Title to thy Estate would'st thou not think it reasonable to inquire into thy case and is it not much more desirable in a matter of this consequence to be at some certainty and prudent to indeavour it if it may possibly be attain'd Whence let me further ask Fourthly Canst thou pretend it to be impossible Hath God left thee under a necessitated ignorance in this matter or denied thee sufficient means of knowing how 't is with thee in respect of thy Spiritual Estate Though he have not given thee a List or told thee the Number or Names of his Sanctified ones yet hath he not sufficiently described the persons and given thee characters by which they may be known And hath he not furnish't thee with a self reflecting power by which thou art inabled to look into thy self and discern whether thou be of them or no Doth he not offer and afford to serious diligent souls the assisting light of his blessed Spirit to guide and succeed the inquirie And if thou find it difficult to come to a speedy clear issue to make a present certain judgment of thy case ought not that to ingage thee to a patient continued diligence rather then a rash despairing madness to desist and cast off all In as much as the difficultie though great is not insuperable and the necessity and advantage incomparably greater And though divers other things do confessedly fall in the principal difficultie lies in thy aversation and unwillingness Thou art not put to traverse the Creation to climb Heaven or dig through the Earth but thy work lies nigh thee in thy own heart and Spirit and what is so nigh or should be so familiar to thee as thy self 'T is but casting thy eye upon thy own soul to discern which way 't is inclin'd and bent thou art urged to Which is that we propounded next to discover Viz. 2. That we are to judge of the hopefulness of our enjoying this blessedness by the present habitude or disposedness of our spirits thereto For what is that righteousness which qualifies for it but the impress of the Gospel upon the minds and hearts of men The Gospel-revelation is the onely Rule and Measure of that righteousness It must therefore consist in conformity thereto And look to the frame and design of the Gospel-revelation and what doth so directly correspond to it as that very habitude and disposedness of spirit for this blessednesse whereof we speak Nothing so answers the Gospel as a propension of heart towards God gratifi'd in part now and increasing till it find a full satisfaction a desire of knowing him and of being like him 'T is the whole design of the Gospel which reveals his glory in the face of Jesus Christ to work and form the spirits of men to this They therefore whose spirits are thus wrought and framed are righteous by the Gospel-measure and by thâ—t righteousness are evidently entituled and fitted for this blessedness Yea that righteousness hath in it or rather is the elements the first Principles the seed of this blessedness There can therefore be no surer Rule or Mark whereby to judge our states whether we have to do with this blessedness may expect it yea or no than this How stand we affected towards it in what disposition are our hearts thereto Those fruits of righteousnesse by which the soul is qualified to appear without offence in the day of Christ the several graces of the Sanctifying Spirit are nothing else but so many holy Principles all disposing the soul towards this blessednesse and the way to it Mortification Self-denial and godly sorrow take it off from other objects the World Self and Sin Repentance â—that part of it which respects God turns the course of its motion towards God the end Faith directs it through Christ the way Love makes it more freely desire earnestly joy pleasantly hope confidently humility evenly fear circumspectly patience constantly and perseveringly All conspire to give the Soul aright disposition towards this blessedness The result of them all is heavenliness an heavenly temper of spirit For they all one way or other as so many Lines and Rayes have respect to a blessedness in God which is heaven as the point at which they aim and the cuspis the point in which they meet in order to the touching of that objective point is heavenliness This is the ultemate and immediate disposition of heart for this blessedness the result the terminus productus of the whole work of righteousness in the Soul by which 't is said to be as it were gnota ad gloriam begotten to the eternal inheritance Concerning this therefore chiefly institute thy inquiry Demand of thy self is my soul yet made heavenly bent upon eternal blessednesse or no And here thou mayest easily apprehend of how great concernment it is to have the right notion of heaven or future blessedness as was urged under the foregoing Rule For if thou take for it another thing thou missest thy mark and art quite beside thy business But if thou retain a right and scriptural state and notion of it the Rule thou art to judge by is sure They shall have heaven whose hearts are intent upon it and framed to it Scripture is every where pregnant and full of this The Apostle plainly intimates this will be the rule of Gods final judgment Certainly it cannot be unsafe for us to judge our selves by the same Rule He tells us when God shall judge every one according to his works the great business of the judgment day eternal life shall be the portion of them who by patient continuance in well doing sought glory and honour and immortality which are but other expressions of the same thing what can be more plain They shall have eternal life and glory that seek it whose hearts are towards it Again speaking of true Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. in a way of contradiction from Pseudo-Christians such as he saith were enemies of the Crosse he gives us among other this brand of these latter that they did mind earthly things and tells us their end would be destruction but gives us this opposite character of the other our conversation is in heaven our trade and business our daily negotiations as well as the priviledges of our Citizen-ship lie there as his expression imports and thence intimates the opposite end of such whence we look for a Saviour not destruction but salvation And in the same Context of Scripture where they that are risen with Christ and who shall appear with him in glory are requir'd to fet their mind on things above not on things on the earth That we may understand this not to be their duty onely but their character we are immediately told they who do not so mortifie not their earthly members those lusts that dispose men towards the earth and to grovel in the dust as the graces of the Spirit dispose them heaven-ward and to converse with glory
and good impressions thou had'st but even all thou wast capable of and mightst have attained Thou shalt now recount with anguish and horror and rend thy own Soul with the thoughts what thou mightest now have been how excellent and glorious a creature hadst thou not contriv'd thy own misery and conspir'd with the Devil against thy self how to deform and destroy thy own Soul While this remembrance shall alwayes a fresh return that nothing was injoyned thee as a duty or propounded as thy blessedness but what thou wast made capable of and that it was not fatal necessity but a wilful choice made thee miserable CHAP. XII Inference 3. That a change of heart is necessary to this blessedness The pretences of ungodly men whereby they would avoid the necessity of this change Five considerations proposed in order to the detecting the vanity of such pretences A particular discussion and refutation of those pretences 3. 'T Is a mighty change must pâ—sse upon the Souls of men in order to their enjoyment of this Blessedness This equally follows from the consideration of the Nature and substantial parts of it as of the qualifying righteousness prerequired to it A little reflection upon the common state and temper of mens spirits will soon inforce an acknowledgement that the Vision of God and conformity to him are things above their reach and which they are never likely to take satisfaction in or at all to savour till they become otherwise disposed then before the renovating change they are The text expresses no more in stating the qualified subject of this blessedness in righteousness then it evidently implies in the account it gives of this blessedness it self that it lies in seeing God and being satisfied with his likeness Assoon as it is considered that the blessedness of Souls is stated here what can be a more obvious reflection then this Lord then how great a change must they undergo what such Souls be blessed in seeing and pertaking the Divine likeness that never loved it were so much his enemies 'T is true they are naturally capable of it which speaks their original excellencie but they are morally uncapable i. e. indisposed and averse which as truly and most sadly speaks their present vileness and the sordid object temper they now are of They are destitute of no natural Powers necessary to the attainment of this blessedness but in the mean time have them so depraved by impure and vitious tinctures that they cannot relish it or the means to it They have reasonable Soul's furnished with intellective and elective faculties but labouring under a manifold distemper and disaffection that they cannot receive they cannot savour the things of God or what is Spiritual They want the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as we may express it the well disposedness for the Kingdom of God intimated Luke 9. 62. the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the meetness the aptitude or idoneity for the inheritance of the Saints in light Col. 1. 12. A settled aversion from God hath fastned its roots in the very spirit of their minds for that is stated as the prime subject of the change to be made and how can they take pleasure then in the vision and participation of his glory whereas by beholding the glory of the Lord they should be changed into the same image a vail is upon the heart till it turn to the Lord as was said concerning the Jews 2 Cor. 3. The God of this world hath blinded their minds least that transforming light the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ who is the image of God should shine unto them Chap. 4. 4. They are alienated from the Life of God through their ignorance and blindness of heart The life they chuse is to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Atheists or without God in the world They like not to retain God in their knowledge are willingly ignorant of him Say to him depart from us we desire not the knowledge of thy wayes The Lord looks down from Heaven upon the children of men to see if any will understand if any will seek after God and the result of the inquiry is there is none that doth good no not one They are haters of God as our Saviour accused the Jews and Saint Paul the Gentiles Are lovers of pleasure more then lovers of God Their understandings are dark their minds vain their wills obstinate their Consciences seared their hearts hard and dead their lives one continued Rebellion against God and a defiance to Heaven At how vast distance are such Souls from such blessedness The notion and nature of blessedness must sure be changed or the temper of their Spirits Either they must have new hearts created or a new Heaven if ever they be happy And such is the stupid dotage of vain man he can more easily perswade himself to believe that the Sun it self should be transformed into a dunghill that the Holy God should lay aside his Nature and turn Heaven into a place of impure darkness then that he himself should need to undergo a change O ye powerful infatuation of self love that men in the gall of bitterness should think 't is well with their spirits and fancie themselves in a case good enough to enjoy Divine pleasures that as the Toads venome offends not it self their loathsom wickedness which all good men detest is a pleasure to them and while 't is as the poison of Asps under their lips they call it as a daintie bit revolve it in their thoughts with delight Their wickedness speakes it self out to the very hearts of others while it never affects their own and is found out to be hateful while they still continue slattering themselves And because they are without spot in their own eyes they adventure so high as to presume themselves so in the pure eyes of God too and instead of designing to be like God they already imagine him sucâ— a one as themselves Hence their allotment of time in the whole of it the Lord knowes little enough for the working out of their salvation spends a pace while they do not so much as understand their business Their measured hour is almost out an immense Eternity is coming on upon them and lo they stand as men that cannot find their hands Urge them to the speedy serious indeavour of an heart-change earnestly to intend the business of regeneration of becoming new creatures they seem to understand it as little as if they were spoken to in an unknown tongue and are in the like posture with the confounded builders of Babel they know not what we mean or would put them upon They wonder what we would have them do They are say they Orthodox Christians They believe all the Articles of the Christian Creed They detest all Heresie and false Doctrine They are no strangers to the house of God but diligently attend the injoyned Solemnities of Publick
collect who are in this world ordinarly and caeteris paribus where more unusual violent temptations hinder not the most satisfied and contented persons even those that have most of the clarifying sights of God and that thence partake most of his image indeed Scripture only vouchsafes the name to such sights of God he that doth evil hath not seen God Such as have most of a godly frame wrought into their spirits and that have hearts most attempered and conformed to God These are the most contented persons in the world Content is part of the gain that attends godliness it concurring renders the other a great gain godliness with contentment the form of expression discovers how connatural contentment is to godliness as if they were not to be mentioned apart Godliness as if he had said is a very gainful thing but if you would comprehend the gainfulness of it fully do not abstract too curiously take in with it that which is of so near an alliance that you will hardly know how to consider them apart let its inseparable adjunct contentment go along with it and you will find it againful thing indeed The true knowledge of God so directly tends to holiness and that to contentation that it may be too evidently concluded that a discontented person hath little of the one or the other not much knowledge and less grace he is so far from being like God that in the Apostles language above we may say he hath not seen him Doth that person know God or hath ever seen him that falls not into the dust admiring so glorious a Majesty that subjects not himself to him with Loyal affections accounting it his only grand concernment to please and serve him But the discontented person takes upon him as if he were God alone and as if he expected every creature to do him homage and thought the creation were made for the pleasure and service of none but him Hath that person ever seen God that acknowledges him not a sufficient portion a full all-comprehending good Hath he seen him that sees not reason to trust him to commit all his concernments to him Hath he seen him that loves him not and delights not in his love Hath he seen him that quits not all for him and abandons not every private interest to espouse his and how evidently do these things tend to quiet and compose the soul Discontent proceeds from idolizing thoughts of our selves 't is rooted in self-conceit in self-dependence self-love self-seeking all which despicable Idols or that one great Idol Self thus variously served and Idolized one sight of the Divine Glory would confound and bring to nothing The sights of God melt the heart break it under a sense of sin and hence compose it to a meek peaceful humility but the discontented spirit is an unbroken proud imperious spirit The sights of God purifie the soul refine it from the dross of this vile world make it daily aspire to a conformity unto the pure and Spiritual nature of God But a discontented spirit is a sensual terrene spirit for what but such objects are the usual matter of most mens discontents taking sensuality in its just latitude 't is a low Dâ—nghil spirit fit for nothing but to rake and scrabble in the dirt I insist upon this apprehending what deserves more lamentation then it hath observation that too many annex a profession of eminent godliness and spirituality into an indulged querulous impatient temper of spirit joyn a splendid appearance of piety to an unreformed perverse frowardness which agree as well as a Jewel of Gold to a Swines â—nout nothing pleases them their mercies are not worth the acknowledging their afflictions intolerable not to be born They fall out and quarrel with all occurrences actions events neither Man nor God doth any thing good in their sight The world is not well govern'd nothing falls out well as to themselves What can possibly be thought on more repugnant to the knowledge of God The gâ—and design of all Religion and the very Spirit of the Gospel than this temper which way do these tend and aime but to lead souls to blessedness to bring them into a peaceful happy satisfied state and frame and must we because that end cannot be attained here therefore go the quite contrary way or pretend we are going to heaven with our backs turned upon it Sure the discoveries God now makes of himself to us and by which he impresses his likeness upon his own though they ultimately design our satisfaction and blessedness in heaven as intermediate there unto they aime at the bringing us into an Heaven upon Earth to form us unto a life agreeable and hath analogie with that of heaven unto which nothing is more analogous in our pre-present state then that peace and serenity which result from Divine Knowledge and holiness nothing more inconsistent then a peevish fretful turbulent Spirit The one is a participation of a bright and mild light from heaven the other of a dark and raging fire from Hell 'T is onely Gods face his glorious likeness reflected on our souls that shall satisfie hereafter and make heaven heaven He doth not now wholly conceal himself from us nor altogether hide his face The shining of the same face in what degree he now vouchsafes them will make this Earth an Heaven too One glance towards him may transmit a lively pleasant lustre upon our spirits They looked to him and were lightned And we live in the expectation of clearer and more impressive eternal visions It will become us to express a present satisfiedness proportionable to our present sights and expectations and to endeavour daily to see more and to be more like God that we may be daily more and more satisfied While me cannot yet attain to be making gradual approaches towards that blessed state By how much any have more of the vision and likeness of God in their present state so much they approach nearer unto satisfaction 6. We infer The love of God to his people is great which hath designed for them so great and even a satisfying good We cannot overlook the occasion this Doctrine gives us to consider and contemplate a while the love of God Iâ— this shall be the blessedness of his Saints 't is a great love that shall be the Spring and source of it Two things here before our eyes discover the greatness of this love That it designes satisfact on to the persons meant and that they shall be satisfied with the Divine vision and likeness 1. It designs their sâ—tisfactiâ—n This is as far as love can go 'T is love to the uttermost Iâ— doth not satisfie itself till it satisfie them 'T is love to spare an enemy to relieve a stranger but to satisfie for ever them that were both this sâ—â—e exceeds all the wonted measures of love Much love is shewn in the forgiveness of sin in the sâ—pply of necessities but herein as the Apostle
foreseeth c. The righteous man so far excells in this faculty as that his eye looks thorow all the periods of time and penetrates into eternity recommends to the Soul a blessedness of that same stamp and alloy that will endure and last for ever It will not content him to be happy for an hour or for any Space that can have an end after which it shall be possible to him to look back and recount with himself how happy he was once Nor is he much solicitous what his present state be if he can but find he is upon safe tearms as to his future and eternal state As for me saith the Psalmist he herein sorts and severs himself from them whose portion was in this life I shall behold I shall be satisfied when I awake he could not say it was well with him but it shall be q. d. Let the purblind short-sighted Sensualist imbrace this present world who can see no further Let me have my portion in the world to come may my soul always lie open to the impression of the powers of the coming world and in this so use every thing as to be under the power of nothing What are the pleasures of sin that are but for a season or what the sufferings of this now this moment of affliction to the glory that shall be revealed to the exceeding and eternal glory He considers patient afflicted godliness will triumph at last when riotous raging wickedness shall lament for ever He may for a time weep and mourn while the world rejoyces he may be sorrowful but his sorrow shall be turned into joy and his joy none shall take from him Surely here is wisdom this is the wisdom that is from above and tends thither This is to be wise unto salvation The righteous man is a judicious man he hath in a measure that judgment wherein the Apostle prayes the Philippians might abound to approve the things that are excellent and accordingly to make his choice This is a sense little thought of by the Authour wherein that sober Speech of the voluptuous Philosopher is most certainly true A man cannot live happily without living wisely No man shall ever enjoy the eternal pleasures hereafter that in this acquits not himself wisely here even in this chusing the better part that shall never be taken from him In this the plain righteous man out-vies the greatest Sophies the Scribe the disputer the Politician the prudent Mamonist the facete Wit who in their several kinds all think themselves highly to have merited to be accounted wise And that this point of wisdom should escape their notice and be the principal thing with him can be resolved into nothing else but the Divine good pleasure In this contemplation our Lord Jesus Christ is said to have rejoyced in Spirit it even put his great comprehensive soul into an extasie Father I thank thee Lord of heaven and earth that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes Even so Father because it pleased thee Here was a thing fit to be reflected on as a piece of Divine Royalty a part worthy the Lord of heaven and earth And what serious spirit would it not amaze to weigh and ponder this case awhile to see men excelling in all other kinds of knowledge so far excelled by those they most contemn in the highest point of wisdom such as know how to search into the abstrusest Mysteries of Nature that can unravel or see through the most perplext intrigues of State that know how to save their own Stake and secure their private Interests in whatsoever times yet so little seen often for not many wise in the matters that concern an eternal felicity It puts me in mind of what I find observed by some the particular madness adementia quoad hoc as 't is called when persons in every thing else capable of sober rational discourse when you bring them to some one thing that in reference to which they became distempered at first they rave and are perfectly mad How many that can manage a discourse with great reason and judgment about other matters who when you come to discourse with them about the affairs of practical godliness and which most directly tend to that future state of blessedness they are 〈◊〉 at their wits end know not what to say They savour not those things These are things not understood but by such to whom it is given And surely that given wisdom is the most excellent wisdom Sometimes God doth as it were so far gratifie the world as to speak their own language and call them wise that affect to be called so and that wisdom which they would fain have go under that name Moses 't is said was skil'd in all the wisdom of Egypt c. but at other times he expresly calls those wise men fools and their wisdom folly and madness or annexes some disgraceful adject for distinction sake or applies those appellatives Ironically and in manifest derision No doubt but any such person as was represented in the parable would have thought himself to have done the part of a very wise man in entertaining such deliberation and resolvs as we find he had there with himself How strange was that to his ears Thou fool this night shall they require thy soul c. Their wisdom is sometimes said to be foolish or else called the wisdom of the flesh or fleshly wisdom said to be earthly sensual devillish they are said to be wise to do evil while to do good they have no understanding they are brought sometimes as it were upon the stage with their wisdom to be the matter of divine triumph where is the wise and that which they account foolishness is made to confound their wisdom And indeed do they deserve to be thought wise that are so busily intent upon momentary trifles and trifle with eternal concernments that prefer vanishing shadows to the everlasting glory that follow lying vanities and forsake their own mercies Yea will they not cease to be wise in their own eyes also when they see the issue and reap the fruits of their foolish choice when they find the happiness they preferred before this eternal one is quite over and nothing remains to them of it but an afflictive remembrance That the torment they were told would follow is but now beginning and without end when they hear from the mouth of their impartial Judge Remember you in your life time had your good things and my faithful servants their evil now they must be comforted and you tormented When they are told you have received the consolation you were full ye did laugh now you must pine and mourn and weep Will they not then be as ready to befool themselves and say as they be those righteous ones are they whom we sometimes had in derision and for a proverb of reproach we fools counted their life madness
