Heaven that their Idea's could never enter into mens thoughts before their Admission there Besides this I say our then enlarg'd Capacities will enable us ev'n in Objects which were not altogether Unknown to us before to discern things formerly Undiscern'd and derive thence both new and greater Satisfactions and Delights Wonder not Lindamor that in mentioning the Joyes of Heaven I use the Expressions I find least Detractory from a Theme as much above our Praises as the Heaven they are injoy'd in is above our Heads For though such Expressions may seem somewhat tumid and aspiring and fitter much for one that Celebrates then for one that but Asserts yet cannot I scruple to use Seeming Hyperboles in the mention of Felicities which make the highest Hyperboles but Seeming ones For these joyes Lindamor are like the Stars of Heaven which by reason of our Remotenesse from them appear extreamly Little though really in themselves they are so Vast that a lesse than the largest is by Odd Greater then the biggest Object upon Earth nay then the whole Earth i◠selfe And therefore as if I were to take you with me to contemplate th◠Planets I would show you the◠through such a Telescope as by greatning those bright Objects in comparison of what to the unassisted Eye the◠appear doth somewhat lessen the Disadvantage of Remotenesse and show them with lesse Detraction from their true Magnitude So mentioning to you the Felicities of Heaven I think it not Unlawfull or Improper to endeavour by representations transcending what they Appear to give you Notions lesse inferiour to what they Are. In Heaven then § 21 we shall tast Happinesse enough to enable us to rectifie the Definition of it We may there be instructed how to Name and Rate all Goods by those that will Concenter into the Felicity we shall possesse which shall be there made up of the Confluence Perfection and Perpetuity of all true Joyes for Heaven will make us happy not as Philosophy pretends to do by the Confinement but by the Fruition of our Desires which shall neither Fail in the Choice of their Objects nor Misse of the Enjoyment of them but be both unerringly Just and infallibly Accomplish't In the former of which properties as our then Rectify'd reason wil consider things we shall think our selves happier yet than in the latter We shall there Resemble the Saints we here Admire and shall not onely see and be like those pious Worthies whose vertues Eclipse theirs which among the Heathen Deify'd lesse deserving Heroes those excellent Persons that did as well Ennobles as Instruct Mankind giving us cause to Glory and to Blush that we are Men and whose Stories have the unparallel'd Honour of being recorded by Inspired Pens Those Spirits I say of just men made perfect Heb. 12.23 as the Scripture terms them shall be our Constant and familiar Company into whose blessed Society we shal not onely be Welcome but Encrease it In Heaven we shall have a blest and familiar Conversation with those same glorious Spirits whose Nature doth invest them with such a Lustre that all the Disadvantage of their Disguizes when they Appear to us doth scarce suffice to confine our Raptures to Respects below Idolatry and darken them into Objects for our Wonder not Adoration There we shall see a sight worth dying for that Blessed Saviour of whom the Scripture does so Much and so Excellently entertain us and who having done and suffer'd so much for us does so highly deserve of us both upon the score of his Infinite Perfections and upon the account of his Inestimable Benefits Yes there shall we see that Holy and Divine Person who when he vouchsaf'd as his Favorite-Disciple speaks to to pitch his Tent among us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Joh. 1.14 and dwell with men on Earth to fit them by his Merits and Example to dwell with him in Heaven did so admirably mixe an awefull Majesty with an humble Meeknesse and the assum'd Infirmities of his humane Nature with the seasonable Coruscations of his Divine expressing in his whole life so Perfect and Exemplary a Vertue and yet so much Sweetnesse and Gentlenesse towards those Aspirers to it that were the most Short of it that the Jews themselves could say of him That he had done all things well and his very Enemies that were imploy'd to apprehend him as a Malefactour confess'd to those that sent them That never man spake like him Joh. 7.46 And his Apostles who had most Opportunity to Pry narrowly into his Actions and were of a Condition and Breeding very unlike to infuse into them Heroick Resolutions did in Spight of the frequent Reproofs their failings extorted from him and of the Hardships that attended his Service think ev'n Death it selfe in his Company more Elegible Joh. 11.16 then Life led out of it Let us also go that we may dye with him sayes ev'n the distrustfull Thomas to his fellow-Disciples But Lindamor we shal there see the Son of God not in that Form of a Servant Phil. 2.7 which he put on that he might Suffer for us and exercise his Priestly and Prophetick Functions here below but in that Regall State and Condition which belongs to him by vertue of his Kingly office on whose score he is styl'd in the Scripture Rev. 19.16 King of Kings and Lord of Lords All power or authority being as himself speaks given Him both in Heaven and in Earth Matth. 