infuseth an Infinite Virtue into all his merits and is able to regenerate aswell as redeem doth most perfectly sute with our necessities and fully supply them His own Doctrine Life and Death are the best Arguments of his Divinity yet doth he not want other testimonies The Sacrifices of the Patriarchs and the Jewish Types did prefigure him The Prophets were his Harbingers to bespeak places and seasons for him The Martyrs his Heralds to proclaim him to the World dying in that Belief which the nature of Man so much opposeth and the whole World either hath or shall both persecute and embrace it The third great Mystery is our Union with God and Christ who hath praied that we might be one as he and his Father are one not Essentially nor Personally but Spiritually so as no other Creature is united to God For Man being made last of all the Creatures as the summ and Epitome of the rest Christ by taking upon him the Humane Nature invested himself with the whole World and though he hath purchased all the inferior Creatures for the use of Man and the Elect Angels as ministring Spirits may partake of a Confirmation in their good estate yet the Conjugall Union is contracted between God and Mankind in a more speciall and immediate manner Nor is this a Naturall Union such as was that between Adam and all his Posterity whereby sin is derived to them but Spirituall by a more particular personall application Christ apprehending us by his Spirit and we him by Faith Now as the Union of God and the Soul is that wherein our Happiness consists so this being the highest neerest Union advances Man to a further degree therof then any other Creature whatsoever And this is the highest Evidence of the Mediatorship of Jesus Christ. For God being Infinite and the whole World Finite and so Infinitely below him though after he had perfected the first Creation he rested from his Works yet he rested not in them as in his Son whom he begat from all Eternity in whom he only rests satisfied and declared from Heaven that he is well pleased And though he pronounced them very good that is in their kind yet in respect of himself who only is truly and Infinitely Good they are all as Vain and Null But Jesus Christ thus Espousing the Creation and Endowing it with his Infinity gathers up all in himself so presents both together as an Object Infinite and adaequate to his Father Let us therefore entertain this blessed Savior with the full embraces of our Soul and think no other thing worthy our affections who have such a glorious Object presented unto us When we read the Histories of mighty Kings and the great Captains of the World our Minds are filled with honorable thoughts of them and we applaud them with great delight The very Romances of Heroike Love work strangely upon our Fansies and we are ready with the Tyrant to wish over selvs a part in them whereas here we have the only Son of God the King of Glory the mighty Conqueror of Principalities and Powers yea of Death and Hell and Sin triumphing over all the strength of Evill the chiefest among ten thousand yea fairer then the Children of men The brightness of his Fathers Glory and express Image of his Person who having set his hart on the most wretched and deformed Soul of Man left his Fathers Court laid aside his Roiall Robes taking upon him not the Disguise but the Form of a servant living in the meanest and laying down his life in the basest and most cruell manner for her sake whose Love was less then her Desert and Enmity against him greater then her Misery Espousing her to himself and at once infusing both Love and Beauty putting his own Crown upon her Head and so bringing her home to his Fathers House to live with himself in eternall Bliss This is the high Perogative of Divine Love to love the Unlovely and make them Lovely to purchase the Poor and make them Rich to affect the Unwilling and make them Willing to pity the Miserable and make them Happy O my Lord and my God! thou Beauty of all Beauties and Perfection of all Perfections The God of Love yea Love it self Teach me the Law of Divine Love and enflame me with this Celestiall flame inspire me with thine own Spirit and let me live in thy Life rejoycing in the pure fountain of thy Ioy and resting in the Bosom of thy eternall Rest. VI. Of the Spirit WE enjoy God only in Christ and Christ only by the Spirit As the Spirit of God in the first Creation moved upon the face of the waters and brought forth the perfect Beauâ—â— thereof out of a Chaos of confusion and the same Spirit formed Christ himself in the womb of the Blessed Virgin so he bringeth forth Grace out of the Chaos of sin and formeth Christ in us regenerating us unto eternall Life Though the Spirit be a sure witness of its own work where it is yet it is