great deal of fervor in Affections and Duties and all prove but common and unsound when it is raised upon common Grounds and motives your zeal will partake of the nature of those things by which it is acted The zeal therefore which is kindled by your meditations on Heaven is most like to prove a heavenly zeal and the liveliness of the Spirit which you fetch from the face of God must needs be the Divinest and sincerest life Some mens fervency is drawn onely from their Books and some from the pricks of some stinging affliction and some from the mouth of a moving Minister and some from the encouragement of an attentive Auditory but he that knows this way to heaven and it derives it daily from the pure Fountain shall have his soul revived with the water of Life and enjoy that quickning which is the Saints peculiar By this Faith thou maist offer Abels Sacrifice more excellent then that of common men and by it obtain winess that thou art righteous God testifying of thy gifts that they are sincere Heb. 11.4 when others are ready as Baals Priests to beat themselves and cut their flesh because their sacrifice will not burn then if thou canst get but the spirit of Elias and in the chariot of Contemplation canst soar aloft till thou approachest neer to the quickning Spirit thy soul and sacrifice will gloriously flame though the flesh and the world should cast upon them the water of all their opposing enmity Say not now How shall we get so high or how can mortals ascend to heaven For Faith hath wings and Meditation is its chariot Its office is to make absent things as present Do you not see how a little piece of Glass if it do but rightly face the Sun will so contract its beames and heat as to set on fire that which is behinde it which without it would have received but little warmth Why thy Faith is as the Burning-glass to thy Sacrifice and Meditation sets it to face the Sun onely take it not away too soon but hold it there awhile and thy soul will feel the happy effect The slanderous Jews did raise a foolish tale of Christ that he got into the Holy of Holies and thence stole the true name of God and lest he should lose it cut a hole in his thigh and sewed it therein and by the vertue of this he raised the dead gave sight to the blinde cast out divels and performed all his Miracles Surely if we can get into the Holy of Holies and bring thence the Name and Image of God and get it closed up in our hearts this would enable us to work wonders every duty we performed would be a wonder and they that heard would be ready to say Never man spake as this man speaketh The Spirit would possess us as those flaming tongues and make us every one to speak not in the variety of the confounded Languagues but in the primitive pure Language of Canaan the wonderful Works of God We should then be in every duty whether Prayer Exhortation or brotherly reproof as Paul was at Athens his Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was stirred within him and should be ready to say as Jeremy did Jer. 20.9 His word was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones and I was weary with forbearing and I could not stay Christian Reader Art thou not thinking when thou seest a lively beleever and hearest his soul-melting Prayers and soul-ravishing discourse O how happy a man is this O that my soul were in this blessed plight Why I here direct and advise thee from God Try this forementioned course and set thy soul conscionably to this work and thou shalt be in as good a case Wash thee frequently in this Jordan and thy Leprous dead soul will revive and thou shalt know that there is a God in Israel and that thou mayst live a vigorous and joyous life if thou wilfully cast not by this duty and so neglect thine own mercies If thou be not a lazy reserved hypocrite but dost truly value this strong and active frame of Spirit shew it then by thy present attempting this heavenly exercise Say not now but thou hast heard the way to obtain this life into thy soul and into thy duties If thou wilt yet neglect it blame thy self But alas the multitude of Professors come to a Minister just as Naaman came to Elias they ask us How shall I know I am a childe of God How shall I overcome a hard heart and get such strength and life of Grace But they expect that some easie means should do it and think we should cure them with the very Answer to their Question and teach them a way to be quickly well but when they hear of a daily trading in Heaven and the constant Meditation on the joyes above This is a greater task then they expected and they turn their backs as Naaman on Elias or the young man on Christ and few of the most conscionable will set upon the duty Will not Preaching and Praying and Conference serve say they without this dweling still in Heaven Just as Countrey people come to Physitians when they have opened their case and made their moan they look he should cure them in a day or two or with the use of some cheap and easie Simple but when they hear of a tedious Method of Physick and of costly Compositions and bitter Potions they will hazard their lives with some sotish Empirick who tells them an easier and cheaper way yea or venture on death it self before they will obey such difficult counsel Too many that we hope well of I fear will take this course here If we could give them life as God did with a word or could heal their souls as Charmers do their bodies with easie stroaking and a few good words then they would readily hear and obey I entreat thee Reader beware of this folly fall to the work the comfort of Spiritual Health will countervail all the trouble of the Duty It is but the flesh that repines and gain-sayes which thou knowest was never a friend to thy soul If God had set thee on some grievous work shouldst thou not have done it for the life of thy soul How much more when he doth but invite thee Heaven-ward to himself SECT VIII 6. COnsider The frequent believing views of Glory are the most precious cordial in all Afflictions First To sustain our spirits and make our sufferings far more easie Secondly To stay us from repining and make us bear with patience and joy And thirdly to strengthen our resolutions that we forsake not Christ for fear of trouble Our very Beast will carry us more chearfully in travel when he is coming homeward where he expecteth Rest. A man will more quietly endure the lancing of his sores the cutting out the Stone when he thinks on the ease that will afterwards follow What then will not a beleever endure when
again even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him Can the Head live and the body or members remain Dead Oh write those sweet words upon thy heart Christian Because I Live Ye shall Live also As sure as Christ lives we shall live And as sure as he is risen we shall rise Else the Dead perish Else what is our Hope what advantageth all our duty or suffering Else the sensual Epicure were one of the wisest men and what better are we then our beasts Surely our knowledg more then theirs would but encrease our sorrows and our dominion over them is no great felicity The Servant hath oft-times a better life then his Master because he hath few of his Masters Cares And our dead Carcasses are no more comely nor yeeld a sweeter savour then theirs But we have a sure ground of Hope And besides this Life we have a Life that 's hid with Christ in God and when Christ who is our Life shall appear then shall we also appear with him in Glory Col. 3.3 4. Oh let not us be as the purblinde world that cannot see afar off Let us never look at the Grave but let us see the Resurrection beyond it Faith is quick-sighted and can see as far as that is yea as far as Eternity Therefore let our hearts be glad and our Glory rejoyce and our flesh also shall rest in hope for he will not leave us in the Grave nor suffer us still to see Corruption Yea therefore let us be stedfast unmoveable always abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as we know our Labor is not in vain in the Lord 1 Cor. 15.58 It 's a Question much debated Whether a Resurrection be onely an effect of Christs Death and Resurrection And whether there should have been any Resurrection if Christ had not come Some that maintain the Negative of the last Question do also maintain That the Sin under the Covenant of Nature or Works did deserve onely the separation of Soul and Body and not Eternal Torments Whence also follows that the Soul is or at least then was Mortal or that it hath no Being or no Sense when it 's separated from the Body As also that Christ dyed to Redeem us onely from the Grave and not from Hell And so their Doctrine of Universal Redemption in this sence asserted doth neither so much honor the merits of Christ nor advance his mercy as they pretend For it maketh him to raise us onely from the Grave and bring all the world into a Capacity of Eternal Torment He fore-knowing the same time that most would certainly reject him and so perish But as I confess these of weight and difficulty so having professed in this Discourse to handle matters less controverted I pretermit them This sufficeth to the Saints Comfort That Resurrection to Glory is onely the fruit of Christs Death and this fruit they shall certainly partake of The Promise is sure All that are in the Graves shall hear his voyce and come forth Joh. 5.28 And this is the Fathers will which hath sent Christ that of all which he hath given him he should lose nothing but should Raise it up at the last Day Joh. 6.39 And that every one that beleeveth on the Son may have Everlasting Life and he will raise him up at the last Day Vers. 40. If the prayers of the Prophet could raise the Shunamites Dead Childe and if the dead Souldier revive at the touch of the Prophets bones How certainly shall the will of Christ and the power of his death raise us That voyce that said to Jairus Daughter Arise and to Lazarus Arise and come forth can do the like for us If his death immediately raised the dead bodies of many Saints in Jerusalem If he gave power to his Apostles to raise the Dead Then what doubt of our Resurrection And thus Christian thou seest that Christ having sanctified the Grave by his burial and conquered Death and broke the Ice for us a dead Body and a Grave is not now so horrid a spectacle to a beleeving Eye But as our Lord was neerest his Resurrection and Glory when he was in the Grave even so are we And he that hath promised to make our bed in sickness will make the dust as a bed of Roses Death shall not dissolve the Union betwixt him and us nor turn away his affections from us But in the morning of Eternity he will send his Angels yea come himself and roll away the stone and unseal our Graves and reach us his hand and deliver us alive to our Father Why then doth the approach of Death so cast thee down O my Soul and why art thou thus disquieted within me The Grave is not Hell if it were yet there is thy Lord present and thence should his Merit and Mercy fetch thee out Thy sickness is not unto death though I dye but for the Glory of God that the Son of God may be glorified thereby Say not then He lifteth me up to cast me down and hath raised me high that my fall may be the Lower But he casts me down that he may lift me up and layeth me low that I may rise the higher An hundred experiences have sealed this Truth unto thee That the greatest dejections are intended but for advantages to thy greatest dignity and thy Redeemers Glory SECT III. THe third part of this Prologue to the Saints Rest is the publick and solemn process at their Judgment where they shall first themselves be acquit and justified and then with Christ judg the World Publick I may well call it for all the world must there appear Young and old of all estates and Nations that ever were from the Creation to that day must here come and receive their doom The judgment shal be set and the books opened the book of Life produced and the Dead shall be judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works and whosoever is not found written in the book of Life is cast into the lake of fire O Terrible O Joyful Day Terrible to those that have let their Lamps go out and have not watched but forgot the coming of their Lord Joyful to the Saints whose waiting and hope was to see this day Then shall the world behold the goodness and severity of the Lord on them who perish severity but to his chosen goodness When every one must give account of his stewardship And every Talent of Time Health Wit Mercies Afflictions Means Warnings must be reckoned for When the sins of youth and those which they had forgotten and their secret sins shall all be layd open before Angels and men When they shall see all their Friends wealth old delights all their confidence and false hopes of Heaven to forsake them When they shall see the Lord Jesus whom they neglected whose Word
more probable Arguments then our Baptism and common Profession and name of Christians they will stifly deny that ever they neglected Christ in hunger nakedness prison c. and if they did yet that is less then stripping imprisoning banishing or killing Christ in his Members till Christ confute them with the sentence of their condemnation Though the heart of their hopes will be broken at their death and particular Judgment yet it seems they would fain plead for some hope at the general Judgment But O the sad state of these men when they must bid farewell to all their Hopes when their Hopes shall all perish with them Reader if thou wilt not believe this it is because thou wilt not believe the Scriptures The holy Ghost hath spoke it as plain as can be spoken Prov. 11.7 When a wicked man dieth his expectation shall perish and the hope of unjust men perisheth Prov. 10.28 The hope of the righteous shall be gladness but the expectation of the wicked shall perish See Isai. 28.15 18. Job 27.8 9. For what is the hope of the Hypocrite though he hath gained when God taketh away his soul Will God hear his cry when trouble cometh upon him Job 8.12 13 14. Can the Rush grow up without mire Can the Flag grow without water whilst it is yet in its greeness not cut down it withereth before any other herb So are the paths of all that forget God and the Hypocrites hope shall perish whose hope shall be cut off and whose trust shall be a Spiders Web He shall leane upon his house but it shall not stand he shall hold it fast but it shall not endure Job 11.20 But the eyes of the wicked shall fail and they shall not escape and their hope shall be as the giving up of the Ghost The giving up of the Ghost is a fit but terrible resemblance of a wicked mans giving up of his hopes For first As the soul departeth not from the body without the greatest terror and pain so also doth the hope of the wicked depart O the direful gripes and pangs of horror that seize upon the soul of the sinner at Death and Judgment when he is parting with all his former hopes Secondly The soul departeth from the body suddenly in a moment which hath there delightfully continued so many years Just so doth the hope of the wicked depart Thirdly The soul which then departeth will never return to live with the body in this world any more and the hope of the wicked when it departeth taketh an everlasting Farewel of his soul. A miracle of Resurrection shall again conjoyn the soul and body but there shall be no such miraculous Resurrection of the damned's hope Me thinks it is the most doleful Spectacle that this world affords to see such an ungodly person dying and to think of his soul and his hopes departing together and with what a sad change he presently appeares in another world Then if a man could but speak with that hopeless soul and ask it what are you now as confident of salvation as you were wont to be Do you now hope to be saved as soon as the most godly O what a sad answer would he return They are just like Corah Dathan and their Companions while they are confident in their Rebellion against the Lord and cry out Are not all the people holy They are suddenly swallowed up and their hopes with them Or like Ahah who hating and imprisoning the Prophet for foretelling his danger while he is in confident hopes to return in peace is suddenly smitten with that mortal Arrow which let out those hopes together with his soul Or like a Thief upon the Gallows who hath a strong conceit that he shall receive a Pardon and so hopes and hopes till the Ladder is turned Or like the unbelieving sinners of the world before the Flood who would not believe the threatnings of Noah but perhaps deride him for preparing his Ark so many years together when no danger appeared till suddenly the Flood came and swept them all away If a man had asked these men when they were climbing up into the tops of Trees and Mountains VVhere is now your hope of escaping Or your merry deriding at the painful preventing preparations of godly Noah Or your contemptuous unbelief of the warnings of God What do you think these men would then say when the waters still pursued them from place to place till it devoured their hopes and them together Or if one had asked Ahab when he had received his wound and turned out of the battel to die what think you now of the Prophesie of Micaiah will you release him out of prison do you now hope to return in peace Why such a sudden overthrow of their hopes will every unregenerate sinner receive While they were upon earth they frustrated the expectations as I may say of God and man God sent his messengers to tell them plainly of their danger and said It may be they will hear and return and escape but they stiffened their necks and hardened their hearts The Minister studied and instructed and perswaded in hope And when one Sermon prevailed not he laboured to speak more plainly and piercingly in the next in hope that at last they would be perswaded and return till their hopes were frustrate and their labor lost and they were fain to turn their exhortation to lamentation and to sit down in sorrow for mens wilful misery and take up the sad exclamation of the Prophet Isai. 53.1 Who hath believed our report And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed So did godly parents also instruct their children in Hope and watch over them and pray for them hoping that at last their hearts would turn to Christ. And is it not meet that God should frustrate all their hopes who have frustrated the hopes of all that desired their welfare O that careless sinners would be awaked to think of this in time If thou be one of them who art reading these lines I do here as a friend advise thee from the word of the Lord that as thou wouldst not have all thy Hopes deceive thee when thou hast most need of them thou presently try them whether they will prove currant at the touchstone of the Scripture and if thou finde them unsound let them go what sorrow soever it cost thee Rest not till thou canst give a reason of all thy hopes till thou canst prove that they are the hopes which grace and not nature only hath wrought that they are grounded upon Scripture-promises and sound evidences that they purifie thy heart that they quicken and not cool thy endeavours in godliness that the more thou hopest the lesse thou sinnest and the more painful thou art in following on the work and not grow more loose and careless by the increasing of thy hopes that they make thee set lighter by all things on earth because thou hast such hopes of higher
yet remember the heart is deceitful God is oft pretended vvhen our selves are inâ—ended But if this be it that sticks vvith thee indeed consider VVilt thou pretend to be vviser then God doth not he knovv hovv â—o provide for his Church Cannot he do his vvork vvithout thee or finde out instruments enough besides thee Think not too highly of thy self because God hath made thee useful Must the Church needs fall when thou art gone Art thou the foundation on which its built Could God take away a Moses an Aaron David Elias c. and finde supply for all their places and cannot he also finde supply for thine This is to derogate from God too much and to arrogate too much unto thy self Neither art thou so merciful as God nor canst love the Church so well as he As his interest is infinitely beyond thine so is his tender care and bounty But of this before Yet mistake me not in all that I have said I deny not but that it is lawful and necessary for a Christian upon both the forementioned grounds to desire God to delay his death both for a further opportunity of gaining assurance and also to be further serviceable to the Church But first This is nothing to their case who are still delaying and never willing whose true discontents are at death it self more then at the unseasonableness of dying Secondly Though such desires are sometimes lawful yet must they be carefully bounded and moderated to which end are the former considerations We must not be too absolute and peremptory in our desires but cheerfully yield to Gods disposal The rightest temper is that of Pauls to be in a streight between two desiring to depart and be with Christ and yet to stay while God will have us to do the Church the utmost service But alas we are seldom in this streight Our desires run out all one way and that for the flesh and not the Church Our streights are onely for fear of dying and not betwixt the earnest desires of dying and of living SECT XXIV OBject But is not death a punishment of God for sin Doth not Scripture call it the King of fears And Nature above all other evils abhor it Answ. I le not meddle with that which is controversal in this Whether Death be properly a punishment or not But grant that in it self considered it may be called Evil as being naturally the dissolution of the Creature Yet being sanctified to us by Christ and being the season and occasion of so great a Good as is the present possession of God in Christ it may be welcomed with a glad submission if not with desire Christ affords us grounds enough to comfort us against this natural Evil And therefore endues us with the principle of Grace to raise us above the reach of nature For all those low and poor Objections as leaving House Goods and Friends leaving our children unprovided c. I pass them over as of lesser moment then to take much with men of Grace SECT XXV LAstly Understand me in this also That I have spoke all this to the faithful soul. I perswade not the ungodly from fearing death It s a wonder rather that they fear it no more and spend not their days in continual horror as is said before Truly but that we know a stone is insensible and a hard heart is dead and stupid or else a man would admire how poor souls can live in ease and quietness that must be turned out of these bodies into everlasting flames Or that be not sure at least if they should die this night whether they shall lodg in Heaven or Hell the next especially when so many are called and so few chosen and the Righteous themselves are scarcely saved One would think such men should eat their bread with trembling and the thoughts of their danger should keep them waking in the night and they should fall presently a searching themselves and enquiring of others and crying to God That if it were possible they might quickly be out of this danger and so their hearts be freed from horror For a man to quake at the thoughts of death that looks by it to be dispossessed of his happiness and knoweth not whether he is next to go this is no wonder But for the Saints to fear their passage by Death to Rest this is an unreasonable hurtful Fear CHAP. III. Motives to a Heavenly Life SECT I. WE have now by the guidance of the Word of the Lord and by the assistance of his Spirit shewed you the nature of the Rest of the Saints and acquainted you with some duties in relation thereto We come now to the close of all to press you to the great duty which I chiefly intended when I begun this subject and have here reserved it to the last place because I know hearers are usually of slippery memories yet apt to retain the last that is spoken though they forget all that went before Dear friends its pity that either you or I should forget any thing of that which doth so neerly concern us as this Eternal Rest of the Saints doth But if you must needs forget something let it be any thing else rather then this let it be rather all that I have hitherto said though I hope of better then this one ensuing Use. Is there a Rest and such a Rest remaining for us Why then are our thoughts no more upon it why are not our hearts continually there why dwell we not there in constant contemplation Sirs Ask your hearts in good earnest what is the cause of this neglect are we reasonable in this or are we not Hath the Eternal God provided us such a Glory and promised to take us up to dwell with himself and is not this worth the thinking on Should not the strongest desires of our hearts be after it and the daily delights of our souls be there Do we beleeve this and can we yet forget and neglect it What 's the matter will not God give us leave to approach this light or will he not suffer our souls to tast and see Why then what means all his earnest invitations why doth he so condemn our earthly-mindedness and command us to set our affections above Ah vile hearts If God were against it we were likelier to be for it When he would have us to keep our station then we are aspiring to be like God and are ready to invade the Divine Prerogatives But when he commands our hearts to Heaven then they will not stir an inch like our Predecessors the sinful Israelites When God would have them march for Canaan then they mutiny and will not stir either they fear the Gyants or the walled Cities or want necessaries or something hinders them but when God bids them not to go then will they needs be presently marching and fight they will though it be to their overthrow If the fore-thoughts of glory were forbidden
the dolors of a greivous wilderness Believe it Reader if thou knewest but what a cordial in thy griefs and care the serious views of glory are thou wouldst less fear these harmles troubles and more use that preserving reviving Remedy I would not have thee as Mountebanks take poyson first and then their Antidote to shew its power so to create thy affliction to try this remedy But if God reach thee forth the bitterest cup drop in but a little of the Tastes of Heaven and I warrant thee it will sufficiently sweeten it to thy spirit If the case thou art in seem never so dangerous take but a little of this Antidote of Rest and never fear the pain or danger I will give thee to confirm this but the Example of David and the Opinion of Paul and desire thee throughly to consider of both In the multitude of my thoughts within me saith David thy comforts delight my soul Psal. 94.19 As if he should say I have multitudes of sadding thoughts that crowd upon me thoughts of my sins and thoughts of my foes thoughts of my dangers and thoughts of my pains yet in the midst of all this crowd one serious thought of the comforts of thy Love and especially of the comfortable life in Glory doth so dispel the throng and scatter my cares and disperse the clouds that my troubles had raised that they do even revive and delight my soul. And Paul when he had cast up his full accounts gives thee the sum in Rom. 8 18. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us Study these words well for every one of them is full of life If these true sayings of God were truly and deeply fixt in thy heart and if thou couldst in thy sober Mediditation but draw out the comfort of this one Scripture I dare them it would sweeten the bitterest cross and in a sort make thee forget thy trouble as Christ saith A woman forgets her travail for joy that a man is born into the world yea and make thee rejoyce in thy tribulation I will add but one Text more 2 Cor 4.16.17 For which cause we faint not but though our outward man perish yet the inward is renewed day by day For our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding eternal weight of glory While we look not at the things which are seen but the things which are not seen For the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal SECT VII 3. ANother fit Season for this heavenly duty is When the Messengers of God do summon us to die when either our gray hairs or our languishing bodies or some such like forerunners of death do tell us that our change cannot be far off when should we most frequently sweeten our souls with the believing thoughts of another life then when we finde that this is almost ended and when Flesh is raising fears and terrors Surely no men have greater need of supporting joyes then dying men and those joyes must be fetcht from our eternal joy Men that have earthly pleasures in their hands may think they are well though they taste no more but when a man is dying and parting with all other pleasures he must then fetch his pleasure from Heaven or have none when health is gone and friends lye weeping about our beds when houses and lands and goods and wealth cannot afford us the least relief but we are taking our leave of earth for ever except a hole for our bodies to rot in when we are daily expecting our final day it s now time to look to heaven and to fetch in comfort and support from thence and as heavenly delights are sweetest when they are unmixed and pure and have no earthly delights conjoyned with them so therefore the delights of dying Christians are oft-times the sweetest that ever they had Therefore have the Saints been generally observed to be then most Heavenly when they were neerest dying what a Prophetical blessing hath Jacob for his sons when he lay a dying And so Isaac what a heavenly Song what a Divine Benediction doth Moses conclude his life withal Deut. 32. 33. Nay as our Saviour increased in Wisdome and Knowledg so did he also in their blessed expressions and still the last the sweetest what a heavenly prayer what heavenly advice doth he leave his Disciples when he is about to leave them when he saw he must leave the world and go to the Father how doth he weane them from worldly expectations How doth he minde them of the Mansions in his Fathers House and remember them of his coming again to fetch them thither and open the union they shall have with him and with each other and promise them to be with him to behold his Glory There 's more worth in those four Chapters John 14.15.16.17 then in all the Books in the world beside When Blessed Paul was ready to be offered up what heavenly Exhortation doth he give the Philippians what advice to Timothy what counsel to the Elders of the Ephesian Church Acts 20. How neer was S. John to heaven in his banishment in Patmos a little before his translation to Heaven what heavenly discourse hath Luther in his last sickness How close was Calvin to his Divine studies in his very sickness that when they would have disswaded him from it He answers Vultisne me otiosum a domino apprehendi What would you have God finde me idle I have not lived idly and shall I dye idly The like may be said of our famous Reignolds When excellent Bucholcer was neer his end he wrote his Book De Consolâ—tiâ—ne Decumbentium Then it was that Tossianus wrote his Vade mecum Then Doctor Preston was upon the Attributâ—s of God And then Mr Bolton was on the Joyes of Heaven It were end less to enumerate the eminent examples of this kinde It is the general temper of the spirits of the Saints to be then most Heavenly when they are neerest to Heaven As we use to say of the old and the weak that they have one foot in the grave already so may we say of the godly when they are neer their Rest they have one foot as it were in Heaven already When should a Traveller look homewards with joy but when he is come within the sight of his home It s true the pains of our bodies and the fainting of our spirits may somewhat abate the liveliness of our joy but the measure we have will be the more pure and spiritual by how much the less it is kindled from the Flesh. O that we who are daily languishing could learn this daily heavenly conversing and could say as the Apostle in the forecited place 2 Cor. 4.16 17 18 O that every gripe that our bodies feel might make us more sensible of future ease and that every
