Father also To have this sight we must be pure in heart blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God For God sheweth not himselfe to the uncleane We get this puritie by renovation and being defiled by sinne we purge our hearts from every evill conscience by repentance thereby wee both may and dare draw neere to the throne of grace in Christ and looke on God without whom he is a consuming fire The wicked never have this sight they shall see him in the signe of his power but never in his glorious forme Neither have all the godly it alike Neither any one godly man hath it alike at all times Of fruition of God THe second thing is Fruition the fruit of the former sight and the reall possession of the chiefe good and so our happinesse in it This no tongue can teach but grace and they who have it cannot satisfie themselves in explication of it for it is better felt than described Yet we may call it with some a possessing of God or to have him readie at hand But we shall consider in it two affections especially Love and joy The first is our inloving the other our injoying of him and they go together and carrie our soules with them on a good present and possessed Love uniteth us to God and turneth all our affections to it and with it to him It is both the contract and embracements of Christ it is our worthinesse and our reward Our merit because he loveth that his owne gift in us and our reward because so he followeth his former mercies in us It is most pleasant to our selves because it maketh the soule to rest sweetly on a present and eternall good Even the desire of a good to come hath the anxietie of delay but love hath it present It layeth not a part of the heart on God but all for that is his due Love the Lord with all thy heart neither will the heart rightly affected with him divide it selfe but seeing and feeling his goodnesse as he draweth so it yeeldeth wholly to him and desireth to be out of it selfe that it may be in him Love is that only motion or affection whereby we dare give God a meeting If hee be angrie wee dare not be angrie at him but tremble and repent If he rebuke we dare not rebuke him but deprecat his wrath If he judge us wee dare not judge him but justifie him in his judgements If he command we dare not command him but in all humilitie obey him But it is contrary in love for when God loveth us he seeketh that meeting to be loved againe for he loveth us that we may love him The second part of this fruition is joy when the soule overjoyed with God rejoyceth in him It floweth from love for when God hath filled our heart with the infusion of his love and made it to powre it selfe on him by loving him with all our heart Of the sense of these two loves followeth a new infusion of joy whereby it rejoyceth that it is beloved of God and bestoweth it selfe in loving him Love is the worke of our soule in our dearest chiefe good about happinesse and joy is the fruit of that worke and the rest of our soule resting sweetly in the possession of him whom it loveth and they are both mutuall causes and equall Mutuall because the more we love God the more we rejoyce in him and the more wee rejoyce in him the more wee love him as the matter of our joy And they are equall because in that same measure we rejoyce in him in that same we love him This is a joy unspeakeable and glorious Unspeakable even of those that have it for if they presse to expresse it their words are lesse than their thoughts and their thoughts lesse than the sense of it and their sense lesse than it selfe And therefore their usuall expression is in secret with God to powre out their heart in that joy which they cannot expresse to man When God infuseth it the heart cannot comprehend it fully but is like a small vessell filled and overturned with a greater measure of liquor than it can containe but it turneth that overrunning on God and findeth that the best containing both of it and that joy is to be contained of God It is also a glorious joy or glorified because it is the first fruits and earnest of the joyes of heaven and all worldly joyes are as short of it as the smoak of flax to a great fire Hereby are cleared both the spirituall â—atietie and excesse Spirituall satietie is that heavenly drunkennesse or inebriation of grace wherewith God filleth his owne They shall be satiat or made drunke with the fatnesse of thy house This is not of wine as the Iewes blamed the Apostles neither of malice that Sathan powreth into the heart neither of worldly cares which come of the wilde grapes of humane condition but it is of drunkennesse of the wine of grace which floweth from the fulnesse of Christ and is put in new vessels This S. Peter granted for himself and the rest we are not drunk with wine as ye thinke but with a better liquor the graces of the Spirit that came downe abundantly on them And be not drunken with wine wherein is excesse but be fulfilled with the Spirit This is that satietie that commeth of the fat things of the hoâ—se of God and of the rivers of his pleasures or Paradise what are these fat things but the fatted calfe Jesus Christ who is daily crucified