Now we are stupified with vile and sensless hearts that can hear all the story of this Bloody Love and read all the dolors and sufferings of Love and hear all his sad complaints and all with dulness and unaffected He cries to us Behold and see Is it nothing to you O all ye that pass by Is there any sorrow like unto my sorrow Lamen 1.12 and we will scarce hear or regard the dolorous voyce nor scarce turn aside to view the wounds of him who turned aside and took us up to heal our wounds at this so dear a rate But Oh then our perfected Souls will feel as well as hear and with feeling apprehensions flame again in Love for Love Now we set his picture wounded and dying before our eyes but can get it no neerer our hearts then if we beleeved nothing of what we read But then when the obstructions between the eye and the understanding are taken away and the passage opened between the head and the heart surely our eyes will everlastingly affect our heart and while we view with one eye our slain-revived Lord and with the other eye our lost-recovered Souls and transcendent Glory these views will eternally pierce us and warm our very Souls And those eyes through which folly and lust hath so often stole into our hearts shall now be the Casements to let in the Love of our dearest Lord for ever Now though we should as some do travel to Jerusalem and view the Mount of Olives where he prayed and wept and see the Dolorons way by which he bare his Cross and enter the Temple of the Holy Grave yea if we should with Peter have stooped down and seen the place where he lay and behold his Relicts yet these Bolted doors of sin and flesh would have kept out the feeling of all that Love But Oh! that 's the Joy we shall then leave these hearts of stone and Rock behinde us and the sin that here so close besets us and the sottish unkindness that followed us so long shall not be able to follow us into that Glory But we shall behold as it were the wounds of Love with eyes and hearts of Love for ever Suppose a little to help our apprehensions that a Saint who hath partaked of the Joys of Heaven had been translated from as long an abode in Hell and after the experience of such a change should have stood with Mary and the rest by the Cross of Christ and have seen the Blood and heard the Groans of his Redeemer What think you Would love have stirred in his Brest or no Would the voyce of his dying Lord have melted his heart or no Oh that I were sensible of what I speak With what astonishing apprehensions then will Redeemed Saints everlastingly behold their Blessed Redeemer I will not meddle with their vain audacious Question who must needs know whether the glorified body of Christ do yet retain either the wounds or scars But this is most certain that the memory of it will be as fresh and the impressions of Love as deep and its workings as strong as if his wounds were still in our eyes and his complaints still in our ears and his blood still streaming afresh Now his heart is open to us and ours shut to him But when his heart shall be open and our Hearts open Oh the Blessed Congress that there will then be What a passionate meeting was there between our new-risen Lord and the first sinful silly woman that he appears to How doth Love struggle for expressions and the straitned fire shut up in the brest strive to break forth Mary saith Christ Master saith Mary and presently she clasps about his feet having her heart as neer to his heart as her hands were to his feet What a meeting of Love then will there be between the new glorified Saint and the Glorious Redeemer But I am here at a loss my apprehensions fail me and fall so short Onely this I know it will be the singular praise of our inheritance that it was bought with the price of that blood and the singular Joy of the Saints to behold the purchaser and the price together with the possession Neither will the views of the wounds of Love renew our wounds of sorrow He whose first words after his Resurrection were to a great sinner Woman why weepest thou knows how to raise Love and Joy by all those views without raising any cloud of sorrow or storm of tears at all He that made the Sacramental Commemoration of his Death to be his Churches Feast will sure make the real enjoyment of its blessed purchase to be marrow and fatness And if it afforded Joy to hear from his mouth This is my Body which is given for you and This is my Blood which was shed for you What Joy will it afford to hear This Glory is the fruit of my Body and my Blood and what a merry feast will it be when we shall drink of the fruit of the Vine new with him in the Kingdom of his Father as the fruit of his own Blood David would not drink of the waters which he longed for because they were the blood of those men who jeoparded their lives for them and thought them fitter to offer to God then to please him But we shall value these waters more highly and yet drink them the more sweetly because they are the Blood of Christ not jeoparded onely but shed for them They will be the more sweet and dear to us because they were so bitter and Dear to him If the buyer be judicious we estimate things by the price they cost If any thing we enjoy were purchased with the life of our dearest friend how highly should we value it Nay if a Dying Friend deliver us but a token of his Love how carefully do we preserve it and still remember him when we behold it as if his own name were written on it And will not then the Death and Blood of our Lord everlastingly sweeten our possessed Glory Methinks England should value the plenty of the Gospel with their Peace and Freedom at a higher rate when they remember what it hath cost How much precious blood How many of the Lives of Gods worthies and our most dear friends besides all other cost Methinks when I am with freedom preaching or hearing or living I see my dying friends before mine eyes whose blood was shâ—d for this and look the more respectively on them yet living whose frequent dangers did procure it Oh then when we are rejoycing in Glory how shall we think of the blood that revived our Souls and how shall we look upon him whose sufferings did put that Joy into our hearts How carefully preserve we those prizes which with greatest hazard we gained from the enemy Goliahs sword must be kept as a Trophie and layd up behinde the Ephod and in a time of need David says There 's none to that Surely when