28 18. And how Nobly attended may we suppose this Divine Monarch to be in his Exalted Condition in Heaven when in his state of Humiliation on Earth Mar. 1.13 whilst he was in the VVildernesse among the wild Beasts the Angells are recorded to have ministred unto him and whilst he lay swath'd in a homely manger Luk. 1. the multitude of the Coelestial host were heard to solemnize his miraculous Birth according to that passage of the writen to the Hebrews Heb. 1.6 When he bringeth in the first begotten into the World he saith And let all the Angells of God worship him And yet such considerable and Noble Creatures those Immateriall Intelligences call'd Angells are 2 King 19.35 that One of them in One night was able to destroy above a hundred and fourscore thousand men in the blasphemous Senacherib's impious Camp And so much Majesty and Superiority does their Nature give them in reference ev'n to the eminentest of Mortalls That when the undaunted Josuah had boldly challeng'd one of them that appear'd to him in the likenesse of a Man and demanded Whom he was for when he knew him to be an Angel unlesse he suppos'd him to be that promis'd Messiah who is elsewhere call'd the Angell of the Covenant Mal. 3.1 as it is in the Originall and in the same Text the Lord he alters his Addresse unto him into this Submissive one Josh 52 13 14. What saith my Lord unto his Servant and ev'n wise and holy Daniel himself
in which I have made too many Experiments not to be by you allow'd to make some Comparisons to it For first it never forsakes its Inclinations for the Steel next being united to it it retains so constantly its Attractive qualities that it gives not the Needle any Motive of deserting it and thirdly it doth never rightly touch the amorous Steel without leaving an Impression which ever after disposes it to a Conversion to that Magnetick Posture which best fits it to receive fresh Influences To which let me add this other resemblance betwixt God's work on Us and the Load-stone's on the Iron that the Kind Stone attracts a Needle to it not to Advantage it self by that Union but to Impart its Virtue to what it draws Besides Absence and Rivalls those frequent Ruiners of other Lovers happinesse can threaten nothing of formidable to yours For Absence which so divorces us from that which animates us that Lovers do not so improperly style it Death if Death be but the Separation of Soul and Body by God's Ubiquity we are secured from He is ever present With us or rather In us You that not long since so highly valu'd the Opportunities of conversing with your Mistriss for some few Moments shall here find your Priviledges improv'd to a Permission nay an Invitation of entertaining the Object of your Love at all times no hour renders your visits Unseasonable nor no length Tedious he is rather welcomest to God that comes to him Oftenest and stays with him Longest What favours were vouchsaf'd to that antient Prophetesse who was likewise one of the first Evangelists who for many years departed not from the Temple but served God with Fastings and Prayers Luk 2.37 c. Night and Day the beginning of St. Luke's Gospell may inform you The midnight-Hymns of Paul and Silas did not only not disturb or Offend him they prais'd Act. 16.25 26 c. but procur'd the visit of an Angell to bring them miraculous and unexpected Liberty as a proofe of the Acceptablenesse of their not-Canonicall Devotions Gen. 5. 22 23 24. When Enoch had walked with God as many years as the year has dayes God was so farre from being Importun'd or Tir'd by that lasting assiduity that vouchsafing him an unexampled exampled Exemption from death he was pleas'd by a new and nearer Cut to Heaven to admit him to a yet Closer more Immediate and more Undistracted Communion with himself And when Moses had spent no lesse than forty dayes and forty nights in conversing if I may use so Familiar a term with God in the Mount Exod. 34.30 he brought down thence instead of a Pennance for his Importunity so signall and radiant a Testimony of Gods peculiar Favour that his dazl'd Country-men were as much Disabled as Invited to gaze on an Object of so much wonder And then