to bribe Gods justice or engage mens charity to purchase favour with God or man or his own clamarous conscience but he prays because he wants and loves and believes he wants the fuller presence of that God whom he loves he loves the presence which he wants he believes that he that loves him will not suffer him to want any good thing that he prays for And therefore he do's not bind up himself severely and limit himself penuriously to a morning and evening Sacrifice and solemnity as unto certain rent-seasons wherein to pay a homage of dry devotion but his loving and longing Soul disdaining to be confin'd within Canâ—nical hours is frequently soaring in some heavenly raptures or other and sallying forth in holy ejaculations He is not content with some weak assays towards Heaven in set and formal Prayer once or twice a day but labours also to be all the day long sucking in those Divine influences and streams of grace by the mouth of faith which he beg'd in the morning by the tongue of prayer which hath made me sometimes to think it a proper speech to say the faith of Prayer as well as the prayer of faith for believing and hanging upon Divine grace doth really drink in what Prayer opens its mouth for and is in effect a powerful kind of praying in silence By believing we pray as well as in praying we do believe A truly godly man hath not his hands tyed up meerly by the force of a National Law no nor yet by the authority of the fourth commandment to keep one in seven a day of rest As he is not content with meer resting upon the Sabboth knowing that neither working nor ceasing from work doth of itself commend a Soul to God but doth press after intimacy with God in the duties of his worship so neither can he be content with one Sabboth in a week nor think himself absolved from holy and heavenly meditations any day in the week but labours to make every day a Sabboth as to the keeping of his heart up unto God in a holy frame and to find every day to be a Sabboth as to the communications of God unto his Soul Though the necessities of his body will not allow him it may be though indeed God hath granted this to some men to keep every day as a Sabboth of Rest yet the necessities of his Soul do call upon him to make every day as far as may be a Sabboth of communion with the blessed God If you speak of Fasting he keeps not Fasts meerly by vertue of a civil no nor a divine institution but from a principle of godly sorrow afflicts his â—oul for sio and daily endeavours more and more to be emptied of himself which is the most excellent Fasting in the world If you speak of Thansgiving he do's not give thanks by laws and ordinances but having in himself a law of thanksulness and an ordinance of love engraven upon and deeply radicated in his Soul delights to live unto God and to make his heart and life a living descant upon the goodness and love of God which is the most divine way of thank offering in the world it is the hallâ—lujah which the Angels sing continually In a word wherever God hath a tongue to command true godliness will find an hand to perform whatever yoke Christ Jesus shall put upon the Soul religion will enable to bear it yea and to count it easie too the mouth of Christ hath pronounâ—'d it easie Mat. 11. 30. and the spirit of Christ makes it easie Let the commandment be what it will it will not le grievous 1 Joh. 5. 3. The same spirit doth in some measure dwell in every Christian which without measure dwelt in Christ who counted it his meat and drink to do the will of his Father Joh. 4. 34. 2. And more especially the true Christian is free from any constâ—aint as to the inward acts which he performeth Holy love to God is one principal Act of the gracioâ—s soul whereby it is carryed out freely and with an ardent lust towards the object that is truly and infinitely lovely and satisfâ—ctory and to the enjoyment of iâ— I know indeed that this springs from self indigency and is commanded by the soveraignty of the supream good the object that the Soul eyes but it is properly free from any constraint Love is an affection that cannot be excorted as sear is nor sorâ—â—d by any external power nor indeed internal neither the revenues of the King of Persia or the treasuâ—es oâ— Aegypt cannot commit a rape upon â—â— Heb. 11. 26. neither indeed can the soul it self raise and lay this spirit at pleasure which made the Poet complain of himself as if he were not sole Emperour at home Non amo te Sabidi nec possum dicere quare c. Though the outward bodily Acts of Religion are ordinarily forced yet this pure chast virgin-affection cannot be ravished it seems to be a kind of a peculiar in the soul though under the jurisdiction of the understanding By this property of it it is elegantly described by the spirit of God Cant. 8. 7. if a man would give all the substance of his house for love it would utterly be contemned It cannot be bought with money or money-worth cannot be purchased with gifts or arts and if any should offer to bribe it it would give him a sharp and scornful check in the language of Peter to Simon Thy money perish with thee love is no hireling no base born mercenary affection but noble free and generous Neither is it low-spirited and slavish as Fear is therefore when it comes to full age it will not suffer this Son of the Bond woman to divide the inheritance the dominions of the Soul with it when it comes to be perfect it casteth out fear sayes the Apostle 1 Joh. 4. 18. Neither indeed is it directly under the authority of any law whether humane or Divine it is not begotten by the influence of a divine law as a law but as holy just and good as we shall see more anon quis legem dat amantibus ipse Est sibi lex amor the Law of Love or if you will in the Apostles phrase the spirit of love and of power in opposition to the spirit of fear 2 Tim. 1. 7. doth more influence the godly man in his pursuit of God than any law without him this is as a wing to the Soul whereas outward commandments are but as guides in his way or at most but as spurs in his sides The same I may say of holy delight in God which is indeed the flower of love or love grown up to its full age and stature which hath no torment in it and consequently no force upon it Like unto which are holy confidence Faith and Hope ingenuous and natural Acts of the Religious Soul whereby it hastens into the Divine embraces as the Eagle hastneth to the prey swiftly and speedily