it tends also exceedingly to quicken and raise it so that as God is the highest Object of our Thoughts so our viewing of him and our speaking to him and pleading with him doth more elevate the soul and actuate the Affections then any other part of Meditation can do Men that are careless of their carriage and speeches among children and Ideots will be sober and serious with Princes or grave men so though while we do but plead the case with our selves we are careless and unaffected yet when we turn our speech to God it may strike us with awfulness and the holiness and Majesty of him whom we speak to may cause both the matter and words to pierce the deeper Isaac went forth to pray saith the former Translation To Meditate saith the latter The Hebrew Verb saith Paraeus in loc signifieth both ad Orandum Meditandum The men of God both former and later who have left their Meditations on Record for our view have thus intermixed Soliloquy and Prayer sometime speaking to their own hearts and sometime turning their speech to God And though this may seem an indifferent thing yet I conceive it very sutable and necessary and that it is the highest step that we can advance to in the Work Object But why then is it not as good take up with Prayer alone and so save all this tedious work that you prescribe us I Answer They are several duties and therefore must be performed both Secondly We have need of one as well as the other and therefore shall wrong our selves in the neglecting of either Thirdly The mixture as in Musick doth more affect the one helps on and puts life into the other Fourthly It is not the right order to begin at the top therefore Meditation and speaking to our selves should go before Prayer or speaking to God want of this makes Prayer with most to have little more then the name of Prayer and men to speak as lightly and as stupidly to the dreadful God as if it were to one of their companions and with far less reverence and affection then they would speak to an Angel if he should appear to them yea or to a Judg or Prince if they were speaking for their lives and consequently their success and answers are often like their prayers O speaking in the God of Heaven in prayer is a weightier duty then most are aware of SECT V. THe Ancients had a Custom by Apostrophe's and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to speak as it were to Angels and Saints departed 〈…〉 it was used by them I take to be lawful but what they spoke in Rhetorical Figures were interpreted by the succeeding Ages to be spoken in strict propriety and Doctrinal Conclusions for praying to Saints and Angels were raised from their speeches Therefore I will omit that course which is so little necessary and so subject to scandalize the less-judicious Readers And so much for the fourth part of the Direction by what steps or Acts we must advance to the height of this Work I should clear all this by some examples but that I intend shall follow in the end CHAP. XI Some Advantages and Helps for raising and affecting the Soul by this Meditation SECT I. FIfthly The fifth part of this Directory is To shew you what advantages you should take and what helps you should use to make your Meditations of Heaven more quickening and to make you taste the sweetness that is therein For that is the main work that I drive at through all that you may not stick in a bare thinking but may have the lively seâ—â—e of all upon your hearts And this you will finde to be the most difficult part of the work and that its easier barely to think of Heaven a whole day then to be lively and affectionate in those thoughts one quarter of an hour Therefore let us yet a little further consider what may be done to make your thoughts of Heaven to be piercing affecting raising thoughts Here therefore you must understand That the meer pure work of Faith hath many disadvantages with us in comparison of the work of Sense Faith is imperfect for we are renewed but in part but Sense hath its strength according to the strength of the flesh Faith goes against a world of resistance but Sense doth not Faith is supernatural and therefore prone to declining and to languish both in the habit and exercise further then it is still renewed and excited but Sense is natural and therefore continueth while nature continueth The object of Faith is far off we must go as far as Heaven for our Joyes But the object of Sense is close at hand It is no easie matter to rejoyce at that which we never saw nor ever knew the man that did see it and this upon a meer promise which is written in the Bible and that when we have nothing else to rejoyce in but all our sensible comforts do fail us But to rejoyce in that which we see and feel in that which we have hold of and possession already this is not difficult Well then what should be done in this case Why sure it will be a point of our Spiritual Prudence and a singular help to the furthering of the work of Faith to call in our Sense to its assistance If we can make us friends of these usual enemies and make them instruments of raising us to God which are the usual means of drawing us from God I think we shall perform a very excellent work Sure it is both possible and lawful yea and necessary too to do something in this kinde for God would not have given us either our Senses themselves or their usual objects if they might not have been serviceable to his own praise and helps to raise us up to the apprehension of higher things And it is very considerable How the Holy Ghost doth condescend in the phrase of Scripture in bringing things down to the reach of Sense how he sets forth the excellencies of Spiritual things in words that are borrowed from the objects of Sense how he describeth the glory of the New Jerusalem in expressions that might take even with flesh it self As that the Streets and Buildings are pure Gold that the Gates are Pearl that a Throne doth stand in the midst of it c. Revel 21. and 22. That we shall eat and drink with Christ at his Table in his Kingdom that he will drink with us the fruit of the Vine new that we shall shine as the Sun in the Firmament of our Father These with most other descriptions of our glory are expressed as if it were to the very flesh and sense which though they are all improper and figurative yet doubtless if such expressions had not been best and to us necessary the Holy Ghost would not have so frequently used them He that will speak to mans understanding must speak in mans language and speak that which he is capable