a most easy thing to mistake the spirit of Satan or our own spirit for it where it is not Socinians and men of Reason esteem Faith only to be Fansy and Enthusiasts set up Fansy in stead of Faith as the Poet well expresseth it Aut Deus aut sua cuique Deus sit dira cupido There is a Spirituall Drunkenness and Madness which in some is so strong and prevalent that it ends in a naturall Madness and distemper of the brain which is hurt and tainted with the vehement impression of these Imaginations as much as with the Fansies of Carnall Love or Pride or any other violent affections which commonly distract men Be not drunk with Wine wherein is excess but be filled with the Spirit saith the Apostle shewing that in Wine and in all the spirits of Creatures there may be excess and inebriatiation only the Spirit of God doth fill and satisfy the Soul with Spirituall Grace which yet some who would seem more Spirituall then others least regard and rather affect extraordinary and miraculous Gifts which have ceased long since having been chiefly exercised in three extraordinary seasons and upon extraordina-occasions by Moses who delivered the Law to the Iews by Elias and Elisha who restored the Law which they had made void and lastly by Christ and his Apostles who preached the Gospel with the last of whom they seem to have expired for soon after when the ceasing of the Heathenish Oracles was objected by the Christians against Iulian the Apostate he retotred upon them the ceasing of their Prophecies Some suppose that these extraordinary Gifts shall be restored unto the Church when she shall be fully recovered out of the Antichristian Eclips but why might we not rather expect to have found them in our first Reformers Luther was a man of an extraordinary Faith and yet wrought no Miracles The Anabaptists at the same time affected them and pretended to them but were found
efficit Quod si putatis longius vitam trahi Mortalis aura nominis Cum sera vobis rapiet hoc etiam dies Iam vos secunda mors manet Where now is just Fabricius Brutus where Or Cato the severe In a few Letters their surviving Fame Presents an empty Name But can those Titles which we read or hear Make Dead men to appear In dark oblivion ye all lye down Nor are your Persons known Or if you tâ—ink your Life by others Breath May be redeemâ—d from Death Time which this Life shall also from you take A second death will make The arguments which the World commonly draws from Death are very strange Epicures say Let us eat and drink for to morrow we shall dy Certainly Death is the worst Master of Revells The Covetous will live Poor that he may dy Rich whereas indeed none dy Rich but the richest depart as poor and naked out of this world as any leaving all their welth to others Glorious men dy daringly that so they may be famous after Death yet all their Fame is but as a stately Monument set over their Graves Miserable men invoke Death and fly to it as their only Remedy but they are the worst Physicians who cure by killing These and the like are false enjoiments of Death and to no good end The reference it hath to another World as it is a parting Line between Life and Eternity doth best instruct us rightly to enjoy it Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do saith the Wiseman do it with thy might for there is no work nor device nor knowledge nor wisdom in the Grave whither thou goest He makes Death an incitement to Work not an invitation to Play and the chief VVork and Business of our Life is to gain eternall Life Blessed are the dead who dy in the Lord that they may rest from their labors and their works do follow them All other Works all Arts and Sciences and the vast Projects and famous Enterprises which fill the History of the World end in the Grave In that very day his thoughts perish those only are our Stock and Provision for another VVorld Thus a Christian enjoies Death by being familiarly acquainted with him and taking him by the hand goes along with him in all his steps and motions dying dayly to the World and living to God and Heaven and when Death at last summons him to depart he willingly resigns up all as things which no longer concern him He looks upon Heaven as a Kingdom in Reversion after his own Life and looses nothing in the mean time by staying for it while he lives he encreases his future Glory and when he dies he goes to possess it Men of this world whose hope is only in this Life put Death far from them though it be most naturall and nigh unto them and the most certain of all future things and when Death appears and stares them in the face they behold him as a most strange and horrid thing either dying away through fear and astonishment as Nabal did or enraged like a wild Bull in a net as the famous Duke of