Christianity is great some secret Disease keeps thee down Thy Stomach is foul makes no good Digestion some under-ground Corruption draws in that Nutriment those Spirits that should invigorate and encrease thy Graces like a Worm in the Paunch or Bowels feeding upon that which should feed thee and so defrauding thee Kill then thou must or be kill'd Repentance and Faith and Mortification and Watchfulness alone must sublevate thee Engage thy self herein and make these a daily Task Let not thy Sloath the World or any sweet Lust ravish thy Heart into an hours Neglect no not a Moments Resolve and act with the first and to the uttermost Thou art upon the Pits Brink ready to drop down into everlasting Horrours and till thou repentest hast no Foot-hold nay thy Foot is already slipt thou art tumbling down head-long and no Mercy can or will hold thee up but only as far as it engages thee in Repentance This is the sole Relief that thou eanst have from Heaven nothing else can bring thee back raise thee out of the Ditch return thee into a state of Safety but only thy returning this way to God 'T is absolutely impossible under the present Oeconomy of Divine Grace for Mercy it self to save thee to satisfie thee with Peace without Repentance And no less impossible for thee to satisfie thy self in the soundness of thy first Repentance without Cordial Resolutions Cares Endeavours in a second daily life-long Repentance and Mortification Go over again then with this Work never present thy self to the Lord without this Sacrifice of a broken contrite Heart As thou renewest thy falls renew thy rising by Repentance That day upon which thou sinnest not repent not but be sure thou omit this Duty upon none other If there be any failures in thy first Work a recognition and renewal of it may redintegrate and rectifie thee No Man is hearty in that Work which he is loath to reiterate Suspect that Repentance which stands all alone in a single act and hath no Seconds Be dayly therefore searching thy Heart and examining thy Life cast up thy Accounts at even reckon with God and thine own conscience for the day and all thy Life past that thou may'st not lie down a Debtor to Justice least it be requir'd of thee ere the Morning This is safe and use will make it sweet Should a Traytor to God and thine own Soul lodge with thee in peace but for a Night with what face could'st thou present thy self before thy Judge should he arraign thee and tell thee this Night shall thy Soul be required of thee 'T is dangerous to dally with Sin desperate to irritate God The Curse of any one Sin unrepented of and the Wrath and Fiery Indignation of God are no easie Pillows to lay thy head upon Thy sleep will then be sweetest when thy Sin is sourest and thy Rest will be most refreshing and comfortable upon the soft Downy Bed of a good and pure conscience purged by Repentance purifyed by Faith But 't is not enough to forsake thy Sin and turn to goodness with a broken bleeding Heart but the root of Sin must be bound about with a Hoop of Iron that it may be deaden'd and spring out no more Crucifie then the Flesh and the World and be Crucified to them and deny so as to mortifie Vngodliness as well as Worldly Lusts else thou art not taught by the Grace of God that brings Salvation Tit. 2.11 Repentance cuts off the Branches the acts of Sin that are already sprouted out but thy cares must not only respect what is past or present but what may be in future Therefore must thou engage thy preventive cares and endeavours in Mortification Draw out the Heart-Blood of thy Lusts by cutting them off intirely from thy Heart and Affections That accounted so truculent a Word of Caesar to his Soldiers at Pharsalia strike at the face which gave him the Victory is no cruelty but good policy here and mercy to thy self and will be Crown'd with like Success That which is most lovely in thy Corruptions most pleasing to thy sense must be first laid at strike at their Beauty turn that into deformity and thou winnest the Day They live only in thy love as far as approving themselves to thy carnal Affections whence they are call'd Lusts Set up a Cherub with a flaming Sword turning every way to keep them out of that their Paradise and to guard thy Heart that Tree of Life and thou effectually condemnest them to an irremediable Mortality thou really executest and destroyest them Especially if hereto thou superadd the Exercises of Faith and its social Graces For to crucifie Sin without Faith deriving vertue and strength from the Cross i. e. the merit of Christ or that Holy Spirit and his Aid which Christ by his merit purchased is not at all to be hoped It would never have had its Christian Name from the Cross if this had no Influence upon Mortification The Moral is pretty but short of that Perfection of the Spiritual to which we are directed and enabled as Christians 'T is not if ye by Reason and Philosophy but if ye through the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the Body ye shall live Rom. 8.13 What Spirit he speaks of the next verse declares For as many as are led by the Spirit of God are the Sons of God This certainly imports something more than mere Nature and natural Improvements I love the Platonical and Stoical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and am pleased to read those Precepts whereby they direct it But the Philosophical Death in voluntarily loosing the Soul from the Body and bodily Life Porphyr 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 7.9 and Passions to which it was ty'd by converting it self to the service of bodily Affections will only introduce a Philosophical Peace i. e. not to grieve or be angry to be necessitated to nothing to be unconcern'd about Extrinsecals untouched and free Arrian l. 3. c. 13. as they describe it Christian Mortification is a higher thing 'T is the Work of Grace subduing the Sins that are contrary to it especially the Corruption of Nature The Work of Grace influenced by the Holy Ghost The Spirits work by Grace in relation to Christ and his Crucifixion wherein the grace of Faith in special hath a peculiar Province I mean not Christianity in general which sometimes is entitled Faith but that particular Grace which the Old Testament oft calls Trust the New committing our Souls to God When in a sense of Sin Impotency and Emptiness we give up our selves to God in Christ entrusting our Souls with him and expecting all from him alone in the way of his Covenant and Promises which hope is an inseparable fruit of Faith and therefore included with it in the same title of Trust which is indeed both Thus then do Christians mortifie Sin Being sensible that they are insufficient by the power of their own reason and moral Vertue to get
Pet 2.4 To love thy self into Sobriety or Prudent self Government to cloath thy self with a Robe of Righteousness and Mercy in thy dealings with Men is not enough is not the full and adequate Doctrine and Duty taught by the Grace of God which brings Salvation Titus 2.11 There must be superadded not only a denying Vngodliness so as to crucifie it but a living Godly leading a Religious Life towards God in Love Faith Fear Honour Universal Acknowledgment out of Conscience For what Conscience in dealing well with Men and ill with God that is with the Subjects fairly and not with the Soveraign What Conscience in breaking the first Article betwixt God and Man which is to give him the sole command in his House thy Heart that living Temple which is the sum of the First Commandment What Conscience to dwell in his House and pay him no Rent No external Acknowledgment and Worship in Publick in thy Family in thy Closet the sum of the Second Command What Conscience whilst tender of thy own Name to be regardless of Gods forbid in the Third Command What Conscience in stealing time from God's reserved part when he allows thee so much beside the Fourth Command violated Be never so sober just free kind to Man-ward if thou respect not God O my Soul thou hast no Conscience For where there 's no Godliness there can be no Conscience Oh make it thy first and main business to approve thy self to God Thou canst never be true to thy self or Man if thou be a Traytor to God Thou hast no greater assistance in thy dutifulness to Men than a due regardfulness of God Thou canst have no better evidence of a due regardfulness of God than thy conscientious dutifulness to Men. Thou forfeit'st the reputation of thy Religiousness towards God if thou be not Righteous towards Man and of thy Righteousness if not Religious Like Hippocrates's Twins these are born and act and sicken and die together That 's the 4th ingredient of the Psalmist's Character he upheld universal Innocency and Integrity of Conscience CHAP. VII The Subject of Comfort Publickly Spirited c. True Christianity c. 5. THis Holy Man was of a Publick Spirit living under a Catholick sence of and care for the common concerns of the Church of God Lamenting its Miseries ver 5 6. longing and praying for its redemption from them by the Power and Justice of God ver 1 2 3 4 20. and encouraging his own and its hopes thereof by a serious reflection upon the Divine Attributes ver 1 2 8 9 10 11. Providences ver 12 13. and his own particular experience ver 17 18 19 21. withal by a Prophetick Spirit foretelling it ver 14 15 23. all which are plain in the Psalm and plain demonstrations of a Heart enlarged in its desires and endeavours for Publick Good A good Soul is not well at ease when the Servants of God are ill at ease The Sufferings of the Church are made its own by a sympathizing Spirit which is afflicted in all its Afflictions and cannot enjoy Prosperity or it self in Contentation when God's Children are groaning under the Cross Mourns with Mourning Rejoyces with rejoycing Sion and uses its interest in Heaven to work upon the Bowels of the ever-blessed Son of God that he may demonstrate his tender Commiserations toward his own Members in Misery by turning the course of his Providence And that this is a proper method to Comfort we see Isai 66.10 11. Rejoyce ye with Jerusalem and be glad with her all ye that love her rejoyee for joy with her all ye that mourn for her that ye may suck and be satisfied with the Breasts of her Consolations that ye may milk out and be delighted with the abundance of her Glory God had a People a Heritage which though Afflicted and broken in pieces here ver 5. yet he would not cast off nor forsake either in respect of Affection or Communion ver 14. So neither must we For 't is by Vertue of our Union and Communion with that Body and its Head that all those comfortable Spirits and Influences are derived to us which refresh and revive us I confess 't is through our internal and spiritual Confederation and Fellowship but he that values and receives benefit by this cannot despise and vilifie the External Hence our Psalmist here as a Member vitally joined to the Body and partaking of a common Sense does not only comfort himself and it with the consideration of the inviolableness of that Union and Communion which was of a spiritual Nature ver 14. nor only reflects upon those external Ligaments and Bonds which ty'd together so numerous a People into one single Heritage or Church but also was grievously afflicted for those external breakings in pieces rents and disunion of parts though involuntary which were the fruit of the outward Violence and Rage of Persecutors So should we But then Oh what Affliction would have rent his tender Heart in the view of those voluntary tearing in pieces the Seamless Coat of Christ the Divisions and Breaches we make amongst our selves Those Fractions were only some kind of dissolution of their Civil Political Union ours of the Ecclesiastical and Wounds are most dangerous in the most noble Parts State Factions are not more to be dreaded than those of the Church because these have more immediate respect to the Soul and God Lamentable are the Miseries of a Civil War where Thousands Born Bred up Nourished by one common Mother Brethren by Stock Blood Condition Cohabitation Membership of the same Body Politick perhaps of one Name and Kindred and Family of the same Body Mystical the Church Blind and Dumb and Deaf to the Cries and Shreeks and Wounds and Groans and Deaths of their own proper Limbs in a barbarous drunken rage tear off their own Skin Flesh and Bones rive open their very Hearts to let out Spirit Life Strength Soul hurl one another down to Hell under their Sin in a deluge of Blood and worry themselves by piece-meal into eternal Damnation And are the Church Digladiations in the Christian World less deplorable when those whose respite from everlasting Burnings cost no less than the Blood of God who are denominated from that most venerable Name wash'd in the same Laver of Regeneration Members of the same Spiritual Body privileged with the same most excellent Gospel and Covenants of Promise and would every one be ready to tear out his Heart that should dare to tell them that they shall not each possess the blessedness of an unspeakably glorious Heaven where therefore as in a Center they must meet if their hopes fail not When these I say who thus concenter and agree in their Titles Royalties and Expectations are so far from combining in the common profession and practice of Unity Love Peace Goodness Vertue Godliness Brotherly kindness Charity as to grind one another into Atoms bite and devour one anothers Hearts by bloody Animosities Reproaches