every passage of the Blessed Gospel Enough one would think to enter and force the dullest Soul and wholly possess its thoughts and affections and yet how oft doth it fall as water upon a stone And how easily can our hearers sleep out a Sermon time â— and much because these words of Life do die in the delivery and the Fruit of our Conception is almost Still-born Our peoples Spirits remain congealed while we who are entrusted with the Word that should melt them do suffer it to freez between our Lips We speak indeed of Soul-concerning Truths and set before them Life and Death But it is with such Self-seeking affectation and in such a lazy formal customary strain like the pace the Spaniard rides that the people little think we are in good sadness or that our Hearts do mean as our Tongues do speak I have heard of some Tongues that can lick a coâ—l of fire till it be cold I fear these Tongues are in most of our Mouths and that the Breath that is given us to blow up this fire till it flame in our Peoples Souls is rather used to blow it out Such Preaching is it that hath brought the most to hear Sermons as they say their Creed and Pater Nosters even as a few good words of course How many a cold and mean Sermon that yet contains most precious Truths The things of God which we handle are Divine but our maner of handling too Humane And there 's little or none that ever we touch but we leave the print of our fingers behinde us but if God should speak this Word himself it would be a piercing melting Word indeed How full of comfort are the Gospel Promises yet do we oft so heartlesly declare them that the broken bleeding-hearted Saints are much deprived of their Joyes Christ is indeed a precious Pearl but oft held forth in Leprous hands And thus do we disgrace the Riches of the Gospel when it is the Work of our Calling to make it honorable in the eyes of men and we dim the glory of that Jewel by our dull and low expressions and dunghil conversations whose lustre we do pretend to discover while the hearers judg of it by our expressions and not its proper genuine worth The truth is the best of men do apprehend but little of what God in his Word expresseth and what they do apprehend they are unable to utter Humane language is not so copious as the hearts conceivings are and what we possibly might declare yet through our own unbelief stupidity laziness and other corruptions we usually fail in and what we do declare yet the darkness of our peoples understandings and the sad senslesness of their hearts doth usually shut out and make voyd So that as all the Works of God are perfect in their season as he is perfect so are all the works of man as himself imperfect And those which God performeth by the hand of man will too much savor of the instrument If an Angel from Heaven should preach the Gospel yet could he not deliver it according to its glory muchless we who never saw what they have seen and keep this Treasure in Earthen Vessels The comforts that flow through Sermons through Sacraments through Reading and Company and Conference and Creatures are but half comforts and the Life that comes by these is but a half life in comparison of those which the Almighty shall speak with his own mouth and reach forth to us with his own hand The Christian knows by experience now that his most immediate Joyes are his sweetest Joyes which have least of man and are most directly from the Spirit That 's one reason as I conceive why Christians who are much in secret prayer and in meditation and contemplation rather then they who are more in hearing reading and conference are men of greatest life and joy because they are nearer the Well-head and have all more immediately from God himself And that I conceive the reason also Why we are more undisposed to those secret duties and can easilier bring our hearts to hear and read and confer then to secret Prayer Self-examination and Meditation because in the former is more of man and in these we approach the Lord alone and our Natures draw back from the most spiritual and fruitful Duties Not that we should therefore cast off the other and neglect any Ordinance of God To live above them while we use them is the way of a Christian But so to live above Ordinances as to live without them is to live without the compass of the Gospel Lines and so without the Government of Christ. Let such beware least while they would be higher then Christians they prove in the end lower then men We are not yet come to the time and state where we shall have all from Gods immediate hand As God hath made all Creatures and instituted all Ordinances for us so will he continue our need of all We must yet be contented with Love-tokens from him till we come to receive our All in him We must be thankful if Joseph sustain our lives by relieving us in our Famine with his Provisions till we come to see his own face There 's joy in these remote receivings but the fulness is in his own presence O Christians you will then know the difference betwixt the Creature and Creator and the content that each of them affords We shall then have Light without a Candle and a perpetual day without the Sun For the City hath no need of the Sun neither of the Moon to shine in it for the glory of God doth lighten it and the Lamb is the light thereof Revel 21.23 Nay There shall be no night there and they need no candle nor light of the Sun for the Lord God giveth them light and they shall reign for ever and ever Revel 22.5 We shall then have rest without sleep and be kept from cold without our cloathing and need no Fig-leaves to hide our shame For God will be our Rest and Christ our cloathing and shame and sin will cease together We shall then have health without Physick and strength without the use of food for the Lord God will be our strength and the light of his countenance will be health to our souls and marrow to our bones We shall then and never till then have enlightened understandings without Scriptures and be governed without a written Law For the Lord will perfect his Law in our hearts and we shall be all perfectly taught of God his own will shall be our Law and his own face shall be our light for ever Then shall we have joy which we drew not from the promises nor was fetcht us home by Faith or Hope Beholding and possessing will exclude the most of these We shall then have Communion without Sacraments when Christ shall drink with us of the fruit of the Vine new that is Refresh us with the comforting Wine of immediate fruition in the
