liquid body and how tamed and confined by thine Almightinesse How justly didst thou expostulate with thy people of old by thy Prophet Ieremy Feare yee not mee saith the Lord will ye not tremble at my presence which have placed the sand for the bounds of the sea by a perpetuall decree that it cannot passe it and though the waves thereof tosse themselves yet they cannot prevaile though they roare yet can they not passe over it And what a stupendious work of omnipotence is it that thou O God hast hanged up this huge globe of water and earth in the midst of a yeelding aire without any stay or foundation save thine owne eternall decree How wonderfull art thou in thy mighty winds which whence they come and whither they go thou only knowest in thy dreadfull thunders and lightnings in thy threatning Comets and other fiery exhalations With what marvellous variety of creatures hast thou peopled all these thy roomy elements all of severall kinds fashions natures dispositions uses and yet all their innumerable motions actions events are predetermined and over-ruled by thine all-wise and almighty providence What man can but open his eyes and see round about him these demonstrations of thy divine power and wisedome and not inwardly praise thee in thine excellent greatnesse For my owne practise I cannot find a better notion wherby to work my heart to an inward adoration of God than this Thou that hast made all this great world and guidest and governest it and fillest and comprehendest it being thy selfe infinite and incomprehensible And I am sure there can be no higher representation of the divine greatnesse unto our selves Although withall we may find enough at home for what man that lookes no further than himselfe and sees the goodly frame of his body erected and imployed for the harbour of a spirituall and immortall soule can choose but say I will praise thee for I am fearefully and wonderfully made SECT III. SVrely could we forget all the rest of the world it is enough to fetch us upon our knees and to strike an holy awe into us to think that in him we live and move and have our being For in these our particular obligations there is a mixed sense both of the greatnesse and goodnesse of our God which as it manifestly showes it selfe in the wondrous work of our excellent creation so most of all magnifies it selfe in the exceedingly gratious work of our redemption Great is thy mercy that thou mayst be feared saith the sweet Singer of Israel Lo power doth not more command this holy feare than mercy doth though both here meet together for as there was infinite mercy mixed with power in thus creating us so also there is a no lesse mighty power mixed with infinite mercy in our redemption What heart can but awfully adore thy soveraigne mercy O blessed God the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ in sending thine only and coequall Sonne the Sonne of thy love the Sonne of thine eternall essence out of thy bosome downe from the height of celestiall glory into this vale of teares and death to abase himselfe in the susception of our nature to clothe himselfe with the ragges of our humanity to indure temptation shame death for us O blessed Iesu the redeemer of mankind what soule can be capable of a sufficient adoration of thine inconceive able mercy in thy meane and despicable incarnation in thy miserable and toilsome life in thy bloudy agony in thine ignominious and tormenting passion in thy wofull sense of thy fathers wrath in our stead and lastly in thy bitter and painfull death thou that knewest no sinne wert made sinne for us thou that art omnipotent would'st die and by thy death hast victoriously triumphed over death and hell It is enough O Saviour it is more than enough to ravish our hearts with love and to bruise them with a loving feare O blessed Spirit the God of comfort who but thou only can make our soules sensible of thy unspeakable mercy in applying to us the wonderfull benefit of this our deare redemption in the great work of our inchoate regeneration in the mortifying of our evill and corrupt affections in raising us to the life of grace and preparing us for the life of glory O God if mercy be proper to attract feare how must our hearts in all these respects needs be filled with all awfull regard unto thy divine bounty Oh how great is the goodnesse that thou hast laid up for those that feare thee even before the sonnes of men SECT IV. NOw we may not think this inward adoration of the greatnesse goodnes of God to be one simple act but that which is sweetly compounded of the improvement of many holy affections for there cannot but be love mixed with this feare The feare of the Lord is the beginning of love and this feare must be mixed with joy Rejoyce in him with trembling and this feare and joy is still mixed with hope For in the feare of the Lord is strong confidence and the eye of the Lord is upon them that feare him upon them that hope in his mercy As therefore we are wont to