Truth and saved you from the spirit of Giddiness Levity and Apostacy of this age who hath preserved you from those scandals whereby others have so hainously wounded their profession and hath given you to see the mischief of Separation and Divisions and made you eminent for Vnity and Peace when almost all the Land is in a flame of contention and so many that we thought godly are busily demolishing the Church and striving in a zealous ignorance against the Lord. Beloved though few of you are rich or great in the world yet for this riches of mercy towards you I must say Ye are my Glory my Crown and my Joy And for all these rare favors to my self and you as I have oft promised to publish the praises of our Lord so do I here set up this stone of remembrance and write upon it Glory to God in the highest Hitherto hath the Lord helped us My flesh and my heart failed but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever But have all these Deliverances brought us to our Rest No We are as far yet from it as we are from Heaven You are yet under oppression and troubles and I am yet under consuming sickness And feeling that I am like to be among you but a little while and that my pained body is hastening to the dust I shall here leave you my best advice for your immortal souls and bequeath you this counsel as the legacy of a dying man that you may here read it and practise it when I am taken from you And I beseech you receive it as from one that you know doth unfainedly love you and that regardeth no honors or happiness in this world in comparison of the welfare and salvation of your souls yea receive it from me as if I offered it you upon my knees beseeching you for your souls sake that you would not reject it and beseeching the Lord to bless it to you yea as one that hath received authority from Christ to command you I charge you in his name as ever you will answer it when we shall meet at judgment and as you would not have me there be a witness against you nor all my labors be charged against you to your condemnation and the Lord Jesus your Judg to sentence you as rebellious that you faithfully and constantly practise these ten directions 1. Labor to be men of knowledg and sound understandings A sound judgment is a most precious mercy and much conduceth to the soundness of heart and life A weak judgment is easily corrupted and if it be once corrupt the will and conversation will quickly follow Your understandings are the in-let or entrance to the whole soul and if you be weak there your souls are like a Garison that hath open or il-guarded Gates and if the enemy be once let in there the whole City will quickly be his own Ignorance is virtually every error therefore let the Bible be much in your hands and hearts Remember what I taught you on Deut. 6.6 7. Read much the writings of our old solid Divines such as Perkins Bolton Dod Sibbs especially Doctor Preston You may read an able Divine when you cannot hear one especially be sure you learn well the Principles of Religion Begin with the Assemblies lesser Catechism and then learn the greater and next Master Balls with the Exposition and then Doctor Ames his Marrow of Divinity now Englished or Ushers If you see men fall on Controversies before they understand these never wonder if they are drowned in errors I know your povertie and labors will not give you leave to read so much as others may do but yet a willing minde will finde some time if it be when they should sleep and especially it will spend the Lords day wholly in these things O be not ignorant of God in the midst of such light as if the matters of your salvation were less worth your study then your trading in the world 2. Do the utmost you can to get a faithful Minister when I am taken from you and be sure you acknowledg him your Teacher Overseer and Ruler 1 Thess. 5.12 13. Acts 20.28 Heb. 13.7 17. and learn of him obey him and submit to his doctrine except he teach you any singular points and then take the advice of other Ministers in trying it Expect not that he should humor you and please your fancies and say and do as you would have him that is meer Independencie for the people to rule themselves and their Rulers If he be unable to Teach and Guide you do not chuse him at first if he be able be ruled by him even in things that to you are doubtful except it be clear that â—e would turn you from the truth if you know more then he become Preachers your selves if you do not then quarrel not when you should learn especially submit to his private over-sight as well as publike Teaching It is but the least part of a Ministers work which is done in the Pulpit Paul taught them also from house to house day and night with tears Acts 20.20 31. To go daily from one house to another and see how you live and examine how you profit and direct you in the duties of your families and in your preparation for death is the great work Had not weakness confined me and publike labors forbidden me I should judg my self hainously guiltie in neglecting this In the Primitive times every Church of so many souls as this Parish had many Ministers whereof the ablest speakers did preach most impublike and the rest did the more of the less publike work which some mistake for meer Ruling Elders But now Sacriledg and Covetousness will scarce leave maintenance for one in a Church which is it that hath brought us to a loss in the nature of Government 3. Let all your Knowledg turn into Affection and Practice keep open the passage between your heads and your hearts that every Truth may go to the quick Spare not for any pains in working out your salvation Take heed of loitering when your souls lie at the stake Favor not your selves in any slothful distemper Laziness is the damnation of most that perish among us God forbid you should be of the mad opinion of the world That like not serving God so much nor making so much ado to be saved All these men will shortly be of another minde Live now as you would wish you had done at death and judgment Let no scorns dishearten you nor differences of opinion be an offence to you God and Scripture and Heaven and the Way thither are still the same It will do you no good to be of the right Religion if you be not zealous in the exercise of the Duties of that Religion Read oft the fifth and sixt Chapters of the third part of this Book 4. Be sure you make conscience of the great Duties that you are to perform in your families Teach your
dayly expectations of renewed help or of growing insensible of the necessity of the continual influence and assistance of the Spirit When you once begin to trust to your stock of habituall Grace and to depend on your own understanding or resolution for duty and holy walking You are then in a dangerous declining State In every duty remember Christs words Joh. 15.5 Without me ye can do nothing And 2 Cor. 3.5 Not that we are sufficient of our selves to think any thing as of our selves but our sufficiency is of God SECT VII 7. HEre is supposed An Internal principle of life in the person God moves not man like a stone but by enduing him first with life not to enable him to move without God but thereby to qualifie him to move himself in subordination to God the first mover What the nature of this spiritual life is is a Question exceeding difficult Whether as some think but as I judg erroniously it be Christ himself in Person or Essence or the holy Ghost personally Or as some will distinguish with what sence I know not it is the person of the holy Ghost but not personally Whether it be an Accident or Quality or whether it be a spiritual substance as the soul it self Whether it be only an Act or a disposition or a habit as it s generally taken Whether a habit infused or acquired by frequent Acts to which the soul hath been morally perswaded or whether it be somewhat lower then a habit i. e. A power viz. potentia proxima intelligendi credendi volendi c. in spiritualibus Which some think the most probable and that it was such a power that Adam lost and that the natural man as experience tells us is still devoyd of Whether such a power can be conceived which is not Reason it self and whether Reason be not the Soul it self and so we should make the soul diminished and encreased as bodies Whether spirits have Accidents as corporal substances have A multitude of such difficulties occur which will be difficulties while the Doctrine of Spirits and Spirituals is so dark to us and that will be while the dust of mortality and corruption is in our eyes This is my comfort that death will shortly blow out this dust and then I shall be resolved of these and many more In the mean time I am a Sceptick and know little in this whole doctrine of spirits and spiritual workings further then Scripture clearly revealeth SECT VIII 8. HEre is presupposed before Rest an Actual Motion Rest is the end of Motion No Motion no Rest. Christianity is not a sedentary profession and employment Nor doth it consist in meer Negatives It is for not feeding not clothing c. that Christ condemns Not doing good is not the least evil sitting still will lose you Heaven as well as if you run from it It 's a great Question Whether the elicit Acts of the Will are by Motion or by subitaneous mutation But it s a Logomachy SECT IX 9. HEre is presupposed also as motion so such motion as is rightly ordered and directed toward the end Not all motion labour seeking that brings to Rest. Every way leads not to this end But he whose goodness hath appointed the end hath in his wisdom and by his soveraign authority appointed the way Our own invented ways may seem to us more wise comly equal pleasant but that is the best Key that will open the Lock which none but that of Gods appointing will do Oh the pains that sinners take and wordlings take but not for this Rest Oh the pains and cost that many an ignorant and superstitious soul is at for this Rest but all in vain How many have a zeal of God but not according to knowledg Who being ignorant of Gods Righteousness and going about to establish their own Righteousness have not submitted themselves to the Righteousness of God Nor known That Christ is the end of the Law for Righteousness to every one that believeth Rom. 10.2 3 4. Christ is the door the only way to this Rest. Some will allow nothing else to be called the way lest it Derogate from Christ The truth is Christ is the only Way to the Father Yet faith is the way to Christ and Gospel Obedience or Faith and Works the way for those to walk in that are in Christ. There be as before many ways requisite in Subordination to Christ but none in Co-ordination with him So then it 's only Gods way that will lead to this end and Rest. SECT X. 10. THere is supposed also as motion rightly ordered so strong and constant motion which may reach the end If there be not strength put to the bow the Arrow will not reach the mark The Lazy world that think all too much will find this to their cost one day They that think less ado might have served do but reproach Christ for making us so much to do They that have been most holy watchful painful to get faith and assurance do find when they come to dye all too little We see dayly the best Christians when dying Repent their Negligence I never knew any then repent his holiness and diligence It would grieve a mans soul to see a multitude of mistaken sinners lay out their wit and care and pains for a thing of nought and think to have eternal Salvation with a wish If the way to Heaven be not far harder then the world imagines then Christ and his Apostles knew not the way or else have deceived us For they have told us That the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence That the gate is strait and the way narrow and we must strive if we will enter for many shall seek to enter and not be able which implies the faintness of their seeking and that they put not strength to the work and that the righteous themselves are scarcely saved If ever Soul obtain Salvation in the worlds common careless easie way then I 'l say there is a nearer way found out then ever God in Scripture hath revealed to the sons of men But when they have obtained Life and Rest in this way let them boast of it till then let them give us leave who would fain go upon sure grounds in point of eternal Salvation to beleeve that God knows the way better then they and that his Word is a true and infallible discovery thereof I have seen this Doctrine also thrown by with contempt by others who say What do you set us a working for heaven Doth our duty do any thing Hath not Christ done all Is not this to make him a half Saviour and to preach Law Ans. It is to preach the Law of Christ his Subjects are not Lawless It is to preach Duty to Christ No more exact requirer of duty or hater of sin then Christ. Christ hath done and will do all his work and therefore is a perfect Saviour but yet leaves for us a
and mercy shall follow them all the days of their lives and then they shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever Psal. 23.6 Oh Christians beleeve and consider this Is Sun and Moon and Stars and all creatures called upon to praise the Lord What then should his people do Surely they are nearer him and enjoy more of him then the bruits shall do All his works praise him but above all let his Saints bless him Psal. 145.10 Oh let them speak of the glory of his Kingdom and talk of his power To make known to the sons of men his mighty Acts and the Glorious Majesty of his Kingdom Vers. 11.12 Let his praise be in the Congregation of his Saints Let Israel rejoyce in him that made him let the children of Zion be joyful in their King Let the Saints be joyful in Glory let them sing aloud upon their beds Let the high praises of God be in their for the Lord taketh pleasure in his people and will beautifie the meek with salvation Psal. 149.1 2 5 6 4. This is the light that is sown for the Righteous and gladness for the upright in heart Psal. 97.11 Yea this honour have all his Saints Psalm 149.9 If the estate of the Devils before their fall were not much meaner then this and perhaps lower then some of their fellow Angels surely their sin was most accursed and detestable Could they yet aspire higher And was there yet room for discontent What is it then that would satisfie them Indeed the distance that we sinners and mortals are at from our God leaves us some excuse for discontent with our estate The poor soul out of the depth cries and cries aloud as if his Father were out of hearing sometime he chides the interposing clouds sometime he is angry at the vast gulf that 's set between sometime he would fain have the vail of mortality drawn aside and thinks death hath forgot his business he ever quarrels with this Sin that separates and longs till it be separated from his Soul that it may separate God and him no more Why poor Christian be of good chear the Time is Near when God and thou shall be Near and as Near as thou canst well desire Thou shalt dwell in his family is that enough It 's better to be a door-keeper in his house then enjoy the portion of the wicked Thou shalt ever stand before him about his Throne in the room with him in his presence chamber Wouldst thou yet be nearer Thou shalt be his child and he thy Father thou shalt be an heir of his Kingdom yea more the Spouse of his Son and what more canst thou desire Thou shalt be a member of the body of his Son he shall be thy Head thou shalt be one with him who is one with the Father Read what he hath desired for thee of his Father John 17.21 22 23. That they all may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us and the Glory which thou gavest me I have given them that they may be one even as we are one I in them and thou in me that they may be made perfect in one that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them as thou hast loved me What can you desire yet more except you will as some do abuse Christs expression of oneness to conceive of such a union as shall Deifie us Which were a sin one step beyond the aspiring Arrogancy of Adam and I think beyond that of the Devils A Real Conjunction improperly called Union we may expect And a true Union of Affections A Moral Union improperly still called Union And a true Relative Union such as is between the members of the same political body and the Head yea such as is between the husband and the wife who are called one flesh And a real communion and Communication of Real Favors flowing from that Relative Union If there be any more it is acknowledged unconceiveable and consequently unexpressable and so not to be Spoken of If any can conceive of a proper Real Union and Identity which shall neither be a unity of Essence nor of person with Christ as I yet cannot I shall not oppose it But to think of Such a Union were high Blasphemy Nor must you think of a Union as some do upon natural Grounds following the dark mistaking principles of Plato and Plotinus If your thoughts be not guided and limited by Scripture in this you are lost Quest. But how is it we shall enjoy God Ans. That 's the fifth and last we come to SECT V. 5. THis Rest containeth A Sweet and constant Action of all the Powers of the Soul and Body in this fruition of God It is not the Rest of a stone which ceaseth from all motion when it attains the Center The Senses themselves as I judg are not only Passive in receiving their object but partly Passive and partly Active Whether the external Senses such as now we have shall be continued and imployed in this work is a great doubt For some of them it 's usually acknowledged they shall cease because their Being importeth their use and their use implyeth our estate of Imperfection As there is no use for eating and drinking so neither for the taste But for other Senses the Question will be harder For Job saith I shall see him with these eyes But do not all senses imply our imperfection If Job did speak of more then a Redemption from his present distress as it 's like he did yet certainly these eyes will be made so Spiritual that whether the name of Sense in the same sence as now shall befit them is a question This body shall be so changed that it shall no more be flesh and blood for that cannot inherit the Kingdom of God 1 Cor. 15.50 but a spiritual body vers 44. That which we sow we sow not that body that shall be But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him and to every seed his own Body 1 Cor. 15.37 38. As the Oar is cast into the fire a stone but come forth so pure a mettal that it deserves another name and so the difference betwixt it and the Gold exceeding great So far greater will the change of our bodies and senses be even so great as now we cannot conceive If Grace make a Christian differ so much from what he was that the Christian could say to his Companion Ego non sum ego I am not the man I was how much more will Glory make us differ We may then say much more This is not the body I had and these are not the senses I had But because we have no other name for them let us call them Senses call them Eyes and Ears Seeing and Hearing But thus much conceive of the difference That as much as a Body Spiritual above the Sun in Glory exceedeth
of suffering for Christ when he usually appears most manifestly to his people Didst thou never see one walking in the midst of the fiery furnace with thee like to the Son of God If thou do know him value him as thy life and follow on to know him and thou shalt know incomparably more then this Or if I do but renew thy grief to tell thee of what thou once didst feel but now hast lost I counsel thee to Remember whence thou art fallen and Repent and do the first works and be watchful and strengthen the things which remain and I dare promise thee because God hath promised thou shalt see and know that which here thine Eye could not see nor thy Understanding conceive Beleeve me Christians yea beleeve God You that have known most of God in Christ here it is as nothing to that you shall know It scarce in comparison of that deserves to be called Knowledg The difference betwixt our knowledg now and our knowledg then will be as great as that between our fleshly bodies now and our spiritual glorified bodies then For as these bodies so that knowledg must cease that a more perfect may succeed Our silly childish thoughts of God which now is the highest we reach to must give place to a manly knowledg All this saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 13.8 9 10 11 12. Knowledg shall vanish away For we know in part c. But when that which is perfect is come then that which is in part shall be done away When I was a childe I spake as childe I thought as a childe I understood as a childe but when I became a man I put away childish things For now we see through a glass darkly but then face to face Now I know in part but then I shall know even as also I am known Marvel not therefore Christian at the sence of that place of John 17.3 how it can be life eternal to know God and his Son Christ You must needs know that to enjoy God and his Christ is eternal Life and the souls enjoying is in knowing They that savor only of earth and consult with flesh and have no way to try judg but by sense and never were acquainted with this Knowledg of God nor tasted how gracious he is these think it 's a poor happiness to know God let them have health and wealth and worldly delights and take you the other Alas poor men they that have made tryal of both do not grudg you your delights nor envy your happiness but pity your undoing folly and wish O that you would come near and taste and try as they have done and then Judg Then continue in your former mind if you can For our parts we say with that knowing Apostle though the speech may seem presumptuous 1 John 5.19 20. We know that we are of God and the whole world lieth in wickedness And we know that the Son of God is come and hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is True and we are in him that is True in his Son Jesus Christ This is the true God and eternal Life Here one verse contains the sum of most that I have said The Son of God is come to be our Head and Fountain of Life and so hath given us an understanding that the Soul may be personally qualified and made capable to know him God that is True the Prime Truth and we are brought so near in this enjoyment that we are in him that is True not properly by an essential or personal union but we are in him by being in his Son Jesus Christ. This we have mentioned is the only True God and so the fittest object for our understanding which chuseth Truth and this knowing of him and being in him in Christ is eternal life SECT VII ANd doubtless the Memory will not be Idle or useless in this Blessed work If it be but by looking back to help the soul to value its enjoyment Our knowledg will be enlarged not diminished therefore the knowledg of things past shall not be taken away And what is that knowledg but Remembrance Doubtless from that height the Saint can look behind him and before him And to compare past with present things must needs raise in the Blessed Soul an unconceiveable esteem and sense of its Condition To stand on that Mount whence we can see the Wilderness and Canaan both at once to stand in Heaven and look back on Earth and weigh them together in the ballance of a comparing sense and judgment how must it needs transport the soul and make it cry out Is this the purchase that cost so dear as the blood of God No wonder O blessed price and thrice blessed Love that invented and Condescended Is this the end of Believing Is this the end of the Spirits workings Have the Gales of Grace blown me into such a Harbour Is it hither that Christ hath enticed my Soul O blessed way and thrice blessed end Is this the Glory which the Scripture spoke of and Ministers preached of so much Why now I see the Gospel indeed is good tydings even tydings of peace and Good things tydings of great Joy to all Nations Is my mourning my fasting my sad humblings my heavy walking groanings complainings come to this Is my praying watching fearing to offend come to this Are all my afflictions sickness languishing troublesom physick fears of Death come to this Are all Satans Temptations the worlds Scorns and Jeers come to this And now if there be such a thing as Indignation left how will it here let fly O vile nature that resisted so much and so long such a blessing Unworthy Soul Is this the place thou camest so unwillingly towards Was Duty wearisom Was the world too good to lose Didst thou stick at leaving all denying all and suffering any thing for this Wast thou loath to dye to come to this O false Heart that had almost betrayed me to Eternal flames and lost me this Glory O base flesh that would needs have been pleased though to the loss of this felicity Didst thou make me to question the truth of this Glory Didst thou shew me Improbabilities and draw me to distrust the Lord Didst thou question the Truth of that Scripture which promised this Why my soul art thou not now ashamed that ever thou didst question that Love that hath brought thee hither That thou wast Jealous of the faithfulness of thy Lord That thou suspectest his Love when thou shouldst only have suspected thy self I hat thou didst not Live continually transported with thy Saviours Love and that ever thou quenchedst a motion of his Spirit Art thou not ashamed of all thy hard thoughts of such a God Of all thy mis-interpreting of and grudging at those providences and repining at those ways that have such an end Now thou art sufficiently convinced that the ways thou calledst Hard and the Cup thou calledst Bitter were
this in Heaven Our eyes shall then be filled no more nor our hearts pierced with such lights as at Worcester Edg-hil Newbury Nantwich Montgomery Horn Castle York Naseby Langport c. We shall then have the conquest without the calamity Mine eyes shall never more behold the Earth covered with the carkasses of the slain Our black Ribbands and mourning Attire will then be turned into the white Robes and Garments of gladness O how hardly can my heart now hold when I think of such and such and such a dear Christian Friend slain or departed O how glad must the same heart needs be when I see them all alive and glorified But a far greater grief it is to our Spirits to see the spiritual miseries of our Brethren To see such a one with whom we took sweet councel and who zealously joyned with us in Gods worship to be now fallen off to sensuality turned drunkard worldling or a persecutor of the Saints And these trying times have given us too large occasion for such sorrows To see our dearest and most intimate friends to be turned aside from the Truth of Christ and that either in or neer the Foundation and to be raging confident in the grossest Errors To see many neer us in the flesh continue their neglect of Christ and their souls and nothing will waken them out of their security To look an ungodly Father or Mother Brother or Sister in the face To look on a carnal Wife or Husband or Childe or Friend And to think how certainly they shall be in Hell for ever if they die in their present unregenerate estate O what continual dolors do all these sad sights and thoughts fill our hearts with from day to day And will it not be a blessed day when we shall rest from all these what Christian now is not in Pauls case and cannot speak in his Language 2 Cor. 11.28 29. Besides those things that are without that which cometh upon me daily the care of all the Churches Who is weak and I am not weak who is offended and I burn not What heart is not wounded to think on Germanies long desolations O the learned Universities The flourishing Churches there that now are left desolate Look on Englands four yeers blood a flourishing Land almost made ruined hear but the common voyce in most Cities Towns and Countreys through the Land and judg whether here be no cause of sorrow Especially look but to the sad effects and mens spirits grown more out of order when a most wonderful Reformation by such wonderful means might have been well expected And is not this cause of astonishing sorrows Look to Scotland look to Ireland look almost every where and tell me what you see Blessed that approaching day when our eyes shall behold no more such sights nor our ears hear any more such tidings How many hundred Pamphlets are Printed full of almost nothing but the common calamities So that its become a gainful trade to divulge the news of our Brethrens sufferings And the fears for the future that possessed our hearts were worse then all that we saw or suffered O the tidings that run from Edghil fight of York fight c. How many a face did they make pale and how many a heart did they astonish nay have not many died with the fears of that which if they had lived they had neither suffered nor seen It s said of Melancthon That the miseries of the Church made him almost neglect the death of his most beloved Children to think of the Gospel departing the Glory taken from Israel our Sun setting at Noon day poor souls left willingly dark and destitute and with great pains and hazard blowing out the Light that should guide them to salvation What sad thoughts must these be To think of Christ removing his Family taking away both worship and worshippers and to leave the Land to the rage of the merciless These were sad thoughts Who could then have taken the Harp in hand or sung the pleasant Songs of Zion But blessed be the Lord who hath frustrated our fears and who will hasten that rejoycing day when Sion shall be exalted above the Mountains and her Gates shall be open day and night and the glory of the Gentiles be brought into it and the Nation and Kingdom that will not serve her shall perish When the sons of them that afflicted her shall come bending unto her and all they that despised her shall bow themselves down at the soles of her feet and they shall call her The City of the Lord the Sion of the holy One of Israel When her people also shall be all Righteous even the Work of Gods hands the Branch of his planting who shall inherit the Land for ever that he may be glorified When that voice shall sound forth Rejoyce with Jerusalem and be glad with her all ye that love her Rejoyce for joy with her all ye that mourn for her That ye may suck and be satisfied with the brests of her consolation that ye may milk out and be delighted with the abundance of her glory Thus shall we Rest from our participation of our Brethrens sufferings SECT XVI 8. WE shall Rest also from all our own personal sufferings whether natural and ordinary or extraordinary from the afflicting hand of God And though this may seem a small thing to those that live in continual ease and abound in all kinde of prosperity yet me thinks to the daily afflicted soul it should make the fore-thoughts of Heaven delightful And I think we shall meet with few of the Saints but will say That this is their own case O the dying life that we now live As full of sufferings as of days and hours We are the Carkasses that all Calamities prey upon As various as they are each one will have a snatch at us and be sure to devour a morsel of our comforts When we bait our Bulls and Bears we do but represent our own condition whose lives are consumed under such assaults and spent in succession of fresh encounters All Creatures have an enmity against us ever since we made the Lord of all our enemy And though we are reconciled by the blood of the Covenant and the price is paid for our full deliverance yet our Redeemer sees it fit to leave this measure of misery upon us to make us know for what we are beholden and to minde us of what we would else forget to be serviceable to his wise and gracious designes and advantagious to our full and final Recovery He hath sent us as Lambs among Wolves and sure there is little Rest to be expected As all our Senses are the inlets of sin so are they become the inlets of our sorrow Grief creeps in at our eyes at our ears and almost every where It seiseth upon our head our hearts our flesh our Spirits and what part doth escape it Fears do devour us and
