be pleniores Deo then those that are really inform'd and actuated by the Divine Spirit and do move on steddily and constantly in the way towards Heaven as the Seed that was sown in the thorny ground grew up and lengthened out its blade faster then that which was sown in the good and fruitfull soil And as the Motions of our Sense Fancy and Passions while our Souls are in this mortal condition sunk down deeply into the Body are many times more vigorous and make stronger impressions upon us then those of the Higher powers of the Soul which are more subtile and remote from these mixt and Animal perceptions that Devotion which is there seated may seem to have more Energy and life in it then that which gently and with a more delicate kind of touch spreads it self upon the Understanding and from thence mildly derives it self through our Wills Affections But howsoever the Former may be more boisterous for a time yet This is of a more consistent spermatical and thriving nature For that proceeding indeed from nothing else but a Sensual and Fleshly apprehension of God and true Happiness is but of a flitting and fading nature and as the Sensible powers and faculties grow more languid or the Sun of Divine light shines more brightly upon us these earthly devotions like our Culinary fires will abate their heat and servour But a true Celestial warmth will never be extinguish'd because it is of an Immortal nature and being once seated vitally in the Souls of men it will regulate and order all the motions of it in a due manner as the natural Heat radicated in the Hearts of living creatures hath the dominion and Oeconomy of the whole Body under it and sends forth warm Bloud and Spirits and Vital nourishment to every part and member of it True Religion is no piece of artifice it is no boiling up of our Imaginative powers nor the glowing heats of Passion though these are too often mistaken for it when in our juglings in Religion we cast a mist before our own eyes But it is a new Nature informing the Souls of men it is a God-like frame of Spirit discovering it self most of all in Serene and Clear minds in deep Humility Meekness Self-denial Universal love of God and all true Goodness without Partiality and without Hypocrisie whereby we are taught to know God and knowing him to love him and conform our selves as much as may be to all that Perfection which shines forth in him THUS far the First part of this Discourse which was designed according to the Method propounded to give a particular account of mens Mistakes about Religion The other part was intended to discover the reason of these Mistakes But whether the Author did finish that Part it appears not by any Papers of his which yet came to my hands If he did and the Papers should be in others hands for the Author was communicative if they or any other Papers of the Authors be sent to M r William Morden Bookseller in Cambridge the like care shall be taken for the publishing of them as hath been for this Collection THE EXCELLENCY and NOBLENESS OF TRUE RELIGION 1. In its Rise and Original 2. In its Nature and Essence 3. In its Properties and Operations 4 In its Progress 5. In its Term and End Psalm 16. 3. To the Saints that are in the earth and to the excellent in whom is all my delight Greg. Nazianzenus in Orat. 11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Idem in Orat. 23. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hieronymus ad Celantiam Ep. 14. Nescit Religio nostra personas accipere nec conditiones hominum sed animos inspicit singulorum Servum Nobilem de moribus pronunciat Sola apud Deum Libertas est non servire peccatis Summa apud Deum est Nobilitas clarum esse virtutibus THE EXCELLENCY and NOBLENESS OF TRUE RELIGION Proverbs 15. 24. The Way of life is above to the wise that he may depart from hell beneath The Introduction IN this whole Book of the Proverbs we find Solomon one of the Eldest Sons of Wisdom alwaies standing up and calling her blessed his Heart was both enlarged and fill'd with the pure influences of her beams and therefore was perpetually adoring that Sun which gave him light Wisdome is justified of all her Children though the brats of darkness and children of folly see no beauty nor comeliness in her that they should desire her as they said of Christ Esay 53. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That Mind which is not touch'd with an inward sense of Divine Wisdom cannot estimate the true Worth of it But when Wisdom once displays its own excellencies and glories in a purified Soul it is entertained there with the greatest love and delight and receives its own image reflected back to it self in sweetest returns of Love and Praise We have a clear manifestation of this sacred Sympathy in Solomon whom we may not unfitly call Sapientiae Organum an Instrument which Wisdom herself had tuned to play her divine Lessons upon his words were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every where full of Divine sweetness matched with strength and beauty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or as himself phraseth it like apples of gold in pictures of Silver The mind of a Proverb is to utter Wisdom in a Mystery as the Apostle sometime speaks and to wrap up Divine Truth in a kind of Aenigmatical way though in vulgar expressions Which method of delivering Divine doctrine not to mention the Writings of the ancient