a world of crafty Politicks and inventive cunning to devise whatever that unfathomable depth of Malice and Emity can direct against us to ruin us everlastingly together with an unknown and unimaginably great sufficiency of Power and Activity to execute what they contrive and they have no limits of their duration on this side Eternity Oh dreadful Host indeed what may they despair to effect upon impotent and degenerate sinful Man But the dependance of things one upon another I see has made me forget my Scope which was to remember the Fears of Sin and Temptation to it rather than the Tempter I proceed to the 2. Danger wherein the Psalmist did apprehend himself viz. of Death not so much Natural as Violent His Enemies design'd to Murther him by a pretended Law notwithstanding his Righteousness and Innocency and for that end had sentenced and condemned him ver 21.22 Whence he declares ver 17. Vnless the Lord had been my help my Soul had almost or quickly dwelt in silence My Soul that is I my self the better part by a Figure being put for the Person or rather for the worse part the Body dwelt in silence i. e. the Grave as is unanimously agreed by Interpreters according to Psal 115.17 The Dead praise not the Lord nor any that go down into silence Which is not to be understood of the Soul but Body only Psal 49.12 20. Nevertheless or And Man being in Honour abideth not a Night he is like the Beasts that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are silent i. e. Dead Psal 31.17 fully Death indeed is the King of Terrors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist Job 18.14 Of all Terribles the most terrible to Nature because it dissolves its most amicable Bands and utterly extinguishes all those hopes which it has for many years been kindling and were it not for the reliefs of Grace it would certainly fill Men with unspeakable Agonies could they view it in all its antecedent and consequent Pomp and Circumstances For 't is only ignorance of this very solemn change that causes the most so fool-hardily and without concern to entertain the thoughts and approaches of it But a violent Death God's Effections are always better milder than his Permissions when a Man lies at the mercy of those whose tender Mercies are Cruelty must needs cause more bitter Reflections than where Nature gently expires under the compassionate tender Hands of the God of Nature who always contends in measure that the Spirit may not fail and the Soul which he hath made To this Head then appertains the trouble arising from Fears of Suffering and Affliction of what kind soever In particular those that accompany and follow Death especially the Terrors of Judgment and Hell which is Eternal Death This the Psalmist sometimes felt the sting and torture of as a preventive Medicine that he might not feel it everlastingly Psal 116.3 The pains of Hell gat hold upon me call'd the Cords of Hell Psal 18.5 marg 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whence perhaps our English Word Cable it sometimes signifies Corruption Destruction Mic. 2.10 Troops Bands Companies Psal 119.61 either of these may suit well enough But above all Fear of God's Anger and just Displeasure most heavily sits upon the Spirit of a Gracious Man All the Troops of Hell and Triumphs of Cruelty are but Mormo's in comparison Finite Fury cannot plague infinitely therefore our Saviour advises Luke 12.4 5. Be not affraid of them that kill the Body and after that have no more that they can do But I will forwarn you whom you shall fear Fear him which after he hath killed hath power to cast into Hell yea I say unto you fear him Filial Fear of God indeed brings no trouble but joy 'T is only a Fear working to Bondage oppressive to Nature a Rebel against Reason stupifying the Spirits enervating the Will damping the Affections over-throwing our Resolution defeating our Counsels confounding our Consciences betraying us into a base and unworthy servitude to our own corrupt Imaginations Errors and Ignorance and every exteriour Agent that has the power or will to abuse them and our Credulity to our Prejudice and Perdition 2. Grieving Thoughts and Impressions The Evils did not lie perdue at a distance but in a close encounter charg'd home and wounded his Heart that it bleeds here in godly Sorrow Indeed whatever causes Fear and Despair does also introduce Grief when it becomes present but his Mind was overwhelmed with such Reflections as had a peculiar influence upon his Sorrow beside those that did produce Fear and Despair As 1. The Sins of others The foul Enormities of Wicked Men whereof several are named 1. Pride Ver. 2. Render a Reward to the Proud a Reward in Vengeance In this Sin the Devil began the Dance and all his Servants wear his Livery and tread in his Steps For this their Loftiness and triumphing Arrogance his Heart groan'd out the double How long ver 3. Words of Lamentation Indeed when men are despis'd they are either anger'd or griev'd anger'd if Proud griev'd if Lowly incens'd if Passionate if Meek troubled 'T is the property of Pride to despise and slight all but bear slighting from none 2. Boasting The inward filth of Pride and Arrogance foaming out at the Mouth ver 4. All the workers of Iniquity speak boast themselves the coherence seems to intimate that the things they boasted of were their own height and power to oppress the Innocent Being got to the top of the Mount of Honour and Worldly Prosperity which puft them up they imagin'd it for their Security and Glory to fall down upon and crush and break in pieces God's Heritage and this they gloried in as becoming their Grandeur Potency Now to be not only trod and trampled upon with the foot of Pride and spurn'd kick'd away like a Dog but also hear the Proud-doers brag of it as a brave and worthy Fact as it heightens the Sin of the Actors so the Sorrow of the Sufferers both as an addition to their own Affliction and also a further aggravation of the Sin 'T is easier to bear a scorn in deeds when a Man has the liberty to suppose that possibly it may not be the issue of design and a malicious Mind or that the Agent may after grieve for and repent of it than to bear their blessing themselves in it praismg themselves for it which is a testimony of their love to it delight in it But if the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be taken in a softer sence shall will or do speak of or speak themselves praedicabunt se The future for the present tense a common Enallage except the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be repeated here again out of the foregoing Verse as our Translaters think it must But then why not also in the Fifth and Sixth Verses where the Verbs are all future yet rendred in the present Interlin i. e. will vaunt praise or extol themselves in Words magnifie
and with them Sin their Cause never to have a Resurrection Then dawns the Day of everlasting Light and Blessedness and all Darkness Dolours and Shadows flee away Be our Miseries as great as they will or can they cannot outlive Mortality if our guilt do not and it shall not if true Repentance live within us At the day-break of Eternity we enter upon a Life of Contentation and Peace as endless as transcendent The Death of our Bodies is the Death of our Troubles and the Resurrection of those Joys over which Death hath no Power As there will then be no more beginning of Wretchedness so no end of Felicity The worst turn that the Devil and his Instruments can do us will turn to the best advantage and those Souls that die to the Body shall live in Christ they are uncloathed of Dirt and Putrefaction that they may be for ever Cloathed with God and Glory That as the Death of the Body is the easer of all our Pains so the no-No-death or Immortality succeeding is the Introducer and Maintainer of an unboundable Fullness of everlasting Soul-Satisfactions This we owe to the perpetual Duration and Life of God Whence the Psalmist in a sad Prospect of the evanid Nature of present Things doth solace himself with a view of the permanent Being of God Psal 102.11 12. My days are like a shadow that declineth and I am withered like Grass But thou Oh Lord shall endure for ever and thy Remembrance to all Generations I said Oh my God take me not away in the midst of my days thy years are throughout all Generations Of old hast thou laid the Foundation of the Earth and the Heavens are the Work of thine Hands They shall perish but thou shalt endure yea all of them shall wax old as a Garment as a Vesture shalt thou change them and they shall be changed but thou art the same and thy years shall have no end We are possest of many Transitory Comforts but of none Eternal beside God And if any true Content arise from those movable Enjoyments it springs from nothing else in them except that which being eminently in God is in him of an everlasting Nature and Perfection Whatever pleases doth so far refresh and comfort but all that pleasantness is only a little ray of Divinity transmitted through the Cloud of Flesh and Blood or the more clear Heavens of our Rational Powers Amiable Relations are Comforts beyond all things under the Sun but their lovely Qualities are only a dark Shadow of the unparallell'd Amiableness of God To be beloved by thy Friends is a Comfort estimable above Gold but neither the Act nor the Object durable no nor the Motive exciting or inviting that Affection Can any Man Rationally solace himself with a Being lov'd for a moment when he shall be deserted or hated for ever Fading Love on Earth will not do without the never fading Love of Heaven Though all the World for a while adore thee What compensating Pleasure can that bring thee if Hell everlastingly burn thee All thy fore-past Joys on Earth will rather add new Fewel than administer one drop to cool thy flaming Tongue No Love therefore is indeed considerable and comfortable without the Eternal Love of God Nor in the assurance of this is any hatred or rage valuable dejecting formidable As Eternity is the Venom and Sting of the Torments of Hell so 't is the very Triumph Jubile and Heaven of the Joys of Heaven If in the loss of these lauguishing expiring Comforts we can succenturiate or substitute any thing of God we richly gain by the loss as possessing unspeakably more pure substantial heart-reaching durable everliving Comforts in the everliving Spring who can and will give them that relish and sweetness which shall abundantly more than answer what is slip'd away from us as well in its delicious Gratefulness as Eternity Mortality is the great disgrace of all Worldly Enjoyments but it receives a plentiful Compensation in the Immortality of God Thus have I considered the Comforts comprehended in those Attributes of God which offered themselves to the Psalmist's Meditation as I find them either exprest or plainly implied in this Psalm CHAP. XIV Comforts from God COuld I allow my self the liberty I might here instance those Comforts which are administred from the consideration of the Divine Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost and the Relations wherein God stands to us and we mutually to God But I have determined to confine my Discourse chiefly to such Heads of Matter as fall within Cognizance of the Psalm and not make endless Excursions to things which none can imagine ever to enter into the Author's mind in order to the Revival of his disconsolate Heart I pass therefore from the Comforts that God is which was the first general to the 2. The Comforts which God gives That which God is in himself and hath revealed to us is wonderfully refreshing But there 's also something which not being immanent and essentially Constitutive of the Divine Nature but passing from him to us doth singularly relieve our troubled Souls Of this kind Promises Providences Privileges Experiences offer themselves to Consideration What was needful to be observed concerning Promises fell in under Divine Fidelity as included in its very Notion therefore shall all further Disquisition anent them be superseded Providence is the transit of God's Wisdom Power Justice Goodness Faithfulness out of Heaven and himself into the visible World Governing Protecting Caring for Directing and Ordering all for most excellent Ends worthy of God Under the conduct hereof all things prosperous or adverse the greatest the most minute Natural Moral Spiritual necessary or fortuitous are deduced from their immediate proper Causes guided and sustained in their Actings secured from external Violences maintained in a due steady agreeable Station and order to compose the Beauty and Harmony of the Universe and be conducible to advance the Glory of their Maker in both the general and special purposes of his Love and Goodness or Justice and Righteousness And there is not a more reviving consideration to God's afflicted tossed with tempest and not comforted Isa 54.11 than this that they are the peculiar care and charge of Heaven which as it is concerned for the Catholique good so in special for those that love God and are the called according to his purpose Rom. 8.28 insomuch that Prosperity cannot be more delectable to their sense than Afflictions of all kinds are made to their Souls useful and profitable 'T is always best for them to be in the worst external Circumstances as never being more dear to God more regarded by him who is most tender of them when the Devil and World are most cruel and when the out-casts off-scouring and refuse of the Earth When here they can expect nothing beside Reviliags and Buffetings the liberal Alms of the Churches Enemies they are likeliest to receive the more bountiful tastes of Divine Goodness possess more of his
its Speculations infinitely weakned and debased The Will possesses a kind of Empire over the Mind to excite divert direct or determine Thoughts and vary all their Circumstances by proposal of Objects c. and sometimes to give a Supersedeas to some kind of Thoughts though not all but oft it raises up such Spirits as it cannot conjure down and very seldom has Dominion over the Matter or Subject of our Thoughts to biass the Mind into such Conceptions of Things as it pleases difform and dissonant from the Nature of the Things themselves except where there is a more than ordinary Debauch upon both Mind and Will For the Reason of the Subject must necessarily accord with the Reason of the Object if there be any Truth in our Conceptions Thoughts disagreeing from Things are Errours and Delusions The Remainders therefore of Corruption in the Will after its Renewal by Grace together with a subtile Tempter and sometimes the Holy Spirit of God himself as under Convictions of Sin do excite such Cogitations as are too hard for us and bear down all the Supports of Nature raising such Tumults and turbulent Affections that our Spirits are ready to succumb and sink under them into the most pensive Dumpishness Dolour Despair Horror and Confusion He is a Stranger to Himself the World the Scriptures Christianity the Church and particular Souls that know not this If any will not yet believe it I remit him to Bedlam where his Sense will convince him what doleful Tragedies of this nature have been and are acted by Amorous Envious Studious Dolorous and Religious Melancholy to omit other kinds And what Man is there that with any Sense and Seriousness reflects upon his own particular Sins against the Holy Majesty of Heaven in their odious Aggravations together with the declared Displeasure and Indignation the menaced Wrath and Curse of Almighty Vengeance against them and his Person for their sake but will sometimes find so great and oppressive Perturbations in his Mind and Conscience as to be utterly at a Non-plus and scarce able to secure himself from Despondency Who is there that in some either common or uncommon Calamity or imminent Danger thereof does not sometimes find the Passions excited by his Thoughts to be an Over-match for his Reason Who but a senseless stupid Log does not a little sometimes pass the bounds of Decorum in the Internal Workings of Sorrow upon the I oss or Death natural but especially suddain and violent of or any considerable Crosses in and by dearest and nearest Relations and yet more especially when their immortal Souls are apparently hazzarded if not finally lost and sunk into Eternal Damnation Now no inward Affections are Self-movers they neither do nor can act but upon the apprehension of Sence or Motion of Thoughts or Influence of some exterior very powerful Agent that can make immediate Impressions upon the Blood and Spirits as neither are our Thoughts no nor can be any Molestation or Affliction but only as irritating our Passions And I would gladly see the Man who by Rational or Religious Considerations has reduc'd his Thoughts and Passions to that equable Temperament and Balance that they neither are nor can