Biron or with Iudas desperately plunge themselvs into Hell like Empedocles who cast himself quick into Mount Aetna The best of them look upon Death as an indifferent thing as Martial concludes his Happy Life Summum nec metuas diem nec optes But to me saith the Apostle to live is Christ and to dy is Gain which is the best and truest enjoiment both of Life and Death XIII Of Sin SIn is the Death of Souls the Father of Perdition which like the Cici or Worm in Ionas Gourd corrupted the world almost assoon as it was made The Mystery of Iniquity is almost as wonderfull as the Mystery of Grace and Godliness that it should be so exceeding sinfull and that being such it could possibly enter into the VVorld when it was so perfectly constituted that there was no cleft or crany in it by which Sin might creep forth enter into it untill it made way for it self Before Adam by fatall experience acquired the Knowledge of Good and Evill Sin might seem an incredible thing for how could it be imagined that a reasonable Creature of perfect understanding and exact integrity made only to serv and obey his Creator and conscious that all his Happiness consisted therein should rebell against him and at once plunge himself and all his Posterity into everlasting Misery As there was no reason for Sin so neither was there any root or ground out of which it should spring only a bare Possibility of doing that which was most unreasonable and unnaturall God made Man upright but they have sought out many inventions he was fain to seek out and invent the way of undoing himself and to create Sin which God had not made But that which is most wonderfull in Sin and which hath puzled the most profound Doctors is the consideration of Gods Permission and Providence how and why he should suffer such an Enemy to himself and all his Creatures to invade the World and ruin the whole Creation It is certainly the greatest quarrell and highest blasphemy which the Divells and damned have against God that he should make them to damn them and it is the strongest argument in the corrupt minds of the sinners of this VVorld who have not yet felt the Hell of Sin that it is no such great matter as Divines would perswade them thinking that because God doth permit it therefore he will also tolerate it This is the strange and prodigious birth of Sin and the Nature of it is answerable thereunto for it is no less then the doing of that w ch we ought not to do or the not doing of that which we ought to do and what we ought not to do is in the very next degree to what we cannot do Chast Ioseph puts the one for the other How can I do this wickedness and sin against God making morall Entity and Bonity as convertible as Naturall and Gods Interdiction as restraining as his Interposition This Monster assoon as it is born is so strong and adult in mischief that it destroieth the Womb that bare it and infecteth the whole Sphere of its activity though acts of Sin make it grow yet the first birth thereof makes it a complete Body and merits an universall and eternall punishment It hath blasted the whole inferior world and laid the foundations of Hell it self hence are all the Evills in Nature all the disorders in Humane society and villanies of Men. The Story of the Italian who first made his Enemy deny God and then Stab'd him and so at once murdered both Body and Soul declares the perfect malignity thereof and should the dire imprecations of revengefull Spirits be alwaies executed on others we should create Divells and Hells enough to destroy all Mankind But all this is the least and lowest Evill in it the perfection thereof consists in the contrariety and enmity
AN ESSAY OF THE True Happines OF MAN In Two Books BY SAMUEL GOTT of GRA. I. ES. LONDON Printed by Rob. White for Thomas Vnderhill at the Blew-Anchor in Pauls Church-yard near the little North-Door 1650. The First Book I. OF True Happiness 1 II. Of the Degrees of Happines 8 III. Of Perfect Happiness 13 IV. Of the Vanity of all Worldly things 20 V. Of the Goods of the Body 25 VI. Of Health 30 VII Of Strength 35 VIII Of Beauty 40 IX Of the Goods of Fortune 46 X. Of Riches 52 XI Of Pleasures 61 XII Of Honor. 66 XIII Of the Goods of the Mind 71 XIV Of Learning 77 XV. Of Wisedome 83 XVI Of Philosophy 90 XVII Of the Sceptikes and Cynikes 98 XVIII Of the Cyreniakes and Epicureans 108 XIX Of the Stoikes and Peripatetikes 115 XX. Of the Platonikes and of Socrates 125 The Second Book I. OF Religion 135 II. Of Faith 142 III. Of the Scriptures 148 IV. Of God 154 V. Of Christ. 