is that loves to live a sober and righteous and godly life is most affectionately a servant to the Lord Iesus Christ and does bestow his whole Time in doing the things that he Commands Let the object of our Love be what it will whether God or the World the Flesh or the Spirit still the Rule of the Apostle will be unalterably true That to whom we yield our selves servants to obey His servants we are to whom we obey whether of Sin unto Death or of Obedience unto Righteousness Love is ever so sure to beget obedience that when our Saviour would give a reason why no one man can serve two masters meaning those two call'd God and Mammon he made his reason to stand in this that no one man can love two Masters For either he will hate the one and love the other or will hold to the one and despise the other So that if we love God we shall be sure to hate Mammon and if again we hold to Mammon we shall rebel against God Whereas if it were possible to love them Both it would also be as possible to serve them Both because by the persons whom we love we cannot but love to be employ'd The love of Christ doth constrain us saith our Apostle to his Corinthians And as Christ's love of us so ours of Him doth even press upon us and urge us to keep his Commandments and to do those things which are pleasing in his sight But let us farther make it appear by a fourth way of arguing For Sect. 4. Whatsoever we love the most is either present or absent And as when it is present we most delight in it so whilst it is absent we do long the most after it But the Apostle tells us expresly that whilst at home in the Body we are absent from the Lord for we walk by Faith and not by sight So that if we love Christ we shall long after his presence and if we truly long for it we shall indeavour its attainment And if we indeavour to reach the end there will be nothing more natural than to inquire after the means And finding the means to be obedience we shall undoubtedly obey The Helkesaitae prov'd nothing but that themselves were stupid sinners in conceiving it possible to deny Christ with the Mouth and yet to love him with the Heart For the Heart in a Man like the Spring in a Watch is that that sets all on work both Tongue and Eyes and Hands and Feet too If with the heart a man believeth unto righteousness 't is very certain that with the mouth he will confess unto Salvation He will obey his dear Master in every kind both by speaking and living and dying for him If he is but once mounted on the wing of pure Love he cannot choose but be transported by the wing of desire too and will incessantly be flying in every errand upon which his Beloved shall please to send him Which may once more appear by a fifth way of arguing For Sect. 5. Carnal fear is the greatest and strongest Barr to our Obedience But there is no fear in love perfect love casteth out fear 1 Iohn 4. 18. And as it casteth out fear so it establisheth a Hope too And Hope is evermore a Spur by which we are urged to our Obedience from its expectance of our Reward It was this Love and Hope which made S. Paul follow Christ through every rough passage by sea and land He was so amorous of his Saviour and so piously ambitious of the Glory to be reveal'd that he rejoyc'd in his afflictions and was readier to dye for the name of the Lord Jesus than to fail in any point of yielding Obedience to his Commands Nor is it truer of S. Paul than of all the meanest Souldiers in the Army of Martyrs That neither distress nor persecution nor nakedness nor famin nor peril nor sword nor life nor death nor any other Creature had any power to step in betwixt their Love and their Obedience The reason of it is obvious as t is to say that they were Members of Jesus Christ not only reputed but real members And 't is natural for a member as to love its own Head so to live in Obedience to its Direction Sect. 6. Thus I seem to my self to have made it evident that Love is ever that cause of which Obedience is the most natural and most inseparable effect 'T is still as ready to obey as water is to wet or fire to Burn. Nor can it better be represented than by the nature of that active and subtle Element Knowledge we may say is a kind of light but Love is more properly a sort of Fire and with that when the Heart is once sufficiently inflam'd it cannot but send up those sparks of Zeal and devotion to its Beloved which do inkindle a special Pleasure in doing the things that he commandeth The Psalmists Heart was hot within him so hot that he tells the fire was kindled and though he long held his Peace yet his love did so burn he was not able to suppress it and so at last he spake with his Tongue We may say therefore of Love what the spowse in the Canticles doth say of Iealousie which is but one of Loves Daughters The Coals thereof are Coals of Fire which hath so vehement a Flame that many waters cannot quench it neither can the flouds drown it Love indeed is such a flame as must evaporate or expire or burn out its way through all that labours to keep it in A thing so busie and industrious as that in truth it can no longer be called Love than it is doing somewhat or other in complaisance and compliance with its Beloved Sect 7. Having now passed through the Proof proceed we briefly to the use we are to make of this Inference And first of all let us consider that if Love and Obedience are two inseparable Companions the former as the Cause and this later as the Effect It concerns us as much as our Souls are worth to take a care that our Love be rightly fixt and directed For it transforms us into the Image of whatsoever thing it is that we love the most And according as our object is good or evil It either put 's us upon the noblest or meanest offices in the world If its object is right we are the best sort of men but if it is wrong the worst of monsters It being with love as it is with fire which in proportion to the matter on which it feeds doth send up the sweetest or noysom'st vapours If it feeds on such matter as Grass and Tallow it cannot choose but have a noxious and stinking breath if on Cinnamon and storax it fills the Air with a perfume And just thus it is with the flame of Love If it fixes upon Christ it breaths forth nothing but pure obedience and so abounds with good works which are