which he manifest himself To behold Him in the posture wherein he saves souls clad with the garments of Salvation girt with power and apparell'd with love travelling in the greatness of his strength mighty to save To view Him addressing himself to allure and win to him the hearts of sinners when he discovers himself in Christ upon that reconciling design make grace that brings salvation appear teaching to deny ungodliness c. To behold Him entring into humane flesh pitching his Tabernacle among men hanging out his Ensignes of peace laying his trains spreading his nets the cords of a man the bands of love To see Him in his Christ-ascending the Cross lifted up to draw all men to him and consider that mighty love of justice and of souls both so eminently conspicuous in that stupendious sacrifice Here to fix our eyes looking to Jesus and behold him whom we have pierced To see His power and glory as they are wont tâ— be seen in his sanctuaries to observe him in the solemnities of his worship and the gracefulâ— postures wherein he holds communion with his Saints when he seats himself amidst them on the Throne of grace receives their addresses dispenses the tokens and pledges of his love Into what transports might these visions put us every day Let us then stir up our drowsie souls open our heavy eyes and turn them upon God inureâ— and habituate them to a constant view of his yet vailed face that we may not see him onely by casual glances but as those that seeâ— his face and make it our business to gain â— thorough knowledge of him But let us remember that all our present Visions of God must aim at a further Conformity to him they must design imitation not the satisfying of curiosity our looking must not therefore be an inquisitive busie prying into the unrevealed things of God Carefully abstain from such over-bold presumptuous looks But remember we are to eye God as our pattern Wherein he is to be so he hath plainly enough reveal'd and propos'd himself to us And consider this in the pattern both to which we ought and to which we shall be conformed if we make it our business so will sense of duty and hope of success concur to fix our eye and keep it steady Especially let us endeavour to manage and guide our eye aright in beholding him that our sight of him may most effectually subserve this design of being like him and herein nothing will be more conducible than that our looks be qualified with Reverence and Love 1. Let them be reverential looks We shall never be careful to imitate a despised pattern or that we think meanly of when this is the intimate sense of our souls Who is a God like unto thee glorious in holiness There is none holy as the lord this will set all our powers on work such sights will command and over-awe our souls into a conformity to him Subjects have sometimes affected to imitate the very imperfections and deformities of their adored Prince Let us greaten our thoughts of God Look to him with a submissive adoring eye Let every look import worship and subjection Who can stand before apprehended sovereign Majesty with such a temper of soul â— shall signifie an affront to it This will makâ— every thing in us unsutable to God yield anâ— vanish and render our souls susceptible of alâ— divine and holy impressions 2. Let them be friendly and as far as may consist with that reverence amorous lookâ— 'T is natural to affect and endeavour likeness tâ— them we love Let love alwayes sit in our eye and inspirit it this will represent God alwayâ— amiable will infinitely commend to us his nature and attributes and even ravish us into his liâ—eness The loving Spouse often glorieâ— to wear her beloved Husbands picture on her breast The love of God will much more makeâ— us affect to bear his image in our hearts His Law is a true representation of him and Love is the fulfilling of that Law an exemplification of it in our selves Love will never enter a quarrel nor admit of any disagreement with God His more terrible appearances will be commendable in the eye of Love It thinks no evil But so interprets and comments upon his severer aspects whether through his Law or Providence as judge all amiable and frame the soul to an answerable deportment 2. In this way then let us endeavour a growing conformity unto God It hath been much and not unnecessarily inculcated already that the blessedness of the righteous hereafter doth not consist meerly in beholding an external objective glory but in being also glorified They are happy by a participated glory by being made like God as well as seeing his glorious likeness whereby the constitution of their Spirits is changed and reduced to that excellent harmonious agreeable temper that holy composure and peaceful state from which blessedness is inseparable As far as we are capable of blessedness in this world it must be so with us here Glory without us will not make us happy in Heaven much less will any thing without us make us happy on earth 'T is an idle dream of sickly crazie minds that their blessedness consists in some external good that is separable and distant from them which therefore as they blindly guesse they uncertainly pursue never aiming to become good without which they can never know what it is to be blessed What â—elicity are men wont to imagine to themselves in this or that change of their outward condition were their state such or such then they were happy and should desire no more As the childs phansie suggests to it if it were on the top of such a Hill it could touch the Heavens but when with much toil it hath got thither it finds it self as far off as before We have a shorter and more compendious way to it would we allow our selves to understand it A right temper of mind involves blessedness in it self 't is this only change we need to endeavour We wear out our days in vanity and misery while we neglect this work and busie our selves to catch a fugitive shadow that hovers about us It can never be well till our own souls be an Heaven to us and blessedness be a domestique an home-dwelling inhabitant there 'Till we get a settled principle of holy quietude into our own breasts become the sonâ— of peace with whom the peace of God may find entrance and abode Till we have that treasure within us that may render us in sensible of any dependence on a forraign good or fear of a forraign evil Shall that be the boast and glory of â— Phylosopher onely I carry all my goods with â— where ever I go And that a vertuous good man iâ— liable to no hurt Seneca thinks they discoveâ— a low Spirit that say externals can adde any thing though but a very little to the felicity of an honest mind as if saith he meâ—
look for this blessed hope the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. That which you know consummates that blessedness For when Christ who iâ— their life shall appear then shall they also appear with him in glory by the participation of the divine nature their Spirits escape and get up above this corrupt impure world That new nature is a holy flame that carries theâ—r hearts upwards towards heaven Further such desires appear hence to be of divine originall an infusion from the blessed God himself That nature is from him immediately in which they are implanted The Apostle speaking of his earnest panting desire to have mortality swallowed up of life presently add's He that wrought us to the self same thing is God They are obedient desires The souls present answere to the heavenly call by which God calls it to his kingdom and glory This glory is as hath been formerly noted the very term of that calling The God of all grace hath called us into his eternal glory by Christ Jesus The gloriâ—ied state is the marke the price of the high calling of God in Christ. T is the matter of the Apostles thanksgiving unto God on the behalf of the Thessalonians that they were called by his Gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ when the soul desires this glory it obediently answers this call This is a complyance and subjection of heart to it How Lovely and becoming a thing is this when God touches the heart with a stamp and impress of glory and it forthwith turnes it self to that very point and stands directly bent towards the state of glory if not wayward or perverse but here in yield it self to God and complyes with the divine pleasure Such desires have much in them of a child-like ingenuity To desire the sight of a Fathers face when this is this intimate sense of the soul show me the Father and it suffices To desire the fullest conformity to his nature and will to be perfect as that heavenly Father is perfect what doth better become a child They are generous desires they aim at perfection the highest that created nature is capable of not contented to have had some glances of divine glory some stroaks and lines of his image but aspiring to full-eyd visions a perfect likeness They are victorious desires they as it were ride in triumph over the world and every sublunarie thing they must be supposed to have conquered sensual inclinations to have got the mastery over terrene dispositions and affections With what holy contempt and scorn of every earthly thing doth that loftie soul quit thiâ— dirty world and ascend that is powerfully carryed by its own desire towards the blessed state The desire of such a knowledge of Christ as might transform into his Likeness and pass the soul through all degrees of conformity to him till it attain the resurrection of the dead and become like a risen glorified Jesus Such a desire I say if it make all things seem as loss and dung in comparison even a formal Spirit less religion it self will it not render this world the most despicable dunghill of all the rest Try such a soul if you can tempt it down to injoy a flattering kind world or to please it when angry and unkind When desires after this glory are once awakn'd into an active lively vigour when the fire is kindled and the flame ascends and this refined Spirit is joyfully ascending therein see if you can draw it back and make it believe this world a more regardable thing Why should not all those considerations make thee in love with this blessed frame of Spirit and restless till thou find thy self uncapable of being satisfied with any thing but divine likeness 6. That while we cannot as yet attain the mark and end of our desires we yeild not to a comfortless despondency in the way but maintain in our hearts a lively joy in the hope that hereafter we shall attain it We are not all this while perswading to the desire and pursuit of an unattainable good Spiritual desires are also rational and do therefore involve hope with them and that hope ought to infer and cherish joy Hopeless desire is full of torment and must needs banish joy from that breast which it hath not the possession of T is a disconsolate thing to desire what we must never expect to enjoy and are utterly unlikely ever to compass But these desires are part of the new creature which is not of such a composition as to have a principle of endless trouble and disquiet in it self The Father of mercies is not so little merciful to his own child to lay it under a necessity from its very natural constitution of being for ever miserable by the desire of that which it can never have It had been very unlike the workmanship of God to make a creature to which it should be necessarie to desire and empossible to enjoy the same thing Not but as he hath given holy souls as to the present case great incentives of desire so doth he afford them proportionable encouragements of hope also and that hope intervening can very well reconcile desire and joy and lodge them together in the same bosome So that as it is a thing capable of no excuse to hear of this blessedness and not desire it so it would be to desire and not expect it to expect it and not rejoyce in it even while we are under that expectation And it must be a very raised joy that shall answer to the expectation of so great things If one should give a stranger to Christianity an account of the Christian hopes and tell him what they expect to be and enjoy erelong he would sure promise himself to find so many angells dwelling in humane flesh and reckon when he came among them he should be as amidst heavenly Quire every one ful of joy and praise He would expect to find us living on earth as the inhabitants of heaven also many pieces of immortal glory lately dropt down from above and shortly again returning thither He would look to find every where in the Christian world incarnate glory sparkling through the over-shaddowing vail and wonder how this earthly sphere should be able to contain so many great souls But when he draws nearer to us and observs the course and carriage of our lives when he sees us walk as other men and considers the strange disagreement of our daily conversation to our so great avowed hopes and how little sense of joy and pleasure we discover our selves to conceive in them would he not be ready to say sure some or other willing only to amuse the world with the noise of strange things have composed a Religion for these men which they themselves understand nothing of If they do adopt and own it for theirs they understand not their own pretences they are taught to speak
immediately meets it presenting its self to him It onely views him instead of it self and would not now change its state for any thing not if one could give it the whole heaven in exchange And else where discussing whether life in the body be good and desirable yea or no he concludes it to be good not as it is an union of the soul and body but as it may have that vertue annex't to it by which what is really evil may be kept off But yet that that death is a greater good That life in the body is in it self evil but the soul is by vertue stated in goodness not as enlivening the body with which it is compounded but as it severs and so joyns it self from it meaning so as to have as little communion as possible it can with it To which purpose is the expression of another That the soul of an happy man so collects and gathers up it self out from all things into it self that it hath as it were separated it self from the body while it is yet contained in it And that it was possest of that fortitude as not to dread its departure from it Another gives this character of a good man that as he liv'd in simplicity tranquility purity not being offended at any that they believed him not to live so he also comes to the end of his life pure quiet and easie to be dissolved disposing himself without any constraint to his lot Another is brought in speaking thus If God should grant me to become a Child again to send forth my renewed infant-cries from my Cradle and having even run out my race to begin it again I should most earnestly refuse it for what profit hath this life and how much toil Yet I do not repent that I have lived because I hope I have not liv'd in vain And I now go out of this life not as out of my dwelling house but my Inn. O blessed day when I shall enter into that Council and Assembly of souls and depart from this rude and disorderly rout and crew c. I shall adde another of a not much unlike strain and rank that discoursing who is the Heir of Divine things as being either not an open or no constant friend to Christianity Saith he cannot be who is in love with this animal sensitive life but only that purest mind that is inspired from above that partake of an Heavenly and Divine portion that onely despises the body c. with much more of like import Yea so have some been transported with the desire of immortality that being wholly ignorant of the sin of self-murder they could not forbear doing violence to themselves Among the Indians two thousand years ago were a sort of wise men as they were called that held it a reproach to dye of age or a disease and were wont to burn themselves alive thinking the flames were polluted if they came amidst them dead The story of Cleombrotus is famous who hearing Plato discourse of the immortality of the soul by the Sea side leapt from him into the Sea that he might presently be in that state And 't is storied that Nero refused to put Apollonius to death though he were very much incenst against him only upon the apprehension he had that he was very desirous to dye because he would not so far gratifie him I onely make this improvement of all this Christian Principles Rule do neither hurry nor misguide men but the end as we have it revealed should much more powerfully and constantly attract us Nothing is more unsuitable to Christianity our way nor to that blessedness the end of it then a terrene Spirit They have nothing of the true light and impress of the Gospel now nor are they ever like to attain the Vision of the blessed face of God and the impress of his likeness hereafter that desire it not above all things and are not willing to quit all things else for it And is it not a just exprobration of our earthliness and carnality if meer Philosophers and Pagans shall give better proof then we of a spirit erected above the world and alienated from what is temporary and terrene Shall their Gentilism outvy our Christianity Methinks a generous indignation of this reproach should inflame our souls and contribute somewhat to the refining of them to a better and more Spiritual temper Now therefore O all you that name your selves by that worthy name of Christians that profess the Religion taught by him that was not of the earth earthly but the Lord from heaven you that are partakers of the heavenly calling Consider the great Apostle and High-priest of your profession who only took our flesh that we might partake of his Spirit bare our earthly that we might bare his heavenly Image descended that he might cause us to ascend Seriously bethink your selves of the Scope and end of his Apostleship and Priesthood He was sent out from God to invite and conduct you to him to bring you into the Communion of his glory and blessedness He came upon a Message and Treaty of peace To discover his Fathers love and win yours To let you know how kind thoughts the God of love had conceived to you-wards And that however you had hated him without cause and were bent to do so without end he was not so affected towards you To settle a friendship and to admit you to the participation of his eternal glory Yea he came to give an instance and exemplifie to the world in his own Person how much of heaven he could make to dwell in mortal flesh how possible he could render it to live in this world as unrelated to it How gloriously the divine life could triumph over all the infirmities of frail humanity And so leave men a certain proof and pledge to what perfections humane nature should be improv'd by his grace and Spirit in all them that should resign themselves to his conduct and follow his steps That heaven and earth were not so far asunder but he knew how to settle a commerce and intercourse between them That an heavenly life was possible to be transacted here and certain to be gloriously rewarded hereafter And having testifi'd these things he seals the Testimony and opens the way for the accomplishment of all by his death Your heavenly Apostle becomes a Priest and a Sacrifice at once That no doubt might remain among men of his sincerity in what even dying he ceased not to profess and avow And that by his own propitiatory bloud a mutual reconciliation might be wrought between God and you that your hearts might be won to him and possest with an ingenuous shame of your ever having been his enemies And that his displeasure might for ever cease towards you and be turned into everlasting friendship and love That eternal redemption being obtained heaven might be opened to you and you finally be received to the
glory of God Your hearts being bent thitherward and made willing to run through whatsoever difficulties of life or death to attain it Do not think that Christ came into the world and dyed to procure the pardon of your sins and so translate you to heaven while your hearts should still remain cleaving to the earth He came and returned to prepare a way for you and then call not drag you thither That by his Precepts and Promises and Example and Spirit he might form and fashion your Souls to that glorious state And make you willing to abandon all things for it And low now the God of all grace is calling you by Jesus Christ unto his eternal Glory Direct then your eyes and hearts to that marke the Prise of the High calling of God in Christ Jesus 'T is ignominious by the common suffrage of the civiliz'd world not to intend the proper business of our Callings To your Calling to forsake this world and mind the other make hast then to quit your selves of your entanglements of all earthly dispositions and affections Learn to live in this world as those that are not of it that expect every day and wish to leave it whose hearts are gone already 'T is dreadful to dye with pain and regret To be forced out of the Body To dye a violent death and go away with an unwilling refluctant heart The wicked is driven away in his wickedness Fain he would stay longer but cannot He hath not power over the Spirit to retain the Spirit nor hath he power in death He must away whether he will or no. And indeed much against his will So it cannot but be where there is not a previous knowledge and love of a better state where the Soul understands it not and is not effectually attempered and framed to it O get then the lovely Image of the future glory into your minds keep it ever before your eyes Make it familiar to your thoughts Imprint daily there these words I shall behold thy face I shall be satisfied with thy likeness And see that your souls be inrich't with that righteousness Have inwrought into them that holy rectitude that may dispose them to that blessed state Then will you dye with your own consent and go away not driven but allur'd and drawn You will go as the redeemed of the Lord with everlasting joy upon their heads As those that know whether you go even to a state infinitely worthy of your desires and choice and where 't is best for you to be You will part with your souls not by a forcible separation but a joyful surrender and resignation They will dislodge from this earthly Tabernnacle rather as putting it off then having it rent and torn away Loosen your selves from this body by degrees as we do any thing we would remove from a place where it sticks fast Gather up your spirits into themselves Teach them to look upon themselves as distinct thing Inure them to the thoughts of a dissolution Be continually as taking leave Cross and disprove the common maxime and let your hearts which they use to say are wont to dye last dye first Prevent death and be mortifi'd towards every earthly thing beforehand that death mave have nothing to kill but your body And that you may not die a double death in one hour and suffer the death of your body and of your love to it both at once Much less that this should survive to your greater and even incurable misery Shake off your Bands and Fetters the terrene affections that so closely confine you to the house of your bondage And lift up your heads in expectation of the approaching Jubilee the day of your redemption when you are to go out free and enter into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God When you shall serve and groan and complain no longer Let it be your continual song and the matter of your daily praise that the time of your happy deliverance is hastening on that ete long you shall be absent from the body and present with the Lord. That he hath not doom'd you to an everlasting imprisonment within those closs and clayie walls wherein you have been so long shut up from the beholding of his sight and glory In the thoughts of this while the outward man is sensibly perishing let the inward revive and be renewed day by day What Prisoner would be sorry to see the walls of his Prison House so an Heathen speaks mouldering down and the hopes arriving to him of being delivered out of that darkness that had buried him of recovering his liberty and injoying the free air and light What Champion inur'd to hardship would stick to throw off rotten rags rather expose a naked placid free body to naked placid free air The truly generous soul to be a little above never leaves the body against its will Rejoyce that it is the gracious pleasure of thy good God thou shalt not always inhabit a Dungeon nor lie amid'st so impure and disconsolate darkness that he will shortly exchange thy filthy Garments for those of Salvation and Praise The end approaches As you turn over these leaves so are your days turned over And as you are now arrived to the end of this Book God will shortly write Finis to the Book of your Life on Earth and shew you your names written in Heaven in the Book of that Life which shall never end FINIS Senec. * Pruritus disputandi scobies Ecclesia * Ut ulcera quaedam nocituras manus apoetunt tactu gaudent faedam corporum scabiem delectat quicquid â—xâ—sperâ—t Non alitè◠dixerim his mâ—ntibus in quas voluptates velut mala ulcera crupê unt voluptati esse laborem vexâ—tionemque Sâ—n. de tranquillitate anâ—â—â— Sen de Brev. vit * Nihil est Deo similius aut gratius quam vir animo perfectè bonus c. Apul. de Deo Soâ—â—atis * Inter bonos viros ac Deum amicitia est conciliante virtute amicitiam dico etiam necessitudâ— similitudâ— c. Sca de prov * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plato in Minâ—e 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Dyonys Halicar Antiq. Rom. lib. 8. Rom. 2 6 7 8 9. * Rom. 16 18. Phil. 3. 19. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sept. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The vâ—lgar Latine Eâ—oautem 〈…〉 appaâ—câ—o â—oâ—spectui 〈◊〉 satiabo◠〈◊〉 â—â—pâ—â—uâ—riâ— gloâ—ia tua Exactly following the Seventy as doth the Ethiopique the Chaldee Paraphrase disagrees little the Arabique lesse the Syâ—iâ—ck mistook it seem◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so read that word saith which we read likenesse Hieronymus juxta Hebr. reads the words exactly as we do Ego in justiâ—iâ viâ—â—bo faciâ—m tuam implebor cum evigilavero similitudine tua 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Seems best to be rendered here by or through righteousness as by the condition