moment he hide his face yet with everlasting compassion will he receive and imbrace us when he shall say to Sion Arise and shine for thy light is come and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee Isa. 60.2 SECT XI 3. WE shall rest from all the Temptations of Satan whereby he continually disturbes our peace VVhat a grief is it to a Christian though he yield not to the temptation yet to be still solicited to deny his Lord That such a thought should be cast into his heart That he can set about nothing that is good but Satan is still disswading him from it distracting him in it or discouraging him after it VVhat a torment as well as temptation is it to have such horrid motions made to his soul such Blasphemous Idea's presented to his fantasie Sometime cruel thoughts of God sometime under-valuing thoughts of Christ sometime unbelieving thoughts of Scripture sometime injurious thoughts of Providence to be tempted sometime to turn to present things sometime to play with the baits of sin sometime to venture on the delights of flesh and sometime to flat Atheism it self Especially when we know the treachery of our own hearts that they are as Tinder or Gunpowder ready to take fire as soon as one of these sparks shall fall upon them O how the poor Christian lives in continual disquietness to feel these motions But more that his heart should be the soyl for this seed and the too fruitful mother of such an off-spring And most of all through fear least they will at last prevail and these cursed motions should procure his consent But here is our comfort as we now stand not by our own strength and shall not be charged with any of this so when the day of our deliverance comes we shall fully Rest from these Temptations Satan is then bound up the time of tempting is then done the time of torment to himself and his conquered captives those deluded souls is then come and the victorious Saints shall have Triumph for Temptation Now we do walk among his snares and are in danger to be circumvented with his methods and wiles but then we are quite above his snares and out of the hearing of his enticing charms He hath power here to tempt us in the VVilderness but he entereth not the Holy City He may set us on the pinacle of the Temple in the earthly Jerusalem but the new Jerusalem he may not approach Perhaps he may bring us to an exceeding high Mountain but the Mount Sion and City of the living God he cannot ascend Or if he should yet all the Kingdoms of the world and the glory of them will be but a poor despised bait to the soul which is possessed of the Kingdom of our Lord and the Glory of it No no here is no more work for Satan now Hopes he might have of deceiving poor Creatures on Earth who lived out of sight and onely heard and read of a Kingdom which they never beheld and had onely Faith to live upon and were incompassed with flesh and drawn aside by sense But when once they see the Glory they read of and taste the joyes they heard of and possess that Kingdom which they then believed and hoped for and have laid aside their fleshly sense its time then for Satan to have done it s in vain to offer a Temptation more What draw them from that glory draw them from the Arms of Jesus Christ draw them from the sweet praises of God draw them from the blessed Society of Saints and Angels draw them from the bosom of the Fathers Love and that to a place of Torment among the damned which their eyes behold why what charms what perswasions can do it to entice them from an unknown Joy an unknown God were somewhat hopeful but now they have both seen and enjoyed there is no hope Surely it must be a very strong temptation that must draw a blessed Saint from that Rest. We shall have no more need to pray Lead us not into Temptation nor to watch and pray that we enter not into Temptation nor shall we serve the Lord as Paul did Acts 20.19 in many tears and Temptations no but now they who continued with Christ in Temptation shall by him be appointed to a Kingdom even as his Father appointed to him that they may eat and drink at his Table in his Kingdom Luke 22.28 29 30. Blessed therefore are they that endure temptation for when they are tryed they shall receive the crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them that love him Jam. 1.12 And then they shall be saved from the hour of temptation Then the malignant Planet Saturn shall be below us and loose all its influence which now is above exercising its enmity and Satan must be suffering who would have drawn us into suffering As Bucholtzer wittily Vbi Saturnus non supra nos sed infra nos conspicietur luens poenas pro sua in nos soevitia malitia SECT XII 4. WE shall Rest also from all our Temptations which we now undergo from the world and the flesh as well as Satan And that is a number unexpressible and a weight were it not that we are beholding to supporting grace utterly intollerable O the hourly dangers that we poor sinners here below walk in Every sense is a snare Every member a snare Every creature a snare Every mercy a snare And every duty a snare to us VVe can scarce open our eyes but we are in danger If we behold them above us we are in danger of envy If them below us we are in danger of contempt If we see sumptuous buildings pleasant habitations Honour and Riches we are in danger to be drawn away with covetous desires If the ragges and beggery of others we are in danger of self-applauding thoughts and unmercifulness If we see beauty it s a bait to lust if deformity to loathing and disdain VVe can scarcely hear a word spoken but containes to us matter of temptation How soon do slanderous reports vain jests wanton speeches by that passage creep into the Heart How strong and prevalent a Temptation is our appetite and how constant and strong a watch doth it require Have we comliness and beauty What fuel for pride Are we deformed What an occasion of repining Have we strength of Reason and gifts of Learning O how hard is it not to be pufft up To seek our selves To hunt after applause To despise our brethren To mislike the simplicity that is in Christ Both in the matter and manner of Scripture In Doctrine in Discipline in Worship and in the Saints to affect a pompous specious fleshly service of God and to exalt Reason above Faith Are we unlearned and of shallow heads and slender parts How apt then to despise what we have not And to undervalue that which we do not know and to erre with confidence because of our
