But let that holy knowledge and love be mine which God most loveth and the World most hateth and costeth us dearest upon Earth but hath the blessed end of a Heavenly Reward Chap. XII The eighth Inference What is the work of a faithful Preacher and how it is to be done IF that Knowledge which kindleth in us the Love of God be the only saving Knowledge then this is it that Ministers must principally preach up and promote Could we make all our hearers never so learned that will not save their Souls But if we could make them holy and kindle in them the love of God and goodness they should certainly be saved The holy practical Preacher therefore is the best Preacher because the holy practical Christian is the best and only true Christian We work under Christ and therefore must carry on the same work on Souls which Christ came into the World to carry on All our Sermons must be fitted to change mens Hearts from Carnal into Spiritual and to kindle in them the love of God. When this is well done they have learnt what we were sent to teach them and when this is perfect they are in Heaven Those Preachers that are Enemies to the godliest of the people and would make their Hearers take them all for Hypocrites that go any further than obedience to their Pastors in Church-forms and Orders Observances and Ceremonies and a civil Life are the great Enemies of Christ his Spirit his Gospel and the Peoples Souls and the Eminent Servants of the Devil in his malignant War against them all All that Knowledge and all those Formalities which are set up instead of divine Love and holy Living are but so many cheats to deceive poor Souls till time be past and their convictions come to late I confess that ignorance is the calamity of our times and people perish for lack of Knowledge And that the Heart be without Knowledge it is not good And lamentable ignorance is too visible in a great degree among the religious sort themselves as their manifold differences and errours too openly proclaim And therefore to Build up men in Knowledge is much of the Ministerial work But what Knowledge must it be Not dead Opinions or uneffectual Notions or such Knowledge as tendeth but to teach men to talk and make them pass for men of parts But it is the Knowledge of God and our Redeemer the Knowledge of Christ Crucified by which we Crucifie the Flesh with all its Affections and Lusts And by which the World is Crucified to us and we to it If the Gospel be hid it is hid to them that are lost in whom the God of this World hath blinded their Eyes when there is no truth and mercy and knowledge of God in the Land no wonder if such a Land be clad in mourning When men have not so much Knowledge of the evil of sin and their own sin and misery and of the need and worth of Christ of the truth of Gods Word of the vanity of the World of the greatness wisdom and goodness of God and of certain most desirable Glory of Heaven as shall humble their Souls and turn them from the World to God and absolutely deliver them up to Christ and mortifie fleshly Lusts and overcome temptations and renew them unto the Love of God and goodness and set their Hearts and Hopes on Heaven This is the ignorance that is mens damnation And the contrary effectual Knowledge is it which saveth Souls Chap. XIII The ninth Inference Those that Know God so far as to Love him above all may have comfort notwithstanding their remaining ignorance A Great number of upright hearted Christians who Love God sincerely and obey him faithfully are yet under so great want of further knowledge as is indeed a great dishonour to them and a hinderance of them in their duty and comfort and to many a great discouragement And O that we knew how to cure this imperfection that Ignorance might not feed so many Errours and cause so many fractions and disturbances in the Church and so many sinful miscarriages in its members But yet we must conclude that the person that hath knowledge enough to renew his Soul to the Love of God shall be loved by him and shall never perish and therefore may have just comfort under all the imperfections of his knowledge More wisdom might make him a better and more useful Christian But while he is a Christian indeed he may rejoyce in God. I blame not such for complaining of the dulness of their Understandings the badness of their Memories their little profiting by the means of Grace I should blame them if they did not complain of these And I think their case far more dangerous to the Church and to themselves who have as much ignorance and know it not but proudly glory in the wisdom which they have not But many a thousand Christians that have little of the Notional and Organical part of Knowledge have powerful apprehensions of the Power Wisdom and Love of God and of the great Mercy of Redemption and of the Evil of Sin the Worth of Holiness and the Certainty and Weight of the Heavenly Glory And by how much these men love God and Holiness more than the more Learned that have less Grace by so much they are more beloved of God and accounted wiser by the God of wisdom and therefore may rejoice in the greatness of their felicity I would have none so weak as to under-value any real useful Learning But if Pharisees will cry out against unlearned godly Christians These people know not the Law and are accursed Remember the Thanksgiving of your Lord I thank thee Father Lord of Heaven and Earth that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them to Babes And as the reputed foolishness of God that is of Gods Evangelical Mysteries will shortly prove wiser than all the reputed wisdom of men so he that hath wisdom enough to love God and be saved shall quickly be in that World of light where he shall know more than all the Doctors and subtile disputers upon Earth and more in a moment than all the Books of men can teach him or all their Authors did ever here know Jer. 9.23 24. Thus saith the Lord Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom neither let the mighty man glory in his might let not the rich man glory in his riches But let him that glorieth glory in this that he understandeth and knoweth me that I am the Lord which exercise loving kindness and righteousness in the Earth For in these things do I delight saith the Lord. Chap. XIV Questions and Objections answered Quest 1. IF so much knowledge will save a man as helpeth him to love God as God may not Heathens or Infidels at least be saved For they know that there is one God who is Infinitely Good and Perfect and more amiable than all the World and the
concern only the Interests of the body in this life or as Knowledge is but the delight of the natural phantasie or mind doth seem a little finer and sublime and manly but it is of the same nature and vanity as the rest For all Knowledge is for the guidance of the Will and Practice and therefore meer knowing matters that tend to Pride Sensuality Wealth or Domination is less than the enjoyment of sensual pleasures in the things themselves And the contemplation of superiour Creatures which hath no other end than the delight of knowing is but a more refined sort of vanity and like the minds activity in a dream But whether it be the Knowledge or the love of God that man should place his highest felicity in is become among the Schoolmen and some other Divines a controversy that seemeth somewhat hard But indeed to a considering man the seeming difficulty may be easily overcome The Understanding and Will and Executive activity are not several Souls but several faculties of one Soul And their Objects and Order of operation easily tell us which is the first and which the last which tendeth to the other as its end and which object is the most delightful and most felicitating to the man viz. That Truth is for Goodness and that Good as Good is the amiable delectable and felicitating object And therefore that the Intellect is the guide of the Will and Faith and Knowledge are for Love and its Delight And yet that mans felicity is in both and not in one alone as one faculty alone is not the whole Soul though it be the whole Soul that acteth by that faculty Therefore the later Schoolmen have many of them well confuted Aquinas in this point And it is of great importance in our Christian practice As the desire of more Knowledge first corrupted our nature so corrupted nature is much more easily drawn to seek after knowledge than after love Many men are bookish that cannot endure to be Saints Many can spend their lives in the studies of Nature and Theology and Delight to find increase of Knowledge who are Strangers to the Sanctifying Uniting delightful exercise of holy love Appetite is the pondus or first Spring of our moral actions yea and of our natural though the sense and intellect intromit or illuminate the Object And the first act of natural Appetite Sensitive and Intellectual is necessitated And accordingly the Appetite as pleased is as much the end of our Acts and Objects as the Appetite as Desiring is the beginning Even as si parvis magna c. Gods Will as Efficient is the absolutely first cause and his will as done and pleased is the ultimate end of all things It is Love by which man cleaveth unto God as Good and as our ultimate end Love ever supposeth knowledge and is its end and perfection Neither alone but both together are mans highest State Knowledge as discerning what is to be Loved and Love as our uniting and Delighting adherence to it I. Labour therefore with all your industry to know God that you may love him It is that love that must be your comforting grace both by signification and by its proper Effective Exercise 1. True love will prove that your Knowledge and Faith are true and saving which you will never be sure of without the Evidence of this and the consequent Effects If your expressive art or gifts be never so low so that you scarce know what to say to God or man yet if you so far know God as sincerely to love him it is certainly true saving knowledge and that which is the beginning of eternal life Knowledge Belief Repentance Humility Meekness Patience Zeal Diligence c. are so far and no further sure marks of Salvation as they cause or prove true love to God and Man Predominant It is a hard thing any otherwise to know whether our Knowledge Repentance Patience Zeal or any of the rest be any better than what an unjustifyed person may attain But if you can find that they cause or come from or accompany a sincere Love of God you may be sure that they all partake of sincerity and are certain signs of a Justified Soul. It is hard to know what sins for number or nature or magnitude are such as may or may not consist with a State of saving grace He that considereth of the sins of Lot David Solomon and Peter will find the case exceeding difficult But this much is sure that so much sin may consist with a Justified State as may consist with sincere love to God and Goodness While a man truly loveth God above all his sin may cause Correction but not DAMNATION unless it could extinguish or overcome this Love. Some question whether that the sin of Lot or David for the present stood with justification If it excussed not predominant habitual love it intercepteth not justification If we could tell whether any or many heathens that hear not of Christ have the true love of God and Holiness we might know whether they are saved The reason is because that the will is the man in Gods account And as Voluntariness is essential to sin so a Holy Will doth prove a Holy person God hath the heart of him that loveth him He that loveth him would fain please him glorify him and enjoy him And he that loveth holiness would fain live a holy life Therefore it is that Divines say here that desire of grace is a certain sign of grace because it is an act of Will and Love. And it is true if that desire be greater or more powerful than our Averseness and than our desire after contrary things that so it may put us on necessary duty and overcome the lusts and temptations which oppose them Though cold wishes which are conquered by greater unwillingness and prevailing lusts will never save men 2. And as love is our more comforting Evidence so it is our most comforting Exercise Those acts of religion which come short of this come short of the proper life and sweetness of true religion They are but either lightnings in the brain that have no heat or a feaverish zeal which destroyeth or troubleth but doth not perform the acts of life or else even where love is true but little and opprest by fears and grief and trouble it is like Fire in green Wood or like young green Fruits which is not come to mellow ripeness Love of Vanity is disappointing unsatisfactory and tormenting Most of the Calamities of this life proceed from creature-creature-love The greatest tormentor in this world is the inordinate love of life and the next is the love of the pleasures and accommodations of life which cause so much care to get and keep and so much fear of losing and grief for our losses especially fear of dying that were it not for this our lives would be much easier to us as they are to the fearless sort of brutes And the next tormenting affection is the
they that have much unholy Knowledge Ch. 5. The first Inference By what measures to estimate Knowledge Ch. 6. The second Inference To abate our censures and contempt of the less-learned Christians and Churches Ch. 7. The third Inference How to judge of the Knowledge necessary to Church Communion Ch. 8. The fourth Inference The aptness of the Teaching of Christ to ingenerate the Love of God and Holiness Ch. 9. The fifth Inference What great cause of thankfulness men have for the Constitution of the Christian Religion And how unexcusable they are that will not learn so short and sweet and safe a Lesson Ch. 10. The sixth Inference How little reason ungodly men have to be proud of their Learning or any of their Knowledge Ch. 11. The seventh Inference Why the ungodly World hateth Holiness and not Knowledge Ch. 12. The eighth Inference What is the work of a faithful Preacher and how it is to be done Ch. 13. The ninth Inference Those that know God so far as to Love him truely may have comfort notwithstanding their remaining ignorance Ch. 14. Questions and Objections Answered Qu. 1. If so much Knowledge will save Men as causeth them To Love God may not Heathens be saved who know God to be good and therefore may Love him Qu. 2. May not a Papist or Heretick Love God and be saved Qu. 3. At least you make Ignorant Persons happy that can but Love God though they know not their Catechism Qu. 4. How are Infants saved that have neither Knowledge nor Love Qu. 5. If this hold true Universities and most humane Learning should be cast out as the Turks and Moscovites do and the Armenians Abassines Greeks and Ignorant sort of Papists are the wisest Because multitudes of other Notions must needs divert mens thoughts from God. Ch. 15. Use Exhort I. Deceive not your selves by over-valuing an unholy sort of Knowledge or common Gifts Ch. 16. Exhort II. Love best those Christians that Love God best and live in Love and Peace with others Ch. 17. Exhort III Pretend not your Knowledge against the Love of God or Man or against the Interest of the Church and Souls Ch. 18. Exhort IV. Bend all your Studies to a life of Increased and Exercised Love. How the Love of God must be Exercised and Increased The benefit hereof Ch. 19. Exhort V. Place your Comfort in Health and Sickness in Mutual Divine Love. 1. See that you Love God. How known Doubts Answered Ch. 20.2 But let it be the chief part of your Comfort that you are known of God. What comfort this affordeth What frame of Soul it bespeaketh in us in Life and at our Death PART I. 1 Cor. 8.2 3. And if any man think that he knoweth any thing he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know But if any man Love God the same is known of Him. Chap. I. The Scope and Text opened what Philosophy or worldly Wisdom Paul depresseth and why THE Calamitous Divisions of the Churches of Christ and the Miscarriages and Contentions of too many particular Brethren having been sad upon my thoughts above forty years by this time without imputation of hastiness and rash judging I may take leave to tell the World what I have discovered to be the principal cause which is falsly PRETENDED KNOWLEDGE or IGNORANCE OF IGNORANCE or a proud unhumbled understanding confident that it knoweth that which it knoweth not And consequently what must be the cure if our calamity be here cureable viz. To know as much as we can but withal to know how little we know and to take on us to know no more than we do know nor to be certain of our uncertainties The Text which I have chosen to be the ground of my discourse is so plain notwithstanding some little difficulties that did not the nature of the Disease resist the clearest Remedy so many good people had never here often read their sin described as insensibly as if they read it not The Chapter hath so much difficulty as will not stand with my intended brevity to open it I refer you to Expositors for that whether they were the Nicolaitans or any other sort of Hereticks that the Apostle dealeth with I determine not It is plain that they were Licentious Professors of Christianity who thought that it was the ignorance of others that made them judge it unlawful to eat things offered to Idols and that their own greater knowledge set them above that scruple A mixture of Platonick Philosophy with Christianity made up most of the Primitive Hereticks and for want of a due digestion of each too much corrupted many of the Greek Doctors of the Church The unlearned sort of Christians were so much despised by some of the Philosophical Hereticks that they were not thought worthy of their Communion for as Jude saith they separated themselves being sensual having not the Spirit but more affected Philosophical fancies which made Paul warn men to take heed lest any seduced them by vain Philosophy not using the name of Philosophy for that solid knowledge of Gods works which is desireable but for the Systemes of vain Conceits and Precepts which the Word was then used to signifie as every Sect derived them from their Masters And so the Apostle taketh knowledge in this Text not for solid knowledge indeed but for Gnosticism or Philosophical presumptions such as even yet most Philosophers are guilty of who take a multitude of Precepts some useful some useless some true and some false and all but notionally or to little purpose and joining these do call them Philosophy And Paul tells them that opinionative and notional knowledge were it true like the Devils Faith is of no such excellency as to cause them to shelter their sins under the confidence and honour of it and despise unlearned conscionable Christians for such knowledge by inflation oft destroyeth the Possessors or becomes the Fuel of the Devilish sin of Pride when Love buildeth up our selves and others to Salvation And to conceit that a man is wise because of such knowledge and so to over-value his own understanding is a certain sign that he is destitute of that knowledge in which true wisdom doth consist and knoweth nothing with a wise and saving knowledge as every thing should be known And indeed a mans excellency is so far from lying in vain Philosophical Speculations that the use of all true knowledge is but to bring us up to the Love of God as the highest felicity to be approved and beloved by God And those unlearned Christians that have the Spirit of Sanctification without your vain Philosophy have knowledge enough to bring them to this Love of God which is a thing that passeth all your knowledge or rather to be known of God as his own and loved by him For our felicity lyeth in receiving from God and in his loving us more than in our loving him but both set together to love God and so to be loved of him are the
