are as busily employed in the promoting of that which they love best that which is dearest to God whom they serve the Life and Nature of God There is joy in heaven at the conversion of one sinner Heaven takes notice of it there is a Quire of Angels that sweetly sings the Epithalamium of a Soul divorced from Sinne and Satan and espoused unto Christ What therefore the Wiseman speaks concerning Wisdome I shall apply to Holinesse Take fast hold of Holinesse let her not go keep her for she is thy Life Keep thy heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of Life of Death too Let nothing be esteemed of greater consequence and concernment to thee then what thou doest and actest how thou livest Nothing without us can make us either happy or miserable nothing can either defile us or hurt us but what goeth out from us what Springeth and Bubbleth up out of our own hearts We have dreadfull apprehensions of the Flames of Hell without us we tremble and are afraid when we hear of Fire and Brimstone whil'st in the mean time we securely nourish within our own hearts a true and living Hell Et caeco carpimur igni the dark fire of our Lusts consumeth our bowels within and miserably scorcheth our souls and we are not troubled at it We do not perceive how Hell steales upon us whilest we live here And as for Heaven we onely gaze abroad expecting that it should come in to us from without but never look for the beginnings of it to arise within in our own hearts But lest there should yet happely remain any prejudice against that which I have all this while heartily commended to you True Holinesse and the Keeping of Christs commandment as if it were a Legall and Servile thing that would subject us to a State of Bondage I must here needs adde a Word or two either for the Prevention or Removall of it I do not therefore mean by Holinesse the mere performance of outward Duties of Religion coldly acted over as a task not our habituall Prayings Hearings Fastings multiplied one upon another though these be all good as subservient to an higher end but I mean an inward Soul and Principle of Divine Life that spiriteth all these that enliveneth and quickeneth the dead carkasse of all our outward Performances whatsoever I do not here urge the deâ—d Law of outward Works which indeed if it be alone subjects us to a State of Bondage but the inward Law of the Gospel the Law of the Spirit of Life then which nothing can be more free and ingenuous for it doth not act us by Principles without us but is an inward Sâ—lf-moving Principle living in our Hearts I do not urge the Law written upon Tables of stone without us though there is still a good use of that too but the Law of Holinesse written within upon the Fleshly Tables of our hearts The first though it work us into some outward Conformity to Gods Commandments and so hath a good effect upon the World yet we are all this while but like dead Instruments of Musick that found sweetly and harmoniously when they are onely struck and played upon from without by the Musicians Hand who hath the Theory and Law of Musick living within himself But the Second the living Law of the Gospel the Law of the Spirit of Life within us is as if the Soul of Musick should incorporate itself with the Instrument and live in the Strings and make them of their own accord without any touch or impulse from without daunce up and down and warble out their Harmonies They that are acted onely by an outward Law are but like Neurospasts or those little Puppets that skip nimbly up and down and seem to be full of quick and sprightly motion whereas they are all the while moved artificially by certain Wiers and Strings from without and not by any Principle of Motion from themselves within or else like Clocks and Watches that go pretty regularly for a while but are moved by Weights and Plummets or some other Artificiall Springs that must be ever now and then wound up or else they cease But they that are acted by the new Law of the Gospel by the Law of the Spirit they have an inward principle of life in them that from the Centre of it self puts forth it self freely and constantly into all obedience to the will of Christ This New Law of the Gospel it is a kind of Musicall Soul informing the dead Organ of our Hearts that makes them of their own accord delight to act harmoniously according to the Rule of Gods word The Law that I speak of it is a Law of Love which is the most powerfull Law in the World and yet it freeth us in a manner from all Law without us because it maketh us become a Law unto our selves The more it prevaileth in us the more it eateth up and devoureth all other Laws without us just as Aarons Living Rod did swallow up those Rods of the Magicians that were made onely to counterfeit a little Life Quis Legem det amantibus Major lex Amor est sibi Love is at once a Freedome from all Law a State of purest Liberty and yet a Law too of the most constraining and indispensable Necessity The worst Law in the World is the Law of Sinne which is in our members which keeps us in a condition of most absolute Slavery when we are wholly under the Tyrannicall commands of our lusts this is a cruell Pharaoh indeed that sets his hard task-masters over us and maketh us wretchedly drudge in Mire and Clay The Law of the Letter without us sets us in a condition of a little more Liberty by restraining of us from many outward Acts of Sinne but yet it doth not disenthrall us from the power of sinne in our hearts But the