their rest in them Neither is it the pursuing of any interest that will denominate them religious but the grand interest of their Souls 2. A godly Soul in his more inward and spiritual acts hath not his motive without him For a man may be somewhat more inward in his motions and yet as outward in his motives as the former Religions acts and gracious motions are not originally and primarily caused by some weights hung upon the Soul either by God or men neither by the worldly Blessings which God gives nor the heavy afflictions which he sends The Wings by which the godly Soul flies out towards God are not waxt to him as the Poets feign Icarus's to have been but they grow out of himself as the wings of an Eagle that flies swiftly towards Heaven On the other side a Soul may be press down unto humiliation under the heavy weight of Gods Judgements that has no mind to stoop no self-denying or self-debasing disposition in it Thus you may see Jehu flying upon the Wings of Ambition and Revenge born up by successes in his Government and his Predecessor Ahab bowing down mournfully under an heavy Sentence The Laws and Penalties and Encouragements and Observations of men do sometimes put a weight upon the Soul too but they beget a more sluggish uneven and unkindly motion in it You may expect that under this head I should speak something of Heaven and Hell and truly so I may very pertinently for I think they do belong to this place If you take Heaven properly for a sull and glorious union to God and fruition of him and Hell for an eternal separation and stragling from the Divinity and suppose that the love of God and the fear of living without him be well drunk into the Soul then verily these are pure and religious Principles But if we view them as things meerly without us and reserved for us and under those common carnal notions of delectableness and dreadfulness they are no higher nor better motives to us than the carnal Jews had in the Wilderness when they turned their Backs upon Egypt where they had been in bondage and set their Faces towards Canaan where they hoped to find Milk and Honey Peace Plenty and Liberty A Soul is not carried to Heaven as a Body is carried to the Grave upon mens Shoulders it is not born up by Props whether humane or divine nor carried to God in a Charior as a man is carried to see his Friend The holy fire of ardenâ— Love wherein the Soul of Elijah had been long carried up towards God was something more excellent and indeed more desirable than the Fiery Chariot by which his Body and Soul were translated together Religion is a spring of motion which God hath put into the Soul it self And aâ— all things that are external whether actions or motives are excluded in this Examination which we make of Religion So neither 2. Must we allow of every thing that is internal to be Religion And therefore 1. It is not a fit a start a sudden passion of the mind caused by the power and strength of some present Conviction in the Soul which in a hot mood will needs make out after God in all haste This may fitly be compared to the rash and rude motion of the Host of Israel who being chidden for their slothfulness over night rose up early in the morning and gat them up into the top of the Mountain saying Lo we be here and will go up unto the place which the Lord hath promised for we have sinned Numb 14. 40. And indeed it â—ares with these men oftentimes as it did with those both as to the undertaking and as to the success their motion is as sinful as their station and their success is answerable they are driven back and discomfited in their enterprize Nay though this passion might arise so high as to be called an extasie or a rapture yet it deserves not the name of Religion For Religion is as one speaks elegantly like the natural heaâ— that is radicated in the hearts of living Creatures which hath the dominion of the whole body and sends forth warm Blood and Spirits and vital nourishment into every part and Member it regulateâ— and orders the motions of it in a due and even manner But these extatical Soulâ— though they may blaze like a Comet and swell like a torrent or land-flood for a time and shoot forth fresh and high for a little season are soon extinguished emptied and dried up because they have not a Principle a stock to spend upon or as our Saviour speaks no root in themselves These mens motions and actions bear no more proportion to Religion than a Land-flood that swells high and runs swiftly but it is only during the rain or in the Scripture-phrase no more than a morning-dew that soon passes away Hos 6. 4. is like a Well or Fountain of Water 2. If Religion be a Principle a new Nature in the Soul then it is not a meeâ— Mechanismâ— â— piece of Art Art imitates Nature nothing more ordinary I doubt than for Religion it self that new Nature to go into an Art I need not tell you how all the external acts and shootings forth of Religion may be dissembled and imitated by Art and be acted over by a mimical apish Pharisâ—â— who finds nothing at all of the gentle and mighty heaâ— not the divine and noble life of it in his own Soul whereby he may fairly deceive the creduâ—ous World as I have partly hinted already But it is possible I wish it be not common for men that are somewhat more convinced enlightened and affected to imitate the very power and spirit of Religion and to deceive themselves too as if they possest some true living Principle and herein they exceed the most exquisite Painters Now this may be done by the power of a quick and raised Fancy men hearing such glorious things spoken of Heaven the City of the great King the New Jerusalem may be carried out by the power of self-Love to wish themselves there being mightily taken with a conceit of the place But how shall they come at it Why they have seen in Books and heard in discourses of certain signs of Grace and evidences of Salvation and now they set their fancies on work to find or make some such things in themselves Fancy is well acquainted with the several Affections of Love Fear Joy Grief which are in the Soul and having a great command over the animal Spirits it can send them forth to raise up these Affections even almost when it listeth and when it hath raised them it is but putting to some thoughts of God and Heaven and then these look like a handsome platform of true Religion drawn in the Soul which they presently view and fall in love with and think they do even taste of the powers of the world to come when indeed it is nothing but a self-fulness and sufficiency
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
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
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
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
instead of the infinite fulness of God Now there seem to be three things in a formal hypocrite that do especially force a kind of devotion and shew of religion from him viz. Conscience of guilt self-love and False apprehensions of God First There is in all men a natural conscience of guilt arising from that imperfect and glimmering light that they have of God and of their duty towards him which though it be in some men more quick and stinging in others more remiss and languid yet I think is not utterly choaked and extinguished no not in the worst and most disâ—olâ—â—e men but that it doth sometimes beget a bitter sadness in the midst of their sweetest merriments and doth disturb their most supine and secure rest by fastning its stings in their very souls at some time or other and filling them with agonies and anguish and haunting them with dreadful apparitions which they cannot be perfectly rid of no more than they can run away from themselves This foundation of hell is laid in the bowels of sin itself as a preface to eternal horrour Now although some more profligate and desperate wretches do â—uriously bluster through these briars yet others are so cought in them that they cannot escape these pangs and throws except they make a composition and enter into terms to live more honestly or at least less scandalously In which undertaking they are carryed on in the next place by the power of self-love or a natural desire of self-preservation For the worst of men hath so much Reason left him that he could wish that himself were happy though he have not so much light as to discover nor so much true freedom of will as to choose the right way of happiness Conscience having discovered the certain reward and wages of sin self-love will easily prompt men to do something or other to escape it But now what shall they do why Religion is the only expedient that can be found out and therefore they begin to think how they may become friends with God they will up and be doing But how come they to run into so great mistake about religion why their false and gross apprehensions of God do drive them from him in the way of superstition and â—ypocrisie instead of leading them in the way of sincere love and self-resignation to him Self being the great Diana of every natural man and the only standard by which he measures all things he knows not how to judge of God himself but by this and so he comes to fancy God in a dreadful manner as an austere passionate surly revengeful Majesty and so something must be done to appease him but yet he fancies this angry Deity to be of an impotent mercenaâ—y temper like himself and not hard to be appeaâ—ed neither and so imagines that some cheap services specious oblations external courtesies will engage him and make him a friend a sheep or a goat or a bullock under the old Testament a prayer or a Sacrament or an Almes under the new For it is reconciliation to an angry God that he aims at not union with a good God he seeks to be reconciled to God not united to him though indeed these two can never be divided Thus we see how a man void of the life and spirit of Religion yet forces himself to do God a kind of worship and pay him a kind of homage 2. Sometimes men may be said in a sense to be forced by other men to put on a vizard of holiness a dress of Religion And this constraint men may lay upon men by their tongues hands and eyes By their tongues in the business of education often and ardent exhortation and inculcation of things divine and heavenly and thus an unjust like the unjust Judge in the Gospel though he fear not God sincerely yet may be overcome by the importunity of his father friend minister tutor to do some righteous acts This seems to have been the case of Joash King of Judah the spring head of whose religion was no higher than the instructions of his tutor and guardian Jehojada the high-priest 2 King 12. 