every body that so much as lookt towards it and by all means kept it even as his life For where is the like eager and ardent disposition to be found in a Christian towards God himself Tell me is it possible for a man that vehemently loves a Virgin to be content all his life long to Court her at a distance and not care whether ever he do actually enjoy her or no or must not such an one necessarily pursue a matrimonial and most intimate union with her let us now confess the truth and every one judge himself 2. This dull and earthly body is not so indifferently affected towards meat and drink and rest and the things that do serve its necessities and gratifie its temper Hunger will break down stone walls and thirst will give away a kingdom for a cup of water sickness will not be eased by good words nor will a drowsie brain be bribed by any entertainments of company or recreation no no the necessities of the body must and will be relieved with food and physick and sleep the restless and raging appetite will never cease calling and crying to the soul for supplies till it arise and give them Behold O my Soul consider the mighty and incessant appetites and tendencies of the body after sensual objects after its suitable good and proper perfection and be ashamed of thy more remiss and sluggish inclinations towards the highest good a God-like perfection 3. No creature in the whole world is so languid slow and indifferent in its motions towards its proper rest and centre How easie were it to call Heaven and earth to witness the free pleasant cheerfull eager addresses of every creature according to its kind towards its own centre and happiness The Sun in the Firmament rejoyces to run its race and will not stand still one moment except it be miraculously overpowred by the command of God himself the rivers seem to be in pain till by a continued flowing they have accomplisht to themselves a kind of perfection and be swallowed up in the bosome of the Ocean except they be benummed with cold or otherwise overmastered and retarded by forraign violence I need not instance in sensitives and vegetatives all which you know with a natural vigour and activity do grow up daily towards a perfect state and stature Were it not a strange and monstrous sight to see a stone setling in the ayre and not working towards its centre such a spectacle is a godly soul setling upon earth and not endeavouring a nearer and more intimate union with its God Wherefore Christians either cease to pretend that you have chosen God for your portion centre happiness or else arise and cease not â—o pursue and accomplish the closest union and the most familiar conjunction with him that your souls are capable of otherwise I call Heaven and Earth to witness against you this day and the day is comming when you will be put to shame by the whole creation Doth every even the meanest creature of God pursue its end and perfection and proper happiness with ardent and vehement longings and shall a soul the noblest of all creatures stand folding up itself in itself or choaking up its wide and divine capacity with dust and dirt shall a godly soul the noblest of all souls hang the wings suspend its motions towards the supream good or so much as once offer to faint and languish in iâ—s enterprizes for eternal life Tell it not at Athens publish it not at Rome lest the Heathen Philosophers deride and hiss us out of the world But you will ask me when a Christian may be said to be sluggish and unactive and who these lazy souls are I will premise two things and then give you a brief account of them First When I speak of a sluggish and spiritless Religion I do not speak as the hot-spirited Anabaptists or Chiliasts who being themselves acted by a strange fervour of mind miscalled zeal are wont to declaim against all men as cold and benummed in their spirits who do not call for fire from Heaven to consume all dissenters under the notion of Antichristian who are not afraid to reproach the divine holy gentle yet generous spirit of Religion calling it weak womanish cowardly low cold and I know not what These men I believe so far as I can guess at their spirit if they had lived in the dayes of our Saviour and had beheld that gentle meek humble peaceable and pacate spirit which did infinitely shine forth in him would have gone nigh to have reproved him for not carrying on his own Kingdom with sufficient vigour and activity if not have judged Christ himself to be much Antichristian I hope you see nothing in all my discoveries of the Active spirit of Religion that savours of such a fiery spirit as this is Secondly when I do so highly commend the Active spirit of true Religion and the vigorous temper of truly Religious souls I would not be understood as if I thought all such souls were alike swift or that any such soul did alwayes move with like swiftness and keep a like pace towards God I know that there are different sizes of Active souls yea and different degrees of Activity in the same soul as may be seen Cant. 5. 3. compared with the sixth verse of the same chapter and in many other places of Scripture But yet that none may flatter and deceive themselves with an opinion of their being what indeed they are not I will briefly discover the sluggishness and inactivity of Christians in a few particulars I pray take it not ill though the greatest part of Christians be found guilty for that is no other than what Christ himself hath prophesied 1. The Active spirit of Religion in the soul will not suffer men to take up their rest in a constant course of external performances and they are but slothful souls that do place their Religion in any thing without them By external performances I mean not only open and publick and solemn services but even the most private and secret performances that are in and by the body and ab extra to the soul It is not possible that a soul should be happy in any thing that is extrinsecal to itself no not in God himself if we consider him only as something without the soul The devil himself knows and sees much of God without him but having no communications of a divine nature or life being perfectly estranged from the life of God he remains perfectly miserable I doubt it is a common deceit in the world men toyle and labour in bodily acts of worship and Religion in a slavish and mercinary manner and think with those labourers in the parable that at the end they must needs receive great wages and much thanks because they have born the heat and burden of the day Alas that ever men should so grosly mistake the nature of Religion as to sink it into a few bodily
