of himselfe that infallibly he shall be saved while he remains very deficient in the common and known duties of a true Christian mistaking the true notion and office of Faith which is not so much to teach us what we are our selves but what God is and what is his Will and what our dutie is to him and the effects of obedience and holy life prescribed by him So that justifying and saving faith is Godliness in the power of it and Godlinesse in the power of which St. Paul speakes is a Confluence of all Christian Graces and Vertues the principall of which are reckoned up by St. Peter where he counselleth 2 Epist 1 5 6. to Adde to faith vertue and to vertue knowledge and to knowledge temperance and to temperance patience and to patience godlinesse and to godlinesse brotherly kindenesse and to brotherly kindnesse Charitie And having profited so far as to be possessed of such Graces to strive as the same Apostle hath it to abound in the same which having competently attained unto gives the best assurance of the good purpose of our heavenly Father to give us the Kingdome promised to them that believe 4. But the presumptuous and preposterous faith whereby men are prone to phansie themselves into the highest favour of God before they have passed through the discipline of Faith which is laboursome and uneasie to Flesh is that which leadeth men into blindnesse of minde and perhaps perdition in the midst of strong perswasions of the contrary our Saviour Christ teaching us so much where he saith Luke 17. 7. Which of you having a servant plowing or feeding cattle will say unto him by and by when he is come from the field Goe and sit down to meat And will not rather say unto him Make ready wherewith I may suppe and gird thy selfe and serve me and afterward thou shalt eat and drink Which teaches us that it sufficeth not presently to take up our rest of assurance of our salvation by faith speciall so soon as we are called home to God from the wide and wild conversation in the field of this world but must yet farther attend the service God hath for us to doe and then to expect his farther favour of an eternall rest 5. And because amongst various acceptations in holy Scripture of the word Faith it is sometimes used for the Grace of faith and sometimes for the works and fruits of faith every prudent and pious Christian must be very carefull that he puts not such a fallacie upon himselfe as to inferre to himselfe the whole vertue of faith taken in its full latitude upon some particular branch thereof found in him crouding all duties of pietie into one and that rather a preparation unto true religious life than the principall part of it such as knowing and believing and the meanes thereunto tending reading and hearing of Gods holy word For being well initiated in those necessarie principles and helps of devotion there so to stop or in them to improve that acts of faith hope and charitie should be neglected overthrowes the whole design of faith it selfe whereof no small part is to confesse our sins to repent heartily and thorowly to attend to good works and acts of mercie to bring forth fruits worthy of repentance and not to think to commute with God that when he requires private or publique worship we should think it as well and perhaps better to read certain Chapters in the Bible or to be present and heare a Sermon and when God calls to performe good deeds of Charitie in visiting the sick and being at charges for the relief of the poor to exceed in reading and praying supposing such cheaper parts of splendid profession will answer all obligations to God and our necessitous neighbour Whereas it is one principall point of true Christian Illumination by faith to understand what it teacheth us by the Apostle saying Coloss 4. 12. Stand perfect and compleat in all the will of God to the effecting whereof Faith is ordained and given us by God as a tool and Engine not as the work it selfe 6. And therefore the ancient and more experienced Father we read of handsomely and truely reproved the mistakes of three well inclined novices in the sounder part of Piety when the First declaring the course of his Life said with expectation of applause I have got the Old and New Testament by heart Then said the Old man thou hast poured out many words into the air intending he should understand that all that was to very small purpose without proportionable acts of holinesse And the Second said I have wrote over all the Old and New Testament with mine own hand Then said the ancient Father thou hast filled thy windowes with store of paper And the third glorying that the grasse grew on his hearth implying how much cold and hunger he had suffered was answered by the same person Then hast thou driven away hospitality intimating that no man abounding in some good duties must perswade himselfe that he shall thereby make compensation for such defects in other graces willfully neglected being better informed from St. Paul that knowledge and the Scriptures themselves were entrusted with us by God that the man of God may be perfect and thorowly furnished unto all Good workes 2 Tim. 3. 17. And as Davids practice was to have an eye to all Gods commands without exception or limitation Psal 119. 6. 7. Against this if it chances to be objected what vulgarly is said that there is no perfection in this world we may answer without great difficulty That perfection there is in the Scriptures themselves and Christian Religion above what is to be found in any other Authours Sciences or Religions There is a perfection of integritie or of parts which St. Paul to Philemon ver 6. calleth Communication of faith becoming effectuall by the acknowledging of every good thing so that not one vertue or dutie prescribed to a true Christian must be wanting to the true believer however the degrees of those vertues may be and generally are imperfect And yet again having in some degree been initiated into all Christian vertues we are not there to rest as if we had alreadie attained the end of Religion but must prosecute those mean yet good beginnings till we arrive to that pitch which God hath not revealed unto us that he will accept to our justification and salvation but only have a sound firme and comfortable Hope of the Favour of God which some are pleased in these last ages to call Faith justifying But faith properly so called hath for its object truth and that as relating to all men but Hope hath for its object Good and that as pertaining to particular persons of which nature is the perswasion we have of the foresaid Good as truely belonging unto us and thereby as St. John speaks 1 Epist 3. 19. We assure our hearts before him SECT IV. That Faith and not naturall Reason improved is the only
miserable and perished finally merely for want of Religion better informing and governing them And how many on the other side hath Religion celebrated and immortalized above all other arts sciences or heroick Feats in the world How many pittifull persons in the eye of the world for birth parts education possessions and the like admired by the world have outshin'd men even in this world in true honour whom yet the world has accounted most renowned and happy and after this life have perpetuated their names longer and propagated them farther than the wisest of the worlds Philosophers and the noblest Princes and Potentates thereof And yet how few are there who contend so zealously for this as the other 5. For what are all arts or sciences or powers or pleasures or profits unsanctified or unseasoned by Religion but so many instruments of wickednesses cousenages and villanies And what are all humane Societies and Polities but so many shops of injustice deceits and uncontroulable rapine and spoil without Religion influencing the conscience and regulating the Actions of Men For without this no such Lawes can be enacted which may secure either the persons of men from violence or their properties from injuries And the advantage that some irreligious persons make to themselves by contemning Religious Rules tends directly to the ruine of the Common body or innumerable particular persons For one man having no sense or conscience of God and the fear due to him corrupts wines and other drinks with some benefit to himselfe and great prejudice to the bodies of many more others falsyfie stuffes silks and cloaths and deceive the wearer others counterfeit lawfull money contrary to the Standard and bring dammage to their neighbours and often losse of life and goods to themselves Others defraud in weights and measures others emboldened by gainfull successe in unjust practices cast off wholly the very vizor of Conscience and Religion and with open face rob and spoile their neighbour and in conclusion bring confusion to themselves 6. These are indeed lamentable consequences of an irreligious mind but how much more to be lamented and avoided are the corruptions and wasts made upon the Inward man by the want of Religion How hereupon doe as well monstrous as pernicious dogmes invade the understanding and mislead it into many idle foolish false and absurd paradoxes And these prevailing how are the affections set at liberty to run into all manner of sensualities and sophisticate the powers of the Soule more criminall in the account of God than corrupting the Kings coin or defacing maliciously his Image can be with men more prejudicial to man himselfe than outward blindnesse of the eyes mutilation of members or lamenesse of limbs as our Saviour teaches when he tells us it is better to goe to heaven without a right eye or right hand than having such iutegrity of bodily parts to be cast into hell for want of true Religion But because such as want Religion are least of all sensible of such remote and inevident evills preached against wanters of Religion it may not be inconvenient to bring down the Appeal against them to their senses and outward observations which may inform us what havock irreligion makes upon mens persons and outward conditions bringing their wits into suspicion of weakness who to appear somebody in dogmatizing are constrained to take up the opposing the received principles of Religion an extraordinary subject drawing mens ears to listen after such a vain Philosopher whom otherwayes no man would regard talking and walking according to the known Rules of sobriety and piety through the defects of reason ayming at no greater glory than those obscure and pittifull fellowes of little or no place or power considerable who to acquire somewhat of a name provoke and set upon invincible Champions or choose to perish by a Royal hand 7. And must not the portion of reason be very weak and low in him who undertakes the oppugning that which so many before him have attempted without any other event than their own infamy and stupidity after a wilfull opposing the once approved truth For so impregnable is the Rock of Religion that it could never be master'd considerably by any assaults nor so far sunck or lost to the view and approbation of men by the leaden weights of mens ratiocinations but it buoy'd it self up above all such enemies and triumphed over them while the names and memory of its adversaries rotted and their own deeds contrary to Religion oppress'd them in their vices and confounded them So that delighting not to know God but holding the truth in unrighteousnesse stupendous infatuations have seized upon many of their mindes and disturbed their affections that not only contrary to that they call Religion but to that we and they both call Nature they have corrupted and abused themselves so that such things as they would not understand in processe of time they cannot and those actions which seemed unreasonable and brutish once to themselves become their supreme perfections in which they glory and perhaps perish 8. These mischiefs then foreseen and the contrary benefits of Religion discerned and believed put me upon the designe of S. Paul desiring men to suffer a word of Exhortation that they would be reconciled to Reason sometimes magnified by them in word but not so often allowed of in practice to God and to Religion and to Christ Jesus bringing salvation unto all men whereby they can only be happy And that they would not here expect demonstrations to compell them to come into the Faith nor eloquence to perswade them not pretended to here but the simplicitie of the truth and the power of Godlinesse and the tranquillity of minde and conscience no otherwayes to be attained and the unspeakable happinesse believed and expected hereafter may suffice to awaken divers to enquire seriously whether these things be so as good Bereans which will easily appear to every unprejudiced minde under this great advantage above worldly doctrines that none of these have so much as dar'd to promise so great future blessings in a world to come nor have any made good such fair promises of present happinesse in this world which notwithstanding so many have been charmed with and unhappily trusted to and been deluded by 9. But yet I would not be here so understood as if I intended to insist upon the Principles of Christian Religion but supposing that to be the truest and most perfect and also the Scriptures to be the word of Life and of God and Rule of Faith and holy worship and Christ the true Messias that was to come into the world and that there shall be a resurrection of the just and unjust yet I held it requisite speaking of Illumination to instance in the principal heads of Christian Knowledge and Faith whereby Religion doth furnish the minds of believers which either not at all are to be found in other books or so uncertainly and obscurely as the full assurance of them
