suitable aliment from our bodies affect to dwell there and is loath to leave us It were a ludicrous pity to be there-therefore content to endure its troublesome vâ—llications because we fear the poor Animal should be put to its shifts and not to be otherwise able to find a subsistence 'T is true that the great Creator and Lord of the Universe hath not permitted us the liberty of so throwing off our bodies when we will which otherwise are in dignity far more beneath our spirits than so despicable a Creature is beneath them And to his dispose that hath order'd this conjunction for a time whether we look upon it as an effect of his simple pleasure or of his displeasure we must yeild an awful and a patient submission till this part of his Providence towards us have run its course and attain'd its ends And then how welcome should the hour of our discharge and freedom be from so troublesome an Associate which upon no other account than that of duty towards the Author of our beings one would more endure than to have the most noysome offensive Vermine always preying upon his flesh At least though the consideration of our own advantage had no place with us in this matter the same sense of duty towards our great Creator which should make us patient of an abode in the body while he will have it so should also form our spirits to a willing departure when it shall be his pleasure to release us thence But that neither a regard to his pleâ—sure nor our own blessednâ—ss should prevail against our love to the body is the unaccountable thing I speak of And to plead only in the case the corruption of our natures that sets us at odds with God and our selves is to justifie the thing by what is it self most unjustifiable or rather as some that have affected to be styl'd Philosophers have been wont to expedite difficulties by resolving the matter into the usual course of Nature which is to resolve the thing into it self and say It is so because it is so or is wont to be and indeed plainly to confess there is no account to be given of it This being the very thing about which we expostulate that reasonable nature should so prevaricate The commonness whereof doth not take away the wonder but rather render it more dreadful and astonishing The truth is the incongruity in the present case is only to be solved by redress by earnest strivings with God and our own souls till we find our selves recovered into a right mind into the constitution and composure whereof a generous fortitude hath a necessary ingrediency that usually upon lower motives refuses no change of Climate and will carry a man into unknown Countreys and through greatest hazards in the pursuit of honourable enterprizes of a much inferior kind It is reckon'd a brave and manly thing to be in the temper of one's mind a Citizen of the World meaning it of this lower one But why not rather of the Universe And 't is accounted mean and base that one should be so confin'd by his fear or sloath to that spot of ground where he was born as not upon just inducement to look abroad and go for warrantable and worthy purposes yea if it were only honest self-advantage as far as the utmost ends of the earth But dare we not venture a little farther These are too narrow bounds for a truly great spirit Any thing that is tinctur'd with earth or favours of mortality we should reckon too mean for us and not regret it that Heaven and Immortality are not to be attained but by dying so should the love of our own souls and the desire of a perpetual state of life triumph over the fear of death But it may be alledged by some That 't is only a solicitous love to their souls that makes them dread this change They know it wiâ—l not sare with all alike hereafter and know not what their own lot shall be And is this indeed our case then what have we been doing all this while and how are we concerned to lose no more time But too often a terrene spirit lurks under this pretence and men alledg their want of assurance of Heaven when the love of this earth which they cannot endure to think of leaving holds their hearts And a little to discuss this matter what would we have to assure us Do we expect a vision or a voice or are we not to try our selves and search for such characters in our own souls as may distinguish and note us out for Heaven Among these what can be more clear and certain than this that we have our hearts much set upon it They that have their conversations in Heaven may from thence expect the Saviour who shall change their vile bodies the bodies of their â—â—milâ—â—tion or low abject state and make them like his own glorious body God who will render to every man according to his works will give them that by patient continuance in well doing seek honour and glory and immortality eternal life They that set their affections or mind on the things above not those on the earth when Christ shall appear who is their life shall appear with him in glory Mistake not the notion of Heaven or the blessedness of the other world render it not to your selves a composition of sensual enjoyments Understand it principally to consist in perfect holiness and communion with God as his own word represents it and as reason hath taught even some Pagans to reckon of it and