Law of the Spirit of life the Gospel-Law of Love it puts us into a condition of most pure and perfect Liberty and whosoever really entertaines this Law he hath thrust out Hagar quite he hath cast out the Bondwoman and her Children from henceforth Sarah the Free woman shall live forever with him and she shall be to him a Mother of many children her seed shall be as the sand of the seashoar for number and as the starres of heaven Here is Evangelicall liberty here is Gospel-freedome when the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Iesus hath made us free from the Law of sinne and death when we have a liberty from sinne and not a liberty to sinne for our dear Lord and Master hath told us that Whosoever committeth sinne he is the servant of it He that lies under the power and vassallage of his base lusts and yet talks of Gospel-freedome he is but like a poore condemned Prisoner that in his sleep dreams of being set at liberty and of walking up and down wheresoever he pleaseth whilst his Legs are all the while lock't
were to incorporate it in them Some Philosophers have determined that {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} is not {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} vertue cannot be taught by any certain rules or precepts Men and books may propound some directions to us that may set us in such a way of life and practice as in which we shall at last find it within our selves and be experimentally acquainted with it but they cannot teach it us like a Mechanick Art or Trade No surely there is a spirit in man and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth this understanding But we shall not meet with this spirit anywhere but in the way of Obedience the knowledge of Christ and the keeping of his Commandments must alwayes go together and be mutuall causes of one another Hereby we know that we know him if we keep his Commandments He that saith I know him and keepeth not his Commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him I Come now unto these words themselves which are so pregnant that I shall not need to force out any thing at all from them I shall therefore onely take notice of some few observations which drop from them of their own accord and then conclude with some Application of them to our selves First then If this be the right way and methode of discovering our knowledge of Christ by our keeping of his Commandments Then we may safely draw conclusions concerning our state and condition from the conformity of our lives to the will of Christ Would we know whether we know Christ aright let us consider whether the life of Christ be in us Qui non habet vitam Christi Christum non habet He that hath not the life of Christ in him he hath nothing but the name nothing but a phansie of Christ he hath not the substance of him He that builds his house upon this foundation not an airy notion of Christ swimming in his brain but Christ really dwelling and living in his heart as our Saviour himself witnesseth he buildeth his house upon a Rock and when the flouds come and the winds blow and the rain descends and beats upon it it shall stand impregnably But he that builds all his comfort upon an ungrounded perswasion that God from all eternity hath loved him and absolutely decreed him to life and happinesse and seeketh not for God really dwelling in his soul he builds his house upon a Quicksand and it shall suddenly sink and be swallowed up his hope shall be cut off his trust shall be a spiders web he shall lean upon his house but it shall not stand he shall hold it fast but it shall not endure We are no where commanded to pry into these secrets but the wholesome counsell and advise given us is this to make our calling and election sure We have no warrant in Scripture to peep into these hidden Rolls and Volumes of Eternity and to make it our first thing that we do when we come to Christ to spell out our names in the starres and to perswade our selves that we are certainly elected to everlasting happinesse before we see the image of God in righteousnesse and true holinesse shaped in our hearts Gods everlasting decree is too dazeling and bright an object for us at first to set our eye upon it is far easier and safer for us to look upon the raies of his goodnesse and holinesse as they are reflected in our own hearts and there to read the mild and gentle Characters of Gods love to us in our love to him and our hearty compliance with his heavenly will as it is safer for us if we would see the Sunne to look upon it here below in a pale of water then to cast up our daring eyes upon the body of the Sun it self which is too radiant and scorching for us The best assurance that any one can have of his interest in God is doubtlesse the conformity of his soul to him Those divine purposes whatsoever they be are altogether unsearchable and unknowable by us they lie wrapt up in everlasting darknesse and covered in a deep Abysse who is able to fathom the bottome of them Let us not therefore make this out first attempt towards God and Religion to perswade our selves strongly of these everlasting Decrees for if at our first flight we aime so high we shall happily but scorch our wings and be struck back with lightning as those Giants of old were that would needs attempt to invade and assault heaven And it is indeed a most Giganticall Essay to thruft our selves so boldly into the lap of heaven it is the pranck of a Nimrod of a mighty Hunter thus rudely to