affecting Instances of his Love or upon the blessed State above and then go on with this following Prayer O Thou most excellent Being thou infinitely amiable and adorable Majesty thou Pattern of Beauty and Standard of Goodness who art glorious beyond all Praise and dost out-reach all Wonder and comprehend all perfection blessed be thy Name thou hast touch'd my soul with a lively sense of thy Glory I feel it shining through me and like an active Flame insinuating into my Heart it fires my Love cherishes my Hope wings my Devotion and diffuses a vital Warmth over all my Faculties it raises me up into a heavenly State and fills me with joy unspeakable and full of glory it captivates every thought into Obedience to thy Will and brings every Power of my soul into Subjection to thee Blessed be thy Name thou hast conquered me by thy Love and I resign my self to thee with a chearful Heart I am intirely thine I am thy Servant truly I am thy Servant and in this Title I glory more than in all the Honours of the World But though I am highly advanc'd and exalted by serving thee yet thou art so infinitely happy in the boundless perfections of thy own Nature that thou canst reap no other Advantage from it but only the pleasure of seeing thy poor Creature blessed and made happy by it What then shall I render unto thee O thou Joy of my Life thou Treasure of my Love thou supream Felicity of my Nature Alas I have nothing but my self to give thee nothing but this poor Heart that burns with Love to thee that pants and breaths after thee and desires above all things in the world to be eternally united to thee in perfect Love If I had ten thousand Hearts to love thee ten thousand Tongues to praise thee I would devote them all to thee as freely and chearfully as I do my self For whom have I in heaven but thee and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee O God thou art my God and my Portion for ever In thee I am blest and in the Light of thy Countenance I rejoice more than in all the Joys and Pleasures of the World I am ravisht with thy Beauty I admire thy Love and from the bottom of my Soul adore thy Wisdom and Goodness My heart is ready O Lord my Heart is ready I will sing and give praise Awake up my Glory awake all the Powers of my Soul I my self will awake and celebrate thy praises Praised be the God of Glory praised be the God of Love praised be the Father of Mercies praised be the best Friend of Souls for thy Goodness reaches to the heavens thy Glory shines throughout the Creation and thy Mercy is spread over all thy works Who can comprehend thine infinite Beauties who can rehearse thy noble Acts who can shew forth all thy Praise I do confess my Thoughts are infinitely too short my Affections too narrow my Expressions too scanty to comprehend and sufficiently admire and celebrate thy Glory But O my God thou knowest that I love thee and blessed be thy Name I feel infinite reasons so to do O that I could love thee more that I could love thee but as much as Angels and glorified Spirits do who yet cannot love thee as much as thou deservest because thou deservest to be belov'd infinitely But my soul thirsts for thee and longs after thee O when shall I be admitted into thy blessed Presence there to see and admire and love and adore thee for ever when shall I shake off this clog of sinful Mortality that sinks and depresses me and flee to those happy Regions of perfect Love where I shall continually feed upon thee with inexpressible Delight and be filled with a strong and everlasting Sense of thy goodness O thou that art the beginner and finisher of every good work be pleased to assist my holy Endeavours to withdraw my Mind more and more from these sensible things that it may have a clearer sight of its heavenly Country from whence it came and whither it desires to return that so having my Eye always fixt on that blessed recompence of reward I may live above this World and in despight of all its Terrors and Allurements persevere to the end in a steady and even Course of Obedience And now O Lord since thou hast been graciously pleas'd to inspire my Mind with these delightful Thoughts of thee and to enlarge my Heart with such sweet Transports of Love to thee grant I beseech thee that they may not only please but better me that they may lift me up above all the Temptations of this World and revive my Strength and quicken my Endeavours and compose my distrustful Heart into a stedfast Dependence upon thee that so I may be fruitful in all good works and my heart may be establisht unblameable in holiness before thee unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Amen Amen After you have used one or more of the foregoing Prayers according as they suit with the present Temper of your Mind take a short view of your Defects and Imperfections and especially of those that cleave most to your Nature and briefly represent to your Mind the intrinsick Evil and Vileness of them and how they clog your Religion blemish your Nature and obstruct your Happiness and then conclude with the following Prayer for Growth in Grace O God who art the most excellent Nature the Perfection of all Beauty and the Fountain of all Graces who doest infallibly understand what is best to be chosen and invariably chuse by the best and purest Reason look down I beseech thee upon me thy poor defective Creature who am ashamed of my self to see how unlike thee I am how I am laden with Imperfections and how after all my religious Endeavours my Nature is still vitiated with unreasonable Lusts and Affections how much Vanity and Impertinence there yet remains in my Mind how much Perverseness in my Will how much spiritual and carnal Iniquity in my Affections and Appetites Lord I have been long a contending with this corrupt Nature and yet upon all Occasions I find my self too too prone to be Wo is me even my fairest Graces have their Spots and Blemishes my purest Dispositions their sinful Intermixtures and my best Works their Flaws and Imperfections O my God have pity upon me who here lie sighing at thy Feet under a miserable diseased Nature and as thou hast begun the blessed Cure in me so for Christ his sake I beseech thee to compleat it that being intirely recovered and raised up unto newness of Life I may in the perfect Health and Vigour of my Soul serve and glorifie thee for ever For which end I beseech thee confirm me more and more in the Belief of those immortal Pleasures beyond the Grave which thou hast treasur'd up for those that love and obey thee that by the strength of a lively Faith and vigorous Hope my Soul may be rais'd above this World and learn to despise and trample upon all its gilded Vanities whensoever they present themselves either to allure or to terrifie me from pursuing the heavenly Enjoyments Excite in me such a vehement Thirst after those Rivers of Pleasures above as may every day render me more cool and indifferent towards earthly things more contented and satisfied under all the Events and Issues of thy Providence and more active and vigorous in my heavenly Calling And I beseech thee to inspire me with such clear and lively Apprehensions of thy essential Beauties and Perfections and of thy bountiful Love and boundless Benevolence to all thy Creatures as may every day more and more raise and improve my Love to thee that this being the great Spring and Principle of all my Actions may continually excite me to a chearful Obedience to thy Will and a vigorous Imitation of thy Perfections O cause me to love thee for thy self and Religion for thee and the Instruments of Religion in order to thy Glory and my own Happiness that so founding my Content upon thee and the blessed Interests of a virtuous Life I may grow in Grace and be rich in good Works and go on with a satisfied and triumphant Spirit from Imperfection to Strength from Acts to Habits and from Habits to Confirmation in Grace and may be still more and more confirmed in all the heavenly Graces till they are finally consummated into everlasting Glory And when by thy Grace and Assistance I have perfectly conquered the corrupt Nature within and the Temptations without me and am arrived into the State of everlasting Triumph I will lay all my Victories at thy Feet and with Palms in my hand and Halelujahs on my lips celebrate thy praises to Eternity Hear me O my God in this and whatever else thou knowest to be needful for me even for Jesus Christ his sake in whose Name and Words I further pray Our Father c. FINIS Plat. Phaed. pag. 398. Ibid. Pag. 386. Paedag. l. 2. c. 1. pag. 141. Ibid. Pag. 139. * Dr. Stillingfleets Origines Dr. Patricks Translation of Grotius Sir Charles Wolsely * Here make a particular Confession of all those sinful Courses you have lived in together with all their aggravating Circumstances of Impudence Obstinacy and Ingratitude c. * When you renew your Vow in the Sacrament add * Here name the sinful Act you have committed * Here name the particular Infirmities that stick closest to your Nature
or Authority sufficiently warrants him so to do And being thus rightfully enthroned by the infinite Preeminence of his own Power and Majesty all other Beings so far as they are capable stand immutably obliged to submit and resign themselves up to his Government BUT besides that we are obliged to him as he is God we are also bound to him as he is our Creatour For there is always a Power acquired by Benefits where there is none antecedently especially where the Benefit confer'd is no less than that of our Being which is the case between us and God And this is such a Benefit as is sufficient to entitle him to us by an absolute and unalienable Propriety though he had no antecedent right of Dominion over us by virtue of his own infinite Greatness So that though before he created us or any other Being he had free Power to act any thing that lay within the compass of just and lawful which just and lawful was undefineable by any other Law but that of his own Nature and though since his Creation his Power is no more than so so that he hath not acquired to himself any new Power by creating us but only made new Subjects whereon to exercise that ancient Power and Dominion which was eternally inherent in him yet doubtless by giving us our Beings he hath laid new Obligations upon us to obey him For now deriving our selves as we do from him we are bound by all the ties of Equity and Justice to render back our selves to him and to submit those powers to his Dominion which are the effects and off-spring of his Bounty For what can be more just and equal than that that Will which is the Cause of our Beings should be the Law and Rule of our Actions then that we should serve him with those Powers we derived from him and render him back the fruits of his own Plantation For now we are not our own but Gods and He alone hath power to dispose of us and whensoever we dispose of our selves contrary to his Will and Pleasure we do not only invade his Property but employ the spoils of it against him And whilst we continue thus doing it is impossible we should ever be happy For besides that while we continue in Rebellion against him we are in an actual Confederacy with Hell for so when we are told that Rebellion is as the sin of Witchcraft that is Rebellion against God the meaning is that like Witches we are in League with the Devil and are listed Volunteers under those infernal Powers who for blowing the Trumpet of Rebellion in Heaven were banished thence six thousand years ago and have ever since been raising Forces in this lower World against God so that whilst we continue with them in Defiance to God we are in the Devils Muster-Roll who is Captain General of all the revolted Legions and so are of the quite opposite Party to the Loyal people of Heaven and consequently can never hope while we continue such to be admitted to their Society and Happiness besides all this I say Rebellion against God doth naturally draw a Hell of Miseries after it For it cannot be supposed that the wise Sovereign of the World should be so unconcerned for his own Authority as to suffer his Creatures to spurn at and affront it without ever manifesting his Displeasure against them in some dire and sensible Effects And therefore though in this Life which is the time of our Tryal and Probation he mercifully forbears us to lead us to Repentance yet if we leave this Life with our Wills unsubdued and unresigned to him we must not expect to be thus gently dealt with in the other For it is as easie for him who is the Father of our Spirits to correct our Spirits as 't is for the Parents of our Flesh to correct our Flesh. And though our Souls are no more impressible with material stripes than Sun-beams are with the blows of a hammer yet are they liable to have horrid and dismal thoughts impress'd upon them and to be as much aggrieved by them as sensible Bodies are with the most exquisite Torments So that if God be displeased with us there is no doubt but he can imprint his Wrath upon our Minds in black and ghastly thoughts and cause it perpetually to drop like burning sulphur on our Souls And it being in his Power thus to lash our Spirits to be sure when once he is implacably incensed against us as he will be in the other World if we go Rebels thither he will more or less let loose his Power upon us and make us feel his wrathful Resentments by infusing supernatural Horrours into our Souls and scourging our guilty and defenceless Spirits with inspirations of dire and frightful Thoughts Now though this be not a natural and necessary Effect of our Rebellion against God because it depends upon his Will who is a free Agent yet considering that he is a wise Agent and that as such it is necessary he should one way or other manifest his Displeasure against such as are unreclaimable Rebels to his authority it is next to a natural one and at least the fearful Expectation of it in such rebellious spirits which is a misery next to the enduring it is necessary and unavoidable For God hath imprinted a dread of his own Power and Majesty so deeply on our Natures that we are not able with all our arts of Self-deceit wholly to obliterate and deface it and though in this life we may sometimes suppress and stupifie our Sense of God yet even here in despight of our selves 't will ever and anon return upon us And if when we have done what we know is offensive to that invisible Majesty we stand in aw of we do but suffer our selves seriously to reflect upon it there presently arises in our minds a swarm of horrid Thoughts and dismal Expectations and if in this present State in which we have so many Salvo's for our wounded spirits so many Pleasures and Self-delusions to charm our natural dread of God our overcharged Consciences do notwithstanding so often recoil upon us and alarm us with such dismal abodings what will they do hereafter when all those Pleasures are removed and all those Self-delusions baffled with which we were wont to sooth and divert them Then doubtless we shall be continually stung with sharp and dire Reflections and our Consciences like tragick Scenes be all hung round with the Ensigns of Horrour then shall the dread of God perpetually haunt us like a grim Fury and the terrour of his offended Majesty strike us into an everlasting Trembling and Agony For so S. James tells us that the Devils themselves do believe and tremble James ii 19 they believe that there is an Almighty Being above them and are conscious that they are in actual Rebellion against him which makes them horribly afraid of his vengeance and yet such is the inveterate devilishness of their