Philosophers we find frequently pursued in the Holy Scripture thereby both opening and hiding at once the Truth which is offered to us A Proverb or Parable being once unfolded by reason of its affinity with the Phancy the more sweetly insinuates it self into that and is from thence with the greater advantage transmitted to the Understanding In this state we are not able to behold Truth in its own Native beauty and lustre but while we are vail'd with mortality Truth must vail it self too that it may the more freely converse with us S. Austin hath well assign'd the reason why we are so much delighted with Metaphors Allegories c. because they are so much proportioned to our Senses with which our Reason hath contracted an intimacy and familiarity And therefore God to accommodate his Truth to our weak capacities does as it were embody it in Earthly expressions according to that ancient Maxim of the Cabbalists Lumen Supernum nunquam descendit fine indumento agreeable to which is that of Dionysius Areop not seldom quoted by the School-men Impossibile est nobis aliter lucere radium Divinum nisi varietate sacrorum velaminum circumvelatum His words in the Greek are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thus much by way of Preface or Introduction to these words being one of Solomon's excellent Proverbs viz. The way of life is above to the wise Without any mincing or
with that common sense and Experience which we have of our Souls this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Soul being nothing else but that Innate force and power which it hath within it to stir up such thoughts and motions within it self as it finds it self most free to And therefore when we reflect upon the productions of our own Souls we are soon able to find out the first Efficient cause of them And though the subtilty of some Wits may have made it difficult to find out whether the Understanding or the Will or some other Facultie of the Soul be the First Mover whence the motus primò primus as they please to call it proceeds yet we know it is originally the Soul it self whose vital acts they all are and although it be not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the First Cause as deriving all its virtue from it self as Simplicius distinguisheth in 1. de An. cap. 1. yet it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vitally co-working with the First Causes of all But on the other side when we come to examine those Motions which arise from the Body this stream runs so far under ground that we know not how to trace it to the head of it but we are fain to analyse the whole artifice looking from the Spirits to the Blood from that to the Heart viewing all along the Mechanical contrivance of Veins and Arteries neither know we after all our search whether there be any Perpetuum mobile in our own Bodies or whether all the motions thereof be onely by the redundancy of some external motions without us nor how to find the First mover in nature though could we find out that yet we know that there is a Fatal determination which sits in all the wheels of meer Corporeal motion neither can they exercise any such noble freedome as we constantly find in the Wills of men which are as large and unbounded in all their Elections as Reason it self can represent Being it self to be Lucretius that he might avoid the dint of this Argument according to the Genius of his Sect feigns this Liberty to arise from a Motion of declination whereby his Atomes alwaies moving downwards by their own weight towards the Centre of the World are carried a little obliquely as if they tended toward some point different from it which he calls clinamen principiorum Which riddle though it be as good as any else which they who held the Materiality and Mortality of Souls in their own nature can frame to salve this difficulty yet is of such a private interpretation that I believe no Oedipus is able to expound it But yet by what we may guesse at it we shall easily find that this insolent conceit and all else of this nature destroys the Freedome of Will more then any Fate which the severest censours thereof whom he sometimes taxeth ever set over it For how can any thing be made subject to a free and impartial debate of Reason or fall under the Level of Free-will if all things be the meer result either of a Fortuitous or Fatal motion of Bodies which can have no power or dominion over themselves and why should he or his great Master find so much fault with the Superstition of the world and condemn the Opinions of other men when they compare them with that transcendent sagacity they believe themselves to be the Lords of if all was nothing else but the meer issue of Material motions seeing that necessity which would arise from a different concourse and motion of several particles of Matter begetting that diversity of Opinions and Wills would excuse them all from any blame Therefore to conclude this Argument Whatsoever Essence finds this Freedome within it self whereby it is absolved from the rigid laws of Matter may know it self also to be Immaterial and having dominion over its own actions it will never desert it self and because it finds it self non vi alienâ sed suâ moveri as Tully argues it feels it self able to preserve it self from the forrein force of Matter and can say of all those assaults which are at any time made against those sorry mud-walls