acts and carcase-services and to think it is nothing else but a running the round of duties and ordinances and a keeping up a constant set and course of actions such an external legal righteousness the Apostle Paul after his conversion could not take up with but counted it all loss and dung in comparison of that Godlike righteousness which was now brought into his soul that inward and spiritual conformity to Christ which was now wrought in him Phil. 3. 9 10. I know indeed that men will be loth to confess that they place their Religion in any thing without them but I pray consider seriously wherein you excell other men save only in praying or hearing now and then or some other outward acts and judge your selves by your nature and not by your actions 2. The Active spirit of Religion where it is in the soul will not suffer men to take up their rest in a meer pardon of sin and they are but slothfull souls that could be so satisfied Blessed is the man indeed whose inquities are pardoned Psal 32 1 2. but if we could suppose a soul to be acquitted of the guilt of all sin and yet to lie bound under the dominion of lusts and passions and to live without God in the world he were yet far from true blessedness A reall hell and misery will arise out of the very bowels of sin and wickedness though there should be no reserve of fire and brimstone in the world to come It is utterly impossible that a Soul should be happy out of God though it had the greatest security imaginable that it should never suffer any thing from him The highest care and ambition indeed of a slavish and mercenary spirit is to be secured from the wrath and vengeance of God but the breathings of the ingenuous and holy soul are after a divine life and Godlike perfections This right gracious tempe you may see in David Psal 51. 9 10 11 12. which is also the temper of every truly Religious soul 3. The Active spirit of Religion where it is in the soul will not suffer men to take up their rest in meer innâ—cency freedom from sin and they are slothful souls that could count it happiness enough to be harmless I doubt men are much mistaken about holiness it is more than meer innocency or freedom from the guilt or power of sin it is not a negative thing there is something active noble divine powerfull in true Religion A soul that rightly understands its own penury and self-insufficiency and the emptiness and meanness of all creature-good cannot possibly take up its rest or place its happiness in any thing but in a real participation of God himself and therefore is continually making out towards that God from whom it came and is labouring to unite itself more and more unto him Let a low-spirited fleshly minded Pharisee take up with a negative holiness and happiness as he doth Luke 18. 11. God I thank thee that I am not so and so a noble and high-spirited Christian cannot take up his rest in any negation or freedom from sin Every godly soul is not so learned indeed as to be able to describe the nature and proper perfection of a soul and to tell you how the happiness of a soul consists not in quiete but in actu vigore not in cessation and rest as the happiness of a stone doth but in life and power and vigour as the happiness of God himself doth But yet the spirit of true Religion is so excellent and powerfull in every godly soul that it is still carrying it to the fuller enjoyment of an higher good and the soul doth find and feel within itself though it cannot discourse Philosophically of these things that though it were free from all disturbance of sin and affliction in the world yet still it wants some supream and possible good to make it compleatly happy and so bends all its power thiâ— herward This is the description which you will everywhere find made in Scripture of the true spirit of holiness which hath alwayes something positive and divine in it as Isâ— 1. 16 17. cease to do evil learn to do well and Ephes 4. 22 24. Put off the old man put on that new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness And accordingly a truly godly soul to use the Apostles words though he know nothing by himself yet doth not thereby count himself happy 4. The Active spirit of true Religion whâ—re it is in the Soul will not suffer men to take up their rest in some measures of grace received and so far as the soul doth so it is sluggish and less Active than it ought to be This indeed oft times comes to pass when the soul is under some distemper of proud selfishness earthly-mindedness or the like or is less apprehensive of its object and happiness as it seems to have been the case of the spouse Cant. 5. 3. Some such fainting fits languishings suâ—ferings in sensibleness must be allowed to be in the Godly soul during its imprisoned and imperfect state But we must not judge our selves by any present distempers or infirmities The nature of Religion when it acts the soul rightly and powerfully is to carry it after a more lively resemblance of God which is the most proper and excellent enjoyment of him A mind rightly and actually sound is most sick of love and the nature of love is not to know when it is near enough to its object but still to long after the most perfect conjunction with it This well of water if it be not violently obstructed for a time is ever springing up till it be swallowed up in the Ocean of divine love and grace The soul that is rightly acquainted with itself and its God sees something still wanting in itself and to be enjoyed in him which makes it that it cannot be at rest but is still springing up into him till it come to the measure of the stature of the fulness of its Lord. In this holy loving longing striving active temper we find the great Apostle Phil. 3. 12 13 14. And by how much the more of divine grace any soul hath drunk in the more thirsty is it after much more 5. The Active spirit of true Religion where it is powerfully seated in the minds of men will not suffer them to settle into a love of this animal life nor indeed suffer them to be content to live for ever in such a kind of body as this and that soul is in a degree lazy and slothful that doth not desire to depart and be with his Lord. The godly soul eying God as his perfect and full happiness and finding that his being in the body doth separate him from God keep him in a poor and imperfect state and hinders his blissfull communion with the highest good groans within itself that mortality were swallowed up of life with the Apostle 2 Cor. 5. 4. I