the evil of Division and misery of distracting multiplicity The Lord our God is One God 1 Cor. 8 6. Perfection hath unity and simplicity We fell into Divisions and miserable distraction when we departed from God unto the Creature For the Creatures are Many and of contrary qualities dispositions and affections And the heart that is set on such an object must needs be a Divided heart And the heart that is Divided among so many and contrary or discordant objects must needs he a distracted heart The confusions of the world confound the heart that is set upon the world He that maketh the world his God hath so many Gods and so discordant that he will never please them all and all of them together will never fully content and please him And who would have a God that can neither please us nor be pleased He that maketh Himself his God hath a compounded God and now corrupted of multifarious and now of contrary desires as hard to please as any without us There is no Rest or Happiness but in Unity And therefore none in our selves or any other creature but in God the only center of the soul. The further from the Center the further from Unity It is only in God that differing minds can be well united Therefore is the world so divided because it is departed so far from God Therefore have we so many minds and wayes and such diversity of opinions and contrariety of affections because men forsake the Center of Unity There 's no Uniting in any worldly carnal self-devised principles or practises When Holiness brings these distracted scatterd souls to God in him they will be one While they bark at Holiness and cry up Unity they shew themselves distracted men For Holiness is the only way to Unity because it is the closure of the soul with God All countreys and persons cannot meet in any one interest or Creature but each hath a several interest of his own But they might all meet in God If the Pope were God and had his perfections he would be fit for all the Church to Center in But being man and yet pretending to this Prerogative of God he is the grand divider and distracter of the Church The Proverb is too true So many men so many minds because that every man will be a God to himself having a self mind and self will and all men will not yield to be one in God God is the common interest of the Saints and therefore all that are truly Saints are truly united in him And if all the Visible Church and all the world would heartily make him their Common Interest we should quickly have a Common Unity and Peace and the Temple of double faced Janus would be shut up They that sincerely have One God have also one Lord and Saviour one spirit one faith one Baptism or holy Covenant with God even because they have one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in them all And therefore they must keep the nuity of the spirit in the bond of Peace Eph. 4. 3 4 5 6. Though yet they have different degrees of gifts vers 7. and therefore differences in opinion about abundance of inferiour things The further we go from the trunk or stock the more numerous and small we shall find the branches They are one in God that are divided in many doubtful controversies The weakest therefore in the faith must be received into this Union and Communion of the Church but not to doubtful disputations Rom. 14. 1. As the antient Baptism contained no more but our Engagement to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost so the antient Profession of saving faith was of the same extent God is sufficient for the Church to Unite in A Union in other Articles of faith is so far necessary to the Unity of the Church as it is necessary to prove our faith and Unity in God and the sincerity of this antient simple belief in God the Father Son and Spirit The Unity of God is the Attribute to be first handled and imprinted on the mind even next unto his Essence Deut. 6. 4. The Lord our God is one Lord. And the unity of the Church is its excellency and attribute that 's first and most to be esteemed and preserved next unto its Essence If it be not a Church it cannot be One Church and if we be not Saints we cannot be united Saints If we be not Members we cannot make One Body But when once we have the Essence of Saints and of a Church we must next be solicitous for its Unity Nothing below an essential point of faith will allowâ—ns to depart from the Catholike Unity love and peace that is due to Saints And because such essentials are never wanting in the Catholich Church or any true member of it therefore we are never allowed to divide from the Catholike Church or any true and visible member It is first necessary that the Church be a Church that is a People separated from the world to Christ and that the Christian be a Christian in Covenant with the Lord. But the next point of Necessity is it that the Church be One and Christians be One. And he that for the sake of lower points how True soever will break this holy bond of Unity shall find at last to his shame and sorrow that he understood not the excellency or necessity of unity The prayer of Christ for the perfection of his Saints is that they all may be One as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us that the world may believe that thou hast sent me And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them that they may be One even as we are One I in them and thou in me that they may be made perfect in One that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them as thou hast lved me Here it appeareth that the Unity of the Church or Saints is necessary to convince the world of the truth of Christianity and of the Love of God to his people and necessary to the glory and perfection of the Saints The nearer any Churches or members are to the divine perfections and the more strictly conformable to the mind of God the more they are One and replenished with Catholick Love to all Saints and desirous of Unity and Communion with them It is a most lamentable delusion of some Christians that think their ascending to higher degrees of Holiness doth partly consist in their withdrawing from the Catholike Church or from the Communion of most of the Saints on Earth upon the account of some smaller differing opinions And they think that they should become more loose and leave their strictness if they should hold a Catholike Communion and leave their state of separation and division Is there any strictness amiable or desirable except a strict Conformity to God Surely a strict way
