a vanity which I have observed in many pretenders to nobility and learning when men seek to demonstrate the one by their Coat of Arms and the Records of their family and the other by a gown or a title or their names standing in the Register of the university rather than by the accomplishments and behaviours of Gentlemen or Schollars A like vanity I doubt may be observed in many pretenders to religion some are searching Gods decretals to find their names written in the book of life when they should be studying to find Gods name written upon their hearts holiness to the Lord engraven upon their souls some are busie examining themselves by notes and marks without them when they should labour to find the marks and prints of God and his nature upon them some have their Religioâ— in their books and Authors which should be the Law of God unwritten in the Tables of the heart some glory in the bulk of their duties and in the multitude of their pompous performances and religious atchievments crying with Jehu come see here my zeal for the Lord whereas it were much more excellent if one could see their likeness to the Lord and the Characters of Divine beauty and holiness drawn upon their hearts and lives But we if we would judge rightly of our religious state must view our selves in God who is the Fountain of all goodness and holiness and the Rule of all perfection Value your selves by your souls and not by your bodies estates friends or any outward accomplishments as most men do But that is not enough if men rest there they may make an idoll of the fairest of Gods creatures even their own souls therefore value your souls themselves by what they have of God in them To study the blessed and glorious God in his word and to converse with him in his works is indeed an excellent and honourable employment but oh what a blessed study is it to view him in the communications of himself and the impressions of his grace upon our own souls All the thin and subtil speculations which the most raised Philosophers have of the essence and nature of God are a poor and low and beggarly employment and attainment in comparison of those blessed visions of God which a godly soul hath in it self when it finds it self partaker of a Divine Nature and liveing a Divine Life Oh labour to view God and his Divine perfections in your own souls in those copies and transcripts of them which his holy spirit draws upon the hearts of all godly men This is the most excellent discovery of God that any soul is capable of it is better and more desirable than that famous discovery that was made to Moses in the clift of the rock Exod. 34. Nay I should much either desire to see the reall impression of a God-like nature upon my own soul to see the Crucifying of my own pride and self-will the mortifying of the more sensual life and a Divine life springing up in my soul instead of it I would much rather desire to see my soul glorified in the image and beauty of God put upon it which is indeed a pledge yea and a part of Eternal glory than to have a vision from the Almighty or hear a voice witnessing from Heaven and saying Thou art my beloved Son in whom my soul is well pleased This that I am speaking of is a true foundation of Heaven it self in the soul a reall beginning of Happiness For Happiness Heaven it self is nothing else but a perfect conformity a cheerfull and eternal complyance of all the powers of the soul with the will of God so that as far as a godly soul is thus conformed to God and filled with his fulness so far is he glorified upon earth Sed heu quantum distamus ab illo 2. Let wisdom then be justified of her Children let the children of God those that are his genuine off-spring rise up and call him blessed in imiâ—ation of their Lord and Saviour that eldest son of God that first born amongst many brethren who rejoyced in spirit and said I thank thee Father Lord of Heaven and Earth that thou hast revealed these things Luk. 10. 21. or according to the style of the Apostle Peter 1 Pet. 1. 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again There is no greater contradiction in the world than a man pretending Religion and yet ascribing it to himself whereas pure Religion is purely of a Divine Original Besides Religion doth principally consist in the subduing of self-will in conformity to and complyance with the divine will in serving the interest of Gods glory in the world Then and not till then may a soul be truly called Religious when God becomes greatest of all to it and in it and the interest of God is so powerfully planted in it that no other interest no self-interest no creature-love no particular private end can grow by it no more than the Magicians could stand before Moses when he came in the power of God to work wonders So that Solomon saith of self-seeking Prov. 25. 27. For men to seek their own glory is not glory the like I may safely say upon that double ground that I have laid down self-Religion is not Religion How vainly and madly do men dream of their self religion carrying them to Heaven when Heaven it self is nothing else but the perfection of â—elf-denyal and Gods becoming all things to the Saints 1 Cor. 15. 28. Instead of advancing men towards Heaven there is nothing in the world that doth more directly make war against Heaven than that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Siracides calls it that proud and petulant spirit of self-will that rules in the children of disobedience So that when the Holy-Ghost would describe David one of the best men to the best advantage he describes him with opposition to self and self-will 1 Sam. 13. 14. a man after Gods own heart and again Acts 13. 36. he served the will of God in his generation There have been of old a great number of Philosophical men who being raised up above the speculation of their own souls which is the logical life unto a contemplation of a Deity and being purged by a lower kind of vertue and moral goodness from the pollutions that are in this world through lust did yet ultimately settle into themselves and their own self-love They were full indeed but it was not with the fulness of God as the Apostle speaks but with a self-sufficiency the leaven of self-love lying at the bottome did make them swell with pride and self-conceit Now these men though they were free from gross external enormities yet did not attain to a true knowledge of God nor any true Religion because they did set up themselves to be their own Idols and carry such an image of themselves continually before their eyes that they had no
clear and spiritual discerning of God They did as it is storied of one of the Persian Kings enshrine themselves in a Temple of their own But what speak I of Heathen Philosophers Is there not the same unclean spirit of self-adoration to be found amongst many Christians yea and Teachers of Christianity too witness that whole brood those men who whilest they hang the grace of God upon mans free-will do rob him of his glory Some of these have impudently given a short but unsavoury answer to the Apostles questâ—on in 1 Cor. 4. 7. Who maketh you to differ from an other Ego me ipsum discerno I make my self to differ These men whilest they pretend to high attainments do discover a low and most ignoble spirit To fasten and feed upon any thing in the Creature is the part of a low and degenerate spirit on the other hand it is the greatest perfection of the Creature not to be its own not to be any thing in it self or any way distinct from the blessed God the father and fountain of light and grace Holy Paul is all along in a different strain as in 1 Cor. 15. 10. I yet not I but the grace of God which was with me I told you before what a fair and honourable character the Holy Ghost hath given of holy David a man after Gods own heart now you may also find a description of these men too in Scripture not much differing from the other in phrase but very much in sense it is the same that is given of the proud Prince of Tyrus Ezek. 28. 2. They set their heart as the heart of God But we if we do indeed partake of the Divine Nature shall not dare to take any part of the Divine Glory if we conform to Gods Image we shall not set up our own This self-glorying in the predominancy of it is utterly inconsistent with true Religion as Fire is with Water For Religion is nothing else but the shinings forth of God into the Soul the reflection of a beauty and glory which God hath put upon it Give all therefore unto God for whatsoever is kept back is sacrilegiously purloined from him Glory we in the fulness of God alone and in selfpenury and nothingness The whole of Religion is of God Do we see and discern the great things of God It is by that light that God hath set up in us according to that of the Apostle 1 Cor. 2. 11. The things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God That love whereby we love him he first shed abroad in our hearts If our Souls be beautiful it is with his brightness the beauty and glory of essential Holiness according to that of the Apostle Heb. 12. Partakers of his holiness If we be really and truly full we receive it of his fulness according to that of the Apostle Ephes 3. 19. filled with all the fulness of God In a word if we be in any God-like dispositions like unto him it is by his spreading of his image in us and over us By all which it appears to be a thing not only wicked and unwarrantable but utterly impossible for a godly Soul to exalt himself against God for grace to advance it self against divine glory for grace is nothing else but a communication of divine glory and God is then glorified when the Soul in holy and gracious dispositions becomes like unto him How is it possible that grace should be a shadow to obscure divine glory when it self is nothing else as it comes from God but a Beam of glory and as it is found in the Creature may properly be called a reflection of it To conclude then Be ye perswaded that a man hath so much of God as he hath of Humility and Self denial and Self-nothingness and no more He is so far of God as he loves Him honours Him imitates Hâ—m and lives to Him and no further 3. By this discovery of the Original of Religion we come to understand the Original of Sin and Wickedness And here according to the method wherein I spoke of the Original of Religion I might shew you how the original of Sin from without is of the Devil that first usher'd it into the World and ceaseth not to tempt men to it continually as also of men who are his instruments and that it does in a sense spring from many occasions without But these things are more improperly said to be the causes of Sin The inward cause is the corrupt heart of man that unclean spirit that devillish nature which is indeed the worst and most pernicious Devil in the world to Man It is an old saying Homo homini Daemon One Man is a Devil to another which though it be in some sense true yet it is more proper to say Homo sibi Daemon Man is a Devil to himself taking the spirit and principle of Apostacy that rebellious nature for the Devil which indeed doth best deserve that name But yet if we enquire more strictly into the original and nature of this Monster we shall best know what to say of it and how to describe it by what we have heard of Religion Sin then to speak properly is nothing else but a degeneration from a holy state an apostacy from a holy God Religion is a participation of God and sin is a stragling off from him Therefore it is wont to be defined by Negatives a departure from God a forsaking of him a living in the World without him c. The Souls falling off from God does describe the general nature of Sâ—n but then as it sinks into it self or settles upon the World and fastens upon the Creature or any thing therein so it becomes specified and is called Pride Covetousness Ambition and by many other names All Souls are the Off-spring of God were originally formed into his image and likeness and when they express the purity and holiness of the Divine Nature in being perfect as God is perfect then are they called the Children of God But those impure Spirits that do lapse and slide from God may be said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to implant themselves into a other stock by their own low and earthly lives and are no more owned for the Children of God but are of their father the Devil John 10. 44. By which you may understand the low and base original of Sin Nothing can be so vile as that which to speak properly is nothing else but a perfect falling off from glory it self By this you may also by the way take notice of the miserable condition of unholy Souls We need not call for Fire and Brimstone to paint out the wretched state of sinful Souls Sin it self is Hell and Death and Misery to the Soul as being a departure from Goodness and Holiness it self I mean from God in conjunction with whom the Happiness and Blessedness and Heaven of a Soul doth consist Avoid it therefore as you would avoid being miserable
and more properly than they that watch for the morning they may be said rather to be weary of the long and cold and troublesome night than properly covetous of the day but he out of a pure and spiritual sense of his estrangement from God longs to appear before him and be wrapt up in him Heal the Godly man of all his afflâ—ctioâ—s grievances adversities in the world that he may have nothing to trouble him nor put him to pain yet he is not quiet he is in pain because of the distance whereat he stands from God give him the whole world and all the glory of it yet he has not enough he still cryes and craves give give because he is not entirely swallowed up in God he openeth his month wide as the Psalmist speaks and all the Silver and Gold peace health liberty preâ—erment that you cast into it cannot fill it because they are not God he cannot look upon them as his chiefest good In a word A godly man doth not so much say in the sense either of sin or affliction Oh that one would give me the wings of a Dove that I may fly away and be at rest as in the sense of his dissimilitude to and distance from God Oh that one would give me the wings of an Eagle that I might fly away towards Heaven CHAP. V. An expostulation with Christians concerning their remiss and sluggish temper an essay to convince them of it by some considerations which are first The activity of worldly men secondly The restless appetites of the body thirdly The strong propensions of every creature towards its own centre An enquiry into the slothfulness and inactivity of Christian souls two things premised and so an answer is given to the enquiry in five particulars The grace of faith is vindicated from the slander of being meerly passive A short essay to awaken Christians unto a greater vigour and activity WE have seen in what respects Religion is an Active principle in the soul where it is seated give me leave to enlarge a little here for Conviction or Reprehension By this property of true Religion we shall be able to discover much that is false and counterseit in the world If Religion be no lazy languid sluggish passive thing but lift love the spirit of power and Freedom a fire burning a well of water springing up as we have sufficiently seen what shall we say then of that heavy sluggish spiritless kind of Religion that most men take up with Shall we call it a spirit of life with the Apostle and yet allow of a Religion that is cold and dead shall we call it a spirit of love and power with the same Apostle and yet allow of it though it be indifferent low and impotent or will such pass for currant with the wise and holy God it we should pass a favourable censure upon it And why should it ever pass with men if it will not for ever pass with God But indeed how can this inactivity and sluggishness pass for Religion amongst men who can think you are in pursuit of the infinite and supream good that sees you so slow in your motions towards it who can think that your treasure is in Heaven that sees your heart so far from thence The more any thing partakes of God and the nearer it comes to him who is the fountain of life and power and vertue the more active powerful and lively will it be We read of an Atheistical generation in Zeph. 1. 12. who fancied to themselves an idle and slothful God that minded not the affairs of the world at all saying the Lord will not do good neither will he do evil which was also the false and gross conceit of many of the Heathen as Cicero confesses of some of the Philosophers themselves qui Deum nihil habere negotii dicunt nihil exhibere alteri And indeed though it be not so blasphemous yet it is almost as absurd to fancy an idle Saint as an idle Deity Sure I am if it be not altogether impossible yet it is altogether a shamesull and deformed sight a holy soul in a lethargy a godly soul that is not in pursuit of God Moses indeed bids Israel stand still and see the salvation of the Lord but there is no such divinity in the holy Scriptures as this stand still and see the salvation of the soul though some have violently prest those words Exod. 14. 13. to serve under their slothful standard No no the Scripture speaks to us at another rate Phil. 2. 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 work out your own salvation and indeed the spirit of God doth everywhere describe Religion by the activity industry vigour and quietness of it as I hinted in the very beginning of this discourse and could abundantly confirm and explain if there were need of it But that I may more powerfully convince and awaken the lazy and heavy spirit and temper of many professors I will briefly touch upon a few particulars which I will next propound to their serious consideration 1. The children of this world earthly and sensual men are not so slothful so lazy so indifferent in the pursuit of earthly and sensual objects You say you have laid up your treasure in Heaven we know they have laid up their treasure in the earth now who is it that behaves himself most suitably and seemly towards his treasure you or they you say you have a treasure in Heaven and are content to be able to say so but make no haste to be fully and seelingly possest of it to enjoy the benefit and sweetness of it But they rise up early and sit up late and either pine themselves or eat the bread of sorrow to obtain earthly and perishing inheritances they circuit the world travel farr sell all to purchase that part which is of so great price with them And when they have accomplisht it oh how do they set their heart upon it bind up their very souls in the same bags with their money and seale up their affections together with it yea and so they are not at rest neither but find a gnawing hunger upâ—n their hearts after more still to add house to house and land to land and one bagg to another the covetous miser is ready to sit down and wring his hands because he hath no more hands to scrape with the voluptuous Epicure is angry that he hath not the neck of a Crane the better to taste his dainties and ambitious Alexander when he domineeâ—s over the known world is ready to sit down and whine because there are no more worlds to conquer What Christian can choose but be ashamed of himself when he reads the description which Plautus the Comoedian makes of a covetous worldling under the person of Euclio how he hid his pot of Gold heeded it waâ—cht it visited it almost every hour would not go from it in the day could not sleep for it in the night suspected
Epicureans idolized their own senses or the more exalted Stoicks deified their own faculty placing their main contentment in their self-sufficiency and the perpetual serenity and tranquility of their own minds it is too apparent that both the one and the other still moved within the narrow and low sphere of natural self and grasped after a Deity in the poor dark shadows and glimmering representatives of him But I am speaking to Christians and amongst these let no man tell me how orthodox his opinions how pure and spiritual his forms how numerous and specious his performances are how rightly he pays his homage and prayes to one living God by one living Mediator I will willingly allow and do with delight observe these things where ever they are but yet all this doth not denominate a Christian For still that of the Apostle must hold good Rom. 6. 16. His servants ye are to whom ye obey and I may adde by somewhat a like phraseologie His children ye are whom ye resemble His creatures ye are as far as you can make your selves so whose sufficiency and soveraignty is mostly magnified in your hearts His worshippers ye are whom ye mostly love trust in delight in depend upon in a word That is your God which your soul doth mainly rest and centre and wrap up itself in And alas how visibly dear and precious is the self-central life which is so universally pampered cherisht served and sacrificed unto besides the invisible and more spiritual oblations that are made thereunto This is as true an Antichrist in the mysterie as there is any literal Antichrist in the world and of this one may as truly say as St. John doth of the other all the world wandereth after the beast In a word then 〈…〉 in his heart concerning any thing that is not God what that rich man in the Gospel said concerning his goods soul take thine ease in them and be merry the same is an idolater and blaspemer and this I affirm to be the language of every Apostate spirit and unregenerate soul of man 3. No man can find that happiness and soul-filling satisfaction in any creature-enjoyment which every natural man principally seeketh therein Here are two things to be spoken to viz. the enjoyments of men or what they possess and the satisfaction which the natural man sceketh in such possessions For the first of these I do not easily believe that ever any natural man had his fill of such possessions I mean as to the quantity of them he never had so much of them as to be able freely to say It is enough The rational soul hath a strong and insatiable appetite and wheresoever it imagineth its beloved prey to be found and filling enjoyment to be bad it is exceeding greedy and 〈◊〉 whether the same will ever be able to afford it or no it matters not The animal life is that voracious idol not like Bell in the story which seems only to eat up but which doth really devour all the far morsels and sensual pleasures that are sacrificed unto it and yet is not filled therewith The whole employment of the natural man quantum quantum est is nothing else but as the Apostle elegantly describes it Rom. 13. 14. To make provisions for the flesh to fulfil it in the lusts thereof wherein yet to speak the truth he loses his labour for he sacrifices all to an unsatisfiable idol and powers it into a gulf that hath neither bottom nor bounds but swalloweth up all into its barren womb and is rather made to thirst than to cease from thirsting by all that is or can be administred unto it I take that of Solomon Eccles 1. 8. to be a clear proof in general of what I affirm the eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the ear filled with hearing the eye of man as little as it is is bigger than the whole conspicable world which although it may be wearied with looking upon various objects as the English Annotators observe upon these words yet still desires new ones and can drink them in without surfeiting so that although the acts of the eye be scant and finite yet the lusts of the eye seem to have a kind of infinity in them And indeed by the unsatiableness of the eye and care is meant the greediness or voracity of the flesh or animal life as Mr Cartwright hath well observed upon Prov. 27. 20. Hell and destruction are never full so the eyes of a man are never satisfied where by not being satisfied is meant not having enough in quantity as appears by the similitude in the former part of the verse To the same sense he speaks Eccles 4. 8. and 5. 10. It would be endless to relate the monstrous and inexpleble gapings of covetous ambitious voluptuous proud vain-glorious minds after their respective idols And indeed I need not descend to particular instances for I suppose never any natural man could heartily say he had enough of riches promotions applause sensual delights eloquence policy prowess or victory or of any other thing which is accommodated to the gratification of the flesh no more than any godly soul sojourning upon earth could ever be yet able to say he had enough of God and eternal life So that in a word I know not how to apply any description to this insatiable and devouring principle more properly than that which the Prophet makes of hell Isa 5. 14. She enlargeth her self and openeth her mouth without measure and all glory multitude and pomp descend into it I know there are of these men that pretend to have enough in quantity of these fleshly provisions but I fear falsly and unjustly For as for the rich and honourable of the earth it is too evident that they are still climbing higher and grasping after more as the great Alexander is said to have whined after more world when he conceited himself to be master of all this as for the poorer and meaner sort of people who are as ready sometimes to lay claim to this vertue of thinking themselves to have enough as any other people whatsoever it is too manifest to a wise observer that it is not a reall apprehension that they have enough but either a lowness and weakness of spirit arising from the meanness of their education or a down right despair of ever getting more But be it imagined that the enjoyments of some natural men are enough in respect of quantity yet still there is certainly wanting a true and sincere satisfaction of soul in such possessions no man of all these findes that real happiness in those things which he so vehemently hunteth after Solomon reduces all of pleasure and contentment that is to be found in multiplyed riches to a very pittifull summa totalis Eccles 5. 11. what good is there to the owners thereof save the beholding of them with their eyes And alas what is the sight of the eye to the satisfaction of the soul The whole conspicable
improved and mightily inflamed thereby I suppose I need not stay upon so popular a Theme and so acknowledged a subject therefore I will but present you with the instances of holy David in the Old Testament and gracious Paul in the New and so quit this head I need not I suppose magnifie the holy and divine frame of David's spirit by any balbutient Rhetorick of mine God himself hath given the amplest testimony and fairest character of him that I remember to have been at any time given of any man when he owns him for a man after his own heart And what a longing thirsting soul this was I need do no more to demonstrate than to turn you to some passages and professions of his own in his devout Psalms such as Psal 42. 12. 63. 1. 143. 6. Where he borrows the strongest inclmations that are to be found in the whole Creation to represent the devout ardots of his own soul As the Hart panteth after the water brooks so panteth my soul after thee O God O God thou art my God early will I seek thee my soul thirsteth for thee my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty Land where no water is I stretch forth my hands unto thee my soul thirsteth after thee as a thirsty Land Yea he seems like one that would swoon away for very longing Hear me speedily O Lord my spirit faileth hide not thy face from me lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit I lift my soul unto thee I flee unto thee c. The very same temper you will find in boly Paul that chosen vessel of God if you peruse his Epistles in all which you will meet with devout and strong breathings of the same kind particularly Phil. 3. 11 12 13 14. Where he seems to be so thirsty after a state of heavenly perfection that he longs after if I mistake not the meaning of the 11. verse something that yet he knows he cannot arrive at whilst he is in this world even the resurrection of the dead or such a perfect state of purity and holiness as belongs to the children of the resurrection 5. The godly soul thirsteth no more after happiness in any creature nor rests in any worldly thing but in God alone This particular consists also of two branches the former and negative part whereof seems to me to contain in it the scope and meaning of out Saviour in these words which I am now interpreting We have already seen that every unsanctified soul is restless and creaving wavering unsatisfied inconstant to it self and its choice By reason of its natural activity it is alwaies spending it self in restless and giddy motions as we observed under the first head of this discourse but by reason of its ignorance and unacquaintedness with the one Supreme and All-sufficient good and the multiplicity of lower ends and objects is miserably distracted and doth necessarily grapple with inevitable disturbances in a continual unsteadiness putting forth it self now towards one thing anon to another courting every thing but matching with nothing like a fickle Lover that is alwaies enamoured with the last feature he saw or a greedy Merchant that being equally in love with the pleasure of being at home and the profit of being abroad can stay long no where with any content but has alwaies most mind of the place where he is not as he confesses of himself in the Poet Romae Tybur amo ventosus Tybure Romam The description that our Lord gives of the unclean spirit that is gone out of a man Matth. 12. 43. seems very aptly to agree to that unclean spirit that is in man that being departed from God its proper rest and habitation walketh thorough dry and desart places I mean empty and unsatisfying creature-enjoyments seeking rest but finding none It was an accidental affliction of believers but it is the natural and necessary affliction of every unbelieveing and wicked soul to wander up and down the world distitute afflicted tormented Sinful self is so multiform and that one root the animal life has such a world of branches that it is impossible to administer due nourishment to them all and yet they are all importunate and greedy suckers too so that he must needs have a difficult task and a painful Province that is constrained to attend upon so many so different and yet all of them so 〈◊〉 and imperious Masters But I shall lose ground by thus going backward to what I spoke to under the second head except I can make this advantage of it enforce that which I was going to speak of with the greater strengeh and clearer evidence The case standing thus with the unregenerate soul as we have seen in this short review I now say that divine grace allays the multifarious thirst of the soul after other waters filthy puddles of which it could never yet drink deep or if it drunk never so deep could not be quenched it determines the soul to one object which before was rent in pieces amongst many It do's not destroy any of the natural powers nor dry up the innate vâ—gour of the soul as I made evident under the last head but it takes it off from the chase of all inferiour ends and inadequate objects setting it upon a vehement pursuit of and causing it to spend all those its powers not less vlgorously but far more rationally and satisfactorily upon that objectum par amori the infinitely-amiable and self-sufficient God When the soul hath once met with this glorious object is once mastered with this supâ—reme good is by divint grace ampliated and enlarged it cannot with any ease stretch it self upon the creature any more that is too scant and insufficient for it Certainly the soul that understands its own original nature and capacity and once comes to view it self in God will see it self too large to be bounded by the narrow confines oâ— self or any creature and too free to be bound down and chained to any earthly object whatever The world indeed may yea and will labour to take off the soul What is thy Beloved more than another Beloved that thou art so fond of him Are not Abara and Pharpar Rivers of Damasens better than all the waters of Israel Be content here is hay and provender stay with me this nâ—ght let us dally and make merry together a little longer But these Syrenian songs are sung to a deaf ear they cannot inchant the wise and devout soul that hath her senses rightly awakened and exercised to discern between good and evil Oh no I am sick of love and sick of every thing that keeps me from my Beloved and therefore however you may go about to defile me through fraud or force through surprize or violence yet I will not prostitute my self unto you The gracious foul hath now discovered the most beautiful perfect and lovely object even him whose name is Love it self which glorious vision hath so blasted and