deal with God and to force heaven and happinesse before his face whether he will or no The way to obtain a good assurance indeed of our title to heaven is not to clamber up to it by a ladder of our own ungrounded perswasions but to dig as low as hell by humility and self-denyall in our own hearts and though this may seem to be the furthest way about yet it is indeed the neerest and safest way to it We must {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} as the Greek Epigramme speaks ascend downward descend upward if we would indeed come to heaven or get any true perswasion of our title to it The most gallant and triumphant confidence of a Christian riseth safely and surely upon this low foundation that lies deep under ground and there stands firmely and stedfastly When our heart is once tuned in to a conformity with the word of God when we feel our will perfectly to concurre with his will we shal then presently perceive a Spirit of adoption within our selves teaching us to cry Abba Father We shall not then care for peeping into those hidden Records of Eternity to see whether our names be written there in golden characters no we shall find a copy of Gods thoughts concerning us written in our own breasts There we may read the characters of his favour to us there we may feel an inward sense of his love to us flowing out of our hearty and unfained love to him And we shall be more undoubtedly perswaded of it then if any of those winged Watchmen above that are privie to heavens secrets should come tel us that they saw our names enrolled in those volumes of eternity Whereas on the contrary though we strive to perswade our selves never so confidently that God from all eternity hath loved us and elected us to life and happinesse if we do yet in the mean time entertain any iniquity within our hearts and willingly close with any lust do what we can we shall find many a cold qualme ever now and then seizing upon us at approching dangers and when death it self shall grimly look us in the face we shall feel our hearts even to die within us and our spirits quite
and vigour of our Religion by dry speculations and making it nothing but a mere dead scheleton of opinions a few dry bones without any flesh and sinews tyed up together and the misplacing of all our zeal upon an eager prosecution of these which should be spent to better purpose upon other objects Knowledge indeed is a thing farre more excellent then riches outward pleasures worldly dignities or any thing else in the world besides Holinesse and the Conformity of our wills to the will of God but yet our happinesse consisteth not in it but in a certain Divine Temper Constitution of soul which is farre above it But it is a piece of that corruption that runneth through humane nature that we naturally prize Truth more then Goodnesse Knowledge more then Holinesse We think it a gallant thing to be fluttering up to Heaven with our wings of Knowledge and Speculation whereas the highest mystery of a Divine Life here and of perfect Happinesse hereafter consisteth in nothing but mere Obedience to the Divine Will Happinesse is nothing but that inward sweet delight that will arise from the Harmonious agreement between our wills and Gods will There is nothing contrary to God in the whole world nothing that fights against him but Self-will This is the strong Castle that we all keep garrison'd against heaven in every one of our hearts which God continually layeth siege unto and it must be conquered and demolished before we can conquer heaven It was by reason of this Self-will that Adam fell in Paradise that those glorious Angels those Morning-starres kept not their first station but dropt down from heaven like Falling starres and sunk into this condition of bitternesse anxiety and wretchednesse in which now they are They all intangled themselves with the length of their own wings they would needs will more and otherwise then God would will in them and going about to make their wills wider and to enlarge them into greater amplitude the more they strugled they found themselves the faster pinioned crowded up into narrownesse and servility insomuch that now they are not able to use any wings at all but inheriting the serpents curse can onely creep with their bellies upon the earth Now our onely way to recover God happines again is not to soar up with our understandings but to destroy this Self-will of ours and then we shall find our wings to grow again our plumes fairly spread our selves raised aloft into the free Aire of perfect liberty which is perfect Happinesse There is nothing in the whole world able to do us good or hurt but God and our own Will neither riches nor poverty nor disgrace nor honour neither life nor death nor Angels nor Divels but Willing or Not-willing as we ought to do Should Hell it self shoot all its fiery darts against us if our will be right if it be informed by the Divine Will they can do us no hurt we have then if I may so speak an inchanted Shield that is impenetrable and will beate off all God will not hurt us and Hell cannot hurt us if we vvill nothing but vvhat God wills Nay then we are acted by God himself and the whole Divinity floweth in upon us and where we have cashiered this Self-will of ours which did but shackle and confine our soules our wills shall then become truly free being widened and enlarged to the extent of Gods own will Hereby we know that we know Christ indeed not by our Speculative Opinions concerning