he was purged from his old Sins v. 9. Which is as much as to say that the keeping of the Commandments is all in all for if we keep them we are happy and if we break them we are undon I say we are happy in case we keep them because by keeping them we make our Election sure I do not say we make our selves infallibly sure of our Election and that by ordinary means too without immediate Revelation as an Assembly of Divines have made profession of their Belief For as Faith is a good man's so infallible assurance is God's peculiar And it implyes a contradiction to say a man may be infallible in what he does but yet believe For as infallibity implyes a knowledge in perfection so belief implyes strongly a knowledge only in part that is in some measure a want of knowledge Which infers a fallibility in him that wants it When we say we do believe we shall never fall and that we do believe we are vessels of Election our meaning is we do not doubt it not at all that we cannot or may not err When Adam stood in a state of Innocence he did believe without doubt he should so continue When Lucifer stood in a state of Glory he did not doubt in the least of his being safe But the event does shew plainly in Him and Adam the possibility of their falling before they fell So as long as we stand in a state of Grace and do so love our Saviour as to keep his Commandments we have reason to be confident of our Election but not infallibly assur'd because we are not omniscient yea do not know our own Hearts and cannot tell what a Day or what an hour may bring forth Whilst we are militant here on Earth we do Hope for Heaven but shall then only be sure when we shall take it into possession They who urge S. Peter's words for an infallible assurance 2 Epist. chap. 1. ver 10. where the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and notes the sureness of the Election not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implying assurance in the Elect do prove no more from that Text than that they quite mistake its meaning Not through an Ignorance of the original but a forgetfulness to consult it It may suffice for our comfort that God himself is infallible though we may err And though we know not what we are much less what we shall be yet this we know surely That all the paths of the Lord are Mercy and Truth unto such as keep his Covenant and his Testimonies Psal. 25. 10. We are infallible in our knowledge that God is faithful so as he cannot fail possibly to make good his promise if we shall manfully persevere in our performance of the condition And sure the sum of the Condition is briefly this that we love him so farr as to keep his Comandments Again that this is the Test of our Love to Christ and the means whereby to make our Election sure may be as easily collected from Heb. 6. 10 11 12. Where the Apostle having premis'd the work and labour of their love which they had shew'd to Christ's Name in their ministring to the Saints v. 10. He does immediately desire them to shew the same diligence to the full assurance of Hope unto the end v. 11. And not to be slothful but followers of them who through Faith and Patience inherit the promises v. 12. From which words of the Apostle we are to gather four things First that he does not say infallible but full assurance of Hope Nor is it He but our Translation which saith so much For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is but a fulness of Hope not at all a full assurance unless by full assurance is mean't a fulness and nothing else Next a diligence is requir'd for the attainment of this Hope and this must be unto the end The promise that we shall reap is on condition that we faint not We must therefore so run that we may obtain Thirdly Our diligence must be shew'd too that men may see it and be the better and glorifie God in our behalf It must be shew'd in a laborious and working Love a Love exhibited to Christ by being employ'd upon his Members The Love of Christ if it is true will be shew'd in this that instead of being idle or empty-handed it hath its work and its labour is ever diligent and industrious in the keeping of his Commands Lastly the promises are not inherited through Faith alone which S. Iames calls a dead and a worthless Faith but through Faith mixt with patience which is not a barren but a fruitful not an idle but working Faith Such as worketh by Love impartial obedience to the Commandments And such as worketh by patience with perseverance unto the end Thus we prove by our obedience the real solidity of our Love and by our Permanency in both make our Calling and Election sure It were easie for me to argue from a very great number of such like Topicks of which the old and new Testament afford much plenty But that the proof of this Doctrin may not keep us too long from the Application I shall conclude with what I find in the 8 th chapter to the Romans And thence the Point I am upon may be irrefragably evicted For they are true lovers of Christ and real vessels of Election to whom there is no condemnation There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Iesus v. 1. They alone are in Him who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit And what other can they be than such as keep his Commandments That this indeed is the evidence of our being in Christ does farther appear by the three Ifs in the 10 11 and 13 verses of that chapter If Christ be in you the Body is dead because of sin but the Spirit is life because of Righteousness And if the Spirit of Him who raised up Iesus from the Dead dwell in you he also shall quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit which dwelleth in you And if ye live after the Flesh ye shall dye but if through the Spirit ye mortifie the Deeds of the Body ye shall live Now by the Deeds of the Body are meant the Breaches of the Commandments And how are they mortified but by obedience We have the same in S. Iohn but a little more plainly Hereby we know that we know him even by keeping his word 1 John 2. 5. He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also to walk even as he walked v. 6. Now we know that Christ Jesus was so subjected to the Law that that was constantly the Path wherein he walked And when 't is said by S. Paul that the end of the Commandment is charity out of a pure heart and of a good Conscience and Faith unfeigned The Heart is imply'd to be impure the Conscience evil and the Faith but hypocritical which is not