must only be owing to such divine Revelations Before we speak of which particularly we shall in the next place give some account of the three main branches of our present Methode SECT II. A brief description of the Illuminative Purgative and Vnitive way in Religion 1. THE seeds of Religion being sown in the heart by God himselfe and some smaller and dimmer strictures cast into man by the same hand directing man to God it is the duty of every one to improve the same by orderly progressions to the measure of the stature of Christ as the Apostle speaks Ephes 4. To this end Antiquity not without competent grounds in Holy Scripture hath pitched upon three more considerable states of a Christian and ascents of the Soul towards God by Religion though not absolute yet necessary to Salvation For Saint Johns words 1 Epist 12 13 14. seem to tend to this distinguishing little Children Young Men and Old Men or Beginners Proficients and Perfect not so absolute as God may not finde fault with yet so as before man they may be irreprehensible and allowable by God according to the scantlings and infirmities of Flesh and Blood. And agreeable to this Cassian in his Collations with some others have observed that Solomon wrote three Books One for instruction and illumination in wisdome which we commonly call the Book of Proverbs initiating young beginners in the knowledge and fear of God which is there called the beginning of Wisdome and good understanding laying the foundation to eternal Life The other Book of Solomon called Ecclesiastes represents to the eye and understanding the vanities of the world and the pollutions of earthly joyes with a tacite disswasion from the use of them to the dishonour of God which performed introduceth a man to the third and last degree of perfection in this world contemplation of God and divine matters whereby such a sensation of the divine goodness is so far wrought in the Soule that it becometh united more entirely with God which we call the Vnitive way and seems to be figured out to us by that Song of Songs called commonly Solomons And this threefold Cord binding the Soule to God seemeth to have some little insinuation made to us from the wisdome of the world the Ancient Pythagoreans teaching three manner of wayes of attaining happinesse Labour and Action about Vertue Meditation conducting to Knowledge of God and Love of God which is the true conjunction of the Soule with God. 2. Such concurrence then there being of divine and humane wisdome to justifie such a partition of Religion no wonder that the reputed Dionysius the Areopagite took hold of such an occasion given to him to commend this tripartite doctrine of the Illuminative Purgative and Unitive way of serving God in which many have imitated him and much and perhaps too far advanced it From whom I take the libertie so far to varie as to make Illumination the foundation and first step to all regular ascent to Godward as proceeding from that faith which is the foundation of all Christian graces For by it we come to have the eyes of our understanding opened and judge our selves and purge our selves and fit our selves for an higher and neerer conjunction with God as will appear more fully hereafter SECT III. Of the necessitie and use of Illumination and of Faith with its subordinate graces properly conducing thereunto 1. FAmous is the distinction of St. Paul of Theologicall Vertues into Faith Hope and Charitie as of them upon which all other Christian duties and vertues are founded and move towards that perfection competible to believers in this life Faith illuminating Hope purging and Charitie or love of God uniting us unto God. For the naturall man is blinde and cannot see afar off as St. Peter teaches us And naturally we all lye polluted in our blood and so naturally are aliens from God and unreconcileable by any other name or meanes but that of Christ Jesus in whome to believe is to know God and our selves For as the Wise man saith Proverbs 19. 2. That the soule should be without knowledge is not good Faith with Christians begetteth knowledge properly divine in Christians being the light and eye both of the soule regenerate So that as it is not possible for the blinde man to work any curious work without the use of his eyes but every act tending that way must be a fault and errour For how can it be expected that any man should sew well that cannot thread his needle so they on whom the light of the Gospell shineth not who are not enlightened The first thing that God produced in creating the world was light not that he absolutely needed it but that the creatures did and to intimate unto us the order of true Regeneration that it must begin with Illumination And therefore God who more immediately of old revealed himselfe to his chosen servants did in following ages set up and fix a light in his Church the written word of God which received by faith should become a constant Guide to our Feet and Lanthorne to our Pathes passing through this dark Vale towards the Mount and true City of God. 2. For without this the Philosophers of this world professing themselves as St. Paul speaks Rom 1. 22. wise became fools erring in the very first step and prime principle of divine knowledge which teaches the only true God they for their part in groping after God changing the glorie of the incorcorruptible God into an Image made like unto corruptible man as St. Paul allso observeth v. 23. which is much the same as to turne the image or very substance of man into God. But when it pleased God that the Day-star should arise in our hearts as St. Peter speaks which is Christ revealed to the world and minds of men and when as St. Paul speaks 2 Corinth 4. 6. God who commanded the light to shine out of darknesse shined in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ then did the shadowes of darknesse and ignorance flee away Holy David having foretold of this when he said Psalm 36. In thy light shall we see light So that as Christ saith of himselfe He that gathereth not with me scattereth in like manner may it truly be said Whoso enlighteneth not with by and from him darkeneth as it happened to those subtile and wise disputants Jobs Friends Job 38. who darkened counsell by words without knowledge 3. And too near do they approach to the like errour who darkening of late the doctrine of Faith and the use of it imagine the strong perswasion they have of the goodnesse of God and Grace of Christ sufficient to the great end of light and salvation and that the Instrument whereby they should work is the work it self to be performed by them and such in which a man might acquiesce as having fulfill'd the whole Will of God and thereupon entertain such a perswasion
proper Cause of Christian Illumination being taken for the things revealed whereof some principall Heads are here given 1. IT is a common and usefull distinction of Faith by the Learned not difficult to be understood by the unlearned into the matter or articles of our Faith propounded to our assent by God himselfe in his Word and the Gift and Grace of Faith enabling us to believe things so revealed and necessary to our Salvation It will be therefore very expedient for the better informing every plain and sincere capacity to make some recitall of those things our Faith Christian is founded upon and which we are to believe and that principally by Revelation and not wholly to be silent herein any more than St. Luke was in writing his Gospell Luke 1. 1. For as much as many have taken in hand to set forth in order those things which are most surely believed amongst us because severall formes and phrases may help towards the same sense and end of believing and illumination 2. And here first of all is to be considered and believed the great Prerogative of Christian Religion above all other discoveries made to Man when our Saviour Christ in St. Matthew saith Ch. 11. v. 25. I thank thee O Father Lord of heaven and earth because thou hast hid these things from the wise and revealed them to babes Not that Christ maligned the knowledge of these things to others but that he admired the priviledges conferred by God upon his mean flock And what these things are and how and to whom revealed St. Paul certifies us 1 Corinth 2. 6 7 8 saying Howbeit we speak wisdome among them that are perfect yet not the wisdome of this world which cometh to naught but we speak the wisdome of God in a mysterie even the hidden wisdome which God ordained before the world to our glory For God hath revealed them by his Spirit For the Spirit searcheth all things even the deep things of God. Meaning hereby to teach us that whatever knowledge man may attain to in the search of the mysteries of Nature Revelation is absolutely necessarie to the knowledge of the deep things of Gods counsell and pleasure concerning his own Nature and Being and our service of him and salvation by him discovery should be made unto us some other way than by our natural reason darkened by our own apostasie and infatuations So that the whole Bible may be called one entire book of divine Revelations the Jew having received many things from God which were denied unto the Gentiles and the Christian having received from God more clear dispensations and sublime than were granted unto the Jew for he beheld things as in a glasse darkly but the other face to face that is the very things themselves and not the darker shadowes which were to flee away at the rising of the Sun of righteousnesse which is by the Apostle called the Mysterie of Christ which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men as it is now revealed unto his holy Apostles and Prophets by the Spirit Whereupon St. Peter 1 Ep. 1. 5. tells us of Gods Elect that they are kept by the power of God through faith unto Salvation readie to be revealed in the last times which last times were the same of which the Apostle to the Hebrews speaks that in the last dayes God hath spoken unto us by his Son and those last dayes were the dayes of the Gospell revealing the mysteries of Godlinesse unto us and not these last dayes phansied by some 3. Now notwithstanding innumerable are the divine documents and notices extraordinarily deliver'd through the New Testament and more especially there be a fair Catalogue given us Heb. 11. of the singular vertues and uses of Faith in revealing divine things yet because we now speak chiefly to babes in Christ or St. Johns Little children it may not be amisse to assist the weaker without offence of the stronger in giving some speciall instances whereby the knowledge of a green Christian is either actually improved or improveable to a greater degree than can readily be found in aliens from Christ 4. There have been in former years some leading men in the Reformation and learned who have collected ten severall and considerable grounds in which all Religions concurre and this was the ingenious contrivance of Bibliander since which divers with tolerable designe but I fear with no good event at all but rather the contrary have in these very late years written about Naturall Religion and the Reasonablenesse of Christian Faith manifested by naturall Light hoping it may be to begett a better opinion in many rank Rationalists of Christian Religion but perhaps they considered not what evill consequence followes from hence viz. that the very first principle of our Christian faith is hereby weakened and more slighted as judged from hence not to be so necessary as commonly is received For Revelations divine and that these writings we call Scriptures are divinely revealed is the most fundamentall part of our Religion which to make credible by sundrie Topicks of reason have been alwaies the practice of the Ancients as it is still of the moderne not illaudable but to offer demonstrations and those such upon which they would constrain belief of that first principle is to cause the whole fabrick of Christian faith to rest on that tottering and unstable foundation and of divine to dilute our faith into humane perswasion all superiour articles of our faith having no stronger stay than such a bottome will allow them 5. And I must confesse for my part I am so far from being pleased with the pretended Golden sayings of Pythagoras or the divine sentences of Plato Seneca and especially that moderner vapourer or rather vapour it selfe Hierocles and such as Eunapius presents unto us that they rather turne my stomach at their aemulation of Christian perfection thereby to lessen the value of Christian Religion it selfe than draw me to affecting or admiring them For St. Paul 2 Corinth 1. 14. tells us 't is By faith we stand and again that our faith it selfe should not stand in the wisdome of men but in the power of God. And it will be found by experience that humane reason thus coming officiously to the aid of divine Faith unable to satisfie the doubting minde about the doctrine proper to Faith will in the end prove so sawcie and domineering as to give law to faith and like Ivie which clings to the tree for a subsistence will weaken it and suck out the heart of it in time Herein therefore consisteth the very soule or as scholasticall men speak the very formall reason of Christian faith illuminating otherwise than the humane Lights of this world that we believe what we have not seen by sence nor learned by experience viz. That the Scriptures we now are possessed of are the Revelations which God hath given us for our instruction and direction in the knowledge of him and holy conversation
reward of Good and Evill done now in the body is another article of our faith not demonstrable by the wisdome of this world but discerned by Revelation 15. To this likewise appertains the knowledge which Faith teacheth us of the Second coming of Christ in glorie and Justice to be the Great Judge of Quick and Dead bringing his reward with him so that they who have done good shall goe into life eternall and they that have done evill into everlasting fire 16. Lastly as the nerve and bond of our Faith we are by Gods Holy Word taught assuredly that God hath two Cities or Societies in this world of his own Constitution and not framed by the will or power of Man. The one is that Civill Government wherein God hath set his Delegates to maintain order and unitie by the due administration of Justice to whom men are to be subject as the Ministers of God sent to those ends The other is the Church of Christ or companie of true Believers of whom Christ is the supreme Head From whom the whole bodie fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every joynt supplyeth according to the effectuall working in the measure of every part maketh increase of the bodie unto the edifying it selfe in love Ephes 4. 16. And it being impossible that Faith it selfe should subsist long the Church being dissolved and it not being possible the Church should not be dissolved where there is no order of Superiour and Inferiour nor possible that such order should be preserved without subjection and obedience the Catholique Church is to be believed to be holy and obeyed as our Guide and Governour and so is every particular Church managed by lawfully succeeding Pastours to be reverenced and obeyed untill such time that they or it be convicted of some grosse errour and defection from Christ and not only till all exceptions made against them be resolved to our mindes So that enviously and proudly to oppose that Hierarchy instituted by Christ or the precepts delivered by them for the conservation of the Bodie in faith and worship of God is to resist God and not man and to make themselves obnoxious for officiousnesse without authority received of God to shame and perdition 5. And this Abstract of knowledge given us by God in his Revealed Word I held very requisite to premise as the grounds of our Christian faith and as so many instances of his singular favour to his Elect ones in discovering unto them such mysteries as the Princes of this world were and are ignorant of and we might walke worthy of such light given us And to these of a speculative nature might we adde those of the practicall order whereby God doth teach us above the doctrines of men not only not to commit such things which are dishonest unjust unreasonable filthy and the like but not so much as to desire them and that inward concupiscence of evill is a sin condemned by God however tolerated by humane Lawes either because they doe not actually break the peace of the Common-wealth or because such close iniquities cannot come under the cognizance of humane judicature But God searcheth the heart and tryeth the reins and judges the inward motions of the soule as our faith tells us The summe of which knowledge is given us by St. Paul Rom. 7. 