2. By their hands that is either by the enacting and executing of penal laws upon them or by the holy example which they continually â—et before them exempla trahunt By their eyes that is by continual observing and watching their behaviour when many eyes are upon men they must do something to satisfie expectations of others and purchase a reputation to themselves It may be said that sometimes God doth lay an external force upon men as particularly by his severe judgements or threatnings of judgements awakening them humbling them and constrâ—ining them to some kind of worship and religion Such a forc'd devotion as this was the humillation of Ahaâ— 1 King 21. and the supplication of Saul 1 Sam. 13. 11 12. For God himself acting upon men only from without them is far from producing a living principle of free and noble Religion in the Soul Now the better to discern this forc'd and violent Religion I will briefly describe it by three or four of its properties with which I will shut up this point 1. This forc'd Religion is for the most part dry and spiritless I know indeed thaâ— Fancy may be screw'd up to a high pitch of joy and frolickness so as to raise the mind into a kind of a rapture as I have formerly hinted in my discâ—orse upon these words A meer artificial and counterâ—â—it Christian may be so strongly acted by imagination and the power of self love that he may seem to himself to be fuller of God than the sober and constant soul You may see how the hypocritical phatisâ—â—â— swâ—llâ—â— with â—â—â—conceit gloryed over the poor man that had been blind but now saw more than all they Joh. 9. 34. Thou wast altogether born in sin and dost thou teach us and indeed over the whole people Joh. 7. 49. This people that knoweth not the law is cursed A counterfeit Christian may rise high as a Meteor and blaze much as a Comet which is yet drawn up by meer force from the surface of the earth or water And as to the external and visible acts and duties of Religion which depend much upon the temper and constitution of the body it may easily be conceived and accounted how the mimical and mechanical Christian may rise higher in these and be more zealous watchful and cheerful than many truly religious and godly men as having greater power and quickness of fancy and a greater number of animal spirits upon which the motions and actions of the body do mainly depend The animal spirits may so nimbly serve the soul in these corporal acts that the whole transaction may be a fair imitation of the motions of the divine spirit and one would verily think there were a gracious principle in the soul itself This seems to be notably exemplified in capâ—ain Jehu whose religious actions as he would fain have them
of the Sun and turning itself every way towards it wellcoming its warm and refreshing beams Elijah passing by Elisha as he was at plough and catching him with his mantle is but a scant resemblâ—nce of the blessed God passing by a carnal mind and wrapping it in the mantle of his love and thereby causing it to run yea to flye swiftly after him If divine grace do but once touch the soul the soul presently sticks to it as the needle to the Loadstone They that heard Christ Jesus chiding the winds and the waves cryed out what manner of man is this that even the winds and the sea obey him But if one had been present when he called James and John from their nets Matthew from the Custome-house and Zaâ—heus from the tree and by calling made them willing to come would have cryed oâ—t sure what manner of God is this that by his bare word makes poor men leave their trades and livelyhood and rich men their gainfull exactions usuries oppressions to follow him and shews them no reason why What a mighty vertue is there in the oyntment of Christs name that as soon as it is poured out the Virgins fall in love with him Cant. 1. 3 Micah cryed out when he was in pursuit of his Gods and should they ask him what ailed him And will ye wonder that a holy Soul in pursuit of the holy God should be â—arnest that he should run and cry as he runs as I have seen a fond child whom the father or mother have endeavoured to leave behind them God breathing into the Soul makes the Soul breath after him and in a mixture of holy disdâ—in and anger to thrust away from itself all distracting companions occasions and concernments saying with Ephraim to her Idols Get ye hence The Soul thus inspired is so far from prostituting it self to any â—arthly sensual selfish lusts and loves that it cannot brook any thing that would weaken it in the prosecution of the highest good it is impatient of every thing that would either stop or slacken its motions after God The godly man desires still to be doing something for God indeed but if the case so fall out that he cannot spend his life for God as he desires yet he will be spending his soul upon him though he cannot perpetually abide upon the knee of prayer yet he would be continually upon the wing of faith and love when his tongue cleaves to the roof of his mouth that he cannot speak for God yet his Soul shall cleave unto him and complain because it can speak no longer For faith and love are kniâ—â—ing graces and do long to make the soul as much one with their object as is possible for the creature to be with its Creator Religion puts a restless appetiâ—e into the soul after a higher good and makes it to throw itself into his arms and wind itself into his embraces longing to be in a more intimate conjunction with him or rather entirely wrapt up in him Itself is an unsatiable and covetous principle in the soul much like to the daughter of the horseleech crying continually Give Give what the Prophet speaks rhetorically of Hell Isa 50. is also true concerning this off-spring of Heaven in the Soul it enlargeth it self and openeth its mouth without measure The spirit of true godliness seems to be altogether such that it cannot rest in any measures of grace or be fully contented with any of its attainments in this life but ardently longs to receive the more plentiful communications of love the more deep and legible impressions of grace the more clear and ample experiences of divine assistance the more sensible evidences of divine favour the more powerfull and ravishing illapses and incoms of divine consolation into itself let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth Cant. 1. 2. such is the spirit of true godliness that the weakest that is indued with it longs to be as David and the Davids to be as God as the Angel of the Lord according to that promise Zach. 12. 8. The godly soul that is in his right senses under the powerfull apprehensions of the loveliness of God and the beauty of holiness cannot be content to live by any lower instance than that of David whose soul even broke for the longing that it had unto the Lord Psal 119. 20 or that of the spouse who was even sick of love Cant. 2. 5. You have read of the Mother of Sisera looking out at the window waiting for his coming and crying through the lattess why is his Chariot so long in coming why tarry the wheels of his Chariots But this is not to be compared to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the earnest expectation of the creature the new creature waiting sort he manifestation of God which the Apostle elegantly expresseth and yet seems â—o labour for words as if he could not sufficiently express it neither Rom. 8. 23. you have read of the Israelites marching up towards the promised land and murmuring that they were held so long in the wilderness But the true Israelitish Soul makes more hast with less discontent marches as under the conduct of the Angel of Gods presence and longs to arrive at its rest But alas it is held in the wilderness too and therefore cannot be fully quiet in itself but sends forth spyes to view the land the scouts of Faith and Hope like Caleb and Joshua those men of another spirit and these go and walk through the holy land and return home to the soul and come back not as Noahs dove with an Olive leaf in her mouth but with some clusters in their hands they bring the soul a taste of the good things of the Kingdom of the glories of her eternal state yea the soul self marches up to possess the land goes out with the spouse in the Canticles to meet the Lord to seek him whom her soul loveth Religion is a sacred fire kept burning in the temple of the soul continually which being once kindled from Heaven never goes out but burns up Heaven-wards as the nature of fire is this fire is kept alive in the soul to all eternity though sometimes through the ashes of earthly cares and concernments cast into it or the Sun of earthly prosperity shining upon it it may sometimes burn more dimly and seem almost as if it were quite smothered this fire is for sacrifice too though sacrifice be not alwayes offered upon it the same fire of faith and love which offered up the morning Sacrifice is kept alive all the day long and is ready to kindle the evening Sacrifice too when the appointed time of it shall come In this chariot of fire it is that the soul is continually carryed out towards God and accomplisheth a kind of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or glorification daily and when it finds iâ— self firmly seated and swiftly carryed herein it no longer envies the translation of Elias The spirit of sanctification is
