a Nature to us Else they would not cease at Death But holy LOVE is our New Nature and therefore ceaseth not with this bodily life And shall accidental love make me desire the company of a frail and mutable Friend And shall not this ingrafted inseparable love make me long to be with Christ Though the love of God to all his Creatures will not prove that they are all Immortal nor oblige them to expect another life that never had Capacity or Faculties to expect it yet his love to such as in Nature and Grace are made capable of it doth warrant and oblige them to believe and hope for the full Perfection of the work of love Some comfort themselves in the love of St. Peter as having the Keys of Heaven And how many could I name that are now with Christ who loved me so faithfully on Earth that were I sure they had the Keys and Power of Heaven and were not changed in their Love I could put my departing Soul into their Hands and die with joy And is it not better in the Hand of my Redeemer and of the God of Love and Father of Spirits Is any love comparable to his Or any Friend so boldly to be trusted I should take it for ungrateful unkindness in my Friend to doubt of my love and trustiness if I had given him all that he hath and maintained him constantly by my kindness But O how odious a thing is sin Which by destroying our love to God doth make us unmeer to believe and sweetly perceive his Love And by making us doubt of the Love of God and lose the pleasant relish of it doth more increase our difficulty of loving him The Title that the Angel gave to Daniel A Man greatly beloved of God methinks should be enough to make one joyfully love and trust God both in life and death Will Almighty LOVE ever hurt me or forsake me And have not all Saints that Title in their degrees What else signifieth their Mark and Name HOLINESS TO THE LORD What is it but our separation to God as his peculiar beloved People And how are they separated but by mutual love and our forsaking all that alienateth or is contrary Let Scorners deride us as self flatterers that believe they are God's Darlings and wo to the Hypocrites that believe it on their false Presumption without such belief or grounded hopes I see not how any Man can die in true Peace He that is no otherwise beloved than Hypocrites and Unbelievers must have his portion with them And he that is no otherwise beloved than as the ungodly unholy and unregenerate shall not stand in judgment nor see God nor enter into his Kingdom Most upright Souls are to blame for groundless doubting of God's Love but not for acknowledging it rejoicing in it and in their doubts being most solicitous to make it sure Love brought me into the World and furnished me with a Thousand Mercies Love hath provided for me delivered me and preserved me till now And will it not entertain my separated Soul Is God like false or insufficient Friends that forsake us in adversity I confess that I have wronged LOVE by sin by many and great unexcusable sins But all save Christ himself were sinners which love did purifie and receive to Glory God who is rich in Mercy for the great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sins hath quickned us together with Christ by Grace we are saved and hath raised us up together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus Eph. 2. 4 5 6. O that I could love much that have so much forgiven The glorified praised him who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own Blood and made us Kings and Priests to God Rev. 1. 5 6. Our Father that hath loved us giveth us consolation and good hope through Grace 2 Thess 2. 16. I know no sin which I repent not of with self-loathing And I earnestly beg and labour that none of my sins may be to me unknown I dare not justifie even what is any way uncertain though I dare not call all that my sin which siding men of differing judgments on each side passionately call so While both sides do it on contrary accounts and not to go contrary ways is a Crime O that God would bless my accusations to my illumination that I may not be unknown to my self Though some think me much better than I am and others much worse it most concerneth me to know the Truth my self flattery would be more dangerous to me than false accusations I may safelier be ignorant of other mens sins than of my own Who can understand his errours Cleanse me Lord from secret sins and let not ignorance or errour keep me in impenitence and keep thou me back from presumptuous sins Psal 19. 12 13. I have an Advocate with the Father and thy Promise that he that confesseth and forsaketh his sins shall have Mercy Those are by some men taken for my greatest sins which my most serious Thoughts did judge to be the greatest of my outward duties and which I performed through the greatest difficulties and which cost me dearest to the Flesh and the greatest self-denial and patience in my reluctant Mind Where-ever I have erred Lord make it known to me that my confession may prevent the sin of others and where I have not erred confirm and accept me in the right And seeing an unworthy Worm hath had so many Testimonies of thy tender love let me not be like them Mal. 1. 1 2. that when thou saidst I have loved you unthankfully asked Wherein hast thou loved us Heaven is not more spangled with Stars than thy Word and Works with the refulgent Signatures of Love Thy well beloved Son the Son of thy Love undertaking the Office Message and Work of the greatest Love was full of that Spirit which is Love which he sheds abroad in the Hearts of thine Elect that the Love of the Father the Grace of the Son and the communion of the Spirit may be their hope and life His Works his Sufferings his Gifts as well as his comfortable Word did say to his Disciples Joh. 15. 9. As the Father loved me so have I loved you continue ye in my love And how Lord shall we continue in it but by the thankful belief of thy love and loveliness desiring still to love thee more and in all things to know and please thy Will Which thou knowest is my Souls desire Behold then O my Soul with what Love the Father Son and Holy Spirit have loved thee that thou should be made and called a Son of God redeemed regenerate adopted into that Covenant-state of Grace in which thou standest Rejoice therefore in hope of the Gâ—ory of God Rom. 5. 1 2. being justified by Faith having Peace with God and access by Faith and Hope that maketh not ashamed that being reconciled when an Enemy by the Death of Christ I shall be saved
so much under suffering and so little study and exercise Patience and no more rejoice in the exercise thereof IX And Patience Experience It is manifold and profitable Experience which patient suffering brings It giveth us experience as of Natures weakness and the great need of Faith So of the Truth of God's Promises the love and tenderness of Christ the acceptance of our Prayers and the power of the Spirits aid and grace O what abundance of experiences of God and our selves and the vanity of Creatures had we wanted if we had not waited in a suffering state Alas how many Experiences have I forgotten X. And Experience Hope A bare Promise should give us Hope But we are still distrustful of our selves and of all the clearest Evidences till experience help us and set all Home O what an advantage hath a Christian of great and long experience for his hope and joy And yet when notable experiences of God's Providence are past and gone an unbelieving Heart is ready to question whether the things came not by meer natural course and like the Israelites in the Wilderness dangers and fears bear down even long and great experiences This is my sin XI And Hope maketh not ashamed That is true Hope of what God hath promised shall never be disappointed They that trust on deceitful Creatures are deceived and ashamed of their Hope For all men are Lyars that is untrusty but God is true and ever faithful O what a comfort is it that God commandeth me to trust him Sure such a command is a virtual Promise from him that cannot fail that trust which he commandeth Lord help me to trust thee in greatest dangers and there to rest XII Because the Love of God is shed abroad upon our Hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us It is the Love of God shed abroad on our Hearts by the Holy Ghost which must make us rejoice in hope of the Glory of God even in Tribulation Here I must consider I. What is meant by the Love of God II. Why and how it is shed abroad on the Heart by the Holy Ghost I. By the Love of God is meant the Effects of his Love 1. His special Grace 2. The pleasant gust or sense of it II. God's Love thus shed on the Heart pre-supposeth it exprest in the Gospel and Providence and contains all these particulars 1. The sanctifying of the Soul by renewing Grace This is the giving of the Spirit as he is given all true Christians 2. Herein the Holy Ghost makes us perceive the exceeding desirableness of the Love of God and maketh us most desire it 3. He giveth the Soul some easing Hope of the Love of God 4. He quieteth the doubts and fears and troubles of the Soul 5. He raiseth our Hopes by degrees to confident assurance 6. Then the thoughts of God's love are pleasant to the Soul and give it such delight as we feel in the love and fruition of our most valued and beloved friends 7. The Soul in this state is as unapt to be jealous of God or to question his Love as a good Child or Wife to question the Love of a Parent or Husband or to hear any that speak evil of them 8. This then becomes the habitual state of the Soul in all changes to live in the delightful sense of the love of God as we do live in pleasure with our dearest Friends O blessed state and first fruits of Heaven and happy are they that do attain it And though lower degrees have their degree of happiness yet how far short are such in goodness amiableness and comfort of those that are thus rich in grace This presupposeth 1. Knowledge of God and the Gospel 2. True belief and hope 3. A sincere and fruitful life 4. Mortification as to Idol worldly vanities 5. A conviction of our sincerity in all this 6. A conclusion that God doth love us But yet it is somewhat above all this A Man may have all this in his Mind and Mouth and yet want this gust of effused Love upon his Heart These are the way to it but not itself This is the greatest good on this side Heaven to which all Wealth and Honour all fleshly Pleasure and long Life all Learning and Knowledge are unworthy to be once compared Briefly 1. It is the flower and highest part of God's Image on Man 2. It is the Souls true communion with God and fruition of him which carnal men deride Even as our Eye hath communion with the Sun and the flourishing Earth enjoys its reviving heats 3. It is that which all lower grace doth tend to as Childhood doth to Manhood And what is a world of Infants comparatively good for 4. It is that which most properly answereth the design of Redemption and the wonders of God's love therein And all the tenor of the Gospel 5. It is that which is most fully called The Spirit of God or Christ in us He hath lower works but this is his great work by which he possesseth us as God's most pleasant Habitation For we have not received the Spirit of Bondage again to fear but the Spirit of Power and Love and a sound mind 2 Tim. 1. 7. 6. It is only that which all men in general desire I mean the only satisfying content and pleasure that Man is capable of on Earth All men would have quieting and constant Pleasure and it is to be found in nothing else but the effused love of God 7. It is that which will make every burden light and all affliction easy When the sense of God's love is still upon the Soul all pain and crosses will be but as Blood-letting by the kindest Physician to save the Patients life God will not be suspected or grudged at in suffering his love will sweeten all 8. It will overcome abundance of Temptations which no mens Wit or Learning or knowledge of the words of Scripture will overcome No Arguments will draw a loving Child or Wife from the Parents or Husband that they know doth love them Love is the most powerful Disputant 9. It puts a mellow pleasant sweetness into all our duties When we hear the Word or receive the Sacrament it is to such a Soul as pleasant Food to the most healthful Man When we pray or praise God it comes from a comforted Heart and excites and increaseth the comfort it comes from O who can be backward to draw near to God in Prayer or Meditation who tasteth the sweetness of his Love This is Religion indeed and tells us what its life and use and glory is This is the true walking with God in the best degree When the Soul liveth in the taste of his Love the Heart will be still with him and that will be its Pleasure And God most delights in such a Soul 10. This is it that putteth the sweetest relish on all our Mercies Deny God's love and you deny them all If you tast not his love in them you
art begging more VII Hearken not too much to pained Flesh and look not too much into the Grave but look out at thy Prison Windows to the Jerusalem above and the heavenly Society that triumph in Glory VIII Let all thy sure notices of a future life and of the communion we have here with those above draw thee to think that the great number of Holy Souls that are gone before thee must needs be better than they were here and that they had the same Mind and Heart and Way the same Saviour Sanctifyer and Promise that thou hast and therefore they are as Pledges of Felicity to thee Thou hast joyfully lived with many of them here and is it not better be with them there It is only the state of Glory foreseen by Faith which most fully sheweth us the greatness of God's Love IX Exercise thy self in Psalms of Praise and daily magnifying the Love of God that the due mention of it may warm and raise thy love to him X. Receive all temptations against Divine Love with hatred and repulse Especially temptations to unbelief And as thou wouldst abhor a temptation to murder or perjury or any other heinous sin as much abhor all temptations which would hide God's Goodness or represent him to thee as an enemy or unlovely Thus God hath set the Glass before us in which we may see his amiable Face But alas Souls in flesh are in great obscurity and conscious of their own weakness are still distrustful of themselves and doubt of all their apprehensions till over-powering Objects and Influences satisfie and fix them For this my Soul with daily longings doth seek to thee my God and Father O pardon the sin that forseits Grace I am ready to say Draw nearer to me but its meeter to say Open thou my Eyes and Heart and remove all impediments and undisposedness that I may believe and feel how near thou art and hast been to me while I perceived it not XIII It is God's Love shed abroad on the Heart by the Holy Ghost which must make us Rejoice in hope of the Glory of God This will do it and without this it will not be done This would turn the fears of Death into joyful hopes of future life If my God will thus warm my Heart with his Love it will have these following effects in this matter I. Love longeth for union or nearness and fruition And it would make my Soul long after God in glorious presence II. This would make it much easier to me to believe that there is certainly a future blessed life for Souls while I even tasted how God loveth them It 's no hard thing to believe that the Sun will give light and heat and revive the frozen Earth Nor that a Father will shew kindness to his Son or give him an inheritance Why should it be hard to believe that God will glorifie the Souls whom he loveth And that he will take them near himself And that thus it shall be done to those whom he delights to honour III. This effusion of Divine Love would answer my doubts of the pardon of sin I should not find it hard to believe that love itself which hath given us a Saviour will forgive a Soul that truly repenteth and hates his sin and giveth up himself to Christ for Justification It 's hard to believe that a Tyrant will forgive but not that a Father will pardon a returning prodigal Son IV. This effusion of Divine Love will answer my fears which arise from meer weakness of Grace and Duty Indeed it will give no other comfort to an unconverted Soul but that he may be accepted if he come to God by Christ with true Faith and Repentance and that this is possible But it should be easie to believe that a tender Father will not kill or cast out a Child for weakness crying or uncleanness Divine Love will accept and cherish even weak Faith weak Prayer and weak obedience and patience which are sincere V. This effused Love would confute temptations that are drawn from thy afflictions and make thee believe that they are not so bad as flesh repesenteth them It would understand that every Son that God loveth he chasteneth that he may not be condemned with the World and that he may be partaker of his Holiness and the end may be the quiet fruit of Righteousness it would teach us to believe that God in very faithfulness doth afflict us and that it is a good sign that the God of Love intendeth a better life for his beloved when he trieth them with so many tribulations here And though Lazarus be not saved for his suffering it signified that God who loved him had a life of comfort for him when he had his evil things on Earth When pangs are greatest the Birth is nearest VI. Were Love thus shed on the Heart by the Holy Ghost it would give me a livelier apprehension of the state of Blessedness which all the faithful now enjoy I should delightfully think of them as living in the joyful Love of God and ever fully replenished therewith It pleaseth us to see the Earth flourish in the Spring and to see how pleasantly the Lambs and other young things will skip and play Much more to see Societies of Holy Christians loving each other and provoking one another to delight in God O then what a pleasant thought should it be to think how all our deceased godly Friends and all that have so died since the Creation are now together in a World of Divine perfect Love How they are all continually wrap't up in the Love of God and live in the delight of perfect Love to one another O my Soul when thou art with them thou wilt dwell in Love and feast on Love and rest in Love for thou wilt more fully dwell in God and God in thee And thou wilt dwell with none but perfect Lovers They would not silence thee from praising God in their Assembly Tyrants Malignants and Persecutors are more strange there or far from thence than Toads and Snakes and Crocodiles are from the Bed or Bed-chamber of the King Love is the Air the Region the World they live in Love is their Nature their Pulse their Breath their Constitution their Complexion and their work It is their life and even themselves and all Full loth would one of those Spirits be to dwell again among blind Sodomites and mad self-damning Malignants upon Earth VII Yea this effused Love will teach us to gather the Glory of the Blessed from the common Mercies of this life Doth God give his distracted malignant Enemies Health Wealth Plenty Pleasure yea Lordships Dominions Crowns and Kingdoms and hath he not much better for beloved holy Souls Yea doth he give the Bruits Life Sense Delight and Beauty and hath he not better things for men for Saints There are some so blind as to think that Man shall have no better hereafter because Bruits have not but perish But they know