is out of question seeing Faith and Repentance is every where required of them to make them capable of Baptism and to make it the end of the Ordinance to effect that in Infants which is a prerequisite condition in all others is somewhat a strange fiction and hath nothing that I know considerable to underprop it Yet will it not follow that because Baptism cannot be an instrument of Regenerating Infants that therefore they have no right to it no more then because Circumcision could not confer with Grace therefore they should omit it They are as capable of the ends of Baptism as they were then of the ends of Circumcision Christ himself was not capable of all the ends of Baptism and yet being capable of some for those was he baptized So may Infants be as capable of some though not of all This Regeneration I call Through to distinguish it from those sleight tinctures and superficial changes which other men may partake of and yet Imperfect to distinguish our present from our future condition in Glory and that the Christian may know that it is sincerity not perfection which he must enquire after in his soul. SECT III. THus far the Soul is passive Let us next see by what acts this new Life doth discover it self and this Divine Spark doth break forth and how the soul touched with this Loadstone of the Spirit doth presently move toward God The first work I call Conviction which indeed comprehends several Acts. 1. Knowledg 2. Assent It comprehends the knowledg of what the Scripture speaks against sin and sinners and that this Scripture which so speaks is the Word of God himself Whosoever knows not both these is not yet thus convinced though it is a very great Question Whether this last be an act of Knowledg or of Faith I think of both It comprehends a sincere Assent to the verity of this Scripture as also some knowledg of our selves and our own guilt and an acknowledgment of the verity of those Consequences which from the premises of sin in us and threats in Scripture do conclude us miserable It hath been a great Question and disputed in whole Volumns which Grace is the first in the Soul where Faith and Repentance are usually the onely competitors I have shewed you before that in regard of the principle the power or habit whichsoever it be that is infused they are all at once being indeed all one and onely called several Graces from the diversity of their subject as residing in the several faculties of the soul the life and rectitude of which several faculties and affections are in the same sense several Graces as the Germane French British Seas are several Seas And for the Acts it is most apparent that neither Repentance nor Faith in the ordinary strict sense is first but Knowledg There is no act of the Rational Soul about any object preceding Knowledg Their evasion is too gross who tell us That Knowledg is no Grace or but a common act When a dead Soul is by the Spirit enlivened its first act is to know and why should it not exert a sincere act of Knowing as well as Believing and the sincerity of Knowledg be requisite as well as of Faith especially when Faith in the Gospel-sense is sometime taken largely containing many acts whereof Knowledg is one in which large sense indeed Faith is the first Grace This Conviction implyeth also the subduing and silencing in some measure of all their carnal Reasonings which were wont to prevail against the Truth and a discovery of the fallacies of all their former Argumentations 2. As there must be Conviction so also Sensibility God works on the Heart as well as the Head both were corrupted and out of order The principle of new Life doth quicken both All true Spiritual Knowledg doth pass into Affections That Religion which is meerly traditional doth indeed swim loose in the Brain and the Devotion which is kindled but by Men and Means is hot in the mouth and cold in the stomack The Work that had no higher rise then Education Example Custom Reading or Hearing doth never kindly pass down to the Affections The Understanding which did receive but meer notions cannot deliver them to the Affections as Realities The bare help of Doctrine upon an unrenewed Soul produceth in the Understanding but a superficial apprehension and half Assent and therefore can produce in the Heart but small sensibility As Hypocrites may know many things yea as many as the best Christian but nothing with the clear apprehensions of an experienced man so may they with as many things be slightly affected but they give deep rooting to none To read and hear of the worth of Meat and Drink may raise some esteem of them but not such as the hungry and thirsty feel for by feeling they know the worth thereof To view in the Map of the Gospel the precious things of Christ and his Kingdom may slightly affect But to thirst for and drink of the living waters and to travel to live in to be heir of that Kingdom must needs work another kinde of Sensibility It is Christs own differencing Mark and I had rather have one from him then from any that the good ground gives the good Seed deep rooting but some others entertain it but into the surface of the soyl and cannot afford it depth of Earth The great things of Sin of Grace and Christ and Eternity which are of weight one would think to move a Rock yet shake not the heart of the carnal Professor nor pierce his soul unto the quick Though he should have them all ready in his Brain and be a constant Preacher of them to others yet do they little affect himself When he is pressing them upon the hearts of others most earnestly and crying out on the senslesness of his dull hearers you would little think how insensible is his own soul and the great difference between his tongue and his heart His study and invention procureth him zealous and moving expressions but they cannot procure him answerable affections It is true some soft and passionate Natures may have tears at command when one that is truly gracious hath none yet is this Christian with dry eyes more solidly apprehensive and deeply affected then the other is in the midst of his tears and the weeping Hypocrite will be drawn to his sin again with a trifle which the groaning Christian would not be hired to commit with Crowns and Kingdoms The things that the Soul is thus convinced and sensible of are especially these in the Description mentioned 1. The evil of sin The sinner is made to know and feel that the sin which was his delight his sport the support of his credit and estate is indeed a more loathsom thing then Toads or Serpents and a greater evil then Plague or Famine or any other calamity It being a breach of the righteous