whom she had so long straggled by sin and wickedness For the God of hope filleth the godly soul with all peace and joy in believing Rom. 15. 13. Christ doth on purpose speak words to the hearts of his Disciples that their joy may be full Joh. 15. 11. But whether the most benign and gracious Father of spirits doth immediately from himself inspire the holy soul with divine joys and pleasures kindled as I may say with nothing but his own breath or whether he bring them to his holy Mountain and into his house of prayer and by that or any other the like means make them joyful and of glad heart as in the day of a solemn festival as he hath promised to do Isa 56. 7. and Isa 25. 6. However it be I say sure it is that he frequently puts a gladness into their hearts beyond that of the Harvest or the Vintage Psal 4. 7. and makes them to rejoyce with joy unspeakable and full of glory 1 Pet. 1. 8. Having now unfolded the meaning of the gracious soul 's nor thirsting any more I should pass to the last thing contained in the Text but finding my self opprest in my spirit by the consideration of this necessary consequent of true Religion when I compare the temper of Christians with it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I must crave leave to stay a little and breathe And what shall I breath but a sad and bitter complaint over that low earthly selfish greedy spirit which actuateth the world at this day yea and the generality of Professors of that sacred Religion which we call Christianity Alas what a company of thieves and murderers I mean base and sensual loves and lusts lodge in those very souls who would be taken for Temples consecrated to the name and honour and inhabitation of the eternal God the spirit of Truth and Holiness Oh what pitty is it that the precious souls of men yea and of Christians the best of men that are all capable of so glorious liberty so high and honourable a happiness should be bound down under such vile and sordid lusts feeding upon dust and gravel to whom the hidden Mannah is freely offered and God himself is ready to become a banquet And oh what a shame is it for those who profess themselves children of God Disciples of the most holy Jesus and Heirs of his pure and undefiled Kingdom of Heaven for these I say willingly and greedily to roll themselves in filthy and bruitish sensualities to set up that on high in their souls which was made to be under their bodies and so to love and live as if they studied to have no affinity at all but would be as unlike as they could to that God and Redeemer and unfit for that inheritance How often shall it be protested to the Christian world by men of the greatest devotion and seriousness that it is utterly mad and perfectly vain to dream of entring into the Kingdom of Heaven hereafter except the Kingdom of Heaven enter into our souls during their union with these bodies How long shall the Son of God who came into the world on purpose to be the most glorious example of true and divine purity exact and perfect self-denial and mortification how long shall he lye by in his word as an antiquated pattern only cut out for the Apostolical ages of the world and only suited to some few morose and melancholick men Is it not a monstrous spectacle and to be hist out of the world with the greatest indignation a covetous voluptuous ambitious sensual Saint With what face can we pretend to true Religion or a feeling acquaintance with God and the things of his personall service and Kingdome whilest the continual bleatings and lowings of our souls after created good do bewray us so manifestly and proclaim before all the world that the beast the brutish life is still powerful in us If ye seek me saith Christ to his followers as well as he did once to his persecutors then let these go let go the hold of these earthly objects let vanish these worldly joys and toys with-hold your throat from thirst and your feet from being unshod and come follow me only and ye shall have treasure in Heaven for he that will not deny all for me is not worthy of me But O curvae in terras animae c. Ah sad and dreadful fall that hath so miserably crampt this royal off-spring and made the Kings Son to be a same Mephibosheth Ah dolesul Apostasie How are the Sons of the morning become Brats of darkness and the heirs of Heaven vassals and drudges to earth How is the Kings Daughter unequally yoaked with a churlish Nabal that continually checketh her with more divine and generous motions How unhappily art thou matcht O my soul And yet alas I see it is too properly a marriage for thou hast clean forgotten thine own people and thy Fathers house Take up oh take up a lamentation thou Virgin Daughter of the God of Zion Sometimes indeed a Virgin but now alas no longer a Virgin but miserably married to an unworthy mate that can never be able to match thy faculties nor maintain thee according to the grandeur of thy birth or the necessary pomp of thy expences and way of living nay thou art become not only a miserable wife but in so being thou art also a wicked adulteress prostituting thy self to the very vilest of thy lawful Husbands servants if thou be not incestuous it is no thank to thee there being nothing in this world so near of kin to thee as to make way for incest Return return O Shulamite return return put away thine adulteries from between thy breasts and so shall the King yet again greatly desire thy beauty for so he hath promised Jer. 3. 21. that when there shall be a voice heard upon the high places weeping and supplications of the children of Israel because they have perverted their way and forgotten the Lord their God and the backsliding children shall return that then he will heal their backslidings CHAP. VIII The term or end of Religion eternal life considered in a double notion First as it signifies the essential happiness of the soul The second as it takes in many glorious appendices The former more fully described the latter more briefly The noble and genuine breathings of the godly soul after and springing up into the former in what sense she may be said to desire the latter The argument drawn from the example of Christ Moses and Paul moderated A general answer given to the Quaery It ends in a serious exhortation made to Christians to live and love more spiritually more suitably to the nature of souls redeemed souls resulting from the whole discourse I Am now come to the last thing whereby this most noble principle is described viz. the Term or End of it and that is said here in the Text to be Everlasting Life This is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or
of prayer Faith can pray without words but the most elegant words the phrase of Angels is not worthy to be called prayer without faith I speak not so much of faith inditing a prayer or giving life to it as of its being vertually prayer if not something more for indeed faith is a real bringing down of that God and sucking in of those influences into the soul which prayer only looks up for Communion with God is a continual fast it is that spiritual and most excellent way of fasting whereby the soul emptying it self of it self and all self-fullness self-sufficiency self-confidence receives of the fulness of God alone and is filled therewith A soul communing rightly with God is a soul emptied of and as it were fasting from it self which is the most excellent way of fasting It is a continual thanksgiving and indeed the best way of thanksgiving in the world To render up our selves to God purely and entirely to reflect the glory of God in an holy and godlike temper is a real and living thank-offering This is that Hallelujah so much spoke of which the Angels and Saints in glory do sing perpetually what other adjunct of it there may be I will not here dispute This communion of hearts and wills is a constant and most excellent celebration of Sacraments The Soul that is really Baptized into the spirit of the Lord Jesus and feeds upon God and is one with him keeps a continual Sacrament without which the Sacramental eating and drinking is but a jejune and dry devotion In a word it is not possible for any thing that is extrinsecal to the soul to make it happy but the soul that is advanced into the noble state of communion with God is made partaker of a new nature and is truly happy Nay further I will add that this communion with God is not only better than all duties and ordinances but even better than all revelations evidences discoveries that can be made or given to the soul ab extra all that are from without a manifestation of God i. e. of a divine life in the soul is much better than such a manifestation as Moses had of his glory in the cleft of the Rock Exod. 34. Many think oh if they might but be assured of the love of God of the pardon of fin of an interest in Christ they should be happy why I will tell you if you had a voice from Heaven saying that ye were the beloved Children of God as Christ had an Angel sent from God to tell you that ye were beloved and highly favoured of God as his Mother Mary had yet were communion with God to be preferred before these For these things could not make a soul happy without real communion with God but communion with God can and doth make a soul happy without these And to this purpose I suppose I may apply that famous speech of our Saviour's by way of allusion It is more blessed to give than to receive to give up ones self ones heart will interests and affections to God than to receive any external discoveries and manifestations from him Why do we so earnestly seek after signs from without us of Gods presence with us as if there were any thing better or more desirable to the soul than Emanuel God with us or as the Apostle speaks Christ in us the hope of glory He that desires any other evidence of grace but more grace dos not only light up a candle to see the Sun by but indeed he acts like one that thinks there is something better than God himself though I do not say that all do think so who are covetous of such manifestations But this I will say and you may do well to chew upon it that holy longings after a true and spiritual communion with God do certainly spring from a divine principle in the soul whereas a thirst after assurance of Gods love and reconciliation of our persons with him may be only the fruit of self-love and interest Let me dye the death of the Righteous you know whose wish it was 7. Though communion with God do concern the whole soul and all the faculties affections and motions of it it is Gods spreading his influences and exercising his Soveraignty over all the powers of the soul and their mutual spending of themselves upon him and conforming to him yet the great Acts of the soul whereby it chiefly holds communion with God are loving and Believing Love is the joyning and knitting of the soul to God Faith is the souls labouring after more intimate conjunction with him a sucking in influences from him and participations of him into the Soul We may say that faith fetches in supplies from Heaven and Love enjoyes them faith sucks in sweetness and vertue from Christ and love feeds upon it Certainly these two eminent graces grow and live and thrive together and are inseparable companions It is somewhat difficult to distinguish them or to assign to each his proper place and work in the soul they seem mutually to act and to be mutually acted by each other perhaps the Apostle might have respect to this mystery when he speaks so doubtfully Gal. 5. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which words may be translated either Faith acting by love or faith acted by love We know indeed that in the state of perfect communion which we call glory love shall abide and flourish more abundantly and there shall be no room for faith there not as to the principal act of it but whether hath the greater part in maintaining our communion with God in this world is not easie nor indeed needfull to determine The godly soul is the most proper Temple wherein God dwelleth according to that 2 Cor. 6. 16. Ye are the Temple of the living God Faith and Love are the Jachin and Boaz the two great Pillars which keep up the Soul as a Temple take away these and it remains a soul indeed but the soul dos not remain a Temple to the Lord. In a word these two are the souls principal handmaids which she useth about this blessed guest Faith goes out and brings him in and Love entertains him by faith she finds him whom she seeks and by love she kisses him whom she finds as the spouse is described Cant. 8. 1. 8. The communion that is between God and the godly Soul is altogether different from that communion that is between creatures Here I might shew you how it exceeds and excells that in many respects but I shall not insist upon any of those particulars nor indeed upon any of those many differences that are between them save only upon this one The communion that is between creature and creature is perfect in its kind and so consequently gives mutual satisfaction I mean it terminates the expectations so that nothing remains to be enjoyed in them more than what is enjoyed The creature is shallow and soon fathomed we soon come to the bottom of it A
he hath appointed called qualified instructed for the opening explaining interpreting applying of them so that they are called Scribes instructed unto the Kingdom of God and stewards of the Mysteries Stewards over the houshold of God to give unto every one his portion These Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors Teachers God hath given for the perfecting of the Saints for the edifying of the Body of Christ Ephes 4. 11 12. These things hath God done for us from without us he hath set up a light chalk'd out our way and appointed us Guides To which I might adde the many inticements and motives which we call Mercies or Comforts of this Life and the many affâ—ightments of Judgements and Afflictions which God hath added to the Promises Threatnings of his Word to bring us into the way of Life But all these are too little too weak of themselves to bring back a stragling Soul or to produce a living Principle of true Religion in it Therefore 2. God is the Author of Religion from within He doth not only reveal himself and his Son to the Soul but in it he doth not only make discoveries â—o it but lâ—vely impressions upon it he doth not only appoint and point out the way of Life but breathes in the breath of Life He hath not only provided a Saviour a Redeemer but he also draws the Soul unto him John 6. 44. He hath not only appointed Pastors and Teachers but he himself impregnates their Word and cloaths their Doctrine with his own Power using their Ministry as an Instrument whereby to teach so that the Children of God are said to be all taught of God John 6. 45. Ministers can only discover and as it were enlighten the Object but God enlightens the faculty he gives the seeing Eye and does actually enable it to discern Therefore the work of converting a Soul is still ascribed to God in Scripture he begets us again 1 Pet. 1. 3. he draws the Soul before it can run after him Cant. 1. 4. Christ apprehends the Soul lays powerful bold of it Phil. 3. 12. God gives a heart of flesh a new heart he causes men to walk in his statutes Ezek. 36. 26 27. He puts his Law into their inward parts and writes it in their hearts Jer. 31. 33. To which I might adde many more Quotations of the same value But yet methinks we are not come to a perfect discovery of Religions being the Off-spring of God in the minds of men For it is God who enlightneth the faculty as to the learning of all other things also he teacheth the Grammar and the Rhetorick as well as the Divinity he instructeth even the Husbandman to discretion in his affairs of Husbandry and teaches him to plow and sow and thresh c. Isa 28. 26. Not only the gift of Divine Knowledge but indeed every good gift cometh from the Father of Lights Jam. 1. 17. God doth from within give that capacity illumination of the faculty ingenuity whereby we comprehend the mysteries of Nature as well as of Grace John 1. 9. Therefore we may conceive of the Original of Religion in a more inward and spiritual manner still It is not so much given of God as it self is something of God in the Soul as the Soul is not so properly said to give as to be the Life of Man As the conjunction of the Soul with the Body is the Life of the Body so verily the Life of the Soul stands in its conjunction with God by a spiritual union of Will and Affections God doth not enlighten mens minds as the Sun enlightens the World by shining unto them and round about them but by shining into them by enlightning the faculty as I said before yea which seems to be somewhat more by shining in their hearts as the Apostle phraseth it 2 Cor. 4. 6. He sets up a Candle which is his own Light within the Soul so that the Soul sees God in his own Light and loves him with the Love that he hath shed abroad in it and Religion is no other than a reflection of that Divine Image Life and Light and Love which from God are stamped and imprinted upon the Souls of true Christians God is said to enlighten the Soul but it is not as the Sun enlightens you see so he draws the Soul too but not ab extra only as one man draweth another with a Cord as Jupiter in Homer draws men up to Heaven by a Chain and Mahomet his Disciples by a Lock of Hair but he draws the Soul as the Sun draws up Earthly Vapours by infusing its vertue and power into them or as the Loadstone draws the Iron by the powerful insinuations of his grace God doth not so much communicate himself to the Soul by way of Disâ—overy as by way of Impression as I said before and indeed not so much by impression neither as by a mystical and wonderful way of implantation Religion is not so much something from God as something of God in the Minds of good Men for so the Scripture allows us to speak It is therefore called his Image Col. 3. 10. and good men are said to live according to God in the Spirit 1 Pet. 4. 6. But as if that were not high enough it is not only called his Image but even a participation of his Divine Nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. something of Christ in the Soul an infant-Christ as one calls it alluding to the Apostle Gal. 4. 19. where the saving knowledge of Christ is called Christ himself Vntil Christ be formed in you True Religion is as it were God dwelling in the Soul and Christ dwelling in the Soul as the Apostles St. John and St. Paul do express it yea God himself is pleased thus to express his relation to the godly Soul â—sa 57. 15. I dwell in the high and holy place with him also that is of a humble spirit And again 2 Cor. 6. 16. As God hath said I will dwell in them and walk in them Pure Religion is a beam of the Father of Lights Lumen de Lumine it is a drop of that eternal Fountain of Goodness and Holiness the Breath of the Power of God a pure Influence flowing from the Glory of the Almighâ—y the Brightness of the everlasting Light the unspotted Mirrour of the power of God and the Image of his Goodness more beautiful than the Sun and above all the Orders of Stars being compared with the Light she is found before it as the Author of the Book of Wisdom speaks Chap. 7. What is spoken of the eâ—ernal Son of God Heb. 1. 3. may in a sense be truly affirmed of Religion in the abstract That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the effulgency or beaming forth of Divine Glory For there is more of the Divine Glory and Beauty shining forth in one godly Soul than in all things in the World beside The glorious Light of the Sun is but a dark
shadow of the Divine Light not to be compared with the Beauty of Holiness An immortal Soul doth more resemble the Divine Nature than any other created Being but Religion in the Soul is a thousand times more divine than the Soul it self The material World is indeed a darker Representation of Divine Wisdom Power and Goodness it is as it were the footsteps of God the immaterial World of Angels and Splrits does represent him more clearly and are the Face of God but Holiness in the Soul doth most nearly resemble him of all created Things one may call it the Beauty and Glory of his Face Every Creature partakes of God indeed he had no Copy but himself and his own Essence to frame the World by so that all these must needs carry some resemblance of their Maker But no Creature is capable of such communications of God as a rational immortal Spirit is and the highest that Angel or Spirit or any created Nature can be made capable of is to be holy as God is holy So then if the Poet may call the Soul and St. Paul allows him in it Divinoe particula aâ—ra sure one may rather speak at that rate of Religion which is the highest perfection that the Soul can attain to either in the World that now is or that which is to come One Soul any one Soul of man is worth all the World beside for glory and dignity but the lowest degree of true Holiness pure Religion Conformity to the Divine Nature and Will is more worth than a World of Souls and to be preferr'd before the Essence of Angels I have often admir'd three great Mysteries and Mercies God revealed in the Flesh God revealed in the Word and God revealed in the Soul This last is the Mystery of Godliness which I am speaking of but cannot fathom It is this that the Apostle says transcends the sight of our Eyes the capacity of our Ears and all the faculties of our Souls too 1 Cor. 2. 9. Eye hath not seen c. Christ Jesus formed in the Soul of man incarnate in a heart of Flesh is as great a Miracle and a greater Mercy than Christ formed in the Womb of a Virgin and incarnate in a humane Body There was once much glorying concerning Christ in the World the Hope of Israel but let us call out to the powers of Eternity and the Ages of the World to come to help us to celebrate and magnifie Christ in us the hope of Glory or if you will Christ in us the first fruits of Glory 1. This will then help us in our discoveries of that precious part Religion There is nothing in the world that men do generally more seek or less find no nation in the world but hath courted it in one way or other but alas how few that have obtained it At this day there are many claims laid to it all pretending a just title the men of Judab cry she is of Kin to us the men of Israel say we have ten parts in this Queen and we have more right in Religion than ye according as they contended of old about King David 2 Sam. 19 They say of Christ as it was foretold though perhaps not in the same as was foretold loe here he is and loe there he is which haâ—h made many say he is not at all or if I may go on in the same allusion they live by the rule that there follows they will not go forth to seek him any where Mighty strivings yea and wars there have been about the Prince of peace whose he should be And at this day no question more debated nor less decided than which is the Religious party in the Land Oh would to God men would dispute this controversie with works and not with words much less with blows Religion is of an eminent pedegree of a noble descent you may find her name in the Register of Heaven and look where God is there is she She carryes her name in her forehead the Divine disposition that she is of the Divine works which she worketh which no one else can work the same do bear witness which is she I am ready to say with the man that had been blind Joh. 9. 3. here in is a marvelous thing that ye know not Religion who she is and yet she is the mighty power of God opening the eyes changing the hearts and as it were deifying the souls of men Why do we not also go about enquiring which of those many stars is the Moon in the Firmament If ye ask of the Religions party I will point you to the blessed and eternal God and say As he is so are they in their capacity each one resembling the Children of a King or I will point out the Religions Christian by the same token as Christ himself was marked out to John the Baptist Joh. 1. 33. upon whom thou shalt see the spirit descending and remaining the same is he If ye enquire about the Children of God the Apostle shall describe them for you Ephes 5. 1. The followers of God are his dear Children That which is most nearly allyed to the nature and life of God that call Religion under whatsoever disguises or reproaches it may go in the world Examine the world by no lower a mark than that Character that is given of David 1 Sam. 13. 14. and the man that doth appear to be after Gods heart viz. comformable to his image complyant with his will and studious of his glory pitch upon him for that is that man under what name soever he goes of what party or faction soever he is And let no soul examine it self by any lower marks than this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 participation of the Divine nature conformity to the Divine Image Examine what alliance your soul hath to God whose is the image and superscription Religion is a divine accomplishment an efflux from God and may by its affiniâ—y to Heaven be discerned from a brat of Hell and darkness Therefore Christians if you will make a judgement of your state lay your hearts and lives to the rule the eternal goodness the uncreated purity and holiness and see whether you resemble that Copy For conformâ—ty to the image and will of God that is Religion and that God will own for his when all the counterfeits and shadows of it shall fly away and disappear for ever I fear it may be imputed as a great piece of vanity and idle curicâ—ty to many 〈◊〉 speculative Christians that they are very inquisitive prying into the hidden roâ—â—s of Gods decree the secrets of predestination to find out the causes and method of their vocation and salvation in the mean time they are not sollicitous for nor studious of the relation and resemblance that every religious soul bears unto God himself the heaven that is opened within the godly soul it self and the whole plot and mystery of salvationsalvation translated upon the heart of a true Christian There is