till you have true evidence to establish them 1. It is only Christians that I am now instructing and if you are Christians you have already received the Essentials of Christianity even the Baptismal Covenant the Creed the Lords Prayer and Decalogue And I need not tell you that moreover you must receive all those Truths in Nature and Scripture which are so plain that all these dissenting sects of Christians are agreed in them And when you have all these and faithfully love and practice them you are sure to be saved if you do not afterward receive some contrary Doctrine which destroyeth them Mark then which is the safe Religion As sure as the Gospel is true he that is meet for Baptism before God is meet for pardon of sin and he that truely consenteth to the Baptismal Covenant and so doth dedicate himself to God is made a Member of Christ and is justified and an Heir of Heaven Your Church Catechism saith truly of all such that in Baptism each one is made a Member of Christ a Child of God and an Heir of Heaven So that as sure as the Gospel is true every true Baptized Christian whose Love and Life doth answer that Faith shall certainly be saved Ask all parties and few of them but impudent designers can deny this Well then the Baptismal Covenant expounded in the Creed Lords Prayer and Commandments is your Christian Religion As a Christian you may and shall be saved that a True Christian is saved all confess But whether a Papist be saved is questioned by the Protestants and so is the Salvation of many other sects by others You are safe then if you take in nothing to endanger you And is it not wisdom then to take heed how you go further and on what grounds lest you over-run your safe Religion Obj. But then I must not be a Protestant For the Papists say that they cannot be saved Ans A Protestant is either one that holdeth to the ancient simple Christianity without the Papists manifold additions Or one that positively also renounceth and opposeth those additions In the first sense a Protestant and a meer Christian is all one and so to say that a Protestant cannot be saved is to say that a Christian as such cannot be saved If it be the meer name of a Protestant that the Papist accounteth damnable tell him that you will not stick with him for the name You are contented with the old name of Christian alone But Protestantism in the second sense is not your Religion but the Defensative of your Religion as flying from the Plague is not my Humanity or Life but a means to preserve it And so Protestants are of many sizes Some oppose some points and some others some more some less which the Papists have brought in And yet they are not of so many Religions But whoever condemneth you if Christ save you he doth but condemn himself as uncharitable Christianity is certainly a State of Salvation but whether Popery be or whether the Greek Opinions be or whether this or that difference and singularity stand with Salvation is the doubt Cast not your self then needlesly into doubt and danger Obj. But then you will have us be still but Infants and to learn no more than our Catechisms and not to learn and believe all that God hath revealed in his Word Ans No such matter This is the sum of what I advise you to 1. Hold fast to your simple Christianity as the Certain terms of Salvation 2. Receive nothing that is against it 3. Learn as much more as ever you can 4. But take not mens words nor their plausible talk for Certifying Evidence And do not think if you believe a Priest that this is believing God nor if his Reasons seem plausible to you and you are of his Opinion that this is Divine Knowledge If you do incline to one mans Opinion more than another tell him that you incline to his Opinion but tell him that you take not this for Divine Knowledge or any part of your Religion If you will needs believe one side rather than another about Church History or the matters of their Parties Interest tell them I believe you as fallible men but this is none of my Divine Faith or Religion To learn to know is to learn Scientifical Evidence and not to learn what is another mans Opinions nor whether they are probable or not much less to read a Councils Decrees or the Propositions of a disputing Systeme and then for the mens sake to say This is Orthodox Nor yet because it hath a taking aspect To learn of a Priest to believe God is one thing and to believe him or his party Church or Council is another thing Learn to know as much as you can and especially to know what God hath revealed to be believed And learn to believe God as much as you can And believe all your Teachers and all other men as far as they are credible in that case with such a humane belief as fallible men may justly require And where Contenders do consent suspect them the less But where they give one another the Lie in matters of Fact try both their Evidences of credibility before you trust them and then trust them not beyond that Evidence But still difference your Divine Faith and Religion from your Opinion and Humane Faith. And let men sollicite you never so long take not on you to know or believe till you do that is not beyond the Evidence I do but perswade you against Presumption and Hypocrisie Shall I say SUSPEND TILL YOU HAVE TRUE EVIDENCE and you are safe why if you do not you will know never the more nor have ever the more Divine Faith For I can mean no more than SUSPEND YOUR PRESUMPTIONS and do not foolishly or hypocritically take on you to know what you do not or to have a Faith which you have not If you can know truly do it with fidelity and be true to the Truth whoever offer it or whatever it cost you But suspend your Profession or hasty Opinions and Conceits of what you know not Obj. But every side almost tells me that I am damned if I do not believe as they do Ans 1. By that you may see that they are all deceived at least save one which ever it be while they differ and yet condemn each other 2. Thereby they do but give you the greater cause to suspect them For by this shall all men know Christs Disciples if they love one another Right Christians are not many Masters as knowing that themselves shall have the greater condemnation else for in many things we offend all And the wisdom which hath envy and strife is not from above but from beneath and is earthly sensual and devilish introducing confusion and every evil work Jam. 3.1 15 16. Christs Disciples judge not lest they be judged 3. By this you may see that unless you can be of all mens minds
that Love or Complacency of the Will which is the more completive part 3. But there is a Knowledge even of God which being separated from Love is sin and misery As the Devils and damned that believe and tremble and hate and suffer are not without all knowledge of God. So much for the first proof fetcht from the order of the faculties of the Soul. II. The second proof is fetcht from the Objects It is not meer Intelligibility that blesseth a man but Goodness which as such is the formal Object of the Will though the material Object of the Understanding It is a pleasant thing for the Eyes to behold the Sun And as pleasant it is good and also as useful to further pleasure of our selves or others Nothing maketh a man Good or Happy but as it is Good. Therefore the Goodness of God his transcendent perfection by which he is first Essentially Good in himself and amiable to himself and then Good and Amiable to us all is the ultimately ultimate object of mans Soul to which his Intelligibility is supposed III. The third proof is from the Constitution of these several 〈◊〉 a Knowledge being but an introductive act supposeth not Love as to its Essence though it produce it as an Effect But Love included knowledge in it as the number of two includeth one when one doth not include two Therefore 〈◊〉 â—ogether must needs be perfecter than one alone IV. The fourth proof is from express Scripture I will only cite some plain ones which need no tedious comment 1. For Love it 's said 1 Joh. 4.16 17 18. We have known and believed the Love that God hath to us God is Love and he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God and God in him Herein is our Love made perfect or in this the Love with us is perfected that we have boldness in the day of Judgment Because as he is so are we in this world There is no fear in Love but perfect Love casteth out fear He that feareth is not made perfect in Love. So that Love is the perfection of man. 1 Cor. 12.31 and 13.2 c. Yet shew I unto you a more excellent way Though I understand all mysteries and all knowledge and have not Charity I am nothing Charity never faileth 13. The greatest of these is Charity Rom. 8.35 Who shall separate us from the Love of God c. Rom. 13.10 Love is the fulfilling of the Law. Rom. 5.5 The Love of God is poured out on our hearts by the Holy-Ghost which is given to us Gal. 5.6 Faith which worketh by Love. Mat. 22.37 The first and great Commandment is Thou shalt Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart c. Luk. 10.27 Deut. 10.12 and 11.1.13.22 and 19.9 and 13.3 and 30.6.16.20 Josh 22.5 and 23.11 Psal 5.11 and 31.23 and 69.36 and 119.165 and 145.20 Jam. 1.12 He shall receive the Crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them that Love him So 2.5 Prov. 8.17 I love them that love me See Joh. 14.21 and 16.27 1 Joh. 4.19 Joh. 21.15 16 17. 1 Joh. 3.22 Heb. 11.6 c. And of Knowledge it is said Joh. 13.17 If ye knew these things happy are ye if ye do them See Jam. 2.14 to the end Joh. 15.24 But now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father Luk. 12.47 Knowing Gods will and not doing it prepareth men for many stripes See Rom. 2. And as barren knowledge is oft made the aggravation of sin so true knowledge is usually made the cause or means of Love and Obedience 1 Joh. 4.8 He that loveth not knoweth not God. 2 Pet. 1.2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God. 2 Pet. 2.20 and many such like I conclude therefore that the knowledge of Creatures is not desirable ultimately for itself but as it leadeth up the Soul to God. And the knowledge of God though desirable ultimately for it self yet not as the perfect but the initial part of our ultimate act or end and as the means or cause of that love of God which is the more perfect part of that ultimate Perfection Chap. II. The End of Knowledge is to make us Lovers of God and so to be known with Love by Him. THis is the second Doctrine contained in the meaning of the Text. Where is included 1. That all knowledge of Creatures called Learning must be valued and used but as a means to the knowledge and love of God Which is most evident in that the whole Creation is the work of God bearing the Image or Impress of his Perfections to reveal him to the Intellectual Creature and to be the means of provoking us to his love and helping us in his service To deny this therefore is to subvert the use of the whole Creation and to set up Gods works as an useless shadow or as an Idol in his place 2. It is included as was afore-proved that all our knowledge of God himself is given us to kindle in us the Love of God. It is the Bellows to blow up this holy Fire If it do not this it is unsound and dead If it do this it hath attained its end which is much of the meaning of James in that Chap. 2. which prejudice hindereth many from understanding 3. This love of God hath its degrees and effects Knowledge first kindleth but some weak initial act of love which through mixtures of fear and of carnal affections is hardly known to be sincere by him that hath it But afterward it produceth both stronger acts and the Holy Ghost still working as the principal cause infuseth or operateth a radicated Habit. So that this holy love becometh like a nature in the Soul even a divine nature And it becometh in a sort natural to us to love God and goodness though not as the brutish nature which is exercised by necessity and without reason And this new nature of holy love is called the new Creature and the Holy Ghost dwelling in us and the Spirit of Adoption and is our New-name the White-stone the Witness in our selves that Christ is the Saviour and that we are the Regenerate Children of God the Pledge the Earnest the First-fruits and the Fore-taste of Life Eternal And all the works of a Christian are so far truly holy as they are the Effects of holy love For 1. Holy love is but a holy will and the will is the man in point of Morality 2. And the love of God is our final act upon the final object and all other gracious acts are some way means subservient to this end And the end is it that informeth all the means they being such only as they are adapted to the end And in this sense it is true which is said in the Schools though many Protestants misunderstanding it have contradicted it that love is the form of all other Graces That is It is the heart of the new Creature or it is that by which the
Holy Light is that Knowledge and Belief which kindleth Love and causeth a Holy Life Holy Love is that complacency of the Will in God and Goodness which is kindled by Holy Life and Light and operateth in Holy practice Any one of these thus described where Love is the Heart of all is an infallible mark of Holiness But all other Graces and Duties which are but the Integrals of Holiness are in all Characters and Promises to be understood with a caeteris paribus that is supposing them to be animated with Holy Love and caused by Holy Life and Light Knowledge and Belief And that God doth most certainly Love all that Love him besides the forementioned proofs from Scripture is further evident 1. The Love of God and Goodness is the Divine Nature And God cannot but Love his own Nature in us It is his Image which as in its several degrees he Loveth for himself and next to himself 2. The Love of God is the Rectitude of Man's Soul its soundness health and beauty And God Loveth the Rectitude of his creatures 3. The Love of God is the final perfect operation of the Soul even that end which it was created and redeemed for And God Loveth to have his works attain their end and to see them in their perfection 4. The Love of God is the Goodness of the Soul it self And Goodness is Amiableness and must needs be Loved by Him that is Goodness and Perfection Himself 5. The Love of God is our uniting adhesion to him And God that first draweth up the Soul to this Union will not himself reject us and avoid it 6. Love is a pregnant powerful pleasing Grace It delivereth up our selves and all that we have to God It delighteth in duty It conquereth difficulties It contemneth competitors and trampleth on temptations It accounteth nothing too much nor too dear for God. Love is the Soul's nature appetite and pondus according to which it will ordinarily act A man's Love is his Will his Heart himself And if God have our Love he hath our selves and our all So that God cannot but Love the Soul that truly Loveth him as God. But here are some Doubts to be resolved Q. 1. What if the same Soul have Love and Sin mixed or sincere Love in a degree that is sinfully defective and so is consistent with something of its contrary God must hate that Sin How then can he Love that Soul Ans Remember still that Diversity is only in us and not in God Therefore God's Will is related and denominated towards us just as its object is All that is Good in us God Loveth All that is Evil in us he hateth Where Goodness is predominant there God's Love is predominant or greatest from this Relation and Connotation Where Sin is predominant God's aversation displicency or hatred is the chief And we may well expect that the effects be answerable Obj. But we are beloved as Elect before Conversion Ans That was answered before That is God from Eternity purposed to make us Good and Amiable and Happy if you will call that as you may his Love. Obj. But we are beloved in Christ for his Righteousness and Goodness and not for our own Ans The latter is false The former is thus true For the Merits of Christ's Righteousness and Goodness God will pardon our sins and make us Good Holy and Happy and will Love us as the Holy Members of his Son that is both as Related to him and as Holy. Obj. But if God must needs