which in this life inclose it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Stoick did all this is nothing to me who am yet free and can command within when this feeble Carkass is able no longer to obey me and when that is shattered and broken down I can live any where else without it for I was not That but had onely a command over It while I dwelt in it But before we wholly desert this Head we may adde some further strength to it from the Observation of that Conflict which the Reasons and Understandings of men maintain against the Sensitive appetite and wheresoever the Higher powers of Reason in a man's Soul prevail not but are vanquish'd by the impetuousness of their Sensual affections through their own neglect of themselves yet are they never so broken but they may strengthen themselves again and where they subdue not men's inordinate Passions and Affections yet even there will they condemn them for them Whereas were a Man all of one piece and made up of nothing else but Matter these Corporeal motions could never check or controul themselves these Material dimensions could not struggle with themselves or by their own strength render themselves any thing else then what they are But this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Greeks call it this Self-potent Life which is in the Soul of man acting upon it self and drawing forth its own latent Energie finds it self able to tame the outward man and bring under those rebellious motions that arise from the meer Animal powers and to tame and appease all those seditions and mutinies that it finds there And if any can conceive all this to be nothing but a meer fighting of the male-contented pieces of Matter one against another each striving for superiority and preeminence I should not think it worth the while to teach such an one any higher learning as looking upon him to be indued with no higher a Soul then that which moves in Beasts or Plants CHAP. V. The third Argument for the Immortality of the Soul That Mathematical Notions argue the Soul to be of a true Spiritual and Immaterial Nature WE shall now consider the Soul awhile in a further degree of Abstraction and look at it in those Actions which depend not at all upon the Body wherein it doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Greeks speak and converseth onely with its own Being Which we shall first consider in those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Mathematical notions which it conteins in it self and sends forth from within it self which as they are in themselves Indivisible and of such a perfect nature as cannot be received or immersed into Matter so they argue that Subject in which they are seated to be of a true Spiritual and Immaterial nature Such as a pure Point Linea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
also is in our power This is the importance of those words Let us search and try our ways and turn unto the Lord. And this is a great Fundamental the very Pillar of the Law and Precept according to what is written Deuter. 30. See I have set before thee this day life and death good and evil Thus we see Maimonides who was well vers'd in the ancientest Jewish learning and in high esteem among all the Jews is pleased to reckon this as a main Principle and Foundation upon which that Law stood as indeed it must needs be if Life and Perfection might be acquired by virtue of those Legal precepts which had only an External administration being set before their External Senses and promulged to their Eares as the Statute-laws of any other Common-wealth use to be Which was the very notion that they themselves had of these Laws And therefore in Breshith Rabba a very ancient Writing the Jewish Doctors taking notice of that passage in the Canticles Let him kiss m with the kisses of his mouth they thus gloss upon it At the time of the giving of the Law the Congregation of Israel desired that Moses might speak to them they being not able to heare the words of God himself and while he spake they heard and hearing forgat and thereupon moved this debate among themselves What is this Moses a man of flesh and blood and what is his law that we so soon learn and so soon forget it O that God would kiss us with the kisses of his mouth that is in their sense that God would teach them in a more vital and internal way And then as they goe on Moses makes this answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That this could not be then But it should so come to pass in the time to come in the daies of the Messiah when the Law should be written in their hearts as it is said Jer. 31. I will write it in their hearts By this we may see how necessarie it was for the Jews that they might be consistent to their grand Principle of obtaining Life and Perfection by this dead letter and a thing merely without themselves as not being radicated in the vital powers of their own Souls to establish such a power of Free-will as might be able uncontrollably to entertain it and so readily by its own Strength perform all the dictates of it And that Maimonides was not the first of the Jewish writers who expound that passage Gen. 3. Behold man is become like one of us to know good and evil of Free-will may appear from the several Chaldee Paraphrasts upon it which seem very much to intimate that Sense Which by the way though I cannot allow all that which the Jews deduce