you cannot judg of your own Right by a surer and plainer Rule than that eternal blessedness shall be theirs whose hearts are truly bent and directed towards it Admit we then this Principle and now let us reason with our selves from it We have a discovery made to us of a future state of blessedness in God not as desirable only in it self but as attainable and possible to be enjoyed the Redeemer having opened the way to it by his blood and given us at once both the prospect and the offer of it so that it is before us as the object of a reasonable desire Now either our hearts are so taken with this discovery that we above all things desire this state or not If they be we desire it more than our earthly stations and enjoyments and are willing to leave the world and the body to enjoy it and so did falsly accuse our selves of a prevailing aversion to this change If they be not the thing is true that we are upon no terms willing to dye but the cause is falsly or partially assigned It is not so much because we are unassured of Heaven but as was above suspected because we love this world better and our hearts center in it as our most desirable good Therefore we see how unreasonably this is often said We are unwilling to change states because we are unassured the truth is they are unassured because they are unwilling and what then ensues They are unwilling because they are unwilling And so they may endlesly dispute themselves round from unwillingness to unwillingness But is there no way to get out of this unhappy Circle In order to it let the case be more fully understood Either this double unwillingness must be refer'd to the same thing or to divers If to the same thing it is not sense they say what signifies nothing For being to assign a cause of their unwillingness to quit the body to say because they are unwilling viz. of that is to assign no cause for nothing can be the cause of it self But if they refer to divers things and say They are unwilling to go out of the body because they are unwilling to forsake Earth for Heaven The case is then plain but sad and not alterable but with the alteration of the temper of their spirits Wherefore let us all apply our selves since with none this is so fully done that no more is needful to the serious endeavour of getting our souls purged from the dross of this world and enamoured of the purity and blessedness of Heaven so the cause and effect will vanish together we shall find that suitableness and inclination in our spirits to that blessedness as may yeild us the ground of a comfortable perswasion that it belongs to us us and then not be unwilling though many deaths stood in our way to break through to attain it FINIS * Mr. Anthony Vpton the Son of John Vpton of Lupton Esq V. 49. V 27. V. 29. V. 36 37. Act. 2. 30 V. 28. 34. â—â—9 V. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35 Isa. 55. V. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Mat. 22. Psal. 110. Act. 2. V. 25 c. V. 25. 26. V. 31. Acts 13. V. 32 33 34. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. 9. Plotin En. 2. 1 6 Isa. 40. Job 27. 19 Heracl 1 Cor. 7. Job 20. 7 8 9. Psal. 73. 20. Psal. 39. 5 6. Jer. 9. 24 Rom. 11. 36. Psal. 119. 68. Psal. 33. 5 2 Cor. 5. 4. 1 Cor. 15. 19. Heb. 11. Rom. 2. 7. Non qua eundum est sed qua itur Sen. 1 Cor. 8. Phil. 3. 20 21. Gr. Rom. 2. 6 7. Col. 3. 2 3 4.
folly than they who have only this plea for their actions That they did not consider Especially when the case is so plain and the most sudden reflection would discover the iniquity and danger of their course And one would think nothing should be more obvious or more readily occurr to the mind of a man than to contemplate himself and taking notice there is such a Creature in the world furnished with such abilities and powers to consider What was I made for What am I to pitch upon as my proper End Nor any thing appear more horrid to him than to cross the very Ends of his Creation 2. It may also be improv'd to the directing of our Practice For which purpose we may hence take this general Rule That it be such as becomes the expectation of a future state For what else is left us since in our present state we behold nothing but vanity We see thus stands our case that we must measure our selves by one of these apprehensions Either we are made in vain or we are made for a future state And can we endure to live according to the former As if we were impertinencies in the Creation and had no proper business in it What ingenuous persons would not blush to be always in the posture of an useless hang-by to be still hanging on where he hath nothing to do that if he be asked Sir what 's your business here he hath nothing to say Or how can we bear it to live as if we came into the world by chance or rather by mistake As though our Creation had been a misadventure a thing that would not have been done had it been better thought on And that our Maker had overshot himself and been guilty of an oversight in giving us such a being Who that hath either just value for himself or any reverence for his Maker could endure either to undergo the reproach or be guilty of the blasphemy which this would import And who can acquit himself of the one or the other that lives not in some measure