and he that peâ—ceiveth the operations of a strong effectual Lovâ— hath an acquaintance with God and Heaven whiâ—â— is above that of believing Faith seeth the Feaâ—â— but Love is the tasting of it And therefore it that the Holiest souls sticks closest unto God because though their reâ—soning faculty may be dâ—fective they know him by the highest and mâ— Tenacious kind of knowledge which this Worâ—â—ffâ—rdeth as I have lately shewed elsewhere â— Here you have described to you the true witness the spirit Not that of supposed Internal Voiceâ— which they are usually most taken up with whâ— have the smallest knowledge and Faith and Love and the greatest self esteem or spiritual pride with the strongest phantasies and pâ—ssiâ—ns But the objective and the sealing Testimony the Divinâ— Nature the renewed Image of God whose Children are known by being like to their Heavenly Father even by being Holy as he is Holy This is the Spirit of Adoption by which we are inclined by Holy Love to God and confidence in him to cry Abba Father and to flie unto him The Spirit of Sanctification is thereby in us the Spirit of Adoption For both signifie but the giving us that Love to God which is the filial nature and our â—athers Image And this Treatise doth happily direct thee to â—â—at faithful beholding God in Righteousness which â—ust here begin this blessed Assimilation which full â—tuition will for ever perfect It is a happy sign that God is about to repair our â—ins and divisions when he stirreth up his serâ—ants to speak so much of Heaven and to call â— the minds of impatient complainers and conâ—tious censurers and ignorant self conceited diâ—ders and of worldly unskilful and unmerciful â—stors to look to that state where all the godly shall one and to turn those thoughts to the furtherance Holiness to provoke one another to Love and to â—od works which two many lay out upon their hay â—â—d stubble And to call men from judging and â—spising each other and worse then both those out their Meats and Drinks and Dayes to study â—â—ghteousness and Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost â—r he that in these things serveth Christ in which â— Kingdom doth consist is acceptable to God and proved of men that are wise and good Let us â—â—erefore follow after the things which make for â—ace and things wherewith one may edifie anoâ—â—er whilest the contentious for meat will destroy â—e work of God Rom. 14. 17 18 19 20. The â—ion between Peace and Holiness is so strict that he â—o truly promoteth one promoteth both Heb. 12. â—4 Jam. 3. 17. The true way of our Union is exâ—lently described Eph. 4. 11 12 13 14 15 â—6 If any plain unlearned Readers shall blame the â—curateness of the stile they must remember that those persons have not the least need to hear of Heâ—ven and to be drawn up from the vanities of earâ—â— who cannot digest a looser stile As God hath endued the worthy Authour with more thâ—n ordinary measure of judiciousness 〈◊〉 soundness and accurateness of understanding 〈◊〉 seriousness spirituality and a heavenly mind we have for our common benefit the effects of these happy qualifications in this judicious heâ—venly discourse And if my recommendations mâ— in any measure further your acceptance in provement and practising of so edifying a Treatâ—â— it will answer the ends of him who waiteth with 〈◊〉 in hope for the same Salvation Rich. Baxter Acton May 30. 1668 THE BLESSEDNESSE OF THE RIGHTEOUS A Proemial Discourse to the intended Subject THe continual mixture of Good and Evil in this present state of things with its uncertain fluctuations and subjection to perpetual changes do naturally prompt a considering mind to the belief and hope of another that may be both more perfect and more permanent For certainly it could never be a design adequate or any way agreeable to the Divine Wisdom and goodness that the blessed God should raise such a thing as this lower Creation out of nothing Only to give himself the temporary pleasure of beholding the alternate Joys and Sorrows of the best part thereof his reasonable creature seated in it Nor a delight at all proportionable to an eternal happy being when he hath connaturalliz'd such a creature to this sensible world onely to take notice how variously the passions he hath planted in him may be mov'd and stir'd by this variety of occasions which he shal thence be presented with And what suddain and contrary impressions may be made upon his easie passive senses by the interchanged strokes and touches of contrary objects How quickly he can raise him into a transport of high contentment and pleasure and then how soon he can again reduce him to a very Paroxism of anguish and despair It would discover us to have very vile and low thoughts of God if we did not judge it altogether unanswerable to his perfections to design no further thing in creating this world and placing such a creature as man in it then onely to please himself for a while with such a spectacle and then at last clear the Stage and shut up all again in an eternal Silent darkness If we could suppose a man furnished with such power he would surely adde little to the reputation of his being wise or good beyond other men by a design so to use it Much less can we think it worthy of God to perpetuate such a state of things as this and continue a succession of such persons and actions as we now behold in the world through eternal generations onely to perpetuate to himself the same pleasure in the exercise of his immense power upon created natures over which he hath so infinite advantage And indeed nothing can be more unconceivable then that the great Creatour and Authour of all things should frame a Creature of so vast comprehension as the Spirit of man put into it a capacity of knowing and conversing with himself give it some prospect of his own glory and blessedness raise thereby in many boundless unsatisfied desires after him and an unexpressible pleasure in the preconceived hope of being received into the communion of that glory and blessedness and yet defeat and blast so great an expectation by the unsuspected reducement of the very subject of it again to nothing Yea and that he should deal herein as in that case he must the most hardly with the best And that such souls whose meer love and devotedness to him had made them abandon the pleasures of this life and run thorough whatsoever difficulties for his sake should fare worse then the very worst were beyond all the rest most utterly unimaginable and a thought which Pagan-reason hath not known how to digest or entertain If saith one and he speaks the sense of many another as well as his own with the dissolution of our bodies the essence of the Souls whatsoever that be should be dissolved too and for ever cease to be any thing I know not how
I can account them blessed that never having enjoyed any good as the reward of their vertue have even perished for vertue its self Wherefore it is consequent that this present state is only intended for trial to the spirits of men in order to their attainment of a better state in a better world That is that inasmuch as the infinitely wise and blessed God had given being to such a creature as man in which both words the material and the immaterial did meet And who in respect of his Earthly and Spiritual natures had in him somewhat suitable to each And whereas this Creature had lost with his interest his very inclination to the Spiritual Objects and enjoyments of the purer immaterial world wherein alone his true blessedness could consist suffered a vile depression of his Spirit unto this gross corporal world and hereby brought himself under a necessity of being miserable his nobler part having nothing now to satisfie it but what it was become unsuitable and disaffected to His merciful Creatour being intent upon his restitution thought fit not to bring it about by a suddain and violent hand as it were to catch him into Heaven against his will But to raise his Spirit into its just Dominion and Soveraignty in him by such gradual Methods as were most suitable to a rational and intelligent nature That is to discover to him that he had such a thing as Spirit about him whence it was fall'n how low it was sunk to what state it was yet capable to be rais'd and what he had design'd and done for its happy recovery And hence by the secret and powerful insinuations of his own Light and Grace to awaken his drowsie slumbering reason and incline his perverse and wayward will to the consideration and choice of such things as that felicity consists in which that better world can afford and his better part enjoy And while he propounds such things to him how reasonable and agreeable was it that he should keep him sometime under a just probation yea how much was there in it of a gracious and compassionate indulgence often to renew the trial whether he would yet bestir himself and having so great hopes before him and such helps and aids afforded him and ready to be afforded apply at last his intellectual and elective powers to mind and close with so gracious overtures in order to his own eternal advancement and blessedness Nor was it an unreasonable expectation that he should do so For however the temporal good and evil that may constantly affect his sensitive part and powers be present and near but the eternal misery or blessedness of his Soul future and remote Yet inasmuch as he is capable of understanding the vast disproportions of time and eternity of a mortal flesh and an immortal Spirit How preposterous a course were it and unworthy of a man Yea how dishonourable and reproachful to his Maker should he prefer the momentary pleasures of narrow incapatious sence to the everlasting enjoyments of an inlarged comprehensive Spirit Or for the avoiding the pains and miseries of the former kind incur those of the latter Whence also the holy God doth not expect and require onely that men should make that wiser choice But doth most justly lay the weight of their eternal states upon their doing or not doing so And in that day when he shall render to every one according to their works make this the Rule of his final judgment To allot to them who by a patient continuance in well doing seek for honour glory and immortality eternal life To the rest indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish c. and that whether they be Jews or Gentiles Nor is it a new thing in the world that some among the children of men should in this comply with the righteous will of God and so judge and chuse for themselves as he is pleased to direct and prescribe 'T is a course approved by the concurrent suffrage of all them in all times and ages into whose minds the true light hath shined and whom God hath inspired with that wisdom whereby he maketh wise to salvation That numerous Assembly of the perfected Spirits of the just have agreed in this common resolution And did in their several generations ere they had past this state of tryal with an Heroique magnanimity trample this present World under their feet and and aspire to the glory of the world to come Relieving themselves against all the grievances they have fuffered from such whose portion is in this life with the alone hope and confidence of what they were to enjoy in another And hereof we have an eminent and illustrious instance in this Context were the ground is laid of the following Discourse THE BLESSEDNESSE OF THE RIGHTEOVS Psal. 17. 15. As for me I will behold thy Face in Righteousness I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness CHAP. I. A reflection upon some foregoing verses of the Psalm by way of Introduction to the Text. A consideration of its somewhat various readings and of its literal importance A discussion of its real importance so far as is necessary to the settling the subject of the following discourse THe Title speaks the Psalm a Prayer of David The matter of the Prayer is preservation from his enemies Not to go over the whole Psalm we have â—n the 13. and 14. verses the sum of his deâ—ires with a description of the Person he prayes to be delivered from in which Description every Character is an Argument to enforce his prayer From the Wicked q. d. They are equally enemies to thee and me not more opposite to me by their cruelty then by their wickedness they are to thee Vindicate then at once thy selfe and deliver me Thy sword thy hand Thou canst as easily command and manage them as a man may weild his sword or move his hand Wilt thou suffer thine own sword thine own hand to destroy thine own Servant Men of the world which have their portion in this life Time and this lower World bound all their hopes and fears They have no serious believing apprehensions of any thing beyond this present life therefore have nothing to withhold them from the most injurious violence if thou withhold them not Men that believe not another world are the ready Actors of any imaginable mischiefes and Tragoedies in this Whose belly thou fillest i. e. Their sensual appetite As oftentimes that term is used With thy hid Treasures viz. the riches which either God is wont to hide in the bowels of the earth or lock up in the repository of Providence dispensing them at his own pleasure They are full of Children So it appears by that which followes it ought to be read and not according to that grosse but easie mistake of some Transcribers of the Seventy As if in all this he had pleaded thus Lord thou hast abundantly indulged those men already what need they more They have
compose the soul and reduce it to so quiet a consistency in the midst of storms and tempests how perfect and contentful a repose will the immediate vision and injoyment of God afford it in that serene and peaceful region where it shall dwell for ever free from any molestation from without or principle of dis-rest within CHAP. IX The Pleasure arising from knowing or considering our selves to be like God from considering it 1. Absolutely 2. Comparatively or respectively to the former state of the soul. To the state of lost souls To its pattern To the way of accomplishment To the souls own expectations To what it secures The Pleasure whereto it disposes of union communion A comparison of this Righteousness with this Blessedness 2. HEre is also to be considered the pleasure and satisfaction involv'd in this assimilation to God as it is known or reflâ—cted on or that arises from the cognosci of this likeness We have hitherto discoursed of the pleasure of being like God as that is apprehended by a spiritual sensation a feeling of that inward rectitude that happy pleasure of souls now perfectly restored We have yet to consider a further pleasure which acrews from the souls animadversion upon it self its contemplating its self thus happily transformed And though that very sensation be not without some animadversion as indeed no sensible perception can be performed without it yet we must conceive a consequent animadversion which is much more explicite and distinct and which therefore yields a very great addition of Satisfaction and delight As when the blessed soul shall turn its eye upon it self and designedly compose and set it self to consider its present state and frame the consideration it shall now have of it self and this likeness imprest upon it may be either Absolute or Comparative respective 1. Absolute How pleasing a spectacle will this be when the glorified soul shall now intentively behold its own glorious frame When it shall dwell in the contemplation of it self view it self round on every part turn its eye from glory to glory from beauty to beauty from one excellency to another and trace over the whole draught of this image this so exquisite piece of divine workmanship drawn out in its full perfection upon it self When the glorified eye and divinely enlightned and inspirited mind shall apply it self to criticize and make a judgment upon every several lineament every touch and stroke shall stay it self and scrupulously insist upon every part view at leisure every character of glory the blessed God hath instamp't upon it how will this likeness now satisfie And that expression of the blessed Apostle taken notice of upon some other occasion formerly The glory to be revealed in us seems to import in it a reference to such a self intuition What serves revelation for but in order to vision What is it but an exposing things to view and what is revealed in us is chiefly exposed to our own view All the time from the the Souls first conversion till now God hath been as it were at work upon it He that wrought us to c. hath been labouring it shaping it polishing it spreading his own glory upon it inlaying inameling it with glory now at last the whole work is revealed the Curtain is drawn aside the blessed Soul awakes Come now saith God behold my work see what I have done upon thee Let my work now see the light I dare expose it to the censure of the most curious eye let thine own have the pleasure of beholding it It was a work carried on in a Mystery secretly wrought as in the lower parts of the earth as we alluded before by a Spirit that came and went no man could tell how Besides that in the general only we knew we should be like him it did not yet appear what we should be now it appears There is a revelation of this glory O the ravishing pleasure of its first appearance and it will be a glory always fresh and flourishing as Job's expression is my glory was fresh in me and will afford a fresh undecaying pleasure for ever 2. The blessed soul may also be supposed to have a comparative and respective consideration of this impressed glory That is so as to compare it with and refer it to several things that may come into consideration with it and may so heighten its own delight in the contemplation thereof 1. If we consider this impression of glory in reference to its former loathsâ—me deformities that were upon it and which are now vanished and gone How unconceivable a pleasure will arise from this comparison when the soul shall consider at once what it is and what once it was and thus bethink it self I that did sometimes bear the accursed image of the Prince of darkness do now represent and partake of the holy pure nature of the Father of lights I was a meer Chaos an hideous heap of Deformity Confusion and Darkness But he that made light to shine out of darkness shined into me to give the knowledge of the light of his own glory in the face of Jesus Christ and since made my way as the shining light shining brighter and brighter unto this perfect day I was an habitation of Dragons a Cage of noisom lusts that as Serpents and Vipers were winding to and fro through all my faculties and powers and preying upon my very vitals Then was I hateful to God and an hater of him sin and vanity had all my heart The charming invitations and allurements of grace were as musick to a dead man to think a serious thought of God or breath forth an affectionate desire after him was as much against my heart as to pluck out mine own eyes or offer violence to mine own life After I began to live the Spiritual new life how slow and faint was my progress and tendency towards perfection how indisposed did I find my self to the proper actions of that life To go about any holy spiritual work was too often as to climb an Hill or strive against the stream or as an attempt to fly without wings I have sometime said to my heart Come now le ts go pray love God think of heaven but O how listless to these things how lifeless in them Impressions made how quickly lost gracious frames how soon wrought of and gone characters of glory rac'd out and overspread with earth and dirt Divine comeliness hath now at length made me perfect The glory of God doth now incloath me they are his ornaments I now wear He hath made me that lately lay among the pots as the wings of a dove covered with silver and her feathers with yellow gold he hath put another nature into me the true likeness of his own holy divine nature He hath now perfectly master'd and wrought out the enmity of my heart against him Now to be with God is my very element Loving admiring praising him are as natural as breathing once