163 VI. Of the Spirit 174 VII Of a Christian Life 183 VIII Of Nature 191 IX Of Providence 198 X. Of Prosperity 206 XI Of Adversity 213 XII Of Death 220 XIII Of Sin 229 XIV Of the Restuaration of the Soul 237 XV. Of Graces 248 XVI Of Duties 254 XVII Of Conscience 261 XVIII Of the last Iudgement 270 XIX Of Hell 278 XX. Of Heaven 288 The Preface I Beg no Patronage I need no Apology Truth is the best indeed only true Patroness if in any thing I have offended her let it be as a Null among Ciphers and signify nothing As Popish Writers use to say concerning the Church and Fathers If any thing be writ or said against them let it be unwrit and unsaid Though I should seem to Apologise it shall not be for any thing I have writ but only for writing in an Age wherein Letters are either neglected or distasted We have lately surfetted of Knowledge and now disgorge and nauseate it or if any Books be read they are only such as we disdain to read twice Pamphlets and Stories of Fact or angry Disputes concerning the Times In times of Action whosoever would appear considerable and make any moment in Business must pursue one of the Extremes and desperately run up to the hight of it so in Writing Preaching or the like to speak plausibly of the Times or vehemently to oppose them most advanceth Fame and Followers Yea in all other Times either to Flatter Princes and humor the Vices and Vanities of the Age or Satyrically to lash them hath been the common Art of Writing which I wittingly waive and leave to others Sober and Solid Truth passes on in a streight Line through the Crowd of Errors and Confusions without any great noise or show of it self Besides good Books as they are profitable so they are very chargeable We may not call them our own when we have bought them nor when we have read them To understand them rightly didicisse fideliter will cost almost as much as to indit̄e them and to practice them far more Men think it sufficient to turn over the Leavs but never care to gather the Fruit without which a Book is wholly lost writ and read to no purpose For my own part though I know writing of Books to be a very mean employment and of no great efficacy when such writing as the famous Talbot set on his Sword Pro vincere inimicos meos is by many counted the best Logike and Rhetorike and most authentike yet I am content to make use of it because I have no better antidote against Idleness and the inconveniencies thereof Having often consulted with my self how a man might live most happily both here and hereafter I used to commit my Thoughts to Writing finding by experience that as Meditation is the Glass of the Soul so Writing steels it and strengthens the Reflection representing our scattered Notions in a more entire and exact manner and imprinting them first on our own spirits I have lately collected my loose Papers and digested them into Method and now present them to the publike view that so others if they please may share with me and if I may communicate some considerable benefit to any one Reader I shall account my endeavours very well bestowed However they shall return into my own Brest and be alwaies welcome at Home The first BOOK Of the True HAPPINES Of MAN I. Of True Happiness HAppiness is the Life of Life and the Enjoyment of all our Good things Enjoyment begins in Knowledg Happy men if they Knew it is a common exprobration and in part true of all There is none who hath not something more then Hope left in the bottom of Pandroa's box at least so much as to maintain him in that state of Hoping which every man should improve to his best advantage and make the most of a little On the contrary Sentiat se mori was a torture as like Hell as the wit of man could invent Knowledge is the view of things and Contemplation the review and gazing on them bathing and soaking the Mind throughout with more piercing and fixed apprehensions Thus a Covetous man enjoys his treasures by counting and studying them as he in Horace Nummos contemplor in arca Admiration is more then Contemplation extending the Mind to the very utmost capacity yea in some sort transporting it beyond it self by wondering at that which it cannot comprehend These beget Love which is an Appetite of union Knowledge presents the Object to the Soul but Love resigns the Soul to the Object embracing and mingling with it and so sucks out all the sweetness that is in it This heat of Love begets Joy and Delight as a flame of Light flowing from it and this Rejoycing in the Object is the most perfect Enjoyment thereof True Happiness consists both in the true Taste of the Soul and also in the truth of the Thing it self An ingenious Poem or pleasant Fable made only to take the ear raise quicker affections in the mind of the Reader then the bare nakedness of more profitable Truth There is indeed a truth of Art in witty fictions which is reall matter of delight yet it argues great vanity to be more affected with the Embroidery of an artificial Ly then with the Plain work of better Instructions There are other meer deceptions The outward Senses deceiv the Fansie and which is more strange the Fansie can deceiv the very Senses and operate on them as much as the Thing it self not only as in a Dream but when they are waking and most intent He who sate in the empty Theater and seemed to see most wonderfull Tragedies was in a farther degree of vanity then common Spectators who contemplated an Hercules or Achilles or a great Prince in the person of some mean fellow whom they knew to be most unlike to them but his Fansie was both Spectator and Actor which is a double delusion I do not think as Avicenna