man till he consider with himself that one part of these mens uncleanness is that very blindness which keeps them from discerning it I speak principally of the defilement of the Soul though indeed the same do pollute the whole Conversation Every action springing from such an unclean Heart thereby becomes filthy even as Moses his hand put into his bosome became leprous Exod. 4. or rather as one that is unclean by a dead body defileth all that he toucheth Hag. 2. 13. Now Religion is the cleansing of this unclean spirit and conversation so that though the Soul were formerly as filthy odious as Augeus his Stable when once those living Waters flow into it and thorow it from the pure Fountain of Grace and Holiness the Spirit of our God one may say of it as the Apostle of his Corinthians 1 Cor. 6. 11. Such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are sanctified c. The Soul that before was white as leprosie is now white as Wool Isa 1. 18. the Soul that before was like Moses his hand leprous as snow is now like David's Heart white as snow yea and whiter too Psal 51. 7. Oh what a beauty and glory is upon that godly Soul that shines with the image and brightness of God upon it Solomon in all his glory was not beautiful like such a Soul nay I dare say the splendor of the Sun in its greatest strength and altitude is a miserable glimmering if it be compared with the Day-Star of Religion that even in this Life arises in the heart or if you will in the Prophets stile the Sun of Righteousness which ariseth with healing in his wings upon them that fear the Name of God To speak without a Metaphor the godly Soul having entertained into its self the pure effluxes of Divine Light and Love breathes after nothing more than to see more familiarly and love more ardently its inclinations are pure and holy its motions spiritual and powerful its delights high and heavenly it may be said to rest in its love and yet it may be said that love will not suffer it to rest but is still carrying it out into a more intimate union with its beloved object What is said of the Oyntment of Christs Name Cant. 1. 3. is true of the Water of his Spirit it is poured forth therefore do the Virgins love him Religion begets a chaste and virgin-love in the Soul towards that blessed God that begot it it bathes it self in the Fountain that produc'd it and suns it self perpetually in the warm beams that first hatch'd it Religion issues from God himself and is ever issuing out towards God alone passionately breathing with the holy Psalmist Whom have I in Heaven but thee In Earth there is none that I desire beside thee The Soul that formerly may be said to have lain among the Pots by reason of its filthiness is now as the wings of a Dove covered with silver and her Feathers with yellow gold the Soul that formerly may be said to have sitten down by the flesh pots of Egypt in regard of its sensual and earthly Loves being redeemed by the almighty grace of God is upon its way to the holy Land hastning to a Country not earthly but heavenly Heb. 11. This pure Principle being put into the Soul puts it upon holy Studies indites holy Meditations directs it to high and noble ends and makes all its embraces to be pure and chaste labouring to compass God himself which before were adulterous idolatrous free for sin and self and the world to lodge and lie down in In a word this Off-spring of Heaven this Kings Daughter the godly Soul is all glorious within yea and outwardly too she is cloathed with wrought gold Psal 45. 13. Her faith within is more precious than gold 1 Pet. 1. 7. and her Conversation curiously made up of an Embroidery of good Works some of Pâ—ety some of Charity some of Sobriety but all of Purity shineth with more noble and excellent splendor than the high Priests Garments and Brest-plate spangled with such variety of precious Stones This precious Oyntment this holy Vnction as the Apostle calls it 1 John 2. 20. is as diffusive of it self and ten thousand times more fragrant than that of Aaron so much commended in Psal 133. that ran down from his head upon his beard and from thence upon the skirts of his garment Not my feet only but my hands and my head Lord said Peter John 13. Not well knowing what he said but the Soul that is truly sensible of the excellent purity which is caused by Divine Washings longs to have the whole man the whole Life also made partaker of it and cries Lord not my head only not my heart only but my hands and my feet also make me wholly pure as God is pure In a word then true Religion is the cleansing of the Soul and all the powers of it so that whereas Murderers sometimes lodged in it now Righteousness the Den of Thieves thievish Lusts and Loves and Interests and Ends which formerly stole away the Soul from God its right Owner is now become a Temple fit for the great King to dwell and live and reign in And the whole Conversation is turned from its wonted vanity worldliness and iniquity and is continually employed about things that are true honest just pure lovely and of good report Phil. 4. 8. 2. By the phrase Water the Quenching nature of Religion is commended to us God hath indued the immortal Soul with a restless appetite and raging thirst after some chief Good which the heart of every man is continually groping after and catching at though indeed few find it because they seek it where it is not to be found If we speak properly it is not gold or silver or popular applause which the covetous or ambitious mind doth ultimately aim at but some chief good happiness sufficiency and satisfaction in these things wherein they are more guilty of Blasphemy than Atheism for it is clear that they do not deny a supreme Good for that which men do chiefly and ultimately aim at is their God be it what it will but they do verily blaspheme the true God when they place their happiness there where it is not to be found and attribute that fulness and sufficiency to something else besides the living God Sin hath not destroyed the nature and capacity of the rational Soul but hath diverted the mind from its adequate object and hath sunk it into the Creature where it wanders hither and thither like a banished man from one Den and Cave to another but is secure no where A wicked man who is loosed from his centre by sin and departed from the Fountain of his Life flies low in his affections and flutters perpetually about the Earth and earthly Objects but can find no more rest for the foot of his Soul than Noah's Dove could find for the sole of her foot Now Religion
to bribe Gods justice or engage mens charity to purchase favour with God or man or his own clamarous conscience but he prays because he wants and loves and believes he wants the fuller presence of that God whom he loves he loves the presence which he wants he believes that he that loves him will not suffer him to want any good thing that he prays for And therefore he do's not bind up himself severely and limit himself penuriously to a morning and evening Sacrifice and solemnity as unto certain rent-seasons wherein to pay a homage of dry devotion but his loving and longing Soul disdaining to be confin'd within Canâ—nical hours is frequently soaring in some heavenly raptures or other and sallying forth in holy ejaculations He is not content with some weak assays towards Heaven in set and formal Prayer once or twice a day but labours also to be all the day long sucking in those Divine influences and streams of grace by the mouth of faith which he beg'd in the morning by the tongue of prayer which hath made me sometimes to think it a proper speech to say the faith of Prayer as well as the prayer of faith for believing and hanging upon Divine grace doth really drink in what Prayer opens its mouth for and is in effect a powerful kind of praying in silence By believing we pray as well as in praying we do believe A truly godly man hath not his hands tyed up meerly by the force of a National Law no nor yet by the authority of the fourth commandment to keep one in seven a day of rest As he is not content with meer resting upon the Sabboth knowing that neither working nor ceasing from work doth of itself commend a Soul to God but doth press after intimacy with God in the duties of his worship so neither can he be content with one Sabboth in a week nor think himself absolved from holy and heavenly meditations any day in the week but labours to make every day a Sabboth as to the keeping of his heart up unto God in a holy frame and to find every day to be a Sabboth as to the communications of God unto his Soul Though the necessities of his body will not allow him it may be though indeed God hath granted this to some men to keep every day as a Sabboth of Rest yet the necessities of his Soul do call upon him to make every day as far as may be a Sabboth of communion with the blessed God If you speak of Fasting he keeps not Fasts meerly by vertue of a civil no nor a divine institution but from a principle of godly sorrow afflicts his â—oul for sio and daily endeavours more and more to be emptied of himself which is the most excellent Fasting in the world If you speak of Thansgiving he do's not give thanks by laws and ordinances but having in himself a law of thanksulness and an ordinance of love engraven upon and deeply radicated in his Soul delights to live unto God and to make his heart and life a living descant upon the goodness and love of God which is the most divine way of thank offering in the world it is the hallâ—lujah which the Angels sing continually In a word wherever God hath a tongue to command true godliness will find an hand to perform whatever yoke Christ Jesus shall put upon the Soul religion will enable to bear it yea and to count it easie too the mouth of Christ hath pronounâ—'d it easie Mat. 11. 30. and the spirit of Christ makes it easie Let the commandment be what it will it will not le grievous 1 Joh. 5. 3. The same spirit doth in some measure dwell in every Christian which without measure dwelt in Christ who counted it his meat and drink to do the will of his Father Joh. 4. 34. 2. And more especially the true Christian is free from any constâ—aint as to the inward acts which he performeth Holy love to God is one principal Act of the gracioâ—s soul whereby it is carryed out freely and with an ardent lust towards the object that is truly and infinitely lovely and satisfâ—ctory and to the enjoyment of iâ— I know indeed that this springs from self indigency and is commanded by the soveraignty of the supream good the object that the Soul eyes but it is properly free from any constraint Love is an affection that cannot be excorted as sear is nor sorâ—â—d by any external power nor indeed internal neither the revenues of the King of Persia or the treasuâ—es oâ— Aegypt cannot commit a rape upon â—â— Heb. 11. 26. neither indeed can the soul it self raise and lay this spirit at pleasure which made the Poet complain of himself as if he were not sole Emperour at home Non amo te Sabidi nec possum dicere quare c. Though the outward bodily Acts of Religion are ordinarily forced yet this pure chast virgin-affection cannot be ravished it seems to be a kind of a peculiar in the soul though under the jurisdiction of the understanding By this property of it it is elegantly described by the spirit of God Cant. 8. 7. if a man would give all the substance of his house for love it would utterly be contemned It cannot be bought with money or money-worth cannot be purchased with gifts or arts and if any should offer to bribe it it would give him a sharp and scornful check in the language of Peter to Simon Thy money perish with thee love is no hireling no base born mercenary affection but noble free and generous Neither is it low-spirited and slavish as Fear is therefore when it comes to full age it will not suffer this Son of the Bond woman to divide the inheritance the dominions of the Soul with it when it comes to be perfect it casteth out fear sayes the Apostle 1 Joh. 4. 18. Neither indeed is it directly under the authority of any law whether humane or Divine it is not begotten by the influence of a divine law as a law but as holy just and good as we shall see more anon quis legem dat amantibus ipse Est sibi lex amor the Law of Love or if you will in the Apostles phrase the spirit of love and of power in opposition to the spirit of fear 2 Tim. 1. 7. doth more influence the godly man in his pursuit of God than any law without him this is as a wing to the Soul whereas outward commandments are but as guides in his way or at most but as spurs in his sides The same I may say of holy delight in God which is indeed the flower of love or love grown up to its full age and stature which hath no torment in it and consequently no force upon it Like unto which are holy confidence Faith and Hope ingenuous and natural Acts of the Religious Soul whereby it hastens into the Divine embraces as the Eagle hastneth to the prey swiftly and speedily
and not by force and constraint as a fool to the correction of the stocks or a bear to the stake These are all genuine off-springs of holy religion in the Soul and they are utterly uncapable of force Violence is contrary to the nature of them for to use the Apostles words with the change of one word Hope that is forc'd is not hope Now a little further to explain this excellent property of true Religion we may a little consider the Author and the object of it The author of this noble and Free principle is God himself who hath made it a partaker of his own nature who is the Free agent himself is the fountain of his own Acts. The uncreated life and liberty hath given this priviledge to the religious Soul in some sense to have life and liberty in it self and a dominion over its own Acts. I do not know that any created Being in the world hath more of divinity in it than the Soul of man qua nihil homini dedit Deus ipse divinius as Tully speaks nor that any thing in the Soul doth more resemble the Divine essence than the noble Freedom that the soul hath in itself which freedom is never so divine and generous as when it is objected upon God himself This excellent freedom is something of God in the Soul of man and therefore may justly claim the Free spirit for its author Psal 51. 12. 2. Cor. 3. 17. or the Son of God for its original according to that in Joh. 8. 36. If the Son shall make you free then shall ye be free indeed But here it may be demanded whether the command of God do not act the godly soul and set it upon its holy motions I confess indeed that the command of God is much eyed by a godly man and is of great weight with him and do's in some sense lay a constraint upon him but yet I think not so much the authority of the Law as the reasonableness and goodness of it do's prevail principally with him The Religious Soul do's not so much eye the Law under the notion of a command as under the notion of holy just and good as the Apostle speaks and so embraces it chooses it and longs to be perfectly conformable to it I do nor think it so proper to say that a good man loves God and all righteousness and holiness and religious duties by vertue of a command to do so as by vertue of a new nature that God hath put into him which doth instruct and prompt him so to do A religious Soul being reconciled to the nature of God do's embrace all his Laws by vertue of the equitableness and perfection that he sees in them not because they are commanded but because they are in themselves to be desired as David speaks Psal 19. 10. In which Psalm the holy man gives us a full account why he did so love and esteem the laws and commandments of God viz. because they are perfect right pure clean true sweet and lovely as you will find v. 7 8 9 10. To love the Lord our God with all our heart and strength and mind is not only a duty by vertue of that first and great commandment that doth require it but indeed the highest priviledge honour and happiness of the Soul To this purpose may that profession of the Psalmists be applyed Psal 119. 173. I have chosen thy precepts and ver 30. I have chosen the way of truth Choosing is an act of judgement and understanding and respects the quality of the thing more than the authority of the command David did not stumble into the way of truth accidentally by vertue of his education or acquaintance or the like circumstance nor was he whipt or driven into it by the meer severity of a law without him but he chose the way of truth as that which was indeed most eligible pleasant and desireable What our blessed Saviour sayes concerning himself is also true of every true Christian in his measure he makes it his meat and drink to do the will of God Now we know that men do not eat and drink because Physitians prescribe it as a means to preserve life but the sensual appetite is carryed out towards food because it is good sweet suitable so is the spiritual appetite carryed out towards spiritual food not so much by the force of an external precept as by the attractive power of that higher good which it finds suitable and sufficient for it As for the object of this Free and generous spirit of Religion it is no other than God himself principally and ultimately and other things only as they are subservient to the enjoyment of him God as the supream good able to fill and perfectly satisfie all the wants and indigencies of the soul and so to make it wholly and eternally happy is the proper object of the Souls most free and chearful motions The Soul eyes God as the perfect and absolute good and God in Christ as a feasable and attainable good and so finds every way enough in this object to encourage it to pursue after him and throw it self upon him Religion fixes upon God as upon its own centre as upon its proper and adequate object it views God as the Infinite and absolute good and so is drawn to him without any external force The Godly Soul is overpowred indeed but it is only with the infinite goodness of God which exercises its Soveraignty over all the faculties of the Soul which over-powring is so far from straitning or pinching it that it makes it truly free and generous in its motions Religion wings the Soul and makes it take a flight freely and swiftly towards God and eternal life it is of God and by a sympathy that it hath with him it carryes the Soul out after him and into conjunction with him In a word the godly Soul being loosned from self-love emptyed of self-fulness beaten out of all self-satisfaction and delivered from all self-confining lusts wills interests and ends and being mightily overcome with a sense of a higher and more excellent good goes after that freely centres upon it firmly grasps after it continually and had rather be that than what itself is as seeing that the nature of that supream good is infiâ—itely more excellent and desirable than its own Thus have I briefly explain'd and confirmed the Freeness of this principle in the truly godly Soul I would now make some little improvement of it but that it seems needful I should here interweave a cautionary concession or two First It must be granted that somethings without the Soul may be motives in our common sense and encouragements to the Soul to quicken and â—asten and strengthen it in its religious acts Though grace be an internal principle and most free from any constraint yet it may be excited or stirred up as the Apostle speaks 2 Tâ—m 1. 6. by such means as God hath appointed hereunto as prayer
to be esteemed 2 Kin. â—0 16. were indeed rather Fury than Zeal and proceeded more from his own fiery spirits than from that spirit of Fire or spirit of burning which is of God Isa 4. 4. But commonly this forc'd devotion is jejune and dry void of zeal and warmth drives on heavily in pursuit of the God of Israel as Pharaoh did in pursuit of the Israel of God when his Chariot wheels were taken off Exod. 14. Gods drawing the Soul from within as a principle doth indeed cause that soul to run after him Cant. 1. 4. but you know the motion of those things that are drawn by exâ—ernal force is commonly heavy slow and languid 2. This forc'd Relâ—gion is penurious and needy Something the slavish spirited Christian must do to appease an angry God or to allay a storming conscience as I hâ—nâ—ed before but it shall be as little as may be He is ready to gâ—ndge God so much of his time and strength and to find fault that Sabbaths come so thick and last so long and that duties are to be performed sâ— often so he is described by the Prophet Amoâ— 8. 5. When will the Sabbath be past and the new Moon gone But yet I will not deny but that this kind of Religion may be very liberal and expensive too and run out much into the branches of external duties as is the manner of many trees that bear no fâ—uit for so did the base spirit of the Pharisees whose often fasting and long praying is recorded by our Saviour in the Gospel but not with approbation Therefore these are not the things by which you must take measure and make estimate of your Religion But in the great things of the Law in the grand duties of mortification self denyal and resignation here this forc'd Religion is alwayes very stingy and penurious In the duties that do nearly touch upon their beloved lâ—sts they will be as strict with God as may be they will break with him for a small matter God must have no more than his due as they blasphemously phrase it in their hearts with the slothful servant in the Gospel Lo there thou hast that is thine self and the world sure may be allowed the rest They will not part with all for Christ Matth. 19. 22. is it not a little one let me escape thither and take up my abode there said Lot Gen. 19. They will not give up themselves eâ—tirely unto God the Lord pardon me in this one thing cryes Naaman so they in this or that let God hold me excused The slavish spirited Christian is never more shrunk up within himself than when he is to converse with God indeed But the Godly soul is never freer larger gladder than when he doth most intimately and familiarly converse with God The Soul that is Free as to liberty is free also as to liberality and expences and thatnot only in external but internal and spiritual obedience and complyance with the will of God he gives himself wholly up to God knows no interest of his own keeps no reserve for himself or for the Creature 3. This forc'd Religion is uneven as depending upon inconstant causes As land-floods that have no spring within themselves vary their motions are swift and slow high and low according as they are supplyed with rain even so these mens motions in Religion depending upon Fancy for the most part than which nothing is more fickle and flitting have no constancy nor consistency in them I know indeed that the spirits of the best men cannot alwayes keep one pace nor their lives be alwayes of one piece but yet they are never willingly quite out of the call or compass of Religion But this I also toucht upon formerly Therefore 4. The forc'd Religion is not permanent The Meteors I will down again and be choakt in the earth whence they arose Take away the weight and the motion ceases take away 〈◊〉 and Joash â—lands 〈◊〉 yeâ—â— runs backwards But this I shall speak more unto when I come to speak of the last property of Religion viz. its performance CHAP. IV. The active and vigorous nature of true Religion proved by many Scriptural phrases of the most powerful importance more particularly explained in three things First In the Soulâ— continual care and study to be good Secondly In its care to do good Thirdly In its powerful and incessant longings after the most full enjoyment of God In all which the causes and reasons of the same are either more obsâ—urely intimated or openly assigned I Come now to the Second property of true Religion which is to be found in this phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 springing up or leaping up wherein the Activity and vigorousuass of it is described Religion though it be compared to water yet is no standing pool of water but a well of water springing up And here the proposition that I shall go upon is that True Religion is active and vigorous It is no lazy and languid thing but full of life and power so I find it every where described in Scripture by things that are most active lively vigorous operative spreading powerful and sometimes even by motion it self As sin is in Scripture described by death and darkness which are a cessation and privation of life and light and motion so Religion is described by life which is active and vigorous by an Angelical life which is spiritual and powerful yea a divine life Ephes 4. 18. which is as I may say most lively and vivacious Christ liveth in me Gal. 2. 20. and the production of this new nature in the Soul is called a quickning Ephes 2. 1. and the reception of it a passing from death unto life Joâ— 5. 24. Again as sin and wickedness is described by flesh which is sluggish and unactive so this holy principle in the soul is called spirit Gal. 5. 17. the spirit lusâ—eth against the flesh yea the spirit of power 2 Tim. 1. 6. and the spirit of life Rom. 8. 2. the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death How can the power and activity of any principle be more commended than by saying it is life and the spirit of life and the law of the spirit of life in the soul which hath made me sometimes to apply those words of the Prophet as a description of every godly soul Mic. 3. 8. I am full of power and might by the spirit of the Lord. Yea further the holy Apostle seems to describe a godly principle in the soul by activity and motion itself Phil. 3. 12 13 14. where he gives this excellent character of himself and this lively description of his religious disposition as if it were nothing else but activity and fervour I follow after that I may apprehend I forget those things that are behind and reach forth unto those things that are before I press towards the mark c. It were too much
in the soul as a burning fire shut up in the bones which makes the soul weary with forbearing and so powerfull in longings that it cannot stay as the spirit of prophesie is described Jer. 20. it is more true of the spirit of God than of the spirit of Elihâ— the spirit within constraineth and even dresseth the soul so that it is ready to swoun and faint away for very vehemence of longing Sâ—e the amâ—rous spouse falling into one of these fainting fiâ—s Cant. 2. 5. and crying out mainly for some cordial from Heaven to keep up her sinking spirits Stay me with flaggons straw me with apples for I am sick of love Oh beautifull and blessed fight a soul working towards God gasping and longing and labouring after its proper happiness and perfection Well the sinking soul is relieved Christ Jesus reacheth forth his left hand to her head and his right hand embraceth her and now she recovers her hanging hands lift up themselves and the 〈◊〉 of her â—ading complex on 〈◊〉 restored now she sits down under his shadow with great delight and his fruit is sweet unto her taste See here the fairest sight on this side Heaven a soul resting and glorying and spreading itself in the arms of God growing up in him growing great in him growing full in his fulness and perfectly ravished with his pure love O my soul be not content to live by any lower instance did not our hearts burn within us said the two Disciples one to the other whilest he talked with us But the soul in which the sacred fire of love is powerfully kindled doth not only burn towards God whilest he is more familiarly present with it and as it were blows upon it but if he seem to withdraw from it it burns after him still my beloved had withdrawn himself and was gone I sought him I called him Cant. 5. 6. And if the fire begin to languish and seem as if it would go out the holy soul is startled presently and labours 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle speaks to revive it and blow it up again calls upon itself to awake to arise and pursue to mend its pace and to speed its heavy and sluggish motions This divine active principle in the soul maintains a continual striving a holy strugling and streâ—ching forth of the soul towards God a bold and ardent contention after the supreâ—m good 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Religien hath the strength of the Divinity in it its motions towards its object are quick and potent That elegant description which the Prophet makes of the wicked heart with some change may be brought livâ—â—ly to express this excellent temper of the godly soul it is like the working Sea which cannot â—est and although its waters do not cast up mire and dirt yet in a holy impatience they rise and swell and cast up a froth and some towards Heaven In a word that I may comprize many things in few expressions no man so ambitious as the humble none so covetous as the heavenly-minded none so voluptuous as the self-denying Religion gives a largeness and wideness to the soul which sin and self and the world had straightned and confined But his Ambition is only to be great in God his Covetousness is only to be filled with all the fulness of God and his voluptuousness is only to drink of the rivers of his pure pleasures He desires to taste the God whom he sees and to be satisfied with the God whom he tastes Oh now how are all the faculties of the soul awakened to attendance upon the Lord of life It hearkens for the sound of his feet coming the noise of his hands knocking at the door it stands upon its watch tower waiting for his appearing waiting more earnestly than they that watch for the morning and rejoyces to meet him at his coming and having met him runs into his arms kisses him holds him and will not let him goe but brings him into the house and entertains him in the guest-chamber The soul complains that itself is not large enough that there is not room enough to entertain so glorious a guest no not though it have given him all the room that it hath It entertains him with the widest arms and the sweetest smiles and if he depart and withdraw fetches him again with the deepest groans Return Return O Prince of Peace and make me an everlasting habitation of righteousness unto thy self It will not be amiss here briefly to touch upon the Reason of the godly souls so ardent pantings after God And here I might shew first negatively that it springs not from any carnal ambition of being better and higher than others not from any â—arnal hope of impunity and safety nor meerly from the bitter sense of pressing and tormenting afflictions in this life But I shall rather insist upon it affirmatively These earnest breathings 〈◊〉 God spring from the feeling apprehensions of self-indigency and insufficiency and â—â—e powerful sense of divine goodness and fulness they are begotten of the divine Bounty and self sufficiency manifesting itself to the spirits of men and conceived and brought forth by a deep sense of selfpoverty one might almost apply the Apostles words to this purpose we receive the sentence of death in our selves that we should not trust in our selves but in him I shall not discourse upon these two heads disjunctly but frame them into one notion and so you may take it thus these holy longings of the godly soul after God do arise from the sense of its distance from God To be so far distant from God who is life and love itself and the proper and full happiness of the soul is grievous to the soul that is rightly affected towards him and hence it is that the soul cannot be at rest but still longs to be more intimately joyned to him and more perfectly filled with him and the clearer the souls apprehensions are of its object and the deeper its sense is of its own unlikeness to him and distance from him the more strong and impatient are its breathings insomuch that not only fear as the Apostle speaks but even love itself sometimes seems to itself to have a kind of agony and torment in itself which made the spouse cry she was sick of love that is sick of every thing that kept her from her love sick of that distance at which she stood from her beloved Lord. The godly soul being ravisht with the infinite sweetness and goodness of God longs to be that rather than what itself iâ— and beholding how it is estranged from him by many sensual loves selfish passions corporal clogs and distractions bewails its distance and cryes out within itself Oh when shall I come and appear before God! Oh when will God come and appear gloriously to me and in me who will deliver me from this body of death Oh that mortality were swallowed up of life Davids soul did wait for God as earnestly