47. ever attended with obedience 49 50 c. A fire 54. and is according to the fewel on which it feeds 55 56 c. it s proper Touchstone 65 66 c. 71 72 c. more worthy than Faith and hope 85 86. it s other Prerogatives 87 88. in what degree it is due to Christ 93 94. the several means of attaining that pitch of Love to Christ Iesus which is required 108 109 c. examples of it in Paul and Magdalene 113 114 115. in God himself 116 117. what begins in the flesh may be perfected in the spirit 125. unites and inebriates 127 128 129. of man to man 131 132 c. 141 c. M Magdalen her love to Christ 114 115 c. Man as man does love vertue 8 9. Martyrdom how it may stand with prosperity 97. Mercy how it yields the most profit to shew it unto others 34 35. Method of great Moment in Christian practice 107 108 109. N Nature its good inclinations even in its state of depravation 8. how far it is able to work with grace 104 105 106 107. O Obedience pleasant and a reward unto it self 18 19 20 c. 't was every thing to David by which he could be made happy 21 22. c. the great condition on which the promises are made 25 c. the one infallible proof of Love 38 39 c. 73 74. the art of getting it 80 81. it must be Impartial and Universal 82 94 95. Orthodoxy nothing worth without obedience 73 74 95. P Perseverance its necessity 76 77. Persecution how to sweeten it 82 83. how it reigns amongst Christians 156 157. Pleasures the greatest are the most innocent 19 20 62 63 64. Poverty a Preference due to it 163 164 165. Prayer how to make it most infallibly effectual 25 26 c. 124. Preaching to whom of no use 102 103. to whom useful 104 105. Promises the greatest that Christ could make 26 27. not absolute but conditional 28 29 77. Prosperity how reconcilable with sufferings 97. 98. R Rebellion the greatest Tyrant 23. Redemption universal 141. 142. S Salvation its Requisites 1 Introd Sect. 2. p. 10. 75. 76. Security the disease of most Christians 1 Introd Sect. 1. its danger 69. 70. 102. 103. Self-love its mischievous effects 57. how commonly more than our Love to God 125. 126. Self-denial how to be learnt 60. 61. c. how â—… supplies the place of Martyrdom 97. 98. Shame how subservient to Love p. 3. 4. c. 9. 47. 48. 60. 115. 118. 119. 120. 126. Sin what pains we take to make it seem lovely 56. 57. Sincerity the great Requisite of Love 146. V Virtue of greatest Sensuality 19. 61. 62. c. W Will how God works on it not as on agents meerly Natural 43. 44. c. How it works with God 104. 105. 106. 107. 124. World how to wean our selves from it 59. 60. 61. 108. 109. c. Imprimatur Tho. Tomkyns R. Rmo. in Christo Patri ac Domino Dno Gilberto divinâ Providentiâ Archi-Episc Cantuar. à sac dom Ex Aedib Lambethanis Martii 13. 1669. THE INTRODUCTION TO The First Part. Sect. 1. AS nothing is easier to a Christian than the gross knowledge of his Duty so there is nothing more difficult than a just Decorum in the Performance And this is certainly the reason that though the Kingdom of Grace hath been found by many who never sought it yet the Kingdom of Glory hath been sought by more who never found it It being the custom of most Professors in their Spiritual Travels only to gaze with greedy eyes on their Iourneys end without Employing their Indeavonrs to hit the way Like some of Those under the Pole in an half years night who have in storie been so blinded at the return of the Sun as not to see their way towards him we behold the glorious Promises of our exalted Sun of Righteousness with both our eyes but are so dazl'd with their Brightness as in comparison of Them to have scarce a glimmering of his Precepts We look on the other side our Work we are so Partially Supinely taken up with our Wages and do so sasten our Sanguin memories upon Christs love to us that we forget the great Requisites of ours to Him Whilst God is speaking from mount Gerizim we listen to him with willing Ears But are as deaf as any Adders when he calls to us from mount Sinai Our Saviour is welcom to us still in his Priestly office which is to Bless us but in his Kingly which is to Rule us he finds a different entertainment Every man hath his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or naked Appetite of the End but cares not greatly for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Consultation about the Means We would arrive at our Haven but not encounter with the Tempest preserve our Vessel but not cast away our Fraught pass over into Canaan but not through the Wilderness or the Red-sea Dye the Death of the Righteous we would all by all means but without either the care or the pains to live like him And would gladly ly with Lazarus in Abraham's bosom but are contented that the Dogs should have the licking of his Sores We love to put a misconstruction on several Articles of our Creed and take the Captain of our Salvation to have sinally so subdued our Ghostly enemy as to have left for his Souldiers no harder Task than the easy Injoyment of the Spoyl As if the Apostle had exhorted us to follow Christ without the Camp not to Fight but Triumph not to strive for the Masterie but supinely to receive it Sect. 2. Whereas it ought to be remember'd that as the way which leads to Heaven is both narrow and Incumber'd which the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does well import So the Gate that opens to it is Low and streight And being so it admits not of all Promiscuous comers but as Low of such as are Lowly and as streight of such as are Slender The Ambitious man therefore has too much stature and the Worldling has too much Bulk Through the one they are too high and through the other too unweildy They would Both enter in but upon their own Termes For the first would not be Lower nor the second Less Not at all laying to heart what our Lord himself has told us in his Sermon upon the Mount that Bliss and Glory are for the Meek and the Poor in Spirit for them that mourn and are merciful for them that make Peace and are Pure in heart for them that even hunger and thirst after Righteousness and for them that suffer hardship for Righteousness sake that is to say in fewer words for them alone that Love Christ and that keep his Commandments When he compares the Kingdom of Heaven unto a Treasure hid in a Field though perhaps it may be found for little or no Cost at all yet he