7. when as learned as he was he tells us I had not known lust except the Law had said Thou shalt not covet So that from hence we may discerne the truth of what David saith Psal 19. 7. The Law of the Lord is perfect converting the soule The Testimonie of the Lord is sure making wise the simple And again v. 8. The Commandment of the Lord is pure enlightening the eyes And what David saith there and elsewhere Solomon in his Book of Proverbs more fully confirmeth and especially in the first Chapter as in the beginning giving us the Subject of the ensuing Treatise To know wisdome and instruction To perceive words of understanding to receive the instruction of wisdome justice and judgement and equitie To give subtilty to the simple to the young man knowledge and discretion So foolish are they and ignorant who out of mistaken greatnesse and Gallantry and presumption of knowledge falsely so called are prone to despise the Revelations of Allmighty God and establish their own imaginations serviceable to their Lusts and scandalous manners falling thereby under the just censure of the wisest of Men Prov. 1. 7. Fools despise wisdome and instruction the reason whereof is because it is their enemie in the unrighteous and unreasonable courses they choose to themselves verifying what our Saviour Christ saith John 9. 41. of the haughty Pharisees If ye were blinde i. e. through unaffected and involuntarie ignorance ye should have no sin but now ye say We see therefore your sin remaineth SECT V. Of the Grace and Act of Faith leading to Illumination and of the difficulties and means of believing 1. NOW we proceed to the second sense of Faith mentioned before and that is the Grace or Gift or both by which we believe or the next disposition of the minde towards Illumination For as it is in nature so likewise is it in the case of Religion To him that is naturally blinde and discerneth nothing exteriour objects are in themselves as visible as they are to him who hath the perfect use of his eyes and seeth all things duly offered to his sight but the indisposition of the organe hindereth the exercise of the same So we finde that what is presented alike to all mens understanding and faith hath not the like effect upon men to apprehend or believe what is spiritually discerned 2. One reason whereof may well be that which our Catechisme directed by Gods holy Word assures us of viz. that we were borne in sin of which state blindnesse is a principall part So that as it seemed an incredible thing to the Jewes John the 9th that Christ should open the eyes of him that was borne blinde may it seem one of the greatest difficulties to us that being so naturally ignorant and averse to spirituall things we should be cured of so great a maladie But the resolution of this doubt is given us by Christ himselfe in the same Chapter v. 39. saying For judgement am I come into this world that they who see not might see and that they who see might be blinde Christ therefore calleth himself the light of the world John 5. 8. yea and more than so John 1. 9. according to the testimonie given of him by John the Baptist He was the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world that is all men that come into the world and are enlightened by him only they are enlightened 3. And when it so falls out that men are not the better for the light offered to them and shining before them a reason thereof is to be fetched from themselves and the depravation of their own will and
obstinacie and obduratenesse in their naturall state according to Christs own judgement of the world John 5. v. 40. Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life So that as it is written by Sulpitius Severus in the life of St. Martine that being endued with a marvellous gift or faculty of curing sick and impotent persons The blinde and lame and decrepit who got their living by begging were affraid of him and would not come near him lest being cured of such their defects and impotencies they should lose their livelihood In like manner many getting a miserable and beggarly livelihood by serving and complying with the world and so being blinde and crippled in an heavenly sense refuse that light and life and renovation which Christ bringeth with him An instance whereof we have in the ministrie of St. Paul preaching to the Athenians prepossessed and captivated with worldly wisdome and thereupon saying Thou bringest strange things to our eares In their judgements more strange than true And though it be Mannah it selfe and that dropt down from heaven for their edification and comfort men out of their scepticalnesse and curiositie will question it and perhaps in time loath it as the Israelites that bread from heaven there being generally too little agreement between the notions of half-sighted naturall reason and delectations of our senses naturall and the divine Revelations and more spirituall prescriptions given us by Religion though naturall reason not counterfeited nor corrupted by baser allayes of vitious men may passe also as Gods true coyne But that pure Gold it is not which the Holy Ghost counselleth us to buy Revel 3 18. that we may be rich and wherewith we may get white raiment that we may be clothed that the shame of our nakednesse doe not appear and get that eye-salve that we may see which is the word of God. For the knowledge or illumination which we have from thence and that which we have from the Holy Spirit differ no otherwise than that money a man carries about him or that which the Tradesman hath present in his Bank and that which he hath in his Books which must put him sometimes to trouble to fetch in The manner of which fetching in is by the Holy Spirit also opening the heart that we may as the Disciples going to Emaus after Christs Resurrection understand the Scriptures untill which time that will be found too true which the Prophet Hosea Cap. 8. 12. complains of in Gods behalf I have written to him the great things of my Law but they were counted as a strange thing 4. But if we should enquire faithfully into the grounds of such incredulitie and prejudice against Religion we may finde them too often in the corrupt manners of men influencing the understanding with mistakes and grosse errours which yet some to cover with shew of greatest candour in judging and ingenuity have wished they could believe the things Christianity requires of them But if reality and common integritie be not also laid aside here how easie a thing is it to reconcile them to the truth For does not their own prime reason and of all civilized People tell them that nothing truely humane is more naturall to Man than to be of some Religion And yet if they be men but of indifferent reading and observation they shall finde that there is no Religion nor ever like to be all whose Principles are obvious to all competent understandings And so consequently that men to avoid the barbaritie of Atheisme must believe more than nature can compell them unto by her philosophicall demonstrations or fall into an absurditie little inferiour to Atheisme That every man should frame his own Religion and be so far religious as he thinks fit and no farther and which must necessarily follow call his freak and humour his reason and judgement So that it is scarce so true that a man cannot believe the mysteries of Religion as that he will not and he will not because he dares not for fear of the worst Or let it be that he cannot when St. Paul if he be but so far believed saith of some 2 Corinth 4. 4. The God of this world who that is I suppose is well known hath blinded the mindes of them that believe not lest the light of the glorious Gospell of Christ who is the image of God should shine unto them vain and vitious men having by their presumed wit and evill lives tempted evill Spirits themselves and drawn them to be accessaries to their infatuations For as every good and perfect gift cometh from above from the Father of lights as St. James tells us Chap. 1. 17. So doth everie notorious errour and wickednesse proceed from the Prince of darknesse who ruleth in the Childeren of Disobedience they being called children of Disobedience in Scripture who obey not the Gospell nor believe it reasonably propounded 5. But it may seem strange and worth our wondering How the same effect of blindnesse of minde should be ascribed to God and also to the Devill in Scripture as John 12. 4. speaking of God out of the Prophet Isaias He hath blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts that they should not see with their eyes nor understand with their hearts c. This is in truth a Scholasticall difficultie which belongs to another place to which I may referre it but here I would have it observed that as Judges or Princes are said to put Malefactours to death when they doe it not themselves but deliver them over to the Executioner whose office it is so God upon just provocation delivering great Sinners to the Devill may be said to be a cause of their hardnesse and blindnesse when it is caused directly by Satan only and themselves But the true light of Faith and life of Grace doth most properly appertain to God as it is said 2 Corinth 4. 7. By grace ye are saved through faith it is the gift of God. The reason whereof is That the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us And this key of knowledge which is also of the Kingdome of God did Christ deliver to his Apostles by vertue of which God assisting Lydia's heart was opened as we read Acts 16. 14. And so necessary is the assistance of God in this case that he seems to keep this key by his own side and not at all times to lend it to his Ministers no not the Apostles Nor did Christ himselfe who as God had the command of mens mindes allwayes succeed in his teaching and exhortation but by I know not what deep providence suffered his labours to be frustrated by the incredulity of men But this we may say falls out by divine dispensation that God may be all in all in the beginning continuing and consummation of every good work and to repell that spirit of presumption whereby too prosperous Labourers in Gods Harvest or Vineyard might be prone to attribute much more to themselves than
comes to their share 6. For this reason God sends such tempestuous and dark weather at Sea to the skilfull Navigatour that he shall not be able readily to know or say where he is till the restored calme Light better informes him And sends Shipwracks sometimes to the subtill Merchant that he may understand better who it is that gives skill and strength to get Riches And diappointeth the hopes of the understanding and painfull Husbandman And as the Prophet Isaiah Chap. 44. maketh diviners mad and turneth wise men backward and maketh their knowledge foolish teaching them all and us too and that in all senses more perfectly that necessary lesson of humility Deuteronomy 8. 18. Thou shalt remember the Lord thy God. For it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth c. And as it is with the riches of this world it is with the riches of the world to come or being rich towards God as the Scripture speaks Luke 12. 21. For undoubtedly God may and doth apparently denie the ordinary meanes of Salvation sound knowledge and holy faith in him and of divine mysteries to some To others he grants to be initiated and to have some knowledge of the saving trueth who there stop and proceed no farther as tender plants rising out of the earth wither and perish for want of the blessings of heaven falling on them without which they can proceed no farther towards perfection and some proceed farther and promise fair and for the same reason attain not to the intended end 7. But nothing of this nature can reasonably be taken into an Apologie or defence of the unprofitable servant whom God hath delivered such talents and meanes unto that in themselves tend unto such progressions and consummations as are saving and beatificall But admit thou art becalmed and canst make no way through want of divine aspirations and influence How canst thou how darest thou impute this cessation and oscitancie of thine in not doing the known Will of God unto an unknown cause or rather a not cause of doing which whether it is so as thou imaginest or givest out at least that thou imaginest when thy heart contradicteth thy tongue thou knowest not For who can say that God denies him the inward power and meanes of Salvation that is of effectuall Grace to whom he giveth the outward meanes of Illumination Faith and Salvation Whatsoever may be wanting in the abstruse counsell and dispensations internall of God and known to him cannot be so known to a man without divine Revelations It is an uncharitable and rash act in any man directly to charge his Neighbour with denying him his due or taking away his goods from him when he can prove nothing against him and much more injust it is and impious for a man to say directly that God denies him grace or doth harden his heart so that Rules and exhortations and sufficient reasons of becoming faithfull righteous and holy before God and man are of no effect upon him 8. It is not so much pardonable as commendable in all Good Christians to be sensible of their naturall insufficiencie and infirmity to doe any good act St. Paul having taught us 2 Corinth 3. v. 5. That we are not able to think any thing as of our selves but our sufficiencie is of God. But doe not the very next words as well as the latter part of that argument plainly tell us that God hath a sufficiencie for us and God doth make us able Ministers of his Will And doth not St. James tell us that every good and perfect gift cometh down from the Father of lights James 1. 17. And doth not our Saviour Christ direct us how we should fill our selves from that Fountain when he saith Matth. 7. 11. If ye being evill know how to give good gifts unto your Children how much more should your Father which is in heaven give you good things that ask him And this good thing is the best and fullest of all good things being interpreted in St. Lukes Gospell Chap. 11. 13. to be the Holy Spirit it selfe the fountain of all Grace which he giveth to them that ask him The Querie then must needs be made to our selves whether upon sense of our infirmities and defects we ever did and that as we ought invoke Almighty God implore the gift of his Spirit and its concurrence and whether we ever submitted to its Dictates and directions to that power God hath given us For to doe this as well as believe that we have an excellent president from the wise Man Wisdome 8. v. 21. Neverthelesse I perceived I could no otherwise obtain her i. e. True Wisedome comprehending all intellectuall graces except God gave her me and that was a point of Wisedome also to know whose gift she was I prayed unto the Lord and besought him and with my whole heart I said O God of my Fathers and Lord of mercie c. Which prayer for that illuminating gift and Grace so necessarie might not very unfitly be transcribed hither and used by all true lovers of light rather than darknesse at least untill the Day-star shall arise in their hearts according to which true Believers may shape their course more steadily towards Heaven but I shun prolixnesse SECT VI. Of the Gift and guidance of Gods Spirit towards true Illumination The abuse and true use of the same and necessity of Believing 1. BUT the use or act of the grace of Faith resteth not here but is wonderfully assistant to the naturall understanding in discerning the minde of God revealed unto us in his Word For as the discreet and diligent Master doth not only set his Schollar whom he teacheth to write an exact and fair Copie to imitate and follow but also guides his hand in the making the Letters and joyning them together according to their true shape and order in like manner doth he whose Chair is in heaven teaching the hearts as his Instruments and Officers doe the eares and eyes of men below to understand receive believe and act according to the Rule and scope prescribed For man naturally is apt to believe those things only which his Reason assures him of but his reason how acute soever cannot demonstrate the Scriptures to be the Word of God which we believe and must believe to be so if we would be accounted good Christians And having the Scriptures in that esteem we cannot out of our promptitude and acutenesse of wit discerne clearly and readily many usefull things therein contained without the direction of that great Authour the Blessed Spirit principall in the composing them For 't is truly said The Scriptures must be understood by the Spirit that indited them According therefore to the gifts and grace given unto Mee doe they understand the mysteries of Faith Rom. 12. 6. And to every man is given grace according to the measure of Christ Ephes 4. 7. whereby that light revealed shineth unto the true Believer as out of a dark place So that