Christian Doctrine as if they were of another Religion How unlike is the Christian world to the Christian Doctrine The seal is fair and excellent but the impression is languid or not visible Where is that serious godliness that heavenliness that purity that spirituality that righteousness that peace unto which the Christian Religion is most aptly designed to work and form the Spirits of men we think to be saved by an empty name and glory in the shew and appearance of that the life and power whereof we hate and deride 'T is a reproach with us not to be called a Christian and a greater reproach to be one If such and such Doctrines obtain not in our professed Belief we are Hereticks or Infidels if they do in our practice we are precisians and fools To be so serious and circumspect and strict and holy to make the practice of godliness so much our business as the known and avowed principles of our Religion do plainly exact from us yea though we come as we cannot but do unspeakably short of that required measure is to make ones self a common derision and scorn Not to be professedly religious is barbarous to be so in good earnest ridiculous In other things men are wont to act and practise according to the known Rules of their several Callings and Professions and he would be reckon'd the common fool of the neighbour-hood that should not do so The Husbandman that should sow when others reap or contrive his Harvest into the depth of Winter or sow Fitches and expect to reap Wheat The Merchant that should venture abroad his most precious Commodities in a leaky bottom without Pilot or Compass or to places not likely to afford him any valuable return In Religion only it must be counted absurd to be and do according to it s known agreed Principles and he a fool that shall but practise as all about him professe to believe Lord whence is this apprehended inconsistency between the profession and practise of Religion what hath thus stupify'd and unman'd the world that seriousness in Religion should be thought the character of a fool that men must visibly make a mockery of the most Fundamental Articles of Faith onely to save their reputation and be afraid to be serious least they should be thought mad Were the Doctrine here opened believed in earnest were the due proper impresse of it upon our Spirits or as the Pagan Moralists expression is were our mind transfigured into it what manner of persons should we be in all holy conversation and godliness But 't is thought enough to have it in our Creed though never in our hearts and such as will not deride the holiness it should produce yet indeavour it not nor go about to apply and urge truths upon their own souls to any such purpose What should turn into Grace and Spirit and Life turns all into Notion and Talk and men think all is well if their head be fill'd and their tongues tipt with what should transform their souls and govern their lives How are the most awful Truths and that should have greatest power upon mens Spirits trifled with as matters only of speculation and discourse They are heard but as empty airy words and presently evaporate pass away into words again like food as Seneca speaks that comes up presently the same that it was taken in which as he saith profits not nor makes any accession to the body at all A like case as another ingeniously speaks as if sheep when they have been feeding should present their Shepherds with the very grass it self which they have cropt and shew how much they had eaten No saith he they concoct it and so yield them Wool and Milk And so saith he do not you viz. when you have been instructed presently go and utter words among the more ignorant meaning they should not do so in a way of ostentation to shew how much they knew more than others but works that follow upon the concoction of what hath been by words made known to them Let Christians be ashamed that they need this instruction from heathen Teachers Thy words were found and I did eat them saith the Prophet and thy word was to me the joy and rejoycing of my heart Divine truth is only so far at present grateful or useful for future as 't is received by faith and consideration and in the love thereof into the very heart and there turned in succum sanguinem into real nutriment to the soul So shall man live by the word of God Hence is the application of it both personal and ministerial of so great necessity If the Truths of the Gospel were of the same alloy with some parts of Philosophy whose end is attained as soon as they are known If the Scripture Doctrine the whole entire System of it were not a Doctrine after godliness if it were not designed to sanctifie and make men holy or if the hearts of men did not reluctate were easily receptive of its impressions our work were as soon done as such a Doctrine were nakedly proposed But the state of the case in these respects is known and evident The tenour and aspect of Gospel truth speaks its end and experience too plainly speaks the oppositeness of mens Spirits All therefore we read and hear is lost if it be not urgently apply'd The Lord grant it be not then too Therefore Reader let thy mind and heart concur in the following improvement of this Doctrine which will be wholly comprehended under these Two heads Inferences of Truth Rules of Duty that are consequent and connatural thereto 1. Inferences of Truth educible from it 1. True Blessedness consists not in any sensual injoyment The blessedness of a man can be but one Most onely one He can have but one highest and best good And its proper character is that it finally satisfies and gives rest to his Spirit This the face and likeness of God doth his glory beheld and participated Here then alone his full blessedness must be understood to lye Therefore as this might many other wayes be evinced to be true so it evidently appears to be the proper issue of the present truth and is plainly proved by it But alas it needs a great deal more to be pressed than proved O that it were but as much considered as it is known The experience of almost 6000. years hath one would think sufficiently testified the incompetency of every worldly thing to make men happy that the present pleasing of our senses and the gratification of our animal part is not blessedness that men are still left unsatisfied notwithstanding But the practice and course of the world is such as if this were some late and rare experiment which for curiosity every one must be trying over again Every age renews the inquiry after an earthly felicity the design is intail'd as the Spanish designs are said to be and reinforc'd with as great a confidence and vigor
from age to age as if none had been baffled or defeated in it before or that it were very likely to take at last Had this been the alone folly of the first age it had admitted some excuse but that the world should still be cheated by the same so oft-defeated impostures presents us with a sad prospect of the deplorable state of mankind This their way is their folly yet their posterity approve c. The wearied wits and wasted estates laid out upon the Philosophers stone afford but a faint defective representation of this case What Chymistry can extract heaven out of a clod of clay What art can make blessedness spring and grow out of this cold earth If all created nature be vext and tortured never so long who can expect this Elixir Yet after so many frustrated attempts so much time and strength and labour lost men are still as eagerly and vainly busie as ever Are perpetually tossed by unsatisfied desires labouring in the â—ire wearying themselves for very vanity distracted by the uncertain and often contrary motions of a ravenous appetite and a blind mind that would be happy and knows not how With what sounding bowels with what compassionate tears should the state of mankind be lamented by all that understand the worth of a soul What serious heart doth not melt and bleed for miserable men that are through a just nemesis so perpetually mockt with shadows cheated with false delusive appearances infatuated and betrayed by their own senses They walk but in a vain shew disquieting themselves in vain their dayes flee away as a shadow their strength is onely labour and sorrow while they rise up early and lye down late to seek rest in trouble and life in death They run away from blessedness while they pretend to pursue it and suffer themselves to be led down without regret to perdition as an ox to the slaughter and a fool to the correction of the stocks till a dart strike through their liver Descend patiently the chambers of death not so much as once thinking whether are we going dream of nothing but an earthly paradise till they find themselves amidst the infernal regions 2. The Spirit of man in as much as 't is capable of such a blessedness appears an excellent creature It s natural capacity is supposed for the Psalmist speaks of his own numerical person the same that then writ I shall behold shall be satisfied take away this supposition and it could not be so said or as in Jâ—b's words I shall behold him and not another for me It would certainly be another not the same Judge hence the excellency of an humane soul the principal subject of this blessedness without addition of any new natural powers 't is capable of the vision of God of partaking unto satisfaction the divine likeness And is not that an excellent creature that is capable not onely of surveying the creation of God passing through the several ranks and orders of created Beings but of ascending to the Being of beings of contemplating the divine excellencies of beholding the bright and glorious face of the blessed God himself till it have lookt it self into His very likeness and have his intire image inwrought into it The dignity then of the Spirit of man is not to be estimated by the circumstances of its present state as 't is here clad with a â—ordid flesh inwrapt in darkness and gravelling in the dust of the earth but consider the improveableness of its natural powers and faculties the high perfections it may attain and the foundations of how glorious a state are laid in its very nature And then who can tell whether its possible advancement is more to be admired or its present calamity deplor'd Might this consideration be permitted to settle and fix it self in the hearts of men could any thing be so grievious to them as their so vast distance from such an attainable blessedness or any thing so industriously avoided so earnestly abhorred as that viler dejection and abasement of themselves when they are so low already by Divine disposition to descend lower by their own wickedness When they are already fallen as low as Earth to precipitate themselves as low as Hell How generous a disdain should that thought raise in mens spirits of that vile servitude to which they have subjected themselves a servitude to brutal lusts to sensual inclinations and desires as if the highest happiness they did project to themselves were the satisfaction of these Would they not with an heroick scorn turn away their eyes from beholding vanity did they consider their own capacity of beholding the divine glory could they satisfie themselves to become like the beasts that perish did they think of being satisfied with the likeness of God And who can conceive unto what degree this aggravates the sin of man that he so little minds as it will their misery that shall fall short of this blessedness They had spirits capable of it Consider thou sensual man whose happiness lies in Colours and Tasts and Sounds as the Moralist ingeniously speaks that herd'st thy self with bruit creatures and aimest no higher then they as little lookest up and art as much a stranger to the thoughts and desires of Heaven thy Creation did not set thee so low they are where they were but thou art fall'n from thy excellency God did not make thee a brute Creature but thou thy self Thou hast yet a spirit about thee that might understand its own originals and alliance to the Father of Spirits that hath a designation in its nature to higher converses and imployments Many myriads of such spirits of no higher original excellency then thy own are now in the presence of the Highest Majesty are prying into the eternal glory contemplating the perfections of the Divine Nature beholding theâ— unvailed face of God which transfuses upon them its own satisfying likeness Thou art not so low-born but thou might'st attain this state also That Soveraign Lord and Authour of all things calls thee to it his goodness invites thee his authority enjoyns thee to turn thy thoughts and designs this way Fear not to be thought immodest or presumptuous 't is but a dutiful ambition an obedient aspiring Thou art under a Law to be thus happy nor doth it bind thee to any natural impossibility it designs instruction to thee not delusion guidance not mockery When thou art required to apply and turn thy Soul to this blessedness 't is not the same thing as if thou wert bidden to remove a Mountain to pluck down a Star or create a World Thou art here put upon nothing but what is agreeable to the primaeval nature of man and though it be to a vast heighth thou must ascend 't is by so easie and familiar Methods by so apt Gradations that thou wilt be sensible of no violence done to thy nature in all thy way Do but make some trials with thy self thou wilt soon find
towards one another they slide insensibly into each others bosomes even the most churlish morose natures are wrought upon by assiduous repeated kindnesses gutta cavat lapidem c. as often falling drops at length wear and work into very stones Towards God their hearts are more impenetrable then Rocks harder then Adamants He is seeking with some an acquaintance all their days They live their whole age under the Gospel and yet are never wonne They hearken to one another but are utterly unperswadable towards God as the deaf Adder that hears not the voice of the Charmer though charming never so wisely The clearest Reason the most powerful Arguments move them not no nor the most insinuative allurements the sweetest breathings of love How often would I have gathered thee as the Hen her Chickens under her wings and ye would not God draws with the cords of a man with the bends of love but they still perversly keep at an unkind distance Men use to believe one another were there no credit given to each others words and some mutual confidence in one another there could be no humane converse all must affect solitude and dwell in Dens and Desarts as wild beasts but how incredulous are they of all Divine Revelations though testified with never so convincing evidence â—ho hath believed our report The word of the eternal God is regarded O amazing wickedness as we would the word of a Child or a Fool. No sober rational man but his Narrations Promises or Threatnings are more reckon'd of Men are more reconcileable to one another when enemies more constant when friends How often doth the power of a conquering enemy and the distress of the conquered work a submission on this part and a remission on that How often are haughty spirits stoopt by a series of calamities and made ductile proud arrogants formed by necessity and misery into humble supplicants so as to lie prostrate at the feet of a man that may help or hurt them while still the same persons retain indomitable unyielding spirits towards God under their most afflictive pressures Though his gracious Nature and Infinite fulness promise the most certain and liberal relief 't is the remotest thing from their thoughts to make any address to him They cry because of the oppression of the mighty but none says where is God my Maker who giveth songs in the night Rather perish under their burdens then look towards God when his own visible hand is against them or upon them and their lives at his mercy they stand it out to the last breath and are more hardly humbled then consumed Sooner burn then weep shrivel'd up into ashes sooner then melted into tears Scorched with great heat yet repent not to give glory to God Gnaw their tongues for pain and yet still more disposed to blaspheme then pray or sue for mercy Dreadful thought As to one another Reconciliations among men are not impossible or unfrequent even of mortal enemies but they are utterly implacable towards God! yet they often wrong one another but they cannot pretend God ever did them the least wrong yea they have liv'd by his bounty all their days They say to God depart from us yet he filleth their houses with good things So true is the Historians observation Hatred is sharpest where most unjust Yea when there seems at least to have been a reconciliation wrought are treacheries Covenant-breakings revolts strangeness so frequent among men towards one another as from them towards God How inconsistent with friendship is it according to common estimate to be alwayes promising never performing upon any or no occasion to break off intercourses by unkind alienations or mutual hostilities to be morose reserv'd each towards other To decline or disaffect each others converse To shut out one another from their hearts and thoughts But how common and unregretted are these carriages towards the blessed God It were easie to expatiate on this Argument and multiply Instances of this greater disaffection But in a word what observing person may not see what serious person would not grieve to see the barbarous sooner putting on civility the riotous sobriety the treacherous fidelity the morose urbanity the injurious equity the churlish and covetous benignity and charity then the ungodly man piety and sincere devotedness unto God Here is the principal wound and distemper sin hath infected the nature of man with Though he have suffered a universal impairment he is chiefly prejudic'd in regard of his habitude and tendency towards God and what concerns the duties of the first Table Here the breach is greatest and here is greatest need of repair True it is an inoffensive winning deportment towards men is not without its excellency and necessity too And it doth indeed unsufferably reproach Christianity and unbecome a Disciple of Christ yea it discovers a man not to be led by his Spirit so to be none of his to indulge himself in immoral deportments towards men to be undutiful towards Superiors unconversable towards equals oppressive towards Inferiors unjust towards any Yet is an holy disposition of heart towards God most earnestly and in the first place to be indeavoured which will then draw on the rest as having in it highest equity and excellency and being of most immediate necessity to our blessedness Fifthly consider That there may be some gradual tendencies or fainter essayes towards godliness that fall short of real godliness or come not up to that thorough change and determination of heart Godward that is necessary to the blessedness There may be a returning but not to the most high and wherein men may be as the Prophet immediately subjoyns like a deceitful Bow not fully bent that will not reach the mark They come not home to God Many may be almost perswaded and even within reach of Heaven not far from the Kingdom of God may seek to enter and not be able their hearts being somewhat inclinable but more averse for they can only be unable as they are unwilling The soul is in no possibility of taking up a complacential rest in God till it be brought to this to move toward him Spontaneously and with as it were a seâ—f motion And then is it self moved towards God when its preponderating bent is towards him As a massie stone that one attempts to displace if it be heav'd at till it preponderate it then moves out by its own weight otherwise it reverts and lies where and as it did before So 't is with many mens hearts all our lifting at them is but the rolling of the returning stone they are mov'd but not remov'd sometimes they are lifted at in the publique Ministry of the Word sometimes by a private seasonable admonition sometimes God makes an affliction his Minister a danger startles them a sickness shakes them and they think to change their course but how soon do they change those thoughts and are where they were what inlightnings and
supreme desire till it attain to the fulness thereof We have here a plainly-implyed description of the posture and tendencies of such a soul even of a sanctified holy Soul which had therefore undergone this blessed change towards this state of blessedness I shall saith he be satisfied with thy likeness q. d. I cannot be satisfied otherwise We have seen how great a change is necessary to dispose the Soul to this blessedness which being once wrought nothing else can now satisfie it Such a thing is this blessedness I speak now of so much of it as is previous and conducing to satisfaction or of blessedness materially considered the Divine Glory to be beheld and participated 'T is of that nature it makes the Soul restless it lets it not be quiet after it hath got some apprehension of it till it attain the full enjoyment The whole life of such a one is a continual seeking Gods face So attractive is this glory of a subject rightly disposed to it While others crave Corn and Wine this is the summe of the holy Souls desires Lord lift thou up the light of thy countenance c. The same thing is the object of its present desires that shall be of its eternal satisfaction and enjoyment This is now it s one thing the request insisted on to behold the beauty of the Lord c. and while in any measure it doth so yet 't is still looking for this blessed hope still hoping to be like him see him as he is the expectation of satisfaction in this state implies the restless working of desire till then for what is this satisfaction but the fulfilling of our desires the perfecting of the souls motions in a complacential rest Motion and rest do exactly correspond each to other Nothing can naturally rest in any place to which it was not before naturally inclin'd to move and the rest is proportionably more compos'd and steady according as the motion was stronger and more vigorous By how much the heavier any body is so much the stronger and less resistible is its motion downward and then accordingly it is less moveable when it hath attained its resting place 'T is therefore a vanity and contradiction to speak of the Souls being satisfied in that which it was not before desirous of And that state which it shall ultimately and eternally acquiesse in with a rest that must therefore be understood to be most composed and sedate towards it must it needs move with the strongest and most unsatisfied desire a desire that is supreme prevalent and triumphant over all other desires and over all obstructions to it self least capable of diversion or of pitching upon any thing short of the terme aimed at Ask therefore the holy Soul What is thy Supreme desire and so far as it understands it self it must answer to see and partake the divine glory to behold the blessed face of God till his likeness be transfused through all my powers and his entire image be perfectly formed in me present to my view what else you will I can be satisfied in nothing else but this Therefore this leaves a black note upon those wretched souls that are wholly strangers to such desires that would be better satisfied to dwell always in dust that shun the blessed face of God as Hell it self and to whom the most despicable vanity is a more desirable sight then that of divine glory Miserable souls consider your state can that be your blessedness which you desire not or do you think God will receive any into his blessed presence to whom it shall be a burden methinks upon the reading of this you should presently doom your selves and see your sentence written in your breasts compare your hearts with his holy mans See if there be any thing like this in the temper of your Spirits and never think well of your selves till you find it so 5. The knowledge of God and conformity to him are in their own nature apt to satisfie the desires of the soul and even noâ— actually do so in the measure wherein they are attained Some things are not of a satisfying nature there is nothing tending to satisfaction in them And then the continual heaping together of such things doth no more towards satisfaction then the accumulating of Mathematical Points would towards the compacting of a solid body or the multiplication of Ciphers only to the making of a summe But what shall one day satisfi hath in it self a Power and aptitude thereto The act when ever it is supposes the power Therefore the hungry craving soul that would sain be hâ—ppy but knows not how needs not spend its dayes in making uncertain guesses and fruitless attempts and trials It ma◠〈◊〉 â—ts hovering thoughts and upon afâ—â—â—◠〈◊〉 given say I have now found at 〈…〉 satisfaction may be had and have 〈◊〉 this to do to bend all my powers hither and intend this one thing the possessing my self of this blessed rest earnestly to inâ—e 〈◊〉 and patiently to wait for it Happy discovery welcome tidings I now know which waâ— to turn my eye and direct my pursuit I shall no longer spend my â—â—if in dubious toilsome wandrings in anxious vaâ—n inquiries I have found I have found blessedness is here If I can but get a lively efficacious sight of God I have enough Shew me the Father and it suffices Let the weary wandring soul bethink it self and retire to God he will not mock thee with shadows as the world hath done This is eternal life to know him the onely true God and Jesâ—â— Christ whom he hath sent A part from Christ thou canst not know nor see him with fruit and comfort but the Gospel revelation which is the Revelation of God in Christ gives thee a lovely prospect of him His Glory shines in the face of Jesus Christ and when by beholding it thou art changed into the same likeness and findest thy self gradually changing more and more from glory to glory thou wilt find thy self accordingly in a gradual tendency towards satisfaction and blessedness That is do but seriously set thy self to study and contemplate the Being and Attributes of God and then look upon him as through the Mediatour he is willing to be reconcil'd to thee and become thy God and so long let thine eye fix and dwell here till it affect thy heart and the proper impress of the Gospel be by the Spirit of the Lord instamp't upon it till thou find thy self wrought to a compliance with his holy will and his image formed in thee and thou hast soon experience thou art entring into his est and wilt relish a more satisfying 〈◊〉 in this blessed change then all thy 〈◊〉 sensual injoyments did ever afford thee before Surely if the perfect vision and perception of his glorious likeness will yield a compleat satisfaction at last the initial and progressive tendencies towards the former will proportionably infer the latter 'T is obvious hence to