bleeding Innocence of a Saviour than with the Tragical Chimaeras of a Dramatick Poem How great and manifold is the guilt of being niggardly and cold in our love to him whom to love is so easy so advantageous nay whom 't is hard not to love What a sin against nature not to love them that love us What a sin against Reason not to love such an object as we confess is most lovely What a sin against Grace not to love even Him who hath poured out upon us the Spirit of love and so hath offer'd us at least the Grace to love him What a sin against Gratitude not to love Him who so loves us as that he loves to forgive us the scandalous littleness of our Love What a sin to be wanting in love to Him who dyed to expiate our want of love to him What a barbarous sin is it to love him lamely and with indifference who stands knocking at our Door and importunes us to open with much Intreaty and that from morning till midnight until his Head is fill'd with Dew and his locks with the drops of the night what an amazing sin is it and almost incredible to love our Saviour any whitless than we love our sins To have a much weaker love for the Proper object of our love than we are wonted to bestow on the proper object of our Hatred Yet is there any thing more usual than for many not to love Christ who are called Christians and to demonstrate they do not love him by their not keeping his Commandments So very great reason there is to put a strong Emphasis on the Particle If that even the best of us perhaps may call our love into Question whether it is such as will serve the turn whether such as does employ us in the due keeping of the Commandments Sect. 9. And therefore for a conclusion let us thus reckon within our selves That in as much as without Faith it is impossible to please God and seeing no Faith is true but that which worketh by love and seeing no love will prove effectual but that which brings forth obedience to the Commandments of Christ in which respect 't is called fitly the fulfilling of the Law seeing also we must know that Christ is in us or among us which we can very hardly do but by the love we bear to him as well as by the love which he bears to us Shed abroad in our hearts by the holy Ghost which he hath given us And seeing by consequence that our love appears to be one of the greatest Hinges upon which the very Door of our Hope does turn it concerns us as much as Salvation comes to that we raise up our hearts to things invisible and future and that we work up our affections towards the right hand of God where Jesus sitteth and is inthron'd by all the Instruments and Engines to be imagin'd Never must we cease from our work of Faith which is obedience from our labour of love which is Industry and diligence in that obedience from our Patience of Hope which is indurance unto the end in that industrious way of obedience until the Flame of our Affection has burnt up all unclean Fires obstructing the passage 'twixt us and Christ and made its way to Immortality in contempt of all Ifs or Peradventures that it may never more be said If we love him but because we love him and because we cannot but love him we are resolv'd not to be able not to keep his Commandments Sect. 10. For by the Custom of our obedience that I may touch before hand on what will properly be handl'd in other places we shall contract unto our selves so great an easiness to obey that 't will be difficult and hard to be disobedient We shall be ready to object to any masterful temptation what Ioseph did to his tempting Mistress how can we do this great wickedness and sin against God wilful sin will become such a stranger to us we shall so lose its acquaintance by discontinuing to commit it that we shall neither have the heart nor the Face to own it I say by a long and constant practice in the keeping of the Commandments and going on a great while in the path of Righteousness we shall forget the way back to our old Rebellions and shall arrive at an averseness to those enticements with which we were wont to converse with Pleasure Ever saying when we are tempted with the spouse in the Canticles we have cast off our coat how shall we put it on We have washt our feet how shall we defile them An inveterate habit of the soul like such an habit of the Body as it is not quickly gotten so when it is it is hardly lost And as the habit of living wickedly turns our wickedness into our nature that to cease from doing wickedly all things in us must become new so the habit of doing well does so rivet and ingrain the love of Piety in our hearts that 't is well nigh as difficult to raze it out as for a Leopard to change his spots or an Aethiop his skin Is there any among us who has been so accustom'd to any sin as that it has got the dominion over him let him but have the Curiosity to make an obvious experiment for the sole want of which he understands not the pleasures of vertuous living and my life for his it will set him free Let him accustom himself as much to the keeping of the Commandments as he has don unto the Breach and Transgression of them and he will find himself as perfectly an humble servant unto Righteousness as before he was a servant and slave to sin Righteousness will get the Dominion over him 't will Rule and Reign in his mortal body it will so lift up his reason above his Passions and so bring down his Appetite to a subjection under his Will as that the law in his members will but timorously war against the law in his mind He will be passionately in love both with the Burthen and the yoke as with the Beauty and the Love of his master Christ. And like the Bondman in Exodus at the great year of Manumission will rather be bored through the ear than be free from Christ. The Apostles word is He will be a new Creature and even those which heretofore were his most formidable Duties will now at last so become his supream delights that as he will not indure to do the things which he abominates so as little will he be able to abstain from the duties he so much loves Thus at last he will be brought into that blessed disability of wilful sinning of which S. Iohn speaks in his first Epistle He that is born of God sinneth not neither can he saith the Apostle and that because he is born of God That is he cannot sin wilfully so as still to be regenerate