Thoughts and Reflections But so long as we keep within the Bounds of Sobriety and do not sally out into malicious or scurrilous or prophane Jesting our Religion doth not only connive at our Mirth but commend and approve it and so remote is it from cramping those Strings and Sinews of the Mind Chearfulness and Action that it recollects their scatterd Vigour and winds up their Slackness to a true Harmony FOR it requires that our speech should be alway with grace Col. iv 6 i. e. as some Expositors understand the Phrase that it should not be whining and melancholy but sprightly and chearful it bids us rejoice evermore 1 Thes. v. 16 and rejoice in the Lord alway and again rejoice Phil. iv 4 that is to indeaver to be chearful in all Conditions and to bear all Events with a serene and lightsome mind And therefore the Apostle reckons this among the blessed Fruits and Effects of that Divine Spirit which accompanies and animates Christianity viz. Joy or Chearfulness Gal v. 22 and this is one of the Particulars in which the same Apostle makes the Christian Laws to consist as they stand opposed to the Ritual Laws of the Jews the Kingdom of Heaven i. e. the Laws of the Christian Church is not meat and drink i. e. consist not of Injunctions or Prohibitions of things that are of a Ritual or indifferent Nature but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost Rom. xiv 17 which three Particulars being opposed to things that are unnecessary must by the Law of Oppositions denote things that are necessary and therefore as by Righteousness and Peace must be meant Justice and Peaceableness so by Joy in the Holy Ghost must be meant Chearfulness and Alacrity in doing the will of God because Joy can be in no other Sense Matter of Necessary Duty By all which its evident that Chearfulness of Temper is so far from being discountenanced by our Religion that 't is required and injoined by it so far as 't is in our Power and Choice And indeed it highly becomes us who serve so good a Master to be free and chearful and thereby to express a grateful sense of his Goodness and of those glorious Rewards which we expect from his inexhaustible Bounty but as for a gloomy Look and dejected Countenance it better beseems a Gally-slave than a Servant of God And as Chearfulness is a Duty that very well becomes our State so it is highly necessary to support and carry us on in our Christian Warfare FOR Chearfulness is Natures best Friend it removes its Oppressions enlivens its Faculties and keeps its Spirits in a brisk and regular Motion and hereby renders it easie to it self and useful and serviceable to God and Man It dispels Clouds from the Mind and Fears from the Heart and kindles and Cherishes in us brave and generous Affections and composes our Natures into such a regular temper as is of all others the most fit to receive religious Impressions and the breathings of the Spirit of God For what the Jews do observe of the Spirit of Prophesie is as true of the Spirit of Holiness that it dwells not with Sadness but with Chearfulness that being it self of a calm and gentle Nature it loves not to reside with black and melancholy Passions but requires a composed and serene Temper to act upon And hence Tertul. in his de Spectac Deus praecepit Spiritum sanctum utpote pro Naturae suae bono tenerum delicatum Tranquillitate Lenitate Quiete Pace tractare non Furore non Bile non Ira non Dolore inquietare i. e. God hath commanded that the holy Spirit who is of a tender and delicate Nature should be entertained by us with Tranquility and Mildness with Quietness and Peace and that we should take care not to disturb him with Fury and Choler or with Anger and Grief And indeed Melancholy naturally infests the holy Spirit and disturbs him in all his operations it overwhelms the Fancy with black Reeks and Vapours and thereby clouds and darkens the Understanding and intercepts the holy Spirits Illuminations and like red coloured Glass before the eye causes the most lovely and attractive Objects to look bloody and terrible It distracts the Thoughts and renders them wild roving and incoherent and thereby utterly indisposes them to Prayer and Consideration and renders them deaf and unattentive to all good Motions and Inspirations It freezes up the Heart with dispairing Fears and Despondencies and represents easie things as difficult to us and difficult as impossible and thereby discourages us from all those vertuous Attempts to which the blessed Spirit doth so importunately excite and provoke us In a word it naturally benums and stupifies the Soul obstructs its Motions and makes it listless and unactive and so by indisposing it to co-operate with the holy Spirit renders it an incapable Subject of his divine Grace and Influence Thus melancholy you see by its sullen and malevolent Aspects doth obstinately resist and counter-influence the holy Spirit without whose Aid and Assistance we can never hope to prosper in our spiritual Warfare WHEREFORE if we mean to succeed in this great Affair it concerns us to use all honest and innocent Means to dispel this black and mischievous Humour and to beget and maintain in our Minds a constant Serenity and Chearfulness of Temper and when ever our Spirits begin to droop and languish to betake our selves to such natural Remedies such harmless Diversions Refreshments and Recreations as are fit and proper to raise them up again and not to suffer them to sink into a Bog of Melancholly Humours whilst 't is in our Power by any honest Art or Invention to support them Which if we can but effect will be of vast Advantage to us in the whole Course of our Religion For in an even Chearfulness of Temper our Spirits will be always lively strong and active and fit for the best and noblest Operations they will give Light to our Understandings Courage to our Hearts and Wings to our Affections so that we shall be able more clearly to discern divine and heavenly things more resolutely to practise and more vehemently to aspire after them and our Considerations will be more fixt our Devotions more intent and all our spiritual Endeavours more active and vivacious For a chearful Temper will represent every thing chearfully to us 't will represent God so lovely Religion so attractive the Rewards of it so immense and the Difficulties of it so inconsiderable and thereby inspire us with so much Life and Courage as that none of all those spiritual Enemies we war and contend against will be able to withstand our Resolution X. TO our Course and Progress in this our spiritual Warfare it is also necessary that we maintain in our Minds a constant Sense and Expectation of Heaven that since the things of the other World are future and invisible and consequently less apt to touch and affect us
Nature but still it hangs upon me and sinks and weighs down my Soul as oft as 't is aspiring towards thee O my God have pity upon me deliver me from this Body of Sin ease my weary and heavy laden Soul of this grievous Burthen under which it labours and groans and suffer not this spark of divine Life which thou hast kindled in me to be opprest and extinguisht by it but so cherish it I beseech thee with the continual Influences of thy Grace as that it may at length it may break through all this Rubbish that suppresses it and finally rise into a glorious Flame Then shall I always approach thee with Joy and breath up my Soul to thee in every Prayer then shall my Heart be firmly united to thee in a devout and chearful Affection and my Prayers shall come up as incense before thee and breathe a sweet-smelling savour into thy Nostrils Hear me therefore O my God I beseech thee and strengthen me with all might in the inward man that for the future I may contend more vigorously and successfully against these vile Inclinations of my Nature which do so miserably hamper and depress my soul that so at last I may be a conqueror and more than a conquerer through Jesus Christ our Lord Amen If through any bodily Infirmity such as Melancholy Weariness Drousiness or Sickness you find your self indisposed to divine Offices indeavour to quicken your sluggish Mind with the Consideration of some one of the most moving Arguments of your Religion such as the Love of God and of your Saviour the Majesty of Gods Presence in which you are or the blessed Immortality you hope for and then address your self to God in this following Prayer O Blessed God thou art a most pure and active Spirit who doest always move with an uncontrolable Freedom and art never hindred or wearied in thy Operations have pity upon me I beseech thee thy poor infirm Creature who am cumbred with this Body of death and so deprest by its manifold Frailties that I cannot lift up my Heart unto thee Thou knowest O Lord my spirit is willing though my flesh is weak my labouring Soul aspires towards thee it stretches forth the Wings of its Desires toward thee and would fain mount up above all earthly things and unite it self with thee in eternal Love but alas its Fervours are dampt and its Endeavours tired by this clog of Flesh that hangs upon it and perpetually sinks and weighs it down again O my God draw near unto me and touch my Mind with such a powerful sense of thee as in despight of these my bodily Indispositions may attract and draw up my Soul unto thee And if it be thy blessed will release me from these fleshly Incumbrances and fit my Body to my Mind that I may serve thee as I desire to do with a fervent and a chearful Spirit But if it shall seem good in thine Eyes to leave me strugling under these bodily Oppressions Lord give me Patience and Submission to thy heavenly Will that so when I cannot approach thee with that Pleasure and Satisfaction I desire I may be heartily content to serve thee upon any Terms and that what I want of Vigour and Chearfulness in my Religion I may make up in Truth and in Reality And O let the Sense of these my present Indispositions cause me more vehemently to long after that free and blessed State wherein with fixt and steady Thoughts with flagrant Love and an entire Devotion of Soul I shall for ever worship praise and glorifie thy name Amen If through present Worldly-mindedness or Vanity of Spirit you find your self cold and apt to be distracted in your Religious Offices indeavour to stir up your Affections by representing to your self the Greatness and Urgency of your spiritual Wants the Vanity of all outward things and the Reality and Fulness of heavenly Enjoyments And do what you can to recollect your wandring Thoughts by setting your self in the Presence of the great God to whose All-seeing Eye every Thought and Motion of your Soul is open and naked And when by thus doing you have composed your Mind into a more serious Frame present this following Prayer O Thou ever blessed Majesty who fillest Heaven and Earth with thy Presence and art always listening to the Supplications of a world of Creatures that hang upon thee open I beseech thee thine Ears of Mercy to me who am unfit and unworthy to approach thee who by setting my Affections upon things below and plunging my self into the Cares and Pleasures of this Life have estrang'd and alienated my Mind from thee and lost that delightful Relish of thee with which I was wont to draw near unto thee And now that I am retired from the World to converse with thee and spread my wants and my desires before thee those worldly Cares and Delights with which I have been too too conversant are importunately thrusting themselves upon me to divert my Thoughts distract my Intentions and carry away my Affections from thee by reason whereof my Mind wanders my Hope droops and my Desires are frozen and whilst I am drawing near thee with my lips my heart is running away from thee O my God have pity upon me pluck my Soul out of this deep mire quicken raise and spiritualize these my groveling Affections Possess this Heart which opens it self to thy gracious Influences with such a strong and vigorous Love to thee as may lift me up above all earthly things and continually carry forth my Soul in vehement Desires after thee that so I may always approach thee with a joyful Heart being glad to leave the company of all other things to go to thee my God my exceeding Joy Give me a sober diligent and collected spirit that is neither choaked with Cares nor scattered with Levity nor discomposed with Passion nor estranged from thee with sinful Prejudice or Inadvertency but fix it fast to thy self with the Indissoluble Bands of an active Love and pregnant Devotion that so when-ever I prostrate my self before thee I may presently be born away far above all these sensible Goods in a high Admiration of thee and a passionate Longing after thee And now O Lord while I am addressing to thee gather in I beseech thee my wandering Thoughts and fix and stay them upon thy self And O do thou touch my cold and earthy Desires with an out-stretched Ray from thy self and cause them to rise and flame up to thee in Fervours answerable to my pressing Wants that I may so ask as that I may receive so seek as that I may find so knock as that it may be opened unto me through Jesus Christ my blessed Lord and Redeemer Amen If after this you find your Heart is very much enlarged and your Mind and Affections vigorously disposed towards God and heavenly things fix your Mind a little while upon the Beauty and Excellency of his Nature or upon some of the most