oft put for the whole Mal. 3. 16. A book of remembrance was written for them that feared the Lord and that Thought upon his Name Our believing and loving God and trusting in him and desiring him and his grace are the principal parts of his service which are exercised immediately by our thoughts And in praise and prayer it is this inward part that is the soul and life of all He is a foolish hypocrite that thinks to be heard for his much babling Matth. 6. 7. And on the contrary the Thoughts are named as the sum of all iniquity Isa. 59. 7. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity Isa. 65. 2. I have spred out my hands all the day long unto a rebellious people which walketh in a way that was not good after their own thoughts Jer. 4. 14. O Jerusalem wash thy heart from wickedness that thou maist be saved how long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee Psal. 14. 1. The fool hath said in his heart there is no God 11. A mans Thoughts are the appointed orderly way for the Conversion of a sinner and the preventing of his sin and misery David saith Psal. 119. 59 I thought on my wayes and turned my feet unto thy testimonies The prodigal Luk. 15. 17 18. Came to himself and returned to his Father by the success of his own Consideration Thus saith the Lord of Hosts Consider your wayes Hag. 1. 5. is a voice that every sinner should hear Ezek. 18. 14. It is he that Considereth and doth not according to his Fathers sins that shall not die Therefore it is Gods desire O that they were wise and understood this and that they would consider their latter end Deut. 32. 29. It is either mens inconsiderateness or the errour of their thoughts that is the cause of all their wickedness Isa. 1. 3. My people doth not consider Paul verily thought that he ought to do many things against the Name of Jesus Act. 26. 9. Many deceive themselves by thinking themselves something when they are nothing Gal. 6. 3. They think it strange that we run not with them to excess of riot and therefore they speak evil of us 1 Pet. 4. 4. Disobedient formalists Consider not that they do evil when they think they are offering acceptable sacrifices to God Eccles. 5. 1 2. The very murder of Gods holy ones hath proceeded from these erroneous thoughts They that kill you shall think they do God service Joh. 16. 2. All the ambition and covetousness and injustice and cruelty following thereupon which troubleth the world and ruineth mens souls is from their erroneous thoughts overvaluing these deceitful things Psal. 49. 11. Their inward thought is that their houses shall continue for ever and their dwelling places to all generations The presumptuous and impenitent are surprized by destruction for want of thinking of it to prevent it In such an hour as you think not the son of man cometh 12. Lastly the Thoughts are the most constant actions of a man and therefore most of the man is in them We are not alwayes reading or hearing or praying or working but we are alwayes Thinking And therefore it doth especially concern us to see that this constant breath of the soul be sweet and that this constant stream be pure and run in the right channel Well therefore did David make this his request Psal. 139. 23 24. Search me O God and know my heart try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting I say therefore to those that insist on this irrational objection that these very Thoughts of theirs concerning the inconsiderableness of Thoughts are so foolish and ungodly that when they understand the evil even of these they will know that Thoughts were more to be regarded If therefore thou hast done foolishly in lifting up thy self or if thou hast thought evil lay thy hand upon thy mouth And though after all this I still confess that it is so exceeding hard a matter to keep the thoughts in holy exercise and order that even the best do daily and hourly sin in the omissions the disorder or the vanity of their thoughts yet for all that we must needs conclude that the inclination and design of our Thoughts must be principally for God and that the Thoughts are principal instruments of the soul in acting it in his service and moving it towards him and in all this holy work of our Walking with God And therefore to imagine that Thoughts are inconsiderable and of little use is to unman us and unchristen us The labour of the mind is necessary for the attaining the felicity of the mind â—as the labour of the body is necessary for the things that belong unto the body As bodily idleness bringeth unto beggery when the diligent hand makes rich so the idleness of the soul doth impoverish the soul when the laborious Christian liveth plentifully and comfortably through the blessing of God upon his industry and labour You cannot expect that God appear to you in a bodily shape that you may have immediate converse with him in the body The corporal eating of him in transubstantiate bread supposed common to men and mice or dogs we leave to Papists who have made themselves a singular new Religion in despight of the common sense and reason of mankind as well as of the Scriptures and the judgement of the Church It is in the spirit that you must converse with God who is a spirit The mind seeth him by faith who is invisible to the bodily eyes Nay if you will have a true and saving knowledge of God you must not liken him to any thing that is visible nor have any corporal conceivings of him Earthly things may be the glass in which we may behold him while we are here in the flesh But our conceivings of him must be spiritual and Minds that are immerst in flesh and earth are unmeet to hold communion with him The natural man knoweth him not and the carnal mind is enmity to him aend they that are in the flesh cannot please him Rom. 8. It is the pure abstracted elevated soul that understandeth by experience what it is to Walk with God CHAP. VI. § 1. HAving in the foregoing Uses reproved the Atheism and contempt of God which ungodly men are continually guilty of and endeavoured to convince them of the necessity and desirableness of Walking with God and in particular of improving our Thoughts for holy converse with him and answered the objections of the impious and Atheists I shall next endeavour to cure the remnants of this disease in those that are sincerely holy who live too strangely to God their Father in the World In the performance of this I shall first shew you what are the benefits of this holy life which should make it appear desirable and delightful 2. I shall shew you why Believers should addict themselves to it as doubly obliged and how it