then by the blood of Jesus that we have entrance into the Holyest Heb. 10.19 Even all our entrance to the fruition of God both that by faith and prayer here and that by full possession hereafter Therefore do the Saints sing forth his praises who hath Redeemed them out of every Nation by his blood and made them Kings and Priests to God Rev. 5.9.10 Whether that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Eph. 1.14 which is translated the Redemption of the purchased profession do prove this or not yet I see no appearance of truth in their exposition of it who because they deny that salvation is purchased by Christ do affirme that its Christ himself who is there called the Purchased possession Therefore did God give his Son and the Son give his life and therefore was Christ lift up on the Cross as Moses lift up the Serpent in the Wilderness that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life John 3.15 16. So then I conclude either Christ must loose his blood and sufferings and never see of the travaile of his soul but all his pains and expectation be frustrate or els there remaineth a Rest to the people of God SECT III. THirdly And as this Rest is purchased for us so is it also promised to us As the Firmament with the Stars so are the sacred pages bespangled with the frequent intermixture of these Divine engagements Christ hath told us that it is his will that those who are given to him should be where he is that they may behold the Glory which is given him of the Father John 17.24 so also Luke 12.32 Fear not little flock it is your fathers good pleasure to give you the Kingdom q. d. Fear not all your enemies rage fear not all your own unworthiness doubt not of the certainty of the guift for it is grounded on the good pleasure of your Father Luke 22.29 I appoint to you a Kingdom as my Father hath appointed unto me a Kingdom That ye may eat and drink at my Table in my Kingdom But because I will not be tedious in the needless confirming an acknowledged truth I refer you to the places here cited 2 Thes. 1.7 Heb. 4.1 3. Mat. 25.34 13.43 2 Tim. 4.18 Jam. 2.5 2 Pet. 1.11 2 Thes. 1.5 Acts 14.22 Luke 6.20 13.28 29. 1 Thess. 2.12 Mat. 5.12 Mark 10.21 12.25 1 Pet. 1.4 Heb. 10.34 12.23 Col. 1.5 Phil. 3.20 21. Heb. 11. â—6 Eph. 1. â—0 1 Cor. 15. Rev. 2.7 11 17 c. SECT IIII. FOurthly All the means of Grace and all the workings of the Spirit upon the soul and all the gracious actions of the Saints are so many evident Mediums to prove that there remaineth a Rest to the people of God If it be an undeniable maxime that God and nature do nothing in vaine then is it as true of God and his Grace All these means and motions implie some End to which they tend or else they cannot be called means nor are they the motions of Wisdom or Reason And no lower End then this Rest can be imagined God would never have commanded his people to repent and beleeve to fast and pray to knock and seek and that continually to read and study to conferr and meditate to strive and labor to run and fight and all this to no purpose Nor would the Spirit of God work them to this and create in them a supernaturall power and enable them and excite them to a constant performance were it not for this end whereto it leads us Nor could the Saints reasonably attempt such employments nor yet undergo so heavy sufferings were it not for this desirable end But whatsoever the folly of man might do certainly Divine Wisdom cannot be guilty of setting awork such fruitless motions Therefore whereever I read of duty required whenever I finde the Grace bestowed I take it as so many promises of Rest. The Spirit would never kindle in us such strong desires after Heaven nor such a love to Jesus Christ if we should not receive that which we desire and love He that sets our feet in the way of Peace Luke 1.79 will undoubtedly bring us to the end of Peace How neerly is the means and end conjoyned Mat. 11.12 The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force or as Luke 16.16 every man presseth into it So that the violence apprehends the Kingdom Those whom he causeth to follow him in the regeneration he will sure provide them Thrones of judgement Mat. 19.28 SECT V. FIfthly Scripture further assures us that the Saints have the beginnings foretasts earnest and Seals of this Rest here And may not all this assure them of the full possession The very Kingdom of God is within them Luke 17.21 They here as is before said take it by force They have a beginning of that knowledg which Christ hath said is eternall life John 17.3 I have fully manifested that before that the Rest and Glory of the people of God doth consist in their Knowing Loving Rejoycing and Praising and all these are begun though but begun here therefore doubtless so much as we here know God so much as we Love Rejoyce and Praise so much we have of Heaven on earth so much we enjoy of the Rest of Souls And do you think that God will give the Beginning where he never intends to give the End Nay God doth give his people oftentimes such foresights and foretasts of this same Rest that their spirits are even transported with it and they could heartly wish they might be present there Paul is taken up into the third Heaven and seeth things that must not be uttered The Saints are kept by the power of God through faith unto that salvation ready to be revealed in the last time wherein they can greatly Rejoyce even in temptations 1 Pet. 1.5 6. And therefore the Apostle also tells us That they who now see not Christ nor ever saw him yet love him and Believing do Rejoyce in him with joy unspeakable and full of Glory Receiving the end of their faith the salvation of their souls 1 Pet. 1.8.9 Observe here First How God gives his people this foretasting joy Secondly How this joy is said to be full of Glory and therefore must needs be a beginning of the Glory Thirdly How immediatly upon this there follows Receiving the end of their Faith the Salvation of the soul. And Paul also brings in the Justified Rejoycing in hope of the Glory of God Rom. 5.2 And I doubt not but some poor Christians amongst us who have little to boast of appearing without have often these foretasts in their souls And do you think God will Tantalize his people Will he give them the first fruits and not the crop Doth he shew them Glory to set them a longing and then dâ—ny them the actuall fruition Or doth he lift them up so neer this Rest and
