compose the soul and reduce it to so quiet a consistency in the midst of storms and tempests how perfect and contentful a repose will the immediate vision and injoyment of God afford it in that serene and peaceful region where it shall dwell for ever free from any molestation from without or principle of dis-rest within CHAP. IX The Pleasure arising from knowing or considering our selves to be like God from considering it 1. Absolutely 2. Comparatively or respectively to the former state of the soul. To the state of lost souls To its pattern To the way of accomplishment To the souls own expectations To what it secures The Pleasure whereto it disposes of union communion A comparison of this Righteousness with this Blessedness 2. HEre is also to be considered the pleasure and satisfaction involv'd in this assimilation to God as it is known or reflâ—cted on or that arises from the cognosci of this likeness We have hitherto discoursed of the pleasure of being like God as that is apprehended by a spiritual sensation a feeling of that inward rectitude that happy pleasure of souls now perfectly restored We have yet to consider a further pleasure which acrews from the souls animadversion upon it self its contemplating its self thus happily transformed And though that very sensation be not without some animadversion as indeed no sensible perception can be performed without it yet we must conceive a consequent animadversion which is much more explicite and distinct and which therefore yields a very great addition of Satisfaction and delight As when the blessed soul shall turn its eye upon it self and designedly compose and set it self to consider its present state and frame the consideration it shall now have of it self and this likeness imprest upon it may be either Absolute or Comparative respective 1. Absolute How pleasing a spectacle will this be when the glorified soul shall now intentively behold its own glorious frame When it shall dwell in the contemplation of it self view it self round on every part turn its eye from glory to glory from beauty to beauty from one excellency to another and trace over the whole draught of this image this so exquisite piece of divine workmanship drawn out in its full perfection upon it self When the glorified eye and divinely enlightned and inspirited mind shall apply it self to criticize and make a judgment upon every several lineament every touch and stroke shall stay it self and scrupulously insist upon every part view at leisure every character of glory the blessed God hath instamp't upon it how will this likeness now satisfie And that expression of the blessed Apostle taken notice of upon some other occasion formerly The glory to be revealed in us seems to import in it a reference to such a self intuition What serves revelation for but in order to vision What is it but an exposing things to view and what is revealed in us is chiefly exposed to our own view All the time from the the Souls first conversion till now God hath been as it were at work upon it He that wrought us to c. hath been labouring it shaping it polishing it spreading his own glory upon it inlaying inameling it with glory now at last the whole work is revealed the Curtain is drawn aside the blessed Soul awakes Come now saith God behold my work see what I have done upon thee Let my work now see the light I dare expose it to the censure of the most curious eye let thine own have the pleasure of beholding it It was a work carried on in a Mystery secretly wrought as in the lower parts of the earth as we alluded before by a Spirit that came and went no man could tell how Besides that in the general only we knew we should be like him it did not yet appear what we should be now it appears There is a revelation of this glory O the ravishing pleasure of its first appearance and it will be a glory always fresh and flourishing as Job's expression is my glory was fresh in me and will afford a fresh undecaying pleasure for ever 2. The blessed soul may also be supposed to have a comparative and respective consideration of this impressed glory That is so as to compare it with and refer it to several things that may come into consideration with it and may so heighten its own delight in the contemplation thereof 1. If we consider this impression of glory in reference to its former loathsâ—me deformities that were upon it and which are now vanished and gone How unconceivable a pleasure will arise from this comparison when the soul shall consider at once what it is and what once it was and thus bethink it self I that did sometimes bear the accursed image of the Prince of darkness do now represent and partake of the holy pure nature of the Father of lights I was a meer Chaos an hideous heap of Deformity Confusion and Darkness But he that made light to shine out of darkness shined into me to give the knowledge of the light of his own glory in the face of Jesus Christ and since made my way as the shining light shining brighter and brighter unto this