enter into these contracts with them For that he might procure by other means as likely Beside it is some kinde of prosperity or fulfilling of their desires which he conditioneth to give them It is a childish thing to conceit that the Divel cares so much for a few drops of their blood Is not the blood of a beast or other creature as sweet Neither can it be onely the acknowledgement of his power that he amies at nor a meer desire of being honoured or worshipped in the world as Porphyrius and other Pagans have thought For he is most truly served where he is least discerned and most abhorred when he most appears His Apparitions are so powerfull a means to convince the Atheist who believes not that there is either God or Devil or Heaven or Hell that I am perswaded he would far rather keep out of sight and that for the most part he is constrained by God to appear against his will Besides if Satan sought his own honour he would still speak in his own name But contrarily his usuall appearance is in the shape and name of some deceased person affirming himself to be the soul of such a one or else he pretends to be an Angel of light And when he makes his compacts with Witches it is seldome so plainly and directly as that they understand it is indeed the Devil that they deal with So that it is apparent Satan seeks something more then the honour of domineering that is the ruine of the party with whom he deals And that it is not their bodily and temporall ruine only appears further by this that he will heal as well as hurt and give power to his confederates to do the like and this tends not to the ruine of mens bodies Though there be a great deal of deceit among them yet doubtless many have been cured by Popish spels and Pilgrimages and Exorcismes Carolus Piso mentions one of his patients who was incurably deaf a yeer together and was suddenly cured in the midst of his devotion to the Lady of Lauretto Fernelius mentions those that could stop any bleeding by repeating certain words He saw an universal Jaundise cured in one night by the hanging of a piece of Paper about the neck A great deal more to the same purpose he hath De abditis reâ— causis l. 2. c. 16. If any should doubt whether there be any such Witches who thus work by the power of the divel or have any compact with him he hath as good opportunity now to be easily resolved as hath been known in most Ages Let him go but into Suffolk or Essex or Lancashire c. and he may quickly be informed Sure it were strange if in an age of so much knowledg and conscience there should so many score poor creatures be put to death as Witches if it were not clearly manifest that they were such We have too many examples lately among us to leave any doubt of the truth of this So that by these attempts of Satan to deceive and destroy souls it is evident That there is an estate of happiness or misery for every man after this life All those Arguments which every Common-place book and Philosopher almost can afford you to prove the immortality of the soul will also serve to prove the point in hand But many can apprehend these Arguments from sense who cannot yet reach and will not be convinced by other Demonstrations As Temptations Apparitions Possessions Dispossessions and Witches are most excellent means to convince a Sadducee that there are Angels and Spirits so also by cleare consequence that there is a Resurrection and Eternall life SECT V. THe second thing that I am to clear to you is That it is necessary for man to know this happiness and the way to obtain it and to know the misery and the way to escape it This appears thus First If he must go that way and use those means then he must needs first know both the end and way But he that will obtain the end must use the means therefore he must necessarily know them All this is so evident that I believe few will deny it That man must use the means before he attain the end is evident First From the nature of the motion of the Rationall soul which is to seek the attainment of its propounded end by a voluntary use of means conducing thereto For as it hath not at its first infusion that height of perfection whereof it is capable so neither is it carryed thereto by violence or by blind instinct for then it were not a Rationall motion Secondly Yea the very enjoyment of the end and the seeking of it are actions of the same nature It is enjoyed by Knowing Loving Rejoycing c. And these actions are the means to attain it Thirdly And if the means were not necessary to the end the wicked were as capable of it as the godly but that will not stand with the Justice of God Fourthly If knowledg of the end and use of means were not of necessity to the obtaining of that end then a beast or a block were as fit a subject for that blessedness as a man But these cannot be And That man cannot seek a happiness which he never knew nor shun a misery which he was not aware of nor use means thereto which he was never acquainted with I think would be lost and needless labor for me to prove SECT VI. THe third thing that I am to prove is this That meer nature and creatures contain no sufficient revelation of the forementioned end and means This appears thus First Nature by the help of creatures though it tell us that there is a God yet what he is or how he will be worshipped or how he came to be so displeased with the world or how he must be reconciled of all this it tels us nothing Again though it may possibly acquaint us with an immortall state yet what the happiness there is and what the misery or how we are naturally deprived of that happiness and how it must be recovered and who they be that shall enjoy it of all this it tels us little Much less of the Resurrection of our bodies from the grave So also though nature may possibly finde it self depraved yet how it came to be so or how to be healed or how to be pardoned it cannot tell Secondly If nature by the meer book of the creatures could learn all things necessary yet first it would be so slow and by so long study Secondly and so doubtfully and uncertainly Thirdly and so rarely that it appears by this the means of revelation is not sufficient All this is apparent by event and successe For what nature and creatures do sufficiently teach that their Scholars have certainly learned First Then observe how long did the most learned Philosophers study before they could know those few rude imperfect notions which some of them did attain to concerning
should be so it would be somewhat a sad uncomfortable doctrine to the godly at their death to think of being deprived of their glory till the resurrection and somewhat comfortable to the wicked to think of tarrying out of hell so long But I am in strong hopes that this doctrine is false yea very confident that it is so I do believe that as the soul separated from the body is not a perfect man so it doth not enjoy the Glory and happiness so fully and so perfectly as it shall do after the Resurrection when they are again conjoined What the difference is and what degree of Glory souls in the mean time enjoy are too high things for mortals particularly to discern For the great question what place the souls of those before Christ of Infants and of all others since Christ do remaine in till the Resurrection I think it is a vain enquiry of what is yet beyond our reach It is a great question what Place is But if it be only a circumstant body and if to be in a place be only to be in a circumstant bodâ— or in the superficies of an ambient body or in the concavity oâ— that superficies then it is doubtfull whether spirits can be properly said to be in place We can have yet no clear conceivings of these things But that separated souls of Believers do enjoy unconceivable Blessedness and Glory even while they remain thus separated from the body I prove as followeth Beside all those Arguments for the souls Immortality which you may read in Alex. Rosse his Philosophicall Touchstone part lâ—st 1. Those words of Paul 2 Corin. 5.8 Are so exceeding plain that I yet understand not what tolerable exception can be made agaiâ—st them Therefore we are alwayes confident knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord For we walk by faith not by sight we are confident I say and willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord What can be spoken more plainly so also the 1 2 3 4. verses of the same Chapter 2. As plain is that in Philip. 1.23 For I am in a streight betwixt two having a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better What sense were in these words if Paul had not expected to enjoy Christ till the Resurrection Why should he be in a streight Or desire to depart Should he be with Christ ever the sooner for that Nay should he not have been loath to depart upon the very same grounds For while he was in the flesh he enjoyed something of Christ but being departed according to the Socinians doctrine he should enjoy no thing of Christ till the day of Resurrection 3. And plain enough is that of Christ to the thief This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise The dislocation of the word this day is but a gross evasion 4. And sure if it be but a Parable of the Rich man in hell and Lazarus yet it seemes unlikely to me that Christ would teach them by such a Parable as seemed evidently to intimate and suppose the souls happiness or misery presently after death if there were no such matter 5. Doth not his Argument against the Sadduces for the Resurrection run upon this supposition That God being not the God of the dead but of the living therefore Abraham Isaac and Jacob were then living i. e. in soul and consequently should have their bodies raised at the Resurrection 6. Plain also is that in the Revelations chap. 14. vers 13. Blessed are the dead that dye in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the Spirit that they may Rest from their labors and their works do follow them i. e. close as the garments on a mans back follow him and not at such a distance as the resurrection For if the blessedness were only in Râ—sting in the Grave then a beast or a stone were as blessed Nay it were evidently a curse and not a blessing For was not life a great Mercy was it not a greater mercy to enjoy all the comforts of life to enjoy the fellowship of the Saints The comfort of the ordinances And much of Christ in all To be imployed in the delightfull work of God and to edifie his Church c. Is it not a curse to be so deprived of all these Do not these yeeld a great deal more sweetness then all the troubles of this life can yeeld us bitterness Though I think not as some that it is better to be most miserable even in hell then not to be at all yet it is undeniable that it is better to enjoy life and so much of the comforts of life and so much of God in comforts and afflictions as the Saints do though we have all this with persecution then to lye rotting in the grave if that were all we could expect Therefore it is some further blessedness that is there promised 7. How else is it said That we are come to the Mount Zion the City of the living God the heavenly Jerusalem to an innumerable company of Angels to the generall Assembly and Church of the first born which are written in Heaven and to God the judge of all and to the spirits of just men made perfect Heb. 12.22 23. Sure at the Resurrection the body will be made perfect as well as the spirit To say as Lushington doth that they are said to be made perfect because they are sure of it as if they had it is an evasion to grosly contradicting the Text that by such commentaries he may as well deny any truth in Scripture To make good which he as much abuseth that of Philip. 3.12 8. Doth not Scripture tell us that Henoch and Elias are taken up already And shall we think they possess that Glory alone 9. Did not Peter and James and John see Moses also with Christ on the Mount Yet the Scripture saith Moses dyed And is it likely that Christ did delude their senses in shewing them Moses if he should not partake of that glory till the Resurrection 10. And is not that of Stephen as plain as we can desire Lord Jesus receive my spirit Sure if the Lord receive it it is neither asleep nor dead nor annihilated but it is where he is and beholds his Glory 11. The like may be said of that Eccles. 12.7 The spirit shall return to God who gave it 12. How else is it said that we have eternall life already John 6.54 and that the knowledg of God which is begun here is eternall life John 17.3 So 1. John 5.13 And he that believeth on Christ hath everlasting life John 3.36 John 6.47 He that eateth this bread shall not dye vers 50. For he dwelleth in Christ and Christ in him vers 56. And as the Son liveth by the Father so he that eateth him shall live by him vers 57. How is the Kingdom of God and of heaven which
easie conditions the Crown was tendered to them If their work had been to remove Mountains to conquer Kingdoms to fulfill the Law to the smallest tittle then the impossibility would somewhat asswage the rage of their self-accusing conscience If their conditions for heaven had been the satisfying of Justice for all their transgressions the suffering of all that the Law did lay upon them or bearing that burden which Christ was fain to bear Why this were nothing but to suffer Hell to escape hell but their conditions were of another nature The yoke was light and the burden was easie which Jesus Christ would have laid upon them his commandments were not grievous It was but to repent of their former transgressions and cordially to accept him for their Saviour and their Lord to study his will and seek his face to renounce all other happiness but that which he procureth us and to take the Lord alone for our Supream Good to renounce the government of the world and the flesh and to submit to his meek and gratious government to forsake the wayes of our own devising and to walk in his holy delightfull way to engage our selves to this by Covenant with him and to continue faithfull in that Covenant These were the tearms on which they might have enjoyed the Kingdom And was there any thing unreasonable in all this Or had they any thing to object against it Was it a hard bargain to have Heaven upon these conditions When all the price that is required is only our Accepting it in that way that the Wisdom of our Lord thinks meet to bestow it And for their want of ability to perform this it consisteth chiefly in their want of will If they were but willing they should finde that God would not be backward to assist them If they be willing Christ is much more willing O when the poor tormented wretch shall look back upon these easie tearms which he refused and compare the labour of them with the pains and loss which he there sustaineth it cannot be now conceived how it will rent his very heart Ah thinks he how justly do I suffer all this who would not be at so small cost and pains to avoid it Where was my understanding when I neglected that gratious offer When I called the Lord a hard Master and thought his pleasant service to be a bondage and the service of the Divel and my flesh to be the only delight and freedom Was I not a thousand times worse then mad when I censured the holy way of God as needless preciseness And cryed out on it as an intollerable burden When I thought the Laws of Christ too strict and all too much that I did for the life to come O what had all the trouble of duty been in comparison of the trouble that I now sustain Or all the sufferings for Christ and wel-doing in comparison of these sufferings that I must undergo for ever What if I had spent my dayes in the strictest life that ever did Saint what if I had lived still upon my knees What if I had lost my credit with men and been hated of all men for the sake of Christ and born the reproach and scorn of the foolish What if I had been imprisoned or banished or put to death O what had all this been to the miseries that I now must suffer Then had my sufferings now been all over vvhereas they do but now begin but vvill never end Would not the heaven vvhich I have lost have recompenced all my losses and should not all my sufferings have been there forgotten What if Christ had bid me do some great matter as to live in continual tears and sorrow to suffer death a hundred times over vvhich yet he did not should I not have done it How much more vvhen he said but Believe and be saved Seek my face and thy soul shall live Love me above all vvalk in my sweet and holy vvay take up thy Cross and follow me and I vvill save thee from the vvrath of God and I vvill give thee everlasting life O gracious offer O easie tearms O cursed wretch that vvould not be perswaded to accept them SECT XIII EIghthly Furthermore this also will be a most tormenting Consideration to remember what they sold their eternal welfare for and what it was that they had for heaven when they compare the value of the pleasures of sin with the value of the recompence of reward which they forsook for those pleasures how will the vast disproportion astonish them To think of a few merry hours a few pleasant cups or sweet morsels a little ease or low delight to the flesh the applauding breath of the mouth of mortal men or the possession of so much gold or earth and then to think of the everlasting glory what a vast difference between them will then appear To think This is all I had for my soul my God my hopes of â—â—lessedness It cannot possibly be expressed how these thoughts will tear his very heart Then will he exclaim against his folly O deservedly miserable wretch Did I set my soul to sale on so base a price Did I part with my God for a little dirt and dross and sell my Saviour as Judas for a little silver O for how small a matter have I parted with my Happiness I had but a dream of delight for my hopes of heaven and now I am awaked it is all vanished where are now my honors and attendance who doth applaud me or trumpet out my praises where is the Cap and Knee that was wont to do me reverence my Morsels now are turned to Gall and my Cups to Wormwood They delighted me no longer then while they were passing down when they were past my taste the pleasure perished And is this all that I have had for the inestimable treasure O what a mad exchange did I make what if I had gained all the world and lost my soul would it have been a saving match But alas how small a part of the world was it for which I gave up my part in Glory O that sinners would forethink of this when they are swimming in delights of flesh and studying how to be rich and honorable in the world when they are desperately venturing upon known transgression and sinning against the checks of Conscience SECT XIV NInthly Yet much more will it add unto their torment when they consider that all this-was their own doings and that they most wilfully did procure their own destruction Had they been forced to sin whether they would or no it would much abate the rage of their consciences Or if they were punished for another mans transgressions or if any other had been the chiefest author of their ruine But to think that it was the choice of their own will and that God had set them in so free a condition that none in the world could have forced them to sin against their
who were wilfully the meritorious cause should also be the efficient in their own sufferings and then who can they complain of but themselves and they will be no more able to cease their self-tormenting then men that we see in a deep Melancholy that will by no Arguments be taken off from their sorrows SECT VI. 6. COnsider also how that their torment will be universal not upon one part alone while the rest are free but as all have joyned in the sin so must they all partake of the torment The soul as it was the chief in sinning shall be chief in suffering and as it is of a more spiritual and excellent nature then bodies are so will its torments as far exceed our present bodily sufferings As the joys of the soul do far surpass all sensual pleasures and corporal contentments so do the pains of the soul surpass these corporal pains and as the Martyrs did triumph in the very flames because their souls were ful of joy though their bodies were in pain so though these damned creatures could enjoy all their bodily pleasures yet the souls sufferings would take away the sweetness of them all And it is not onely a soul but a sinful soul that must suffer The guilt which still remains upon it will make it fit for the wrath of God to work upon as fire will not burn except the fuel be combustible but if the wood be dry or it light upon Straw how fiercely will it burn them Why the guilt of all their former sins will be as Tinder or Gunpowder to the damned soul to make the flames of hell to take hold upon them with fury And as the soul so also the body must bear its part that body that must needs be pleased whatsoever became of its eternal safety shall new be paid for all its unlawful pleasures That body which was so carefully looked to so tenderly cherished so curiously drest that body which could not endure heat or cold or an ill smell or a loathsome sight O what must it now endure How are its haughty looks now taken down How little will those flames regard its comliness and beauty But as Death did not regard it nor the Worms regard it but as freely feed upon the face of the proud and lustful Dames and the heart of the most ambitious Lords or Princes as if they had bin but beggers or bruits so wil their tormentors then as little pitty their tenderness or reverence their Lordliness when they shall be raised from their graves to their eternal doom Those eyes which were wont to be delighted with curious sights and to feed themselves upon beauteous and comely objects must then see nothing but vvhat shall amaze and terrifie them an angry sin-revenging God above them and those Saints vvhom they scorned enjoying the Glory vvhich they have lost and about them vvill be only Devils and damned souls Ah then how sadly wil they look back and say Are all our merry Meetings our Feasts our Playes our vvanton Toyes our Christmas Games and Revels come to this Then those Eares vvhich vvere vvont to be delighted vvith Musick shall hear the shriekes and cries of their damned companions Children crying out against their Parents that gave them incouragement and example in evil but did not teach them the fear of the Lord Husbands crying out upon their Wives and Wives upon their Husbands Masters and Servants cursing each other Ministers and People Magistrates and Subjects charging their misery upon one another for discouraging in Duty conniving at sin and being silent or formal when they should have plainly told one another of their misery and forewarned them of this danger Thus will Soul and Body be companions in Calamity SECT VII 7. ANd the greater by far will their Torments be because they shall have no one comfort left to help to mitigate them In this life when a Minister foretold them of Hel or Conscience begun to trouble their peace they had Comforters enough at hand to relieve them Their carnal friends were all ready to speak comfort to them and promise them that all should be well with them but now they have not a word of comfort either for him or themselves Formerly they had their business their company their mirth to drive away their fears they could drink away their sorrows or play them away or sleep them away or at least time did wear them away but now all these remedies are vanished They had a hard a presumptuous unbelieving heart which was a wall to defend them against troubles of minde but now their experience hath banished these and left them naked to the fury of those flames Yea formerly Satan himself was their comforter and would unsay all that the Minister said against them as he did to our first Mother Hath God said Ye shall not eat Yea shall not surely dye So doth he now Doth God tell you that you shall lye in Hell It is no such matter God is more merciful he doth but tell you so to fright you from sinning Who would lose his present pleasures for fear of that which he never saw Or if there be a hell what need you to fear it Are not you Christians And shall you not be saved by Christ was not his blood shed for you Ministers may tell you what they please they delight to fear men that they may be masters in their Consciences and therefore would make men believe that they shall all be damned except they will fit themselves to their precise humor Thus as the Spirit of Christ is the Comforter of the Saints so Satan is the Comforter of the wicked for he knows if he should now disquiet them they would no longer serve him or if fears and doubts should begin to trouble them they would bethink themselves of their danger and so escape it never was a theif more careful lest he should awake the people when he is robbing the house then Satan is careful not to awake a sinner And as a cutpurse will look you in the face and hold you in a tale that you may never suspect him while he is robbing your pockets so will Satan labour to keep men from all doubts or jealousies or sorrowfull thoughts But when the sinner is dead and he hath his prey and his stratagem hath had success then he hath done flattering and comforting them VVhile the sight of sin and misery might have helped to save them he took all the pains he could to hide it from their eyes but when it is too late and there is no hope left he will make them see and feel it to the utmost O which way will the forlorn sinner then look for comfort They that drew him into the snare and promised him safety do now forsake him and are forsaken themselves His ancient comforts are taken from him and the righteous God whose forewarnings he made light of will now make good his word against him to the least
more consist then in meats or drinks or Questions about the Law or Genealogies Siâ—s shall we who are Brethren fall out by the way home and spend so much of our time about the smaller matâ—ers which thousands have been saved without but never any onâ— saved by them while Christ and our Eternal Rest are almost forgotten The Lord pardon and heal the folly of his People CHAP. VII The third Vse Perswading all men to try their Title to this Rest And Directing them how to try that they may know SECT I. I Now proceed to the third Use which we shall raise hence and because it is of exceeding great importance to thy Soul I intreat thee to read it the more diligently and weigh it the more seriously Is there such a Glorious Rest so neer at hand and shall none enjoy it but the People of God What mean the most of the world then to live so contentedly without assurance of their interest in this Rest and to neglect the trying of their title to it When the Lord hath so fully opened the Blessedness of that Kingdom which none but a little flock of obedient Beleevers shall possess and so fully expressed those torments which all the rest of the world must eternally suffer a man would think now That they that beleeve this to be certainly true should never be at any quiet in themselves till they knew which of these must be their own state and were fully assured that they were Heirs of the Kingdom Most men that I meet with say they beleeve this Word of God to be true How then can they sit still in such an utter uncertainty whether ever they shall live in Rest or not One would think they should run up and down from Minister to Minister enquiring How shall I know whether I shall live in Heaven or Hell and that they should even think themselves half in Hell till they were sure to scape it and to be possessed of Rest. Lord what a wonderful strange madness is this that men who look dayly when sickness summons them and death calls them away and know they must presently enter upon unchangeable Joy or Pain should yet live as uncertain what shall be their doom as if they had never heard of any such State yea and live as quietly and as merrily in this uncertainty as if all were made sure and nothing ailed them and there were no danger Are these men alive or dead Are they waking or are they asleep What do they think on Where are their hearts If they have but a weighty Suit at Law how careful are they to know whether it will go with them or against them If they were to be tryed for their lives at an earthly Judicature how careful would they be to know whether they should be saved or condemned especially if their care might surely save them If they be dangerously sick they will enquire of the Physician What think you Sir shall I scape or no But for the business of their Salvation they are content to be uncertain If you ask most men a reason of their hopes to be saved they will say it is because God is merciful and Christ dyed for sinners and the like general reasons which any man in the world may give as well as they But put them to prove their special interest in Christ and in the special saving Mercy of God and they can say nothing to the purpose at all or at least nothing out of their hearts and experience but only out of their reading or invention Men are desirous to know all things save God and themselves They will travel over Sea and Land to know the scituation of Countries and the Customs of the World They will go to Schools and Universities and turn over multitudes of books and read and study from year to year to know the creatures and to be excellent in the Sciences They will go apprentice seven years to learn a trade which they may live by here And yet they never read the book of Conscience nor study the state of their own Souls that they may make sure of living for ever If God should ask them for their Souls as he did Cain for his brother Abel they could return but such an Answer as he did If God or man should say to them What case is thy Soul in man Is it regenerate and sanctified and pardoned or no Is it in a state of life or a state of death He would be ready to say I know not Am I my Souls keeper I hope well I trust God with my Soul and trouble not my self with any such thoughts I shall speed as well as other men do and so I will put it to the venture I thank God I never made any doubt of my Salvation Answ. Thou hast the more cause to doubt a great deal because thou never didst doubt and yet more because thou hast been so careless in thy confidence What do these expressions discover but a wilful neglect of thy own Salvation As a ship-master that should let his Vessel alone and mind other matters and say I will venture it among the rocks and sands and gulfs and waves and winds I will never trouble my self to know whether it shall come safe to the harbor I will trust God with it it will speed as well as other mens Vessels do Indeed as well as other mens that are as careless and Idle but not so well as other mens that are diligent and watchful What horrible abuse of God is this for men to pretend that they trust God with their Souls for to cloak their own wilful negligence If thou didst truly Trust God thou wouldst also be ruled by him and trust him in that way which he hath appointed thee and upon those terms which he hath promised to help thee on He requires thee to give all Diligence to make thy Calling and Election sure and so to trust him 2 Pet. 1.10 He hath lined thee out a way in Scripture by which thou mayst come to be sure and charged thee to search and try thy self till thou certainly know Were he not a foolish traveller that would hold on his way when he doth not know whether it be right or wrong and say I hope I am right I will not doubt of it I will go on and trust God Art not thou guilty of this folly in in thy travels to Eternity Not considering that a little â—erious enquiry and tryal whether thy way be right might save thee a great deal of labour which thou bestowest in vain and must undo again or else thou wilt miss of Salvation and undo thy self If thou shouldst see a man in despair or that were certain to be damned for ever when he is dead wouldst not thou look upon such a man as a pitiful object Why thou that livest in wilful uncertainty and dost not know whether thou shalt be saved or no art in the next condition to such a person