agreeably to the expectation of somewhat beyond this present life Let us therefore gird up the loins of our minds and set our faces as persons designing for another world so shaping our course that all things may concur to signifie to men the greatness of our expectations We otherwise proclaim to the world to our own and our Creator's wrong that we have reasonable souls given us to no purpose We are therefore concern'd and obliged both to aim at that worthy End and to discover and make it visible that we do so Nor is a design for an immortal state so mean and inglorious or so irrational and void of a solid ground that we have any cause either to decline or conceal it either not to retain or to be ashamed of our hope Nor is there any thing to be done in prosecution of it so unworthy as to need a corner or merit to be done as a work of darkness Neither yet is it a vain-glorious ostentation or the affectation of making shew of an excellency above the vulgar pitch that I perswade to But a modest sober avowing of our high design and hope neither making any near approach to a proud arrogance on the one hand nor a mean pusillanimity on the other Truly great and generous spirits know how to carry under Secular Honour with that prudent and graceful decorum as shall signifie a just owning of themselves without insolence towards others Real worth though it do not vaunt will shew it self and while it doth not glare yet cannot forbear to shine We should endeavour the excellency of a spirit refin'd from earth and dross and aspiring towards a state of immortality may express it self and shine in its native lustre with its own not with borrowed beams with a constant even natural not with an unequal artificial light That all that will may see by the steddy tendency of our course that we are aiming at the great things of another world Though we all the while are not so much solicitous to have our end and purpose known as to obtain it And verily since the vile sons of the earth the men of sense that aim at no other end than to gratifie their brutal appetite with such pleasure as is only to be compass'd within a short liâ—â—s-time in this world and who live to the reproach of their Maker and of mankind do not go about to hide the infamy of their low design or conceal the degenerous baseness of their mean spirits but while they make their belly their God and only mind earthly things do also glory in their shame How much were it beneath the state and spirit of the sons of God that are worthily designing for a glorious immortality to be ashamed of their glory or think of stealing a passage to Heaven in the dark No let them know it is not only too mean a thing for them to involve themselves in the common spirit of the sensual world but even to seem to do so And that this is so soul and ignominious a thing as whereof they are concern'd not to be free from the guilt only but the suspition Those worthy souls that in former and darker days were engaged in seeking the Heavenly Countrey thought it became them to confess themselves pilgrims and strangers on the earth And therein to declare plainly that they were seeking that better Countrey Which confession and plain declaration we need not understand to be meerly verbal but practical and real also such as might be understood to be the language of their lives and of a constant uniform course of actions agreeable to such a design Let us therefore bethink our selves what temper of mind and manner of life may be most conformable to this design and best become persons pretending to it Whereupon we should soon find our own thoughts instructing us that such things as these would be most becoming and fit in reference thereto and which we may therefore take as so many particular directions how to govern our spirits and behave our selves answerably to so great an expectation 1. That we endeavour for a calm indifferency and dispassionate temper of mind towards the various objects and affairs that belong to this present life There are very narrow limits already set by the nature of the things themselves to all the real objective value that such things have in them And it is the part of wisdom and justice to set the proportionable bounds to all the thoughts cares and passions we will suffer to stir in our minds in reference to them Nothing is a more evident acknowledged Character of a Fool than upon every slight occasion to be in a transport To be much taken with empty things betokens an empty spirit It is a part of manly fortitude to have a soul so fenc't against forreign impressions as little to be mov'd with things that have little in them To keep our passions