in the soul as a burning fire shut up in the bones which makes the soul weary with forbearing and so powerfull in longings that it cannot stay as the spirit of prophesie is described Jer. 20. it is more true of the spirit of God than of the spirit of Elihâ— the spirit within constraineth and even dresseth the soul so that it is ready to swoun and faint away for very vehemence of longing Sâ—e the amâ—rous spouse falling into one of these fainting fiâ—s Cant. 2. 5. and crying out mainly for some cordial from Heaven to keep up her sinking spirits Stay me with flaggons straw me with apples for I am sick of love Oh beautifull and blessed fight a soul working towards God gasping and longing and labouring after its proper happiness and perfection Well the sinking soul is relieved Christ Jesus reacheth forth his left hand to her head and his right hand embraceth her and now she recovers her hanging hands lift up themselves and the 〈◊〉 of her â—ading complex on 〈◊〉 restored now she sits down under his shadow with great delight and his fruit is sweet unto her taste See here the fairest sight on this side Heaven a soul resting and glorying and spreading itself in the arms of God growing up in him growing great in him growing full in his fulness and perfectly ravished with his pure love O my soul be not content to live by any lower instance did not our hearts burn within us said the two Disciples one to the other whilest he talked with us But the soul in which the sacred fire of love is powerfully kindled doth not only burn towards God whilest he is more familiarly present with it and as it were blows upon it but if he seem to withdraw from it it burns after him still my beloved had withdrawn himself and was gone I sought him I called him Cant. 5. 6. And if the fire begin to languish and seem as if it would go out the holy soul is startled presently and labours 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle speaks to revive it and blow it up again calls upon itself to awake to arise and pursue to mend its pace and to speed its heavy and sluggish motions This divine active principle in the soul maintains a continual striving a holy strugling and streâ—ching forth of the soul towards God a bold and ardent contention after the supreâ—m good 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Religien hath the strength of the Divinity in it its motions towards its object are quick and potent That elegant description which the Prophet makes of the wicked heart with some change may be brought livâ—â—ly to express this excellent temper of the godly soul it is like the working Sea which cannot â—est and although its waters do not cast up mire and dirt yet in a holy impatience they rise and swell and cast up a froth and some towards Heaven In a word that I may comprize many things in few expressions no man so ambitious as the humble none so covetous as the heavenly-minded none so voluptuous as the self-denying Religion gives a largeness and wideness to the soul which sin and self and the world had straightned and confined But his Ambition is only to be great in God his Covetousness is only to be filled with all the fulness of God and his voluptuousness is only to drink of the rivers of his pure pleasures He desires to taste the God whom he sees and to be satisfied with the God whom he tastes Oh now how are all the faculties of the soul awakened to attendance upon the Lord of life It hearkens for the sound of his feet coming the noise of his hands knocking at the door it stands upon its watch tower waiting for his appearing waiting more earnestly than they that watch for the morning and rejoyces to meet him at his coming and having met him runs into his arms kisses him holds him and will not let him goe but brings him into the house and entertains him in the guest-chamber The soul complains that itself is not large enough that there is not room enough to entertain so glorious a guest no not though it have given him all the room that it hath It entertains him with the widest arms and the sweetest smiles and if he depart and withdraw fetches him again with the deepest groans Return Return O Prince of Peace and make me an everlasting habitation of righteousness unto thy self It will not be amiss here briefly to touch upon the Reason of the godly souls so ardent pantings after God And here I might shew first negatively that it springs not from any carnal ambition of being better and higher than others not from any â—arnal hope of impunity and safety nor meerly from the bitter sense of pressing and tormenting afflictions in this life But I shall rather insist upon it affirmatively These earnest breathings 〈◊〉 God spring from the feeling apprehensions of self-indigency and insufficiency and â—â—e powerful sense of divine goodness and fulness they are begotten of the divine Bounty and self sufficiency manifesting itself to the spirits of men and conceived and brought forth by a deep sense of selfpoverty one might almost apply the Apostles words to this purpose we receive the sentence of death in our selves that we should not trust in our selves but in him I shall not discourse upon these two heads disjunctly but frame them into one notion and so you may take it thus these holy longings of the godly soul after God do arise from the sense of its distance from God To be so far distant from God who is life and love itself and the proper and full happiness of the soul is grievous to the soul that is rightly affected towards him and hence it is that the soul cannot be at rest but still longs to be more intimately joyned to him and more perfectly filled with him and the clearer the souls apprehensions are of its object and the deeper its sense is of its own unlikeness to him and distance from him the more strong and impatient are its breathings insomuch that not only fear as the Apostle speaks but even love itself sometimes seems to itself to have a kind of agony and torment in itself which made the spouse cry she was sick of love that is sick of every thing that kept her from her love sick of that distance at which she stood from her beloved Lord. The godly soul being ravisht with the infinite sweetness and goodness of God longs to be that rather than what itself iâ— and beholding how it is estranged from him by many sensual loves selfish passions corporal clogs and distractions bewails its distance and cryes out within itself Oh when shall I come and appear before God! Oh when will God come and appear gloriously to me and in me who will deliver me from this body of death Oh that mortality were swallowed up of life Davids soul did wait for God as earnestly
every body that so much as lookt towards it and by all means kept it even as his life For where is the like eager and ardent disposition to be found in a Christian towards God himself Tell me is it possible for a man that vehemently loves a Virgin to be content all his life long to Court her at a distance and not care whether ever he do actually enjoy her or no or must not such an one necessarily pursue a matrimonial and most intimate union with her let us now confess the truth and every one judge himself 2. This dull and earthly body is not so indifferently affected towards meat and drink and rest and the things that do serve its necessities and gratifie its temper Hunger will break down stone walls and thirst will give away a kingdom for a cup of water sickness will not be eased by good words nor will a drowsie brain be bribed by any entertainments of company or recreation no no the necessities of the body must and will be relieved with food and physick and sleep the restless and raging appetite will never cease calling and crying to the soul for supplies till it arise and give them Behold O my Soul consider the mighty and incessant appetites and tendencies of the body after sensual objects after its suitable good and proper perfection and be ashamed of thy more remiss and sluggish inclinations towards the highest good a God-like perfection 3. No creature in the whole world is so languid slow and indifferent in its motions towards its proper rest and centre How easie were it to call Heaven and earth to witness the free pleasant cheerfull eager addresses of every creature according to its kind towards its own centre and happiness The Sun in the Firmament rejoyces to run its race and will not stand still one moment except it be miraculously overpowred by the command of God himself the rivers seem to be in pain till by a continued flowing they have accomplisht to themselves a kind of perfection and be swallowed up in the bosome of the Ocean except they be benummed with cold or otherwise overmastered and retarded by forraign violence I need not instance in sensitives and vegetatives all which you know with a natural vigour and activity do grow up daily towards a perfect state and stature Were it not a strange and monstrous sight to see a stone setling in the ayre and not working towards its centre such a spectacle is a godly soul setling upon earth and not endeavouring a nearer and more intimate union with its God Wherefore Christians either cease to pretend that you have chosen God for your portion centre happiness or else arise and cease not â—o pursue and accomplish the closest union and the most familiar conjunction with him that your souls are capable of otherwise I call Heaven and Earth to witness against you this day and the day is comming when you will be put to shame by the whole creation Doth every even the meanest creature of God pursue its end and perfection and proper happiness with ardent and vehement longings and shall a soul the noblest of all creatures stand folding up itself in itself or choaking up its wide and divine capacity with dust and dirt shall a godly soul the noblest of all souls hang the wings suspend its motions towards the supream good or so much as once offer to faint and languish in iâ—s enterprizes for eternal life Tell it not at Athens publish it not at Rome lest the Heathen Philosophers deride and hiss us out of the world But you will ask me when a Christian may be said to be sluggish and unactive and who these lazy souls are I will premise two things and then give you a brief account of them First When I speak of a sluggish and spiritless Religion I do not speak as the hot-spirited Anabaptists or Chiliasts who being themselves acted by a strange fervour of mind miscalled zeal are wont to declaim against all men as cold and benummed in their spirits who do not call for fire from Heaven to consume all dissenters under the notion of Antichristian who are not afraid to reproach the divine holy gentle yet generous spirit of Religion calling it weak womanish cowardly low cold and I know not what These men I believe so far as I can guess at their spirit if they had lived in the dayes of our Saviour and had beheld that gentle meek humble peaceable and pacate spirit which did infinitely shine forth in him would have gone nigh to have reproved him for not carrying on his own Kingdom with sufficient vigour and activity if not have judged Christ himself to be much Antichristian I hope you see nothing in all my discoveries of the Active spirit of Religion that savours of such a fiery spirit as this is Secondly when I do so highly commend the Active spirit of true Religion and the vigorous temper of truly Religious souls I would not be understood as if I thought all such souls were alike swift or that any such soul did alwayes move with like swiftness and keep a like pace towards God I know that there are different sizes of Active souls yea and different degrees of Activity in the same soul as may be seen Cant. 5. 