thither and that were wont to despise their counsel that bid them Try and make sure And to say They made no doubt of their Salvation 2. Yea and many that have excelled in worldly wisdom yet have been befooled in this great business and they that had wit to deceive their neighbours were yet deceived by Satan and their own hearts Yea men of strongest head-pieces and profoundest learning who knew much of the secrets of Nature of the courses of the Planets and motions of the Spheres have yet been utterly mistaken in their own hearts 3. Yea Those that have lived in the clear light of the Gospel and heard the difference between the Righteous and the Wicked plainly laid open and many a Mark for Tryal laid down and and many a Sermon pressing them to Examine and directing them how to do it yet even these have been and dayly are deceived 4. Yea those that have had a whole life's time to make sure in and have been told over and over that they had their lives for no other end but to provide for Everlasting Rest and make sure of it have yet been deceived and have wasted that life-time in forgetful security 5. Yea those that have Preached against the negligence of others and pressed them to Try themselves and shewed them the danger of being mistaken have yet proved mistaken themselves And is it not then time for us to rifle our hearts and search them to the very quick SECT III. 2. TO be mistaken in this great Point is also very Common as well as easie So common that it is the case of most in the world In the old world we find of none that were in any fear of Judgement and yet how few persons were not deceived So in Sodom So among the Jews And I would it were not so in England Almost all men amongst us do verily look to be saved You shall scarce speak with one of a thousand that doth not And yet Christ telleth us That few find the strait gate and narrow way that leads to Life Do but reckon up the several sorts of men that are mistaken in thinking they have title to Heaven as the Scripture doth enumeraâ—e them and what a multitude will they prove 1. All that are ignorant of the Fundamentals of Religion 2. All Heretick who maintain false doctrines against the Foundation or against the necessary means of Life 3. All that live in the practice of gross sin 4. Or that love and regard the smallest sin 5. All that harden themselves against frequent reproof Prov. 29.1 6. All that minde the Flesh more then the Spirit Rom. 8.6.7.13 Or the world more then God Phil. 3.18 19. 1 John 2.15.16 7. All that do as the most do Luk. 13.23 24 25. 1 John 5.19 8. All that are deriders at the Godly and discourage others from the way of God by their reproaches Pro. 1.22 c. 3.34 19.29 9. All that are unholy And that never were Regenerate and born anew 10. All that have not their very hearts set upon Heaven Mat. 6.21 11. All that have a Form of Godliness without the Power 12. And all that love either parents or wife or children or house or lands or life more then Christ. Luk. 14.26 Every on of these that thinketh he hath any Title to Heaven is as surely mistaken as the Scripture is true And if such multitudes are deceived should not we search the more diligently lest we should be deceived as well as they SECT IV. 3. NOthing more dangerous then to be thus mistaken The Consequents of it are lamentable and desperate If the Godly be mistaken in judging their state to be worse then it is the consequents of this mistake will be very sad But if the ungodly be mistaken the Danger and Mischief that followeth is unspeakable 1. It will exceedingly confirm them in the service of Satan and fasten them in their present way of death They will never seek to be recovered as long as they think their present state may serve As the Prophet saith Isa. 44.20 A deceived heart will turn them aside that they cannot deliver their own soul nor say Is there not a lye in my right hand 2. It will take away the efficacy of means that should do them good Nay it will turn the best means to their hardening and ruine If a man mistake his bodily disease and think it to be clean contrary to what it is will he not apply contrary remedies which will increase it So when a Christian should apply the Promises his mistake will cause him to apply the threatenings and when an ungodly man should apply the Threatenings and Terrors of the Lord this mistake of his estate will make him apply the promises And there is no greater strengthener of sin and destroyer of the soul then Scripture misapplyed Wordly delights and the deceiving words of sinners may harden men most desperately in an unsafe way But Scripture misapplied will do it far more effectually and dangerously 3. It will keep a man from compassionating his own soul. Though he be a sad object of pity to every understanding man that beholdeth him yet will he not be able to pity himself because he knoweth not his own misery As I have seen a Physician lament the case of his Patient when he hath discerned his certain death in some small beginning when the Patient himself feared nothing because he knew not the mortal nature of his disease So doth many a Minister or godly Christian lament the case of a carnal wretch who is so far from lamenting it himself that he scorns their pity and biddeth them be sorry for themselves they shall not answer for him and taketh them for his enemies because they tell him the truth of his danger As a man that seeth a beast going to the slaughter doth pity the poor creature when it cannot pity it self because it little thinketh that death is so neer So is it with these poor siners and all long of this mistaking their Spiritual state Is it not a pitiful sight to see a man laughing himself when his understanding friends stand weeping for his misery Paul mentioneth the voluptuous men of his time and the worldlings with weeping but we never read of their weeping for themselves Christ standeth weeping over Jerusalem when they know not of any evil that was towards them nor give him any thanks for his pity or his tears 4. It is in a case of greatest moment and therefore mistaking must needs be most dangerous If it were in making an ill bargain yet we might repair our loss in the next Scipio was wont to say It was an unseemly absurd thing in Military cases to say I had not thought or I was not aware The matter being of so great concernment every danger should be thought of that you may be aware Sure in this weighty case where our everlasting Salvation or
Damnation is in Question and to be determined every mistake is insufferable and inexcusable which might have been prevented by any cost or pains Therefore men will chuse the most able Lawyers and Physicians because the mistakes of one may lose them their Estates and the mistakes of the other may lose them their lives But mistakes about their Souls are of a higher nature 5. If you should continue your mistakes till death there will be no time after to correct them for your recovery Mistake now and you are undone for ever Men think to see a man dye quietly or comfortably is to see him dye happily But if his comfort proceed from this mistake of his condition it is the most unhappy case and pittiful sight in the world To live mistaken in such a case is lamentable but to dye mistaken is desperate Seeing then that the case is so dangerous what wise man would not follow the search of his heart both night and day till he were assured of his safety SECT V. 4. COnsider how small the labour of this duty is in comparison of the sorrow which followeth its neglect A few hours or days work if it be closely followed and with good direction may do much to resolve the Question There is no such trouble in searching our hearts nor any such danger as may deter men from it what harm can it do to you to Try or to know It will take up no very long time Or if it did yet you have your time given you for that end One hour so spent will comfort you more then many otherwise If you cannot have while to make sure of heaven how can you have while to eat or drink or live You can endure to follow your callings at Plow and Cart and Shop to toil and sweat from day to day and year to year in the hardest labours And cannot you endure to spend a little time in inquiring what shall be your everlasting state What a deal of sorrow and after-complaining might this small labour prevent How many miles travel besides the vexation may a Traveller save by inquiring of the way Why what a sad case are you in while you live in such uncertainty You can have no true comfort in any thing you see or hear or possess You are not sure to be an hour out of Hell And if you come thither you will do nothing but bewail the folly of this neglect No excuse will then pervert Justice or quiet your Conscience If you say I little thought of this day and place God and Conscience may reply why did'st thou not think of it Wast thou not warned Had'st thou not time Therefore must thou perish because thou wouldest not think of it As the Commander answered his Souldier in Plutarch when he said non volens erravi I erred against my will he beat him and replied non volens poenas dato Thou shalt be punished also against thy will SECT VI. 5. THou canst scarce do Satan a greater pleasure nor thy self a greater injury It is the main scope of the Devil in all his Temptations to deceive thee and keep the ignorant of thy danger till thou feel the everlasting flames upon thy soul And wilt thou joyn with him to deceive thy self If it were not by this deceiving thee he could not destroy thee And if thou do this for him thou dost the greatest part of his work and art the chief destroyer and Devil to thy self And hath he deserved so well of thee and thy self so ill that thou shouldst assist him in such a design as thy damnation To deceive another is a grievous sin and such as perhaps thou wouldst scorn to be charged with And yet thou thinkest it nothing to deceive thy self Saith Solomon As a mad man who casteth fire-brands arrows and death So is the man that deceiveth his neighbour and saith Am not I in sport Surely then he that maketh but a sport or a matter of nothing to deceive his own soul may well be thought a mad man casting fire-brands and death at himself If any man think himself to be something when he is nothing he deceiveth himself saith Paul Gal. 6.3 Certainly among all the multitudes that perish this is the commonest cause of their undoing that they would not be brought to Try their state in time And is it not pity to think that so many thousands are merrily travelling to destruction and do not know it and all for want of this diligent search SECT VII 6. THE time is neer when God will search you And that will be another kind of Tryal then this If it be but in this life by the fiery tryal of affliction it will make you wish again and again that you had spared God that work and your selves the sorrow and that you had Tryed and Judged your selves that so you might have escaped the Tryal and Judgment of God He will Examine you then as officers do offenders with a word and a blow and as they would have done by Paul Examine him by scourging It was a terrible voyce to Adam when God calls to him Adam where art thou hast thou eaten c and to Cain when God asketh him Where is thy brother To have demanded this of himself had been easier Men think God mindeth their state and ways no more then they do their own They consider not in their hearts saith the Lord Hos. 7.2 that I remember all their wickedness now their own doings have beset them about they are before my face Oh what a happy preparation would it be to that last and great Tryal if men had but throughly Tryed themselves and made sure work before-hand When a man doth but soberly and believing think of that day especially when he shall see the Judgment set what a Joyful preparation is it if he can truly say I know the sentence shall pass on my side I have Examined my self by the same Law of Christ which now must Judg me and I have â—ound that I am quit from all my guilt and am a Justified person in Law already Oh Sirs if you knew but the comfort of such a preparation you would fall close to the work of Self-Examining yet before you slept SECT VIII 7. LAstly I desire thee to Consider What would be the sweet effects of this Examining If thou be upright and Godly it will lead thee straight toward Assurance of Gods Love If thou be not though it will trouble thee at the present yet doth it tend to thy happiness and will lead thee to Assurance of that happiness at length 1. The very Knowledg it self is naturally desireable Every man would fain know things to come especially concerning themselves If there were a book written which would tell every man his destiny what shall befall him to his last breath how desirous would people be to procure it and read it How did Nebuchadnezzars thoughts run on things that after should come
thou hast a building with God not made with hands Eternal in the Heavens 2 Cor. 5.1 2. It would therefore better become thee earnestly to groan desiring to be cloathed upon with that house Is thy flesh any better then the flesh of Noah was And yet though God saved him from the common deluge he would not save him from common death Or is it any better then the flesh of Abraham or Job or David or all the Saints that ever lived Yet did they all suffer and dye Dost thou think that those Souls which are now with Christ do so much pity their rotten or dusty corps or lament that their ancient habitation is ruined and their oneâ— comely bodies turned into earth Oh what a thing is strangeness and disacquaintance It maketh us afraid of our dearest friends and to draw back from the place of our only happiness So was it with thee towards thy chiefest friends on earth While thou wast unacquainted with them thou didst withdraw from their society but when thou didst once know them throughly thou wouldst have been loath again to be deprived of their fellowship And even so though thy strangeness to God another world do make thee loath to leave this flesh yet when thou hast been but one day or hour there if we may so speak of that Eternity where is neither day nor hour thou wouldst be full loath to return into this flesh again Doubtless when God for the Glory of his Son did send back the Soul of Lazarus into its body he caused it quite to forget the Glory which it had enjoyed and to leave behind it the remembrance of that happiness together with the happiness it self Or else it might have made his life a burden to him to think of the blessedness that he was fetched from and have made him ready to break down the prison doors of his flesh that he might return to that happy state again Oh then impatient Soul murmur not at Gods dealings with that body but let him alone with his work and way He knows what he doth but so dost not thou He seeth the End but thou seest but the beginning If it were for want of love to thee that he did thus chastise thy body then would he not have dealt so by all his Saints Dost thou not think he did not love David and Paul or Christ himself Or rather doth he not chasten because he loveth and scourgeth every Son whom he receiveth Heb. 12.4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11. Believe nor the Fleshes reports of God nor its commentaries upon his Providences It hath neither Will nor Skill to interpret them aright Not Will for it is an enemy to them They are against it and it is against them Not Skill for it is darkness It savoreth only the things of the flesh but the things of the Spirit it cannot understand because they are spiritually discerned Never expect then that the flesh should truly expound the meaning of the rod. It will call Love Hatred and say God is destroying when he is saving and murmur as if he did thee wrong and used thee hardly when he is shewing thee the greatest mercy of all Are not the foul steps the way to Rest as well as the fair Yea are not thy sufferings the most necessary passages of his providence And though for the present they are not Joyous but Grievous yet in the End do they bring forth the Quiet fruits of Righteousness to all those that are exercised thereby Hast thou not found it so by former experience when yet this flesh would have perswaded thee otherwise Believe it then no more which hath mis-informed thee so oft For indeed there is no believing the words of a wicked and ignorant enemy Ill-will never speaks well But when malice viciousness and Ignorance are combined what actions can expect a true and fair interpretation This flesh will call Love Anger and Anger Hatred and Chastisements Judgments It will tell thee That no mans case is like thine and if God did Love thee he would never so use thee It will tell thee That the promises are but deceiving words and all thy prayers and uprightness is vain If it find thee sitting among the ashes it will say to thee as Jobs wife Dost thou yet retain thine integrity Job 2. 8 9 10. Thus will it draw thee to offend against God and the generation of his Children It is a party and the suffering party and therefore not fit to be the Judg. If your Child should be the Judg when and how oft you should chastise him and whether your chastisement be a token of fatherly love you may easily imagine what would be his Judgment If we could once believe God and Judg of his dealings by what he speaks in his Word and by their usefulness to our Souls and reference to our Rest and could stop our ears against all the clamours of the flesh then we should have a truer Judgment of our Afflictions SECT VII 6. LAstly Consider God doth seldom give his people so sweet a fore-taste of their Future Rest as in their deep Afflictions He keepeth his most precious cordials for the time of our greatest faintings and dangers To give such to men that are well and need them not is but to cast them away They are not capable of discerning their working on their worth A few drops of Divine Consolation in the midst of a world of pleasure and contents will be but lost and neglected as some precious spirits cast into a vessel or river of common waters The Joys of Heaven are of unspeakable sweetness But a man that overflows with earthly delights is scarce capable of tasting their sweetness They may easilier comfort the most dejected Soul then him that feeleth not any need of comfort as being full of other comforts already Even the best of Saints do seldom-taste of the delights of God and pure spiritual unmixed Joys in the time of their prosperity as they do in their deepest troubles and distress God is not so lavish of his choice favours as to bestow them unseasonably Even to his own will he give them at so fit a time when he knoweth that they are needful and will be valued and when he is sure to be thanked for them and his people rejoyced by them Especially when our sufferings are more directly for his cause then doth he seldom fail of sweetening the bitter cup. Therefore have the Martyrs been possessors of the highest Joys and therefore were they in former times so ambitious of Martyrdom I do not think that Paul and Silas did ever sing more Joyfully then when they were sore with scourgings and were fast in the inner prison with their feet in the stocks Acts 16.24 25. When did Christ preach such comforts to his Disciples and leave them his Peace and assure them of his providing them mansions with himself but when he was ready to leave them and their hearts
rich 14. Consider also the happy consequences of this work where it is faithfully done To name some 1. You may be instrumental in that blessed work of saving souls a work that Christ came down and died for a work that the Angels of God rejoyce in for saith the holy Ghost If any of you do erre from the truth and one convert him let him know that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins Jam. 5 19 20. And how can God more highly honor you then to make you instruments in so great a work 2. Such souls will bless you here and hereafter They may be angry with you at first but if your words prevail and succeed they will bless the day that ever they knew you and bless God that sent you to speak to them 3. If you succeed God will have much glory by it He will have one more to value and accept of his Son on whom Christs bloud hath attained its ends He will have one more to love him and daily worship and fear him and to do him service in his Church 4. The Church also will have gain by it There will be one less provoker of wrath and one more to strive with God against Sin and Judgment and to engage against the Sinners of the Times and to win others by Doctrine and Example If thou couldest but convert one persecuting Saul he might become a Paul and do the Church more service then ever thou didst thy self however the healing of Sinners is the surest method for preventing or removing of Judgments 5. It is the way also to the purity and flourishing of the Church and to the right erecting and executing the Discipline of Christ if men would but do what they ought with their neighbours in private what a help would it be to the success of the Publike endeavors of the Ministry and what hope might we have that daily some would be added to the Church and if any be obstinate yet this is the first course that must be taken to reclaim them who dare separate from them or excommunicate them before they have been first throughly admonished and instructed in private according to Christs Rule Matth. 18.15 16. 6. It bringeth much advantage to your selves First It will increase your graces both as it is a course that God will bless and as it is an acting of them in this perswading of others He that will not let you lose a cup of water which is given for him will not let you lose these greater works of Charity Besides those that have practised this duty most conscionably do finde by experience that they never go on more speedily and prosperously towards heaven then when they do most to help others thither with them It is not here as with worldly treasure the more you give away the less you have but here the more you give the more you have The setting forth Christ in his fulness to others will warm your own hearts and stir up your love The opening of the evil and danger of sin to others will increase your hatred of it and much engage your selves against it Secondly And it seemeth that it will increase your Glory as well as your Grace both as a duty which God will so reward For those that convert many to Righteousness shall shine as the stars for ever and ever Dan. 12.3 and also as we shall there behold them in heaven and be their associates in blessedness whom God made us here the instruments to convert Thirdly However it will give us much peace of Conscience whether we succeed or not to think that we vvere faithful and did our best to save them and that vve are clear from the bloud of all men and their perishing shall not lye upon us Fourthly Besides that is a vvork that if it succeed doth exceedingly rejoyce an honest heart He that hath any sense of Gods Honor or the least affection to the soul of his brother must needs rejoyce much at his conversion vvhosoever be the Instrument but especially vvhen God maketh our selves the means of so blessed a vvork If God make us the Instuments of any temporal good it is very comfortable but much more of eternal good There is naturally a rejoycing followeth every good work answerable to the degree of its goodness â—e that doth most good hath usually the most happy and comfortable life If men knew the pleasure that there is in doing good they vvould not seek after their pleasure so much in evil for my own part it is an unspeakable comfort to me that God hath made me an instrument for the recovering of so many from bodily diseases and saving their natural lives but all this is yet nothing to the comfort I have in the success of my labors in the conversion and confirmation of souls it is so great a joy to me that it drowneth the painfulness of my daily duties and the trouble of my daily languishing and bodily griefs and maketh all these with all oppositions and difficulties in my work to be easie and as nothing and of all the personal mercies that ever I received next to his love in Christ and to my soul I must most joyfully bless him for the plenteous success of my endeavors upon others O what fruits then might I have seen if I had been more faithful and plied the work in private and publike as I ought I know we have need to be very jealous of our deceitful hearts in this point lest our rejoycing should come from our pride and self-ascribing Naturally we would every man be in the place of God and have the praise of every good work ascribed to our selves but yet to imitate our Father in goodness and mercy and to rejoyce in that degree we attain to is the part of every childe of God I tell you therefore to perswade you from my own experience that if you did but know what a joyful thing it is to be an instrument for the converting and saving of souls you would set upon it presently and follow it night and day through the greatest discouragements and resistance Fifthly I might also tell you of the honorableness of this work but I will pass by that lest I excite your pride instead of your zeal And thus I have shewed you what should move and perswade you to this duty Let me now conclude with a word of Intreaty First to all the godly in general Secondly To some above others in particular to set upon the conscionable performance of this most excellent Work CHAP. XII An advice to some more specially to help others to this Rest prest largely on Ministers and Parents SECT I. UP then every man that hath a tongue and is a Servant of Christ and do something of this your Masters Work Why hath he given you a tongue but to speak in his Service And how can you serve
drink with Publicans and sinners but it was only to be their Physitian and not their companion Who knows but God gave you interest in them to this end that you might be means of their recovery They that will not regard the words of another will regard a brother or sister or husband or wife or neer friend Besides that the bond of friendship doth engage you to more kindness and compassion then ordinary SECT IV. 3. PHysitians that are much about dying men should in a special maner make conscience of this duty They have a treble advantage First They are at hand Secondly They are with men in sickness and dangers when the ear is more open and the heart less stubborn then in time of health He that made a scorn of godliness before well then be of another minde and hear counsel then if ever he will hear it Thirdly Besides they look upon their Physitian as a man in whose hand is their life or at least may do much to save them and therefore they will the more regardfully hear his advice O therefore you that are of this honourable profession do not think this a work besides your calling as if it belonged to none but Ministers except you think it besides your calling to be compassionate or to be Christians O help therefore to fit your patients for heaven and whether you see they are for Life or for Death teach them both how to live and to dye and give them some Physick for their souls as you do for their bodies Blessed be God that very many of the chief Physitians of this Age have by their eminent piety vindicated their profession from the common imputation of Atheism and prophaness SECT V. 4. ANother sort that have excellent advantages for this duty is men that have wealth and authority and are of great place and command in the world especially that have many that live in dependance on them O what a world of good might Gentlemen and Knights and Lords do that have a great many of Tenants and that are the leaders of the Country if they had but hearts to improve their interest and advantage Little do you that are such think of the duty that lies upon you in this Have you not all your honor and riches from God and is it not evident then that you must employ them for the best advantage of his service Do you not know who hath said that to whom men commit much from them they will expect the more You have the greatest opportunities to do good of most men in the world Your Tenants dare not contradict you lest you dispossess them or their children of their habitations They fear you more then they do God himself Your frown will do more with them then the threatnings of the Scripture They will sooner obey you then God If you speak to them for God and their souls you may be regarded when even a Minister that they fear not shall be despised If they do but see you favor the way of Godliness they will lightly counterfeit it at least to please you especially if they live within the reach of your observation O therefore as you value the honor of God your own comfort and the Salvation of souls improve your interest to the utmost for God Go visit your Tenants and neighbors houses and see whether they worship God in their families and take all opportunities to press them to their duties Do not despise them because they are poor or simple Remember God is no respecter of persons your flesh is of no better mettal then theirs nor wil the worms spare your faces or hearts any more then theirs nor will your bones or dust bear the badge of your Gentility you must all be equals when you stand in Judgment And therefore help the soul of a poor man as well as if he were a Gentleman And let men see that you excell others as much in piety heavenliness compassion and diligence in Gods work as you do in riches and honor in the world I confesse you are like to be singular if you take this course but then remember you shall be singular in glory for few great and mighty and noble are called SECT VI. 5. ANother sort that have special opportunity to this work of helping others to heaven is The Ministers of the Gospel As they have or should have more ability then others so it is the very work of their calling and every one expecteth it at their hands and will better submit to their teaching then to other mens I intend not these instructions so much to teachers as to others and therefore I shall say but little to them and if all or most Ministers among us were as faithfull and diligent as some I would say nothing But because it is otherwise let me give these two or three words of advice to my Brethren in this office 1. Be sure that the recovering and saving of souls be the main end of your studies preaching O do not propound any low and base ends to your selves This is the end of your calling let it be also the end of your endeavors God forbid that you should spend a weeks study to please the people or to seek the advancing of you own reputations Dare you appear in the Pulpit on such a business and speak for your selves when you are sent and pretend to speak for Christ Dare you spend that time and wit and parts for your selves And wast the Lords day in seeking applause which God hath set apart for himself O what notorious sacriledge is this Set out the work of God as skilfully and adornedly as you can But still let the winning of souls be your end and let all your studies and labors be serviceable thereto Let not the window be so painted as to keep out the light but alwayes Judg that the best means that most conduceth to the end Do not think that God is best served by a neat starched laced Oration But that he is the able skilful Minister that is best skilled in the art of instructing convincing perswading and so winning of souls and that is the best Sermon that is best in these When you once grow otherwise minded and seek not God but your selves God will make you the basest and most contemptible of men as you make your selves the most sinfull and wretched Hath not this brought down the Ministery of England once already It is true of your reputation as Christ saith of your lives They that will save them shall lose them O let the vigor also of your perswasions shew that you are sensible on how weighty a business you are sent O Preach with that seriousness and fervor as men that believe their own doctrine and that know their hearers must either be prevailed with or be damned What you would do to save them from Everlasting burning that do while you have the opportunity and price in your hand that