say that our bodies are not neither can bee nourished with any simple ingredient so may we truly say of our soules that they neither receive any comfort or establishment nor execute any powers of theirs by any sole single affection but require a gracious mixture for both As that father said of obedience we may truly say of grace that it is all copulative Neither may wee think that one only impression of this holy feare and inward adoration will serve the turne to season all our following disposition and carriage but there must be a virtuall continuation thereof in all the progresse of our lives Our Schooles do here seasonably distinguish of perpetuity of whether the second act when all our severall motions and actions are so held on as that there is no cessation or intermission of their performance which wee cannot here expect Or of the first act when there is an habit of this inward adoration settled upon the heart so constantly that it is never put off by what ever occurrences so as whatsoever we do whatsoever we indeavour hath a secret relation hereunto And this second way we must attaine unto if ever we will aspire to any comfort in the fruition of Gods presence here upon earth and our meet disposition towards him I have often thought of that deep and serious question of the late judicious and honourable Sir Fulke Grevil Lord Brook a man worthy of a fairer death and everlasting memory moved to a learned kinsman of mine much interessed in that Noble man who when he was discoursing of an incident matter very considerable was taken off with this quick interrogation of that wise and noble person What is that to the Infinite as secretly implying that all our thoughts and discourse must be reduced thither and
spirituall eye lookes through the world at God the one of those he seeth mediately the other terminatively neither is it in nature hard to conceive how we may see two such objects as whereof one is in the way to the other as thorow a prospective glasse we can see a remote mark or thorow a thin cloud wee can see heaven Those glorious Angels of heaven are never without the vision of God yet being ministring spirits for the good of his Elect here below they must needs take notice of these earthly occurrents the variety of these sublunary objects cannot divert their thoughts from their Maker Although also to speak distinctly the eye thus imployed is not the same nothing hinders but that whiles the bodily sees a body the spirituall eye may see a spirit As when a load-stone is presented to my view the eye of my sense sees the body and fashion of the stone my eye of reason sees the hidden vertue which is in it both these kinds of eyes may be thus fixed upon their severall objects without any intersection of the visuall lines of each other But that no man may think God hath so little respect to our infirmities as to impose upon us impossible tasks we must know that since the soule of man in this state of fraile mortality is not capable of a perpetuall act of such an intuition of God here is necessary use of a just distinction As the Schoole therefore is wont to distinguish of intentions so must we here of the apprehension of God which is either actuall or habituall or virtuall Actuall when our cogitations are taken up and directly imployed in the meet consideration of the blessed Deity and the things thereto appertaining Habituall when we have a settled kind of holy disposition and aptitude inclining us ever to these divine thoughts ready still to bring them forth into act upon every least motion Virtuall betwixt both these being neither so quick and agile as the actuall nor yet so dull and flagging as the habituall which may be incident to a man whether sleeping or otherwise busied when by the power of an heavenly disposition wrought in the mind we are so affected as that divine thoughts are become the constant though insensible guests of the soule whiles the vertue of that originall illumination sticks still by us and is in a sort derived into all our subsequent cogitations leaving in them perpetuall remainders of the holy effects of the deeply-wrought and well grounded apprehension of God As in a pilgrim towards the holy Land there are not alwaies actual thoughts concerning his way or end yet there is still an habituall resolution to begin and compasse that journey and a secret power of his continued will to put forward his steps to that purpose there being a certaine impression remaining in the motive faculty which still insensibly stirres him towards the place desired Neither is it unusuall even in nature to see many effects continuing when the motion of the cause by which they were wrought ceaseth As when some deep Bell is rung to the height the noyse continues some time in the ayre after the clapper is silent Or when a stone is cast into the water the circles that are caused by it are enlarged and multiplyed after the stone lyes still in the bottome How ever therefore we cannot hope in