him but by our keeping of his Commandments Thirdly if hereby we are to judge whether we truly know Christ by our keeping of his Commandments so that he that saith he knoweth him and keepeth not his Commandments is a lyar Then This was not the Plot and designe of the Gospel to give the world an indulgence to sin upon what pretence soever Though we are too prone to make such miscōstructions of it as if God had intended nothing else in it but to dandle our corrupt nature and contrive a smooth and easie way for us to come to happinesse without the toilsome labour of subduing our lusts and sinfull affections Or As if the Gospel were nothing else but a Declaration to the World of Gods ingaging his affections from all eternity on some particular persons in such a manner as that he would resolve to love them and dearly embrace them though he never made them partakers of his Image in righteousnesse and true holinesse and though they should remain under the power of all their lusts yet they should still continue his beloved ones and he would notwithstanding at last bring them undoubtedly into heaven Which is nothing else but to make the God that we worship the God of the new Testament a {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} an accepter of persons and one that should encourage that in the world which is diametrally opposite to Gods own Life and Being And indeed nothing is more ordinary then for us to shape out such monstrous and deformed Notions of God unto our selves by looking upon him through the coloured Medium of our own corrupt hearts and having the eye of our soul tinctured by the suffusions of our own lusts And therefore because we mortalls can fondly love and hate and sometimes hug the very Vices of those to whom our affections are engaged and kisse their very Deformities we are so ready to shape out a Deity like unto our selves and to fashion out such a God as will in Christ at least hug the very wickednesse of the world and in those that be once his own by I know not what fond affection appropriated to himself connive at their very sinnes so that they shall not make the least breach betwixt himself and them Truly I know not whether of the two be the worse Idolatry and of the deeper stain for a man to make a god out of a piece of wood and fall down unto it and worship it and say Deliver me for thou art my God as it is expressed in the Prophet Isaiah or to set up such an Idol-god of our own Imagination as this is fashioned out according to the similitude of our own fondnesse and wickednesse and when we should paint out God with the liveliest Colours that we can possibly borrow from any created being with the purest Perfections that we can abstract from them to draw him out thus with the blackest Coal of our own corrupt hearts and to make the very blots and blurs of our own souls to be the Letters which we spell out his name by Thus do we that are Children of the Night make black and ugly representations of God unto our selves as the Ethiopians were wont to do copying him out according to our own likenesse and setting up that unto our selves for a god which we love most dearly in our selves that is our Lusts. But there is no such God as this anywhere in the world but onely in some
mens false imaginations who know not all this while that they look upon themselves instead of God and make an Idol of themselves which they vvorship and adore for him being so full of themselves that vvhatsoever they see round about them even God himself they colour vvith their ovvn Tincture like him that Aristotle speaks of that vvheresoever he vvent and vvhatsoever he looked upon he savv still his ovvn face as in a glasse represented to him And therefore it is no vvonder if men seem naturally more devoutly affected tovvard such an Imaginary God as we have now described then to the True Reall God clothed with his own proper Attributes since it is nothing but an Image of themselves which Narcissus-like they fall in love with no wonder if they kisse and dandle such a Baby-god as this which like little children they have dressed up out of the clouts of their own fond Phancies according to their own liknesse of purpose that they might play and sport with it But God will ever dwell in spotlesse light howsoever we paint him and disfigure him here below he will still be circled about with his own raies of unstained and immaculate glory And though the Gospel be not God as he is in his own Brightnesse but God Vailed and Masked to us God in a state of Humiliation and Condescent as the Sun in a Rainbow yet it is nothing else but a clear and unspotted Mirrour of Divine Holinesse Goodnesse Purity in which Attributes lies the very Life and Essence of God himself The Gospel is nothing else but God descending into the World in Our Form and conversing with us in our likenesse that he might allure and draw us up to God and make us partakers of his Divine Form {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} as Athanasius speaks {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} God was therefore incarnated and made man that he might Deifie us that is as S. Peter expresseth it make us partakers of the Divine nature Now I say the very proper Character and Essentiall Tincture of God himself is nothing else but Goodnesse Nay I may be bold to adde That God is therefore God because he is the highest and most perfect Good and Good is not therefore Good because God out of an arbitrary will of his would