that its tendencie thereto is direct and certain In the present case both these are obvious enough at the first view For as to the former of them all the world will agree without disputing the matter that the last end of man i. e. which he ultimately propounds to himself is his best good and that he can design no further good to himself then satisfaction nothing after or beyond that and what can afford it if the vision and participation of the Divine Glory do not As to the latter besides all that assurance given by Scripture-constitution to the righteous man concerning his future reward let the Consciences be consulted of the most besotted sinners in any lucid interval and they will give their suffrage Balaam that so earnestly followed the reward of unrighteousness not excepted that the way of righteousness is that only likely way to happiness and would therefore desire to die at least the righteous mans death and that their latter end should be like his So is wisdom I might call it righteousness too the wicked man is the Scripture-Fool and the righteous the wise man justified not by her children only but by her enemies also And sure 't is meet that she should be more openly justified by her Children and that they learn to silence and repress those misgiving thoughts Surely I have washed my hands in vain c. And be steadfast unmovable alwayes abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as they know their labour is not in vain in the Lord. CHAP. XV. Two other Inferences from the Consideration of the season of this blessedness The former That in as much as this blessedness is not attained in this life The present happiness of Saints must in a great part consist in hope The latter That great is the wisdom and sagacity of the righteous man which waves a present temporary happiness and chuses that which is distant and future IN as much as the season of this blessedness is not on this side the Grave nor expected by Saints till they awake we may further infer Ninthly That their happiness in the mean time doth very much consist in hope Or that hope must needs be of very great necessity and use to them in their present state for their comfort and support It were not otherwise possible to subsist in the absence and want of their highest good while nothing in this lower world is as to kind and nature suitable to their desires or makes any colorable overture to them of satisfaction and happiness Others as the Psalmist observes have their portion in this life that good which as to the species and kind of it is most grateful to them is present under view within sight And as the Apostle Hope that is seen is not hope for what a man seeth why doth he yet hope for it But those whose more refined spirits having received the first fruits of the holy Spirit of God prompt them to groan after something beyond time and above this Sublunarie Sphere of them the Apostle there tell us that they are saved by hope They as if he should say subsist by it they were never able to hold out were it not for their hope And that an hope too beyond this life as is the hope of a christian if in this life only we had hope in Christ c. the hope of a Christian as such is suitable to its productive cause the resurrection of Christ from the dead begotten to a lively hope by the resurrection c. Thence is it the hope of a renewed never dying life the hope of a blessed immortality whereof Christs resurrection was a certain argument and pledge Indeed the new creature is ab origine and all along an hoping creature both in its primum and its porro esse 'T is conceived and formed and nurst up in hope In its production and in its progress towards perfection 't is maniâ—â—â—â—ly influenc't thereby In the first return of the soul to God hope being then planted as a part of the holy gracious Nature now manifestly discovers it self when the soul begins to act as turning after the reception of the Divine influence is its act hope insinuates it self into or induces rather that very act Returning is not the act of a despairing but hoping soul. 'T is God apprehended as reconcileable that attracts and wins it while he is look't upon as an implacable enemy the soul naturally shuns him and comes not nigh till drawn with those cords of a man the bands of love While it says there is no hâ—pe it says with all desperately enough I have loved strangers and after them will I go But if there be any hope in Israel concerning this thing If it can yet apprehend God willing to forgive then Let us make a covenant c. This presently draws the hovering soul into a closure and league with him And thus is the union continued unsteadfâ—stness in the Covenant of God is resolved into this not setting or fixing of hope in him or which amounts to the same setting of hope in God is directed as a means to steadfastness of spirit with him and a keeping of his Covenant Râ—volting souls are encouraged to return to the Lord upon this conâ—â—â—◠〈◊〉 that salvation is hâ—â—ed for in vain â—â—om any other The case being indeed the sâ—me in all after conversions as in the first God â—s multiplying 〈◊〉 pâ—rdâ—n and still retaining the same name the Lord the Lord grâ—ciâ—â—◠〈…〉 which name in all the seâ—â—rails that compose and make it up is in his Christ invites back to him the backsliding sinner and renews its thoughts of returning And so is he afterwards under the teachings of grace led on by hope thorough the whole course of Religion towards the future glory Grace appears teaching sinners to deny ungoodliness c. in the looking for the blessed hope the glorious appearing of the great God c. So do they keep themselves in the love of God Looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life Thus is the new creature formed in hope and nourisht in hope And if its eye were upon pardon at first 't is more upon the promised glory afterwards And yet that last end hath in a degree its attractive influence upon it from the first formation of it 't is even then taught to design for glory 'T is begotten to the lively hope where though hope be taken objectively as the apposition shews of the following words to an inheritance yet the act is evidently connoted for the thing hoped for is meant under that notion as hoped for And its whose following course is an aiming at glory a seeking glory honâ—ur immortality c. Thus is the work of Sanctification carried on He that hath this hope â—urisieth himself Thus are losses sustained The spoiling of goods taken joyfully through the expectation of the better and enduring
why should my heart any longer hang in doubt within me or look wishly towards future glory as if it were an uncouth thing or is it reasonable to confront my own imaginations to his discoveries Charge conscience with the duty it owes to God in such a case and let his revelations be received with the reverence and resignation which they challenge and in them study and contemplate the blessedness of awakened souls till you have agreed with your self fully how to conceive it Run over every part of it in your thoughts view the several divine excellencies which you are hereafter to see and imitate and think what every thing will contribute to the satisfaction and contentment of your Spirits This is a matter of unspeakable consequence Therefore to be as clear as is possible you may digest what is recommended to you in this Rule into these more particular directions 1. Resolve with your selves to make the divine revelation of this blessedness the prime measure â—nd reason of all your apprehensions concerning it Fix that purpose in your own hearts so to order all your conceptions about it that when you demand of your selves What do I conceive of the future blessedness and why do I conceive so the divine revelation may answer both the questions I apprehend what God hath revealed and because he hath so revealed The Lord of heaven sure best understands it and can best help us to the understanding of it If it be said of the origen of this world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it may much more be said of the stâ—â—e of the other we understand it by faith That must inform and perfect our intellectuals in this matter 2. Therefore reject and sever from the notion of this blessedness whatsoever is alien to the account Scripture gives us of it Think not that sensual pleasure that a liberty of sinning that an exemption from the divine dominion distance and estrangedness from God which by nature you wickedlâ— affect can have any ingrediency into or consistency with this state of blessedness 3. Gather up into it whatsoever you can find by the Scripture-discovery to appertain or belong thereto Let your notion of it be to your uttermost not only true but comprehensive and full and as particular and positive as Gods revelation will warrant Especially remember 't is a spiritual blessedness that consists in the refining and perfecting of your Spirits by the vision and likeness of the holy God and the satisfying of them thereby for ever 4. Get the notion of this blessedness deeply imprinted in your minds so as to abide with you that you may not be alwayes at a loss and change you apprehensions every time you come to think of it Let a once-well formed Idaea a clear full state of it be preserv'd entire and be as a lively image alwayes before your eyes which you may readily view upon all occasions 2. That having well fixed the notion of this blessedness in your minds you seriously reflect upon yourself and compare the temper of your Spirit with it that you may find out how it is affected thereto and thence judge in what likelihood you are of enjoying it The general aversion of mens Spirits to this so necessary work of self-reflection is one of the most deplorable Symptoms of lapsed degenerate humanity The wickedness that hath overspread the nature of man and a secret consciousness and misgiving hath made men afraid of themselves and studiously to decline all acquaintance with their own souls to shun themselves as Ghosts and Spectives they cannot indure to appear to themselves You can hardly impose a severer task upon a wicked man than to go retire an hour or two and commune with himself he knows not how to face his own thoughts His own soul is a Devil to him as indeed it will be in hell the most frightful tormenting Devil Yet what power is there in man more excellent more appropriate to reasonable nature than that of reflecting of turning his thoughts upon himself Sense must here confess it self out done The eye that sees other objects cannot see it self But the mind a rational Sun can not only project its beams but revert them make its thoughts turn inward It can see its own face contemplate it self And how useful an indowment is this to the nature of man If he err he might perpetuate his error and wander infinitely if he had not this self-reflecting power and if he do well never know without it the comfort of a rational self-approbation Which comfort Paganish morality hath valued so highly as to account it did associate a man with the inhabitants of heaven and make him lead his life as among the gods as their Pagan language is Though the name of this reflecting power Conscience they were less acquainted with the thing it self they reckon'd as a kind of indwelling Deity as may be seen at large in those Discourses of Maximus Tyrius and Apuleius both upon the same subject concerning the god of Socrates And another giving this precept Familiarize thy self with the gods adds and this shalt thou do if thou bear thy mind becomingly towards them being well pleased with the things they give and doing the things that may please thy Daemon or Genius whom saith he the most high God which they mean by Jupiter hath put into every man as as a derivation or extraction from himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be his president and guide viz. every ones own mind and reason And this mind or reason in that notion of it as we approve our selves to it and study to please it is the same thing we intend by the name of Conscience And how high account they had of this work of self-reflection may appear in that they entituled the Oracle to that document Know thy self esteeming it above humane discovery and that it could have no lower than a divine Original therefore consecrating and writing it up in golden Characters in their Delphick Temple as Pliny informs us for an heavenly-inspired dictate Among Christians that enjoy the benefit of the Gospel-revelation in which men may behold themselves as one may his natural face in a glass how highly should this self-knowledge be prized and how fully attained The Gospel discovers at the same time the ugly deformities of a mans soul and the means of attaining a true spiritual comliness Yea it is it self the instrument of impressing the divine image and glory upon mens Spirits which when it is in any measure done they become most sociable and conversable with themselves and when 't is but in doing it so convincingly and with so piercing energy layes open the very thoughts of mens hearts so thoroughly rips up and diffects the soul so directly turns and strictly holds a mans eye intent upon himself so powerfully urges and obliges the sinner to mind and study his own soul that where it hath affected any thing been any way operative
upon mens spirits they are certainly supposed to be in a good measure acquainted with themselves whatever others are Therefore the Apostle bids the Corinthians if they desire a proof of the power and truth of his ministery to consult themselves examine your selves and presently subjoyns know ye not your own selves intimating it was an unsupposeable thing they should be ignorant What Christians and not know your selves Can you have been under the Gospel so long and be strangers to yourselves none can think it Sure 't is a most reproachful thing a thing full of ignonimy and scandal that a man should name himself a Christian and yet be under grosse ignorance touching the temper and bent of his own soul. It signifies that such a one understands little of the design and tendency of the very religion he pretends to be of Yet he was a Christian by meer chance that he took up and continues his profession in a dream Christianity aims at nothing it gets a man nothing if it do not procure him a better Spirit 't is an empty insignificant thing it hath no design in it at all if it do not design this It pretends to nothing else It doth not offer men secular advantages emoluments honours it hath no such aim to make men in that sense rich or great or honourable but to make them holy and fit them for God He therefore loses all his labour and reward and shews himself a vain trifler in the matters of Religion that makes not this the scope and mark of his Christian profession and practice and herein he can do nothing without a constant self-inspection As it therefore highly concerns it well becomes a Christian under the Gospel to be in a continual observation and study of himself that he may know to what purpose he is a Christian and take notice what or whether any good impressions be yet made upon his Spirit whether he gain any thing by his Religion And if a man enter upon an enquirie into himself what more important question can he put then this In what posture am I as to my last and chief end how is my Spirit framed towards it This is the intendment and business of the Gospel To fit souls for blessedness and therefore if I would enquire what am I the better for the Gospel this is the sense and meaning of that very question is my soul wrought by it to any better disposition for blessedness Upon which the resolution of this depends am I ever likely to enjoy it yea or no That which may make any heart not deplorably stupid shake and tremble that such a thing should be drawn into question but the case with the most requires it and it must be so 'T is that therefore I would fain here awaken souls to and assist them in that is propound something in pursuance of the present direction which might both awaken them to move this great question and help them in discussing it Both which will be done in shewing the importance of this latter ultimate question in it self and then the subserviencie of the former subordinate one towards the deciding it These two things therefore I shall a little stay upon 1. To shew and urge the requisiteness of debating with ourselves the likelihood or hopefulnesse of our enjoying this blessednesse 2. To discover that the present habitude or disposedness of our Spirits to it is a very proper apt medium whereby to judge thereof First As to the former of these methinks our business should do it self and that the very mention of such a blessedness should naturally prompt souls to bethink themselves doth it belong to me have I any thing to do with it Methinks every one that hears of it should be beforehand with me and prevent me here Where is that stupid soul that reckons it an indifferent thing to attain this blessed state or fall short of it When thou hearest this is the common expectation of Saints to behold the face of God and be satisfi'd with his likeness when they awake Canst thou forbear to say with thy self and what shall become of me when I awake what kind of awaking shall I have shall I awake amid'st the beams of glory or flames of wrath If thou canst be perswaded to think this no matter of indifferency then stir up thy drowsie soul to a serious inquirie how 't is likely to fare with thee for ever and to that purpose put thy conscience to it to give a free sincere answer to these few Queries 1. Canst thou say thou art already certain of thy eternal blessedness Art thou so sure that thou need'st not enquire I know not who thou art that now readest these lines and therefore cannot judg of thy confidence whether it be right or wrong onely that thou may'st not answer too hastily consider a little that certainty of salvation is no common thing not among I speak you see of subjective certainty the heirs of salvation themselves How many of Gods holy ones that cannot say they are certain yea how few that can say they are That exhortation to a Church of Saints Work out your salvation with fear and trembling they of whom he expresseth such confidence Chap. 1. 6. over whom he so glories Chap. 4. 1. implyes this to be no common thing So doth Christs advice to his Disciples Strive to enter in at the strait gate and St. Peters to the scattered Jews that he saith had obtained like precious faith c. give diligence to make your calling and election sure with many more passages of like import Yea how full is the Scripture of the complaints of such crying out of broken bones of festering wounds of distraction by divine terrours Now what shall we say in this case when so eminent Saints have left us Records of the distresses and agonies of their Spirits under the apprehended displeasure of God may it not occasion us to suspend a while and consider have we much more reason to be confident then they And do we know none that lead stricter and more holy lives then we that are yet in the dark and at a losse in judging their Spiritual states I will not say that we must therefore think our selves bound to doubt because another possibly ter then we doth so Unknown accidents may much vary the cases But who would not think that reason and modesty had quite forsaken the world to hear where the odds is so vastly great the vain boasts of the loose generality compared with the humble solicitous doubts of many serious knowing Christians To see such trembling about their soul concernments who have walk't with God and served him long in prayers and tears when multitudes that have nothing whereon to bottom a confidence but Pride and Ignorance shall pretend themselves certain If drawing breath a while thou wilt suspect thou have reason not to be peremptory in thy confidence thou wilt sure think thy self concern'd to inquire further Urge
are the children of disobedience upon whom the wrath of God cometh The Faith the just live by is the substance of things hoped for c. Such believers are confessed avowed strangers on earth seekers of the better the heavenly Country whence 't is said God will not be ashamed to be called their God plainly implying that as for low terrene spirits that love to creep on the earth and imbrace Dunghills God will be ashamed of them he will for ever disdain a relation to them while and as such And if we will be determined by the express word of our great Redeemer to whom we owe all the hopes of this blessedness When he had been advising not to lay up treasure on earth but in heaven he presently adds where your treasure is there will your hearts be also If thy treasure thy great interests thy precious and most valuable good be above that will attract thy heart it will certainly be disposed thitherward Yet here it must carefully be considered that in as much as this blessednesse is thy end i. e. thy Supream good as the notion of treasure also imports Thy heart must be set upon it above any other injoyment else all is to no purpose 'T is not a faint slight overmastered inclination that will serve the turn but as all the forementioned Scriptures import such as will bespeak it a mans business to seek heaven his main work and give ground to say of him his heart is there If two lovers solicit the same person and speaking of them in comparisons she say this hath my heart is it tolerable to understand her as meaning him she loves less so absurd would it be to understand Scriptures that speak of such an intention of heart heaven-ward as if the faintest desire or coldest wish or most lazie inconstant indeavour were all they meant No 't is a steady prevalent victorious direction of heart towards the future glory in comparison whereof thou despisest all things else all temporal terrene things that must be the evidential ground of thy hope to enjoy it And therefore in this deal faithfully with thy own soul and demand of it Dost thou esteem this blessednesse above all things else Do the thoughts of it continually return upon thee and thy mind and heart as it were naturally run out to it Are thy chieâ—est solicitudes and cares taken up about it least thou should'st fall short and suffer a disappointment Dost thou savour it with pleasure hath it a sweet and grateful relish to thy Soul dost thou bend all thy powers to pursue and presse on towards it Urge thy self to give answer truly to such enquiries and to consider them seriously that thou may'st do so Such whose Spirits are either most highly raised and lift up to heaven or most deeply deprest and sunk into the earth may make the clearest judgment of themselves With them that are of a middle temper the trial will be more difficult yet not fruitless if it be managed with serious diligence though no certain conclusion or judgment be made thereupon For the true design and use of all such enquiries and reflections upon our selves which let it be duly considered is not to bring us into a state of cessation from further indeavours as if we had nothing more to do suppose we judge the best of our state that can be thought but to keep us in a wakeful temper of Spirit that we may not forget our selves in the great business we have yet before us but go on with renewed vigour through the whole course of renewed indeavours wherein we are to be still conversant till we have attained our utmost mark and end Therefore is this present enquiry directed as introductive to the further duty that in the following Rules is yet to be recommended CHAP. XVII Rule 3d. Directing such as upon enquirie find or see cause to suspect a total aversation in themselves to this blessednesse to be speedy and restlesse in their indeavours to have the temper of their Spirits altered and made suitable to it Doubts and Objections conconcerning the use of such indeavours in such a case answered Some Considerations to enforce this Direction propounded and pressed 3. THat if upon such reflection we find or suspect our selves wholly diseffected and unsuitable to this blessedness we apply our selves to speedy incessant indeavours to get the temper of our Spirits changed and fitted thereto The state of the case speaks it self that there is no sitting still here This is no condition Soul to be rested in unless thou art provided to encounter the terrours of eternal darkness and endure the torture of everlasting burnings Yet am I not unapprehensive how great a difficulty a carnal heart will make of it to bestir itself in order to any redresse of so deplorable a case And how real a difficulty it is to say any thing that will be thought regardable to such a one Our sad experience tells us that our most efficacious words are commonly wont to be entertained as neglected puffs of wind our most convictive reasonings and perswasive exhortations lost yea and though they are managed too in the name of the great God as upon the deaf and dead Which is too often apt to tempt into that resolution of speaking no more in that name And were it not that the dread of that great Majesty retains us how hard were it to forbear such expostulations Lord why are we commonly sent upon so vain an errand Why are we required to speak to them that will not hear and expose thy sacred truths and counsels to the contempt of sinful worms to labour day by day in vain and spend our strength for nought Yea we cannot forbear to complain None so labour in vain as we Of all men none so generally improsperous and unsuccessful Others are wont to see the fruit of their labours in proportion to the expence of strength in them But our strength is labour and sorrow for the most part without the return of a joyfull fruit The Husbandman ploughs in hope and sowes in hope and is commonly partaker of his hope we are sent to plough and sow among Rocks and Thorns and in the high Way how seldom fall we upon good ground where we have any increase Yea Lord how often are men the harder for all our labours with them the deader for all indeavours to quicken them Our breath kills them whom thou sendest us to speak life to and we often become to them a a deadly savour Sometime when we think somewhat is done to purpose our labour all returns and we are to begin again and when the duties we perswade to come directly to cross mens interests and carnal inclinations they revolt and start back as if we were urging them upon flames or the swords point and their own souls and the eternal glory are regarded as a thing of naught Then Heaven and Hell become with them Phancies and Dreams and all