under a strict rein and steddy command that they be easily retractable and taught to obey Not to move till severe Reason have audited the matter and pronounc't the occasion just and valuable In which case the same manly temper will not refuse to admit a proportionable stamp and impress from the occurring object For it is equally a prevarication from true Manhood to be mov'd with every thing and with nothing The former would speak a man's spirit a feather the latter a stone A total apathie and insensibleness of external occurrents hath been the aim of some but never the attainment of the highest pretenders And if it had yet ought it not to have been their boast as upon sober thoughts it cannot be reckoned a perfection But it should be endeavour'd that the passions which are not to be rooted up because they are of Nature's planting be yet so discreetly check't and deprest that they grow not to that enormous tallness as to overâ—op a man's intellectual power and cast a dark shadow over his soul. A rational authority must be maintained a continency and dominion of one's self that there be not an impotent profusion and we be never so affected with any thing but that the object may still be able to warrant and justifie the affection both for the nature and degree of it Which rule if we strictly observe and apply it to the present case we shall rarely meet with any temporal concern that ought to move us much both for the littleness of such things themselves and that we have so unspeakably greater things in our view and design In conâ—ormity therefore to our so great Expectation we ought more particularly to watch and repress our inclinations appetites and affections towards each several sort and kind of objects which time and this present state hath within the confines of it As How contemptuously should we look upon that empty vanity of being rich How coldly and carelesly should we pursue how unconcern'dly should we lose any thing that might intitle us to that Name The pursuit of so dâ—spicable a trifle with violent and peremptory desire so as hereby to suffer a diversion from our design for another world is to make our eternal hope less than nothing For to any man's calm and sober thoughts this will be found as little And so will amount to a total quitting of all our pretensions to a better future state that is when we so indulge this odd irrational this wildly sanciful and purely humoursome appetite of which no man can give any tolerable account that it becomes ravenous when it devours a man's time his thoughts the strength and vigour of his spirit swallows up his nobler designs and makes an idle doting about he knows not what or why his main business Especially when Conscience it self becomes a sacrifice to this impure unhallowed Idol and the question is wholly waved Is this thing just and honest and nothing is considered but that its commodious and gainful Yet if herein we will take upon us to pass a judgment upon other men it will be no way ingenuous or just that in smaller and disputable matters we make our own apprehensions a measure and standard to them They are commonly aptest to do so who have least studied the matter and have nothing but their ignorant confidence to intitle them to the Dictator's Chair where however having placed themselves they liberally bestow their censures and reproaches on all that think ir not fit to throw away their own eyes and see with their bad ones And conclude them to have no Conscience who go not according to theirs And that they cannot but have some base design who in any thing presume to swerve from their judgment especially if the advantage in any temporal respect happen to lye on that side from which they dissent Nothing can indeed so comport with the spirit and design of one who believes himself made for another world as a brave and generous disdain of stooping to the lure of present emolument so as thereby to be drawn into any the least thing which he judges not disensible by the severest Rules of Reason and Religion which were to quit a serene Heaven for mire and dirt There is nothing in this world of that value or worthy to be bought so deer as with the less and forfeiture of the rest and repose of a mind quiet benign peaceful and well pleased with it self It is enough if one find himself by difficulties which he cannot master constrained to dissent from persons above exception wise and pious placidly and without unbecoming confidence to go on in the way which his present judgment allows carrying with him a modest sense of humane infirmity and how possible it is the error may lye on his own part Having yet to relieve him against that supposition the clearness of his own spirit the conscience of his innocency of any ill disposition or design of his instructibleness and preparedness to admit a conviction if he err And be he never so fully perswaded about the thing in difference yet to consider the smallness of it and how little cause he hath of glorying if he know in this matter more than others who possibly know ten times more than he in far greater and more important matters But in matters clearly determined by common agreed Principles to prevaricate out of an indulgence to meer appetite To give up one self to practices apparently immoral and flagitious only to comply with and lest he should not satisfie sensual desires is the Character of one who hath abandoned the common hope of all good men and who that he may have his lot with beasts in this world dreads not to have it with Devils in the other And it is upon the same ground equally unbecoming them that pretend to this hope to be visibly concern'd and discompos'd for losses and disappointments they may meet with in this kind when unexpected events withstand their having much of this world or deprives them of what they have It becomes them that