then any cleer information or evidence of the Truth He attributes much to the authority of the Ancients as better and wiser then Posterity but propounds no Word of Divine Truth on which to ground a Belief Yet he happily hit upon the true End and Chief Happiness of Man which is to be made like unto God by a conjunction of the Mind with him erecting Piety above Virtues and so leads us into another World acquainting us familiarly with God and Angels and spirituall Idea's by abstracting the Soul from those inferior and Corporeall things and advancing it to the Contemplation of the first Cause and Creator of all things which is a most beautifull and glorious Vision and a great advantage to true Piety and Religion Yet notwithstanding these high speculations he seems to fall short in the Practice of Divinity I do not speak of his own exemplary Practice but of his Practicall documents and rules concerning true Piety and the power of Godliness As Aristotle in his Naturall Philosophy so he in his Divinity are generally more Notional then Practicall Of the Philosophers who either preceded or succeeded Socrates was certainly the ablest and wisest and himself the most perfect Example of his own Doctrine Heraclitus Pythagoras and others before him are dark and obscure full of Imaginary Fansies and Cabalisticall conceits The seaven Wise men may be all summed up in one Socrates Plato Aristotle and all who followed him are more notional and Sophisticall nor could any of his own Scholars exactly follow him but presently degenerated into vain Opinions and a more licentious Life nor do we read of any distinct Sect of Socratikes but rather all succeeding Philosophy and the severall sorts thereof were Branches growing up out of this Root Plato followed him in Divinity seeking to improve it with Mysticall traditions Xenophon was most like him in Civil conversation but more Glorious and Active The Peripatetikes followed his Study of Nature but are more subtile and Sophisticall The Stoikes chose his study of Virtue and professing to live according to the Universal Nature but stretched it to a strange severity and most unnaturall Inhumanity The Cyreniakes and Epicureans pretended to his pure delights and freer use of Pleasures but defiled them with gross voluptuousness The Cynikes emulated his contempt of all unnecessary things and that excellent sentence That he who needeth least is most like God but became Brutish and Nasty The Sceptikes his opposing the presumptuous confidence of the Sophisters pursuing it so far that they overthrew all his foundations of Truth and Knowledge He had a very clear and right Understanding of all the Affairs of Life from the meanest and most Mechanicall to the highest and most Intellectuall and made it his Business to edifie others that every man with whom he conversed might be bettered by his company which is a most Noble and Divine emploiment Observ his discourses in the Streets with Strangers and Passengers in the Shops with Artificers in his House with his Family in his Meetings and Symposiums with merry Company in his Conferences with his Scholars and in publike Assemblies with the Citizens and you shall finde in them all most apposite and solid Instructions concerning all occasions of Life Private Domesticall Civill Military Naturall and Divine in a free and familiar way of arguing by mutuall Conference and a rationall Induction through undeniable concessions without any cunning Sophistry or flourishing Rhetorike and yet more perswasive and effectuall then either He was absolutely the best Master of Life among all Heathen Horace a good Critike though herein he prefer Homer and the Poets before Chrysippus and Crantor and such other curious disputers yet instructs his Poet to borrow Matter from Socraticall Philosophy Rem tibi Socraticae possnnt ostendere chartae But the most strange and wonderfull thing in him was his familiar conversing with a God or Daemon who as he professeth ever certainly advised in all doubtfull affairs It hath been a known Policy in many Great men to make their Laws and Counsells seem Oraculous by pretending that a Deity dictated