from it I think is not without something of Truth viz. That that Liberty which is founded in Reason and which Mankind only in this lower world hath above other Creatures may be there also meant But whatever it is I am sure the Jewish Commentators upon that place generally follow the rigid sense of Maimonides To this purpose R. Bechai a man of no small learning both in the Talmudick and Cabalistical doctrine of the Jews tells us That upon Adam's first transgression that grand Liberty of Indifferency equally to Good or Evil began first to discover it self whereas before that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all Intellect and wholy Spiritual as that common Cabalistical Notion was being from within only determined to that which was Good But I shall at large relate his words because of their pertinency and usefulness in the Matter now in hand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Adam before his sin acted from a necessity of Nature and all his actions were nothing else but the issues of pure and perfect Understanding Even as the Angels of God being nothing else but Intelligences put forth nothing else but acts of intelligence just so was Man before he sinned and did eat of the Tree of Knowledg of good and evil But after this transgression he had the power of Election and Free-will whereby he was able to will good or evil And a little after glossing on those words Gen. 3. 7. And the eyes of them both were opened he addeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They derived the power of Free-will from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil And now they became endued with this power of determining themselves to Good or Evil and this Property is divine and in some respect a good Property So that according to the mind of our Author the First original pedigree of Free-will is to be derived not so much from the Aera of Creation as from that after Epocha of Mans transgression or Eating of the forbidden fruit so that the Indifferency of mans Will to Good or Evil and a Power to determine himself freely to either did then first of all unfold it self whereas before he conversed like a pure Intelligence with its First cause without any propension at all to Material things being determined like a proper natural Agent solely to that which is good and these Propensions arising upon the First transgression to Material things which they supposed to be in mens power either so to correct and castigate as to prevent any sin in them or else to pursue in a way of vice are if not the Form and Essence yet at least the Original and Root of that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which they speak so much of But of this in another place All this we have further confirmed out of Nachmanides an Author sufficiently versed in all Matters concerning the Jewish Religion His words are these in his Comment upon Deut. 30. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 From the time of the Creation Man had a power of Free-Will within him to do Good or Evil according to his own choice as also through the whole time of the Law that so he might be capable of Merit in freely chusing what is Good and of Punishment in electing what is Evil. Wherein that he tells us that this Free-will hath continued ever since the Creation we must not understand rigidly the very moment of mans Creation but that Epocha taken with some latitude so that it may include the time of mans First transgression for he after suggests thus much That before the First Sin Adam's power to Good was a mere Natural power without any such Indifferency to Evil and therefore he makes that State of Adam the Model and platform of future perfection which the most ancient Jewish Authors seem to expect in the time of their Messiah which he expresseth in this manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He shall not covet nor desire after a Sensitive manner but Man shall return in the times of the Messiah to that Primitive State he was in before the sin of the First man who naturally did whatsoever was good neither was there any thing and its contrary then in his choice Upon which Ground he afterwards
suppose we may fairly gloss upon S. Paul's Discourses which so much prefer Faith above Works We must not think in a Gyant-like pride to scale the walls of Heaven by our own Works and by force thereof to take the strong Fort of Blessedness and wrest the Crown of Glory out of God's hands whether he will or no. We must not think to commence a suit in Heaven for Happiness upon such a poor and weak plea as our own External compliance with the Old Law is We must not think to deal with God in the Method of Commutative Justice and to challenge Eternal life as the just Reward of our great Merits and the hire due to us for our labour and toil we have took in God's Vineyard No God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble it must be an humble and Self-denying address of a Soul dissolved into a deep and piercing sense of its own Nothingness and unprofitableness that can be capable of the Divine bounty he fills the hungry with good things but the rich he sends empty away They are the hungry and thirsty Souls alwaies gasping after the living springs of Divine grace as the parched ground in the desert doth for the dew of Heaven ready to drink them in by a constant dependance upon God Souls that by a