Instruments and Creatures but in secret Prayer and conversing with God immediately where no Creature interposeth how dull how heartless and weary are we Thirdly And if we lose Creatures or Means doth it not trouble us more then our loss of God If we lose but a friend or health c. all the Town will hear of it but we can miss our God and scarce bemoan our misery Thus its apparent we exceedingly make the Creature our Rest. Is it not enough that they are sweet delights and refreshing helps in our way to Heaven but they must also be made our Heaven it self Christian Reader I would as willingly make thee sensible of this sin as of any sin in the world if I could tell how to do it For the Lords greatest quarrel with us is in this point Therefore I most earnestly beseech thee to press upon thine own Conscience these following Considerations SECT II. 1. IT is gross Idolatry to make any Creature or Means our Rest. To â—ettle the Soul upon it and say Now I am well upon the bare enjoyment of the Creature what is this but to make it our god Certainly to be the Souls Rest is Gods own Prerogative And as it is palpable Idolatry to place our Rest in Riches and Honors so it is but a more spiritual and refined Idolatry to take up our Rest in excellent Means in the Churches prosperity and in its Reformation When we would have all that out of God which is to be had onely in God what is this but to turn away from him to the Creature and in our hearts to deny him when we fetch more of our comfort and delight from the thoughts of prosperity and those mercies which here we have at a distance from God then from the fore-thoughts of our everlasting Blessedness in him Nay when the thoughts of that day when we must come to God is our greatest trouble and we would do any thing in the world to escape it but our enjoyment of Creatures though absent from him is the very thing our souls desire When we had rather talk of him then come to enjoy him and had rather go many miles to hear a powerful Sermon of Christ and Heaven then to enter and possess it O what vile Idolatry is this when we dispute against Epicures Academicks and all Pagans how earnestly do we contend That God is the chief Good and the fruition of him our chief Happiness what clear Arguments do we bring to evince it but do we beleeve our selves or are we Christians in judgment and Pagans in affection or do we give our senses leave to be the chusers of our Happiness while Reason and Faith stand by O Christians how ill must our dear Lord needs take it when we give him cause to complain as sometime he did of our fellow Idolaters Jer. 50.6 That we have been lost sheep and have forgotten our Resting place When we give him cause to say Why my people can finde rest in any thing rather then in me They can finde delight in one another but none in me they can rejoyce in my Creatures and Ordinances but not in me yea in their very labors and duty they seek for rest and not in me they had rather be any where then be with me Are these their gods have these delivered and redeemed them will these be better to them then I have been or then I would be If your selves have but a wife a husband a son that had rather be any where then in your company and is never so merry as when furthest from you would you not take it ill your selves Why so must our God needs do For what do we but lay these things in one end of the balance and God in the other and foolishly in our choice prefer them before him As Elkanah said to Hannah Am not I better to thee then ten sons So when we are longing after Creatures we may hear God say Am not I better then all the Creatures to thee SECT III. 2. COnsider how thou contradictest the end of God in giving these things He gave them to help thee to him and dost thou take up with them in his stead He gave them that they might be comfortable refreshments in thy journey and wouldst thou now dwell in thy Inn and go no further Thou dost not onely contradict God herein but losest that benefit which thou mightest receive by them yea and makest them thy great hurt and hinderance Surely it may be said of all our Comforts and all Ordinances and the blessedst enjoyments in the Church on Earth as God said to the Israelites of his Ark Numb 10.33 The Ark of the Covenant went before them to search out for them a Resting place So do all Gods mercies here They are not that Rest as John professeth he was not the Christ but they are voices crying in this Wilderness to bid us prepare for the Kingdom of God our true Rest is at hand Therefore to Rest here were to turn all Mercies clean contrary to their own ends and our own advantages and to destroy our selves with that which should help us SECT IV. 3. COnsider whether it be not the most probable way to cause God either first to deny these Mercies which we desire or secondly to take from us those which we do enjoy or thirdly to imbitter them at least or curse them to us Certainly God is no where so jealous as here If you had a servant whom your own wife loved better then she did your self would you not both take it ill of such a wife and rid your house of such a servant You will not suffer your childe to use a knife till he have wit to do it without hurting him Why so if the Lord see you begin to settle in the world and say Here I will rest no wonder if he soon in his jealously unsettle you If he love you no wonder if he take that from you wherewith he sees you about to destroy your selves It hath been my long observation of many That when they have attempted great works and have just finished them or have aimed at great things in the world and have just obtained them or have lived in much trouble and unsettlement and have just overcome them and begin with some content to look upon their condition and rest in it they are usually neer to death or ruine You know the story of the fool in the Gospel When a man is once at this language Soul take thy ease or rest the next news usually is Thou fool this night or this moneth or this yeer shall they require thy soul and then whose shall these things be O what house is there where this fool dwelleth not Dear Christian friends you to whom I have especially relation Let you and I consider whether this be not our own case Have not I after such an unsettled life and after almost five yeers living in the weary condition
If God were not more willing of our company then we are of his how long should we remain thus distant from him And as we had never been sanctified if God had stayed till we were willing so if he should refer it wholly to our selves it would at least be long before we should be glorified I confesse that Death of it self is not desirable but the souls Rest with God is to which death is the common passage And because we are apt to make light of this sin and to plead our common nature for to patronize it let me here set before you its aggravations and also propound some further considerations which may be useful to you and my self against it SECT II. ANd first consider What a deal of gross infidelity doth lurk in the bowels of this sin Either paganish unbelief of the truth of that eternal blessedness and of the truth of the Scripture which doth promise it to us or at least a doubting of our own interest or most usually somewhat of both these And though Christians are usually most sensible of the latter and therefore complain most against it yet I am apt to suspect the former to be the main radicall master sin and of greatest force in this business O if we did but verily believe that the promise of this glory is the word of God and that God doth truly mean as he speaks and is fully resolved to make it good if we did verily believe that there is indeed such blessedness prepared for believers as the Scripture mentioneth sure we should be as impatient of living as we are now fearful of dying and should think every day a yeer till our last day should come We should as hardly refrain from laying violent hands on our selvs or from the neglecting of the means of our health and life as we do now from overmuch carefulness and seeking of life by unlawful means If the eloquent oration of a Philosopher concerning the souls immortality and the life to come could make his affected hearer presently to cast himself head long from the rock as impatient of any longer delay what would a serious Christians belief do if Gods Law against self murder did not restrain Is it possible that we can truly believe that death will remove us from misery to such glory and yet be loth to dye If it were the doubts of our own interest which did fear us yet a true belief of the certainty and excellency of this Rest would make us restless till our interest be cleared If a man that is desperately sick to day did believe he should arise sound the next morning or a man to day in despicable poverty had assurance that he should to morrow arise a prince would they be afraid to go to bed Or rather think it the longest day of their lives till that desired night and morning come The truth is though there is much faith and Christianity in our mouths yet there is much infidelity and paganisme in our hearts which is the maine cause that we are so loth to dye SECT III 3. ANd as the weakness of our Faith so also the coldness of our Love is exceedingly discovered by our unwillingness to dye Love doth desire the neerest conjunction the fullest fruition and closest communion Where these desires are absent there is only a naked pretence of Love He that ever felt such a thing as Love working in his brest hath also felt these desires attending it If we love our friend we love his company his presence is comfortable his absence is troublesome when he goes from us we desire his return when he comes to us we entertain him with welcome and gladness when he dyes we mourn and usually over-mourn to be separated from a faithful friend is to us as the renting of a member from our bodyes And would not our desires after God be such if we really loved him Nay should it not be much more then such as he is above all friends most lovely The Lord teach us to look closely to our hearts and take heed of self-deceit in this point For certainly what ever we pretend or conceit if we love either Father Mother Husband Wife Childe Friend Wealth or life more then Christ we are yet none of his sincere Disciples When it comes to the tryall the question will not be Who hath preached most or heard most or talked most but who hath loved most when our account is given in Christ will not take Sermons Prayers Fastings no nor the giving of our goods nor the burning of our bodies in stead of love 1 Cor. 13.1 2 3 4 8 13. 16.22 Ephes. 6.24 And do we love him and yet care not how long we are from him If I be deprived of my bosom friend me thinks I am as a man in a wilderness solitary and disconsolate And is my absence from God no part of my trouble and yet can I take him for my chiefest friend If I delight but in some Garden or Walk or Gallery I would be much in it If I love my Books I am much with them and almost unweariedly poaring on them The food which I love I would often feed on the clothes that I love I would often wear the recreations which I love I would often use them the business which I love I would be much employed in And can I love God and that above all these and yet have no desires to be with him Is it not a far likelier sign of hatred then of love when the thoughts of our appearing before God are our most grievous thoughts and when we take our selves as undone because we must die and come unto him Surely I should scarce take him for an unfeigned friend who were as well contented to be absent from me as we ordinarily are to be absent from God Was it such a joy to Jacob to see the face of Joseph in Egypt and shall we so dread the sight of Christ in glory and yet say we love him I dare not conclude that we have no love at all when we are so loth to die But I dare say were our love more we should die more willingly Yea I dare say Did we love God but as strongly as a worldling loves his wealth or an ambitious man his honor or a voluptuous man his pleasure yea as a drunkard loves his swinish delight or an unclean person his bruitish lust We should not then be so exceeding loth to leave the world and go to God O if this holy flame of love were throughly kindled in our brests in stead of our pressing fears our dolorous complaints and earnest prayers against death we should joyn in Davids Wilderness-lamentations Psal. 42.1 2. As the Hart panteth after the water-brooks so panteth my soul after thee O God My soul thirsteth for God for the living God when shall I come and appear before God The truth is As our knowledg of God is exceeding
hath made this reconciliation Surely not the great Reconciler He hath told us in the world we shall have trouble and in him onely we shall have peace VVe may reconcile our selves to the world at our peril but it will never reconcile it self to us O foolish unworthy soul who hadst rather dwell in this land of darkness and rather wander in this barren wilderness then be at rest with Jesus Christ who hadst rather stay among the VVolves and daily suffer the Scorpions stings then to praise the Lord with the Hosts of Heaven If thou didst well know what Heaven is and what Earth is it would not be so SECT VI. 5. THis unwillingness to dye doth actually impeach us of high Treason against the Lord Is it not a chusing of Earth before him and taking these present things for our happiness and consequently making them our very God If we did indeed make God our God that is our End our Rest our Portion our Treasure how is it possible but we should desire to enjoy him It behoves us the rather to be fearful of this it being utterly inconsistent with saving Grace to value any thing before God or to make the Creature our highest End Many other sins foul and great may possibly yet consist with sincerity but so I am certain cannot that But concerning this I have spoke before SECT VII 6. ANd all these defects being thus discovered what a deal of dissembling doth it more over shew We take on us to believe undoubtedly the exceeding eternal weight of Glory We call God our chiefest Good and say we love Him above all and for all this we fly from Him as if it were from Hell it self would you have any man believe you when you call the Lord your onely Hope and speak of Christ as All in All and talk of the Joy that is in Presence and yet would endure the hardest life rather then dye and come unto him What self-contradiction is this to talk so hardly of the world and flesh to groan and complain of sin and suffering and yet fear no day more then that which we expect should bring our finall freedom what shameless gross dissembling is this to spend so many hours and dayes in hearing Sermons reading Books conferring with others and all to learn the way to a place which we are loth to come to To take on us all our life-time to walk towards Heaven to run to strive to fight for Heaven which we are loth to come to What apparent palpable hypocrysie is this to lye upon our knees in publike and private and spend one hour after another in prayer for that which we would not have If one should over-hear thee in thy daily devotions crying out Lord deliver me from this body of death from this sin this sickness this poverty these cares and feares how long Lord shall I suffer these and withall should hear thee praying against death can he believe thy tongue agrees with thy heart except thou have so far lost thy reason as to expect all this here or except the Papists Doctrine were true that we are able to fulfil the Law of God or our late Perfectionists are truly enlightned who think they can live and not sin but if thou know these to be undoubtedly false how canst thou deny thy gross dissembling SECT VIII 7. COnsider how do we wrong the Lord and his Promises and disgrace his ways in the eyes of the world As if we would actually perswade them to question whether God be true of his Word or no whether there be any such glory as Scripture mentions when they see those who have professed to live by Faith and have boasted of their hopes in another world and perswaded others to let go all for these hopes and spoken disgracefully of all things below in comparison of these unexpressable things above I say when they see these very men so loth to leave their hold of present things and to go to that glory which they talked and boasted of how doth it make the weak to stagger and confirm the world in their unbelief and sensuality and make them conclude sure if these Professors did expect so much glory and make so light of the world as they seem they would not themselves be so loth of a change O how are we ever able to repaiâ— the wrong which we do to God and poor souls by this scandal And what an honor to God what a strengthning to Believers what a conviction to Unbelievers would it be if Christians in this did answer their professions and chearfully welcome the news of Rest SECT IX 8. IT evidently discovers that we have been careless loyterers that we have spent much time to little purpose and that we have neglected and lost a great many of warnings Have we not had all our life time to prepare to die So many years to make ready for one hour and are we so unready and unwilling yet VVhat have we done why have we lived that the business of our lives is so much undone Had we any greater matters to minde Have we not foolishly wronged our souls in this would we have wished more frequent warnings How oft hath death entered the habitations of our neighbors how oft hath it knockt at our own doors we have first heard that such a one is dead and then such a one and such a one till our Towns have changed most of their Inhabitants And was not all this a sufficient warning to tell us that we were also Mortals and our own turn would shortly come Nay we have seen death raging in Towns and Fields so many hundred a day dead of the Pestilence so many thousands slam of the Sword and did we not know it would reach to us at last How many distempers have vexed our bodies frequent Languishings consuming Weaknesses wasting Feavers here pain and there trouble that we have been forced to receive the sentence of death and what were all these but so many Messengers sent from God to tell us we must shortly dye as if we had heard a lively voyce bidding us Delay no more but make you ready And are we unready and unwilling after all this O careless dead hearted Sinners unworthy neglecters of Gods Warnings faithless betrayers of our own souls All these hainous aggravations do lye upon this sin of unwillingness to dye which I have laid down to make it hateful to my own soul which is too much guilty of it as well as yours And for a further help to our prevailing against it I shall adjoyn these following Considerations SECT X. 1. COnsider not to dye were never to be happy To escape death were to miss of blessedness Except God should translate us as Henoch and Elias which he never did before or since If our hopeth in Christ were in this life onely we were then of all men most miserable The Epicure hath more pleasure to his Flesh then
the Christian the Drunkard the Whoremaster and the jovial Lads do swagger it out with gallantry and mirth when a poor Saint is mourning in a corner yea the very beasts of the field do eat and drink and skip play and care for nothing when many a Christian dwels with sorrows So that if you would not dye and go to heaven what would you have more then an Epicure or a beast What doth it availe us to fight with beasts as men if it were not for our hopes of a life to come Why do we pray and fast and mourn why do we suffer the contempt of the world why are we the scorn and hatred of all if it were not for our hopes after we are dead why are we Christians and not Pagans and Infidels if we do not desire a life to come why Christian wouldst thou lose thy faith and lose thy labor in all thy duties and all thy sufferings wouldst thou lose thy hope and lose all the end of thy life and lose all the blood of Christ and be contented with the portion of a worldling or a brute If thou say No to this how canst thou then be loth to dye As good old Milius said when he lay a dying and was asked whether he were willing to dye or no Illius est nolle mori qui nolit ire ad Christum A saying of Austins which he oft repeated Let him be loth to dye who is loth to be with Christ. SECT XI 2. COnsider Is God willing by death to Glorifie us and are we unwilling to dye that we may be glorified would God freely give us heaven and are we unwilling to receive it As the Prince who would have taken the lame begger into his Coach and he refused said to him Opitimè mereris qui in luto haereas Thou well deservest to stick in the dirt So may God to the refusers of Rest You well deserve to live in trouble Me thinks if a Prince were willing to make you his heir you should scarce be unwilling to accept it Sure the refusing of such a kindness must needs discover ingratitude and unworthiness As God hath resolved against them who make excuses when they should come to Christ Verily none of these that were bidden shall tast of my supper So is it just with him to resolve against us who frame excuses when we should come to Glory SECT XII 3. THe Lord Jesus was willing to come from heaven to earth for us and shall be unwilling to remove from earth to heaven for our selves and him Sure if we had been once possessed of Heaven and God should have sent â—s to earth again as he did his Son for our sakes we should then have been loth to remove indeed It was another kinde of change then ours is which Christ did freely submit unto to cloath himself with the garments of flesh and to take upon him the form of a servant to come from the bosome of the Fathers Love to bear his wrath which we should have borne Shall he come down to our hell from the height of glory to the depth of misery to bring us up to his Eternal Rest and shall we be after this unwilling Sure Christ had more cause to be unwilling he might have said What is it to me if these sinners suffer If they value their flesh above their spirits and their lusts above my Fathers Love if they needs will sell their souls for nought who is it fit should be the loser and who should bear the blame and curse Should I whom they have wronged must they wilfully transgress my Law and I undergo their deserved pain Is it not enough that I bear the trespasse from them but I must also bear my Fathers wrath and satisfie the Justice which they have wronged Must I come down from Heaven to Earth and cloth my self with humane flesh be spit upon and scorned by man and fast and weep and sweat and suffer and bleed and dye a cursed death and all this for wretched wormes who would rather hazard all they had and venture their souls and Gods favor then they would forbear but one forbiden morsel Do they cast away themselves so slightly and must I redeem them again so dearly Thus we see that Christ had much to have pleaded against his coming down for man and yet he pleaded none of this He had reason enough to have made him unwilling and yet did he voluntarily condescend But we have no reason against our coming to him except we will reason against our hopes and plead for a perpetuity of our own calamities Christ came down to fetch us up and would we have him loose his blood and labor and go away again without us Hath he bought our Rest at so dear a rate Is our inheritance purchased with the blood of God And are we after all this loth to enter Ah Sirs it was Christ and not we that had cause to be loth The Lord forgive and heal this foolish ingratitude SECT XIII 4. COnsider do we not combine with our most cruel mortal foes and jump with them in their most malitious designe while we are loth to dye and go to heaven where is the height of all their malice and what 's the scope of all temptations and what 's the divels daily business Is it not to keep our souls from God And shall we be well content with this and joyn with Satan in our desires what though it be not those eternal torments yet it s the one half of Hell which we wish to our selves while we desire to be absent from Heaven and God If thou shouldest take counsel of all thine enemies If thou shouldest beat thy brains both night and day in studying to do thy self a mischief What greater then 〈◊〉 could it possibly be To continue here on earth from God Excepting only hell it self O what sport is this to Sathan that his desires and thine should so concur That when he sees he cannot get thee to Hell he can so long keep thee out of Heaven and make thee the earnest petitioner for it thy self O gratifie not the Divel so much to thy own displeasure SECT XIV 5. DO not our daily fears of death make our lives a continual torment The fears of death as Erasmus saith being a sorer evil then death it self And thus as Paul did dye daily in regard of preparation and in regard of the necessary sufferings of his life so do we in regard of the torments and the useless sufferings which we make our selves Those lives which might be full of Joyes in the daily contemplation of the life to come and the sweet delightful thoughts of bliss how do we fill them up with terrors through all these causeless thoughts and fears Thus do we consume our own comforts and prey upon our truâ—st pleasures When we might lye down and rise up and walk abroad with our hearts full of
sea and land and no difficulty can keep them back when they think of an uncertain perishing treasure O what life then would it put into a Christians endeavors if he would frequently forethink of his everlasting Treasure We run so slowly and strive so lazily because we so little minde the prize When a Christian hath been tasting the hidden Manna and drinking of the streams of the Paradise of God what life doth this Ambrosia and Nectar put into him How fervent will his spirit be in prayer when he considers that he prayes for no less then Heaven If Henoch Elias or any of the Saints who are now in Heaven and have partaked of the vision of the living God should be sent down to the earth again to live on the tearmes as we now do would they not strive hard and pray earnestly rather then lose that blessed Rest No wonder for they would know what it is they pray for It s true we cannot know it here so throughly as they yet if we would but get as high as we can and study but that which may now be known it would strangely alter both our spirits and our duties Observe but the man who is much in heaven and you shall see he is not like other Christians There is somewhat of that which he hath seen above appeareth in all his duty and conversation Nay take but the same man immediatly when he is returned from these views of Bliss and you shall easily perceive that he excels himself as if he were not indeed the same as before If he be a Preacher how heavenly are his Sermons what clear descriptions what high expressions what savory passages hath he of that Rest If he be a private Christian what heavenly conference what heavenly prayers what a heavenly carriage hath he May you not even hear in a preachers Sermons or in the private duties of another when they have been most above When Moses had been with God in the mount he had derived so much glory from God that made his face to shine that the people could not behold him Beloved friends if you would but set upon this employment even so would it be with you men would see the face of your conversation shine and say surely he hath been with God As the body is apt to be changed into the temper of the air it breaths in and the food it lives on so will your spirits receive an alteration according to the objects which they are exercised about If your thoughts do feed on Christ and heaven you will be heavenly if they feed on Earth you will be earthly It s true a heavenly Nature goes before this heavenly imployment but yet the work will make it more heavenly There must be life before we can feed but our life is continued and increased by feeding Therefore Reader let me here inform thee That if thou lie complaining of deadness and dulness that thou canst not love Christ nor rejoyce in his Love that thou hast no life in prayer nor any other duty and yet never tryedst this quickning course or at least art careless and unconstant in it Why thou art the cause of thy own complaints thou deadest and dullest thine own heart thou deniest thy self that life which thou talkst of Is not thy life hid with Christ in God Whither must thou go but to Christ for it and whither is that but to Heaven where he is Thou wilt not come to Christ that thou maist have life If thou wouldst have light and heat why art thou then no more in the Sunshine If thou wouldst have more of that Grace which flows from Christ why art thou no more with Christ for it Thy strength is in Heaven and thy life in Heaven and there thou must daily fetch it if thou wilt have it For want of this recourse to heaven thy soul is as a candle that is not lighted and thy duties as a sacrifice which hath no fire Fetch one coal daily from this Altar and see if thy offering will not burn Light thy candle at this flame and feed it daily with Oyl from hence and see if it will not gloriously shine Keep close to this reviving fire and see if thy affections will not be warm Thou bewailest thy want of love to God and well thou maist for its a hainous crime a killing sin why lift up thy eye of Faith to Heaven behold his beauty contemplate his excellencies and see whether his amiableness will not fire thy affections and his perfect goodness ravish thy heart As the eye doth incense the sensual affections by its overmuch gazing on alluring objects so doth the eye of our Faith in meditation inflame our affections towards our Lord by the frequent gazing on that highest beauty Whoever thou art that art a stranger to this imployment be thy parts and profession never so great let me tell thee Thou spendest thy life but in trifling or idleness thou seemest to live but thou art dead I may say of thee as Seneca of idle Varia Scis latere vivere nescis Thou knowest how to lurk in idleness but how to live thou knowest not And as the same Seneca would say when he passed by that sluggards dwelling Ibi fitâ—s est Varia so may it be said of thee There lies such a one but not there lives such a one for thou spendest thy days liker to the dead then the living One of Draco's Laws to the Athenians was That he who was convict of idleness should be put to death Thou dost execute this on thy own soul whilest by thy idleness thou destroyest its liveliness Thou maist many other ways exercise thy parts but this is the way to exercise thy Graces They all come from God as their Fountain and lead to God as their ultimate End and are exercised on God as their chiefest Object so that God is their All in All. From Heaven they come and heavenly their nature is and to Heaven they will direct and move thee And as exercise maintaineth appetite strength and liveliness to the body so doth it also to the soul. Vse limbs and have limbs is the known Proverb And use Grace and Spiritual Life in these heavenly exercises and you shall finde it quickly cause their increase The exercise of your meer abilities of Speech will not much advantage your graces but the exercise of these heavenly soul exalting gifts will unconceivably help to the growth of both For as the Moon is then most full and glorious when it doth most directly face the Sun so will your souls be both in gifts and graces when you do most neerly view the face of God This will feed your tongue with matter and make you abound and overflow both in Preaching Praying and Conferring Besides the fire which you fetch from Heaven for your Sacrifices is no false or strange fire As your liveliness will be much more so will it be also more sincere A man may have a
