Selected quad for the lemma: knowledge_n
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A48949
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The souls ascension in the state of separation Summarily delivered in a sermon preached at Shenly in the county of Hertford, the 21. of November, 1660. at the funeral solemnities of Mrs Mary Jessop, late wife of William Jessop esq; and since enlarged and publish'd for common benefit. By Isaac Loeffs. M.A.
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Loeffs, Isaac, d. 1689.
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1670
(1670)
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Wing L2818; ESTC R222694
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62,138
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158
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expressions of his love and faithfulness unto you if you can yet read them in Scriptures not defaced or blotted out through unthankful for getfulness Take also a new survey of the carriage of your hearts towards the Lord. What have been your desires after him how have ye trusted in him and cleaved to him what communion with him what delight in him what service have ye done for him how faithful have ye been to him what have been your private affections in duty and your publique zeal in your profession how have you improved his talents and encreased your spiritual stock of grace what growth in meekness self-denial patience faith love knowledge holyness and purity what is the present frame of your hearts after so much means and seasons of grace so long enjoyed Is it more humble more heavenly more unmoveable and fixed upon God And lastly are ye more fruitful and abounding in the work of the Lord Thus can ye manifest the truth of grace by the exercise of it the growth and fruitfulness of it hereby your joy shall be full and Christ's joy shall dwell in you John 15.11 What a glorious evidence hereby had the beleiving Thessalonians to whom the Apostle Paul writeth in their commendation that their faith grew exceedingly and their love one towards another abounded 2 Thes 1.3 Happy are they that can ascend this mountain of assurance and take a sight as from Mount Pisgah of the heavenly Canaan crying out with Saint John in admiration 1 John 3.1 Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the Sons of God therefore the world knoweth us not But if your evidences are lost or hardly legible for the renewing ard preserving of them take this next direction Direct III. Thirdly Then perfect holiness to the highest degree attaineable upon earth This is the Apostles counsel drawn from the great priviledges and promises of grace 2 Cor. 7.1 Having these promises dearly beloved let us cleanse our selves from all pollution of flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of God And because we deny that any man can be perfect so as to be without sin and all infirmities upon earth for if we say we have no sin we deceive our selves and the truth is not in us 1 John 1.8 Therefore take this necessary caution of proposing any measure unto your selves thereby to limit your utmost endeavours after the greatest measure of grace ye can possibly attain unto for therefore we have a perfect example set before us even God himself that we should be perfect as he is perfect Mat. 5.48 And also of Christ that he that saith he abideth in him ought also to walk even as he walked 1 John 2.6 That though we are not perfect yet with Paul forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before we may press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus Phil. 3.13 14. Wherefore beloved laying aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset you run with patience the race that is set before you looking unto Jesus the Authour or Leader and the finisher of your faith Heb. 12.1 2. And since ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God with whom ye hope to appear mortifie your members which are upon the earth and crucifie the flesh with the affections and lusts thereof labour to conquer all your corruptions to purge out the reliques of the old leaven and to wash your hearts from iniquity and the vanity of your very thoughts and desires Be exceeding careful to suppress and quench every motion arising from the flesh and to avoid whatever may defile the conscience and thereby cloud your comforts and darken the light of your inward joy and peace And I beseech you that ye would walk worthy of the Lord unto all well-pleasing in obedience to every command and the strictest rules of the Gospel and that as ye have at any time heard how ye ought to walk and to please God so ye would abound more and more 1 Thes 4.1 That ye may at last stand perfect and compleat in all the will of God working out your salvation hereby with fear and trembling Phil. 2.14 Col. 4.12 Wherefore add to your faith vertue to and vertue knowledge temperance patience godliness brotherly kindness charity that ye may not be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of Christ and tho rather give diligence herein that ye may make your calling and election sure 2 Pet. 1.5 6 10. Direct IV. Redeem your precious time and the seasons of grace for the time is short saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 7.29 The time of life is short the of health and strength is short and consequently the time of grace and the opportunities thereof are short Therefore see that ye walk circumspectly or exactly redeeming the time or season because the dayes are not only short but evil Eecl 5.15 16. And that not only in regard of the temptations and snares thereof but of the perils and afflictions the troubles and tribulations that attend the last dayes of the world Our Saviour knowing the day of his working and ministery to be short having but a while to remain upon earth took all occasions to finish his Fathers work who sent him into the world John 9.4 I must work the work of him that sent me while it is day the night cometh when no man can work And is not your night Christians coming on and your Sun near setting when the light of this present life shall vanish and give place to the darkness of death O that ye would keep an eye upon and the swiftness of that motion which will suddenly have measured your appointed race And be not slack in the work of the Lord but double and redouble your diligence that ye may be ready for the Masters call and the Bride-groomes coming What a blessed condition is that soul in that can say with Saint Paul 2 Tim. 4.6 7. I am now ready to be offered up and my departure is at hand I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the faith But is it not otherwise with many poor souls who could wish for another life to be renewed unto them for the discharge of their trust they have neglected the improvment of mercies which they have sleighted the filling up of that space they have idly squandred the gathering in of experiences which they have pretermitted and for the laying in of a store and stock of grace and wisdom by such rich advantages of trade and heavenly gain and profit which they have lost and over slipped Who now begin to look back with shame and sorrow upon the time of youth and strength and the yeares of plenty and fulness of the bread of heaven bewailing their folly in not providing for the yeares of famine wherein they will be glad of the gleanings of