reckon their good things are to come hereafter to shew by their equal deportment and cheerful aspect in any such case that they apprehend not themselves toucht in their most considerable Interests Yea though they suffer not losses only but injuries and besides that they are damnifi'd as much as such things can signifie they find themselves wrong'd and though further trouble and danger threaten them in the same kind They should evidence how much it is above the power either of chance or malice not only to make them miserable but even to disturb or make them sad That they are not happy by a casualty And that their happiness is not in the command of them who cannot command their own That it only depends on the inward constitution and frame of their own spirits attempered to the blessed objects of the invisible world whereby they have the assurance of enjoying them fully hereafter and the
be made to them of the world to come hinders not but their hearts languish and dye and become as stones within them But that lofty foul that bears about with it the living apprehension of its being made for an everlasting state so earnestly intends it that it shall ever be a descent and vouchsafement with it if it allow it self to take notice what busie mortals are doing in their as they recâ—â—â—n them grand negotiations here below And if there be a suspition of an aptness or inclination to intermeddle in them to their prejudice to whom that part belongs can heartily say to it as the Philosopher to the jealous Tyrant We of this Academy are not at leisure to mind so mean things We have somewhat else to do than to talk of you He hath still the image before his eye of this world vanishing and passing away of the other with the everlasting affairs and concernments of it even now ready to take place and fill up all the stage and can represent to himself the vision not from a melancholick fancy or crazed brain but a rational faith and a sober well instructed mind of the World dissolving Monarchies and Kingdoms breaking up Thrones tumbling Crowns and Scepters lying as neglected things He hath a Telescope through which he can behold the glorious appearance of the Supream Judg the solemn state of his Majestick Person the splendid pomp of his magnificent and vastly numerous retinue the obsequious Throng of glorious Celestial Creatures doing homage to their Eternal King the quick celerity of the emissitious Partisans covering the face of the Heavens with their spreading wings and dispersing themselves into all the four Winds to gather the Elect The universal silent attention of all to that loud-sounding Trumpet that shakes the pillars of the world pierces the inmost caverns of the earth and refounds from every part of the incircling Heavens The many Myriads of joyful Expectants arising changing putting on glory taking wing and contending upwards to joyn themselves to the triumphant Heavenly Hoast The Judgment set The Books opened The frightful amazed looks of surprized Wretches The equal administration of the final Judgment The adjudication of all to their eternal states The Heavens roll'd up as a scrowl the Earth and all things therein consumed and burnt up And now what spirit is there any more left in him towards the trivial affairs of a vanishing world How indifferent a thing is it with him who bears himself highest in a state of things whereof he foresees the certain hastning end Though he will not neglect the duty of his own place is heartily concerned to have the knowledg and fear of God more generally obtained in this apostate world and is ready to contribute his utmost regular endeavours for the preservation of common peace and order in subserviency hereto Yet abstractedly from these confiderations and such as have been before mentioned he is no more concerned who is uppermost than one would passing by a swarm of Flyes which hath the longest wings or which excels the rest in sprightliness or briskness of motion And for himself he can insert this among his most serious thanksgivings That while the care is incumbent on others of watching over the publike peace and safety he may sit still and converse with God and his own more sedate thoughts How secure is he in this That infinite Wisdom governs the world That all things shall be disposed the best way to the best and most valuable ends That an afflicted state shall never befall unto good men but when it is fittest and most conducible it should do so That the prosperity carnal appetite covets is never denied them but when it would be pernicious How calm is he in the midst of external troubles How placid and serene a spirit inhabits his peaceful breast When all things are shaken round about him he is not shaken He bears all sort of troubles but creates none to others nor is disturbed by any himself But they that delight to see this world rolling or fixed as may most serve their private purposes and have a perpetual quarrel with it while it looks not kindly upon them Their life is bound up in it and their pretences to another are but the languid faint notions of what they never heartily believe nor desire Upon the whole matter Nothing is more agreeable to this great expectation than a steady restraint and moderation of our passions