he thinks of the Rest to which it tendeth What if the way be never so rough can it be tedious if it lead to Heaven O sweet sickness Sweet Reproaches Imprisonments or Death Which is accompanied with these tastes of our future Rest This doth keep the suffering from the soul so that it can work upon no more but our fleshly outside even as Alexipharmical Medicines preserve the heart that the contagion reach not the vital spirits Surely our sufferings trouble not the minde according to the degrees of bodily pain but as the soul is more or less fortified with this preserving Antidote Beleeve it Reader thou wilt have a doleful sickness thou wilt suffer heavily thou wilt die most sadly if thou have not at hand the foretasts of Rest. For my own part if thou regard the experience of one that hath often tryed had it not been for that little alas too little taste which I had of Rest my sufferings would have been grievous and death more terrible I may say as David Psal. 27.13 I had fainted unless I had beleeved to see the goodness of the Lord in the Land of the living And as the same David Psal. 142.4 5. I looked on my right hand and beheld but there was no man that would know me refuge failed me no man cared for my soul. I cryed unto thee O Lord I said Thou art my refuge and my portion in the Land of the living I may say of the promise of this Rest as David of Gods Law Vnless this had been my delight I had perished in mine affliction Psal. 119.92 One thing saith he I have desired of the Lord that will I seek after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to enquire in his Temple For in time of trouble he shall hide me in his Pavilion in the secret of his Tabernacle he shall hide me he shall set me up upon a rock And then shall mine head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me therefore shall I offer in that his Tabernacle sacrifices of joy and sing yea sing praises unto the Lord Psal. 27.4 5 6. Therefore as thou wilt then be ready with David to pray Be not far from me for trouble is neer Psal. 22.11 So let it be thy own chiefest care not to be far from God and Heaven when trouble is neer and thou wilt then finde him to be unto thee a very present help in trouble Psal. 46.1 Then though the figtree should not blossom neither should fruit be in the Vines the labor of the Olive should fail and the fields should yield no meat the stock should be cut off from the fold and there were no heard in the stalls Yet thou mightest rejoyce in the Lord and joy in the God of thy Salvation Hab 3.17 18. All sufferings are nothing to us so far as we have the foresight of this salvation No bolts nor bars nor distance of place can shut out these supporting joyes because they cannot confine our faith and thoughts although they may confine our flesh Christ and Faith are both Spiritual and therefore prisons and banishments cannot hinder their entercourse Even when persecution and fear hath shut the doors Christ can come in and stand in the midst and say to his Disciples Peace be unto you And Paul and Silas can be in Heaven even when they are locked up in the inner prison and their bodies scourged and their feet in the stocks No wonder if there be more mirth in their stocks then on Herods throne for there was more of Christ and Heaven The Martyrs finde more Rest in the flames then their persecutors can in their pomp and tyranny because they foresee the flames they scape and the Rest which that fiery Chariot is conveying them too It is not the place that gives the Rest but the presence and beholding of Christ in it If the Son of God will walk with us in it we may walk safely in the midst of those flames which shall devour those that cast us in Why then Christian keep thy soul above with Christ be as little as may be out of his company and then all conditions will be alike to thee For that is the best estate to thee in which thou possessest most of him The morall arguments of a Heathen Philosopher may make the burden somewhat lighter but nothing can make us soundly joy in tribulation except we can fetch our joy from Heaven How came Abraham to leave his Country and follow God he knew not whither Why because he looked for a City that hath foundations whose builder and maker is God Heb. 11.8 9 10. What made Moses chuse affliction with the people of God rather then to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season and to esteem the reproach of Christ greater riches then the treasures of Aegypt Why because he had respect to the recompence of Reward Heb. 11.24 25 26. What made him to forsake Aegypt and not to fear the wrath of the King Why he endured as seeing him who is invisible ver 27. How did they quench the violence of fire And out of weakness were made strong c. Why would they not accept deliverance when they were tortured Why they had their eye on a better Resurrection which they might obtain Yea it is most evident that our Lord himself did fetch his encouragement to sufferings from the fore-sight of his glory For to this end he both dyed and rose and revived that he might be Lord both of the dead and living Rom. 14.9 Even Jesus the author and finisher of our faith for the joy that was set before him endured the Cross despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the Throne of God Heb. 12.2 Who can wonder that pain and sorrow poverty and sickness should be exceeding grievous to that man who cannot reach to see the end Or that Death should be the King of terrors to him who cannot see the life beyond it He that looks not on the end of his sufferings as well as on the suffering it self he needs must lose the whole consolation And if he see not the quiet fruit of righteousness which it afterward yieldeth it cannot to him be joyous but grievous Heb. 12.11 This is the noble advantage of faith it can look on the means and end together This also is the reason why we oft pitty our selves more then God doth pitty us though we love not our selves so much as he doth and why we would have the Cup to pass from us when he will make us drink it up We pitty our selves with an ignorant pitty and would be saved from the Cross which is the way to save us God sees our glory as soon as our suffering and sees our suffering as it conduceth to our glory he sees our Cross and our Crown at once and therefore pittyeth us the less and
will not let us have our wils Sirs believe it this is the great reason of our mistakes impatience and censuring of God of our sadness of spirit at sickness and at death because we gaze on the evill it self but fix not our thoughts on what 's beyond it We look only on the blood and ruine and danger in our wars but God sees these with all the benefits to Souls Bodies Church State and Posterity all with one single view We see the Ark taken by the Philistines but see not their god falling before it and themselves returning it home with gifts They that saw Christ only on the Cross or in the Grave do shake their heads and think him lost but God saw him dying buryed rising glorified and all this with one view Surely faith will imitate God in this so far as it hath the glass of a promise to help it He that sees Joseph only in the pit or in the prison will more lament his case then he that sees his dignity beyond it Could old Jacob have seen so far it might have saved him a great deal of sorrow He that sees no more then the burying of the Corn under ground or the threshing the winnowing and grinding of it will take both it and the labour for lost but he that foresees its springing and increase and its making into bread for the life of man will think otherwise This is our mistake we see God burying us under ground but we foresee not the spring when we shall all revive we feel him threshing and winnowing and grinding us but we see not when we shall be served to our Masters table If we should but clearly see Heaven as the end of all Gods dealings with us surely none of his dealings could be so grievous Think of this I intreat thee Reader If thou canst but learn this way to Heaven and get thy soul acquainted there thou needest not be unfurnished of the choisest Cordials to revive thy spirits in every affliction thou knowest where to have them when ever thou wantest thou mayst have arguments at hand to answer all that the devil or flesh can say to thy discomfort Oh if God would once raise us to this life we should finde that though heaven and sin are at a great distance yet heaven and a prison or remotest banishment heaven and the belly of a Whale in the Sea heaven and a Den of Lions a consuming sickness or invading death are at no such distance But as Abraham so far off saw Christs day and rejoyced so we in our most forlorn estate might see that day when Christ shall give us Rest and therein rejoyce I beseech thee Christian for the honor of the Gospel and for the comfort of thy soul that thou be not to learn this heavenly Art when in thy greatest extremity thou hast most need to use it I know thou expectest suffering dayes at least thou lookest to be sick and dye thou wilt then have exceeding need of consolation why whence dost thou think to draw thy comforts If thou broach every other vessel none will come its only heaven that can afford thee store the place is far off the well is deep and if then thou have not wherewith to draw nor hast got thy soul acquainted with the place thou wilt finde thy self at a fearfull loss It s not an easie nor a common thing even with the best sort of men to die with Joy As ever thou wouldst shut up thy dayes in peace and close thy dying eyes with comfort dye daily live now above be much with Christ and thy own soul and the Saints about thee shall bless the day that ever thou tookst this Councell When God shall call thee to a sick bed and a grave thou shalt perceive him saying to thee as Isa. 26.20 Come my people enter into thy Chambers and shut thy doors about thee hide thy self as it were for a little moment untill the indignation be overpast It s he that with Stephen doth see heaven opened and Christ sitting at the right hand of God who will comfortably bear the storm of stones Acts 7.56 Thou knowest not yet what tryals thou mayst be called to The Clouds begin to rise again and the times to threaten us with fearfull darkness Few Ages so prosperous to the Church but that still we must be saved so as by fire 1 Cor. 3.15 and go to heaven by the old road Men that would fall if the storm should shake them do frequently meet with that which tryes them Why what wilt thou do if this should be thy case Art thou fitted to suffer imprisonment or banishment to bear the loss of goods and life How is it possible thou shouldst do this and do it cordially and chearfully except thou hast a tast of some greater good which thou lookest to gain by losing these will the Merchant throw his goods overboard till he sees he must otherwise lose his life And wilt thou cast away all thou hast before thou hast felt the sweetness of that Rest which else thou must lose by saving these Nay and it is not a speculative knowledg which thou hast got onely by Reading or Hearing of heaven which will make thee part with all to get it as a man that onely heares of the sweetness of pleasant food or reads of the melodious sounds of Musick this doth not much excite his desires but when he hath tried the one by his taste and the other by his ear then he will more lay out to get them so if thou shouldst know onely by the hearing of the ear what is the glory of the inheritance of the Saints this would not bring thee through sufferings and death but if thou take this Trying tasting course by daily exercising thy soul above then nothing will stand in thy way but thou wouldest on till thou were there though through fire and water What State more terrible then that of an Apostate when God hath told us If any man draw back his soul shall have no pleasure in him Heb. 10.38 Because they take not their pleasure in God and fill not themselves with the delights of his wayes and of his heavenly paths which drop fatness Psal. 65.11 Therefore do they prove backsliders in heart and are filled with the bitterness of their own wayes Prov. 14.14 Nay If they should not be brought to trial and so not actually deny Christ yet they are still interpretatively such because they are such in disposition and would be such in action if they were put to it I assure thee Reader for my part I cannot see how thou wilt be able to hold out to the end if thou keep not thine eye upon the recompence of reward and use not frequently to taste this cordially or the less thy diligence is in this the more doubtful must thy perseverance needs be for the Joy of the Lord is thy strength and that Joy must he fetcht from the place of thy Joy and if
thou walk without thy strength how long dost thou think thou art like to endure SECT IX 7. COnsider It is he that hath his conversation in heauen who is the profitable Christian to all about him with him you may take sweet counsel and go up to the celestial House of God When a man is in a strange Countrey far from home how glad is he of the company of one of his own Nation how delightful is it to them to talk of their Countrey of their acquaintance and the â—â—â—airs of their home why with a heavenly Christian thou maist have such discourse for he hath been there in the Spirit and can tell thee of the Glory and Rest above VVhat pleasant discourse was it to Joseph to talk with his Brethren in a strange Land and to enquire of his Father and his brother Benjamin Is it not so to a Christian to talk with his Brethren that have been above and enquire after his Father and Christ his Lord when a worldling will talk of nothing but the world and a Politician of nothing but the affairs of the State and a meer Scholar of Humane learning and a common Professor of Duties and of Christians the Heavenly man will be speaking of Heaven and the strange Glory which his Faith hath seen and our speedy and blessed meeting there I confess to discourse with able men of clear Understandings and piercing Wits about the controverted difficulties in Religion yea about some Criticisms in Languages and Sciences is both pleasant and profitable but nothing to this Heavenly discourse of a Beleever O how refreshing and savory are his expressions how his words do peirce and melt the heart how they transform the hearers into other men that they think they are in Heaven all the while How doth his Doctrine drop as the Rain and his Speech distil as the gentle Dew as the small Rain upon the tender Herb and as the showers upon the Grass while his tongue is expressing the Name of the Lord and ascribing greatness to his God Deut. 32.2 3. Is not his feeling sweet discourse of Heaven even like that box of precious oyntment which being opened to pour on the head of Christ doth fill the house with the pleasure of its perfume All that are neer may be refreshed by it His words are like the precious oyntment on Aarons head that ran down upon his beard and the skirts of his Garments Even like the dew of Hermon and as the dew that descendeth from the Celestial Mount Zion where the Lord hath commanded the blessing even life for evermore Psal. 133.3 This is the man who is as Job When the Candle of God did shine upon his head and when by his light he walked through darkness When the secret of God was upon his Tabernacle and when the Almighty was yet with him Then the ear that heard him did bless him and the eye that saw him gave witness to him Job 29.3 4 5 11. Happy the people that have a Heavenly Minister Happy the children and servants that have a Heavenly Father or Master Happy the man that hath Heavenly Associates if they have but hearts to know their happiness This is the Companion who will watch over thy ways who will strengthen thee when thou art weak who will chear thee when thou art drooping and comfort thee with the same comforts wherewith he hath been so often comforted himself 2 Cor. 1.4 This is he that will be blowing at the spark of thy Spiritual Life and always drawing thy soul to God and will be saying to thee as the Samaritan woman Come and see one that hath told me all that ever I did one that hath ravished my heart with his beauty one that hath loved our souls to the death Is not this the Christ Is not the knowledg of God and Him Eternal life Is not it the glory of the Saints to see his Glory If thou come to this mans house and sit at his Table he will feast thy soul with the dainties of Heaven thou shalt meet with a better then Plato's Philosophical feast even a taste of that feast of fat things Of wines on the lees of fat things full of marrow of wine on the lees well refined Isai. 25.6 That thy soul may be satisfied as with marrow and fatness and thou maist praise the Lord with joyful lips Psal 63.5 If thou travel with this man on the way he will be directing and quickning thee in thy Journey to Heaven If thou be buying or selling or trading with him in the world he will be counselling thee to lay out for the inestimable Treasure If thou wrong him he can pardon thee remembring that Christ hath not onely pardoned greater offences to him but will also give him this unvaluable portion If thou be angry he is meek considering the meekness of his heavenly Pattern or if he fall out with thee he is soon reconciled when he remembreth that in heaven you must be everlasting friends This is the Christian of the right stamp this is the servant that is like his Lord these be the innocent that save the Iland and all about them are the better where they dwell O Sirs I fear the men I have described are very rare even among the Religious but were it not for our own shameful negligence such men we might all be What Families what Towns what Commonwealths what Churches should we have if they were but composed of such men but that is more desirable then hopeful till we come to that Land which hath no other inhabitants save what are incomparably beyond this Alas how empty are the speeches and how unprofitable the society of all other sorts of Christians in comparison of these A man might perceive by his Divine Song and high Expressions Deut. 32. and 33. that Moses had been oft with God and that God had shewed him part of his Glory Who could have composed such spiritual Psalms and poured out praises as David did but a man after Gods own heart and a man that was neer the heart of God and no doubt had God also neer his heart Who could have preached such spiritual Doctrine and dived into the precious mysteries of Salvation as Paul did but one who had been called with a light from heaven and had been rapt up into the third heavens in the Spirit and there had seen the unutterable things If a man should come down from heaven amongst us who had lived in the possession of that blessed State how would men be desirous to see or hear him and all the Countrey far and neer would leave their business and crowd about him happy would he think himself that could get a sight of him how would men long to hear what reports he would make of the other world and what he had seen and what the blessed there enjoy would they not think this man the best companion and his discourse to be of all most profitable Why sirs Every true
known duties either publike private or secret Art thou a slave to thine appetite in eating or â—rinking or to any other commanding sense Art thou a proud Seeker of thine own esteem and a man that must needs have mens good opinion or else thy minde is all in a combustion Art thou a wilfully peevish and passionate person as if thou wert made of Tinder or Gun powder ready to take fire at every word or every wry look or every supposed sleighting of thee or every neglect of a complement or curtesie Art thou a knowing deceiver of others in thy dealing or one that hast set thy self to rise in the world not to speak of greater sins which all take notice of If this be thy case I dare say Heaven and thy Soul are very great strangers I dare say thou art seldom in Heart with God and there is little hope it should ever be better as long as thou continuest in these transgressions These beams in thine eyes will not suffer thee to look to Heaven these will be a cloud between thee and God When thou dost but attempt to study Eternity and to gather comforts from the life to come thy sin will presently look thee in the face and say These things belong not to thee How shouldst thou take comfort from Heaven who takest so much pleasure in the lusts of thy flesh O how this will damp thy joyes and make the thoughts of that day and state to become thy trouble and not thy delight Every wilful sin that thou livest in will be to thy comforts as water to the fire when thou thinkest to quicken them this will quench them when thy heart begins to draw neer to God this will presently come in thy minde and cover thee with shame and fill thee with doubting Besides which is most to the point in hand it doth utterly indispose thee and disable thee to this work When thou shouldst wind up thy heart to Heaven alas it s byassed another way it is intangled in the lusts of the flesh and can no more ascend in Divine Meditation then the bird can flie whose wings are clipt or that is intangled in the Lime-twigs or taken in the snare Sin doth cut the very sinews of the soul therefore I say of this heavenly life as Master Bolton saith of Prayer Either it will make thee leave sinning or sin will make thee leave it and that quickly too For these cannot continue together If thou be here guilty who readest this I require thee sadly to think of this folly O man what a life dost thou lose and what a life dost thou chuse what daily delights dost thou sell for the swinish pleasure of a stinking lust what a Christ what a glory dost thou turn thy back upon when thou art going to the embracements of thy hellish pleasures I have read of a Gallant addicted to uncleanness who at last meeting with a beautiful Dame and having enjoyed his fleshly desires of her found her in the morning to be the dead body of one that he had formerly sinned with which had been acted by the devil all night and left dead again in the morning Surely all thy sinful pleasures are suche The devil doth animate them in the darkness of the night but when God awakes thee at the farther at death the deceit is vanished and nothing left but a carkass to amaze thee and be a spectacle of horror before thine eyes Thou thinkest thou hast hold of some choice delight but it will turn in thy hand as Moses rod into a Serpent and then thou wouldst fain be rid of it if thou knewest how and wilt â—â—ie from the face of it as thou dost now embrace it And shall this now dream thee from the high delights of the Saints If Heaven and Hell can meet together and if God can become a lover of sin theâ—â— maist them live in thy sin and in the tastes of glory and maist have a conversation in Heaven though thou cherish thy corruption If therefore thou finde thy self guilty never doubt on it but this is the cause that estrangeth thee from Heaven And take heed least it keep out thee as it keeps out thy heart and do not say but thou wast bid Take heed Yea if thou be a man that hitherto hast escaped and knowest no raigning sin in thy soul yet let this warning move thee to prevention and stir up a dread of this danger in thy spirit As Huâ—nius writes of himself That hearing the mention of the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost it stirred up such fears in his spirit that made him cry out What if this should be my case and so rouzed him to prayer and tryal So think thou though thou yet be not guilty what a sad thing it were if ever this should prove thy case And therefore watch SECT II. 2. A Second hinderance carefully to be avoided is An Earthly minde For you may easily conceive that this cannot stand with an Heavenly minde God and Mammon Earth and Heaven cannot both have the delight of thy heart This makes thee like Anselmne's Bird with a stone tyed to the foot which as oft as she took flight did pluck her to the Earth again If thou be a man that hast fancied to thy self some content or happiness to be found on Earth and beginnest to taste a sweetness in gain and to aspire after a fuller and a higher estate and hast hatched some thriving projects in thy brain and art driving on thy rising design Beleeve it thou art marching with thy back upon Christ and art posting apace from this Heavenly life Why hath not the World that from thee which God hath from the Heavenly When he is blessing himself in his God and rejoycing in hope of the glory to come then thou art blessing thy self in thy prosperity and rejoycing in hope of thy thriving here When he is solacing his soul in the views of Christ of the Angels and Saints that he shall live with for ever then art thou comforting thy self with thy wealth in looking over thy Bills and Bonds in viewing thy Money thy Goods thy Cattel thy Buildings or large Possession and art recreating thy minde in thinking of thy hopes of the favor of some great ones on whom thou dependest of the pleasantness of a plentiful and commanding state of thy larger provision for thy children after thee of the rising of thy house or the obeisance of thine inferiors Are not these thy morning and evening thoughts when a gracious soul is above with Christ Dost thou not delight and please thy self with the daily rolling these thoughts in thy minde when a gracious soul should have higher delights If he were a fool by the sentence of Christ that said Soul take thy rest thou hast enough laid up for many yeers What a fool of fools art thou that knowing this yet takest not warning but in thy heart speakest the same words Look them over seriously and
of knowing right evidences to try by so much as for want of skil and diligence in using them so have I seldom known a Christian that wants the joyes of this heavenly Life for want of being told the means to get it but for want of a heart to set upon the work and painfully to use the means they are directed to It is the field of the slothful that is overgrown with weeds Pro. 24.30 31 32 33 34. And the desires of the slothful killeth his Joyes because his hands refuse to labor Prov. 21.25 whiles he lyes wishing his soul lyes starving He saith There is a Lyon there 's difficulty in the way and turneth himself on the bed of his ease as a nor turneth on the hinges he bideth his hand in his bosome and it grâ—â—veth him to bring it to his 〈◊〉 though it be â—o feed himself with the food of life Prov. 26â— 13 14 15 16. what 's this bâ—â— espising the feast prepared and setting light by the dearâ—bough pleasures and consequently by the pretious blood that bough them and throwing away our own consolations For the Sâ—rit hath told us That he also that is slothful in his work is broâ—â—â—r to him that is a great waster Prov. 18.9 Apply this to thâ— spiritual Work and study well the meaning of it SECT VII 7. IT s alo a dangerous and secret hinderance to content our selâ—es with the meer preparatives to this heavenly Life while we are â—tter strangers to the life it self when we take up with the meer studies of heavenly things and the notions and thoughts of theâ— in our brain or the talking of them with one another as if this were all that makes us heavenly people Ther 's none in more danger of this snare then those that are much in publike duty especially Preachers of the Gospel O how easily may they be deceived here while they do nothing more then read of heaven and study of heaven and preach of heaven and pray and talk of heaven what is not this the heavenly Life O that God would reveal to our hearts the danger of this snare Alas all this is but meer preparation This is not the life we speak of but it s indeed a necessary help thereto I intreat every one of my Brethren in the Ministry that they search and watch against this Temptation Alas this is but gathering the materials and not the erecting of the building it self this is but gathering our Manna for others and not eating and digesting our selves as he that sits at home may study Geography and draw most exact descriptions of Countreys and yet never see them nor travel toward them so may you describe to others the joyes of heaven and yet never come neer it in your own hearts as a man may tell others of the sweetness of meat which he never tasted or as a blinde man by learning may dispute of light and of colours so may you study and preach most heavenly matter which yâ—â— never sweetned your own spirits and set forth to others that heavenly Light wherewith your own souls were never illightened and bring that fire for the hearts of your people that never once warmed your own hearts If you should study of nothing but heaven while you lived and preach of nothing but heaven to your people yet might your own hearts be strangers to it What heavenly passages had Balaam in his Prophesies yet little of it its like in his spirit Nay we are under a more subtil temptation then any other men to draw us from this heavenly life If our imployments did lye at a greater distant from heaven and did take up our thoughts upon worldly things we should not be so apt to be so contented and deluded but when we finde our selves imployed upon nothing else we are easier drawn to take up here Studying and preaching of heaven is likes to an heavenly Life then thinking and talking of the world is and the likeness is it that is like to deceive us This is to dye the most miserable death even to famish our selves because we have bread on our tables which is worse then to famish when we cannot get it and to die for thirst while we draw water for others thinking it enough that we have daily to do with it though we never drink it to our souls refreshing All that I will say to you more of this shall be in the words of my godly and â—udicious friend Mr. George Aâ—â—ot which I will transcribe lest you have not the Book at hand in his Vindiciae Sabathi pag. 147 148 149. And here let me in a holy Jealousâ—e annex an Exhortation to some of the Ministers of this Land for blessed be God it needs not to all that they would carefully provide and look that they do not build the Tabernacle on the Lords Day I mean that they rest not in the Opus operatum of their holy imployments and busying themselves about the carnall part of holy things in putting off the studying of their Sermons or getting them by heart except it be to work them upon the heart and not barely commit them to memory till that day and so though they take care to build the Tabernacle of Gods Church yet they in the mean time neglect the Temple of their own hearts in serving God in the Spirit and not in the Letter or outward performance onely But it were well if they would gather and prepare their Manna seeth it and bake it the day before that when the Sabbath came they might have nothing to do but to chew and concoct it into their own spirits and so spiritually in the experience of their own hearts not heads dish it out to their hearers which would be a happy means to make them see better fruit of their labors for commonly that which is not â—oâ—ally delivered is notionally received and that which is spiritually and powerfully delivered in the evidence of the Spirit is spiritually and savingly received for spirit begets spirit as fire begets fire c. It is an easie thing to take great pains in the outward part or performance of holy things which oft proves a snare causing the neglect of the spirit of the inner man for many are great laborers in the Work of the Lord that are starvelings in the Spirit of the Lord satisfying themselves in a Popish peace of conscience in the deed doing in stead of Joy in the Holy Ghost bringing indeed meat to their Guests but through haste or laziness eating none themselves or like Taylors make cloathes for other men to weare so they never assaying their own points how they 〈…〉 may suit with their own spirits but think it is their duty to â—each and other mens duty to do So far the Author CHAP. V. Some general helps to a Heavenly Life SECT I. HAving thus shewed thee the blocks in thy way and told thee what hinderances will resist thee in the Work I