be induc'd or impell'd won or wrested into any Irregularity or Excess by the single or united Powers of Earth Hell and Heaven which last never depraves them though it oft punishes us by them Surely Job was a very good Man yet the Extremity of his Afflictions provoked him to talk and therefore think extravagantly And if God Almighty cast away the Reins out of his hands and let loose a Man's Thoughts upon him and who is there that gives him not a world of Provocation I know not whither even the most mere Man's Thoughts may not hurry him on this side Hell If any desire a full Conviction what a wicked Man's Thoughts can do let them a little survey those dismal Regions of Everlasting Horror not in Person as the poor Prisoner in Alex. ab Alexandro Genial Dier L. 6. C. 21. but in Thought and Meditation and I hope it will do him this Good viz. engage him to implore Omnipotent Grace to Restrain and Govern his Thoughts that they may not be an Introduction and Earnest of those easeless endless remediless Woes and if his Thoughts thereof will permit him to sleep or rest before he hath done this he thinks to little purpose Lastly Behold the infinite Condescension and Care of Heaven towards impotent degenerous Man in the Provision made not only for his Necessity but Consolation Rather than our Thoughts should be too many and so an Over-match for us the Divine Goodness will interpose and relieve us and has exhibited such a full Treasury of Comforts that no Distress can befal us so uncouth so uncommon so inextricable as to be out of the reach and road of the Relief therein tendered us That so inconsiderable a Piece as a Sinner a Pourtraicture of Hell limn'd after the Image of Satan the Father of all Wickedness an Enemy thro natural depravement to God and Goodness should engage the Solicitude and Providence of Heaven in such admirable instances to retrieve its lost Happiness and recover it out of the Sink and Abyss of Filth and Wretchedness that it may be set aloft in the Galleries of Glory and be beautified in rather than beautifie the Presence-Chamber of the King of Kings This this is a wonder beyond the Dimension of all other Miracles to be ascrib'd to the Benignity and Efficiency of nothing Inferiour to Infiniteness Men may flatter themselves in their sweet Harangues concerning the Celsitude Dignity and Nobleness of Humane Nature let it in its positive State as the effect of a most excellent Cause be advanc'd and admir'd as much as it can by Words or Thoughts yet what is it comparatively to God What is it under the debasements of Sin Which is infinitely more odious to God than any thing short of Himself can be pleasing so that nothing less than Divinity could give Satisfaction for the Wrong it did to the Supreme Majesty of Heaven not all the natural Excellencies of the whole Creation not all the Moral Perfections and Performances of Men and Angels and what Account is to be made of a drop of Honey intermingled with an Ocean of Gall The ever Adoreable Son of God who was much more a Man in respect of all eximious humane Endowments than ever any born of Woman besides his Sinlessness yet in the Person of David saith of himself Psal 22.6.4 I am a Worm and no Man if that be not to be understood estimatively that he was no better in the account of his Reproachers that shaked the Head at him saying be trusted in the Lord c. compare this with Matth. 27.39.43 See also Psal 8.4 5 6. Heb. 2.6 c. In Job 25.6 Man is considered with respect to that which does most of all ennoble viz. Goodness and Righteousness Yet because 't is allay'd with the
intolerable burthen thy daily lamentation Thou darest not assume to thy self any comfort nor be at rest in thy Spirit till thou beest in some good degree safied that God and goodness have as far as Humane Infirmity and this present state will permit the all of thy Heart Mind Soul and Strength or thy most earnest pressing active industrious persevering desires hereof which not to feel is a grief and torment insupportable and drives thee to new exercises of Repentance and Faith in Christ for Pardon and Aid that thy second endeavours may be more upright thy after thoughts more efficacious And do'st thou seek and find ease and rest for thy self in no other method than looking and coming to Jesus with a weary labouring heavy-laden Heart entirely devoted to him and therefore sincerely willing and desirous to learn of him meekness and lowliness of Heart and to take his Yoak upon thee which is easie and his Burthen which is light Matt. 11.29 30. If this be thy frame practice and way and thou canst not wilt not comfort thy self till thy sense and real feeling of these things and a full insight into thy self make thy way very plain as infinitely afraid of being cheated by Satan or choused by thine own deceitful Heart under a shadow of Spiritual Joys into substantial Woes If thy Feet being first guided into the paths of Righteousness be guided also with this caution and wariness into the way of Peace and setled in a quiet and comfortable Repose this ½ doubt not is real Divine Consolation 3. The differences of true and false Comforts which are derived from the Subject or Persons feeling their reviving Influence or rather indeed the adjuncts of those Persons considered in their absolute or relative State are as palpable as any The soundest Joys being only the Possession of a truly Regenerate Godly Soul The unsound lodging in the wicked Hypocritical for the most part as their proper Habitation So that if it can be known to a Mans self whether he be really good or bad it may ordinarily be known whether his Peace be right or wrong But for this I refer to the Characters of the Psalmist in the beginning of this Discourse I only add That where there 's no Life there can be no true Comfort 'T is My God vers 22. Now he is not the God of the dead but of the living Matth. 22.32 'T is no less true in a Spiritual sense than a Natural If My God in natural Relation argue the Life of Nature My God in federal Relation does as strongly infer the Life of Grace For 't is not any where affirmed of Cain Esau Judas c. after their Death that God was then their God as of Abraham c. although they be no less alive in Soul the Immortality whereof is a common Privilege and admits of no degrees in one more than other My God then to Abraham c. is another thing and to be taken in another sense than that wherein it may be applicable to Cain c. since 't is used of the godly after Death in an appropriate incommunicable sense It may truly be apply'd to the very Devils and damned in any sense not importing the Moral Spiritual Life of Purity and Peace but in this 't is the sole Prerogative of the godly that are born again not of Blood nor of the Will of the Flesh nor of the Will of Man but of God Joh. 1.13 When therefore our Psalmist owns the Divine Majesty under the Relation of My God the meaning is Mine to whom I am confederated united as a principle of new Divine Spiritual Life as the Soul of my Soul in whose all I have a true federal Right in his Being his Perfections his Knowledge Coodness Love Life Peace c. whose Comforts therefore benignly eye me and invite my acceptance because I and all mine are his He himself and all his through not Creation merely but the Covenant of Grace are mine I therefore possess living Comforts because I enjoy a living God as mine own by Vital Vnion Indeed Spiritual Joys only affect Spiritual living Souls Cordials are never administred to disanimated Carkases nor Divine Comforts to the Dead in Sins and Trespasses First Resurrection then Ascension into a Heaven of Rest Natural Animal Life inherits no Spiritual Peace 1 Cor. 15.44 50 51. any more than a natural Body Celestial Pleasures All must be changed ere they can be translated into this Paradise As the corruptible part of us is abolished at the Resurrection of the Body else we cannot enter into Life So the corrupting part must be Crucified at the Resurrection of our Souls or we cannot enter into Peace Isa 57.2 He shall enter into Peace they shall rest upon their Beds walking in uprightness A Scripture something cloudy which the former clause being singular this plural in the Hebrew and both Figurative renders yet more perplex'd But by a Transposition not unusual and taking the last word of the foregoing Verse as a Supplement to this being 't is the Substantive to the Participle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it may be read thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Righteous walking in his uprightness shall come goe into Peace they i. e. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sickly Men of Mercy or Holiness shall quietly rest upon their Beds To compleat the sentence and sense understand and insert here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 walking in uprightness for although the number disagree yet the matter requires it An exceeding proper allusion to the Signification of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Enosh A Bed for the sick The Bed is either 1. The Grave for the Body a common Metaphor 2 Chron. 16.14 c. as 't is to stile Death a sleep yet this would but be a jejune Interpretation improper to the place for even to the wicked 't is so 2. Therefore the Bed imports the state of everlasting repose and rest for the Soul in Heaven Though righteous and merciful Men of infirm Bodies and Souls be taken away from approaching Evils yet living and dying in uprightness they enter into never ending Rest and Peace That is their Portion after Death and the first Fruits thereof their present Possession That of Solomon Eccles 2.2 is every way verified of the wicked I said of laughter it is mad and of mirth what doth it For what greater frenzy than to laugh in the face of incensed condemning Justice And Oh mirth what dist thou In the midst of the devouring Fire and everlasting Burnings which are already kindled in a cauterized Conscience though for a little while rak'd up and smothered But whether so or no I am sure there 's just reason that even in laughter their hearts should be marvellous sorrowful because the end of that mirth will be doleful heaviness Prov. 14.13 For the wicked are like the troubled Sea when it cannot rest whose Waters cast up mire and dirt There is no peace saith my God to the wicked Isa
love thee into Heaven when thou debasest and hatest and would sin him if it were possible into Hell And yet does not thy Heart relent and smite and gall thee Oh is this thy kindness to thy Friend to thy Redeemer to thy self Oh! What do'st thou deserve for these foul Villanies committed against a Person of thee the best deserving in the World How many Hells How many tormenting Devils are thy just reward for so horrible Affronts Despites Scorns put upon the Majesty and Mercy of Heaven Oh! What canst thou do or think or hope in this lamentable case Wherewithal wilt thou come before the Lord What hast thou to tender as a just Reparation Or canst thou bear up against the fiery tempest of his devouring Indignation Oh woe unto thee that ever thou wast brought out of the Womb of Nothing to behold thy self in Circumstances so deplorable and so little affected afflicted This this is the most miserable scene of all thy Miseries To be ready to be spew'd out of the Mouth of Jesus into the very jaws of the roaring Lion to be tumbled down out of the bosom of God into the everlasting Burnings of the bottomless Pit and yet be senseless secure fearless careless remorseless Oh astonishment Oh horror Awake awake Oh my sense Oh my stupid benummed brawny Heart and melt in the fiery Oven of Wrath or the warm refreshing Sun-shine of Love Oh Grief and Anguish Where do ye inhabit Whither are ye retired Oh come and dwell in a sinful Soul and pour it out in a penitential Deluge Oh Almighty Love shed abroad thy heart-dissolving Influences and make the Floods overflow Oh in what bitterness of woe am I that I have undervalued and trod thee under my profane Feet that I have kick'd at those Bowels and even torn out that Heart that hath yearned over me in the most affectionate degree of Pity and Clemency My Bowels my Bowels I am pained at my very heart for the sordid disingenuousness as well as the bloody barbarousness of my Deportment toward thee Oh beloved and blessed Son of God whom with accursed cruel wicked hands I have crucified and slain Whoever were the Instruments yet 't was I as a principal meritorious Cause by my Sin that was the Judas the betrayer the Jew the Murtherer I drive the Nails I push'd forward the Spear I tore open thy very Heart to let out that blessed Spring of Water and Blood 'T was my guilt that first made my own then thy unpolluted Body passible and mortal 'T was I that armed the more formidable vengeance of thy Father against thy innocent Soul I that set open the flood-gates of Divine Wrath and let in that terrible Inundation of Miseries upon it which overwhelmed it destroyed kill'd it as far as was possible for that which was Immortal and thy Body in its Ruins Oh 't was sinful I that poured out all those scalding Hells into that blessed Soul of the Holy One of God which melted his Body into a showre of Blood that I became as far as possible the Author of the Death of God Bleed Oh my Soul bleed a deluge over those bleeding Wounds that dying Heart that cruciated Soul of the Crucified Son of God Oh grieve and mourn bitterly for thy vexing rebelling against and grieving the Spirit of Grace whom thou hast so often thrust away by quenching his Motions strangling his Convictions resisting his Operations as if 't was thy design to frustrate all the methods of infinite Love for thy Salvation Oh hateful to God and Man Wilt thou not be stung to the Heart with all wherewith thou hast despited all the kindness and goodness and tenderness of Heaven Oh my vileness Oh my baseness 't is unutterable 't is unsufferable where can a Parallel be found throughout the whole Creation Oh what am I What have I made my self An abhorrence to all Flesh to all Spirits and shall I not be so to my self Is there a poisonful Serpent on Earth a squalid Fury in Hell more virulent and abominable The Heart of God Christ the Spirit Angels Blessed Saints rise against me as the viperous-Brood the filthy Vomit of Satan spit out of his Mouth as like him in form or deformity rather and ugliness as Hell to Hell And what now is thy Portion Oh miserable Soul What thy doom See it dread it yet expect it for how canst thou avoid it Ah! the bottom of the bottomless abyss of Woe the hottest Mansion in the raging Furnace of Divine Wrath how canst thou abide it I am tottering upon the very brinks of Hell Down I fall I sink I perish What can save me Who can redeem my Soul from Destruction everlasting I my self cannot no nor all the created Powers of Heaven and Earth And have I not abundant reason to fear that the blessed Trinunity will not Oh woful Soul Whither hast thou suffer'd thy Wickedness to hurry thee What wilt thou do in the day of God's fierce Anger which in a moment may arrest thee and swallow thee up And what Remedy Where wilt thou seek where canst thou find security against that Omnipotent Vengeance that is ready to Arraign thee Oh! What wilt thou do to be saved Is there any possibility Is there no Balm in Gilead Is there no Physician there Oh there there alone is thy Succour wilt thou reject it In this Perplexity wilt thou despise it Wilt thou defer and delay applying thy self to a serious Care to make use of it Oh! Be willing be forward be eager to do nay to suffer any thing but the loss of Holiness and God that thou maist be healed I come Lord now I come a poor Prodigal returning to my wits my self that I may return to thee and with a groaning oppressed pained Heart weary of Sin the Cause sick of self dead to all mine own Righteousness and every thing I thus under the Influence and Conduct of thy Holy Spirit present my self at the lowest step of thy Throne as unfit unworthy to lift up mine Eyes to look thee in the face and being in a grievous Agony of Woe because I have offended thee so hainously so frequently so perseveringly by a Deportment so dishonest vile sordid I loath my self and all my fore-past evil ways of Spiritual and Carnal Wickedness Omissions Commissions Sins of Nature Heart and Life in Word or Deed or Thought they wound me to the very Soul I faint under them I cannot with patience reflect upon my unuttereble Folly in living unto and under them I abhor my self in dust and ashes I utterly and eternally abandon them resolve against promise vow covenant to be an utter and implacable Enemy to them Down all ye Idols of my Heart Lusts of the Eyes Lusts of the Flesh Pride of Life Filthiness of Spirit as well as Flesh In good earnest I now purpose through thy Aid and Grace never to return to any of these Follies more never never more and under the Assistance of thy Power I