Love sincere imperfect Lovers of him as such with a predominant Love which will not damn them then sin might have been pardoned without Christ's death and the sinner be loved without his Righteousness if he had but sincerely loved God. Ans The supposition is false that a sinner could have Loved God without Pardon and the Spirit purchased by the Death and Righteousness of Christ God perfectly Loveth the perfected Souls in Glory for their own holy perfection But they never attained it but by Christ And God Loveth us here according to the measure of our Love to him But no man can thus Love him till his sin be pardoned for which he was deprived of the Spirit which must kindle Love. And imperfect Love is ever joyned with imperfect Pardon whatever some falsly say to the contrary I mean that Love which is sinfully imperfect Quest 2. Doth not God's Loving us make us Happy And if so it must make us Holy. And then none that he Loveth will fall away from him Whereas the fallen Angels and Adam Loved him and yet fell from him How then were they beloved by him Ans I before told you that God's Will or Love is first Efficient causing Good and then Final being pleased in the Good that is caused God's Efficient Will or Love doth so far make men Holy and Happy as they are such even efficiently But God's Will or Love as it is our Causa finalis and the termiting Object of our Love and is pleased in us and approveth us is not the Efficient Cause of our Holiness and Happiness but the objective and perfect constitutive Cause Now you must further note that God's Benevolent Efficient Will or Love doth give men various degrees of Holiness To Adam in Innocency he gave but such a degree and upon such terms as he could lose and cast away which he did But to the blessed in Glory he giveth that which they shall never lose These degrees are from God's Efficient Love or Will which therefore causeth some to persevere when it left Adam to himself to stand or fall But it is not God's Final Love of Complacency as such that causeth our perseverance For Adam had this Love as long as he Loved God and stood and he after lost it so that it is not that Final Complacency which is the Terminus of our Holiness and Constitutive Cause of our Happiness which alone will secure the perpetuity of either of them Obj. Thus you make God mutable in his Love as Loving Adam more before his fall than after Ans I told you Loving and not Loving the Creature are no changes in God but in the Creature It is Man that is mutable and not God. It is only the Relation of God's Will to the Creature as varying in it self and the extrinsick denomination by connotation of a changed Object which is changed as to God. As the Sun is not changed when you wink and when you open your Eyes Nor a Pillar changed when your motion sets it sometimes on your right hand and sometimes on your left 5. Lastly It must be noted as included in the Text That our own Loving God is not the only or total notion of our end perfection or felicity but to be Known and Loved by God is the other part which must be taken in to make up the total notion of our end In our Love God is considered as the Object But in God's Complacential Love to us
our Enemies conquered our fears removed our wants supplied our Bodies and all that is ours under the protection of Almighty love and we are secured by Promise that all our Sufferings shall work together for our good And what will cause love if all this will not When we perceive with what love the Father hath loved us that of Enemies we should be made the Sons of God and of condemned Sinners we should be made the Heirs of endless Glory and this so freely and by so strange a means we may conclude that this is the Doctrine of Love which is taught us from Heaven by love it self 3. And especially this work of love is promoted by opening the Kingdom of Heaven to the foresight of our Faith and shewing us what we shall enjoy for ever and assuring us of the Fruition of our Creators Everlasting Love yea by making us fore-know that Heaven consisteth in perfect mutual endless love This will both of it self draw up our Hearts and engage all our Reason and Endeavours in beginning that work which we must do for ever and to learn on Earth to love in Heaven 4. And besides all these objective helps Christ giveth to Believers the Spirit of Love and maketh it become as a nature in us which no other Teacher in the World could do Others can speak reason to our Ears but it is Christ that sendeth the warming Beams of holy Love into our Hearts If the love of God and holiness were no better than common Philosophical Speculations then Aristotle or Plato or such other Masters of names and notions might compare with Christ and his Apostles and Athens with the Primitive Church and the Schoolmen might be thought the best Improvers of Theology But if thousands of dreaming Disputers wrangle the World into misery and themselves into Hell and are ingenious Artificers of their own damnation and if the love of God and Goodness be the healthful constitution of the Soul its natural content and pleasure the business and end of life and all its helps and blessings the Soder of just Societies the Union of Man with God in Christ and with all the Blessed and the Fore-taste and First-fruits of endless Glory then Christ the Messenger of Love the Teacher of Love the Giver of Love the Lord and Commander of Love is the best Promoter of Knowledge in the World. And as Nicodemus knew that he was a Teacher come from God because no man could do such works unless God were with him so may we conclude the same because no man could so reveal so cause and communicate Love the holy Love of God and Goodness unless the God of Love had sent him Love is the very end and work of Christ and of his Word and Spirit Chap. IX The fifth Inference What great cause men have to be thankful to God for the Constitution of the Christian Religion And how unexcusable they are that will not learn so short and sweet and safe a Lesson SO excellent and every way suitable to our case is the Religion taught and instituted by Christ as should render it very acceptable to Mankind And that on several accounts 1. The brevity and plainness of Christian Precepts greatly accommodateth the necessity of Mankind I say his necessity lest you think it is but his sloth Ars longa Vita brevis is the true and sad complaint of Students Had our Salvation been laid upon our Learning a Body of true Philosophy how desperate would our case have been For 1. Mans great Intellectual weakness 2. His want of leisure would not have allowed him a knowledge that requireth a subtile wit and tedious studies 1. Most men have wits of the duller sort Such quickness subtilty and solidity as is necessary to great and difficult studies are very rare So rare as that few such are found even amongst the Preachers of the Gospel Of a multitude who by hard Studies and honest Hearts are fit to Preach the Doctrine of Salvation scarce one or two are found of so fine and exact a wit as to be fit judiciously to manage the curious Controversies of the Schools What a case then had Mankind been in if none could have been wise and happy indeed but these few of extraordinary capacity The most publick and common good is the best God is more merciful than to confine Salvation to subtilty of wit Nor indeed is it a thing it self so pleasing to him as a Holy Heavenly Heart and Life 2. And we have Bodies that must have Provision and Employment We have Families and Kindred that must be maintained We live in Neighbourhoods and publick Societies which call for much Duty and take up much time And our sufferings and crosses will take up some thoughts Were it but Poverty alone how much of our time will it alienate from contemplation whilst great necessities call for great care and continual labour Can our common poor Labourers especially Husbandmen have leisure to inform their minds with Philosophy or curious Speculations Nay we see by experience that the more subtile and most vacant wits that wholly addict themselves to Philosophy can bring it to no considerable certainty and consistency to this day except in the few Rudiments or common Principles that all are agreed in Insomuch that those do now take themselves to be the chief or only wits who are pulling down that which through so many Ages from the beginning of the World hath with so great wit and study been concluded on before them and are now themselves no higher than new Experimenters who are beginning all anew again to try whether they can retrieve the errours of Mankind and make any thing of that which they think the World hath been so long unacquainted with And they are yet but beginning at the Skin or Superficies of the World and are got no further with all their wit than Matter and Motion with Figure Site Contexture c. But if they could live as long as Methusalem it is hoped they might come to know that besides Matter and Motion there are Essential Virtues called substantial Forms or active Natures and that there is a Vis Motiva which is the cause of Motion and a Virtus Intellectiva and Wisdom which is the cause of the Order of Motion and a Vital Will and Love which is the perfection and end of all In a word they may live to know that there is such a thing in the World as Life and such a thing as Active Nature and such a thing as Sense and Soul besides Corporeal Matter and Motion and consequently that man is indeed man. But alas they must die sooner perhaps before they attain so far and their Successors must begin all anew again as if none of all these great attempts had been made by their Predecessours and so by their method we shall never reach deeper than the Skin nor learn more than our A B C And would we have such a task made necessary to the Common
pleasure in the practice of it and so our obedience will be hearty willing and universal Who is averse to that which he Loveth unless for something in it which he hateth All men go willingly and readily to that which they truly Love. Therefore it is said that the Law is not made for a Righteous man that is a man that Loveth Piety Temperance and Justice and their several works so far hath no need of Threatning Laws and Penalties to constrain him to it And he that hateth sin so far hath no need of Legal Penalties to restrain him from it Thus is the Law said to be written in our Hearts not as it is meerly in our knowledge and memory but as the matter commanded is truly Loved by us and the sin forbidden truly hated Even our Horses will carry us cheerfully that way which they Love to go and go heavily where they go against their Wills. Win mens Love and the life and lips and all according to power will follow it 9. And such persons therefore are likest to persevere men go unweariedly if they be but able where they go with Love. Especially such a Love which groweth stronger as it draweth nearer the state of perfection which it loveth and groweth by daily renewed experiences and mercies as Rivers grow bigger as they draw nearer to the Sea. We easily hold on in that we Love But that which men loath and their hearts are against they are quickly weary of And the weary person will easily be perswaded to lie down The root of a Apostasie is already in those persons who Love not the end which they pretend to seek nor the work which they pretend to do 10. Lastly holy Love is a pregnant spreading fruitful grace It kindleth a desire to do good to others and to draw men to Love the same God and Heaven and Holiness which we love It made Gods word to be to Jeremy as a burning Fire shut up in his Bones he was weary of forbearing Jer. 20.9 As fire kindleth fire and is the active principle of vegetation as I suppose so Love kindleth Love and is a kind of generative principle of Grace Gods Love is the first cause but Mans Love maketh them meet Instruments of Gods Love For Love will be oft praising the God and Holiness which is loved and earnestly desireth that all others may Love and praise the same The Soul is not indeed converted till its Love is won to God and Goodness A man may be terrified into some austerities superstitions or reformations but he is not further holy than his Heart is won And as every thing that generateth is apt to produce its like so is Love and the words and works of Love. And as Love is the Heart of Holiness so must it be of all fruitful Preaching and conversation whatever the Words or Actions are they are like no farther to win Souls than they demonstrate the Love of God and of Holiness and of the hearers or spectators As among amorous and vain persons strong Love appearing though by a look or word doth kindle the like more than all complements that are known to be but feigned and affected words so usually Souls are won to God as by the Preachers words and works of Love the love and loveliness of God in Christ are fulliest made known Quest But how should we reach this excellent Life of holy Love which doth so far excel all knowledge Ans I have said so much of this in the first part of my Christian Directory and other writings that I must here say but little of it lest I be overmuch guilty of repetitions Briefly Direct I. Believe Gods Goodness to be equal to his Greatness Gods three great primary Attributes are coequal viz. His Power his Wisdom and his Goodness And then look up to the Heavens and think how Great and Powerful is that God that made and continueth such a frame as that Sun and those Stars and those Glorious unmeasureable Regions where they are Think what a World of Creatures God maintaineth in life on this little lower Orb of Earth both in the Seas and on the Land. And then think O what is the Goodness which is equal to all this Power Direct 2. Consider how communicative this Infinite Goodness is Why else is he called LOVE it self Why else made he all the World And why did he make the Sun so Glorious Why else did he animate and beautify the Universe with the Life and Ornaments of Created Goodness All his works shine by the splendor of that excellency which he hath put upon them all are not equal but all are Good and their inequality belongeth to the Goodness of the Universe The Communicative Nature with which God hath endowed all active Beings and the most Noble most is an Impress of the Infinite communicative LOVE Fire would communicate its Light Heat and Motion to all passive objects which are capable of receiving it How pregnant and fertile is the very Earth with plants flowers and fruits of wonderful variety usefulness and beauty What plant is not natured to the propagation of its kind yea to a plenteous multiplication How many Seeds which are Virtual Plants doth each of them bring forth at once and yet the same plant with all its off-spring perhaps liveth many years for further multiplication so that did not the far greatest part of Seeds yearly perish there must be very many such Earths to receive and propagate them This Earth hath not room for the hundredth part To shew us that the Active natures even of Vegetatives do quite exceed in their pregnant communicative activity the receptive capacity of all passive matter which teacheth us to observe that all created Patients are unconceiveably too narrow to receive such Communicative Influences as Infinite pregnant LOVE can communicate were there subjects to receive them It is wonderful to observe in all sorts of Animals the same multiplying communicative inclination and what use the God of nature maketh even of sensual LOVE to all Generation Uniting and Communicative LOVE is in all Creatures the incentive Principle of Procreation And what a multitude of young ones will some one Creature Procreate especially Fishes to admiration So that if other Fishes with Men and other Creatures did not devour them all the Waters on Earth could not contain them Yea our Moral Communicativeness also hath the same indication He that knoweth much would fain have others know the same secret knowledge kept to our selves only hath its excellent use but it satisfieth not the mind nisi te scire hoc sciat alter unless others know that you have such knowledge and unless you can make them know what you know Holy Souls therefore have a fervent but a regular desire and endeavour by communicative Teaching to make others wise But proud Heretical Persons that overvalue their conceits have an irregular Fornicating Lust of Teaching and adulterously invade the charge of others presuming that none can do