How proud doe we see many Lovers of their Sufferings when she but Knows of them for whom they are endured But in Seraphick Love there is not the least good Wish or privatest Suffering nay not a whispering Sigh or closer Thought that silently Groans or Aspires in the Amorous Soul but He both sees and heares that Puts his Servant's teares into his Bottle Ps 36.8 sweetning and recompencing the greatest Misfortunes that his Love occasions with such Support and Joyes as hinder us to feel them and make them deserve a contrary name Each amorous Soul may say to God with David Thou knowest my down-sitting Ps 139.2 3. and my up-rising thou understandest my thoughts afar off thou compassest my path and my lying down and art acquainted with all my wayes And Christ also himself has so attentive an Eye upon the Amorous Soul that he is held forth in the Apocalypse as telling the Ruler of the Church of Smyrna Revel 2.8 9. I know thy works and tribulation and poverty And saying to the Angell of the Church of Pergamus Revel 2.12.13 I know thy works and where thou dwellest even where Satans seat is and thou holdest fast my name and hast not denied my Faith even in those dayes wherein Antipas was my Faithfull Martyr who was slain among you where Satan dwelleth So that no endearing Circumstance of our Love scapes unobserv'd by Him who has done and suffered so much to engage us to it God remembers not our Endeavours to serve Him the lesse for Our having forgotten them Matth. 25.37 c. When saw we thee any way distressed and relieved thee will be the Question of those to whom Heaven it self will be at the last Day awarded as having ministred to their Redeemer Those that in Degenerate times such as ours Lindamor did like Lot in Sodom mourn for their Sins that mourned not for their own and condol'd among themselves the Spreading Wickednesse of the times they liv'd in though probably the dangers threatned them by the very Sinfulnesse they deplor'd made them affect such Privacyes in their Conferenâ—s as freed them from the Thoughts of being over-heard yet the Scripture informs us and 't is a Comfortable as well as Memorable Passage that the Lord hearkened Mal 3.16 17. and heard it and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord and that thought upon his name Then shall he return and discern between the righteous and the wicked between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not I know says Christ not only to the Angell of Smyrna but to each true sufferer for Him thy works Rev. 2.9 10. and tribulation and poverty Fear none of these things that thou shalt suffer Be thou faithfull unto death and I will give thee a Crown of Life God is often pleas'd to accept those good thoughts and Intentions of his Servants which never arrive at actuall Performances Though David built not the Temple he design'd yet his Son that did it informs us that God said unto him 2 Chron. 6.8 Forasmuch as it was in thine heart to build an house for my Name Thou didst well in that it was in thine heart c. And 't is the Epithet our Saviour gives God Mat. 6.6 Your Father which seeth in secret c. Nor need we fear our Rivalls should supplant us since we can have none in Devotion whose Prayer and Endeavour it is not that God would love us more For his Love to you being as the chiefest Merit the strongest Motive and Title unto theirs they cannot but Wish him well whom God doth Love so and cannot Wish him better then by imploring for him fresh Additions both of that Love of God and gratefull Dispositions to return it Our Saviours assures us that there is Joy in the Presence of the Angels of God over one Sinner Luk. 15.7 10. that repenteth And the sole Hymne except a visionary one I find recorded of the Coelestiall Quire Luk. 2.13 14. was sung for a Blessing to mankind wherein for ought I know their Love and Sympathy
my opinion where his Subject will beare it to discourse as Fairly and as Rationally as almost any Writer that I have met with of his Perswasion and who labours to reconcile Socinus his Doctrine with the Freenesse of Gods Grace by Considerations which not to injure him I shall present you with in his owne words Ad retundendam verò sayes he disputing against the Learned Meisnerus arrogantiam justificatorum ne dicant se meruisse Gratiam non est necesse servum in homine arbitrium inducere non debet virtus tolli ut tollatur arrogantia Sufficit 1. Quòd nec velle nec perficere possint nisi Deus voluntatem excitet vires augeat 2. pag. 97. Quòd ea quae divinis adjuti viribus faciunt nullo modo dignitate pretio divinae gratiae respondeant sed infinito intervallo ab eâ absint Nay though the modern and degenerate Jewes be upon the Score of being the great Patrons of mans Free-will not causlesly