Country and live a great way off from the Heavenly City have as yet no Domicilium in Vrbe no actual Possession of any of its blessed Mansions are notwithstanding Free Denizens of it and have by Covenant a Right to all those blessed Priveledges which its Inhabitants do actually enjoy From whence it is evident that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in that Text referrs to their being Citizens of Heaven and as such it earnestly exhorts them to behave themselves to live as those who being now in a remote Country are yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Apostle expresses it Ephes. ii 19 i. e. Fellow-Citizens with the Saints above that are connaturalized with them into that Heavenly Commonwealth And being thus understood the Apostles Advice will comprehend in it both those kind of Means which I have before described For to live as Cittizens of Heaven is First to live like those who are the Inhabitants of Heaven to imitate their blessed Manners and Behaviour in doing the Will of God upon Earth as it is done by them in Heaven and this takes in the Practice of all those Heavenly Virtues of which the Religion of the End consists Secondly To live like those that have a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Citizenship in Heaven that are entitled by Covenant to the Priviledges and Immunities of it but are as yet to win its Possession by a continual Warfare and Contention with those manifold Difficulties and Oppositions which lie in our way to it and this takes in the Practice of all those Duties in which the Religion of the Means consists So that to live like Christians or as becomes the Gospel is to live in the continual Use of both kinds of the Means of Happiness So that the Christian Conversation consisting of these Two is the only full and adequate Means by which Heaven can be obtained BUT that I may make this more fully appear I shall consider these two parts of it distinctly and indeavour to shew how effectually each of them doth contribute in its kind to our obtaining the Happiness of Heaven And First I shall begin with the Proximate Means viz. The Practice of all those Heavenly Virtues which are implied in the Religion of the End and do make the Heavenly Part of the CHRISTIAN LIFE CHAP. III. Concerning the Heavenly Part of the Christian Life which is the Proximate Means of obtaining Heaven shewing what Virtues it consists of and how much every Virtue contributes to the Happiness of Heaven VIRTUE in the general consists in a suitable Behaviour to the State and Capacities in which we are placed Now Man who is the Subject of that Virtue we are here discoursing of is to be considered under a threefold Capacity The First is of a Rational Animal the Second of a Rational Animal related to God the Third of a Rational Animal related to all other Creatures And these are the only capacities of Virtue that are in Humane Nature So that all the Virtues we are obliged to and capable of consist in behaving our selves suitably to the State and Condition of Rational Animals that are related to God and their Fellow Creatures BY which three Capacities of our Nature the Virtue or Suitableness of Behaviour which we stand obliged to is distinguished into three kinds viz. The Humane The Divine and The Social Humane Virtue consists in behaving our selves suitably to the State and Capacity of mere Rational Animals Divine Virtue consists in behaving our selves suitably to the Condition of Rational Animals related to God Social Virtue consists in behaving our selves suitably to the Capacity of Rational Animals related to their Fellow Creatures but especially to Rational Creatures that are of the same Class and Society with us THAT I may therefore proceed more distinctly in this Argument I shall endeavour to shew what those Vertues of the Christian Life are which are proper to a man in each of these Capacities and how much each of those Virtues contributes to the Happines of Heaven SECT I. Concerning those Humane Virtues which belong to a Man as he is a Reasonable Animal shewing that they are all included in the Heavenly Part of the Christian Life and that the Practice of them effectually conduces to our future Happiness FIRST we will consider Man in the Capacity of a meer Rational Animal that is compounded of contrary Principles viz. Spirit and Matter or a Rational Soul and Humane Body by which Composition He is as it were the Buckle of both Worlds in whom the Spiritual and Material World are clasped and united together and partaking as he does of both Extreams of Spirit and Matter Angel and Brute there arise within him from those contrary Natures contrary Propensions viz. Rational and Sensual or Angelical and Brutish And in the due Subordination of these his Sensual to his Rational Propensions consists all Humane Virtue For his Reason being the noblest Principle of his Nature must be supposed to be implanted in him by God to rule and govern him to be an Eye to his blind and bruitish Affections to correct the Errours of his Imagination to bound the Extravagancies of his Appetites and regulate the whole Course of his Actions so as that he may do nothing that is destructive or injurious to this excellent Frame and Structure of his Nature But now in this compounded Nature of a Man there are his Concupiscible and Irascible Affections with the first of which he desires and pursues his Pleasures and with the second he shuns and avoids his Dangers and there are also Bodily Appetites such as Hunger Thirst and Carnal Concupiscence and together with these a Self-Esteem and Valuation all which are the natural Subjects of his Reason and indeed the only Subjects upon which it is to exercise its Dominion So that in the well and ill Government of these consists all Humane Virtue and Vice To the perfect well governing therefore of a mans self there are Five things indispensably necessary 1. That He should impartially consult his Reason what is absolutely best for him and by what means it is best attainable and and then constantly pursue what it proposes and directs him to For so far as he is wanting in this he casts off the Government of his Reason 2. That he should proportion his Concupiscible Affections to the just value which his Reason sets upon those things which he affects For every Degree of Affection which exceeds the merit of Things is irrational and consequently injurious to our Rational Nature 3. That he should not suffer his Irascible Affections to exceed those Evils and Dangers which he would avoid For if he doth they will prove greater Evils to him than those Evils or Dangers are which raise and provoke them 4. That he should not indulge his Bodily Appetites to the Hurt and Prejudice of his Rational Nature For if he does he will violate the nobler for the sake of the viler Part of Himself And 5. That upon the
it And there is nothing will be capable of pleasing the One but what does gratifie the unbounded Liquorishness of the Other NOW to such a Soul the spiritual World must needs be a barren wilderness where no Good grows that it can live upon none but what is nauseous and distastful to its coarse and vitiated Palate where there are noble Entertainments indeed for Minds that are contempered to them that have already tasted and experienced them but not one Drop of Water to cool the Tip of a Sensual Tongue or gratifie the Thirst of a Carnal Desire So that were we admitted to that Heavenly Place where the Blessed dwell yet unless we had acquired their Heavenly Disposition and Temper we could never participate with them in their Pleasures For so great would be the Antipathy of our sensual Affections to them that we should doubtless flie away from them and rather chuse to be for ever Insensible than be condemned to an everlasting Perception of what is so ungrateful to our Natures So that till we have in some measure moderated our Concupiscible Affections and weaned them from their excessive Dotages upon sensual Good it is impossible we should enjoy the Happiness of Heaven For such perfect Opposites are a Spiritual Heaven and a Carnal Mind that unless This be spiritualized or That be carnalized it is impossible they should ever meet and agree III. ANOTHER Virtue that belongs to a Man considered meerly as a Rational Animal is FORTITUDE which in the largest sense consists in not permitting our Irascible Affections to exceed those Evils or Dangers which we seek to repel or avoid in keeping our Fear and Anger our Malice Envy and Revenge in such due subjection as not to let them exceed those Bounds which Reason and the Nature of Things prescribe them For I do not take Fortitude here in the narrow sense of the Moralists as it is a Medium between Irrational Fear and Fool-Hardiness but as it is the Rule by which all those Irascible Passions in us which arise from the sense of any Evil or Danger ought to be guided and directed That by which we are to guard and defend our selves against all those troublesome and disquieting Impressions which outward Evils and Dangers are apt to make upon our Minds And in this Latitude Fortitude comprehends not only Courage as it is opposed to Fear but also Gentleness as it is opposed to Fierceness Sufferance as it is opposed to Impatience Contentedness as it is opposed to Envy and Meekness as it is opposed to Malice and Revenge All which are the Passions of weak and pusillanimous Minds that are not able to withstand an Evil nor endure the least Touch of it without being startled and disordered that are so softned with Baseness and Cowardise that they cannot resist the most gentle Impressions of Injury For as sick Persons are offended with the light of the Sun and the freshness of the Air which are highly pleasant and delightful to such as are well and in health Even so Persons of weak and feeble minds are easily offended their Spirits are so tender and effeminate that they cannot endure the least Air of Evil should blow upon them and what would be only a Diversion to a Couragious Soul troubles and incommodes Them And whatsoever Courage such persons may pretend to it 's meerly a Heat and Ferment of their Bloud and Spirits A Courage wherein Game-Cocks and Mastives out-vy the greatest Heroes of them all But as to that which is truly Rational and Manly which consists in a firm Composedness of Mind in the midst of Evil or Dangerous Accidents they are the most wretched Cowards in Nature For the true Fortitude of the Mind consists in being hardened against Evil upon Rational Principles in being so fenced and guarded with Reason and Consideration as that no dolorous Accident from without is able to invade it or raise any violent Commotions in it In a word in having such a constant Power over its Irascible Affections as not to be overprone either to be timorous in Danger or envious in Want or impatient in Suffering or angry at Contempt or malicious and revengeful under Injuries and Provocations And till we have in some measure acquired this Virtue we can never be happy either here or hereafter FOR whilst we are in this world we must expect to be encompassed with continual Crouds of Evil Accidents some or other of which will be always pressing upon and justling against us So that if our minds are sore and uneasie and over-apt to be affected with Evil we shall be continually pained and disquieted For whereas were our Minds but calm and easie all the Evil Accidents that befall us would be but like a Shower of Hail upon the Tiles of a Musick-House which with all its Clatter and Noise disturbs not the Harmony that is within our being too apt to be moved into Passion by them uncovers our mind to them and lays it open to the Tempest And commonly the greatest Hurt which these outward Evils do us is their disturbing our Minds into violent Passions and this they will never cease doing till we have throughly fortified our Reason against them For if our Reason commands not our Passions to be sure outward Accidents will and while they do so we are Tenants at will to them for all our Peace and Happiness and according as they happen to be Good or Bad so must we be sure still to be Happy or Miserable And in this Condition like a Ship without a Pilot in the midst of a Tempestuous Sea we are the sport of every wind and wave and know not till the Event hath determined it how the next Billow will dispose of us whether it will dash us against a Rock or drive us into a quiet Harbour SO miserable is our Condition here while we are utterly destitute of this Virtue of Fortitude But much more miserable will the want of it necessarily render us hereafter For all those Affections which fall under the Inspection and Government of Fortitude are in their Excesses naturally vexatious to the Mind and do always disturb and raise Tumults in it For so Wrath and Impatience distracts and alienates it from it self and confounds its Thoughts and shuffles them together into a heap of wild and disorderly Fancies so Malice Envy and Revenge do fill it with anxious biting Thoughts that like young Vipers gnaw the Womb that bears them and fret and gall the wretched Mind that forms and gives them Entertainment And though in this world we are not so sensible of the mischief which these black and rancorous Passions do us partly because our sense of them is abated with the Intermixture of our Bodily Pleasures and partly because while we operate as we do by these unwieldy Organs of Flesh our Reflexions cannot be comparably so quick nor our Passions so violent nor our Perceptions so brisk and exquisite as they will doubtless be when we are stript
into naked Spirits yet if we go away into the other World with these Affections unmortified in us they will not only be far more violent and outragious than now and we shall not only have a far quicker Sense of them than now but this our sharp sense of them shall be pure and simple without any intermixture of Pleasure to soften and allay it And if so Good Lord what exquisite Devils and Tormentors will they prove when an extreme Rage and Hate Envy and Revenge shall be all together like so many hungry Vultures preying on our Hearts and our Mind shall be continually baited and worried with all the furious Thoughts which these outragious Passions can suggest to us When with the meagre Eyes of Envy we shall look up towards the Regions of Happiness and incessantly pine and grieve at the Felicities of those that inhabit them when through a sense of our own Follies and of the miserable Effects of them our Rage and Impatience shall be heightned and boiled up into a Diabolical Fury and when at the same time an Inveterate Malice against all that we converse with and a fierce desire of Revenging our selves upon those who have contributed to our Ruine shall like a Wolf in our Breasts be continually gnawing and feeding upon our Souls what an insupportable Hell shall we be to our selves Doubtless that Outward Hell to which bad Spirits are condemned is very terrible but I cannot imagine but that the worst of their Hell is within themselves and that their own Devillish Passions are severer Furies to them than all those Devils that are without them For Wrath and Envy Malice and Revenge are both the Nature and the Plague of Devils and though as Angels they are the Creatures of God yet as Devils they are the Creatures of these their Devillish Affections they were these that transformed them from Blessed Angels into Cursed Fiends and could they but once cease to be envious and malicious they would cease to be Devils and turn Blessed Angels again If then these rancorous Affections have such a malignant Influence as to blacken Angels into Devils and make them the most miserable who were once the most happy Creatures how can we ever expect to be happy so long as we indulge and harbour them WHEREFORE to remove this great Impediment of our Happiness Christianity strictly enjoins us to practise this necessary Virtue of Fortitude which consists in the due Regulation of all these our Irascible Affections in moderating our Anger and Impatience suppressing our Envy and extinguishing all our unreasonable Hatred and Desire of Revenge For hitherto tend all those Evangelical Precepts which require us to put away all bitterness and wrath all clamor and evil speaking and malice Ephes. iv 31 to lay aside all malice and to be children in malice 1 Pet. ii 1 1 Cor. xiv 20 to be strengthned with all might unto all patience and long suffering Coloss. i. 11 And accordingly all the Virtues which are comprehended in this of Fortitude are reckoned among the Fruits of that Blessed Spirit by which we are to be guided and directed Gal. v. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is peace long-suffering gentleness goodness and meekness all which are nothing but this great Virtue of Fortitude severally exerting it self upon those several Irascible Affections that are in us and guiding and regulating them according to those Laws and Directions which right Reason severally prescribes them and setting such Bounds and Limits to each of them as are necessary to the Peace and Happiness of our Rational Natures That so when Outward Dangers or Evils do excite them they may not start out into such wild Excesses as to become Plagues and Diseases to our Minds NOW how much the Practice of this Virtue conduces to our Heavenly Happiness is evident from hence That all the Diseases and Distemperatures which our Mind is capable of are nothing else but the Excesses of its Concupiscible and Irascible Affections but it s being affected with Good and Evil beyond those Limits and Measures which Right Reason prescribes Did we but love outward Goods according to the value at which true Reason rates them we should neither be vexed with an Impatient Desire of them while we want nor disappointed of our Expectation while we enjoy them And when our Desires towards these outward Goods are reduced to that Coolness and Moderation as neither to be impatient in the Pursuit nor dissatisfied in the Enjoyment of them it is impossible they should give any Disturbance to our Minds And so on the other hand did we but take care to regulate our Resentments of Outward Evils and Dangers as Right Reason advises they would never be able to hurt or discompose our Minds For Right Reason advises that we should not so resent them as to increase and aggravate them that we should not add the Disquietude of an anxious Fear to the Dangers that threaten us nor the Torment of an Outragious Anger to the Indignities that are offered us nor the Smart of a Peevish Impatience to the sufferings that befall us In a word that we should not aggravate our Want through an invidious Pining at anothers Fulness nor sharpen the Injuries that are offered us by a malicious and revengeful Resentment of them And he that follows these Advices of Reason and conducts his Irascible Affections by them has a Mind that is elevated above the Reach of Injury that sits above the Clouds in a calm and quiet Aether and with a brave Indifferency hears the rowling Thunders grumble and burst under its Feet And whilst Outward Evils fall upon timorous and peevish and malicious Spirits like Sparks of Fire upon a heap of Gunpowder and do presently blow them up and put them all in Combustion when they happen to a dispassionate Mind they fall like Stones on a Bed of Down where they sit easily and quietly and are received with a calm and soft Complyance When therefore by the continual Practice of Moderation and Fortitude we have tamed and civilized our Concupiscible and Irascible Affections and reduced them under the Government of Reason our Minds will be free from all Disease and Disturbance and we shall be liable to no other Evil but that of Bodily Sense and Passion So that when we leave our Bodies and go into the World of Spirits we shall presently feel our selves in perfect Health and Ease For the Health of a Reasonable Soul consists in being perfectly Reasonable in having all its Affections perfectly subdued to a well-informed Mind and clothed in the Livery of its Reason And while it is thus it cannot be diseased in that Spiritual State wherein it will be wholly separated from all bodily Sense and Passion because it has no Affection in it that can any way disturb or ruffle its calm and gentle Thoughts And then feeling all within it self to be well and as it should be every String tuned into a perfect Harmony every Motion and
Object and always love him as much as we are able and be able to love him a thousand times more than we can now imagine For the longer we view the more we shall know him and the more we know the better we shall love him and so through everlasting ages our Love shall be stretching and extending it self upon his infinite Beauty and Loveliness Now Love is naturally a most sweet and grateful Passion a Passion that sooths and ravishes the Heart and puts the Spirits into a brisk and generous motion For it wholly consists in a fixed complacency or well-pleasedness of Mind arising from the apprehended Goodness and Congruity of the thing beloved and it is meerly by accident that it hath any disquieting or ungrateful Emotion mingled with it Either the Person beloved is absent which fills it with unquiet Desire or he is unhappy or unkind which mingles it with Grief and Sorrow or he is fickle and inconstant which imbitters it with Rage and Jealousie but consider it separately from all these Accidents and it is nothing but pure Delight and Complacency But now in Heaven our Love of God will have none of these disquieting Accidents attending it for there he will never be absent from us but continually entertaining our amorous Minds with the Prospect of his infinite Beauties there we shall ever feel his Love to us in the most sensible and endearing Effects even in the Glory of that Crown which he will set upon our Heads and in the ravishing Sweetness of those Joys he will infuse into our Hearts there we shall experience the continuation of his Love in the continued Fruition of all that an everlasting Heaven means and be convinced as well by the Perpetuity of his Goodness to us as by the Immutability of his Nature that he is an unchangeable Lover in a word there we shall find him a most happy Being happy beyond the vastest wishes of our Love so that we shall not only delight in him as he is infinitely lovely and amiable but rejoice and triumph in him too as he is infinitely blessed and happy For Love unites the Interests as well as the Hearts of Lovers and mutually appropriates to each each others Joys and Felicities So that in that blessed State we shall share in the Felicity of God proportionably to the Degree of our Love to him For the more we love him the more we shall still espouse his happy Interest and the more we are interested in his Happiness the happier we must be and the more we must enjoy of it Thus Love gives us a real Possession and Enjoyment of God it makes us Copartners with him in himself and derives his Happiness upon us and makes it as really ours as his So that Gods Happiness is as it were the common Bank and Treasury of all divine Lovers in which they have every one a Share and of which proportionably to the Degrees of their Love to him they do actually participate to all Eternity And could they but love him as much as he deserves that is infinitely they would be as infinitely blessed and happy as he For then all his Happiness would be theirs and they would have the same delightful Sense and Feeling of it all as if it were all transplanted into their own Bosoms God therefore being an infinitely lovely infinitely loving and infinitely happy Being when once we are admitted to dwell for ever in his blessed Presence our Love to him can be productive of none but sweet and ravishing emotions for the immense perfections it will then find in its Object must necessarily refine it from all those Fears and Jealousies Griefs and Displeasures that are mingled with our carnal loves and render it a pure Delight and Complacency So that when once it is grown up to the Perfection of the heavenly State 't will be all Heaven 't will be an eternal Paradise of Delights within us a living Spring whence Rivers of Pleasures will issue for evermore O blessed State in which my heart shall be brim-full of Love and my Love shall triumph alone within me and be all Joy and Ravishment being removed for ever out of the Noise and Neighbourhood of all those disquieting Affections which here are wont to mingle with and continually disturb and incommode it IV. AS we are rational Creatures related to God we are obliged attentively to imitate him in all his imitable Perfections and Actions For this is an allowed Maxim Perfectissimum in suo genere est mensura reliquorum that is that which is most perfect in its kind is to be the rule and measure of all those Individual natures that are contained under it For Perfection is the measure of Imperfection even as a straight line is of a crooked and every Individual of a kind must needs be so far defective in its nature as it falls short of that which is most perfect in its kind God therefore being the most perfect of all in the whole kind of reasonable Beings must needs be the supream Pattern of all those Individuals that are under it and so far as any of them disagree with him so far they are defective in their Natures 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. lib. 2. pag. 132. i. e. God is the Archetype of every reasonable Nature and Man is his Imitation and Image For he is a Being that is infinitely reasonable in all his Volitions and Actions that hath not the least intermixture either of Humour or Folly or Prejudice in his Choices but is always and in every thing governed by his own pure and all-comprehending Wisdom Upon which account he ought to be owned and looked upon by every reasonable Being as the sovereign Standard and Pattern of their Natures and so far as any reasonable Nature moves or acts counter to his which is the most perfectly reasonable so far it ought to be looked upon as monstrous and unnatural in its kind For as it is monstrous in a humane Body to have its parts displaced its Mouth opened in its Belly or its Legs growing out of its Shoulders because these are unnatural positions that are directly contrary to the true Idea Form and Figure of a humane body so every reasonable Nature that doth not imitate and take after Gods but chuseth and acts contrary to him is so far monstrous and mishapen because 't is wrythed and distorted into a Figure that is directly contrary to its natural Pattern and Exemplar And while it continues so it is not capable of true Happiness For that which renders God so infinitely happy in himself is not so much the Almighty Power he hath to defend himself from foreign Hurts and Injuries as the exact Agreement of all his Motions and Actions with the all-comprehending Reason of his own Mind For he always sees what is best and what he sees is best he always chuses and affects and this makes him perfectly satisfied with himself and fills him with infinite Joy and Complacency because
the most indisposed to render to one another For as Aristotle de Repub. lib. 1. pag. 298. hath observed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As man in his perfect state is the best of all Animals so separated from Law and Right he is the worst For out of Society we see his Nature presently degenerates and instead of being inclined to assist grows always most salvage and barbarous to his own kind Since therefore we have so much need of each others help Society is absolutely necessary to cherish and preserve in us our natural Benevolence towards one another without which instead of being mutually helpful we should be mutually mischievous For as the same Philosopher hath observed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. ibid. He that cannot contract Society with others or through his own Self-sufficiency doth not need it belongs not to any Commonwealth but is either a wild Beast or a God We being therefore so framed for Society and under such necessities of entring into it it hence necessarily follows that being associated together we are all obliged in our several Ranks and Stations so to behave our selves towards one another as is most for the Common Good of All and that since the Happiness of each particular Member of our Society redounds from the Welfare of the Whole and is involved in it we ought to esteem nothing good for our selves that is a Nuisance to the Publick Because whatsoever this suffers I and every man suffer and unless I could be happy alone that can never be for my Interest in particular that is against my Interest in common Now in such a mutual Behaviour as most conduces to our common Benefit and Happiness as we are in Society with one another consists all Social Virtue the proper Use and Design of which is to preserve our Society with one another and to render it a common Blessing to us all And hereunto five things are necessary viz. 1. That we be charitably disposed towards one another 2. That we be just and righteous in all our Intercourses with each other 3. That we behave our selves peaceably in our respective States and Relations 4. That we be very modest towards those that are Superiour to us in our Society whether it be in Desert or Dignity 5. That we be very treatable and condescending to all that are Inferiour to us Under these Particulars are comprehended all those Social Virtues upon which the Welfare and Happiness of Humane Society depends Now that the Practice of all these is included in the Christian Life and doth effectually conduce to our everlasting Happiness I shall endeavour particularly to prove And I. AS rational Creatures associated and so related to one another we are obliged to be kindly and charitably disposed towards each other For the end of our Society being mutually to aid and assist one another it is necessary in order hereunto that we should every one be kind and benevolent to every one that so we may be continually inclined mutually to aid and do good Offices to one another And so far as we fall short of this we fall short of the End of our Society For to be sure the less we love one another the less prone we shall be to promote and further each others Welfare and consequently the less Advantage we shall reap from our mutual Society But if instead of loving we malign and hate each other our Society will be so far from contributing to our Happiness that it will be only a means of rendring us more miserable For it will only furnish us with fairer Opportunities of doing Mischief to one another and that mutual Intercourse we shall have by being united together in Society will supply us with greater Means and Occasions to wreak our spight upon each other For Society puts us within each others reach and by that means if we are enemies renders us more dangerous to one another like two adverse Armies which when they are at a Distance can do but little hurt but when they are joined and mingled never want opportunities to destroy and butcher one another So that Hatred and Malice you see renders our Society a Plague and we were much better live apart poorly and solitarily and withdraw from one another as Beasts of Prey do into their separate Dens than continue in one anothers reach and be always liable as we must be while we are in Society to be baited and worried by one another AND as Hatred and Malice spoils all our Society in this Life and renders it worse than the most dismal Solitude so it will also in the other For whensoever the Souls of men do leave their Bodies they doubtless flock to the Birds of their own Feather and consort themselves with such separate Spirits as are of their own Genius and Temper For besides that good and bad Spirits are by the eternal Laws of the other World distributed into two separate Nations and there live apart from one another having no other Communication or Intercourse but what is between two Hostile Countries that are continually designing and attempting one against another so that when wicked Souls do leave this Terrestrial Abode and pass into Eternity they are presently incorporated by the Laws of that invisible State into the Nation of wicked Spirits and confined for ever to their most wretched Society and Converse besides this I say Likeness doth naturally congregate Beings and incline them to associate with those of their own Kind Now Rancour and Malice is the proper Character of the Devil and the natural Genius of Hell and consequently 't is by a malicious Temper of Mind that we are naturalized before-hand Subjects of the Kingdom of Darkness and qualified for the Conversation of Furies So that when we go from hence into Eternity this our malignant Genius will render us utterly averse to the friendly Society of Heaven and naturally press and incline us to consort with that wretched Nation of spightful and rancorous Spirits with whom we are already joined by a Likeness and Communion of Natures But O! much better were it for us to be shut up all alone for ever in some dark Hole of the World where we might converse only with our own melancholy Thoughts and never hear of any other being but our selves than to be continually plagued with such vexatious Company For though we who are spectators only of Corporeal Action cannot discern the manner how one Spirit acts upon another yet there is no doubt but Spiritual Agents can strike as immediately upon Spirits as bodily Agents can upon Bodies and supposing that these can mututually act upon one another there is no more doubt but they can mutually make each other feel each others Pleasures and Displeasures and that according as they are more or less powerful they can more or less aggrieve and afflict one another And if so what can be expected from a company of spightful and malicious Spirits joined in Society together but that their