love of Children which prepareth men for all the Calamity that followeth their miscarriages in Soul and Body Their unnatural ingratitude their Lewdness and Debauchery and Prodigality their Folly and Impiety would nothing so much torment us were they no more loved than other men And our dearest Friends do usually cost us much dearer than our sharpest enemies But the love of God and Satisfying everlasting good is our very life our pleasure our Heaven on Earth As it is Purest and Highest above all other because of the Object so is it yet more pleasant and contenting because it includeth the hopes of more even of those greater delights of heavenly everlasting love which as a pledge and earnest it doth presignify As in nature conception and the stirring the Child in the womb do signify that same life is begun which must shortly appear and be exercised in the open world So the stirrings of holy love desires towards God do signify the beginning of the heavenly life Humility and Patience and diligent obedience do comfort us by way of Evidence and as removing many hinderances of our comfort and somewhat further they go But Faith Hope and Love do comfort us by way of direct efficiency Faith seeth the matter of our Joy love first tasteth it so far as to stir up desires after it Then Hope giveth some pleasure to us in expecting it And lastly complacential love delightfully embraceth it and is our very Joy itself and is that blessed union with God and holy Souls the amiable Objects of true love which is our felicity it self To work out our comforts by the view of Evidences and Signs is a necessary thing indeed but it requireth a considerate search by an understanding and composed mind and it 's often much hindered and interrupted by mens ignorance of themselves and weakness of grace and darkness or smalness of Evidence and divers passions especially fear which in some is so Tyrannical that it will not suffer to believe or feel any thing that is comfortable But love taketh in the sweetness of that good which is its object by a nearer and effectual way even by immediate taste As we feel in the exercise of our Love to a dear Friend or any thing that is amiable and enjoyed The readiest and surest way therefore to a contented and comfortable life is to keep clear indeed our evidence especially sincere Obedience but especially to bend all our Studies and Religious endeavours to the kindling and exercise of holy love and to avoid all though it may come on religious pretence of humiliation or fear which tendeth to quench or hinder it I. In Health and Prosperity as you live upon Gods love be sure that you do not atheistically overlook it but take all as from it and savouring of it The hand of divine love perfumeth each mercy with the pleasant odour of itself which it reacheth to us Every bit that we eat is a love token and every hour or minute that we live All our health wealth Friends and Peace are the Streams which still flow from the Spring of unexhausted love Love shineth upon us by the Sun love maketh our Land fruitful or Cattel useful our Habitations convenient for us our Garments warm our Food pleasant and nourishing Love keepeth us from a thousand unknown dangers night and day It giveth us the comforts of our Callings our Company our Books our lawful Recreations It blesseth means of Knowledge to our understandings and means of Holiness to our Wills and means of Health and Strength to our bodies Mercies are Sanctified to us when we tast Gods love in them and love him for them and are led up by them to himself and so love him ultimately for himself even for his Infinite Essential Goodness As God is the efficient life of our mercies and all the world without his Love could never give us what we have so is Gods love the Objective life of all our mercies and we have but the Corps or Carkass of them and love them but as such if we love not in them the Love that giveth them II. And even in adversity and pain and sickness whilst Gods love is unchanged and is but changing the way of doing good our thoughts of it should be unchanged also We must not think that the Sun is lost when it is set or clouded we live by its influence in the night though we see not its light unless as reflected from the Moon Our Mother 's brought us into the World in sorrow and yet they justly accounted it a mercy that we were born Our lives are spent in the midst of sorrows yet it is a mercy that we live and though we die by dolour all is still mercy to believers which faith perceiveth contrary to sense And here is the greatest and final victory which Faith obtaineth against the flesh to believe even the ruine of it to be for our good Even Antonine the Emperor could say that it was the same good God who is the cause of our birth and of our death one as well as the other is his work and therefore good It was not a Tyrant that made us and it is not a Tyrant that dissolveth us And that is the best man and the best will which is most pleased with the Will of God because it is his Will. Yet just self-love is here a true coadjutor of our joy for it is the will of God that the Justified be Glorified And Infinite love is saving us when it seemeth to destroy us To live upon the comforts of Divine love in sickness and when death approacheth is a sign that it is not the welfare of the body that we most esteem and that we rejoice not in God only as the preserver and prosperer of our flesh but for himself and the blessings of immortality It is a mercy indeed which a dying man must with thankfulness acknowledge if God have given him a clear understanding of the excellent mysteries of Salvation knowledge as it kindleth and promoteth love is a precious gift of grace and is with pleasure exercised and may with pleasure be acknowledged But all other knowledge is like the Vanities of this World which approaching death doth take down our esteem of and causeth us to number it with other forsaking and forsaken things All the unsanctified learning and knowledge in the World will afford no solid peace at death but rather aggravate natures sorrows to think that this also must be left But love and its comforts if not hindered by ignorance or some strong temptation do then shew their immortal nature And even here we feel the words of the Apostle verified of the vanishing nature of Knowledge and the perpetuity of holy love whilst all our learning and knowledge will not give so much comfort to a dying man as one act of true love to God and Holiness kindled in us by the communication of his love Make it therefore the work of
their writings And for want of other words to supply our needs what abundance of distinctions of Actus and Potentiae are the Scotists and other Schoolmen fain to use What abundance of disputes are kept up by the ambiguity of the word Cause while it is applyed to things so different as Efficience Constitution and Finality The like may be said of many more And then when it cometh to a dispute of the Divine Nature of the Soul of the most weighty things these confounding notions must over-rule the Case We must not have an argument for the Souls Immortality but what these notions check or vitiate no nor scarce for an Attribute of God. XXV And it is so hard a thing to bring men to that self-denial and labour as at Age throughly and impartially to revise their juvenile conceptions and for them that learnt words before things to proceed to learn things now as appearing in their proper evidence and to come back and cancel all their old notions which were not found and to build up a new frame that not one of a multitude is ever Master of so much virtue as to attempt it and go through with it Was it not labour enough to study so many years to know what others say but they must now undo much of it and begin a new and harder labour who will do it XXVI And indeed none but men of extraordinary Acuteness and Love of truth and Self-denial and Patience are fit to do it For 1. The Common dullards will fall into the ditch when they leave their Crutches And will multiply Sects in Philosophy and Religion while they are unable to see the truth in itself And indeed this hath made the Protestant Churches so liable to the derision and reproach of their adversaries And how can it be avoided while all men must pretend to know and judge what indeed they are unable to understand 2. Yea the half-witted men that think themselves acute and wise fall into the same Calamity 3. And the proud will not endure to be thought to err when they plague the world with error 4. And the Impatient will not endure so long and difficult studies 5. And when all is done as Seneca saith they must be content with a very few approvers and must bear the scorn of the ignorant-learned crowd Who have no way to maintain the reputation of their own Wisdom Orthodoxness and Goodness but by calling him Proud or Self-conceited or Erroneous that differeth from them by knowing more than they And who but the truly self-denying can be at so much cost and labour for such reproach when they foreknow that he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow XXVII By these means mens minds that should be taken up with God and his Service are abused and vilified and filled with the dust and smoak of vain and false and confused notions And mans life is spent as David saith in a vain shew And men dream waking with as great industry as if they were about a serious work Alas how pitifully is much of the learned world employed XXVIII By this means also mens precious time is lost And he that had time little enough to learn and do things necessary for the common good and his own salvation doth waste half of it on he knoweth not what And Satan that findeth him more ingenious than to play it away at Cards and Dice or than to Drink and Revel it away doth cast another bait before him and get him learnedly to dream it away about unprofitable words and notions XXIX And by this means the Practice of goodness is hindred in the world yea and Holy Affections quenched While these arbitrary Notions and Speculations being mans own are his more pleasant game And Studies and Pulpits must be thus employed and heart and life thus stoln from God. Yea it 's well if Godliness grow not to be taken by such dreamers for a low a dull and an unlearned thing yea if they be not tempted by it to Infidelity and to think not only the zealous Ministers and Christians but even Christ and his Apostles to be unlearned men below their estimation XXX And by the same means the devilish sin of Pride will be kept up even among the Learned yea and the Preachers of Humility For what is that in the world almost that men are prouder of than that Learning which consisteth in such notions and words as are afore described And the proudest man I think is the worst XXXI And by this means the sacred Chairs and Pulpits will be possessed by such men whose spirits are most contrary to a Crucified Christ and to that Cross and Doctrine which they must preach And when Christ's greatest Enemies are the Pastors of his Churches all things will be ordered and managed accordingly and the faithful hated and abused accordingly Though I must add that it is not this Cause alone but many more concurring to constitute a worldly wicked mind which use to procure these effects XXXII And by false and vain Learning Contentions are bred and propagated in the Churches None are instruments so apt and none have been so successful as all Church History recordeth and the Voluminous contentions of many such learned parties testify XXXIII And this is an increasing malady for new Books are yearly written containing the said arbitrary notions of the several Authors And whereas real and organical Learning should be orderly and conjunctly propagated and Things studied for themselves and Words for Things the systems of of Arts and Sciences grow more and more corrupted our Logicks are too full of unapt notions our Metaphysicks are a meer confused mixture of Pneumatology and Logick and What part hath totally escaped XXXIV And the number of such Books doth grow so great that they become a great impediment and snare and how many years precious time must be lost to know what men say and who saith amiss or how they differ XXXV And the great diversity of Writers and Sects increaseth the danger trouble especially in Physicks by that time a man hath well studied the several sects the Epicureans and Somatists the Cartesians with the by-parties Regius Berigardus c. the Platonists the Peripateticks the Hermeticks Lullius Patricius Telesius Campanella White Digby Glisson and other Novelists and hath read the most learned improvers of the curranter sort of Philosophy Scheggius Wendeline Sennertus Hoffman Honorat Faber Got c. how much of his life will be thus spent And perhaps he will be as far to seek in all points saving those common evident certainties which he might have learned more cheaply in a shorter time than he was before he read them And will wish that Antonine Epictetus or Plutarch had served instead of the greater part of them And will perceive that Physicks are much fuller of uncertainties and emptier of satisfying usefulness than Morality and true Theology XXXVI By such false methods and notions men are often led to utter Scepticism and when they
a people that truly honour him in the world But O that they were more And O that they were more perfect Alas what a number are there that are otherwise Even among Divines this Plague is most pernicious as being of most publick influence Take him that never had a natural acuteness of wit nor is capable of judging of difficult points if he be but of long standing and grey hairs and can preach well to the people and have studied long he is not only confident of his fitness to judge of that which he never understood but his Reputation of wisdom must be kept up among the people by his Supercilious talking against what he understandeth not Yea if he be one that never macerated his flesh with the difficult and long studies of the matter without which hard points will never be well digested and distinctly understood yet if he be a Doctor and have lived long in a reputation for wisdom his Ignorant flashy Conjectures and hasty superficial apprehensions must needs go for the more excellent Knowledge And if you put him to make good any of his Contradictions to the truth his Magisterial contempt or his uncivil wrath and unmannerly interruptions of you in your talk must go for reason And if he cannot resist the strength of your evidence he cannot bear the hearing of it but like a scold rather than a Scholar taketh your words out of your mouth before you come to the end As if he said Hold your tongue and hear me who am wiser I came to Teach and not to Hear If you tell him how uncivil it is not patiently to hear you to the end he thinks you wrong him and are too bold to pretend to a liberty to speak without interruption Or he will tell you that you are too long he cannot remember all at once If you reply that the sense of the forepart of a Speech usually depends much on the latter part and he cannot have your sence till he have all and that he must not answer before he understandeth you and that if his memory fail he should take notes and that to have uninterrupted turns of speaking is necessary in the order of all sober conferences without which they will be but noise and strife he will let you know that he came not to hear or keep any Laws of Order or Civility but to have a combat with you for the reputation of wisdom or Orthodoxness And what he wants in Reason and Evidence he will make up in ignorant Confidence and Reviling and call you by some ill Name or other that shall go for a Confutation But yet this is not the usual way It is too great a hazard to the reputation of their wisdom to cast it on a dispute The common way is never to speak to the Person himself but if any one cross their conceits or become the object of their envy they backbite him among those that reverence their wisdom and when they are sure that he is far enough out of hearing they tell their credulous Followers O such a man holdeth unsound or dangerous Opinions Take heed how you hear him or read his writings this or that Heresie they savour of when the poor man knoweth not what he talketh of And if any one have the wit to say to him Sir he is neither so sottish nor so proud as to be uncapable of instruction if you are so much wiser than he why do you not teach him He will excuse his omission and his commission together with a further calumny and say These erroneous persons will hear no reason It is in vain If he be asked Sir did you ever try it 's like he must confess that he did not unless some magisterial rebuke once went for Evidence of truth If the hearers which is rare have so much Christian wit and honesty as to say Sir Ministers above all men must be no back-biters nor unjust you know it is unlawful for us to judge another man till we hear him speak for himself If you would have us know whether he or you be in the right let us hear you both together His answer would be like Cardinal Turnon at the conference at Poisie and as the Papists ordinarily is It is dangerous letting Hereticks speak to the People and it agreeth not with our zeal for God to hear such odious things uttered against the Truth In a word There are more that have the Spirit of a Pope in the World than one even among them that cry out against Popery and that would fain be taken for the Dictators of the World whom none must dissent from much less contradict And there are more Idolaters than Heathens who would have their Ignorant understandings to be instead of God the uncontrolled director of all about them But if these men have not any confidence in their self-sufficiency if they can but embody in a society of their minds or gather into a Synod he must needs go for a proud and arrogant Schismatick at least that will set any Reason and Evidence of Truth against their Magisterial Ignorance when it is the Major Vote The very Truth is The great Benefactor of the World hath not been pleased to dispense his Benefits Equally but with marvellous disparity As he is the God of Nature he hath been pleased to give a natural capacity for judiciousness and acuteness in difficult speculations but to few And as he is the Lord of all he hath not given men equal educacation nor advantages for such extraordinary knowledge Nor have all that have leisure and capacity self denyal and patience enough for so long and difficult studies But the Devil and our selves have given to all men Pride enough to desire to be thought to be wiser and better than we are And he that cannot be equal with the wisest and best would be thought to be so And while all men must needs seem wise while few are so indeed you may easily see what must thence follow 2. And it is not Divines only but all ranks of people who are sick of this disease The most unlearned ignorant people the silliest Women if they will not for shame say that they are wiser than their Teachers in the general yet when it cometh to particular cases they take themselves to be always in the right and O how confident are they of it And who more peremptory and bold in their judgments than those that least know what they say It is hard to meet with a person above eighteen or twenty years of age that is not notably tainted with this malady And it is not only these great mischiefs in matters of Religion which spring from self-conceitedness but even in our common converse it is the cause of disorder ruin and destruction For it is the common vice of blinded nature and it is rare to meet with one that is not notably guilty of it When they are past the state of professed Learners 1. It is