Paradise who by thine experimental knowledge of this evil of suffering will create in thee a saving knowledge of good and through these Fruits of the Tree of the Cross lead thee to the Tree of Life CHAP. IX The Subject of Comfort Eyes God in all things 7. THis Man of God enjoy'd and liv'd under much experience of divine Goodness and gracious Providence Under all that happen'd he ey'd and own'd the Hand of God 1. In Affliction Ver. 17. Vnless the Lord had been my help my Soul had almost dwelt in silence Ver. 22. The Lord is my defence and my God is the Rock of my Refuge 2. In Temptation When I said my foot slippeth thy Mercy O Lord held me up ver 18. 3. In both ver 19. the Text In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy Comforts delight my Soul A Man of common Principles would have look'd no farther than second Causes and the activity of Instruments and Means in his deliverance from Death ver 17. Than his own Prudence Caution Foresight Care and Endeavour in preservation from falling v. 18. Than his own reasonings and wise conduct of his Affections in the calm and serenity of his Mind v. 19. But this Holy Soul ascribes all to Divine Goodness And indeed to such a Man nothing is accidental he is never at a loss for the cause of any occurrent when he has not the least prospect of the agency of any thing on Earth he can find out a supreme mover in Heaven to whom nothing falls out by chance without either the foresight of his Intelligence or the conduct of his Wisdom or the determination of his Will or the interposal of his Power or the liberty of his Permission which though no cause at all properly but only that called sine quâ non which is but Fatua yet is governed by his Providence and all the possibilities thereof visible to his Prescience God is more concern'd in the World than the Artificer in a Clock who when 't is set together set up and agoing forsakes it He is sure little conversant in Scripture that imagines the Deity only a general cause who having constituted things with such and such particular Natures Propensions Biasses leaves them to run out their course without further Concurrence and Solicitude than to preserve them in the being constitution and activity he first gave them There 's nothing so mean so fortuitous but the Scripture intitles God to it either in way of Efficiency Direction Ordination or Permission If it be Good Natural or Moral he is the doer so if evil Natural if evil Moral though he abhor it cannot effect it or concur to it as such yet can he does he direct and order it to such ends as are consistent with his Wisdom Justice Holiness and Goodness which he well foreknows how to do therefore hinders not its existence as he easily could do without any violence to Nature blemish to his Government or infringement of the Liberty of his Creatures For to me 't is no little Mystery that although God be able to form a Rational Nature with liberty of Will and Prudence so to manage it that it shall at no time be compell'd to offer violence to its own freedom but in every act proceed with an even gentle sweet Spontaneity according to the dictates of its own finite Understanding yet that the infinite Intelligence and Prudence of the Divine Nature must be thought unable and insufficient by the reasonable Understanding and Will to elicite manage and guide these very humane Actions so as to preserve the same Liberty inviolable Let something be allow'd to Infiniteness sure it can do whatever Finiteness can if it be not to its disparagement If I can bring about my own resolute and fixed Purposes without prejudice to my own or others Liberty sure boundless Wisdom and Power can tell how to bring about its determinations by the liberty of the Creature A Reverend Judicious Divine my Relation told me that for experiment sake to try the power of an over-mastering Imagination he had oft requested such things of some Persons in whom he had no Interest at all which he knew they had an aversation to using no Reasons Arguments Motives Importunities at all further than the bare proposal only engaging himself strongly to fansie that he should obtain his desire and he seldom fail'd to prevail I never had the curiosity to make a tryal but am apt to think there may be something in 't upon consideration of the strange effects of the Mothers imagination upon her enwombed Infant as to both Impressions on its Body and Antipathies in its Mind the transpiring animal Spirits modify'd and mov'd strongly by a material Faculty may intermingle with those of a differing Body and over-rule their weaker Modifications and Motions and thereby the material Faculty that acted them as in Sympathetick Cures and the votatil Particles of Vitriol c. Crude or calcin'd do mix with the extravasated vital Spirits and return with them to their Fountain I confess these act only as Physical Causes and cannot vary in their effects of themselves though other external Causes may thwart them And what if a Man allow some such like thing to Spiritual Natures By what impressions they can communicate their Minds to one another by what impulses they bow one anothers Wills we know not but only the Effects God never fails to obtain the free voluntary Obedience of Angels And the more determin'd their Wills are the more free The Devil acts with less Liberty than a Glorified Saint and a Holy Angel with more than a self-determining Man who has both liberty of Contrariety and Contradiction can do both Good and Evil Act and not Act. Well if my Imagination further if my short defective Understanding can the one make such impresses the other produce such weighty momentous Reasons as shall sway my own and others Wills to an inhesitant and free compliance shall I not give that deference to the unfathomable Intellect and Reason of God as to suppose it endued with Ability to suggest such things as shall bow mine own or others Wills to a ready spontaneous ingenuous Concurrence than any thing can that is deduced merely out of the promptuary of mine own Mind I find my freedom in acting is gradually more or less intense according to the satisfaction of my Reason And if the Reason of God which is boundless cannot induce a more ample satisfaction than the Reason of a Creature which is but lame and imperfect and if he cannot with as much Facility without all impeach to our Liberty lead our Minds to the Contemplation thereof as in the use of the empire our selves have over them we can do if he cannot also more throughly excite acuminate quicken and enlarge our considering Powers freely to engage I have done 'T is not strange therefore that the Scripture ascribes all to God as the Origin of every individual Motion I find holy Men in
and which is worse a Tumult and Combustion within in his thoughts A Man may escape from External Confusions but how shall he fly from himself If he be out of the reach of all the Blood-suckers on Earth and all the Furies in Hell yet be dog'd and haunted with his own turbulent ungovernable Cogitations he needs no other Tormenters This Holy Man was thus doubly distrest a Storm Abroad and an Earthquake at home rendred his Condition most dolorous But for both he hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he goes not about with the Foxes of this World to relieve himself with subtle Stratagems and Wiles by carnal Shifts and Policies a Vanity tossed to and fro by them that seek Death No his one great Refuge is to get aloft to ascend to God Here is his Defence from outward assaults v. 22. Here is his Ease in the Torment and Mutiny within thy Comforts delight my Soul Nothing can really comfort without God or any further than as it leads to God The Creatures are but dry Breasts and a miscarrying Womb. The empty Cisterns will sooner be filled with the Tears of the disappointed Hopeless than distil upon or replenish and fill their Souls with the refreshing Dews of true Consolation 'T is in vain to look for living Comforts amongst dead Enjoyments There 's no Life or vital Influence in any thing to enable it to quiet a troubled Soul if God be not in it He is the Soul of all real Contentment In Separation from him there can be no Heaven i. e. no Life no Peace no Rest no Glory all 's only Dream and Fancy and will vanish into Smoak and Fire yet such as is outer Darkness And if without him there can be no Heaven above much less below in the mind of Man least of all in the outward Objects of Sense and carnal Affection which the Men of the World make their gods and adore Truth is whatever they pant after and love in the Creature is a Shadow a Counterfeit God I was going to say even that which they wickedly dote on below is only a presumptive Excellency of God For no Appetite can be taken with Evil as such it never solicits us in its own form but only in the disguise of goodness Real it has none it self therefore is only good in a Vizor or Mask like a Devil in the habit of an Angel of Light Omne malum fundatur in bono When it wooes our Affections it brings some visible or apparent good to speak for it as being in it self likely to meet with nothing but abhorrence The apparent good is Pleasure Profit Honour the Worlds Trinity these are the Baits to our Affections Now the perfection of these is Heaven and God pure and undrossy Pleasure and fulness of Joy Psal 16. ult solid and immarcessible Treasures Riches and Gain Matth. 6.20 1 Tim. 6.19 Ephes 3.8 Phil. 1.21 Luk. 12.33 Rom. 2.4 and 9.22 and 11.3 Ephes 1.7 and 2.4 Phil. 4.19 Substantial and Royal Honours whence God so often is stiled a King and Heaven a Kingdom into which all that are admitted are Crowned as well as the King himself In short God is the most pleasing yea infinitely pleasing profitable honourable honouring Good the Fountain of all Honour 'T is true the Profits Pleasures and Honours of this World are quite of another Genius Sensitive and Sensual not Rational and Spiritual Yet I hold that if the Spiritual Bodies in Heaven 1 Cor. 15.44 be endowed with Sense as 't is probable Job 19.26 27. Rev. 1.7 Seeing will infer the rest External and Internal even sense it self will receive in Heaven and God and the most ample Ravishing Satisfaction in all its possible Capacities both outward and inward in Compensation for all those Mortifications and Miseries wherewith it hath been Cruciated in this Life even as the Body in Hell in all its sensible Possibilities is Tormented as a just Recompence for its Communion with the Soul in all sinful Sensualities Indeed the sinful Sensuality shall not cannot have place in Heaven Not a Man there will desire it not one need it but all Everlastingly abhor it 'T would be the most unspeakable Torment to those Spiritual Bodies and Divine Souls The Body there does not so much affect the Soul as the Soul the Body and God both The Spring of all Satisfaction is in God derived from him to the Soul from the Soul to the Sense and Body and whatever Sense does introduce is of the same alloy and quality There can be no Sensations of Delight in any thing but what is really refreshing to those pure sinless Spirits What things soever would be disgustful to the Sanctity of the Soul would therefore be Torturous to its ever Sympathizing Individual Companion the Body which Torture since 't is utterly Incompatible with Heaven hence carnal Sensualities are there absolutely impossible But then Spiritual and Metaphorical Sensualities are the very Life and Soul of Heaven perceptible by the Spiritual Body as well as the Soul I cannot exclude all Natural The Body in all its Possibilites of sense will be in a perpetual ravishing rapturous Ecstacy of Delight through the overflow of those Coelestial Joys which evermore solace the Soul in the Embraces of eternal infinite Love and Goodness I have had a Conceit which I submit to better Judgments thus I exprest it Christ comes in Flaming Fire 2 Thes 1.7 8. Psal 50.3 which shall consume the Material Heavens as well as the Elements and Earth 2 Pet. 3.7 10 12 and is designed for Vengeance to those that know not God and obey not the Gospel 2 Thes 1.8 and Perdition to ungodly Men 2 Pet. 3.7 Now his Saints Jude 14. Zech. 14 5. as well as Mighty Angels 2 Thes 1.7 shall come with him which I understand of Glorified Souls to meet and be rejoyned to their raised Spiritual Bodies Upon these Bodies that Fire shall have no Power to them it shall be no Torture and Cruciation it shall only be refreshing Light to them tormenting Fire to the Wicked The Bodies of both shall be raised Incorruptible 1 Cor. 15.52 53. The Fire shall torment but not corrupt and consume the Bodies of the Damned in Hell it self God Christ and the Saints dwell for ever in Light unapproachable 1 Tim. 6.16 Col. 1.12 and the Light wherein Christ appeared to Paul was greater more glorious than that of the Sun at Noon-day Acts 26.13 else could it not outshine it This singularly Intense Light of Heaven is questionless an unconceivable even sensitive Pleasure to the Saints refined Bodies Now this is my fancy since Light is delute Fire the Sun its Fountain a vivid Flame yet everlasting Light in its highest Perfection is one of the Pleasures and Delights of Heaven being the Royal Robe of the Divine Majesty Psal 104.2 And his Angels are a flaming Fire therefore called Seraphims from their Fiery Splendor and Glory Psal 104.4 Heb. 1.7 Isa 6.2 6. yet Minister to our good even in that