towards things without us That is all the several sorts of external objects and affairs that so variously invite and tempt our observation and regard in this our present state 2. I next add A further congruity if we pretend to this expectation is That we be not over-much taken up in minding the body For this looks like a design or that inconsistent wish to have our present state perpetuated And that the thoughts are remote from us of a change for a better As if notwithstanding all that the Divine Goodness hath promised concerning the future inheritance of the free and heaven-born Seed This did still lye nearest our hearts O that Ishmael might live in thy sight And that the belief did miserably languish with us of any better portion than what our eyes do already behold Together with the apprehension of a spiritual being in us to be ripened into a compleat and actual capacity of enjoying what is better It is true that all the exorbitant workings of those meaner and ignoble passions that are moved by objects aud occasions without and forreign to us have the body for their first and last their spring and source their center and end But thence it becomes the more proper and requisite that we draw nearer this their seat and center and strike at the root and in killing that inordinate love and solicitude for the body mortifie them all at once We are indeed so far to comply with the pleasure of our Maker as not to despise the mean abode which he hath assigned us for a while in the body But withall to take heed lest we so cross and resist it as to make caring for the body our whole business which he hath only enjoyn'd us in subserviency to an unspeakably greater and more important business It s health and welfare ought upon very valuable accounts to be carefully preserved by all prudent means But to indulge its slothful desires and comply with its licentious wild cravings is far beneath us a base unmanning of our selves and would signifie as if so absurd a conceit had past with us into a setled judgment That a reasonable immortal spirit was created only to tend and serve a Brute It is monstrous to behold with how common consent multitudes that professedly agree in the belief of the immortal nature of their souls do yet agree to debase and enslave them to the meanest servility to their mortal bodies so as these are permitted to give Laws to them to prescribe them rules of living and what
〈…〉 own spirits we defeat not our 〈◊〉 expectations How pleasant and delectable that danger being provided against to sit down and compare our present with our expected state what we are with what we hope to be ere long To think of exchanging shortly infirmity pollution darkness deformity trouble complaint for power purity light beauty rest and praise How pleasant if our spirits be fitted to that state The endeavour whereof is a further congruity in the present case viz. 4 That we make it our principal business to intend our spirits to adorn and cuâ—â—ivate our inward man What can more become us if we reckon we have somewhat about us made for immortality than to bestow our chief care upon that immortal part Therefore to neglect our spirits conâ—â—ssâ—dly capable of so high an estate to let thâ—m languish under wâ—â—â—ing distempâ—rs or lye as the Sâ—uggard's Field overgrown with thorus and bâ—iars is as vile a slâ—rr as we can put upon our selves and our own profession We should therefore make this the matter of our earnest study What would be the proper improvements and ornaments of our spirits and will most fitly qualifie them for the state we are going into and of our daily observation how such things thrive and grow in us Especially we should not be satisfied till we find in our selves a refinedness from this earth a thorough purgation from all undue degrees of sensual inclination and affection the consumption of our dross by a Sacred Fire from Heaven a Spirit of Judgment and of Burning an aptitude to spiritual exercises and enjoyments high complacency in God fervent love a worshipping posture of soul formed to the veneration of the eternal Wisdom Goodness Power Holiness profound humility and abnegation of our selves a praiseful frame of spirit much used to gratulations and thanksgivings a large and universal love imitating as much as is possible the Divine A proneness to do good to all a steady composure and serene temper of spirit the repose and rest of a contented mind not boisterous not apt unto disquiet or to create storms to our selves or the world Every way suitable to the blissful Regions where nothing but perfect purity entire devotedness to God love goodness benignity well-pleasedness order and peace shall have place for ever This we ought to be constantly intent upon as the business of our lives our daily work to get our spirits so attempered and fiâ—ted to Heaven that if we be asked What design we drive What are we doing We may be able to make this true answer We are dressing our selves for Eternity And since nothing is required hereto that is simply impossible nothing but what is agreeable to our natures and would be a perfection to them How worthy and commendable an ambition were it to be always aspiring not to rest or take up beneath the highest pitch of attainable