Of such as are able judiciously to resolve a difficulty to answer Cases of Conscience to defend the Truth to stop the mouths of all gainsayers and to Teach holy Doctrine clearly and in true Method without confusion or running into any extreams We bless God this Land and the other Reformed Churches have had a laudable degree of this mercy The Lord restore it to them and us and continue the comfortable measure that we possess XVII And it is a notorious discovery of the common Ignorance that a wise man is so hardly known And men that have not wisdom to imitate them have not wit enough to value them So that as Seneca saith He that will have the pleasure of wisdom must be content with it for it self without Applause Two or three approvers must suffice him The Blind know not who hath the best Eye-sight Swine trample upon Pearls Nay it is well if when they have increased knowledge they increase not sorrow And become not the mark of Envy and Hatred and of the venom of malignant Tongues and Hands yea and that meerly for their knowledge sake All the Learning of Socrates Demosthenes Cicero Seneca Lucane and many more and all the Learning and Piety of Cyprian and all the Martyrs of those ages of Boetius of the African Bishops that perished by Hunnerichus of Peter Ramus Marlorate Cranmer Ridley Philpot Bradford and abundance such could not keep them from a cruel Death All the excellency of Greg. Nazianzene Chrysostome and many others could not keep them from suffering by Orthodox Bishops no nor all the Holiness and Miracles of Martin Insomuch that Nazianzene leaveth it to his People as a mark of the man whom he would have them value and choose when he was dead This one thing I require that he be one of those that are envyed not pitied by others who obey not all men in all things but for the love of Truth in some things incurreth mens offence And of himself he professeth that Though most thought otherwise than he did that this was nothing to him who cared only for the truth as that which must condemn him or absolve him and make him happy or miserable But what other men thought was nothing to him any more than what another dreameth Orat. 27. page 468. And therefore he saith Orat. 26. p. 443. As for me I am a small and poor Pastor and to speak sparingly not yet grateful and accepted with other Pastors which whether it be done by right judgment and reason or by malevolence of mind and study of contention I know not And Orat. 32. p. 523. I am tired while I fight both with Speech and Envy with Enemies and with those that are our own Those strike at the Breast and obtain not their desire For an open Enemy is easily taken heed of But these come behind my back and are more troublesome Such obloquy had Hierome such had Augustine himself and who knoweth not that Envy is Virtues Shadow And what talk I of others when all godly men are hated by the world and the Apostles and Christ himself were used as they were and Christ saith Which of the Prophets did not your Fathers Kill and Persecute Math. 23. If Hating Persecuting Slandering Silencing Killing men that know more than the rest be a sign of wisdom the world hath been wise since Cains Age until this Even a Galilaeus a Savonarola a Campanella c. Shall feel it if they will be wiser than the rest So that Solomons warning Eccl. 7.16 concerneth them that will save heir Skin Be not Righteous over-much neither make thy self over wise Why wilt thou destroy thy self But again I may Prognosticate with Antisthenes in Laert. Then Cities are perishing when they are not wise enough to know the good from the bad And with Cicero Rhet. 1. That mans safety is desperate whose Ears are shut against the truth so that even from a Friend he cannot hear it XVIII And this leadeth me to the next discovery How rare wisdom is in the world in that the wisest men and Learnedst Teachers have so small Success How few are much the wiser for them If they praise them they will not Learn of them till they reach to their degree Men may delight in the sweetness of truth themselves but it is a Feast where few will strive for part with them A very few men that have first sprung up in obscure times have had great Success So had Origine at Alexandria and Chrysostom at Constantinople but with bitter sauce Pythagoras Plato and Aristotle at Athens and Augustine at Hippo had the most that History maketh mention of with Demosthenes and Cicero in Oratory Melanchthon at Wittenberge with Luther and Zwinglius in Helvetia and Calvin at Geneva prevailed much And now and then an age hath been fruitful of Learned Wise and Godly men And when we are ready to expect that each of these should have a multitude of Scholars like themselves suddenly all declineth and Ignorance and Sensuality get uppermost again And all this is because that all men are born Ignorant and Sensual But no man attaineth to any excellency of Wisdom without so long and laborious studies as the flesh will give leave to few men to perform So that he that hath most laboriously searcht for knowledge all his days knoweth not how to make others partakers of it No not his own Children of whom he hath the education Unless it be here and there one Scaliger one Paraeus one Tossanus one Trelcatius one Vossius c. how few excellent men do leave one excellent Son behind them O what would a wise man give that he could but bequeath all his wisdom to others when he dieth XIX And it 's evident that great Knowledge is more rare than Prefidence in that the hardest Students and most knowing men complain more than others of Difficulties and Ignorance When certainly other men have more cause They that study a little know little and think they know much They that study very hard but not to maturity oft become Sceptick and think nothing certain But they that follow it till they have digested their studies do find a certainty in the great and necessary things but confess their ignorance in abundance of things which the presumptuous are confident in I will not leave this out to escape the carping of those that will say that by this Character I proclaim my self one of the wisest as long as it is but the confession of my Ignorance which is their occasion But I will say as Augustine to Hierome Epist 29. Adversus eos qui sibi videntur scire quod nesciunt hoc tutiores sumus quod hanc ignorantiam nostram non ignoramus XX. Lastly Every mans nature in the midst of his pride is conscious of the Fallibility and Frailty of his own understanding And thence it is that men are so fearful in great matters of being over-reacht And where ever any conclusion dependeth upon a
contexture of many proofs or on any long operous work of Reason men have a natural consciousness of the uncertainty of it Yea though our Doctrines of the Immortality of our own Souls and of the Life of Retribution after this and the Truth of the Gospel have so much certain Evidence as they have yet a Lively certain Faith is the more rare and difficult because men are so conscious of the fallibility of their own understandings that about things unseen unsensible they are still apt to doubt whether they be not deceived in their apprehensions of the Evidence By these twenty instances it is too plain that there is little solid wisdom in the world that wise men are few and those few are but a little wise And should not this suffice to make all men but especially the unlearned half-learned the young and unexperienced to abate their ungrounded confidence and to have humble and suspicious thoughts of their own apprehensions Chap. 17. Inference 5. That it is not the dishonour but the Praise of Christ his Apostles and the Gospel that they speak in a plain manner of the Certain Necessary things without the Vonity of School-uncertainties and feigned unprofitable nations I Have been my self oft Scandalized at the Fathers of the 4th Carthage Council who forbad Bishops the reading of the Heathens Books and at some good old unlearned Christian Bishops who spake to the same purpose and oft reproach Apollinaris Aetius and other Hereticks for their Secular or gentile Learning Logick c. And I wondered that Julian and they should prohibit the same thing But one that is so far distant from the action is not a competent Judge of the reasons of it Perhaps there were some Christian Authors then who were sufficient for such literature as was best for the Church Perhaps they saw that the danger of reading the Heathens Philosophy was like to be greater than the benefit Both because it was them that they lived among and were to gather the Churches out of and if they put an honour upon Logick and Philosophy they might find it more difficult to draw men from that party which excelled in it to the belief of the Scriptures which seemed to have so little of it And they had seen also how a mixture of Platonick notions with Christianity had not only been the Original of many heresies but had sadly blemished many great Doctors of the Churches Whatever the cause was it appeareth that in those days it was the deepest insight into the Sacred Scriptures which was reckoned for the most solid Learning Philosophy was so confounded by Differences Sects Uncertainties and Falshoods that made it the more despicable by how much the less pure And Logick had so many precarious Rules and Notions as made it fitter to wrangle and play with than to further grave men in their deep and serious enquiry in the great things of God and mysteries of Salvation But yet it cannot be denied but that true Learning of the Subservient Arts and Sciences is of so great use to the accomplishing of mans mind with wisdom that it is one of the greatest offences that ever was taken against Christ and the holy Scriptures that so little of this Learning is found in them in comparison of what is in Plato Aristotle Demosthenes or Cicero But to remove the danger of this offence let these things following be well considered I. Every means is to be judged of by its aptitude to its proper use and end Morality is the subject and business of the Scriptures It is not the work of it to teach men Logick and Philosophy any more than to teach them Languages Who will be offended with Christ for not teaching men Latine Greek or Hebrew Architecture Navigation or Mechanick Arts And why should they be more offended with him for not teaching them Astronomy Geometry Physicks Metaphysicks Logick c. It was none of his work II. Nature is presupposed to Grace and God in Nature had before given man sufficient helps to the attainment of so much of the knowledge of Nature as was convenient for him Philosophy is the knowledge of Gods works of Creation It was not this at least chiefly that man lost by his fall It was from God and not from the Creature that he turned And it was to the knowledge of God rather than of the Creature that he was to be restored What need one be sent from Heaven to teach men the order and rules of speaking Or to teach men those Arts and Sciences which they can otherwise learn themselves As it is presupposed that men have reason so that they have among them the common helps and crutches of reason III. The truth is it is much to be suspected lest as an inordinate desire of Creature-knowledge was a great part of our first Parents sin so it hath accordingly corrupted our nature with an answerable vicious inclination thereunto Not that the thing in it self is evil to know Gods works but good and desireable in its place and measure But it is such a good as by inordinacy may become a dangerous evil Why should we not judge of this desire of knowing the Creatures as we do of other Creature-affections It is lawful and meet to love all Gods Creatures His works are good and therefore amiable And yet I think no man is damned but by the inordinate loving of the Creature turning his Heart from the love of God. And as our Appetites are lawful and necessary in themselves and yet Natures pravity consisteth much in the prevalency of them against reason which is by reasons infirmity and the inordinacy of the sensitive Appetite even so a desire to know Gods works is natural and good but its inordinateness is our pravity and a sinful Lust Doubtless the mind and phantasie may find a kind of pleasure in knowing which is according to the nature and use of the thing known When it is vain or low and base the pleasure is vain and low and base When the object is ensnaring and diverting from higher things it doth this principally by delight Verily this inordinate desire of Creature-knowledge is a Lust a vicious Lust I have been guilty of it in some measure my self since I had the use of reason I have lived a Life of constant pleasure gratifying my Intellect and Phantasie with seeking to know as much as I could know And if I could not say truly that I referred it as a means to the knowledge and love of God I should say that it was all sin But because I have loved it too much for it self and not referred it to God more purely and intirely I must confess that it was never blameless And the corruption of the noblest faculty is the worst The delights of Eating Drinking Venery are the matter of common Sensuality when they are inordinately desired And is not the inordinate desire of Creature-knowledge if it be desired from the like principle and to the like ends
he hath set up to them they are half as long in Learning for all that as if he had never given them such a help And therefore it is that we cannot leave our Learning to Posterity Because still the stop is in the Receivers incapacity And he cannot be capable of the plainest precepts but by much time and study 2. Pride maketh men hasty in concluding because they are not humbled to a just Suspicion of their own apprehensions And men stay not to prove and try things before they judge 3. Pride maketh men insensible how much they are ignorant of in all their Knowledge 4. And it causeth men to slight the Reasons and Judgments of other men by which they might learn or at least might be taught to Judge considerately and suspend their own If over-valuing a mans own apprehensions be Pride as it is then certainly Pride is one of the commonest sins in the world and particularly among men professing godliness who upon every poor surmise or report are condemning those that they do not throughly know and in every petty controversy they are all still in the right though of never so many minds III Another cause of Pretended Knowledge is the want of a truly tender Conscience Which should make men fear lest they should err lest they should deserve the curse of putting light for darkness darkness for light evil for good good for evil should make them afraid lest they should defile their minds resist the truth blaspheme God or Dishonour him by fathering Errors on him and lest they should prove snares to mens Souls and a Scandal and Trouble to the Church of God. A tender Conscience would not have espoused such opinions under a year or two or manies deliberation which an Antinomian or other Sectary will take up in a few days if they were true O saith the tender Conscience what if I should Err and prove a Snare to Souls and a Scandal and Dishonour to the Church of God c. IV. Another cause of Pretended Knowledge is a blind Zeal for Knowledge and Godliness in the General while men know not what it is that they are zealous of They think that it is a necessary part of sincerity to receive the Truth speedily without delay And therefore they take a present concluding for a true Receiving it And he that soonest taketh up that which is offered him probably as a part of Godliness is taken for the most resolved down-right convert Which is true in case of Evident Truths where it is the will that by vice suspendeth the mind But not in dark and doubtful cases V. Another cause is an inordinate trust in man When some admire the learned too much and some the Religious and some this or that particular person and therefore build too confidently on their words Some on great men some on the Multitude but most on men of fame for great Learning or great Piety A credit is to be given by every learner to his Teacher But the confounding this with oâ— Belief of God and making it a part of our Religion and not trusting man as man only that is as a fallible Wight doth cause this Vice of Pretended Knowledge to pass with millions for Divine Faith. Especially when men embody themselves into a Sect as the only Orthodox or Godly party or as the only true Church as the Papists do then it emboldeneth them to believe any thing which their Sect or Church believeth For they think that this is the Churches Faith which cannot err or is the safest And that God would not let so many good men err And thus they that should be made their Teachers and the Helpers of their Faith become the Lords of it and almost their Gods. VI. And it much increaseth this sin that men are not sufficiently acquainted with the Original and Additional Corruption of mans nature and know not how Blind all Mankind is Alas man is a dark Creature What error may he not hold What villany may he not do Yea and maintain Truly said David All men are Liars Pitifully do many expound this as an effect of his unbelief and passion because he saith I said it my haste When it is no more than Paul saith Let God be true and every man a Liar Rom. 3. And than Solomon and Isaiah say All men are Vanity And Jeremy cursed be he that trusteth in man All men are untrusty in a great degree Weak False and Bad. And his haste was either as Dr. Hammond translateth it his Flight or else that his Tryal and distress made him more passionately sensible of the Vanity or Untrustiness of man than he was at other times For Vanity and a Lie to the Hebrews were words of the same importance signifying Deceivableness and untrustiness And indeed among mankind there is so great a degree of Impotency Selfishness Timorousness Ignorance Errour and Viciousness as that few wicked men are to be believed where there is any strong Temptation to lying And the Devil is seldom unprovided of Temptations And abundance of Hypocrites are as untrusty as open wicked men And abundance of sincere Godly persons especially Women have loose Tongues and hasty passions and a stretching Conscience but specially injudicious heads so that frequently they know not truth from falshood nor have the tenderness of Conscience to be silent till they know So that if one say it another will say it till a hundred say it and then it goeth for currant truth Good-mens over-much credulity of one another hath filled the Church with Lies and Fables Many of the Papists Sâ—â—â—rstitions Purgatory praying to Saints and Angels prayâ—â— for the dead c. were bred by this credulity It is so visible in Venerable Beda Gregory the first yea before them in Sulpitius Severus of Martius Life and abundance more that to help up Christianity among the Pagans they laid hold of any old Womans or Ignorant Mans Dreams and Visions and stories of pretended Miracles Revelations that it made even Melchior Canus cry out of the shameful Ridiculous filth that hence had filled their Legends Even Baronius upon Tryal retaineth no small number of them and with his Brethren the Oratorians on their Prophesying days told them to the people I am ashamed that I recited one out of him before my Treatise of Crucifying the World though I did it not as perswading any that it was true For I quickly saw that Sophronious on whom he fathered it was none of the reporters of it that Book being spurious and none of Sophronius his work Indeed I know of such impudent false History lately Printed of matters of publick fact in these times yea divers concerning my own Words and Actions by persons that are far from Contemptible that Strangers and Posterity will scarce believe that humane nature could be guilty of it in the open light And I know it to be so customary a thing for the Zealots professing the fear of God on one