how to make her nest to lay her Eggs secretly together when and how to sit on them till they are hatched and how to feed them and preserve them and when to forsake them as sufficient for themselves without her help c. If the Bâ—c know when and whence and how to gather her Honey and Wax and how to form the repository Combs and how to lay it up and all the rest of her marvellous Oeconomy shall I think that God doth he knoweth not what or what is not absolutely the best Doth he want either Shill or Will or Power And should the Stone grudge to be hewed the Brick to be burnt the Trees to be cut down and sawed and framed the Lead and Iron to be melted c. when it is but to form an useful Edifice and to adapt and compose every part to the perfecting of the whole Shall the Waters grudge that they must glide away and the Plants that they must die and half die every Winter and the Fruit and Flowers that they must fall or the Moon that it must have its changing motions or the Sun that it must set and rise so oft c. when all is but the action and order which maketh up that harmony and perfection which was designed by the Creator and is pleasing to his will § 7. III. But lawful self-love is yet further herein gratified The Goodness expressed in the Text is that Analogical subordinate Good which is mihi Bonum my own Felicity and that which tendeth thereunto It is most Reasonable to Love God best and that next which is likest him if known And why should it not be the easiest and the sweetest But experience findeth it so easie to Love our selves that certainly if I firmly Believe that it is best for me I shall Desire to depart and be with Christ And have I not reason to believe it § 8. The Reasons of it I will consider in this order I. The general Reason from the Efficients and the Means II. The Final Reasons III. The constitutive Reasons from the state of my Intellect and its Action and Fruition there IV. The constitutive Reasons from the state of my Will V. The constitutive Reasons from my practice there leaving out those which the Resurrection will give me because I am speaking but of my present departure unto Christ § 9. And 1. That is best for me which Love itself my heavenly Father designeth and chooseth for my good I hope I shall never dare to think or say that he is mistaken or that he wanted Skill or Love Or that I could have chosen better for my self than he doth if he had left all to my choice Many a time the wise and good-will of God hath crossed my foolish rebellious will on Earth And afterward I have still perceived that it was best usually for my self but always for a higher good than mine It is not an Enemy nor a Tyrant that made me that hath preserved me and that calls me hence He hath not used me as an Enemy The more I have tried him the better I have found him Had I better obeyed his Ruling will how happy had I been And is not his disposing and rewarding will as good Man's work is like Man and evil corrupteth it but God's work is like God and uncorrupted If I should not die till my dearest Friend would have it much more till I my self would choose it not constrained by misery I should rejoyce and think my life were safe O foolish sinful Soul if I take it not to be far better to be at God's choice than at my own or any Mans And if I had not rather that he choose the time than I. Be of good cheer then O my Soul it is thy Fathers voice that calls thee hence His voice that called thee into the World and bid thee live that called thee out of a state of sin and death and bid thee live hereafter unto him That called thee so oft from the Grave and forgiving thy sins renewed thy strength restored thee to the comforts of his House and Service and hath so graciously led thee through this howling Wilderness and brought thee almost to the sight of the promised Land And wilt thou not willingly go when infinite fatherly Love doth call thee Art thou not desirous of his presence Art thou afraid to go to him who is the only cure of thy fears What was it but this Glory to which he did finally Elect thee Where dost thou read that he Elected thee to the Riches and Honours of this World or to the pleasures of the Flesh But he Elected us in Christ to the heavenly Inheritance Eph. 1. 3 4 c. Indeed he Elected thee also to bear the Cross and to manifold sufferings here But is it that which thou preferrest before the Crown That was but as a Means unto the Kingdom that thou mightest be conformed to Christ and reign with him when thou hast suffered with him If God choose thee to blessedness refuse it not thy self nor behave thy self like a refuser § 10. 2. And surely that state is my Best which my Saviour purchased and promised me as best As he bought me not with Silver and Gold so neither to Silver and Gold Did he live and die to make me Rich or advanced in the World Surely his Incarnation Merits Sacrifice and Intercession had a low design if that were all And who hath more of these than they that have least of Christ But he purchased us to an incorruptible Crown to an Inheritance undefiled that fadeth notaway reserved in Heaven for us that are kept by God's Power through Faith unto Salvation 1 Pet. 1. And is it Heaven that cost so dear a price for me and is the End of so wonderful a design of Grace and shall I be unwilling now to receive the gift § 11. 3. That sure is Best for me for which God's Holy Spirit is preparing me That for which he is given to believers And that which is the End of all his holy Operations on my Soul But it is not to Love this World that he is persuading me from Day to Day but to come off from such Love and to set my Heart on the things above Is it to love this life and fleshly interest this Vanity and Vexation or rather to love the invisible Perfection that this blessed Spirit hath done so much to work my Heart And would I now undo all or Cross and frustrate all his Operations Hath Grace been so long preparing me for Glory and shall I be loath to take possession of it If I am not willing I am not yet sufficiently prepared § 12. 4. If Heaven be not better for me than Earth God's Word and Ordinances have been all in vain Surely that is my Best which is the Gift of the Better Covenant and which is secured to me by so many sealed Promises and which I am directed to by so many sacred Precepts
study it without Love What sounding Brass and tinkling Cymbals a lifeless Voice are they that preach of God and Christ and heavenly Glory without Love But gazing upon the face of Love in Christ and tasting of its gifts and looking up to its glorious reign is the way to kindle the Sacred Fire in thee Look upwards if thou wouldst see the Light that must lead thee upwards It is not for nothing that Christ hath taught us to begin our Prayers with Our Father which art in Heaven It is Fatherly Love that must win our Hearts and that must comfort them And it is in Heaven where this is gloriously manifested As I said before as the Soul is in all the Body but yet understandeth not in the Hand as it doth in the Head nor rejoiceth not in the Foot as it doth in the Heart so God that is every where doth not every where glorifie his Love as he doth it in Heaven Thither therefore the Mind and Eye are even by Nature taught to look up as to God as we look a Man in the Face when we speak to him rather than to his Feet though his Soul be also there My sinful Heart hath needed sorrow My careless rash presumptuous Soul hath needed fears and I have had some part of these Mercy saw it good for me as necessary to prevent my more dangerous deceits and lapses And O that in the hour of sensual temptations I had feared more and departed from evil But it is HOLY LOVE that must be my life Or else I am dead notwithstanding fear O come then and study the life of Love It is more of a Holy Nature than of Art but yet study must do much to prepare thee to receive it This is the great use of a heavenly Conversation It is the contemplation belief and hope of the glorious state of Love hereafter that must make us like it and kindle it in us here The burning Glass must be turned directly to the Sun if you will have it set any thing on fire There is a carnal or common love to God which is kindled in men by carnal pleasures But a Holy love like that in Heaven must be studiously fetcht from Heaven and kindled by the fore sight of what is there what we shall be there for ever Faith must ascend and look within the vail thou must not live as a stranger to thy home to thy God and Saviour and thy hopes The fire that must warm thee is in Heaven and thou must come near it or open thy self to its influence if thou wilt feel its powerful efficacy It is night and winter with carnal minds when it is day and summer with those that set their Faces Heavenward § 21. II. But though all my Receivings will be from God they will not be from him alone We must live in perfect Union also with one another and with all the heavenly Society and therefore as we must love them all so shall we be beloved by them all And this will be a subordinate part of our blessedness God there will make use of second causes even in communicating his Love and Glory § 22. 1. The Lord Jesus Christ will not only be the Object of our delightful love but will also love us with an effectual operative love for ever His love will be as the Vital Heat and Motion of the Heart to all the Members the Root of our Life and Joy The Love of our Redeemer will flow out into us all as the Vital Spirits and his Face of Glory will be the Sun of the heavenly Jerusalem and will shine upon us and shew us God And in his light we shall have light Did his tears for a dead Lazarus make men say Behold how he loved him O then what will the reviving Beams of heavenly life make us say of that love which filleth us with the pleasures of his presence and turneth our Souls into JOY it self He comforteth us now by the teaching of his Word but surely the fruition of Salvation will be more gladding then the tidings of it When he that told us of Glory in his Gospel shall give it us we shall not only believe but feel that he loveth us § 23. Believe O my Soul thy Saviours Love that thou maist foretast it and be fit to feel it We were uncapable in sinful Flesh of seeing him otherwise than as cloathed with Flesh and his consolations were administred by a word of Promise suitable to his appearance But when he withdrew his bodily presence the Comforter was sent with a fuller Consolation But all that was but the earnest and the first fruits of what he will be to us for ever Be not seldom not unbelieving nor slight in the thoughts of thy Saviours love for it is he that is the way to the Infinite love Let thy believing be so much of thy daily work that thou maist say that he dwelleth in thy Heart by Faith Eph. 3. 17. and that while thou livest here it is Christ that liveth in thee and that thy life in the Flesh is not a fleshly life but by the Faith of the Son of God that hath loved thee and given himself for thee Gal. 2. 20. And that though thou see him not yet believing thou lovest him also with unspeakable Joy as believing the unspeakable perfect Joy which his Love-will communicate to thee for ever Look upon the Sun and think thus with thy self How wonderful is the Emanation of this Sun Its motion light and heat communicated to so many Millions of Câ—eatures all over the Earth and in the Seas What if all these beams of light and heat were proportionable beams of perfect Knowledge Love and Joy and that all Creatures that are under the Sun had from its influx as much Wisdom Love and Joy as they have Light Heat and Motion Would not then this Earth be as a World of Angels and a Heaven O what a blessed World would it be And what a benefactor would the Sun be to the World Why even such will Jesus Christ be to the Celestial World He is the Sun of Glory His Influence will send forth LIFE and LIGHT and JOYFUL LOVE upon all the blessed from the Face of the God as the Sun sends forth from God its Motion Light and Heat upon this World Now therefore begin and live upon him live upon the influence of his Grace his Teaching Love-kindling and Quickning Grace that thou maist have his Name and Mark and he may find in thee something of himself or of his own when thou comest to his Righteous ryal His Grace is not in my power not at my command It is not meet it should be so But he hath not bid me seek and beg in vain If he had never told me that he will give it me it is equal to a promise if he do but bid me seek and ask But I have more He teacheth me to pray He maketh my Prayers He writeth me
Will And wilt thou cast away a Soul that hopeth in thee by thine own Command and Operation Had Wealth and Honour or continuance on Earth or the favour of Man been my reward hope my hope I had died together Were this our best how vain were Man But the Lord liveth and my Redeemer is glorified and interceedeth for me And the same Spirit is in Heaven who is in my Heart As the same Sun is in the Firmament which is in my House And the Promise is sure to all Christ's Seed And Millions are now in Heaven that once did live and die in hope they were Sinners once as now I am They had no other Saviour no other Sanctifier no other Promise than I now have confessing that they were Strangers here they looked for a better Countrey and for a City that had Foundations even a heavenly where now they are And shall I not follow them in hope that have sped so well Hope then O my Soul unto the end 1 Pet. 1. 13. From henceforth and for ever hope in the Lord Psal 131. 13. I will hope continually and will yet praise thee more and more my Mouth shall shew forth thy Righteousness and Salvation Psal 71. 14 15. The Lord is at my right Hand I shall not be moved My Heart therefore is glad and my glory rejoiceth my Flesh also shall dwell confidently and rest in hope for God hath shewed me the path of Life in his presence is fulness of joy and at his right Hand are pleasures for evermore Psal 16. 8 9 10 11. III. What then remaineth O my Soul but that in TRUST and HOPE thou LOVE thy God thy Saviour thy Comforter the Glorious Society thy own Perfection in Glorious Endless Heavenly Life and Light and Love and the Joyful Praises of Jehovah better then this burden of painful and corruptible Flesh and this howling Wilderness the Habitation of Serpents and untamed Bruits where unbelief and murmuring Lust and Folly Injustice and Uncharitableness Tyranny and Divisions Pride and Contention have long provoked God and wearied thee Where the Vintage and Harvest is Thorns and Thistles Sin and Sorrows Cares and Crosses manured by manifold Temptations How odious is that darkness and unbelief that unholiness and disaffection that deadness and stupidity which maketh such a work as this so reasonable necessary and pleasant a work to seem unsuitable or hard Is it unsuitable or hard to the Eye to see the Sun and Light Or by it to see the beautified World Or for a Man to love his Life or Health his Father or his Friend What should be easier to a Nature that hath rational LOVE than to Love him that is Essential LOVE itself He that loveth all and giveth to all the Loving faculty should be loved by all And he that hath specially loved me should be specially loved by me Love is the Perfection of all thy Preparations It desireth to Please God and therefore to be in the most pleasing state and freed from all that is displeasing to him which is not to be hoped for on Earth It desireth all suitable nearness acquaintance union and communion It is weary of distance estrangedness and alien society and affairs It taketh advantage of every notice intimation or mention of God to renew and exercise these desires Every Message and Mercy from him is fewel for Love and while we are short of Perfection stir up our desires after more When Love tasteth of the Grapes it would have the Vine When it tasteth of the Fruits it would dwell where they grow and possess the Land Its thoughts of Proximity and fruition are sweet No other Person or Thing can satisfie it The Soul is where it loveth If our Friend dwell in our Hearts by Love and if fleshly Pleasure Riches and Honour do dwell in the Heart of the Voluptuous the Covetous and the Proud surely God and our Redeemer the heavenly Society Holiness and Glory do dwell in the Heart which loveth them with a fervent Love And if Heaven dwell in my Heart shall I not desire to dwell in Heaven Light and Light Fire and Fire are not more inclined to union then Love and Love Gracious Love and Glorious Love Would Divine Original Universal LOVE communicate and pour out itself more plentifully upon my Heart how easy would it be to leave this Flesh and World And to hear the Sentence of my departure to my God Death and the Grave would be but a Triumph for victorious Love It would be easier to die in Peace and Joy than to rest at Night or to come home from my Travel to my beloved Friends or to go when I am hungry to a Feast A Little Love hath made me study willingly and preach willingly and write willingly yea and suffer somwhat willingly and would not more make me go more willingly to God Shall the imagination of House Gardens Walks Libraries Prospects Meadows Orchards Hills and Rivers allure the desires of deceived Minds And shall not the Thoughts of the heavenly Mansions Society and Delights much more allure and draw up my desires The reading of a known Fiction of a Civitas Solis an Utopia an Atlantis c. hath pleased many But if I did believingly hear of such a Countrey in the World where men did never die nor were sick or weak or sad where the Prince were perfectly just and pious wise and peaceable devoted to God and the publick good and the Teachers were all wise judicious men of Universal certain knowledge perfectly acquainted with the Matter and Method of Natural and Theological Truths and all their duty and all of one Mind and of one Heart and Tongue and Practice loving each other and the People as themselves and leading the Flocks heavenward through all temptations with triumphant hopes and joy where all the People perfectly obeyed God their Commanders and their Teachers and lived in perfect Love Unity and Peace and were daily employed in the joyful praises of God and hopes of Glory and in doing all possible good to one another contending with none through ignorance uncharitableness or pride nor ever reproaching injuring or hurting one another c. I say if I knew or heard of such a Countrey should I not love it before I ever see it and earnestly desire to be there Nay do I not over-love this distracted World where Tyranny sheddeth streams of Blood and layeth desolate Cities and Countries and exposeth the miserable Inhabitants to lamentable Distress and Famine where the same Tyranny sets up the Wicked reproacheth and oppresseth the Just and Innocent keepeth out the Gospel and keepeth up Idolatry Infidelity and Wickedness in the far greatest part of all the Earth where Satan chooseth Pastors too often for the Churches of Christ even such as by Ignorance Pride Sensuality Worldliness and Malignity become Thorns and Thistles yea devouring Wolves to those whom they should feed and comfort where no two Persons are in all things of a Mind where Evil
doubtingly whether thy heavenly Father and thy Lord doth love thee Canst thou forget the sealed Testimonies of it Did I not even now repeat so many as should shame thy doubts A multitude of thy Friends have loved thee so entirely that thou canst not doubt of it And did any of them signifie their love with the convincing evidence that God hath done Have they done for thee what he hath done Are they Love itself Is their love so full so firm and so unchangeable as his I think the sweetlier of Heaven because abundance of my ancient Lovely and Loving Holy Friends are there and am the willinger by Death to follow them And should I not think of it more pleasedly because my God and Father my Saviour and my Comforter is there And not alone but with all the Society of Love Was not Lazarus in the Bosom of God himself yet it is said that he was in Abraham's Bosom as the Promise runs that we shall sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of God And what maketh the Society of Saints so sweet as holy Love It is comfortable to read that To love the Lord our God with all our Heart and Soul and might is the First and great Commandment and the Second is like to it To Love our Neighbours as our selves For God's Commands proceed from that Will which is his Nature or Essence and they tend to the same as their Objective end Therefore he that hath made Love the Great Command doth tell us that LOVE is the Great conception of his own Essence the spring of that Command and that this commanded imperfect Love doth tend to perfect heavenly Love even to our communion with Essential Infinite Love It were strange that the Love and Goodness which is equal to the Power that made the World and the Wisdom that ordereth it should be scant and backward to do good and to be suspected more than the Love of Friends The remembrance of the holiness humility love and faithfulness of my dearest Friends of every Rank with whom I have conversed on Earth in every place where I have lived is so sweet to me that I am oft ready to recreate my self with the naming of such as are now with Christ But in Heaven they will love me better than they did on Earth and my love to them will be more pleasant But all these Sparks are little to the Sun Every place that I have lived in was a place of Divine Love which there set up its obliging Monuments Every Year and Hour of my life hath been a time of Love Every Friend and every Neigbour yea every Enemy have been the Messengers and Instruments of Love Every state and change of my life notwithstanding my sin hath opened to me Treasures and Mysteries of Love And after such a life of Love shall I doubt whether the same God do love me Is he the God of the Mountains and not of the Valleys Did he love me in my youth and health And doth he not love me in my Age and Pain and Sickness Did he love all the Faithful better in their life than at their Death If our hope be not chiefly in this life neither is our state of Love which is principally the heavenly endless Grace My groans grieve my Friends but abate not their love Did he love me for my strength my weakness might be my fear as they that love for Beauty loath them that are deformed and they that love for Riches despise the Poor But God loved me when I was his Enemy to make me a Friend and when I was bad to make me better What ever he taketh pleasure in is his own gift Who made me to differ And what have I that I have not received And God will finish the Work the Building the Warfare that is his own O the multitude of Mercies to my Soul and Body in Peace and War in Youth and Age to my self and friends the many great and gracious deliverances which have testified to me the Love of God! Have I lived in the experience of it and shall I die in the doubts of it Had it been Love only to my Body it would have died with me and not have accompanied my departing Soul I am not much in doubt of the truth of my Love to him Though I have not seen him save as in a Glass as in a Glass seen I love him I love my Brethren whom I have seen and those most that are most in Love with him I love his Word and Works and Ways and fain I would be nearer him and love him more and I loath my self for loving him no better And shall Peter say more confidently Thou knowest that I love thee than I know that thou lovest me Yes he may because though God's Love is greater and stedfaster than ours yet our knowledge of his great love is less than his knowledge of our little love and as we are defective in our own Love so are we in our certainty of its sincerity And without the knowledge of our Love to God we can never be sure of his special love to us But yet I am not utterly a stranger to my self I know for what I have lived and laboured in the World And who it is that I have desired to please The God whose I am and whom I serve hath loved me in my youth and he will love me in my aged weakness My Flesh and my Heart fail my pains seem grievous to the Flesh But it is LOVE that chooseth them that useth them for my good that moderateth them and will shortly end them Why then should I doubt of my Fathers Love Shall pain or dying make me doubt Did God love none from the beginning of the World but Henoch and Elias And what am I better than my fore-Fathers What is in me that I should expect exemption from the common lot of all Mankind Is not a competent time of great Mercy on Earth in order to the unseen felicity all that the best of men can hope for O for a clearer stronger Faith to shew me the World that more excelleth this than this excelleth the Womb where I was conceived Then should I not fear my third Birth day what pangs soever go before it nor be unwilling of my change The Grave indeed is a Bed that Nature doth abhor Yet there the weary be at rest But Souls new born have a double Nature that is Immortal and go to the place that is agreeable to their Nature even to the Region of Spirits and the Region of Holy Love Even passive Matter that hath no other Natural motion hath a Natural Inclination to uniting aggregative motion And God maketh all Natures suitable to their proper ends and use How can it be that a Spirit should not incline to be with Spirits And Souls that have the Divine Nature in holy Love desire to be with the God of Love Arts and Sciences and Tongues become not