esteem'd the great Oppugners of Gods Free grace yet both from their famous Rabbi and my learned Acquaintance Menassah Ben Israel and from divers others of their most eminent Writers has the truth sometimes extorted Confessions which though made upon Erroneous grounds were not very far short of Orthodox To which purpose I remember that a Jewish professour of Hebrew who assisted me in my studies of that mysterious tongue being as the rest of his Nation an eager and peremptory Champion of Free-will conceiv'd that even that Liberty which to us seems least to Indebt men to their Creatour did transcendently oblige him unto God For one day that we were privately and freely discoursing together of matters of Religion he told me he thought Men ow'd more to Gods Goodnesse then the very Angells do For said he whereas God without any good work of theirs but purely out of his Goodnesse conferr'd on them that blest Condition they enjoy by giving Man a free Will by the good Use of which he may Glorifie his Maker when by Abusing it 't is in his power to Dishonour him he allows man that highest Satisfaction and Priviledge of Cooperating to his owne Felicity And now § 18 Lindamor we are arrived at the last Property which qualify's God the fittest Object for our Love which is the Advantagiousnes of His to us both in the Present the Future Life And first ev'n in this World we owe God no lesse then All the goods we possesse we owe him both What we have and That we are for we may truly say of God with the Psalmist It is he thâ—â— hath made us and not we our selves 〈◊〉 we were not onely in his hands 〈◊〉 clay in the Potter's Isa 64.8 that he might have made us any thing but we were so purely that Negative from whence we were extracted that He if he had pleas'd for ever might have left us to our first Nothing His Love is the Originall and Fountain-blessing all the rest are but as Pipes and Instruments to convay it and serve but to hand it to us Your Wit wins you applause Your Industry heaps you up Treasures be it granted But who gave you that Wit and did both Give and Prosper that boasted Industry Certainly God as much Gives us all the goods we Possesse as he that gives a begger a Thousand Pounds gives him the Cloaths and Meat and all the Bravery it helps him to But besides these more obvious Presents of Gods Bounty we enjoy other Effects of his Goodnesse which though by the Customarinesse of their being possessed they prove lesse Conspicuous than the other yet grow no lesse Priz'd when the Want or Loss of them make us sensible of the true value of them Had I the leisure Lindamor to lead your thoughts with me to the Galleys and show you there those wretched Captives that are chain'd to the Oars they tugg at and though expos'd to all the Miseries and Hardships of a Tempestuous Sea have oftentimes cause given them by their Barbarous Usage ashore to fear the Ocean lesse then any Port save Death Could I draw for you the Curtains of sick and dying men and open to you that sad Scene where some pine and languish away by Distempers that deprive them of all the Joyes Advantages and what is more considerable Uses of life before they ease them of life it selfe others Breathe rather then Live perpetually Tormented either with their Diseases or Physick to protract a wretched Life upon tearms that turn it into a Trouble And others strugling with the rude Pangs of Death are yet perchance lesse tormented by Them then by the sad Prospect of their former Life and the remembrance of those Criminall pleasures which yet it perhaps lesse troubles them that they must now fore-goe then that they once enjoy'd them Should I Lindamor bring you into Hospitalls and show you there the various Shapes of Human Misery and how many Souls narrowly lodg'd if I may so speak in Synecdochicall bodies see their earthen Cottages moulder away to Dust those miserable persons by the losse of one Limb after another surviving but Part of Themselves and living to see themselves Dead and Buri'd by piece-meal Should I to dispatch Lindamor show you all the severall Companies of Mourners that almost make up Mankind and disclose to you how copious showers of Tears do almost every where water not to say overflow this vale of Miseries You would perchance see caus to think that God's Privative may contend with his Positive Favours and that you owe little lesse for what you are Not then for what you Are to that discriminating Mercy of his to which alone you owe your Exemption from miseries as great as the Blessings it conferrs on you 1 Cor. 4.7 For Who maketh thee to differ is a Question that may be as well askt in reference to our externall as to our Spirituall Condition Which invites me to mind you Lindamor that you are yet