unto them So did Numa Sertorius Mahomet and others but none of them so credibly true as this Probably God might inspire him with an extraordinary Spirit of Naturall Wisdom perhaps with a Spirit of Divination in this way of Counsell and Advice concerning future and contingent things as he did revele higher and more divine things to Balaam and the Sybills yet I dare not with Erasmus almost Canonize him for a Saint nor with Socinians be confident of his Salvation Xenophon in his Apology for him tells us how he worshipped the same Gods which the City worshipped and taught him to sacrifice to their false Gods As the Oracle of Apollo did him the honor to pronounce him the Wisest of men so he requited it by acknowledging him a God and accepting his Testimoniall Though probably as we may guess by Plato's discourses he esteemed those inferior Gods as Daemons and Spirits of a more Divine nature then Men yet this doth not excuse him of Idolatry nor can such worshiping of Angels or Spirits be allowed in any true Divinity And though he were most free from Vulgar or Philosophicall pride yet there are strong arguments of suspition that he was guilty of that spirituall pride which most opposeth Salvation In his Life and at his Death he judged himself the best of Men and expresseth litle or no confession of Sin or any thing like Christian Humility Without which there can be no true conversion to God nor Communion with him and without Divine Communion the Soul cannot attain her true and perfect Happiness The Second Book Of the True HAPPINES Of MAN I. of Religion WEE have now travailed over the Terrestriall Globe and shall proceed to describe the Celestiall not as Astronomers who delineate it by Epicycles and Eccentrikes and such like Imaginary things nor as Poets who fill it with Giants and Beasts and Fabulous Monsters but as it is in it self and may be best discovered by its own Light Religion is the Law of the Supreme King commanding and directing that Duty and Worship which we ow unto him and rewarding us with that Happiness which we may enjoy in him both which consist together in the conjunction of the Mind and Will of Man with the Mind and Will of God As the highest Knowledge of God which the Heathen attained was dark and doubtfull so was their service weak and saint The Athenians inscribed their Altar To the unknown God and their Worship was as vain and ignorant Whom therefore saith the Apostle ye ignorantly worship him declare I unto you Where he plainly sheweth the difference between Heathenish Worship of God and true Religion They had some glimmering apprehensions of God If haply they might feel after him and find him though he be not far from every one of us but they abused it with their Idolatry and corrupted it with their Lives being so taught
that by our own endeavors the Good Principle may be so exercised and excited that it may prevail against the other but then why might it not proceed so far as wholly to extinguish the other for by prevailing in part it gains some farther degree of strength and the other looseth as much and a greater strength of Good may more probably prevail against a lesser strength of Evill then a lesser strength of Good could against a greater strength of Evill or if the Good can never overcome the evill then every act flowing from both will be mixt and imperfect and can merit nothing but the just indignation of a pure and perfect God and so leav us in the same state of misery in which it found us The Semipelagians therefore who have spun out this thread to the utmost fineness which it will bear without breaking say there is indeed left in Man a free will to Good but such as cannot act the Good it would without a Divine assistance yet the Will of Man freely inclining it self to Good inclines God to assist him with his Grace and that God eternally foreseeing this Good inclination did therefore and not otherwise pre-ordain such to Grace and Salvation So that God doth not turn the Will which they say is contrary to the freedom thereof but concur with it in promoting it Thus they think they have fairly decided this great Controversy by parting the stakes between Gods Grace and Mans Will but they erre not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God subordinating the will of God to the will of Man rather then the will of Man to the will of God and make this greatest work of Redemption lesser then that the Creation which proceeded from nothing Though it may be a problematicall Question in Divinity whether one sin doth naturally of it self destroy all Grace yet it is most true that the eating of the forbidden fruit was such a Criticall and Fatall sin which did incurr the sentence of Death by which this Spirituall Death of Grace is chiefly intended