have it so Whatsoever God doth in the World he doth it as it is suitable to the highest Goodnesse the first Idea and fairest Copy of which is his own Essence Vertue and Holinesse in creatures as Plato well discourseth in his Euthyphro are not therefore Good because God loveth them and will have them be accounted such but rather God therefore loveth them because they are in themselves simply good Some of our own Authors go a little further yet and tell us that God doth not fondly love himself because he is himself but therefore he loveth himself because he is the highest and most absolute Goodnesse so that if there could be any thing in the world better then God God would love that better then himself but because he is Essentially the most perfect Good therefore he cannot but love his own goodnesse infinitely above all other things And it is another mistake which sometimes we have of God by shaping him out according to the Model of our selves when we make him nothing but a blind dark impetuous Self will running through the world such as we our selves are furiously acted with that have not the Ballast of absolute goodnesse to poize and settle us That I may therefore come nearer to the thing in hand God who is absolute goodnesse cannot love any of his Creatures take pleasure in them without bestowing a communication of his Goodnesse and Likenesse upon them God cannot make a Gospel to promise men Life Happinesse hereafter without being regenerated made partakers of his holinesse As soon may Heaven and Hell be reconciled together and lovingly shake hands with one another as God can be fondly indulgent to any sinne in whomsoever it be As soon may Light and Darknesse be espoused together and Mid-night be married to the Noon-day as God can be joyned in a league of friendship to any wicked Soul The great Designe of God in the Gospel is to clear up this Mist of Sin and Corruption which we are here surrounded vvith and to bring up his creatures out of the shadow of death to the Region of Light above the Land of Truth and Holinesse The great Mystery of the Gospel is to establish a God-like frame and disposition of spirit which consists in Righteousnesse and true Holinesse in the hearts of men And Christ who is the great and mighty Saviour he came on purpose into the World not onely to save us from Fire and Brimstone but also to save us from our Sins Christ hath therefore made an Expiation of our sins by his death upon the Crosse that we being thus delivered out of the hands of these our greatest enemies might serve God without fear in holinesse and righteousnesse before him all the dayes of our life This grace of God that bringeth salvation hath therefore appeared to all men in the Gospel that it might teach us to deny ungodlinesse and worldly lusts and that we should live soberly righteously and godlily in this present world looking for that blessed hope and glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Iesus Christ who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie unto himself a peculiar people Zealous of good works These things I write unto you saith our Apostle a little before my text that you sinne not therein expressing the end of the whole Gospel which is not onely to cover sinne by spreading the Purple Robe of Christs death and sufferings over it whilst it still remaineth in us with all its filth and noisomnesse unremoved but also to convey a powerfull and mighty Spirit of holinesse to cleanse us and free us from it And this is a greater grace of Gods to us then the former which still go both together in the Gospel besides the free remission and pardon of sinne in the bloud of Christ the delivering of us from the power of sinne by the Spirit of Christ dwelling in our hearts Christ came not into the world onely to cast a Mantle over us and hide all our filthy sores from Gods avenging eye with his merits and righteousnesse but he came likewise to be a Chirurgeon and Physitian of souls to free us from the filth and corruption of them which is more grievous and burdensome more noysome to a true Christian then the guilt of sinne it self Should a poore wretched and diseased creature that is full of sores and ulcers be covered all over with Purple or clothed with Scarlet he would take but little contentment in it whilest his sores and wounds remain upon him and he had much rather be raied in rags so he might obtain but soundnesse and health within The
shall ye be my Disciples Let us not I beseech you judge of our knowing Christ by our ungrounded Perswasions that Christ from all Eternity hath loved us and given himself particularly for Us without the Conformity of our lives to Christs Commandments without the reall partaking of the Image of Christ in our hearts The great Mysterie of the Gospel it doth not lie onely in Christ without us though we must know also what he hath done for us but the very Pith and Kernel of it consists in Christ inwardly formed in our hearts Nothing is truly Ours but what lives in our Spirits Salvation it self cannot save us as long as it is onely without us no more then Health can cure us and make us sound when it is not within us but somewhere at distance from us no more then Arts and Sciences whilst they lie onely in Books and Papers without us can make us learned The Gospel though it be a Sovereigne and Medicinall thing in it self yet the mere knowing and believing of the history of it will do us no good we can receive no vertue from it till it be