continuance of its separation having a natural inclination to be re-united to its own body without which it cannot be perfectly happy though in heaven it self in all degrees for notwithstanding the fulness of the glory of God in heaven whereof it is partaker in the presence of Christ yet being but a part it wants the natural perfection of its relation and receiveth its happiness and glory but according to the measure of a part waiting for the redemption of its body Whence we may conclude that the natural state and condition of the sould of every man is to be in the body and there it is in its proper habitation as the Apostle saith we are at home in the body 2 Cor. 5.6 So that how strange soever the desire of a gracious soul may be to be with Christ and to be absent from the body by departing hence yet it is naturally and necessarily detained till the death of the body leave it free as in a be-widdowed estate to remove to Christ its wellbeloved and to the Father of spirits for a time to visit those mansions wherein it shall abide for ever in the fulness of glory with the assumed body made more suitable and spiritual for it at the resurrection It appeareth also from hence that it is no less then wilful murther and consequently a breach of a great command voluntarily to endeavour or hasten the dissolution of these two united parts of body and soul nature and grace commanding and commending the use of all lawful meanes and that by physick as well as food and other natural helpes to preserve this present life until God in the course of providence shall make a separation Secondly Believers while they are in the body are absent from the Lord Christ both in respect of local distance and also of the nature and manner of their communion with him For Christ is in heaven and they upon earth and their communion with him now though it be spiritual and joyful yet it is weak and darke in comparison of an immediate presence For we walk by faith not by sight 2 Cor. 5.7 Which faith being the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen begetteth in the heart a fervent love and an unspeakable joy in an absent and unseen Saviour 1 Pet. 1.8 Whom having not seen ye love in whom though now ye see him not yet believing ye rejoyce with joy unspeakable and full of glory Nevertheless the communion the Saints have with Christ through faith and hope in him is but weak and dark here in comparison of what shall be in heaven when they shall be with him and these graces appropriato this present life and state shall cease through immediate vision and fruition whereby their love shall be perfect in the presence of its object For faith apprehendeth Christ by spiritual knowledge which is the sight in the eye of faith and the highest degree of knowledge the soul is capable of here in heavenly things is but obscure to what it shall be hereafter What we see through many mediums is but darkely seen and though mediums may be helpful to natural sight in case of weakness of the organ or distance of the object yet such a sight falls short of a strong and clear inspection of something near at hand and at a due distance Thus it is in regard of the souls apprehension and knowledge of spiritual things which being at a great distance and far remote in their nature and perfection we look at them as through a glass and that darkely 1 Cor. 13.12 For we know in part and we prophesie in part and now see through a glass darkely but then face to face We see the things of God and of heaven through the glass of the Word and Sacraments and the glass of the workes of Providence in which glasses we may be said to see these things also as by reflexion of their image according to that other expression of Paul 2 Cor. 3.18 For we all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord are changed into the same Image this also is darke in respect of the sight of the maked face or substantial glory of Christ in a direct line and without reflexion for though it be with open face the vail of natural ignorance and blindness being taken away yet it is not face to face in the appearance of Christ nakedly and immediately unto us But what this darkness of knowledge is in this life I shall in a few words more explain The mysteries of heaven and of God and Christ are revealed unto us in the Scriptures according to our capacity of understanding them and the Lord condescending to the nature of man speaketh unto us after the manner of man Now the nature and kind of knowledge which is proper unto us is not intuitive but discursive the rational soul using the organs and senses of the body for the attaining of its knowledge and understanding So that we know all things in a sensible manner according to the first species and impressions made in the understanding which it receiveth from the senses and from thence the understanding by discourse and reason formeth the notions of spiritual and insensible beings And hence it is that in most things that incurre not immediately into the senses our knowledge is so darke and dubious that in natural science we agree not but dispute principles themselves In like manner God revealeth spiritual and invisible things and the great mysteries of the Gospel unto us wherein he speaketh our language and presenteth heavenly things unto us in earthly formes as when he revealeth and describeth himself it is as having the members of our bodies and the passions of our minds which we art to understand figuratively and not literally least we become guilty of blasphemous thoughts and carnal apprehensions of God And thus when our Saviour instructed Nicodemus in the mystery of grace and conversion to God he telleth him he must be born again John 3.5 Nicodemus understood him at first literally and rather wondred then believed wherefore Christ reproveth him verse 13. If I have told you earthly things and ye beleive not how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things Not that regeneration is an earthly thing though it must be a state upon earth and wrought while we are here but Christs meaning is if I have spoken to you of these heavenly and spiritual things in an earthly manner and sensitive way by parables and similitudes and yet ye understand me not so as to beleive how shall ye beleive if I speak in a spiritual and heavenly Dialect and Language Now if we understand heavenly things only as they are revealed for they are therefore so revealed that we might understand them what dark and low what short and weak apprehensions have we of them Therefore a gracious soul desireth to be absent rather from the body and present with Christ that it might