3. compared with the sixth verse of the same chapter and in many other places of Scripture But yet that none may flatter and deceive themselves with an opinion of their being what indeed they are not I will briefly discover the sluggishness and inactivity of Christians in a few particulars I pray take it not ill though the greatest part of Christians be found guilty for that is no other than what Christ himself hath prophesied 1. The Active spirit of Religion in the soul will not suffer men to take up their rest in a constant course of external performances and they are but slothful souls that do place their Religion in any thing without them By external performances I mean not only open and publick and solemn services but even the most private and secret performances that are in and by the body and ab extra to the soul It is not possible that a soul should be happy in any thing that is extrinsecal to itself no not in God himself if we consider him only as something without the soul The devil himself knows and sees much of God without him but having no communications of a divine nature or life being perfectly estranged from the life of God he remains perfectly miserable I doubt it is a common deceit in the world men toyle and labour in bodily acts of worship and Religion in a slavish and mercinary manner and think with those labourers in the parable that at the end they must needs receive great wages and much thanks because they have born the heat and burden of the day Alas that ever men should so grosly mistake the nature of Religion as to sink it into a few bodily
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
and wickedness a gulf is fized and they that would pass from God to sin and the devil cannot not that there shall ever be in any a real and predominant desire so to pass as I suppose I have already proved but it denotes the impossibility of the thing It is equally impossible that a godly soul should fall from God and become an hater of him fall from his love and image and take upon him the image of the devil as it was for Lâ—zarus to quit Abrahams bosome for the flames of hell the case seems to be the same the former being the most reall Heaven and the latter the truest Hell True Religion is that holy fire which being once kindled in the soul from Heaven never goes out whereof the fire of the altar was but a faint and imperfect resemblance It is as true in this respect of good men as it is of wicked men in an other their fire never goes out And here now we are presented with another great difference between true and counterfeit Religion All counterfeit Religion will fade in time though never so specious and flourishing All dew will pass away though some lye much longer than other All land-floods will fail yea the flood of Noah at length dryed up though it were of many moneths duration But this well of water which our Saviour speaks of here will never utterly fail cold Adversity cannot freeze it up scorching prosperity cannot dry it up The upper springs of uncreated grace and goodness will evermore feed those nether springs of grace and holiness in the creature Though Heaven and earth pass away yet shall the seed of God remain he that hath begun a good work will certainly perform it Eph. 1. 6. Where the grace of God hath begotten a Divine principle and spirit of true Religion in a soul there is the central force even of Heaven itself still attracting and carrying the soul in its motions thitherward untill it have lodged it in the very bosome and heart of God If any principle lower than true Religion do actuate a man it will certainly waste and be exhausted though it may carry him swiftly in a rapid motion yet not in a steady though it may carry him high yet not quite through A meteor that is exhaled from the earth by a forreign force though it may mount high in appearance and brave it in a blaze enough to be envyed by the poor twinkling stars and to be admired by ordinary spectators yet its fate is to fall down and shamefully confess its base original That Religion which men put on only for a cloak wâ—ll wear out and drop into rags if it be not presently thrown by as a garment out of fashion You have read of the seeming righteousness of Jehu founded in ambition and cruelty the piety and devotion of Joash grounded upon a good and vertuous education the zeal of Soul for the worship of God and his fat Sacrifices growing upon a root of superstition as Samuel that man of God interprets it 1 Sam. 15. 22. and you have seen the shamefull issue of all these dissemblers and the stinking snuff in which all this candle-light Religion ended very much unlike to that sun-light lustre of true and genuine goodness which shineth more and more unto the perfect day according to that elegant description which the spirit of God makes of it in the writings of Solomon whose pen hath as much adorned this great truth as his life hath blotted it Prov. 4. 18. To this purpose I might fairly alleadge the frequent testimonies which the Holy Ghost in Scripture gives concerning such hypocritical and unprincipled professors that having no root they wither away in a scorching season that they are again entangled in the pollutions of the world and overcome that like dogs they turn to their own vomit again and like Sows wallow in the mire from which they had been washed 2 Pet. 2. 20 22. together with many others of the same nature as also the prophesies that are made concerning them that that which they seemed to have shall be taken away from them Luke 8. 18. that they shall proceed no further for their folly shall be manifest to all men 2 Tim. 3. 9. that evil men and seducers and of those self-seducers are the worst shall wax worse and worse 2 Tim. 3. 13. with other places of the like nature It were easie to record many histories of many men especially great men who have speedily I had almost said disdainfully thrown off that semblance of humility meekness self-denyal justice and faithfulness which they had put on for a vizard during their probationarship for preferment the better to accomplish their selfish designs and to be possest of some base ends of their own But yet I will not deny but that a hypocrite may maintain a fair conformity to and correspondence with the letter of the law of God he may continue fair and specious to the very end of his life yea perhaps may go to his grave undiscovered either to himself or any in the world besides I believe many men have lived and dyed Pharisees have never apostatized from that righteousness which they profest but have persevered in their formality and hypocrisie to the last But yet although that counterfeit righteousness and Religion may possibly not fade away yet nevertheless being of an earthly and selfish constitution it is transitory and fading and if it were soundly assaulted and battered with persecutions and temptations no doubt would actually vanish and disappear on the other hand the promise of God is pregnant and precious Isa 40. 31. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength they shall walk and no faint Take encouragement from hence all ye that love the Lord go on in the strength of God Be the more lively by how much the more you are assured that this well of water shall spring up in you into everlasting life Make this good use of this comfortable doctrine will God indeed work in you both to will and to do why then so much the rather work out your own salvation according to the Apostle Phil. 2. 12. will the Lord God be with you will he not fail you nor forsake you till you have finished all your work why then Be strong and of good courage and do as good David inferrs and argues 1 Chron. 28. 20. Have you this hope this firm ground of hope in the promise and goodness of God why then purifie your selves as God is pure according to the Apostle 1 Joh. 3. 3. stop the mouths of those men that say the Doctrine of perseverance is prejudicial to godliness let them see and be forced to acknowledge it that the more a godly soul is assured of the infinite and unchangeable love and care of God towards him the more is he winged with love and zeal with speed mounting up thither daily where he longs to arrive They that understand the doctrine of perseverance
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