blessed to be under the Love of Christ p. 881. Excitations Desires p. 182. 3. Communion with Angels and Saints by reception p. 188 More of the good of Vnion and Communion as distinct from singular Propriety p. 190. 5. The constitutive Reasons from our heavenly Practice p. 195. Better works for us there than here proved What they are in general What particularly I. Concordant praising God Excitations and Petitions p. 169. II. The blessed probably used for the good of men and things below p. 198. Their Opinion rejected that assert the cessation of sense proof Objection from Bruits answered The concluding Application p. 202. A Breviate of the helps of Faith Hope and Love for a dying Man I. The Gospel Evidence on 1 Tim. 3. 16. p. 260. II. A Breviate of the proof of supernatural Revelation and the Truth of Christianity p. 262. III. The difference between the World which I am leaving and the World which I am going to With Reasons of my comfortable hope p. 283. IV. More Reasons and Helps of my Faith and Hope p. 289. V. A discourse of the sensible manifestation of the Kingdom of Christ at his Transfiguration which is expounded and applied for the help of Faith and Patience p. 300. VI. Short Meditations on Rom. 5. 1 2 3 4 5. Of the shedding abroad of God's Love on the Heart that we may rejoice in hope of the Glory of God p. 360. THe exercise of Three sorts of LOVE to God to Others and to my Self afford me a Threefold satisfaction conjunct to be vvilling to depart I. I am sure my departure vvill be the fulfilling of that Will vvhich is Love it self vvhich I am bouâ—d above all things to Love and Please and vvhâ—â—â— is the beginning rule Antonineâ—ould â—ould hence fetch good Thoughts of Death II. The World dieth not vvith me vvhen I die nor the Church nor the Praise and Glory of God vvhich he vvill have in and from this World unto the end And if I love others as my self their Lives and Comforts vvill novv be to my Thoughts as if I vvere to live my self in them God vvill be praised and honoured by Posterity vvhen I am dead and gone Were I to be annihilated this vvould comfort me novv if I lived and died in perfect Love III. But a better and glorious World is before me into vvhich I hope by Death to be translated vvhither all these Three sorts of Love should rap up the desires of my ascending Soul even the Love of my self that I may be fully happy the Love of the triumphant Church Christ Angels and glorified Man and the Glory of all the Universe vvhich I shall see and above all the Love of the most Glorious God Infinite Life and Light and Love the ultimate Amiable Object of Man's Love in vvhom to beperfectly pleased and delighted and to vvhom to be perfectly pleasing for ever is the chief and ultimate end of me and of the highest vvisest and best of Creatures Amen THE INTRODUCTION PHIL. 1. 23. For I am in a streight between two c. I Write for my self and therefore supposing the sense of the Text shall only observe what is useful to my Heart and Practice It was a happy state into which Grace had brought this Apostle who saw so much not only tolerable but greatly desirable both in living and dying To live to him was Christ that is Christ's interest or work To die would be gain that is His own interest and reward His streight was not whether it would be good to live or good to depart Both were good But which was more desirable was the doubt I. Quest But was there any doubt to be made between Christ's interest and his own Ans No if it had been a full and fixed competition But by Christ or Christ's interest he meaneth his work for his Churches interest in this World But he knew that Christ also had an interest in his Saints above and that he could raise up more to serve him here Yet because he was to judge by what appeared and he saw a defect of such on Earth this did turn the Scales in his Choice and for the work of of Christ and his Churches good he more inclined to the delay of his reward by self-denial Yet knowing that the delay would tend to its increase It 's useful to me here to note That even in this World short of Death there is some good so much to be regarded as may justly prevail with Believers to prefer it before the present hastning of their reward I the rather note this that no temptation carry me into that extream of taking nothing but Heaven to be worthy of our minding or regard and so to cast off the World in a sinful sort on pretence of mortification and a heavenly mind and life I. As to the sense the meaning is not that any thing on Earth is better than Heaven or simply and in itself to be preferred before it The end is better than the means as such And perfection better than imperfection But the present use of the means may be preferred somtimes before the present possession of the end And the use of means for a higher end may be preferred before the present possession of a lower end And every thing hath its season Planting and Sowing and Building are not so good as Reaping and Fruit gathering and Dwelling But in their season they must be first done II. Quest But what is there so desirable in this Life Ans 1. While it continueth it is the fulfilling of the will of God who will have us here And that 's best which God willeth II. The life to come dependeth upon this As the life of Man in the World upon his Generation in the Womb Or as the reward upon the work or the Runners or Souldiers Prize upon his Race or Fighting Or as the Merchants gain upon his Voyage Heaven is won or lost on Earth The possession is there but the preparation is here Christ will judge all men according to their works on Earth Well done good and faithful Servant must go before Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord I have fought a good Fight I have finished my Course goeth before the Crown of Righteousness which God the righteous Judge will give All that ever must be done for Salvation by us must here be donc It waron Earth that Christ himself wrought the work of 〈◊〉 Redemption fulfilled all Righteousness became our Ransom And paid the Price of our Salvation And it 's here that our part is to be done And the bestowing of the reward of God's work who we are sure will never fail There is no place for the least suspicion or fear of his misdoing or failing in any of his undertaken work But the danger and fear is of our own miscarrying lest we be not found capable of receiving what God will certainly give to all that are disposed Receivers To distrust God is heinous sin and
them that have been piously inclined from their Childhood it is harder to discern the difference unless they mark the Case of others If Man be worth any thing it is for the use that his Faculties were made And if he be not good for the Knowledg Love and Service of his Creator what is he good for And certainly the generality of ungodly Worldlings are undisposed to all such works as this till the Spirit of Christ effectually change them Men are Slaves to sin till Christ thus make them free Joh. 8. 32 33 36. Rom. 6. 18. Act. 26. 18. Rom. 8. 2. But where the Spirit of the Lord is there is Liberty 2 Cor. 3. 17. If the Divine Nature and Image and the Love of God shed abroad on the Heart be not our Excellency Health and Beauty what is And that which is Born of the Flesh is Flesh but that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit Joh. 3. 6. Without Christ and his Spirit we can do nothing Our dead Notions and Reason when we see the Truth have not power to overcome Temptations nor to raise up Man's Soul to its Original and End nor to possess us with the love and joyful hopes of future Blessedness It were better for us to have no Souls than that those Souls should be void of the Spirit of God § 4. 2. And that HEAVEN is the Sum and End of all the Spirits Operations appeareth in all that â—â—e truly Conscious of them in themselves and to them and others by all God's Precepts which the Spirit causeth us to obey and the Doctrine which it causeth us to believe and by the description of all God's graces which he worketh in us What is our Knowledge and Faith but our knowledge and belief of Heaven as consisting in the Glory and Love of God there manifested and as purchased by Christ and given by his Covenant What is our Hope but the Hope of Glory See Heb. 11. 1. and throughout 1 Pet. 1. 3. 21. Heb. 6 11 18 19. 3. 6 Tit. 2 13. 3. 7. Col. 1. 5 23 27. And through the Spirit we wait for all this Hope Gal. 5. 5. What is our Love but a desire of Communion with the blessed God initially here and perfectly hereafter As the Sum of Christ's Gospel was Take up the Cross forsake all here and follow me and thou shalt have a Reward in Heaven Luke 14. 26 33. 18. 22 23. and the Consolation of his Gospel is Rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in Heaven Matt. 5. 11 12. So the same is the Sum of his Spirits Operations For what he teacheth and commandeth that he worketh For he worketh by that Word and the impress must be like the Signet what arm soever set it on He sendeth not his Spirit to make men craftier than others for this World but to make them wiser for Salvation and to make them more Heavenly and Holy For the Children of this World are wiser in their Generation than the Children of Light Heavenliness is the Spirits special work § 5. 3. And in working this it conquereth the inward undisposedness and aversness of a fleshly worldly mind and will and the customs of a Carnal life and the outward Temptations of Satan and all the allurements of the World Christ first overcame the World and teacheth and causeth us to overcome it even its flatteries and its frowns Our Faith is our Vâ—ctory Whether this Victory be easie and any honour to the Spirit of Christ let our experience of the wickedness of the ungodly World and of our own weakness and of our falls when the Spirit of God forsaketh us be our informer § 6. 4. And that None but God can do this work on the Soul of Man both the knowledge of Causes and Experience prove The most learned wise and holy Teachers cannot as they confess and shew The wisest and most loving Parents cannot and therefore must pray to him that can The greatest Princes cannot Evil Angels neither can nor will What Good Angels can do on the Heart we know not but we know that they do nothing but as the obedient Ministers of God And though we have some power on our selves yet that we our selves cannot do it that we cannot Quicken Illuminate or Sanctifie our selves and that we have nothing but what we have received Conscience and Experience fully tell us § 7. 5. And that Christ promised this Spirit in a special measure to all true Believers that it should be in them his Advocate Agent Seal and Mark is yet visible in the Gospel yea and in the former Prophets Isa 44. 34. Ezek. 36. 26. 37. 14. Joel 2. 28 29. Ezek. 11. 19. 18. 31. Eph. 1. 13. Joh. 3. 5. 4. 23 24. 6. 63. 7. 39. Joh. 1. 33. 14. 16 26. Act. 1. 5 8. Joh. 15. 26. 16. 7 8 9 c. Indeed the Spirit here and Heaven hereafter are the chief of all the Promises of Christ § 8. 6. And that this Spirit is given not to Hypocrites that abuse Christ and do not seriously believe him nor to meer pretending nominal Christians but to all that sincerely believe the Gospel is evident not only to themselves in certainty if they are in a condition to know themselves but to others in part by the effects They have other Ends other affections other lives than the rest of Mankind have Though their heavenly Nature and Design be the less discerned and honoured in the World because their chiefest difference is out of the sight of Man in the Heart and in their secret actions and because their imperfections blemish them and because the Malignant World is by Strangeness and Enmity an incompetent judge yet it is discernable to others that they live upon the hopes of a better life and their heavenly Interest is it that over-ruleth all the adverse Interests of this World and that in order thereunto they live under the conduct of Divine Authority and that God's will is highest and most prevalent with them and that to obey and please him so far as they know it is the greatest business of their lives though ignorance and adverse Flesh do make their Holiness and Obedience imperfect The universal noise and opposition of the World against them doth shew that men discern a very great difference which Error and cross Interests and Carnal inclinations render displeasing to those who find themselves condemned by their heavenly Designs and Conversations § 9. But whether others discern it or deny it or detest it the true Believer is conscious of it in himself Even when he groaneth to be better to believe and trust and love God more and to have more of the heavenly life and comforts those very desires signifie another Appetite and Mind than Worldlings have and even when his frailties and weaknesses make him doubt of his own sincerity he would not change his Governour Rule or Hopes for all that the World can
the Love of ancient Friends and Hearers I must say What mean you to weep and break my Heart I am ready to leave the dearest Friends on Earth and life and all the pleasures of life for the presence of far better Friends with Christ and the sweeter pleasures of a better life That little amiableness which is in things below is in godly men as life in the Heart which dieth last When that 's all gone when we are dead to the Love of the godly themselves and to Learning Books and mediate Ordinances so far as they serve a selfish interest and tempt down our Hearts from heavenly aspirings the World then is Crucified to us indeed and we to it I rejoice to tread in the Footsteps of my Lord who had some indeed weeping about his cross but was forsaken by all his Disciples while in the Hour of Temptation they all fled But my desertion is far less for it is less that I am fit to bear If God will justifie who shall condemn If he be for me who shall be against me O may I not be put to that dreadfull case to cry out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me And may nothing separate me from his Love And then were I forsaken of the sober and peaceable as I am in part of some quarrelsom Dividers how tolerable a tryal would it be Man is as dust in the Ballance that addeth little to it and signifieth nothing when God is in the other end But I suspect still that I make too much account of Man when this case hath taken up too much of my observation 1. And of all things surely a departing Soul hath least cause to fear the losing of its notice of the Affairs of the World Of Peace or Wars or Church or Kingdoms For 1. If the Sun can send forth its material Beams and operate by motion light and heat at such a distance as this Earth why should I think that blessed Spirits are such local confined and impotent substances as not to have notice of the things of Earth Had I but bodily Eyes I could see more from the top of a Tower or Hill than any one that is below can do And shall I know less of Earth from Heaven than I do now It 's unlike that my Capacity will be so little And if it were it is unlike that Christs and all the Angels will be so strange to me as to give me no notice of things that so much concern my God and my Redeemer to whom I am united and the Holy Society of which I am a part and my self as a Member of Christ and that Society I do not think that the Communion of the Celestial Inhabitants is so narrow and slow as it is of walking Clods of Earth and of Souls that are confined to such dark Lanthorns as this Body is Stars can shine one to another And we on Earth can see them so far off in their Heaven And sure then if they have a seeing faculty each of them can see many of us even the Kingdoms of the World Spirits are most active and of powerful and quick communication They need not send Letters or write Books to one another nor lift up a voice to make each other hear Nor is there any unkindness division or unsociable selfishness among them which may cause them to conceal their notices or their joys But as Activity so Unity is Greatest where there is most Perfection They will so be Many as yet to be One and their Knowledge will be One Knowledge and their Love One Love and their Joy One Joy Not by so perfect a Unity as in God himself who is One and but One but such as is suitable to created imperfection which participate of the Perfection of the Creator as the Effect doth of the virtue of the Cause and therefore hath some participation of his Unity O foolish Soul if I shall fear this Unity with God Christ and all the Holy Spirits lest I should lose my present separate Individuation when Perfection and Union are so near akin In a word I have no cause to think that my Celestial advancement will be a diminution of any desirable Knowledge even of things on Earth but contrarily that it will be unconceivably increased 2. But if indeed I shall know less of things below it will be because that the knowledge of them is a part of Vanity and Vexation which hath no place in Heaven So much knowledge of good and evil in lower matters as came to us by sin is unworthy of our fond tenaciousness and fear of losing it Surely the sad tidings which we have Weekly in our News Books our lamentable notices of Heathen and Infidel Kingdoms of the overspreading prevalency of Barbarousness Idolatry Ignorance and Infidelity of the rage and success of cruel Tyrants of the bloody Wars of proud unquiet worldly men of the misery of the oppressed desolate Countreys the dissipated Churches the persecuted innocent Christians are no such pleasing things as that we should be afraid to hear of such no more To know or hear of the poor in Famine the rich in Folly the Church distracted the Kingdom discontented the godly scandalous by the effects of their Errours imperfections and divisions the wicked outrageous and waxing worse the falseness or miscarriages or sufferings of Friends the fury or success of Enemies is this an intelligence which I cannot spare What is the daily tidings that I hear but of bloody Wars the undone Countreys the persecuted Churches the silenced banished or imprisoned Preachers of the best removed in judgment from an unworthy World by Death and worse succeeding in their rooms of the renewed designs and endeavours of the Churches Enemies the implacable rage of the worldly and unquiet Clergy and the new divisions of self-conceited Sectaries and the obloquy and backbitings of each Party against the other How oft hear I the sad tidings of this Friends sickness or Death and that Friends discontent and of anothers fall and of many very many's Sufferings My Ears are daily filled with the cryes of the poor whom I cannot relieve with the endless complaints of fearful Melancholy despairing Persons with the wranglings of the ignorant and proud Professors and contentious Divines who censure most boldly where they are most Erroneous or dark Or with the troublesom discontents of those that I converse with And should I be afraid of the ending of so sad a Tragedy or of awaking out of such an unpleasant dream Have I not many times thought of the Priviledge of the deaf that hear not these troublesom and provoking things and of the Blind that see not the Vanities and Temptations of this World It is one part of the benefit of solitude or a private life and habitation to free me from many of these unpleasing Objects and a great part of the benefit of sleep that with my Cloaths I may lay by these troubleous Thoughts § 11. But other men