in the sanctuarie in the Gospell and that for Raritie Excellence and Sweetnesse Raritie because none but he Excellencie because none like him And Sweetnesse because he fully delighteth the soule which by the faith of his incarnation and passion c. applieth him to it selfe Here is Samsons riddle Out of the labourer came meat and out of the strong came sweetnesse Who laboured more than he who trode the winepresse of the Lord alone And who stronger than the Lion of the tribe of Judah And what sweeter than that hony-combe sticking in his bowels that is the fruit of his obedience for us springing of his incomparable love This made the Greek Church to call it a monster of love The wicked go by and search not his bowels for this honie but the godly take it out and eat it yea the wicked can lick the dew off the rock but cannot sucke the honie out of it but the godly by the mounds of the rock thrust their beleeving and loving hearts into his heart and are satiat with that love of the Father the Sonne and the Spirit which they finde there This is to be filled with marrow and fatnesse who receive largely of that unction to make us fat and flourishing in the body of Christ. Spirituall Excesse
in our affection but we abhor it then God will assist us against it It may lessen the degrees of our happinesse but cannot destroy it In like manner there are degrees of good and we should love every good according to the degree till we ascend to the chief good and love him with all our heart and all our soul. These affections qualifie our person for the hatred of ill divideth us from that ill we hate and the love of good maketh us like that good we love And our love to the degrees of good maketh us grow in goodnesse and grace The wicked keep neither this order nor aseending They pervert all and chuse for their happinesse a lesser good then they refuse as worldly goods in place of heavenly That is both a transposing of their heart and a descending and so they prove the sons of Belial according to the Hebrew because they neither ascend in the Lords mountaine but are unthrifts neither take on them the Lords yoak and it is their naughtinesse or knaverie according to the Latines that they turn themselves to nothing for knaverie is the death of the life so called because it turneth to nothing But we must further distinguish these affections for though we should hate all sinfull ill yet we may not hate any good We may wisely neglect lesser goods for the chief but not hate them Though we count lesse of a lesser good then of a greater and comparatively neglect all in respect of God yet we should abhor none What ever is neglected is in comparison of a better It is not only sin to turn from good to ill but even among goods to decline from eternall to temporall things from visible to invisible from the creatour to the creature yea and to love any good too much that is lesse then our selves because it is ordered under us And that due love we give them is not to hold us on them but to send us away to the chief good for if these small goods be love-worthy with what a love should we adhere to the fountain-good The most part of men run on riches honour fame power and pleasure and yet true happinesse is not in any of them nor in all together Riches whether naturall in food and raiment or artificiall in money are but earth in their substance and worthlesse in themselves Though the wretch count greatly of them they are only for use wherein they perish Honour is not happinesse though the ambitious man count it so but a consequent of it neither hath it true worth but is a signe of it and that discerned and proclaimed by the multitude a blinde judge of worthinesse And though the supposed worth be in him that is honoured yet the offered honour is more in the honourer and at the best it is but a vanishing smoak Fame is happinesse to the vain-glorious man but at the best it is a fruit and not a cause thereof It is oftner false then true and can proclaim lowd where no happinesse is Sathan useth it as a miserable subsidie to the dead whom he hath killed with the hunger of vain-glorie and as a bait to their consorts to devoure that same angle Power seemeth happinesse to the stirring man that he may perform his own purposes and oppresse his enemies but it is rather an instrument then happinesse and more hurtfull to the abuser then to others and the abufe of it maketh more miserable then the possession of it can blesse As for pleasure the happinesse of beasts it is to be left to Epicures for though some of them pretended a pleasure of the minde yet when all is searched that is but a pretence to colour their beastly opinion of bodily pleasure They strove to purifie it with abstract explications but their life refuted their discourse and their grosse practice overthrew their subtill disputes Pleasure is the bodies happines but not the souls and if we speak properly the soul is rather the best thing of the body then any bodily thing Moreover all these idols of the world are cut off from happinesse because they are common as well to the wicked as to the godly which cannot fall in true happinesse