—e se liquorem illâ—m libare Joâ—i lâ—beratori Tacit Annal. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 * In Phaedro Cant. 6. 12 Rom. 13 11. Arelius Beza c. Psal. 30. 5. * In his Saints rest p. 2. c. 10 Luke 23. 43. 2 Cor. 5 8. Phil. 1. 23. Heb. 12. 23. 'T is true that divers of the Fathers and others have spoken some dubiously some very diminishingly of the blessedness of separate souls many of whose words may be seen together in that elaborate Tractate of the learned Parker de descens lib secâ—nâ— p. 77. Yea and his own assertion in that very page be it spoken with reverence to the memory of so worthy a person argues something gross and I conceive unwarrantable thoughts of the souls dependance on a body of Earth His words are Tertium vulnus speaking of the prejudices the Soul receives by its separation from the body omnes operationes etiam suas quae sunt praesertim ad extra extinguit Where he makes it a difficulty to allow it any operations at all as apears by the praesertim inserted He first indeed denies it all operations and then more confidently and especially those ad extra And if he would be understood to exclude it only from its operations ad extra if he take operations ad extra as that Phrase is wont to be taken he must then mean by it all such operations as have their objects not only those that have their terms to which without the Agent i. e. not only all transient but all immanent acts that have their object without them As when we say all Gods acts ad extra are free we mean it even of his immanent acts that have their objects without him though they do not poâ—â—re terminum extra deum as his election his love of the elect And so he must be understood to deny the separate souls and that with a praesertim too the operations of knowing God of loving him and delighting in him which are all operations ad extra as having their objects extra animam though their terminus ad quâ—m be not so which makes the condition of the separate souls of Saints unspeakably inferiour to what it was in the body and what should occasion to dismal thoughts of that state of separation I see not Scripture gives no ground for them but evidently enough speaks the contrary Reason and Phylosophy offers nothing that can â—ender the sense we put upon the forementioned plain Scriptures self contradâ—ctions or impossible Yea such as had no other light or guide have thought the facility of the souls operations being separate from its earthly body much greater by that very separation And upon this score doth Saint Augustine with great indignation inveigh against the Pâ—ilosophers Plaâ—o more especially because they judg'd the separation of the Soul from the body necessary to its blessedness Quia videlicct ejus perfectâ—m beatitudinem tunc illi fieri exâ—stimâ—at cum omni prorsus corpore exuta ad Deum sâ—nâ— lex solâ— quodommodo nuda redierit De civit Dei l. 13 c. 16. unto which purpose the words of Philolâ—us Pythâ—goricus of Plato of Porphyrius are cited by Ludovicus vives in his Comment upon that bovementioned passage The first speaking thus Deposito corpore hominem Deum immortalem fieri The second thus Trahi nos à corpore ad ima à cogitatione superarum rerum subinde revocari ideo relinquendum corpus hîc quantum possumus in alterâ vitâ vitâ prorsum ut liberi expediti verum ipsi videamus optimum amemus The third denies Aliter fieri bâ—atum quenquam posse nisi relinquat corpus affigatur Deo I conceive it by the way not improbable that the severity of that Pious Father against that Dogma of the Philosophers might proceed upon this ground that what they said of the impossibilitie of being happy in an earthly body he understood meant by them of an impossibilitie to be happy in any body at all when 't is evidently the common opinion of the Platonists that the soul is alwayes united with some body or other and that even the Daeâ—oâ—s have bodies aereal or etherial ones which Plato himself is observed by St. Augustine to affirm whence he would fasten a contradiction on him ibid. not considering 't is likely that
that only is capable of being imprest by the intervening ministry of our own understanding viz. by its Vision intimated as was formerly observed in that of the Apostle We shall be like for we shall see him c. It s natural perfections are antecedent and presupposed therefore not so fitly to be understood here And I say both these wayes for as we cannot form an intire Idea of God without taking in together his perfections of both sorts communicable and incommunicable the former whereof must serve instead of a genns the latter of a differentia in composing the notion of God so nor will his impresse on us be intire without something in it respecting both in the senses already given What it will contribute to future blessedness we shall shortly see in its place when we have made a brief enquiry which is the next thing according to our order proposed concerning Thirdly The satisfaction that shall hence accrue Where it will not be besides our purpose to take some notice of the significancy of the word And not to insist on its affinity to the word used for swearing or rather being sworn which an oath being the end of controversies and beyond which we go no further nor expect more in way of testifying would the more fitly here represent to us the soul in its non-ultra having attained the end of all its motions and contentions Its equal nearness to the word signifying the number of seven is not altogether unworthy observation That number is we know often used in Scripture as denoting plenitude and perfection and God hath as it were signalliz'd it by his rest on the seventh day and if this were not designedly pointed at here in the present use of this word as it must be acknowledged to be frequently used where we have no reason to think it is with such an intendment It may yet occasion us to look upon the holy soul now entered into the eternal Sabbath the rest of