secrets of the Almighty nor to pretend to know more of God than indeed I know but O that I might know more of his glorious Perfections of his Will and Love and Ways with that knowledge which is Eternal Life Blessed be that Love that sent the Son of God from Heaven to reveal him to us in the Gospel as he hath done But all that hear the same Words and Believe them have not the same degree of Light or Faith If an Angel from Heaven came down on Earth to tell us all of God that we would know and might lawfully desire and ask him who would not turn his Back on Libraries and Universities and the Learned men to go and discourse with such a Messenger What travel should I think too far What cost too great for one Hours talk with such a Messenger But we must have here but such intimations as will exercise Faith and excite desire and try us under the Temptations of the World and Flesh The glorious Light is the reward of the Victory obtained by the conduct of the Light of Grace God in great Mercy even here beginneth the reward They that are true to the initial Light and faithfully follow on to know the Lord do find usually such increase of Light not of vain Notions but of quickning and comforting knowledge of God as greatly encourageth them and draweth them still on to seek for more It is very pleasant here to increase in holy Knowledge though it usually bring an increase of malignant opposition and so of sorrows to the Flesh The pleasure that the mind hath in common knowledge brings men through a great deal of labour to attain it How many Years travel over Land and Sea do some men take to see and know more of this lower World Though it 's little that they bring home but more acquaintance with Sin and Vanity and Vexation How many more Years do Thousands spend in the reading of multitudes of tedious Volumes that they may know what others knew before them Printers and Booksellors live by our desire of Knowledge What Soul then on Earth can possibly conceive how great a pleasure it will be for a glorified Soul to see the Lord Though I cannot now conceive what that intuition of God himself will be and whether it will not be a glorious kind of concluding or abstractive knolwedge whether the Glory which we shall see be only a created appearance of God or be his very Essence it satisfieth me that it will be as perfect a knowledge as is fit for me to desire and I shall then desire no more than is fit And what it is I shall then know by itself for it is not otherwise to be clearly known And all the pleasure that I shall have in Heaven in knowing any of the works of God will be in my beholding God himself his Being his Vital power and action his Wisdom and his Love and Goodness in those works For he is the Life and Glory of them all Blessed are the pure in Heart for they shall see God II. And doubtless it will be no small part of my delight to see and know God's perfect works I mean the Universe itself I cannot say that I shall have so large a Capacity as to comprehend all the World or know it perfectly and with an adequate knowledge But I shall know it in such Perfection as is suitable to my capacity It is exceeding pleasant to know the least Particles of the works of God With what diligence and delight have men endeavoured to Anatomize a Body yea a small part of a Carkass and to know and describe poor Worms and Insects Plants and Minerals And no Man ever yet perfectly knew the least of them all no Herbalist or Physician ever yet knew the Nature and uses of any one Herb with an adequate knowledge With what delight and diligence are Physical searches carryed on in the World though still we are all but groaping in the dark and ignorant of many things for one that we know and therefore know no one perfectly because we are ignorant of rest But if indeed we were above our dreaming erroneous Hypotheses and saw the Nature of every Creature even in Sea and Land this little Spot of God's Creation and the compages of all Oh what a delightful Spectacle would it be How much more to see the whole Creation yea or one Vortex or Systeme of the Globes and to know their union and communion and to behold their beauteous Symmetry and hear them in concord and melodious Harmony praising the the Glory of their Great Wise Amiable Creator this were a delectable sight indeed I shall have as much of this as I shall be capable of And the wonders and glory of the Works of God shall wrap up my Soul in admiring joyful praise for ever And though here it be but little of God's Works that we know I have great reason to think that it will be far otherwise there 1. Because the state of Perfection must far excel our dark and infant state of imperfection We have now desires after such a knowledge His Works are great sought out of them that have pleasure therein And these desires being of God shall not be frustrate 2. Because there will be a proportionableness of the parts of our Perfection and therefore as our Love to God and his works will be there perfected so will be our knowledge 3. Because we shall know God himself as much as we are capable and therefore we shall know his works in him or by a subordinate knowledge the less being in the greater 4. Because God hath made his works to be known to his glory But it is little that is here known of them by Mortals therefore they are known by them in Heaven who are fitted to improve that knowledge to his praise If Christ who is the wisdom of God will teach me the true Philosophy how to love God and live here in all well pleasing unto him I shall quickly in Heaven be a perfect Philosopher and experience will tell me that the surest way to be truly Learned and know the wonderful works of God was to know love and serve the Great Creator and in Him we shall have all and without him we know nothing and have nothing at all Satan tempted Christ by shewing him the Kingdoms and glory of the World and promising them all to him if he would have worshipped him But God will shew me more than Satan could shew and give me more of that which is best than Satan could give III. And that in Heaven I shall better know Jesus Christ and all the Mystery of our Redemption by him will not be the least of my felicity For in him are hid all the Treasures of Wisdom And to know the Mystery of his Eternal Godhead in the second Person and his created Nature and the Union of these and to see God's wonderful design and work of grace in him laid open
entrance of the Inheritance of Saints And yet alas Darkness Darkness is still my misery There is Light round about me in thy word and works but darkness is within me And if my Eye be dark the Sun will be no Sun to me Alas my Lord it is noâ— all the Learning in the World no not of Theology that consisteth in the knowledge of Words and Methods which I can take for the satisfactory heavenly Light To know what thou hast written in the Sacred Book is nor enough to make me know my glorified Saviour my Father and my home It must be a Light from Heaven that must shew me Heaven and a Light accompanied with Vital heat that must turn to Love and Joy within me O Let me not have only dreaming knowledge of Words and Signs but quickning Light to shew the Things which these words do signifie to my Mâ—nd and Heart Surely the Faith By which we must live must be a lâ—ving Faith And must reach further than to Words how true soever Can Faith live in the Dark What is it but an effect of thine Illumination What is my Unbelief but the Darkness of my Soul Lord Iesus scatter all these mists Make thy way O thou Son of Righteousness into this benighred mind O send thine Advocate to silence every temptation that is against thy truth and thee and thine Agent to prosecute thy cause against thine Enemies and mine and to be the resident Witness of thy Verity and my Sonship and Salvation Hearing of thee is not satisfactory to me It must be the Presence and Operation of thy Light and Love shed abroad by thy Spirit on my Heart that must quiet and content my Soul I confess with shame that I have sinned against Heaven and before thee and am unworthy to have any glimpse or taste of Heaven But so did many that are now entertained and feasted by thy Love in Glory My Lord I know that Heaven is not far from me It is not I believe one Days or Hours journey to a separated Soul How quick is the communion of my Eyes with the Sun that seems far off And couldst thou not shew it me in a moment Is not Faith a seeing Grace It can see the invisible God and the unseen World the new Jerusalem the innumerable Angels and the Spirits of the perfected Just if it be animated by thine influx Without which it can do nothing and is nothing Thou that oft healedst the Blind here in the Flesh didst tell us that it is much more thy work to illuminate Souls It is but forgiving all my sins and removing this film that sin hath gathered and my illuminated Soul will see thy Glory I know that the vail of Flesh must be also rent before I shall see thee with open Face and know my fellow Citizens above as I am known It is not Heaven on Earth that I am begging for But that I may see it from Mount Nebo and have the bunch of Grapes the Pledge and the first Fruits that Faith and Hope which may kindle Love and Desire and make me run my Race in Patience and live and die in the Joy which beseemeth an Heir of Heaven But if my part on Earth must be no greater than yet it is let it make me the wearier of this Dungeon and groan more fervently to be with thee and long for the day when all my longing shall be satisfied and my Soul be filled with thy light and love § 24. And doubtless as I shall love the Angels and Saints in Heaven so I shall some way in subordination to Christ be a Receiver from them Our love will be mutual And which way soever I owe duty I shall expect some answerable return of benefit The Sun shineth upon the Stars as well as on the Earth and the Stars on one another If Angels are greatly useful to me here it 's like they will be much more there where I shall be a more capable receiver It will be no diminution to Christ's honour that he there maketh use of my fellow Creatures to my joy no more than it is here The whole Creation will be still one compaginated frame and the heavenly Society will for ever retain their Relation to each other and their aptitude and disposition to the duties and benefits of those Relations And as we shall be far sitter for them than here we are so shall we have far more comfort in them How gloriously will God shine in the glory of the Blessed How delightful will it be to see their Perfection in Wisdom Holiness Love and Concord What Voices they use or what Communication instead of Voices we shall shortly know But surely there is a blessed harmony of Minds and Wills and Practice All are not equal but all accord to love and praise their glorious God and readily to obey him and perfectly to love each other There is no jarring or discordant Spirit that is out of tune no separation or opposition to each other As God's love in Christ is our full and final happiness so Nature which hath made us sociable teacheth us to desire to be loved of each other but especially by wise and worthy Persons Saints and Angels in Heaven will love incomparably better than our dearest Friends on Earth can do and better than they did themselves when we were on Earth For they will love that best which is best and where there is most of God appearing Else it were not intellectual love And therefore they will love us as much better when we come to Heaven as we shall be better If we go from loving friends on Earth we shall go to them that love us far more The love of these here doth but pitty us in our pains and go weeping with our Carkasses to the Grave But the love of those above will joyfully convoy or welcome out Souls to their triumphing Society All the holy Friends that we thought we had lost that went before us we shall find rejoicing there with Christ And O what a glorious state will be that common uniting and united love If two or three Candles joined together make a greater flame and light what would Ten thousand Stars united do When all the LOVE of Angels and Saints in full Perfection shall be so united as to make ONE LOVE to God that is One and to one another who are there all one in Christ O what a glorious LOVE will that be That LOVE and JOY will be the same thing And that One universal LOVE will be One universal JOY Little know we how great a Mercy it is to be here commanded to love our Neighbours as our selves and much more to be effectually taught of God so to love one another And did we all here live in such unfeigned Love we should be like to Heaven as bearing the Image of the God of Love But alas our Societies here are small our Goodness which is our Amiableness wofully imperfect and mixt with loathsom
sin and discord But there a whole Heaven fulâ— of blessed Spirits will flame for ever in perfect Love to God to Christ and one another Go then go willingly O my Soul Love joineth with LIGHT to draw up thy desires Nature inclineth all things unto Union Even the lifeless Elements have an Aggregative motion by which the parts when violently separated do hastily return to their Natural adhesion Art thou a Lover of Wisdom and wouldst thou not be united to the Wise Art thou a Lover of Holiness and of Love itself and wouldst thou not be united to the Holy who are made of Love Art thou a hater of enmity discord and divisions and a Lover of Unity here on Earth and wouldst thou not be where all the just are One It is not an unnatural Union to thy loss Nothing shall be taken from thee by it Thou shalt receive by it more than thou canst contribute It shall not be forced against thy will It is but a Union of Minds and Wills a perfect Union of Loves Let not natural or sinful selfishness cause thee to think suspiciously or hardly of it For it is thy happiness and end What got the Angels that fell to selfishness from Unity And what got Adam that followed them herein The further any man goeth from UNITY by SELFISHNESS the deeper he falleth into sin and misery from God! And what doth Grace but call us back from sin and selfishness to Gods Unity again Doâ—e not then on this dark divided World Is not thy Body while the parts by a uniting Soul are kept together and make One in a better state than when it is crumbled into lifeless dust And doth not death creep on thee by a gradual dissolution Away then from this sandy incoherent state The further from the Center the further from Unity A Unity indeed there is of all things but it is One heavenly LIFE and LIGHT and LOVE which is the true felicitating Union We dispute here whether the Aggregative Motion of separated parts as in descensu gravium be from a Motive Principle in the part or by the Attraction of the whole or by any external impulse It is like that there is somewhat of all these But sure the greatest cause is like to do most to the effect The body of the Earth hath more power to attract a Cload or Stone than the intrinsick Principle to move it downwards But intrinsick Gravity is also necessary The superior attractive Love and Loveliness must do more to draw up this mind to God than my intrinsick Holiness to move it upward But without this Holiness the Soul would not be capable of feeling that attractive influx Every Grace cometh from God to fit and lead up my Soul to God Faith therefore believeth the heavenly state and Love doth with some Delight desire it and Hope gapeth after it that I may at last attain it They that have pleaâ—ed against Propriety and would have all things common in this World have forgotten that there is a Propriety in our present Egoity and Natural Constitution which rendereth some accidental Propriety necessary to us Every Man hath his own bodily parts and inherent accidents and every Man must have his own Food his own Place Cloathing and Acquisitions his own Children and therefore his own Wife c. But that the greatest Perfection is most for Community as far as Nature is capable of it God would shew us in making the first Receivers of the extraordinary pourings out of his Spirit to sell all and voluntarily make all common none saying This or that is my own which was not done by any constraining Law but by the Law or Power of uniting Love They were first all as of one Heart and Soul Act. 4. 32. Take not then thy inordinate desire of Propriety for thy Health but for thy Sickness Cherish it not and be not afraid to lose it and measure not the heavenly felicity by it Spirits are penetrable They claim not so much as a Propriety of place as Bodies do It is thy weakness and state of Imperfection now which maketh it so desirable to thee that thy House should be Thine and nones but thine thy Land be Thine and nones but Thine thy Cloaths thy Books yea thy knowledge and grace be Thine and Nones but Thine How much more excellent a state were it if we were here capable of it if we could say that all these are as the common Light of the Sun which is mine and every ones as well as mine Why are we so desirous to speak all Languages but that we might understand all men and 〈◊〉 understood of all and so might make our sentiments as common as is possible Whence is it that men are so addicted to talkativeness but that Nature would make all our Thoughts and passions as common aâ— it can And why else are Learned men so desirous to propagate their Learning and Godly men so desirous to make all others wise and godly It seemeth one of the greatest calamities of this life that when a Man hath with the longest and hardest study attained to much knowledge he cannot bequeath it or any part of it to his Heir or any Person when he dieth but every Man must acquire it for himself And when God hath sanctified the Parents they cannot communicate their Holiness to their Children though God promise to bless them on their account Much less can any Man make his Grace or Knowledge common Nature and Grace incline us to desire it but we cannot do it For this end we Talk and Preach and Write for this end we study to be as plain and convincing and moving as we can that we may make our Knowledge and Affections as common to our Hearers and Readers as we can And O what a blessed work should we take Preaching and Writing for if we could make them all know but what we know and love what we are persuading them to love There would then be no need of Schools and Universities A few Hours would do more than they do in an Age. But alas how rare is it for a Father of excellent Learning and Piety to have one Son like himself after all his industry Is not the heavenly communion then desirable where every Man shall have his Own and yet his Own be common to all others My knowledge shall be mine own and other mens as well as mine My goodness shall be my own and theirs My glory and felicity shall be mine and theirs And theirs also shall be mine as well as theirs The Knowledge the Goodness the Glory of all the heavenly Society shall be Mine according to my Capacity Grace is the Seed of such a state which maketh us all one in Christ neither Barbarian nor Scythian Circumcision nor Uncircumcision Bond nor Free by giving us to love our Neighbours as our selves and to love both our Neighbours and our selves for Christ and Christ in all Well might Paul say All things yours But it