Conversation should be a continual Intercourse of mutual Mischiefs and Vexations especially considering how they here laid the foundation of an eternal Quarrel against one another For there all those Companions in Sin will meet who by their ill Counsels wicked Insinuations and bad Examples did mutually contribute to each others Ruine and being met in such a woful State how will the tormenting sense of those irreparable injuries they have done each other whet their Fury against and incite them to play the Devils with one another And what can be expected from such a Company of waspish Beings so implacably incensed against one another but that being shut up together in the infernal Den they should be perpetually hissing at and stinging each other But then besides those mutual plagues which these furious Spirits must be supposed to inflict upon one another they will be also nakedly exposed to the powerful Malice of the Devils those fierce Executioners of Gods righteous Vengeance who as we now find by Experience have power to suggest black and horrid Thoughts to us and to torture our Souls with such dreadful Imaginations as are far more sharp and exquisite than any bodily Torments And if now they have such Power over us when God thinks fit to let them loose what will they have hereafter when our wretched Spirits shall be wholly abandoned to their Mercy and they shall have free Scope to exercise their Fury upon us and glut their hungry Malice with our Griefs and Vexations It seems at least a mighty probable Notion that that horrid Agony of our Saviour in the Garden which caused him to shriek and grone and sweat as it were great Drops of Blood was chiefly the effect of those preternatural Terrours which the Devils with whom he was then contesting impressed upon his innocent Mind And if they had so much Power over his pure and mighty Soul that was so strongly guarded with the most perfect and unspotted Virtues what will they have over ours when we are abandoned to them and thrown as Preys into their Mouths With what an Hellish Rage will they fly upon our guilty and timorous Souls in which there is so much Tinder for their injected Sparks of Horror to take fire on SINCE therefore Rancour and Malice doth so naturally incline and hurry our Souls towards the wretched Society of Devils and damned Spirits the Gospel which so industriously consults our Happiness takes all possible Care to train us up in Charity and mutual Love and makes it a Principal as well as necessary Part of our Christian Life heartily to love one another For this as our Saviour tells us is the Darling Precept which lay next to his Heart this is my Commandment that ye love one another Joh. xv 12 And accordingly we are bid not only to follow after Charity 1 Cor. xiv 1 and to do all things with Charity 1 Cor. xvi 14 but also to put on Charity above all things Col. iii. 14 and to dwell in Love which the Apostle tells us is to dwell in God who is Love 1 Joh. iv 16 The intent of all which is to oblige us to bear an universal good Will to all and to take an hearty Complacency in all that are truly lovely to be ready to contribute to and rejoice in every ones Good and Welfare and in a word to live in the continual exercise of all those charitable Offices which our present State and Condition requires and calls for To be courteous and affable and to treat all those we converse with with an obliging Look a gentile Deportment and endearing Language To be long-suffering mild and easie to be entreated not to break forth into Rage and Storm upon every petty Provocation and when we are justly provoked not to suffer our Displeasure to fester into Malice and Rancour but to be forward and easie to be reconciled To be of a compassionate and sympathizing Temper and to rejoice with those that rejoice and weep with those that weep To be candid Interpreters of Men and their Actions to be ready to mitigate and excuse their Faults and put fair Comments on their Actions and to be so far from making malicious Glosses on their innocent Meaning from proclaiming their Miscarriages and rejoicing in their Falls as not to believe ill of them but upon undeniable Evidence and when we are forced to do so to pity and lament them and endeavour and pray and hope for their Reformation In short to be benign and bountiful to the necessitous and distressed and to endeavour according to our Ability to allay their Sorrows remove their Oppressions support them under their Calamities and counsel them in their Doubts to be ready to every good Work and like Fields of Spices to be scattering our Perfumes through all the Neighbourhood and all this out of an honest and sincere purpose to promote their Good and not meerly to acquire to our selves a popular Vogue and Reputation All which are essential Parts of that Charity which the Gospel enjoins us to exercise towards one another For so the Apostle assures us 1 Cor. xiii 4 5 6 7. Charity suffereth long and is kind charity envieth not charity vaunteth not it self is not puffed up doth not behave it self unseemly seeketh not her own is not easily provoked thinketh no evil rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth beareth all things believeth all things hopeth all things endureth all things NOW though there be several Acts of Charity that will cease for ever in Heaven such as long-suffering giving of Alms and forgiving of Injuries and the like because among the People of Heaven there will be none of the Faults or Miseries about which these Acts are conversant yet even the Practice of these is indispensably necessary to temper and dispose our Minds to heavenly Charity which till we are disposed to by universal Love we shall never be capable of exercising but since all virtuous Dispositions are acquired by Acts it is impossible we should acquire the Disposition of universal Love unless we universally practise it 'T is by giving Alms that that we must acquire cordial Charity to the poor and needy and by forgiving Injuries that we must dispose our selves to love those that offend us For these Acts are Causes as well as Signs of a charitable Temper and are necessary not only to signifie it where it is but also to produce it where it is not When therfore by acting all those Parts of Charity which are proper to this as well as the other State we have acquired this blessed Disposition of universal Charity our Minds are fairly framed and tempered for the Society of Heaven And though in the perpetual Justle and Tumult of this World some little Piques and Displeasures should now and then arise in our Minds yet if in the cool and standing Temper of our Souls we are hearty Well-wishers to all Men and hearty Lovers of all that do in any measure love and resemble
God we are in a natural Tendency to Heaven that perfect Element of Love and when we go from hence shall consort our selves with unspeakable Joy and Alacrity with those great and blessed Lovers that inhabit it Who being all of them most amiable and Godlike Souls that are every one of the same Temper with our selves being touched at the same Loadstone and made partakers of the same Divine Nature we shall immediately close and join with them in the strictest Unions of Love For those heavenly People being all of them most flagrant Lovers of God are so united in him who is the common Center of Love that no Saint or Angel can enjoy his Love without possessing a proportionate Degree of theirs and their Love of one another being all subordinate to their common Love to God and grounded upon it though their strongest Inclination like that of excited Needles be still towards him the blessed Magnet at which they have every one been touched yet do they all stick fast to one another being clung inseparably together by those attractive Virtues which they have all derived from him And in this state of perfect Friendship they converse together with unspeakable Pleasure and all their Conversation is a perpetual Intercourse of wise and holy Endearments And now what a blessed Society must this be wherein perfect Love and Friendship reigns and hath an All-commanding Empire where every Heart mingles with every one and all like precious dusts of Gold are melted together into one solid Ingot where infinite Myriads of blessed Spirits by interchangeably clasping and twining with one another are so inseparably united and grown together that they are all but one compounded Soul And when from the highest Angel to the lowest Saint they are all so tied together by the Heart-strings that every one is every ones dear Friend what inexpressible Content and Complacency must they needs take in one another When I shall pass all Heaven over through ten thousand millions of blessed Beings and meet none but such as I most dearly love and am as dearly beloved by O! what unspeakable Rejoicings and Congratulations will there be between us Especially when I shall find no Defect either of Goodness or Happiness in them nor they in me to damp our mutual Joy and Delight in each other but every one shall be what every one wishes him a perfect and a blessed Friend For perfect Lovers have all their Joys and Griefs in common between them but the Heavenly Lovers having no Griefs among them do only communicate their Joys to one another For where they love so perfectly as they do in Heaven there can be no such thing as a private or particular Happiness but every one must have a share in every ones and consequently in this their mutual Communication of Blisses every ones Happiness will by his Friendship to every one be multiplied into as many Happinesses as there are Saints and Angels in Heaven and so every Joy of every Member of the Church Triumphant runs round the whole Body in an eternal Circulation For that blessed Body being all composed of consenting Hearts that like perfect Unisons are tuned up to the same Key when any one is touched every one ecchoes and resounds the same Note and whilst they thus mutually strike upon each other and all are affected with every ones Joys it is impossible but that in a State where there is nothing but Joy there should be a continual Consort of ravishing Harmony among them For such is their dear Concern for one another that every ones Joy not only pays to but receives Tribute from every ones so that when any one blessed Spirit rejoices his Joy goes round the whole Society and then all their rejoicings in his Joy reflow upon and swell and multiply it and so as they mutually borrow one anothers Joys they always pay them back with Interest and by thus reciprocating do everlastingly increase them II. AS we are rational Creatures related to one another we are obliged to be just and righteous in all our Intercourses with each other To yield to every one whatsoever by any Kind of Right whether natural or acquired he can demand or challenge of us For there are some things to which every Man hath a Right by Nature as he is a Part or Member of Humane Society As for instance Life which is the Principal of all our Actions and Perceptions is freely lent us by God who is the Source and Fountain of Life and consequently till God resumes his Loan or we forfeit it by our own Actions we have all a natural Right to live and for any man to attempt to deprive us of our Life or of our Means of living is the highest Injury and Injustice Again Words being instituted for no other End but to signifie our Meaning and to be the Instrument of our Intercourse and Society with one another every one who is a Member of Humane Society hath a Right to have our Meaning truly signified to him by our Words and whosoever lies or equivocates to another doth thereby injuriously deprive him of the natural Right of Society Again a good Name being the Ground of Trust and Credit and Credit the main Sinew of Society till men have forfeited their good Name they have a natural Right to be well reputed and spoken of and whosoever either by false Witness publick Slanders or private Whisperings endeavours to attaint an innocent Mans Reputation doth thereby injuriously attempt to exclude him from the Conversation of Men and shut the Door of Humane Society against him Once more Promises being the great Security of our mutual Intercourse and Society with one another every Man that hath a Right to Society hath a Right to what another promiseth him provided it be but lawful and possible and therefore for any man to promise what he intends not to perform or to go back from his Promise when he lawfully may and can perform it is an Act of unjust Rapine and I may every whit as honesty rob another Man of what is his without my Promise as of what I have made his by it he having an equal Right to both by the fundamental Laws of Society In fine the great Design of our Society being to help and assist one another every Man has a Right to be aided and assisted by every one with whom he hath any Dealing or Intercourse to have some share of the Benefit of all that Exchange Traffick and Commerce which passes between him and others and therefore for any man in his Dealings with others to take Advantage from their Necessity or Ignorance to oppress or over-reach them or to deal so hardly by them as either not to allow them any share of the Profit which accrues from their Dealings or not a sufficient share for them to subsist and live by is an injurious Invasion of that natural Right which the very End and Design of Society gives them But then besides these natural