acts and carcase-services and to think it is nothing else but a running the round of duties and ordinances and a keeping up a constant set and course of actions such an external legal righteousness the Apostle Paul after his conversion could not take up with but counted it all loss and dung in comparison of that Godlike righteousness which was now brought into his soul that inward and spiritual conformity to Christ which was now wrought in him Phil. 3. 9 10. I know indeed that men will be loth to confess that they place their Religion in any thing without them but I pray consider seriously wherein you excell other men save only in praying or hearing now and then or some other outward acts and judge your selves by your nature and not by your actions 2. The Active spirit of Religion where it is in the soul will not suffer men to take up their rest in a meer pardon of sin and they are but slothfull souls that could be so satisfied Blessed is the man indeed whose inquities are pardoned Psal 32 1 2. but if we could suppose a soul to be acquitted of the guilt of all sin and yet to lie bound under the dominion of lusts and passions and to live without God in the world he were yet far from true blessedness A reall hell and misery will arise out of the very bowels of sin and wickedness though there should be no reserve of fire and brimstone in the world to come It is utterly impossible that a Soul should be happy out of God though it had the greatest security imaginable that it should never suffer any thing from him The highest care and ambition indeed of a slavish and mercenary spirit is to be secured from the wrath and vengeance of God but the breathings of the ingenuous and holy soul are after a divine life and Godlike perfections This right gracious tempe you may see in David Psal 51. 9 10 11 12. which is also the temper of every truly Religious soul 3. The Active spirit of Religion where it is in the soul will not suffer men to take up their rest in meer innâ—cency freedom from sin and they are slothful souls that could count it happiness enough to be harmless I doubt men are much mistaken about holiness it is more than meer innocency or freedom from the guilt or power of sin it is not a negative thing there is something active noble divine powerfull in true Religion A soul that rightly understands its own penury and self-insufficiency and the emptiness and meanness of all creature-good cannot possibly take up its rest or place its happiness in any thing but in a real participation of God himself and therefore is continually making out towards that God from whom it came and is labouring to unite itself more and more unto him Let a low-spirited fleshly minded Pharisee take up with a negative holiness and happiness as he doth Luke 18. 11. God I thank thee that I am not so and so a noble and high-spirited Christian cannot take up his rest in any negation or freedom from sin Every godly soul is not so learned indeed as to be able to describe the nature and proper perfection of a soul and to tell you how the happiness of a soul consists not in quiete but in actu vigore not in cessation and rest as the happiness of a stone doth but in life and power and vigour as the happiness of God himself doth But yet the spirit of true Religion is so excellent and powerfull in every godly soul that it is still carrying it to the fuller enjoyment of an higher good and the soul doth find and feel within itself though it cannot discourse Philosophically of these things that though it were free from all disturbance of sin and affliction in the world yet still it wants some supream and possible good to make it compleatly happy and so bends all its power thiâ— herward This is the description which you will everywhere find made in Scripture of the true spirit of holiness which hath alwayes something positive and divine in it as Isâ— 1. 16 17. cease to do evil learn to do well and Ephes 4. 22 24. Put off the old man put on that new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness And accordingly a truly godly soul to use the Apostles words though he know nothing by himself yet doth not thereby count himself happy 4. The Active spirit of true Religion whâ—re it is in the Soul will not suffer men to take up their rest in some measures of grace received and so far as the soul doth so it is sluggish and less Active than it ought to be This indeed oft times comes to pass when the soul is under some distemper of proud selfishness earthly-mindedness or the like or is less apprehensive of its object and happiness as it seems to have been the case of the spouse Cant. 5. 3. Some such fainting fits languishings suâ—ferings in sensibleness must be allowed to be in the Godly soul during its imprisoned and imperfect state But we must not judge our selves by any present distempers or infirmities The nature of Religion when it acts the soul rightly and powerfully is to carry it after a more lively resemblance of God which is the most proper and excellent enjoyment of him A mind rightly and actually sound is most sick of love and the nature of love is not to know when it is near enough to its object but still to long after the most perfect conjunction with it This well of water if it be not violently obstructed for a time is ever springing up till it be swallowed up in the Ocean of divine love and grace The soul that is rightly acquainted with itself and its God sees something still wanting in itself and to be enjoyed in him which makes it that it cannot be at rest but is still springing up into him till it come to the measure of the stature of the fulness of its Lord. In this holy loving longing striving active temper we find the great Apostle Phil. 3. 12 13 14. And by how much the more of divine grace any soul hath drunk in the more thirsty is it after much more 5. The Active spirit of true Religion where it is powerfully seated in the minds of men will not suffer them to settle into a love of this animal life nor indeed suffer them to be content to live for ever in such a kind of body as this and that soul is in a degree lazy and slothful that doth not desire to depart and be with his Lord. The godly soul eying God as his perfect and full happiness and finding that his being in the body doth separate him from God keep him in a poor and imperfect state and hinders his blissfull communion with the highest good groans within itself that mortality were swallowed up of life with the Apostle 2 Cor. 5. 4. I
know not how much but I think he hath not very much of God neither fight of him nor love of him that could be content to abide for ever in this imperfect mixed low state and never be perfected in the full enjoyment of him And it seems that they in whom the love of God is rightly predominant potent flourishing do also look earnestly for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life Jude 2. without doubt they ought to do 2 Pe◠3. 12. What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God! Let this suffice by way of general Reprehension 2. More particularly the consideration of the Active nature of true Religion may well serve to correct a mistake about that noble grace of faith How dishonourably do some speak of this excellent and powerfull grace when they make it to be a slothfull passive thing an idle kind of waiting or a Melancholick sitting still which indeed and in truth is Life and power Be not mistaken in so high and eminent a grace True faith doth not only accept the imputed righteousness of Christ for justification but by a lively dependance upon God drinks in divine influences and eagerly sucks in grace and vertue and life from the fountain of grace for its more perfect sanctification And for this cause I think a purifying vertue is ascribed to it Act. 15. 9. Faith is not a lazy languid thing content to wait for salvation till the world to come but it is even now gasping after it and accomplishing it too in a way of mortification self-denyall and growing up in God it is not content to be a candidate waiting for life and happiness but is actually drawing down Heaven into the soul attracting God to itself sucking in participations of divine grace and image into the soul Its motto is that of the famous painter nulla dies sine lineâ it longs to find some divine lineament some line of Gods image drawn upon the soul daily Faith is a giving grace as well as receiving it gives up the whole soul to God and is troubled that it can give him no more it binds over the soul afresh to God every day and is troubled that it can bind it no faster nor closer to him The believing soul is wearyed because of muderers murdering loves lusts cares earthly pleasures and calls mightily upon Christ to come and take vengeance upon them it is wearyed because of those robbers that are daily stealing away precious time and affections from God which are due unto him and calls upon Christ to come and scourge these thieves these buyers and sellers out of his own Temple In a word the godly soul is Active and faith is the very life and Action of the soul itself Lastly Let me exhort all Christians from hence to be zealous to be fervent in spirit serving the Lord and longing after him Stir up the grace of God that is in you Quench not i. e. blow up enflame the spirit of God in you Awake Christian soul out of thy Lethargy and rejoyce as the Sun to run the race that is set before thee and as a mighty man refreshed with Wine to fight thy spiritual battels against the armies of uncircumcised prophane and earthly concupiscences love and passions Eye God as your centre the enjoyment of him as the Happiness and full conformity to him as the perfection of your souls and then say Awake Arise O my Soul and hide not thy hand in thy bosome but throw thy self into the very heart and bosome of God lay hold upon eternal life Again observe how all things in the world pursue their several perfections with unwearied and impatient longings and say come my soul and do thou likewise Converse not with God so much under the notion of a Law giver but as with love itself nor with his commands as having authority in them but as having goodness and life and sweetness in them Again consider your poverty as creatures and how utterly impossible it is for you to be happy in your selves and say Arise O my soul from off this weak and tottering foundation and build thy self up in God cease pinching thy self within the straits of self-sufficiencies and come stretch thy self upon infinite Goodness and Fulness Again pore not upon your attainments do not sit brooding upon your present accomplishments but forget the things that are behind and say Awake O my soul there is yet infinitely much more in God pursue after him for it till thou have gotten as much as a created Being is capable to receive of the divine nature In a word take heed you live not by the lowest examples which thing keeps many in a dwindling state all their dayes but by the highest Read over the Spouse her temper sick of Love Davids temper waiting for God more than they that watch for the morning breaking in heart for the longing that he had to the Lord and say Arise O my Soul and live as high as the highest it is no fault to desire to be as Good as holy as happy as an Angel of God And thus O my soul open thy mouth wide and God hath promised to fill thee CHAP. VI. That Religion is a lasting and persevering principle in the soules of men proved by several Scriptures The grounds of this perseverance assigned first negatively It doth not arise from the absolute inamissability of grace in the creature nor from the strength of mans Free-will Secondly Affirmatively the grace of election cannot fail The grace of Justification is neither suspended nor violated The Covenant of grace is everlasting The Mediator of this Covenant lives for ever The promises of it immutable The righteousness brought in by the Messiab everlasting An objection answered concerning a regenerate mans willing his own apostasie An Objection answered drawn from the falls of Saints in Scripture as also from those Scriptures that seem to imply a mans falling away A discovery of counterfeit Religion and the shamefull apostasie of false professors An encouragement to all holy diligence from the consideration of this doctrine the rather that we may stop the mouths of those that falsly affirm that the same is prejudicial to true godliness I Come now to the third property of true Religion contained in these words and that is the perseverance of it And here the foundation of my following discourse shall be this proposition True Religion is a lasting and persevering principle in the Souls of good men It is said of the hypocritical Jews that their goodness was as the early dew that soon passeth away Hos 6. 4. But that principle of true goodness which God planteth in the souls of his people is compared to a well of water evermore sending forth fresh streams and incessantly springing up towards God himself our Saviour compares hypocritical professors to seed sown upon stony ground that springs up
Soul of man is molded and formed into a resemblance of the divine nature then hath it a true fellowship with him Now this communion with God in his Attributes is to be seen two wayes 1. When the soul is in its measure according to the capacity of a creature all that which God is This is the communion which the Angels have with God Their beholding of the face of God is not to be understood of a meer speculation or an idle gazing upon a Deity but they see him by receiving his Image upon themselves and reflecting his glory and brightness they partake of the goodness purity holiness wisdome righteousness of God which makes them such glorious spirits and the want of this makes the other whom we call Devils to be what they are Thus godly men shall have communion with God they shall see God Mat. 5. 8. Heb. 12. 14. Yea thus they have communion with him in some measure They do not only see God in the world as the Devils do nor see him in the word as many hypocritical and wicked men do but they see him in themselves in the frame of their own souls they find themselves molded into his image and a resemblance of him drawn upon them This is a beautiful vision of God true and real though not full and complete This is set out in Scripture by being holy as God is holy 1 Pet. 1. 16. perfect as God is perfect Mat. 5. ult This our Saviour exhorts us to seek after Mat. 11. 29. take my yoke upon ye learn of me for I am meek and lowly and the Apostle Ephes 5. 1. Be ye followers of God as dear Children When the nature and perfections of God his holiness goodness righteousness wisdom c. are coppyed out upon our natures and the same Spirit is in us which was in Christ Jesus then have we a true communion with God which blessed communion when the soul becomes all that which God is by a conformity of nature 2. When the soul in its actions as a creature doth rightly answer to the Attributes of the Creator As when the soul doth answer the goodness of God with suitable affâ—ctions of love and joy and delight when the soul doth correspond to the Soveraignty and wisdom of God by the Acts of self-denyal and resignation doth converse with the righteousness of God by patience and a holy Acquiescency When the soul doth rightly exert those Acts which are proper and suitable to the nature of God then it may be said to hold communion with him in his attributes when the actions and notions of the soul do correspond to the divine nature and attributes Now this suitableness of the soul I mean especially with reference to the incommunicable attributes of God where there is no place for imitation though it hold good in the rest also 2. A godly soul hath communion with God in his word To read profess or hear the word is not to hold a real communion with God therein many do so that are strangers to God A man may read my letters and yet correspond with my enemy That Son in the Gospel that heard his Fathers command and answered I goe sir but went not had no right communion with his paternal authority But when the soul is ennobled into such a frame as this word doth require then it holds communion with God in his word e. g. when the soul puts forth those acts of humiliation holy fear and reverence godly trembling which do suit the nature of a divine threatning when the soul answers the command of God with suitable resolutions repentings reformations and real obedience when it entertains the promise with suitable acts of holy delight joy refreshment recumbency and acquiesces in the same then doth it truly converse with God in his word 3. A godly soul hath communion with God in his works And that is when the 〈◊〉 doth answer the several providences of God with suitable and pertinent affections and dispositions The godly soul doth not only eye and observe the hand of God in all things that fall out but doth comply with those providences and is molded into that frame and put upon those duties which such providences do call for Then doth the soul rightly hold communion with God in his works when it is humbled under humbling providences is refreshed strengthned and grows up under prosperous providences as they did Act. 9. 31. who having rest given them were edified comforted multiplyed c. when the soul doth rightly comport with every providence and the will is molded into the will of God then do we hold communion with him in his works This theme is large because the works of God are manifold of Creation Redemption Preservation works towards other men and towards our selves both towards our outward and inward man A godly soul hath communion with God in all these in the sense that I named even now though perhaps not equally in all yet sincerely and truly By what hath been said you understand that right fellowship with God is not a bare communion of names To have the name of God called upon us and to be called Christians or the people of God or to name the name of God to profess it to cry Lord Lord doth not make any one really and truly the better man doth not make a soul rightly happy It is not enough to cry the Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord with them in Jer. 1. 4. to make our boast in the Law with them Rom. 2. 23. to call our selves the Children of Abraham as the Jews did in John Baptists time Mat. 3. 9. These priviledges and professions are extrinsecal to the soul and do nothing to the true ennobling of it But right fellowship with God is a communion of hearts and natures of will and affections of interests and ends To have one heart and will the same interest and ends with God is to be truly godly A Godlike man is the only godly man A Christ like nature brought into the soul doth only denominâ—te a man a true Christian It is not speaking together but loving and living together that brings God and the soul into one I live yet not I but Christ that livâ—th in me Gal. 2. 20. And thus I suppose you have a fair account why the Apostle James chap. 2. do's so much preferr works before faith for indeed faith is nothing worth save only that faith which joyns the soul to the object and makes the thing believed ones own as also why the Apostlâ— Paul prefers love before a faith of miâ—acles 1 Cor. 13. 2. Though indeed a justifying saith is the most miraculous that faith that unites the soul and God together is more excellent and indeed more miraculous than the faith that removes Mountains When I consider the proper happiness and perfection of a soul and the nature of this true blissful communion with God I cannot but wonder how it is possible that men
that all men in the world do live in God Act. 17. 28. yet it is also true that most men as the same Apostle speaks elsewhere do live without God in the world have their hearts staked down to one creature or other and so fall short of this honourable character which the Apostle here gives of godly men our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ And now I shall wrap up the remainder of this Discourse in an humble request and earnest expostulation Reckon not upon any happiness below this communion There are many things which a Christian may take to be comforts but only one this one that he ought to take to be the Happiness of his life I design not to speak any thing to the prejudice of natural or civil ornaments or accomplishments much less to the dispaâ—â—gement of any of those endowments or employments which are in a sense spiritual commonly called gifts and duties But I must confess it is one of the great wonders of the world to me to see such a noble and intelligent Being as the soul of man is attending to and pursuing after things either extrinsecal or inferiour to it self in the mean time carelesly forgetting or wilfully rejecting its main happiness principal end and proper perfection As for those sensual persons those meer Animals whose souls are incarnate in their senses and seem to perform no higher office in the world than the souls of beasts that is to carry about their bodies who value themselves by their bodies or which is baser by the apparel that cloaths them or the estates that feed them I shall not now trouble my self about them but leave them to be chastised by Seneca or Plutarch or indeed any ordinary Philosopher I shall rather apply my self a little to a sort of higher spirited people whom by a 〈◊〉 dâ—-scension of charity we call Christians who valuing themselves by external professions priviledges performances may indeed be said to be somewhat more scrupulous and curious but no less mistaken than the former for if the grosser sort of sensualists do deny and professedly abjure their own reasons and the finer sort of hypocrites do more cunningly bribe theirs each method amounts to no more than a cheat and both parties will be alike miserable save that the latter will be somewhat more tormented in â—issing of a happiness which he lâ—â—k'd and hop'd for It is not proper to my pâ—esent discourse to speak so highly and honourably of these externals of Christianity nor to press unto them so zealously as I do at all times when I have occasion for I do verily value all ordinances of Christ and duties of Gods worship at a high rate nay I know not any serious and truly godly soul in the world but is of this same profession with me But I must confess I think it is one of the greatest and most pernicious cheats in the world for men to feed upon the dish instead of the meat to place their happiness in those things which God hath only appointed to be means to convey it This was the great destruction of the Jewish Church by this they perished Thus they are every where described in Scripture as a people resting in their priviledges and performances boasting of their Sacrifices and Temple-service they made account of a strange kind of flesh-pleasing Heaven something distinct from them and reserved for them to be given them by way of reward for the righteousness which themselves had wrought by the power of their own free-will which freewill they say is an effect of mans fall but they make it a cause of mans rise for now he can purchase and merit a happiness which happiness is also more illustrious than that given of meer grace which righteousness if we look either into their own writings or Gods writings concerning them we shall find was nothing else but a strict observance of the precepts of the law according to the letter and external dispensation of it Such a low and legal spirit was generally found amongst the Jews I wish the greatest part of us who are in profession and name evangelical be not found as truly legal in spirit and temper as they were If we cry the Gospel of Christ the Gospel of Christ with the same spirit as they cryed the Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord our confidence will as surely betray us into a final misery as theirs did True indeed Prayers Sacraments Sermons are somewhat finer words than the old obsolete ones the Law Sacrifices Ceremonies but alas they are but words at least they are not Gods no more fit to terminate our devotions and affections than these I beseech you therefore Christians be not mistaken in this matter True Christianity is not a notion but a nature that is not Religion which is lapt up in Books or laid up in mens brains but it is laid in the very constitution of the soul a new principle implanted by God in the highest powers of the soul refining and spiritualizing all the faculties thereof and rendring them as like to God himself as such a creature can resemble its Creator It is a truth as clear as the Sun is clear that nothing can make a Soul truly happy but what is wrought into the nature of it and that must be somewhat more excellent than it self and that can be nothing less than something divine even the image of the blessed God If you be Christians in deed and in truth value all the ordinances of God and the duties of Christian Religion but value not your selves by these your happiness by these Attend upon them all for the maintaining and encreasing of real fellowship with God for though these be not it yet they aâ—â— the way wherein it pleases God 〈◊〉 give it drink the sincere 〈…〉 the Word but let it be only 〈…〉 holy design of growing thereby of growing up into God and a divine life Away with those low and base thoughts of happiness the happiness of a soul is a high and excellent indeed a divine thing it is in some sense common to God and the soul God is happy in himself alone and the soul can only be happy in him What contentment what real happiness Christian can the rising of thy party in the world or the rising of thy name in the countrey bring thee if in the mean time thou thy self harbourest any carnal will self-interest that doth rise up in opposition to the pure and perfect will and nature of God How art thou happy in thy prayers if thou cast sin out at thy mouth and in the mean time a fountain of iniquity be springing up in thy heart What avails it towards a state of perfection to be of the most orthodox opinions the honestest society the fâ—irest profession the most popular and sanctimonious form or the most plansible performances either the soul being in the mean time alienated from the life of God and feeding upon some earthly trash or other which destroyes the native powers and vigour of it and keeps it under a perpetual languor even just so much as a silken stocken upon a gouty leg or a Princely Diadem upon an aking head avails towards a state of ease and foundness and â—uâ—rasie of body Let nothing limit year ambition but a state of god-like perfection let nothing set bounds to your loving and longing souls but a real fruition of God himself nay let not that bound them neither but the more you enjoy see and caste the more let your love be strengthened after the manner of fire which the more it is fed the more hungry and devouring it growes In a word let nothing satisfie you lower than the highest character that can be given of mortal maâ— to be men after Gods own heart to have God dwelling in you to be filled with his fulness to have this real and excellent Communion with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ To whom be all honour praise and glory for ever and ever FINIS