lapsed state What a blessedness he hath designed for them what means he hath designed to bring them to it Tell him thou only needest a temper of Spirit suitable to this blessedness he invites thee to That thou can'st not master and change thy sensual earthly heart thou know'st he easily can thou art come to implore his help that his blessed and holy Spirit may descend and breath upon thy stupid dead Soul and may sweetly encline and move it towards him that it may eternally rest in him and that thou may'st not perish after so much done in order to thy blessedness onely for want of a heart to entertain it Tell him thou com'st upon his gracious encouragement having heard he is as ready to give his Spirit to them that ask him as Parents bread to their craving Children rather then a stone That 't is for life thou beggest That 't is not so easie to thee to think of perishing for ever that thou canst not desist and give up all thy hopes that thou shalt be in Hell shortly if he hear and help thee not Lastly If thus thou obtain any communication of that holy blessed Spirit and thou find it gently moving thy dead heart let me once more demand of thee Is it impossible to forbear this or that external act of sin at this time when thou art tempted to it sure thou can'st not say 't is impossible What necessitates thee to it and then certainly thou may'st as well ordinarily with-hold thy self from running into such customary sensualities as tend to grieve the Spirit debauch Conscience stupifie thy Soul and hide God from thee And if thou canst do all this do not fool thy slothful soul with as idle a conceit that thou hast nothing to do but to sit still expecting till thou drop into Hell 2. But have I not reason to fear I shall but add sin to sin in all this and so increase the burden of guilt upon my own soul and by endeavouring to better my case make it far worse Two things I consider that suggest to me this fear The Manner End of the duties you put me upon as they will be done by me in the case wherein I apprehend my self yet to lie 1. Manner As to the positive actions you advise to I have heard the best actions of an unregenerate person are sins through the sinfulness of their manner of doing them though as to matter of the thing done they be injoyned and good And though it be true that the regenerate cannot perform a sinless duty neither yet their persons and works being covered over with the righteousness of Christ are look't upon as having no sin in them which I apprehend to be none of my case 2. End You put me upon these things in order to the attaining of blessedness and to do such things with intuition to a reward is to be as may be doubted unwarrantably mercenary and â—ervile 1. First as to this former reason of your doubt methinks the proposal of it answers it For as much as you acknowledge the matter of these actions to be good and duty and plain it is they are Moral duties of common perpetual concernment to all persons and times dare you decline or dispute against your duty Sure if we compare the evil of what is so substantially in itself and what is so circumstantially onely by the adherence of some undue modus or manner it cannot be hard to determine which is the greater and more dreadful evil As to the present case shouldst thou when the great God sends abroad his Proclamation of pardon and peace refuse to attend it to consider the contents of it and thy own case in reference thereto and there upon to sue to him for the life of thy own soul. Dost thou not plainly see thy refusal must needs be more provoking then thy defective performance This speaks disability but that rebellion and contempt Besides dost thou not see that thy objection lies as much against every other action of thy life the wise man tells us the ploughing of the wicked is sin iâ— that be literally to be understood And what would'st thou therefore sit still and do nothing Then how soon would that Idleness draw on gross wickedness and would not that be a dreadful confutation of thy self if thou who didst pretend a scruple that thou mightest not pray read hear meditate shalt not scruple to play the glutton the drunkard the wanton and indulge thy self in all riot and excess Yea if thou do not break out into such exorbitances would any one think him serious that should say it were against his Conscience to be working out his salvation and striving to enter in at the strait gate Seeking first the Kingdom of God c. would not this sound strangely and especially that in the mean time it should never be against his Conscience to trifle away his time and live in perpetual neglects of God in persevering Atheism Infidelity Hardness of heart never regretted or striving against as if these were more innocent And what thou say'st of the different case of the regenerate is impertinent for as to this matter the case is not different they that takeâ— themselves to be such must not think that by their supposed interests in the righteousness of Christ their real sins cease to be such they only become pardoned sins and shall they therefore sin more boldly then other men because they are surer of pardon Secondly As to the other Ground of this Doubt there can onely be a fear of sinning upon this account to them that make more sins and duties then God hath made The doubt supposes Religion inconsistent with Humanity and that God were about to raze out of the nature of man one of the most radical and fundamental Laws written there A desire of blessedness And supposes it against the expresse scope and tenour of his whole Gospel-revelation For what doth that design but to bring men to blessedness and how is it a means to compass that design but as it tends to ingage mens spirits to design it too unless we would imagine they should go to heaven blindfold or be roll'd thither as stones that know not whether they are mov'd in which case the Gospel that reveals the eternal glory and the way to it were an useless thing If so express words had not been in the Bible as that Moses had respect to the recompence of reward yea that our Lord Jesus himself for the joy set before him indured the Cross c. this had been a little more colourable or more modest And what do not all men in all the ordinary actions of their lives act allowable enough with intuition to much lower ends even those particular ends which the works of their several callings tend to else they should act as bruites in every thing they do And would such a one scruple if he were pining for want of bread to beg or labour
days good to them Surely they can never be happy in the best times that cannot be so in any Outward prosperity is quite besides the purpose to a distempered Soul when nothing else troubles it will torment it self Besides we cannot command at pleasure the benigne aspects of the world the smiles of the times we may wait a lifes time and still find the same adverse posture of things towards us from without What dotage is it to place our blessedness in something to us impossible that lies wholly out of our power nd in order whereto we have nothing to do but sit down and wish and either faintly hope or ragingly despair We cannot change times and seasons nor alter the course of the world create new Heavens and new Earth Would we not think our selves mock't if God should command us these things in order to our being happy 'T is not our business these are not the affairs of our own Province blessed be God 't is not so large further then as our bettering our selves may conduce thereto and this is that which we may do and ought 't is our proper work in obedience and subordination to God as his instruments to govern and cultivate our own spirits to intend the affairs of that his Kingdom in us where we are his Authoriz'd Vice-Royes that consists in righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost We can be benigne to our selves if the world be not so to us cherish and adorn our inward man that though the outward man be exposed daily to perish which we cannot help and therefore it concerns us not to take thought about it the inward may be renewed day by day We can take care that our souls may prosper that through our oâ—citant neglect they be not left to languish and pine away in their own iniquities They may be daily fed with the Heavenly hidden Manna and with the Fruits of the Paradise of God they may enjoy at home a continual feast and with an holy freedom luxuriate in Divine Pleasures the joyes wherewith the strangers intermeddles not if we be not unpropitious and unkind to our selves And would we know wherein that sound and happy complexion of Spirit lies that hath so much of Heaven in it 'T is a present gradual participation of the Divine likeness It consists in being conformed to God 't is as the Moralists tells us If one would give a short compendious Module of it Such a temper of mind as becomes God or to give an account of it in his own words who prescribes it and who is himself the highest Pattern of this blessed Frame 'T is to be transformed in the renewing of our minds so as to be able to prove what is the good and perfect and acceptable will of God That is experimentally to find it in our selves imprest and wrought into our own spirits so as to have the complacential rellish and savour of its Goodness Excellency and Pleasantness diffused thorow our souls Where remember this was written to such as were supposed Saints whence it must be understood of a continued progressive transformation a renewing of the inward man day by day as is the Apostles expression elsewhere 'T is a more perfect reception of the impress of God revealing himself in the Gospel the growth and tendency of the New Creature begotten unto the eternal blessedness towards its mature and most perfect state and stature in the fruition thereof And 't is this I am now pressing in as much as some account hath been already given according as we can now imperfectly guesse at it and spell it out what the constitution of the holy soul is in its glorified state when it perfectly partakes the Divine likeness that when we find in our selves any principles and first elements of that blessed frame we would endeavour the gradual improvement thereof and be making towards that perfection This therefore being our present work let it be remembred wherein that participated likeness of God hath been said to consist and labour now the nearest approach to that pitch and state Your measures must be taken from what is most perfect come now as near it as you can and as that Pagans advice is If yet thou art not Socrates however live as one that would fain be Socrates Though yet thou art not perfect live as one that aims at it and would be so Onely it must be considered that the conformity to God of our present state is in extent larger and more comprehensive then that of our future though it be unspeakably less perfect in degree For there is no Moral Excellency that we have any present knowledge of belonging to our glorified state which is not in some degree necessarily to be found in Saints on earth But there are some things which the exigency of our present state makes necessary to us here which will not be so in the state of glory Repentance Faith as it respects the Mediatour patience of injuries pity to the distressed c. These things and whatsoever else whose objects cease must be understood to cease with them In short here is requisite all that Moral good which concerns both our end and way there what concerns our end onely Yet is the whole compass of that gracious frame of spirit requisite in this our present state all comprehended in conformity to God Partly in as much as some of these graces which will cease hereafter in their exercise as not having objects to draw them forth into act have their pattern in some communicable Attributes of God which will cease also as to their denomination and exercise their objects then ceasing too as his patience towards sinners his mercy to the miserable Partly in as much as other of those graces now required in us though they correspond to nothing in God that is capable of the same name as Faith in a Saviour Repentance of sin which can have no place in God They yet answer to something in this nature that goes under other names and is the reason wherefore he requires such things in us He hath in his nature that faithfulness and All sufficient fulness that challenges our faith and that hatred of sin which challenges our repentance for it having been guilty of it His very nature obliges him to require those things from us the state of our case being considered So that the summe even of our present duty lies in receiving this entire impression of the Divine likeness in some part invariably and eternally necessary to us in some part necessary with respect to our present state And herein is our present blessedness also involved If therefore we have any design to better our condition in point of blessedness it must be our business to endeavour after a fuller participation of all that likeness in all the particulars it comprehends You can pitch your thoughts upon no part of it which hath not an evident direct tendency to the repose and rest
of your spirits I shall recommend onely some few instances that you may see how little reason or inducement a soul conformed to the holy will of God hath to seek its comforts and content elsewhere Faith corresponds to the Truth of God as it respects Divine Revelations How pleasant is to give up our understandings to the conduct of so safe a guide to the view of so admirable things as he reveals It corresponds to his goodnesse as it respects his offers How delectible is it to be filling an empty Soul from the Divine fulnesse What pleasure attends the exercise of this Faith towards the Person of the Mediatour viewing him in all his Glorious Excellencies receiving him in all his gracious Communications by this Eye and Hand How pleasant is it to exercife it in reference to another world living by it in a daily prospect of eternity in reference to this world to live without care in a chearful dependence on him that hath undertaken to care for us Repentance is that by which we become like the holy God to whom our sin had made us most unlike before how sweet are kindly relentings penetential tears and the return of the Soul to its God and to a right mind And who can conceive the Ravishing Pleasures of love to God! wherein we not onely imitate but intimately unite with him who is Love it self How pleasant to let our Souls dissolve here and slow into the Ocean the element of love Our Fear corresponds to his Excellent Greatnesse and is not as it is a part of the New Creature in us a tormenting servile passion but a due respectfulness and observance of God and there is no mean pleasure in that holy awful seriousness unto which it composes and formes our Spirits Our Humility as it respects him answers his high excellency as it respects our own inferiours his gracious condescention How pleasant is it to fall before him And how connatural and agreable to a good Spirit to stoop low upon any occasion to do good Sincerity is a most Godlike excellency an imitation of his Truth as grounded in his All-sufficiency which sets him above the necessity or possibility of any advantage by collusion or deceit and corresponds to his Omnisciency and heart-searching eye It heightens a mans spirit to a holy and generous boldness makes him apprehend it beneath him to do an unworthy dishonest action that should need a palliation or a concealment And gives him the continual pleasure of self approbation to God whom he chiefly studies and desires to please Patience a prime Glory of the Divine Majestie continues a mans possession of his own Soul his Liberty his Dominion of himself He is if he can suffer nothing a Slave to his vilest and most sordid passions at home his own base fear and bruitish anger and effeminate grief and to any mans lusts and humours besides that he apprehends can do him hurt It keeps a mans Soul in a peaceful calm delivers him from that most unnatural self-torment defeats the impotent malice of his most implacable enemy who fain would vex him but cannot Justice the Great Attribute of the Judge of all the Earth as such so farre as the imppression of it takes place among men preserves the Common Peace of 〈◊〉 World and the Private Peace of each 〈◊〉 in his own bosome so that the former be not disturbed by doing of mutual injuries nor the latter by the conscience of having done them The brotherly love of fellow Christians the impression of that special love which God bears to them all admits them into one anothers bosomes and to all the indearments and pleasures of a mutual communion Love to enemies the expresse image of our heavenly Father by which we appear his children begotten of him overcomes evil by goodness blunts the double edge of revenge at least the sharper edge which is alwayes towards the Author of it secures our selves from wounding impressions and resentments turns keen anger into gentle pity and substitutes mild pleasant forgiveness in the room of the much uneasier thoughts and study of retaliation Mercifulnesse towards the distressed as our Father in Heaven is merciful heaps blessings upon our Souls and evidences our Title to what we are to live by the Divine mercy An universal benignity and propension to d◠good to all in imitation of the immense diffusive goodnesse of God is but kindnesse to our selves Rewards it self by that greater pleasure is in giving then in receiving and associates us with God in the blessedness of this work as well as in the disposition to it who exercises loving kindnesse in the Earth because delighteth therein Here are some of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the things wherein consists that our conformity to the divine Nature and Will which is proper to our present state And now who can estimate the blessedness of such a soul Can in a word the state of that soul be unhappy that is full of the Holy Gost full of Love Joy Peace Long-suffering Gentleness Goodness Faith Meekness Temperance those blessed fruits of that blessed Spirit Blessedness is connaturalized unto this soul Every thing doth its part and all conspire to make it happy This soul is a Temple an habitation of holiness here dwells a Deity in his glory 'T is a Paradise a Garden of God Here he walks and converses daily delighted with its fragrant fruitfulness He that hath those things and aboundeth is not barren or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus he is the Sun and the knowledge of him the quickening beams that cherish and ripen these fruits But the soul that lacketh these things is a Desart a habitation of Devils Here is stupid disconsolate infidelity inflexible obstinacy and resolvedness for Hell Hatred and contempt of the Sovereign Majesty whom yet its secret misgiving thoughts tell it will be too hard for it at last Here is swoln pride and giddy vain-glory disguised hypocrisie and pining envy raging wrath and ravenous avarice with what you can imagine besides leading to misery and desolation You have then some prospect of a happy temper of Spirit It can now be no difficulty to you to frame an Idea of it in your thoughts to get a notional image or this likeness in the notion of it into your minds but that will avail you little if you have not the real image also that is your Spirits really fashioned and formed according thereto If having the knowledge of these things as the Pagan morallists expression before mentioned is of vertuous Rules and Precepts they become not habitual to you and your Spirits be not transfigured into them But now I treat with such as are supposed to have some such real impressions that they may be stir'd up to endeavour a further perfecting of them In order whereto I shall adde but this two-fold advice 1. Be very careful that this living Image such you have been formerly told it is may