and so judicially produced the same effect for as one sin may be punished with another so may it be punished with all Sin by virtue of such a precedent Compact and thus is that Originall Sin imputed and derived unto us not only by naturall propagation for then all other sins of Parents should descend upon their Children in the same manner but as that Command was a triall of Mans universall obedience so the breach thereof was an universall sin and the punishment equall unto it Yet the will of Man remains free in its own nature else it should not freely sin and so not sin at all nor doth necessity take away freedom for God doth most necessarily and yet most freely will his own Glory and the will of man doth necessarily and freely will Good reall or apparent yea in the very act of willing it is necessarily determined to one particular object and yet doth then will most freely that is not as Beasts through Appetite and Instinct but with a Rationall Election The will of man is free according to the Law of Nature and by that very Law it is impossible that it should be so free as not to be subordinate to God and manageable by his supernaturall and infinite power in such a supernaturall and infinite manner as doth not destroy the will it self not the freedom of it which is of the nature thereof for if God should not govern the will of Men and Angels as well as all other things he should not rule and order the highest acts of his noblest Creatures nor can there be any Pre-vision in God without this Pre-ordination Providence in the Word signifieth Foreseeing but in the Thing Fore-ordaining because God by foreseeing doth fore-ordain and so that distinction whereon they so much depend falls to the ground which Tully ingenuously confesseth and therefore denying Fate denyeth also Oracles and Divine Prescience and Bradwardine disputeth it affirmatively thus He who made this World and all things therein did certainly foresee what he made and it being eternally true that whatsoever hath been is or shall be in the World should be before it was God who is omniscient must certainly foreknow it now this certain foreknowledge in God could not be grounded on the things themselvs which should be for the World had yet no being but was a meer Nothing and Nothing could not be the Cause nor Object of Gods foreknowledge of things which should be but God himself or as the Platonikes and Schoolmen speak the Idea in the Mind of God which is in himself and of himself and according to which the thing was produced in that manner as he had ordained otherwise the foresight of God could not be infallible nor any foresight at all and therefore only God can certainly foreknow because he only can certainly pre-ordain and there can be no exemption of the Will of Man more then of the actions of any other Creature The vast consequences thereof and that grand objection concerning sin Why doth he yet finde fault for who hath resisted his Will are resolved by the great Apostle so fully that if all the Cavils of men against this Truth were now presented unto him he could not answer them more directly then he doth nor is it possible for any mortall man to satisfie him whom the Spirit of God Speaking so expresly in that place doth not satisfie As one saith At the day of Judgement we shall fully understand his 9. Chap. to the Romans This being the great and generall Case between God and Sinners is reserved for that great and generall Assises That God may be justified in his sayings and might overcome when he is judged And the more proud men do now exalt themselvs against this Truth the more should a Christian admire and enjoy the wounderfull work of his Conversion which as it is supernaturall so it is incomprehensible and say of his new Birth as David said of his naturall Birth Fearfully and wonderfully am I made XV. Of Graces AS Being is the foundation of Welbeing so is Welbeing the Perfection of Being Christ said of Iudas It had been good for that man if he had not been born Contrarily Spirituall Regeneration and the new Birth is better then the Naturall Being of it self is morally neither Good nor Evill out capable or either Thus Grace though Accidentall is more valuable then the Substance of the Soul Grace is that which the Scripture calleth A Good and Honest Hart that is Ingenuity or Goodness toward God As the word Piety generally signifieth a good disposition toward all Relations So the Poet calleth his Aeneas Pious as well for his officious dutifulness toward his Father Anchises as for his religious devotion toward his goods The contrary hereof is either a direct malignity or Hypocriticall and double dealing with God This Ingenuity consists in Spirituall Discretion or Ingenium and a towardly Disposition or Indoles of