maintain the dearest Intimacies and Familiarities with each other and neither those that are Superiour are either envied for their Height or contemned for their Familiarity nor those that are Inferiour despised for their Meanness or oppressed for their Weakness For in that blessed State every one being best pleased with what best becomes him it is every ones Joy to behave himself towards every one as best becomes the Rank and Degree he is placed in and those that are above do glory in condescending to those that are below them and those that are below do triumph in submitting to those that are above them and thus in all those Differences of Glory and Dignity between them they alternately reverence their Superiours and condescend to their Inferiours with the same unforced Freedom and Alacrity and so do eternally converse with one another notwithstanding all their Distances with the greatest Freedom and most endearing Familiarity AND thus I have endeavoured to give you an account of the first sort of Means by which Heaven the great End of a Christian is to be obtained viz. the proximate and immediate ones which comprehend the Practice of all those Virtues which as Rational Creatures related to God and one another we stand eternally obliged to and shewed how they are all of them essential Parts of the Christian Life and how Heaven it self consists in the Perfection of them SO that upon the whole the best Definition I can give of the State of Heaven is this That it is the everlasting perfect Exercise of all those Humane Divine and Social Virtues which as Rational Animals related to God and all his Rational Creation we are indispensably and everlastingly obliged to And therefore since the only natural way by which we can acquire and perfect these Vertues is Vse and Practice it hence necessarily follows that the Practice of them is the only direct and immediate Means by which that Heavenly State is to be purchased and obtained SECT IV. Wherein for a Conclusion of this Chapter some Motives and Considerations are proposed to persuade men to the Practice of these Heavenly Virtues IT having been largely shewn in the foregoing Sections that the Practice of all those Virtues which are included in the Heavenly Part of the Christian Life tends directly towards the heavenly State and naturally grows up into it I shall now briefly conclude this Argument wth some Motives to persuade men to the Practice of them And these I shall deduce 1. From the Suitableness of them to our present State and Relation 2. From the Dignity 3. From the Freedom 4. From the Pleasure 5. From the Ease and 6. And lastly From the Necessity of them I. Therefore let us consider the Suitableness of these Virtues to our present State and Relation For in our Baptism wherein we gave up our Names to Christ we become Denizens and Freemen of Heaven and were received into a Covenant that upon Performance of our Part of it actually intituled us to all its blessed Priviledges and Immunities So that in that sacred Solemnity of our Initiation into the Christian Covenant we contracted a strict Alliance with the blessed People of Heaven and became their Brethren and Fellow-Citizens For so the Apostle tells us Eph. ii 19 Now therefore ye are no more strangers and forraigners but fellow-citizens with the Saints and of the houshold of God and the houshold of God consists of the whole Congregation of the Saints whether militant upon Earth or triumphant in Heaven For so Eph. iii. 15 it is called the whole family of heaven and earth So that we are Confederates with them in the same Covenant even that by which they hold all the Joys and Glories they are possessed of and if we will do as they have done that is perform the Conditions of it we shall be Cohabitants with them in the same Glory We are adopted Children of the same Father with them Members of the same Family Coheirs of the Promise of the same Glory Brethren of the same Confraternity and Corporation and all the difference between them and us is only this that we are abroad and they at home we are on this and they on t'other side Jordan we in the Acquest and they in the Possession of the heavenly Canaan to which we are intitled as well as they and that by the same Grant from the supreme Proprietor So that by calling our selves Christians we do in other words call our selves Brethren Coheirs and Fellow-Citizens with the blessed Inhabitants of Heaven And what can be more suitable to such a Profession than for us to live as they do in the continued Practice of all these heavenly Virtues And what a shame will it be for us that are by Profession their Brethren not to coppy and imitate their Behaviour that we who are below Stairs in the same House and Family should abandon our selves to Sensuality and Devilishness whilst our blessed Kindred above are entertaining themselves with those heavenly Pleasures which result from the perfect Exercise of all heavenly Virtue that we should be neglecting provoking and blaspheming God whilst they are contemplating and admiring loving and praising imitating and obeying him that we should be cheating and defrauding envying and despising maligning and embroiling one another whilst they are conversing together with the greatest Freedom and Integrity with the most obliging Respects and Condescensions and in the strictest Vnity and dearest Friendship What a vile Reproach are our wicked lives to the Conversation of these our Fellow-Citizens above For while we profess our selves their Brethren those who understand no better will be prone to suspect that they live as we do and how would such a Suspicion tempt an honest Heathen to renounce Heaven as the Indian King did when he was told that the bloudy Spaniards went thither and rather chuse to go down to the darkest Hell than to a Heaven that is peopled with such diabolical Company So that by our wicked and unsaint-like Lives we take an effectual Course to bring Heaven it self into Disgrace and to cast such a Slander on its blessed Inhabitants as may justly expose them to the Scorn and Hatred of all those honest Minds that know them no otherwise than by us their unworthy and degenerate Fellow-Citizens and could those blessed Spirits look down from their Thrones of Bliss and see what a Company of wretched Christians there are that claim Kindred with them they would doubtless be ashamed of the Relation and count themselves highly dishonoured and disgraced by it and heartily wish that we would disown our Sins or our Baptism and openly renounce their Alliance or more strictly imitate their Manners And really 't is a burning Shame that we should profess our selves Fellow-Citizens with them for no other purpose but to scandalize and reproach them and it were heartily to be wished even for the Credit of Heaven and of our blessed Brethren that inhabit it that if we will not be so generous as to
to him our sincere willingness to do not only what we should have been obliged to if we had not been injurious but also what we are obliged to since we have been injurious Now as actual Reparation so far as we are able is necessary to evidence this when we remember the Injuries we have done so an extraordinary Charity is no less necessary to evidence this when we have forgotten them And this I suppose is the meaning of that Parallel Passage of St. James c. v. v. 20. he that converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins i. e. by such an illustrious Act of Charity to the Soul of his Brother he shall obtain Pardon of God for many of those forgotten Injuries which he hath formerly done and is now no otherwise able to repair So that if we would make sure Work of our Christian Warfare and ascertain its being finally Crowned with Success as in general we must indeavour to redeem the past Time we have spent in vicious Courses by abounding in the Practice of the contrary Vertues so in particular if for the time past we have lived in any of those injurious Courses which do naturally fix a more lasting Guilt upon the Mind we must take care not only to repair so far as we are able those Injuries we remember but also to wipe off the Guilt of those we have forgotten by an extraordinary Charity and Beneficence by laying hold of all Opportunities to do Good and indeavouring in our several Stations according as God hath inabled us to reduce the Souls relieve the Bodies and vindicate the Reputation of our Brethren X. AND lastly To our final Perseverance in wel-doing it is also necessary that we should labour after a Rational and wel-grounded Assurance of Heaven I put this in the last Place because 't is usually the last attain'd and is not to be presently expected and catch'd at as soon as we are entered into a religious State For there are a great many Stages of Religion to be past before we can modestly expect to arrive at Assurance In the Beginning of our Religion when we are just recovered out of a vicious State we cannot but be sensible if we do at all understand our selves that we are as yet in a great deal of Danger and do border so very near upon that bad State we are escap'd from that 't is almost impossible to distinguish whether we are in or out of it For though we are fully purposed and resolved against it yet we cannot well divine what will be the Issue of it Our Resolution is yet so young so raw and unexperienced and besieg'd with so many powerful counter-striving Inclinations that we cannot confide in it without great Folly and Presumption For till sufficient Trial hath been made of it for all that we know it may prove to be only a Godly Mood or a short Lucid Interval between the raving Fits of our Lust and extravagant Affections which in a few days perhaps may return again and utterly alienate and distract us from all our sober Counsels and Purposes And if it should so happen that which we now look upon as our Cure and Recovery will prove but an Intermission of our Disease And when for sometime we have tryed our Resolution and found that hath bravely resisted those Temptations that have hitherto assaulted it yet we cannot presently be reasonably assured of it considering the fickleness and Inconstancy of our Nature For it may be it hath not been yet assaulted on the weak Side or it hath not been nick'd with a seasonable Temptation or it may be we may be more remiss and careless another time or more vehemently inclined to a vicious Complyance and then those Temptations which we have hitherto conquered may captivate and subdue us And if it thus happen that which we now look upon as an everlasting Breach between us and our Lusts may prove only a Pet or short Distast and like the Fallings out of Lovers end in the renewing of Love And till we have made some considerable Progress in the mortification of our sinful Inclinations and the Acquisition of their contrary Habits our Religion will have so many Flaws Defects and Imperfections in it as will give us great Reason if we have any modesty in us to be very fearful and jealous of it But since without Sincerity in Religion we can have no Title to Heaven it hence follows that without a clear Sense of our Sincerity we can have no Assurance of our Title to it and such a clear Sense as is necessary to found such an Assurance on is not to be acquired you see without a thorough Tryal of our Resolution in a long and vigorous Course of Religion So that for men to be immediatly snatching at Assurance as soon as ever they are entred into a good Life argues them not to be so sensible as they should be of their own Imperfection and Frailty they ought in Modesty to expect a while and not conclude too soon for themselves till they have made a through Tryal of their Resolution and in the mean time to strive on in Hope that by the Blessing of God concurring with their Endeavours they shall at last attain such a certain Sense and Feeling of their own Sincerity as will be sufficient to infer a firm and rational Assurance For Assurance being the Top of Christian Attainment we must ascend to it gradually by the intermediate Staves and Rounds of a tryed and lasting Obedience and not leap up in an Instant before we have taken all the Steps and Degrees that lead thither BUT though we ought not to be too forward in our Assurance yet we are bound to labour after it in a due and regular Way that is to persist in our Obedience till we have reduced our inward and outward Motions to such a Degree of Conformity to the Standard of the Gospel as that upon comparing our selves with it we may be able without Flattery or Presumption to conclude our own Sincerity and Vprightness I know there is a much shorter Passage to Assurance which some of late have pretended to and that is by certain unaccountable Incomes and Manifestations of Gods Spirit who as they pretend doth immediatly whisper and reveal to them their Title and Interest in Heaven But this alas is too much like the North-east Passage to the Indies which is shorter indeed if it could be found but so very dangerous that I doubt there are but few that attempt it but miscarry and 't is well if they do not finally perish in the Discovery Not that I do in the least doubt but God doth many times suggest and whisper unspeakable Comforts and Assurances to the Minds of good men but then it is to be considered that this is an arbitrarious Gift which he seldom if ever bestows but in extraordinary Cases when 't is necessary to encourage
relapst we are now become guilty of the greatest Outrage to the Spirit of God we are guilty of destroying the dearest Fruits of his Labour of laying wast his Inclosures quenching his Motions extinguishing his Graces and strangling all those heavenly Effects which he by his powerful Goodness had produced in our Natures And what a black Aggravation of our Guilt must it be thus to baffle and disappoint the Spirit of God But then Secondly As by our Apostacy we offer the rudest Affront to the Holy Spirit so we commit the greatest Violence both upon our Conscience and Experience For in all Apostacies we sin with an awakened Conscience with the Convictions of our Guilt glaring in our Eyes and are fain to contend and struggle with our own Mind before we can break through those Checks and Restraints it lays upon us which must needs be a great Aggravation of our Guilt For the more light and persuasion a man sins against the more of Will and Malice there is in his Sin and consequently the more of Guilt For what can be more Malicious than for a man to dare and defie his own Convictions and charge into the very Mouth of them while they are spitting fire and roring everlasting Ruine against him This plainly shews him to be acted by a desperate Resolution when for the sake of his Lusts he dares confront the Terrors of his Conscience and rather than be barred the Enjoyment of them he will plunge himself headlong into a foreseen Ruine and leap after them into Hell with his Eyes open And yet thus we do in all our wilful Apostacies we sin against the quickest Sense of our Danger the loudest Warnings of our Conscience and the clearest Convictions of our Reason which being all most horrid Aggravations must needs swell up our Guilt to a monstrous Proportion Neither do we sin only against our Conscience but also against our Experience For it is to be supposed that we have made some Proof and Tryal of Religion and having done so we must needs be sensible that there is nothing in it but what is reasonable and practicable and highly for our Good nothing but what tends to the Tranquility of our Minds the Peace of our Consciences and the Perfection of our Natures and being throughly assured of all this and that not so much by Discourse as by our own Sense and Experience what a horrid Baseness would it be if notwithstanding this we should renounce and desert it If we had never tryed it we might have urged our Ignorance or Want of Experience as an Apology for our Refusal to submit to it we might have pretended that for Want of a more