inwardly digested concocted into our souls till it be made Ours and become a living thing in our hearts The Gospel if it be onely without us cannot save us no more then that Physitians Bill could cure the ignorant Patient of his disease who when it was commended to him took the Paper onely and put it up in his pocket but never drunk the Potion that was prescribed in it All that Christ did for us in the flesh when he was here upon earth From his lying in a Manger when he was born in Bethlehem to his bleeding upon the Crosse on Golgotha it will not save us from our sinnes unlesse Christ by his Spirit dwell in us It will not avail us to believe that he was born of a Virgin unlesse the power of the most High overshadow our hearts and beget him there likewise It will not profit us to believe that he died upon the Crosse for us unlesse we be baptized into his death by the Mortification of all our lusts unlesse the old man of sinne be crucified in our hearts Christ indeed hath made an Expiation for our sinnes upon his Crosse and the Bloud of Christ is the onely sovereign Balsame to free us from the guilt of them but yet besides the sprinkling of the bloud of Christ upon us we must be made partakers also of his spirit Christ came into the World as well to redeem us from the power and bondage of our sinnes as to free us from the guilt of them You know saith S. Iohn that he was manifested to take away our sinnes whosoever therefore abideth in him sinneth not whosoever sinneth hath not seen nor known him Loe the end of Christs coming into the World Loe a designe worthy of God manifested in the flesh Christ did not take all those paines to lay aside his Robes of Glory and come down hither into the World to enter into a Virgins wombe to be born in our humane shape and be laid a poore crying infant in a Manger having no form nor comlinesse at all upon him to take upon him the Form of a servant to undergo a reprochfull and ignominious life and at last to be abandoned to a shamefull death a death upon the Crosse I say he did not do all this merely to bring in a Notion into the World without producing any reall and substantiall effect at all without the changing mending and reforming of the World so that men should still be as wicked as they were before and as much under the power of the Prince of Darknesse onely they should not be thought so they should still remain as full of all the filthy sores of sinne corruption as before onely they should be accounted whole Shall God come down from heaven pitch a Tabernacle amongst men Shall he undertake such a huge Designe and make so great a noise of doing something which when it is all summed up shall not at last amount to a Reality Surely Christ did not undergo all this to so little purpose he would not take all this paines for us that he might be able at last to put into our hands nothing but a Blanck He was with child he was in pain and travel and hath he brought forth nothing but wind hath he been delivered of the Eastwind Is that great designe that was so long carried in the Wombe of Eternity now proved abortive or else nothing but a mere windy birth No surely The end of the Gospel is Life and Perfection 't is a Divine nature 't is a Godlike frame and disposition of spirit 't is to make us partakers of the Image of God in Righteousnesse and true Holinesse without which Salvation it self were but a Notion Christ came indeed into the World to make an Expiation and Atonement for our sinnes but the end of this was that we might eschew sinne that we might forsake all ungodlinesse and worldly lusts The Gospel declares pardon of sinne to those that are heavy laden with it and willing to be disburdened to this end that it might quicken and enliven us to new obedience Whereas otherwise the Guilt of sinne might have detained us in horrour and despair and so have kept us still more strongly under the Power of it in sad and dismall apprehensions of Gods wrath provoked against us and inevitably falling on us But Christ hath now appeared like a Day-starre with most cheerfull beames nay he is the Sun of Righteousnesse himself which hath risen upon the World with his healing wings with his exhilarating light that he might chase away all those black despairing thoughts from us But Christ did not rise that we should play and sport and wantonize with his light but that we should do the works of the day in it that we should walk {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} as the Apostle speaketh not in our Night-clothes of sinfull Deformity but clad all over with the comely Garments of Light The Gospel is not big with child of a Phancie of a mere Conceit of righteousnesse without us hanging at distance over us whilst our hearts within are nothing but Cages of unclean birds and like Houses continually haunted with Devils nay the very Rendezvouz of those Fiends of Darknesse Holinesse is the best thing that God himself can bestow upon us either in this World or the World to come True Evangelicall Holinesse that is Christ formed in the hearts of believers is the very Cream and Quintessence of the Gospel And were our hearts sound within were there not many thick and dark fumes that did arise from thence and cloud our understandings we could not easily conceive the substance of Heaven it self to be any thing else but Holinesse freed from those encumbrances that did ever clog it and accloy it here neither should we wish for any other Heaven besides this But many of