till they were loosed from this flesh as I must be And thus you see how the familiar conceiving of the state of blessedness as the spirit hath in a condescending language expressed it and our strong raising of suppositions from our bodily senses will further our Affections in this Heavenly work SECT III. 2. THere is yet another way by which we may make our senses here serviceable to us and that is By comparing the objects of sense with the objects of faith and so forcing sense to afford us that Medium from whence we may conclude the transcendent worth of Glory By arguing from sensitive delights as from the less to the greater And here for your further assistance I shall furnish you with some of these comparative Arguments And first You must strongly argue with your hearts from the corrupt delights of sensual men Think then with your selves when you would be sensible of the joyes above Is it such a delight to a sinner to do wickedly and will it not be delightful indeed then to live with God Hath a very drunkard such delight in his cups and companions that the very fears of damnation will not make him forsake them Hath the bruitish whoremaster such delight in his whore that he will part with his credit and estate and salvation rather then he will part with her Sure then there are high delights with God! If the way to hell can afford such pleasure what are the pleasures of the Saints in Heaven If the coveteous man hath so much pleasure in his wealth and the ambitious man in his power and titles of honor what then have the Saints in the everlasting treasures and what plasure do the Heavenly honors afford where we shall be set above principalities and powers and be made the glorious spouse of Christ What pleasure do the voluptuous finde in their sensual courses how closely will they follow their hunting and hawking and other recreations from morning to night How delightfully will they sit at their Cards and Dice hours and dayes and nights together O the delight that mustneeds then be in beholding the face of the Living God and in singing forth praises to him and the Lamb which must be our recreation when we come to our Rest SECT IIII. 2. COmpare also the delights above with the lawfull delights of moderated senses Think with thy self how sweet is food to my taste when I am hungry especially as Isaac said that which my soul loveth that which my temperature and appetite do incline to What delight hath the taste in some pleasant fruits in some well relished meates and in divers junkets O what delight then must my soul needs have in feeding upon Christ the living bread and in eating with him at his table in his Kingdom VVas a mess of pottage so sweet to Esau in his hunger that he would buy them at so dear a rate as his birth-right How highly then should I value this never perishing food How pleasant is drink in the extremity of thirst The delight of it to a man in a feaver or other drought can scarcely be expressed It will make the strength of Sampson revive O then how delightful will it be to my soul to drink of that fountain of living water which who so drinks shall thirst no more So pleasant is wine and so refreshing to the spirits that it s said to make glad the heart of man How pleasant then will that wine of the great marriage be even that wine which our water was turned into that best wine which will be kept till then How delightful are pleasant odors to our smel how delightful is perfect musick to the ear how delightful are beauteous sights to the eye such as curious pictures sumptuous adorned well-contrived buildings handsome necessary rooms walks prospects Gardens stored with variety of beauteous and odoriferous flowers or pleasant Medows which are natural gardens O then think every time thou seest or remembrest these what a fragrant smell hath the pretious ointment which is poured on the head of our glorified Saviour and which must be poured on the heads of all his Saints which will fill all the room of heaven with its odor and perfume how delightful is the musick of the heavenly host how pleasing will be those real beauties above and how glorious the building not made with hands and the house that God himself doth dwell in and the walkes and prospects in the City of God and the beauties and delights in the Celestial Paradise Think seriously what these must needs be The like may be said of the delight of the sense of Feeling which the Philosopher saith is the greatest of all the rest SECT V. 3. COmpare also the delights above which the delights that are found in natural knowledg This is far beyond the delights of sense and the delights of heaven are further beyond it Think then can an Archimedes be so taken up with his Mathematical invention that the threats of death will not take him off but he will dye in the midst of these his natural contemplations Should I not much more be taken up with the delights of Glory and dye with these contemplations fresh upon my soul especially when my death will perfect my delights but those of Archimedes dye with him What a pleasure is it to dive into the secrets of nature to finde out the mystery of Arts and sciences to have a clear understanding in Logick Physicks Metaphysicks Musick Astronomy Geometry c. If we make but any new discovery in one of these or see a little more then we saw before what singular pleasure do we finde therein VVhy think then what high delights there are in the knowledg of God and Christ his Son If the face of humane learning be so beautifull that sensual pleasures are to it but base and bruitish how beautiful then is the face of God VVhen we light of some choice and learned book how are we taken with it we could read and study it day and night we can leave meat and drink and sleep to read it what delights then are there at Gods right hand where we shall know in a moment all that is to be known SECT VI. 4. COmpare also the delights above with the delights of Morality and of the natural affections VVhat delight had many sober Heathens in the rules and Practice of Moral duties so that they took him onely for an honest man who did well through the love of Vertue and not onely for fear of punishment yea so highly did they value this moral Vertue that they thought the chief happiness of man consisted in it VVhy think then what excellency there will be in that rare perfection which we shall be raised to in heaven and in that uncreated perfection of God which we shall behold what sweetness is there in the exercise of natural Love whether to Children to Parents to Yoakfellows or to Friends
be If I could see the Congregations provided with able Teachers and the people receiving and obeying the Gospel and longing for Reformation and for the Government of Christ O what a blessed place were England If I could see our Ignorance turned into Knowledg and Error turned into soundness of Understanding and shallow Professors into solid Believers and Brethren living in Amity and in the life of the Spirit O what a fortunate Iland were this Alas alas what 's all this to the Reformation in Heaven and to the blessed condition which we must live in there There 's another kinde of change and glory then this What great joy had the people and David himself to see them so willingly offer to the Service of the Lord And what an excellent Psalme of Praise doth David thereupon compose 1 Chro. 29.9 10 c. When Solomon was anointed King in Jerusalem the people rejoyced with so great joy that the earth rent at the sound of them 1 Kings 1.40 what a joyful shout will there be then at the appearing of the King of the Church If when the foundations of the earth were fastned and the corner stone thereof was laid the morning stars did sing together and all the sons of God did shout for joy Job 38 6 7. why then when our glorious world is both founded and finished and the corner stone appeareth to be the top stone also and the Holy City is adorned as the Bride of the Lamb O Sirs what a joyful shout will then be heard SECT XI 9 COmpare the joy which thou shalt have in heaven with that which the Saints of God have found in the way to it and in the foretastes of it when thou seest a heavenly man rejoyce think what it is that so affects him it is the property of fools to rejoyce in toyes and to laugh at nothing but the people of God are wiser then so they know what it is that makes them glad When did God ever reveal the least of himself to any of his Saints but the joy of their hearts were answerable to the Revelation Paul was so lifted up with what he saw that he was in danger of being exalted above measure and must have a prick in the flesh to keep him down when Peter had seen but Christ in his Transfiguration which was but a small glimpse of his glory and had seen Moses and Elias talking with him what a rapture and extasie is he cast into Master saith he it is good for us to be here let us here build three Tabernacles one for Thee and one for Moses and one for Elias as if he should say O let us not go down again to yonder persecuting rabble let us not go down again to yonder drossy dirty world let us not return to our mean and suffering state is it not better that we stay here now we are here is not here better company and sweeter pleasures but the Text saith He knew not what he said Matth. 17.4 When Moses had been talking with God in the Mount it made his Visage so shineing and glorious that the people could not endure to behold it but he was fain to put a vail upon it No wonder then if the face of God must be vailed till we are come to that state where we shall be more capable of beholding him when the vail shall be taken away and we all beholding him with open face shall be turned into the same Image from glory to glory Alas what is the backparts which Moses saw from the clefts of the Rock to that open face which we shall behold hereafter what is the Revelation to John in Patmos to this Revelation which we shall have in heaven How short doth Pauls Vision come of the Saints Vision above with God How small a part of the glory which we must see was that which so transported Peter in the Mount I confess these were all extraordinary foretastes but little to the full Beatifical Vision when David foresaw the Resurrection of Christ and of himself and the pleasures which he should have for ever at Gods right hand how doth it make him break forth and say Therefore my heart was glad and my glory rejoyceth my flesh also shall rest in hope Psal. 16.9 Why think then If the foresight can raise such ravishing joy what will the actual possession do How oft have we read and heard of the dying Saints who when they had scarce strength and life enough to express them have been as full of joy as their hearts could hold And when their bodies have been under the extremities of their sickness yea ready to feel the pangs of death have yet had so much of heaven in their spirits that their joy hath far surpassed their sorrows and if a spark of this fire be so glorious and that in the midst of the sea of adversity what then is that Sun of Glory it self O the joy that the Martyrs of Christ have felt in the midst of the scorching flames sure they had life and sense as we and were flesh and blood as well as we therefore it must needs be some excellent thing that must so rejoyce their souls while their bodies were burning VVhen Bilney can burn his finger in the Candle and Cranmer can burn off his unworthy right Hand when Bainham can call the Papists to see a Miracle and tel them that he feels no more pain then in a bed of Down and that the fire was to him as a bed of Roses when Farrer can say If Istir believe not my Doctrine Think then Reader with thy self in thy Meditations sure it must be some wonderful foretasted glory that can do all this that can make the flames of fire easie and that can make the King of Fears so welcome O what then must this glory it self needs be when the very thoughts of it can bring Paul into such a streight that he desired to depart and to be with Christ as best of all when it can make men never think themselves well till they are dead O what a blessed Rest is this Shall Sanders so delightfully embrace the Stake and cry out Welcome Cross and shall not I more delightfully imbrace my blessedness and cry Welcome Crown Shall blessed Bradford kiss the Faggot and shall not I then kiss the Son himself Shall the poor Martyr rejoyce that she might have her foot in the same hole of the Stocks that Mr. Philpots foot had been in before her and shall not I rejoyce that my soul shall live in the same place of glory where Christ and his Apostles are gone before me Shall Fire and Faggot shall Prisons and Banishment shall Scorns and cruel Torments be more welcome to others then Christ and Glory shall be to me God forbid What thanks did Lucius the Martyr give them that they would send him to Christ from his ill masters on earth How desirously did Basil wish when his persecuters threatned his
the duty When thou hast perhaps but an hours time for thy Meditation the time will be spent before thy heart will be serious This doing of duty as if we did it not doth undo as many as the flat omission of it To rub out the hour in a bare lazie thinking of Heaven is but to lose that hour and delude thy self Well what is to be done in this case why do here also as you do by a loitering servant keep thine eye always upon thy heart look not so much to the time it spendeth in the duty as to the quantity and quality of the work that is done You can tell by his work whether your servant hath been painful ask what affections have yet been acted how much am I yet got neerer Heaven Verily many a mans heart must be followed as close in this duty of Meditation as a Horse in a Mill or an Ox at the Plow that will go no longer then you are calling or scourging If you cease driving but a moment the heart will stand still and perhaps the best hearts have much of this temper I would not have thee of the judgment of those who think that while they are so backward it is better let it alone and that if meer love will not bring them to the duty but there must be all this violence used to compel it that then the service is worse then the omission These men understand not first That this Argument would certainly cashiere all Spiritual obedience because the hearts of the best being but partly sanctified will still be resisting so far as they are carnal Secondly Nor do they understand well the corruptness of their own natures Thirdly Nor that their sinful undisposedness will not baffle or suspend the commands of God Fourthly Nor one sin excuse another Fifthly Especially they little know the way of God to excite their Affections and that the love which should compel them must it self be first compelled in the same sense as it is said to compel Love I know is a most precious grace and should have the chief interest in all our duties But there be means appointed by God to procure this love and shall I not use those means till I can use them from love that were to neglect the means till I have the end Must I not seek to procure love till I have it already There are means also for the increasing of love where it is begun and means for the exciting of it where it lieth dull And must I not use these means till it is increased and excited Why this reasoning considering-duty that we are in hand with is the most singular means both to stir up thy love and to increase it and therefore stay not from the duty till thou feel thy love constrain thee that were to stay from the fire till thou feel thy self warm but fall upon the work till thou art constrained to love and then love will constrain thee to further duty My jealously least thou shouldst miscarry by these sotish opinions hath made me more tedious in the opening of its error Let nothing therefore hinder thee while thou art upon the work from plying thy heart with constant watchfulness and constraint seeing thou hast such experience of its dulness and backwardness let the spur be never out of its side and when ever it slacks pace be sure to give it a remembrance SECT III. 3. AS thy heart will be loitering so will it be diverting It will be turning aside like a carless servant to talk with every one that passeth by When there should be nothing in thy minde but the work in hand it will be thinking of thy calling or thinking of thy afflictions or of every bird or tree or place thou seest or of any impertinency rather then of Heaven Thy heart in this also will be like the Husbandmans Ox or Horse if he drive not he will not go and if he guide not he will not keep the furrow and it is as good stand still as go out of the way Experience will tell thee thou wilt have much ado with thy heart in this point to keep it one hour to the work without many extravagancies and idle cogitations The cure here is the same with that before to use watchfulness and violence with your own imaginations and as soon as they step out to chide them in Say to thy heart What did I come hither to think of my business in the world to think of places and persons of news or vanity yea or of any thing but Heaven be it never so good what canst thou not watch one hour wouldst thou leave this world and dwell in Heaven with Christ for ever and canst thou not leave it one hour out of thy thoughts nor dwell with Christ in one hours close Meditation Ask thy heart as Absalom did Hushai Is this thy love to thy friend Dost thou love Christ and the place of thy Eternal Blessed abode no more then so When Pharaohs Butler dreamed That he pressed the ripe Grapes into Pharaohs Cup and delivered the Cup into the Kings hand it was a happy dream and signified his speedy access to the Kings presence But the dream of the Baker That the Birds did eat out of the Basket on his head the baked meats prepared for Pharaoh had an ill omen and signified his hanging and their eating of his flesh So when the ripened Grapes of Heavenly Meditation are pressed by thee into the Cup of Affection and this put into the hands of Christ by delightful praises if thou take me for skilful this is the interpretation That thou shalt shortly be taken from this prison where thou liest and be set before Christ in the Court of Heaven and there serve up to him that Cup of praise but much fuller and much sweeter for ever and for ever But if the ravenous fowls of wandring thoughts do devour the Meditations intended for Heaven I will not say flatly it signifieth thy death but this I will say That so far as these intrude they will be the death of that service and if thou ordinarily admit them That they devour the life and the joy of thy thoughts and if thou continue in such a way of duty to the end It signifies the death of thy soul as well as of thy service Drive away these birds of prey then from thy sacrifice and strictly keep thy heart to the work thou art upon SECT IV. 4. LAstly Be sure also to look to thy heart in this That it cut not off the work before the time and run not away through weariness before it have leave Thou shalt finde it will be exceeding prone to this like the Ox that would unyoke or the Horse that would be unburdened and perhaps cast off his burden and run away Thou maist easily perceive this in other duties If in secret thou set thy self to pray is not thy heart urging thee still to cut it short dost thou not
pride and peevishness and other sins that we could scarce oft-times discern their graces But now how glorious a thing is a Saint where is now their body of sin which wearyed themselves and those about them Where are now our different Judgments our reproachful titles our divided spirits our exasperated passions our strange looks our uncharitable censures Now we are all of one judgment of one name of one heart of one house and of one glory O sweet reconcilement O happy Union which makes us first to be one with Christ and then to be one among our selves Now our differences shall be dashed in our teeth no more nor the Gospel reproached through our folly or scandall O my soul thou shalt never more lament the sufferings of the Saints never more condole the Churches ruines never bewail thy suffering freinds nor lye wailing over their death-beds or their graves Thou shalt never suffer thy old temptations from Satan the vvorld or thy ovvn flesh Thy body vvill no more be such a burden to thee thy pains and sicknesses are all novv cured thou shalt be troubled vvith vveakness and vveariness no more Thy head is not novv an aking head nor thy heart novv an aking heart Thy hunger and thirst and cold and sleep thy labor and study are all gone O vvhat a mighty change is this From the dunghill to the throne from persecuting sinners to praising Saints from a body as vile as the carrion in the ditch to a body as bright as the Sun in the firmament from complainings under the displeasure of God to the perfect enjoyment of him in Love from all my doubts and fears of my condition to this possession vvhich hath put me out of doubt from all my fearful thoughts of death to this most blessed Joyful life O vvhat a blessed change is this Farevvell sin and suffering for ever Farevvell my hard and rocky heart farevvell my proud and unbelieving heart farewell atheistical idolatrous vvorldly heart farewell my sensual carnal heart And novv welcome most holy heavenly nature vvhich as it must be imployed in beholding the face of God so is it full of God alone and delighted in nothing else but him O vvho can question the love vvhich he doth so sweetly taste or doubt of that which with such joy he seeleth Farewell repentance confession and supplication farewel the most of hope and faith and welcome love and joy and praise I shall now have my harvest without plowing or sowing my wine without the labor of the vintage my joy without a Preacher or a promise even all from the face of God himself That 's the sight that 's worth the seeing that 's the book that 's worth the reading What ever mixture is in the streams there is nothing but pure joy in the fountain Here shall I be incircled with Eternity and come forth no more here shall I live and ever live and praise my Lord and ever ever ever praise him My face will not wrinkle nor my haire be gray but this mortal shall have put on immortality and this corruptible incorruption and death shall be swallowed up in victory O death where is now thy sting O grave where is thy victory The date of my lease will no more expire nor shall I trouble my self with thoughts of death nor loose my joyes through fear of losing them When millions of ages are past my glory is but beginning and when millions more are past it is no neerer ending Every day is all noontide and every moneth is May or harvest and every yeer is there a jubilee and every age is full manhood and all this is one Eternity O blessed Eternity the glory of my glory the perfection of my perfection Ah drowsie earthy blockish heart How coldly dost thou think of this reviving day Dost thou sleep when thou thinkest of eternal Rest Art thou hanging earthward when heaven is before thee Hadst thou rather sit thee down in dirt and dung then walk in the court of the Palace of God Dost thou now remember thy worldly business Art thou looking back to the Sodom of thy lusts Art thou thinking of thy delights and merry company wretched heart Is it better to be there then above with God is the company better are the pleasures greater Come away make no excuse make no delay God commands and I command thee come away gird up thy loines ascend the mount and look about thee with seriousness and with faith Look thou not back upon the way of the wilderness except it be when thine eyes are dazled with the glory or when thou wouldst compare the Kingdom with that howling desert that thou mayest more sensibly perceive the mighty difference Fix thine eye upon the Sun it self and look not down to Earth as long as thou art able to behold it except it be to discern more easily the brightness of the one by the darkness of the other Yonder far above yonder is thy Fathers glory yonder must thou dwell when thou leavest this Earth yonder must thou remove O my soul when thou departest from this body And when the power of thy Lord hath raised it again and joyned thee to it yonder must thou live with God for ever There is the glorious New Jerusalem the Gates of Pearl the foundations of Pearl the Streets and Pavements of transparent Gold Seest thou that Sun which lighteth all this world why it must be taken down as useless there or the glory of Heaven will darken it and put it out even thy self shall be as bright as yonder shining Sun God will be the Sun and Christ the Light and in his Light shalt thou have light What thinkest thou O my soul of this most blessed state What! Dost thou stagger at the Promise of God through unbelief Though thou say nothing or profess belief yet thou speakest so coldly and so customarily that I much suspect thee I know thy infidelity is thy natural vice Didst thou beleeve indeed thou wouldst be more affected with it Why hast thou not it under the hand and seal and oath of God Can God lie or he that is the Truth it self be false Foolish wretch What need hath God to flatter thee or deceive thee why should he promise thee more then he will perform Art thou not his Creature a little crum of dust a scrawling worm ten thousand times more below him then this flie or worm is below thee wouldst thou flatter a flea or a worm what need hast thou of them If they do not please thee thou wilt crush them dead and never accuse thy self of cruelty Why yet they are thy Fellow Creatures made of as good mettal as thy self and thou hast no Authority over them but what thou hast received How much less need hath God of thee or why should he care if thou perish in thy folly Cannot he govern thee without either flattery or falshood cannot he easily make thee obey his will and as easily make thee suffer
Lightning without the Thunder which maketh it seem more dreadful then delightful And shouldst thou be loth then O my soul to leave this for the Eternal perfect Light and to change thy Candle for the glorious Sun and to change thy Studies and Preaching and Praying for the Harmonious Praises and fruition of the Blessed God Nor will thy loss be greater in the change of thy company then of thine imployment Thy friends here have been indeed thy delight And have they not been also thy vexation and thy grief They are gracious and are they not also sinful they are kinde and loving and are they not also peevish froward and soon displeased they are humble but withal alas how proud they will scarce endure to hear plainly of their disgraceful faults they cannot bear undervaluing or disrespect they itch after the good thoughts and applause of others they love those best that highliest esteem them The missing of a curtesie a supposed sleighting or disrepect the contradicting of their words or humors a difference in opinion yea the turning of a straw will quickly shew thee the pride and the uncertainty of thy friend Their graces are sweet to thee and their gifts are helpful but are not their corruptions bitter and their imperfections hurtful Though at a distance they seem to thee most Holy and Innocent yet when they come neerer thee and thou hast throughly tryed them alas what silly frail and froward pieces are the best of men Then the knowledg which thou didst admire appeareth clouded with ignorance and the vertues that so shined as a Glow-worm in the night are scarcely to be found when thou seekest them by day-light VVhen temptations are strong how quickly do they yield what wounds have they given to Religion by their shameful falls Those that have been famous for their Holiness have been as infamous for their notorious hainous wickedness those that have been thy dearest bosome friends that have prayed and conferred with thee and helped thee toward Heaven and by their fervor forwardness and heavenly lives have shamed thy coldness and earthliness and dulness whom thou hast singled out as the choicest from a world of professors whom thou madest the daily companions and delights of thy life are not some of them faln to Drunkenness and some to Whordome some to Pride Perfidiousness and Rebellion and some to the most damnable Heresies and Divisions And hath thy very heart received such wounds from thy friends and yet art thou so loth to go from them to thy God Thy friends that are weak are little useful or comfortable to thee and those that are strong are the abler to hurt thee and the best if not heedfully used will prove the worst The better and keener thy knife is the sooner and deeper will it cut thy fingers if thou take not heed Yea the very number of thy friends is a burden and trouble to thee every one supposeth he hath some interest in thee yea the interest of a friend which is not a little and how insufficient art thou to satisfie all their expectations When it is much if thou canst answer the expectations of one If thou were divided among so many as each could have but little of thee so thy self and God who should have most will have none And almost every one that hath not more of thee then thou canst spare for all is ready to censure thee as unfriendly and a neglecter of the duty or respects which thou owest them And shouldst thou please them all the gain will not be great nor art thou sure that they will again please thee Awake then O my drowsie soul and look above this world of sorrows Hast thou born the yoke of afflictions from thy youth and so long felt the smarting rod and yet canst no better understand its meaning Is not every stroke to drive thee hence and is not the voice of the rod like that to Elijah What dost thou here Up and away Dost thou forget that sure prediction of thy Lord In the world ye shall have trouble but in me ye shall have peace The first thou hast found true by long experience and of the later thou hast had a small foretaste but the perfect peace is yet before which till it be enjoyed cannot be clearly understood Ah my dear Lord I feel thy meaning it s written in my flesh it s engraven in my bones My heart thou aymest at thy rod doth drive thy silken cord of love doth draw and all to bring it to thy self And is that all Lord is that the worst Can such a heart be worth thy having Make it so Lord and then it is thine Take it to thy self and then take me I can but reach it toward thee and not unto thee I am too low and it is too dull This clod hath life to stir but not to rise Legs it hath but wings it wanteth As the feeble childe to the tender mother it looketh up to thee and stretcheth out the hands and faine would have thee take it up Though I cannot so freely say My heart is with thee my soul longeth after thee yet can I say I long for such a longing heart The twins are yet a striving in my bowels The spirit is willing the flesh is weak the spirit longs the flesh is loth The flesh is unwilling to lye rotting in the earth The soul desires to be with thee My spirit cryeth Let thy Kingdom come or else let me come unto thy Kingdom but the flesh is afraid least thou shouldest hear my prayer and take me at my word VVhat frequent contradictions dost thou finde in my requests because there is such contradiction in my self My prayers plead against my prayers and one part begs a denial to the other No wonder if thou give me such a dying life when I know not whether to ask for life or death With the same breath do I beg for a reprival and removal And the same groan doth utter my desires and my feares My soul would go my flesh would stay My soul would faine be out my flesh would have thee hold the door O blessed be thy Grace that makes advantage of my corruptions even to contradict and kill themselves For I fear my fears and sorrow for my sorrows and groan under my fleshly groans I loath my lothness and I long for greater longings And while my soul is thus tormented with fears and cares and with the tedious means for attaining my desires it addeth so much to the burden of my troubles that my wearyness thereby is much increased which makes me groan to be at Rest. Indeed Lord my soul it self also is in a straight and what to chuse I know not well but yet thou knowest what to give To depart and be with thee is Best but yet to be in the flesh seems needfull Thou knowest I am not weary of thy work but of sorrow and sin I must needs be weary I am willing to stay while