been all this while a sleep we saw the light that shone upon us we heard the voice that called to us wherewith shall we then excuse our selves that our desires were not mov'd that our Souls were not presently in a flame was it then that we thought all a meer fixion that we durst not give credit to his word when it brought us the report of the everlasting Glory will we avow this Is this that we will stand by or what else have we left to say have we a more plausible reason to alledge that the discovery of such a glory mov'd us not to desire it then that we believed it not sure this is the truth of our case We should feel this heavenly fire alwayes burning in our breasts If our Infidelity did not quench the coal If we did believe we could not but desire But doth not the thoughts of this shake our very souls and fill us with horrour and trembling We that should be turn'd into indignation and ready to burn our selves with our own flame and all about us if one should give us the lie that we should dare to put the lye upon the Eternal Truth upon him whose Word gave stability and being to the world who made and sustains all things by it That awful Word That Word that shivers Rocks and melts down Mountains that make the inanimate Creation tremble that cna in a moment blast all things and dissolve the frame of Heaven and Earth which in the mean time it upholds is that become with us fabulous lying breath Those God-breath'd Oracles those Heavenly Records which discover and describe this blessed state are they false and foolish Legends must that be pretended at last if men durst that is so totally void of all pretence what should be the gain or advantage accrewing to that Eternal All-sufficient being What accession should be made to that infinite self-fulness by deluding a Worm Were it consistent with his Nature what could be his design to put a cheat upon poor mortal dust If thou dare not impute it to him such a deception had a beginning but what Author canst thou imagine of it or what end did it proceed from a good mind or a bad could a good and honest mind form so horribly wicked a design to impose an universal delusion and lye upon the world in the name of the true and holy God or could a wicked mind frame a design so directly level'd against wickedness or is there any thing so aptly and naturally tending to form the World to sobriety holiness purity of conversation as the discovery of this future state of glory and since the belief of future felicity is known to obtain universally among men who could be the Author of so common a deception If thou had'st the mind to impose a lie upon all the world what course would'st thou take how would'st thou lay the design or why dost thou in this case imagine what thou knowest not how to imagine And dost thou not without scruple believe many things of which thou never had'st so unquestionable evidence or must that Faith which is the foundation of thy Religion and eternal hopes be the most suspected shaking thing with thee and have of all other the least stability and rootedness in thy soul If thou can'st not excuse thy infidelity be ashamed of thy so cold and sluggish desires of this glorious state And doth it not argue a low sordid Spirit not to desire and aim at the perfection thou art capable of not to desire that blessedness which alone is suitable and satisfying to a reasonable and spiritual being Bethink thy self a little how low art thou sunk into the dirt of the earth how art thou plunged into the mity Ditch that even thine own clothes might adhor thee Is the Father of Spirits thy Father Is the world of Spirits thy Country Hast thou any relation to that Heavenly Progeny Art thou ally'd to that blessed Family and yet undesirous of the same blessedness Can'st thou savour nothing but what smells of the Earth Is nothing grateful to thy Soul but what is corrupted by so vicious and impure a tincture are all thy delights centred in a Dunghill and the polluted pleasures of a filthy world better to thee then the eternal visions and enjoyments of Heaven what art thou all made of Earth Is thy soul stupifi'd into a Clod hast thou no sense with thee of any thing better and more excellent can'st thou look upon no glorious thing with a pleased eye Are things onely desirable and lovely to thee as they are deformed O consider the corrupted distempered state of thy Spirit and how vile a disposition it hath contracted to it self Thine looks too like the Mundan◠Spirit The Spirit of the World The Apostle speaks of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of distinction we have not received the Spirit of the world but the Spirit that is from God that we might know or see and no doubt 't is desire that animates that eye 't is not bare speculative intuition and no more the things freely given us of God Surely he whose desire doth not guide his eye to the beholding of those things hath received the Spirit of the world onely A Spirit that conforms him to this world makes him think onely thoughts of this world and drive the designs of this world and speak the language of this world A Spirit that connaturalizes him to the world makes him of a temper suitable to it He breathes onely worldly breath carries a worldly aspect is of a worldly conversation O poor low spirit that such a world should with-hold thee from the desire and pursuit of such glory Art thou not ashamed to think what thy desires are wont to pitch upon while they decline and wave this blessedness Methinks thy very shame should compel thee to quit the name of a Saint or a Man To forbear numbring thy self with any that pretend to immortality and go seek Pasture among the Beasts of the Field with them that live that low animal life that thou dost and expect no other And while thou so fallest in with the world how highly dost thou gratifie the pretending and usurping God of it The great fomentor of the sensual worldy genius The Spirit it self that works in the children of disobedienence and makes them follow the course of the world hold them fast bound in worldly lusts and leaves them captive at his will causes them after his own Serpentine manner to creep and crawl in the dust of the Earth He is most intimate to this apostate world informs it as it were and actuates it in every part i◠even one great soul to it The whole world lies in that wicked one as the body by best Philosophers is said to be in the Soul The world is said to be convicted when he is judged He having fall'n from a state of blessedness in God hath involv'd the world with himself
som big words or to give a faint or seeming assent to such as speak them in the names but t is impossible they should be in good earnest or believe themselves in what they say and profess And what reply then should we be able to make for who can think that any who acknowledge a God and understand at all what that name imports should value at so low a rate as we visibly do the eternal fruition of his glory and a present Sonship to him the pledge of so great an hope He that is born Heir to great Honours and Possessions though he be upon great uncertainties as to the enjoyment of them for how many interveniencies may prevent him yet when he comes to understand his possibilities and expectancies how big doth he look and speak what grandieur doth he put on His hopes form his Spirit and Deportment But is it Proportionably so with us Do our hopes fill our hearts with joy our mouths with praise and clothe our faces with a cheerful aspect and make an holy alacrity appear in all our conversations But let not the design of this discourse be mistaken 'T is â—oâ— a presumptuous confidence I would encourage nor a vain ostentation nor a disdainful overlooking of others when we fancie our selves to excel Such things hold no proportion with a Christian Spirit His is a modest humble exaltation a serious severe joy suitable to his solid stable hope His Spirit is not puft up and swol'n with air 't is not big by an inflation or a light and windy humour but 't is really fill'd with effectual pre-apprehensions of a weighty glory His joy accordingly exerts it self with a steady lively vigour equally removed from vain lightness and stupidity from conceitedness and insensibleness of his blessed state He forgets not that he is less then the least of Gods mercies but disowns not his title to the greatest of them He abases himself to the dust in the sense of his own vileness but in the admiration of Divine Grace he rises as high as Heaven In his humiliation he affects to equal himself with worms in his joy and praise with angels He is never unwilling to diminish himself but affraid of detracting any thing from the love of God or the issues of that love But most of all he magnifies as he hath cause this its last and most perfect issue And by how much he apprehends his own unworthiness he is the more rapt up into a wondering joy that such blessedness should be his designed portion But now how little do we find in our selves of this blessed frame of spirit How remote are we from it Let us but enquire a little into our own Souls Are there not too apparent Symptomes with us of the little joy we take in the forethoughts of future blessedness For First How few thoughts have we of it what any delight in they remember often 'T is said of the same person that his delight is in the Law of the Lord and that in his Law he doth meditate day and night And when the Psalmist professes his own delight in Gods statutes he adds I will not forget thy Word Should we not be as unapt to forget Heaven if our delight were there But do not dayes pass with us wherein we can allow our selves no leasure to mind the eternal glory when yet vanities throng in upon us without any obstruction or check And what is consequent hereupon How seldom is this blessed state the subject of our discourse How often do Christians meet and not a word of Heaven O heavy carnal hearts Our home and eternal blessedness in this appears to be forgotten among us How often may a person converse with us e're he understand our relation to the Heavenly Country If Exiles meet in a Forraign Land what pleasant discourse have they of home They suffer not one another to forget it Such was their remembrance of Sion who sate together bemoaning themselves by the Rivers of Babylon a making mention of it as the Phrase is often used And methinks even as to this remembrance it should be our common resolution too If we forget thee O Jerusalem If we forget to make mention of thee O thou City of the living God Let our right hand forget her cunning our tongue shall sooner cleave to the roof of our mouth and so it would be did we prefer that Heavenly Jerusalem above our chief joy Again how little doth it weigh with us It serves not to out-weigh the smallest trouble if we have not our eternal desire in every thing gratified if any thing fall out cross to our inclinations this glory goes for nothing with us Our discontents swallow up our hopes and joyes and heaven is reckon'd as a thing of naught If when outward troubles afflict or threaten us we could have the certain prospect of better dayes that would sensibly revive and please us Yea can we not please our selves with very uncertain groundless hopes of this kind without promise or valuable reason But to be told of a recompense at the resurrection of the just of a day when we shall see the face of God and be satisfied with his Likeness this is insipid and without favor to us and affords us but cold comfort The uncertain things of time signifie more with us then the certain things of eternity Can we think t is all this while well with us can we think this a tollerable evil or suffer with patience such a distemper of Spirit Methinks it should make us ever weary of our selves and solicitous for an effectual speedy redress The redress must be more in our own doing striving with our souls and with God for them then in what any man can say Most of the considerations under the foregoing rule are with little variation applicable to this present purpose I shall here annex only some few subordinate directions which may lead us into this blessed state of life and give us some joyful foretasts of the future blessedness according as our spirits shall comply with them But expect not to be cured by prescriptions without using them or that heavenly joy can be the creature of mortal unregarded breath we can onely prescribe means and methods through which God may be pleased to descend and in which thou art diligently to insist and wait And because I cannot well suppose the ignorant where much is said to this purpose I shall therefore say little 1. Possess thy soul with the apprehension that thou art not at liberty in this matter but that there is a certain spiritual delectation which is incumbent on thee as indispensable duty Some whose moroser tempers do more estrange them from delights think themselves more especially concern'd to banish every thing of that kind from their religion and phansie it onely to consist in sowr and rigorous severities Others seem to think it arbitrary and indifferent or that if they live in a continual sadness and dejection
consists first in righteousness and then in peace and joy in the holy Ghost Thou wilt so daily behold the face of God in righteousness and with pleasure but wilt most of all please thy self to think of thy final appearance before him and the blessedness that shall ensue 4. Watch and arm thy self against the too forcible strokes and impressions of sensible objects Let not the favor of such low vile things corrupt the pallate of thy soul. A sensual earthly mind and heart cannot tast heavenly delights They that are after the flesh do savor the things of the Flesh they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit Labor to be throughly mortified towards this world and the present state of things Look upon this scheme pageant as passing away keep natural appetites under restraint the world and the lusts of it pass away together sensuality is an impure thing Heavenly refined joy cannot live amid'st so much filth Yea and if thou give thy flesh liberty too far in things that are in specie lawful it will soon get advantage to domineer and keep thy soul in a depressing servitude Abridge it then and cut it short That thy mind may be enlarged and at liberty may not be throng'd and prepossest with carnal imaginations and affections Let thy soul if thou wilt take this instruction from a Heathen look with a constant erect mind into the undefiled light neither darkened nor born down towards the Earth but stopping its Ears and turning its Eyes and all other Senses back upon it self and quite abolishing out of it self all Earthly Sighs and Groans and Pleasures and Glories and Honours and disgrace and having forsaken all these choose for the Guides of its way true Reason and strong Love the one whereof will shew it the way the other make it easie and pleasant 5. Having voided thy mind of what is earthly and carnal apply and turn it to this blessed Theam The most excellent and the vilest objects are alike to thee while thou mindest them not Thy thoughts possibly bring thee in nothing but vexation and trouble which would bring in assoon joy and pleasure didst thou turn them to proper objects A thought of the heavenly glory is assoon thought as of an earthly Cross. We complain the world troubles us then what do we there why get we not up in our spirits into the quieter Region what trouble would the thoughts of future glory be to us How are the thoughts and wits set on work for this flesh but we would have our Souls flourish as the Lilies without any thing of their own care Yea we make them toyl for torture and not for joy revolve an affliction a thousand times before and after it comes and have never done with it when eternal blessedness gains not a thought 6. Plead earnestly with God for his Spirit This is joy in the Holy Ghost or whereof he is the Author Many Christians as they must be called are such strangers to this work of imploring and calling in the blessed Spirit as if they were capable of adopting these words We have not so much as heard whether there be an Holy Ghost That name is with them as an empty sound How hardly are we convinc't of our necessary dependance on that free Spirit as to all our truly Spiritual operations This Spirit is the very earnest of our inheritance The foretasts and first fruits we have here of the future blessedness The joy and pleasure the complacential relishes we have of it before hand are by the gracious vouchsafement and work of this blessed Spirit The things that eye hath not seen nor ear heard and which have not entred into the heart of man are revealed by this Spirit Therefore doth the Apostle direct his Prayer on the behalf of the Ephesians to the Father of this glory that he would give them this Spirit of wisdom and revelation to enlighten the eyes of their understanding that they might know the hope of his calling and the riches of the glory of his inheritance in or among the Saints And its revelation is such as begets an impression in respect whereof 't is said also to seal up to the day of redemption Therefore pray earnestly for this Spirit not in idle dreaming words of course but as being really apprehensive of the necessitie of prevailing And give not over till thou find that sacred fire diffusing it self through thy mind and heart to enlighten the one and refine the other and so prepossess both of this glory that thy soul may be all turned into joy and praise And then let me adde here without the formality of a distinct head That it concerns thee to take heed of quenching that Spirit by either resisting or neglecting its holy dictates or as the same precept is otherwise given of grieving the Spirit he is by Name and Office the Comforter The Primitive Christians 't is said walked in the fear of God and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost Is it equal dealing to grieve him whose business it is to comfort thee or canst thou expect joy where thou causest grief Walk in the Spirit adore its power Let thy Soul do it homage within thee Wait for its holy influences yield thy self to its ducture and guidance so wilt thou go as the redeemed of the Lord with everlasting joy upon thy head till thou enter that presence where is fulness of joy and pleasures for evermore Nor do thou think it improper or strange that thou should'st be called upon to rejoyce in what thou dost not yet possess Thy hope is in stead of fruition 't is an anticipated enjoyment We are commanded to rejoyce in hope and Saints have profest to do so to rejoyce even in the hope the hope of the glory of God Nor is it unreasonable that should be thy present highest joy For though yet it be a distinct thing and indistinctly revealed the excellency of the object makes compensation for both with an abundant surplusage As any one would much more rejoyce to be assured by a great person of ample possessions he would make him his heir to though he knew not distinctly what they should be then to see a shilling already his own with his own eyes CHAP. XXX The addition of two Rules that more specially respect the yet future season of this blessedness after this life viz. Rule 7. That we patiently wait for it until death Rule 8. That we love not too much this present life THere are yet two more Rules to be superadded that respect the season of this blessedness when we awake i. e. not till we go out of time into eternity not till we pass out of the drowsie darkness of our present state till the night be over with us and the vigorous light of the everlasting day do shine upon us Hence therefore it will be further necessary 7. That while the appointed proper season of this blessedness
fit as it were to be mentioned the same day with the glory to be revealed c. It can therefore be no hard Law no unreasonable imposition that shall oblige us to the exercise of patience under such sufferings in the expectation of so transcendent glory For consider First These sufferings are but from men For the sufferings of which the Apostle here speaks are such as wherein we suffer together with Christ i. e. for his Name and Interest on behalf of the Christian cause But this glory is from God How disproportionable must the effects be of a created and increated cause Again These sufferings reach no further then the bone and flesh Fear not them that kill the body and after they have done that can do no more c. But this glory reaches unto and transforms the soul. How little can a clod of earth suffer in comparison of what an immortal Spirit may enjoy And further There is much mixture in our present sufferings The present state of suffering Saints is not a state of total misery There are as it were Raies of Glory interlac't with their present afflictions but there will be nothing of Affliction mingled with their future Glory Yea and what may not only convince but even transport us too these sufferings are but temporary nay but momentary This glory eternal What heart is big enough to comprehend the full sense of these words Our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory How might I dwell here upon every sillable light affliction weighty glory exceeding weight affliction for a moment eternal weight of glory O then how unworthy is it of the Christian name and hopes that we should have an impatient resentment of this Method God follows with us as he did with our great Redeemer and Lord that we should suffer first and then enter into glory Heaven were a poor Heaven if it would not make us savers It were high time for us to give over the Christian profession if we do not really account that itâ— reward and hope do surmount its reproach and trouble or do think its Cross more weighty then its Crown Is the price and worth of eternal glory fal'n It hath been counted worth suffering for There have been those in the world that would not accept deliverance from these sufferings that they might obtain the better resurrection Are we grown wiser or would we indeed wish God should turn the Tables and assign us our good things here and hereafter evil things ungrateful souls How severe should we be to our selves that we should be so apt to complain for what we should admire and give thanks What because purer and more refined Christianity in our time and in this part of the world hath had publick favour and countenance can we therefore not tell how to frame our minds to the thoughts of suffering Are Tribulation Patience antiquated names quite out of date and use with us and more ungrateful to our ears and hearts then heaven and eternal glory are acceptable And had we rather if we were in danger of suffering on the Christian account run a hazard as to the latter then adventure on the former Or do we think it impossible we should ever come to the trial or be concern'd to busie our selves with such thoughts Is the world become so stable and so unacquainted with vicissitudes that a state of things less favourable to our profession can never revolve upon us It were however not unuseful to put such a case by way of supposition to our selves For every sincere Christian is in affection and preparation of his mind a Martyr He that loves not Christ better then his own life cannot be his Disciple We should at least inure our thoughts more to a suffering state that we may thence take some occasion to reflect and judge of the temper of our hearts towards the Name and Cause of Christ. 'T is easie suffering indeed in Idaea and contemplation but something may be collected from the observation how we can relish and comport with such thoughts 'T is as training in order to sight which is done often upon every remote supposition that such occasions may possible fall out Therefore what now do we think of it If our way into the Kingdom of God shall be through many tribulations If before we behold the smiles of â—is blessed â—ace we must be entertained with the less pleasing sight of the frowning aspect and visage of an angry world If we first bear the image of a crucified Christ e're we partake of the likeness of a glorious God what do we regret the thoughts of it Do we account we shall be ill dealt with and have an hard bargain of it O how tender are we grown in comparison of the hardiness and magnanimity of Primitive Christians we have not the patience to think of what they had the patience to endure We should not yet forget our selves that such a thing belongs to our profession even in this way to testifie our fidelity to Christ and our value of the inheritance purchased by his blood if he call us thereunto We must know it is a thing inserted into the Religion of Christians and with respect to their condition in this world made an essential thereto He cannot be a Christian that dâ—th not deny himself and take up the Cross. How often when the active part of a Christians duty is spoken of is the passive part studiously and expresly annexed Let us run with patience the race that is set before us The good ground brought forth fruit with patience eternal life is for them that by a patient continuance in well doing seek after it Yea and hence the Word of Christ is called the Word of his patience And the stile wherein the beloved Disciple speaks of himself and his profession is this I John a companion in tribulation and in the Kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ. Do we mean to plead the prescription against all this or have we got an express exemption Have we a discharge to shew a manumission from all the suffering part of a Christians duty and is it not a discharge also from being Christians as much Will we disavow our selves to belong to that noble Society of them that through Faith and Patience inherit the promises Surely we are highly conceited of our selves if we think we are too good to be numbred among them of whom the world was not worthy Or we design to our selves along abode here while we so much value the Worâ—ds favour and a freedom from worldly trouble Or Eternity is with us an empty sound and the future blessedness of Saints an aiery thing that we should reckon it insufficient to counterpoise the sufferings of a few hasty days that will so soon have an end 'T is a sad Symptom of the declining state of Religion when the powers of the