God which secluding all respect to that circumstance is yet the very substance and true notion of the thing it self to the consideration whereof I now passe under the word held forth to us For this satisfaction is the souls rest in God It s perfect enjoyment of the most perfect good The expletion of the whole capacity of its will the total filling up of that vast enlarged appetite the perfecting of all its desires in delight and joy Now delight or joy for they differ not save that the latter word is thought something more appropriate to reasonable nature is more fitly defined the rest of the desiring faculty in the thing desired Desire and Delight are but two acts of Love diversified only by the distance or presence of the same Object which when 't is distant the soul acted and prompted by love desires moves towards it pursues it when present and attained delights in it enjoyes it staies upon it satisfies it self in it according to the measure of goodness it finds there Desire is therefore love in motion Delight is love in rest and of this latter delight or joy Scripture evidently gives us this Notion He will rejoyce over thee with joy unto which is presently added as exegetical he will rest in his love Which resting can be but the same thing with being satisfied This satisfaction then is nothing else but the repose and rest of the soul amidst infinite delights It s peaceful acquiescence having attained the ultimate tearm of all its motions beyond which it cares to go no further the solace it finds in an adequate full good which it accounts enough for it and beyond which it desires no more reckons its state as good as it can be and is void of all hovering thoughts which perfect rest must needs exclude or inclination to change And so doth this being satisfied not only generally signifie the soul to be at rest but it specifies that rest and gives us a distinct account of the nature of it As that it is not a forced violent rest such as proceeds from a beguiled ignorance a drowsie sloth a languishing weakness or a desire and hope of happiness by often frustrations bafled into despair to all which the native import and propriety of that word satisfaction doth strongly repugne But it discovers it to be a natural rest I mean from an internal principle the soul is not held in its present state of enjoyment by a strong and violent hand but rests in it by a connaturalness thereunto is attempered to it by its own inward constitution and frame It rests not as a descending stone intercepted by something by the way that holds and stops it else it would fall further but as a thing would rest in its own centre with such a rest as the earth is supposed to have in its proper place that being hung upon nothing is yet unmoved ponderibus librata suis equally ballanced by its own weights every way It is a rational judicious rest upon certain knowledge that its present state is simply best and not capable of being changed for a better The soul cannot be held under a perpetual cheat so as alwayes to be satisfied with a â—hadow It may be so befool'd for a while but if it remain satisfied in a state that never admits of change that state must be such as commends it self to the most throughly informed reason and judgement It is hence a free voluntary chosen rest Such as God professes his own to be in Zion This is my rest here will I dwell for I have desired it It is a complacential rest wherein the soul abides steady bound only by the cords of love a rest in the midst of pleasantnesses The Lord is my portion the lots are fallen to me in amanitatibus it cannot be more fitly exprest than amidst pleasantnesses And this speaks not only what the Psalmists condition was but the sense and account he had of it That temper of mind gives us some Idea of that contentful satisfied abode with God which the blessed shall have He intimates how undesirous he was of any change Their sorrows he told us above should be multiplied that hasten after another God Hereafter there will be infinitely less appearance of reason for any such thought Now it is the sense of an holy soul Whom have I in heaven but thee and there is none I desire on earth besides thee q. d. Heaven and Earth yield not a tempting Object to divert me from thee 't is now so at sometimes when faith and love are in their triumph and exaltation but the Lord knows how seldom but much more when we see him as he is and are satisfied with his likeness It 's an active vigorous rest Action about the end shall be perpetuated here though action towards it ceases 'T is the rest of an awâ—kned not of a drowsie sluggish soul of a soul satiâ—fiâ—d by heavenly sensations and fruitions
is easily moulded and wrought to his will yeilds to the transforming power of his appearing glory There is no resistent principle remaining when the love of God is perfected in it and so overcoming is the first sight of his glory upon the awaking soul that it perfects it and so his likenesse both at once But enmity fortifies the soul against him as with bars and doors averts it from him carries with it an horrid guilty consciousness which fils it with eternal despair and rage and enraps it in the blackness of darknesse for ever 2. Both the vision of God and likeness to him must be considered in their relation to the consequent satisfaction and the influence they have in order thereto I say both for though this satisfaction be not expressely and directly referred by the letter of the text to the sight of Gods face yet its relation thereto in the nature of the thing is sufficiently apprehensible and obvious both mediate in respect of the influence it hath towards the satisfying assimilation and immediate which we are now to consider as it is so highly pleasurable in it self and is plainly enough intimated in the text being applied in the same breath to a thing so immediately and intimately conjunct with this vision as we find it is Moreover supposing that likeness