is here but as in the Seed the perfect union and communion is hereafter Earth and Heaven must be distinguished We must not extend our hopes or pretensions here beyond the Capacity of our Natures As perfect Holiness and Knowledge so perfect Unity and Concord is proper to Heaven and is not here to be expected The Papal pretensions of an impossible Union in one Governour of all the Earth is the means to hinder that Union which is possible But the state of Perfection is the state of perfect union communion Hasten then upwards O my Soul with the ferventest desires and breath after that state with the strongest Hopes where thou shalt not be rich and see thy Neighbours poor about thee nor be poor while they are rich nor be well while they are sick or sick while they are well But their Riches their Health their Joy will be all thine and thine will be all theirs as the common Light and none will have the less for the participation of the rest Yea Communion will be part of every ones felicity It constitueth the very being of the City of God This Celestial Communion of Saints in one holy Church above what is here to be attained is now an Article of our Belief But believing will soon end in seeing and enjoying V. The Constitutive Reasons from the heavenly Life or Practice § 1. Seeing and Loving will be the heavenly Life But yet it seemeth that besides these there will be EXECUTIVE Powers and therefore some answerable PRACTICE There are GOOD WORKS in Heaven and far more and better than on Earth For 1. There will be more Vital Activity and therefore more exercise of it For the Power is for Action 2. There will be more Love to God and one another And Love is active 3. There will be more likeness to God and our Redeemer who is communicative and doth good as he is good 4. Our Union with Christ who will be everlastingly beneficent as well as benevolent will make us in our places also beneficent 5. Our Communion in the City of God will prove that we shall all bear our part as the Members of the Body in contributing to the welfare of the whole and in the common returns to God § 2. But What are the heavenly Works we must perfectly know when we come thither In general we know 1. That they will be the works of love to God and to his Creatures that is such as Love inclineth us to exercise 2. And they will be works of Obedience to God that is such as we shall do to please his will and because he willeth them to be our duty 3. They will be useful works to others 4. They will be pleasant to our selves and part of our felicity 5. And they will carry all to God our End § 3. And somwhat of them is particularly described in the holy Scriptures As 1. We shall in Concord with the whole Society or Chore give Thanks and Praise to God and our Redeemer Rev. 19. 5. 1 Pet. 4. 11. Rev. 7. 4. 4. 7 11. 5. 13. 7. 12. 19. 1. Phil. 4 20. Whether there be any Voice or only such Spiritual activity and exultation as to Man in Flesh is not to be clearly understood is not fit for us here to presume to determine It will be somwhat more high and excellent than our vocal Praise and Singing is and of which this beareth some analogical resemblance or signification As all Passions earnestly desire vent and exercise so specially do our holy affections of Love Joy and Admiration of God Almighty And there is in us a desire of communion with many in such affections and expressions Methinks when we are singing or speaking God's praise in the great Assemblies with joyful and fervent Souls I have the liveliest foretast of Heaven on Earth And I could almost wish that our Voices were loud enough to reach through all the World and unto Heaven itself Nor could I ever be offended as many are at the Organs and other convenient Musick soberly and seasonably used which excite and help to tune my Soul in so holy a work in which no true assistance is to be despised No work more comforteth me in my greatest sufferings none seemeth more congruous and pleasant to me while I wait for Death than Psalms and words of Praise to God nor is there any exercise in which I had rather end my life And should I not then willingly go to the heavenly Chore where God is praised with perfect Love and Joy and harmony Had I more of a Praising frame of Soul it would make me long more for that Life of Praise For I never find my self more willing to be there than when I most joyfully speak or sing God's praise Though the Dead praise not God in the grave and dust doth not give him thanks yet living Souls in Heaven do it joyfully while their fleshly cloathing turns to dust Lord â—une my Soul to thy Praises now that sweet experience may make me long to be where I shall do it better I see where any excellent Musick is Nature maketh men flock to it and they that are but Hearers yet join by a concurrent phantasie and delight Surely if I had once heard the heavenly Chore I should Eccho to their holy Songs though I could not imitaâ— them and I should think it the truest Blessedness to be there and bear my part My God the voice of thy comforting Spirit speaking thy Love effectually to my Soul would make such holy Musick in me that would incline me to the Celestial consort and without it all these thoughts and words will be in vain It is the inward Mâ—lody of thy Spirit and my Conscience that must tune me to desire the hâ—avenly Melody O speak thy love first to my Heart and then I shall joyfully speak it to my Brethren and shall ambitiously seek that communion of them that praise thee better than sinful groaning Mortals can And though my sins here make a loathed jar and discord in my Songs I hope my groans for these sins and their effects will make no discord Sighs and Tears have had the honour to be accepted by thee who despisest not a contrite Soul But if thy Spirit will sing and speak within me and help me against the discordant murmurs of my unbelieving Heart and pained Flesh I shall offer thee that which is more suitable to thy Love and Grace I confess Lord that daily Tears and Sighs are not unsuitable to the Eyes and Voice of so great a Sinner who is under thy correcting Roâ— What better could I expect when I grieved thy Spirit than that it should prove my grief Yea this is far better than the genuine effects of sin But this is not it that is meeâ—est to be offered to the God of Love He that offereth Praise doth glorifie thee And is not this the Spiritual Sacrifice acceptable through Christ for which we were made Priests to God
yet Man's internal Sense is far more excellent than the Bruits and thereby is an advantage to our Intellection Volition and Joy here in the Flesh And that in Heaven we shall have not less but more even more excellent Sense and Affections of Love and Joy as well as more excellent Intellection and Volition but such as we cannot now clearly conceive of § 13. Therefore there is great reason for all those Analogical collections which I have mentioned in my Book called The Saints Rest from the present operarations and pleasures of the Soul in Flesh to help our Conceptions of its future pleasures And though we cannot conclude that they will not unconceivably differ in their manner from what we now feel I doubt not but feel and rejoice we shall as certainly as Live and the Soul is Essential Life and that our Life and Feeling and Joy will be unconceivably better The Concluding Application § 1. I am convinced that it is far better to depart and be with Christ than to be here But there is much more than such conviction necessary to bring up my Soul to such desires Still there resisteth 1. The natutural averseness to Death which God hath put into every Animal and which is become inordinate and too strong by sin II. The remnants of Unbelief taking advantage of our darkness here in the Flesh and our too much familiarity with this visible World III. The want of more lively fortasts in a heavenly mind and love through weakness of Grace and the fear of Guilt These stand up against all that is said and words will not overcome them what then must be done Is there no remedy § 2. There is a Special sort of the Teaching of God by which we must learn so to number our Days as to apply our Hearts to Wisdom Without which we shall never effectually practically and savingly learn either this or any the most common and obvious easie Lesson When we have read and heard and spoken and written the soundest Truth and certainest Arguments we know yet as if we knew not and believe as if we believed not with a slight and dreaming kind of apprehension till God by a special Illumination bring the same things clearly to our Minds and awaken the Soul by a special suscitation to feel what we know and suit the Soul to the Truth revealed by an influx of his Love which giveth us a pleasing sense of the Amiableness and Congruity of the things proposed Since we separated our selves from God there is a hedge of separation between our Senses and our Understandings and between our Understandings and our Wills and Affections so that the communion between them is violated and we are divided in our selves by this Schism in our Faculties All men still see the demonstrations of Divine Perfections in the World and every part thereof and yet how little is God known All men may easily know that there is a God who is Almighty Omniscient Goodness itself Eternal Omnipresent the Maker Preserver and Governour of all who should have our whole Trust and Love and Obedience and yet how little of this knowledge is to be perceived in mens Hearts to themselves or in their Lives to others All men know that the World is Vanity that Man must die that Riches then profit not that time is precious and that we have only this little time to prepare for that which we must receive hereafter And yet how little do men seem to know indeed of all such things as no Man doubts of And when God doth come in with his powerful awakening Light and Love then all these things have another appearance of affecting reality than they had before as if but now we began to know them Words Doctrines Persons Things do seem as newly known to us All my best Reasons for our Immortality and future Life are but as the New-formed Body of Adam before God breathed into him the Breath of Life It is he that must make them Living Reasons To the Father of Lights therefore I must still look up and for his Light and Love I must still wait as for his blessing on the Food which I have eaten which must concoct it into my living substance Arguments will be but undigested Food till God's effectual influx do digest them I must learn both as a Student and a Beggar when I have thought and thought a Thousand times I must beg thy Blessing Lord upon my Thoughts or they will all be but dulness or self-distraction If there be no Motion Light and Life here without the Influx of the Sun what can Souls do or receive or feel without thy influx This World will be to us without thy Grace as a Grave or Dungeon where we shall lie in Death and Darkness The eye of my Understanding and all its Thoughts will be useless or vexatious to me without thine illuminating Beams O shine the Soul of thy Servant into a clearer knowledge of thy Self and Kingdom and Love him into more Divine and heavenly love and then he will willingly come to thee § 3. 1. And why should I strive by the fears of Death against the common course of Nature and against my only hopes of Happiness Is it not appointed for all men once to die Would I have God to alter this determinate Course and make sinful Man immortal upon Earth When we are sinless we shall be immortal The love of life was given to teach me to preserve it carefully and use it well and not to torment me with the continual troubling foresight of Death Shall I make my self more miserable than the Vegetatives and Bruits Neither they nor I do grieve that my Flowers must fade and die and that my sweet and pleasant Fruits must fall and the Trees be uncloathed of their beauteous leaves until the Spring Birds and Beasts and Fishes and Worms have all a self-preserving fear of Death which urgeth them to fly from danger But few if any of them have a tormenting fear arising from the fore-thoughts that they must die To the Body death is less troublesom than sleep For in sleep I may have disquieting pains or dreams And yet I fear not going to my bed But of this before If it be the misery after Death that 's feared O what have I now to do but to receive the free reconciling Grace which is offered me from Heaven to save me from such misery and to devote my self totally to him who hath promised that those that come to him he will in no wise cast out § 4 But this cometh by my selfishness Had I studied my duty and then remembred that I am not mine own and that it is God's part and not mine to determine of the duration of my life I had been quiet from these fruitless fears But when I fell to my self from God I am faln to care for my self as if it were my work to measure out my Days and now I trust not God as I should do
Trust and quietly Trust that Infinite Wisdom Love and Power whom I have so long trusted and found so good Nature teacheth Man to love best those Animals that are tame and tractable that trust us and love us that will come to our hands and love our Company that will be familiar with us and follow us be it Horse or Dog Beasts or Birds But those that are wild and live in Woods and fly from the Face of Man are taken to be the Game and Preys of any one that can catch and kill them And shall my foolish Soul thus wildly fly from the Face of God Shall his Children be like the fearful Hare Or like a guilty Cain Or like an unbelieving Sadduce that either believeth not or hopeth not for the forgiveness of sin and the life Everlasting Doth not the Spirit of Adoption incline us to love our Fathers presence and to be loth to be long from home To distrust all Creatures even thy self is not unreasonable but to distrust God hath no just excuse Fly from Sin from Satan from Temptations from the World from sinful Flesh and Idol-self But fly not from him that is Goodness Love and Joy itself Fear thine Enemy but Trust thy Father If thy Heart be reconciled to Him and his Service by the Spirit he is certainly reconciled to thee through Christ And if he be for thee and justifie and love thee who shall be against thee or condemn thee or separate thee from his Love If thy unreconciled will do make thee doubt of his reconciliation it 's time to abhor and lay by thy Enmity Consent and be sure that he consenteth Be willing to be his and in Holiness to serve him and to be united in joyful Glory to him and then be sure that he is willing to accept thee and receive thee to that Glory O dark and sinful Soul how little dost thou know thy Friend thy Self or God if thou canst more easily and quietly trust thy Life thy Soul and Hopes to the will of thy Friend or of thy self if thou hadst power than to the will of God Every Dog would be at home and with his Master much more every ingenuous Child with his Father And tho Enemies distrust us Wife and Children will not do so while they bâ—lieve us just And hath God ever shewed himself either unfaithful or unmerciful to me To thee O Lord as to a faithful Creator I commit my Soul 1 Pet. 4. 19. I know that thou art the faithful God who keepest Covenant and Mercy with them that love thee and keep thy Commandments Deut. 7. 9. Thou art faithful who hast called me to the communion of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord 1 Cor. 1. 9. Thy faithfulness hath saved me in and from temptation 1 Cor. 10. 13. It hath stablished me and kept me from prevailing evil 2 Thess 3. 3. And if will keep my Spirit Soul and Body to the coming of Christ 1 Thess 5. 23 24. It is in faithfulness that thou hast afflicted me Ps 119. 75. and shall not I trust thee then to save me It is thy faithful Word that all thine Elect shall obtain the Salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal Glory and if we be dead with him shall live with him and if we suffer we shall also reign with him 2 Tim. 2. 10 11 12. To thee O my Saviour I commit my Soul it is thine own by Redemption it is thine own by Covenant It is marked and Sealed by thy Spirit as thine own and thou hast promised not to lose it Joh. 6. 39. Thou wast made like us thy Brethren that thou mightest be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God to make reconciliation for our Sins By thy Blood we have boldness to enter into the Holiest even by the new and living consecrated way Cause me to draw near with a sincere Heart in full assurance of Faith by thee that art the High Priest over the House of God For he is faithful that has promised life through thee Heb. 10. 19 20 21 22 23. Thy Name is Faithful and True Rev. 19. 11. and Faithful and True are all thy Promises Rev. 22. 6. 21. 5. Thou hast promised Rest to weary Souls that come to thee Matth. 11. 28. 2 Thess 1. 7. I am weary of suffering and weary of sin weary of my flesh and weary of my darkness and dulness and distance and of this wicked blind unrighteous and confounded World And whither should I look for Rest but home to my heavenly Father and to Thee I am but a bruised Reed but thou wilt not break me I am but a smoaking Flax but thou wilt not quench what thy Grace hath kindled but thou in whose Name the Nations trust wilt bring forth judgment unto Victory Matth. 12. 20 21. The Lord redeemeth the Souls of his Servants and none of them that trust in thee shall be desolate Psa 34. 22. Therefore will I wait on thy Name for it is good and will trust in the Mercy of God for ever Psal 52. 8 9. The Lord is Good a strong-hold in the day of trouble and he knoweth them that trust in him Nah. 1. 7. sinful fear is a snare but he that putteth his trust in the Lord shall be set on high Prov. 29. 25. Blessed is the Man that maketh the Lord his trust and respecteth not the Proud and such as turn aside to lies Psal 40. 4. Thou art my hope O Lord God thou art my trust from my youthâ— By thee have I been holden up from the Womb my praise shall be continually of thee Cast me not off now in the time of Age forsake me not when my strength faileth O God thou hast taught me from my youth and hitherto have I declared thy wondrous works Now also when I am old and gray O God forsake me not Psal 17. 5 6 9 17 18. Leave not my Soul destitute for mine Eyes are toward thee my trust is in thee Psa 14. 8. I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the Land of the Living Even where they that live shall die no more The Sun may cease to shine on Man and the Earth to bear us but God will never cease to be Love nor to be faithful in his Promises Blessed be the Lord who hath commanded me so safe and quietting a duty as to trust him and cast all my cares on him as on one that hath promised to care for me 11. And blessed be God who hath made it my Duty to HOPE for his Salvation HOPE is the Ease yea the life of our Hearts that else would break yea die within us Despair is no small part of Hell God cherisheth Hope as he is the lover of Souls Satan our Enemy cherisheth Despair when his way of blind Presumption faileth As Fear is a foretast of Evil before it is felt so Hope doth anticipate and foretast Salvation before it is