provoke us unto obedience by a redoubled Reflexion on our Advantage What can be more for our Advantage or more agreeable to the Ambitions both of the Flesh and of the Spirit than to have our own wills and to be masters of all we have a mind to even all that we are able to want or pray for yet this is every mans portion who does so really love Christ as to keep his Commandments For so saith the Oracle which cannot ly or prevaricate Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name that will I do v. 13. and in the very next words If ye shall ask any thing in my name I will do it v. 14. A promise sufficient to make us startle unless we consider it long enough to grasp the whole of its Importance For we see 't is universal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if any thing and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whatsoever we shall have what we ask without exception And universal as it is it is inculcated and insorc't by a sacred kind of Tautology From whence 't is obvious to inferr as it is useful to observe that although vain Repetitions are worthily blam'd by our blessed Saviour yet there are many Repetitions which are not vain It is so farr from being vain for our Lord here to tell us the same thing twice that 't is to rivet it in our memories and to imprint it in our minds And what is that which he desires may take so deep an Impression in us but that we shall have our own asking if we will but so love him as to keep his Commandments Compare the Text with the Context the condition of the promise with the promise it self and you will find that the scope of the whole is this If you will do my will I will not fail to do yours If ye will but hear me speaking to you in my Precepts I will be sure to hear you speaking to me in your Prayers Give me the little that I ask and you shall have your own asking Put your selves into a capacity of injoying as much as you can desire Apply your selves to such a course as by which ye may make me your own and have all my Mercies at your disposal For on condition that ye love me and keep my Commandments I will do what ye will have me setting no bounds unto my grant but what ye do to your Petitions That this is here our Saviours meaning will undeniably appear from those parallel words 1 Iohn 3. 22. Whatsoever we ask we receive of him because we keep his Commandments Not whilst but because Not at that time but for that reason Compare this again with those other expressions of Christ himself Iohn 15. 7. If ye abide in me and my words abide in you ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be don which is as if he should have said do you but keep my Commandments and ye shall have me at your Command for so run the words ask what ye will and it shall be don Let us be perfect in this point before we leave it For besides that there is nothing which more closely concerns the Text I mean as it stands in relation to the Context by how much the longer we think upon it we shall admire it so much the more Admit that we were to make the greatest promise to be imagin'd to Christ himself we could not go beyond this Lord ask what thou wilt and it shall be don And yet the very same thing saith He to us ask what ye will and it shall be don if ye will but so love me as to keep my Commandments Sect. 13. Where now lyes the difference betwixt God's doing our will and our doing His since he is pleas'd to bind himself by such an astonishing kind of promise no less than 4 times repeated in the very same Sermon that all we ask shall be don ask what we will Certainly the difference is only this that God does satisfie our wills by way of answer to our Petitions and we do Homage unto His by way of Answer to his Commands His compliance with us is an act of Grace and ours with Him an act of Duty God reveals his will to us by way of Empire and Exaction because he is our Creator and we the work of his Hands We exhibit our wills to Him by way of Intreaty and Supplication because he is as our Potter and we his clay In this then we differ that we intreat whilst he Commands but in this we agree that we would have our wills don He by us and we by Him Nay what will ye say if he intreates us too as earnestly as we do him It is the saying of S. Paul 2 Cor. 5. 20. We are Embassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christ's stead be ye reconciled unto God Here is God ye see beseeching us and Jesus Christ praying to us for what he does by his Embassadors he truly does that having don him all the wrong we will admit of a Reconcilement that is to say that we will love him and keep his Commandments Herein then consisteth the great Advantage of our obedience that whilst 't is doing God's will it moveth God to do ours Which must not be accus'd as a bold expression because we are taught it by God himself For if we keep his Commandments we shall abide in his love Iohn 15. 10. And if we abide in his love all we ask shall be don ask what we will Iohn 15. 7. Sect. 14. But here it may easily be objected to all that hath hitherto been spoken that however our Saviour hath made this Promise yet not one of his Disciples hath ever seen its Performance For where is he in all the world who can say his Petitions have all been granted how many sick and poor Christians have pray'd to Christ for health and honour who yet have dyed of their diseases in perfect beggary and dropt unregarded into a grave of forgetfulness and obscurity Sect. 15. The Answer to this will be short and obvious That the great and precious promise is not absolute but conditional Had the promise been absolute the objection brought to it had not been capable of an Answer it would not lye in our power to clear our Saviour from breach of Promise But the promise being conditional is more or less to be perform'd by him that made it as the condition shall be observed by them on whom it is injoyn'd Now thus stands the Case betwixt our Saviour and our selves In the two next verses before my Text and Iohn 15. 7. we have a general promise bestowed on his part and in the words next after we have a reasonable condition requir'd on Ours The promise is on his part that we shall have what we ask ask what we will The Condition is on ours that we abide in him and that his words abide in us that we love him so farr as to