highest pitch of perfection unto which the New Creature is continually growing up which the Apostle Paul hath exprest with as much grand eloquence as words are able to magnifie if calling it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ This is that unbounded Ocean which this living fountain by so many incessantissues and unwearied streamings perpetually endeavours to empty it self into or rather to embosom it self in Now what this is we must confess with the Apostle John and indeed we have more reason to make such a confession than he had that it doth not yet appear viz. neither fully nor distinctly But yet since I am thus cast upon the contemplation of it it will be a pertinent piece of pleasure a little to enquire into it and though it surpass the power and skill of all created comprehensions to take the just dimensions and faithfully give in the height and depth and length and breadth of it yet we may essay to walk about this heavenly Jerusalem as the Psalmist speaks of the earthly and tell the Towers thereof mark her Walls consider her Palaces that we may tell it to the generation following First Then we will consider Eternal Life in the most proper notion of it as it implies the essential happiness of the soul and so it is no other than the souls pure perfect and establisht state By a state I do designedly disparage that grosser notion of a place as that which scarce deserves to enter into the description of such a glory or at best will obtain but a very low room there By purity I do purposely explode that carnal ease rest immunity affluence of senfual delights accommodated only to the animal life which last the Mahumetans and the former too many profest Christians and the Jews almost generally do dream of and judge Heaven to be By perfection I do distinguish it from the best state which the best men upon earth can possibly be in So then I take Eternal Life in the primary and most proper notion of it to be full and perfect and everlasting enjoyment of God communion with him and a most blissful conformity of all the powers and faculties of the soul to that eternal goodness truth and love as far as it is or may become capable of the communications of the divinity This life was at the highest rate imaginable purchased by our ever blessed Lord and Saviour in the daies of his flesh and here in the Text promised to every believing soul Now in as much as we are ignorant both of the present capacity of our own faculties how large they are and much more ignorant how much more large and ample they may be made on purpose to receive the more rich and plentiful communications of the divine life and image therefore can we not comprehend neither the transcendent life happiness and glory nor that degree of sanctity and blessedness which the believing soul may be advanced unto in another world The Popish Schoolmen do nicely dispute about the sight of God and the love of God to wit in whether of these the formal blessedness of the soul consisteth ill separating those whom God hath so firmly joyned together as if it were possible that either a blind love or a jejune and unaffectionate speculation could render a soul entirely happy But it is much safer to say that the happiness and eternal life of the soul standeth in the possession or fruition of God and this doth necessarily import the proper perfection of every faculty Nothing can be the formal happiness of a spirit that is either iuferiour or extrinsecal to it it must be something divine and that wrought into the very nature and temper of it I doubt not to affirm that if the soul of man were possibly advanced so as to receive adoration or divine power yet if it were in the mean time void of divine dispositions and a god-like nature it were far from being glorified and made happy as to its capacity What health is to the body that is holiness to the soul which happily the Apostle alludes to when he speaks of the spirit of a sound mind 2 Tim. 1. 7. Secondly There is another notion of Eternal Life which some contend for by which they mean not barely the essential happiness of the soul but that with the addition of many suitable and glorious circumstances the essential happiness of the soul as it is attended with the appendixes of a glorified body the beholding of Christ the amicable society of Angels freedom from temptations the knowledge of the secrets of nature and providence and some such like To which may be also added though of a lower degree open absolution or a visible deliverance of the Saints out of the overthrow of the wicked at the conflagration of the world power over Devils eminence of place enjoyment of friends and some other like Now let us briefly consider what tendencies there are in the religious soul towards each of these And here I must crave leave to speak joyntly both of the End and of the Motion thereunto though it may be thought that the former only falls fairly under our present consideration First Then I suppose that Eternal Life in the first sense of it is intended here to wit the essential happiness of the soul or its perfect and everlasting enjoyment of God For the description is here made of Religion it self in the abstract or that principle of divine life which Christ Jesus implanteth in the soul and being so considered it is hard to conceive how that should spring up into any of these appendant circumstances or into any thing but the completion and perfection of it self though the religious soul taken in the concrete possibly may And indeed though we should allow which we shall take into consideration under the next head that many of those high scriptural phrases which are brought to describe the future condition of believing souls do principally respect the appendixes of its essential happiness as a Kingdom a house not made with hands eternal in the Heavens an inheritance reserved a place prepared and the like yet it seems very unnatural to interpret this phrase Life and Eternal Life any otherwise than of that which I call the essential happiness of the soul But if we interpret it of this the sense is very fair and easie thus this principle of divine life is continually endeavouring to grow up to its just altitude to advance it self unto a triumphant state even as all other principles of life do naturally tend towards a final accomplishment and ultimate perfection Carnal self or the animal life may be indeed said to be a well of water too poysonous water but that springs up into a sensual life popular applause self-accommodations or if you will in the Apostles phrase into the fulfilment of the lusts of the flesh This I speak only by way of illustratory opposition for to speak more
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
of God as the chiefest rule and therefore wicked men who pitch upon other objects and walk by other laws even the lusts and ordinances of their own flesh and fancy are properly strangers to God and miserable He is not properly said to know God who hath a notion of him formed in his head but he whose heart and will is molded into a conformity to God and a delight in him so that a wicked man though he know and believe and tremble as much as any of the Devils yet not loving nor delighting in him as his chiefest good not being conformed to his Image as the highest and purest perfection may be truly said to be estranged from God which is a state of hell and death and darkness This is the man who though not in words yet interpretatively and really saith unto God Depart from me I desire not the knowledge of thy wayes with them in Job 21. 14. These do really exempt themselves from the dominion of Christ and do really though not audibly say with them in the Gospel Luk. 19. 14. We will not have this man to reign over us However men pretend to and boast of their relation to and acquaintance with God certainly all that live a meer sensual life non-conformists to the image of God are truly said to be strangers to him and in a state of non-communion with him 1 Joh. 1. 6. 2 Cor. 6. 14. 2. The life of a true Christian is the most high and noble life in the world it exceeds the life of all other men even of the greatest of men The character that is here given of the godly man is the highest that can be given of any man or indeed of any creature It is the highest glory and excellency of the creature to partake of the life of God of the perfections of the Creator and such is the description that the spirit of God here makes of the godly man What an unreasonable and senseless reproach is that which this wicked world doth cast upon Religion calling it a low and despicable thing and upon Religious and godly men calling them low spirited puny people Can a man be better spirited than with the spirit of God Can any thing more truly ennoble a soul than a divine nature Can a man be raised any higher than unto Heaven it self So noble is the godly soul Prov. 15. 24. The way of life is above to the wise And consequently all wicked men lead a low life and are bound under chains of death and darkness The righteous man is of a high and divine original born of God born from above and therefore is more excellent than his neighbour than any of his neighbours even a King himself being judge Prov. 12. 26. What a hellish baseness is that sinful gallantry of spirit what a brutishness is that sensuality of living which the degenerate Sons of Adam do so much magnifie True goodness and excellency of spirit must be measured by the proportion that it bears to the supream good the infinite pattern of all perfection What excellent persons were those renowned Saints of old of whom the Apostle sayes that the world was not worthy Heb. 11. 