more engag'd to Gods Love for Protecting you from those grosse Vices that Disfigure most mens minds than from those lesse Dangerous though more resented Diseases that Distemper their Bodyes For Ambition Lust Avarice Revenge and ev'n that vain Conversation which young Gentlemen are generally pleas'd to think so Innocent are really more Formidable and pernicious Diseases and Calamities than those that reduce men to take Physick or thrust them into Hospitalls To evince the truth of which Paradox I hope I shall not need to mind you of judging of the Dangerousnesse of Diseases by the Noblenesse of the part affected since I can tell you that He that cannot erre seems dayly to justifie our Assertion by inflicting Sicknesse and the sharpest outward Calamities on his own Dearest Children to preserve them from the Contagion of Sinne or Cure them of the unfilial habitudes of it And therefore since when we see a tender Mother apply a painfull Caustick to the neck of her Favorite-Infant threatned by the Apoplexie
we scruple not to conclude that she thinks the trouble of an Issue an Evill inferiour to Convulsion-fits So when we see our Heavenly Father send Infirmities and Crosses to rescue those he Loves from the Contagion or the Dominion of Sinne we may safely conclude he thinks Affliction a lesse Evill than Guilt since he is too Wise and indulgent a Physitian to Cure with a Remedy worse than the Disease In the 8th of Deuteronomie there is a Caution given the Israelites least Prosperity which is wont to be a kind of Lethe that makes men Forget all but their Enjoyments should make any of them say in his heart Deut. 8.17 18. My power and the might of my hand hath gotten me this Wealth But saith the Text they shall remember the Lord their God for it is he that giveth them power to get wealth It is not the revolting Israelites onely of whose Ignorance of his Bounty God may complain as he did by the Prophet by whom he said I taught Ephraim to go taking them by their armes Hos 11.3 but they knew not that I healed them and there are but too many of whom he might say as he did by the same Prophet For she did not know that I gave her Corn and Wine Hos 1.8 9. and Oyle and multiply'd her Silver and her Gold which they prepar'd for Baal Therefore will I return and take away my Corn in the time thereof and my Wine in the Season thereof and will recover my Wool and my Flax given to cover her Nakednesse And this will make way for the Design I had to recommend the Advantagiousnesse of Gods Love by saying That as for Spirituall Goods he gives us in this life so rich an Earnest of expected Joyes that ev'n the Earnest is a Stock large enough to subsist with Comfort on and really out-values and transcends all those Momentary Pleasures it requires us to forsake to keep up a Title to Eternall ones But to particularize God's mercies to us in This very life would certainly take up a considerable part of it And yet the Love God bears us dyes not with us nor doth as mens Affections either endure a Funerall in our Tombs or survive onely in an uselesse Grief or an Esteem as bootlesse No Gods Love is so far from resembling the usuall sort of friends who when they have accompanied us to the Grave do There leave us that like the Angells that carried Lazarus's Soul to Abrahams bosome Luk. 16.22 its Officiousness begins then most to Appear wheâ— our dark eyes are Clos'd and is theâ— Truest to the beloved Soul when shâ— Forsakes the Body giving each blesseâ— Saint cause to say of God what Naâ—â—mi did of Boaz Ruth 2.20 That He hath not leâ—â— off his kindnesse to the Living and to thâ— Dead 1 John 3.2 Now indeed says our Saviour'â— Favorite are we the Sonns of God anâ— it doth not yet appear what we shall be but we know when he shall appear we shaâ—â— be like him This blest Expectance musâ— be now my Theme because the narrow Limits which my Design hath plac't to this Discourse of the Advantages accruing from Gods Love will leave no more room untaken up by Heaven But § 19 Lindamor before I proceed to set forth to you the Greatnesse of the Felicity reserv'd for us in Heaven It will I fear be requisite to mind you of the Lawfullnesse of having an Eye on it For many not-undeservedly applauded Preachers have of late bin pleas'd to teach the people that to Hope for Heaven is a Mercenary Legal and therefore Unfiliall Affection Indeed to hope for Heaven as Wages for Work perform'd or by way of Merit in the proper and strict Acception of that tearm were a Presumption to which none of the Divines we dissent â—rom can be too much an Enemie nor perhaps more so then I am But to take in Gods Blessings among the Motives of Loving God is but to do as he did who said I love the Lord because Psal 116.1 he hath heard