as we are rational and in what Instance can we be rational wherein 't is possible for us to cease from being voluntary Agents It does concern us therefore as such to ask for Grace when it is wanting and to use it when it is granted and again to pray God to increase our Talent and to beware that we receive not his Grace in vain too 2 Cor. 6. 1. And therefore as such we are injoyn'd as well as intreated by S. Paul not to grieve not to resist not to quench the Spirit of God when he begins to kindle in us that love of Christ which he requires plainly intimating unto us that when the Spirit of God is ready to shed abroad in our hearts such a saving love it lyes in us to shut a Casement that is an Eye to open a Dore that is an Ear to yield up a Castle that is a Heart to draw a Curtain that is a Prejudice to put Impediments out of the way and by the assistance of the same Spirit to employ the noble Faculties which God hath given us unto the noblest of the Ends for which he gave them We are able as we are men to presentiate our Saviour within our selves and so to meditate upon Him as we ordinarily do upon other objects we can frame Idaeas of him in our Imaginations and thereby bring him into our Heads by an Intentional Union although the Grace of God alone can unite him really to our Hearts by servent love and Faith unseigned Seeing therefore the Scripture saith in justification of the praemisses That we are Labourers and Workers together with God and again that we are Stewards of the manifold Grace of God and are diligently to look least any man fail of the Grace of God and again that every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour Let us never cease to labour in the great work of our Salvation till by the help of God's Grace which never fails to work with any who do not fail to work with it we have wrought our selves up to a Love of Christ. Being comparatively neglectful of all other duties until we have throughly attain'd to this We must remember that as our Faith is pre-required to our Love so is our Love to our obedience and our obedience unto our Bliss And we must perfect our Foundation before we build For debile Fundamentum fallit opus the weakness of a Foundation must needs betray the whole strength of a superstructure In vain shall we labour to raise the Fabrick of obedience unless we have a firm love whereupon to build it And therefore first let us be sure of loving Christ in Sincerity before we take upon our selves the effectual keeping of his Commandments And let us use the best engines whereby to screw our Love up to the Pitch requir'd For what we do not much Love we cannot much long for nor can we very much care to espowse the means of its Attainment And therefore in spight of the objection which has an aptness in its Nature to breed a carelesness of our Actions an unconcernment in our end and a contempt of those Assistances which onr Authorized Teachers are wont to yield us let us not cast away the care we ought to have of our Immortality nor be so blinded with the Opinion that all the actions of our Lives were pre-determin'd from Aeternity as thereupon to despair of being the better for our Indeavours and by consequence to resolve never to do our selves any Good But let us labour on the contrary after the Duty of loving Christ for the escaping of the Danger I mean the Curse and the Damnation denounced here to all Persons that love him not And to press this forwards with at least some Hope as well as Ambition of good Success will deserve to be the work of another Chapter CHAP. III. Sect. 1. WHen we are setting about the means which do most of all conduce to our greatest Ends we must be sure of right method as well as of Diligence in our Indeavours And because we are to cease from being Enemies to our Saviour before we can be in a possibility of being denominated his Friends First let us summon-in our Affections which are scatter'd abroad upon the world the love of which S. Iames saith is perfect Enmity with Christ. They that mind earthly things must needs be Enemies to his Cross and being Enemies to his Cross they cannot be Friends unto his Person For the Apostle tells us of such that their end is Destruction The reason of this is very evident For whilst we have Friendship with the world which is Christ's Rival and Competitor our Souls are Adulteresses and Harlots to use the language of S. Iames in the place before cited as being false and disloyal to him who betrothed us to himself and is verbally acknowledg'd to be our Bridegroom Love is evermore so sure to be the Mother of Obedience to whatsoever object it is which is much belov'd that as when we love Christ we will keep His Commandments so when we also love the world we will keep the Commandments of the world to wit the statutes of Omri and all the works of the House of Ahab So that our first labour must be for 't is indeed a great labour to disentangle our Affections to take them off from the things of this tempting world and as it were twisting them all together like the Rayes of the Sun in an Optick Pyramid strive to concenter them so united in the Soveraign Beauty of a Saviour Now one of the proper Engines for this I mean the rescuing of our love from what is worldly and to be seen is to chew and to ruminate long enough in our Thoughts upon this great Truth that even our love of the Body does wholly depend upon the Soul And the titular Beauty of the Flesh must be confessed by the most sensual to lye intirely in the spirit For if we except the sole case of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Herodotus which yet was not love but another thing and that perhaps but a Fable too who ever heard of any Lover fixing his love upon the Body so much as one short minute after the vanishing of the Soul Did the Corinthians court their Lais when nothing was left them but her Body Did Demosthenes take a Iourney in kindness to her when she was dead no there was nothing then desirable besides Forgetfulness and a Grave Nothing then but the Worms was able to covet her Embraces Methinks that this one observable were it as patiently consider'd as it is easily understood should conduce extremely much to the spiritualizing of our Affections For if we love nothing that we can see of our dearest Friends but for the love of somwhat else which cannot possibly be seen what better reason can we give of it than that the Part which is material is arrant Rottenness and Corruption nor only not