intimate Acquaintance with it we lookt upon its Commands as impossible or at least as very difficult and altogether fruitless and ungrateful to humane Nature and that if we had once complyed with it we must have presently renounced every thing that is pleasant and desirable and from thenceforth have been contented to sigh away our Lives in unsufferable Severities and a melancholy Retirement from all the Joys and Festivities of humane Conversation for such frightful Representations men that are unexperienced in Religion are apt to make of it which though it be far from justifying may in some Measure extenuate their Enmity to it But you that have tryed Religion must needs have experienced that all this is false that its Commands are easie enough to a willing Mind and that the many Advantages they bring with them do abundantly compensate for their Difficulty that they are so far from barring men any innocent Pleasure or Comfort of humane Life that they purifie the Pleasures of it and render them more grateful and generous that besides this they bring mighty Pleasures of their own along with them the Pleasures of a glorious Hope a serene Mind a calm and undisturbed Conscience which are such as do far out-relish the most studied and artificial Luxuries all this you cannot but know if you have made any considerable Tryal of a sober and wel-advised Religion So that if now you Apostatize you will not only affront your Conscience but your Experience too and the past Sense you have had of the Goodness of Religion will rise up in Judgment against ye and for ever silence all the Excuses you can urge for your selves and leave ye nothing to say but that you were sick of your Ease and tired with the Refreshments of Religion But then Thirdly As your Apostacy will be a grievous Affront to the Spirit of God and to your own Conscience and Experience so 't will be one of the foulest Dishonours that you can cast upon Religion If you had never been ingaged in the Christian Warfare the Honour of Religion could never have been so nearly touch'd by your wicked Courses and all considering Men would have attributed your Enmity to it to your Ignorance and want of Experience and never have thought the worse of it when they saw it so contemptuously treated by one that was never acquainted with it But if now you revolt into wicked Courses after you have made Tryal of it what will the World say Look ye here is one that hath made an Experiment of the Religion you so much celebrate and which you extol and cry up for such a pleasant and amiable thing if it were what you pretend how comes it to pass that after so long Tryal and Experience of it this man should now at last renounce and forsake it Which is such an Objection as can be no otherwise solv'd but by demonstrating the man whose Apostacy started it to be forsaken and abandoned of his own Reason For if upon the Tryal he hath made of Religion he had experienced it to be that good and grateful thing it is represented it is not to be imagined he would ever have revolted from it had he been capable to deliberate of his own Choices and Actions And how can they that are Strangers to Religion forbear suspecting the Goodness of it when they see a man after Tryal and in his right Senses declare by his Actions that Vice is better and more eligible than Vertue and do behold the Pleasures of Sin prefer'd before the Joys and Satisfactions of Religion by one that hath made a through Experiment of them both So that by Apostatising into sinful Courses after a through Tryal of Religion we take an effectual Course to defame and scandalize it to render it a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence to those that have had but little or no Acquaintance with it and if by our Example any should be disheartned either from entering into or proceeding in the Christian Warfare their Blood will be one day required at our Hands and so we shall raise a most fearful Cry upon ourselves and have not only the Spirit of God and our own Conscience and Experience but also the Blood of all those Souls who have stumbled at our Apostacy lifting up their Cries
together to the Tribunal of God for a dire and speedy Vengeance against us VI. CONSIDER if after you have made some Progress in Religion you revolt into sinful Courses you will not only render your selves for the present more guilty but as a Consequence of that you will certainly expose your selves if you die before your Recovery to a deeper and more dreadful Ruine For this we may depend upon that the Judg of all the World will do righteously and consequently that as on the one hand he will proportion his Rewards to our Services so on the other he will measure his Punishments by our Guilts and Demerits and if he thus proceed as he most certainly will how horrible is it to think of the black and dismal Fate that hangs over the Heads of Apostates whose Guilt being aggravated by those above-named Circumstances to such a prodigious Bulk and Magnitude must be supposed to draw after it a Punishment proportionable And if so then doubtless the Portion of Apostates among wicked and miserable Spirits will be the most wretched deplorable For besides those supernumerary Stripes they must expect to receive from God as being Servants that have known their Masters Will and experienced the Goodness of it and yet have finally refused to comply with it their reflections on their own Apostacy and the Folly and Madness of it will doubtless gall and torment them a thousand times more than all the other Stings of their Conscience together For how must it inrage them against themselves to ruminate on their own Follies as they are wandering through the Infernal Shades O desperate Creatures from what glorious Hopes have we precipitated our selves into this dismal State We had once got a fair Way onwards to Heaven and were arived within Sight of its blessed Shores we had shaken off our Lusts mastered our Inclinations and subdued our Wills to the Will of God and in so doing had conquered the most difficult Part of our Voyage we had weathered the cross Winds of Temptation from without and stem'd the Tide of corrupt Nature within so that had we but bore up couragiously a little farther we that are now howling among damned Ghosts might have been triumphing with blessed Spirits But O abominable Fools and Traytors to our selves after all the successful Pains we had taken to be happy we have shipwrack'd our Souls at the Mouth of our Harbour and to gratifie a base Lust have leapt headlong from the Brinks of the Rivers of Pleasure into this Lake of fire and Brimstone And have we thus undone our selves thus madly thus without Pretence or Temptation O! cursed be our Folly cursed be our Lusts and for ever cursed be we for harbouring and entertaining them Thus will these miserable People incessantly rave against themselves and with dire Reflections on their desperate Follies for ever inrage and multiply their own Torments So that were I descending to the bottomless Pit and had but so much Time before I came there as to make one Prayer more in my own Behalf next to that of being wholly delivered thence I know none I should sooner pitch upon than this O Lord deliver me from that Portion of Hell which thou hast reserved for Apostates SO that if now that we have so far ingaged our selves in the Christian Warfare we should be so mad as to retreat into our old sinful Courses it had been a thousand times better for us that we had never ingaged in it at all For unless we repent of our Retreat and come on again we have taken a great deal of Pains in Religion to no other Purpose but only to to treasure up to our selves wrath against the day of wrath and heat the Furnace of our future Torment yet seven times hotter Wherefore since the Matter is now reduced to this Issue that if we revolt from our Christian Warfare we shall not only defeat our selves of all the Fruit of our past Labour and Contentions but also inhance our future Punishment so that we must either resolve to win Heaven by our Perseverance or sink our selves into the neithermost Hell by our Apostacy let us pull up our Courage and mangre all Temptations to the contrary continue steadfast and immoveable in our Christian Resolution remembring what the Captain of our Salvation hath promised Rev. iii. 21 To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me in my Throne even as I also overcame and am sat down with my Father in his Throne CHAP. V. Containing some short Directions for the more profitable reading the preceding Discourse and also for the Conduct and regular Exercise of our Closet Religion in all the different States of the Christian Life together with Forms of private Devotion fitted to each State IN the foregoing Chapter I have indeavoured a full Account of all those instrumental Duties of Christianity by which we are to acquire improve and perfect the principal Vertues of it in the Perfection of which Vertues Heaven which is the great End of Christianity consists And for the more distinct management thereof I considered men under a threefold State first as entering into the Christian Life secondly as actually ingaged in the Course of it thirdly as improving towards Perfection by Perseverance in it and gave a distinct account of all those Instrumental Duties that are proper to each of these States And now that what hath been said in that and the preceding Chapters may have its due Effect upon the Readers Mind I have thought fit to reduce it to Practice by directing men First how to read and apply the several parts of it to their own particular States Secondly By furnishing them with some short Rules for the more profitable Exercise of their private Religion in each of those different States together with Forms of private Devotion fitted to each State I. AS to the first of these it is to be considered that to the making men sincere and hearty Christians it is highly necessary that they should have a right understanding First of the Nature of the great and chief End which Christianity proposes to them Secondly of the Means by which that End is to be obtained Thirdly of the natural Tendency of all the Vertues of Christianity towards this blessed End and of the contrary Tendency of the opposite Vices towards their eternal Misery and Ruin Of all which I have indeavoured to give an Account in the three first Chapters of this Book Wherefore I would advise the Reader 1. Carefully and seriously to peruse those Chapters wherein because I have been sometimes forc'd by the sublimity of my Argument to discourse a little more abstrusely than in any of the following Parts it will be necessary for him to imploy more of his Thoughts and Consideration and not to content himself with a slight and cursory Perusal And when by a serious Consideration of what hath been there discoursed his Mind is fully convinc'd what a kind of Heaven he is to expect hereafter
piercing sense of my Sins as may cause the floods of unfeigned Grief and Contrition to gush forth from it Cause me to bleed for my sins now that I may not bleed for them for ever and that having felt the Smart and Anguish of them I may utterly detest and abhor them and never be reconciled to them more Thus do thou assist me O good God in the Exercise of all these Duties till thou hast throughly conquered my Will by them and prepared it for a firm Resolution to forsake all ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly righteously and godly in this present world And now that I am going into the world among those very Temptations that have hitherto so miserably captivated and inslaved me O let thy blessed Spirit be present with me to keep my drousie Conscience awake and arm me against them with his holy Inspirations that so those good Thoughts and Desires which thou hast at present excited in me may stick fast upon my Soul in the midst of my worldly Occasions and never cease importuning my Conscience Will and Affections till they have produc'd in me the happy Effect of a serious and hearty Repentance All which I most earnestly beseech of thee even for pity sake to a poor perishing Soul and for Jesus Christ his sake in whose name and words I farther pray Our Father c. In the Evening when you find your self most sit for serious Thoughts go into your Closet again and consider cooly with your self whether you are heartily willing to part with every Sin and particularly with your beloved Sin and to submit to every Duty and even to those that are most contrary to your vicious Inclination if you are not as it 's very probable you will not for some time or if you find the least reason to suspect you are not press your self anew with such divine Reasons as are most apt to affect you with the Hope of Heaven and the Fear of Hell with the love of God and of your Saviour represent your Obstinacy to your self with all its Baseness and Disingenuity Madness and Folly till you find your self affected with a sorrowful Sense of it and then offer up this following Prayer O Father of Mercies and God of all Grace and Consolation who art a ready help in time of need look down upon me I beseech thee a miserable and forlorn Wretch that have wilfully sold my self Captive to the Devil and am now strugling to get loose from this my wretched Bondage into the glorious Liberty of the Sons of God I know O Lord that I am striving for my immortal Life and accordingly as I succeed I expect to be happy or miserable for ever I have seriously considered the Reasons on both sides and am fully satisfied in my mind that there is infinitely more Force in thy Promises and Threats than in all the Difficulties of my Duty and the Pleasures of my sin But after all this I find a law in my Members warring against the law in my Mind a perverse Will that rejects the counsels of my Reason that makes obstinate Reservations of some beloved Sins and Exceptions to some particular Duties in despite of all the persuasion of my Reason and Religion So that after all my Endeavours I am still detain'd in Captivity to the law of sin that is in my Members and am not able to incline my self to an intire Resolution of Amendment O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of Sin and Death I know O Lord though I am weak and impotent and of my self unable to shake off the Chains and Fetters of my Lusts yet thy Grace is abundantly sufficient to rescue and deliver me from them and thou hast promised to assist with it my honest Endeavours and crown them with a blessed Success Wherefore for thy Truth and Mercies sake suffer not thy poor Creature who with pitiful and bemoaning Looks cries out for help to thee to spend himself in weary and fruitless Struglings against this violent Torrent of my sinful Nature which without thy aid will quickly overcome my poor Endeavours and drive me down into eternal Perdition My sole Dependence is upon thee my Hope of Success is wholly in thee help Lord help or else I perish stretch forth thy powerful Arm to my sinking Soul and let not this Deep swallow me up but do thou so quicken my faint Endeavours so strengthen my weak and doubting Faith so enliven my cold and languid Considerations so clear up my Convictions of my need of a Saviour and of the Danger and Odiousness of my Sins and thereby so increase my penitential Sorrows and Remorses as that by all these means together my obstinate Will may at last be conquered and effectually persuaded to part with every Sin be it never so dear to me and to comply with every Duty be it never so cross to my vile Inclinations Then shall I freely resign up my self unto thee and with a firm Resolution devote all my Powers to thy Service And that I may do so and by so doing be reconciled to thee O my offended God before I go hence and be no more seen receive me I beseech thee into thy protection this Night that I may yet see the light of another Day and have a longer space to finish my Repentance All which I humbly implore even for Jesus Christ his sake in whose name and words I farther pray Our Father c. If upon searching your own Heart you find that after you have fairly represented to your self what sinful Pleasures you must part with what Duties you must submit to and what Difficulties you must ingage with you are willing without any Reserve or Exception to submit your self to God beware you be not too hasty to form your Resolution but take some little time to try your self see whether you will continue to morrow of the same mind you are in now and if then you perceive you have reason to suspect your self try a little longer and at the present indeavour as much as in you lies to confirm and settle your self in the good Mind you are in by pressing and urging your self with all those Arguments of your Religion by which you have been thus far convinced and persuaded and while you are thus trying your self instead of the former let this be your Evening Prayer O Blessed Lord and most merciful Father thou art a God hearing Prayer and to thee shall all flesh come I admire thy Goodness I adore thy Grace that after so many heinous provocations I have given thee for which thou mightest have justly shut thine ears against me for ever thou hast heard my Cries and pitied my Misery and thus far contributed towards my Recovery I acknowledg 't is by thy Grace that I am what I am that this stubborn Heart begins at last to relent this perverse Will to bow and stoop these lewd Affections to hunger and thirst after