here do as it hath been granted it may signifie objective glory also as well as subjective and repeat what is contained in the former expression the face of God the reference satisfaction hath to this vision which the remention of its object though under a varied form of expression supposes will be more expresse therefore we shall shew 1. What the vision of the divine glory contributes to the satisfaction of the blessed soul and what felicity it must needs take herein which cannot but be very great whether we respect The glory seen the object of this vision or The act of vision or intuition it self 1. The Object the glory beheld what a spring of pleasure is here what rivers of pleasure flow hence In thy presence saith the Psalmist is fulnesse of joy at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore The awaking soul having now past the path of life drawn through Sheol it self the state of deadly head appears immediately in this presence and what makes this presence so joyous but the pleasant bâ—â—ghtness of this face to be in the presence of any one and before his face in conspectu are eqâ—iâ—alent expressions therefore the Apostle 〈◊〉 this passage renders it thus Thou hast 〈◊〉 me with gladness by thy countenance Now in this glorious presence or within view of the face of God is fulness of joy i. e. joy unto satiâ—fâ—ction And the Apostle Jude speaking of this presence under this name a presence of glory tels us of an exceeding joy a jubilation an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that shall attend the presentment of Saints there The holy Soul now enters the divine Shechinah the Chamber of presence of the great King the haâ—itation of his holiness and glory The place where his honour dwelleth Here his glory surrounds it with incircling beams 't is beset with glory therefore surely also fill'd with joy When the vail is drawn aside or we are within the vail in that very presence whither Jesus the forerunâ—â—◠〈◊〉 for uâ— entred through that path of life O the satisfying overcoming pleasure of this sight Now that it is to us revealed or unvailed glory which was hidden before Here the glory set in Majesty as the expression is concerning the glory of the Temple is presented to view openly and without umbrage Gâ—d is now no longer seen through an obscurâ—â—g medium They are not now shadowed â—â—mmerings transient oblique glances but the direct beams of full ey'd glory that shine upon us The discovery of this glory is the ultimate product of that infinite wisedom and love that have been working from eternity and for so many thousand years through all the successions of time towards the heirs of salvation The last and compleat issue of the great atchievments sharp conflicts glorious victories high merits of our mighty Redeemer All these end in the opening of Heaven the laying of this glory as it were common to all believers This is the upshot and close of that great design will it not think ye be a satisfying glory The full blessedness of the redeemed is the Redeemers reward He cannot be satisfied in seeing his seed if they should be unsatisfied He cannot behold them with content if his heart tell him not that he hath done well enough for them God would even be ashamed to be called their God had he not made provision for their entertainment worthy of a God T is the season of Christs Triumphs and Saints are to enter into His joy T is the appointed jubilee at the finishing of all Gods works from the Creation of the world when he shall puposely shew himself in his most adorable Majesty and when Christ shall appear in his own likenesse he appeared in another likeness before surely glory must be in in its exaltation in that day But take a more distinct account how grateful a sight this glory will be in these following particulars 1. It is the Divine glory Let your hearts dwell a little upon this consideration 'T is the gâ—ory of God i. e. the glory which the blessed God both enjoyes and affords which he contemplates in himself and which raies from him to his Saints 't is the felicity of the divine Being It satisfies a Deity will it not a worm 'T is a glory that results and shines from him and in that sense also divine which here I mainly intend the beauty of his own face the lustre of Divine perfectioâ—s every Attribute bears a part all concur to make up this glory And here pretermitting those which are lesse liable to our apprehension his Eternity Immensity Simplicity c. of which not having their like in us we are the more uncapable to form distinct conceptions and consequently of perceiving the pleasure that we may hereafter upon the removal of other impediments find in the contemplation of them let us bethink our selves how admirable and ravishing the glory will be 1. Of his unsearchable wisdom which hath glory peculiarly annext and properly belonging to it Glory is as it were by inheritance due to wisdom The wise shall inherit glory And here now the blessed souls behold it in its first seat and therefore in its prime glory wisedom counsel understanding are said to be with him as if no where else Twice we have the Apostle ascribing glory to God under the notion of only wise which is but an acknowledging him glorious in this respect Wisdom we know is the proper and most connatural glory of intellectual nature whether as it relates to speculation when we call it knowledge or action when 't is prudence How pleasant will the contemplation be of the