perfect day I was an habitation of Dragons a Cage of noisom lusts that as Serpents and Vipers were winding to and fro through all my faculties and powers and preying upon my very vitals Then was I hateful to God and an hater of him sin and vanity had all my heart The charming invitations and allurements of grace were as musick to a dead man to think a serious thought of God or breath forth an affectionate desire after him was as much against my heart as to pluck out mine own eyes or offer violence to mine own life After I began to live the Spiritual new life how slow and faint was my progress and tendency towards perfection how indisposed did I find my self to the proper actions of that life To go about any holy spiritual work was too often as to climb an Hill or strive against the stream or as an attempt to fly without wings I have sometime said to my heart Come now le ts go pray love God think of heaven but O how listless to these things how lifeless in them Impressions made how quickly lost gracious frames how soon wrought of and gone characters of glory rac'd out and overspread with earth and dirt Divine comeliness hath now at length made me perfect The glory of God doth now incloath me they are his ornaments I now wear He hath made me that lately lay among the pots as the wings of a dove covered with silver and her feathers with yellow gold he hath put another nature into me the true likeness of his own holy divine nature He hath now perfectly master'd and wrought out the enmity of my heart against him Now to be with God is my very element Loving admiring praising him are as natural as breathing once
driven away in his wickedness with a never more see my face Again what amazing Visions wilt thou have what gashly frightful objects to converse with amidst those horrours of eternal darkness when the Devil and his Angels shall be thy everlasting associates What direful images shall those accursed enraged Spirits and thy own fruitful parturient imagination for ever entertain thee with and present to thy view 2. Is it a small thing with thee to be destitute of all those inherent excellencies which the perfected Image of God whereof thou wast capable comprehends view them over in that too defective account some of the former pages gave thee of them Thou art none of those bright stars those sons of the morning those blessed glorified Spirits Thou might'st have been But Consider what art thou what shalt thou for ever be what image or likeness shalt thou bear alas poor wretch thou art now a Fiend conformed to thy hellish partners thou bearest their accursed likenesse Death is now finished in thee and as thou sowedst to the flesh thou reapest corruption Thou art become a loathsome Carcass the Worms that never die abound in thy putrified filthy soul. Thou hast an Hell in thee Thy venomous lusts are now mature are in their full grown state If a world of iniquity a fulness of deadly poyson tempered by Hell fire is here sometimes to be found in a little member what will there then be in all thy parts and powers 3. Consider how blessed a satisfaction dost thou lose how pleasant and delightful a rest arising both from the sight of so much glory and so peaceful a temper and constitution of Spirit Here thou might'st have injoyed an eternal undisturbed rest But for rest and satisfaction thou hast vexation and endless torment both by what thou beholdest and what thou feelest within thee Thy dreadful visions will not let thee rest but the chief matter of thy disquiet and torment is in the very temper and composition of thy soul. Thy horrid lusts are fuller of poysonous energie and are destitute of their wonted objects whence they turn all their power and fury upon thy miserable self Thy inraged passions would fly in the face of God but they spend themselves in tormenting the soul that bred them Thy curses and blasphemies the invenom'd Darts pointed at Heaven are reverberated and driven back into thy own heart And therefore 4. Consider what awaking hast thou Thou awakest not into the mild and chearful light of that blessed day wherein the Saints of the most High hold their solemn joyful triumph But thou awakest into that great and terrible day of the Lord dost thou desire it for what end is it to thee a day of darkness and not light a gloomy and a stormy day The day of thy birth is not a more hateful then this is a dreadful day Thou awakest and art beset with terrours presently apprehended and drag'd before thy glorious severe Judge and thence into eternal torments O happy thou might'st thou never awake might the grave conceale and its more silent darkness cover thee for ever But since thou must awake then how much more happy wert thou if thou would'st suffer thy self to be awaken'd now What to lose and endure so much because thou wilt not now a little bestir thy self and look about thee Sure thy Conscience tells thee thou art urg'd but to what is possible and lawful and hopeful and necessary methinks if thou be a man and not a stone if thou hast