this life through our manifold weaknesses and distractions to attaine unto the steddy continuance of the actuall view of him that is invisible yet to the habituall and virtuall power of apprehending him wee may through the goodnesse of him whom we strive to see happily aspire Neither may we be wanting to our selves in taking all occasions of renewing these our actuall visions of God both set and casuall there is nothing that wee can see which doth not put us in mind of God what creature is there wherin we do not espy some footsteps of a Deity every herb flower leafe in our garden every Bird and Fly in the aire every Ant and Worme in the ground every Spider in our window speakes the omnipotence and infinite wisedome of their Creator None of these may passe us without some fruitfull monition of acknowledging a divine hand But besides these it will be requisite for us every morning to season our thoughts with a serious renovation of our awfull apprehensions of God and not to take off our hand till wee have wrought our hearts to some good competency of right and holy conceits of that glorious Majesty the efficacy whereof may dilate it selfe to the whole following day which may be often revived by our frequent ejaculations But above all other when wee have to do with God in the set immediate exercises of his services and our heavenly devotions we must endeavour to our utmost to sharpen our eyes to a spirituall perspicacity striving to see him whom we speak unto and who speaks unto us as he hath pleased to reveale himselfe But over and beside all these even when we have no provocations from any particular occasion it must be our continual care to labour with our God that it would please him to work us to such an holy and heavenly disposition as that what ever our imployments may be we may never want the comfort of a virtuall and habituall enjoying the sight of God so as the power and efficacy of our first well-taken apprehension may runne on thorow all the following actions and events both of our life and death SECT VII VPon this constant fixednesse of our thoughts on God there cannot but follow in the seventh place a marvellous delight and complacency of the soule in so blessed an object neither is it easie to determine whether of these doe more justly challenge a precedency in the heart whether the eye be so fixed because it is well pleased with the sight or whether it be so pleased and ravished with that happy sight because it is so fixed whatsoever these two are in the order of nature I am sure in time they are inseparable neither is it possible for any man to see God as interessed in him and not to love him and take pleasure in him As a stranger as an enemy or avenger even divels and reprobate soules behold him to their regret and torment if I may not say they rather see his anger and judgement than himselfe but never eye can see him as his God and not be taken with infinite delight for that absolute goodnesse out of which no man can contemplate God can be no other than infinitely amiable And if in the seeing of God we be as the Schoole hath taught us to speak unitively carried into him how can we choose but in this act bee affected with joy unspeakable and glorious In thy presence saith the Psalmist is the fulnesse of joy and at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore In summe therefore if when our eyes being freed from all naturall indispositions and both inward and outward
refraine from no wickednesse because the feare of God was not in that place so we may no lesse irrefragably inferre where we see a trade of prevalent wickednesse there can be no feare of God Wo is me what shall I say of this last age but the same that I must say of mine owne As this decrepit body therefore by reason of the unequall temper of humors and the defect of radicall moysture and heat cannot but be a sewer of all diseases So it is so it will be with the decayed old age of this great body of the world through want of the feare of the ever-living God Rivers of waters O God shall run downe mine eyes because men keep not thy law But what do I suggest to the obdured hearts of wilfull sinners the sweet and gracious remedies of a loving feare This preservative is for children sturdy rebells must expect other receits A frown is an heavy punishment to a dutifull sonne scourges and scorpions are but enough for a rebellious vassall I must lay before such an hell of vengeance and show them the horrible Topheth prepared of old even that bottomlesse pit of perdition and tell them of rivers of brimstone of a worm ever gnawing of everlasting burnings of weeping wailing and gnashing when the terrible Iudge of the world shall come in flaming fire rendring vengeance to them that know not God and obey him not And certainly if the sinner had not an Infidell in his bosome the expectation of so direfull a condition to be inflicted and continued upon him unto all eternity without possibility of any intermission or