blessfull state of any Kingdom I will speak freely let it light where it will that principle that springs up into popular applause secular greatness worldly pomp and bravery flesh-pleasing or any kind of selfexaâ—tation which is manifold is really contradistinct from that Divine principle that Religious nature that springs up into everlasting life And certainly notwithstanding all the recrâ—minations and self-justifications which are on all hands used to shuffle of the guilt these governours must lay aside their fullen pride as well as the people their proud fullenness before the Church of God be healed in its breaches purged of Antichristianism or can probably arrive at any sound constitution or perfect stature But I suppose Religion will not have its full and desirable effect upon a Nation by healing the sickly heads of it except it be like the holy oyle powred upon the sacrificer's head which ran down also upon the skirts of his Psal 133. 2. garment Therefore Secondly It is indispensably requisite for the through healing and right constituting of any political body that the subjects therein be thus Divinely principled This will not fail to dispose them rightly towards their governâ—urs and towards one another 1. Towards their Governours There are many evil and perverse dispositions in subjects towards their Rulers all which Religion is the most excellent expedient to rectifie The first and fundamental distemper here seems to be a want of due Reverence toward these vicegerents of God upon earth which easily grows up into something positive and becomes a secret wishing of evil to them This fault as light as some esteem it was 2 Sam. 6. 16. Prov. 30. 16. 1 Joh. 3. 15. severely punished in Queen Michal who despised her Lord King David in her heart and her barren womb went down to its Sister the grave under great reproach And if an ordinary hatred be so fouly interpreted by the holy Apostle Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer surely disloyal and malignant dispositions towards governours must needs have a fouler face and we may say by a parity of reason whosoever hateth his Prince is a Rebel and a Regicide Now this distemper as fundamental and epidemical as it is the spirit of true Religion will heal and I think I may say that only For I know nothing in the world that hath nay I know that nothing in the world hath that Soveraignty and dominion over the dispositions and affections of the soul as this principle throughly ingrafted in the soul doth challenge to itself This alone can frame the heart of man into that beautifull temper and complexion of love and loyalty that he will not curse the King no not in his conscience no Eccles 10. 20. not though he were well assured that there were no winged â—eâ—â—enger to tell the matter An other distemper in Subjects respective to their Governours is Impatience of bearing a yoke Which is an evil so natural to the proud and imperious spirit of man that I believe it were safe to affirm that every irreligious subject could be well content to be a Prince however there may be many who utterly despairing of such event may with the Fox in the Fable profess they care not for it From this principle of pride and impatience of subjection I suspect it is that the rigid Chiliasts do so scornfully declaim against and so loudly decry the carnal ordinances of Magistracy and Ministry not that they do verily seek the advancement of Christs Kingdom which indeed every disorderly tumultuous proud impatient soul doth ipso facto deny and destroy but of themselves To whom one might justly apply the censure which Pharaoh injuriously paâ—â—es upon the children of Israel with a little alteration Ye are proud therefore ye say let Exod. 5. 17. us go and do Sacrifice to the Lord. This distemper the power of Religion would excellently heal by mortifying ambitious inclinations and quieting the impatient turbulencies of the fretfull and envious soul by fashioning the heart to a right humble frame and cheerful submission to every ordination of God You will see in this Treatise that a right Religious soul powerfully springing up into everlasting life hath no list nor leisure to attend to such poor attainments and sorry acquests as the Lording it over other men being feelingly acquainted with a life far more excellent than the most Princely and being overpowred with a supream and Soveraign good which charms all its inordinate ragings and laying hold upon all its faculties draws them forth by a pleasing violence unto a most zealous pursuit of itself A principle of humility makes men good subjects and they that are indeed probationers for another world may very well behave themselves with a noble disdain towards all the glories and preferments of this The last distemper that I shall name in Subjects toward their Governours is Diseontents about conceited misgovernment and mal-administration which commonly spring from an evil and finister interpretation of the Rulers actions and are attended with an evil and tumultuous zeal for relaxation Now this distemper as great as it is and destructive to the well-being of a body politick true Religion would heal both root and branch Were that noble part and branch of Christian Religion universal Charity rightly seated in the soul it would not suffer the Son of the bond-woman to inherit with it it would cast out those irefull jealousies sowre suspicions harsh surmises and imbittered thoughts which lodge in unhallowed minds and display itself in a most amicable sweetness and gentleness of disposition in fair glosses upon doubtfull actions friendly censures or none at all kind extenuations of greater faults and covering of lesser For this is the proper genius of this divine principle to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or very unbelieving of evil and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or easily entertaining of good reports gladly interpreting all things to a good meaning that will possibly admit of such construction or if you will in the Apostles phrase Charity is not easily provoked thinketh no 1 Cor. 13. 5. evil And as Charity doth put up this root of discontents so will faith allay and destroy those discontents themselves which are about misgovernment and ill administration This noble principle administers ease and satisfaction to the soul if she happen to be provoked For it will not suffer her long to stand gazing upon second causes but carries her up in a seasonable contemplation to the supream cause without whom no disorder could ever befall the world and there commands her to repose her self to wit in the bosome of infinite wisdome and grace waiting for a comfortable issue He may well be vext indeed that has so much reason as to observe the many monstrous disorders which are in the world and not so much faith as to eye the inscrutable providence of a benign and all-wise God who permitteth the same with respect to the most beautifull end and blessed order imaginable
Though faith abhors the blasphâ—my of laying blame upon God yet it so fixes the soul upon him and causes her so to eye his hand and end in all mal-administrations of men that she hath no leisure to fall out with men or quarrel with instruments These Discontents I said were frequently attended with an evil and seditious zeal for relaxation discovering itself in secret treacherous conspiracies and many times in boisterous and daring attempts These are at the first sight so directly contrary to the character given of Religious men viz. the Psal 35. 20. Gal. 5. 22 23. Col. 3. 12 13 14 15 16. quiet of the Land and the genius of Religion which is wholly made up of love peace long-suffering gentleness goodness faithfulness meekness temperance mercy kindness humbleness of mind forbearance forgiveness charity thankfulness wisdom that it is easie to conceive that Religion in the power of it would certainly heal this evil disease also There are many pretenders to Religion whose complaint is still concerning oppression and persecution their cry is all for liberty and deliverance but to make it the more passable and plausible they stile it the advancement of the Kingdom of Christ This pretence is so fair but withall so deceitfull that I count it worth my time to speak a little more liberally to it And here I do from the very bottom of my soul protest that I account the advancement of the glory of God and the Kingdom of Christ to be the most desirable thing in the World and that it is highly becoming the greatest spirits upon earth to employ the very utmost zeal and diligence to assist the accomplishment thereof yea so utterly do I abhor irreligion and Atheism that as the Apostle speaks in somewhat a like case I do verily Phil. 1. 18. rejoyce that Christ is professed though it be but pretended and that truth is owned though it be not owned in truth I will further add that the oppressing and obstructing of the external progress and propagation of the Gospel is hated of Christ and to be lamented of all true Christians Yea I will further allow men a due sensibleness of their personal oppressions and injuries and a natural warrantable desire to be redeemed from them And now having thus purged my self I entreat the Christian Reader patiently and without prejudice to suffer me to speak somewhat closely to this matter Yea I do verily assure my self that I shall be accepted or at least indulged by all free and ingenuous spirits who are rightly acquainted with the genius of Christian Religion and do preferr truth before interest And first For the complaint that is mostly concerning oppression and persecution certainly Religion if it did rightly prevail in our hearts would very much heal this distemper if not by a perfect silencing of these complaints yet surely by putting them into another tune I reckon that Religion quite silences these complaints when it engages the soul so entirely in serving the end of God in afflictions and in a right improvement of them for religious purposes that she list not to spend her self in fruitless murmurings and unchristian indignations As fire seizeth upon every thing that is combustible and makes it fewel for itself and a predominant humour in the body converts into its own substance whatever is convertible and makes it nourishment to itself so doubtless this spirit of burning this divine principle if it were rightly predominant in the soul would nourish itself by all things that lye in its way though they seem never so heterogeneous and hard to be digested and rather than want meat it would with Sampson fetch it out of the very eater himself But if Religion should not utterly silence these complainings by rendring the soul thus forgetful of the body and regardless of its smart in comparison of the happy advantage that may be made of it yet methinks it should draw the main stream of these tears into an other channel and put these complaints into an other tune It is very natural to the Religious soul to make God all things unto itself to lay to heart the interest of truth and holiness more than any particular interest of its own and to bewail the disservice done to God more than any self-incommodation Must not he needs be a good subject to his Prince who can more heartily mourn that Gods Laws are not kept than that he himself is kept under that can be more grieved that men are cruel than that they kill him that can be more troubled because there are oppressions in the world than because he himself is oppressed such subjects Religion alone can make As for the Cry that is made for liberty and deliverance I confess I do not easily apprehend what is more or more naturally desirable than true liberty yea I believe there are many devout and Religious souls that from a right noble and generous principle and out of a sincere respect to the Author and End of their creation are almost intemperately studiouâ— of it do prefer it above all prefermeâ—◠〈◊〉 hing that may be properly 〈◊〉 â—â—sual and would purchase it with any thing that they can possibly part with But yet that I may a little moderate if not quite stifle this cry I must freely profess that I do apprehend too much of sensuality generally in it because this liberty is commonly abstracted from the proper end of it and desired meerly as a naturally convenient good and not under a right religious consideration Self-love is the very heart and centre of the animal life and doubtless this natural principle is as truly covetous of self-preservation and freedom from all inconveniences grievances and confinements as any Religious principle can be And therefore I may well allude to our Saviours words and say If you love and desire Mat. 5. 47. deliverance only under the notion of a natural good what do you more than others Do not even Publicans the same But were this divine principle rightly exercising its Soveraignty in the soul it would value all things and all estates and conditions only as they have a tendency to the advancement and nourishment of itself With what an ordinary not to say disdainfull eye would the Religious soul look upon the fairest self-accommodations in the world and be ready to say within itself What is a meer abstract deliverance from afflictions worth Wherein is a naked freedom from afflictions to be accounted of Will this make me a blessed man Was not profane and impudent Ham delivered from the deluge of Water as well as his brethren Were not the filthy shameless daughters of Lot delivered from the deluge of Fire as well as their Father And yet we are so far from rising up and calling these people blessed that the heart of every chast and modest Christian is ready to rise against the very mention of their names when he remembers how both the one and the other though in a different sense
complaint and the most dreadfull charge which the Protestants bring against the Papists is their immanity and most unchristian cruelty exercised against all whom they can but make a shift to esteem Hereticks and they on the other hand alledge that the interest of Religion and the Catholick faith doth require it and that they do not so properly murder men as sacrâ—fice John 16. 2. them to the honour of God It will be proper to spend a little time at least to clear Religion of this blame that as wisdom is at all times justified of and in her children so she may be sometimes justified by them especially when the aspertions are so monstrous foul And indeed she hath sufficiently instructed us how to justifie her from all such imputations having so fairly pourtrayed Jam. 3. 14 15 16 17. her self by the pen of the Apostle James both negatively and affirmatively She is void of strise envyings bitterness and every evil work but she is pure peaceable gentle easie to be entreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisie This is the proper description of heavenly wisdom or pure Religion And oh that all Christians would estimate themselves to be wise according to their consonancy and conformity thereunto Then I would easily believe that none would be Papists in practice whatever they might be in opinion What Sirs is the God of Christians become like unto a Devil that he should delight in cruelty and drink the blood of men Is the butchering of reasonable creatures that reasonable service which he requires Is the Rom. 12. 1. 2 Cor. 6. 15. living sacrifice of your own bodies turned into the dead sacrifice of other mens It was wont to be said What communion hath Christ with Belial And is the Prince of Peace now become very Sathan the author of enmity malignity confusion and every evil work Did he shed his blood for his enemies to teach us that goodly lesson of shedding the blood of ours Did he come to seek and to Luke 9. 56. save that which was lost to set us an example that we might seek to destroy and that only to repair our own losses Be it so that the Protestant Churches have apostatized from you this I hope is not a greater crime than the apostasie of mankind from God which yet he expiated not with the blood of the Apostates but with his own Religion was formerly a principle springing uâ— into eternal life How is the world changed that it should now be a principle springing up into Massacres and temporal death or is Religion now become a principle springing up into secular power worldly dominion temporal greatness and all manner of flâ—shly accommodations This was of old the description of sensuality and a heathenish genius Mat. â— 6. 32. For after all these things do the Gentiles seek Are there so many mighty engines in the Gospel to engage the hearts of men to believe profess and obey it And must they all now give place to Fire and Sword Are these the only Gospel-methods of winning men to the Catholick faith What are we wiser for Christ or more zealous than he himself was Did he forbid fire from heaven Luke 9. 55. and will you fetch it even from hell to consume dissenters Did he sheath the sword that was drawn in his own defence and set a dreadfull seal upon it too 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mat. 26. 52. all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword And will you adventure to draw it in a way of revenge and persecution and count it meritorious too as if you should therefore never perish because you take it Is it not written in your Bibles as well as ours that no murderer shall enter into the Gal. 5 21 1 Joâ— 3. 15 Kingdom of God And do you think by murders to propagate this Kingdom upon earth and have a more abundant entrance into it your selves hereafter Can hell dwell with Heaven shall bloody cruelty ever come to lodge in the bosome or lye down in the sacred arms of eternal love Be not deceived Sirs with a false Heaven but take this for an indubitable and self-evidencing Aphorism of truth No soul of man hath any more of Heaven no nor ever shall have than he â—e hath of God and of his pure placable patient benign and gracious nature And this is that everlasting life which a Religious principle is alwayes springing up into so that hereby it appears plainly that Religion in the power of it would heale these feaverish distempers also and so restore a most excellent constitution both personal and political It may seem possibly that I have toyl'd too much in these discoveries and happily my pains may prove ungrateful to many but may it please Almighty God that they may prove vindicative of Religion reâ—â—aurative of the sickly and lapsed Ecclesiastical or political state yea or medicinal and profitable to any single soul of man I shall venture to estimate it against an age of pains And if it should prove that by all this toyl I have caught nothing as the Luk. 5. 5. weary Disciples complained of old nevertheless being well assured that I have a word of God for my encouragement I will let down the Net once again and so finish these Epistolary pains with an earnest hortatory address to all that shall peruse them Let nothing satisfie your souls Christians let nothing administer rest or settlement to your hearts that is common to the natural man or competible to the meer animal life There are a great many high strains of zeal and seeming devotion by which many men judge themselves to be some great ones and concerning which they are ready to say These things are the great power of God which if they be well rifled into will be found to grow upon no better root than natural self and to spring from no higher principle than this animal life It is impossible for me to give an exact Catalogue of all these many of them I have occasionally recorded in the latter end of this ensuing Treatise to which yet many more might be added if I had a fair opportunity But at present let me in general commend to you this description made by our Saviour of true Religion as the Rule whereby I do earnestly entreat you faithfully to examine your selves your actions affections zeal confidence professions performances Let me speak freely All pomp of worship all speculative knowledge though never so Orthodox is as dear to the animal life as the divine and all external modells of devotion submiss confessions devout hymns pathetical prayers raptures of joy much zeal to reform indecencies in worship or superstitions a fierce raging against the political Antichrist do as well agree to a natural man as a spiritual and may be as fairly acted over to see to by a meer selfish carnal principle as by that which is truly divine When Diogenes
be in him a Well of Water springing up into everlasting Life THis Chapter contains an excellent profitable familiar discourse of the blessed Saviour of the World into whose Lips grace was poured Psal 45. 2. and he ceased not to pour it out again That which is said of the Wise Prov. 15. 7. is fully verified of Wisdom it self His Lips dispersed Knowledge A poor Woman of Samaria comes to draw Water and our Saviour takes occasion from the Water to instruct her in the great and excellent Doctrines of the Kingdom of Heaven Oh the admirable zeal for God and compassion for Sonls which dwelt in that Divine Breast And Oh the wonderful unsearchable Councels of an all-wise God! He ordains Saul's seeking of Asses to be the means of his finding a Kingdom upon Earth and this poor Woman's seeking of Water to be an occasion of her finding the way to the Kingdom of Heaven She comes to the Well of Jaceb and behold she meets with the God of Jacob there The Occasion Passages and Issue of this Discourse would each afford many good and profitable Observations But I think none more than this verse that I have pitch'd upon in which the mystery of Gospel-Grace is rarely unfolded and true Christian Religion is excellently described For so I understand our Saviour not as speaking of Faith or Knowledge or any other particular Grace but of Grace in general of the holy Spirit of God that is the Gifts and Graces of it of true Godliness or if you will of Christian Religion for that word I shall choose to retain throughout my Discourse as being most intelligible and comprehensive In which words we find true Christian Religion unfolded in the original nature properties consequent and end of it The original of it is found in those words I shall give him The nature of it is described by a Well of Water The properties of it will be found in the phrase of springing up The consequent of it that the man that is endued with it shall never thirst The end or perfection of it is everlasting Life Of all these by Gods assistance in this order First I begin with the Original of it as it seems meet I should for indeed it is first found in the words The Water that I shall give him And here the Proposition that I shall go upon must be That True Christion Religion is of a Divine Original All Souls are indeed the Off-spring of God Those Noble Faculties oâ— Vnderstanding and a Will free from constraint do more resemble the nature of God than all the World besides There is more of the glory beauty and brightness of God in a Soul than there is in the Sun it self The Apostle allows it as a proper speech spoken in common of all men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act 17. 28. God hath derived more lively prints of himself and his Divine Essence upon a rational Soul than he hath upon the whole Creation so that the Soul of man even as to its constitution doth declare and discover more of the rature of God than all the other things that he hath made whereof the Apostle speaks Rom. 1. 20. He that rightly converseth with his own Soul wâ—ll get more acquaintarce with God than they that gaze conâ—â—ually upon the material Heavens or traverse the dark and uâ—most corners of the Earth or go down unto the Sea in Ships the sâ—rious consideration of the little World will teach more of him than the great one could do So that I doubt not to take the Apostles words concerning the Word of God and apply them to the Nature of God Rom. 10. Say not in thy heart Who shall ascend into Heaven to bring a discovery of God from thence or who shall descend into the Deep to fetch it up from thence The Nature and Essence of God is nigh thee even in thine own Soul excellently displayed in the Constitution and Frame Powers and Faculties thereof God hath not made any Creaâ—uâ—e so capable of receiving and â—â—flecting his Image and Glory as Angels and Men Which hath made me often to say That the vilest Soul of Man is much more beautiful and honourable than the most excellent Body than the very Body of the Sun at noon day And by the way this may render Sâ—n odious and loaâ—h some because It hath defiled the fairest piece of Gods Workmanshâ—p in the World and blurâ—ed the clearest Copy which he had drawn of himself in the whole Creation But though all rational Souls be the Children of God yet all of them do not imiâ—ate their Father though their Constitution do express much of the Essence of God yet their Disposition doth express the Image of the Devil But godly Souls who are followers of God are indeed his dear Children Ephes 5. 1. Holy Souls who are endued with a divine and god like disposition and do work the workâ— of God these are most truly and properly his Off spring Mat. 5. 44 45. And in this respect God's Children are his workmanship created unto good Works Ephes 2. 10. Religion is of a Divine Original God is the Author and Father of it both from without and from within 1. God is the Author of it from without When Man had sallen from God by sin and so had lost his way and was become both unwilling and unable to return God was pleased to set up that glorious Light his own Son the Sun of Righteousness in the World that he might guide their feet into the way of peace who is therefore called A Light to lighten the Gentiles Luk. 2. 32. and compared to a Candle set upon a Candlestick Mark 4. 21. God of his infinite free grace and over-flowing goodness provided a Mediator in and by whom these Apostate Souls might be reconciled and re-united to himself and to as many as receive him to them he giveth power to become the Sons of God John 1. 12. Yet further It pleased God in his infinite Wisdom and Mercy to chalk out the way of Life and Peace in the holy Scriptures and therein to unlock the secrets of Salvation to succeeding generations Herein he hath plainly laid down the terms of the Covenant of Peace which was made in the Mediator and given Precepts and Promises for the direction and encouragement of as many as will enquire into the same These are the sacred Oracles which give clear and certain answers to all that do consult them about their future state Rom. 3. 2. Christ Jesus opened the way into the holiest of all and the Scriptures they come after and point it out unto us He purchased life and immortality and these bring it to light 2 Tim. 1. 10. And yet further That these might not be mistaken or perverted to mens destruction which were ordain'd for their salvation which sometimes doth come to pass 2 Pet. 3. 16. God hath been pleased to commit these Records into the hands of his Church and therein to his Ministers whom
is the hand that pulls this wandring Bird into her own Ark from whence she was departed it settles the Soul upon its proper centre and quenches its burning thirst after happiness And for this reason it is called Water in Scripture as appears from Isa 58. 11. The Lord shall satisfie thy Soul in drought and of Isa 45. 3. I will pour Water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground compared with John 7. 37. Jesus stood and cried saying If any man thirst let him come unto me and drink Religion is a taste of infinite Goodness which quenches the Souls thirst after all other created and finite Good even as that taste which honest Nathaniel had of Christs Divinity took him off from the expectation of any Messiah to come and made him cry out presently Rabbi thou art the Son of God thou art the King of Israel Joh. 1. 49. And every religious Soul hath such a taste of God even in this life which though it do not perfectly fill him yet doth perfectly assure him where all fulness dwells But of this I shall have occasion to discourse more largely when I come to treat of the consequent of true Religion I proceed therefore to the second phrase whereby our Saviour describes the nature of true Religion It is a Well a Fountain in the Soul Shall be in him a Well of Water From which phrase to wave niceties I shall only observe That Religion is a Principle in the Souls of men The Water that Christ pours into the Soul is not like the Water that he pours upon our Streets that washes them and runs away but it becomes a cleansing Principle within the Soul it self every drop from God becomes a Fountain in man Not as if man had a kind of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in himself or were the first spring of his own motions towards God I find not any Will in the natural man so divinely free God hath indeed given this to his natural Son his only begotten Son to have life in himself Joh. 5. 26. but not to any of his adopted ones If you ask me concerning man in his natural capacity I am so far quickning power a principle of life in himself that I must needs assert the contrary with the Apostle That he iâ— dead in trespasses and sins Ephes 2. 1. so far from thinking that he hath in himself a Well of Water that I must call him with the Prophet Isa 44. thirsty and dry ground As for the Regenerate man I will not enter into that deep controversie concerning the co-operation of mans Will with the Spirit of God and its subordination to that in all gracious acts or what a kind of cause of them this renewed will of man may be safely called only I will affirm That Repenting and Believing are properly mans acts and yet they are performed by Gods power first Christ must give this Water ere it can be a Well of Water in the Soul Which is enough I suppose to clear me from siding with either of those parties whether those that ascribe to God that which he cannot do or those that ascribe to Free-will that which God alone can do But I fear nothing from these Controversies for that way wherein I shall discourse of this matter will nothing at all border upon them This then I affirm That Religion is a living Principle in the Souls of good men I cannot better describe the nature of Religion than to say it is a Nature for so does the Apostle speak or at least allows us to speak when he calls it a participation of a divine Nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. noâ—hing but a Nature can partake of a Nature a mans Friend may partake of his Goodness and Kindness but his Child only partakes of his Nature He that begets begets a Nature and so doth he that begets again The Sun enlightens the World outwardly but it does not give a Sun like nature to the things so enlightened and the Rain doth moysten the Earth and refresh it inwardly but it does not beget the nature of Water in the Earth But this Water that I give says our Saviour becometh a Well of Water in the Soul Religion is not any thing without a Man hanging upon him or annext to him neither is it every something that is in a man as we shall see anon but it is a Divine Principle informing and actuating the Souls of good Men a living and lively Principle a free and flowing Principle a strong and lasting Principle an inward and spiritual Principle I must not speak of all these distinctly in this place for fear of interfering in my discourse When I say Religion is a Principle a vital Form acting the Soul and all the powers of it an inward nature c. Saith not the Scripture the same here a Well or Fountain of Water And elsewhere a new man the hidden man of the heart the inward man Ephes 4. 24 1 Pet. 3. 4. As the Soul is called an inward man respective to the Body 2 Cor. 4. 16. so Religion is called an inward man respective to the Soul it self Rom. 7. 22. It is a man within man The man that is truly alive to God hath in him not only inward parts for so a dead man hath but an inward man an inward Nature and Principle Again It is called a Root Job 19. 28. or if not there yet plainly in Mark 4. 17. Where temporary Professors are said to have no root in themselves And this is by the same propriety of speech whereby a wicked principle is called A Root of bitterness Heb. 12. 15. Again it is called a Seed the Seed of God 1 Joh. 3. 9. where this Seed of God is called an a biding or remaining principle In the first Creation God made the Trees of the earth having their seed in themselves Gen. 1. 11. and in the New Creation these trees of Righteousness of Gods planting are also made with seed in themselves though not of themselves it is said to be the Seed of God indeed but remaining in the godly Soul Again it is called a Treasure in opposition to an Alms or Annuity that lasteth but for a day or an year as a Well of Water in opposition to a Dish of Water and a Treasure of the heart in opposition to all outward and earthly treasures Matth. 12. 35. It is a treasure affording continual expences not exhausted yea encreased by expences wherein it exceeds all treasures in the World By the same propriety of Speech Sin is called a treasure too but it is an evil treasure as our Saviour speaks in that same place Do you not see what â— stock of wickedness sinful men have within themselves which although they have spent upon ever since they were born yet it is not impaired nay it is much augmented thereby And shall not the second Adam bestow something as certain and permanent upon his Off-spring as the first Adam conveyed to his