38. however they were thought not worthy to live in the world What a noble and generous spirit of true Christian valour patience meekness contempt of the world and self-denyal was that which was to be seen in the blessed Apostles however they were esteemed as the filth and sweepings of the world the off-scouring of all things To which of the noble wise mighty men of the world as such did God ever say these as the men that have fellowship with me these are the men that lead a noble and divine life No no not many noble are called and when they are called they are made more noble than ever they were by birth or descent by places of preferment or command The life of every wicked man of what rank or size soever he be in the world is but a low life a life in most things common to the very beasts with him If the main of his business and delight be to eat and drink and work and sleep and enjoy sensual pleasures what doth he what enjoyeth he more than the beasts that perish But the life of the meanest soul that hath true and spiritual communion with God is a life common to him with the blessed Angels those sons of the morning the flower of the whole Creation That life which hath self for its centre must needs be a penurious and indeed a painfull life For how can the soul of man possibly feed to the full upon such spare diet such scant fare as it finds at home Nay indeed how can it choose but be in pain and torture whilest it stretcheth itself upon a self-sufficiency or creature-fulness which is not at all commensurate to it But the soul that rightly stretches and spends all its faculties upon the infinite and blessed God finds all its capacities filled up to the brim with that fountain of goodness and it self perfectly matcht with a suitable and satisfactory object This is the true and only nobleness of spirit when all the powers and faculties of this immortal soul are exalted and advanced into a true and vital sympathy and communion with the chiefest good formed according to his will conformed to his image And oh that wisdom might be more justified of her children Oh that the life of God did but clearly manifest it self and shine forth in the lives of them that call themselves godly Alas that ever God himself should suffer reproach by reason of the low-spiritedness and laziness of his servants For this cause is Religion evil spoken of The Lord awaken and ennoble us to express and shew forth the divine life with all power and vigour to live as high as the calling wherewith we are called and so roll away this reproach 3. The life of a Christian is not a heavy sluggish thing but active and vigorous as the phrase communion with God imports Religion is a communication of life and vigour from him who is life it self which makes the truly godlike soul to be quick and powerfull in its motions Every thing is by so much the swifter and stronger in its motions by how much the nearer it is to its centre as Philosophy tells us Certainly by how much the nearer any man is gotten to God who is the center of souls by so much the more do's he covet after more intimate communion with him and the more eagerly lay hold upon him Communion do's necessarily imply reaction or reflection the soul that receives of God and his fulness will certainly be emptying it self into him again Communion in the very force of the phrase implies a mutualness we cannot suppose a soul partaking of God but it must needs mutually render up it self to him again There can be no commerce nor correspondence without returns but what return can the godly soul make unto
IMMANVEL Or A discovery of TRUE RELIGION As it imports a living Principle in the minds of men grounded upon Christ's Discourse with the Samaritaness 1 Joh. 4. 14. Being the latter clause of The Voice Crying in a Wilderness Or a Continuation of the Angelical Life Mostly Composed at the same time By S. S. This is the Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those dayes saith the Lord I will put my Law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts Jer. 31. 33. 〈◊〉 that believeth in me as the Scripture hath said out of his belly shall flow rivers of living Water Joh. 7. 38. 〈◊〉 itatem Philosophi quaerunt Theologi inveniunt Religiosi Possident Comes Mirandul LONDON Printed Anno Dom. 1667. A Treating Preface TO THE READER AMongst the many stupendious spectacles that are wont to surprize and amuze inquisitive and considerative minds there seems to be nothing in the world of a sadder and more astonishing observation than the small progress and propagation of Christian Religion This I call a sad observation because Religion is a matter of the most weighty and necessary importance without which it is not possible for an immortal soul to be perfected and made happy I call it astonishing because Christian Religion hath in itself such advantages of recommending itself to the minds of men and contains in it such mighty engines to work them into an hearty complyance with it and to captivate their reason unto itself as no other Religion in the World can with any face pretend to I do earnestly and I suppose rationally and Scripturally hope that this veritas magna those sacred Oracles will yet much more prevail and that the founder of this most excellent Religion who was lift up upon the cross and is more exalted to his Throne will yet draw more men unto himself and this perhaps is all the millennium that we can warrantably look for But in the mean time it is too too evident that the Kingdom of Sathan doth more obtain in the World than the Gospel of Christ either in the Letter or power of it As to the former if we will receive the probable conjecture of learned enquirers we shall not find above one sixth part of the known World yet Christianized or giving so much as an external adoration to the Crucified Jesus As to the latter I will not be so bold as to make any Arithmetical conjectures but judge it more necessary and more becoming a charitable and Christian spirit to set down in secret and weep over that sad but true account given in the Gospel Few are chosen and again Mat. 20. 26 Mat. 7. 14. Few there be that find it being grieved after the example of my compassionate Redeemer for the hardness of their hearts and praying with Joah in another case The Lord make his people an hundred times so many more as they be It is besides my present purpose to enquire into the immedâ—ate causes of the non-propagation of the Gospel in the former sense only it is easie and obvious to guess that few will enter in by the way of the tree of life when the same is guarded with a flaming sword And it were reasonable to hope that if the minds of Christians were more purged from a selfish bitterness fierce animosity and arbitrary sowrness and possest with a more free generous benign compassionate condescending candid charitable and Christ-like spirit which would be indulgent toward such as are for the present under a less perfect dispensation as our Luk. 9. 49 50 54 55. Saviours was would not impose any thing harsh or unnecessary upon the sacred and inviolable Consciences of men but would allow and maintain that liberty to men which is just and natural to them in matters of Religion and no way forfeited by them then I say it might be reasonable to hope that the innate power and vertue of the Gospel would prove most victorious Judaisme Mahumetisme and Paganisme would melt away under its powerfull influences and Sathan himself fall down as lightning before it as naturally as the eye-lids of the morning do chase away the blackness of the night when once they are lift up upon the earth But my design is chiefly to examine the true and proper cause of the non-progress of the Gospel as to the power of it and its inefficaciousness upon the hearts and Consciences of those that do profess it And now in finding out the cause hereof I shall content my self to be wise on this side Heaven leaving that daring course of searching the decrees of God and riffing into the hidden rolls of eternity to them who can digest the uncomfortable notion of a self-willed arbitrarious and imperious Deity which I doubt is the most vulgar apprehension of God men measuring him most grosly and unhappily by a self-standard And as I dare not soar so high so neither will I adventure to stoop so low as to rake into particulars which are differently assigned according to the different humours and interests of them that do assign them each party in the world being â—o excellently favourable to itself as to be ready to say with David The earth and all the Psal 75. 3. inhabitants of it are dissolved I bear up the pillars of it ready to think that the very interest of Religion in the world is involved in them and their perswasions and dogmas and that the whole Church is undone if but an hair fall from their heads if they be in the least injured or abridged Which is a peece of very great fondness and indeed the more unpardonable in as much as it destroys the design of the Gospel in confining and limiting the holy one of Israel and making God as topical as he was when he dwelt no where upon earth but at the Temple in Jerusalem Waving these extreams therefore I conceive the true cause in general of the so little prevailing of true Religion in the hearts and lives of men is the false notion that men have of it placing it there where indeed it is not nor doth consist That this must needs be a cause of the not prevailing of the Gospel whereever it is found I suppose every body will grant and that it is almost every-where to be found will I doubt too evidently appear by that description of true Christian Religion which the most sacred Author of it the Lord Jesus Christ made to the poor Samaritaness which I have endeavoured briefly to explain according to the tâ—nour of the Gospel in this small Treatise which I first framed for private use in a season when it was most behovefull for me to understand the utmost secrets of my own soul and do the utmost service I was able towards the salvation of those that were under my roof expecting every day to render up my own or their souls into the arms of our most mercifull Redeemer and to be fully swallowed up into that eternal