of any remission were enough to make him run made with feare only unbeleefe keeps him from a frantick despaire and a sudden leap into his hell And if the custome and deceit of sinne have wrought an utter senselesnesse in those brawny hearts I must leave them over to the wofull sense of what they will not feare yea to the too late feare of what they shall not bee able either to beare or avoid Certainly the time will come when they shall be swallowed up with a dreadfull confusion and shall no more be able not to feare than not to bee Oftentimes even in the midst of all their secure jollity God writes bitter things against them such as make their knees to knock together their lips to tremble their teeth to chatter their hands to shake their hearts to faile within them for the anguish of their soules Were they as insensate as the earth it selfe Touch the mountaines and they shall smoke saith the Psalmist The mountaines saw thee and they trembled saith Habbacuc But if their feare be respited it is little for their ease it doth but forbeare a little that it may overwhelme them at once for ever Woe is mee for them In how heavy and deplorable case are they and feele it not They lie under the fierce wrath of the Almighty and complaine of nothing but ease The mountains quake at him and the hils melt and the earth is burnt at his presence Who can stand before his indignation and who can abide in the fiercenesse of his anger his fury is poured out like fire and the rockes are thrown downe by him saith the Prophet Nahum Yet oh what a griefe it is to see that so dreadfull a power should carry away no more feare from us wretched men yea even from those that are ready to feare where no feare is Paines of body frownes of the great restraint of liberty losse of goods who is it that feares not But alas to avoid these men feare not to venture upon the displeasure of him whose anger is death and who is able to cast body and soule into hell fire So wee have seene fond children that to avoid a bug-beare have runne into fire or water So we have seen a starting jade that suddenly flying from a shadow hath cast himselfe into a ditch We can but mourne in secret for those that have no teares to spend upon themselves and tremble for them that will needs gnash If those that are filthy will be filthy still If secure men will set up a trade of sinning every good heart will take up Nehemiahs resolution But so did not J because of the feare of the Lord and the practice of holy Habacuc I trembled in my selfe that I might rest in the day of trouble It is wise Solomons good experiment which hee loved to repeat By the feare of the Lord men depart from evill for they say one to another as the Tremelian version hath it in Malachy The Lord hearkeneth and heareth and how dare they how can they doe amisse in that presence For as the Saints say after the Song of Moses and the Song of the Lambe Great and marvellous are thy workes Lord God Almighty Iust and true are thy wayes thou King of Saints who shall not feare thee and glorifie thy Name for thou onely art holy SECT XII SHortly then that wee may put these two together which are not willing to be severed Whosoever is duely affected with a true filiall feare of the Almighty cannot by allurements be drawne to doe that which may offend so sweet a mercy cannot by any difficulties bee discouraged from doing that which may bee pleasing to so gracious a majesty The Magistrate that feares God dares not cannot be partiall to any wickednesse dares not cannot bee harsh to innocence managing that sword wherewith hee is intrusted so as God himselfe if he were upon earth would doe it for the glory of his owne just mercie The Messenger of God that feares him on whose errand hee goes dares not cannot either smother his message or exceed it he will he must lift up his voice like a trumpet and tell Israel of her sinnes and Iudah of her transgressions not fearing faces not sparing offences The ordinary Christian that feares God dares not cannot but make conscience of all his wayes he dares not defraud or lie for an advantage he dares not sweare falsely for a world hee dares not prostitute his body to whatsoever filthinesse he dares not oppresse his inferiours he dares not turn away his owne face from the poore much lesse dares hee grind theirs in one word he dares rather dy than sinne And contrarily what blockes soever nature layes in his way since his God calls him forth to this combat he cannot but bid battell to his owne rebellious corruptions and offer a deadly violence to his evill and corrupt affections and enter the lists with all the powers of darknesse resisting unto bloud and willingly bleeding that he may overcome Who now would not be in love with this feare O feare the Lord yee his Saints hee that feares him shall lacke nothing The Sunne of righteousnesse shall arise unto him with healing in his wings In the meane time the secret of the Lord is with him The Angells of the Lord are ever