Posterity Though men have something without them to guide them in the way of life yet it is some living principle within them that does denominate them living Men. The Scripture will abundantly inform you which is the true Circumcision Col. 2. 11. the true Sacrifice to God Psal 51. 17. And indâ—â—â—â—he Law it self is not so much to â—â—â—â—sidered as it was engraven in Tables of Stone as being written in the heart Jer. 31. 33. The Jews need not have taken up their rest in the Law considered as an outward Rule or Precept for they knew or might have known that God requireth truth in the inward parts as one of themselves a Prophet and King of their own acknowledgeth Psal 51. 6. But I doubt many Christians are also sick of the same Disease whilst they view the Gospel as an History and an external dispensation whereas the Apostle when he opposeth it to the Law seems altogether to make it an internal thing a vital form and principle seated in the minds and spirits of men 2 Cor. 3. The Law was an external Rule or Dispensation that could not give Life though it shewed the way to it Gal. 3. 21. but the Gospel in the most proper notion of it seems to be an internal impression from God a living principle whereby the Soul is enabled to express a real conformity to God himself If we consider the Gospel in the History of it and as a piece of Book-Learning it is as weak and impotent a thing as the Law was and men may be as overly and formal in the profession of this as they were of that which we see by daily sad experience But if we consider the Gospel as an efflux of Life and Power from God himself upon the Soul producing Life where-ever it comes then we have a clear distinction between the Law and the Gospel to which the Apostle seems to refer when he calls the Corinthians the Epistle of Christ not written with ink nor in Tables of Stone but with the Spirit of the living God in fleshly Tables of the Heart 2 Cor. 3 3. According to which notion of the Law and Gospel I think we may with a learned man of our own come to a good understanding of that tormented Text Jer. 30. 31. quoted by the Apostle Heb. 10. 8. This is the Covenant that I will make I will put my Law into their minds c. The Gospel doth not so much consist in verbis as in virtute a Divine Principle of Religion in the Soul is the best Gospel And so Abraham and Moses under the Law were truly Gospellers and on the other hand All carnal Christians that converse with the Gospel only as a thing without them are as truly legal and as far short of the Righteousness of God as ever any of the Jews were Thus we see that Religion is a Principle in the Souls of good Men. Shall be in him a Well of Water We shall here now take notice of the difference between the true and all counterfeit Religions Religion is that pearl of great price which few men are possessed of though all men pretend to it Laodicean-like saying they are rich and need nothing when indeed they are poor and have nothing This then shall be the test by which at present we will a little try the counterfeit pearls True Religion is an inward nature an inward and abiding principle in the minds of good men a well of water 1. Then we must exclude all things that are meerly external these are not it Religion is not something annex'd to the soul ab extra but a new nature put into it And here we shall glance at two things 1. A godly soul does not find the whole of his soul lying without him Religion does not consist in external reformations though never so many and specious A false and overly Religion may serve to tie mens hands and reduce their outward actions to a fair seemliness in the eyes of men but true Religion 's main dominion and power is over the soul and its business lies mostly in reforming and purging the heart with all the affections and motions thereof It is not a battering Ram coming from without and serving to beat down the out-works of open and visible enormities of life but enters with a secret and sweet power into the soul it self and reduces it from its rebellious temper and perswades it willingly to surrender it self and all that is in it Sin may be beaten out of the outward conversation and yet retire and hide it self in the secret places of the soul and there bear rule as perfectly by wicked loves and lusts as ever it did by prophane and notorious practices A man's hands may be tied by some external cords cast upon them from visible revenge and yet murders may lodge in the temple of his heart as murderers lodged in the Temple of old mens tongues may be tied up from the foul sin of giving fair words concerning themselves very shame may chastize them out of proud boastings and self-exaltings when in the mean time they swell in self-conceit and are not afraid to bear an unchaste and sinful love towards their own perfections and adore an image of self set up in their hearts What a fair out-side the Pharisee had himself will best describe for indeed it is one of his properties to describe himself Luke 18. 11. God I thank thee that I am not c. but if you will have a draught of his inside you may best take it from our Saviour Matth. 23. Neither doth Religion consist in external performances though never so many and seemingly spiritual Many professors of Christianity I doubt sink all their Religion into a constant course of duties and a model of performances being more strangers to the life and strength and sweetness of true Religion Those things are needful and useful and helpful yea and honourable because they have a relation and some tendency to God but they are apt to become snares and idols to superstitious minds who conceit that God is some way gratified by these and so they take up their rest in them That Religion that only varnishes and beautifies the outside tunes the Tongue to Prayer and Conference instructs and extends the Hands to Diligence and Almesdeeds that awes the Conversation into some external Righteousness oâ— Devotion is here excluded as also by the Apostle 1 Cor. 13. Much less can that pass for Religion that spends it self about Forms and Opinions and Parties and many disputable points which we have seen so much of in our own Generation The Religion that runs upon modes and turns upon interests as a door turns upon its hinges is a poor narrow scant thing and may easily view it self at once all together from first to last Men may be as far from the Kingdom of Heaven in their more spiritual Forms and Orthodox Opinions as they were in their more carnal and erroneous if they take up
that they feed upon Now you may know this artificial Religion by this These men can vary it alter it enlarge it straiten it and new mold it at pleasure according to what they see in others or according to what themselves like best one while acting over the Joy and Confidence of some Christians anon the Humiliation and Brokenness of others But this fanciful Religion proceeding indeed from nothing but low and carnal conceits of God and Heaven is of a flitting and vanishing nature But true Christians are genâ—â—y yet powerfully moved by the natural force of true Goodness and the beauty of God and do move on stedily and constantly in their way to him and pursuit of him The Spirit of Regeneration in good men spreads it self upon the understanding and sweetly derives it self through the will and affections which makes true Religion to be a consistent and thriving principle in the Soul as not being acted upon the stage of imagination but upon the highest powers of the Soul it self and may be discerned by the evenness of its motions and the immortality of its nature for a good man though indeed he cannot go on alwayes with like speed and cheerfulness in his way yet is not willing at any time to be quite out of it By this same nature of true Religion you may examine all those spurious and counterfeit Religions that spring from a natural belief of a Deity from convictions observations fleshly and low apprehensions of Heaven book-learning and the precepts of men as the Prophet calls them and the rest which are seated in the fancie and swim in the brain whose effect is but to gild the outward man or at best but to move the soul by an external force in an unnâ—tural inconstant and transient manner In a word All these pretenders to Religion may seem to have water but they have no well as there are others deep men principled indeed with learning policy ingenuity c. but not with true goodness whom the Apostle calls Wells but without Water 2 Pet. 2. 7. But the truly godly and Godlike soul hath in it self a principle of pure Religion The water that I shall give him shall be a well of water springing up into Eternal Life CHAP. III. Containing the first property mentioned of true Religion viz. The Freeness and unconstrainedness of it This discovered in several outward Acts of morality and worship as also in the more inward Acts of the Soul This Freedom considered as to its Author in which is considered how far the command of God may be said to act a godly soul Secondly considered as to its object Two cautionary concessions First that some things without the soul may be said to be motives how far afflictions and temporal prosperity may be said to be so Secondly That there is a constraint lying upon the godly soul which yet takes not away its freedom An enquiry into forc't devotion and first into the causes of it viz. Men themselves and that upon a threefold account other men or the providences of God Secondly into the properties of it proving that it is for the most part dry and spiritless needy and penurious uneven and not permanent I proceed now from the nature of Religion to speak of the proâ—erties of it as many of them as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ed under this phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 springing up into everlasting life Not to squeeze the phrase any further than it will naturally afford discourse I shall only take notice of these three properties of true religion contained in the word springing up viz. the Freeness Activity and permanency or perseverance of it The first proselyte of it coucht under this phrase is that is is Free and unconstrained Religion is a principle and it flows and acts freely in the soul after the manner of a fountain and in the day of its mighty power makes the people a willing people Psal 110. 3. and the soul in whom it is truly seated to become a freewill offering unto God Alexander the great subdued the World with force of arms and made men rather his tributaries and servants than his lovers and friends But the great God the King of souls obtains an amicable conquest over the hearts of his elect and over-powers them in such a manner that they love to be his servants and do willingly and readily obey him without dissimulation or constraint without mercinariness or morosity In which they are unlike to the subjects of the Kingdoms of this world who are kept in their duties by fear and force not from a pure kindness and benevolence of mind to whom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the present yoke is alwayes grievous Hence it is that the propagation of this people is called their flowing unto the Lord Isa 2. 2. the mountain of the Lords house shall be established and all nations shall flow unto it and again Jer. 31. 12. they shall flow together to the goodness of the Lord. And the disposition of this people is described to be a hearty and willing frame Eph. 6. 6 7. and elsewhere often Now this willingness or freeness of godly souls might be explained and confirmed by the consideration both of their outward and inward acts 1. As to the outward acts of service which the true Christian doth perform he is freely carryed out towards them without any constraint or force If he keep himself from the evils of the place and age and company wherein he lives and converses it is not by a restraint which is upon him meerly from without him but by a principle of holy temperance planted in his soul it is the seed of God abiding in him that preserves him from the commission of sin 1 Joh. 3. 9. He is not kept back from sin as a horse by a bridle but by an inward and spiritual change made in his nature On the other hand if he imploy himself in any external acts of moral or instituted duty he do's it freely not as of necessity or by constraint If you speak of acts of charity the godly man gives from a principle of love to God and kindness to his brother and so cheerfully not grudgingly or of necessity 2 Cor. 9. 7. An almes may be wrung out of a Miser but it proceeds from the liberal soul as a stream from its fountain therefore he is called a deviser of liberal things and one that standeth upon liberalities as those last words of Isa 32. 8. are rendred by the Dutch translators If you speak of righteousness oâ— temperance he is not overruled by power or compelled by Laws but indeed acted by the power of that law which is written and engraven upon his mind If you speak of acts of worship whether moral or instituted in all these he is also free as to any constraint Prayer is not his task or a piece of penance but it is the natural cry of the new born soul neither do's he take it up as a piece of policy
meditation reading administration of our callings as the Apostle intimates in the body of that forequoted Epistle But perhaps there will a question arise concerning some other things which may seem to lay a constraint upon the spirits of men I deny not but that the seemingly religious motions of many men are meerly violent and their devotion is purely forc'd as we shall see by and by but I affirm and I think have confirmed it that true and sincere Religion is perfectly free and unconstrain'd This being premised now if you ask me what I think of afflictions I confess God doth ordinarily use them as means to make good men better and it may be sometimes to make bad men good these may be as weights to hasten and speed the Souls motions towards God but they do not principally beget such motions If you ask me of temporal prosperity commonly called mercies and blessings of promises and Rewards propounded I confess they may be as oyle to the wheels and ought to quicken and encourage to the study of true and powerful godliness but they are not the spring of the souls motions they ought to be unto us as dew upon the grass to refresh and fructifie the Soul but it is the root which properly gives life and growth Secondly It may be granted that there is a kind of constraint and necessity lying upon the godly Soul in its holy and most excellent motions according to that of the Apostle 2 Cor. 5. 14. The love of Christ constraineth us and again 1 Cor. 9. 16. Necessity is laid upon me to preach the Gospel But yet it holds good that grace is a most free principle in the Soul and that where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty For the constraint that the Apostle speaks of is not opposed to freedom of Soul but to not acting Now although the Soul so principled and spirited cannot but act yet it acts freely Those things that are according to nature though they be done necessarily yet are they done with the greatest freedom imaginable The water flows and the fire burns necessarily yet freely Religion is a new nature in the soul and the religious Soul being toucht effectually wiâ—h the sense and imprest with the influences of divine goodness fulness and perfection is carryed indeed necessarily towards God as its proper centre and yet its motions are pure free generous and with the greatest delight and pleasure conceivable The necessity that lay upon Paul to preach the Gospel is not to be understood of any external violence that was done to him much less of â—odily necessity by reason of which many men serve their own bellyes in that great function more than the Lord Jesus for though he preacht the Gospel necessarily yet did he preach freely and willingly as he oft professeth The godly Soul cannot but love God as his chiefest good yet he delights in this necessity under which he lyeth and is exceeding glad that he finds his heart framed and enlarged to love him I say enlarged because God is such an object as do's not contract and pinch and straiten the soul as all created object do but ennoble ampliate and enlarge it The sinful soul the more it lets out and lays out and spends itself upon the creature the more it is straitned and contracted and the native freedom of it is enslaved debased and destroyed but grace do's establish and ennoble the freedom of the Soul and restore it to iâ—s primitive perfection so that a godly soul is never more large more at rest more at I berty thâ—â— when it finds itself delivered from all self confining creature-loves and lusts and under the most powerful influences and constraint of infinite love and goodness By this that hath been said of the free and generous spirit of true Religion we may learn what to think of the forc'd devotion of many prest Souldiers of Christ in his Church militant that there is a vast difference and distance between the prest and the imprest Christian Though indeed the freedom of the will cannot be destroyed yet in opposition to a principle many mens devotion may be said to be wrung out of them and their obedience may be said to be constraiâ—ed I shall explain it briefly in two or three particulars 1. Men force themselves many times to some things in Religion that are besides yea and against their nature and genius I need not instance in an overly conformity to the letter of the law and some external duties which they force themselves to perform as to hear pray give almes or the like in all which the violent and unnatural obedience of a pharisee may be more popular and specious than the true and genuine obedience of a free-born disciple of Jesus Christ If going on hunting and catching of Venison might denominate a good and dutiful Son Esau may indeed be as acceptable to his father as Jacob but God is not such a father as Isaac whose affections were bribed with fat morsels he feeds not upon the pains of his children nor drink the sweat of their browâ— I doubt not but that an unprincipled Christian that hath the heart of a slave may also force himself to imitate the more spiritual part of Religion and as it were to act over the very temper and disposition of a son of God Therefore we read of a semblance of joy and zeal which was found in some whom yet our Saviour reckons no better than stony ground Mark 4. 16. and of great exâ—asies in some whom yet the Apostle supposes may come to nothing Heb. 6. 5. and what appearance of the most excellent and divine graces of patience and contempt of the world many of the sowrer sort of Monastical Papists and our mâ—ngrel breed of Papists the Quakers do make at this day all men know nay some of these last sort do seem to themselves I believe to act over the temper and experiences of the chiefest Apostles rejoycing with Peter and the rest that they are counted worthy to suffer shame Act. 5. 41. and keeping a catalogue of their stripes with Paul 2 Cor. 11. 24. and in these things I am confident to use the Apostles words that they think themselves not a whit behind the very chiefest Apostles nay they are not ashamed to lay claim to that grace of graces self-denyal which they have forced themselves to act over so artificially that even a wise man might almost be deceived into a favourable opinion of them but that we know that whilest they profess it they destroy it for it is contrary to the nature of self-denyal to magnifie and boast itself And indeed it is very evident to a wise observer that these men by a pretence of voluntary humility and counterfeit self-denyal do in truth endeavour most of all to establish their own righteousness and erect an idol of self-supremacy in themselves and do really fall in love with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or self-sufficiency
indeed then neither nor can it be until he come to the measure of the stature of his Lord and be grown up into him in all things who is the head even Christ Ephes 4. 15. He delights and glories in God beholding his spices growing in his soul but that does not satisfie him except he may see them flowing out also Cant. 4. 16. He is neither barren nor unfruitful as the Apostle Peter speaks but that is not enough he desires to be fat and fruitful also as a watered Garden as the Prophet phraseth it even as the Garden of God The spirit lusteth against the flesh and struggles with it in the same womb of the soul as Jacob with Esau until he had cast him out The seed of God warreth continually against the seed of the Serpent raging and restless like Jehu shooting and stabbing and strangling all he meets with till none at all remain of the family of that Ahab who had formerly been his Master Oh how do's the godly and devout soul long to have Christ's victory carried on in it self to have Christ going on in him conquering and to conquer till at length the very last enemy be subdued that the Prince of Peace may ride triumphantly thorow all the Coasts and Regions of his heart and life and not so much as a Dog move his tongue against him â— This holy principle which is of God in the soul is actually industrious too it doth not fold the arms together hide its hand in its bosome faintly wishing to obtain a final conquest over its enemies but advances it self with a noble stoutness ness against lusts and passions even as the Sun glorieth against the darkness of the night until it have chased it all away The godly soul puts it self under the banner of Christ fights under the conduct of the Angel of God's presence and so marches up undauntedly against the children of Anak those earthly loves lusts sensual affections which are indeed taller and stronger than all other enemies that do encounter it in this wilderness state and the gracious God is not wanting to such endeavours he remembring his promise helpeth his servants even that promise Isa 49. 31. That they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength A true Israelitish soul impregnated with this noble and heroick principle is not like those slothful Israelites that were content with what they had got of the holy Land and either could not or cared not to enlarge their border Judg. 1. But he makes war upon the remainder of the Canaanites and is never at rest till be have with Sarah cast out the bond woman and her Son too You may see an emblem of such a soul in Moses holding up his hands all the day long till Amalek was quite discomfited Exo. 17. As oft as the floods of temptation springing from the Devil the world or the flesh do offer to come in upon him he opposeth them in the strength of Christ or if you will in the Prophets phrase Isa 59. 19. The Spirit of the Lord lifteth up a standard against them so that he is not carried down by them or at least not overwhelmed with them In the beginning of my discourse upon this head I hinted to you the reason why the godly soul continually studies conformity of God even because he is the perfect and absolute good and the soul reckons that its happiness consists only in being like unto him in partaking of a divine nature But I might also here take occasion speak of three things which I will but briefly name and so past on First A godly man reckons with himself that conformity to the image and nature of God is the most proper conversing with God in the world The great and indeed only imployment of an immortal soul is to converse with its Creator for this end it was made and made so capacious as we see it Now to partake of a divine nature to be indutd with a God-like disposition is most properly to converse with God this is a real powerful practical and feeling converse with him infinitely to be preferred before all notions professions performances or speculations Secondly A godly man reckons that the image of God is the glory and ornament of the soul it is the lustre and brightness and beauty of the soul as the soul is of the body Holiness is not only the duty but the highest honour and dignity that any created nature is capable of And therefore the godly soul who hath his senses exercised to discern good and evil pursues after it as after his sull and proper perfection Thirdly A godly man reckons that conformity to the divine image participation of the divine nature is the sureft and most comfortable evidence of divine love which is a matter of so great enquity in the world By growing up daily in Christ Jesus we are infallibly assured of our implantation into him The Spirit of God descending upon the soul in the impressions of meekness kindness uprightness which is a Dove-like disposition is a better and more desirable evidence of our Sonship and God's favour towards us than if we had the Spirit descending upon our heads in a Dove-like shape as it did upon our blessed Saviour These things may pass for a kind of reasons why the religious Christian above all things labours to become God-like to be formed more and more into a resemblance of the supreme good and to drink in divine perfections into the very inmost of his soul 2. The active and industrious nature of true Godliness or Religion manifests its self in a good man's continual care and study to do good to serve the interest of the holy and blessed God in the world A good man being mastered with the sense of the infinite goodness of God and the great end of his life cannot think it worth while to spend himself for any inferiour good or bestow his time and strength for any lower end than that it and therefore as it is the main happiness of his life to enjoy God so he makes it the main business of his life to serve him to be doing for him to lay out himself for him and to display and propagate his glory in the world And as he is ravished with the apprehensions of the supreme goodness which doth infinitely deserve and may justly challenge all that he can do or expend for him so he doth indeed really partake of the active and communicative nature of that blessed Being and himself becomes active and communicative too A godly soul sluggish and unactive is as if one should say a godly soul altogether unlike to God a pure contradiction I cannot dwell upon any of those particular desigus of serving the interest of God's glory which a good man is still driving on in the world Only this in general whether be pray or preach or read or celebrate Sabbaths or administer private reproof or instruction or indeed plow or sow eat or
loves nothing but the communications of himself so far as any thing partakes of the divine image so far it partakes of divine favour and complacency so that whilest a good man bears a resemblance unto God so long he shall be accepted of him and embraced in the arms of his love and that shall be for ever as we shall see under the next head Untill you have blotted out all the image and superscription of God out of a godly soul untill you have razed out all the stamps and impressions of goodness in a word untill you have rendred him wicked and ungodly you cannot abandon him from the embraces of God which thing men and devils shall never be able to do as I have partly shewed already and shall yet shew more at large It is true indeed that Adam fell from a just state though not from a justified state for that supposes sin formerly committed But this is no great wonder for he had his righteousness in himself and his happiness in his own keeping But the condition of believers is now more safe and firm as depending not upon any created power or will but upon the infinite and effectual help and strength of a Mediator which will never fail 3. The covenant of grace is everlasting It hath pleased God to enter into a covenant of grace and peace with every believing soul which I suppose I need not go about to prove all Christians acknowledging it though they do not all agree in one notion of it Now this Covenant wherein God engages himself to be their God for that is the summary Contents of it on his part is expresly called by the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the everlasting Covenant Heb. 13. 20. and again Jer. 32. 40. I will make an everlasting Covenant with them which Covenant and the everlastingness of it are fully explained in the following words I will not turn away from them to do them good The inviolable nature of this Covenant is also expresly asserted in that famous place Jer. 31 31 32. I will make a new Covenant with the house of Israel not according to the Covenant that I made with their fathers which my Covenant they brake as if he had said I will make a Covenant that shall not be subject to breaches In the former Covenant with their fathers I gave them laws to keep which they kept not but in the New Covenant I will give them also a heart to keep my laws It is not possible that Covenant should be broken one principle part of which is an heart both able and willing to keep it The similitudes which God useth in the 35 36 37. verses of that same chapter do also further confirm and illustrate this Doctrine of the everlastingness of this Covenant of grace Under this head let me glance at three things 1. The Mediator of this Covenant lives for ever and lives to make intercession for believers Heb. 7. 25. and from this the Apostle argues that they shall be saved to the uttermost or evermore as the Margin reads it From this also the Apostle argues the unchangeable state of believers as we observed before out of Rom. 8. 34. Christ Jesus is alwayes heard and accepted of the Father in all the requests that he maketh to him according to that in Joh. 11. 41 42. Jesus lift up his eyes and said Father I thank thee that thou hast heard me And I know that thou hearest me alwayes If these things be so then the perseverance of the Saints is built upon a most certain bottome is secured against the very gates of Hell for Christ hath prayed for them that they may be where he is Joh. 17. 24. and in the mean time that they may be kept from the evil ver 15. and that their faith fail not Luke 22. 32. 2. The promises of this Covenant are immutable they are in Christ Jesus yea and Amen 2 Cor. 1. 20. as if one should say in Latine Certo certiora perfectly sure and certain God who is truth itself will not can not be unto his people as a lyar or as waters that fail as the Prophets phrase is the infinite fountain of grace and truth cannot possibly become like one of the brooks which Job speaks of which seem to be full of water and are so at a certain winter season but when the poor scorched Arabian comes to look for water thence in summer he goes away ashamed because they are now vanished they are consumed out of their place Job 6. 19 20. Now the promise is concerning not only grace but the final perseverance of it If he promise pardoning grace it is in these full and satisfying expressions I will remember their sin any one of their sins no more Jer. 31. 34. If he promise purging and purifying grace it is in the like amplitude of phrase that they may fear me for ever and again they shall not depart from me Jer. 32. 39. 40. with many other places of like importance 3. righteousness brought in by this mediator is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an everlasting righteousness as it is expressly called Dan. 9. 24. by which I do not understand the righteousness of Justification which was alwayes one and the same and there was never any righteousness of that kind temporary or fading but the righteousness of real internal sanctification in opposition to that positive and temporary righteousness which depended upon the pleasure of God that did prescribe it This righteousness brought in and advanced by Christ who in a powerful and vital way dispenseth the same by his holy spirit unto the minds and souls of men is not only true and inward in opposition to the pharisaical which was an external conformity only but it is of an everlasting and unchangeable nature as being grounded upon and indeed comformable to eternal and unchangeable truth in opposition to that temporary kind of righteousness which was grounded upon positive Laws and the arbitrary commands of God if I may so call them This eternal righteousness is by Christ Jesus the Prince of lise put into the very souls of men and being a plant of his planting shall never be pluckt up We read indeed in the Prophet Ezekiel that the glory of God departed out of the Temple made with hands but this glory of God his image shall never depart out of the living Temple the souls of good men having once powerfully displayed itself there And therefore God is said to dwell in the souls of his people in opposition to a wavering man who turneth in to tarry for a night God indeed hath promised that it shall be said to them that were not his people ye are the sons of the living God Hos 1. 10. but never on the contrary he hath no where threatned them that are the sons of the living God that it shall at any time be said to them ye are not my people True indeed as to external profession Church-membership meer