the patrimonie of the saints Next happinesse bringeth contentment but the more we have of these the more we thirst Thirdly true happinesse is not in externall things but all these are externall The cause why so many seek these things for happinesse is they love them better then God and from their own fancie do conceit a worth which is not in them and alleadge a promise on them which they make not It is truly said that they who love fain dreams to themselves The wretch thinketh that riches cry on him saying Come to me I shall make thee happy The ambitious man thinketh honour cryes so to him so the epicure dreameth of pleasure c. But falshood riseth not of the things themselves but of our own deceiving and deceived hearts These things neither promise happinesse neither can performe the errour of their fansie turned into a strong desire maketh them father such promises on these things even as fools and babes do imagine that ringing bels do speak the thing that they think And it is our reproch that we beleeve things that neither promise nor can perform and hazzard our eternall happinesse on that credulitie But when God promiseth who is both truth and omnipotencie wee meet his word with infidelitie If these things could speake they would chide their lovers as the angels did the woman seeking Christ in the grave Why seek yee the living among the dead Why seek ye happinesse in us who have it not but are worse then your selves Some again who seem more perfect seek happinesse in the gifts of the minde as learning vertue wisedome c. These are better than the former and yet come not to true happinsse for these gifts are common and many wicked men have excelled in them and yet perished They are as the light to the eye without seeing a furnishing to seek it without fruit The Philosophers who excelled most in these things were most miserable The fleshly villanies of Socrates Plato and Aristotle equalled and exceeded their morall vertues Solomon found not happinesse in these morall vertues but in the fear and obedience of God All these erred foully in their search yet not alike The world is as a great mans house to whom many resort Some stay in the lower roomes with their companions but some go to the hall and yet stand there gazing on pictures or rich hangings but the wiser sort passe all these and stay not till they finde him in his cabinet So all men are busie for happinesse but the most part remain below on riches and pleasure Other that seem of greater spirits climb up to honour and are bewitched with the painted hangings of worldly glorie or adore the gifts of their
he will not daigne to be possessed with another chief good for he loveth God lesse who loveth any thing beside him which he loveth not for him A question here ariseth Whether there be a chief Ill as there is a chief good And some have made two eternall principles one good and one ill as the Manicheans They taught also that everie man had two souls one from the authour of good and the other from the authour of evill But I answer plainly that there is not a chief ill in that sense as there is a chief good A chief ill implies contradiction as we would say Being no-being highest-lowest perfection-annihilation For the chief good is a substance infinite in goodnesse and eternall in durance But ill is no substance but a fault in substance it hath no subsisting in it self but in another as a sicknesse that is thrust on an whole body Neither is ill infinite as goodnesse but only potentially as number because there are innumerable Ills or respectively in demerite because sin deserveth infinite punishment neither is it eternall but came after the creation for God looked on all his creatures and they were exceeding good but ill came afterward by the falling of angels and men The created eye was good but blindnesse came afterward The vice of the soul is not the nature of it but contrarie to nature wherefore no Nature nor substance nor essence are ill Men fell on that opinion of two chief principles upon three speciall grounds One that they looked not to the universall cause but to particular causes of particular effects The other because they considered apart particular contrarie actions of good and ill and reduced them not to a common cause Thirdly they were ignorant of the degrees of good and ill for when they saw in good there was good and better and so an ascending to best of all the chief good so seeing in ill there was ill and worse they thought there were degrees ascending to some chief ill But it is contrarie for the degrees of good ascend to a biding terme and the greatest degree is the best nature But the degrees of ill are descending go not to a biding terme but to annihilation the greater ill the lesse good or being and the greatest degree of ill is not highest but lowest so that if there could be a chief ill it would destroy it self Whatever maketh against it self destroyeth it self and what ever becometh lesse than it was is ill not in so farre as it is but in so farre as it becometh lesse and so tendeth to death Sinne hath a motion but it is a defective motion because it is a falling