life into which true Religion daily springs up and will at length infallibly conduct the Christian soul unto This work thus undertaken and in a great measure then carryed on I have since perfected and do here present to the perusal of my dear Countrey having made it publick for no private end but if it might be to serve the interest of Gods glory in the world which I do verily reckon that I shall do if by his blessing I may be instrumental to undeceive any soul mistaken in so high and concerning a matter as Religion is or any way to awaken and quicken any Religious soul not sufficiently ravisht with the unspeakable glory nor cheerfully enough springing up into the full fruition of Eternal life What a certain and undefeatable tendency true Religion hath towards the eternal happiness and salvation of mens souls will I hope evidently appear out of the body of this small Treatise But that 's not all though indeed that were enough to commend it to any rational soul that is any whit free and ingenuous and is not so perfectly debauched as to utterly from right reason For it is also the sincerest pollicy imaginable and the most unerring expedient in the world for the uniting and establishing of a divided and tottering Kingdom or Common-wealth To demonstrate which was the very design of this Preface It is well known Oh that it were but as well and effectually believed that godliness is profitable to all things and that it 1 Tom. 4. 8. hath the promises and blessings of the life that now is and of that which is to come that the right seeking of the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness hath no less than all things Mat. 6. 33. annext to it How unmeasurable is the body and bulk of that blessedness to which all the comforts of this life are to be as an Appendix to a volume But men are apt to shuffle off generals therefore I will descend to instances and shew in a few Particulars what a mighty influence Religion in the power of it would certainly have for the political happiness and flourishing state of a Nation Wherein I doubt not but to make it appear that not Religion as some slanderously report but indeed the wâ—nt of it is the immediate trouhler of every Nation and individual society yea and soul too according to that golden saying of the holy Apostle From whence come Jam. 4. 1. wars and fightings Come they not hence even of your lusts that war in your members Here let me desire one thing of the Reader and that is to bear in his mind all along where he finds the word Religion that I have principally a respect to the description given of it in the Text and that I mean thereby a divine principle implanted in the soul springing up into everlasting life And now I should briefly touch those faults both in governours towards their subjects subjects towards their governours and towards each other which do destroy the peacefull state and the sound and happy constitution of a body politick And indeed I fear it will run upon some inconvenience if not confusion to wave this method But out of a pure desire to avoid whatever may be interpretable to ill will curiosity presumption or any other bad disposition and that it may appear to any ingenuous eye that I am more desirous to bind up than to rake into sores I will expresly shew how Religion would heale the distempers of any Nation without taking any more than an implicite notice of the distempers themselves First Then it is undoubtedly true that Religion deeply radicated in the nature of Princes and governours would most effectually qualifie them for the most happy way of reigning Every body knows well enough what an excellent Eucrasie and lovely constitution the Jewish polity was in under the influences of holy David wise Solomon devout Hezekiah zealous Josiah and others of the same spirit so that I need not spend my self in that enquiry and so consequently not upon that argument Now there are many wayes by which it is easie to conceive that Religion would rectifie and well temper the spirits of Princes This principle will verily constitute the most noble heroical and royal soul in as much as it will not suffer men to find any unhallowed satisfaction in a divine authority but will be springing up into a Godlike nature as their greatest and most perfective glory It will certainly correct and limit the over-eager affectation of unweildy greatness and unbounded Dominion by teaching them that the most honourable victory in the world is self-conquest and that the propagation of the image and Kingdom of God in their own souls is infinitely preferrible to the advancement or enlargement of any temporal jurisdiction The same holy principle being the most genuine off-spring of divine Love and Benignity will also polish their rough and over-severe natures instruct them in the most sweet and obliging methods of government by assimulating them to the nature of God 1 Cor. 7. 22. 2 Cor. 3. 17. who is infinitely abhorrent from all appearance of oppression and hath most admirably provided that his servants should not be slaves by making his service perfect freedome The pure and impartial nature of God cannot endure superstitious flatterers or hypocritical professors and the Princes of the Earth that are regenerate into his Image will also estimate men according to God I mean according to his example who loves nothing but the communications of himself and according Lâ—v. 2. 11. to their participation of his Image which is only amiable and advanceable in the world What God rejected in his fire-offerings Religion will teach Princes to disgust in the devotions as they call them of their Courtiers I mean not only the leaven of superstitious pride and dogged morosity but also the honey of mercenary prostrations and fawning adulations In a word this Religious principle which makes God its pattern and end springs from him and is alwayes springing up into him would soveraignty heal the distempers of ruling by humour self-interest and arbitrariness and teach men to seek the good of the publick before self-gratifications For so God rules the world who however some men slander him I dare say hath made nothing the duty of his creature but what is really the good of it neither doth he give his people Laws on purpose that he might shew his Soveraignty in making them or his justice in punishing the breach of them much less doth he give them any such statutes as which himself would as willingly they broke as kept so he might but the penalty What I have briefly said concerning political governours the judicious Reader may view over again and apply to the Ecclesiastical For I do verily reckon that if the hearts of these men were in that right Religious temper and holy order which I have been speaking of it would plentifully contribute towards the happy and
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
hearts of subjects towards one another and that whether they be of the same way and judgement with themselves or different I dare not assert that it would make them all of the same way and mind neither do I believe it would yet I am confident it would do more towards this Catholick union than all the Laws and severities in the world can Mutual forbearance and forgiveness Christian kindness and discreet condescensions are the most warrantable and most effectual method for introducing uniformity and unanimity too which is much better into the Church of Christ But however Religion would certainly give a right disposition and teach men aright behaviour respective to each other whether friends or dissenters This principle would teach men to love their friends and accomplices only in the Lord as his members not as their own partizans Are not they strangely devoted to interest that will vindicate any thing in a partizan which they will declaim against in a dissenter And yet how is the sacred name of Christian friendship reproached every-where by reason of this partiality How much better did true Religion instruct the great Apostle to know no man after the flesh no 2. Cor. 5. 16. not Christ himself The same principle would not fail to cure the distempers of men respective to those that are of a different way and judgement from themselves whether of Pretestants towards Protestants or Protestants and Papists one towards another It would heal the distempered affections and behaviours of Protestants towards Protestants Were men throughly Baptized into the Spirit of Love and Wisdom which are so lively pourtrayed by the Apostles St. Paul and St. James that one might well be enamoured of the very description how certainly would all oppressions law-suits disputations about unprofitable and indeterminable points either be supprest or sanctified either not be or not be vexatious Not to speak of the oppression done by over-reaching stealing lying false-witness-bearing slanderous detrectations envious suggestions and malignant dissemination of doubtfull suspicions by which commonly poor men oppress the rich all which true Religion abhorrs There is a great oppression that goes uncontrolled in the World which is by the cruel engrossings and covetrous insatiable tradings of richer men What these are intentionally I will not say but that they are really and eventually as great oppressions as those inhumane depopulations and squeezing exactions which are so much inveighed against I doubt not But be they what they will or be they excused how they will I am confident that this Divine principle that powerfully springs up into everlasting life would mightily relieve the world in this respect in that it would moderate mens desires of corruptible riches forbid them to seek the things of this world any more or any otherwise than in consistency with and subserviency to their primary and most diligent seeking of the Kingdom of God it would make men seek the wealth of others even as their own and make private advantages stoop to the publick good I do verily believe that if there were none but good men in England there would be no poor men there Civil Laws may provide for the maintenance of the poor but the Law of Divine love a principle of Religion if it were universally obeyed would make men so nobly regardless of earthly accommodations that there would soon be room enough for all men to thrive into a sufficient stature and then being so grown they would covet no more In Law-suits if there were any men would seek the advancement of truth and not of their own cause and interest distinct from it And oh how excellently would it still the noise of axes and hammers about the Temple of God! It would take men off from vain speculations and much eagerness about unnecessary opinions by imploying them in more substantial and important studies The very being of Religion in the soul would indeed decide a world of controversies which the Schools have long laboured in vain to determine For I reckon that these Scholastical wars fitly called Polemicks like those civil dissensions spoken of by the Apostle Jam. 4. 