Christ continueth his wonted method to reveal such things to the ignorant and Babes which is commonly denied to the wise noble and Great ones in the world untill such time as the simple and unlearned shall proceed so far as to forget whence themselves derive that understanding they have for then suddainly it degenerates into folly and men priding themselves and transgressing the limits of modesty humility and subjection to which they are called become insolent and contumacious towards them that are over them in the Lord. For scarce can it be imagined that God like the foolish workman should pull down with one hand what he buildeth with another or as the wise Man saith Ecclesiasticus 15. 20. give any man licence to sin which he should doe if he allowed fruitfull Hagar to contemne her Mistresse Sarah not losing her dominion for want of what was given and that by God himselfe to Hagar And it is but too common to all presumers of gifts exempting themselves from the ordinarie method of Commander and Souldier Leader and Follower Teacher and Schollar what was mutinously uttered and murmuringly against Moses by Mirian and Aaron Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses hath he not also spoken by us Numbers 12. 2. Revelations may be and are given unto men but not to such as are the worse for them nor to them through whom the Church of God fares the worse But most probably such egregious abilities are given by the subtil and Evill Spirit who if men that are evill may give Good gifts unto their Children as Christ implyeth Matth. 7. 11. may also doe the same to his Children Children of pride of minde and disobedience of life being of the same nature and complexion with himselfe 2. S. Paul therefore sayes 1 Cor. 12. 7. The Spirit that is the truly divine is given to every man to profit withall And this profit is manifestly the profiting of the whole bodie of the Church of Christ the advancing of that and the thriving in Faith and Charity So that whatever knowledge as singular and admirable as it may seem to short-sighted Christians who cannot see afar off may be pretended prejudiciall to the Body of Christ largely taken and to the glory of God in generall but swelling the mindes of some particular persons is far from an edifying faith or knowledge whatever specious effect may be offer'd to the world thereby causing admiration 3. But notwithstanding such frequent mistakes scandalous to the prudent as insnaring to the simple such a Faith there is and such an inward Light many times is given and added by God unto the naturall perspicacity of man that the effect is wonderfull upon the minde and life of the simple above the Learned For the naturall man believes because he knows but the truely spirituall knowes because he believes and his belief is directed by a superiour power agreeably to that saying of the Auncient supposed to be in the Prophet Isaiah Vnlesse ye believe ye shall not understand For seeing a promptitude and preparednesse in the minde to receive all impresses from him without disputings or suspicions of errour he will not suffer such honest and devout simplicitie to want his influence disposing thereunto so that there should be no room or ground left for the faith of God to stand on the wisdome of men and subtile ratiocinations of sophisticall heads For many are the Mysteries of faith not intelligible and yet Credible divinely which may be compared to well composed and well performed Musick which as the common observation teacheth us is most sweet and pleasing in the next room or at a competent distance and yet we see few can content themselves so but must needs be pressing contrary to their own interest into the companie of them who make it and be viewing curiously and perhaps touching the Instruments which yield it though they have no skill in them But the honest and faithfull spirit perswaded of the necessity of things to be believed and conscious of its own infirmitie in making out the intrigues of Religion acquiesces with Humility and Charitie in the things propounded without endlesse discussions which render them lesse credible many times and bring lesse satisfaction than before For the more a man argues the more he may 4. I have not a little wonder'd at the expression and comparison apt enough to signifie the vertue of an easie Faith and the unhappinesse of curious enquirers into matters of Religion without faith It was of one who had the least measure of Christian faith of any of his age as his works declare intending to give a new scheme or modell of Philosophie and Religion both infinitely ambitious of applause and disciples to whom he promised great notions and them more rationall than former Ages or any Country but England had been acquainted with but with so foul failleur in his first principles which he begged and would with no patience suffer to be questioned as scarce any unlucky Sophister was subject to And surely suspecting that what he taught might be as coursely handled as he doth Scripture and the very Creeds of the Church i. e. with monstrous boldnesse he would divert men from such attempts by such a fine similitude as is very serviceable in other Cases As it is with him that is to take physicall Pills for the health of his body if he takes them into his mouth and considering of them will needs chew them before he swallowes them he will rather spit them out of his mouth as vehemently disagreeing to his palate than use them to his health In like manner he who having delivered to him by good and skilfull instructers the wholesome principles of spirituall life and salvation shall as it were grinde and chew them by his natural Reason to prove what manner of things they are before he will receive them by Faith will perhaps never take them down but cast them out again and with them more than them the greatest part of all Religion which before he disliked not If this comparison ever fitted any man it did the Authour 5. But Reason as the Renowned Romane Lawyer of old told us The greatest in the world is that which makes for Religion and if men would but reflect upon their ever doubting Wit and whither it at length hurries them they would never trust it so far nor give it so much rope and such loose reins as they doe For as is said there being nothing more agreeable to Reason than to acknowledge a Deitie it more strongly followes he should be worshipped And if a man should be free to take his choice amongst the great variety offering it selfe to a man methinks out of naturall reason he should preferre the Christian Religion with all its circumstances and difficulties before any other in like manner considered and examined And so I should think if by education having only common reason to guide him he were indifferent he should choose that which was revealed
of God and as revealed having first imbibed that fundamentall principle of Revelation made alreadie by God how he would be worshipped contained in the Scriptures and those as infallible Lawes but lyable to fallible Interpreters and Judges witnesse the palpable errours they are overtaken with who cry down all men for fallible themselves tacitely excepted By which sad experience appeareth the necessity of consulting God the Authour of his own Lawes confidence in his Goodnesse and Grace and an obsequious minde to be lead farther and otherwise by him than naturall reason can or would manage us 6. This credulousnesse was it which Primitive Christians and especially the Martyrs excelled in and whereby they became invincible and even invulnerable in their Religion and whatever the contemporary heathen objected against it and reproached them with as Barbarous their own Religion as mean as it was could never be carried on or subsist long without as might be shewed by instances Nay the Christian Fathers of the Church retorted that reviling upon themselves in naturall affairs and civill as amongst many others Arnobius did in this manner Tell me doe ye plow the ground and fill it with varietie of Seeds not believing that ye shall reap the fruits of your labours with increase at the returne of the Season Doe not you joyn your selves in Matrimonie believing your Consorts will be chast and faithfull to their Covenants Do you not endeavour procreation hoping your Children will live be toward and obedient Doe ye not merchandize and sail into far Countries hoping ye shall escape the dangers of the Sea and Land incident to Travailers and returne with safetie and bootie to your own Country and Dwelling again And doe ye not commit your bodies to the care of the Physician when ye are sick believing that he can and will relieve your Dolours And ye war also against your Enemies presuming ye shall win the day And doe ye not worship your Gods believing that they hear you and will answer you Yea and every School of Philosophie hath such as very readily believe the Master of the Sect without much arguing or contending And why then should men so boggle at Christ and Christianity and so hardly digest them because they can pick out many difficulties in it for which they can give or perhaps understand no sufficient reason nor find easie resolutions 7. But it was well replyed to this last obstacle of Faith in naturall Rationalists by Saint Paul preaching to the Athenians Acts 17. 29. For as much then as we are the Ofspring of God we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold or silver and stone graven by art and mans device Nor indeed ought we to think that God is like unto man or any thing made by God so as to bring down the notions of a Deity and the manner of that he chooses to be worshipped by to agree with mans imagination To whom will ye compare God or what likenesse will ye compare to him saith the Prophet Isaiah intimating unto us that as God in matter and forme agreeth not with any created being so neither in his will acts or outward operations is he to be measured by any created Rule or judged But he is only Rule to himselfe and us too of believing and doing and none understanding God cleerly and fully but himselfe the understanding which we have of him and his Will must be derived from himselfe according to that expression of the Psalmist Psal 34. 5. They looked unto him and were lightened and their faces were not ashamed For as it is in the same Book of Psalmes In thy light we shall see light Moses was thus enlightened in his face even to coruscation when he beheld Gods face and that borrowed lustre communicated it selfe unto standers by and beholders So likewise God having discovered himselfe by his holy Word by the eye of Faith stedfastly beholding him we are illuminated also more clearly fully and sublimely than by all the tedious lectures of the wise ones of this world wanting such assistances as he that puts on Spectacles shall if defective in his sight see more and better than any of the same imperfection who shall spend his whole life in reading over the learned Treatises of Opticks or Art of Seeing An experience of more than one or two I could instance in I-suppose may teach us that when the Soule is truely devoted to Religion which infinite surmises and suggestions would weaken and molest they have heartily wished they had known lesse and believed more or that God would strengthen their faith or weaken their reason there being a kinde of naturall petulancie in unsanctified reason upon all turnes to give molestation to Faith till it be silenced with strong resolutions of firmly adhering to our Christian Principles 8. A man would think that much reading and much learning and profound knowledge not only of humane stamp and order but Divine consisting in the knowledge of the Scriptures and the mysteries of the Kingdome of Heaven and the snares of the world and the deceivablenesse of sin and the infirmities of flesh and blood and the severall stratagems of the Devill might secure a man from the severall temptations incident to our spirituall warfare But all these be the Gifts and blessings of God and very usefull to others as well as a mans selfe and so very desireable yet very often it so falls out that they least of all suffice to encounter the assailants spirituall the owner meets with in this world but are profitable and serviceable to others inferiour to him So that what we read Ecclesiastes 1. 18. becomes verified He that encreaseth knowledge encreaseth sorrow For as Great Emperourrs and Conquerours in this world increase their Enemies as they enlarge their Dominions so that whilest they content themselves with narrower Territories they have fewer Adversaries than when they have extended their sphere to more and remoter Countries for then the orb without them and surrounding them is also much more large and affordes more evill Neighbours readie at all times to infest them so as a man dilates his knowledge he shall start more difficulties warring against his faith than those plain and honest Believers who in comparison of them know very little And as hard if not harder a matter it is for men of great knowledge to encounter all those objections which discover themselves to the learned as it is for the more ignorant to withstand temptations occurring to him fewer and weaker 9. And in truth neither the one nor the other suffices of himselfe to cast down imaginations as the Apostle speaks 2 Corinth 10. 5. and every high thing that exalteth it selfe against the knowledge of God so as to bring into captivitie every thought to the obedience of Christ But God hath ordained certain speciall Intellectuall gifts whereby man is assisted in his course and conflict in this world which are usually termed the seven Intellectuall Gifts illustrious in