from God But good hath a perfective motion because it is an approaching to God But if we speak popularly four things come under the name of the chief ill A principle or root a fruit the punishment and a substance in whom these three do meet The root or principle of all ill is free-will in angels and men for when God had made all good and his work stood in perfect beautie Sathan brought in the first ill not of any provocation without nor corruption within but of his own free-will He would not be subject to God but would set himself in a sort of dominion In like manner he tempted man who without either necessitie in his lot or corruption in his soul upon the bait of equalitie with God of his own free-will would break the command The worst fruit is sin for Sathans sin was great because in a great angel and directly against God and his will keepeth the stamp of his first defection so that he cannot repent because he will not yea he will not so much as wish a will or power to repent and mans sins likewise are great because they flow from that same free-will which now is a slave to sin The worst punishment is damnation because the just reward of the worst fruit from the worst root and an eternall torment of soul and bodie And the worst natures in whom these do meet are evil angels and men and Sathan the worst of them all because his worst will hath greatest sin and shall finde greatest punishment In a word the worst ill in man is sin and the punishment That is a willing defection from the chief good and an unwilling labour among extreme evils Which otherwise we may call libertie from Justice and a flavery to sin Two uses rise of this question The first is a comfort that good is greater than ill for good is in God and God himself and ill is nothing but the losse of good and falling of creatures from him Therefore when our conscience checketh us for the greatnesse of our sin we should remember there is greater goodnes in God than ill in us And the sin against the holy Ghost is not called unpardonable as though Gods goodnesse could not pardon it but because the guiltie will not repent for the very nature of that sin standeth in a malitious oppugning and hating of God and his grace The second use is our warning concerning ill that albeit there be not a chief ill yet every ill is great There is some ill comparatively lesse than another as fornication is lesse than adulterie and an officious lye is lesse than a pernicious yet there is no ill properly little but the least ill is great enough to cut us off from the chief good For were a sin never so little in the sight of the world yet if we live and dye in it without repentance it shall prove a bar to hold us out of heaven and a weight to pull us down to hell SECTION II. Of the authour of happinesse From the Lord. YE have heard the first part of this doctrine concerning onâ— thing followeth the second concerning the authour of happinesse and this is the Lord Jehovah One thing have I sought of the Lord. This is clear both by the properties of a fountain and some instances The properties of the fountain of happines are three That it be happy it self that it impart happinesse to other without diminishing it self and that it preserve that happines it imparteth These three are proper to God alone for he is the fountain of the gardens and well of living waters With him is the fountain of life and in his light we see light And he is the father of lights from whom every good gift and donation cometh down Next though he impart happines to all yet his fulnesse is never diminished Though all the vessels of the world were set at the sea shore and filled the sea would not be known to be lesse If this be in the creature how much more in the Creatour And therefore the apostle crieth out O the deepnesse of the riches It is a deep richnesse that cannot be sounded and a rich deepnesse that can neither be lessened nor
heart of every beleever by a spiritual union God and we were more distant than heaven and hell and how should that fountain communicate its goodnes to us but by that chanell of our own nature in Christ we receive it both kindly and largely He is the fountain of grace as God one with his Father he hath deserved it by his obedience and dispenseth it to us as God-man So we receive grace by a kindly convoy This is better than Labans Well for none could drink of that till the stone was rolled off But this fountain is alway open to the house of David And the first shot of these over-running waters roll this stone of hardnes from our heart when his grace softneth our heart to receive more grace And though Jacobs Wel had water yet they who came to it had need of a bucket and coard to draw but this fountain furnisheth both the bucket of an earnest desire and the coard of a strong faith Even he who saith Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it doth open our heart with Lidia's and maketh us to receive his grace largely This is the sweet respect that this fountain of happinesse hath to our miserie to prevent us with exciting grace to draw us with effectuall grace and to communicate this happinesse to us