but out of each Testament of the holy Scriptures one text thereunto I think it cannot reasonably be doubted but that the Prophesie and promise made in Isa 49. 10. is to be performed unto believers in this present life for so must the foregoing verses necessarily be understood and there we have the doctrine expresly asserted They shall not hunger nor thirst c. for he that hath mercy on them shall lead them even by the springs of water shall he guide them To which those words of our Saviour are parallel Joh. 6. 35. he that believeth on me shall never thirst which doctrine of his is yet amplified and enlarged in Joh. 7. 38. he that believeth on me as the Scripture hath said out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water What greater security from thirst can be desired than that one should be led by springs of water yes one may be led by the springs of water and yet not be suffered to drink of them well therefore to put all out of fear the godly soul shall contain within himself a spring of water he shall have rivers of living waters in himself and for his fuller security these rivers shall be ever flowing too It shall suffice at present thus briefly to have establisht this conclusion And now having lapt up the meaning of the words in this short position I shall endeavour to unfold it in these six following propositions 1. There is a raging thirst in every soul of man after some ultimate and satisfactory good The God of nature hath implanted in every created nature a secret but powerful tendency towards a centre which dictates arising out of the very constitution of it it cannot disobey untill it cease so be such and utterly apostatize from the state of its Creation And the nobles any Being is the more excellent is the object assigned unto it and the more strong and potent and uncontrollable are its raptures and motions thereunto Wherefore the soul of man must needs also have its own proper centre which must be something superiour to and more excellent than itself able to fill up all its indigencies to match all its capacities to master all its cravings and give a plenary and perfect satisfaction which therefore can be no other than uncreated goodness even God himself It was not possible that God should make man of such faculties and those of that capaciousness as we see them and appoint any thing below himself to be his ultimate happiness Now although it be sadly true that the faculties of this soul are miserably maimed depraved benighted distorted yet I do not see that the soul is utterly unnatured by sin so as that any other thing should be obtruded upon it for its centre and happiness than the same infinite good that was from the beginning such or so as that its main and cardinal motions should be ultimately directed to any other than its natural and primitive object The natural understanding hath not indeed any clear or distinct sight of this blessed object but yet it retains a darker and more general apprehension of him and may be said even in all its pursuits of other things to be still groping in the dark after him neither is it without some secret and latent sense of God that the will of man chooseth or embraceth any thing for good The Apostle sticks not to affirm that the idolatrous Athenians themselves did worship God Act. 17. 23. though at that time indeed they knew not what they worshiped their worship was secretly and implicitly directed unto God and did ultimately resolve itself into him though they were not aware of it whom ye ignorantly worship Him declare I unto you now that he declared God unto them appears abundantly by the following verses what he sayes in point of worship the same methinks I may say in point of love trust delight dependance and apply it to all sorts of Idolaters as well as image-worshipers and affirm that the covetous idolater even when he most fondly huggs his bags and most firmly confideth in his riches doth ignorantly love and trust in God the proud idolater in the highest acts of self-seeking and self-pleasing doth ignorantly admire and adore God the ambitious idolater even in the hottest chase of secular glory and popular applause doth ignorantly pursue and advance God For that Rest Contentment peace happiness satisfaction which these mistaken souls do aim at what is it other than God though they attribute it to something else which cannot afford it and so commit a real blasphemy For they that do in their hearts and course of their lives ascribe a Filling and saisfying vertue to riches pleasures or honours do as truly though not so loudly blaspheme as they who cryed out concerning the Calf of Gold Exod. 32. 4. These be thy Gods O Israel c. And in this sense that I have been speaking one may safely affirm that the most profest Atheist in the world doth secretly pursue the God whom he openly denies whilest his will is catching at that which his judgement renounceth and he allows that piety in his lusts which he will not own in Heaven The Hypocrite professes to know God but in works denies him on the other hand the Atheist though in words he deny God yet in his works he professeth him so natural and necessary it is for all men to acknowledge a Deity though some are so brutish and besotted as to confine him to their own bellies of whom the Apostle speaks Phil. 3. 19. Whose God is their belly I say natural for it is not only some few men of better education and more contemplative complexions that hunt after this invisible and satisfying good but indeed â—he most vulgar souls retaining still the nature of souls are perpetually catching at an ultimate happiness and satisfaction and are secretly stung and tormented with the want of it Certainly the motions of a soul are more strong and weighty than we are ordinarily aware of and I think one may safely conclude that if there were no latent sense or natural science of God the poor man could not spend the powers of his soul so intensely for the purchasing a little food and raiment for the body nor the covetous man so insatiably thirst after houses and land and a larger heap of refined earth Did they not secretly imagine I mean some Contentment Happiness or satisfaction were to be drunk in together with these acquirements they would seem to be but dry and insipid morsels to a soul which ultimate happiness and satisfaction as I said before can be no other than God himself whom these mistaken souls do ignorantly adore and feel for in the dark Neither let any one think that this ignorant and unwary pursuit of God can pass for Religion or be acceptable in the sight of God for as it is impossible that ever any man should stumble into a happy state without foresight and free choice and be in it
without any kind of sense or feeling of it so neâ—â—her can God accept the blind for sacrifice or be pleased with any thing less than reasonable service â—râ—m a reasonable creature Aâ— the Athenians worshipping God by altars and images are counted superstitious not devout so the whole generation of gross and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 admiring loving and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after God in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—â—ages of true goodness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 blasphemers and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—â—ligious they cannot be We cannot excuse them from idolatry who direct their worship purposely to the true God by or through images much less sure can we be favourable to them who bestow their love joy confidence and delight ignorantly upon the supream and self-sufficient good by or through any created good in which they as far as they understand do terminate their devotion I do not say that all souls have a distinct discovery of the good they aime at it is evident they have not but yet the will of every man is secretly in chase of some ultimate end and happiness and indeed in its eager tendencies outflies the understanding All which mysterie seems to be wrapt up in that short but pithy enquiry which if it were a little otherwise modified would be an excellent description of the natural soul Psal 4. 6. Many say who will shew us any good The nature of the object is set out in the word good the eagerness of the motion in the form of the question who will shew us and the ignorance of the mover appears in the indeterminateness of this object which is well explained by the supply of the word any who will shew us any good And that this is the cry of every rational soul is insinuated by the word many which many is also in Meter multiplyed into the greater sort and must indeed necessarily be extended unto All. 2. Every natural man thirsteth principally after happiness and satisfaction in the creature The fall of the soul consisteth in its sinking it self into the animal life and the business of every unrenewed soul is in one kind or other still to gratifie the same life For although as I have shewn God is in the boâ—tome of these mens cares and loves and desires and implicitly in all their thirstings yet I may well say of them as God sayes of the Assyrian Monarch at what time he executed his pleasure in correcting his people Israel Isa 10. 7. howbeâ—t he meaneth not so neither doth his heart think so God is not in all theâ—â— thoughts whilest they pursue that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 creature which really none but God alone can be unto them They do ultimately direct as to their intention all their cares and covetings and thirstings to some created object all which are calculated for the animal life the gratifying and accomplishing their own base lusts This is very apparent in the idolatry of the Pagans whose lusts gave being to their Gods and so their Deities were as many as their concupiscences and filthy passions To Sacrifice to their own revenge and sensuality under the names of Mars Bacchus and Venus what was it else but to proclaim to all the world that they took the highest contentment and satisfaction in the fulfilling of such kind of lusts this was unto them their God or supream felicity The case is the same though not so expresly and professedly with all carnal Christians who although they profess the true God yet in truth make him only a pander to their own lusts and base ends though they name the name of Christ yet in very deed Deifie their own passions and sacrifice to the gratification of their animal powers The Psalmist as we have seen determines the main end of all men to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or good Psal 4. 6. but left any man should be deceived in them he presently tells us where this good was placed ver 7. viz. in Corn and Wine by which we must understand the animal life and whatsoever administers to the delight thereof And certainly this will go far for not only meats and drinks venereal pleasures gorgeous apparel sumptuous buildings splendid descent honourable preferments popular applanse inordinate recreations and an unweildy bulk of earthly riches but also orthodox opinions philosophical political yea and Scholastical learning fair professions much pompous worship yea and worship industriously void of pomp specious performances to which we may add the most seemly exercises of undaunted valour unshaken constancy unbribed justice uninterrupted temperance unspotted chastity and unlimited charity if much giving may deserve so sacred a name even all these and as many more may serve only as fewell for the rapacious fire of lust and selslove to maintain and keep alive the more animal or at most logical life and are ordinarily designed as sacrifices to that which we significantly call self in contradistinction from God I need not here declare against covetous luxurlous ambitious souls the Apostle having so expresly prevented me by his plain and punctual arraignment of such men Col. 3. 5. Phil. 3. 19. where he charges them with placing a deity in their bags and bellies otherwise I durst appeal to all the world that are not parties yea to the parties themselves whether it be God or themselves that these persons do intend to serve and please and gratifie whether it be a real assimulation unto God and the true honour of his name or some lust or humour of self-pleasing self-advancing and self-enjoying that they sacrifice their cares and pains and the main thirstings of their souls unto I am confident it will be easily acknowledged that the covetous voluptuous and ambitious do sacrifice all they are and do to the latter but alas it is not yet agreed among men who are such the hypothesis is grented but the thesis is disputed and indeed this is no wonder neither for it is as natural for the animal self-life to shift off guilt as it is to contract it and the pride of the natural man is no less conspicuous in his wrongfull endeavours to seem innocent of what he is indeed guilty than his covetousness and voluptuousness is apparent in the matter wherein his guilt consisteth It is not only these and some few of the greatest and prophanest sort of souls that are guilty in this kind which I have been describing though they indeed are grosly and most visibly guilty but verily the whole generation of meer animal men who have no principle of divine life implanted in them do spend all their dayes bestow all their pains and enjoy all their comforts in a real strain of blasphemy from first to last What a blasphemous kind of Philosophy was that which professedly placed the supream good and chiefest happiness of man in the fruition of pleasures And indeed all those kinds of Philosophy which placed it elsewhere in things below God himself and the enjoyment of him were no less prophane though they may seem somewhat less beastly For whether the
world is utterly too scant for and incommensurate to the wide and deep capacity of an immortal spirit so that the same can no more satisfie than a less can fill a greater which is surely impossible Whatever is in the world out of God is described by the Prophet Isa 55. 2. to be not bread there is the unsuitableness and not to satisfie there is the insufficiency of it as to the soul of man on the other hand this soul of man is so vastly capacious that though it be also never so greedy and rapacious snatehing on the right hand and catching on the left hand as the Prophet describes the famelick people Isai 9. 20. yet still it is hungry and unsatisfied Which ravenous and insatiable appetite of the sensual soul is elegantly described by the Prophet in the similitude of an whorish Woman who prostituted her self to all comers and multiplyeth her fornications yet is unsatiable is not cannot be satisfied Ezek. 16. 28 29. The soul may indeed feed yea and surfet upon but it can never satisfie itself from itself or from any created good nothing can ultimately determine and centre the motions of a soul but something superiour to its own essence which whilest it misses of it is as it were divided against itself perpetually strugling and fluctuating and travelling in pangs with some new design or other to be at rest like the old Lioness in the parable of Ezekiel breeding up one whelp after an other to be a Lion wherein to confide but disappointed in allâ— or like the poor discontented butterflye lighting and catching everywhere but sticking nowhere adoring something for a God to day which it will be ready to flâ—ng the fire to morrow after their manner of creating Gods to themselves whom the Poet brings in saying Hodie mihi Jupiter esto Cras mihi truncus eris ficulnus inutile lignum Neither the quantity variety or duration of any created objects can possibly fill up that large and noble capacity wherewith God hath endewed the rational soul but having departed from its centre and not knowing how to return to its original it wanders up and down as it were in a wilderness and having an imperfect glimmering sight of something better than what itself as yet either is or hath but not being able to attain to it is miserably tormented even as a man in a thirst which he cannot quench yea the more he runs up and down to seek water the more is his thirst encreased whilest he misses of it so this distempered and distracted soul whilest it seeks to quench its thirst at the creature-cistern do's but inflame it and in a continual pursuit of rest becomes most restless That every unregenerate soul is in such a distressed weary restless state as I have been describing appears most evidently by those famous Gospel Proclamations one in Isa 55. 1 3. Ho every one that thirsteth come ye to the waters where by the thirâ—ters are meant those unfixed unsatisfied souls as appears by the second verse the other in Mat. 11. 28. Come unto me all ye that labour c. where the promise of giving rest do's plainly imply the restless state of the persons invited There is a certain horrour and anguish in sin and wickedness even long before it be swallowed up in hell a certain vanity and vexation folded up in all earthly enjoyments though the same do not alwayes sting and pierce the soul alike so true is that famous aphorism of the Prophet Isaiah There is no peace to the wicked 4. Grace takes not away this thirst of the soul after happiness and plenary satisfaction Love and desire and a tendency towards blessedness are so woven into the nature of the soul and inlaid in the very essence of it that she cannot possibly put them off however it is the work of grace to change and rectifie them as we shall see under the next head The soul of man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a kind of immaterial fire an inextinguishable activity alwayes necessarily catching at some object or other in conjunction with which she thinks to be happy And therefore if she be rent from her self and the world and be mortified to the love of fleshly and animal lâ—sts she will certainly cleave to some higher and more excellent object as will more clearly appear by and by Grace do's not stupifie the soul as to its sense of its own indigency and poverty but indeed makes it more abundantly sensible and importunate There are more strong motions and more powerful appetites in the godly soul towards its true and proper happiness than in the ungodly and wicked For the understanding of the regenerate soul is so enlightned as that it doth present the will with an amiable and satisfactory object which object therefore being more distinctly and perfectly apprehended doth also apprehend or lay hold upon the soul and attract her unto itself Oculi sunt in amore duces is most true of the eye of the soul I mean the understanding that first affects the heart with amorous passions The first and fundamental errour and mistake of the rational soul seems to lye here even in the understanding here lyes the very root of the degenerate souls distemper and if this were thoroughly restored and healed so as to present the will with pure and proper ideas and representations of God it might be hoped that this ductile faculty would not be long before it clave unto him entirely nay it may be doubted whether it could possibly resist the dictates of it Now in the regenerate soul this faculty is repaired yea I may say that the spirit of Regeneration first of all spreads it self upon the understanding and awakens in it a sense of self-indâ—gency and of the perfect aâ—l-sufficient suitable and satisfactory â—ulness of God in whom it sees all beauties sweetness and lovelâ—nesses in an infinitely inâ—ffable manner wrapt up and contained which will be so far from allaying the essential thâ—rst of the soul and 〈◊〉 its eager 〈◊〉 that it mâ—st needs give a mighty edge and ardour to its inclinations and put it upon a more bold and earnest contention towards this glorious object and charm the whole soul into the veâ—y arms of God Therefore â—ot thirsting in the Text must not be understood absolutely as if grace did utterly extinguish the natural activities of the soul and finish its propensions But the regenerate and gracious soul doth not thirst in such sense as thirst implies a want of a suitable good or dissatisfaction or inclues torment properly so called In this notion of thirst grace doth indeed quench it as I intimated in the beginning of this discourse and will surther appear in the procedure of it But as to this most essential thirst this natural 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or vergency of the soul after a central rest and happiness the same is so far from being extinguished or moderated either by divine grace that it is bugely
you may easily imagine what a perverse sentence he will pass It needs not seem very strange methinks in spirituals no more than it is in corporals that the most sound and healthful constitutions should upon a lawful call adventure themselves further that the crazy and sickly and familiarly converse with and handle yea and make good work with those briars and thorns which would prove a snare or a wound or a pricking temptation to others If it were possible for any man to arrive at the purity and perfection of his Saviour and his firm and immoveable radication in true goodness he would find himself so wholly dead to sin and all temptations and motions thereunto that he would be able to dare to walk upon the most boisterous waves without fear of bring swallowed up in them and to take up in his hands the most venemous Serpent not dreading the sting of it However the apprehensions and actions of more perfect and more refined souls are not rashly to be judged for they may easily be mistaken either by the unhallowed hypocrite or the more imperfect and impotent Saint 4. To answer yet more fully I do affirm that no truly religious soul in the world doth so thirst after the creature as to place his main happiness in it or to seek satisfaction from it However all holy souls may not be alike weaned from the world nor equally loving of God however the affections and actions of some may really be and of others may seem to be too gross and fleshly yet no one of all these in whom this new and divine life is indeed found doth erect a self-supremacy in his own soul nor take his full and compleat rest and happiness to consist in any creature-communion whatsoever Surely this of not thirsting is so far a consequent of true Religion as that no religious soul in the world can be content to exchange the presence of God and acquaintance with him for any thing for all things besides or if you will plainly thus no such person could be content no not for all the world the glory of Heaven not excepted if it may be supposed to be wicked and ungodly So that by thirsting here must not be meant some weak wishings and fainter propensions of the soul towards created objects for certainly there is no soul found in a body of earth in which these are not found no not yet some more lively and stronger struglings after them how strong they may be in a good Christian and yet predominated over by grace we cannot punctually determine but by thirsting here must be meant the most quick and powerful breathings the highest and strongest ardencies the predominant and victorious motions and desires of the soul which do as it were fold up the whole soul and lead all its powers and faculties with it into a grateful captivity Thus shall be thirst no more who hath once drunk of these waters which flow forth from the presence of the Lord of life and which the blessed Rodeemer of the world is here said to give But which is the latter branch of this particular this inspâ—red soul which we have been describing thirâ—â—ech after his happiness in God alone that is in the enjoyment of him We have already seen that grace do's not destroy the natural and essential longings of the soul after a satisfactory good but rather enhance them and that the godly soul is most thirsty of all but not with a creature-thirst as is before proved it remains then that his thirsting after rest and happiness is terminated upon God alone And so indeed it appears in the instances of holy men recorded in the holy Writ which I have under the last head spoke something to and so partly prevented my self But unto those passages and professions which I quoted out of Psal 42. 1 2. c. You may add such as Psal 4. 6. which is the voice of every godly soul Lord lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us Psal 39. 6 7. Surely every man walketh in a vain show surely they are disquieted in vain he heapeth up riches c. And now Lord what wait I for my hope is in thee Where you have the different seekings and centrings of the ungodly and of the godly soul elegantly described Lastly you may in Psal 73. 25. again view the term or end of the godly man's ambition Whom have I in Heaven but thee and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee Which translation of the words doth lively sets out the godly man's end and aim and object and happiness and indeed his all or if we translate perhaps more fitly with Mollerus yet they afford us the same doctrine Who will give me to be in Heaven and with thee on earth I desire nothing And thus have we dispatcht the fifth Proposition viz. that the godly soul thirsteth no more after happiness in any creature or rest in any worldly thing and come to the sixth and last particular designed for the explication of this not thirsting of the religious soul which is this In the enjoyment of God this soul is at rest is fully satisfied I do not mean so satisfied as not so thirst after any more of him as I have often hinted but so satisfied as to be perfectly maicht with an object transcendently adequate to all its faculties and their respective capacities and so satisfied as to have peace and joy and triumph in him These two I will speak something to distinctly and so pass on Now for the better understanding of the first of these it should be noted That the reasonable soul and the faculties of it are of a vast large and noble capacity It is universally granted by all that are not Sadduces that the capacity of Angels is very great and noble and that the condition of the humane soul is not much inferiour to it may I think be gathered from the Pralmist's words Psal 8. 5. Thou hast made him a little lower than the Angels Which words although the Auchor of the Epistle to the Hebrews applies to Christ Heb. 2 9. And indeed they have a marvelous aptness to him according to the Dutch Translation which runs thus We see Jesus crowned with glory and honour who was become a little lesser than the Angels by reason of the suffering of death a that he should by the grace of God c. Yet I see â—othing hindring but that they may be well applied to the excelâ—ent condition of man by creation especially considering that many other passages of the Old Testament have a double aspect one more ordinary and obvious which was most clearly understood by the Prophet that wrote them the other more obtruse and mysterious principally intended by that spirit that inspired him and only to be understood by the revelation of the same spirit Such are those passages I conceire which are found in Isa 7. 14. Hosea 11. 1. Interpreted by the Erangelist Mat. 1. 23.