Christ in the first place and derived unto his faithfull members from him the head mentioned by the Prophet Isaiah Chap. 11. such as Quick understanding Wisdome Counsell Might or Fortitude Knowledge and the fear of the Lord and if there be any others distinct from these into which quarrell I will not now enter surely they are the speciall gifts of God given unto man for his instruction direction guidance and assistance in the affairs of his soule SECT VII Of Illumination reflexive whereby a Christian soule comes to the knowledge of its selfe in its Spirituall state 1. BY the Book of Nature a man attains to many rare and usefull things and especially of God and by common revelation in holy Scriptures may the mysteries of God and Godlinesse be made known unto him all which may be said to be necessary and usefull but scarce otherwise than as they lead him to the knowledge of himselfe and the state of his soule towards God to which a twofold Revelation is required The first common to all Christians declaring the Doctrine of Faith and rules of holy Life principles of well believing and doing But the second we are taught to be more necessary than the first that is such a knowledge or rather sense of a mans particular and inward man which tends to a censuring and condemning himselfe or a peaceable and comfortable perswasion of such a state of Grace and Gods favour as ends in immortall Blisse 2. And as our Saviour Christ saith What will it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soule So may we say What will it profit a Christian to know the whole world and to be ignorant of his own soule For to know the Heavens themselves and their nature and number and various motions is no heavenly knowledge And to know God himselfe by extraordinary speculations is no Godly knowledge of it selfe but the knowledge of a mans selfe in the particular relations he hath to God and Christ the Son of God and Saviour of the world and of himselfe especially For this knowledge God seems to reserve to himselfe to be communicated at his pleasure For as Christ himselfe teaches us Matth. 11. 27. No man knoweth the Son but the Father and no man knoweth the Father save the Son and he to whom soever the Son will reveale him it may no lesse truly be said No man knoweth himselfe in his Religious or Spirituall capacities but he to whom God hath revealed himselfe For this kinde of knowledge a man is as averse to as he is prone to naturall knowledge by industrious speculation For who desires to finde an hole or spot in his own Coat Yea who can patiently be told of any blemish in his Face that his Nose is too bigge and that his Eyes are too little or that his Face is pimpled and high colour'd or that his Mouth is too wide or that one Leg is shorter than another or such like imperfections of nature or deformities And the minde and soule being more neer unto us and valued by us than our visible parts much more troubled are we when any defect is in them noted For as it is observed that Nature hath made all men handsome enough in their own opinion as to their outward person so hath it made all men wise enough vertuous enough and holy enough And though a current principle of Religion teaches many men sometimes and upon some occasions in a manner to acknowledge their weaknesses and imperfections yet if another affirms the like things of them they are much molested and offended conceiving some ill will or spite to be the cause of such censures And men doe naturally but jest with themselves to others when they undervalue themselves in hopes and expectation that such as hear them will take an occasion from thence to refute them by the return of praises and commendations of their worth for that very thing in which they disparaged themselves more than recompensing such defects 3. Religion then and that not in Books but written in the tables of the Heart and affecting rather than advising can alone sufficiently imprint in a man the knowledge of himselfe towards God to which notwithstanding a good preparation is made by Gods Word untill the Grace of God and Illumination truly supernaturall shall open more fully the eyes of the understanding as Saint Paul speaks to a more perfect sense of a mans selfe by the consideration of these Five things What we were not What we were What we are What we ought to be and What we certainly shall be hereafter 4. By what we were not I mean that once we were not at all which Divine Revelation hath only infallibly taught us and determined above the Philosophie of some and against the Philosophie of others And once it was that not so much as in the loyns of Nature man was to be found as all we at present may be said to have been in the loyns of Adam before we appeared in the world For Adam himselfe was no where amongst naturall causes to be found in the most slender being of all untill God had produced him absolutely nothing of it selfe producing only nothing and being worse than that vile lump of earth out of which man was shaped all these things concurring to humble man upon the review of his base extraction by his Mothers side and being no better by his Fathers side God Creatour of all things than other ugly and odious creatures in his eye but much the worse as the masse of humane flesh being leaven'd with the vain cogitations of the minde and inordinate concupiscences and affectations corrupted himselfe above other creatures and by that contagion infecting him With what great blushing and confusion then should we reflect upon our frustrating Gods designe and order which being to be exemplarie in vertue and obedience to God unto other inferiour Creatures have render'd them more vile and disorderly And which is more lamentable as it is most shamefull in the state degencrate into which man is fallen by his free frailty for man to be more puffed up and fansie to himselfe an Empire even while he is tyrannized over by the rebells of his own brest this is that which requires his severest examination and judicature of him and not as the common manner is with modester Christians to shuffle up accounts between God and the soule others taking little notice of one way or other their past perfections or present imperfections and to confesse we are all to blame we have all sinned and are fallen short of the glorie of God and that we generally carrie about us a bodie full of spirituall infirmities and subject to failings and falls But these things touch us not more particularly or that besides the confused masse of sin acknowledged to dwell in us we have some proper and speciall passions or addictions to sin this we either cannot discerne in our selves or through selfe-conceitednesse naturall to all
to know To whome therefore should I betake my selfe for help and succour but to thee O Lord who alone canst open the eyes of him that is borne blinde and who art the Father of Lights from whome cometh every good and perfect gift and givest to all men liberally and upbraidest not And how should we come unto thee but through Jesus Christ who is made unto us of God Wisdome Righteousnesse Sanctification and Redemption In him therefore coming unto thee I pray thee to give me wisdome that sitteth by thy Throne and reject me not from thy Children For I thy servant and son of thy handmaid am a feeble person and of short time and too young and weak for the understanding of judgement and thy Lawes O send her out of thy holy heavens and from the throne of thy glorie that being present she may labour with me that I may know what is pleasing unto thee and what is that good and acceptable will of God. For hardly do we guesse aright of the things that are upon earth and with labour doe we finde the things that are before us but the things that are in heaven who hath searched out but by thy Spirit which searcheth all things even the hidden things of God. I am a stranger and a Pilgrim upon earth O hide not thy Commandments from me that so having a sound and saving knowledge of thee and of my selfe and mine own wayes of my errours and my negligences and ignorances of mine infirmities and emptinesses and so diffident in and disliking my selfe I may apply my selfe to thee lay hold on thy strength partake of thy fullnesse and freenesse and have a sincere faith in thee a fervent love of thee and holy life before thee and professing thee outwardly may believe thee inwardly and serve thee in all good works in all godly conversation and honesty and persevere therein through Jesus Christ our Lord Amen The Second Part. OF THE PURGATIVE PART OF RELIGION SECT 1. That Action and good Works must be added to true Knowledge and Believing And of the distinction of Sins to be purged 1. AS Light was at the first Creation produced by God as an Introduction to his Six-dayes workes so hath he continued that light to all his Creatures but especially Man the greatest Artist of all other to the better discharge of those Acts and Offices assigned him in the few dayes of his labour in this World. And according to his gift in workes of Nature hath he provided a proportionable light of Understanding and Faith to give him Means Rule and Opportunity to work the work of God and that especially upon his own soule to the end it may draw near unto God both in likenesse of perfection and fruition of blessednesse For the Image of God defaced by our Apostacie having contracted many and monstrous deformities the great businesse we are to be imployed about is how to refashion our selves to that Grand Patern which became visible to us by the Incarnation of Christ the brightnesse of Gods glorie and the expresse Image of his Father So that as we see it is with Statuaries who are to make an accurate Image out of a rude and naturall stone taken out of the Quarrie what light is necessarie what judgement what diligence by little and little to chip and hew away all irregular parts and roughnesse till the intended forme riseth out of it so must it be with every good Christian to whom God hath given his Light to work by and Instruments to work with and matter to work upon his own soule over-grown and mishapen and wholly out of order and rule as taken out of the common rock of Nature 2. God therefore hath set up his Holy Word amongst us as the Greater Light to rule the Day according to whose Illumination we should direct and rule all our actions and not contrary to our Saviours advice put it under a Bed or under a Bushell that is not under the bed of slothfulnesse and lazinesse nor under the bushell of worldlinesse and secular businesses and traffickings whereby men are wont to make use of the Scripture the better to advance worldly profits as hypocrites doe or sweetly to flatter themselves that they know much as if the gifts of God to us were service done to him and he were so well satisfied with the talents committed to our trust that he would never require any thing from us or perhaps some lipp-service whereby with religious Discourse we move others to think well of us were to be good and faithfull servants to him though we remained unfruitfull as if he that gives aym to another should perswade himselfe that he had hit the mark himselfe But the Holy Scriptures quite contradict this and that often as St. James 1. 22. Not the hearers of the Law are justified before God but the doers And St. Paul Rom. 2. 13. speaking the same thing Which we must not so understand as if the Law of Moses were here only commended but the Law of Christ obedience to whom is no lesse necessary to our justification and salvation than the workes of Moses his Law were once necessary to him that would live by them For this is the Doctrine of Christ himselfe Luke 12. 47. He that knoweth his Masters will and doth it not shall be beaten with many stripes And so where he saith John 8. 19. If ye had not known me ye had had no sin comparatively but now ye say We know therefore your sin remaineth For at the day of Judgement as Gerson observeth it shall not so much be demanded of us how much we know how well skill'd we are in the Scriptures what notable Disputers and Arguers we have been out of them nor how many good Sermons we have heard nor how many Chapters we have read or how often but as the forme of proceeding in that Great Day contained in the Scriptures assures us Matt. 25. 34 36 c. what good workes we have done in the true faith we professe and what good fruits the tree of knowledge of Good and Evill hath produced And in our spirituall warfare it will not suffice to beat the Drum or sound as it were the Trumpet to stir up others to fight that good fight appointed by Christ against flesh and blood and spirituall wickednesses unless as St. Paul exhorteth we quit our selves likemen in Christs Camp. 3. Applying then our selves to so Divine and necessary a work before we can doe what is required we must judge what is amisse and being now about to purge our selves from filthinesse of flesh and spirit as St. Paul speaks 2 Corin. 7. 1. we are first of all to be throughly perswaded of those spots and blemishes which are to be cleansed from the soule and those scales which are to be taken off our Eyes and those infirmities and distempers our souls naturally labour under For we see not if we lament not our rude and polluted naturall state our defects