1. James do for the most part spring from mens lusts that war in their members such as pride curiosity lasciviency of wit disobedience and unsubduedness of understanding and the like I have observed with great grief how the spirits of many men I had almost said sects of men run out wholly into disputes about Ceremonies pro and con about Church-Government about what is orthodox and what is heterodox about the true and the false Church which commonly they judge by something external and indeed separable from the essence of a true Church and hereabout is their zeal their conference and their very prayers themselves mostly bestowed Who can doubt but that Religion in the power of it would find men something else to do yea and if it could not perfectly determine these niceties yet it would much heal our dissentions about them and bring tears to quench the strange and unnatural heats that are amongst us and cause such dreadfull inflammations in our bowels But it may seem that there is such a fatal enmity and irreconcilable feud betwixt Papists and Protestants that nothing no not Religion it self can heal it And truly if we suppose that it is Religion that engages both parties in this enmity I think it will prove incurable But God forbid that this pure off-spring of Heaven should be so blaspheamed It is not Religion but indeed the want of it that begets this implacable animosity whatever is pretended Cruel Religion Bloody Religion Selfish Religion Envious and Revengeful Religion Who can choose but cry out of the blasphemy of this contradiction at the very first hearing Nay I dare affirm it without haesitation that the more Religious any Protestant or Papist is the more abhorrent he is from brutish savageness wicked Revenge and devilish Hatred The Church of Rome judges the Reformed Hereticks are not fit to live and why Not because they live not well but because they cannot think and believe as they do And is this the genuine product of true Religion Nothing less For a desire of ruling over mens Consciences and of subjecting the faith of others to themselves is certainly competible to a meer natural man nay to the Devil himself who is as lordly cruel and imperious as any other The Reformed Churches on the other hand are I doubt generally more offended at the Papists for their persecutions of them than for their real persecuting and Crucifying Christ afresh by their sins and so consequently do rather write and fight against them than either pitty or pray for them I hope there are as many well-spirited Christians in England at least proportionably as in any Church upon earth and yet I fear there are far more that could wish the Papists out of this world than that earnestly desire that they might be fitted for and so counted worthy of a better And doth
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
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
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
drink all this while he lives not to himself but serves an higher interest than that of the flesh and a higher good than himself or any created Being A true Christian actively doth not only appear in those things which call duties of Worship or religious performances but in the whole frame of the heart contriving and the conversation expressing and unfolding the glory of God A holy serious heavenly humble sober righteous and self-denying course of life do's most excellently express the divine glory by imitating the nature of God and most effectually call all men to the imitation of it according as our Saviour hath nakedly stated the case Joh. 15. 8. Hereby is my Father glorified that ye bring forth much fruit By which fruits are not to be understood only preaching praying conference which are indeed high and excellent duties but also righteousness temperance self-denial which things are pure reflections of the divine image and a real glorifying of God's Name and perfections A good Christian cannot be content to be happy alone to be still drawing down Heaven into his own soul but he endeavours also both by prayer counsel and holy example to draw up the souls of other men Heaven-ward This God witnesseth of Abraham Gen. 18. 19. I know him that he will command his children and his houshold after him and they shall keep the way of the Lord And this Moses doth excelently witness of himself in that holy â—apture of his Numb 11. 29. Would God that all the Lord's people were Prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them By such examples as these a good man desires to live yea by higher presidents than either Abraham or Moses even by the example of the Father and of the Son He admires and strives to imitate that character which is given of God himself Psal 119. 68. Thou art good and dost good and that which is given of Christ Jesus the Lord of life Act. 10. 38. Who went about doing good who also witnessed elsewhere concerning himself that he came not into the world to do his own will nor seek his own glory but the will and glory of him that sent him And again Luk. 2. 49. Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business Oh how happy would the godly soul count it self if it could but live and converse in the world at the same rate and with the same devout fervent exalted spirit as Christ Jesus did whose meat and drink it was still to be doing the will and advancing the glory of his Father But alas the poor soul finds it self ensnared by passions and selfish affections from within clogg'd with an unweildy body and distracted with secular affairs from without that it cannot rise so nimbly run so swiftly nor serve the infinite and glorious God so chearfully nor liberally as it would and therefore the poor prisoner sigbs within it self and wishes that it might escape But finding a certain time determined upon it in the body which it must be content to live out it looks up and is ready to envy the Angels of God because it cannot live as they do who are alwaies upon God's errand and almost thinks much that it self is not a Ministring Spirit serving the pure and perfect will of the supreme good without grudging or ceasing The godly soul under these powerful apprehensions of the nature of God the example of Christ and the honourable office of the holy Angels is ready to grudge the body that attendance that it calls for and those offices which it is forc't to perform to it as judging them impertinent to its main happiness and most excellent employment it is ready to envy that more chearful and willing service which it finds from the heavy and drossy body with which it is united and to cry out Oh that I were that to my God which my body my eyes hands and feet are to me For I say to one of these go and he goeth and to another do this and he doeth it In a word a good man being acquainted feelingly with the highest good eying diligently the great end of his coming into the world and his short time of being in iâ— serves the Eternal and Blessed God lives upon eternal designs and by consecrating all his actions unto God gives a kind of an immortality to them which are in themselves sâ—tting and transient He counts it a reproâ—ch to any man much more to a godly man to do any thing insignificantly much more to live iâ—percinently and he reckons all things that have not a tendency to the highest good and a subserviency to the great and last end to be impertinencies yea and absurdities in an immortal soul which should continually be springing up into everlasting life 3. The active and vigorous nature of true Religion manifests it self in those powerful and incessant longings after God with which it fills that soul in which it is planted This I superadd to the two former because the godly man though he be formed into some likeness to God yet desires to be more like him and though he be somewhat serviceable to him yet desires to be more instrumental to his will though he be good yet desires to be better and though he do good yet he desires to do better or at least more And indeed I reckon that these sincere and holy hungrings after God which I am going to speak of are one of the best signs that I know in the world of spiritual health and the best 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a true Christian For in this low and animal state we are better acquainted with lovings and languishings than with fruition or satisfaction and the best enjoyment that we have of God in this world is but scant and short indeed but a kind of a longing to enjoy him Love is certainly a high and noble affection but alas our love whilst we are here in the body is in its non-age in its weak and sickly state rather a longing than a loving much unlike to what it will be when it shall be grown up unto its perfect stature in glory But this sickly kind of languishing affection is a certain symptom of a healthful constitution or as the Apostle calls it of the spirit of a sound mind Godly souls are thirsty souls alwaies gasping after the living springs of divine grace even as the parched Desart gapeth for the dew of Heaven the early and the later rain One would wonder what kind of Magick there was in Elijahs mantle that the very casting of it upon Elisha should make him leave Oxen and Plough yea Father and Mother and all to run after a stranger Elijah himself seems to wonder at it 1 King 19. 20. What have I done to thee oh but what a mighty charâ— is there in divine love which when it is once shew abroad in the soul makes the soul to spread itself in it and to it as the heliotrope attending the motions
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
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