form Isa 6.6 Heb. 4.14 Hence may it not be inferr'd that the framing Fire in which Christ appears will be so far from being hurtful painful to his and their glorified Bodies as to be an object of special Sensitive Delectation and cause a pleasurable refreshment wonderfully grateful to those Celestial Natures which shall dwell for ever in and be cloathed with the Eternal Light of Heaven That if it were possible for a glorified Saint to be hurried into the material Fire of Hell 't would not be hurt or for a Damned Wretch to be led through Heaven the Light thereof to him would be tormenting Fire But this I leave in Medio as a Speculation perhaps too curious I question not but that the Almightiness of God which is engaged to promote to the utmost the happiness of the Saints can make those things that now to the Body are most painful to be then most pleasureful that even in its Physical Constitution as well as Moral it shall be delighted with that which is distastful in this Life if it be not sinful And possibly Adam's Body in its Primitive Innocent Estate of Creation might be of the same Constitution invulnerable incombustible c. as far as was requisite to his security from Death For I cannot so much as implicitly impute such Collusion to the Divine Majesty as to imagine that he only threat ned that as a Punishment of his Sin which was the condition and necessity of his Nature Neither will I deny that the Tree of Life was a Sacrament of Immortality But conceive that nor he nor it could be ubiquitary or inseparable nor do I think that the Deity obliged himself to a Providence respecting innocent Mankind which would have been a perpetual series of Miracles since 't was as easie with God to make Impassibility an amissible Condition of this Nature as Immortality But I am not Determinate here neither However the Elevated Sense of that Immortal State above will be abundantly pleasured with Super-natural and Super-sensual Gratifications in the Jucundity Profitableness and Honour of Heaven the vain and empty Shadows whereof engage it in endless Pursuits during this its Degenerate state on Earth The Generosity and Nobleness thereof will be so Transcendent that it cannot but entertain with Indignation Scorn and Horror all imaginable Solicitations to any thing sinfully Delightful Commodious and vain Glorious Every thing to it being as it self Sublimated into a Spiritual and Celestial Nature that it enjoys the sweet of all without the sowr in an unfading Quintessence of most exquisitely delicious Contentments where although there can never be any troubled Thoughts yet may we ever sing Thy Comforts Oh Lord delight my Soul Then Oh my Soul delight thou thy self in and with them alone and not meerly as in the Streams but in the Well-spring it self Own God in every inferiour means but rest no where except in God Oh do not in a pompous Dress of Shadowy delusory Satisfactions cheat thy self into substantial Miseries Secure to thy self something of a solid durable Nature by making the son of God Jesus Christ thy sure and everlasting Foundation that being strongly built upon the Rock when the Rain descends and the Floods come and the Winds blow and beat upon thee thy Comforts may not perish with thee And Phil. 4.7 The Peace of God which transcends or passes all mind or understanding 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall watchfully guard or keep as with a Garrison 2 Cor. 11.32 thy heart and the devices thoughts of thy mind through Christ Jesus Must God be all in that Eternal Heaven after which thou aspirest and is there enough in him to satiate the most raised and sublime Desires of the Spirits of just Men made perfect and even the Angels those more Noble and Capacious Creatures Nay is there an all-sufficiency in him Commensurate to his own infinite Love in all the possibilities of its Perfection And canst not thou Oh my Soul fill thy self to the brim and measure out a Satisfaction more than adaequate to thy Rational Appetite in that unmeasurable fulness which comprehends the eminency and glory of all things If Infiniteness cannot overfill thee a poor Worm a little Atome of that which in comparison of him is less than nothing Isa 40.17 then mayst thou with some Shadow of reason attempt to eek out thy content with the Accumulation of other things But since there is in God all that good Vertually Unitedly and Transcendently as in a common Store-House and Treasury and that without the rebatement and allay of any the least commixtures of Evil Vanity or Imperfection which stain the Glory of all those dispersed Excellencies in the Creation that thy most unboundable desires in all their conceivable Varieties can court or make Suit unto and whatever thy longings reach out after thou mayest enjoy it cheaper and better in God than any where and since beside all this there is an unfathomable Surplusage of proper Excellency and Glory in that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Maximus Tyrius calls the Deity Immense Ocean of all Goodness which has been is and will be his own and the whole Superiour Worlds Everlasting Contentation And since he declares his ready willingness to communicate and impart of all this unto thee not only what thine own Rational Consideration but even what his own unmatchable Love and Graciousness can make thee willing to receive thou canst not but be altogether inexcusable if thou goest about to patch up an evanid and delusory Felicity to thy self out of those cast-away Shreds and Rags of the inferiour Creation which are not sufficient for themselves but will be fatally disappointing to thee and frustrate thy most Solicitous Expectations whilst in the mean time thou sottishly and frantickly defraudest thy self of that plenary Satisfaction and Joy which is tendered to thee by and in God both on Earth to raise and quicken thy devout and active Suspirations and in the Heaven of Heavens to terminate and perfect them in an Everlasting Fruition Here then only Oh my Soul build thy Tabernacle Is it not good to be here Where thy Faith it self shall be converted into Sense Sight and Taste in a never ending Possession of what Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard nor hath entred into the Heart of Man to conceive Thou art allowed to eye and enjoy God in the Creature obliged to make all sensitive Contents which thou mayest lawfully or sinlessly receive from the Creature as so many steps to mount upon and ascend towards the Spiritual Contents of Heaven necessitated to use every good thing below as a Remembrancer to thee of its Perfection in God that it may blow up thy passionate Aspirations into a more vehement and inextinguishable Flame and Ardour toward him In all things thou mayst taste that the Lord is Gracious and enjoy sweet and comfortable Prelibations of Heaven This is thy privilege But on the other hand thou art prohibited to make a God of this World
Malignant Spirits These being the Permissions of Providence to punish Sin which as Executions of Justice God attributes to his own Efficiency Amos 3.6 Though mediately may we not also refer hither the immediate Effects of his Power and Justice in Plagues Sicknesses Famines c. Since they agree though not in the Instruments and Means yet in the Original and Author and Meritorious Cause and Principal End 3. Despairing Thoughts and Reflections are beyond all Imagination Afflictive and of this Nature we find some oppressing the Psalmist's Spirit although they were not of the worst kind For despair he did not of Mercy and Relief from Heaven a Misery of all other most intolerable He only despaired as being destitute of all Hope of Help and Succour from Man Vers 16. Who will rise up for me Who will stand up for me The redoubled Interrogation implies a more vehement Negation None none at all For unless the Lord had been my help I had gone without Redemption Vers 17. All the hopes I had upon Earth did utterly fail there was none shut up or left I was reduc'd to the utmost extremity and that was Gods opportunity He was seen in the Mount when the Knife was at the Throat and defunct was all considence in Man Now although the failure of all Earthly Supports be grievous yet when a Man has encouragment to devolve himself on the never-failing Goodness of God he is never destitute of a Satisfaction which will abundantly Counterveil those troublesome Disappointments and therefore his Condition is not really miserable But if this fail also if his strength and hope Perish from the Lord Lam. 3.18 that he be in Saul's sore Distress 1 Sam. 28.6 15. and can have a Prospect of nothing but Eternal Death and Damnation Tongue cannot tell nor Heart imagine the Anxieties and Agonies which as a Prolepsis and Anticipation of Hell sting and excruciate his miserable Soul There 's nothing on this side that Dungeon of everlasting Darkness and Woe can equal this which made Spira sometimes wish himself in Hell that he might feel the worst Oh doleful Perplexity indeed when a Man out of a distracting fear of Hell desires to feel it Oh Horror when anguish of Mind under dreadful Expectations enforces his will to chuse what is infinitely more anguishful and the Drops of Brimstone and Fire that scald his Conscience urge him to a strange unaccountable freeness to be ever consuming in that Bottomless Ocean where Mitigation of Torment end of Misery abatement of Sense will be not only desperate but impossible Oh Despair thou art the sum and strength of Wretchedness the Bitterness and Poison of a never ending Death the Fuel and Flame of an unutterable Torturous Hell Blessed is the Soul that never shall never must feel thy racking Horrors in this or another World CHAP. XII Comforts in general MY last Explicatory Undertaking was to consider and describe the Comforts which now cast so benign an Aspect and Influence upon this Holy Mans afflicted disconsolate Soul They may be considered either Formally or Materially Formally in their proper Nature and true Constitution as an inward refreshment and ease to the Heart Comfort is a Map of Paradise the lovely Meet-Help and Succour of desolate distressed Man the Blessed Repast and Banquet of Holy Angels and Saints The Uncreated Eternal Heaven and Jubilee of God himself the Light wherein he ever dwells that spreads abroad its sweet reviving Rays as largely and liberally as its Fountain the super-intending Care and Goodness of Heaven and especially unto the humble and contrite Heart setling it in a firm and durable Repose and Peace And when the Sin of degenerate Man had banish'd it from the Earth and his own Soul the infinitely Wise and All-knowing God the Father the dearly beloved Word and Wisdom of God his only Begotten Son and the Eternal Spirit of Truth and Grace did by an ever adoreable astonishing Method of Goodness and Love contrive a Retrieval thereof that under its loss Man might not continue the most miserable of the whole Creation 'T is the sweet reviving Breath of boundless Grace and compassion in the Eternal Father infusing new Life and Vigour into Fainting Groaning Bleeding Dying Hearts and Enspiriting them for God A refreshing Beam from the Son of Righteousness which infuses Warmth Strength and Soul into the disconsolate Heart of dejected Man that lies benighted in a Hell of Misery and Darkness The Oyl of Life poured out by the Holy Ghost upon a Benumbed Frozen Restive Soul which gently turns the Wheels of Action in a smooth free ready easie speedy Course and continues them in an unwearied motion toward Heaven A sweet and lovely Paraphrase upon the Promises Ingraven in a Wounded Heart by the Finger of God A powerful Antidote to the Poison of Tormenting Grief and Despair sweeter than Sorrow can be sowre An all-satisfying Foretast and Anticipation of the never Intermitting never Terminating Joys of Eternity When the Sovereign Majesty of Heaven would Ingratiate himself and though in a humble Demission and Debasement of his Glory yet appear in his highest Loveliness to Man 't is in a Robe of Light Joy Comfort and Peace and when a Wounded Spirit that 's discouraged in its Work by the pressure of its own self-created Woes desires to be entertained into and impowred for and chearfully to engage in his Service it implores and sues for the Joy of the Lord to be its Strength When God's Heralds have been denouncing War to Rebels Vengeance against Enemies thereby terrifying them into a War and Enmity against their Sins He next Commissions them as his Embassadors to revive those troubled Souls with a message of glad Tidings of Joy and Peace and Consolation 'T is the refreshing Dew of Heaven upon a barren heart that has been scorched and parched with the fiery Indignation of the Almighty which causes it to bring forth Fruit with rejoycing The gracious Smile of the ever Blessed Jesus upon a weeping wounded Spirit that 's sick of its sins and sores sick for the sense of his Love A hand let down from above to lay hold upon and bring up from the deep an oppressed Spirit sunk with the weight of its own woeful thoughts into an unfathomable Abyss of Miseries A returning Pillar of Cloud and Fire to an Israelite indeed that was bewildred and lost in a vast howling Wilderness of Danger and Horror to direct and lead it with Joy to its Coelestial Rest A secure and welcome Port of safety and repose for a weather-beaten Soul that by the storms and surges of Almighty Vengeance hath been Shipwrack'd and split all to pieces in a Contrition and Humiliation for Sin A Bed of ease and quiet for a weak and sickly weary heart which hath been wrestling and labouring under the weighty Load of Divine Wrath set on and made more grievous by the Lashes of a Scourging Conscience A Heaven of unspeakable Delight and Satisfaction descending into and raising