possessed It is then worldly Hypocrites Hope that perisheth for all that Hope for true or durable Happiness on Earth in the pleasures of this perishing Flesh must needs be deceived But happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help whose Hope is in the Lord his God which made Heaven and Earth which keepeth Truth for ever Ps 146. 5 6. Wo to me were my Hope only in the time and matters of this fleshly life 1 Cor. 15. 19. But the Righteous hath hope in his Death Prov. 14 32. And Hope maketh not ashamed Rom. 5. 5. Blessed is the Man that trusteth in the Lord whose Hope the Lord is Jer. 17. 7. Lay hold then O my Soul upon the Hope which is set before thee Heb. 6. 18. It is thy firm and stedfast Anchor v. 19. without it thou wilt be as a shipwrackt Vessel Thy foundation is sure it is God himself Our Faith and Hope are both in God 1 Pet. 1. 21. It is Jesus our Lord who is risen from the Dead and Reigneth in Glory Lord of all 1 Tim. 1. 1. Yea it is the Christ who by Faith doth dwell within us who is our Hope of Glory Eph. 3. 17. Col. 1. 27. In this Hope which is better than the Law that Moses gave it is that we draw nigh to God Heb. 7. 19. It is the Holy Ghost that is both our Evidence and the Efficient of our Hope Gal. 5. 5. Rom. 8. 16 23. By him we hope for that which we see not and therefore wait in Patience for it v. 24 25. By Hope we are saved It is an encouraging Grace which will make us stir when as despair doth kill endeavours It cureth sloth and makes us diligent and constant to the end and by this doth help us to full assurance Heb. 6. 11 12. It is a desiring Grace and would fain obtain the Glory hoped for It is a quieting and comforting Grace Rom. 15. 4. The God of Hope doth fill us with Joy and Peace in believing that we may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost v. 13. Shake off despondency O my Soul and rejoice in hope of the Glory of God Rom. 5. 2. Believe in Hope though dying Flesh would tell thee that it is against Hope Rom. 4. 18. God that cannot lie hath confirmed his Covenant by his immutable Oath that we might have strong consolation who are fled for refuge to the Hope which is set before us Heb. 6. 18. What blessed preparations are made for our Hope And shall we now let the Tempter shake it or discourage it The abundant Mercy of God the Father hath begotten us again to a lively hope by the Resurrection of Christ to an Inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away reserved in Heaven for us 1 Pet. 1. 3. Grace teacheth us to deny ungodliness and worldly Lusts and to live soberly righteously and godly in this World as looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the Great God and our Saviour Tit. 2. 12 13. We are renewed by the Holy Ghost and justified by Grace that we should be made Heirs according to the hope of Eternal life Tit. 3. 6 7. We are illuminated that we may know the hope of Christ's calling and what is the riches of the Glory of his Inheritance in the Saints Eph. 1. 18 19. The Hope that is laid up for us in Heaven is the chief Doctrine of the Gospel which bringeth Life and Immortality into clearer Light Col. 1. 5. 2 Tim. 1. 10. It is for this hope that we keep a Conscience void of offence and that God is served in the World Act. 24. 15 16. 26. 7. wherefore gird up the loins of thy Mind put on this Helmet the hope of Salvation 1 Thes 5. 8. and let not Death seem to thee as it doth to them that have no hope 1 Thess 4. 13. The love of our Father and our Saviour have given us everlasting Consolation and good hope through Graceâ— to comfort our Hearts and stablish them in every good word and work 2 Thess 2. 16 17. Keep therefore the rejoicing of Hope firm to the end Heb. 3. 6. continue grounded and settled in the Faith and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel Col. 1. 23. 1 Pet. 1. 13. And now Lord what wait I for my hope is in thee Psal 39. 7. Uphold me according to thy Word that I may live and let me not be ashamed of my Hope Psal 119. 116. Though mine Iniquities testifie against me yet O thou that art the hope of of Israel the Saviour thereof in time of trouble be not as a stranger to my Soul Jer. 14. 7 8. Thy Name is called upon by me O forsake me not v. 9. Why have our Eyes beheld thy Wonders and why have we had thy Covenant and thy Mercies but that we might set our hope in God Psal 78. 5 7. Remember the Word to thy Servant upon which thou hast caused me to hope Psal 119. 49. If thou Lord shouldst mark Iniquity O Lord who should stand But there is forgiveness with thee that thou maist be feared I wait for the Lord my Soul doth wait and in his Word do I hope I will hope in the Lord for with him there is Mercy and plenteous Redemption Psal 130. 3 4 5 7. For he taketh pleasure in them that fear him in those that hope in his Mercy Psal 147. 11. Though Flesh and Heart fail the Lord is the Rock of my Heart he is my Portion saith my Soul therefore will I hope in him The Lord is good to them that wait for him to the Soul that seeketh him It is good that I should both hope and quietly wait for the Salvation of the Lord It is good for me that I have born the Yoak in my Youth and that I keep silence and put my Mouth in the Dust if so be there may be hope Psal 73. 26. Lam. 3. 24 25 26 27 29. God need not flatter such Worms as we nor promise us that which he never meaneth to perform He hath laid the rudiments of our hope in a nature capable of desiring seeking and thinking of another life He hath called me by Grace to actual desires and endeavours And some foretasts he hath vouchsafed I look for no Heaven but the Perfection of Divine Life Light and Love in endless Glory with Christ and his holy Ones And this he hath begun in me already And shall I not boldly hope when I have the capacity the promise and the earnest and foretast Is it not God himself that hath caused me to hope was not Nature Promise and Grace from him And can a Soul miscarry and be deceived that departeth hence in a hope of God's own causing and encouraging Lord I have lived in hope I have prayed in hope I have laboured suffered and waited in hope And by thy Grace I will die in hope And is not this according to thy Word and
they pretend to and profess are the ordinary case and course of the most of men And when we would plead them out of their deceit and misery it 's well if we are not tempted to imitate them or be not partly infected with their Disease or at least reproached and oppressed as their Enemies Such a Bedlam is most of the World become where madness goeth for the only Wisdom and he is the bravest Man that can sin and be damned with reputation and renown and successfully drive or draw the greatest number with him unto Hell To which the World hath no small likeness forsaking God and being very much forsaken by him This is the World which standeth in competition for my Love with the Spiritual blessed World Much of God's Mercies and Comforts I have here had But their sweetness was their taste of Divine Love and their tendency to heavenly Perfection What was the end and use of all the Good that ever I saw or that ever God did for my Soul or Body but to teach me to Love him and to long for more How many weaning experiences How many Thousand bitter or contemning Thoughts have I had of all the glory and pleasures of this World How many Thousand love tokens from God have called me to believe and taste his Goodness Where ever I go and which way soever I look I see VANITY and VEXATION written upon all things in this World so far as they stand in competition with God and would be the end and portion of a fleshly Mind And I see HOLINESS TO THE LORD written upon every thing so far as it declareth God and leadeth me to him as my ultimate end God hath not for nothing engaged me in a War against this World and commanded me to take and use it as mine Enemy The emptiness dangerousness and bitterness of the World and the All-sufficiency Trustiness and Goodness of God have been the Summ of all the experiences of my life And shall a worldly backward Heart overcome the teachings of Nature Scripture the Spirit of Grace and all Experience Far be it from me But O my God LOVE is thy great and special gift All Good is from thee But LOVE is the God-like Nature Life and Image It is given us from the Love of the Father the Grace of the Son and the quickning illuminating and sanctifying Operation of the Holy Spirit What can the Earth return unto the Sun but its own reflected Beams If those As how far soever Man is a Medium in Generation Nature and that Appetite which is the moving pondus in the Child is thy work so whatever is Man's part in the Mediate work of Believing and Repenting which yet is not done without thy Spirit and grace certainly it is the blessed Regenerator which must make us New Creatures by giving us this Divine Nature holy LOVE which is the holy Appetite and Pondus of the Soul Come down Lord into this Heart for it cannot come up to thee Can the Plants for Life or the Eye for Light go up unto the Sun Dwell in me by the Spirit of Love and I shall dwell by Love in Thee Reason is weak and Thoughts are various and Man will be a slippery uncertain Wight if LOVE be not his fixing Principle and do not incline his Soul to Thee Surely through thy Grace I easily feel that I love thy Word I love thy Image I love thy Work and O how heartily do I Love to Love thee And long to Know and Love thee more And if all things be of Thee and through Thee and to Thee surely this Love to the Beams of thy Glory here on Earth is eminently so It 's Thee Lord that it meaneth To Thee it looketh It 's Thee it serveth For Thee it mourns and seeks and groans In Thee it Trusteth And the Hope and Peace and Comfort which support me are in Thee When I was a returning Prodigal in rags thou sawest me afar off and mettest me with thy embracing feasting Love And shall I doubt whether he that hath better cloathed me and dwelt within me will entertain me with a Feast of greater love in the heavenly Mansions the World of Love The suitableness of things below to my fleshly Nature hath detained my affections too much on Earth And shall not the suitableness of things above to my Spiritual Nature much more draw up my Love to Heaven There is the GOD whom I have sought and served He is also here but vailed and but litâ—le known But there he shineth to heavenly Spirits in heavenly Glory There is the Saviour in whom I have believed He hath also dwelt in Flesh on Earth Bâ—t cloathed in such meanness and humbled to such a Life and Death as was to the Jews a stumbling Block and to the Gentiles matter of reproach But he Shineth and Reigneth now in Glory above the malice and contempt of Sinners And I shall there Live because he liveth and in his Light I shall have Light He loved me here with a Redeeming Regenerating and preserving Love But there he will love me with a perfecting glorifying joyful Love I had here some Raies of heavenly Light But interpositions caused Eclipses and Nights yea some long and winter Nights But there I shall dwell in the City of the Sun the City of God the heavenly Jerusalem where there is no Night Eclipse or Darkness There are the heavenly Hosts whose holy Love and Joyful Praises I would fain be a partaker of I have here had some of their Loving assistance but to me unseen being above our fleshly way of Converse But there I shall be with them of the like Nature in the same Orb and of the same Triumphant Church and Chore There are perfected Souls gathered home to Christ Not as here striving like Esau and Jacob in the Womb not yet as John when he leaped in the Womb because of his Mothers joy nor as wrangling Children that are hardly kept in the same House in Peace Not like the Servants of Abraham and Lot like Paul and Barnabas like Epiphanius and Chrysostom like Luther and Carolostadius like Ridley and Hooper or the many striving Parties now among us nor like the Disciples striving who should be the greatest Not like Noah's Family in a wicked World or Lot in a wicked City or Abraham in an Idolatrous Land nor like Elijah left alone nor like those that wandred in Sheep Skins and Goat Skins destitute afflicted and tormented hid in Dens and Caves of the Earth not like Job on the Dunghil or like Lazarus at the rich Man's Doors Not like the African Bishops whose Tongues were cut out nor like the Preachers silenced by Papist imposers in German by the Intâ—rim or elsewhere Nor like such as Tzegedine Peucer and many other worthy men whose maturest Age was spent in Prisons Not as we poor bewildred Sinners feeling evil and fearing more confounded in folly and mad contention some hating the only way of Peace and
others groping for it in the dark wandring and lost in the clearest Light where the illuminated can but pitty the Blind but cannot make them willing to be delivered What is Heaven to me but GOD GOD who is LIFE and LIGHT and LOVE communicating himself to blessed Spirits perfecting them in the Reception Possession and Exercise of LIFE and LIGHT and LOVE FOR EVER These are not the Accidents but the Essence of that God who is Heaven and All to me should I fear that Death which passeth me to Infinite Essential Life Should I fear a darksom passage into a World of perfect LIGHT Should I fear to go to LOVE itself Think O my Soul what the Suns quickening Light and Heat is to this lower corporeal World Much more is GOD even Infinite LIFE and LIGHT and LOVE to the blessed World above Doth it not draw out thy desires to think of going into a World of LOVE When LOVE will be our Region our Company our Life More to us than the Air is for our Breath than the Light is for our sight than our Food is for our Life than our Friends are for our Solace And more to us than we are to our selves and we more for it as our ultimate end than for our selves O excellent Grace of Faith which doth foresee and blessed Word of Faith that doth foreshew this World of LOVE Shall I fear to enter where there is no WRATH no fear no strangeness nor suspicion nor selfish separation but LOVE will make every holy Spirit as dear and lovely to me as my self and me to them as lovely as themselves and God to us all more amiable than our selves and all Where LOVE will have no defects or distances no damps or discouragements no discontinuance or mixed disaffection but as LIFE will be without Death and LIGHT without Darkness a perfect everlasting Day of Glory so will LOVE be without any hatred unkindness or allay As many Coals make one Fire and many Candles conjoined make one Light so will many living Spirits make one Life and many illuminated Glorious Spirits one Light and Glory and many Spirits innaturalized into LOVE will make one Perfect LOVE of GOD and be LOVED as One by God for ever For all the Body of Christ is One even here it is One in initial Union of the Spirit and Relation to One God and Head and Life 1 Cor. 12. throughout Eph. 4. 1. to 17. and shall be presented as beloved and spotless to God when the great Marriage Day of the Lamb shall come Eph. 5. 24 25 c. Rev. 21. 22. Had thou not given me O Lord the LIFE of Nature I should have had no conceptions of a Glorious everlasting Life But if thou give me not the Life of Grace I shall have no sufficient delightful inclination and desire after it Hadst thou not given me Sight and Reason the Light of Nature I should not have thought how desirable it is to live in the Glorious Light and Vision but if thou give me not the Spiritual Illumination of a seeing Faith I shall not yet long for the Glorious Light and beatifical Vision Hadst thou not given me a Will and Love which is part of my very Nature itself I could not have tasted how desirable it is to live in a World of Universal perfect endless LOVE But unless thou also shed abroad thy LOVE upon my Heart by the Spirit of Jesus the Great Medium of LOVE and turn my very Nature or Inclination into Divine and Holy LOVE I shall not long for the World of LOVE Appetite followeth Nature O give me not only the Image and the Art of Godliness the approaches towards it nor only some forced or unconstant acts but give me the Divine Nature which is Holy Love and then my Soul will hasten towards thee and cry How long O Lord How long O come come quickly make no delay Surely the fear of dying intimateth some contrary Love that inclineth the Soul another way and some shameful unbelief and great unapprehensiveness of the Attractive Glory of the World of LOVE Otherwise no frozen Person so longeth for the Fire none in a Dungeon so desireth Light as we should long for the heavenly Light and Love God's Infinite Essential SELF-LOVE in which he is Eternally delighted in himself is the most Amiable Object and Heaven itself to Saints and Angels And next to that His Love to all his Works to the World and to the Church in Heaven speaketh much more of his Loveliness than his Love to me But yet due Self-love in me is his work and part of his natural Image and when this by sin is grown up to excess through the withdrawing of a contracted narrow Soul from the Union and due Love to my fellow Creatures and to God I must also I cannot but enquire after God's Love to me and by this my desires must much be moved For I am not so capable of ascending above Self-interest and Self-love as in the state of Glorious Union I shall be I am glad to perceive that others do love God and I love those most that I find most love him But it is not other mens love to God that will be accepted by him instead of mine Nor is it God's Love to others which yet rejoiceth me that will satisfie me without his love to me But when all these are still before me God's Essential Self-love and Delight his Love to his Creatures especially the Glorified and his Love to me also even to me a vile unworthy Sinner what then should stay my ascending Love or discourage my desires to be with God And dost thou doubt canst thou doubt O my Soul whether thou art going to a God that loveth thee If the Jews discerned the great love of Christ to Lazarus by his Tears canst not thou discern his Love to thee in his Blood It is never the less but the more obliging and amiable that it was not shed for thee alone but for many May I not say as Paul Gal. 2 20. I live by the Faith of the Son of God that hath loved Me and given himself for me Yea it is not so much I that live as Christ Liveth in me And will he forsake the Habitation which his love hath chosen And which he hath so dearly bought O read often that triumphing Chapter Rom. 8. and conclude What shall separate us from the Love of God If Life have not done it Death shall not do it If leaning on his Breast at Meat was a token of Christ's special love to John is not his dwelling in me by my Faith and his living in me by his Spirit a sure token of his love to me And if a dark saying If he tarry till I come what is that to thee raised a report that the beloved Disciple should not die why should not plain Promises assure me that I shall live with him that loveth me for ever Be not so unthankful O my Soul as to question
by his life Having loved his own to the end he loveth them and without end His Gifts and Calling are without Repentance When Satan and thy Flesh would hide God's love look to Christ and read the golden words of Love in the Sacred Gospel and peruse thy many recorded experiences and remember the convictions which secret and open Mercies have many a time afforded thee But especially draw nearer to the Lord of Love and be not seldom and slight in thy contemplations of his Love and Loveliness Dwell in the Sun-shine and thou wâ—lt know that it is light and warm and comfortable Distance and strangeness cherish thy doubts Acquaint thy self with him and be at peace Yet look up and oft and earnestly look up after thy ascended glorified Head who said Tell my Brethren I ascend to my Father and your Father to my God and your God! Think where and what he is and what he is now doing for all his own and how humbled abased suffering Love is now Triumphant regnant glorified Love and therefore no less than in all its tender expressions upon Earth As Love is no where perfectly revealed but in Heaven so I can no where so fully discern it as by looking up by Faith to my Father and Saviour which is in Heaven and conversing more believingly with the heavenly Society Had I done this more and better and as I have persuaded others to do it I had lived in more convincing delights of God's Love which would have turned the fears of Death into joyfuller hopes and more earnest desires to be with Christ in the Arms in the World in the life of Love as far better than to be here in a dark a doubting fearing World But O my Father Infinite LOVE though my Arguments be many and strong my Heart is bad and my strength is weakness and I am insufficient to plead the cause of thy Love and Loveliness to my self or others O plead thy own cause and what Heart can resist Let it not be my word only but Thine that thou lovest me even me a Sinner speak it as Christ said to Lazarus Arise If not as thou tellest me that the Sun is warm yet as thou hast told me that my Parents and my dearest Friends did love me and much more powerfully than so Tell it me as thou tellest me that thou hast given me life by the consciousness and works of life That while I can say Thou that knowest all things Knowest that I love Thee it may include therefore I know that I am beloved of thee and therefore come to thee in the confidence of thy Love and long to be nearer in the clearer sight the fuller sense and joyfuller exercise of Love for ever Father into thy Hand I commend my Spirit Lord Jesus receive my Spirit Amen AN APPENDIX A Breviate of the Helps of Faith Hope and Love A Breviate of the proof of Supernatural Revelation and the Truth of Christianity 1 TIM 3. 16. Without Controversie great is the Mystery of Godliness God was manifested in the Flesh justified in the Spirit seen of Angels preached to the Gentiles believed on in the World received up into Glory THese are the Creed or Six Articles of the Gospel which the Apostles preached § 1. I. God manifested in the Flesh of Jesus is the first and great Article Believe this and believe all No wonder that believing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God is so often made in Scripture the description of saving Faith the Title to Baptism and Pardon and Salvation the Evidence of the Spirit c. He that truly and practically believeth that God came in Flesh to Man and that Christ is the Fathers Messenger from Heaven must needs believe that God hath a great value for the Souls of men and for his Church that he despiseth not even our Flesh that his Word is true and fully to be trusted that he who so wonderfully came to Man will certainly take up Man to him Who can doubt of the Immortality of Souls or that Christ will receive the departing Souls of the Faithful to himself who believeth that he took Man's Nature and hath glorified it now in Heaven in union with the Divine Who can ever have low Thoughts of God's love and Mercy who believeth this And who can prostitute his Soul and Flesh to wickedness who firmly believeth that he took the Soul and Flesh of Man to sanctifie and glorifie it § 2. II. The holy Spirit is the Justification of the Truth of Jesus Christ He is Christ's Advocate and Witness to the World He proveth the Gospel by these five ways of Evidence I. By all the Prophesies Types and Promises of Christ in the Old Testament before Christs coming II. By the Inherent impress of God's Image on the Person and Doctrine of Christ VVhich Propria luce sheweth itself to be Divine III. By the concomitant Miracles of Christ Read the History of the Gospel for this use and observe each History IV. By the subsequent gift of the Spirit to the Apostles and other Christians by Languages wonders and multitudes of Miracles to convince the VVorld V. By the undeniable and excellent work of Sanctification on all true Believers through all the VVorld in all generations to this day These five are the Spirits VVitness which fully justifieth the certain Truth that Jesus Christ is the Son of God § 3. Quest But how are we sure who our selves never saw the Person Miracles Resurrection Ascension of Christ that the History of them is true Answ 1. We may be sure that the Spectators were not deceived II. And that they did not deceive them to whom they reported it III. And that we are not deceived by any miscarriage in the historical Tradition to us § 4. I. It was not possible that men that were not mad that had Eyes and Ears could for three Years and a half believe that they saw the Lame the Blind the Deaf and all Diseases healed the Dead raised Thousands miraculously fed c. and this among crouds of People that still followed Christ if the things had not been true One Man's Senses may be deceived at some one instance by some deceitful accident But that the Eyes and Ears of Multitudes should be so oft deceived many years in the open Light is as much as to say No Man knoweth any thing that he seeth and heareth § 5. II. That the Disciples who received the Apostles and Evangelists report of Christ were not deceived by the Reporters is most evident For 1. They received it not by hearsay at the second hand but from the Eye and Ear Witnesses themselves who must needs know what they said 2. They heard this report from Men of the same Time and Age and Countrey where it was easy to examine the case and confute it had it been false 3. The Apostles appealed to crouds and Thousands of Witnesses as to many of Christ's Miracles who would have made it odious had it not been