side and the other to receive and rashly tell about lies of one another that I confess I am grown to take little heed of what such say in such a case unless the report continue a year uncontrolled For it 's common for them to tell those things as unquestionable which a few months prove false And yet never to manifest any repentance but to go on with the like one month disproving what the former hatcht and vended And indeed the very wisest and best of men are guilty of so much Ignorance Temerity Suspiciousness of others partiality c. That we must believe them though far sooner than others yet still with a reservâ—â—o change our minds if we find them mistaken 〈◊〉 still on supposition that they are fallible persons and that all men are Liars VII Another great cause of pretended false Knowledge and Confidence is the unhappy prejudices which our minds contract even in our Childhood before we have time and wit and Conscience to try things by true deliberation Children and Youth must receive much upon trust or else they can learn nothing But then they have not wit to proportion their apprehensions to the Evidence whether of Credibility or Certainty And so fame and tradition and education and the Countreys Vote do become the ordinary Parents of many Lies and folly maketh us to fasten so fearlesly in our fâ—rst apprehensions that they keep open the door to abundance of more falshoods And it must be clear Teachers or great impartial studies of a self-denying mind with a great blessing of God that must deliver us from prejudice and undeceive us And therefore all the World seeth that almost all men are of the Religion of their Country or their Parents be it never so absurd Though with the Mahometans they believe the Nonsence of a very sot once reading a quarter of whose Alcoran one would think should cure a man of Common reason of any inclination to his belief And among the Japonians even the eloquent Bonzii believe in Amida and Xaca To mention the belief of the Chinenses the People of Pegu Siam and many other such yea the Americans the Brasilians Lappians c. that correspond with Devils would be a sad instance of the unhappiness of mens first apprehensions and education And what doth the foresaid instance of Popery come short herein which tells us how Prejudice and Education and Company can make men deny all mens common sence and believe common unseen Miracles pretended in the stead VIII Another cause is the mistaking of the nature of the duty of submitting our judgment to our Superiours and Teachers especially to the Multitude or the Church or Antiquity No doubt but much reverence and a humane belief is due to the Judgment of our Teachers credibly made known But this is another thing quite different 1. From knowing by Evidence 2. And from believing God of which before and after IX Another cause is base slothfulness which makes men take up with the judgment of those in most reputation for Power Wisdom or Number to save them the labour of searching after the scientifical Evidence of things or the certain Evidence of Divine Revelations X. Another frequent cause is an appearance of something in the Truth which frighteneth men from it either for want of a clear methodical advantageous representation or by some difficult objection or some miscarriage in the utterance carriage or life of them that seem most zealous for it such little things deceive dark man And when he is turned from the Truth he thinks that the contrary Errour may be embraced without fear XI Another great cause of Confidence in false Conceits is the byass of some personal Interest prevailing with a corrupted Will and the mixture of Sense and Passion in the Judgment For as interested men hardly believe what seemeth against them and easily believe that which they would have to be true so Sense and Passion or Affections usually so bear down Reason that they think it their right to possess the Throne Not but that Sense is the only discerner of its own sensible Object as such and Reason by Sense as it is intelligible But that 's not the matter in hand But the Sensualist forceth his Reason to call that Best for him which his Sense is most delighted with and that Worst which most offendeth Sense The Drunkard will easily judge that his drinking is good for him and the Glutton that his pleasant meats are lawful and the Time-waster that his Plays are lawful and the Fornicator the wrathful revenger c. that their lusts and passions are lawful because they think that they have Feeling on their side It 's hard to carry an upright Judgment against Sense and Passion XII Sometimes a strong deluded Imagination maketh men exceeding confident in Errour some by Melancholy and some by a natural weakness of Reason and strength of Phantasie and some by misapprehensions in Religion grow to think that every strong conceit which doth but come in suddenly at reading or hearing or thinking on such a Text or in time of earnest prayer especially if it deeply affect themselves is certainly some suggestion or inspiration of God's Spirit And hence many Errours have troubled poor Souls and the Church of God which afterward they have themselves retracted Hence are the confidence of some ignorant Christians in expounding difficult Scriptures Prophecies and the boldness of others in expounding dark Providences and also in foretelling by their own surmises things to come XIII And not a few run into this mischief in some extreams by seeing others run into Errour on the other side Some are so offended at the credulity of the weak that they will grow confident against plain certainties themselves As because there are many feigned Miracles Apparitions Possessions and Witchcrafts in the World divulged by the Credulity of the injudicious therefore they will more foolishly be confident that there are no such things at all And because they see some weak persons impute more of their opinions performances and affections to God's Spirit than they ought therefore they grow mad against the true operations of the Spirit and confident that there is no such thing Some deride Praying by the Spirit and Preaching by the Spirit and Living by the Spirit when as they may as well deride understanding willing working by a Reasonable Soul no holy thing being holily done without God's Spirit any more than any act of life and reason without the Soul And they may on the same grounds deride all that Live not after the flesh and that are Christians Rom. 8.5 6 7 8 9 13. or that Love God or that seek Salvation Yea some run so far from spiritual Fanaticisms that they deny the very Being of Spirits and many confidently set up a dead Image of true Religion in bitter hatred and opposition of all that hath Life and serious Holiness So mad are some made by seeing some feverish persons dote XIV Another Cause
is conversing only with those of our own mind and side and interest and not seeking familiar loving acquaintance with those that differ from us Whereby men deprive themselves of hearing half that is to be heard and of knowing much that is to be known And their proud Vice hardeneth them in this way to say I have read and I have heard enough of them I know all that they can say And if a man soberly speak to them their Vices of Pride Presumption and Passion will scarce patiently bear him to go on without interruption to the end but the Wizzard saith I know already what you will say and you are tedious and do you think that so wise a man as I hath nothing to do but hear such a Fool as you talk Thus proud men are ordinarily so full of themselves that they can scarce endure to hear or at least learn any thing from others nor restrain their violent list to speak so long as either just information or humane civility requireth XV. Another Cause is Malignity and want of Christian Love whereby men are brought if not to a hatred yet to a proud contempt of others who are not of their mind and side and way O they are all as foolish and bad as any one hath list to call them and he that raileth at them most ingeniously and impudently giveth them but their due And will a man full of Himself and his Own be moved from his presumptions by any thing that such a hated or scorned people can say Nay will he not be hardened in his self-conceit because it is such as these that contradict him Many such Causes of this Vice there be but PRIDE and IGNORANCE are the proper Parents of it whatever else be the Nurse or Friend Chap. XX. Objections answered I Easily foresee that besides the foresaid impediments all these following Objections will hinder the Cure of false pretended knowledge and self-conceitedness and false Belief if they be not answered Obj. I. You move men to an Impossibility To see without light and for an erring man to believe that he erreth He that hath not light to see the truth hath not light to see his ignorance of it This is no more than to perswade all men to be wise and not to err which you may do long enough to little purpose Ans It is impossible indeed for an erring man while such to know that he erreth but it is not impossible 1. For an ignorant man to know that he is ignorant nor for a man without light or sight to know that he seeth not though he cannot see that he seeth not For though Nescience be Nothing and Nothing is not properly and directly an Object of our Knowledge no more than of our Sight Yet as we see the limited quantity of substances and so know little from big by concluding that it hath no more quantity than we see so we know our own knowledge both as to Object and Act and we know the degree of it and to what it doth extend And so can conclude I know no more And though Nescience be nothing yet this Proposition I know no more is not nothing And so nothing is usually said to be known Reductively but indeed it is not properly known at all but this proposition de nihilo is known which is something I will not here meddle with the question whether God know non-entities 2. To think and to know are not all one For I may think that I may know that is I study to know Now I can know that I study or think and I can perceive that my studies reach not what I desire to reach but fall short of satisfaction And so as in the Body though emptiness be nothing and therefore not felt as nothing yet a hungry man feeleth it in the consequents by accident that is feeleth that by which he knoweth that he is empty And so it is with a Student as to knowledge 3. And a man that hath so much experience as we all have of the stated darkness of our understandings and frequent errors may well know that this understanding is to be suspected and so blind a Guide not over-confidently and rashly to be trusted 4. And a man that knoweth the danger of Errour may know that it is a thing that he should fear And fear should make him cautelous 5. And though an erring man while such cannot know that he erreth yet by the aforesaid means he may cease to err and know that he hath erred 6. And lastly It is a shame for a man to be unacquainted with himself and especially with his understanding and not to know the measure of his knowledge it self Obj. II. You talk like a Cartesian that must have all that would know suppose first that they know nothing no not that he feeleth and liveth Ans No such matter Some things we know necessarily and cannot chuse but know For the Intellect is not free of it self but only as quoad exercitium actus it is sub imperio voluntatis And it is vain to bid men not to know what they cannot chuse but know And it is as vain to tell them that they must suppose falsly that they know not what they know as a means to know For ignorance is no means to knowledge but knowledge is One act of knowledge being necessary to more and therefore not to be denied I have told you before what certainties are which must be known and never forsaken Obj. III. But your discourse plainly tendeth to draw men to Scepticism and to doubt of all things Ans 1. I tell you I describe to you many certainties not to be doubted of 2. And it is indeed your prefidence that tendeth to Scepticism as is shewed For men that believe hastily and falsly find themselves so oft deceived that at last they begin to doubt of all things It is Scepticism which I prevent 3. But I confess to you that I am less afraid of Scepticism in the World than ever I was as finding corrupt nature so universally disposed the contrary way As when I first saw the Books of Jacob Behmen and some such others I adventured to Prognosticate that the Church would never be much indangered by that Sect or any other which a man cannot understand and join in without great study and acuteness because few men will be at so much labour even so I say of Scepticism here and there a hard-impatient half-knowing Student may turn Sceptick but never any great number For Pride and Ignorance and other causes of self-conceitedness are Born in all men and every man that apprehendeth any thing is naturally apt to be too confident of his apprehensions and few will have the humility to suspect themselves or the patience and diligence to find out difficulties I must say in my Experience that except the Congregation which I long instructed and some few-such I meet with few Women Boys or unlearned men when they are past 18 or
your Religion and the work of your whole lives to possess your minds with the liveliest sense of the infinite goodness and amiableness of God and hereby to live in the constant exercise of Love. II. And though some men hinder love by an over fearful questioning whether they have it or not and spend that time in doubting and complaining that they have it not which they should spend in exciting and exercising it yet reason requireth us to take heed lest a carnal mind deceive us with any counterfeits of holy love Of which having written more in my Christian Directory I shall here give you but these brief instructions following It is here of grand importance I. To have a true conception of God as he must be loved II. And then to know practically how it is that love must be exercised towards him I. GOD must be conceived of at once both 1. As in his essence 2. And as in his relations to the world and to our selves 3. And as in his works And those that will separate these and while they fix only on one of them leave out the other do not indeed love God as God as he must be loved 1. To think in general that there is an infinite eternal Spirit of Life Light and Love and not to think of him as related to the world as its Creator Preserver and Governor nor as related to us and to mankind as our Owner Ruler and Benefactor is not to think of him as a God to us or to any but himself And a love thus exercised cannot be true saving love 2. And because his relations to us result from his works either which he hath done already or which he will do hereafter therefore without the knowledge of his works and their goodness we cannot truly know and love God in his relations to us 3. And yet when we know his works we know but the medium or that in which he himself is made known to us And if by them we come not to know him and love him in his perfect Essence it is not God that we know and love And if we knew him only as Related to us and the World as that he is our Creator Owner Mover Ruler and Benefactor and yet know not what he is in his essence that is thus related viz that he is the Perfect First Being Life Wisdom and Love this were not truly to know and love him as he is God. These conceptions therefore must be conjunct God is not here known to us but by the revelation of his works and word nor can we conceive of him but by the similitude of some of his works not that we must think that he is just such as they or picture him like a creature for he is infinitely above them all but yet it is certain that he hath made some impressions of his perfections upon his works and on some of them so clear as that they are called his Image Nothing is known to us but either 1. By sense immediately perceiving things external and representing them to the phantasie