he would out-brave and out-face even his Maker in his Accusations of the Brethren c. Whatever his Methods Eph. 6.11 or Wiles Devises 2 Cor. 2.11 Snares 1. Tim. 3.7 2 Tim. 2.26 Depths Rev. 2.24 Whatever his Stratagems Policies are to delude defile disquiet or destroy thee however cunningly craftily managed Yet still is he not too wise for God who well knows how to defeat all his Designments and amongst infinite other has this one Method to lead thee to Comfort even when thine Adversary hath out-witted and got the better of thee and is leading thee into Temptation Trouble and Torment viz. to bring thee thorow the narrow way of Repentance to a New Life of Grace Peace Joy and Consolation present and eternal This he doth oftentimes with Man Job 33.28 29. Read from the 14th to the 31st Job 28 28. Vnto Man he said behold the fear of the Lord true Religiousness that is Wisdom and to depart from evil true Repentance that is Vnderstanding He knows how to rule the raging of that Sea of Sorrow Terror and Anguish wherewith the Devil attempts to overwhelm thee and shipwrack all thy Hopes and Happiness and so turns the Storm into a Calm of Godly sorrow that Satans Creature yields and gives place to the Creation of God and the Grief which God exhales does issue in the fruit of the Lips Peace of the same extraction Is 57.19 and thus is Satan over-reach'd and baffled in his most subtle Contrivances and his Machinations to ruine our Comfort become means for its Establishment But if his own immediate Actings be seconded with the Agency of his Instruments that all the Politicks on Earth combine with those of Hell to overturn our security and rest Yet are they never the nearer their Purpose of subverting the Counsels of Heaven for the solace of our troubled Hearts but rather promote them whilst they drive us nearer God as our everlasting Refuge and Sanctuary in whom we may be sure to find a Fulness of Joy and Compensation Is all the Carnal Wisdom on Earth set on the rack to devise the Ruine of True Religion and Thee in the Profession and Practice of it Are wicked Men thy particular Foes in a Confederacy against thee contriving thy Destruction in Spirituals and Temporals Yet where-ever they deal wisely proudly cruelly He is above them Art thou thy self are all Men else at a loss in their Thoughts either how Religion should be secured in whole or in part when at any time its Enemies conspire against it or how Jacob should arise when he is very small or how thy Personal Interest should be safeguarded or how thy Health restored or Death prevented or Deliverance be wrought under some grievous Calamity or any Mercy obtain'd for Soul or Body thy self thy Friends or the Church and Nation Be not solicitous the All-comprehending Wisdom of Heaven can never be at a Loss this unsearchable understanding has all Possibilities present in view and cannot but chuse the best for Himself for Thee for All and it seldom begins of its Work till all be at their Wits end when every thing else fails and the Wisdom of Men has given up all for gone Divine Wisdom resumes the Work and glorifies its self in bringing it to Perfection In short all the Artifices of Earth and Hell cannot invent or reduce into Circumstances so deplorable and desperate as to over-match the Contrivance of Infinite Wisdom for our Comfort under and after them its Provisions are truly Catholick extending to all possible Cases Conditions Seasons Places and Persons whereof the Holy Scriptures are a full Evidence as a legible Declaration of the Unfathomable Wisdom of God Here are the Rivers whose Streams make glad the City of God Psal 46.4 Oh the Adoreable Plenitude of the written Word of God which comprehends the whole Counsel of God for our Illumination Effectual Calling Sanctification Justification Comfort and Eternal Salvation There is nothing devised by the Infinite Understanding of God for the Ease and Quiet of troubled Hearts but which is contained in the Bible a Transcript whereof upon the Heart creates a Life of Joy Peace and Rest God's Wisdom speaks Peace to us in no other Language than that of the Word 'T is indeed visible in his Works of Creation and Providence which are under its Conduct and bear its lively Characters but these scarce intelligible without the Sacred Writings Here only is all perspicuous and plain that 's needful either to purifie or pacify the Conscience What a World of Consolatory Matter is couched in this one Psalm will appear anon What then is there in the whole Book of God Judge of the Immense Ocean by this Little Rivulet Admire and Reverence that incomparable Abstract of the Wisdom of Heaven in these Lively Oracles and hence derive all thy Consolations § 2. This Wisdom is not alone nor in this Case a Self-mover but goes upon the Errand and Designs of Infinite Gooodness An Attribute brim-full of Solace Joy and Rest as our Psalmist found Ver. 18. especially and every where Ver. 12 13 14 15 17.19 21. Indeed every Request in the Psalm supposes it and every Assertion refers to it even his Complaints are Addresses to it and all his Expectations are from it 't is the good Blood that runs in every Vein not a Verse but points at it Now as Wisdom chuses the Method and Means of applying Comfort and pitches upon such as are most accommodate in particular So Goodness administers the Matter in general Every thing that creates the light of Gladness and Consolation in a dark benighted troubled soul is a spark a beam of Goodness The Goodness of God lies in Two Things Love and Holiness Did I call them Two They are both but only Love Love in us is Holiness as a Conformity to the whole Law of God Holiness in God is nothing but Love to himself as the alone perfect Law and Standard of all Incomprehensible Excellency and Glory But to consider them as distinct Love is that illustrious greatest Light amongst the Divine Perfections the benign Rays whereof are plenteously reflected through the Sun of Righteousness upon wretched and miserable Man God is Love 1 Joh. 4.16 and Love in its Perfection is God that Love which God is is God and diffuses its sweet Influences upon us in wonderful variety Not that it is other than Unity indivisible invariable in it self but that it meets with several respects and produces divers effects in us We are Sinners the guilt it pardons the filth it purges the power of Sin it subdues We are miserable through sin Love lays it to heart that 's Mercy Is afflicted in our Afflictions there 's Compassion has yerning Bowels towards us which is Pity bears much at our hands and this is Patience suspends the Punishment due to our sin either for an Indefinite time therefore called Forbearance or a great while whence 't is stiled Long-suffering or exempts us wholly under the
a third Man A Bird in the hand is best Faith and Hope are beggarly things in the estimate of most Men. A competency of Necessaries in Possession more contents us than a World in Reversion In that modicum we can rejoyce though we do not wallow in those affluent Delights which the sensual Beasts of the Earth batten and rot in A sufficiency of suitable Comforts fills our Appetite Convenience being the essential Property if not Essence of Goodness When every thing hits us lies pat and even and easie upon our Hearts in a pleasing agreeableness we do not envy Crowns and Scepters But if we have all and enough to spare can never see through our Enjoyments be full and abound not only in opinion and with respect to the content of our Minds but in the reality of the thing we then begin to sing a requiem to our Souls and sit down under the shadow of these Gourds with delight And have we not a sufficiency nay a redundancy an infiniteness of all Necessaries and Agreeables in God's Love and Goodness of which Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard neither hath it entred into the Heart of Man to conceive the fulness the glory the sweetness the amiableness the suitableness the comfortableness Thy Mansion House here is the Bosom of Love replenished with a confluence of all desirable Satisfactions thy Garden the Paradise of God thy Demesne the Celestial Canaan thy Revenues and Incomes the unperishing Treasures of Divine Goodness and Grace and Glory the unsearchable Riches of Christ But be a Man's-Comforts never so sweet if there be an equal mixture of sowre he writes Cabul upon the front of all his Enjoyments And ordinarily a drachm of Gall will spoil an ounce of Honey one Cross embitter a thousand Comforts If now I be secure either that the Evils will be as the morning Cloud and early Dew or that I shall be no loser not be rob'd of the least real satisfaction but gain equivalent if I have a reserve of other better sweeter Joys and Blessings which will countervail my Sufferings or if when the Tempest lies hard upon me I be certain of a safe retiring Place and Refuge where I am out of danger or if I have weathered out the Storm that the worst is past and a prospect is given me of so great an advantage so happy an issue as will compensate the trouble if all along I find by experience that 't is for the best and if I had been to carve for my self and spin the thread of my own Fortune I could not have pitch'd upon any thing so eligible as what is dispens'd to me without my choice by the Wisdom and provident Goodness of Heaven every of these things singly yields me a plentiful harvest of quiet in my Mind and contentedness with my Condition much more joyntly altogether And has not every good Soul the amplest security that it shall be blest with all this and much more in and through the benignity and Love of God Have we not ground to believe that Love will not permit any evil to interrupt our Joys except there be need That Love will cut it short in Righteousness it shall be but for a moment a little moment Love being afflicted in all our Afflictions will not long torment it self What Love promises Power can command In that very small moment of continuance I am secure that Love will not suffer my Miseries and Disquiets to commit a rape upon my best satisfactions in it self and that I shall lose no Metal but only Dross which 't is my happiness to do and even that loss if my gain of Refinement and Purity deserve that Name will be recompenced to the full in those infinitely better things laid up in store for me in the plenitude and all-sufficiency of unboundable Goodness in the Divine Nature and Persons But be the Calamity as great and malignant as is imaginable I have a Rock higher than I where I may be safe above the reach of ruin For having past the pangs of the New Birth the worst is past both in respect of Pain and Danger Sorrow and Fear Though my Vessel the Body may be broken yet shall I certainly land in safety upon the blessed shore of Eternity with all my real Riches and Comforts environing me I am I hope in a sound bottom indeed Christ carries me in his Body his Bowels that 's the Ship wherein I am wafted over the Tempestuous Ocean of Miseries in this World to the fair Havens of everlasting Loves Joys and Rest The foreknowledge whereof together with my present sense of profit in my Soul strength against Sin resolution for God evidence and experience of his Presence Support Influence Grace the affectionate workings of his Heart in Love Care Kindness flowing over all the banks in multitudes of unmerited Blessings in Temporals but especially in Celestials These sweeten all my Sorrows and ease my burthened Spirit that I cannot but acknowledge the Provisions of Infinite Wisdom incomprehensibly more eligible and beneficial than the utmost that could ever enter into my utmost raised Imaginations But if the pinch come yet a little nearer that though accommodated with an affluence of all terrestrial Contentments without yet a dangerous Disease preys upon my Vitals or the Arrows of the Almighty gall wound and smart in my Conscience that I am destitute of the Blessings of a sound Mind in a sound Body the enjoyment whereof would add an Emphasis to all external Comforts a living Lam 3.39 Neh. 2.2 a healthful Man and Mind having no reason to complain and be sad But now Love is Life and Health and all things The breath of thy Nostrils the length of thy Days and Delights but the shortner of thy Pains and Sorrows Dost thou keep thy Tongue from evil Psal 34.12 13 14 15. and thy Lips from speaking guile depart from evil and do good seek Peace and pursue it Then are the Eyes of the Lord upon thee and his Ears open to thy cry thou shalt enjoy desired Life and beloved Days that thou mayst see Good yea the Goodness of the Lord in the Land of the Living Psal 118.17 thou shalt not die but live and declare the Works of the Lord. How can that Body or Soul be sick that 's embrac'd in the healing Bosom of the great Physician Forgiveness of Sin is a Medicine for every Malady Isa 32.24 If he whom Christ loves be sick 't is not unto Death but for the Glory of God Joh. 11.3 4. Love will loose the Pains of Death Thou hast loved me from the Pit of Corruption for thou hast cast all my Sins behind thy Back Isa 38.17 God bears not a grudge against those he loves 'T is Loves property to chastize none of its Office to impute guilt and punish but to cover a multitude of Sins 1 Pet. 4.8 An infallible Cure or Remedy for Distempers of Body and Soul supports a sinking Spirit revives a disconsolate Heart
Conversion There cannot then be any Divine Comfort if there be not a sweet Composure and Harmony betwixt Earth and Heaven and this can never be where a Man is at peace with his Sins Therefore whatever quiet may seem to be in such a Soul 't is only personated and illusive it reaches not to the real bottom of the trouble takes not out the Core But on the other hand when a Man makes Repentance and Mortification Faith and a good Life the main employ which drinks up his Spirits and Strength and Time industriously contending in all things to approve the sincerity and heartiness of his Affections Designs and Aims and whole Deportment in the sight of God and whilst he is thus doing finds any quietude Rest and Satisfaction of Mind to sweeten his Work and settle his Conscience he may be confident that this is the true Comfort of the Holy Ghost For as 't is impossible to enjoy true Peace under reigning Sin so t is inconsistent with Divine Goodness and Federal Love to permit a true Heart intirely devoted to him to delude it self into true Miseries under the vizor of false Joys I confess if a Man be too greedy of Comfort and too hasty in his Applications without due consideration and indeavour and care to derive his Satisfactions from solid Grounds laying the stress upon things which will not bear it in such indeliberate precipitation of Judgment concerning a Mans state and the true root of Comfort when he founds it upon any thing less than substantial Piety Righteousness and Sobriety as the evidence of his Right he may abuse himself with an unsound unsolid Peace Therefore I always suppose that the procedure in order to Comfort be justifiable and the Grounds upon which a Man bottoms his Evidence be genuine and that his reason and judgment lead him leisurely in the Scripture way to Heart-ease and Rest else all may issue in greater inquietude and trouble whatever fair Weather may at present flatter his conscience But if Spiritual sense light and a serious Preponderation of all circumstances according to the preceeding particular direct our motions hither and true Religiousness confirm them we may be secure that mere Shows and Pageantry do not now delude us into a Fairy Paradise A weak Head 't is true may lead an honest Heart into a deceitful Peace And 't is not the design of Grace to abolish or reform the natural Depravations and Deformities of our Faculties so much as the Moral But that which is defective must not be made a Standard A good Soul that understands it self and observes solid Rules in comforting it self cannot be deceiv'd in that Peace which it possesses whilst it loves God and keeps his way Such as a Mans goodness is will his Consolation be If that be but External and Hypocritical this will be insincere and delusory but a true intelligent honest Heart proceeding with a just caution shall never be gull'd with a Mock-Peace For Psal 97.11 12. Light is sown for the Righteous and gladness for the upright in heart Rejoyce in the Lord ye Righteous What God sows they shall reap Psal 85.8 10. I will hear what God the Lord will speak for he will speak peace unto his people and to his Saints c. Mercy and Truth have met together Righteousness and Peace have kissed each other Their embrace is strict and indissoluble God hath espoused them they cannot be divorced What he hath joyned together