King and Countrey and therefore maketh for men's worldly advantage and they hear little said againft it This is the case of most in the World Christians Mahometans and Heathens And it 's another to be a serious Believer who upon trial and consideration chooseth Christianity And it is notorious that such serious Christians are all Holy Sober and Just and so greatly differing from the corrupted World as fully proveth that God owneth that Gospel which he maketh so effectual to so great a change Here consider 1. What that change is 2. How hard and great a work it is 3. That it is certainly a work of God 4. That the Gospel is the means by which God doth it 1. The nature of this Holy work on all serious sincere Christians is It sets all their Hopes and Hearts on the promised Glory of the Life to come and turns the very nature of their Wills into the predominant Love of God and Man and of Heaven and Holiness It mortifieth all fleshly Lusts and Subjects Sense to Reason and Faith the Body to the Soul and all to God It sets a Mans Heart on the sincere study of doing all the good he can in the World to Friends Neighbours and Enemies especially and most publick good to live soberly righteously and godly is his delight Sin is his chief hatred and nothing more grievous to him than that he cannot reach to greater Perfection in Faith Hope Obedience Patience and in heavenly Love and Joy It causeth a Man to contemn Wealth Honour and fleshly Pleasure and Life in comparison of God's Love and Life everlasting this change God's Spirit worketh on all true Believers Those that are ungodly have but the Name of Christians they never well understood what Christianity is nor ever received it by a true belief But all that understandingly and seriously believe in Jesus Christ are sanctified by his Spirit II. And this is a greater work than Miracles in excellency and difficulty 1. It is the very Health of the Souls It is Salvation itself it maketh Man in his measure like to God and is his Image It is a heavenly nature and is the earnest and preparation for Heaven It delivereth Man from the greatest evil on Earth and giveth him the firmest peace and joy in his peace with God the pardon of his Sins and the hope of everlasting Glory 2. It 's easy to discern how great a work this is by the deep roots of all the contrary Vices in the corrupted Nature of Man Experience assureth us that Man by vitiated Nature is proud and ignorant and savoureth little but the things of the Flesh and worldly Interest and is a Slave to his Appetite and Lust His bodily Prosperity is all that really hath his Heart Yea if God restrain them not all wicked men are bitter Enemies to all that are truly wise and holy even among Heathens and Insidels if any be but better than the rest the wicked are their deadly Enemies There is so visible an Enmity between Godliness and Wickedness the Seed of Christ and of the Serpent in the World as is a great confirmation of the Scripture which describeth it And it is not the Name of Christians that altereth mens Nature We here that have Peace from all the World are under such implacable hatred of wicked men that call themselves Christians that so many Bears or Wolves would be less hurtful to us 3. And the universal spreading of this wickedness over all the Earth in all Ages and Nations doth tell us how great a work it is to cure it 4. And so doth the frustration of all other means till the Spirit of God do it by setting home the Gospel upon the Heart Children will grow up in VVickedness against all the Counsel Love Correction of their Parents no VVords no Reason will prevail with them more than with drunken men or beasts 5. VVe find it a very hard thing to cure a Man of some one rooted sin much more of all 6. The common misery of the VVorld proclaimeth Man's Vice and the difficulty of the cure How else comes the VVorld to live in self-seeking falshood fraud malice and in bloody VVars worsâ— than VVolves and Serpents against each other 7. Lastly VVhere God cureth this by true believing it 's done with the pangs of sharp repentance and a great conflict before God's Spirit overcometh III. It is evident then that this Sanctification of Souls is an eminent work of God himself 1. In that it is yet done on so many of his chosen ones in all Ages and Places 2. In that as hard as it is he usually turneth the Hearts of Sinners to himself in a very little time Somtimes by one Sermon 3. It is a work that none can do but God who hath the power of Souls 4. It is a work so good that it beareth God's own Image It is but the writing of his Law and Gospel on mens Hearts None is so much for it as God Satan apparently fighteth against it with all the power he can raise in the VVorld Mark it and you will find that most of the stir that there is in the VVorld by false Teachers and Tyrants and private Malice is but Satans VVars against Faith and Holiness and Love Certainly it is not he that promoteth them IV. And it is evident in Experience that it is the Gospel of Christ which God useth and blesseth to do this great sanctifying work on Souls Among Christians none are converted by any other means And God would not bless a word of falshood and deceit to such great and excellent effects All that are made holy and heavenly and truly conscionable among us are made so by Christ's Gospel And all the wicked are Enemies to the serious practice of it or Rebels that despise it The effects daily prove that God himself owneth it as his Word If you say There are as good men among the Heathens and Mahometans as holy heavenly and just I answer It is none of my business to depretiate other men But I can say 1. That I have lived above Sixty seven years and I never knew one serious holy Person in England that was made such by the Writings of Heathens or Mahometans 2. Many excellent things are in the Writings of some Heathens Plato Cicero Hierocles Plutarch Antonine Epictetus and many others But I miss in them the expressions of that holy and heavenly frame of mind and life and that Victory over the Flesh and World which Christianity containeth 3. Christ is like the Sun whose Beams give some light before it is seen its self at its rising and after it is set The Light of Jews and Heathens was as the dawning of the Day before Sun rising And the light among the Mahometans is like the Light of the Sun which it leaveth when it is set Doubtless the same God who hath used Mahometans to be his dreadful Scourge to wicked Christians who abused the Gospel by a false Profession
This Nature and its faculties and powers are not made in vain II. Reason assureth me that all men are bound by Nature to prefer the least probability of a Life of Everlasting Joy before all the Prosperity of this World and to suffer the loss of all this short Vanity to escape the least possibility of endless misery And Nature hath such notices of Rewards and Punishments after Death that no Man can say that he is sure there is no such thing From whence it followeth that all men are bound by the very Law of Nature to be Religious and to seek first and most their Salvation in the Life to come And if so It 's certain that there is such a thing to be obtained Else God had made the very Nature of Man to be deceived by itself and to spend the chief part yea all his life through labour and suffering for that which is not and so made his greatest duty to be his greatest deceit and misery And the worst men should be least deceived But all this is not to be imputed to our wise and good Creator III. The universal sense of Moral Good and Evil in all Mankind is a great evidence of another life The vilest Atheist cannot abide to be accounted a Knave a Lyer a bad Man nor will equal a vicious Servant with another All would be thought good who will not be good And doth not God make a greater difference than Man And will he not shew it IV. The World is actually ruled much by the hopes and fears of another life and cannot well be ruled without it according to the Nature of Man But the Almighty most Wise and most Holy God needs not and will not rule the World by meer deceit V. The Gospel of Christ hath brought Life and Immortality into a clearer Light than that of Nature And it must be by believing in Christ that we must have our full satisfaction O what hath God done in the Wonders of Redemption to make us sure And against the doubts that are apt to rise from some hard particular Text of Scripture it must be considered I. That Christ and his Apostles did put the ascertaining Seal of the many uncontrolled Miracles to the Gospel Doctrin primarily which Doctrin 1. Was delivered and sealed Eight years before any of the New Testament was written and almost Seventy before the last 2. And Christ did not speak in the Language that the Gospel is written to us so that being but a Translation as to his own Words the Matter is the thing first sealed II. And that it was the two Legislator-Mediators Moses and Christ who came with the great stream of uncontrolled Miracles It being necessary that men should have full proof that a Law or Doctrin is of God before they believe it But the Priests and Prophets after Moses and the Preachers and Pastors of the Christian Church who were not Commissioned to bring men any New Laws or Gospel but to proclaim and teach that which they received needed no such New Testimony of Miracles III. The Belief of every particular Priest or Prophet after Moses or every Pastor after Christ and his Apostles was not of the same degree of necessity to Salvation as the belief of the Law and Gospel itself Therefore though all the Holy Scripture be true the Law and the Gospel must be much differenced from the rest IV. The History of the Law and Gospel have full ascertaining historical Evidence or else there is none such in the World Therefore the Doctrin must be true V. The Prophesies fulfilled prove the Gospel true VI. And the Divine Impress on the whole VII And the sanctifying work of the Spirit wrought by it in all Nations and Ages on serious Believers is a constant Divine attestation VIII And as my Faith hath so sure a Foundation it confirmeth my Faith and Hope that it hath been so long and great a work of God by his Word and Spirit on my Soul to raise it to believe and love and desire that Holy state of Perfection and Fruition which I hope for That which hath made me so much better than I else had been and turned my Heart and Life though imperfectly to things above the Pleasures of the Flesh must needs be of God And God would never send his Grace to work my Heart to Deceit and Lies and give me such Graces as shall all be frustrate His Spirit is the Earnest and first Fruits of Glory IX And all the course of Religious and Moral duty which he hath commanded me and in which he hath employed my life were never imposed to deceive me I am sure by Nature and Scripture that it is my Duty to love God and my Neighbour to desire Perfection and to serve God and do good with all my time and power and to trust God for my reward believing that all this shall not be in vain nor that which is best be made my loss O blessed be God for Commands and Holy Duty For they are equal to Promises Who can fear that he shall lose by seeking God X. As God hath sealed the Truth of his Word as aforesaid so he hath by an instituted Office and Ordinance sealed and delivered to my self his Covenant with the gift of Christ and Life in Baptism and the Lord's Supper XI He hath given me such a love to Holy Things and Persons that I greatly long to see his Church in perfect Light and Love and Concord Oh how sweet would it be to see all men Wise and Holy and Joyfully praising God Every Christian longs for this And therefore such a state will be XII I have found here the great benefit of the Love and Ministry of Angels such as is described in Psal 91. They have kept me Night and Day which confirmeth my hope that I shall dwell with them for I love them better than men because they love and serve God better XIII That low communion which I have here with God by Christ and the Spirit in his answer to my Prayers Supports Comforts Experiences tends to more XIV The pleasure which I have by Love in thinking of the happiness of my many many many holy departed Friends and of the Glory of Christ and the heavenly Jerusalem is sure some hopeful approach towards their state XV. When I see the Fire mount upward and think that Spirits are of a more sublime and excellent Nature than Fire And when I see that all that is done in this World is done by Spiritual unseen powers which move this gross and drossie Matter it puts me past doubt that my Soul being a Spirit hath a vast and glorious World of Spirits to ascend to God hath by Nature put into all things an aggregative uniting inclination Earth hath no other natural motion The ascent of Fire tells us its Element is above And Spiritâ— naturally incline to Spirits and holy Spirits peculiarly are inclined to the Holy XVI I am sure 1. By understanding
Essential transcendent Love is ready to receive thee The Spirit of Love hath sealed thee to that blessed state Christ will present thee justified and accepted Most of my old holy familiar Friends are gone before me and all the rest that died since the World began And the few imperfect ones left behind are hasting after them apace and if I go before will quickly overtake me Though they weep as if it were for a long separation it is their great mistake The gate of Death stands all Day open and my sorrowful Friends are quickly following me as I am now following those for whom I sorrowed O pitty them who are left a while under the temptations dangers and fears which have so long been thy own affliction But be not afraid of the Day of thy deliverance and the bosom of everlasting Love and the Society of the wise and just and holy and of the end of all thy troubles and the entrance into the Joy of thy Lord and the place and state of all thy hope O say not notionally only as from argumentative conviction but confidently and with glad desire and hope TO DEPART AND BE WITH CHRIST IS FAR BETTER than to be here But O my God I have much more hope in speaking to thee than to my self Long may I plead with this dark and dull yet fearful Soul before I can plead it into joyful hope and heavenly desires unless thou shine on it with the light of thy Countenance and Thou whom my Soul must Trust and Love wilt give me Faith and Love themselves I thank Thee for convincing Arguments But had this been all the strength of my Faith and Hope the tempter might have proved too subtile for me in dispute I thank thee that some experience tells me that a holy Appetite to heavenly Work and a love to the heavenly Company and State doth more to make me willing to die and think with Pleasure of my change than ever bare Arguments would have done O send down the streams of thy love into my Soul and that will powerfully draw it up by longings for the near and full fruition O give me more of the divine and heavenly Nature and it will be natural and easie to me to desire to be with Thee Send more of the heavenly Joys into this Soul and it will long for Heaven the place of Joy I must not hope on Earth for any such acquaintance with the World above as is proper to the enjoying state But if the Sun can send its illuminating warming Rays to such a World as this according to the various disposition of Recipients doubtless Thou hast thy effectual though unsearchable waies of illuminating sanctifying and attractive influence on Souls And one such Beam of thy pleased Face one Taste of thy complacencial Love will kindle my love and draw up my desires and make my pains and sickness tolerable I shall then put off this cloathing with the less reluctancy and willingly leave my Flesh to the Dust and sing my Nunc dimittis when I have thus seen and tasted thy Salvation O my God Let not thy strengthning comforting grace now forsake me lest it should overwhelm me with the fears of being finally forsaken Dwell in me as the God of Love and Joy that I may long to dwell in Love and Joy with Thee for ever As Grace abounded where sin abounded let thy strengthning and comforting Mercy abound when weakness increaseth and my necessities abound My Flesh and my Heart◠faileth but Thou art the strength of my Heart and my Portion for ever This short life is almost at an end But thy loving kindness is better than life I know not with what pains thou wilt further trie me But if I love Thee thou hast promised that all things shall work together for my good The World that I am going to by Death is not apparent to my sight But my life is hid with Christ in God and because he liveth we shall live and we shall be with him where he is and when he appeareth we shall appear with him in Glory and shall enter into our Masters joy and be for ever with the Lord Amen What sensible manifestation of his Kingdom Christ gave in his Transfiguration § 1. Our Lord who brought Life and Immortalility to Light well knew the difficulty of believing so great things unseen And therefore it pleased him to give men some sensible helps by demonstration In Mat. 16. 17. 1 2. c. Mark 9. 1. Luk. 9. 28. he promised some of his Disciples a sight of his Kingdom as coming in power or such a glimpse as Moses had of the Backparts of God's Glory This he performed first in his Transfiguration as afterward in his Resurrection Ascension and sending the holy Ghost to enable them with power to preach and work Miracles and convert the Nations § 2. By the Kingdom of God is meant God's Government of his Holy ones by a heavenly communication of Life Light and Love initially on Earth by Grace and perfectly in Heaven by Glory A special Theocracy § 3. For the understanding of this we must know that when God had made Man good in his Image he conversed with him in a heavenly manner either immediately or by an Angel speaking to him and telling him his will But Man being made a free self-determining Agent he was left to choose whom he would follow And hearkening unto Satan and turning from God he became a Slave of Satan and gave him advantage to be his deceiving Ruler Not that Man's rebellion nullified God's Power or disposing Government or took Man from under Obligation to Obedience but that forsaking God he was much though not wholly forsaken by his special fatherly approving Government and left to Satan and his own will But the eternal Word interposing for Man's Reprival and Redemption undertook to break the Serpents Head and to conquer and cast out him that had deceived and captivated Man And choosing out a special Seed he made them a peculiar People and set up a heavenly Prophetical Government over them himself by heavenly Revelation making their Laws and choosing their chief Governours under him from time to time and would not leave it to blind and sinful Man to make Laws or choose Princes for themselves but would keep them in a special dependance upon Heaven But the carnal Israelites having provoked God by odious Idolatry to deny them much of the benefit of Government save when they repented and cryed to him for help they thought to amend this by choosing a King like other Nations and ending their dependance on heavenly Revelation and choice for Government And so Theocracy was turned into a more humane Regiment and God more cast off Though yet he would not quite forsake them And the rest of the World was yet more left under the power of Satan and their own corrupted mind and will So that Satan hath both an Internal Kingdom in wicked Souls and a visible