and intellect or 2. By the Intellects own conceiving of other things by the similitude of things sensed 3. Or by immediate internal Intuition or Sensation of the acts of the Soul in it self 4. Or by reasons collection of the nature of other things from the similitude and effect of such perceived operations I. By the external Senses we perceive all external sensed things and we imagine and know them as so perceived II. By the Intellection of these we conceive of other things as like them forming Universal conceptions and applying them to such individuals as are beyond the reach of our Senses As we think of Men Trees Beasts Fishes c. in the Indies as like those which we have seen and of sounds there as like those which we have heard and of the taste of Fruits by the similitude of such as we have tasted c. III. How Sense it self Intellection it self Volition it self and internal Affections are perceived is no small controversie among Philosophers That we do perceive them by the great wisdom and goodness of our Creator we are sure but how we do it we can scarce describe as knowing it better by the experience of that perception it self than by a knowledge of the Causes and Nature of the acts It is most commonly said that the Intellect knoweth its own acts by Reflection or as Ockam by Intuition and that it knoweth what Sense is and what Volition by some Species or Image of them in the phantasie which it beholdeth But such words give no man a true knowledge of the thing enquired of unless withal he read the solution experimentally in his own Soul. I know not what the meaning of a Reflect act is Is it the same act which is called Direct and Reflect And doth the Intellect know that it knoweth by the very same act by which it knoweth other things If so why is it called Reflect and what is that reflection But the contrary is commonly said that divers objects make divers acts and therefore to know e.g. that this is Paper and to know that I know this are two acts and the latter is a reflecting of the former But the former act is gone and nothing in the instant that it is done and therefore is in it self no intelligible object of a reflecting act But as remembred it may be known or rather that remembring is knowing what is past by a marvellous retention of some impress of it which no man can well comprehend so as to give an account of it And why may not the same memory which retaineth the unexpressible Record of an Act past an hour or many years ago be also the Book where the Intellect readeth its own Act as past immediately in the foregoing instant But sure this is not the first knowing that we know Before the act of memory the Intellect immediately perceiveth its own particular acts And so doth the sense By one and the same act we see and perceive that we see and by one and the same act I think we know and know that we know and this by a consciousness or internal sense which is the immediate act of the Essence of the faculty And chuse whether you will say that such two objects may constitute one act Or whether you will say that the latter the act it self is not properly to be called an object For the various senses of the word object must be considered in the decision of that Mans Soul is Gods Image When God knoweth himself and his own knowledge and when he willeth or loveth himself and his own will or love here we must either say that himself his knowledge and will is not properly to be called an Object or else that the Object and the Act are purely the same without the least real difference but we name them differently as inadequate conceptions of one Being And why may it not be so
in a lower sort in the Soul that is Gods Image That is that the understandings most internal act viz. the knowing or perceiving when it knoweth any thing that it knoweth It is not really compounded of an act and an object as the knowledge of distinct objects is but that either its act is not properly to be called its object or that act and object are not two things but two inadequate conceptions of one thing And how doth the Soul perceive its own Volitions To say that Volitions which are acts of the Intellectual Soul must be sensate and so make a Species on the phantasie as sensate things do and be known only in that Species is to bring down the higher faculty and subordinate it to the lower that it may be intelligible while it is certain that we shall never here perfectly understand the solution of these difficulties is it not pardonable among other mens conjectures to say That the noble faculty of Sense because Brutes have it is usually too basely described by Philosophers And that Intellection and Volition in the rational Soul are a superior eminent sort of sensation transcending that of Brutes and that Intelligere Velle are eminenter sentire and that the Intellect doth by understanding other things eminently see or sense and so understand that it understandeth And that the will doth by willing feel that it willeth When I consult my Experience I must either say thus or else that Intellection and Volition so immediately ever move the Internal sense that they are known by us only as acts compounded with that sense But I am gone too far before I was aware IV. The Soul thus knowing or feeling its own acts doth in the next place rationally gather 1. That it hath power to perform them and is a substance so empowered 2. That there are other such substances with the like acts 3. And there is one prime transcendant substance which is the cause of all the rest which hath infinitely nobler acts than ours And thus Sense and Reason concur to our knowledge of God by shewing us and perceiving that Image in which by similitude we must know him The Fiery Ethereal or Solar Nature is at least the similitude of Spirits And by condescending similitude God in Scripture is called LIGHT and the FATHER of LIGHTS in whom is no darkness allowing and inviting us to think of his Glory by the similitude of the Sun or Light. But Intellectual Spirits are the highest Nature known to us and these we know intimately by most near perception By the similitude of these therefore we must conceive of God. A Soul is a self-moving Life or vital Substance actuating the Body to which it is united God is super-eminently Essential-Life perfect in himself as living Infinitely and Eternally and giving Being to all that is and Motion to all that moveth and Life to all that liveth A reasonable Soul is Essentially an understanding power And God is super-eminently an Infinite understanding knowing himself and all things perfectly A reasonable Soul is Essentially a rational Appetite or Will necessarily loving himself and all that is apprehended every way and congruously good God is super-eminently an Infinite Will or Love necessarily loving himself and his own Image which yet he freely made by communicative Love. All things that were made by this Infinite Goodness were made good and very good All his works of Creation and Providence however misconceived of by sinners are still very good All the good of the whole Creation is as the heat of this Infinite Eternal Fire of Love. And having made the World good in the good of Nature and the good of Order and the good of mutual Love he doth by his continual influx maintain and perfect it His Power moveth his Wisdom governeth and his Love felicitateth And man he moveth as man he Ruleth him by Moral Laws as man and he is his perfect Loâ—er and perfect amiable Object and End. As our Creator making us in this natural capacity and Relation as our Redeemer restoring and advancing us to blessed Union with himself and as our Sanctifier and Glorifier preparing us for and bringing us to Coelestial perfection And thus must God be conceived of that we may love him And false and defective conceptions of him as the great impediments of our love And we love him so little much because we so little know him And therefore it is not the true knowledge of God which Paul here maketh a competitor with love II. And as we know God by ascending from his Works and Image in the same order must our love ascend The first acts of it will be towards God in his works and the next will be towards God in his Relation to us and the highest towards God as Essentially perfect and amiable in himself I will therefore now apply this to the Soul that feareth lest he love not God because he perceiveth not himself either to know or love him immediately in the perfection of his Essence 1. Do you truely love the Image of God on the Soul of Man That is a Heavenly Life and Light and Love Do you not only from bare conviction commend but truly love a Soul devoted to God full of his love and living in obedience to his Laws and doing good to others according to his power This is to love God in his Image God is Infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness or Love To love true wisdom and goodness as such is to love God in his Works Especially with these two qualifications 1. Do you love to have Wisdom and Goodness and Love as Universal as is possible Do you long to have Families Cities Kingdoms and all the World made truly Holy Wise and united in Love to one another The most Universal Wisdom and Goodness is most like to God and to love this is to love God in his Image 2. Do you love Wisdom and Goodness in your selves and not in others only Do you long to be liker to God in your capacity and more near him and united to him That is Do you long to know him and his will more clearly and to enjoy a holy communion with him and his holy ones in the fullest mutual love loving and being beloved and to delight your Souls in his joyful praises in the communion of Saints This is certainly the love of God. Our union is by love he that would be united to God and his Saints in Jesus Christ that would fain know him more and love him better and praise and obey him joyfully in perfection doth undoubtedly love him And here I would earnestly caution you against two common deceits of men by counterfeit love I. Some think that they love God savingly because they love him as the God of Nature and cause of all the Natural Being Order and Goodness which is in the whole frame of Heaven and Earth This is to love somewhat of God or to love him secundum quid in one respect But if
believer to think that GOD IS Even that such a perfect glorious being is existent As if we heard of one man in another land whom we were never like to see who in wisdom love and all perfections excelled all men that ever were in the world the thoughts of that man would be pleasing to us and we should love him because he is amiable in his excellency And so doth the holy Soul when it thinketh of the infinite amiableness of God. 6. But the highest Love of the Soul to God is in taking in all his amiableness together and when we think of him as related to our selves as our Creater Redeemer Sanctifier and Glorifier and as related to all his Church and to all the world as the cause and end of all that is amiable and when we think of all those amiable works which these Relations do respect his Creation and Conservation of the whole world his Redemption of mankind his Sanctifying and Glorifying of all his chosen ones his wonderful mercies to our selves for Soul and Body his mercies to his Church on earth his unconceivable mercies to the glorified Church in Heaven the Glory of Christ Angels and Men and their perfect Knowledge Love and joyful praises and then think what that God is in himself that doth all this This Complexion of considerations causeth the fullest Love to God. And though unlearned persons cannot speak or think of all these distinctly and clearly as the Scripture doth express them yet all this is truly the Object of their Love though with confusion of their apprehensions of it But I have not yet done nor indeed come up to the point of tryal It is not every kind or degree of Love to God in these respects that will prove to be saving He is mad that thinks there is no God And he that believeth that there is a God doth believe that he is most powerful wise and good and therefore must needs have some kind of Love to him And I find that there are a sort of Deists or Infidels now springing up among us who are confident That all or almost all men shall be saved because say they all men do love God. It is not possible say they that a man can believe God to be God that is to be the Best and to be love itself and the cause of all that is good and amiable in Heaven and Earth and yet not love him The will is not so contrary to the understanding nor can be And say the same men he that loveth his neighbour loveth God for it is for his goodness that he loveth his Neighbour and that goodness is Gods goodness appearing in man He that loveth Sun and Moon and Stars Meat and Drink and pleasure loveth God for all this is Gods goodness in his works and out of his works he is unknown to us and therefore they say that all men Love God and all men shall be saved or at least all that love their Neighbours for God by is us no otherwise to be loved For answer to these men 1. It is false that God is no otherwise to be loved than as in our Neighbour I have told you before undeniably of several other respects or appearances of God in which he is to be loved And he that is not known to us as separate from all Creatures is yet known to us as distinct from all Creatures and is and must be so loved by us Else we are Idolaters if we suppose the Creatures to be God themselves and love and honour them as God Even those Philosophers that took God for the inseparable Soul of the World yet distinguished him from the World which they thought he animated and indeed doth more than animate 2. And it is false that every one loveth God who loveth his Neighbour or his Meat Drink and fleshly Pleasure or any of the accommodations of his sense For Nature causeth all men to love life and self and pleasure for themselves And these are beloved even by Atheists that believe not that there is a God! And consequently such men love their Neighbours not for God but for themselves either because they are like them or because they please them or serve their interest or delight them by society and converse as Birds and Beasts do love each other that think not of a God. And if all should be saved that so love one another or that love their own pleasure and that which serveth it not only all wicked men but most Brute Creatures should be saved If you say they shall not be damned it 's true because they are not Moral Agents capable of Salvation or Damnation nor capable of Moral Government and Obedience and therefore even the Creatures that kill one another are not damned for it But certainly as man is capable of Salvation or Damnation so is he of somewhat more as the means or way than Brutes are capable of and he is saved or damned for somewhat which Brutes never do Many a thousand love the pleasure of their sense and all things and persons which promote it that never think of God or love him And it is not enough to say that even this natural good is of God and therefore it is God in it which they love for it will only follow that it is something made and given by God which they love while they leave out God himself That God is Essentially in all things good and pleasant which they love doth not prove that it is God which they love while their thoughts and affections do not include him 3. But suppose it were so that to love the Creature were to love God is not then the hating of the Creature the hating of God If those same men that love Meat and Drink and sensual Delight and love their Neighbours for the sake of these or for themselves as a Dog doth love his Master do also hate the holiness of Gods Servants and the holiness and justice of his Word and Government and that holiness and order of Heart and Life which he commandeth them do not these men hate God in hating these And that they hate them their obstinate aversation sheweth when no reason no mercy no means can reconcile their Hearts and Lives thereto 4. I therefore ask the Infidel Objector whether he shall be saved that loveth God in one respect and hateth him in another That loveth him as he causeth the Sun to shine the Rain to fall the Grass to grow and giveth Life and Prosperity to the World but hateth him as he is the Author of those Laws and Duties and that holy Government by which he would bring them to a voluntary right order and make them holy and fit for Glory and would use them in his holy Service and restrain them from their inordinate Lusts and Wills How can love prepare or fit any man for that which he hateth or doth not love If the love of fleshly interest and pleasure prepare or fit them to