Righteousness that now at last my foolish soul is persuaded to part with those sins which are its Plagues and Infelicities and to imbrace those blessed Duties by which thou hast designed to raise me to immortal Glory By these good Beginnings thou hast given me some Reason to hope for a happy Success upon my poor Endeavours Praised be thy Grace I am at present heartily willing to be thine and were I but sure to continue thus minded and disposed I would immediately make over my Heart and Will to thee by the most solemn Engagement But O Lord I am afraid of my self I dread my own Inconstancy and thou knowest I have too much Reason for it I have mocked thee too often already with my deceitful Promises and Engagements I have sin'd and then promised Amendment I have promised Amendment and then sin'd again as if all that I meant by my Promises were only to ask leave of thee to sin against thee anew Now after so many Falsifications I would not for all the World deal treacherously with thee any more wherefore before I solemnly resign and devote my self to thee by a new Purpose and Engagement I desire to make some farther Tryal of my own Stedfastness to see whether this present Inclination of my Will be the effect of Passion or a setled Judgment In the mean time therefore I do most humbly beseech thee to be present with me in all my ways and continually to influence my Mind with thy Grace and Spirit to strengthen my Faith to fix my Consideration to persuade my Will and feed and cherish these my holy Desires with good Thoughts and Inspirations that so I may remain stedfast and immoveable and no Temptation whatsoever may be able to alter the Temper of my mind or divert it from its good Inclination and that having had a sufficient Experience of the fixed Disposition of my Soul to obey thee I may devote my self to thee with a chearful Heart and an assured Hope of my own Sincerity and Constancy O Lord hear and help me for thy Mercies sake and for Jesus Christ his sake in whose most perfect Form of Prayer I farther pray Our Father c. If after a sufficient Tryal of your self you find you are constantly inclin'd to submit to God to part with every Sin comply with every Duty consider that now it is high time for you to devote your self to God and what abundant Reason you have for it and what a powerful Obligation you must lay upon your self by so doing and when you have seriously considered these things give up your self to God in this following Form of Prayer which for the greater Sanction and more awful Solemnity of your good Resolution you would do well to repeat at the next Sacrament O Most merciful Father so infinite is the Goodness of thy Nature that thou art always ready to pity and relieve the poor and needy and to extend thy timely Succours to us helpless Sinners whensoever we cry unto thee Of the truth whereof thou hast given me who am the vilest of Sinners a most sensible Proof and Experiment For not long ago I was so dead in Trespasses and Sins that hadst not thou took pity upon me and quickned me by thy Grace I had dyed for ever my Vnderstanding was so blind that I saw not my Danger my Conscience so sear'd that I felt not my Guilt my Will so inslaved to my Lusts that I could not indure to think of parting with them but now blessed be thy Grace which first excited my Endeavours and hath hitherto prospered them I do not only see the Danger my Sins have exposed me to and sensibly feel the Guilt of them but am freely willing to renounce them for ever and to part even with those darling Lusts that have heretofore been as dear to me as my right Eye And now O Lord I am come before thee and I hope with a truly Loyal and sincere Heart to offer up my Soul and Body to thee and vow an everlasting Obedience to thy blessed Will For Jesus sake refuse not this poor Oblation which though it be infinitely unworthy of thine Acceptance is the best thing I am able to present thee To thee O glorious Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost I do from henceforth eternally devote my self and all my Faculties And here at the Table of my blessed Saviour and upon these sacred Memorials of his Wounds and Blood I utterly abjure all known and wilful Sins and Rebellions and particularly all such as have been heretofore most dear to me faithfully promising by thy gracious Assistance from henceforth to observe thy Law without any Reserve or Exception This in the Sincerity of my Soul I do here vow to thy divine Majesty and however I may be hereafter tempted I will never wilfully depart from it or from any Part of it so help me O my God for Jesus Christ his sake in whose own words I farther pray Our Father c. Directions for the more profitable Exercise of our private Religion in the state of our actual Engagement in the Christian Life When you go into your Closet in the Morning consider seriously with your self the solemn Engagement you lye under what a crying guilt it would be to violate it what Madness and Folly to recede from it after you have taken so much pains to reduce your self to it what mighty Reasons you have to persist in it and what powerful Assistance is promised you if you be not wanting to your self and then offer up this following Prayer O Eternal God who art the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and dost through him bestow so many good and perfect Gifts upon thy Creatures I desire for ever to remember and adore thy Goodness towards me whom thou hast snatch'd as a Firebrand out of the Fire and at length reduced to a serious Purpose of Amendment after a long and obstinate Course of Disobedience in which if I had still persisted I must have perisht everlastingly O blessed be thy great Name that after so many years Rebellion against thee for which I have long ago deserved to be banish'd into utter Darkness I do yet behold the light of another Day and am allowed a farther Space to repent and execute my Purpose of Amendment And now O Lord as thou hast wrought my Will into a good Resolution in despite of all the corrupt Inclinations of my Nature leave not I beseech thee thy Workmanship unfinish'd but by the mighty Operation of thy Grace excite and inable me faithfully to perform what I have so seriously resolved It is a mighty Work that I have undertaken to cleanse a base polluted Nature and root up all its filthy Lusts and Affections and plant it with all the heavenly Dispositions and improve them into everlasting Happiness and thou knowest what strong Oppositions will be made against me and with what powerful Temptations I must struggle throughout the whole Course of my future
Endeavour So that unless thou wilt still go along with me and still quicken and animate me by thy blessed Spirit my Work is so great and my Strength so little that it will be in vain for me to proceed any farther These importunate Temptations that surround me will quickly conquer my present Resolution and I shall do as I have too often done already resolve and sin and sin and resolve and so increase my Guilt by the Treachery of my Vows and Engagements Wherefore for Jesus Christ his sake withdraw not thy self from me but continue to assist my weak Endeavours by thy powerful Grace till thou hast crown'd them with a perfect Victory For which End I beseech thee inspire me more and more with Patience and Constancy of Mind that I may stand fast in my good Resolution in despite of all Temptations to the contrary Suggest to my Mind those holy Examples thou hast set before me especially that of my blessed Saviour and incline my Heart to coppy and imitate them Direct me to some wise and faithful Guide that may be willing and able to assist me in all my spiritual Necessities and by frequently exciting me to dedicate my Actions to thee do thou purifie my Intentions from sinful and from carnal Aims that so I may always live to thy Glory And since thou art present with me wherever I am and dost always behold me whatsoever I am doing O do thou inspire me with such a strong continual and actual Sense of it as may be a constant Check to my sinful Inclinations and render me afraid of offending thee Let thy blessed Spirit be my constant Monitor to put me in mind to consider my Ways and frequently to examine my Actions that so whenever I go astray I may be immediatly convinc'd of it and by my speedy Repentance recover my self before I have wandered too far from my Duty And grant I beseech thee that the sense of my past Failings may still render me more watchful and circumspect for the future that whensoever I have been carelesly or wilfully faulty I may from thenceforth be more cautious of my Actions and more vigilant against the Temptations that betrayed me And that I may not run my self unnecessarily into Temptation for the future preserve me O Lord from sloth and idleness and from intermedling with matters that do not belong to me and do thou still put me in mind to do my own Business and to be faithful and diligent in the State and Calling wherein thou hast placed me And that I may always serve thee with Freedom and Alacrity remove from me I beseech thee all unprofitable Sadness and Melancholy and help me to acquire an equal Tranquillity of Mind and a becoming Chearfulness of Spirit For which end Good Lord do thou inspire me with a lively Sense and earnest Expectation of that blissful State towards which I am travelling that having this glorious Prospect always in my Eye I may go on with Joy and Triumph over all the Difficulties and Temptations that oppose me And that by all these means I may be more and more strengthened and confirmed in the good Resolution I have made do thou stir up my slothful mind to a dilligent Attendance on thy publick Ordinances that so in the solemn Assemblies of thy Saints I may constantly hear thy Word with Reverence and Attention offer up my Prayers with Fervency and Devotion and approach thy Table with all that Humility and Love Gratitude and Resignation of Soul that becomes this solemn Remembrance and Representation of my dying Saviour In these things and whatsoever else is needful to secure my Resolution of Obedience assist me O Lord for Jesus Christ his sake to whom with thy self and eternal Spirit be render'd all Honor Glory and Power from his time forth and for evermore After this Prayer bethink your self a little what Temptations you are like to meet with in the ensuing Business of the Day and briefly recollect those powerful Arguments which the Gospel urges to fortifie you against them and apply them particularly to the Sin or Sins you are most inclined to and then renew your Resolution to God in the following Prayer O God who art my Hope and Strength upon whose Aid and Assistance I depend look down I beseech thee upon a poor helpless Creature who am going forth into a busie World that is full of Snares and Temptations Blessed be thy Name my Heart continues still resolved upon a through Course of Amendment and therefore here in thy dreadful Presence I do again most solemnly promise and ingage my self that whatsoever Temptations I meet with this Day I will not wilfully commit any Sin no not the Sin I am most inclined to nor omit any Duty how contrary soever it may be too my Nature and that I will faithfully indeavour to keep such a constant Guard upon my self as that I may not be surprized and overtaken through my own Inadvertence and Vnwariness But this O Lord I promise not out of any Confidence in my own Strength but in Dependence upon thee and in Hope that out of thy tender Pity to a poor impotent Wretch thou wilt not be wanting to me in any necessary Assistance but that either thou wilt remove from me all great and importunate Temptations or inable me by thy Grace to repel and vanquish them and this I do most earnestly beseech in the Name and Mediation of Jesus Christ with whose Prayer I conclude this my morning Sacrifice Our Father c. In the Evening when you find your self best disposed for religious Exercise set apart such Portions of your Time as you can conveniently spare from your necessary Refreshment and Diversion to call your self to Account concerning the Actions of the Day and enquire whether they have been agreeable to your Morning Promise and Resolution and upon Enquiry you will find either that you have faithfully discharged what you promised or that you have sinned unawares or through Carelesness and Self-neglect or that you have sinned wilfully and against your own Conscience If upon Enquiry it appear that you have been faithful to your Morning Engagement represent to your self the great Reason you have to rejoice in it and to praise God for it and then offer up this following Thanksgiving BLessed be thy Name O most gracious and merciful Father for those great and numberless Favours which from time to time thou hast heaped upon me who am less than the least of all thy Mercies particularly for the signal Mercies of this Day for that thou hast not shut thine Ears against my Prayers nor withdrawn thy self from me but hast accompanied me with thy Grace through all those Snares and Temptations to which I have been exposed Praised be thy Name that thou hast not suffered me to be tempted above what I was able that thou hast so powerfully assisted me against those Temptations I have been ingag'd with and by putting so many good Thoughts into my