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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A42834 The way of happiness represented in its difficulties and incouragements, and cleared from many popular and dangerous mistakes / by Jos. Glanvill ... Glanvill, Joseph, 1636-1680. 1670 (1670) Wing G835; ESTC R23021 46,425 190

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bad men But then this is to be noted that 't is commonly about opinions or external rites and usages and such matters as appertain to first Table Duties while usually the same men are very cold in reference to the Duties of the Second And when zeal is partial and spent about the little things that tend not to the overcoming the difficulties of our way or the perfecting of humane nature 't is a meer animal fervour and no Divine Fire And the natural man the seeker that shall not enter may grow up to another height that looks gloriously and seems to speak mighty things As III. He may have great comforts in religious meditations and that even to rapturous excesses He may take these for sweet communion with God and the joys of the Holy Ghost and the earnest of Glory and be lifted up on high by them and inabled to speak in wonderful ravishing strains and yet notwithstanding be an evil man and in the state of such as shall be shut out For this we may observe That those whose complexion inclines them to devotion are commonly much under the power of melancholy and they that are so are mostly very various in their tempers sometimes merry and pleasant to excess and then plung'd as deep into the other extreme of sadness and dejection one while the sweet humours enliven the imagination and present it with all things that are pleasant and agreeable And then the black blood succeeds which begets clouds and darkness and fills the fancy with things frightful and uncomfortable And there are very few but feel such varieties in a degree in themselves● Now while the sweet blood and ●●●mours prevail the person whose complexion inclines him to Religion and who hath arrived to the degrees newly discours'd of though a meer natural man is full of inward delight and satisfaction and fancies at this turn that he is much in the favour of God and a sure heir of the Kingdom of Glory which must needs excite in him many luscious and pleasant thoughts and these further warm his imagination which by new and taking suggestions still raiseth the affections more and so the man is as it were transported beyond himself and speaks like one dropt from the clouds His tongue flows with Light and Glories and Communion and Revelations and Incomes and then believes that the Holy Ghost is the Author of all this and that God is in him of a truth in a special way of Manifestation and vouchsafement This is one of the greatest Heights of the Animal Religion and many times it proceeds from nothing more Divine For when melancholick vapours prevail again the imagination is overcast and the fancy possest by dismal and uncomfortable thoughts and the man whose head was but just before among the Clouds is now groveling in the Dust. He thinks all is lost and his condition miserable He is a cast-away and undone when in the mean while as to Divine favour he is just where he was before or rather in a better state since 't is better to be humbled with reason then to be lifted up without it Such effects as these do meer natural passions and imaginations produce when they are tinctured and heightned by religious melancholy To deny ones self and to overcome ones passions and to live in a course of a sober vertue is much more Divine then all this 'T is true indeed and I am far from denying it that holy men feel those joys and communications of the Divine Spirit which are no fancies and the Scripture calls them great peace Ps. cxix 165 and joy in believing Rom. xv 13 and the peace of God that passeth all understanding Phil. iv 7 But then these Divine vouchsafements are not rapturous or ●cstatical They are no sudden flashes that are gone in a moment leaving the soul in the regions of sorrow and despair but sober lasting comforts that are the rewards and results of vertue the rejoycings of a good conscience 2 Cor. i. 12 and the manifestations of God to those rare souls who have overcome the evils of their natures and the difficulties of the way or are vigorously pressing on towards this mark Phil. iii. 14 But for such as have only the forms of godliness I have mentioned while the evil inclinations and habits are indulged whatever they pretend all the sweets they talk of are but the imagery of dreams and the pleasant delusions of their fancies SECT VI. THus I have shewn how far the meer Animal Religion may go in imperfect striving And now I must expect to hear 1. That this is very severe uncomfortable Doctrine and if one that shall eventually be shut out may do all this what shall become of the generality of Religious men that never do so much And if all this be short what will be available who then shall be saved To which I Answer That we are not to make the measures of Religion and Happiness our selves but to take those that Christ Jesus hath made for us And he hath told us That except our Righteousness exceed the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees we shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of heaven Mat. v. 20 Now the Scribes and Pha●isees did things in the way of Religion that were equal to all the particulars I have mentioned yea they went beyond marry of our glorious Professors who yet think themselves in an high form of Godliness They believed their Religion firmly and Prayed frequently and fervently and Fasted severely They were ●xact and exceeding strict in the observati●n of their Sabbaths and hated scandalous and gross sins and were very punctual in all the duties of outward Worship and in many things supererrogated and went beyond what was commanded Such zealous people were They and They separated from the conversations and customs of oth●r Iews upon the account of their supposed greater Holiness and Purity These were heights to which the Pharisees arrived and a good Christian must exceed all this And he that lives in a sober course of Piety and Vertue of self Government and humble submission to God of obedience to his Superiors and Charity to his Neighbours He doth really exceed it and shall enter when the other shall be shut out So that when our Saviour saith that the Pharisaick Righteousness must be exceeded the meaning is not That a greater degree of every thing the Pharisees did is necessary but we must do that whith in the nature and kind of it is better and more acceptable to God viz. That whereas they placed their Religion in strict Fastings and nice observations of Festivals in lowd and earnest Prayers and zeal to get Proselites we should place ours in sincere subjections of our wills to the will of God in imitation of the life of Christ and obedience of his Laws in amending the faults of our natures and lives in subduing our passions and casting out the habits of evil These are much beyond the Religion of the Phanatick