spending upon our sins both to nourish and to adorn them with Food and Rayment Let us spend upon our Saviour in a more liberal proportion and that in such manner as he directs us Let us spend out of our Treasures to feed and cloath him in his members Let us spend to pay him Homage in as many of his members as under Him are our Heads And let us be spent for him as freely like Epaphroditus and S. Paul both by watching and fasting by meditating and praying by suffering paines and persecutions whensoever he shall call or expose us to them not by the leaving of our lives for the paying unto Nature her common Debt but by the laying of them down for the paying to our Saviour our Debt of Grace And as we may help to shame our selves into a love of the Lord Iesus by reflecting on our love to inferiour things so our love to the Lord Iesus just as our love to other things is very apt both to be bred and to be very much nourish't by conversation For Ignoti nulla Cupido We cannot possibly desire him whilst we are ignorant of his beauty And of that we must be ignorant whilst we are strangers to his converse So that the reason why most Professors are wont to love Christ so little doth seem especially to be This their having so little of his Acquaintance Enough of that will so charm us as to beget in us a loathing of all that makes a separation 'twixt Him and us Unto how many things and persons are many men passionately addicted if not absolutely enslav'd for which they can give us no better reason than that of their having been wonted to them let us but wont our selves as much unto an heavenly conversation and we shall find it just as harsh to be weaned from it Hence it follows that we must read and not only read but strictly search into the Scripture not only resting in its literal but also diving into its moral and soaring up too into its mystical significations whereby to acquaint ourselves throughly with the Lord Jesus Christ and more and more to comprehend the great variety of his Perfections And then to the end that his Perfections may so affect us as they deserve nor only float in our Brains but deeply sink into our Bowels we must imprint them within our selves by mental Prayer and Meditation To each of which we must be resolute to be so wonted and inur'd as not to be able without regret to admit of any long Avocation from them Nor can we pardonably excuse our gross neglects of conversing with Jesus Christ by alledging our Inability of taking delight in his converse For conversation must be made easie ere it can possibly be delightful And the easiness of any thing must come by use First 't is the diligence of our converse by which we come to love Christ and then 't will be natural for our Love to make us delight in his converse It argues a shallowness of Reason and a great want of perspicacity to think there are not any Pleasures upon the Mount of Contemplation as Gerson calls it because we cannot yet perceive them at the Foot of the Hill or in the Act of contending to climb up thither 'T is as great weakness as to conclude against the Pleasure of reaping a goodly Harvest from the labour of Cultivation and charge of seed Or to inferr there is no contentment in inhabiting a pleasant and well-built house from the cost of the Materials and Care of putting them together Nemo Montis Cacumen uno faltu conscendit The Hill of Sion is a fair place and Mount Tabor is a delicious one But we must not think to reach the Top of either at a Leap For as the lower and more earthy our pleasures are they must needs be attain'd with the greater ease so we must use the greatest patience and we must take the greatest paines to overcome the steep ascent of the highest pleasures All the Duties of a Christian I mean the Acts and not the Habits are so many steps and degrees to the Hill I speak of Which Acts of Duty whilst they are yet but Acts only will cost the natural man Pain and make him see he hath need of patience But after a competent tract of Time as soon as the Acts have been so numerous as to produce their respective Habits the Acts arising from those Habits will requite the said Patience with ease and pleasure Shall I exemplifie what I say by any one important duty which at first gives us Trouble and after rewards us with Delight I cannot instance in a fitter than that of Prayer because 't is one of the chiefest means whereby to enter and to continue and to complete our conversation with him that bought us How many are there in the world who turn their backs on this Duty upon no better Ground than their erroneous Imagination that 't is of no use to pray till they can do it with Devotion A way of reasoning as irregular as if a man who is very cold should conclude it wholly useless to make a Fire till he is warm Want we Devotion in our Prayers we are to pray for Devotion and Devotion is apt to grow from our customary Praying for other things From when in spite of our Indifferency and perhaps our Averseness to such a Duty we use the Empire of our Wills in the work of Prayer and casting our selves upon our Knees are very resolutely bent to perform the Duty how much soever against the stream of our Inclinations God will reward our Resolution by turning our Labour into delight and so will make it as great a Pleasure in time to come as it has been in time pass't a self-denial If any man shall here ask how we can possibly converse with things invisible or have a Languor after him whom we never saw let them answer saith S. Ierom who have read the answer to it in the Book of Experience and have not been able to forbear crying out with David Wo is me that I am constrained to dwell in Mesech O that I had wings to fly away and be at rest my soul is athirst for the living God And even panteth after Him as the Hart panteth after the water-Brooks O when shall I appear before the Presence of God! Devout S. Bernard himself confess 't that in the beginning of his Conversion he was frequently of an hard and frigid Heart who yet being accustomed to converse with Christ by Grace could not but thirst with great impatience to injoy him also in his Glory Yea that love which of necessity does begin in the Flesh may saith he by Degrees be well consummated in the Spirit For not to mention the seven degrees which are assign'd by Ubertinus as being too nice to be truly useful First 't is natural for a man as he is carnal and depraved to love himself above all things and above