and comfortable a life is it to live in the Family of such a Father and with a thankful carelesness to trust his will and take that portion as best which he provideth for us And into what misery do foolish Prodigals run who had rather have their portion in their own hand than in their Fathers 5. Thy heavenly Father knoweth with what kind and measure of Tryals and Temptations it is fit that thou shouldst be exercised It is his work to permit and bound and order them It is thy work to beg his grace to overcome them and watchfully and constantly to make resistance and in Tryal to approve thy faithfulness to God Blessed are they that endure Temptations for when they are tryed they shall receive the Crown of life James 1. If he will try thee by bodily pain and sickness he can make it turn to the health of thy Soul Perhaps thy diseases have prevented some mortal Soul-diseases which thou didst not fear If he will try thee by mens malice Injury or Persecution he knoweth how to turn it to thy good and in season to bring thee out of trouble He will teach thee by other mens wickedness to know what grace hath cured or prevented in thy self and to know the need of trusting in God alone and appealing to his desireable Judgment He that biddeth thee when thou art Reviled and Persecuted and loaded with false reports for righteousness sake to rejoyce and be exceeding glad because of the great reward in heaven can easily give thee what he doth Command and make thy sufferings a help to this exceeding joy If he will try thee by Satans molesting Temptations and suffer him to buffet thee or break thy peace by Melancholy disquietments and vexatious thoughts from which he hath hitherto kept thee free he doth but tell thee from how much greater evil he hath delivered thee and make thy fears of Hell a means to prevent it and call thee to thy Saviour to seek for safety and peace in him If it please him to permit the malicious tempter to urge thy thoughts to blasphemy or other dreadful sin as it ordinarily falleth out with the Melancholy it telleth thee from what malice grace preserveth thee and what Satan would do were he let loose It calleth thee to remember that thy Saviour himself was tempted by Satan to as great sin as ever thou wast even to worship the Devil himself And that he suffered him to carry about his body from place to place which he never did by thee It tells thee therefore that it is not sin to be tempted to sin but to consent And that Satans sin is not laid to our charge And though our corruption is such as that we seldom are tempted but some culpable blot is left behind in us for we cannot say as Christ that Satan hath nothing in us Yet no sin is less dangerous to mans damnation than the Melancholy thoughts which such horrid vexatious Temptations cause both because the person being distempered by a disease is not a volunteer in what he doth and also because he is so far from loving and desiring such kind of sin that it is the very burden of his life They make him weary of himself and he daily groaneth to be delivered from them And it is certain that Love is the damning malignity of sin and that there is no more sin than there is will And that no sin shall damn men which they had rather leave than keep and therefore forgiveness is joyned to Repentance Drunkards Fornicators Worldlings Ambitious men love their sin But a poor Melancholy Soul that is tempted to ill thoughts or to despair or terrour or to excessive griefs is far from loving such a state The case of such is sad at present But O how much sadder is the case of them that are Lovers of pleasure more than of God and prosper and delight in sin 6. God knoweth how long it is best for me to live Leave then the determination of the time to him All men come into the word on the condition of going out again Die we must and is it not fitter that God choose the time than we Were it left to our wills how long we should live on Earth alas how long should many of us be kept out of heaven by our own desires And too many would stay here till misery made them impatient of living But our lives are his gift and in his hand who knoweth the use of them and knoweth how to proportion them to that use which is the justest measure of them He chose the time and place of my birth and he chuseth best Why should I not willingly leave to his choice also the time and place and manner of my departure I am known of him and my concerns are not despised by him He knoweth me as his own and as his own he hath used me and as his own he will receive me Psal 37.18 The Lord knoweth the days of the upright and their inheritance shall be for ever And if he bring me to death through long and painful sickness he knoweth why and all shall end in my Salvation He knoweth the way that is with me and when he hath tryed me I shall come forth as Gold Job 23.10 He forsaketh us not in sickness or in death Like as a Father pityeth his Children the Lord pityeth them that fear him For he knoweth our frame he remembreth that we are dust As for man his days are as grass as a flower of the Field so he flourisheth For the wind passeth over it and it is not and the place thereof shall know it no more But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting to them that fear him If the Ox should not know his owner nor the Ass his Masters Crib the owner will know his own and seek them That we understand and know the Lord is matter of greater joy and glorying than all other wisdom or riches in the world Jer. 9.24 But that he knoweth us in Life and Death on Earth and in Heaven is the top of our rejoycing The Lord is good and strength in the day of trouble and he knoweth them that trust in him Nah. 1.7 Sickness may so change my flesh that even my Neighbours shall not KNOW ME and Death will make the change so great that even my friends will be unwilling to see such an unpleasing loathsome spectacle But while I am carried by them to the place of darkness that I may not be an annoyance to the living I shall be there in the sight of God and my Bones and Dust shall be owned by him and none of them forgotten or lost 7. It may be that under the temptations of Satan or in the languishing weakness or distempers of my flesh I may doubt of the love of God and think that he hath withdrawn his mercy from me or at least may be unmeet to tast the sweetness of his love or to meditate
on his truth and mercies But God will not lose his knowledge of me nor turn away his mercy from me The foundation of God standeth sure having this seal the Lord knoweth them that are his and let him that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity 2 Tim. 2.19 He can call me his Child when I doubt whether I may call him Father He doubteth not of his right to me nor of his graces in me when I doubt of my sincerity and part in him Known unto God are all his works Act. 15.18 What meaneth Paul thus to describe a state of grace Gal. 4.9 Now after ye have known God or rather are known of of God but to notify to us that though our knowledge of God be his grace in us and our evidence of his love and the beginning of life eternal Joh. 17.3 yet that we are loved and known of him is the first and last the foundation and the perfection of our security and felicity He knoweth his Sheep and none shall take them out of his hand When I cannot through pain or distemper remember him or not with renewed Joy or Pleasure he will remember me and delight to do me good and to be my Salvation 8. And though the belief of the unseen World be the principle by which I conquer this yet are my conceptions of it lamentably dark A Soul in flesh which acteth as the form of a body is not furnished with such images helps or light by which it can have clear conceptions of the state and operations of separated Souls But I am known of God when my knowledge of him is dark and small And he knoweth whither it is that he will take me what my state and work shall be He that is preparing a place for me with himself is well acquainted with it and me All Souls are his and therefore all are known to him He that is now the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob as being living with him while they are dead to us will receive my departing Soul to them and to himself to be with Christ which he hath instructed me to commend into his hands and to desire him to receive He that is now making us living Stones for the new Jerusalem and his heavenly temple doth know where every one of us shall be placed And his knowledge must now be my satisfaction and my peace Let unbelievers say How doth God know Psal 73.11 But shall I doubt whether he that made the Sun be Father of lights and whether he know his dwelling and his continued works Be still O my Soul and know that he is God Psal 40.10 and when he hath guided thee by his counsel he will take thee to Glory and in his Light thou shalt have Light And though now it appear not to sight but to Faith only what we shall be yet we known that we shall see him as he is and we shall appear with him in glory And to be KNOWN of God undoubtedly includeth his PRACTICAL LOVE which secureth our Salvation and all that tendeth thereunto It is not meant of such a knowledge only as he hath of all things or of such as he hath of the ungodly And why should it be hard to thee O my Soul to be perswaded of the love of God Is it strange that he should love thee who is Essential Infinite love Any more than that the Sun should shine upon thee which shineth upon all capable recipient objects though not upon the uncapable which through interposing things cannot receive it To believe that Satan or wicked men or deadly Enemies should love me is hard But to believe that the God of love doth love me should in reason be much easier than to believe that my Father or Mother or dearest friend in the World doth love me If I do not make and continue my self uncapable of his complacence by my wilful continued refusing of his grace it is not possible that I should be deprived of it Prov. 8.17 I love them that love me Psal 146.8 The Lord loveth the righteous John 16.27 2. Why should it be hard to thee to believe that he loveth thee who doth good so universally to the World and by his love doth preserve the whole Creation and give all Creatures all the good which they possess When his mercy is over all his works and his Goodness is equal to his wisdom and his power and all the World is beautified by it shall I not easily believe that it will extend to me The Lord is good to all Psal 145.9 Luk. 18.19 None is good essentially absolutely and transcendently but he alone Psal 33.5 The Earth is full of the goodness of the Lord Psal 52.1 The goodness of God endureth continually He is good and doth good Psal 119.68 And shall I not expect good from so good a God the cause of all the good that is in the World 3. Why should I not believe that he will love me who so far loved the World yea his Enemies as to give his only begotten Son that whoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life Joh. 3.16 Having given me so precious a gift as his Son will he think any thing too good to give me Rom. 8.32 yea still he followeth his Enemies with his mercies not leaving himself without witness to them but filling their hearts with food and gladness and causing his Sun to shine on them and his Rain to fall on them and by his goodness leading them to repentance 4. Why should I not easily believe his love which he hath sealed by that certain gift of love the Spirit of Christ which he hath given The giving of the Holy Ghost is the shedding abroad of his love upon the heart Rom. 5. I had never known desired loved or served him sincerely but by that Spirit And will he deny his name his mark his seal his Pledge and Earnest of Eternal life Could I ever have truly loved Him his Word his Ways and Servants but by the reflection of his love shall I question whether he love those whom he hath caused to love him When our love is the surest gift and token of his love shall I think that I can love him more than he loveth me or be more willing to serve him than he is willing and ready to reward his Servants Heb. 11.6 1 Joh. 3.24 and 4.13 5. Shall I not easily hope for good from him who hath made such a covenant of Grace with me in Christ Who giveth me what his Son hath purchased who accepteth me in his most beloved as a member of his Son Who hath bid me ask and I shall have And hath made to Godliness the promise of this life and that to come and will with-hold no good thing from them that walk uprightly Will not such a Gospel such a Covenant such promises of love secure me that he loveth me while I consent unto his covenant terms 6. Shall I not easily believe
that he will love me who hath loved me while I was his Enemy and called me home when I went astray and mercifully received me when I returned Who hath given me a life full of precious mercies and so many experiences of his love as I have had Who hath so often signified his love to my Conscience So often heard my prayers in distress and hath made all my life notwithstanding my sins a continual wonder of his mercies O unthankful Soul if all this will not persuade thee of the love of him that gave it I that can do little good to any one yet have abundance of friends and hearers who very easily believe that I would do them good were it in my power and never fear that I should do them harm And shall it be harder to me to think well of Infinite Love and Goodness than for my neighbours to trust me and think well of such a wretch as I What abundance of love-tokens have I yet to shew which were sent me from Heaven to perswade me of my Fathers love and care 7. Shall I not easily believe and trust his love who hath promised me eternal glory with his Son with all his holy ones in Heaven Who hath given me there a great Intercessor to prepare Heaven for me and me for it and there appeareth for me before God Who hath already brought many millions of blessed Souls to that glory who were once as bad and low as I am And who hath given me already the Seal the Pledge the Earnest and the First-fruits of that Felicity Therefore O my Soul if men will not know thee if thou were hated of all men for the cause of Christ and Righteousness If thine uprightness be imputed to thee as an odious crime If thou be judged by the blind malignant World according to its gall and interest If friends misunderstand thee If Faction and every evil cause which thou disownest do revile thee and rise up against thee It is enough it is absolutely enough that thou art known of God God is All and All is nothing that is against him or without him If God be for thee who shall be against thee How long hath he kept thee safe in the midst of dangers and given thee peace in the midst of furious Rage and Wars He hath known how to bring thee out of trouble and to give thee tolerable ease while thou hast carried about thee night and day the usual causes of continual torment His loving kindness is better than life Psal 63.3 but thou hast had a long unexpected life through his loving kindness In his favour is life Psal 30. And life thou hast had by and with his favour Notwithstanding thy sin while thou canst truly say thou lovest him he hath promised that all shall work together for thy good Rom. 8.28 And he hath long made good that promise Only ask thy self again and again as Christ did Peter whether indeed thou love him And then take his love as thy full and sure and everlasting portion which will never fail thee though flesh and Heart do fail For thou shalt dwell in God and God in thee for evermore 1 Joh. 4.12 15 16. Amen FINIS A Catalogue of Books Printed for and Sold by Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside near Mercers Chapel A Christian Directory or Body of practical Divinity 1. Christian Ethicks 2. Oeconomicks 3. Ecclesiasticks 4. Politicks Resolving multitudes of Cases on each Subject By Rich. Baxter Folio Mr. Baxters Catholick Theology Folio Mr. Baxters Methodus Theologiae Christianae Folio A Third Volume of Sermons Preached by the late Reverend and Learned Tho. Manton D.D. In two parts Folio A Hundred Select Sermons on several Texts of Fifty on the Old Testament and Fifty on the New. Folio Choice and Practical Expositions on four Select Psalms Folio Both by the Reverend and Learned Tho. Horion D.D. late Minister of St. Hellens London The true Prophecies and Prognostications of Michael Nostrodamus Physician to Henry the Second Francis the Second and Charles the Ninth Kings of France and one of the Best Astronomers that ever were Folio Sixty one Sermons Preached mostly on publick occasions whereof five formerly Printed by Adam Littleton D.D. Rector of Chelsea in Middlesex Folio The Novels and Tales of the Renowned John Boccasio the first Refiner of Italian Prose containing a hundred curious Novels Folio A Key to open Scripture Metaphors in two Volumes By Benjamin Keach and Tho. Delawn Folio The Saints Everlasting Rest or a Treatise of the Blessed State of the Saints in their Enjoyment of God in Glory 4 to The English Nonconformity as under King Charles II. and King James II. Truly Stated and Argued By Richard Baxter 4to A discourse concerning Liturgies By the Late Learned and Judicious Divine Mr. David Clarkson 8vo A discourse of the saving Grace of God. By the late Reverend and Learned David Clarkson Minister of the Gospel 8vo The Vision of the Wheels seen by the Prophet Ezekiel Opened and Applyed Partly at the Merchants Lecture in Broad-street and partly at Stepney on January 31. 1689. being the Day of Solemn Thanksgiving to God for the great Deliverance of this Kingdom from Popery and Slavery By his then Highness the most Illustrious Prince of Orange Whom God raised up to be the glorious Instrument thereof By Matthew Mead Pastor of a Church of Christ at Stepney 4to A Call to the Unconverted to Turn and Live. 12mo The right Method for settled Peace of Conscience and Spiritual Comfort 8vo The Life of Faith in every State. 4to Alderman Ashursts Funeral Sermon 4to A Key for Catholicks to open the juglings of the Jesuits The first part of answering all their common Sophisms The second against the Soveraignty and necessity of General Councils 4to The certainty of Christianity without Popery 8vo Full and easy satisfaction which is the true Religion Transubstantiation shamed 8vo Naked Popery Answering Mr. Hutchinson 4to Which is the true Church A full Answer to his Reply proving that the General Councils and the Popes Primacy were but in one Empire 4to The History of Bishops and their Councils abridged and of the Popes 4to The Cure of Church Divisions 8to A full Treatise of Episcopacy shewing what Episcopacy we own and what is in the English Diocesan frame for which we dare not swear never to endeavour any alteration of it in our places 4to A search for the English Schismatick comparing the Canoneers and Nonconformists 4to An Answer to Mr. Dodwell and Dr. Sherlock confuting an Universal-humane Church Soveraignty Aristocratical and Monarchical as Church Tyranny and Popery and defending Dr. Iz. Barrows excellent Treatise 4to FINIS Had I been supposed to have written this Book to hide my sloth and ignorance men would not have neglected my Methodus Theologie and Catholick Theology thro' meer sloth and saying That it 's too high and hard for them A Country-man having sent his Son