living watchfull and diligent Faith spreading forth themselves in all obsequious reverence and love of him wait upon him as the Eyes of an handmaid wait on the hand of her Mistress These are they that he delights to satiate with his goodness Those that being master'd by a strong sense of their own indigency their pinching and pressing povertie and his All-sufficient fulness trust in him as an Almighty Saviour and in the most ardent manner pursue after that Perfection which his grace is leading them to those that cannot satisfie themselves in a bare performance of some External acts of righteousness or an External observance of a Law without them but with the most greedy and fervent ambition pursue after such an acquaintance with his Divine Spirit as may breath an inward life through all the powers of their Souls and beget in them a vital form and soul of Divine goodness These are the spiritual seed of faithful Abraham the sons of the Free-woman and heirs of the promises to whom all are made Yea and Amen in Christ Jesus These are they which shall abide in the house for ever when the sons of the Bond-woman those that are only Arabian proselytes shall be cast out CHAP. VII An Appendix to the foregoing Discourse How the whole business and Undertaking of Christ is eminently available both to give full relief and ease to our Minds and Hearts and also to encourage us to Godliness or a God-like righteousness briefly represented in sundry Particulars FOR the further illustration of some things especially in the latter part of this Discourse it may not be amiss in some Particulars which might easily be enlarged to shew How the Undertaking of Christ that Great Object of Faith is greatly advantageous and available to the giving full relief and ease to our Minds and Hearts and also to the encouraging us to Godliness or a true God-like righteousness In the General therefore we may consider That full and evident assurance is given hereby to the world That God doth indeed seek the saving of that which is lost and men are no longer to make any doubt or scruple of it Now what can we imagine more available to carry on a Designe of Godliness and to rouze dul and languid Souls to an effectual minding of their own Salvation then to have this News sounding in their Ears by men that at the first promulgation thereof durst tell them roundly in the Name of God that God required them every where to repent for that his Kingdome of grace was now apparent and that he was not only willing but it was his gracious designe to save recover lost Sinners who had forsaken his Goodness Particularly That the whole business of Christ is very advantageous for this purpose and highly accommodate thereto may appear thus We are fully assured that God hath this forementioned designe upon lost men because here is one viz. Christ that partakes every way of Humane Nature whom the Divinity magnifies it self in and carries through this world in Humane infirmities and Sufferings to Eternal glory a clear manifestation to the World that God had not cast off Humane Nature but had a real mind to exalt and dignifie it again The way into the Holy of holies or to Eternal happiness is laid as open as may be by Christ in his Doctrine Life and Death in all which we may see with open face what Humane Nature may attain to and how it may by Humility Self-denial and divine Love a Christ-like life rise up above all visible heavens into a state of Immortal glory and bliss Here is a manifestation of Love given enough to thaw all the iciness of mens hearts which Self-love had quite frozen up For here is One who in Humane Nature most heartily every where denying himself is ready to doe any thing for the good of Mankind and at last gives up his life for the same pupose and that according to the good will and pleasure of that Eternal love which so loved the World that he gave this beloved and his only-begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life Whereas every Penitent Sinner carries a sense of Guilt upon his own Conscience is apt to shrink with cold chill fears of offended Majesty and to dread the thoughts of violated Justice He is assured that Christ hath laid down his life and thereby made propitiation atonement for sin That He hath laid down his life for the Redemption of him and so in Christ we have Redemption through his bloud even the forgiveness of sins Thus may the Hearts of all Penitents troubled at first with sense of their own guilt be quieted and fully establisht in a living Faith and Hope in an Eternal goodness seeing how their Sins are remitted through the bloud of Jesus that came to die for them and save them and through his bloud they may have free access unto God Seeing Sin and Guilt are apt continually to beget a jealousie of God's Majesty and Greatness from whom the Sinner finds himself at a vast distance he is made acquainted with a Mediator through whom he may address himself to God without this jealousie or doubting for that this Mediator likewise is one of Humane Nature that is highly beloved and accepted of God he having so highly pleased God by performing his Will in all things Certainly it is very decorous and much for the Ease of a Penitent's mind as it makes also for the disparagement of Sin that our Addresses to God should be through a Mediator The Platonists wisely observ'd that between the Pure Divinity and Impure Sinners as