end of Faith. If a man believes firmely but not soundly nor truely his faith like to the knowledge acquired by our first Parents upon the eating of the forbidden fruit brings him to shame and confusion of face And of this sort are innumerable mistakes not to be here instanced in that only excepted which is of most generall evill consequence whereby men are wont and willing to divide and rend faith from it selfe I mean the Forme or inward act of believing from the power and effect of Faith perswading themselves that Faith alone so taken gives us Justification and if so it must needs give us Sanctification too For none are justified but such as are thereunto prepared by a competent degree of Sanctification And so in trueth at length it will be found that whatever is pretended and more dangerously presumed no man is more Justified alone by Faith than he is Sanctified by it alone and the workes of Faith are in no place of holy Scripture opposed to Faith it selfe the cause of such workes in reference to our Justification And it is altogether as derogatory to Christs merits and the freenesse of Gods Grace to rest upon such Faith for justification and salvation as upon such workes of Faith. But this I speak as I passe 4. However therefore the Authours of such Doctrine or at least formes of speaking as have lately prevailed disown the necessary ill consequences of the same and allow yea urge much good workes and with many flourishes commend the use of them yet advancing immoderately and injudiciously the Act of Faith creeple it and binde it up from the free course and full influence it may and otherwise would have upon mens lives to the purging of the Soule from evill and impregnating it to good works of vertue and holinesse 5. But leaving that Controversie let us proceed to what is without Controversie shewing by plain instances what we have propounded concerning the power of Faith in our militant state here And let it be ingenuously judged how a man by Faith thorowly convinced of that one first Principle that there is a God Creatour of all things Judge of all things and of all Men especially and their hearts and actions and infallibly rewarding the good and the evill can easily omitt the good so amply hereafter to be remunerated or rashly fall into the evill of Sin-tempting standing by his Christian Faith assured that his temporary trifling vanishing as soon as felt pleasures shall end infallibly in bitternesse and never-failing sorrowes Who would sow that seed in his Field which he might easily believe will rise up to an harvest of Serpents which will sting him to death Or can a man stedfastly believe that Article of his Creed teaching and assuring him that Christ that righteous Judge shall appear a second time in glorie and severe Justice towards quick and dead rendering to every man according to the good or evill he hath done in his bodie viz. Life Everlasting or shame and torment everlasting and not feare or fear and yet committ such things as will weigh him down into the place of such miserie What wise man would be tempted so with the beautie and desireablenesse of drinking out of a Golden Cup when he knowes it is filled with deadly Poison Or would any man eat of that bread fair to the Eye and perhaps pleasant to the palate which he knowes will suddenly after breed gravell and stones in his reins and bladder and infinitely torture him Certainly such a mans perswasion which in Religion we call Faith must needs be verie weak and his fondnesse strong which can impose so hard things on him unrejected 6. No more can any man have a sound and sufficient perswasion of the heavenly Mansions and the unspeakable Glories thereof yea the perfection and beautie of Vertue and Divinenesse of holie Life and good Conscience and neglect or contemn the same for the fallacies vitious practices put on the outward senses for a moment or lesse if lesse we can imagine Is not this next to a Miracle if we may allow the Devill to be able to work Miracles contrary to the Doctrine of the Schools For what way we call a Miracle if not deluding the senses and so far changing the natures of things to mans eye and common sense that he shall call good evill and evill good and have no other opinion of Flames into which he must be cast than of a Feather bed 7. To him that lives by Sense the present sweet is most sweet and the present bitter most bitter but to him that lives by Faith and not by Sense the future exceeds in both kinds And to a truly wise man knowing the worst of troubles and hardships in this world no more to be compared to the miseries wicked men suffer hereafter than the joyes of sin in this life are to the glorie to be hereafter enjoyed in Heaven by the Righteous it may seem most reasonable to choose the least of Evills and to run the least of hazards too as that poore simple austere man vilely and coldly clad and as ill fed did with whom as our own histories tell a boisterous and soft Gallant meeting demanded of him Why he used himselfe so hardly and was answered by him I doe this to escape Hell-fire But said the Gallant again If there be no Hell what a Fool art thou to use thy selfe so ill But he more wittily and sharply replied But what if there be an Hell how much more Fool art thou to live so as thou doest Put the case to common Reason for true Faith is infallibly assured of it that it was a doubtfull point Whether there were an Hell or not a Heaven or no Heaven and the Scales weighing both sides were equall would not generall Reason advise so to believe as to take the safest course and live that life which may lead to the supposed happinesse and escape the threatened torments What hurt befalls that man that lives continently temperately modestly justly soberly yea and selfe-denyingly as to those things which are not necessarie though no reward followes upon his rigours but the ordinary comforts of health and peace of minde which are greater to him than the riotous liver and pleaser of his appetites and senses without restraint But what hurt doth not befall him hereafter who by indulging to his sensible Soule bereaves himselfe of everlasting happinesse in the world to come that not being all neither as our Religion truely informes us 8. Let us therefore truely examine our selves as St. Paul exhorteth whether we be in the faith and prove our selves knowing of our own selves that Jesus Christ is in us except we be reprobates 2 Corin. 13. 5. Surely if Christ be in us it must be by Faith and if Faith be in us it will discover so much of the events of an holy and wicked life as not to be like a Horse and Mule which have no understanding nor like such men who have
our former sins is to act contrarie unto them and in this case especially when we have in youth ill squander'd the temporarie goods God hath lent to us for a season not to be tenacious of them in age but to employ them as freely in the service of God and promoting Pietie exiled by costly Lusts And not be like that unjust old Usurer and Oppressour of whome Henry of Huntington speakes who being exhorted towards his Death to give Almes plentifully towards the expiation of his wicked Covetousnesse refused saying No I will leave my Son all I have got and let him if he pleases give Almes out of it for the good of my Soule 5. It is therefore the advice of our Lord and Master Christ Luke 12. ver 15. Take heed and beware as if one word sufficed not to obviate such a pestilent Disease of Covetousnesse For a mans life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth Take we heed of it for the intrinsick evill in it selfe and beware of it for the viperous brood of sins which it bringeth forth and nourisheth some of which may be these Obduration of heart against God and Man being unsensible of the Dutie of Worship Thankfullnesse and fruitfullnesse in all good works the end of his bountie to man in that kinde And a hard heart and barren womb towards the necessities of his Brother craving some little of his abundance Yea cruell is the covetous to his own flesh denying what may be convenient for the same and no better to his minde tormenting it with restlesse and endlesse cares to adde to the unprofitable heap and bring about that designe which never comes to passe For he tells others first he desires but an honest livelihood but having attained to that he proceeds and tells us He would willingly leave a competent subsistence to his Wife and Children and having gained that Point allso then he is no lesse sollicitous about that competencie never knowing when he hath it though he hath it but would make his Posterities rich too and Gentlemen and Esquires and Knights and Nobles if it were possible and what not Then should he sleep sweetly in his Grave and for his Soule it is the least part of his sollicitude But if doing no good or doing no evill but to himselfe were the evill in which the Covetous man was only guilty it were a laudable sin if any may be said so to be in comparison of the wicked Pranks it plaies upon other What Choler and wrath rages not at a triviall losse which a liberall Soule would not be moved at or stirred Break but an earthen Vessell of two pence you allmost break his heart and if he breakes your Head it is lesse than can be expected from him Violences Frauds Cheatings treacheries to God and his Country for lucre Perverting Justice by Bribery subverting the Faith and confounding Religion by Simonie and Sacriledge which he laughs out of countenance when he cannot stand the tryall of such iniquitie or boldly asking What is Sacriledge What is Simonie baffles all received Knowledge and perswasion thereof by his acute and singular Scepticism trampling on Reason and Justice and Religion all at once Adde hereunto Lying Perjuries Stealings Rapines and a benefit raised to himselfe by depopulations of Parishes reducing the well-inhabited Place to one or two great Farmes taking up a strange Paradox for his Defence that there are notwithstanding never the fewer People because Nature will work in an unknown Manner and Land. How manifestly hath experience taught us what the Prophet Habakkuk denounceth against such Engrossers Chap. 2. 9. Woe to him that coveteth an evill covetousnesse to himselfe that he may set his nest on high c. For in trueth I have by me many Instances of curses upon Persons and Families who by such ill wayes of advancing themselves have in a short time been utterly ruin'd But I will not trouble this Discourse with them So as that is happened to them which the Psalmist hath Psalm 75. 5. according to the auncienter Translation The proud are robbed they have slept their sleep and all the men whose hands are mighty have found nothing Great matters they grasped at in their projectings but in the conclusion they were forced to let goe what before they held and nothing remained But above all this men should seriously consider there is more guilt in this sin than is obvious to every eye especially having in it the Pearl of Covetousnesse and that is no lesse if St. Paul may be believed than Idolatrie Coloss 3. 5. Mammon being erected in the heart the Temple of God and preferred before God and all that are called Gods which is the Character of Antichrist 6. And the consideration of these Evills may more than sufficiently disswade the pursuit of these earthly Riches which make us poor towards God But does not Christ the Oracle of God tell us as we have it Acts 20. It is better to give than to receive And the reason hereof is not obscure because it maketh us like unto God who giveth unto all men liberally yea Psal 145. Openeth his hand and filleth all things living with plenteousnesse And believe we Solomon the wisest of Men rather than relye on our own witts naturall he telleth us that The Liberall soule shall be made fat Not unlike to those Breasts which abound by being drawn but are dried up and emptie by denying what they have to afford to others by Gods and Natures appointment 7. And there is but one or two main Objections which the Covetous is wont to alledge for his tenaciousnesse and against Bountie and Charitie especially towards Publick Good. Charitie of that nature is much perverted and abused to evill ends Which if the trueth were plainly known is not the reall reason of such Persons illiberality but the love of Money But be it so Charitable deeds are perverted to ill uses such benefactions made with pious intentions shall never be wrested by any abuses out of the hands of the giver but his reward shall be with the Lord and that an hundred fold Besides to whome can the subtillest Worldling give or leave his Estate so securely as it shall not or may not be abused He himselfe abused it and himselfe many times in getting it and keeping it which as dung ought to be spread abroad to make the Soil fruitfull And doth not Riches left to the dear Heirs of our Bodies suffer and doe more mischief to them than Good Doe they not abuse them in rioting Luxurie and Whoredome and Drunkennesse Who would have thought that the Covetous Person should be a man of so much mercie as to bring the abuse and mischief of Wealth home to his own Familie rather than the Church or State should be the worse for his freenesse But so experience often teaches us to fall out Whereas by sparing somewhat out of that we enjoy to Gods Service the remainder is sanctified and by Gods blessing becomes
or deserve amputation from the Body of Christ of which such perfection and conjunction make us members 2. Thus far onely if the phanaticall strains found in Mysticall Theologie of contrarie Extremes had proceeded not onely innocencie but honour allso had been due unto it But we finde the Moderne advancers of it to have scandalously corrupted it by affectation of excesses in Stile and big Language and facts agreeable to them whereas Bonaventure writing on that Subject thus simply describes it in his Prologue to it It is the extension of love towards God by the desire of love And a little after he saith It is such whereby the religious Soule leaving humane Wisdome the curiousnesse of unprofitable knowledge and the sophistry of argumentations and Opinions by the Ascent of love rises up to the Fountain of all by desiring in which onely she finds trueth insomuch that the simple Laick being in the School of God may receive this wisdome from God himselfe immediately by the affection of love which no naturall Philosopher nor secular Master nor humane Intelligence can attain to Neither is the description of this Unitive Way given by Gerson in his Mysticall Theologie to be rejected where more soberly than divers of late dayes affect to speak He saith Mysticall Divinitie is an experimentall Knowledge had of God by the conjunction with God by spirituall affection But we cannot allow of such great swelling words and ecstaticall practices answerable thereunto wrapping mens Soules in a Cloud of reall Ignorance in the midst of their pursuit of supreame Knowledge and suffering them to fall into direct profanenesse of words and deeds while they have a strong and vain emulation and affectation of sublimest Devotion and Pietie which to passe over the many exorbitancies in this kinde found amongst such as are known by the name of Phanatiques a great pretender to Devotion Horstius in a Latine Book which he calls The Paradise of the Soule hath fallen into there speaking in this manner pag. 59. Trulie Lord if what is not possible I were owner of any thing which thou wantedst I would willingly yield all to thee and give it thee Yea if I could be God I would not for this onely that thou mightest be God and have no Peer Which with us is no better than a piece of fond Devotion and implicite Blasphemie proceeding from an illimited affectation of strange and monstrous expressions familiar with such like Mysticall Divines carefully to be avoided and shunned as the bane of true and favourie Religion towards God whereby the Devill sets Christians as once he did Christ on the Pinacle as it were of the Temple that he may the more easily cast them down headlong But the heart of a true Believer being well-grounded in Faith and setled in love to God is capable of some singular and extraordinarie sense of Gods goodnesse and the wisdome which cometh from above with a true spirituall ardour towards God and desire of Union with him which may be said to consist in these three things First A Cleerenesse then Soundnesse lastly Acquiescence in the Will and Wayes of God. Whereby the Soule having in some competent manner escaped the pollutions of the world 2 Pet. 2. cleaveth so stedfastly to the Lord or is joyned to him as it is 1 Corin 6. 17. that it becomes one Spirit not by transmutation of nature or substance but by assimilation in Holinesse and plenarie subjection of the will of Man to the Will of God that so God may be all in all Which is more corporally expressed by Saint Paul Ephes 5. where he saith of true Believers We are members of his Bodie of his Flesh and of his Bones Not by transubstantiation of Natures but transformation and renewing of the minde as is said Rom. 12. 