the Lusts of it That is cruel Love that shall enslave a man and subject him to so vile and ignoble a servitude And it discovers a sordid temper to be so imposed upon How low are our Spirits sunk that we disdain not so base a vassalage God and nature have obliged us to live in bodies for a time but they have not obliged us to measure our selves by them to confine our desires and designs to their compass to look no further then their concernments to entertain no previous joyes in the hope of being one day delivered from them No such hard law is laid upon us But how apt are we to become herein a most oppressive Law to our selves and not only to lodge in filthy earthen cottage but to love them and confine our selves to them loath so much as to peep out T is the apt expression of a Philosopher upbraiding hat base low temper The degenerous Soul saith he buried in the Body is as a slothful creeping thing that loves its hole and is loath to come forth And methinks if we have no love for our better and more noble self we should not be altogether unapprehensive of an obligation upon us to express a dutiful love to the Author of our beings doth it consist with the love we owe to him to desire always to lurk in the dark and never come into his blessed presence Is that our love that we never care to come nigh him Do we not know that while we are present in the body we are absent from the Lord should we not therefore be willing rather to be present with the Lord and absent from the body should we not put on a confidence an holy fortitude as 't is there exprest we are confident or of good courage and thence willing c. that might carry us through the Grave to him As is the brave Speech of that last mentioned Philosopher God will call thee ere long expect his call Old age will come upon thee and shew thee the way thither and death which he that is possest with a base fear laments and dreads as it draws on but he that is a lover of God expects it with joy and with courage meets it when it comes Is our love to God so faint and weak that it dares not encounter Death nor venture upon the imaginary terrours of the Grave to go to him How unsuitable is this to the character which is given of a Saints love And how expresly are we told that he who loves his life better then Christ or that even hates it not for his sake as certainly he cannot be said to do that is not willing to part with it to enjoy him cannot be his Disciple If our love to God be not Supreme 't is none or not such as can denominate us lovers of him and will we pretend to be so when we love a putide flesh and this base earth better then him And have we not professedly as a fruit of our avowed love to him surrendred our selves Are we not his devoted ones will we be his and yet our own or pretend our selves dedicated to his holy pleasure and will yet be at our own dispose and so dispose of our selves too as that we may be most ungrateful to him and most uncapable of converse with him How doth this love of a perishing life and of a little animated clay stop all the effusions of the Love of God suspends its sweet and pleasant fruits which should be always exerting themselves towards him Where is their fear obedience joy and praise who are through the fear of death all their lives subject to bondage And kept under a continual dismal expectation of an unavoidable dissolution But must the great God lose his due acknowledgements because we will not understand wherein he deals well with us Is his mercy therefore no mercy As we cannot nullify his truth by our unbelief so nor his goodness by our disesteem But yet consider doth it not better become thee to be grateful then repine that God will one day unbind thy Soul and set thee free Knock of thy Letters and deliver thee out of the house of thy bondage Couldst thou upon deliberate thoughts judge it tollerable should he doom thee to this earth forever He hath however judged otherwise as the Pagan Emperour and and Philosopher excellently speaks who is the Author both of the first composition of thy present being and now of the dissolution of it thou wert the cause of neither therefore depart and be thankful for he that dismisseth thee dealeth kindly with thee If yet thou understandest it not yet remember It is thy Father that disposes thus of thee how unworthy is it to distrust his Love What child would be afraid to compose it self to sleep in the Parents bosom It expresses nothing of the duty and ingenuity but much of the frowardness and folly of a child They sometimes cry vehemently in the undressing but should their cryes be regarded by the most indulgent Parent or are they fit to be imitated by us We have no excuse for this our frowardness The Blessed God hath told us his gracious purpose concerning us and we are capable of understanding him What if he had totally hidden from us our future state and that we know nothing but of going into an eternal silent-darkness The Authority of a Creator ought to have awed us into a silent submission But when we are told of such a glory that 't is but drawing aside this fleshly vaile and we presently behold it methinks the Blessed hour should be expected not with patience only but with ravishing joy Did we hear of a country in this world where we might live in continual felicity without toyl or sickness or grief or fear who would not wish to be there though the passage were troublesome have we not heard enough of Heaven to allure us thither Or is the eternal truth of suspected credit with us Are Gods own reports of the future glory unworthy our belief or regard How many upon the credit of his word are gone already triumphantly into glory That only seeing the promises afar off were perswaded of them and embraced them and never after owned themselves under any other notion then of Pilgrims on earth longing to be at home in their most desirable Heavenly Country We are not the first that are to open Heaven The main Body of Saints is already there 't is in comparison of their number but a scattering remnant that are now alive upon the earth How should we long to be associated to that glorious Assembly Methinks we should much more regret our being so long left behind But if we should desire still to be so why may not all others as well as we And as much expect to be gratified as we And then we should agree in desiring that our Redeemers triumph might be defer'd that his Body might yet remain incompleat that