my voyce and my Supplications and to look upon the Joyes of Heaven to comfort and support us in the hardships and losses to be undergon in our Journey thitherward is to imitate no worse a man than Moses of whom it is said Hebr. 11.26 that he esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the Treasures in Aegypt for he had respect or turned his Eye 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unto the recompence of the reward It is indeed Lindamor a happy Frame of mind to be able to love God purely for Himself without any Glance at our own Advantages But though I dare not deny that it is possible to attain to so High and disinteress'd a kind of Love yet I think that that Excellency suppos'd to be Vouchsaf'd to some men is not by the Scripture Exacted as a Duty from All men Were all the recompence of Piety of a worldly Nature and to be Here receiv'd the Actions invited to by the Intuition of it might passe for Mercenary But when Heaven is chiefly hoped for as it will admit us unto the Fruition of God himself in Christ and that the Other Joyeâ— expected there are so farre from being of a Sensual or Worldly nature thaâ— they are known not to be attainable till by Death the Senses and Bodye themselves and all the meerly Animaâ— Faculties be abolisht for a Heaven sâ— consider'd I say to forgo readily alâ— the Pleasures of the Senses and undergo cheerfully all the Hardships and Dangers that are wont to attend a Holy life is Lindamor such a kind oâ— Mercenarinesse as none but a resigned Noble and believing Soul is likely to be guilty of If I should say that Fear it self and even the feare of Hell may be one Justifiable Motive of Mens Actions though I should propose whaâ— those I am reasoning with would think a Paradox yet I should perhaps hold forth therein no more than the Scripture does Hebr. 4.1 Let us therefore fear saies the writer to the Hebrews lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest any of you should seem to come short of it And no lesse eminent a Herauld of the Gospell than St. Paul who so successefully maintain'd the Evangelicall against the Legall Spirit thus professeth of himself I keep under my body and bring it into Subjection 1 Cor. 9.27 lest by any means when I have preach'd to others I my self should be a cast-away And 't was not to Slaves or Hirelings that Christ directs this Admonition I say unto you my Friends Luk. 12.4 5. Be not afraid of them that kill the Body and after that have no more that they can doe But I will forwarn you whom you shall fear Fear him which after he hath kill'd hath power to cast into Hell Yea I say unto you a gemination which the present Controversie shews not to have been Causelesse Fear Him Where the paraphrase given of God
is not barely Descriptive but Ratiocinative to borrow those tearms of the Schools informing us not only Who we should and should not fear but Why we should fear the one and not the other As when St. Paul sayes I know whom I have trusted he means what manner of Person 1 Pet. 4.19 how Faithfull as St. Peter elsewhere calls God and how Omnipotent whence immediately he adds And I am perswaded 2 Tim. 1.12 that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day More Texts of the same Import might be added if the Design of those already alledg'd were other than to Facilitate the Admission of the more Plausible truths we have been makeing out and which to us seems very cleerly held forth in those and the like Scriptures which are therefore cited out of the new Testament that they might have the greater authority with one sort of our Antagonists Phil. 3.14 I presse toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus Revel 22.14 Blessed are they that do his Commandements that they may have right to the Tree of Life and may enter in through the Gates into the City 1 Tim. 6.19 Laying up in store for themselves a good Foundation against the time to come that they may lay hold of Eternall life Rom. 2.17 To them who by patient Continuing in well-doing seek for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Glory and Honor and Immortality eternal Life And of Christ himself whose love to God is questionlesse Filiall and unequallable 't is said Heb. 12.2 looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our Faith who for the Joy that was set before him endured the Crosse despis'd the shame and is set down at the right hand of the Throne of God Nor see I why it should be Unfiliall for a Child of God to further the Raising of those Passions which his Heavenly Father intends to have rais'd in him upon the same Grounds and Motives that God is pleas'd to imploy to Excite them And since the Scripture seems plainly to invite our Hopes by recording St. Pauls