a reasonable Soul about thee thou shalt presently fall to work and rather spend thy days in serious thoughts and prayers and tears than run the hazard of losing sotranscendent a glory and of suffering misery which as now thou art little able to conceive thou wilt then be less able to endure CHAP. XVIII Rule 4. Directing to the endeavour of a gradual improvement in such a disposedness of Spirit as shall be found in any measure already attained towards this blessedness That 't is blessedness begun which disposes to the Consummate state of it That we are therefore to endeavour the daily encrease of our present knowledge of God conformity to him and the satisfiednesse of our spirits therein THat when we find our selves in any disposition towards this blessedness we endeavour a gradual improvement therein to get the habitual temper of our spirits made daily more suitable to it We must still remember we have not yet attained and must therefore continue pressing forward to this mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus That prize not price as we commonly misread it in our Bibles of which the Apostle here speaks is as may be seen by looking back to v. 8 9 c. the same with the blessedness in the Text. Such a knowledge of Christ as should infer at last his participation with him in his state of glory or of the resurrection of the dead This is the ultimate term the scope or end of that high calling of God in Christ so 't is also stated elsewhere who hath called us into his eternal glory by Christ Jesus Now we should therefore frequently recount how far short we are of this glory and stir up our souls to more vigorous indeavours in order to it Our suitableness to this blessedness stands in our having the elements and first principles of it in us 't is glory onely that fits for glory some previous sights and impressions of it and a pleasant complacential relish thereof that frame and attemper us by degrees to the full consummate state of it This is that therefore we must endeavour A growing Knowledge of God Conformity to him and Satisfiedness of Spirit therein What we expect should be one day perfect we must labour may be in the mean time alwayes growing 1. Our knowledge of God The knowledge of him I here principally intend is not notional and speculative but which is more ingredient to our blessedness both inchoate and perfect that of converse that familiar knowledge which we usually express by the name of acquaintance See that this knowledge of him be encreased daily Let us now use our selves much with God Our knowledge of him must aim at conformity to him and how powerful a thing is converse in order hereto How insensibly is it wont to transform men and mould anew their Spirits Language Garbe Deportment To be remov'd from the solitude or rudeness of the Country to a City or University What an alteration doth it make How is such a person devested by degrees of his rusticitio of his more uncomely and agrest manners Objects we converse with beget their Image upon us They walked after vanity and became vain saith Jeremiah And Solomon He that walketh with the wise shall be wise Walking is an usual expression of converse So to converse with the holy is the way to be holy with heaven the way to be heavenly with God the way to
of your spirits I shall recommend onely some few instances that you may see how little reason or inducement a soul conformed to the holy will of God hath to seek its comforts and content elsewhere Faith corresponds to the Truth of God as it respects Divine Revelations How pleasant is to give up our understandings to the conduct of so safe a guide to the view of so admirable things as he reveals It corresponds to his goodnesse as it respects his offers How delectible is it to be filling an empty Soul from the Divine fulnesse What pleasure attends the exercise of this Faith towards the Person of the Mediatour viewing him in all his Glorious Excellencies receiving him in all his gracious Communications by this Eye and Hand How pleasant is it to exercife it in reference to another world living by it in a daily prospect of eternity in reference to this world to live without care in a chearful dependence on him that hath undertaken to care for us Repentance is that by which we become like the holy God to whom our sin had made us most unlike before how sweet are kindly relentings penetential tears and the return of the Soul to its God and to a right mind And who can conceive the Ravishing Pleasures of love to God! wherein we not onely imitate but intimately unite with him who is Love it self How pleasant to let our Souls dissolve here and slow into the Ocean the element of love Our Fear corresponds to his Excellent Greatnesse and is not as it is a part of the New Creature in us a tormenting servile passion but a due respectfulness and observance of God and there is no mean pleasure in that holy awful seriousness unto which it composes and formes our Spirits Our Humility as it respects him answers his high excellency