excellency in these kinds reckoning every degree thereof a due to our natures and that they have not what belongs to them while any thing of real intrinsick moral goodness is yet wanting and not only due but necessary and what we shall have need of in reference to the state we are shortly to enter upon that except such things be in us and abound we cannot have an abundant entrance into the everlasting Kingdom And should we pretending to such an expectation omit such endeavours of preparing our selves it were alike thing as if an unbred Peasant should go about to thrust himself with an expectation of high Honours and Preferments into the Prince's Court or as if a distracted man should expect to be employed in the greatest and most intricate affairs of State or an uninstructed Idiot take upon him to profess and teach Philosophy Therefore let us consider Are we conscious of no unfitnâ—ss for that blessed state To dwell in the presence of the holy God To be associated with the Hâ—avâ—nly Assembly of pure intellectual spirits To consort and joyn with them in their celebrations and triumphant Songs Can we espy no such thing in our selves as an earthy mind aversation to God as pride disdain wrath or envy admiration of our selves aptness to seek our own things with the neglect of others or the like And do not our hearts then misgive and tell us we are unready not yet prepared to approach the Divine Presence or to enter into the habitation of his Holiness and Glory And what then have we to do but set our selves to our preparatory work To set our watches make our observations take strict notice of all the deflections and obliquities of our spirits settle our methods and hasten a redress Do not we know this is the time and state of preparation And since we know it how would the folly torture us by reflection of having betrayed our selves to a surprisal None are ever wont to enter upon any new state without some foregoing preparation Every more remarkable turn or change in our lives is commonly if at all â—orâ—known introduced by many serious fore-thoughts If a man be to change his dwelling employment condition common discretion will put him upon thinking how to comport with the place business converse and way of living he is next to betake himself to And his thoughts will be the more intense by how much more momentous the change If he be to leave his Countrey with no probability of returning If he be designed to a station the circumstances whereof carry any thing of awfulness in them if to publike business if to Court-attendances With what solemnity and address are such things undertaken How loath and ashamed would one be to go into such a condition being totally unapt not at all knowing how to behave himself in it But what so great change as this can the nature of man admit That a soul long shut up in flesh is now to go forth from its earthly Mansion and return no more expecting to be received into the glorious Presence of the Eternal King and go act its part among the perfected Spirits that attend His Throne How solicitous endeavour of a very thorough preparation doth this case call for But how ill doth the common course of men agree to this who never have such matters in their thoughts who so much neglect not their very Hogs as they do their Spirits 5. That we have much conversation with God He is the only full and permanent Good therefore the endeavour of becoming very inward with him doth best agree with the expectation of a state perfectly good and happy To expect this and converse only with shadows and vanishing things is to expect to be happy without a happiness or that our happiness should betide us as a casual thing or be forc'd upon us at last whether we will or no. But since our happiness in God is on his part not necessary but vouchsafed and gratuitous depending on meer good pleasure Is it our best way of ingratiating our selves with him to neglect him and live as
without him in the world To keep our selves strangers to him all our days with a purpose only of flying to him at last when all things else that were wont to please us are vanished and gone And if we could suppose his Wisdom and Justice to admit his forgiving so provoking contempt of him and receiving an exiled Soul forced out from its earthly abode that to the last moment of it would never look after him or have to do with him yet can it be supposed that its own habitual aversation to him could allow it to be happy in him Especially being increased and confirmed by its consciousness and sense of guilt How can these but make it banish it self and in a sullen enmity and despair perpâ—tually flâ—e the Divine Presence What can in this case be more natural to it than to give up it self to eternal solitary wandrings as a Fugitive from God to affect to be ever enwrapt in its own darkness and hidden from his sight and be an everlasting tormentor to it self Can we be happy in him whom we do not love or love whom we will not know or be acquainted with What sure ground of hope can we imagine to our selves that our reconciliation and acquaintance with God shall ever be brought about if it be not done while we are here in the body Will we be so vain as to cherish an hope that not only affronts the visible