having said 1 Cor. 9.25 Every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things now they do it to obtain a corruptible Crown but we an incorruptible And by representing our Saviour himself as saying in one place Reioyce and be exceeding glad Mat. 5 12. for great is your reward in Heaven In another Be thou faithfull unto Death Rev. 2.10 and I will give thee a Crown of Life And in divers others speaking to the like purpose Since I say the Scripture seems thus to Allure our Hopes Would it not be kind of accusing it of an aptnesse to delude and ensnare us To teach that it proposeth us the powerfullest Objects to Incite our passions if it be sinfull to cherish and harbour the Passions naturally belonging to those Objects And certainly Lindamor since God who as our Creatour knows the Frame and Constitution of mans Soul incomparably better than he himselfe is pleas'd to deal with our Hopes and our Fears to engage us to his Service It very ill becomes Us either to quarrell with his Methods of working on our Spirits or to reject any help which he has been pleas'd to afford a piety which for ought ever I could observe does ev'n in the Best men find resistance enough to keep any Help that can be imploy'd to promote it from being Superfluous And truely the animating or discouraging Influence that Hope or the Want of it is wont to have upon our Indeavours makes me very apprehensive that since the enlivning hopes of Heaven are not able to make most mens Endeavours other than very Languid the forbidding those supporting hopes would soon weaken and decrease our Endeavours into none at all But § 20 Lindamor though I may perhaps have taken some Pains in studying Controversiall Divinity yet I take so little Pleasure in writing of it that though not only a Seasonable Duty to truth but a Necessary one to the ensueing part of this Discourse have press'd me to serve in this cause yet I shall perhaps obtain Your pardon sooner than my own for having thus long suspended the discoursing to you of the Advantagiousnesse of Gods love to us as it gives us Here a Right and wil Hereafter givs us Admission to Heaven Heaven the bright Seat of so much happiness that we shall scarcely count amongst our Joyes that Heaven is the Seat of them There the Excellency of the possessed Goods shall as much disappoint our Expectations as in other fruitions the Emptinesse is wont to do The Apostle tells us That Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard 1 Cor. 2.9 neither have entred into the heart of Man the things which God hath prepar'd for them that love Him Such pure refin'd Delights not onely stoop not unto Sense but are sublime enough ev'n to transcend Imagination When Fancy hath form'd and shap't the perfectest Ideas that its abstractions can make of Blessednesse our owne more happy Experiences of greater must disabuse us when we come to Heaven which is a Soyle whose Fruitfulnesse is so confin'd to Joy that ev'n our Disappointments and mistakes shal there contribute to our Happinesse which doth so much partake of his Immensity whose Gift it is that you see the Apostle gives it a Negative Description and to create in us Apprehensions underogatory from what we shall possesse not onely removes our thoughts from all we Do Enjoy but exalts them above all that we Can Fancy At which way of proceeding that you may the lesse wonder Lindamor be pleas'd to consider that in Heaven our Faculties shall not onely be Gratify'd with suitable and acceptable Objects but shall be Heightn'd and Enlarg'd and consequently our Capacities of happinesse as well Encreas'd as Fill'd A child not yet releas'd out of the homely Prison of the Womb cannot there possibly frame Ideas of those delights which will be afforded him by the pleasing Noises and the glittering Objects that will present themselves to him after his Birth And the same Child whil'st he continues in his Nonage though he may with delight look upon Emblems finely drawn and Painted and may take some pleasure in beholding the neat and surprizing Characters and florishes of a Greek and Hebrew Bible curiously Printed yet he cannot then Imagine the Pleasure the same Objects will afford him when Age and Study shall have ripen'd and instructed his Intellectualls and made him capable both of Understanding and Rellishing the excellent Moralities couch'd in those ingenious Emblems and the profound and saving Mysteries wherewith that divine Book the Scripture especially in its Originall Tongues does to an Intelligent and religious Peruser appear replenisht Such a double advantage Lindamor among others the Admission into Heaven brings those to whom that blessing is vouchsaf'd for besides that Set of Objects if I may so speak so New and so Peculiar to