2. So that as Saint Paul speaks Galat. 2. 20. The life which a Christian so transformed out of himselfe and conformed unto Christ liveth he liveth not but Christ liveth in him by the faith and love of Christ a state of Grace bordering nere upon Glory it selfe In which Mysticall Language great care is to be used least a Believer be so far drawn away from the solid foundation and edifying knowledge that his Religion should end in aery speculations and notions and these in bold denominations given himselfe And lastly Spirituall life or walking with God as did Enoch untill a translation be made from hence nerer to the presence and fruition of God. 3. Therefore to prevent Delusions incident to high flyers in Divinitie in this kinde Our speculations must be measured by our love to God reciprocated upon the sense of Gods love wherewith he first loved us And lest even this love should prove a fondnesse the sincerity of it is to be proved by the practice of a mans life answering in Puritie and degree the fervour pretended of love Not denying that where such intimate conjunction there is between God and the Soule certain tacite and inward signatures thereof are made to it invisible to the world and sensible only to its selfe but not so as therein to acquiesce without all sollicitude as if such were allreadie in Heaven but with constant contentions about these two principall Points 4. First How they should continue in that good state to which they have allreadie attained which is no otherwise brought to passe than by the meanes whereby it was attained as naturall Bodies subsist by the same Elements of which they doe consist And secondly because to rest satisfied with what a man hath without designe held up of proceeding is the next way to lose what he hath and to fall backward and to decay It is necessary ever to be pressing forward that the Tide may allwayes be rising in grace least upon willfull remission and slacknesse the Soule be by degrees left emptie and dry For it is the Character of Heaven given by Saint John Revelat. 14. That they rest from their labours which belongs not to any not the highest in this life that they should cease to doe good untill that Sabbath above shall be enter'd into and celebrated And yet even of the blessed there we read Revelat. 4. 8. That they rest not day and night to act according to that state where there is Union with God indissoluble and Communion to satiety without surfeit on one hand or wearinesse on the other A resemblance whereof is to be obtained even in this life by those who by diligent attendance on spirituall Duties here and denying the world doe as Gregory saith Hom. 34. on the Gospells burne with the flames of lofty Contemplation breathing onely with desire of their Creatour and coveting nothing farther in this world are nourished with the sole love of Eternitie They contemne all earthly things and in their mindes transcend all temporary things They love and burne and in that heat they rest quiet they burne by loving and by their speech inflame others allso and whome by their words they touch they instantly
cause to burne with the love of God. Why therefore may I not call such as these Seraphims whose hearts are converted into fire shining and burning and withall illuminating the eyes of mens mindes unto heavenly things and pricking them with tears purge away the rust of Vices This in sum may be said to be the more perfect state of the Soule here united unto God of which we are now more particularly to treat SECT II. That this Vnion consisteth chiefly in true knowledge of God and Love experimentall and reciprocall 1. THEY who write Scholastically of this Union of the Soule with God in their Treatises of Mysticall Theologie doe first speak of it in the Speculative way endeavouring to show the difference between it and common Theologie and in what part of the minde this Science is seated and such like which we purposely here omitt And some more phanatically having learned from Saint Paul Ephes 5. That Christ is the Husband of the Church and consequently that there is a Mysticall Wedlock between it and every true particular member of that and Christ pursue the Allegorie so boldly and indiscreetly as to prophane that holy Mysterie by carnall resemblances and Scholies which we shall avoid It sufficing that as Saint Paul there saith Great is the Mysterie and that great Mysteries are not too curiously to be enquired into but believed firmly with endeavours to attain the same which endeavours must be grounded upon the proper meanes conducing thereunto which most of all deserve here to be explained 2. Of these then the present knowledge of God according to humane capacitie must needs be the first step and that not a knowledge of humane Science but rather of Christian faith and experience which St. Paul 2 Corinth 2. 14. most aptly and significantly calleth the savour of the knowledge of God not onely informing but affecting us as it were sensibly or experimentally 3. Upon this good beginning is built the desire of God as of the most excellent glorious and good object of all that being fullfilled which Isaiah hath Chap. 26. 8. Yea in the way of thy judgements O Lord have we waited for thee the desire of our Soule is to thy Name and to the Remembrance of thee For in trueth God is in himselfe the most desireable of all things as he is the chiefest good of all things and of whose fullnesse in that kinde all things that are good doe partake and become good So that as it is impossible any thing should be form'd really good but what is really and more perfectly such in him so can we desire nothing but what is most absolutely and perfectly to be had in and with him So that according to the illumination of the understanding concerning God and things Divine will follow an appetite of the will affected therewith For naturall Philosophie teaches truely than man hath not Free-will in choosing that which is chiefest Good and ultimate of all but without consultation or deliberation ravished with its allsufficiencie and plenitude tendeth naturally and necessarily to it as the last end of all beyond which there is no passing and besides it there is no straying as being immense So that we may suppose Lucifer himselfe excelling naturally in perspicacitie and intuitive knowledge which he had of that absolute Good was so far surprised with its splendour and perfection that contenting not himselfe to be neer contemplate and enjoy it affected to be that it selfe by sacrilegious ambition and so lost what really he had and was So that we may perceive a necessarie conjunction between cleer and firme knowledge and sincere and fervent love as there is a Morall as they call it necessity of conjunction between Love and the thing we so loved 4. Under Love which is the very Unitive Bond of Christ and the Soule we comprehend Desire allso which some make one kinde of Love and Complacencie another But Complacencie being rather a Concomitant of Love possessed of its Object than any actuall appetite may more properly be termed a satiation and rest of the Soule But Love is an act or motion towards somewhat not fully at least enjoyed And though there may be a full fruition the heart of man ceases not to love or desire in some sense as when that actually and at present enjoyed is desired as absent and in the continuation for time to come For as no man according to the Philosophie of Saint Paul hopeth for what he hath so neither doth he desire what he hath but the desire remaining after possession is of the perpetuation and indeficiencie of the same As when Peter and John at the Transfiguration of Christ beholding and admiring the Glorie did desire Tabernacles to be erected in which they might rest further in the blessed state they were then in So much more full then as our knowledge is of God and his Excellencies in Christ so much more ardent will be and so much better settled our love of them and consequently our union more intimate and fixed in them answerable to which the Schoolmen as well as Mysticall Divines have found out four degrees of Love divine Thom. 1. 2. qu. 28. a. 5. Co. Liquefaction Fruition Languor and Fervour which I hold not fit to be here insisted upon as being more admirable than profitable A more moderne Authour and more truely and devoutly reduceth all love of God to these three Heads whereof the first cometh onely through Faith without gracious imaginations or spirituall Knowledge of God which is in the least Soule reformed by Faith and in the lowest degree of Charity which is good as sufficing to salvation The second is that which a Soule feeleth through faith and imagination of Jesus in his Manhood which is better than the former when the Imagination is stirred by Grace For then the spirituall Eye is opened in beholding of his Humanitie The third is Love that a Soule feeleth through spirituall sight of the Godhead in the Humanity as it may be seen here is the best and most worthy and that is perfect love This love a Soule feeleth not till it be reformed in feeling Thus that Authour in the Scale of Perfection 5. But I esteem that more usefull and easie distinction of Love or Union with God alltogether sufficient for all purposes requisite to a good Christian For either we love because by Faith we know and see spiritually things lovely or desireable as God in his Perfections and Christ in his Mediation active and passive and the holy Spirit in its operations Divine Or we love because we finde and feel the power of all these in the inward-man by the sense of the Love of God first in such sort manifested unto us For as Saint Austine Epist 106. hath it answerable to the grounds laid by Saint John 1 Epist 4. 19. Faith which worketh by love would not work at all unlesse the very Love of God be first shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given
they presently feel most grievous torments And this I rehearse verily believing that God by his holy Spirit doth elevate some men so extraordinarily as that they exceed humane order in contemplations and sensations heavenly and that evill Spirits may counterfeit notably the same effects in their Servants And hereupon I leave these few Rules to all sober faithfull and devout Christians tending to the discerning of Spirits good and evill 5. First they who pursue the great meanes ordained of God to arrive at the heighth of the Love of God uniting them to God and causing an acquiescence and rest in him so that in effect their reasons and senses naturall inconsisting with such perfection should be lost in God and in Christ and they live in the world undisturbed by it are laudably and safely extaticall 6. Secondly That they who may have surpassed others in the exercise of Christian Vertues and the Unitive Way with God and no wayes aim at such Perfections or desire them as at the best not making the Soule more good but more great rather and not more dear or acceptable to him which should be every prime Christians studie and endeavour may have exaltations of this nature which importunately coveted may provoke God to deliver them over to delusions of evill Spirits 7. Thirdly Seeing counterfeit Ware comes too often under the countenance and resemblance of what is pure and passing good the soundnesse of the faith professed by such is not proved by such excesses but such excesses must be rather judged by the Law and Testimonie of God as Isaiah speakes Chap. 8. upon which Faith is grounded and by which it is directed For no otherwise true is that description of Extasies given by that auncient Authour called Dionysius the Areopagite That Extasies are a wisdome putting a man besides himselfe than that suspension or absorption of naturall knowledge and understanding is occasioned by the dominion of divine Irradiations truely so called So that this excesse of Light and Love must be it selfe subject to tryall and that twofold principally the one taken from the Antecedent and the other from the Consequent Circumstances For if sobernesse of believing and divinenesse of behaving our selves lead not to these Extasies they are spurious and dangerous Again if such transported mindes thereupon fall into unreasonable unjust or ridiculous actions inconsistent with the gravitie and puritie of the divine Presence there supposed it is but reasonable to suspect the Scene to be managed by idle Spirits For Rapts of a Royall stamp are such as Gerson describes An experimentall knowledge of God obtained by a conjunction of spirituall affection Which Unitive and experimentall knowledge may be had without the disorder of the naturall understanding and may allso dissetle it so as to depend for some time wholly upon Gods supportation and transportation and that especially in the estimation of the world and common judgements For thus was Christ judged to be Mark 3. 21. and that by his own Friends besides himselfe and Saint Paul allso by Festus and by some other Believers as may be gathered from 2 Corinth 5. 13. SECT IV. Of the Vnion of the Soule with God by Divine Contemplation and Meditation with some instances of particular Subjects of this latter 1. WHEN Meditation and Contemplation are distinguished as sometimes they are Contemplation may be said to be directed immediately to God and the fixing of the minde and heart on him and from and through him to cast an eye on the Creatures and the various acts of his Providence in which he is seen allso with an Evening Light and Knowledge as he is with a Morning Light as Saint Austin was wont to speak by that immediate Intuition which yet properly is to be attained onely in Heaven But Meditation is the consideration of created things not so much as they are in themselves which is the employment of naturall Philosophers but as they are effects of a Divine and supernaturall Power and designed to the assistance of duller and weaker Eyes which are not able to behold the Glorie of God but as men doe the beauty of the Sun in Water And yet from hence ascent is made to a faithfull and fruitfull apprehension of God himselfe where the Soule mounted as was Peter James and John at the transfiguration of Christ desireth to abide and have its residence for ever 2. But Grace and Goodnesse here being in their minoritie yea and under Tutours and Governours as the Apostle speakes Galat 4. 2. We are not to take possession of the promised and expected Inheritance in this life But the Methode hereunto is this which we finde exemplified in David speaking thus Psalm 17. I will behold thy face in righteousnesse here when I awake I shall be satisfied with thy likenesse For as Saint Paul allso saith 1 Corinth 13. 12. 2 Corinth 3. 18. We all with open face beholding as in a glasse the glorie of the Lord are changed as into the same Image from glorie to glorie even as by the Spirit of the Lord meaning hereby that the Spirit of God concurring with the Glasse of Gods Creatures and his revealed Word gives us a true but a distant and so dimme representation of God as through Perspectives And these to improve to the best degree and advantage is the great businesse of our present state here as whereby we are dayly wrought to a conformity to the Image of Christ and God defaced in us and returne unto his likenesse and a liking of him which two are both Unitive of us to God and actuall Union with him according to our present capacity For it is true in Religion what Philosophie in her Sphere teaches that the Understanding is made all things answerable to its Object the minde of man wonderfully conforming it selfe to such things as are brought unto it by the Ear or Eye and is in a manner figured by them as we see that Water admitting any Body more solid than it selfe into it selfe gives way to it and receives the shape thereof within it selfe as doth the Air allso though not so visibly to our sense So the minde of man contemplating and conceiving God and Divine matters is formed or conformed to the same morally loosing its naturall shape and posture and propensities which is thus expressed by Saint Paul Rom. 12. 2. And be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your minde that ye may prove what is that good that acceptable and perfect will of God. For instance a man hearing and taking pleasure in absurd riotous and obscene Discourses or Books as is in part noted before is conformed thereunto and corrupted therewith the Images of things so imbibed or impressed being with great difficulty to be removed and with great facility and promptitude stirring up or at least yielding to sinfull temptations as occasion shall be offered agreeably And so in mens reading of the Histories of far and unknown Countries and the strange fruits of