be from no such inducements but a meer desire of being with God and of attaining his perfection and blessedness which he hath ingaged thee in the pursuit and expectation of And then having made sure it be right as to the rise and principle Be careful It be not under in point of degree i. e. a cold intermittent velleity is too little on the one hand And a peremptory precipitant hasting is too much on the other The middle and desirable temper here is a complacential submission to the Divine will in that affair with a preponderating inclination on our part towards our eternal home if the Lord see good For we have two things to attend in this business and by which our Spirits may be sway'd this way or that i. e. the goodnss of the object to be chosen and the will of God which must guide and over-rule our choice the former whereof we are permitted to eye in subordination to the Latter and not otherwise Now our apprehension of the desirableness and intrinsique goodness of the object ought to be such we are Infidels else if we have not that account of it that nothing we can eye under the notion of a good to us may be reckon'd so eligible as that viz. our final and compleat blessedness in the other world which because we know we cannot enjoy without dying death also must be judged more eligible then Life that is Our Blessedness must be judged eligible for it self and Death as requisite to make it present So that the entire object we are discoursing of being present Blessedness Consider it in comparison with any thing else that can be lookt upon by us as a good which we our selves are to enjâ—y it ought to be preferr'd and chosen out of hand in as much as nothing can be so great a present good to us as that And this ought to be the proper habitual inclination of our Spirits their constant frame and bent as they respect onely our own interest and welfare But considering Gods Dominion over us and interest in our Lives and Beings and that as well ingenuity as necessity binds us to be Subject to his pleasure we should herein patiently suffer our selves to be over-ruled thereby and not so abstractly mind our own interest and contentment in this matter as if we were altogether our own and had no Lord over us Plato who abounds in discourses of the desirableness of dying and of the blessed change it makes with them that are good Yet hath this apt expression of the subjection weâ—â—ght â—â—ght to be into the Divine pleasure as to this matter That the soul is in the body as souldiers in a garrison from whence they may not withdraw themselves without his order and direction who placed them there And expostulates thus If saith he a slave of yours should destroy his own Life without your consent would you not be displeas'd and if there had been any place left for revenge been apt enough to that too So he brings in Socrates discoursing and discovers himself herein to have had more Light in this matter touching that subordinate interest only men have in their own lives and the unlawfulness of self murther as he had in other things too then most heathens of the more refined Sect ever arrived to If therefore God would give us leave to dye we should upon our own account be much more enclin'd to chuse it but while he thinks fit to have it defer'd should yeild to his will with an unrepining submission Onely it ought not to rest at all on our part or that as to our selves we find any thing more grateful to us in this world that we are willing to stay a day longer in it That for our own sakes we should affect a continuance here would argue a terrene sordid Spirit But then such should be our dutiful filial Love to the Father of our Spirits that in pure devotedness to his interests we would be content to dwel if he would have it so a Methuselahs age in an earthly tabernacle for his service that is that we may help to preserve his memorial in a elapsed world over-run with Atheisme and ignorance of its Maker and win him hearts and love to our uttermost among his apostate disloyal creatures and in our capacities be helpful to the encouragement of such as he continues in the world for the same purposes This is the very temper the Apostle expresses when in that strait which way the poise of his own Spirit enclin'd him in the consideration of his own interest and what was simply more eligible to him He expresses with High Emphasis to be with Christ saith he is more desirable to me for there are two comparatives in the Greek Text and therefore he professes his own desire in order thereto to be dissolved but that private desire was not so peremptory and absolute but he could make it yeild and give place to his duty towards God and his Church as it follows So we know 't is possible that respects to a friend may oversway a mans own particular inclination and the inclination remain notwithstanding but is subdued onely otherwise had any reason or argument that did respect my self perswaded me to change it I should then follow but my own proper inclination still and so my friend hath nothing to thank me for So it ought to be with us here our inclination should preponderate towards a present change of our state onely our devotedness to his interest and pleasure whose we are should easily over-rule it This is the Lovely temper of a gracious Spirit as to this thing that to dye might be our choice and to live in the mean time submitted to as our duty As an ingenuous son whom his father hath employ'd abroad in a forrain Country though duty did bind him cheerfully therein to comply with his fathers will and the necessity of his affairs yet when his Father shall signifie to him that now he understands no necessity of his longer continuance there and therefore he may if he please return but he shall have leave to follow his own inclination T is not hard to conjecture that the desire of seeing a Fathers face would soon determine the choice of such a son that way But how remote are the generality of them that profess themselves God's Children from that pious ingenuity We have taken root in the earth and forgotten our heavenly originals and alliances We are as inhabitants here not pilgrims hardly perswaded to entertain with any patience the thoughts of leaving our places on earth which yet do we what we can shall shortly know us no more In short then that vile temper of Spirit against which I professedly bend my self in the following discourse is when men not out of any sense of duty towards God or sollicitude for their own Souls but of a meer sordid love to the body and affixedness of heart to the Earth and terrene things
visions of this Makers face that chuses thus to entertain it self on earth rather then partake the effusions of Divine glory above That had rather creep with Worms then soar with Angels associate with Bruits then with the Spirits of just men made perfect who can solve the Phaenomenon or give a rational account why there should be such a Creature as man upon the Earth abstructing from the hopes of another world who can think it the effect of an infinite wisdom or account it a more worthy design then the representing of such a Scene of actions and affairs by Puppets on a Stage for my part upon the strictest enquiry I see nothing in the life of man upon earth that should render it for it self more the matter of a rational election supposing the free option given him in the first moment of his being then presently again to cease to be the next moment Yea and is there not enough obvious in every mans experience to incline him rather to the contrary choice and supposing a future blessedness in another world to make him passionately desirous with submission to the Divine pleasure of a speedy dismission into it Do not the burdens that press us in this earthly taâ—ernacle teach our very sense and urge opprest nature into involuntary groans while as yet our consideration doth intervene And if we do consider is not every thought a sting making a much deeper impression then what only toucheth our flesh and bones Who can reflect upon his present state and not presently be in pangs The troubles that follow humanity are many and great those that follow Christianity more numerous and grievous The sickness pains losses disappointments and whatsoever afflictions that are in the Apostles language humane or common to men as are all the external sufferings of Christians in nature and kind though they are liable to them upon an account peculiar to themselves which there the Apostle intimates are none of our greatest evils yet even upon the account of them have we any reason to be so much in love with so unkind â— world Is it not strange our very Bridewel should be such a Heaven to us But these things are little considerable in comparison of the more Spiritual grievances of Christians as such that is those that afflict our Souls while we are under the conduct of Christ designing for a blessed eternity if we indeed make that our business and do seriously intend our spirits in order thereto The darkness of our beclouded minds The glimmering ineffectual apprehension we have of the most important things the inconsistency of our shattered thoughts when we would apply them to Spiritual Objects The great difficulty of working off an ill frame of heart and the no less difficulty of retaining a good our being so frequently tost as between Heaven and Hell when we sometimes think our selves to have even attained and hope to descend no more and are all on a suddain plung'd in the Ditch so as that our own Clothes might abhor us fall so low into an earthly temper that we can like nothing Heavenly or Divine and because we cannot are enforced justly most of all to dislike our selves Are these things little with us How can we forbear to cry out of the depths to the Father of our Spirits that he would pity and relieve his own Off-spring yea are we not weary of our crying and yet more weary of holding in How do repell'd Temptations return again and vanquished Corruptions recover strength We know not when our work is done We are miserable that we need to be always watching and more miserable that we cannot watch but are so often surprized and overcome of evil We say sometimes with our selves we will seek relief in retirement but we cannot retire from our selves or in converse with Godly friends but they sometimes prove snares to us and we to them Or we hear but our own miseries repeated in their complaints would we pray How faint is the breath we utter How long is it ere we can get our Souls possest with any becoming apprehensions of God or lively sense of our own concernments Would we meditate We sometimes go about to compose our thoughts but we may as well assay to hold the Windes in our fist If we venture forth into the world how do our Senses betray us How are we mockt with their impostures Their neerer objects become with us the onely realities and eternal things are all vanisht into airie shadowes Reason and Faith are laid asleep and our Sense dictates to us what we are to believe and do as if it were our only guide and Lord. And what are we not yet wearie Is it reasonable to continue in this State of our own choice Is misery become so natural to us so much our element that we cannot affect to live out of it Is the darkness and dirt of a dungeon more grateful to us then a free open air and sun Is this Flesh of ours so lovely a thing that we had rather suffer so many deaths in it then one in putting it off and mortality with it While we carry it about us our Souls impart a kind of life to it and it gives them death in exchange Why do we not cry out more feelingly O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this Body of Death Is it not grievous to us to have so cumbersome a yoke-fellow to be tied as Mezentius is said to have done the living and the dead together Do not we find the Distempers of our Spirits are mostly from these bodies we are so in love with either as the proper Springs or as the occasion of them From what cause is our drowsy sloth our eager passions our aversion to Spiritual objects but from this impure Flesh or what else is the Subject about which our vexatious cares or torturing fears our bitter griefs are taken up day by day And why do we not consider that 't is onely our love to it that gives strength and vigour to the most of our temptations as wherein it is more immediately concern'd and which makes them so often victorious thence to become our after-afflictions He that hath learn'd to mortifie the inordinate love of the Body will he make it the business of his life to purvey for it Will he offer violence to his own Soul to secure it from violence will he comply with mens Lusts and humors for its advantage and accommodation or yeild himself to the tyranny of his own avarice for its future or of his more-sensual Lusts for it s present content Will it not rather be pleasing to him that his outward man be exposed to perish while his inward man is renewed day by day He to whom the thoughts are grateful of laying it down will not though he neglect not duty towards it spend his days in its continual Service and make his Soul an hell by a continual provision for the flesh and
and deportments towards God and man Christ formed in the soul or put on the new creature in its being and operations the truth learned as it is in Jesus to the putting off the old man and the putting on the new More distinctly we may yet see wherein it lyes upon a premised view of some few things necessary to be foreknown in order thereunto As That this righteousness is a renewing righteousness or the righteousness of one formerly a sinner a lapsed perishing wretch who is by it restored into such a state towards God as he was in before that lapse in respect of certain great essentials though as yet his state be not so perfectly good while he is in his tendency and motion And shall by certain additionals be unspeakably better when he hath attained the end and rest he is tending to That a reasonable creature yet untainted with sin could not but have a temper of mind â—uteable to such apprehensions as these Viz. That as it was not the Author of being to it self so it ought not principally to study the pleasing and serving of it self but him who gave it being that it can no more continue and perfect it self unto blessedness than it could create it self and can therefore have no expectation hereof but from the same Author of its being And hence that it must respect and eye the great God its Creator and Maker as The Soveraign Authority whom it was to fear and obey Soveraign Good whom it was to love and enjoy But because it can perform no duty to him without knowing what he will have it do nor have any particular expectation of savours from him without knowing what he will please to bestow and is therefore obliged to attend to the revelations of his Will concerning both these It is therefore necessary that he eye him under a notion introductive and subservient to all the operations that are to be exerted towards him under the two former notions i. e. as the Eternal never failing Truth safely to be depended on as intending nothing of deceit in any the revelations whether of his righteous Will concerning matter of duty to be done or of his good Will concerning matter of benefit to be expected and enjoyed That Man did apostatize and revolt from God as considered under these severall notions And returns to him when an holy rectitude is recovered and he again becomes righteous considered under the same That it was not agreeable to Gods wisedom truth and legal justice to treat with Man a Sinner in order to his recovery but through a Mediator and that therefore he was pleased in wonderfull mercy to constitute and appoint his own Son Jesus Christ God-man unto that Office and Undertaking that through him man might return and be reconciled to himself whom he causlessely forsook designing that man shall now become so affected towards himself through the Mediator and firstly therefore towards the Mediators own person as he was before and ought to have been towards himself immediately Therefore whereas God was considerable in relation to Man both in his innocency and Apostacy under that forementioned two fold notion of the supream Authority Goodness He hath also set up and exalted our Lord Jesus Christ and represented him to Sinners under an answerable two fold notion of a Prince Saviour i. e. a mediating Prince and Saviour to give repentance first to bow and stoop the hearts of sinners and reduce them to a subject posture again and then remission of sins to restore them to favour and save them from the wrath to come Him hath the Father cloth'd with his own authority and fill'd with his grace requiring sinners to submit themselves to his ruling power and commit themselves to his saving mercy now both lodg'd in this his Son to pay him immediately all homage and obedience and through him ultimately to himself from him immediately to expect Salvation and blessedness and through him ultimately from himself That whereas the Spirits of men are not to be wrought to this temper but by the intervention of a discovery and revelation of the divine Will to this purpose Our Lord Jesus Christ is further appointed by the Father to reveal all this his counsel to Sinners And is eminently spoken of in Scripture upon this account under the notion of the Truth in which capacity he more effectually recommends to Sinners both his authority and his grace So that his three fold so much celebrated Office of King Priest Prophet the distinct parts of his general Office as Mediator which he manages in order to the reducement of lost Sinners exactly correspond if you consider the more eminent acts and properties of each Office to that threefold notion under which the Spirit of Man must alwayes have eyed and been acted towards God had he never fallen and hence this righteousness which consists in conformity to the Gospel is the former righteousness which was lâ—st with such an accession as is necessary upon consideration that it was lost and was only to be recovered by a Mediator Therefore you may now take this short and as compendious an account as I can give of it in what follows It includes so firm and understanding an assent to the truth of the whole Gospel Revelation as that the soul is thereby brought through the power of the Holy Ghost sensibly to apprehend its former disobedience to God and distance from him the reasonableness of subjection to him and desirableness of blessedness in him the necessity of a Redeemer to reconcile and recover it to God the accomplishments and designation of the Lord Jesus Christ to that purpose And hence a penitent and complacential return to God as the supream Authority and soveraign Good an humble and joyful acceptance of our Lord Jesus Christ as its Prince and Saviour with submission to his Authorâ—y and reliance on his grace the exercise of both which are founded in his blood looking and pitching upon him as the only medium through which he and his duties can please God or God and his mercies approach him and through which he hath the confidence to venture upon a Covenant-acceptance of God and surrender himself to him afterward pursued to his uttermost by a continued course of living in his fear and love in obedience to him and communion with him through the Mediator alwayes while he is passing the time of his pilgrimage in this world groaning under remaining sin and pressing after perfect holiness with an earnest expectation animating him to a persevering patience through all difficulties of a blessed eternity in the other world That such a conformity to the Gospel should be expressed by the name of righteousness cannot seem strange to such as acquaint themselves with the language of the Scripture That graoious frame which the Gospel made essential impresses upon the soul is the Kingdom of God in the passive notion of it his Kingdom received and now actually come with power upon our Spirits
And this Kingdom sometimes also by an apt Synecdoche called Judgment in the same notion is said to consist in righteousness whence then result also Peace and joy in the Holy Ghost The same holy impressions and consequent operations are mentioned by the Apostle under the name of fruits of righteousness wherewith he prayes his Philippians might be filled It was Elymâ—s's opposition to the Gospel that stigmatized him with that brand Thou enemy of all righteousness To yield our selves servants to righteousness in opposition to a former servitude to sin is obeying from the heart the Doctrine of the Gospel into the type or mould whereof we have been cast or delivered And sure both the seal and the impression Gods revelation and holiness however now more explicite and distinctly conspicuous in all their parts are the same with us substantially and in Davids time whence we need make no difficulty to own this latter when we meet with it as here under the same Name By what hath hitherto been said it may be already seen in part how exactly this righteousness corresponds to the blessedness for which it qualifies whereof we shall have occasion hereafter to take further notice In the mean time it will be requisite to shew which was promised to be done in the next place How it qualifies To which I say very briefly that it qualifies for this blessednesse two wayes 1. Lâ—gally or in genere Morali as it describes the Persons who by the Gospel-grant have alone title thereunto The righteous into life eternal The unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God Say to the righteous it shall be well with them The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him In his righteousness he shall live In which last words how this righteousness conduceth to life is exprest by the same Praeposition as in the Text. In this kind it is not at all causal of this blessednesse but 't is that which the free and wise and holy Law-giver thought meet by his settled constitution besides what necessity there is of it upon another account to make requisite thereto The conformity of our Lord Jesus Christ to that severer Law under which he is said to have been made is that which alone causes merits purchases this blessedness which yet is to be enjoyed not by all indiscriminatim or without distinction but by such alone as come up to the terms of the Gospel as he did fully satisfie the strict exactions of that other rigid Law by doing and suffering for their sakes 2. Naturally or in genere Physico In this kind it may be said to be some way causal that is to be a causa materialis dispositiva by a proper positive influence disposing the subject unto this blessedness which that it shall yet enjoy is wholly to be resolved into the Divine good pleasure but it is put by this holy rectitude into that temper and posture that it may enjoy it through the Lords gracious vouchsafement when without it 't were naturally impossible that any should An unrighteous impure soul is in a natural indisposition to see God or be blessed in him That depraved temper averts it from him the steady bent of its will is set another way and 't is a contradiction that any in sensu composito should be happy against their wills i. e. while that aversion of will yet remains The unrighteous banish themselves from God they shun and hate his presence Light and darkness cannot have communion The Sun doth but shine continue to be it self and the darkness vanishes and is fled away When God hath so determined that only the pure in heart shall see him that without holiness none shall he layes no other Law upon unholy souls than what their own impure natures lay upon themselves If therefore it should be enquired Why may not the unrighteous be subjects of this blessedness See God and be satisfied with his likeness as well as the righteous the question must be so answered as if it were enquired Why doth wood admit the fire to passe upon it suffer its flames to insinuate themselves till they have introduced its proper form and turned it into their own likeness but we see water doth not so but violently resists its first approaches and declines all commerce with it The natures of these agree not And is not the contrariety here as great We have then the qualified subject of this blessedness and are next to consider This Blessedness it self CHAP. III. The nature of this Blessedness propounded unto consideration in the three ingredients here mentioned whereof it consists 1. Vision of Gods Face 2. Assimilation to him 3. The satisfaction resulting thence These propounded to be considered 1. Absolutely and singly each by it self 2. Relatively in their mutual respects to each other The first of these Vision of Gods Face discourst of 1. The Object 2. The Act. NOW for the Nature of this Blessedness or the inquiry wherein it lyes so far as the Text gives us any account of it we are invited to turn our thoughts and discourse to it And we have it here represented to us in all the particulars that can be supposed to have any nearer interest in the business of Blessedness or to be more intimate and intrinsical thereunto For the beatifique Object supposed what more can be necessary to actual compleat formall blessedness than the sight of it and adaptation or assimilation to it which is nothing else but its being actually communicated and imparted to the soul its being united and made as it were one with it and the complacential fruition the soul hath of it so communicated or having so transformed it into its self And these three are manifestly contained in the Text the beatisique Object being involved with them the first in the former clause I shall behold thy face the second and third in the latter I shall be satisfied with thy likeness where being made like to God hath been discovered to be supposed the satisfaction the pleasant contentful relishes consequent thereto plainly exprest We shall therefore have stated the entire nature of this Blessedness in the handling of these three things Vision of the Face of God Participation of his likeness Satisfaction therein And I shall chuse to consider them 1. Absolutely and singly each by it self 2. Relatively in the mutual respects by way of influence and dependence they may be found to have towards each other Therefore first in the absolute consideration of them severally we begin with First the Vision of Gods Face where The Object the Face of God Act of seeing and beholding it are distinctly to be spoken to 1. The Face of God the Object of this Vision which is his glory represented offered to view And this objected or exhibited glory iâ— twofold 1. Sensible such as shall incurr and gratifie after the resurrection the bodily eye 2. Intellectual or intelligible that spiritual glory that only comes under