import of God's revelation but the very reason of things and the natural tendency of our own spirits Nor indeed if we would consider better can we possibly hope for what we desire not or whereto our hearts are in an habitual disaffection other ways than in the present case negatively and that our infidelity permits us not to fear the contrary yea and the lively hope of a blessedness in God as it includes desire would certainly infer that Purity the image of his own that could never fail to incline our hearts to him and which would habituate us to a course of walking with him in inward communion And this were comely and agreeable to our pretences If while we profess our selves made for another state we retire our selves from the fading things that put a vanity into this and single out by our own choice the stable good which we expect ever to enjoy How befitting is it to pass by all things with neglect and betake our selves hither with this sense Lord I have viewed the World over in which thou hast set me I have tried how this and that thing will fit my spirit and the design of my Creation and can find nothing in which to rest for nothing here doth it self rest but such things as please me for a while in some degree vanish and flee as shadows from before me Lo I come to Thee the Eternal Being the Spring of Life the Center of rest the Stay of the Creation the Fulness of all things I joyn my self to thee with thee I will lead my life and spâ—nd my days with whom I aim to dwell for ever expecting when my little time is over to be taken up ere long into thy Eternity And since we who live under the Gospel have heard of the Redeemer of the dignity of his Person of his high Office and Power of his merciful design and great Atchievements for the restoring of lapsed and lost souls It is most agreeable to our apprehensions of the vanity of this present state and our expectations for the future that we commit our selves to him That with intire trust and love devotedness and subjection we give our selves up to his happy conduct to be led by him to God and instated into that eternal blessedness which we look for His Kingdom is not of this world as we profess not to be We cannot be innocently ignorant that its constitution and frame its laws and ordinances its aspect and tendency in its self and the whole course of its administration are directed to that other state He hath overcome death and him that had the power of it hath brought life and immortality to light is the first begotten from the dead and the first fruits of them that slept hath opened Heaven to us and is himself ascended and entred as our victorious triumphant Captain and Fore-runner He is adorned with highest Power and hath set up an Universal Kingdom extended to the utmost bounds of this apostate World and the vaster Regions of innocent and constantly loyal Spirits His Proclamations are issued out his Ensigns displayed to invite and call in whosoever are weary of the sin and vanity of this wretched world of their alienation from the life of God of living in the midst of death to joyn themselves to Him the Prince and Lord of Life and be led by Him to the immortal state If the present state of things appear dismal to us if we reckon it a woful spectacle to behold sin and death reigning wickedness and mortality acting their combined parts to waste the world and lay it desolate If we would deliver our selves and escape from the common ruin are seriously designing for Heaven and that World in which Death hath no place nor any shadow of Death Let us betake our selves to Him enroll our Names put our selves under his Banners and Discipline strictly observing the Laws and following the guidance of that our invisible Lord who will be Author of eternal salvation to them that obey him and save to the uttermost all that come to God through him How dear should he be to us How chearfully should we trust him how dutifully serve him how faithfully adhere to him both for his own sake and that of the design he hath in hand for us and the pleasant savour of Heaven and Immortality which breathes in both But if we neglect Him and disown our relation to him or if we let days and years go over our heads wherein we drowsily slumber roll our selves in the dust of the earth and while we call our selves Christians forget the reason and importance of our own Name and think not of our being under his call and conduct to the eternal Kingdom and Glory This is perversly to reject what we say only we seek to disclaim and renounce our pretences to Immortality to blast and damn our own great hopes Lastly It is congruous to our expectation of so great things after death That we live in a chearful pleasant expectation of it For what must necessarily intervene though not grateful in it self should be reckon'd so for the sake of that which is This only can upon the best terms reconcile us to the grave That our greatest hopes lye beyond it and are not hazarded by it but accomplish't Although indeed nothing were to be expected hereafter yet so little suitable entertainment doth this world afford to a reasonable spirit that the meer weariness of beholding a Scene of vanity and folly might well make a recess acceptable For is it so grateful a thing