that our miserie may be happie in him Before we loved him he made us when he kythed his love to us he renewed us and being beloved of us he shall perfect us I close this point with Solomon O fountain of the gardens O Well of living waters Arìse O north and come O south and blow on my garden that the spices thereof may flow out Let my welbeloved come to his garden and eat his pleasant fruit SECTION III. How to seek true happinesse I have sought that I will inquire THe first section of this doctrine hath told us that there is a happines one thing The second that God is the fountain of it Now followeth the third how to seek it And this is set down in two words of Praying and Inquiring and offereth to us two kinds of seeking The first is the Inquirie of happinesse among many things The second is the suiting of it from God by prayer after we have found it In this inquirie we shall consider the necessitie difficulty and the form The necessity is great because it is about this greatest necessar one thing We have it not by nature but must get it by grace so we are not born happy but made happy We are miserable in our selves and must be changed by happines and this change is furthered by inquirie Our life is short our death uncertain and when it approacheth if it finde us unprovided our misery shall be threefold What then should we do in a short life but cast off vanity and set us for the search of the truth Besides it is the main end wherefore we are brought into the world and if a new born childe could speak and were asked wherefore he is born He should answer To seek the happines that he lost in Adam We are not born to buy and build and heap riches and honour together but to enquire for salvation as a childe is not formed in the belly to bide there but to come forth and to be a perfect man in the free light It is a great good to seek the chief good The difficulty of this inquiry is first from the nature of happinesse It is hid manna the eye hath not seen it nor the eare heard it c. And this our life is hid with Christ in God Next from the multitude of false happinesses that deceive us For Satan hath filled the way of our inquiry with sundry baits to divert us from the right that on them we may stick as upon the chief good and embrace our own fancies Thirdly from our own disposition we are all born with a desire of happines and every life in it own kinde desires to be better If we ask any man though he were a fool would you be happy He would answer I would For every being is desirous of goodnesse or well being The desire of meat drink raiment are no more rooted in us than that desire of happines and these smallest desires serve the greatest The appetite of the wills sacietie which the schools call happines is common but few know the reason of that saciety so that many labouring to choose a particular happines which their common appetite desired have chosen misery for happines It is as hard to finde out true happines as it is easie to have the common desire of it the one hath need of a supernaturall grace as the other floweth from a naturall power Fourthly the practice of all ages proveth this difficultie for of the many millions that sought out happines none did finde it out except those whom God assisted by a speciall grace The Philosophers travelled painfully but brought out the winde they were confident that they had found it and yet found it not But that confidence was double miserie both in missing true happines and then in resting upon their own deceit They neither agreed with the truth nor among themselves nor any one of them with himself If we look to the universall desire rising from the common notion we shal be forced to say There is a happines if we look on their diversitie and contrarietie we shall wonder at Sathans craft abusing mans wit to erre so fouly about happines And Solomon himself thought this task both worthy of him and hard for him to finde out what was that good or happinesse of the sons of men Wee must think it an hard task whereon so many Philosophers have lost their labour their time and themselves The search it self goeth in two the refusing of ill and choosing of good The ill of sin must simply be refused whether it be originall or actuall inherent or adherent guiltinesse It is the cause of our misery and contrarie to good it cannot enter in happines but stayes it in us Our miserie began at it and our happines beginneth in turning from it Adam was tried by the tree of knowledge of good and ill which told him that so long as hee stood hee had a known good and was free from an unknown ill But when he fell he â—o und experimentall knowledge of a lost good and purchased ill That tree is yet our triall if we will eschew the ill of sin and follow the good of happines There can be no happines in ill neither can any man desire or love ill as ill and sathan whose malice is fed with it doth not love it as ill but as a good as a satisfaction of his malitious will And those men are most like to him who seek their happines in ill They make it their happines when they boast of it as Lamech of his tyrannie and Doeg of his calumnies