miserable Every thing is the product of Almighty love and goodness 2. The happiness of every creature consists in its acting agreeably to that nature that God gave it and those ends which he propounded to it and suitably to those laws which he gave them which laws were contrived with the greatest suitableness to those natures and subserviency to those ends Every creature is in its kind happy whilest it acts agreeably to that nature which the wise creator implanted in it as the Sun runs its race without ceasing and rejoyces so to do and is in some sense happy in so doing Departing from that nature it becomes miserable as the earth bringing forth briers and thorns instead of those good fruits which it was appointed to bring forth is said to be cursed Gen. 3. 17 18. 3. The happiness of the creature is higher or lower greater or lesser according as it comes nearer to God or is further off from him according as it receives more or less from him according to what communion it hath with him The life and happiness of the Sun is much lower than that of a man because it cannot enjoy such high and excellent communications from or communion with God as man doth 4. There can be no communion without likeness The Sun shines upon a stone wall as well as upon man but a stone wall ha's no communion with the Sun because it hath no eyes to see the light of it as man hath nor can receive the benign influences of its heat as the herbs do A log of wood lyeth in the water as well as the Fish but it hath no communion with the water nor receives no advantage by it as the Fish doth God is present according to his infinite essence with the Devils as well as with the Angels but they have no likeness in nature to him and so no communion with him as these have 5. God bath given a more large and excellent capacity to man than to any other of his creatures upon earth God hath endued man with reason and so made him capable of a higher life and a more excellent communion with his Maker than all the rest The rational soul of all sublunary creatures is only capable to know love serve enjoy imitate God and so to have a glorious communion with him The Sun in all its glory and brightness is not so excellent a Being as any soul of man upon this account And although man by his fall lost his actual communion with God yet be is a reasonable creature still he hath not lost his capacity of receiving influences from him and enjoying communion with him The world when it is at the darkest is yet capable of being enlightned 6. When the nature of man is by divine grace healed of its distemperedness and restored to its former rectitude to act suitably to the end for which it was made and to spend it self upon its proper object then 〈◊〉 to have a right communion with God and to be happy All ratioâ—â—â— souls are capable of holding communion with God but all do not hold communion with him but they that express the purity and holiness of the divine life that know God and live like him these are hiâ— children Mat. 5. 15. and those only do rightly and really converse with him when the spirit of God informs these rational souls and derives the strength of a divine life through them and stamps the lively impressions of Divine perfections upon them rendring our hearts will and wayes conformable to that glorious pattern that infinite good then do we enjoy a proper communion with him and are truly blessed though we are not compleatly blessed till this conformity be perfected according to what those souls are or may be capable of This is the true and proper notion of mans communion with God and relation to him which we cannot fully describe till we do more fully enjoy That soul that truly lives and feeds upon God do's taste more than it can tell and yet it can tell this that this is the most high excellent noble glorious life in the whole world This communion as also the intimateness and closeness of it are described variously in the Holy Scriptures by the similitude of members being in the body 1 Cor. 12. 27. Of branches being in the Vine Joh. 15. 1 2. By being formed according to Gods image Rom. 8. 29. Changed into his image 2 Cor. 3. 18. By Gods dwelling in the soul and the soul in him 1 Joh. 4. 16. By Christs being formed in the soul Gal. 4. 19 By the souls having Christ 1 Joh. 5. 12. By Christs supping with the soul and the soul with him Rev. 3. 20. Because nothing is more our own nor more one with us than that which we eat and drink being incorporated into us therefore is this spiritual communion between God and the godly soul oft-times in Scripture described by our eating and drinking with him Thus God was pleased to allow his people under the law when they had offered up a part of their Beasts in Sacrifice to him to sit down and feast upon the rest as a token of that familiarity and oneness that was between him and them By the like action our Saviour shadowed out the same mysterie when in the Sacrament of his supper he appointed them to sit down and eat and drink with him to intimate their feeding upon him and most close communion with him yea the state of glory which is the most perfect communion with God is thus shadowed out too Mat. 8. 11. Rev. 19. 9. And which is worth noting I think the Sacramental eating and drinking hath some reference to that most intimate communion of the Saints with God in glory our Saviour himself seems to imply as much in that speech of his Luk. 22. 30. That ye may eat and drink at my Table in my Kingdom In which words he seems plainly to allude to the Sacramental eating and drinking which he had a little before instituted viz. ver 19. Which makes some to believe that that gesture is to be retained in that ordinance which is most proper and usual to express familiarity and communion and to take away that gesture is to destroy one great end of our Saviour in appointing this Supper which was to represent that familiar communion which is between himself and every believing soul I will not here examine the validity of their argument which possibly if prest home might introduce a rudeness into the worship of God under pretence of familiarity but it seems very plain that the nature of that ordinance doth shadow out the intimate communion between God and a godly soul I have already in part prevented my self and shewed you wherein the souls communion with God consists But yet to give you a more distinct knowledge of this great mysterie I shall unfold it in these three following particulars 1. A godly soul hath communion with God in his Attributes When the
making haste to be rich Prov. 28. 22. and hastning after another God Psal 16. 4. which eager and ardent passions towards earthly objects you may see livelily described in the instances of Ahab Amnon and Haman in the holy story And is there any reason to be given but why that new nature and divine principle which God putteth into regenerate souls should carry them as hastily and forcibly to a present fruition of their proper object and happiness so far as at present it may be enjoyed as that corrupt and degenerate nature doth hurry on them in whom it ruleth towards the satisfaction of their beastly lusts Divines speak sometimes of making Heaven and eternal life present to our selves and say that this is the work of faith which is an high and excellent doctrine but I doubt not thoroughly understood by ordinary Christians To make Heaven present to ones self is not only to insist upon a state of future happiness in frequent meditations to think much of it neither is this that noble employment of saving faith But the life and power of faith is most eminently exerted in sucking in participations of life and grace from Christ and in a real bringing down of God and Heaven into the Soul The truth is Heaven is a state of perfect communion with God a state of love joy peace purity freedome and as far as any soul is in such a state upon earth so far he is above the earth and may be said to be in Heaven Therefore a right active soul that truly understands his proper and spiritual Heaven and happiness so far as he is thus act ve and sensible cannot be content to stay for all his happiness till the world to come cannot be content to be unhappy no not for an hour but still growing up in God and springing up into everlasting life John 4. 14. 2. It reprehends them that make a stir about the Kingdom of Christ in the world and mens being brought into the communion of the Church but advance not his Kingdom in their own souls nor long not to have their own souls advanced into that noble state of communion with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ There is doubtless a generation of such popular Christians who being strangers to the life and power and spirit of true Religion do endeavour to put off themselves to the world and commend themselves to the charity of their brethren by a pretended zeal for the Kingdom of Christ in the world and the glorious manifestation of it as they speak I know indeed that it is worthy the cares and prayers and utmost diligence of every serious Christian to spread and propagate the knowledge of the Gospel to pour out the oyntment of Christs name far and near A more pure and spiritual administration of all Gospel ordinances throughout the world is bighly desirable yea and I think an indifferent and careless disposition towards the worship of God argues much of an earthly and atheistical mind But I fear that Kingdom of Christ and those glorious manifestations and discoveries which are so much pretended to by many if they should be throughly examined would be at length resolved into nothing else but the advancement of some one party or interest above all the rest or the exchanging of an old form and dress of Religion for a new one and that this zeal would be found little better than the blazings of self-love a fire kindled not by a coal from the Altar but by a spark of their own But be it so that this disposition of theirs is sincere and spiritual should not this charity begin at home The most proper Kingdom of Christ is that whereby he ruleth in the hearts of men the most excellent Worship is when the soul it self becomes a temple for the living God to dwell in and to receive and reflect the manifestations of his glory when a fire of Divine love is kindled in it and therein it doth offer up not bulls and goots no nor 10 much prayers and meditations as indeed it self unto God which is a reasonable service as the Apostle speaks far more glorions than the Mosaical or Evangelical dispensation either if you consider it in the letter only Whatever men may pretend no man can be truly and rightly studious of the advancement of the Kingdom of God in the world that hath not first felt the mighty power and blessed effects of it in his own soul Communion with the Church is only so far to be valued as it lyes in order to a real and spiritual communion with God which communion with God if we do indeed sincerely wish to others we shall more abundantly labour to promote in our selves I cannot believe that he doth heartily seek the happiness of others who himself sits still and is content to be miscrable especially when their happiness and his is one and the same 3. It condemns them for no Christians whose fellowship is only with their fellow creatures We have seen that it is the character the distinguishâ—ng character of a godly man to have fellowship with God it must needs follow then that those degenerate souls that rise no higher than the world that converse only with self or any other creature are verily strangers to true Christianity whatever their confidence or presumption may be Christians tell not me what you profess of Christ what you believe of the Gospel what orthodox opinions you hold what an honest party you side with how many and specious duties you perform no nor what hopes or wishes you have of going to Heaven But tell me where is your principal communion what do you mainly mind follow converse with what pattern do you conform to what rule do you live by what object do you ultimately aim at The whole world of worldly men doth hasten after another God as the Psalmists Phrase is though not all after the same God they spend their souls indeed upon various objects and use different methods to obtain rest but yet all their happiness and contentment is ultimately resolved into creature-communion That dreadful sentence that the Apostle delivers universally concerning all men is to be limited to all wicked men only and of them it is undoubtedly true Phil. 2. 21. All seek their own and none the things of Jesus Christ And of All these it is that the Psalmists Many is to be understood Psal 4. 6. There be many that say who will shew us any good i. e. any creature-good as the words following do explain it All unregenerate souls are bound up in the creature some creature or other and therefore the noblest of them whatever brags they may make is low and ignoble their main converse is but with their fellow-creatures and indeed creatures much inferiour to themselves corn and wine sayes the Psalmist earthly things sayes the Apostle Phil. 3. 19. Who mind earthly things In a word though it be true what the Apostle sayes in one place
discovered their Fathers nakedness If we did really value our selves by our souls and our souls themselves by what they possess of the Image of God if we did rightly prefer the advancement of the Divine life before the gratification of the animal it is easie to conceive how we should prefer patience before prosperity faith in God before the favour of men spiritual purity before temporal pleasures or preferments humility before honour the denyal of our selves before the approbation of others the advancement of Gods image before the advancement of our own names an opportunity of exercising gracious dispositions before the exercising of any temporal power or secular authority and in a word the displaying of the beauty glory and perfections of God before health wealth liberty livelihood and life itself We should certainly be more indifferently affected towards any condition whether prosperity or adversity and not be so fond of the one nor weary of the other if we did verily value them only by the tendency that they had to further Religion and advance the life of Christ in our souls This would certainly make men more sincerely studious to reap Gods end in afflicting them and less longing to see the end of their afflictions And as for treacheries plottings invasions usurpations rebellions and that tumultuous zeal for Relaxation which this impatience of oppression and fondness of deliverance do so often grow up into I dare say there is nothing like Religion in the power of it for the effectual healing of them The true spirit of Religion is not so weary of oppression though it be by sinful men as it is abhorrent from deliverance if it be by sinfull means May 1 Cor. 3. 1. I not be allowed to allude to the Apostle and say whereas there is amongst you this zeal contention and faction are ye not carnal and walk as men Is not this the same which a meer natural man would do strive and struggle by right and by wrong to redeem himself from whatsoever is grievous and galling to the interest of the flesh Might it not be reasonably supposed that if Religion did but display itself aright in the powerfull actings of faith hope and humility it would quench this scalding zeal and calm these tempestuous motions of the soul and make men rather content to be delivered up to the adversary though the flesh should by him be destroyed so by the spirit might be saved and the divine life advanced in the way of the Lord. Oh how dear and precious are the possession and practice of faith patitnce humility and self-denyal to a godly soul in comparison of all the joyes and toyes treasures pleasures ease and honour of the world the safety and liberty of the flesh How much more then when these must be accomplished by wicked means and purchased at the rate of Gods displeasure And because the Kingdom of Christ is so often alleadged to defend and patronize these strange fervours and frenzies let me here briefly record to all that shall read these lines the way and method of Christ himself in propagating his own Kingdom It will not be denyed but that Christ was infinitely studious to promote his own Kingdom in the best and most proper sense But I no where read that he ever attempted it by force or fraud by violent opposition or crafty insinuation Nay he reckoned that his Kingdom was then truly promoted when these tumultuous impatient imperious proud lusts of men were mortified Nothing had been more easie with him considering his miraculous power infalsible Mat. 11. 29. wisdom and the mighty interest and party which he could by these have made for himself in the world than to have raised his own Kingdom upon the ruines of the Roman and to have quite shuffled Caesar out of the World but indeed nothing more impossible considering the perfect innocency and infinite Sacredness of his temper nor any thing more contradictious considering the proper notion of his Kingdom which he professes not be secular and so not be maintained by fighting But if you would John 18. 16. ver 37. know in what sense he was a King he himself seems to intimate it in his answer to Pilate Thou saist that I am a King to this end was I born that I should bear witness unto the truth So then it seems where ever there is truth and holiness predominant there is Christ really enthroned and actually triumphant Where Religion doth vitally inform animate and actuate mens souls it doth make them rightly to understand that the Kingdom of Christ is not the thriving of parties the strengthning of factions the advancement of any particular interest though it seem to be of never so Evangelical a complexion nor yet the proselyting of the World to the profession of Christianity or of the Christian World to the purer and more reformed profession of it though these latter would be a great external honour to the person of Christ but that it is most properly and happily propagated in the spirits of men and that where ever there is faith patience humility self denyal contempt of this world and pregnant hopes of a better pure obedience to God and sincere benignity to men here and there is the Kingdom of God Christ Regnant and the Gospel in the power and triumph of it And may not these things be and be most conspicuously in a persecuted condition of the Church That certainly was an high instance of the mighty power of the Divine life in our blessed Saviour which the Apostle Peter records of him who when he was reviled reviled not again 1 Pet. 2. 23. when he suffered he threatned not but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously The same divine principle dwelling plentifully in our souls would instruct us to the same behaviour according to the precept given by the same Apostle Not rendring evil 1. Pet. 3. 9. sor evil or railing for railing but contrariwise blessing c. How vainly do men dream that they serve the interest and advance the Kingdom of Christ by fierce and raging endeavours to cast off every yoke that galls them and kicking against every thorn that pricks them when indeed they serve the interest of the flesh and do under a fine cloak gratifie the meer animal life and Sacrifice to self-love which is as covetous of freedom from all retrenchments and confinements as Religion it self can be It is said indeed that when the Churches had rest they were edified and multiplyed but when they suffer according to the will of God they Acts 9. 31. 1 Pet. 4. 14. 2 Cor. 12. 19. are then glorified for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon them As the Apostle Paul professes of himself in that most noble and heroical passage of his to the Corinthians Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me Secondly Religion will not fail rightly to dispose the
and 2. 15. As also Jer. 31. 15. with many more But however it goes with that Text and whether or no the souls of men be so near of kindred to the Angels as to their comprechensions yet that they are capable of a most noble and excellent happiness and much allyed to God himself doth appear from such texts of Scripture as do require them to be holy as God is holy to be perfect as their heavenly Father is perfect Neithen need it seem to any incredible that the rational soul should be so capacions for we are no more to judge of the Angelical temper and noble actings of the separated soul by what we see it to be and do in this body of flesh than one can judge of the prowess and puissance of a renowned Warriour in the head of an Army by what we discern in him when he lyes bound in Chains or of the power and splend or of the Sun by what we discern of it when it is ecclipsed or miserably beclouded or if you will no more than we can judge of a man by the imperfections balbutioncies and titubancies of his childhood For so the Apostle Paul seems to state the case 1 Cor. 13. 10 11. Plainly iâ—plying that the present and future condition of the soul is comparable to the minority and adult state of a man as if he had said the soul in its future and separate state will act as much nobler than what it doth now as the soul of the wisest and discrcerest man in the world acteth more nobly than what it did when he was a child Yea and what is still more to our present purpose he seems clearly to intimate in the twelfth verse that this improvement shall happen not so much by the more evident propounding of the object as by the more ample illumination and corrobotation of the faculties In the next place it will be easily inferred that all created good is too scant and insufficient for this capacious spirit of man too short a bed to streâ—câ— it self upon nâ—y it cannot contract it self so as to be accommodated to any worldly good without pain and anguish From both which it will be naturally and necessarily concluded that God alone is that adequate object which can match the soul of man and satisfie it as being infinitely superiour and transcendens to it The enjoyment of God is that ultimate end and perfect good that is only able to fix the spirit of man which otherwise not meeting with its match would be tossed to and sâ—o and labour under perpetual 〈◊〉 and restless fluctuations God is that A mighty goodness and sweetness who alone is able to draw us all the poetites of the soul unto himself satisfie all its cravings charm ali its restiess motions and cause all its aculties in the purest and most complacâ—ntial manner to conspire together how to give up themselves wholly and entirely to himself Secondly From this conjunction with omnipotent goodness ariseth pure peace yea joy and triumph to the religious soul For the clearer understanding of this I should premise what some have wisely observed that there is a natural congruity between God and the soul she being a spiritual substance and he being a spiritual good only suitable unto her This seems to be evident by experience for we see how difficult I had almost said impossible it is utterly to eradicate and extinguish all sense of vertue and goodness out of the soul of man to which purpose I think our Divines generally speak when they allow of some holy relicks something of the Image of God remaining in the most degenerate souls however all men have reduced the same to a very poor and inconsiderable spark and many have raked that very spark under ashes too and imprisoned that remainder of truth in unrighteousness living according to those unnatural and forreign principles and conceptions that they have unhappily drunk in Hence it is I suppose that sin and wickedness are so often stiled the defilement of the soul Now we know that whatsoever defileth is adventitious and improper And hence it is that sin many times slings and wounds the consciences of those that take most pleasure in it namely being so perfectly contrary to this noble and inbred sense of the soul allowing then this natural sympathy that the soul of man hath with its Creator it will be easie to give a Philosophical account of that peace joy and triumph of which the soul must needs be possest or rather indeed transported with that finds and feels it self in conjunction with its centre in the dearest embraces of its Creator It need not seem strange that the soul should mightily congratulate it self in its arrival at its own haven nay it were strange if it should not dissolve into secret joy and pleasure in the hearty entertainments of so blessed and proper a guest as God is unto it Nay indeed it were unreasonable to imagine that the conjunction of so noble and discerning faculties with so perfect and proper an object should not beget the truest and sincerest delight and pleasure imaginable The delights of an earthly and sensual mind are filthy and dreggy in comparison of these pleasures of the refined and purified soul which must needs live most gracefully triumphantly and deliciously when it converseth with God most intimately Certainly if there be any innocent and well-natur'd self-feeling or self-pleasing in the world this is it though indeed to speak truly it deserves a better name It cannot be but that a godly soul being in its right senses should tast a sweetness in these pure and divine accomplishments wrought in it by the eternal Spirit of Righteousness which self-pleasing is no more blameable than that natural pleasure which every creature finds in the enjoyment of that which is most aptly accommodated to its necessities and most perfective of its happiness which pleasure I say ariseth in the soul from its sensible union with God in the spirit and enjoyment of him By which enjoyment of God you will easily perceive that I do not mean the bare pardon of sin or an abstract Justification for this is not the attainment that is perfective of the soul neither could it alone if we could suppose it alone fill up the capacities of the soul or make it happy however the rapturous joys of the unprincipled hypocrite spring principally from the opinion and false apprehension of this which indeed I take to be a notable though not infallible sign of a mercenary low-spirited and fleshly-minded Christian but by it I mean the souls being really regenerated into the Image of God consisting in knowledge Righteousness and Holiness and her implantation into the â—oot Christ Jesus by which she partakes of his divine life power and spirit And yet besides this I conceive there is a more Theological account to be given of these joys and pleasures which the renewed soul doth so plentifully reap upon her return to God from
should take their communion with God to consist in an overly acquaintance with him profession of him performances to him I am confident it is not possible that men should have any true feeling of happiness in such acquaintance no more than a man can be really filled with the seeing or carving of meat which he eats not Before I apply the Doctrine give me leave to lay down some rules or positions tending further to explain and clear it 1. This must be held which I toucht upon before that there can be no communion between God and man but by a likeness of nature a new a divine principle implanted in the soul A beast hath no communion with a man because Reason the ground of such communion is wanting Of all the Creatures there was none found that could be a meet help for Adam that could be taken into the humane society till Eve was made who was a humane person So neither can there be any conjunction of the soul with God but by oneness of spirit 1 Cor. 6. 17. He that is joyned to the Lord is one spirit 2. There can be no communion with God but by a Mediator no Mediator but Christ Jesus who is God-man Two cannot walk together nor hold communion except they be agreed And there can be no agreement made between God and man but by Christ Jesus Therefore it is said here our communion is with the Father and the Son q. d. with the Father by the Son And faith whereby the Soul and God are united is still said to be faith in Christ as we find up and down the Scriptures 3. There can be no perfect communion with God in this life Ouâ— communion with Heaven whilest we are upon earth is imperfect our resemblance to God is scant and dark in comparison of what it shall be We know but in part love but in part enjoy but in part we are but in part holy and happy There can be no perfect communion with God till there be a perfect reconciliation of natures as well as persons and that cannot be whilest there is any thing unlike to God in the soul whilest any impure thing dwells in the Soul which cannot truly close with God nor God with that The Holy Spirit can never suffer any defiled thing to unite it self with it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is not lawful for any impure thing to mix it self with pure Divinity so Socrates the Heathen What communion hath righteousness with unrighteousness saith the Apostle 2 Cor. 6. 14. and so far as a righteous man is in any part unrighteous so far he is a stranger to God The unregenerate part of a regenerate man hath no more communion with God than a wicked man than the devil himself hath no more than darkness hath with light 4. Our communion with God must be distinguished from the sense and feeling of it Many have run upon sad miscarriages and those indeed extreams whilest they place communion with God in the sense and feeling of it in raptures of joy extasies and transports of soul which indeed if they be real are not so much it as the flower of it something resulting and separable from it Communion with God cannot be lost in a Saint for then he is no Saint for it is the proprium quarto modo of a Saint to have communion with God and a Saint under desertion hath communion with God even then as reaâ—â—y though not so feelingly as at any other time so far as he is sanctified But the sense of this communion may be very much if not altogether lost and oftentimes is lost 5. A souls communion with God cannot be interrupted by any local mutations It is a spiritual conjunction and is not violated by any confinement the walls of a Prison cannot separate God and the godly soul banishment cannot drive a soul from God Coelum non animum mutant c. The blessed Angels those ministring spirits when they are dispatcht into the utmost ends of the world upon the service of God are even then beholding the face of God and do enjoy as intimate communion with him as ever The case is the same with all godly souls whose communion with God â—os not depend upon any local situation It is not thousands of miles that can begâ—t a distance between God and the soul Indeed nothing but sin dos it or can do it Your iniquities have separated between you and your God Isa 59. 2. nothing but sin is contrary to this divine fellowship and so nothing but that can interrupt this spiritual society To speak properly sin dos not so much cause the souls distance from God as it self is that distance Man and Wife remain one though at a hundred miles distance and believing souls do maintain a certain spiritual communion one with another though in several parts of the world The society and communion of godly souls one with another so far as it is spiritual cannot be interrupted by bodily distance much less then the fellowship of God with the godly soul who carryes about with him and in him a divine nature the image of God a holy godlike disposition whither soever he goes 6. This communion with God which I have been speaking of is much better than all outward acts and enjoyments duties and ordinances whatsoever though they be never so many or specious God himself long since decided this matter that a broken and contrite heart is better than all Sacrifices Psal 51. 17. that to obey was better than Sacrifice 1 Sam. 15. 22. that mercy was better than Sacrifice Hos 6. 6. that to do justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with God was to be preferred before thousands of Rams and ten thousands of Rivers of Oyle Mie 6. 7 8. It holds in reference to Gospel duties though they may seem more spirituall than the oblations of the Law A real soul-communion with God a communion of hearts and natures of wills and affections of interests and ends is infinitely more excellent than all hearing praying celebration of Sabboths or Sacraments Jam. 1. 25. as the end is more excellent than the means For so stands the case between them Yea I will add though some proud and wanton spirits have made strange work with it yet it is a sure and most excellent doctrine that this spiritual communion is a continual Sabboth a Sabboth of communion is much better than a Sabboth of rest this is the Sabboth that the Angels and Saints in Heaven keep though they know no such thing as a feast day in the week have no reading preaching or praying amongst them This is a continual praying an effectual way of praying in silence A right active sucking faith dos vertually contain a prayer in it Right believing is powerful praying The knees eyes and tongues bear the least share in prayer the whole of the work lyes upon the soul and particularly upon faith in the soul which is indeed the life and soul