thou wilt here imploy me and to dispatch the work which thou hast put into my hands till these strange thoughts of thee be somewhat more familiar and thou hast raised me into some degree of acquaintance with thy self But I beseech thee stay no longer when this is done Stay not till sin shall get advantage and my soul grow earthly by dwelling on this earth and my desires and delights in thee grow dead But while I must be here let me be still amending and ascending make me still better and take me at the best I dare not be so impatient of living as to importune thee to cut off my time and urge thee to snatch me hence unready because I know my everlasting state doth so much depend on the improvement of this life Nor yet would I stay when my work is done and remaine here sinning when my brethren are triumphing I am drowning in teares while they swim in joyes I am weeping while they are singing I am under thy feet while they are in thy bosome Thy footsteps bruise and break this worm while those Stars do shine in the Firmament of glory Thy frowns do kill me while they are quickened by thy smiles They are ever living and I am daily dying Their joyes are raised by the knowledg of their endlesness my griefs are enlarged by still expecting more while they possess but one continued pleasure I bear the successive assaults of fresh calamities One billow fals in the neck of another and when I am rising up from under one another comes and strikes we down Yet I am thy childe as well as they Christ is my head as well as theirs why is there then so great a distance How differently dost thou use us when thou art Father to us all They sit at thy table whilst I must stand without the doors But I acknowledg the equity of thy ways Though we all are children yet I am the Prodigal and therefore meeter in this remote country to feed on husks while they are always with thee and possess thy glory Though we all are members yet not the same they are the tongue and fitter to praise thee They are the hands and fitter for thy service I am the feet and therefore meeter to tread on earth and move in dirt but unfit to stand so neer the head as they They were once themselves in my condition and I shall shortly be in theirs They were of the lowest forme before they came to the highest They suffered before they reigned They came out of great tribulation who now are standing before thy throne And shall not I be content to come to the crown as they did and to drink of their cup before I sit with them in the Kingdom The blessed souls of David Paul Austin Calvin Perkins Bayne Parker Ames Bradshaw Dod Preston Stoughton Sibbes with all the spirits of the just made perfect were once on earth as I am now as far from the sight of thy face and glory as deep in sorrows as weak and sick and full of pains as I Their souls were longer imprisoned in corruptible flesh I shall go but the way that they all did go before me Their house of clay did fall to dust and so must mine The world they are now in was as strange to them before they were there as it is to me And am I better then all these pretious souls I am contented therefore O my Lord to stay thy time and go thy way so thou wilt exalt me also in thy season and take me into thy barn when thou seest me ripe In the mean time I may desire though I may not repine I may look over the hedge though I may not break over I may believe and Wish though not make any sinful hast I am content to wait but not to lose thee And when thou seest me too contented with thine absence and satisfying and pleasing my self here below O quicken up then my dull desires and blow up the dying spark of love And leave me not till I am able unfeignedly to cry out As the heart panteth after the brooks and the dry land thirsteth for the water streams so thirsteth my soul after thee O God when shall I come and appear before the living God Till my daily conversation be with thee in Heaven and from thence I may longingly expect my Saviour Till my affections are set on things above where Christ is reigning and my life is hid Till I can walk by Faith and not by sight willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord. What interest hath this empty world in me and what is there in it that may seeme so lovely as to entice my desires and delight from thee or make me loth to come away when I look about me with a deliberate undeceived eye me thinks this world 's a howling wilderness and most of the inhabitants are untamed hideous monsters All its beauty I can wink into blackness and all its mirth I can think into sadness I can drown al its pleasures in a few penitent tears and the winde of a sigh will scatter them away When I look on thâ—m without the spectacles of flesh I call them nothing as being vainty or worse then nothing as vexation O let not this flesh so seduce my soul as to make it prefer this weary life before the Joyes that are about thy Throne And though Death of it self be unwelcome to Nature yet let thy Grace make thy Glory appear to me so desirable that the King of Terrors may be the Messenger of my Joy O let not my soul be ejected by violence and dispossessed of its Habitation against its will but draw it forth to thy Self by the secret power of thy Love as the Sun-shine in the Spring draws forth the creatures from their Winter Cells meet it half way and entice it to thee as the Loadstone doth the Iron and as the greater flame doth attract the less Dispel therefore the Clouds that hide from me thy Love or remove the Scales that hinder mine Eyes from beholding Thee for onely the beames that stream from thy Face and the foresight or taste of thy great Salvation can make a soul unfainedly to say Now Let thy Servant depart in peace Reading and Hearing will not serve my meat is not sweet to my Ear or to my Eye it must be a taste or feeling that must entice away my soul Though arguing is the means to bend my will yet if thou bring not the matter to my hand and by the influence of thy Spirit make it not effectual I shall never reason my soul to be willing to depart In the Winter when its cold and dirty without I am loth to leave my Chamber and fire but in the Summer when all is warm and green I am loth to be so confined shew me but the Summer fruits and pleasures of thy Paradise and I shall freely quit my earthly Cell Some pleasure