as it respects our own inferiours his gracious condescention How pleasant is it to fall before him And how connatural and agreable to a good Spirit to stoop low upon any occasion to do good Sincerity is a most Godlike excellency an imitation of his Truth as grounded in his All-sufficiency which sets him above the necessity or possibility of any advantage by collusion or deceit and corresponds to his Omnisciency and heart-searching eye It heightens a mans spirit to a holy and generous boldness makes him apprehend it beneath him to do an unworthy dishonest action that should need a palliation or a concealment And gives him the continual pleasure of self approbation to God whom he chiefly studies and desires to please Patience a prime Glory of the Divine Majestie continues a mans possession of his own Soul his Liberty his Dominion of himself He is if he can suffer nothing a Slave to his vilest and most sordid passions at home his own base fear and bruitish anger and effeminate grief and to any mans lusts and humours besides that he apprehends can do him hurt It keeps a mans Soul in a peaceful calm delivers him from that most unnatural self-torment defeats the impotent malice of his most implacable enemy who fain would vex him but cannot Justice the Great Attribute of the Judge of all the Earth as such so farre as the imppression of it takes place among men preserves the Common Peace of 〈◊〉 World and the Private Peace of each 〈◊〉 in his own bosome so that the former be not disturbed by doing of mutual injuries nor the latter by the conscience of having done them The brotherly love of fellow Christians the impression of that special love which God bears to them all admits them into one anothers bosomes and to all the indearments and pleasures of a mutual communion Love to enemies the expresse image of our heavenly Father by which we appear his children begotten of him overcomes evil by goodness blunts the double edge of revenge at least the sharper edge which is alwayes towards the Author of it secures our selves from wounding impressions and resentments turns keen anger into gentle pity and substitutes mild pleasant forgiveness in the room of the much uneasier thoughts and study of retaliation Mercifulnesse towards the distressed as our Father in Heaven is merciful heaps blessings upon our Souls and evidences our Title to what we are to live by the Divine mercy An universal benignity and propension to d◠good to all in imitation of the immense diffusive goodnesse of God is but kindnesse to our selves Rewards it self by that greater pleasure is in giving then in receiving and associates us with God in the blessedness of this work as well as in the disposition to it who exercises loving kindnesse in the Earth because delighteth therein Here are some of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the things wherein consists that our conformity to the divine Nature and Will which is proper to our present state And now who can estimate the blessedness of such a soul Can in a word the state of that soul be unhappy that is full of the Holy Gost full of Love Joy Peace Long-suffering Gentleness Goodness Faith Meekness Temperance those blessed fruits of that blessed Spirit Blessedness is connaturalized unto this soul Every thing doth its part and all conspire to make it happy This soul is a Temple an habitation of holiness here dwells a Deity in his glory 'T is a Paradise a Garden of God Here he walks and converses daily delighted with its fragrant fruitfulness He that hath those things and aboundeth is not barren or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus he is the Sun and the knowledge of him the quickening beams that cherish and ripen these fruits But the soul that lacketh these things is a Desart a habitation of Devils Here is stupid disconsolate infidelity inflexible obstinacy and resolvedness for Hell Hatred and contempt of the Sovereign Majesty whom yet its secret misgiving thoughts tell it will be too hard for it at last Here is swoln pride and giddy vain-glory disguised hypocrisie and pining envy raging wrath and ravenous avarice with what you can imagine besides leading to misery and desolation You have then some prospect of a happy temper of Spirit It can now be no difficulty to you to frame an Idea of it in your thoughts to get a notional image or this likeness in the notion of it into your minds but that will avail you little if you have not the real image also that is your Spirits really fashioned and formed according thereto If having the knowledge of these things as the Pagan morallists expression before mentioned is of vertuous Rules and Precepts they become not habitual to you and your Spirits be not transfigured into them But now I treat with such as are supposed to have some such real impressions that they may be stir'd up to endeavour a further perfecting of them In order whereto I shall adde but this two-fold advice 1. Be very careful that this living Image such you have been formerly told it is may