thou wilt here imploy me and to dispatch the work which thou hast put into my hands till these strange thoughts of thee be somewhat more familiar and thou hast raised me into some degree of acquaintance with thy self But I beseech thee stay no longer when this is done Stay not till sin shall get advantage and my soul grow earthly by dwelling on this earth and my desires and delights in thee grow dead But while I must be here let me be still amending and ascending make me still better and take me at the best I dare not be so impatient of living as to importune thee to cut off my time and urge thee to snatch me hence unready because I know my everlasting state doth so much depend on the improvement of this life Nor yet would I stay when my work is done and remaine here sinning when my brethren are triumphing I am drowning in teares while they swim in joyes I am weeping while they are singing I am under thy feet while they are in thy bosome Thy footsteps bruise and break this worm while those Stars do shine in the Firmament of glory Thy frowns do kill me while they are quickened by thy smiles They are ever living and I am daily dying Their joyes are raised by the knowledg of their endlesness my griefs are enlarged by still expecting more while they possess but one continued pleasure I bear the successive assaults of fresh calamities One billow fals in the neck of another and when I am rising up from under one another comes and strikes we down Yet I am thy childe as well as they Christ is my head as well as theirs why is there then so great a distance How differently dost thou use us when thou art Father to us all They sit at thy table whilst I must stand without the doors But I acknowledg the equity of thy ways Though we all are children yet I am the Prodigal and therefore meeter in this remote country to feed on husks while they are always with thee and possess thy glory Though we all are members yet not the same they are the tongue and fitter to praise thee They are the hands and fitter for thy service I am the feet and therefore meeter to tread on earth and move in dirt but unfit to stand so neer the head as they They were once themselves in my condition and I shall shortly be in theirs They were of the lowest forme before they came to the highest They suffered before they reigned They came out of great tribulation who now are standing before thy throne And shall not I be content to come to the crown as they did and to drink of their cup before I sit with them in the Kingdom The blessed souls of David Paul Austin Calvin Perkins Bayne Parker Ames Bradshaw Dod Preston Stoughton Sibbes with all the spirits of the just made perfect were once on earth as I am now as far from the sight of thy face and glory as deep in sorrows as weak and sick and full of pains as I Their souls were longer imprisoned in corruptible flesh I shall go but the way that they all did go before me Their house of clay did fall to dust and so must mine The world they are now in was as strange to them before they were there as it is to me And am I better then all these pretious souls I am contented therefore O my Lord to stay thy time and go thy way so thou wilt exalt me also in thy season and take me into thy barn when thou seest me ripe In the mean time I may desire though I may not repine I may look over the hedge though I may not break over I may believe and Wish though not make any sinful hast I am content to wait but not to lose thee And when thou seest me too contented with thine absence and satisfying and pleasing my self here below O quicken up then my dull desires and blow up the dying spark of love And leave me not till I am able unfeignedly to cry out As the heart panteth after the brooks and the dry land thirsteth for the water streams so thirsteth my soul after thee O God when shall I come and appear before the living God Till my daily conversation be with thee in Heaven and from thence I may longingly expect my Saviour Till my affections are set on things above where Christ is reigning and my life is hid Till I can walk by Faith and not by sight willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord. What interest hath this empty world in me and what is there in it that may seeme so lovely as to entice my desires and delight from thee or make me loth to come away when I look about me with a deliberate undeceived eye me thinks this world 's a howling wilderness and most of the inhabitants are untamed hideous monsters All its beauty I can wink into blackness and all its mirth I can think into sadness I can drown al its pleasures in a few penitent tears and the winde of a sigh will scatter them away When I look on thâ—m without the spectacles of flesh I call them nothing as being vainty or worse then nothing as vexation O let not this flesh so seduce my soul as to make it prefer this weary life before the Joyes that are about thy Throne And though Death of it self be unwelcome to Nature yet let thy Grace make thy Glory appear to me so desirable that the King of Terrors may be the Messenger of my Joy O let not my soul be ejected by violence and dispossessed of its Habitation against its will but draw it forth to thy Self by the secret power of thy Love as the Sun-shine in the Spring draws forth the creatures from their Winter Cells meet it half way and entice it to thee as the Loadstone doth the Iron and as the greater flame doth attract the less Dispel therefore the Clouds that hide from me thy Love or remove the Scales that hinder mine Eyes from beholding Thee for onely the beames that stream from thy Face and the foresight or taste of thy great Salvation can make a soul unfainedly to say Now Let thy Servant depart in peace Reading and Hearing will not serve my meat is not sweet to my Ear or to my Eye it must be a taste or feeling that must entice away my soul Though arguing is the means to bend my will yet if thou bring not the matter to my hand and by the influence of thy Spirit make it not effectual I shall never reason my soul to be willing to depart In the Winter when its cold and dirty without I am loth to leave my Chamber and fire but in the Summer when all is warm and green I am loth to be so confined shew me but the Summer fruits and pleasures of thy Paradise and I shall freely quit my earthly Cell Some pleasure
I have in my Books my friends and in thine Ordinances till thou hast given me a taste of something more sweet my soul will be loth to part with these The Traveller will hold his Cloak the faster when the windes do bluster and the storms assault him but when the Sun shines hot he will cast it off as a burthen so will my soul when thou frownest or art strange be lother to leave this garment of flesh but thy smiles would make me leave it as my prison but it is not thy ordinary discoveries that will here suffice as the work is greater so must be thy help O turn these fears into strong desires and this lothness to dye into longings after thee while I must be absent from thee let my soul as heartily groan under thine absence as my pained body doth under its want of health And let not those groans be counterfeit or constrained but let them come from a longing loving heart unfeignedly judging it best to depart and be with Christ And if I have any more time to spend on earth let me live as without the world in thee as I have sometime lived as without thee in the world O suffer me not to spend in strangeness to thee another day of this my Pilgrimage while I have a thought to think let me not forget thee while I have a tongue to move let me mention thee with delight while I have a breath to breathe let it be after thee and for thee while I have a knee to bend let it bow daily at thy Footstool and when by sickness thou confinest me to my Couch do thou make my bed and number my pains and put all my tears into thy Bottle And as when my spirit groaned for my sins the flesh would not second it but desired that which my spirit did abhor so now when my flesh doth groan under its pains let not my spirit second it but suffer the flesh to groan alone and let me desire that day which my flesh abhorreth that my friends may not with so much sorrow wait for the departure of my soul as my soul with joy shall wait for its own departure and then let me dye the death of the Righteous and let my last end be as his even a removall to that Glory that shall never end Send forth thy Convoy of Angels for my departing soul and let them bring it among the perfected spirits of the Just and let me follow my dear friends that have died in Christ before me und when my friends are weeping over my Grave let my spirit be reposed with thee in Rest and when my Corps shall lye there rotting in the dark let my soul be in the Inheritance of the Saints in Light And O thou that numberest the very hairs of my head do thou number all the dayes that my body lyes in the dust and thou that writest all my members in thy Book do thou keep an account of all my scattered bones and hasten O my Saviour the time of thy return send forth thine Angels and let that dreadful joyful Trumpet sound delay not lest the living give up their hopes delay not lest earth should grow like hell and lest thy Church by division be crumbled all to dust and dissolved by being resolved into individual unites Delay not lest thine enemies get advantage of thy Flock and lest Pride and Hypocrisie and Sensuality and Unbelief should prevail against thy little Remnant and share among them thy whole Inheritance and when thou comest thou finde not Faith on the earth Delay not lest the Grave should boast of Victory and having learned Rebellion of its guest should plead prescription and refuse to deliver thee up thy due O hasten that great Resurrection Day when thy command shall go forth and none shall disobey when the Sea and Earth shall yield up their Hostages and all that slept in the Graves shall awake and the dead in Christ shall first arise when the seed that thou sowedst corruptible shall come forth incorruptible and Graves that received but rottenness and retained but dust shall return thee glorious Stars and Suns therefore dare I lay down my carcass in the dust entrusting it not to a Grave but to Thee and therefore my flesh shall rest in Hope till thou raise it to the possession of the Everlasting REST. Return O Lord how long O let thy Kingdom come Thy desolate Bride saith Come for thy Spirit within her saith Come who teacheth her thus to pray with groanings after thee which cannot be expressed The whole Creation saith Come waiting to be delivered from the bondage of Corruption into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God Thy Self hast said Surely I come quickly Amen Even so come LORD IESVS The Conclusion THus Reader I have given thee my best advice for the attaining and maintaining a Heavenly Conversation The maner is imperfect and too much mine own but for the main matter I dare say I received it from God From him I deliver it thee and his charge I lay upon thee That thou entertain and practise it If thou canst not do it methodically and fully yet do it as thou canst onely be sure thou do it seriously and frequently If thou wilt believe a man that hath made some small tryal of it thou shalt finde it will make thee another man and elevate thy soul and clear thine understanding and polish thy conversation and leave a pleasant savor upon thy heart so that thy own experience will make thee confess That one hour thus spent will more effectually revive thee then many in bare external duties and a day in these contemplations will afford thee truer content then all the glory and riches of the Earth Be acquainted with this work and thou wilt be in some remote sort acquainted with God Thy joyes will be spiritual and prevalent and lasting according to the nature of their Blessed Object thou wilt have comfort in life and comfort in death VVhen thou hast neither wealth nor health nor the pleasure of this world yet wilt thou have comfort Comfort without the presence or help of any Friend without a Minister without a Book when all means are denied thee or taken from thee yet maist thou have vigorous real comfort Thy graces will be mighty and active and victorious and the daily joy which is thus fetcht from Heaven will be thy strength Thou wilt be as one that standeth on the top of an exceeding high Mountain he looks down on the world as if it were quite below him How small do the Fields and VVoods and Countreys seem to him Cities and Towns seem but little spots Thus despicably wilt thou look on all things here below The greatest Princes will seem below thee but as Grashoppers and the busie contentious coveteous world but as a heap of Ants. Mens threatnings will be no terror to thee nor the honors of this world any strong enticement Temptations will be more harmless as
admire that patience could bear so long and justice suffer him to live Sure he will admire at this alteration when he shall finde by experience that unworthinesse could not hindâ—r his salvation which he thought would have bereaved him of every mercy Ah Christian There 's no talk of our worthiness nor unwornesse If worthiness were our condition for admittance we might sit down with S. John and weep because none in heaven or earth is found worthy But the Lion of the tribe of Judah is worthy and hath prevailed by that title must we hold the inheritance We shal offer there the offering that David refused even praise for that which cost us nothing Here our Commission runs Freely ye have received Freely give But Christ hath dearly received yet Freely gives The master heals us of our leprosie freely but Gehazi who had no finger in the cure will surely run after us and take somthing of us and falsly pretend it is his masters pleasure The Pope and his servants will be paid for their Pardons and Indulgencies But Christ will take nothing for his The fees of the Prelats Courts were large and our CoÌ„mutation of Penance must cost our purses dear or else we must be cast out of the Synagogue and soul and body delivered up to the Devil But none are shut out of that Church for want of money nor is poverty any eye-sore to Christ An empty heart may bar them out but an empty purse cannot His Kingdom of Grace hath ever been more consistent with despised poverty then wealth and honour and riches occasion the difficulty of entrance far more then want can do For that which is highly esteemed among men is despised with God And so is it also The poor of the world rich in faith whom God hath chosen to be heires of that Kingdom which he hath prepared for them that love him I know the true labourer is worthy of his hire And they that serve at the Altar should live upon the Altar And it is not fit to muzzle the Ox that treadeth out the corne And I know it is either hellish malice or penurious baseness or ignorance of the weight of their work and burthen that makes their maintenance so generally Incompetent and their very livelihood and subsistance so envied and grudged at and that it 's a meer plot of the Prince of darkness for the diversion of their thoughts that they must be studying how to get bread for their own and childrens mouths when they should be preparing the bread of life for their peoples souls But yet let me desire the right aiming Ministers of Christ to consider what is expedient as well as what is lawfull and that the saving of one soul is better then a thousand pound a year and our gain though due is a cursed gain which is a stumbling block to our peoples souls Let us make the Free-Gospell as little burthensome and chargeable as is possible I had rather never take their Tythes while I live then by them to destroy the souls for whom Christ dyed and though God hath ordained that they which preach the Gospell should live of the Gospell yet I had rather suffer all things then hinder the Gospell and it were better for me to dye then that any man should make this my glorying voyd Though the well-leading Elders be worthy of double honour especially the laborious in the word and doctrine yet if the necessity of Souls and the promoting of the Gospel should require it I had rather preach the Gospell in hunger and ragges then rigidly contend for what 's my due And if I should do so yet have I not whereof to Glory for necessity is laid upon me yea wo be to me if I preach not the Gospell though I never received any thing from men How unbeseeming the messengers of this Free-Grace and Kingdom is it rather to lose the hearts and souls of their people then to lose a groat of their due And rather to exasperate them against the message of God then to forbear somewhat of their right And to contend with them at law for the wages of the Gospell And to make the glad-tidings to their yet carnall hearts seem to be sad tidings because of this burthen This is not the way of Christ and his Apostles nor according to the self denying yeelding suffering Doctrine which they taught Away with all those actions that are against the main end of our studies and calling which is to win souls and fie upon that gain which hinders the gaining of men to Christ. I know flesh will here object necessities and distrust will not want arguments but we who have enough to answer to the diffidence of our people let us take home some of our answers to our selves and teach our selves first before we teach them How many have you known that God suffered to starve in his Vineyard But this is our exceeding consolation That though we may pay for our Bibles and Books and Sermons and it may be pay for our freeâ—dom to enjoy and use them yet as we paid nothing for Gods eternal Love and nothing for the Son of his Love and nothing for his Spirit and our grace and faith and nothing for our pardon so we shal pay nothing for our eternal Rest. We may pay for the bread and wine but we shal not pay for the body and blood nor for the great things of the Covenant which it seals unto us And indeed we have a valuable price to give for those but for these we have none at all Yet this is not all If it were only for nothing and without our merit the wonder were great but it is moreover against our merit and against our long endeavoring of our own ruine Oh the broken heart that hath known the desert of sin doth both understand and feel what I say What an astonishing thought it will be to think of the unmeasurable difference between our deservings and our receivings between the state we should have been in and the state we are in To look down upon Hell and see the vast difference that free-grace hath made betwixt us and them to see the inheritance there which we were born to so different from that which we are adopted to Oh what pangs of love will it cause within us to think yonder was my native right my deserved portion those should have been my hideous cries my doleful groans my easless pains my endless torment Those unquenchable flames I should have layen in that never dying worm should have fed upon me yonder was the place that sin would have brought me to but this is it that Christ hath bought me to Yonder death was the wages of my sin but this Eternal life is the Gift of God through Jesus Christ my Lord. Did not I neglect Grace and make light of the offers of Life and sleight my Redeemers Blood a long time as well as yonder suffering
souls Did I not let passe my time and forget my God and soul as well as they And was I not born in sin and wrath as well as they Oh who made me to differ Was my heart naturally any readier for Christ then theirs Or any whit better affected to the Spirits perswasions Should I ever have begun to love if God had not begun to me or ever been willing if he had not made me willing or ever differed if he had not made me to differ Had I not now been in those flames if I had had mine own way and been let alone to mine own will Did I not resist as powerful means and lose as fair advantages as they And should I not have lingered in Sodom tâ—ll the flames had seized on me if God had not in mercy carryed me out Oh how free was all this Love and how free is this enjoyed Glory Doubtless this will be our everlasting admiration That so Rich a Crown should fit the head of so vile a Sinner That such high advancement and such long unfruitfulness and unkindness can be the state of the same person and that such vile rebellions can conclude in such most precious Joys But no thanks to us nor to any of our duties and labors much less to our neglects and laziness we know to whom the praise is due and must be given for ever And indeed to this very end it was that infinite Wisdom did cast the whole design of Mans Salvation into this mould of PVRCHASE and FREENES that the Love and Joy of man might be perfected and the Honor of Grace most highly advanced that the thought of Merit might neither cloud the one nor obstruct the other and that on these two hinges the gates of Heaven might turn So then let DESERVED be written on the door of Hell but on the door of Heaven and Life THE FREE GIFT SECT III. THirdly The third comfortable Attribute of this Rest is That it is the Saints prop and peculiar possession It belongs to no other of all the sons of men not that it would have detracted from the greatness or freeness of the gift if God had so pleased that all the world should have enjoyed it But when God hath resolved otherwise that it must be enjoyed but by few to finde our names among that number must needs make us the more to value our enjoyment If all Egypt had been light the Israelites should not have had the less but yet to enjoy that light alone while their neighbors live in thick darkness must make them more sensible of their priviledg Distinguishing separating Mercy affecteth more then any Mercy If it should rain on our grounds alone or the Sun shine upon our alone habitations or the blessing of Heaven divide between our flocks and other mens as between Jacobs and Labans we should more feelingly acknowledg Mercy then now while we possess the same in common Ordinariness dulleth our sense and if Miracles were common they would be slighted If Pharoah had passed as safely as Israel the Red Sea would have been less remembred If the first-born of Egypt had not been slain the first-born of Israel had not been the Lords peculiar If the rest of the World had not been drowned and the rest of Sodom and Gomorrah burned the saving of Noah had been no wonder nor Lots deliverance so much talked of The lower the weighty end of the ballance descends the higher is the other lifted up and the falling of one of the sails of the Wind-Mill is the occasion of the rising of the other It would be no extenuation of the Mercies of the Saints here if all the world were as holy as they and the communication of their Happiness is their greatest desire yet it might perhaps dull their thankfulness and differencing grace would not be known But when one shall be illightened and another left in darkness one reformed and another by his lusts enslaved it makes them cry out with the Disciple Lord what is it that thou wilt reveal thy self to us and not unto the world When the Prophet shall be sent to one Widow onely of all that were in Samaria and to cleanse one Naaman of all the Lepers the Mercy is more observable O that will sure be a day of passionate sense on both sides when two shall be in a Bed and two in the field the one taken and the other forsaken For a Christian who is conscious of his own undeserving and il-deserving to see his companion in sin perish his Neighbor Kinsman Father Mother Wife Childe for ever in Hell while he is preferred among the Blessed To see other mens sins eternally plagued while his are all pardoned To see those that were wont to sit with us in the same seat and eat with us at the same Table and joyn with us in the same Duties now to lie tormented in those flames while we are triumphing in Divine Praises That Lot must leave his sons in law in the flames of Sodom and the wife of his bosom as a Monument of Divine Vengeance and escape with his two Daughters alone Here is chusing distinguishing Mercy Therefore the Scripture seems to affirm That as the damned souls shall from Hell see the Saints Happiness to increase their own torments so shall the Blessed from Heaven behold the wickeds misery to the increase of their own Joy And as they looked on the dead bodies of Christs two Witnesses slain in their streets and they that dwell on the Earth rejoyced over them and made merry and as the wicked here behold the calamities of Gods people with gladness so shall the Saints look down upon them in the burning lake and in the sense of their own happiness and in the approbation of Gods just proceedings they shall rejoyce and sing Thou art righteous O Lord which art and wast and shalt be because thou hast thus judged For they have shed the blood of Saints and Prophets and thou hast given them blood to drink for they are worthy Alleluja Salvation and Glory and Honor and Power to our God for true and righteous are his Judgments And as the command is over Babylon so will it be over all the condemned souls Rejoyce over her thou Heaven and ye holy Apostles and Prophets for God hath avenged you on her By this time the impenitent World will see a reason for the Saints singularity while they were on Earth and will be able to answer their own demands Why must you be more holy then your neighbors even because they would fain be more happy then their neighbors And why cannot you do and live as the World about you Even because they are full loath to speed as those others or to be damned with the VVorld about them Sincere singularity in Holiness is by this time known to be neither Hypocrisie nor Folly If to be singular in that Glory be so desirable surely to be singular in godly
this is a lower excellency then Scripture was intended to And thus I have done with this weighty Subject That the Scripture which contains the Promises of our Rest is the certain infallible VVord of God The reason why I have thus digressed and said so much of it is because I was very apprehensive of the great necessity of it and the common neglect of being grounded in it and withall that this is the very heart of my whole Discourse and that if this be doubted of all the rest that I have said will be in vain If men doubt of the Truth they will not regard the goodness And the reason why I have said no more but passed over the most common Arguments is because they are handled in many books already which I advise Christians to be better versed in To the meer English Reader I commend especially these Sir Phil. Mornay Lord du Plessis his Verity of Christian Religion Parsons Book of Resolution Corrected by Bunny the Second Part. Dr. Jackson on the Creed and come forth since I begun this Mr. White of Dorchester Directions for Reading Scripture Mr. John Goodwins Divine Authority of Scripture asserted though some of his Positions I judg unsound yet the Work for the main is commendable Also Read a Book Called A Treatise of Divinity first Part. Written by our honest and faithful Countryman Colonel Edward Leigh a now Member of the House of Commons Also Vrsins Catachism on this Question and Balls Catachism with the Exposition which to those that cannot read larger Treatises is very usefull For the Question How it may be known which books be Canonical I here meddle not with it I think Humane Testimony with the forementioned qualifications must do most in determining that As I begun so I conclude this with an earnest request to Ministers that they would Preach and People that they would study this subject more throughly that their Faith and Obedience may live and flourish while they can prove the Scripture to be the Word of God which contains the Promise of their Everlasting Rest. CHAP. VIII Rest for none but the people of God proved SECT I. IT may here be expected that as I have proved That this Rest remaineth for the people of God so I should now prove that it remaineth onely for them and that the rest of the world shall have no part in it But the Scripture is so full and plain in this that I suppose it needless to those who believe Scripture Christ hath resolved that those who make light of him and the offers of his Grace shall never taste of his Supper And that without holiness none shall see God And that except a man be regenerate and born again he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God That he that believes not shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him That no unclean person nor covetous nor railer nor drunkard c. shall enter into the Kingdom of Christ and of God Ephes. 5.4 5. That the wicked shall be turned into hell and all they that forget God That all they shall be damned that obey not the Truth but have pleasure in unrighteousness 2 Thes. 2.12 That Christ will come in flaming fire to take vengeance on them that know not God and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power And Christ himself hath opened the very maner of their process in judgment and the sentence of their condemnation to eternal fire prepared for the devil and his Angels Matth. 25. So that here is no Rest for any but the people of God except you will call the intollerable everlasting flames of Hell a Rest. And it were easie to manifest this also by Reason For first Gods Justice requires an inequality of mens state hereafter as there was of their lives here And secondly They that walk not in the way of Rest and use not the means are never like to obtain the End They would not follow Christ in the Regeneration nor accept of Rest upon his conditions they thought him to be too hard a Master and his way too narrow and his Laws too strict They chose the pleasures of sin for a season rather then to suffer affliction with the people of God They would not suffer with Christ that so they might raign with him What they made choise of that they did injoy They had their good things in this life and what they did refuse it is but reason they should want How oft would Christ have gathered them to him and they would not And he useth to make men willing before he save them and not to save them against their wils Therefore will the mouths of the wicked be stopped for ever and all the world shall acknowledg the Justice of God Had the ungodly but returned before their life was expired and been heartily willing to accept of Christ for their Saviour and their King and to be saved by him in his way and upon his most reasonable tearms they might have been saved Object But may not God be better then his Word and save those that he doth not promise to save Answ. But not false of his word in saving those whom he hath said he will not save Mens souls are in a doleful case when they have no hope of Happiness except the Word of God prove false To venture a mans eternal salvation upon Hope that God will be better then his word that is in plain English that the God of Truth will prove a lyer is somewhat beyond stark madness which hath no name bad enough to express it Yet I do believe that the description of Gods people in England and in America must not be the same because as Gods Revelations are not the same so neither is the actual Faith which is required in both the same and as the Written and Positive Laws in the Church were never given them so obedience to those meer Positives is not required of them Whether then the threats against unbelievers be meant of Unbelief privative and positive only and not negative such as is all non-believing that which was never revealed Or whether their believing that God is and that he is a Rewarder of them that seek him will serve the turn there Or whether God hath no people there I acknowledg again is yet past my understanding CHAP. IX Whether the Souls departed enjoy this Rest SECT I. I Have but one thing more to clear before I come to the Use of this doctrine And that is Whether this Rest remain till the resurrection before we shall enjoy it Or whether we shall have any possession of it before The Socinians and many others of late among us think that the soul separated from the body is either nothing or at least not capable of happiness or misery Truly if it