Kingdom of his Father To have necessities but no supply is the case of them in Hell to have necessity supplied by the means of Creatures is the case of us on Earth to have necessity supplied immediately from God is the case of the Saints in Heaven to have no necessity at all is the prerogative of God himself The more of God is seen and received with and by the means and Creature here the neerer is our state like that in glory In a word We have now our Mercies as Benjamin had Josephs cup we finde them at a distance from God and scarcely know from whence they come and understand not the good will intended in them but are oft ready to fear they come in wrath and think they will but work our ruine But when we shall feed at Josephs own house yea receive our portion from his own hand when he shall fully unbowel his love unto us and take us to dwell in Goshen by him when we shall live in our Fathers house and presence and God shall be All and in All then are we indeed at home in Rest. SECT VI. SIxthly Again a further excellency is this It will be unto us a seasonable Rest. He that expecteth the fruit of his Vineyard in season and maketh his people as Trees planted by the waters fruitful in their season he will also give them the Crown in season He that will have the words of Joy spoken to the weary in season will sure cause that time of Joy to appear in the meetest season And they who knew the season of Grace and did repent and believe in season shall also if they faint not reap in season If God will not miss the season of common Mercies even to his enemies but will give both the former and latter rain in their season and the appointed weeks of the Harvest in its season and by an inviolable Covenant hath established day and night in their seasons Then sure the Harvest of the Saints and their day of gladness shall not miss its season Doubtless he that would not stay a day longer then his promise but brought Israel out of Egypt that self same day that the 430 yeers were expired neither will he fail of one day or hour of the fittest season for his peoples glory And as Christ failed not to come in the fulness of time even then when Daniel and others had foretold his coming so in the fulness and fitness of time will his second coming be He that hath given the Stork the Crane the Swallow to know their appointed time will surely keep his time appointed When we have had in this world a long night of sad darkness will not the day-breaking and the arising of the Sun of Righteousness be then seasonable When we have endured a hard Winter in this cold Climate will not the reviving Spring be then seasonable When we have as Paul sailed slowly many days and much time spent and sailing now grown more dangerous and when neither Sun nor Stars in many days appear and no small tempest lieth on us and all hope that we shall be saved is almost taken away do you think the Haven of Rest is not then seasonable When we have passed a long and tedious Journey and that through no small dangers is not Home then seasonable When we have had a long and perilous War and have lived in the midst of furious Enemies and have been forced to stand on a perpetual watch and received from them many a wound would not a Peace with Victory be now seasonable When we have been captivated in many yeers imprisonment and insulted over by scornful foes and suffered many pinching wants and hardly enjoyed bare necessaries would not a full deliverance to a most plentiful State even from this prison to a Throne be now seasonable Surely a man would think who looks upon the face of the World that Rest should to all men seem seasonable Some of us are languishing under continual weakness and groaning under most grievous pains crying in the morning Would God it were evening and in the evening Would God it were morning weary of going weary of sitting weary of standing weary of lying weary of eating of speaking of waking weary of our very friends weary of our selves O how oft hath this been mine own case and is not Rest yet seasonable Some are complaining under the pressures of the times weary of their Taxes weary of their Quartering weary of Plunderings weary of their fears and dangers weary of their poverty and wants and is not Rest yet seasonable Whither can you go or into what company can you come where the voyce of complaining doth not shew that men live in a continual weariness but especially the Saints who are most weary of that which the world cannot feel What godly society almost can you fall into but you shall hear by their moans that somewhat aileth them some weary of a blinde minde doubting concerning the way they walk in unsetled in almost all their thoughts some weary of a hard heart some of a proud some of a passionate and some of all these and much more some weary of their daly doubtings and feares concerning their spiritual estate and some of the want of spiritual Joyes and some of the sense of Gods wrath and is not Rest now seasonable when a poor Christian hath desired and prayed and waited for deliverance many a year is it not then seasonable When he is ready almost to give up and saith I am afraid I shall not reach the end and that my faith and patience will scarce hold out is not this a fit season for Rest If it were to Joseph a seasonable message which called him from the Prison to Pharohs Court Or if the return of his Benjamin the tidings that Joseph was yet alive and the sight of the Chariots which should convoy him to Egypt were seasonable for the Reviving of Jacobs Spirits then me thinks the message for a release from the flesh and our convoy to Christ should be a seasonable and welcome message If the voice of the King were seasonable to Daniel early in the morning calling him from his Den that he might advance him to more then former dignity then me thinks that morning voice of Christ our King calling us from our terrors among Lyons to possesse his Rest among his Saints should be to us a very seasonable voice Will not Canaan be seasonable after so many years travel and that through a hazardous and grievous Wilderness Indeed to the world its never in season they are already at their own home and have what they most desire they are not weary of their present State the Saints sorrow is their Joy and the Saints weariness is their Rest Their weary day is coming where there is no more expectation of Rest But for the thirsty soul to enjoy the fountain and the hungry to be filled with the bread