us that those Christians so reprehended by St. Paul turned the Holy Eucharist into costly junketting taking occasion from that to eat and drink to excesse 4. And that this was the opinion of the Primitive Christians before Chrysostome's days that the formidablenesse of the Eucharist was not such but it might be approached unto upon lower and easier termes than are taught by some Persons appeareth from the dayly Communion in use amongst them which could not consist with that dayly solemn and exact preparation judged now a days indispensably necessary All which I here speak to make good what I said of a two-fold worthiness and unworthiness in receiving the Lords Supper the one which indeed brings damnation with it by contrarie Qualities in a Receiver to that Ordinance such as the Corinthians were guiltie of so reproved by Saint Paul And another of negative unworthinesse which may be direct infidelity which makes men wholly uncapable of that Sacrament which supposes Baptisme and Faith answerable or a disproportionable Faith and knowledge and repentance and other qualifications very well becoming that which yet doth not make any man absolutely uncapable of it or the thing damnable to him provided that he comes with some sound and good degree of preparation though small and weak having a pure intention such as these may run the hazard of their Soules in affected abstaining as well as in scandalous receiving that Holy Supper For were it so that we were so pure and clear of sin about us and so perfect as some require to a due preparation we need not come to the Lords Supper at all 5. Fourthly It is a common Allegation against Communicating that there is a difference between them and their Neighbours and thereupon they hold themselves sufficiently exempted from that Holy Sacrament But this declining the Eucharist may no lesse tend to our condemnation than so coming For men ought to use all fair and ordinarie meanes for reconciliation which willfully neglected makes them unfit to pray as well as to communicate But if they have us'd their Christian endeavours to live in peace and Charitie and actually doe what is just and reasonable to all men and their endeavours are frustrated by the peevishnesse obstinacie and ill minde of others men are not thereby uncapable of those Mysteries another man having no power over my Soule to render it unworthy of them nor to prejudice another in his Rights towards God. SECT XI Other Impediments and scruples observed against Communicating especially frequently with proper Remedies 1. MY Son saith the wise Man Ecclesiasticus 2. 1. if thou come to serve the Lord prepare thy Soule for temptation So that they who out of a good conscience draw nigh unto God doe not come to a state of tranquillity or securitie from troubles and disquietings either outward or inward spirituall or worldly but to protection and preservation under such conflicts as happen to them For he that is not taken into the militarie Service of his Prince lives more at ease than he that serves under him in his Wars The Church of Christ it selfe is Militant and therefore if we be sound and true members of that Bodie so must we allso be excercised with the like wars and make it our businesse to fullfill the Office we bear according to the counsell and exhortation of Saint Paul 2 Tim. 2. 3 4. Thou therefore endure hardnesse as a good Souldier of Jesus Christ No man that warreth entangleth himselfe with the affairs of this life that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a Souldier And it was the observation of that Auncient and holy Woman Syncletica that by how much a Christian Souldier profited in holinesse by so much stronger were his Adversaries which opposed him Apophtheg Syncletic And how much greater care a true Christian taketh in keeping a good conscience void of offence towards God and towards man as did Saint Paul by so much are multiplied his fears and scruples and sense of offence within himselfe as in the ordering of the outward man none take cold oftener than they who are more carefull than ordinarie to keep themselves warme Upon which Subject of temptations in its latitude because I cannot speak here I confine my selfe to those proper to our Subject of due communicating which are not few but yet but few I shall here consider and those the most common 2. One generall Remedie against this may be that of Luther who upon due esteem had of the holinesse of the Lords Supper and the danger of unworthie communicating was so infested with temptations of the Devill that he could never rest in quiet for them untill he abruptly and boldly brake through them all by bidding defiance in a blunt and slovenly manner to him which was no new thing with him and so shaking off such scruples went about the work without presumption still or unprofitable delaies For unlesse a man with humble courage sometimes applies himselfe to that work he shall like such Children who at the least crosse put their Fingers in their Eyes spend his time in lamenting and bewailing himselfe without that confidence in God becoming him and dutie towards him and himselfe For as I remember the comparison of an Auncient Ascetique or Secluse to be that as in Onions taking off one Coat sphericall there will presently appear another so in temptations one being withstood overcome and removed another arises to be taken off allso so that temptations become a disease in some and therefore rather to be opposed than humour'd Which is not to be applied to them whose scruples are weighty or very molesting and ought to be made known to the Physician of the Soule whose Office it is to applie Remedies thereunto And especially in the case of the Holy Communion as by the practice of the holy Catholique Church we are directed and particularly by our own in the Exhortation appointed at the giving warning to the People of a Communion at hand 3. More particularly Cares of the world and Crosses in the world are commonly alledged as justifiable impediments of coming to the Holy Table which sometimes is quite otherwise and should be an argument inducing us to flee to those powerfull meanes of lightening our burden and mastering those temptations which threaten our greater disquiet and mischief For if coming to Christ in the ordinarie way of Faith and trust in God be of that efficacie which Christ promises inviting to come unto him all that are wearie and heavie laden and he will give rest unto the Soule as is there intimated what may we not ' expect from Christ when he so cometh unto us as in the Eucharist with greater plenitude of Graces And therefore surely they that deal uprightly with God and prudently with their own Soules may from hence be stirred up to a more ardent desire of communicating rather than shun or avoid it 4. But in other cases there may be a difference made For some sollicitudes and
and deformities and finde the smart of our sores there is little probabilitie we should be sollicitous so far about our selves as to seek for redresse and remedie for the same but having attained this that which followes in the mentioned words of the Apostle viz. perfecting holinesse in the fear of the Lord may happily succeed And this advantage by the same words is put into our hands towards so great and good work as to learne the generall division of our sins and impurities to be removed and that some sins have the resemblance of a spirituall nature and others of a fleshly For according to the diverse constitution of Man consisting of Soule and Bodie whereby he partaketh both of the nature of Spirits and Beast so are his inclinations sometimes transporting him to the excesses of Evill Spirits and sometimes sinking him down towards brutish lusts but which are insinuated unto us by St. James Chap. 3. 15. thus writing This wisdome descendeth not from above but is earthly sensuall and devillish Whereby we understand that some sins and especially they of the minde of man are really devillish as having the Devill as well for their Authour as Actour viz. Envyings Gloryings Strife Lying instanced in by St. James a little before and some others of the like nature And on the other side Hatred Murthers Violences offered to others Intemperance Incontinence and slothfulnesse and such like are such which senfuall appetites dispose us unto and we have in common with beasts prone to them Yet to the shame of Man may it be spoken beasts many times governed by their senses being not so great offenders thereby as men directed to higher and better things both by Reason and Religion or Faith. For in trueth there is a fourfold restraint appointed by God for the keeping us within due compasse of living First our very Senses not made by evill customes more brutish than naturally they are doe certifie by a naturall reluctancie when we exced due measure in the use of sensible pleasures And a greater light and check to such exorbitances does our Reason give us not bribed by corruption to give false reports and dictates But the Light and Rules of Faith are yet more clear full and perfect to direction and sanctification but the life and Crown of all is the Grace of God bringing the will of man into subjection and obedience Most of which we shall here speak briefly to SECT II. Of the Office and Power of Faith in purging the Soule from sinfull defilements 1. FAith as we have shewed is by descent of heavenly extraction It is the gift of God and not owing originally to the will or election of man And it is given as an Instrument to work the work of God And this it doth well applyed and improved by the Illumination alreadie spoken of and discoveries of Gods Will and our Dutie in a clearer and fuller manner than otherwise we could attain to But this is not all this is not the greatest or chiefest part of its Power and vertue but that which impells and enables us too to doe the Will of God For as Christ our Lord and Master saies He sent me into the world to bear witnesse unto the trueth and that not by affirmation only but by exemplarie holinesse consummated in dying for the trueth so should every good Christian by doing and dying if need be testifie to the trueth 2. And surely great is the influence true and strong Faith hath to that end according to St. John 1 Ep. 5. 4. telling us This is our victory even our faith so termed because it is the principall meanes whereby we become Conquerors of Gods and our own Enemies which St. Paul 2 Cor. 10. 4. calls the pulling down of strong holds and of every thing that exalteth it selfe against God as all sinfull lusts doe and bringing it into the subjection of Christ For here is verified what Christ foretold in the Gospell A mans enemies shall be they of his own house A militant Christian never being free from intestine jars and warrings of the Law of his members against the Law of his minde and faith So that if we listen to any suggestions or lean on any other aid but what our Faith furnishes us withall we are lyable to fail and fall in our contentions For as Christ said to the Father of the Demoniacall Son. Mark 9. All things are possible to him that believeth So shall we see on the contrary all things are impossible to him that disbelieveth it being said of Christ himselfe Mark 16. 5. He could doe there viz. in his own Country no mighty works because of their unbelief as if unbelief in man had tied Gods hands and disabled him who is ever omnipotent to act accordingly though we must understand the words of Scripture not absolutely but according to the ordinary course of Gods proceeding towards man who must not expect that God will obtrude his blessings upon him contemning him as did these his Countrymen who astonished at the Wisdome and Doctrine of Christ carped at his Relations and Education and meannesse of his Person and Parentage believing with prejudice reproveable by their senses that Christ could not doe that they saw him doe and therefore refused to bring forth to him their sick and impotent so that he could not doe many mighty workes there And the case is the same in spirituall mortifications and cures of the distempered soule To him that believeth all things are possible but unbelief makes possible things impossible and easie things most difficult For Faith not doing its office of declaring to the ignorant minde the nature of God an implacable Enemie to sin and the nature of sin an intolerable Enemie to God man must needs be carried away by that false naturall light that he hath after those pleasing objects that seem rather than are good to him And again He whose faith is firme is also operative as well as intuitive and so far influenced and excited by it that he cannot choose but he must act according to his judgement perswasion and principle of life 3. For what was that which moved Moses to forsake Egypt and bid adieu to the Courtly pleasures of it and to suffer affliction with the people of God and to esteem the very reproach of Christ greater riches than the Treasures of Egypt but that as the Scripture tells us He by his faith saw him that was invisible and by his faith had respect unto the recompence of the reward He by faith both believed aright in God and by the same loved what appeared to him most noble and desireable Which held not good then only but is of perpetuall truth as is that of our Saviour Christ also According to thy faith so be it unto thee So it is and so it ever will be unto Christian Soules If a man believes truely but does not fully his faith is impotent in its hands and feet and can profit very little to the main