none shall finally separate and part asunder They give mutual testimony each to others integrity and soundness In Life they are lovely in Death they cannot be divided but will cohabit eternally Where then Oh my Soul is thy Righteousness not particular meerly but universal Shew me thy comfort by thy Works for 't is dead being alone As the Body without the Spirit is dead so is Peace without Holiness which is its very Life and Soul If thou be not God-like thy Joys are not Heaven-like All true pleasures are drops of those Rivers at God's Right Hand Psal 36.8 and 46.4 and 16. ult If the Waters of Life have never quickned and cleansed thee those Streams of Divine Comfort never yet did refresh thee thou hast only drunk of the Abana and Pharphar of muddy carnal Contentments not of the pure Fountain of Celestial Consolations Wherein then can thy uprightness and real honesty of heart approve it self to God Is this thy rejoycing 2 Cor. 1.12 viz. the Testimony of thy conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity not with fleshly Wisdom but by the grace of God thou hast had thy Conversation in the World What hast thou to shew more than an Hypocrite Wherein does thy Righteousness excel that of Scribes and Pharisees What are thy Principles Motives manner of acting Aims and Ends in thy whole course of Life Do'st thou really act 1. From God a Spirit of new Life breathed into thee by God 2. Through Christ as the Foundation of thy hopes of acceptance 3. By the Spirit as thy immediate aid in every Holy performance 4. Unto God as thy ultimate end Hast thou no secret reserved Dalilahs No one thing in which thou would'st have liberty and presume upon Pardon Do'st thou not run upon a biass in Religion and twine aside in some sinister respect to self or the popular Vogue in which thou would'st be somebody Is it thy great and uppermost care and study to be true to him that sees in secret rather than applauded by those who only see the Outside that thy inward gracious Dispositions may go no less than thy outward Semblances Art thou above all things jealous of thy deceitful Heart afraid of Hypocrisie willing to do any thing that may tend to a full discovery of thy self to thy self And if all be not right within or suspected not to be Art thou unspeakably troubled till it be righted Thou art full of thoughts but have thy Meditations been effectual through Christ to break thy heart from as well as for sin and bow thy Will to a Conformity and subjection to God's Will of Precept and Providence and bring thee to an intelligent self-denying humble penitent believing affectionate owning thy Baptismal Covenant in its whole latitude with sincere and indeflexible Resolutions to stand by it for ever And do'st thou expect thy peace in no other way Hast thou been industriously and labouriously diligent to gain a true and thorow understanding of thy State and Frame Godward searching all to the bottom very solicitous to see in a clear light What Conditions and Qualifications are prerequisite to dispose thee for Comfort and to be clear that in reality they are in thee and that thou do'st not build thy Evidence hereof upon self-flattering deceitful Grounds but do'st in truth find that the interest of God is Soveraign and Supreme in and nearest thy Heart hath the universal Regiment and command over all being thy singular delight and whatever thou feel'st to oppose becomes on that account an
safety then suddain Destruction cometh upon them as Travail upon a Woman With-child and they shall not escape Be ready to speak a word in due season to the weary but be cautious in solacing such as the Apostle describes and reproves Rom. 3.17 18. Who have not known the way of Peace Why There is no fear of God before their eyes least the terror of that threatning arrest thee Ezek. 33. For by publishing Peace to those against whom thou should'st proclaim War from Heaven thou wilt delude them into everlasting Death in their Sins under the mask of Life and Comfort but their Blood shall be required at thy hands God's Tenders of Peace are only conditional and so must thine Look to it then O my Soul as the one thing needful in the first place that the Grace of God bringing Salvation and therefore everlasting Consolation to thee do efficaciously teach thee this Righteousness to be very industrious to lead others whose Concern God sometimes seems to prefer before his own Matth. 5.23 24. and Chap. 12.1 4 5 6 7 8. especially thy Relations in the right way to Peace informing their Judgments rousing their Consciences reproving their Sins directing their Practice counselling commanding restraining and constraining them as far as possible to be good and do good freely with an ingenuous spontaneity and readiness of mind But as thou must learn others so under the influence of that beneficial Grace thou thy self must be learnt to deny so as to crucifie all Vngodliness spiritual Evil and worldly Lusts carnal Wickedness and live soberly in a just temper and moderation of thine own Spirit Affections Passions Appetite and godlily in a religious assiduity of Endeavour to please the Lord and approve thy self to him through Christ in all things This is both the true undeceiving Mean to attain Comfort and also the certain and inseparable Fruit of it The more thou growest herein the more redundant will be thy satisfaction and if on the other hand thy Peace be as a River thy Righteousness will be as the waves of the Sea Isai 48.18 Try then thy Comfort by its Productions If it will permit thee to dishonour God and defile thy Conscience to be vain in thy Spirit and vile in thy Communication and Conversation to debauch others and damn thy self neither fearing God nor regarding Man nor valuing and taking care for thine own self 't is no better than its Progeny and will but only lead thee hood-wink'd in a pleasing dream of Paradise into the depth of Hell But contrarily if thy Peace be procreative and bring forth Twins a heavenly Spirit and a holy Life If it be as the Dew to thy Graces and cause them to flourish and yield their Fruit in due season If it enlarge thy heart God-ward and carry thee as upon Eagles Wings to thy Redeemer in a more intire affectionate cordial subjection to his Authority and Government its Origin is Heaven and in those everlasting Pleasures and Joys will it finally terminate Leading thee to sound and real Goodness it will undoubtedly issue in that far more exceeding and eternal weight of Glory The Reprehensive part of this kind of Inferences cannot be omitted happy we if there were no reason for it I only will prosecute it in one Instance Therefore just Matter of Challenge and Rebuke will arise upon this Doctrine for sitting down under the Perplexities of our own mad Thoughts without a due care to prepare for and possess our selves of the Comforts of God I confess the generality of Men are presumptuously bold in dividing these and with a daring Impudence will rashly arrest the Promises with a heady Violence rack and torture them or cut and mangle them as Sciron and Procrustes did all Passengers till they seem to be made fit for their own Beds and become unwillingly willing to lie down with them Comfort must conform to them they will not to it But these will certainly inherit Confusion when those ravish'd Comforts relinquish their too sate awakened Souls at Death or lie down in the most grievous Horrors if before that dismal hour they be ever roused into Repentance And oft it falls out that those who most audaciously usurp'd Divine Consolations in their impenitent Estate become most shy of them after their real awakenings they dare not be deluded again by an over-forwardness their assuming to themselves Peace without Right before cost them so dear that it makes them more jealous suspicious and cantious in bottoming it ere they can adventure again to apply the Promises But as Presumption leads some blindfold into a false Peace so Despair causes many to reject a true Some receive this at the hands of Justice as a merited Punishment for aggravated Sins and procrastination of Repentance to be judicially given up by the Lord to Horrors of Conscience so deep so durable as not to be able to see any thing but Terror in the whole Book of God till he remit this Punishment and lighten his hand Others are knock'd off from the Promises by the Spirit of Bondage in a smart and home-conviction of Sin and divine indignation because of it God hereby designing to make them more meet for it And indeed none are more afraid of receiving Comfort than those that being throughly startled with the discoveries of their Corruptions and God's just Anger do really stand in most need of it and are under the divine Methods of Preparation for it Such stand off and dispute their own Title either 1. through Ignorance or Inadvertency not understanding or considering themselves and the Work of God within them Or 2. through Humility and Tenderness as afraid of presuming Or 3. through a Spice of Pride and Haughtiness as resolv'd to bring their Peny to the Promise 't is Mr. Hooker's Phrase not content with such Qualifications as God limits in the Word in order to Peace they must super-errogate in their Preparations and be better than they can be still complaining of Unworthiness Unworthiness which in one sence is true as if they would not receive Comfort gratis nor accept of the Gift upon God's Terms making them need it and meet for it except they be which none possibly can be worthy of it merit and deserve it Or lastly through a kind of obstinacy and stubbornness of Spirit and the predominancy of Melancholy to which every thing that is saddening and dejecting hath too much of agreeableness and sweetness as if they were in love with their Griefs and Woes will not attend to any rational or religious Arguments that might relieve them Rachel-like refusing to be comforted although they can give no just and satisfying reason for that Recusancy It may be they are pleased with the Sensuality of Sorrow because it hits their Humour harmonizes with their Dumpishness and gives them a little ease by cherishing their Disease as Water in a Dropsie Neither can I render any other reason why others who pretend higher should imagine they can never be
required as the sole Conditions of his Grace and Mercy and that there is as perfect an Agreement betwixt their inward Sensations and State and those God will certainly own and embrace with his Love as can reasonably be expected and desired Yet will they find some subtle cunning studied evasions and shifts to perswade themselves and others that they have some reason to be mad in rejecting all and will stifly argue against their own inward sense and feeling and lye against their own Experience rather than by receiving these Comforts comply with the Bounty and Kindness of Heaven that so freely and graciously tenders them Why then dost thou contend against thy self oh my Soul and quarrel with the admirable Condescensions the most bountiful Tenders Largess and Munificence of Heaven Art thou weary of thy Sins and under a practical Conviction of their abominable offensiveness to God heartily willing to relinquish all following thy desires and resolutions hereof with serious Cares and Endeavours not abiding the very thoughts or hankerings of thy heart that lean towards them carefully avoiding all Occasions Temptations Motions which might irritate thee to commit them in indignation and revenge against thy self for indulging thy self in them now resolutely bent with the Aid of God to mortifie them and not to spare hands feet or eyes the most sweet and endearing Dalilahs thy Master-reigning Sins constitutional customary pleasing profitable Corruptions recommended by Age Calling publick Allowance Practice which to forbear may expose to Scoffs Scorns Sufferings Death it self as in Times of Persecution Art thou daily in bitterness of Soul for them Are they evermore in their odious Nature and Aggravations before thee Art thou watchful against them and unto the contrary Duties Graces and holy Exercises that there is not one Law of God which t is not thy earnest desire and labour to observe heartily imploring the strength of Heaven to engage in all for thee and manifest its Might in thy Weakness And when thou hast done thy best hast thou learnt to deny thy self as an unprofitable Servant having only done what nay far less than thou oughtest Not daring to omit any part of thy Work nor when done most exactly to make a Christ of it but committing thy Person and Performances by Faith into his gracious hands to be presented to his Father sprinkled with his Blood of Satisfaction perfumed with his Incense of Intercession nothing but divine Free Grace through Christ's Mediation becomes the sole Support and Stay of thy Hopes as well as the Foundation of thy Faith maintaining in all a never-ceasing Jealousie over thy slippery treacherous heart lest it stain all thy Actions with Impurity or corrupt all thy Intentions by Hypocrisie a Sin to be fear'd and wrestled against above all other thy perpetual dread and hate Is this thy state frame and deportment And yet dost thou boggle at the Promises and start aside in aversation from or a rejection of their refreshing Consolations upon I know not what frivolous Pretences Oh thy Folly Oh thy Fury For beside the infinite wrong to thy self both as a knocking of the Wheels that thou dost but drive heavily in God's Service and a living in the confines or a corner of Hell when Heaven is opening to thee its everlasting Gates thou also blasphemest the unconfinable Goodness and Love of thy heavenly Father the affectionate Bowels and Grace of thy compassionate Redeemer thou grievest the Holy sealing Spirit of Grace and Peace and givest the lye to the Promises Sins as Hellish as any thou hast already renounc'd and forsaken Has Almighty Love and Grace check'd the exorbitancies of thy dissolute licentious Will and Affections bounded the raging Sea of thy Lusts insomuch that thou darest not wilt'st not pass the limits he hath confin'd thee to by his Laws Hath God enabled thee with a free undissembled Consent to embrace the Conditions of the Covenant in repenting and chearfully giving up thy self to be governed in all things by the ever-blessed Son of God which is a performance of thy part of the Covenant And can'st thou conceit that infinite Fidelity which gives thee the power to do all this and works in thee to observe thy part will not be real and faithful in perfecting what concerns himself on his part but that his Covenant is mere Collusion that he hath only brought thee into a Fool 's Paradise and all his great and precious Promises are only great and pompous Nothings not worthy to be rely'd on That he hath done all this for thee carry'd thee thorough the burthen and heat of the day and tenders thee thine Hire yet will be angry if thou accept it For why dost thou not receive and enjoy the Comforts of the Promises and Perfections of God so liberally presented to thy embracement so sweetly by their amiable Aspect inviting thee Is it because they do not suit thee are not proper and sufficient to revive thee Is it because thou needest them not desirest them not No nothing of this Nature What then is the matter oh my Soul They are fit for thee but thou art not fit for them not duly prepar'd That 's something if true But who told thee so God or the Devil If God shew the Scripture Out of the Law and Testimony must thou produce something more than I have described that God requires to qualifie thee for his Mercy Something more than an unfergned owning his Covenant in serious resolution care endeavour and industrious laborious diligence to go through with thy part of it under the influence of his Power and Grace and Holy Spirit Doth Satan tell thee that this is not due Preparation And dost thou dar'st thou believe him rather than God God forbid Where then dost thou stick What art thou afraid of Is there any thing to be feared but Sin There 't is Thou art afraid of sinning by too hasty applying the Promises for thy revival A very laudable Fear 'T is well that Sin is dreadful Stand to that Be then also afraid to sin by refusing to apply them thereby continuing thy perplexities For 't is very certain 1. That 't is a Sin not to serve God chearfully with Love especially when he hath done for us whatever is necessary to engage us thereto If he have in reality prepar'd thee for those Comforts which he hath prepar'd for thee he hath done that upon account whereof he will expect thy ready ingenuous affectionate Obedience whether thou be satisfy'd as to thy Preparations or no. But if thou still refusest his Comforts and protractest thy Troubles thou eludest the highest Engagement to love him and in despite of his Goodness perseverest to do his work as a Slave only wilt not as a Child which is a high Affront to thy Father 2. 'T is a Sin to reject God's Offers a Scorn put upon his Goodness to refuse his Free Gifts When he creates a Storm in our Thoughts and drives us before the blast of his Indignation into