all the rest particularly promised And we know in general that we have a heavenly City and Inheritance and shall see God and be with Christ in everlasting Happiness Loving and Praising God with Joy in the perfected glorious Church of Christ All this therefore we must explicitely believe But it 's little that we know distinctly of the consistence and operations of Spirits and separated Souls as to a formal or modal conception a great deal about the place state and mode their acting and fruition is dark to us but none of it is dark to Christ Here therefore an implicite Trust should not only bound and stop our selfish and over bold enquiries but also quiet and comfort the Soul as well as if our selves knew all O my Soul abhor and mortifie thy selfish Trust and unbelieving thirst to have that knowledge of Good and Evil thy self which is the Prerogative of thy Lord and Saviour This was the sin that first defiled humane Nature and brought calamity on the World God hath set thee enough to learn know that and thou knowest enough If more were possible it would be a perplexity and a snare and he that encreaseth such knowledge would encrease sorrow But when it is both unprofitable and impossible what a sin and folly is it to wast our time and tire and deceive our Minds in long and troublesom searches after it and then disquietly to murmur at God and the Holy Scripture and die with sad distrustful fears because we attain it not When all this while we should have understood that this part of knowledg belongs to Christ and the heavenly Society and not to sinful Mortals here and that we have without it as much as may cause us to live and die in Holiness Safety Peace and Joy if we can but Trust him who knoweth for us Christ perfectly knoweth what Spirits are and how they act and whether they have any corporeal Organ or Vehicle or none and what 's the difference between Henoch and Elias and those that left their Bodies here and what a Resurrection will add to Souls and how it will be wrought and when and what is meant by the Thousand year previous Reign and who they be that shall dwell in the New Earth and how it will be renewed All the dark passages of Scripture and Providence he can perfectly resolve He knoweth why God leaveth the far greatest part of the World in Satan's slavery darkness and wickedness and chooseth so few to real Holiness And why he maketh not men such as he commandeth them to be and why he leaveth serious Christians to so much weakness error scandal and division These and all other difficulties are fully known to Christ And it is not the Child but the Father that must know what food and cloathing he should have and the Physician that must know what are the ingredients of his Medicines and why Lord open my Eyes then to see what thou hast revealed and help me willingly to shut them to the rest and to believe and trust in Thee for both Not to stagger at thy sealed Promises nor selfishly to desire particular knowledge which belongs not to me as if I could trust my self and my own knowledge and not Thine Lord teach me to follow Thee even in the dark as quietly and confidently as in the Light having the general Light of thy Promise of Felicity I knew not the Mystery of thy Conception Incarnation or the way of the workings of thy Spirit on Souls No wonder if much of the Resurrection and unseen World be above my reach much more that thy Infinite Majesty is Incomprehensible to me How little do the Bruits that see me know of my thoughts or me I have no adequate knowledge of any one thing in the World but somewhat of it is unknown O blessed be that Love and Grace that hath given me a glorified Head in Heaven to know all for me which I know not Hear and Trust Him living and departing O my Soul who hath told thee that we shall be with him where he is and shall behold his Glory and that a Crown of Salvation is laid up for us and we shall Reign with him when we have conquered and suffered with him and hath bid us live in joyful Hope of our exceeding eternal heavenly Reward and at our Death to commend our Spirits into his hand Receive us Lord according to thy Promises Amen SHORT MEDITATIONS ON ROM 5. 1 2 3 4 5. Of the shedding abroad God's Love on the Heart by the Holy Ghost EXperience of the want of this Effusion of God's Love and some small tast of its Sweetness make me think the thoughts of this very suitable to one expecting Death The words contain a golden Chain of highest Blessings on all true Christians I. They are supposed to have Faith that is both a general Trust to God's Revelations and Grace and a special Trust in Jesus Christ as given by the Father's Love to be the Redeemer to Justifie Sanctifie and Glorifie his People I have oft proved this justifying Faith to be no less then our unfeigned taking Christ for our Saviour and becoming true Christians according to the Tenor of the Baptismal Covenant As to the Acts it is formally Trust One in three The Understandings Assenting Trust the Wills consenting Trust and the executive Powers Practical Venturing Obeying Trust II. All true Believers are justified Even all that consent to the Baptismal Covenant and choose God to be their God and Christ to be their Saviour and the Holy Ghost to be their Sanctifier and give up themselves to him by true resolution as their only Ruler Hope and Happiness though this be done with so great weakness as endeth not all doubts nor quieteth the Mind To be justified is not to be accounted such as have no sin but 1. To be made such by Pardon through Christ's Merits and by true Faith as God will take by special love and favour unto life 2. To be accounted such by God 3. To be virtually Sentenced such by the Law of Grace and Faith and to be just in Lawseâ—ce 4. At last we shall be judged such by publick Sentence 5. And be used as such Not justified by the Law of Innocency or of Moses but by Christ's Law of Grace Not justified perfectly till the time of Perfection Much punishment on Soul and Body is yet to be taken off And more sins daily to be pardoned and we before the World to be sentenced as just to life everlasting III. The justified have Peace with God They are reconciled and in a state of love and friendship It signifieth mutual Peace but with great inequality God's Love and favour to us is the stable constant part Our consent also and acceptance of his terms of Peace is constant in its truth But our sense of God's Love which is the Peace possessed by the Soul is weak and unconstant and too oft quite lost or obscured by ignorance mistake and
taste little more than a Beast may taste Poor Food and Rayment is sweet with the sense of the Love of God Had I more of this I should lie down and rise and walk in Pleasure and content I could bear the loss of other things And though Nature will feel pains I should have Pleasure and Peace in the midst of all my pains and groans This is the white Stone the New Name No Man well knoweth it who never felt it in himself 1. There is no dying comfortably without this experienced taste of the Love of God This will draw up the desires of the Soul Love tasted casteth out fear though God be Holy and Just and Judgment terrible and Hell intollerable and the Soul hath no distinct Idea of its future state out of the Body and though we see not whither it is that we must go the taste of God's love will make it go joyfully as trusting him as a Child will go any whither in his Father's power and hand But all the knowledge in the World without this quiets not a departing Soul A Man may write as many Books and Preach as many Sermons of Heaven as I have done and speak of it and think of almost nothing else and yet till the Soul be sweetned and comforted with the Love of God shed abroad on it by the Holy Ghost death and the next life will be rather a Man's fear than his desire And the common fear of death which we see in the far greatest part even of godly Persons doth tell us that though they may have saving desires and hopes yet this sense of God's love on the Heart is rare What wonder then if our Language our Converse our Prayers have too little savour of it and in comparison of joyful Believers duties be but like green Apples to the mellow ones My God I feel what it is that I want and I perceive what it is that is most desirable O let not guilt be so far unpardoned as to deprive my Soul of this greatest good which thou hast commended to me and commanded and which in my languishing and pains I so much need Did I beg for Wealth or Honour I might have it to the loss of others But thy Love will make me more useful to all and none will have the less for my enjoyment For thou Lord art enough for all Even as none hath the less of the Sun-light for my enjoying it The least well grounded hope of thy Love is better than all the pleasures of the Flesh But without some pleasant sense of it alas what a withered languishing thing is a Soul thy loving kindness is better than life but if I taste it not how shall I here rejoice in God or bear my heavy burdens O let me not be a dishonour to thy Family where all have so great cause to honour thy bounty by their joy and hopes Nor by a sad and fearful Heart tempt men to think that thy love is not real and satisfactory I can easily believe and admire thy Greatness and thy Knowledge Let it not be so hard to me to believe and taste thy Goodness and thy Love Which is as necessary to me If there be any thing as surely there is in which the Divine Nature and Spirit of Adoption consisteth as above all the Art and Notions of Religion which are but like to other acquired Knowledge sure it must be this holy Appetite and Habitual Inclination of the Soul to God by way of Love which is bred by an internal sense of his Loveliness and Loving inclination to Man which differenceth a Christian from other men as a Child differs towards his Father from Strangers or from common Neigbours Till the love of God be the very state or nature of the Soul working here towards his Honour Interests Word and Servants no Man can say that he is God's habitation by the Spirit And how the Heart will ever be thus habited without believing God's Love to us it 's hard to conceive Experience tells the World how strongly it constraineth Persons to love one another if they do but think that they are strongly beloved by one another In the love that tends to marriage if one that is inferior do but know that a Person of far greater worth doth fervently love them it almost puts a necessity and constraint on them for returns of Love Nature can scarce choose but love in such a case Love is the Loadstone of Love A real taste of the Love of God in saving Souls by Christ and grace is it that constraineth them to be holy that is to be devoted to that God in Love III. But this must as necessarily be the work of the Holy Ghost and can be no more done without him than the Earth can be illuminated and the Vegetables live without the Sun But all the approaches of the Holy Spirit suffice not to produce this great effect and give us the Divine holy Nature The same Sun shine hath three different effects on its Objects 1. On most things as Houses Stones Earth it causeth nothing but the Accidents of Heat Colour and Motion 2. On some things it causeth a seminal Disposition to Vegetable life but not Life itself 3. In this disposed matter it causeth Vegetable life itself So doth the Spirit of God 1. Operate on Millions but lifeless Accidents as the Sun on a stone Wall 2. On others Dispose and prepare them to Divine Life 3. On others so disposed it effecteth the Divine life itself When holy Love is turned into a habit like to Nature That none but the Holy Ghost doth make this holy change is evident For the effect cannot transcend the causes 1. Nature alone is dark and knoweth not the attractive amiableness of God till illuminated nor can give us a satisfactory notice of God's special Love to us 2. Nature is Guilty and Guilt breedeth fears of Justice and fear makes us wild and fly from God lest he will hurt us 3. Nature is under penal sufferings already and feeleth pain fear and many hurts and foreseeth Death And under this is undisposed of itself to feel the pleasure of God's Love 4. Nature is corrupted and diverted to Creature vanity and its Appetite goeth another way and cannot cure itself and make itself suitable to the amiableness of God 5. God hateth wickedness and wicked men and meer Nature cannot secure us that we are saved from that enmity Diligence may do much to get religious Knowledge and Words and all that which I call the Art of Religion And God may bless this as a preparation to holy Life and Love But till the Souls Appetite incline with desire to God and Holiness Divine things will not sweetly relish And this is a great comfort to the Thoughts of the Sanctified that certainly their holy Appetite Desire and Complacency is the work of the Holy Ghost For 1. This secureth them of the Love of God of which it is the proper token 2. And
it assureth them of their Union with Christ when they live because he liveth even by the Spirit which is his Seal and Pledge 3. And it proveth both a future life and their title to it For God maketh not all this preparation for it by his Spirit in vain But alas if it were not a work that hath great impediment it would not be so rare in the World What is it in us that keepeth the Sun of Love from so shining on us as to revive our Souls into Holy contentments and delight It must be supposed 1. That all God's gifts are free and that he giveth not to all alike The wonderful variety of Creatures proveth this 2. The reasons of his differencing works are his own will and inferiour reasons are mostly unknown to us of which he is not bound to give us an account 3. But yet we see that God doth his works in a causal order and one work prepareth for another and he maketh variety of capacities which occasion variety of receptions and of gifts and he useth to give every thing that to which he hath brought it into the next capacity and disposition And therefore in general we may conclude that we feel not God's Love shed abroad upon the Heart because the Heart is undisposed and is not in the next disposition thereto And abused free will hath been the cause of that That we have Grace is to be ascribed to God That we are without it is to be ascribed to our selves 1. Heinous guilt of former sin may keep a Soul much without the delights of Divine love And the heinousness is not only in the greatness of the evil done materially but oft in our long and willful committing of smaller sins against Knowledge and Conscience and consideration The Spirit thus grieved by hardened Hearts and willful repulses is not quickly and easily a comforter to such a Soul and when the sinner doth repent it leaveth him more in uncertainty of his sincerity when he thinks I do but repent purpose and promise now and so I oft did and yet returned the next temptation to my sin And how can I tell that my Heart is not the fame and I should sin again if I had the same temptations O what doubts and perplexities doth oft willful sinning prepare for 2. And sins of omission have here a great part The sweetness of God's Love is a reward which sloathful Servants are unmeet for It follows a Well done good and faithful Servant There is needful a close attendance upon God and devotedness to him and improvement of Gospel Grace and Revelation to make a Soul fit for amicable sweet communion with God All that will save a Soul from Hell will not do this He that will taste these Divine Love-tokens must 1. Be no stranger to holy Meditation and Prayer nor unconstant cold and cursory in them but must dwell and walk above with God 2. And he must be wholly addicted to improve his Masters Talents in the World and make it his design and trade on Earth to do all the good in the World he can And to keep his Soul clean from the flesh and worldly vanity And to such a Soul God will make known his Love 3. And alas how ordinarily doth some carnal aâ—fection corrupt the appetite of the Soul When we grow too much in love with mens esteem or with earthly Riches or when our Throats or Phantasies can master us into obedience or vain desires of Meat Drink Recreation Dwelling c. the Soul loseth its Appetite to things Divine and nothing relisheth where Appetite is gone or sick We cannot serve God and Mammon and we cannot at once taste much pleasure both in God and Mammon The old austere Christians found the mortification of the fleshly Lusts a great advantage to the Souls delight in God 4. And many errours about God's nature and works much hinder us from feasting on his Love 5. And especially the slight and ignorant thoughts of Christ and the wondrous workings of God's Love in him 6. And specially if our belief itself once shake or be not well and firmly founded 7. And our slight thoughts of the Office and Work of the Holy Ghost on Souls and our necessity of it and our not begging and waiting for the Spirits special help 8. And lastly our unfaithful forgetfulness of manifold experiences and testimonies of his Love which should still be as fresh before us Alas my Soul thou feelest thy defect and knowest the hinderance but what hope is there of remedy Will God ever raise so low so dull so guilty a Heart to such a foretast of Glory as is this effusion of his Love by the Holy Ghost The lightsom Daies in Spring and Summer when the Sun reviveth the late naked Earth and clothes it with delectable beauties differs not more from Night and Winter than a Soul thus revived with the Love of God doth differ from an unbelieving formal Soul Though this great change be above my power the Spirit of God is not impotent backward barren or inexâ—â—able He hath appointed us means for so high a state and he appointeth no means in vain Were my own Heart obedient to my commands all these following I would lay upon it Yea I 'll do it and beg the help of God I. I charge thee think not of God's Goodness and Love as unproportionable to his Greatness and his Knowledge Nor overlook in the whole frame of Heaven and Earth the manifestation of one any more than of the other II. Therefore let not the the wickedness and misery of the World tempt thee to think basely of all God's Mercies to the World nor the peculiar priviledges of the Churches draw thee to deny or contemn God's common Mercies unto all III. I charge thee to make the study of Christ and the great work of Man's Redemption by him thy chiefest Learning and most serious and constant work and in that wonderful Glass to see the Face of Divine Love and to hear what is said of it by the Son from Heaven and to come boldly as reconciled to God by him IV. O see that thy repentance for former sins against knowledge and Conscience and the Motions of God's Spirit be sound and throughly lamented and abhorred how small soever the matter was in itself That so the doubt of thy sincerity keep not up doubts of God's acceptance V. Let thy dependance on the Holy Ghost as given from Christ be henceforth as serious and constant to thee as is the dependance of the Eye on the light of the Sun and of natural Life upon its heat and motion Beg hard for the Holy Spirit and gladly entertain it VI. O never forget the many and great experiences thou hast had these almost Sixty years observed of marvellous favour and providence of God for Soul and Body in every time place condition relation company or change thou hast been in Lose not all these Love-tokens of thy Father while thou