with that pardon particularized and applied to themselves But where the heart is not truly penitent and converted that person is not pardoned by the Gospel as being not in the Covenant or a child of promise and therefore the pardon of a Minister being upon mistake or tâ— an unqualified person can reach no further than to admit him into the esteem of men and to the Communion and outward priviledges of the Church which is a poor comfort to a soul that must lye in Hell But it can never admit him into the Kingdom of Heaven God indeed may approve the act of his Ministers if they go according to his rule and deal in Church administrations with those that make A CREDIBLE PROFESSION of FAITH and HOLINESSE as if they had true faith and holiness but yet he will not therefore make such Ministerial acts effectual to the saving of unbelieving or unholy souls Nay because I have found many sensual ungodly people inclining to turn Papists because with them they can have a quick and easie pardon of their sins by the Pope or by the Absolution of the Priest let me tell such that if they understand what they do even this cheat is too thin to quiet their defiled consciences For even the Papists School-doctors do conclude that when the Priest absolveth an impenitent sinner or one that is not qualified for pardon such a one is not loosed or pardoned in Heaven Leg. Martin de Ripalda exposit Liber Magist. li. 4. dist 18. p. 654 655. p. 663 664. dist 20. Aquin. Dist. 20. q 1. a. 5. Suar. Tom. 4. in 3. p. disp 52. Greg. Valent. Tom. 4. disp 7. q. 20. p. 5. Tolet. lib. 6. cap. 27 Navar. Notab 17. 18. Cordub de indulg li. 5. q. 23. they deny not the truth of those words of Origen Hom. 14. ad cap. 24. Levit. Exit quis à fide perexit de castris Ecclesiae etiamsi Episcopi Voce non abjiciatur sicut contru interdum fit ut aliquis non recto judicio eorum qui praesunt Ecclesiae for as mittatur sed si non egit ut mereretur exire nihil laeditur interdum enim quod for as mittitur intus est qui foris est intus videtur retineri And what he saith of Excommunication is true of Absolution An erring Key doth neither lock out of Heaven nor let into Heaven A Godly Believer shall be saved though the Priest condemn him and an unbeliever or ungodly person shall be condemned by God though he be absolved by the Priest Nay if you have not walked with God in the spirit but walked after the flesh though your repentance should be sound and true at the last it will yet very hardly serve to comfort you though it may serve to your salvation because you will very hardly get any assurance that it is sincere It is dangerous lest it should prove but the effect of fear which will not save when it cometh not till death do fright you to it As Augustine saith Nullus expectet quando peccare non potest arbitrii enim libertatem quaerit Deus ut deleri possint commissa non necessitatem sed charitatem non tantum timorem quia non in solo timore vivit homo Therefore the same Augustine saith Siquis positus in ultima necessitate voluerit accipere poenitentiam accipit fateor vobis non illi negamus quod petit sed non praesumimus quod bene hinc exit si securus hinc exierit ego nescio Poenitentiam dare possumus securitatem non possumus You see then how much it is needful to the peace of conscience at the hour of death that you walk with God in the time of life 6. Moreover to walk with God is an excellent preparation for sufferings and death because it tendeth to acquaint the soul with God and to embolden it both to go to him in Prayer and to Trust on him and expect salvation from him He that walketh with God is so much used to holy Prayer that he is a man of Prayer and is skilled in it and hath tryed what prayer can do with God so that in the hour of his extremity he is not to seek either for a God to pray to or a Mediator to intercede for him or a Spirit of Adoption to enable him as a child to fly for help to his reconciled Father And having not only been frequently with God but frequently entertained and accepted by him and had his prayers heard and granted it is a great encouragement to an afflicted soul in the hour of distresse to go to such a God for help And it is a dreadful thing when a soul is ready to go out of the world to have â—â— comfortable knowledge of God or skill to pray to him or encouragement to expect acceptance with him To think that he must presently appear before a God whom he never knew nor heartily loved being never acquainted with that communion with him in the way of Grace which is the way to communion in Glory O what a terrible thought is this But how comfortable is it when the soul can say I know whom I have believed The God that afflicteth me is he that loveth me and hath manifested his love to me by his daily attractive assisting and accepting Grace I am going by death to see him intuitively whom I have often seen by the eye of Faith and to live with him in Heaven with whom I lived here on earth From whom and Through whom and To whom was my life I go not to any enemy nor an utter stranger but to that God who was the Spring the Ruler the Guide the Strength and the Comfort of my life He hath heard me so oft that I cannot think he will now reject me He hath so often comforted my soul that I will not believe he will now thrust me into Hell He hath mercifully received me so oft that I cannot believe he will now refuse me Those that come to him in the way of Grace I have found he will in no wise cast out As strangeness to God doth fill the soul with distrustful fears so walking with him doth breed that humble confidence which is a wonderful comfort in the hour of distress and a happy preparations to sufferings and death 7. Lastly to walk with God doth encrease that Love of God in the soul which is the heavenly tincture and inclineth it to loâ—k upward and being weary of a sinful flesh and world to desire to be perfected with God How happy a preparation for death is this when it is but the passage to that God with whom we desire to be and to that place where we fain would dwell for ever To love the state and place that we are going to being made connatural and suitable thereto will much overcome the fears of death But for a soul that is acquainted with nothing but this life and favoureth nothing but Earth and Flesh and hath