and trembling afflicted Souls the Son of God hath done his part in the way of Mediation as the Father hath done his by revealing his Covenant and Promise with the Terms upon which he will be at Peace and his readiness to embrace every one that submits to them both the Father and the Son have farther contributed towards this by the Mission of the Holy Ghost the Comforter who waits in the Ministry of God's Word and other Ordinances to be gracious to unworthy Sinners in illuminating their Minds and bowing their Hearts and Wills to comply with the Will of God and entertain Conditions of Peace and accept of their own Mercy God's Ministers also under these divine Influences take their Task in hand as Instruments by way of Proposal in explicating and directing about these Terms in propounding offering urging counselling perswading exhorting to yield to them And unworthy I amongst the rest would here contribute my Mite to promote the Establishment of true and solid Consolation in an endeavour to guide doctrinally as my Lord and Master does physically and efficaciously poor wand'ring Feet into the Psalmist's experimented way to Peace as far as there are any Lineaments and Footsteps thereof in the Psalm and this with all convenient brevity because some of the Rules have upon other Occasions offered themselves to Consideration 1. Be Men of Thoughts Exercise your selves in Meditation As there can be no Discomfort so neither Comfort without a multitude of Thoughts For if they only swim upon the Surface of the Mind they will but introduce a superficial Trouble or Rest Thoughts that sink and soak in go to the bottom and reach the most intimate Recesses of the Soul as the Psalmist's in intimo meo Thoughts that stick by us and are not easily shak'd off but follow us night and day these are most cumbersome or comfortable Men of desultory Minds that cannot settle their Cogitations but rove and ramble and skip like a Squirrel from Bough to Bough from Tree to Tree are here and there and every where throughout all the Ramifications of Thoughts yet no where fix'd as a Weather-cock may now face a blustering Storm and in a moment the sweet and refreshing Sun but never feel any thing never tast any durable Disquiets or Joys Lay up therefore a good Stock before-hand of heart-relieving Considerations as an Antidote to all sadning molesting Passions This no doubt was the Psalmist's Practice Those reviving Meditations which he afterward digested into this Psalm did dwell in his mind before in and upon the first Assaults of his Trouble and did their Work within him before he committed this Narrative to Writing What he felt then he here discovers 'T would be nauseous to recollect and repeat here those Cogitations which I have all this while been observing out of the Psalm that influenced his troubled heart and established it in Peace tedious to make new Observations throughout the Psalm where they very plentifully occur I shall only therefore take notice of a few Verses and I cannot furnish you with a richer Treasury of pertinent calming comforting Thoughts than are presented in Ver. 12 c. Take it according to the Translation Blessed is the Man whom thou chast'nest O Lord and teachest out of thy Law 13. That thou may'st give him Rest from the days of Adversity until the Pit be digged for the Wicked 14. For the Lord will not cast off his People neither will be forsake his Inheritance 15. But Judgment shall return unto Righteousness and all the Vpright in heart shall follow it Here we behold the Condition of Man troublous under chast'ning But 1. 'T is comfortable in that 't is only Child-like Discipline as the Word both in Hebrew and Greek imports and therefore proceeds from the Wisdom Heart Love and compassionate Bowels of a Father There cannot be more smart in the Rod which is at the worst but a finite Evil than there is sweet in the Love that manages it and is of an infinite Vertue and Satisfactoriness Then sence and feeling of that is bitter and grievous but the importance most pleasing and delectable How lamentable would thy Case be should the Lord spare the Rod and leave thee to harden thy self in thy evil Manners that is forbear all Designings for thy good that thy Damnation may become more inevitable and supersede his Corrections preventive of thy Sins and Woes that Hell may the more certainly devour and consume thee Happy Cross that is an Index of the good Will of God that is a demonstration that thou art a Child of God Heb. 12.5 6 7 8 9. 2. 'T is a blessed thing to be chastized the greatest Curse to be forborn as a Token of being devoted to everlasting Curses God has not pardoned those he does not punish no their Guilt escapes a present Reckoning because the Righteous Judge intends to pay them home in another World If thy Father in Heaven forbear thee not 't is because he hath forgiven thee the eternal Penalty and that 's a blessed thing indeed Psal 32.1 2. Sin must smart if thou be'st made to feel its Evil by Corrections now 't is to prevent the more grievous Pains of another Life God designs thy good by bringing upon thee these Evils Heb. 12.10 and his Purposes can never admit of a frustration 3. These Chastenings are only a burthen laid upon one who by Grace is or shall be made strong or mighty to bear and improve them 'T is not Adam Earthly Man nor Enosh sickly weak Man but Haggeber the strong 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Emphat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 praevaluit robustut fuit mighty Man with an Emphasis whom God picks out to bless with his Chastenings If they do not find him so they shall be Means of Grace to make him so God who is Faithful and that supposes a Promise will not suffer to be tempted above ability but with the Temptation will also make a way to escape that he may be able to bear it 1 Cor. 10.13 Be thou never so weak diffident desponding in thy self yet if God call thee out to Affliction thou art strong not in thy self but in him he is with thee Psal 23.4 Yea though I walk through the Valley of the shadow of Death I will fear no Evil for thou art with me Thy Rod and thy Staff they comfort me Heer 's strong Confidence strong Support and it had a strong Foundation Ver. 3. He restoreth my Soul he leadeth me in the Paths of Righteousness for his Names sake Restoring turning again Psal 60.1 bringing back Ezek. 38.8 the Soul and leading it strengthens it to do or suffer any thing Isai 41.9 10 13. Thou art my Servant I have chosen thee and not cast thee away which being laid as a Foundation then 10. Fear thou not for I am with thee be not dismayed for I am thy God I will strengthen thèe yea I will help thee yea I will
there promised and least we should object incapacity to enjoy and be happy in so rich and glorious Blessings 't is added as the Crown of all that he will dispose and prepare our Hearts for it by engraving thereon his Holy Laws by that means perfectly removing all obstructions to our Hopes and occasions of our Fears that with a full assurance we may enter upon our Inheritance of his Everlasting Consolations This he hath most plainly revealed this he does most fully accomplish to his chosen Servants If we be partakers of his Nature and Image through the Law of the Spirit of Life in our Hearts setting us free from the Law of Sin and Death all is our own and how is it possible for him that knows all this that really believes and feels it by any scruples and jealousies to make his Life miserable Dispel then Oh my Soul those Clouds and Mists that benight thy Understanding thereby turning the Day in thy Will and Affections into Darkness Endeavour to open the Windows that the Glory of God in the Face of Christ may shine upon thee with a powerful Ray to warm impregnate and spirit thee with a new divine Fervour Strength and Life Study the Scriptures which are a bright Beam of the Sun of Righteousness a fair Pourtraicture of that Eternal Essential Word of God who is the Brightness of his Father's Glory the express Image of his Person Let thy Mind in its Meditation dwell continually here with delight To ruminate hereupon Day and Night is the true method to attain the soundest Wisdom even that which is Eternal Life consisting in the saving effectual transforming experimental practical fruitional knowledge of the only true God and Jesus Christ whom be hath sent Joh. 17.3 2 Tim. 3.15 This is Wisdom unto Salvation through Faith in Christ Jesus Be thy Intellectuals as bright as those of an Angel of Light in other things so as to understand all Mysteries Philosophical Political Theological yet if thou here be in the dark thou art but a Hell which though in its Physical being surrounded with Heaven yet is at the greatest moral distance from it and therefore no wonder if thou never seest the day break of Joy and Rest and Peace Ignorance which some account the Mother of Devotion but is indeed of Damnation is alway pregnant with Disquiets Troubles Fears The Night is full of Terrors Cant. 3.8 Lucretius adds As Children by Night so Men fear in the Light Omnia nobis fecimus tenebras nihil videmus c. Sen Ep. 110. But Seneca corrects him We make all things darkness to our selves we see nothing neither what 's hurtful nor what 's profitable yet ramble on without Pause or Prudence What a mad thing is Impetuousness in the dark But if we will the Day may dawn And thus If a Man will let in the knowledge of things Humane and Divine not merely to be dash'd but dyed with it again and again recognizing recollecting what he knows if he examine what is truly good and evil what falsly if he enquire what 's Honest what 's Filthy and what is Providence What can be spoke more wisely more truly This he prescribes as a Remedy against Fear which he makes the Daughter of Tradition rather than Truth A wise Man and then he must be good for Wickedness is Madness and Folly fears nothing slavishly Nemo nostrum quid veri esset excussit metum alter alteri tradidit ib. For nothing is formidable but to Ignorance false Opinion Improvidence and Wickedness Fix thy self therefore Oh my Soul upon the right Basis of Truth leading to Goodness and thou art above Gun-shot Nothing can hurt thee if it do not first debauch thee thy Mind with undue Sentiments and thy Heart thereby with corrupt Notions nothing can disquiet thee till it debase and abuse first thy Judgment and thy Conscience by it Good Intellectuals will promote good Morals Entertain high noble and worthy Conceptions of God and every thing that guides to God and this will singularly conduce to thy security against Vice and to thy establishment in Vertue and thereby in tranquility of Mind For two things concur to solid Consolation clearness of Apprehensions and calmness of Conscience Serenity above Tranquility below The worst of Men may have the one none but the godly wise have both The Devil has Light enough in his Understanding though he be the Prince of Darkness his Notions are sublime but Peace has he none A dreadful Storm may rage in the Conscience when the Sun shines clear in the Mind Men of great Parts and Gifts and deep Heads have not alway the quietest Hearts The simple Vnlearned saith one rise up and take Heaven by Violence whilst we with all our Learning drop down into Hell 'T is well if more Scholars be not found in Hell than Heaven 'T is not how much but how well a Man knows that is conducible to Peace On the other hand the Tempest may be hush'd and Conscience charm'd to a stilness but then the Heavens above are dark and cloudy and a new Storm sleeps in its causes if thou be an Enemy to God The Witness within may be gagg'd a while that it cannot speak out The Lion chain'd and muzzled in his Den that it cannot worry thee but afterward it will be let loose upon thee arm'd with the greater fury perhaps even in this Life and it is more tolerable to be lug'd into Goodness by a snarling snatching tearing Conscience now than have all thy Bones broke and devoured by it and the roaring Lion of Hell in his den of everlasting Darkness Wo wo be to that Man that never wanted or was without rest and quiet in his Mind A dumb Conscience is a dark one and If the Light that is in thee be Darkness how great is that Darkness If nothing within thee did ever proclaim War nothing has right to speak Peace He that never saw God as an Enemy never yet saw Him as a Friend If thou be ignorant of thy own State thou are ignorant of God unacquainted with his Peace with his Joy Thus Oh my Soul if thou be'st ambitious to enjoy any real approvable quietness in thy Mind thou must maintain in it clearness of Notion concerning God But although there be Light in the Heavens it may suffer an Eclipse or rather thou dost for the Light leaves not the Sun but the Earth if thy Corruptions as an opaque Body interpose Wickedness in the Heart opposes the efficacy of our Notions of God that although we retain them we are no better for them therefore 't would be better for us were we without them None lie deeper in outer Darkness than those that ascend highest in Light and Knowledge in this Life but improve it not He that knows his Master's Will and does it not and so his Master and loves him not shall be beaten with many stripes Our Passions are proportionable to our Sensations The more enlarged