all things for himself Next when he see 's that of himself he cannot be or be happy and that he depends upon his maker not more for his being than for his bliss he then begins to love God though yet 't is only for himself and his private Interest But when in time upon occasion of his several exigences and wants he is compell'd to seek God for several comsorts and supplies his conversation with the Almighty becomes so customary and natural by his frequenting God's house by his addresses to God in Prayer by getting knowledge out of God's word and by admiring him in his works that what was hitherto but easy does now grow pleasant And so at last having tasted how good and gracious his Maker is he does advance to love God for God's sake only So as nothing does now remain but that degree of perfection in loving God at his being bid to enter into the joy of his Lord when 't is for God's sake alone that he loves Himself And though 't is hard if not impossible whilst we are in this world to love ourselves for God only and not at all for ourselves yet 't is a duty indispensable to love Him especially for himself and far above the consideration that 't is our interest to love him The Reason of it does stand in This that whosoever loves God not especially for God but more especially for himself does by a necessary consequence love himself above God Because in such a case as that God is only one of the objects and himself the final cause or the end of love For if God were that end he would rather love himself for God than God for himself And that for which we love any thing must needs be lov'd by us the most of any because it is the very cause meritorious or final for which we love it For propter quod unumquodque tale illud magis is the maxim made use of by S. Austin himself upon this occasion And therefore he that loves God not so much for Gods sake as for the sake of somewhat else which either comes from or depends upon him such as the comforts of this life or the Promises of the next does indeed but use God and injoy the Creature And how much soever he may appretiate or put a value in his judgment on what he uses yet no doubt he loves most what he most injoyes Bonaventure made it a wonder how 't was possible for a man not to love that Creator with all his Heart who when he might have left him without a being or have made him either a Toad or any other sort of Animal was rather pleas'd to make him capable to understand and to love and injoy his Maker yea and when man had even forfeited all his Interest in God by an abuse of those Favors conferred upon him was farther pleas'd to reconcile and appease himself not by accelerating our miserie but by providing for our Amendment suppose saith Bonaventure thou hadst but lost one of thine Eyes which is a very small part of thy outward man couldst thou abstain from loving Him with a perfect love who should not only find it out but put it again into thine Head too and not only so but make it as useful to thee as ever How then canst thou forbear to love the Lord Iesus Christ with an equal Love who when thou hadst lost thy whole self both Soul and Body had both the kindness and the skill to find thee out and to restore thee and to make thee as much as ever a Vessel of Honour and Immortality Certainly nothing can make thee able not to love him for himself and with all thy soul unless thy want of converse and Acquaintance with him For as the Fire of thy Affection if fed with any unclean Fewel produces nothing with its ardour but smoak and stentch so if the fewel it feeds upon shall be pure and spiritual it will yield both a bright and refreshing Flame And if the love converts the Lover into the Nature of the thing that is dearly lov'd 't is plain that such as is the object such must also be the Act and the Agent too To fix thy love upon the world is ipso facto to be a worldling To fix thy love upon Christ is ipso facto to be a Christian. And to be really a Christian is to be such a one as Christ. For both he that Sanctifieth and they that are Sanctified are all of one And thence He is not ashamed to call them Brethren Heb. 2. 11. Nay he is not asham'd to own them in a more intimate Relation than that of Brethren For by vertue of that unitive and inebriating love which our mystical Theologists are wont to speak of real Christians and Christ do interchangeably inhabit the one the other They do dwell and abide not only with but in each other They in Him and He in Them as both Himself and S. Iohn that Disciple of his Bosom do oft assure us And since 't is so that our Bodies are call'd his Members 1 Cor. 6. 15. Sure our Souls cannot want much of being transfus'd into Himself For S. Paul saith expresly to shew how Christ is to the Christian just as the Bridegroom to the Bride that as the Husband and the wise are made one flesh so he that is joyned to the Lord is ipso facto one spirit 1 Cor. 6. 17. The Apostles word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he that is caemented or solder'd ferruminated or glued that is to say he that cleaveth to the Lord Iesus Christ as fast as one board of Firr cleaves to another to which 't is glued in so much that you may burn them but can never break them asunder 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He is one and the same spirit as his own Blessed spirit is pleas'd to phrase it that is he minds the same things which his beloved Lord minds desires the same things that his Lord desires Injoyes and suffers after the measure that his Lord suffers and Injoyes In a word he hath such an union as is expresst by an Identity since he that cleaveth to the Lord is not only said to have but to B E one spirit S. Bernard speaks it more than once in a very bold Paraphrase Divino ebriatus amore animus oblitus sui factusque sibi ipsi tanquam vas perditum totus pergit in Deum adhaerens Deo unus cum eo spiritus fit The mind saith he being drunk with the love of God and grown forgetful of itself yea wholly lost unto itself and all its secular concernments does so pass over into God as to become one spirit not only one in itself but one with God 'T is true the Father there speaks touching that last degree of Love whereby the Soul is so transported with the converse of its beloved as to be emptied out of itself and in a manner quite annull'd